Paradox: On the Sharp Edge of the Blade

by E. S. Martell

  She was sure that, if she could just pin down a couple of more variables, the formula would resolve into an explanation of everything she was observing. She quickly shoved that thought out of her mind as too ambitious. She was usually more cautious and careful with her life.

  She paused as she started to get dressed. The cold room faded into the back of her mind as she concentrated again on her scars in the mirror. She didn’t want to look closely, but, as always, she couldn’t resist. She reached down and stroked her index finger across her thigh and abdomen. Who knew saline would burn and scar a baby so badly? That thought led directly to the next. Her diaphragm caught and convulsed as she thought, She interrupted herself in the middle of the sob and substituted the words, It didn’t work. Her eyes teared up as they always did. She gasped for breath, trying to maintain control, but the usual, self-pitying question intruded into her mind despite her efforts: What did I do to deserve this? How could my Mothe— How could any mother do that to her child?

  There was no answer. There never was. It had just happened, and she didn’t know why. She took several deep breaths, gradually calming herself. , she thought. After another breath, That was close The last time, I cried for an hour. I guess I'll never understand. I wish I could just forgive and forget.

  She was suddenly stricken with an intense feeling of deja vu. It was as if she'd had that same thought before in this exact same circumstance. Her mind wandered, blurring out the image in the mirror. She paused to blink away the tears that had formed, then shook her head in denial, gasped for breath for a painful moment, and continued dressing.

  She jerked her long, dirty-blonde hair back into a loose ponytail, ignoring the pain. The scarring along her jaw would show, but maybe it was time to accept who she was and quit pretending that she wasn’t flawed. She pulled on some baggy pants and finished with a gray hooded sweatshirt.

  Shortly, she was out the door and descending the steps into the morning chill. At least the sun was shining. That was one nice thing about Minneapolis. It was often sunny, even if it was cold.

  The cold seemed to make her scars even less flexible, and she couldn’t muster the energy to walk quickly. She limped a couple of blocks south and back to the west to a small cafe that offered a decent breakfast at a low price. The wind was chill and blowing from the northwest, cutting in under the edge of her hoodie.

  She hurried through breakfast and then called a cab while she was waiting for the check. She hoped that her bicycle was still chained to the rack outside of the old Tate lab. There had been a rash of bike thefts lately, but she didn't worry much about hers. It was so old, rusty, and unattractive that no one would realize it was tuned perfectly and rode like a much more expensive bicycle.

  She shared her office with another grad student, Drew Smith. He was sitting at his desk when she reached their shared office. Holding her breath so as not to breathe in too much of his over-powering cologne, she tried to slip by quietly, but he turned his placid, bovine face towards her and immediately started in with his usual routine.

  “Kath! Late again! You'd better hurry or your class will be out of control. I'll bet you stayed in the lab almost all night…”

  He ran his eyes up and down her body, not bothering to conceal the fact that they lingered on her breasts, then continued, “You did, right?”

  Without pausing for her to answer, he morphed into the overly familiar and slightly condescending mode that she most despised. “You look a little tired. Did you sleep well? Are your scars bothering you?”

  She regretted ever trying to wear a skirt. He'd noticed her leg when she incautiously leaned back at her desk one day. Now he wouldn't let her forget the fact that she was damaged goods. She'd never told him what caused the scars. She'd refused to talk about them at all.

  He knew she was dedicated to her research and took no interest in social events, but he acted as if he wanted to save her from her fate. It wasn't going to work. She had no romantic interest in him, no matter how often he tried to become more familiar.

  He started to ask her out again, “Hey, how about you and me, uhh, you know, maybe go out for a beer or pasta? We could hit Loring or Suzie’s, your choice— ”

  She interrupted, “Too busy in the lab, Smith. I'm going to get a sandwich from the machine. Now I've got to go teach my class.” She opened her desk drawer and placed her cell phone inside. She'd made a rule that her students were not supposed to bring cell phones to class, not that they obeyed it with any consistency. She'd taken to leaving hers in the desk, trying to set an example. It hadn't seemed to work but she kept at it.

  Would he never get the message? It might be a little more acceptable if he didn’t always act as if he were doing her a favor. But only a little. She would never accept. She just didn't want to be bothered. Besides, she knew from her past experience that people in general couldn't be trusted. She had been rejected too many times to feel at ease with a dating situation.

  As she walked out the door, he called, “By the way, Professor M won’t be in until late this afternoon. He’s got some meeting with a possible grant donor.”

  She snorted in response. Smith had transferred in with a master’s degree about the time she had gotten her first research grant for her Ph.D. program. He was focused on his own research involving cosmic rays and didn’t understand or even seem to respect her ideas. She’d tried to explain her theory to him once, but he’d shrugged it off, stating that he really thought the Copenhagen interpretation was adequate and that weird ideas like time-travel and multiple universes were just a diversion.

  She'd angrily retorted that the phrase 'and then a miracle happens' just wasn't quite descriptive enough for her. Niels Bohr's postulate that the quantum wave function simply collapses when observed by consciousness didn't meet her personal requirements for an adequate explanation.

  She was more partial to the De Broglie/Bohm interpretation, since it involved a pilot wave that apparently traveled into the future and back. That seemed to best fit her developing theory, and she'd oriented her math towards that idea.

  If asked, Kathleen would explain that her work held great potential for improving people's lives. If someone had a presently incurable illness, considering the current rate of medical advances, there would be a high probability that a cure would exist in the near future. Kathleen could imagine saving terminally ill children by importing future medical knowledge into the present. She had convinced herself that this was the humanitarian reason behind her research. Her unspoken belief was that she could somehow justify her existence by discovering a way to travel in time.

  This aspiration, combined with the urgency she felt regarding finishing her research for Professor Mackleroy, kept her working, even when she was exhausted.

  Walking down the hall to her class, she reflected on her reaction to Drew. It wasn't that she wasn't interested in men, at least in a remote fashion. She'd seen plenty of guys that she found attractive. It was just that she couldn't bear the thought of rejection. Even the relatively small scars along her jaw were a source of embarrassment that she tried to hide by keeping her hair long.

  Additionally, she couldn't afford the time to try to develop a relationship. Her research was too important. Besides, she felt comfortable in the laboratory. There she could forget her physical problems and relax in the realm of intellectual activity.

  Drew was an over-grown idiot. He knew she didn't like the nickname, 'Kath,’ but he had insisted on using it to the point that she sometimes derisively thought of herself as 'Kath.'

  Then she remembered Drew’s last remark about a possible grant donor. That was interesting. Perhaps the professor could arrange for some of it to be diverted to her project. It would be nice not to have to constantly wonder if she'd complete her work before she ran out of funds.

  Kathleen paused in the hall before going into the already full room. She was a couple of minutes late, something she hated. As she gathered herself, preparing to enter, she overheard one of the male st
udents say, “I wish Ms. Gimp would let us go early today. I've got a date tonight.”

  She'd heard them before, but even so, the words were like a slap in the face. She'd become inured to insults in elementary school, but most adults on campus were usually careful to avoid insulting remarks. She shrugged them off and squared her shoulders, telling herself it really didn't matter what they thought of her.

  Her class was about what she expected from a room full of hormonally challenged young adults who were more interested in the fact that it was Friday than the concept of angular momentum. They acted so bored that she broke her lesson plan to try and keep them entertained by talking about her own research.

  They were moderately interested when she mentioned the idea of time-travel, “So, particles seem to reach out into the future to query where they will be. When the answer comes back from their future selves, if circumstances are right, they will move to that location, not because they’re being pushed or made to move, but because they are drawn to remain consistent.”

  In an attempt to be clever, one of the male students asked, “You mean the cue ball doesn’t make the eight ball roll into the corner pocket. It rolls in because that’s where it’s going to be in the future? How does it know?”

  The others snickered for a moment, but became silent as she responded, “Yes, that’s just about right, but we’re so ingrained into the idea of cause and effect, it seems silly from our viewpoint.”

  He continued, “What did you mean by ‘if the circumstances are right’?”

  This allowed her to begin explaining the idea of possibility waves. She drew eight carefully placed dots on the board and asked the class, “What do you see?”

  Uniformly, they answered a variant of “eight dots.”

  She then connected the dots in such a way as to create two squares and then connected the corners to form a two-dimensional representation of a cube. “This is an open box,” she said. “Is the opening up or down?”

  The class was split about evenly over the direction.

  She then challenged them to try and see the box as opening the other way. Most were successful.

  “When you saw the dots, they were just a pattern on the board; a possibility. When I connected the corners, they almost immediately formed a cube in your mind. The cube could be viewed as opening one of two possible ways. The probability of your seeing it one or the other way was roughly equal, but didn’t actually count until your mind made the decision on how to see it. When you forced yourself to see it in the other orientation, you might have noticed that it didn’t flip instantly. Instead, it blurred back into its two-dimensional form and then flipped. It became a possibility again until your mind operated on it and caused you to see it flip.”

  Her thoughts wandered for an instant, and then she had another moment of deja vu. She’d explained this to them before. When was it? She shook her head and continued, “This is similar to how consciousness acts on particles. There are multiple possibilities represented by possibility waves. Consciousness takes the future possibility wave and reconciles it with the present possibility wave to create a probability wave that relates to the actual, real-world event. In a sense, we create our own reality in this way.”

  A female student asked, “What about time travel? You mentioned time travel. How’s that work?”

  Kathleen glanced at the wall clock. Nearly time for the bell. She answered, “Briefly, if the present sends out waves into the future and receives a response, then right now our present is sending responses to match query waves from our past. Right?”

  All she got was blank looks, but then the bell rang. Belatedly, she gave them the assignment for the next class, “Exercises one through five at the end of the next chapter for Monday.”

  The students stampeded out in a cacophony of clatter and talking, leaving her wondering if they’d even heard her.

  She gathered up her materials and headed across campus to her yoga class.

  Early on, her adoptive parents had taken her to a number of surgeons, but the possible benefit of surgery on her scars seemed to be limited. They hadn't had the ability to travel to any of the more advanced clinics in the country. In addition, any surgery always promised to be far more expensive than they could afford. Given her financial situation, she couldn't foresee affording any additional medical expenses anytime soon.

  Sometimes, she thought she'd stretch and stretch until something tore. Maybe then, she'd heal with a better range of motion. The pain had always stopped her.

  Her yoga teacher was good and always spent some time discussing esoteric philosophy during some of the period. Today was no exception. Kathleen began to slowly stretch as the older woman spoke:

  “We believe all human experiences are rooted in the physical world. There is no proof to back up this conclusion. Your awareness of being in the body at this moment implies that there is more than just your body.”

  “This topic may seem esoteric, but I assure you that it's worthy of attention. Please suspend any disbelief for the moment and listen to me without judgment.”

  She paused to change position and check the class, then continued: “I'm not a physicist, but, if you'll permit me to use some of its language, I'll try to explain what I mean more fully.”

  She looked around, as if waiting for an objection, but everyone was concentrating on moving into the new position. She continued, “Science, quantum physics in particular, tells us repeatedly that the basis of the idea of a real physical world is flawed. There is something that exists before space, time, and matter. Let’s call this thing 'the void.' Think of it as an infinitely dimensional space that provides ample space for necessary quantum processes and whatnot. Strangely, consciousness appears to play a fundamental role in this space. Consciousness seems to exist at the level of even atoms and subatomic particles. I find that amazing.”

  Kathleen found herself getting interested. This discussion touched directly on her area of expertise and on her research.

  Ms. Jayne continued, “The void is the home of infinite possibility. Possibility is different from the probability that statisticians calculate. Let's say that possibility waves exist in the void and probability curves mark time and bind our minds to our physical existence. Clear?”

  It was not, but no one objected.

  She said, “Possibility waves form our personal consciousness and free our minds from time. When we direct our attention to some physical item, it is first a blur, then it comes into focus. When we move on to the next item, the first one becomes a blur again, but it's a smaller blur, since we now know more about it. It's just that we are just not focusing on it at the moment. This is similar to learning a yoga position. It is a large blur at first and you have to concentrate on every aspect of your body to reach the position correctly. Then when you've mastered it, it comes into sharp focus. You know how to do it and you can move into it easily. When you move to the next position, the first one blurs again. This is the rule in the progression: first things are a large blur, then sharply focused, then a small blur. Once we reach the point of mastery, the initial blur and the second blur become the same size. This is what we call 'habit' or 'muscle-memory.' That's the goal of our practice: developing a habit.

  The teacher went on, but Kathleen’s mind was racing ahead and lost to the rest of her words. The discussion linked to Cramer’s theory of quantum processes in a general way; something that Kathleen was currently working on. Her math was rather elegant, but there were a number of difficult problems that seemed to imply something was missing in the formulation.

  The idea of an imaginal realm was equivalent to possibility curves for quantum bits. The possibility curve couldn’t be resolved into a real probability form, since it could take on a negative value. You couldn't have a probability of less than zero in the real world.

  Cramer proposed that the possible negative value could be dealt with by having the present situation send an ‘offer’ wave into the future and the future respond with a �
��return’ wave. These waves of possibility could then be multiplied, which would convert the negative numbers into positive ones that could represent a real world probability.

  According to Ms. Jayne’s discussion, this happened in the mind. Nevertheless, once a probability curve could be assigned, the chances of something happening could be calculated mathematically.

  Kathleen paused to concentrate on changing position and beginning a new stretch. The interesting thing for her research was that, if a wave went from the present into the future and was answered, it must also, necessarily, go from the present into the past.

  She tried to think what that would mean in practical terms. It seemed as if the past probability could be changed by modifying the present’s ‘return’ wave. she thought with excitement, She’d have to wait until she could put some scribbles down on paper, but the idea continued bouncing around in her mind as she worked out. That would allow for, a form of time travel!