Thirteen

by Mark Teppo

  The players of UWF are hard to distinguish: the moment their pass is pure, their positions are vague, and the moment their positions are clear, their passes are all over the place. The Keplers, on the other hand, have such a ballistic perfection to their shots that any free kick within forty meters of the goal is more dangerous than a penalty.

  The goal from the freekick needs to be approved/disapproved(*) because:

  The Metaconsciousness shot went over the Individualistas’ defense wall with a perfect curve into the far cross, but was taken without thinking and before the referee gave the signal.

  The Time Rangers made the ball go through the Space Cowboys’ defense wall by setting part of the ball’s trajectory in a time when the wall wasn’t there.

  The ball went through the two holes in the Kepler defense wall at the same time.

  The player scoring the winning goal was offside/not offside(*) because:

  After eloquently outplaying five of these mindless drones and my subsequent brilliant pass there was no way Particulare could be offside: in such a case, beauty supersedes mundane stuff like location.

  This was a metatemporal pass given several minutes before/after(*) P. Tense received it, free as a bird.

  At the moment of passing, the referee measured Wavepart’s exact impulse, so his position was completely uncertain.

  In the interview after the match, the winning coach states:

  We won because our players are at their best when they don’t think when they’re playing.

  We won because our supporters are at their most ferocious when they don’t think about who they are supporting.

  We won because we have a: foreign oil baron—

  silicon valley entrepreneur—

  mindless state—

  sponsoring us like mad.

  Ultimately, football is a sport wherein:

  So many things hinge on random chance and pure luck that not always the best team wins.

  So many times its space is too limited, and in so many spaces its timing is off: evolve it into space/timeball.

  So many observers limit its true potentiality: the best and the worst could win, and everything in between.

  (*) = delete as appropriate.

  —at the gates—

  This is La Puerta de Tierra: the city gate of Cádiz. Throughout its rich history many different people have passed through it: Phoenicians, Romans, Moors, Spaniards, and many foreigners, Christopher Columbus among them. Columbus is believed to have left from Cádiz when sailing out for the new world, although the city of Huelva disputes that;

  This is De Stadspoort van’s-Hertogenbosch: the city gate of Den Bosch (Bois-le-Duc for the French). Throughout the city’s 800+ year history, it has tried to keep invading forces out. The Spanish Inquisition, King Willem Frederik’s liberation troops, Napoleon Bonaparte’s army and Germany’s Wehrmacht painfully demonstrated that walled cities with armed gates have become obsolete as a form of defense ever since Enlightenment ended the Dark Middle Ages;

  This is an AND gate: to pass it with a TRUE statement, all inputs must be TRUE; to pass it with a FALSE statement, though, only one input needs to be FALSE. It works for Boolean operations only;

  This is an OR gate: to pass it with a FALSE statement, all inputs must be FALSE; to pass it with a TRUE statement, though, only one input needs to be TRUE. It works for Boolean operations only, even if politicians pretend it works for them, too;

  This is the "humans only" gate, also known as the Turing Test. To pass as human, please behave with a modicum of inconsistency and a large helping of fuzziness; to pass as artificial just remain internally consistent. It is not very good at detecting higher intelligence;

  This is the check gate for the subconscious, also known as the Rorschach Test: to pass as self-conscious, blab about anything that comes to mind first; to pass as subconscious, just let the conscious part blab: one of the rare few things it’s actually good at. This is not a very discerning gate;

  This is the double gate experiment: make two vertical slits in a wall, set a light source at one side of the wall, and a screen opposite the other. Watch a dark and white-banded interference pattern appear.

  Now replace the light source with a device that can send out one particle at the time, and a screen sensitive enough to measure the impact of each particle (works fine with electrons), and as more single electrons pass through the double gates, watch the interference pattern appear again.

  Either something akin to the sound of one hand clapping has happened: the result of one particle interacting. Or each electron has interacted with an electron of a parallel world: thus the double gate experiment is a manifestation of the multiverse. Or reality is much stranger than we perceive;

  This is an anyon quantum tunneling gate: the basic building block of a topological quantum computer. It consists of three two-dimensional sheets of semiconductor, the largest of theses three shapes as a flat venturi tube, the two other ones elliptic half-moons that are placed above and below the constriction. There are two anyon channels: one below the venturi-shaped piece, and one above. The anyons in the bottom channel move in one direction, the ones in the top channel in the opposite direction.

  In the narrowest part of the venturi constriction—which is a fraction of a micrometer—and helped by an electric field, some anyons jump from one channel to the other through quantum tunneling.

  The anyon’s properties, such as its charge, can then be measured. Then, by using a coupling constant of 1/2 this quantum tunneling gate will only let non-abelian anyons through, exactly the type of particles needed for a topological quantum computer.

  The anyon is a quasi-particle that obeys characteristics ranging continuously between Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics. In effect, they constantly flip states between fermions and bosons, and can exist only in restricted two-dimensional systems.

  This very indirect approach to quantum computing is necessary to avoid decoherence;

  This is the gate into the basic fabric of reality, otherwise known as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva: to pass detected, perform a collision event bigger than 17.3 TeV; to pass undetected keep your energy level below that;

  And maybe, possibly, the idea that one needs gates (or the principle of gates) as portals into the unknown is one that has run its usefulness.

  —in the room—

  "For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. Put simply, time does not exist."

  —Julian Barbour,

  from the introduction to The End of Time.

  Alex feels like a drowning person in a class 5 hurricane: the wind and waves are beyond contemplation; he should be dead several times over, but still something keeps her buoyant. Too many questions, too much information. A sudden shock of pain in his left arm.

  Where did that came from? As if in answer, a tingling sensation travels up her left arm, through his shoulder, into her neck, and straight into the base of his skull. From myself? A rush of satisfaction in her underbelly. Psychosomatic? Intense cramp in the fingers of the left arm.

  "More conflict between you: interesting." Tanaka observes.

  "You talk to me as if I’m more than one person." Alex says. Lower back pain.

  "But I’m not schizophrenic." Intense lower back pain. Something else strikes him.

  "You," Alex says, while looking Tanaka straight in the eye, "are screwing around with my nervous system?" Pain, intense cramps in her stomach, head shaking vigorously, involuntarily, tears falling from his eyes.

  "Not Tanaka." Pain withdraws, head nods.

  "But then," as realization slowly dawns, "my own subconscious?" Gooseflesh on her back.

  "My primitive id?" Searing, intense pain at the nerve ends of both hands and feet, like they’re on fire.

  "Not primitive." Burning becomes less severe.

  "As smart as me?" A soothing feeling, like salve on burned skin.

  "Smarter than me?" Odor of rose
s in her nose.

  "Much smarter than me?" The taste of fine wine on his tongue.

  So all these visions, these lucid dreams were trying to tell me something.

  Tanaka remains stoic through it all.

  This can’t be real, Alex thinks, and is rewarded with a strange mix of agony and ecstasy, a bit like the relief of sharp pain ebbing away.

  "It is real." Mild pain in her left arm, gooseflesh on his right arm.

  "Real is." Gooseflesh left, dull pain everywhere else.

  "Reality is." Dull pain ebbing, the tingling onset of gooseflesh.

  "Reality is not?" More gooseflesh.

  "Indeed," Tanaka interrupts, "your reality is not complete."

  Again, self-conscious Alex is hit with an avalanche of visions, diagrams, and theories: the double-slit experiment, the Uncertainty Principle, wave/particle duality; Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, Dalí’s "The Persistence of Memory" and "The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory" superimposed. Alex feels like a split personality performing a flamenco while simultaneously fighting a bull under the unflinching eye of the harshest audience. But the hell with it: he’s fought fiercer battles, she’s bridged greater gaps. A recortes recourse: the fast-dancing matador will come through, and the bull will survive.

  "Time is relative?" Both knees throbbing with pain.

  "Time is flexible?" Throbbing lessens.

  "Time is not?" A satiated feeling in her stomach.

  "You mean to say that there is no such thing as time?" Alex feels like losing it, which is counterpointed by a general feeling of rising happiness.

  "Finally we’re getting somewhere." Tanaka smiles, for the first time.

  {Imagining the inconceivable, part 2.

  Imagine time as an illusion. As an emergent phenomenon, like heat arising from the movement of countless molecules. As such, heat is a stochastic measurement of the kinetic energy of particles. Thus, time could be a sum-over approximation of all the interactions taking place, an indication of change. But change is the result of particle interactions, making time the emergent phenomenon of an emergent phenomenon.

  Which starts making less and less sense: maybe time is just a convenient illusion. Then take this a step further: if time is just an illusion, a crooked measuring stick for change, then why not look at change itself. Change can be bi-directional, can—in an increasingly complex environment—have a whole vector in an n-dimensional space.

  Change is also reversible, or—in other words—just as likely to happen in either direction. On the quantum level, there is nothing forcing it in either direction. Also, on the quantum level, there is nothing strange about a superposition of states, non-locality, and dualistic characteristics. Imagine what would be possible if one could actually use all that potential . . . }

  —at the gig—

  Alex, young adult Alex, is thrilled. This is the night his favorite band will play. Finally, they have crossed the Atlantic and are touring the old continent. She’s filled with eager anticipation as this band, the hottest players of the moment, will fill the theater with dreams.

  Unfortunately, they brought a support act. Not what she came here for, but as he’s already positioned at the very front row—and no way she’s leaving that spot now—he’ll have to suffer through it. It’s also a celebration to mark her achievements: pressed against the stage by numerous bodies, in a loud cacophony of sound and a fiery show of light, and still staying sane. I am interacting, I am communicating.

  The band—he doesn’t even know their name—enter the stage as if somewhat hesitant. An unassuming lot: no big intro tune, minimal lights and a civilized volume. Nevertheless, the sound is crisp, every instrument clearly distinguishable, and the vocals pure. For all she knows, it’s their first tour.

  Their start is reluctant: a subtle, melodic guitar lick, repeated thrice until a light drum fill joins in. A dithering bass line, the restrained riff of the second guitar. The parts seem refrained, but the whole attains an inherent energy, a certain impulse. The moment you almost get it, it stops, and a three-layered vocal choir chants the opening:

  Across these corridors

  A brand new time occurs

  And the song takes off: up the tempo, double the volume, triple the intensity, passion building. The audience, mainly here for the headliner, takes notice. The band sings about a mission, the sort they’d rather not accomplish. The musicians concentrate on the music rather than showing off, and gradually build several melodic and rhythmic layers into the song. The lyrics seem clear at first, but are evocative, planting the seeds of change for times to come. A sense of wonderment pervades the atmosphere.

  The band marches on, hitting their stride. Crystal-clear arpeggios counterpointed by pumping bass lines, perspicuous percussion fills, peaking through soaring power chords, diminuendo phrasing and sotto voce choirs emphasizing fervent vocals. The greater narrative develops a growing sense of urgency: a lonesome god leading man astray, madness that turns to the masses, the encroaching fall of order, yet still they go on with the dream.

  The musicians lose themselves in the heat of the moment. In the meantime, the crowd has gone from skeptic through disbelief to reluctant acceptance, surged onwards by an overlap of undertones and an undertow of overtones. Mystic rhythms induce powerful visions, visionary powers evoke rhythmic myths.

  The music resonates, oscillating with a frightening amplitude in a higher plane. The audience goes wild as the band goes into interstellar overdrive. The surging synergy crosses an unseen and unforeseen threshold and—

  →materiality is superseded←

  ←causality is out the window→

  ↓the space/time continuum becomes discontinuous↓

  ↑perception & reality become disentangled↑

  ↕↔¡OPEN WIDE THE FLOODGATES!↔↨

  Choruses cascade beneath, between, & behind. Melodies merge, cymbals crash, & symbols clash, staccato riffs stretch the fabric of reality.

  The audience become the musicians become the critics become the composers become the listeners become the sound mixers become the producers. People don’t so much float but are everywhere, taking up every possible space, simultaneous, multitudinous, superpositioned, and still leave open spaces. Interacting with each other, with themselves, with everything. Cacophony squared with discord discarded, intensity ingrained in six dimensions, paradox powered by the inconceivable made substantial.

  Vocals are sung after they are heard, meanings evaporate before they are implied, compositions are perfected through temporal reinforcement loops. Concepts fragmentize, spread defractalized wings, form new webs of interconnection, and open new potentialities. Paradigms are shattered as the previous impossible becomes a new mode of operation becomes the mundane.

  Change—a world to embrace me

  Follow me through anarchy

  Change—a future to face me

  Follow me through anarchy

  Music transcends: finales prelude overtures, codas mesh in interludic cadenzas, intermezzos transform impromptu toccata suites, until the whole becomes one momentous event, an explosive potpourri where everything happens at the same time, and goes off in all directions at once.

  Random chance, the engine behind change, is fully unleashed. People surf the towering waves of unpredictability, and are liberated. Surreal merely a minor subdivision of the new real, together with transreal, hyperreal, unreal, metareal, and Réal Indívidual.

  Time unfolding, folding back on itself, becoming an origami bird, taking flight. Potentiality an intricate, multidimensional chaos butterfly, its fragile, fractal wings flapping in seemingly futile beautitude but sowing the seeds of change in random locations. Ubiquity, Potentiality, Liberty.

  —in the room—

  {Imagining the inconceivable, part 3.

  Imagine looking, from three dimensions, at people living in Abbott’s Flatland. Take it one step farther: imagine looking at people living in a one-dimensional "Lineland" where only one direction is per
mitted.

  Then imagine showing these one-way liners that not only can they go back, but also up, down, left, and right. Why does a quark have six "colors?" Why are so many quantum properties in a superposition of states? Why are so many paired characteristics ruled by the Uncertainty Principle?

  Why collapse the wave function? Why not ride its unbridled glory?

  Imagine a world of cognitive beings limited—through the perceptive apparatus of their evolution—in both their spatiality and their change vectors. It is not a pretty sight.}

  As the conversation continues, Alex finds that linking his clues to his subconscious’s cues not only makes for a less painful experience, it also advances the agenda.

  "The disparity between the coalescence/fragmentation duality of your universe created your current predicament." Tanaka says.

  Alex is overcome by a heavy feeling: "You mean to say that gravity is the root cause of entropy and the arrow of time—correct that, the illusion of time?" He feels a slight pressure on her right shoulder, as if his non-conscious self is slapping him on the back. "But without gravity we wouldn’t exist."

  Without our perception of time we also wouldn’t exist. A different thought immediately spikes. But you can’t help where you’re born: you can—hopefully—decide where you live.

  "The coalescing force you call gravity binds matter. Normally it is counterbalanced by the fragmentation force you call dark energy. When both are well-balanced—coupled by the coalescence/fragmentation duality which is somewhat akin to what you call the Uncertainty Principle or the wave/particle duality—matter is spread in a proportion, over a bandwidth that is beneficial to the development of life and intelligence."

  "But without gravity there’d be no suns, no supernovas, no higher elements, no complex molecules, no biosphere, no evolution."