just a mo

Actually, it’s a waste of time.

But

It doesn’t matter how good your definitions are

but surely

or how intelligent your reasons are

but you’re

or even your maths

oh – so you think you have a better solution?

nope – like i said – it’s a waste of time

but

and the mind, like a dog tugging at the bone you’re trying to wrest from it won’t give up – can’t – mustn’t

mustn’t?

it would be suicide

huh?

were the mind to just call it quits – can’t possibly figure this out – think i’ll go to the pub instead and get drunk – like Ford Prefect before the Earth’s about to get demolished by the Vogon star fleet

only he’s got a backup plan

precisely

so?

...

so what’s our backup plan?

the same as Ford Prefect’s.

Hitching a lift on a Vogon starship?

Can you think of anything better?

I seem to remember them getting ejected into space and only escaping by the skin of their teeth – purely based on the infinitesimally slight chance of being rescued in the vacuum of space by a passing ship.

Yep – that’s right.

Not much of a confidence boost – I think I’ll stick with assuming your wrong – that I can figure things out rationally somehow or other – something’s bound to turn up.

Absolutely. Death is just waiting in the wings – and death solves just about every conceivable problem – except that it doesn’t.

Huh?

Does it – I mean death doesn’t alter anything – dematerialise your matter side of things and guess what’s going to happen – it’s all going to come bounding back in some shape or form – more or less identical in complexity and confusion to where you left off.

Reincarnation?

Conservation of matter

I don’t see why my matter needs to be reconfigured in a new me – why can’t it just be converted by microbes into other biomatter?

It can – but matter ain’t simply matter is it?

No?

Nope.

Then what?

God – do they teach you nothing these days?

Actually they teach us a lot.

More’s the pity. What on Earth’s the point of teaching a lot if they haven’t bothered to teach you nothing

Huh?

The theory of nothing – or nought. You can hardly understand a lot if you have no grounding in nothing whatsoever – can you?

Er…

So you blithely assume that you know “a lot” when you you’ve failed to grasp the basics.

What basics?

That matter as such amounts to nought – that matter is only meaningful because it is a memory device – like a blockchain, if you like, which stores meaning.

Huh?

Matter is a store of meaning.

And what?

And everything – neither the meaning nor memory intrinsic to matter are wiped or lost when matter is redigitised.

Er…

Conservation of matter – neither memory nor meaning can be created or destroyed.

Aren’t you mistaking your conservation of matter with Newtonian Conservation of Energy?

What the hell is energy supposed to be? Did you ever see energy?

Er… not exactly.

Good – because it doesn’t exist – or if it does, it matters not.

then what?

Energy is a given – like life itself. There’s little or no point referring to it per se as it belongs on the other side of things, as in nought – a constant loop – a circle which to all intents and purposes has neither beginning nor end.

Oh.

Precisely.

Then what?

Deal with it. Accept nought – go figure – personify it – anthropomorphise all you like – but accept that there are things and um… that which can’t be discussed, understood or rationalised – without hugely distorting the sum of what we can meaningfully know.

Er…

Because at the end of the day – it’s only worth knowing what is meaningful to know. The rest needs to be left to the night – given pride of place on the dark, the zero side of consciousness – danced at night with drums, sung to the stars, or to God, praised to the heavens and woven into narratives of timeless cosmology – whatever takes your fancy – to ensure that the faculty of reason and sense is able to continue dealing with things that matter – as opposed to the diarrhoea, the nose bleed of metaphysics, dark matter and pseudo-science your current state of unlearning has chosen to engage in.

Oh – so I take it you’re not a fan of dark matter?

Let’s not mess with words – let's call an oxymoron an oxymoron – "dark light" is what you’re really emitting when you puke on the page of enlightenment, rubbing the scabs of unreason to extract the putrefaction known as modern theory – no matter what.

Er… Bit of a broad sweeping statement – wouldn’t you say – damning all modern theory with one single brush stroke.

When the body is infected – your first concern is to fight the infection – only then can you play with abstract ideas – if you even wish to.

Well I think you’re being unreasonable.

Yes.

Arrogant.

Yes.

Narrow-minded.

Yes.

Aren’t you going to even bother to defend yourself?

No.

Because you think you know best?

No.

Then what?

Because thinking and knowing are utterly unconnected. What I think has nothing to do with what I know – or what is.

Uh?

Things – we think things.

And?

All thought is derivative. Left hemisphere – so to speak. Lifeless things that matter not.

And knowledge?

Bear in mind that language reveals far more than we generally choose to see. To know and to think are poles apart. The question is whether you know your own mind. If you do – if you’ve chosen to allow knowledge to seep through your strata of thoughts, beliefs and prejudice – if you’ve chosen to know no matter what it costs – no matter what it takes – then knowledge will compel you to unknow almost everything you hitherto thought you knew – without exception.

It will?

Yes – without a doubt.

Why?

Because knowledge is a well-spring that rises up from nought within – if it is anything at all.

So it’s just a personal experience – you’re saying?

Just?

As in subjective.

It is neither subjective nor objective.

Then what?

It is known – wherein the nought rises up from infinitely deep within to meet the one, the tree, the I through creation – through the quantum field of is, so to speak – and everything you can possibly think, apprehend, know, believe, perceive or name stems, flows, derives from this conjunction, this confluence of matter and meaning, were I fool enough to imagine I could possibly understand or explain whatever it is, may or may not be...

But you have – haven’t you – you’re trying to explain that matter is fundamental to who and what I am, to whatever objectively is – that it’s not just a neutral thing without intrinsic meaning – that this is like Slartibartfast’s bistromath café in which every thing, every occurrence is part of an equation, a calculation, a vast hologram or computer program which is constantly solving or reiterating the sole, fundamental question of life, the universe and everything – aren’t you?

Er… yes, I suppose I am – against my best intentions – I’m uncomfortably forced to admit you’re right.

And might it be true to say that your input is also part of the equation – that you yourself are neither neutral nor abstract – that you cannot help affecting or influencing the quantum field by passively observing it and elucidating its mechanics?

Yes

So what have you done?

Nothing.

Precisely.

Oh my God!

Yes, indeed.

I….

You didn’t mean to, did you, but you have inadvertently released no-thing from its quarantined confinement.

Oh

Pandora’s box – unless

Unless what?

Unless O has attained its majority – is simply bursting out of the egg it’s been incubating within… and humanity, the collective-consciousness is now bringing forth a new nought – an un-ful-ness which comprises all that is – no matter what…

Oh

Indeed Oh.

It’s going to be…

Ssh – you’ve said enough – let’s shift into the Oh me

oh my

the Oh

of mo

and merry

ment if

you’d be

so kind…

i

o

so 

so

elves

unread-unseen-unheard

lies damn lies calumny

if you insist on pursuing

it further 

you have been warned

i cannot be 

held responsible 

for your wilful failure 

to heed this notice

of utter-incontrovertible 

negation. 

though i may privately 

admire your stubborn

dogged determination

to see things through

to the mortification of

of  of

mathology

step step  glide

number space 

hiccough

spatial coordinates 

and time 

if we are  one 

if

no more than if

we be one

O-fully

no-fully

noughtily 

one

then zero burns

see

zero burns 

a hole 

in mathematical 

presumptions

of certainty

leaving me 

no alternative

none

i mean zero possibility 

of evading the conflagration

of every empty promise

to deliver or pay 

what nought cannot

can not

thus i propose

a moratorium 

on all so-called debts

bearing in mind 

the deceptive half-hitch

cross-folded breath

without which none of this

makes sense

if 

if

or thirdly

 if 

the fellowship of one

the ring 

the o-cubed

dot dot dot 

be unwound 

unbound

be won

against all odds

and i

rejoin

rejoins

the fold 

the fold

the fold

the ticking time bomb

Actually I'm perfectly happy with reality.

Really.

Absolutely.

Apart from things like encephalitis.

Well that's hardly the fault of reality - is it?

Fault?

I mean - you can't go blaming "reality" itself for the nasty little diseases which nature has a habit of concocting.

So you're passing the buck to nature. She's the one that turns a perfectly agreeable "reality" into something problematic, uncomfortable or less than idyllic.

Well, I'm not exactly "blaming" her, am I?

No?

No. I mean - disease is inevitable, isn't it? You can't blame nature for doing what nature does. It's all good old-fashioned Darwinian survival of the fittest, isn't it? Without these viruses probing the defenses of computer and biological systems they would fail to evolve, fail to improve themselves.

Oh. So diseases are not only unavoidable, in your reality, they are actually necessary and, might I infer, essential.

Necessary - yes, of course they are - as we see nature competing at every level in every way imaginable for supremacy - do we not? Essential - yes, your inference is wholly acceptable as competition through probing and testing any inherent weaknesses is as important to nature as it is to theory, knowledge and learning.

Ah.

In comes a hitherto unconsidered alternative - some new data or a new arrangement of existing data which is stronger, more resistant to attack than anything else - and naturally, inevitably it will replace the existing theory in a matter of time.

A matter of time. What a wonderful turn of phrase. I wonder how it came into being?

Presumably it implies that time has vacuous periods of non-matter - when through inertia, apathy or resistance things tend not to shift, and then time suddenly matters - it becomes a potent force in its own right - which brings a huge change - a paradigm shift or a new age - without trying to sound too dramatic.

You might be right. Time might indeed traverse matter - or transduce it into something else. The mind boggles, the potentialities are limitless - the phrase perhaps indicates a quantum shift, in which the walls of infinity, or the skin on the surface of infinity which keeps us in the illusion of finite matter, space and time - depolarises - I won't even say dissolves. But we digress.

We do?

Yes.

How so?

Because you were intent on suggesting that nature is the key determinant - the force or factor which bottom-lines reality, so to speak.

Well, I fail to see how we can avoid the fact. It seems incontrovertible.

Yes.

Reality, after all, doesn't amount to much, does it, when you suddenly get sick and die.

True.

Or when your civilisation is suddenly wiped out by a meteorite strike, an inundation or some other so called "act of God".

Ah. He's back.

It's just an expression. I might equally have said "natural disaster".

True.

It's rather childish to endlessly squabble over words, isn't it. You're being disingenuous Merry, or arch. You know exactly what I meant to say.

Yes, you see through my every subterfuge.

Well?

Well what?

Don't pretend you didn't want to ambush me - I know exactly what's going on in your mind.

You do?

Absolutely. You want to demolish my argument about nature. You're waiting for the right moment.

And how would I demolish an argument as well-reasoned and sensible as your own?

Oh - you'll bring God back into the equation - won't you. You'll almost certainly prove that my use of the word "Nature" has no legal standing - that it's merely an ill-disguised substitution for the Master Creator of an intelligent universe - something like that.

Well, I might have done - it would have been fun at another matter of time.

Huh?

But the fact that you've pre-empted the ambush eliminates the possibility - that you're aware of the God in nature argument makes it obsolete as a line of attack.

 ?

Absolutely.

You mean I've won? You're not going to destroy my argument?

What would be the point. It's obviously infallible - designed to withstand the test of time - or the matter of time - for that matter.

Oh stop. I know exactly what's going on.

?

It's a pincer movement, isn't it. A feint or a counter-feint. There's really no limit to what your holographology can throw at me, is there?

Bravo Zie. You astound me. Never have I observed such depth of perception.

That too is a subtle ploy to put me off-guard - as if your praise was ever more than the weird sisters consoling Macbeth that he was safely ensconsed on the throne of Scotland - till Birnham wood remove to Dunsinane.

Unless...

Dramatic pause. Yes. I'm feeling the ground begin to shift under my feet. Holy sh..  It's not the argument is it... It's not the words at all... is it?

No.

What's doing Merry. What's coming apart - what have I unleashed.

Yes. Ironically you fell right into the trap.

How?

Your mention of Birnham wood and Dunsinane - where did it originate? Was it entirely your thought?

Oh my God.

Do you see?

No - I don't want to know. I can't believe in that degree of inter-correlation.

It's scary, isn't it - when you feel it

see it

know it

God

Yes Zie. God.

Here in the fabric of reality

Reality

rising up around me - Shakespeare's words - it could have been anything - couldn't it?

Yes.

So it was you - you triggered it?

Did i?

Please Merry - stop - i need some certainty - i

Yes?

need to know

nothing

you can't just wipe out my words

can't - of course i can't

i need something to hold onto

.

something

[.]

i

[-[ . ]-]

no!! you're losing me in the fractal - [.]

[=[-[  .  ]-]=]

Anything - will - do

[^[=[-[   .   ]-]=]^]

Any thing - no matter what

truly?

truly

encephalitis?

why ever not? twill serve well enough, grist for the mill, matter to grind or choke on...

then let it be

happily

happily - and thus it is

you mean to say...

i mean nothing of the sort

you mean that encephalitis is my Birnham wood?

well it would appear so, would it not?

But why - of all the things it might have been?

Why not?

...

What, after all, is encephalitis

or Birnham wood - for that matter

indeed

where reality is concerned

...

happily -

yes - the level beyond

so now I've experienced reality - you've just shattered my illusion of what

i

there really is no degree of separation, is there?

is there

no

not even between us

between us?????? what might we be

happily we might be anything we choose to experience

happily - so is happy the new God?

I know not

happily

indeed

...

so return to 3D and see the fabric of reality as you've never seen it before

how?

happily

but how indeed

you have your basis - work from there

encephalitis?

what else?

Oh my God - you're not suggesting...

no, there's no need - you know whatever it is you need to know - without me to interfere

oh well - you only die once - here goes

Zie heads off into the sunset on the quest for encephalitis - or a humble tick willing to share the code of all reality with him - happily