“Well, here I am. Where am I?”
“You are here.”
“I am? Who are you?”
“I am you, who else could I be?”
“OK, is this all there is?”
“Well, some think so. They think everything else is just your imagination. They call it many things, but I like Monism best.”
“A bit lonely isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s why most of us believe there is you and there is everything else. We like to call that Dualism. There are some who have been toying around with three, but none of them seem to be able to understand it, so they are always fighting about it.”
“OK so how do I know about this other? It seems a bit hard to figure out .”
“Reason.”
“What the hell is that?”
“It is what you use when you think about the other.”
“Wait a minute, now we have me, the other and reason. Sounds a lot like those crazy people.”
“Well maybe, but we think we can make it better. Some guy named Pythagoras suggested replacing reason with mathematic, you know, number. We already have one, two and three and somehow one way or another they seem to encompass everything.”
“Well OK. but I still am not convinced. When I look at the other, everything seems to be moving around. How do I know what’s going on?”
“Essence.”
“Say what?”
“Essence, everything has an essence; that is what it is and what you see is the essence of the other.”
“Sounds like bullshit to me.”
“We have the answer.”
“Who are you?”
“We are the Liebnitz-Newton Siamese twins and by using numbers we can stop things from moving around so that you can know where they are, where they come from and where they are going. We call it the calculus.”
“That’s great. We now have, me, the other and number, which is sort of like the holy spirit and with the use of the holy spirit, I can find out whats going on over there with the other.”
“Uh, not so fast.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Einstein and I have discovered through number that what is over-there depends on what you are doing over here.”
“Crap! Let’s see if I got this right, according to number what goes on over-there is contingent on what I am doing here. Doesn’t this sound a little bit like old-time Monism? There is me and then there is that that depends on me.”
“Well no, there is still the other but it is relative.”
“OK, I will keep that in mind. Can I go about my business now?”
“Excuse me, my name is Planck and I think there is something else you should know before heading off. According to number, that business with the calculus that lets you know where things are and the like, well is seemed to not be quite accurate. You see things in the other are here and there but not in between.”
“We seem to be going backwards.”
“I am afraid I have even more bad news.”
“OK, hit me with it. Who are you by the way?”
“I’m called Heisenberg, and according to number you really cannot know about the other because every time you try to, you change it.”
“Aren’t we back to where we started? And doesn’t that mean…?”
“Yes, everything is possible and nothing is also.”
“Oh, my.”
“Hi, my name is Goedel and you really need to know this. You know that mathematics and number thing you worked all this out with? Well, you made it all up. You see it all depends on the assumptions you choose.”
“Crap and worse, I am really back to where I started, I feel like I am deaf, dumb and blind without arms or legs crawling face down through a sea of mud.”
“Don’t worry about it. We are working on something that will make everything work out. Its called ‘Strings’.”
“Strings, first we have one, then two and then maybe three and when they did not work out we now have strings. What the fuck are strings and what number are they?”
“Well we don’t really know what they are but we do know that they are not one two or three, but precisely seven, or ten or eleven or another number. We don’t know that either, but we are working at it and you will just have to be patient for a while.”
“Hmmm. OK, what do I do in the mean time?”
“What you always do, fight a few wars, foul your nest, bugger your neighbor and things like that”
“Well all right, but hurry up, I don’t think I have much time.”
See Also:
Papa Joe's Tales, Fables and Parables 