Wick and the Cricket

[Wick]

Far from the pub, on the outskirts of town, a path winds its way into the hills overlooking the lights of the city below. The path terminates on top of a high hill, where several massive flat rocks gather warmth from the sun by day and release the warmth by night. A spring of cool water issues from beneath one of these rocks, giving rise to the pleasant music of water bubbling up from the earth and spilling down a narrow bed of smooth stones. Quaking aspen trees, rustling in the darkness, gather around the spring, where watercress and peppergrass grow in profusion.

It was to this place Wick resorted to sit in the moonlight and open the bamboo cage. It was his intent, to converse with the cricket, to establish once and for all whether the human race was free or not. He needed to know. It was a matter of conscience.

Softly, he crooned the words of his song to the bamboo cage. “Anything your heart desires will come to you.” He strained to see into the cage, but the shadows were far too deep to reveal their contents. “ I need my heart’s desire, cricket!” Wick whispered.

The speed of light troubled poor Wick. It seemed like a chain that held the whole of the human race in a spacetime thrall. Wick’s children had learned well the lessons of light speed and of relativity—a determinate universe! His children struggled with such a concept at first, but then embraced it. If the universe were determinate, if all events were ascertained at the moment of the Big Bang, then how could anyone be held responsible for their actions. The universe as a whole held responsibility for all things. There could be neither evil or good. There could only be one truth—namely exactly what was.

And while this idea seemed liberating for his children (We can do what we want! There is no law but one!! All things are lawful!!! The universe has declared it!!!!) Wick felt the pangs of sorrow and of guilt. He did not want to abdicate responsibility for his sins to the universe. He did not want to live in a universe in which all things were lawful. He wanted to live in a universe of limits…a universe that held its occupants accountable for the joy or the sorrow they unleashed. He hope that the cricket might lead him to such a universe.

Yet, while he was a deeply moral man, Wick was also a man of very limited intellect. Who but a fool would confiscate a cricket with the sole intent of asking the insect the greatest mystery of all? Who but a fool would actually anticipate an answer from said cricket? And who but a fool would place said cricket in a bamboo cage with gaps so wide?!

Wick bent over the cage, with the door open. “So cricket! I’m told that the determinate universe was born of two parents—the Constancy of Physical Law in All Reference Frames and the Constancy of the Speed of Light. Which of these two parents must I murder to become free of their tyrant son—the Universe? And how can I free my children, from the pretense of liberty that such a Universe offers them?”

He paused, but there was no answer…not even the occasional chirrup of cricket song inspired by the rapturous cool color of the moonlight. Only silence issued from the cage. The aspens quivered. The water chortled. But no cricket raised its voice in answer.

[labelwench]

The rider and horse stood motionless on the hill, as the man knelt in front of the cage, engrossed as he was communing with that which remained hidden within.

The red mare, responding to her rider, stepped closer to the supplicant.

....."seek not the seeker, seek rather what they sought", said the rider, by way of introduction.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Wick, like his namesake in ‘The Secret Garden’, knew nature inside and out and could communicate with all the species.

The cricket whispered in cricketese:

“Wick, you must be careful what you ask for. Do you wish that your actions of decisions not depend upon what lies before and beneath them, such as your personality, inclinations, memories, learnings and associations?”

“Well, Cricket, I’m uneasy with determinism.”

“Yes, it sounds like all is set in stone, but it really isn’t, but know that the lack of determinism would be of unfounded undetermined actions.”

“That sounds scary, too; undetermined actions would, well, have no basis behind them. Sounds like random.”

There was a silence as this other shoe dropped.

“There are some ways out of this,” the Cricket encouraged. “What do you think they are?”

“I could learn more things,” said Wick, “and then have a wider range of choices, perhaps choosing differently tomorrow than I would today; but wouldn’t that still be determined?”

“Yes, but your life would be richer. What else?”

“Use the learning by tapping into it.”

“Wouldn’t that be automatic?”

“Well, yes, but only if you also had the learning to ponder responses, for that is what is the difference between just reacting and finding a more creative solution.”

“I see. Like pausing to consider the scenarios, but isn’t that just a modicum of free will?”

“Yes, but it’s more than we might have had before. But still, we can’t really will that which does the willing, although we can still tell it to go off and solve a problem and then get back to us.”

“But all results will still be dependent on who and what we have become.”

“Yes, but is that so bad? Would you want it any other way?”

“Maybe there is some randomness in the quantum realm or simply when something happens in nature that is so close that there is no preference or determination, like 50-50?”

“Could be, but what of from then on; it still goes as it goes. However, we don’t know enough about the quantum or the brain, yet. But, what would it be that lets events not be determined? And would that mean strange ‘surprises’?”

“I can predict many reactions from people.”

“Many of us can do that, but, of course, some people are unpredictable, but I mean in a good way.”

“They just know more and get into many diverse areas.”

“True. There's learning happening again.”

“What if any one of Hitler’s ancestors did even one slight thing differently?”

“Well, if they did, and if they could have, then there would have been no Hitler.”

“Tough stuff to think about. But why shouldn’t all prior events contribute to the next?”

“I don’t have an answer for that? It is tough to ponder and I wish I knew a real way out; it’s a paradox of sorts, but we have whatever we have and that’s the main thing. Life is presented. We must deal with it; we must live it.”

[labelwench]

The red mare stood motionless and flicked her ears forward in response to the chirruping and rasping sounds coming from the man by the cage. There were two distinctly different intonations, although there only appeared to be one person. Without moving her hooves, the mare arced her elegant neck slightly. Aha, the second insect voice was coming from the cage, for as all her kind, the mare had a basic understanding of all things, although this species of insect was little known in the far north from whence they had journeyed.

The rider, greeting unrequited, sat quiet and observant upon the horse, allowing her mind to follow the thoughts of the trusted creature. There was no immediate danger here and the sight and sound of a fellow being engaged in a seemingly deep philosophical conversation with a species that she had been advised tasted like peanut butter when baked, even better if dipped in chocolate......

This was mildly intriguing. It would do no harm to wait a little longer and observe the outcome of this uncommon conversation....

[Wick]

Wick could smell a horse, somewhere behind him, perhaps even a horse and rider. There was no sense of malice in the smells that came softly on the wind, so Wick stared intently at the cricket and the moonlight that washed over the rock. He felt a little bit like someone had been putting words in his mouth.

Determinism? Could that feeling that he was being manipulated also be a sign that the universe was indeed deterministic.

And he felt a slight edge of suspicion that this cricket new about Hitler. Somehow it didn't seem right that a cricket should know about one of humankind's ugliest representatives, expecially given the fact that Hitler had died late in April of 1945. How many generations of crickets had come and gone since then? Did crickets have some kind of amazing oral tradition? Is that what they chirped about all night? Hitler? In all his days, Wick had never heard a cricket mention any dead human.

And this cricket seemed to have misunderstood.

Wick was not concerned about the kind of determinism that follows from the consequences of the past. He was fine with that. What troubled him was the structure of the universe. It wasn't so much Hitler. It was another German. It was Einstein.

"Cricket, I think were talking past one another. I'm not concerned so much about the consequences of our action. I understand that there are certain events which follow as a natural response to what has happened before. That's not what I'm talking about. That's not even what I call determinism.

"When I use the word determinism, I'm talking about the structure of spacetime, not about the formative nature of past consequences upon the present and future.

"Einstein's relativistic universe stands like a frozen river. There is no flow. Even the source of this river, the Big Bang, is frozen in place. It has its place in spacetime. That ancient singularity is still there. It exists and remains there eternal and unchanging. And if we were to go back in time, we would see it, just as it unfolded so many billions of years ago. But so to is my birth and all the things I thought were decisions, choices, freedoms. But if Einstein's universe is the true universe, then there are no decision, choices or freedoms. All we have is illusory liberty.

"I refuse to believe in such a universe. We are free! There is occasional chaos. The river is not frozen. We are in motion, cricket!"

[labelwench]

A slight shift in the wind, and in the energy of the person before her, made the mare and rider aware that their presence had been noted. They awaited an introduction, perhaps, or some further acknowledgement.

Not all beings were able to perceive them, and of those who could, not all were interested in making their acqaintance. The real/surreal aspect of spacetime was troublesome for most humans in this particular universe, although it troubled the mare not in the least.

It was she who had taught her rider about the journey, introducing an entirely new perspective to endurance riding! You just find yourself a time portal and pop on in for a look-see. Some of the finest grazing was to be found on these sojourns.....the mare's thoughts turned to her stomach....

Meanwhile, the rider was was gently reaching out with her mind, trying to get a sense of what the individual before her was contemplating.

There was a great deal of circular energy, a sense of puzzlement........, a broad central question......., with several asides....., impatience...., an affirmation of sorts! Although neither horse or rider was fluent in the language of the chirping ones, they had discovered that the energy of time and place often permited understanding on many levels, independant of language. Empathy? Telepathy? Communication without words, .....the connection between all things.....

[austintorn@aol.com]

Wick thought, What the heck am I doing talking to a cricket?

A chirp answered him that said “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Hello Cricket; how do you know so much?”

“I look back into time with a telescope; I am close to the early days. Its light is just getting here.”

“And so you saw Hitler and Einstein, too.”

“Yes, and even some ‘I Love Lucy’ episodes.”

“Do we live in a frozen river of such snapshots?”

“I don’t know, but the deep past is arriving. I just write it down.”

“Can we move?”

“It seems so, unless it is really a living film of frames.”

“What’s between and beneath the living film?”

“You are straining my brain. I just woke up.”

“Let’s take a short break from all this deep thinking. Who are your favorite poets?”

“Percy Shelley, Keats and Lord Byron, for the first explored both science and unveiled the spirit, the second enchanted the senses, and the third revealed the earth’s majesty.”

“Thus, they constitute the eternal golden braid of the romanticism of all life’s things. Any gems I might not know of?”

“Maybe, here’s a fragment by Shelley about a frozen river:”

ON KEATS,
WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB
SHOULD BE INSCRIBED--

'Here lieth One whose name was writ on water.

But, ere the breath that could erase it blew,
Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter,
Death, the immortalizing winter, flew
Athwart the stream,--and time's printless torrent grew
A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name
Of Adonais!

[Wick]

Wick was getting impatient with the cricket.

A telescope that sees into some human past? The cricket would have to be a might smaller for something like that to work...not to mention that light would have to be a might slower.

He jumped from the rock to think for a moment, plucked up a few nice bundles of alfalfa for the horse and a handful of watercress for the rider. He wasn't sure the rider would like watercress...but that was all he had.
The alfalfa and watercress, he placed on the rock, reserving a few sprigs of watercress for himself, then returned to the cricket.

"Show me your telescope, cricket."

The cricket looked sheepish.

"Well, I...I...I...I don't have it with me. I..."

"Didn't think so."

"Well, I..."

"Don't have such a telescope, do you, cricket?"

"Well...no...but telescopes do look into the past."

"Yes but not to earth's past, silly cricket. You'd have to be half way across the universe to see earth's past."

The cricket's eyes darted from the moon, to the watercress, to the penetrating eyes of Wick, and back to the moon again. His nervous wings twitched, producing a high pitched squeak that sounded to Wick curiously like cricket flatulence.

"You saw the "I Love Lucy" episodes at the pub, didn't you. And all this stuff about Hitler and Einstein, your just twittering back snatches of conversatiion you've heard from Robert and Leskey and the others. Come on cricket...come clean..."

"All right there's no telescope...."

"And the "I Love Lucy---?"

"Pub television..."

"And the Einstein...?"

"Max and David...and Farsight...and..."

"And Hitler...?"

"A copy of "Mein Kampf" someone threw into the blackberry bushes at the bottom of the hill..."

"You mean you can read German!!" Wicket was dumbfounded. "And the poets..."

"It's amazing the snatches of poetry you hear when an eclectic bunch of toequesters over do it on the whiskey... Take Austin, for example..."

"So basically nothing you've said so far is true...?"

"Well I wouldn't..."

"Some conscience!!" Wick was a bit irritated. "Let me tell you something about light...`"

A sound of hooves on the turf caused Wick to turn his head slightly... the horse smell was growing stronger...the mare approached.

[Wick]

He felt no malice from the approaching mare and rider, and now he was fairly certain the rider liked watercress, so he continued his conversation with the cricket, this time in English:

"So you understand English as well?"

"Yes English and German, a little Russian..."

"Can you speak those languages, too?"

"Certainly, my observations at the pub have taught me a great deal!"

"Good, chirping in your language is murder on my lips and its beginning to cause a facial tick in my left eye. Besides I suspect two others are about to join us. I only hope the horse speaks English as well as you do."

"Now, as I was saying, just because light comes to us from the past bringing information about something observed "back then" need not imply that the universe is determinate. Light is only information. It is not the person or thing observed. It is only a signal from the person or thing observed. What the observed subject choses to do from moment to moment (assuming the observed has agency) is really up to him.

"But perhap more importantly, much that goes on in the universe (very, very much) happens in the relative cover of darkness. Shall we disregard such happenings simply because no signal of light disclosed the information of that occurance to our eyes or our instruments? And setting aside those things that happened under the cover of natural darkness, we must also take into account those things that happen under the cover of an apparent unnatural darkness--the darkness associated with dark matter and dark energy--though given its relative commonness, I suspect this "unnatural darkness" is very much more natural in the observable universe than light is.

"As you probably know, it is considered a matter of fact that well over 90% of all that happens in the universe happens in the dark. Over 90% of what's real CANNOT BE OBSERVED."

The cricket pondered Wick's observation for a moment, as the smell of horse breath and bruise alfalfa drifted across the warm rock through the night air.

"So you're saying that we need to find a new constant? One that applies to everything in nature that has darkness as a natural property?"

"Yes. The velocity that we attribute to light can be blinding if we afford it more value than it's worth. We make our theories, we rest on the laurels earned by others, we create our neccesities of thought, our a priori givens, and then when the universe refuses to cough up her mysteries based upon what we consider "practically law", we build systems filled with quantum retromotion, dimensions upon dimensions, time paradoxes and quantum foam--the "epicycles" and "eccentrics" of our current theories are every bit as prevalent today as they were back when we believed in Ptolemy's geocentric universe.

"Perhaps the so-called speed of light is not worth the interferometer it was measured with! This is certainly true if we fail to understand what that mysterious velocity means.

"If light appears to propogate at a constant velocity in relation to all other objects in the universe then one of two things is true. Either light is indeed moving in this mysterious way, or the universe is moving in relation to the light.

"We have not even begun to consider the second possiblility. We marched pell mell into the first possibility because we couldn't bring ourselves to consider that perhaps, just perhaps, the universe is moving!! That there is a spatial axis along which the universe is moving which we have not yet observed or intuited--an orbit of sorts, through a space greater than the one we have heretofore imagined.

"Now if I have properly sensed the thoughts of the horse and rider behind me, they are both of the opinion that time is a navigable medium. But if I am right and the universe is moving, time is no more a navigable medium than is a warm rock or mouthful of watercress. If they are right, then I am the same fool I always was and no harm has been done to the universe. But if I am right, then all four of us are fools together!"

[labelwench]

"An offering! This is at least a civilized place for all of the speaking in tongues".

The rider smiled at her mount's turn of phrase. For a creature that understood far more about the workings of space and time than herself, the horse was most honest and direct, particularly in matters culinary and tactile.

An interesting turn of events. The audible flow between the man and the cricket had transitioned to English, an open invitation to participate. She gave the mare permission to approach and partake of the gifts, unshod hooves making but slight impression and sound on the turf.

They were at the periphery of man and cricket, her horse keeping the rock between the beings and herself, while affording easy access to the fresh greens.

"Alfalfa! My favorite! And Nasturtiums!" The horse, so patient in other matters, lipped up a large mouthful of the grass and most of the watercress.

"Rather spicy in this place", she conveyed to her rider.

"Thanks, Caramel, I believe the cress was intended for me, but glad you're enjoying it. It may cause you a bit of grief later, but this small bit should do no harm."

"Sorry", the mare mumbled with her mouth full, "here, you want some too?" She picked up the remaining cress and turned her flexible neck back in the direction of the rider's knee.

"Quite alright. Well maybe just this sprig that you haven't managed to drool on, you intergalactic glutton. It appears that our hosts are of the opinion that we are most likely just figaments of their imagination. Which in all probability is as a good a theory as many that abound. Shall we join in, now that you have partaken of their offering on our behalf?"

Suddenly, the mare's head shot up, ears pricked forward in her "far-seeing" stance. "Sorry to eat and run, but we have to get out of here, pronto! There is a shift happening at the time portal and the others are trying to tell me something. There's something happening back on our resident timeline. Hang on!"

"But can we find this place, these beings again?!", the rider asked the horse.

"I knew you'd ask, as intrigued as you are by such mysteries! I've already tagged their thought patterns. Unless they actively seek to avoid detection, we'll be able to rejoin them. Aren't I a good horse?"

"Simply the best, Caramel."

As her horse performed a 180 degree rollback, and accelerated to 40 km/hr in three strides, the rider gave a wave and a nod to the man and the cricket.

"Thank you, and I'll be back", she said, before they were lost to view.