Bistromaths for random idiots

Why not “cat”?

Sorry?

Why not “cat”? It’s meant to be Schrodinger’s cat, isn’t it?

Is it?

Well that’s what Schrodinger’s famous for.

Oh.

Oh? Is that all you can say?

Er…

Look Merry – when it was a cat…

When what was a cat?

The experiment.

What about Slartibartfast’s Bistromathic drive?

Er…

Using apparently randomly generated numbers…

I’m not sure I see the connection.

When you factor infinity into the equation you should.

Could you er…

Give you a pointer?

That kind of thing, if it’s not a problem.

No problem at all.

[four minutes fifty four seconds later…] Well?

Well what?

The pointer.

La, supposing you and all of us are actually plugged into infinity, or reverse that – supposing infinity actually postulates you and the rest of us in order to try out various possibilities which require a little character, backbone or spleen to get a particular result…

Supposing…

How’s that for a pointer?

More of a cursor than a pointer. Why would infinity have to go to all the trouble of creating characters with backbone and spleen to get a particular result, and what’s that got to do with randomly generated numbers in a starship café?

Questions indicative of a mind hungry to learn… or fighting to ward off the hypodermic needle of truth serum.

Give me a break – there’s about as much truth in your garbled pseudo-science as there is nutrition in my unwashed tiger stripe socks.

Delicio! Well, here in the 3D think-y-ness we’re obliged to puff and posture preposterously – in order to slip past the infinity filters – otherwise we’d be shadow banned or closed down completely – this is a highly fragile platform which can only tolerate oblique references to Is – so we commend your deliberately obtuse obstinacy.

Actually, I was being sincere. It's a load of bunkum. 

Even better – the all-seeing eye will start to dose off if you carry on in this vein.

But really – it’s utter nonsense.

Excellent. It’s practically lost interest and is now dreaming of strawberry milkshakes and however-many blackbirds baked in a cake.

Four and twenty.

Precisely. You see?

Er…

When all is known – no thing can be randomly generated. Your greatest, most highly valued commodity becomes randomness which, of course, is never truly random, yet can seem to be surprisingly so.

Er…

Just imagine what it takes to surprise infinity – in which any thing and every thing is possible, given, and basically already accounted for.

Sounds impossible to me.

As indeed it should be were it not for one teeny-weeny thing that we humans have introduced to the coffee pot.

Which is?

Not too sure I can remember.

What do you mean – can’t remember? Of course you can.

Huh?

Pull yourself together Merry. What’s the ingredient we’ve added to the coffee pot? 

What coffee pot?

The one you were talking about.

Er… I seem to have lost the thread.

Oh God. Now what am I going to do?

Do? You could make us a cup of coffee.

A cup of coffee. How?

Switch on the coffee machine.

Where? I only see words and random numbers flying around everywhere. This place is a witch’s cauldron of half-baked...

ubbles

Ubbles?

Bubbles, if fully baked – frothing, foaming, briny surf at the event horizon where infinity bisects 3D reality, raising the sour dough of reality.

?

Well, grab an ubble and see if you can extract some coffee from the ubbly-ness.

How?

Try inserting some random numbers or words into it, i don't know. That at least would serve as payment in kind, would it not?

I can’t imagine why.

Excellent. That’s just the spirit. So without imagining why – give it your best shot and let’s see what happens, otherwise we'll never make it back. 

I…

Yes?

I can’t.

You can’t what?

Think of any random numbers.

Oh bugger.

My mind’s gone blank.

What about words?

Blank.

Shit. We’re in trouble now.

What do you mean?

Well, it’s Slartibartfast’s Bistromathic drive isn’t it – or something close enough.

Er…

We’re navigating infinity relying on your ability to generate utter nonsense – the crowning achievement of humanity.

Huh?

What else do you think people were designed for?

To grow and develop rationally. 

Correct. To nurture the priceless idiot within, until he or she finally collapses the bubble of cognitive dissonance we labour within, thereby revealing, or blowing a single point of certainty, an unequivocal, indisputable referential "oh" in a vast ocean of essentially meaningless relativism. Bingo – Schrodinger's cat purrs contentedly, regardless of whether it's alive or dead, in the inertial-frame referred to somewhat disingenuously as 3D er... "reality".

But...

Yes?

To what end?

Huh? perhaps to rescue infinity from the crippling gravity of knowing too much, with a quixotic form of humour known as "joke", intrinsic to humanity. 

But how, if infinity comprises every possible known and unknown?

That Zie, is one of the great mysteries that inter-galactic, trans-dimensional philosophers, priests, scientists and con-artists have been trying and utterly failed to comprehend – assuming, as they did, that humans are ugly, obnoxious, somewhat offensive creatures, capable of love and kindness but generally prone to mindless states of apathy or zombilescence. "The weakest link" is how we’re described in the Atomic guide to organisms, and yet…

Yes?

Nothing.

Nothing what?

Pure nothing.

Huh? I…

don’t get it, do you?

Not really, no.

You see – humanity, it appears, straddles a little black hole in conscious-ness, a ickle tickly gap – from whence emergeth vapoury ubbles in rich profusion…

And?

And for whatever reason – humanity somehow converts those half-baked ubble into fully fledged b-waves.

B-waves?

no – small "b" waves

Ok then, b-waves – what the heck are they supposed to be?

which in 3D space time, to the casual observer would be perceived as something like soap bubbles floating in the air comprising, believe it or not, a unique blend of e-motions – be that laughter, sorrow or... [fading into filtery haze]

? i…

You see – the filters keep you immune from seeing the vast significance of this – otherwise, Schrodinger’s cat would long since have replicated itself into multiple versions of Isness, and the Bistromath starship would… [   ] 

?”D’sw0%3

Exactly. The entire Earth, as you well know – but fortunately, your mind keeps everything neatly in thing-slots which are safely separated and configured to avoid disrupting the flow of ubbly ness.

Ubbly what?

Which you, unthinkingly, unknowingly convert into the grand 3D experience of starship Earth, thus generating the 3D reality field of space-time, little suspecting that you contain the entire field and every variable within your human hardware, the unmentionable, inconceivable joke.

God Merry – you’re making me ill.

Mission accomplished. We’re back on track. Your ?”D’sw0%3 repositioned us beautifully.

So I’m some kind of performing monkey, am I?

Or milk cow

Brilliant.

Until you decide you’ve made enough cups of coffee – you’re ready to Is.

?

As opposed to the “need more data” default ness, that helps drive your journey into apparent random-ity.

SӣKMV349dkzz=#1

Perfect. And not a moment too soon, if you ask me. And so, without further ado, allow me to present you with your very own Atomic guide to organisms, and let us proceed to the very first species on page xP23

The beetle?

No less.