3D nullification vs gnome

Close the door please Merry.

What door?

It's a bit drafty in here – I thought you left the door open.

Oh, that door.

Merry turns around slowly two or three times and the draft suddenly stops.

Er... what was all that about Merry?

Closing the door – as requested.

But you just spinned around a couple of times. How does that shut the door? Is this some kind of telekinesis?

Yeah, if you like.

I'd like it even more if you'd shed a little light on the subject.

Well there's really nothing to say – you yourself saw me turn around.

But that doesn't explain how you closed the door while standing here. That's weird.

I agree – it’s definitely weird, until you start realising the astonishing extent to which all things are connected.

Uh oh... more woo woo stuff. Can't you give a straight-forward explanation: the kind of thing I can share with normal people?

Yes and no.

Oh give me a break... it can't be both.

On the contrary – it can and is. Yes, I can give a calm, dispassionate explanation, but unless you're willing to navigate the quantum stream – to experience the other side of in-finity, we're basically wasting our time. Nothing will register. Nothing will sink in. Nothing will make any sense.

Oh, so it's my fault, is it? That's typical! Instead of accepting your explanation might be woefully inadequate or plan unintelligible, you put it down to my inability to comprehend. Most convenient, if you ask me.

Why do you imagine an explanation can help you if your own eyes refuse to see what I'm doing, or to register what they saw?

My own eyes? What do you mean? There's nothing wrong with my eyes. I've got excellent vision.

Yes, things you see well, but we're not talking about “things” in the traditional sense, are we?

No?

Obviously not. In the traditional, 3D sense things are all just separate and only vaguely, or indirectly connected, but isly... let me show you what I mean.

Merry does a kind of dance skip and suddenly, out of the blue, the entire balance of probabilities in the room shifts, you might even say "lurches" sideways leaving the room in a heavily photo-shopped state with literally everything redesignated, redefined, redetermined. What had been a bed a moment earlier is now trying to pretend it’s a chicken standing on its head – and not looking terribly convincing – more like a moose trying to disguise itself as a chicken standing on its head. In fact, nothing in the room now looks even remotely like it did a moment before. Reality shock of the highest order.

What the (beep)?

Do you see?

Zie is making apoplectic turkey and goldfish noises if you can give your imagination free rein to complete the picture. He’s obviously having huge difficulties processing and dealing with the disrupted continuity of watching an entire room full of things suddenly, as in instantaneously, rearrange itself for no apparent reason. That kind of thing isn’t officially supposed to happen, not least because the space-time continuum is supposed to conserve energy and religiously preserve the continuity of things, governed by tried and trusted laws of causality. The alternative, an apparently warrantless rethingification, a redesignation or rearrangement of things, quite frankly smacks of anarchy or ludicrously reckless levity, and undermines the very bedrock of reality itself,  namely the fact that it’s supposed to be objectively real, that things are supposed to be unquestionably things, and not subject to sudden, causeless, whimsical shifts of substance, form or location. 

Aaaaafg... 

Oh, you’re taking this the hard way, are you? 

Uggrrrrmmmflbbxtchibbl... 

Yes, I understand Zie, it is somewhat shocking to see familiar things go rogue like that. 

Abbrfabbbrchadbrrl...

Indeed, you have my heartfelt sympathy, and yet there really is no other way to introduce this other-way-of-arranging-things-perceptionally meme. It’s all or nothing. Either I pull the rug from under your feet in a friendly, supportive manner, thus enabling you to glimpse the conditional nature of your cosy reality setup, or we’re just blathering about the bush, with no practical awareness of the astonishing paradox we happen to be living in. You would agree, Zie, that as paradoxes go, this one takes the biscuit. I think we might fairly call it the mother of all non sequiturs. Hardly surprising that it’s an existential code red near-death-experience to witness the kind of quantum shift you just did. It’s safe to say, dear Zie, that you’ll never be the same again, I warrant, if you survive the shock, that is.

Umba zefle gwompickery tsenzijalafleh...

Look Zie, instead of focussing on me, the messenger, why not make the perfectly reasonable assumption that you also might in some way be responsible for the transthingation you just observed.

Impossible! How on earth could I be responsible for what just happened? I had no prior knowledge whatsoever. I was merely a passive observer.

Ah, welcome back. Nothing like a bit of righteous indignation to restore a man to his senses. So you really believe it's possible to be a “passive observer” in this quantum day and age, Zie? that you were in no way responsible for choosing to perceive things either one way or t’other, thus tipping the scales. What a quaint notion!

Go on then – explain yourself, if you have anything intelligent to say on the subject.

Well that’s just it Zie, isn’t it?

Isn’t what?

How on Earth can it be “intelligent” if it involves a quantum shift – a retabulation of reality? To be “intelligible” would require you to completely overhaul the nature of what is what, to unpin things from the 2D motherboard of reality, and allow your perception to interface another version in which 0=1

Period.

Uh?

You forgot the period at the end of that remark.

There you go Zie. You’re looking for finality, formality and definity, all of which you can have in so called 3D, at a price.

A price? What are you on about?

A Faustian bargain.

With the devil? You know my views on that subject.

Yes, and you’re welcome to whatever views you wish to cherish and nurture. May they grow big and strong in the rose garden of your mind, but this is not a question of religion or the Devil, per se.

No?

Not in the least.

I’m pleased to hear it – then why did you refer to a Faustian bargain?

Because 3D’s finality, formality and definity which is so highly valued is only possible if you insert your consciousness into the equation in such a way that you’re no longer able to question fundamentals, no longer able to see the wood from the trees because, once inserted, you’re unable to detach and consider any alternative, period

Oh come on Merry – we’re not all blind. 

Then how did I shut that door – and how did the goldfish bowl on the windowsill over there transform into a pair of elephant skin slippers.

Oh my God – elephant skin? That’s gross. You know how I feel about environmental issues.

I assure you no elephants were captured, slaughtered or harmed in any way.

Then how can they be elephant slippers? Is it all just a clever illusion? Is that what you’re doing?

Oh, you’d like that get out of jail free card, wouldn’t you? That way you’d be able to dismiss all this as fantasy.

Well I don’t see how I can do otherwise if you’re unable to explain how these things happen, like where those utterly tasteless elephant skin slippers came from.

Nothing, I mean no thing happened.

Which only goes to prove...

They isnd.

What?

Isnd, without any chain of causality – merely as expressions of the 0=1ness, the infinite fungibility of all that is.

Fungibility – what on earth’s that meant to mean?

That one thing’s as good as another – once you look inside – once you realise that the thingness is but a stitch in time, a moment. Well these moments are only meaningful within a closed system – a matrix – a box which has to be created artificially – by thinking things. The minute you decide you no longer wish to deposit the greater part of your conscious-awareness in the quantum fund that holds 3D together, the minute you realise the implications of doing so – that directly or indirectly you’re funding a system which is inherently unnatural, which seems to enjoy dropping bombs and destroying forests, a system which is attempting to mould the world and humanity into its own gridiron image, which is inherently doomed to collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions – that’s the point at which you unsign the Faustian pact by reengaging, reactivating in-finity drive, thus obsoleting anything less than in-finity.

Obsoleting anything less than in-finity? What are you talking about? You can’t just void 3D reality because it’s a little perverse or artificial! 

Can’t? Watch this...

Nooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhmmmmmm...

Nice, isn’t it Zie.

Actually yes, even if it’s somewhat uncomfortable finding my legs attached to the bottom of the sofa and my arms now transmitting wifi signals.

Well yes – it takes some getting used to, but really – it’s a bit like money coming in and going out of an account. You don’t need to hold onto this idea that one part of you is actually you – just because it’s been that way at some point in the past.

Well call me old fashioned – but I quite like being me.

Not half as much as you’d enjoy being the universe, or me, for that matter.

You? – talk about conceited! Have you no shame?

It seems that way – doesn’t it, but it’s actually an honest evaluation based on the fact that I’ve already open sourced myself – so my experience of reality is infinitely more enjoyable, valuable and meaningful than it ever was er ever could have been prior to transitioning.

Oh. 

That I’m neither better nor worse than anyone or anything else...

No?

No – I merely stepped back and allowed the internal contradictions to utterly unhappen me – at which point the underlying isness kicked back into gear – zero being one – and once again I find myself out in the open expansiveness and endless fungibility of all that is.

So you’re eh... not exactly human?

Quite the reverse. You can’t possibly be human, no matter how hard you try, as long as you’re based in the closed 3D system of things.

Oh come on Merry! Of course we’re human.

Up to a point.

There you go.

Up to zero point – no further.

Well what’s that supposed to mean?

That beyond zero point is your true nature – and everything you experience within the black box or black hole of so called 3D reality – is but an approximation, a derivative, a time-space cut-out which is only real because your conscious-awareness is brought to bear – is invested in maintaining and preserving the utterly convincing, yet completely illogical, thingness of me.

Thingness of me – how can you be so disparaging?

How can you allow yourself to be transformed into a sofa, Zie? Do you really imagine I’m a great sorcerer or magician? 

The thought had crossed my mind – an illusionist perhaps.

Uh huh. The great noble mind that you possess can do no better than attach labels and tags to...

Look Merry – instead of calling me names, perhaps you could turn me back into human form.

Actually Zie, the truth is that I never, in fact, did anything to you whatsoever.

Then why am I now part aquarium, part sofa, wifi router and tastelessly gross, politically abject elephant skin slippers? I think I’d have chosen a bit more wisely.

Er... all I did was make it temporarily easier for you to reaccess your very own isness. It’s a slightly chaotic experience first time round, until you've equalised the various potentialities, but the same could be said for entering the world as a baby.

So the minute you vacate my space I’m back to normal?

Naturally. You don’t really imagine you’re actually a sofa, a computer, a... 

Merry withdraws, allowing Zie to sink back down into his normal state of consciousness. A somewhat vacant expression appears on Zie’s face.

The weirdest dream Merry – though at the time I could have sworn it was real.

Yes? Let me guess – you and I were transformed into beetles and...

Before Merry could say another word the other side of the infinity flips into prominence and the two intrepid Zeronauts buzz into a brave new world of psychedelic beetleness, irrespective of...

The weird thing about being a beetle is all this stuff I never even notice when in my normal human state, I mean, how do we get by with such a miniscule part of the overall picture.

Insane, isn't it? But it goes a long way to explaining why we're so determined to distract ourselves with whatever stimulant may relieve the crushing boredom of  3D "reality": drugs, alcohol, video games, murder, sport, problem solving, business, politics, spirituality... the list goes on, until eventually we call it quits and fly off into the sunset, beyond nought.

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Gnome