(8) Experiments III/Puzzles II

[cramschoolgod]

[Sasaki's a little restless thanks to excessive prom talk, and not enough progress with her projects. Well, why not take a break tonight? She decides to make a little call.]

A.) [Phone, standard filter:] I'm curious-- how many of you believe in such a thing as good and evil? And specifically, a natural inclination towards it. Do you think humans

Comments

B

[flameyedhunter]

Another experiment, Sasaki?

[cramschoolgod]

Yes. This one doesn't have much to do with Mayfield, though. That problem seems fundamentally irresoluble.

[flameyedhunter]

Hmmm, what's this one about then?

[cramschoolgod]

It's something I always wanted to test at home. You know how humans have notoriously become adapted to an essentially two-dimensional environment? They consider, perhaps subconsciously, the directions 'up' and 'down' as fundamentally different from the two spatial directions across which they most commonly move.

It's interesting to see whether other animals do the same thing.

[flameyedhunter]

Ooooh.

[Shana will squat down and watch the mice go with interest]

Should we be taking notes?

[cramschoolgod]

If you like. It's a very simple test, so there's only really one relevant factor: How long they take to find the reward. I'm timing them, of course; and placing them at distances which are three-dimensionally the same but at different levels of inclination from their target. Such experiments are flawed-- well, but all experiments are flawed, in their own ways.

[flameyedhunter]

Is that because the act of observation actually alters the experiment's results to some extent?

[cramschoolgod]

[Sasaki eyes her for a moment.]

That is a fundamental problem with the act of observation as defined in physics; as well as a technical one with human approximations. But even more generally than that, an experiment is fundamentally an orderly environment that simulates a chaotic one--that is, the world.

[flameyedhunter]

[Shana eyes her right back]

Did I say something weird?

[She nods]

It's a little amazing we know anything, with as many random factors at any given time. But I guess some things just fall within set variations, at least in what people describe as normal circumstances.

[She rubs her neck briefly.]

[cramschoolgod]

No, nothing weird; it was just an unexpected objection to make. A very intelligent one, as well, I might add.

[She shrugs.] Yes, the various scopes of the world in which things function are always quite surprising. The concept of 'random' is at the core of many of the world's mysteries; because the most random systems are also the most predictable, paradoxically. It is because there's a more fundamental distinction of some kind, one presumes; but it's difficult to tease out the strings of which is which.

[flameyedhunter]

Hmmm.

[She nods and watches the mice squirm for a while in silence.]

I'm afraid I'm a pretty practical person. I see a problem, I solve it. As a Flame haze, that generally involves violence, or the use of Unrestricted method.

[She sighs.] Some part of me thinks that a world that is more thoughtful, more filled with people like you would be a better place.

[That is about as philosophical as Shana ever gets. Damn girl.]

[cramschoolgod]

[Sasaki smiles.]

Well, I think the same thing. But while to some extent being a 'person of action' and a 'person of thought' are opposed, they aren't totally irreconcilable, just placed at a certain angle. Still, if everyone were to become more thoughtful, I can't imagine there would be as much of a need for violence.

[flameyedhunter]

There are always those who want to gain power at any cost, whether through thought or deed. That's why Flame Haze exist, in a way.

[she looks back to the mice.]

Anyway.... any new thoughts on or new facts established about this place since we last talked?

[cramschoolgod]

Hmm. It's an aberrant goal, because they have no good definition of power. Physical force is, in general, limited by what is possible physically; even intellectual force has its limits, concerning what is able to be known. And those who pursue power tend to vacillate and fixate upon some false approximation to even those false ideals. Politically, the truest definition of power is totalitarian power, which was described extremely well by the philosopher who first coined the term, Hannah Arendt; and, as she said, it relies upon the total destruction of a human--their societal existence, their moral existence, and finally that creativity which makes them human. This implies that total power is also totally solitary. It is a self-defeating quest, therefore, as it flies in the face of evolutionary history.

[She pauses.]

As for Mayfield... There hasn't been that much evidence. All we can establish is that the rules are inconsistent or extremely complicated.

[flameyedhunter]

To me it feels most like the world of false memory I was once ensorceled into. Only I'm not sure if anyone is going to break us out, this time.

[She looks to the mice, moving around in the experiment.]

I wonder if being non-sentient, at least as we understand it, doesn't have some advantages here. After all, this is just another place for mice to live, eat, and breed. Only humans... or things able to perceive the world more or less as a human does would find this place uncomfortable, I think.

[cramschoolgod]

Hm.

Well, that's one way to think of it. Of course, the exact same premise could be used to connote that these mice are in such a non-aware state that even changes in the universe do not cause them to be particularly responsive. Who's to say that the feeling of limitation is not akin to that of a permanently paralyzed patient--except mentally?