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jackshoegazer) wrote2008-04-16 09:54 pm
This question of classical philosophy.
Nothing is as Something Does
“‘Why is there something and not instead nothing?’ This question of classical philosophy has always haunted me. And never more obsessively than in recent weeks,” said the Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby in his snippy and slipshod British drawl. Mike Hornby, who was without a doubt, a photon – a particle of radiant energy moving with the velocity of light – was verily the most fabulous photon ever, hence his appropriate moniker.
“Me too…” said Mike’s sidekick and confidant, Scooter the Skimming Whale, as he swam in the ocean blue, “though, it’s pretty obvious isn’t it?”
The Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby hovered over the large water mammal, whilst fluctuating between seventeen independently singular energy-constructs. He returned from the other planes or dimensions or whatever, and said, “What ever do you mean? It has stumped all but the Greatest of the Sages!”
“Watch this,” said Scooter the Skimming Whale covertly.
Just then a young woman arrived in an oversized double-decker van, which pulsed and glowed with an ethereal magnitude. Her blonde and green hair undulated gently in the breeze. She pulled to a halt and hollered brazenly from the window, “Get in, we’ll go for a ride!”
“Meeeeew,” said a tan cat from the back of the van.
“Sounds wondrous! Let us be on our way then!” said the Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby, as he passed through the wall of the slick cosmic ride. Scooter the Skimming Whale leapt from the glorious salty sea into the van, landing gracefully through the back hatch. The impromptu woman had graciously opened the aforementioned hatch, because unlike photons, whales cannot pass through solid objects with ease.
Once inside, Mike and Scooter purveyed their surroundings. The interior of the van was generously decorated with white plush carpeting and liquid-crystal-display wallpaper. Low benches, upholstered in blue polystyrene, lined the walls at equilateral intervals. The Quasipositronic stereo blared music by a group of mediocre musicians who will never gain mass popularity or even minor notoriety.
Quite unexpectedly, the tan cat once again said, “Meeeeew.”
“So, what were you saying…” began the Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby, “Do you know why nothing is something and not instead?” He grunted, shaking his head then said, “I mean - do you know why there is something and not instead nothing?”
The van rumbled and bumbled as it began its journey. Scooter the Skimming Whale opened his massive jaw with the intention of giving answer to Mike’s query, but was interrupted by the green and blonde haired girl who then informed her new guests that her name was indeed Medusa Mussolini and that the next point of destination would be the planet Mercury, where she ‘must urgently retrieve’ her good friend and architect, Anasi Hanuman.
Scooter the Skimming Whale, a curious being to say the least, asked Medusa, “How did you come to be here?” His intention was to discover by what means her van had traversed the ocean. However, her answer did little to alleviate his curiosity, for she answered cryptically:
“I followed the signs.” Medusa Mussolini then turned around in her seat and began intently paying attention to her highly refined manner of driving.
After an uncomfortable silence had descended upon the interior of the van, Scooter the Skimming Whale broke the ice by saying, “As I was saying before we began this outlandish journey - it’s obvious really. Something is not nothing because nothing has the potential to do something. And so it does.”
The Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby then replied incredulously, “How so, old chap?”
“Here,” said Scooter, using a fin to indicate the window behind him and to his left. “Look out there and tell me what you see.”
“Meeeeew,” said the tan cat, reiterating its previous statement.
The Fabulous Photon looked out of the window and said, “I don’t care what the cat says, I see nothing.” He saw nothing, because there was indeed nothing outside of the van.
Scooter the Skimming Whale asked in lecturing arrogance, “And what could you create out there?”
“Anything, I guess,” blurted the Fabulous Photon.
“But what, exactly?”
“I don’t know, maybe luminance, radiance - something, I’m sure.”
The Skimming Whale smiled triumphantly and said, “Exactly.”
The van came to a screeching halt and through the windows, where there had been nothing before, there was now something, and it looked peculiarly like the surface of the planet Mercury. The door slid open and a metallic liquid bird flowed into Medusa Mussolini’s lavishly plump celestial van, followed closely by a large gorilla wearing a badly installed toupee and a bowtie. Heat pummeled the passengers ceaselessly until the metallic liquid bird and his primate companion re-closed the door.
The tan cat once again said, “Meeeeew.”
Scooter the Skimming Whale said, “That sucked,” and began spurting seawater from the blowhole on the top of his head, re-moisturizing himself.
After its warm welcome, the metallic liquid bird addressed the passengers of the van as such: “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce, Anasi Hanuman, the Mercurian Architect. Me!” He then repeated the same preliminary introduction in 47 million unique forms of communication.
Needless to say, the Fabulous Photon, the Skimming Whale, Medusa Mussolini and the tan cat were all terribly impressed. The ape said nothing, rather, wore a scowl everyone assumed to be of the menacing sort; however, they did not find it so. Anasi Hanuman, the Mercurian Architect, took a seat on a blue polystyrene bench. The Silent Ape sat down, remaining unbearably close to the metallic liquid bird.
Intriguingly awed, the Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby spoke up and inquired, “Mr. Hanuman, have you architected anything I might have seen whilst out and about on my photonic adventures?”
The liquid metal bird, known as the Mercurian Architect, Anasi Hanuman, answered Mike’s query with a query. Thus, he said, “Do you know of the Great Pyramid of Giza?”
The Fabulous Photon, who knew a great many things, knew of this Pyramid and answered appropriately with the single word, “Yes.”
The Skimming Whale, you know, Scooter, widened his eyes until they were like teacups, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and said, “You built and designed the Great Pyramid of Giza?”
The Silent Ape’s arm abruptly lurched toward the Mercurian Architect, wrapping his long furry fingers around the bird’s scrawny neck. “No,” came Anasi Hanuman, the Mercurian Architect’s voice, emanating the Silent Ape’s mouth, “But, I sure would have liked to.” The Silent Ape then released the Mercurian Architect, straightened his bowtie and resumed his un-menacing scowl.
“Oh,” said Scooter the Skimming Whale, looking vaguely annoyed and disappointed.
“Who’s your bullying brute of a comrade?” questioned the Fabulous Photon.
Anasi Hanuman, the Mercurian Architect replied, “This is my Administrative Assistant. He’s here to make sure that I don’t understand what you say.”
The Fabulous Photon and the Skimming Whale stared confusedly at Mr. Hanuman.
“Sorry, strike that. Reverse it,” corrected the Mercurian Architect, who then assumed the nondescript shape of a puddle. While the faces of the Photon and the Whale remained in frozen bewilderment, Anasi Hanuman, the Mercurian Architect thus inquired in a clandestine tone, “Have you, by chance, heard of the Golden Mean?”
Swiftly jaunting the circumference of the van a hundred-thousand times, the Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby had the opportunity to answer a query with a query as well, thereby asking, “Is that in
However, before Anasi Hanuman could reply with either a question or an answer, Scooter the Skimming Whale said, “It’s the ratio between two sections of a line, such that the shorter is to the longer as the longer is to the whole. It’s the logarithmic pattern that weaves the Universe. I read about it in a movie.”
“Very good,” said the Mercurian Architect appreciatively. “I designed that. Pretty ingenious, don’t you think? A pattern that is the same, yet different. A pattern that never repeats, yet goes on forever. The infinitely big in one direction, the infinitely small in the other.”
“Best thing since sliced bread,” said the Skimming Whale.
Medusa Mussolini, the green and blonde van driver, came bounding towards the back of the van, perspiring slightly, and joined the other passengers. She looked to Anasi Hanuman, the Mercurian Architect and said, “Which way do I turn after we pass the giant statue of Jesus Christ, the Lord, our Savior?”
“Please, make an obtuse left turn just past the giant statue of Jesus Christ, the Lord, our Savior, onto the famed
Medusa Mussolini bounced in a sporadically anxious sort of way and said, “Righty-O!” She bounded back to the driver’s seat, where she sat, because she is the driver after all, and she did in fact drive by means of directing the van with the steering wheel, which propelled it in whatever particular direction she chose, and she accelerated with the use of some sort of an accelerator, but you don’t really need to know the logistics of that kind of stuff, now do you?
The Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby then turned to ask the Mercurian Architect another question, but was interrupted as the tan cat once and again said, “Meeeeew.”
Mike’s question, only briefly derailed by the tan cat’s repetitious commentary, was completed only a moment later when Mike phrased his inquiry thus, “What was in the Universe before you designed the Golden Mean?”
Anasi Hanuman, the Mercurian Architect, pointed towards the window at which Scooter the Skimming Whale had previously indicated with his fin and said, “Look out there and tell me what you see.”
The Fabulous Photon looked out of the window and replied, “Once again, I see nothing.” He saw nothing because, whereas there had been something before – the Mercurial landscape, if you remember – there was now nothing in its stead.
“That’s right. Nothing,” affirmed the Mercurian Architect.
“So then, I pose this question of classical philosophy to you, Mr. Hanuman,” preambled the Fabulous Photon, “Why is there something and not instead nothing?”
The Silent Ape looked alarmed and reached for the Mercurian Architect’s throat once more, grasping it firmly.
The Mercurian Architect’s voice once more erupted from the Silent Ape’s mouth, chuckling amusedly before saying, “Oh, I’m sure I can’t tell you the answer to that! That’s not your job. You’re not supposed to ponder purpose. We have humans to do that.”
The Fabulous Photon and the Skimming Whale suddenly looked sullen and defeated as the Silent Ape removed his hairy hand from Anasi Hanuman’s throat.
The Mercurian Architect, feeling lousy and a teensy bit guilty about deflating the spirits of these roving entities, announced brightly, “I can maybe give you a hint as to why there is something and not instead nothing. How about that?”
The Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby, looked up with a slight glimmer in his eye – so photons don’t have eyes, oh well, work with me - and said, “Well, I’m not the brightest clam in the bucket, but yeah, ok, I’ll give it a go.”
The Silent Ape placed his large bulbous lips close to Anasi Hanuman’s ear, or where his ears would have been, had he had ears, and began whispering to the Mercurian Architect. It would seem the Silent Ape is no longer silent, so from here on we will call him the Mostly- Silent Ape. The Mercurian Architect nodded several times in assent and half as many times in dissent. Eventually the Mostly-Silent Ape stopped his surreptitious mumbling and resumed his surly perdurability.
“Now then,” said the Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby, “why is there something and not in its stead, nothing?”
Regrettably, as Anasi Hanuman, the Mercurian Architect, was about to divulge this long hidden secret of the Universe, previously known to only seven human beings and hundreds of billions of other entities, Medusa Mussolini began to scream and shout – not twist and shout, that’s a song - but scream and shout. Her infernal racket grasped the attention of the occupants of the van, who peered forward through the windshield of the immense polystyrene van and saw that they were plunging into a deep chasm filled only with inky darkness, which suspiciously resembled nothing.
Anasi Hanuman, the Mercurian Architect did not look frightened and merely began to sing, “Goin’ to the Chapel, and we’re… gonna get married…”
Scooter the Skimming Whale opened the door of the van and addressed the Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby, “Fare thee well, my dear counterpart and metaphysical sidekick. I have a previous engagement at Demeter’s birthday party.” The Fabulous Photon looked shocked and surprised as Scooter the Skimming Whale skimmed out into the nothing, heading in a vague northwesterly direction. Now you can see why he’s known as the Skimming Whale.
The Fabulous Photon, Mike Hornby, being the photon that he is, flew through the van, leaving the remaining occupants to their desperate plummet into the abyss. He immediately departed for the Sun, because there is safety in numbers and I dare say; there is many a photon in the Sun.
Medusa Mussolini and her tan cat who said Meeeeew all the time plunged to the bottom of the chasm and began the painful process of disintegration; some call it distilling, but whatever. Only then, in the midst of her own undoing, did she understand what those weirdoes in the back of her van had been talking about all night. She peered deep into the nothing and saw something; a golden spiral of light lacing out forever and ever, reaching deep into the trenches of the Abyss.
“Yes, I see it, but, why?” she asked her tan cat.
The tan cat looked intimately into her eyes for the very last time - because right after this she’s going to disappear and float across the Abyss - but anyway, the tan cat said what she’d been saying all night and thus replied, “Meeeeew.” Then she vanished, as I said she would.
The Mostly-Silent Ape, who chose this particular moment to become the Not-Silent-At-All Ape, asked in a deep and satisfied baritone, “Who is the master who makes the grass green?”
Medusa Mussolini cocked her head slightly to the side, her brow furrowed introspectively. A moment later her eyes went wide, like teacups - whatever that’s supposed to mean - and with a face full of radiance she exclaimed, “Oh! I AM!”
THE END