M: Give me an example.
All right. OK. Will… will a character be trampled while attending a rally for… the… prime minister of… or for the president of Mexico visiting Los Angeles to discuss labor relations. And… the president of Mexico… so one of the characters will be trampled and he’ll be a, like, migrant worker. It’ll be like: This guy got stomped to death, because the Mexican president basically came up here to like stir up—or to have like a labor relations thing, a human rights like impact with like our president and they decided to meet in LA, and they had to have a massive like—like everybody basically like went nuts because it’s a really like sensitive like massive issue. So let’s say that they meet in Texas—that makes more sense because there are a lot of Mexican people in Texas and our president is from Texas—well, he’s not from Texas, he’s from Connecticut but he goes to Texas on vacation or whatever but—OK, so then will it be like: President Vicente Fox—because this happened in 1999 or whatever—such and such; and it caused—is there something that you would look at and go: Oh, this could have actually happened in this in this exact city, in this exact crystallized moment in history. How about that? With a real person.
M: Yes.
OK…………. But I mean you agree right that if you { } that just wants to like get ten percent or whatever I mean a book that’s like four thousand pages or whatever, they’re not going to read it, right? I mean, will they read the whole four thousand pages?
M: Who?
Your agent.
M: How do you know she’s read my first book?
THAT ONE IS LIKE TWO HUNDRED FIFTY PAGES OR SOMETHING! I READ THAT IN A DAY AND A HALF!
M: Right. Well, an agent’s advice would be to cut the scene where Fox is speaking before the assembled masses and the riot ensues.
But that would be kind of like a good, like, part because it would be, like, dramatic. If I was making a movie I’d be like: This is the big scene where the guy gets killed.
M: Who’s the guy?
The guy would just be like an everyman. We’ll just make up some everyman guy that’s like a little bit short, a little bit chubby, a little bit dumb. A little bit, a little bit, a little bit too poor. A little bit slow or whatever. You know what I mean? And so you’ll make the guy and he’ll be the next character and then he’ll get, like, trampled.
M: Is he Mexican or Anglo?
Fully Mexican. We’ll have like a Mexican guy get trampled. We could make up a Mexican guy and have like a big rally and then maybe like you know { } and then you could maybe like, you know, the policies that the two countries have are not helping the situation. Like the governments are like—well one of them is really corrupt and the other one is basically like corrupt to like corporate interests or whatever. And one of them is corrupt to drug interests. That’s the Mexican. And, we’re like really into like corporate interests, obviously. So basically you could be like saying: The policies that we have—like, you know—the things that we choose to do—you could basically use it to criticize prevailing political will, right now, and you could—and also it would be nice and it would be a nice story to have a pathetic person who’s like—Dude, you’re like a tragedy, yeah like a Greek tragedy. You just have somebody like get murdered and that’s the whole story right there, dude. He would just get murdered at the rally.
M: [gasps] So he wasn’t trampled! He was… murdered!
Yeah, well, but like you’d say he was murdered morally! He was trampled! He was trampled by the system! He was murdered by the system! They’ll call it an accident! And then you’ll criticize the media because I know you hate the media. The media made it look like he was a hero, bullshit, he wasn’t a hero, he was a victim, suck my dick, you know. I just gave you a book right there, dude, that’s beautiful! But I… you would have to actually write it. I mean every day writing shit down. Do you even remember the first hundred chapters and what you said in them? Because I wouldn’t.
M: Oh yeah.
Well, that’s interesting. So there will be definite markers which will signal an exact moment in history, a real history.
M: Well, not necessarily a real history…
But you will use a real character—a real person in history!
M: Who’s that?
WELL THAT’S WHAT I’M ASKING! For example there will be something that will signal that there was a real person in history in the background! Even though their actions would be fictionalized at this point.
M: But who’s the real person you’re talking about?
Oh, it would be like Vicente Fox or something.
M: To you and me he’s not a real person, he’s just an image on TV.
I understand. But I’m saying, like, Vicente Fox—I mean although he’s currently living, he is an historical figure.
M: I can’t guarantee that.
We can objectively verify his existence.
M: We can’t objectively verify anything.
YES WE CAN, DAMN YOU! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? HE CAME TO SEATTLE AND F-ED UP THE TRAFFIC, DUDE! HE MADE ME LATE TO GO HOME!
M: How do you know that was him? If he does exist, how do you know that that was really him?
Because…
M: Because the news media told you that was him, and the emcee on the platform before he gave his speech said it was him. And the guy giving the speech said he was him. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
OK, but anyway. So…
M: So I did not say that any historical people are in the book at all. Or represented. Or even alluded to. And I did not say that their authenticity is without a doubt, you know—that it’s not called into question. Any person purporting to be, or who a reader might think is a real person in this book, um, is not necessarily a real person or was ever a real person or was the person that they’re pretending to be, or was the person that they are assumed to be… by the reader of the book.
Hmmm. So, are you just—because I’m not gonna sue you, dude. That sounds like a disclaimer. That sounds like a really big disclaimer…. So, you… in the abstract, you would be—OK, in the Dewey Decimal System would it be under fiction or non-fiction.
M: That’s a hard question to answer.
Somebody’s gonna have to make that call for you someday.
M: Well, there’s gonna be a lot of issues about this. There’s gonna be a whole lot of issues that need to be rethought.
You’re like: Trust me. All—all Library of Congress systems, all Dewey Decimal Systems, will be eradicated by this book. It will break—it will break two hundred years of classification of books… Yeah, but. Yeah, but I mean… I have to tell you… Somebody’s gonna put it in a box that you’re not comfortable with, dude, because like somebody’s gonna want to check it out,
M: Uh-huh.
and it’s gonna be, like, 0-1000 or whatever. It’s gonna be like, 194… H. Or whatever. OK, but. I’m saying for you, if you could pick, would you say, Oh yeah this is my new non-fiction book, or this is my new fiction book. If someone—you’re at a party and you just finished the book, and they’re like: Is it fiction or non-fiction? And I know you in real life, you will say: Those are terms that imply like things that I’m not gonna agree to or whatever. But like if—just for me—because you’re dealing with a very concrete person…I’m a simpleton, Matt. OK? I’m not the dreamer that you are. What will you say it should be classified as?
M: That’s the one question that I’ll never answer.
OH MY GOD!
M: You can ask me a hundred questions and I’m not gonna answer any of them, but especially not that one.
BUT WHY?
M: Because I can’t tell you.
WELL, YOU— Do you even know, yourself?
M: No, I don’t. I don’t know. I don’t know.
You’ve lost your mind.
M: No.
I’ve found my mind.
Oh, no.
THE { } (BROKEN)
INTRODUCTION
Not too long ago one took it on faith that the final scientific picture of the world would be beautiful, orderly and simple. As it has continued to be sketched in, we have had a number of surprises. The beauty is there, but not of the expected kind. The order is there, but not of the sort to damp down our questions. The simplicity has disappeared.
No better case in point can be offered than the subject of this book. Matter is the world around us; it is everything we see and feel and touch. It seems thoroughly familiar—until we read in the following pages what the scientists have discovered about it within the last 50 years, the last 20, the last 2. The diamond, for example, seems on the face of it resplendently substantial. But as we read on, we find that the diamond is a patterned arrangement of atoms which are themselves mainly empty space, with infinitesimal dabs of electrons whirling round infinitesimal dabs of protons and neutrons. All this we now know to be matter, but we are by no means sure the picture is complete. Within the miniscule heart of the atom—
★
the nucleus—have been found no fewer than 30 kinds of elementary particle, and no one can say what more will emerge under nuclear bombardment. The further scientists analyze, the less obvious the answers become.
The mysteries of matter have stimulated the great intellectual exploration of our time. There are two reasons why we should share in its excitements. One is for the sheer fun, the esthetic pleasure, call it what you like, of reaching deeper into the unknown. The other is for the understanding to be gained as a result.
This understanding we ought to possess not only per se but also for the power it puts in our hands. Perceiving the nature of matter, we can control it for our own purposes, lethal or benevolent. A lump of uranium ore looks as quiescent as any other old lump of rock. The first inquiries into the structure of these lumps seemed just another academic exercise. Yet, within a generation, governments were spending billions of dollars on scientific projects, not so academic, which were a direct outcome of the first innocent experiments. For it happened that the scientists had stumbled on a way to release amounts of energy that men had never before had at their command. The results have shaped the course of world history for 20 years.
Something like this may happen again. It is more likely to happen than not. And while scientists and statesmen may finally make the decisions that become necessary, ordinary responsible citizens will first have to make their own thoughts felt. They will be unable to do so unless they comprehend what is going on. Science will give us a better world only if enough people make sure that it does so, which means that we must, to begin with, acquire the knowledge that helps us understand. This book is a step in that direction.
Snow, C.P. Introduction. MATTER. By Ralph E. Lapp and the Editors of LIFE. Time Inc. 1963.
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We SCIENTISTS KNOW NOTHING about the information storage systems within the brain—how memory is coded, archived, accessed, and retrieved.
Could the human mind have only something akin to RAM, lacking hard memory capable of long-term storage without electrical power?
The mind runs on electricity, doesn’t it?
And so, without a hard memory, and no permanent power source, all information would be lost.
Thus all the wealthy thumb-suckers paying cryogenics labs to lop off their heads and freeze them until technology is available to bring a frozen primate back to life (and, presumably, the company still exists and has continued to pay its power bills on time) may be looking in the wrong direction.
For you could wake up on some distant earth with your head a bowl of chunky soup, alive in form but without any memories stored.
Then the decision will have to be made whether or not to kill you again.
Maybe they’ll choose to keep you alive, as per the contract you foolishly signed. Would you like to be dealt with in this manner? I have seen men in catatonic states. While dead to the world, they have the luxury of mind-traveling, hitching rides on electric currents, sailing through seas of random memory. This will not be an option for the resurrected heads of the 26th century; for there will be no Memory then. Just an ocean of white noise* : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : * : : * : : * : * : * : * : * : *
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