Tal, a conversation with an alien (20 page)

Yes.

Regardless of how much you have changed, you are still you. You do not have a feeling of duality with any of these other you's. You are all of those you's throughout your life. And there have been so many you's. At no moment in your entire past has one been exactly the same as another. So there are virtually an uncountable number of you's stretched out through many coordinates of time and space that you feel connected to. Though you are in fact very different, you do not think any of those you's as some other person. You take responsibility for the actions of the past you, even if you would act differently now.

Perhaps
this is because the change has been gradual, I do not see a dividing line between me as I am now and me as I was.

That is the root of change.
Some things have to stay the same and some things have to change in order for you to notice change. If everything changes all at once, and nothing is the same, then the thing hasn't changed, it has become something else altogether. So though you change through time, you still feel parts of you are the same, and since you feel this way, you do not feel separate. Though you are in fact vastly separated by both time and space. The earth moves at 67,000 miles per hour around the sun, the solar system rotates at almost 500,000 miles an hour within the Milky Way. Therefore, the you of a few years ago is millions and millions of miles from the you of today. You are not in the same space or the same time, yet you are connected. In the multiverse, you are separated from other current you's by universe variations. Many of these variations of you are much more similar to the current you than you's of the past. They could occupy the same space and time as you do, just a different coordinate in universe variation.

--
I could not visualize what he was saying then, and my mind returned to the prior thought about connections to past me's. 

Perhaps I
do not feel separate from past me's because I emotionally feel those past me's. I do not feel any connections to me's of other worlds, even if they are very similar. 

That is a good point. Y
ou seem to suffer from Capgras Delusion against other you's in the multiverse. You think they are imposters because you lack an emotional connection.

--
At this point he looked over to my crate and took out the last two bottles of juice. He opened one and took a sip. The then placed them both next to his chair and continued.

Actually I think your sense of
separateness is due to the fact that you were not familiar with many worlds as a concept before, and have not had time to assimilate the information. Think of future you's, do you have emotional ties to those future you's?

I don't think so.
Well, actually maybe I do. When I think of future me's, perhaps I am connecting emotionally with them, though not at the same level as past me's.

So do you or don't you feel
a connection to the future you?

Honestly,
I am not sure.

Your
future self is also you, it is not some other entity altogether. Your society treats you that way. Your justice system treats you that way. Part of incarcerating someone is not just to punish. There are many punishments worse than being in jail. The idea of incarceration is partially the idea of preventing crimes in the future. When a prisoner gets parole, he is labeled no longer a risk to society. In other words, the criminal has convinced the parole board that his future self will not commit any more crimes. The same could be said of applying to a university. When you apply, you are trying to convince the heads of the university that the future you is going to be successful, so that they agree to teach the current you their very expensive secrets. This is also why we love child prodigies. Who hasn't had the thought about someone, "She is pretty good now, but in a few years, she is going to be amazing." Remember that your sense of your past and future selves is purely imaginary. Yet you have a strong sense of non-duality with them. Of course you are different, you are separate, but you are still one.

I suppose you are right. T
he me that I imagine I will be, or the one that others think I will be, they are still related to me, I do not think of them as completely separate entities.

Because of your strong memory and imagination, you have a
decent conception of the time dimension. You can think about time from different coordinates, hence you view a single object as occupying many time coordinates. Abraham Lincoln was Lincoln from his birth to his death. Your idea of Abe Lincoln is not singular. It is not just him the day he was shot, or the day he returned a library book, or the day he made the Gettysburg Address. It is the combined actions and thoughts of Abe Lincoln throughout his life. Similarly, you realize that you are you from your birth to your death, not just at any single time coordinate. In the dimension of many worlds, I see you in the same way. I do not see the you of this world as that different from the you of other worlds. I see you as one entity stretched out through many universe variations. I see you making many choices and living many lives. Remember when I told you to think of the multiverse as a vast tree with many branches. You can think of yourself in the same way. You are the trunk of a massive tree that has sprouted many branches. Your current experience of this moment is a leaf on that tree. It is the bloom of single consciousness at the end of one of the many branches. Yet you erroneously think of yourself as a tree with only one leaf; you sense no connection between your leaf and the other leaves on the tree. I do not see you this way. I see you as a tree blooming with many leaves. Thus I see many manifestations of you, and they are not separate, they are all part of a greater you. In a non-dualistic sense of understanding the multiverse, not only is your world greater than you imagined, but you yourself are greater than you imagined. But again, these are things you have to understand, accept and finally, feel.

--
At that point, he finished the penultimate bottle of juice. He picked up the last bottle, looked at my empty crate with disappointment, stood up and said,

And with that thought I will leave you, time is short.

The
Restaurant

Why do you have to go?

They are coming for me.
             

Who?
The police?

Among others.

Can they actually catch you?

Not the police specifically, but let me share with you a
multiversal truth: no matter how high you are on the totem pole, there is always something higher. But don't panic. We are not in any serious danger.

--I went to the door and could hear voices below.  

They are talking to my landlady. She will tell them she saw you with me.

You are right,
well this has been very pleasant, and thanks for the juice.

Wait.
One more thing. Actually, I really don't think we will have time, they will be here in a moment.

It's fine
, I know you have a pressing question, and since you want an answer, I will make some time. The old woman will confuse your apartment number with the nice Chinese man's across the hall. The police will spend some time trying to get inside. Then they will search his apartment. Then they will search the other apartments next to his. Then they will go back and question the old woman again. We have time to get into it.

--
He sat down again, though not before getting my umbrella, which was nearby, and setting it next to him. I noticed his flashlight dim to the strength of just a few candles. I could just barely see his features in the soft light. I hurried to ask my question.

What about God?

What about God?

Well, does he exist?

I am assuming by God you are referring to the Vishnu type God, the creator of all the universes, what George Cantor called the Absolute Infinite. The Infinity that encompasses all other infinities, the God that encompasses all gods.

Yes, does he exist?

Well, have you met him, or her, or them?

If I did
, I probably wouldn't ask you the question.

Sure you would. Many of the greatest saints and holy men who claimed to have experienced God have had th
eir doubts occasionally, and were curious what others' experiences were also.

Well, I am not a saint, I am not even religious.

Did you ever get an inkling, a feeling, an experience?

Not really, nothing dramatic.

Well, if you haven't experienced it, it is impossible for me to just explain it to you.

Why not?

You see, as I mentioned earlier, you cannot describe something infinite with logic, deduction or analysis. Logic and deduction take basic, simple finite ideas and lead you to more complex finite ideas. But you are not trying to understand a finite idea; you are asking me about God. If I give you some more finite blocks of knowledge, all your blocks of knowledge will never add up to what you are hoping for, some infinite block of knowledge. No matter how big your block gets, it will be infinitesimally small compared to the infinite knowledge you are seeking. Hence, just like I cannot prove or disprove an infinite universe to you, I cannot prove or disprove God.

What about a partial knowledge, more knowledge than I currently have?

Using the type of knowledge you are seeking, still infinitesimally small, you could call it mathematically insignificant.

So that's it? You leave me with that?

No I suppose I won't. It pains me to see humans in such a confused state about the most basic things. This happens a lot in your paradigm. Realize that knowing something logically, scientifically, intellectually, is not the only form of knowledge.

What else is there?

How do humans come to gather knowledge? Your philosophers have argued about this for millennia. 

Yes, and most of it is just that, philosophical speculation in my opinion.

I want you to think of humans as gathering information about something in three major ways. They can come to understand a thing or a concept logically, by knowing its parts. This is knowledge through analysis and deduction that is so prevalent in your current scientific paradigm.  More commonly, throughout history, humans have learned about something from information provided by other humans through their stories, testimonies and teachings. This would be passed on knowledge. Finally, they can gather direct knowledge through their senses; see it, hear it, touch it.

A
ll right.

--He put down the last bottle of juice without o
pening it. He thought for a moment, and then said,

I think we have just enough time for on
e last thought experiment. Imagine that at the Empire State Building there is an extremely fancy restaurant, and I have invited you there for dinner. Imagine that you have lived in a monastery all your life and haven't eaten anything except rice gruel, so you have almost no concept of what any other food could possibly taste like. When you get to the restaurant and look at the menu, there are many famous dishes on it, but you do not recognize any of them since all you have ever eaten is gruel. Luckily, this restaurant has a very detailed menu that lists all of the ingredients of each dish. The first item you read about is their signature dish, the Lobster Newburg. By the way, I don't condone sentient beings eating other sentient beings when either has evolved to the point that they don't have to. But we will use lobster as an example because I know humans don't get too excited about the taste of broccoli. When you read the ingredients of the lobster on the menu, do you know how it will taste or whether you should try that instead of the other dishes?

Logically, I should be able to get some idea from the menu. But I don't know what the ingredients taste like, since all I have eaten is gruel.

That's okay because the menu has much more detailed information you can read about. This amazing menu also lists the number of calories, the amount of fat, salt, vitamins and minerals in the lobster dish. In case you are still short on information, the menu gets even more detailed. It now tells you the exact molecular structure, the approximate amount of atoms, electrons, quarks, gluons, leptons, and neutrinos in the lobster. Finally just in case you are still indecisive, it gives you a Schrödinger wave function for the lobster dish. In fact, in this menu you have at your disposal all possible information about the lobster known to science and mathematics. Once you have read this most detailed account, would you know what lobster tastes like? 

No, of course not.

No problem, because there is a second part of the menu that perhaps will be more convincing. In the next section, you find the testimonials, reviews and ratings for the lobster. You read that the president loves the lobster, as do many famous celebrities. You read the extremely detailed descriptions of how rich the sauce is, how succulent the flesh is. You read the famous story of how a lone fisherman, on a life long quest for the finest lobster, found this particular type after diving for months in the deepest of oceans. He returned only when he had found the perfect lobster to share with the world. Could you now make a choice? Could you now leave the restaurant fully satisfied and recommend the lobster to others?