The Reality Thief (Deplosion Book 1)

by Paul Anlee

  Kathy eyed him playfully. “You mean, like a date?”

  “We could go out for dinner after, if you’d like,” Greg offered.

  “I’d like that.”

  “And who knows? With a topic like that, and with the type of people who usually show up for these Cafés, I wouldn’t be surprised if the discussion moves away from physics and into the metaphysical. It could get interesting.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’ll be interesting. Just as long as it doesn't end up in a free-for-all brawl. You know how feisty those philosophers can get!” They laughed at the idea of a roomful of brawling professors. It felt good to laugh, just to let go a little. They needed the levity as much as oxygen.

  “Let’s order another beer,” Kathy suggested. “You can tell me what it was like growing up in India, and I’ll tell you all about California.”

  “You're on!”

  25

  THE BUS CAME TO A SMOOTH HALT at Hastings and Seymour, gently kneeled, and the rear door opened. Darian stepped out onto the sidewalk, followed by Greg, Kathy, and a few dozen other attendees, all on their way to the Philosophers’ Café at the downtown Simon Fraser campus.

  It was a typical November day in Vancouver. The wind and gloomy sky presaged the arrival of rainy season when the city would be plunged into four months of cold, depressing, all-enveloping grayness. Darian fastened his coat and unfurled the collar. His college experience in the hot, dry years of California’s recent super-drought had not prepared him for winter in the Pacific Northwest.

  Half a block down the street, precisely where they were headed, a noisy crowd was picketing. Well, that's a little disconcerting.

  The weather didn't seem to be dampening anyone's enthusiasm in the least. Darian watched as local and national network cameras scrambled for a position outside the main entrance of the building.

  As they approached the crowd, people shouted and jeered. Greg read a few of the placards bobbing and stabbing the air: THERE IS NO GOD BUT THE LORD! SCIENCE IS THE WORK OF SATAN! LEAVE NATURE ALONE!

  Surely, all these people aren't here to protest us, are they? Greg turned to Darian and was met with the vacant, emotionless stare that meant his boss was scouring the internet for information.

  “Apparently our discussion today has drawn the ire of Yeshua’s True Guard Church,” Darian explained. "They appear to have sent a small delegation to attend the talk." The television cameras spotted them and shifted focus from the boisterous protestors to Darian’s small entourage. An eager reporter rushed over.

  “Dr. Leigh, did you expect your lecture to draw such strong protest?” he shouted over the commotion. Darian stopped to address the camera directly. The protesters worked their way behind him and positioned their placards so they’d be visible in the video.

  “I wish all of my presentations would incite such passion,” Darian replied. “Most of my students find them far less fascinating and have a more difficult time forming such definite opinions.”

  “How would you reply to those who think your research infringes on God’s domain?” Darian could barely hear the man over the ruckus.

  “God is usually purported to work in the domain of miracles, not in physics,” Darian quipped. “I don’t expect we’ll be performing miracles anytime soon.” The jeers rose briefly, punctuated by vigorous pumping of placards.

  “But you are working on altering the laws of nature; isn’t that an incursion into God’s domain?”

  “Which god? Upon whose powers are we infringing? Are we offending the single Abrahamic being known as God, Yahweh, or Allah? Do the many major and minor gods of, say, Hinduism, ancient Greece, the Aztecs, or the Norse feel threatened by our work? Or are we are simply extending humanity’s knowledge of the physical world into a new area of natural and meta-natural phenomena?”

  Darian and his interviewer both ducked as an egg, hurled by one of the protestors, smashed a few feet away on the wet sidewalk.

  The reporter was secretly pleased—This is going to show great, maybe even make headline news. Encouraged, he opened another controversial issue.

  “Rumor has it that you developed this new theory in less than a minute. Is that true?”

  “Once I had the proper inspiration, it only took about a minute to complete the calculations and draft an article describing the theory. But I hasten to add that I’d been thinking about this area for several months prior to that moment.”

  “And what was the source of that inspiration?”

  “A conversation about the nature of the human soul with Dr. Pratt from our Department of Philosophy, the host of today’s event, led me to consider how the natural laws that govern matter and energy might have arisen. I simply followed that train of thought to its logical conclusion.”

  “You’re not even human!” yelled one of the placard wavers. “Crawl back to the machine that gave birth to you,” screamed another.

  Gratified at hearing the slurs, and enjoying the rush of power he felt from having provoked them, the reporter pressed on.

  “Your accidental exposure to a dendy lattice prior to your birth has given you a unique mind. Do you consider yourself to be more human, or more machine, after all these years with the lattice doing your thinking for you?”

  “What exactly do you think I am? For that matter, what are you? How do you feel about all those neurons doing your thinking for you?” Darian asked rhetorically.

  He slipped into lecture mode, his voice strengthening and taking on a comfortable cadence. “The essential ‘I’ is not some internal homunculus pulling the levers of our brain like a puppet master. The thing we call ‘I’ is simply the program of our personalities, abilities, and memories running on the machinery of our brain. Whether that machinery is all biological, or partly spintronic silicene and semiconductor, makes no difference to my experience of me as me. Sure, many of my axons and synapses are not biological, but I am still the one doing the thinking,” he assured, tapping his sternum for emphasis.

  “You have no soul!” shouted a protestor.

  “Neither do you,” answered Darian quietly, “you just think you do.”

  None of the protestors heard, but the reporter and the camera's microphone both picked up his comeback.

  Zing! That little sound bite alone is going to knock my ratings out of the park. Guaranteed, this bit’s going viral! We’ll have to air it as a teaser.

  Sensing an opportunity to bait Darian's ego, the reporter pandered to him a little. “Dr. Leigh, you are probably the smartest man alive today, possibly the smartest man that ever lived."

  “Undoubtedly,” Darian concurred. “Through a combination of instantaneous access to everything I’ve ever read and everything ever published on the web, any test of my knowledge would score higher than that of any other person. But what is intelligence, really? It’s more than accumulated knowledge of facts; it's also the ability to use those facts.

  “My dendy lattice permits a wider and faster exploration of concept-space than the unassisted biological brain, but it still has limitations within the parameters of this body. Anyone or any machine equipped with a similar lattice could become as intelligent as I am.”

  Darian made a show of checking his antique pocket watch—only to make a point, since he was always aware of the time through his lattice connection to the web. I am out of time and patience; wrap it up.

  “One last question: Are you angry about FDA restrictions on the use of the dendy lattice?”

  Darian frowned. “Using the DNND lattice only to access published websites or enhance one’s experience of inSense movies is a huge underutilization of the potential to improve human knowledge and intelligence. The dendies allow me to perform many feats that could be available to everyone. Things like understanding and performing complex mathematical modeling, or learning to play the piano instantly.

  “The enterprise that my mother began will continue to do well, even if it is limited to entertainment applications, but humanity will not benefit as much as it
could. That said, I understand the political necessity for the FDA to act with utmost caution, and I’m sure that, in time, it will conclude that the potential for DNND technology to help humanity far outweighs any remote possibility of detrimental effects. The lattice doesn’t remove our humanity; it enhances it.

  “If these protestors…” Darian motioned to the crowd, reigniting their jeers and placard waving. “If these protesters were equipped with dendy lattices, they would be capable of understanding my work, and they'd find themselves supporting my efforts rather than blindly opposing them as their church dictates.”

  The reporter was unable to mask his astonishment at Darian's brash comments. “Do you think they’re wrong to be concerned about the possibility of a science that can supersede the laws of nature?”

  “I think that’s one question more than you promised,” laughed Darian. “I suggest you come inside to hear the answer.” He turned to the crowd and raised his voice to be heard over their shouts. “I suggest you all come inside, and we’ll discuss your questions and concerns rationally.” He turned to his assistants and gestured for them to head inside.

  A few of the rowdier individuals tried to push forward but were stopped at the door by Security until they agreed to deposit their placards outside. The rest of the protestors reluctantly followed suit, and entered the hall with sullen, angry, and determined looking faces that all but dared the philosophically-curious attendees who were already seated to utter a word. The simply curious wisely avoided direct eye contact.

  The lecture hall could have been in almost any university in the world. Neutral-colored, wear-resistant carpet nicely offset the laminated cherry wood finish on the row-upon-row of thin-cushioned theater chairs, each of which sported its own annoyingly undersized, tuck-away writing tray.

  The stadium-style seating accommodated over four-hundred people. The monthly Philosophers' Café meetings usually drew a hundred attendees at most. Today, it was standing room only. Attendees filled all of the chairs and spilled into the stairwells leading to the small podium at the front. With any luck, the fire marshal wasn't on duty.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.” Dr. Pratt's amplified voice projected into the depths of the packed hall and foyer from overhead speakers, a voice from the heavens that triggered ripples of "Shhh" throughout the venue. He waited a moment while people settled.

  “Welcome to the Philosophers' Café. Please bear with us while we accommodate the folks in the foyer. It looks like today’s topic, or maybe it's our young guest speaker, is a little more popular than most of our Cafés.” He paused and looked around. He saw very little sense of humor and even less patience on the faces looking back at him.

  Pratt continued, content to be amusing himself. “Due to the overwhelming response to today’s talk, the university has opened up Lecture Theater 3 for overflow seating. It is equipped with state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment that will allow everyone to participate fully in today’s discussion. I repeat, Theater 3, located across the hall, is now open for seating. Would everyone waiting in the foyer please make their way to Theatre 3. Thank you.”

  The PA system cut out and Pratt set the lapel microphone on the podium. He turned to greet Darian and his small entourage approaching the front seats. “Ah, Dr. Leigh. Good to see you.” The two men shook hands. Pratt smiled congenially in an effort to offset Darian’s wariness. “I see you brought some moral support with you.”

  Darian looked back at Greg and Kathy taking their seats in the front row. He scanned the audience for Larry, and was surprised to see him seated some distance back as if he preferred not to be associated with his colleagues. “I’m not sure why you think I would need moral support,” he replied. “I’m going to be discussing physics. Physics is truth, and the truth needs no support from anything other than data.”

  Dr. Pratt considered responding but thought better of it. He noted the hour with some relief. “It's time. Allow me to call this gathering to order.” He picked up the lapel microphone and raised his voice to cut through the background din.

  26

  “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IF WE COULD BEGIN, PLEASE.” The crowd took its time settling down.

  “Thank you. I am Dr. Lucius Pratt from the Department of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University.” The polite applause lasted a second or two. “Before I introduce today’s speaker, I would like to reiterate our format and a few rules of order for the Philosophers’ Café series.

  “Dr. Leigh will open our discussion with a short introduction to the topic. Following his introductory remarks, he and I will co-chair two thirty-minute question and answer periods with a fifteen-minute refreshment break between. We have two assistants with microphones stationed in each of the two theaters. If you would like to ask a question, we ask that you raise your hand and let the nearest assistant come to you. Please keep all questions and comments brief so that as many people as possible will have an opportunity to contribute.

  “Similarly, we ask that the answers or rebuttals…” he bowed to Darian, who nodded politely, “…be kept as short and to-the-point as possible. Please frame your questions and comments civilly, respectfully, and intelligibly. To that end, no mathematical equations will be permitted.”

  A number of the attendees chuckled. A few frowned.

  “Today, we present Dr. Darian Leigh, who was accidentally exposed to a DNND lattice infection prior to his birth, giving him extraordinary mental abilities. Using the substantial computational powers of his lattice, he rapidly completed his education and undertook multiple advanced degrees in a variety of scientific fields, including nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and cosmology.

  “Dr. Leigh is also known for his work at Neuro Nano Devices Inc., the company his mother, Dr. Sharon Leigh, co-founded to develop the inSense virtual reality lattice so popular among today’s youth. Much of his work in these areas remains restricted throughout North America and Europe by the FDA and various international security agreements.

  “In recent years, Dr. Leigh has turned his attention from nanotechnology and synthetic biology to pursue the more traditional fields of physics and cosmology. However, his research in that area has been anything but traditional.

  “We are very pleased to welcome him today to our last Philosophers’ Café of 2037 to discuss, ‘The Universe Before the Universe.’ I present to you, Dr. Darian Leigh.”

  Darian looked out across the sea of faces while the applause died down. He wondered what percentage of the audience was already hostile to the very notion of what he was about to say, without having heard a word from him.

  He set a small part of his lattice to work compiling profiles and histories of the attendees while he began speaking. He tapped into one of the cameras in Theatre 3 so he wouldn't miss anyone there.

  “First, I would like to thank Dr. Pratt for inviting me to speak today. This is my first ever Philosophers’ Café, and I hope you’ll go easy on me. I’d also like to extend my deep gratitude to him for his inspiration. It was a conversation we had over lunch one day that first inspired many of the ideas I’ll be presenting today, and which eventually moved me to propose the Reality Assertion Field itself. I owe Dr. Pratt a great deal for helping me to challenge conventional wisdom about the origin and nature of the universe.” He bowed in acknowledgment to Dr. Pratt, who returned the gesture with awkward uncertainty.

  Well played. Score one for Darian Leigh—both men thought.

  “Today, I want to talk about what the universe might have looked like in the beginning, the Universe before the Universe, if you will.

  "Since we're not all physicists here, I'd like to start out by talking about the Big Bang, and how cosmologists think the universe began. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it brief. From there, we'll move on to nothing. What do philosophers, theologians, and physicists mean by the word, ‘nothing?’ I’ll warn you, it’s more complicated than you think. Then things are going to get a little strange. I’ll introduce you to what I think of as the ultimate bits
of nothing, virtual particles; how physicists think of them; why we’re certain they exist, even though they can’t be directly observed; and why they're so important.

  “That will bring us to my most recent theories, which attempt to answer some of the most exciting and fundamentally important questions in our era, questions such as: How could real particles and the physical universe evolve from the virtual particle chaos that preceded it? Where do the ‘laws of nature’ come from? And, how can we test and apply these ideas?

  “Let’s begin with something you’ve probably heard before. Scientists believe everything in the universe began in a cosmic explosion that we call the Big Bang, around 13.8 billion years ago. Why do we think everything came from a Big Bang, a moment of creation? This is still a relatively new idea. The ancient Greeks, for example, believed that the universe was static; that it had always existed.”

  Darian put up a slide of the familiar Milky Way galaxy shown as it was projected to look from hundreds of light years above its elliptical plane.

  “Until the mid-1920s, astronomers thought that our own Milky Way galaxy, with its hundred billion stars, comprised the entire, never-ending universe.

  “In 1925, Edwin Hubble used a 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson to prove there were other galaxies outside of ours. Suddenly the universe was a lot bigger and more remarkable.”

  The slide changed to a famous picture compiled by the Hubble telescope, showing the thousands of galaxies in what used to be thought of as an empty portion of the sky.

  “Around the same time, a physicist named George LeMaître constructed a mathematical model based on Einstein’s theory of relativity. His model concluded that the universe was expanding from an initial Primeval Atom. But nobody believed him, not even Einstein. A few years later, Hubble showed that not only was the universe expanding, but the farther away a galaxy was from us, the faster it was moving from us.