Sickness of the mind

I thought I had found a solution, but my sickness has only gotten worse. I recognize the symptoms. I think I'll have to let it play itself out and see what happens.

ADDENDUM: I talked to someone about it, and it turns out that's exactly what I needed.

Giant squid

The next time you're laughing with a friend, or walking home, or using the lavatory at night, startle yourself with this realization: There are giant squid. Right now. They are many times the size of your body, and they swim through billions of gallons of ice-cold, pitch-black seawater. Maybe they're hunting food. Maybe they're mating. Maybe they're trying to sleep. You may never see one before you die, but they are alive and living as you go about your life under the sun they will never see.

At the risk of turning this blog into a running xkcd commentary interrupted by intermittent Borges book reports -- hey, actually, that would make a really cool blog.

Anyway, xkcd's latest webcomic depicts a guy in a hat saying to the protagonist, "What if I had some ice cream? Wouldn't that be awesome?". The narrative then shifts to Hat's thought bubble, which contains a scene identical to the first except that Hat now has ice cream and Protagonist is saying, "Great, you've trapped us in a hypothetical situation."

Let me explain what is going on here. Hat's idle thought does not magically transport him and Protagonist into that bubble. Hat proposes a hypothetical situation, which is equivalent to referring to one world out of the infinite variety of imaginary worlds. In particular, he is thinking of a world in which he has ice cream.

To be more precise, he is thinking of a world whose history is identical with the real world's, and whose present blesses Hat with ice cream. The Protagonist in the thought bubble remembers hearing Hat talk about ice cream, and now he sees that Hat obtained some ice cream out of nowhere. He concludes that he is living in a hypothetical world, where the law of conservation of mass is subordinate to the whims of Hat's appetite.

A pair of worlds that have identical histories up to a point in time is equivalent to a world that bifurcates into two timelines at some point. Hat's musings split the world into two such worlds: A real world in which he does not have ice cream and a hypothetical world in which he does have ice cream. Hat and Protagonist are likewise split into two copies each.

Of course, the real world and the hypothetical world do not interact. The hypothetical Protagonist only perceives a change in the world around him: From his point of view, reality has been altered, or, equivalently, he has become trapped in a hypothetical world.

This is essentially the problem faced by people who upload their minds into virtual reality simulators: A digital copy of the mind wakes up in the simulation and notes, with satisfaction, that he has been uploaded successfully. When the original biological copy wakes up, he is disappointed to find himself in his old body. (Unless the subject is being uploaded against his will, in which case the biological copy is the fortunate one.) If you really want to live the rest of your life in a computer, you have to arrange for your physical self to be killed once a digital copy of you is made.

Back to the comic strip: The copy of the Protagonist that the narrative follows is doomed to live trapped in a hypothetical world. Or is he? His solution is to summon his own hypothetical world, in which there exists a knife that can cut a path into other worlds, like Philip Pullman's subtle knife. This artifact makes its way into the hand of the Protagonist who summoned it, and then conveys him back to the reality he remembers. Except now there are three Protagonists in the real world: The real Protagonist, the hypothetical Protagonist, and the hypothetical Protagonist's hypothetical Protagonist. If this doesn't make sense, read the cartoon.

The idea of an object or person that can travel from imaginary worlds to the worlds that imagine them is deliciously paradoxical, and is explored in a short story by Borges that I'll discuss here someday soon. The magic in this cartoon, however, comes from the narrative, which makes a surprise departure from a boring situation and leads us through an absurd network of alternate realities.

Failure

When you play Super Smash Bros. Melee in single-player mode, the result of a match is immediately indicated by the voice of the Announcer. If you win, he enthusiastically proclaims "Success!". If you lose, he declares

Failure

with a sneering voice so dripping with censure, so inappropriate to a lighthearted video game that I find it funny. But now it's the loudest admonition echoing in my head.

Yes, I'm dealing with failure today.

I'll just say that I'm glad I'm not going into bioinformatics, because this would be an inauspicious way to start.

The Lottery of Babylon

Among the short stories in Jorge Luis Borges' anthology Ficciones is "La lotería en Babilonia", which, in my edition, contains the following passage:

[....] No se publica un libro sin alguna divergencia entre cada uno de los ejemplares. Los escribas prestan juramento secreto de omitir, de interpolar, de variar. También se ejerce la mentira indirecta.

I am also in possession of a literal if inadequate translation ("The Babylon Lottery") by Anthony Kerrigan, who translates the passage as follows:

[....] No book is ever published without some variant in each copy. Scribes take a secret oath to omit, interpolate, vary.

The incommensurability of the lengths of these passages is not an error of mine; in both versions, these passages terminate their respective paragraphs, and the subsequent paragraph concerns a different topic. Evidently Kerrigan's omission is more demonstrative of the idea expressed in the original than a more faithful translation would be.

I am reluctant to ascribe to Anthony Kerrigan the imaginative decision of this significantly-placed infidelity, for the story had already been published in one or two other places before Ficciones was compiled, and the multiple manifestations of the story need not have been identical. Whether the credit is due to Kerrigan, or to Borges, or to the inscrutable labyrinth of chance, is immaterial; the fact is that the infinite game of chance described in this story is no longer confined to an imaginary Babylon.

Wanting something makes it real

xkcd's latest comic strip is another serious one. The faceless protagonist dreams of a girl who whispers a set of coordinates in his ear. But when he goes to the specified place at the specified time, he only discovers that "wanting something doesn't make it real".

The delicious irony, the truth within the truth, is that the character in the strip is wrong. For it is inevitable that on that September afternoon a handful of xkcd devotees will converge on that spot in the neighborhood playground. They will arrive one by one, young men and women, strangers to each other, wearing sweatshirts and jackets against the autumn wind. And when their watches and cellphones and GPS handhelds simultaneously read 2:38pm, they'll look up at each other and share a shy, intimate smile. They will smile at the silly foolishness of going to some point on the globe chosen by a poorly-drawn webcomic; but at the same time, without needing to speak, they will understand that the promise had, in a way, come true. Each of them will have come, hoping but not expecting to find others looking for them; and that's what they will find.

They'll start chatting, maybe about schoolwork, webcomics, science and technology, philosophy. Some will be content with enjoying a meaningful conversation with a stranger, and then go home; others will introduce themselves by name, and friendships will be born.

And perhaps the author of this event will show up; and perhaps his dream girl will be waiting there for him. Or perhaps he will simply let his readers discover each other. In any case, it is certain that he is aware of the very real consequences his fantasy will have. Why would he explicitly write out the coordinates of a location in close proximity to a school full of his readership, and a time in the future during which students will be in town? Use Google Maps if you don't believe me; it's fun.

The sad last panel of the comic says "wanting something doesn't make it real". But the silent message of the comic, which will be felt but not read in that playground six months from now, is that wanting something can indeed make it real.

Don't ever get Beethoven...

Don't ever get Beethoven to write a funeral march for you.

Beethoven's sonata in Ab-Dur, Op. 26, is a series of variations, the third of which is a "marcia funebre sulla morte d'un eroe" ("funeral march for the death of a hero"). It commences with the same flavor as Chopin's well-known funeral march: The melody is played by quadruple chords in the bass clef which simultaneously beat out the plodding rhythym. The melody moves very little, conveying a great solemnity. There is considerable dynamic variation which allows for pathetic expression. In short, it's a perfect funeral march.

Then comes the middle section of the march, and the sad, stately melody is swept aside by what can best be described as a clown frolick. There are these playful alternating thirty-second notes in major key, and they are answered with a comical high-pitched two-note retort. "Nananana-nananana-nananana-nananana-na -- wah wah!!" This is exactly the sort of thing Bugs Bunny would dance to while performing hi-jinks.

After this inexplicable interlude, the sonata returns to the funereal theme and concludes the movement. Wotta guy, that Beethoven.