The Spell of Ai.....
chapter 5: Ai and the Many Worlds
Tu-pi (too’ pe), n., pl. -pis. (esp. collectively) -pi. 1. a member of any of several related Indian peoples living in the valleys of various Brazilian rivers, esp. the Amazon. 2. a language belonging to the Tupi-Guarani family of languages and spoken in northern Brazil by the Tupi Indians. Also, Tu-pi’. —Tu-pi’an, adj. Random House
The word ai is associated with these languages; although whether Ai the name originates there is unknown. Compounded with migration and cultural/linguistic changes over time, origin is more the beguiling. Histories are largely given by oration; names are spoken; spellings occur only by written language and are changeable.
What is certain is the name, passed along generationally father to son for who knows how long, how far back. We might find Ai by pulling back the curtain of time; living in a world of ice, negotiating his world among great beasts of prey, gathering with his kin among the safety of the fires speaking the tongues of his spirit world; working out the naming and creating cooperative language.
The Quantum Revolution in ways bears out what our early ancestors certainly knew; that the world of the Three Toed Sloth is not the world of Ai any more than the world of Ai is the world of the Three Toed Sloth. There are many worlds.
The Strange and Unusual thing about The Many Worlds is the relevance it receives; it seems to have travelled along with us through time farther back than any of us knows. The Many Worlds is spoken of in every language in every culture in all of history. Every religion speaks of a world or worlds other than the one we currently occupy.
Nature will always seek a balance.
The overwhelming possibilities in The Many Worlds might be too terrifying to contemplate; maybe that’s why we create taboos around such discussions; a survival tactic which says all-knowing genius is the door next to madness, and not a thing to aspire to. Or maybe because we can only inhabit one world at a time.
And yet:
The guides into The Many Worlds are everywhere; when Bob Barker ushers you into his arena in Let’s Make a Deal the host invites you to choose any door behind which lies a new and unknown world only to be imagined - until you choose. Once chosen we discover, alas, that world is not at all hard to imagine. The thing we overlook is the relationship between ourselves and the world we are choosing; the observer and the observed are one and the same even in the unknown. Does Bob know what lies behind the door you are choosing? We don’t know. Someone must, right? But how do we even know if Bob is Bob or for that matter if any of it is real? We only know what is behind the door after it is revealed - and then it is what it is.
An illusion: only the same one nature confronts us with. The Many Worlds we live within and are part and parcel to; the impossible variability of it all and the fear of the unknown. Not necessarily the object that we fear, or the consequences of our decisions, but it is the portal that is the nature of our fear.
Piercing the Vail of Illusion…
The Sophist:
Trapped in my own sophism, all of this can be construed as specious argument, and it would be so. In this instance the author just likes rows of words and has a farm to feed.
This is entertainment - not indoctrination.
There can be no compelling argument for injecting this garbage into a population; except for the struggle to obtain resources. Nature is objective in the extreme; we all know that instinctively. We invent ways to obtain what we need for survival; nothing wrong with that.
The Sophist is another character in The Many Worlds arena, another metaphor of my invention, and why not? The metaphor is useful if we realize that it is everywhere, selling us cars, boats, food and resources of all kinds. Why the worlds of possibility The Sophist displays before us is dizzying.
That would be enough if it were all The Sophist offers - it is only the beginning: the Gourmand wears the robe as well and its’ specious argument taxes our resources. The Sophist wears many robes: Artist, Performer, Faith Leader, President, Merchant; an endless list of characters, some of them arguing for the good of all, some of them not so much. Are these worlds real or not? If they’re not, then they wouldn’t be.
The best that can be offered here are tools; being in the world of The Tool User, this sophist cannot perform outside of his own world. So how do we navigate The Many Worlds?
Be aware of The Sophist; ask yourself the question: is the present argument one that will nurture my world - or feed off of it?
My thoughts return to Ai, telling his story, casting his spell; only his shadow stick will never deceive - its shadow foretells the movements of the Sun.
