Breaking 'Stick of History' and Inventor's New Goodbye
Assistwo did not look particularly pleased upon walking into Inventor's office.
"Well," he began, "its almost official. We will not be in Book Two. It seems we are no longer necessary."
"That's hardly news," Inventor responded, "who or what is really necessary?"
"Not us, evidently. We have been replaced. I think my replacement is an alcoholic. You wouldn't want to know about yours. Think estrogen."
Assistwo knew Inventor did not like to be reminded of ongoing concurrent stories in higher dimensional levels. Though most of what Inventor did was to relate happenings to more dimensions and make then more easily understandable, he tended to find the characters and dialogue in the overall story as annoying and simplistic as his replacement, Creator, did.
"Well, I said we would have to leave it to another generation to get to the best parts. I just hope she is up to the the task," Inventor added, letting on he too had taken notice of his own replacement in the story.
"So before we are relegated to a clips show, have you thought of any new ways of explaining the 3rd dimensional axis?" Assistwo added, hoping this would make obsolescence easier for Inventor to accept. That he betrayed interest in the other stories showed he might not be happy as just a spectator in things to come.
"Well, as a matter of fact, I have. Behold, all 3 axises visualized," Inventor said proudly showing a triangle.
"Its just a triangle," Assistwo said. "You are a few thousand years behind the curve on that one."
"How about this," Inventor said showing three circles overlapping making a curved triangle in the middle.
"Ditto," Assistwo said. "Now that we have been pushed out of the book and relegated to a clip show, you don't seem to have that same degree of insight, authority, or relevance anymore. Creator is my new God," Assistwo joked.
"Moving on," Inventor said, "if we imagine our 2D universe in a ball shape with two axises we can understand making an X on the top of the ball anywhere in front of us, each a 90 degree angle, and another X of 90 degree angles at the opposite of a curved 2D universe, which would be the same as the "surface" of a 3D shape, there would be 4 other X's halfway across the universe in each direction along the lines of this X in front of us. When put all together they would show 3 planes cutting the sphere shaped curved 2D universe we inhabit into 8 pieces relative to the corners of our cubes. The parts of this that would intersect our space would be triangles of vast distances where the 90 degree angles in front of us would eventually with the curvature meet perfectly together."
"That would mean that a tetrahedron would be the same illustration of 4 axises to a 3D curved universe. Seeing 3 planes meeting together in front of you seeming cutting space into 8 quadrants, and 8 more at the other end of a curved Universe, with 6 more X intersections in-between," Assistwo added. "Each of the "corners" of a tetrahedron would represent 90 degree corners like the edges of a cube, curved tetrahedral 3D "corners" of a 16 "quadrant" shape."
"Correct," Inventor added. "Each of the axis which are perpendicular in reality slightly bent of a curved reality flatted out a bit to be visualized to us."
"I would think this is leading us to bent time, as that is the way the story is progressing but if we are no longer to be in it, there is not really any point in trying to go in that direction," Assistwo said glumly. "Plus," he said slyly, "if World War III is about to begin, there would be no time or point in it anyway. Bent time or not, no time equals no time."
"But never rule anything in or out," Inventor corrected. "Getting here once, and getting here an infinite number of times are one and the same thing. The new title of Book Two, Infinities Overlapping: Two to One to Two is more telling than you know, but I will leave that to my successor to deal with or try to explain, should she even have time. Sad to think of the utter waste and pointlessness in humanity in cutting everything short now."
"Damn, out of time yet again, and all of this only to set up a stupid clip show for a stupid blog!" Assistwo exclaimed. "Foiled again, just when it was getting to the good stuff."
"Don't forget," Inventor reminded, "if it weren't for that end appearing on the horizon, we would not have had something to move toward to have taken us to where we are now. For us, in our case, that end was literally our reason for being and beginning all of this in the first place."
"True," Assistwo said looking bored, "but your name isn't Preacher so get on with the clip show already!"
All of the above and more to address, the ridiculous line, "stick of history" below which I had to laugh at. With so much bad news in the news this week, it was a welcome change. There was no way, though I tried, to work that into a dialogue, but it was such a badly phrased sentence, followed by a worse one, that I had to reminisce about the stick and time expert. It was otherwise a fair article, but as Inventor would say (and did) since "my favorite topic has come around again, and I couldn’t sit this one out."
"There is a parallax view of the stick of history which enters the water but seems to be discontinuous rather than a straight line. The distance of a historical account disinfects the moral dimension of events; we may be shocked when we read of the torturous experiments of Ewen Cameron and Sidney Gottleib, for example, doctors who participated in MKULTRA, a series of CIA experiments with hallucinogenic drugs, electric shock, and sensory deprivation, but because those experiments ended in the seventies, they read like scripts for a horror movie instead of a daily newspaper.
"It still has a square shape though we can no longer see it from that perspective," he would say. He would then take a 20 cm by 1 meter sample stick and turn it in front of someone.
"Watch as I spin it," he would say. "See how it appears to grow into 1 meter when both ends are at an equal distance away from you, but shrink again when pointing directly at you?"
2.2 Where did the cubes go:Everyone freaks out
"Not the stick example again," Assistwo moaned.
"Be quiet. You stand there and watch the stick as I spin it. See how it only appears to get wider and narrower as it moves horizontal to you."
"Pleeease. I am not new to perspective. You are not demonstrating anything I do not fully understand already. You admit I am a peer of yours, though I have not heard you use the term "equal", but I can wait for that patiently until or when it ever comes, but surely a peer of yours in the ability to think 3 dimensionally. Why, after all this, demonstrate 2D perspective to me?" Assistwo asked impatiently.
"Because you said it yourself. Every time you open your eyes you see the world from inside out. This new example seeks to show the stick and the spinning from inside out irrelevant to position or outside measurement. It seeks to measure the stick only in relation to itself which is how the stick sees itself, to the Universe outside the boundaries of the stick, we don’t matter. We can only understand the matter of anything only from within it out, not from outside trying to measure in, or its shape relative to a world that exists only exists outside its borders, and may not be needed to it at all. "
2.4: Flying off the edge: Problems with Suchness
"... 2D people can spin things like Inventor likes to do with his stick. When we play spin the bottle, it is the same thing, spinning it through two dimensions horizontal to the ground, or along a horizontal axis. Inventor’s world only has 2 dimensions so it only has 1 way to spin things. He would love our Universe. He could spin his stick two different ways."
"I don’t think I like the sound of that," his assistant remarked. "Don’t we have 3 axises to spin things on? Couldn’t he spin his stick 3 different ways?"
"Yes, but only two would seem different. He usually used the stick to demonstrate perspective though more likely it was a model for some other purpose as well. When he spun it most, he was usually trying to show perspective, except that last time when he did it to show how he imagined his panels to be turning on a vertical axis though he could not "see" the vertical axis."
"Yes, that really bothered Assistwo. He thought he was doing the other thing with the stick," his assistant said.
"Correct, using it to demonstrate perspective on how, when spinning, it only seemed to get larger and smaller when from the stick’s point of view, its shape never changes."
3.1: Contemplating Innerspace and stick spinning in 3D
Assistwo interrupted Inventor. "I have to demonstrate the positive and negative aspects of the puzzling 3rd axis or viewpoint essential to how your cubes work to a bunch of investors tomorrow, and I was wondering how you used to demonstrate this."
"Everyone seems to be wondering about that these days." Inventor said. "Everywhere I go all of a sudden people ask, "Explain how you demonstrated the 3rd axis to people so they could understand." It used to be, what is a cube and why did you want to or bother to build one. Either everyone conceivable has already asked me that now or my whole world has gotten thrown off onto that 3rd viewpoint. Hey, that gives me another new idea on how to explain it. For me, there are at least as many ways to imagine and explain that viewpoint or the so-called 3rd axis to people as there are metaphors in this 20cm by 1 meter stick."
"Not the stick again," Assistwo moans. "Sheesh, can’t you explain anything without that."
"No, none of them include using the stick. I just said there were as many ways I can explain the 3rd axis as there are metaphors I can use that stick to demonstrate with. But now that you mention it, I just thought of one more for each."
4.1: To confuse or not to confuse: Problems with the 3rd Axis
"I take it time is involved here," his assistant guessed. "I remember it being said that it will come up more and more now. Didn’t Einstein say that time was a 4th dimension in that we move through successive 3D worlds stacked together as you just described?"
"Yes, time is the wildcard everyone uses to give them that extra ace of perception they cannot directly perceive, but think they do. No matter how many physical dimensions we can directly perceive, we can always cheat and use time to imagine one higher. Inventor did it with 1D worlds to illustrate his own 2 dimensionality, and to describe a 3D world as multiple 2 dimensional worlds over time. Einstein used time to describe multiple 3D worlds strung together. But we are talking about 4 physical dimensions plus time. Physical dimensions we can move through freely in either direction without causality problems. Time as we perceive it runs in only 1 direction. Riding time is like riding the blast wave of a star going supernova. It spreads out in all directions but can only be perceived as traveling in 1 direction, away. To be in time is to be forever locked within the edge of the blast moving outward as the rest of the blast/event zone and thus in that direction or place, it never seems to move but you cannot step outside of it and must travel in lock step with it. Time is a different animal than a special direction but can be used interchangeably as a wildcard substitute for a spacial direction for understanding 1 dimension higher, but cannot actually take the place of one fully for it is of a different nature." Researcher said.
"Ok, I take it time is more complicated than your cool sunglasses. I take it we use time to imagine a higher physical dimension because time, like that extra physical dimension, can be thought to string together multiple dimensional realities you normally experience so you can "see" or imagine you see what it would be like to step "through" multiple dimensional Universes of your own reality. How else is time important?"
"Stick spinning," Researcher said.
"I think you are trying to see from Inventor’s perspective a little too much," his assistant joked. "You are even beginning to relate everything to that."
5.3: Perspective, cheap sunglasses, triplanes and time
"Nothing lasts forever, not even time," Inventor began, "all I really said was now is not the time to be discussing too heavily the ramifications of space and time being completely interchangeable, and I still believe that to be the case. It is still not time to go there yet. However, my favorite topic has come around again, and I couldn’t sit this one out."
"Oh no," Assistwo said bracing himself, "not again! Please don’t tell me."
"Yes, that is right, ball spinning!" Inventor said smiling. "What, you thought I was going to say something else?"
"I am not touching that one," Assistwo said, "too easy and too many ways to go, I will let you continue without comments for awhile."
"Ok, I will take the ball from here now, so to speak," Inventor began. "Stick spinning, and my new favorite, ball spinning, illustrates spinning on one, two, and three axises. You can spin a stick on two axises but it is not as fun as spinning it in only one direction, plus you can’t paint spots on it."
Assistwo was beginning to turn purple from restraining himself from making a comment on this.
6.4: Mapping 4D objects on spinning spheres
"Assistwo, please get me my 1 meter by 20 cm stick I use for demonstrating things, and withhold the comments please."
"Why would I say anything? Why suggest I would yet again suggest you demonstrate something for once without dragging that thing back out. Why would..."
"Those are the kind of comments I meant to withhold, please."
"Yes, my Master. I shall speak no more against you. You are my God."
"You are not irreplaceable, you know," Inventor suggested.
"Maybe, but I *AM* irrepressible, that is what makes me me, and why I am still around. Here is your stick. I won't tell you what you can do with it."
"Ugh. Ok, here is where this justifies that. I will stay here and you place the stick in-between us so that both tips are the same distance apart from each of us in the middle of the room," Inventor said.
"Oh good, are you finally going to show how the tips curve toward me and toward you at the same time if the middle of the stick is in a direct line between us both?"
"No, but thanks for pointing out what I am NOT ready to do yet. Every time you get ahead of me, it distracts away from how impressive what I do say is."
"Maybe it makes it look more simple in comparison? Ok, wacha gonna do with da stick 'dis time?" Assistwo asked genuinely curious.
"Nothing. This time the stick is just going to sit there. You and I are going to do all the work."
"Ok, I get bonus points for withholding comments on that line," Assistwo remarked disappointedly.
6.6: Omoglatroning and stick spinning in reverse
"... Looking at it from outside it and thinking we know how many dimensions it currently exists within is impossible without a new math, map, or understanding of its internal structure or order."
"So it’s back to inside matter again?" Assistwo asked.
"Isn’t it always?" Inventor asked back, "By the way have you seen the new motto for my door?"
"Another one?" Assistwo shrugged emphatically.
"Yes, two on each side now, it needed balance," Inventor joked.
Assistwo went outside the door and read, "There are no objects, there is only matter as a whole. There are no dimensions, there is only space as a whole. There are no minds, there is only consciousness as a whole."
"It seems like we have a long way to go still yet," Assistwo said when entering the room again to Inventor who seemed to be getting ready to leave.
"If not us," Inventor said, "then those who will come after us. The horizon to how far we are permitted to go at this time is approaching faster now. We must stop for awhile or risk sailing of the edge of our 2D world."
"I don’t like the sound of that," Assistwo said grimacing. "If possibly not us, then at least tell me what’s over that horizon in case we don’t get there ourselves."
"That the same perspective or space at different times is exactly the same and completely interchangeable with different perspectives and points in space at the same time," Inventor said moving toward the door.
"Heavy," Assistwo quipped. "I hope we are the ones who get to try and explain that one. I don’t like the sound of falling off of or moving out of phase or sync with the 2D world."
"No," Inventor agreed, "that does not seem desirable from any possible perspective from within it. From an outside perspective, who knows?"
"Certainly not me!" Assistwo said flashing his almost omnipresent impish grin. "What about you Inventor? Inventor..?" he said while turning around not realizing Inventor had quit for the day and already was headed home.
posted by Jared DuBois | 3:45 AM
