“Ok,” Sam said after a deep breath. “Time and awareness are the same thing. There are an infinite number of me(s). I get it. This all has metaphysical implications as to the nature of being, but I guess what I’m having trouble understanding is where the rubber hits the road as far as physics. You’ve explained the nature of experience, I guess, or have a nice theory - but what in the world does this give you as far as science is concerned? Can this information change anything? Make anything? Predict anything? Or is it just nice to know?”
“That’s exactly what the U.S. government was asking,” said Jim.
“And your answer was not accurate, eh?” said Sam.
Jim shook his head.
“You’ve made promises you can’t keep. You’ve told them you can kill people using what amounts to a metaphysical understanding of the nature of being,” Sam said. It wasn’t a question.
Jim nodded.
“And you made these promises because you needed funding.”
Jim nodded again.
“And now you’re in big trouble.”
This time Jim answered, “Yes. But we have a way out.”
“What?" Sam said, looking over at Lopsang for some clue as to his response to all of this. Lopsang sat as if in meditation - not reacting to a word that was said, and yet, somehow, he felt like a stabilizing presence - grounding the conversation. There was no smug look on his face, no “all-knowing” beneficient bullshit pseudo-religious placid contenance like Sam wanted to see there (so he could get mad - he realized). What was there instead was unreadable, truly unreadable. It was a man turned inward - listening to the conversation, but also…listening to something else.
Jim went on, “It has to do with what you can do with this. Remember, it’s not all theory. We are able to take probes, put them at any point in physical space, and then translate the readings into an experience of what that physical space feels like to be. That’s not worth nothing.”
Sam thought about this. His heart raced.
“No, that’s definitely something. It’s the discovery of the century. Jesus.” Sam sat back in his chair, sipped his now mostly cold, empty tea. “So - what is it like to be a point in physical space?”
“It depends on the space,” said Jim.
“All space is the same,” said Lopsang.
“What does he mean?” said Sam to Jim, then felt rude. “What do you mean?” he asked Lopsang directly.
“Everything is the same,” said Lopsang.
That sounds like dogma, he had to stop himself saying. But he didn’t want to be rude. He did like Lopsang. So, he said nothing. They waited for him to respond. He didn’t. So Jim went on.
“He means that literally,” said Jim. “Awareness is time, and while time does vary from location to location - running slightly slower some places and faster other places - it does so according to relativistic rules. Meaning, unless one observer - or maybe I should say observation point - is moving at a speed much closer to light than another observation point - the amount of time difference is close to immeasurable.”
“Hold on,” said Sam. “I didn’t think we were talking about the rate of time here, I thought we were talking about the fact of change itself. I thought awareness was the fact that things change states. As seen from any given point of view. Have I been visualizing this wrong? Aren’t we talking about light cones, essentially?” His head was spinning.
“Yes,” said Jim. “Mostly. Sorry, I guess I’m being confusing —”
“You think?” Sam found himself saying - not feeling like himself - “Sam” at all, let alone “Samuel Delaney, philosopher.” How did he get stuck playing the role of the-guy-who-doesn’t-get-it? He preferred to see himself as Socrates, not guy-talking-to-Socrates. He shook his head.
Lopsang reacted to that - he frowned deeply - though it didn’t feel like he was reacting to Sam’s comment to Jim, but Sam’s internal feeling of self.
And why does it feel like I know that’s what he was reacting to, rather than just me guessing? Sam thought.
“Everything is the same means,” Lopsang said. “Time, change, space, awareness - material things - which are illusory things - they are all just one thing, a thing that does not exist, a thing dreaming it is many different things. It is the dream that is real because nothing is real.”
“Now that has got to be a metaphysical statement,” said Sam.
“Yes, but the difference is, it’s testable now,” said Jim, frowning.
Sam took a breath. The divide between knowable and unknowable - which had always been fuzzy - had just gotten fuzzier by far.
“So…” he said. “What have your tests shown?”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” said Sam, and looked pointedly at Jim.
“Aliens,” said Jim.
Sam laughed. When he was done laughing, he laughed some more.
“How is that,” he said, still chuckling, “going to get you out of building a bomb for the U.S. government?”
Jim and Lopsang looked at each other. They looked worried. Even Lopsang looked worried.