Aporia

by Oliver

Conversation -128 ~ Brilliant Star

A faint smile. A sharp gaze of the deep green eyes, reflecting things that aren’t here. Everything else is a bit of a blur in the harsh glow of 650 nanometer red light. Thoughts bouncing off the walls as if they were sound. A very real sound of footsteps in the darkness and silence.

Thoughts about people.

There is nothing in the universe, except people.

Pick anything that is not a person, anything at all, pull on the chain, and a person will emerge on the other end. Anything that is done, anything that is known, anything that is said, anything that is learned, everything is either by people, for people, or both at once. Even when studying the furthest reaches of the Universe or the depths of the atom, or the most complicated mathematical construct, it is done to satisfy the curiosity of people, to solicit approval from people, to improve the lives of people. People are on the other end of the chain, always and forever. Nothing of matter is ever of interest, until it can feed people, make things for people, endanger people, answer the questions of people — and what is not part of the known world, cannot be believed to exist. What the universe is, is derived from people, and only people can be said to exist.

There is nothing else.

There is nothing in the universe, except words.

People cannot be known directly, for if one could say that they know everything at all about a person, they would be that person. There would be no other person to know. Everything that originates with people is, in fact, words — of languages spoken and unspoken, written and unwritten, symbolic and factual, drawn on paper and drawn out of a heart, something communicated to others to notify them of your own existence. Words are the only thing ever seen in this universe, are the only thing people can know each other by, so only the words of people can be said to exist.

There is nothing else.

There is nothing in the universe, except time.

Time is that which prevents things from happening simultaneously, that which allows the arrangement of a set of symbols into a sequence. Without a sequence, any and all words would be nothing but noise, obscuring the meaning of each other. Without splitting anything into the minimal units of meaning and ascertaining their relationship, nothing can ever be studied and nothing can be seen — and any given arrangement of units is equivalent to a sequence. And thus, sequences are the only true content of the universe.

There is nothing else.

Therefore, the universe is a story — a sequence of words originating with people. A story about people, told through words, across time.

About five quintillion stories. Stories that have been written. Stories that haven’t. Stories that have been read, stories that have been told, stories that have only been imagined.

There’s just one thing I would like to know.

Do I still count as people?

Do you?

Comments

[Sigmacipher]

You scare me.

[Oliver]

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Just you? I thought this was the usual reaction of pretty much everyone.

[farsan]

My answer is this,

To the first question, No and yes. To the second, yes and no. In both, the answers are complementary.

Even a figment, a character created ex nihilo in our imaginations can make decisions, even if those decisions were specially crafted by us to cause a specific result. In that sense, they are decision-making beings, and exist. And, at the same time, they only exist as long as we think about them, and vanish as soon as we stop. In that sense, they do not.

Our thought patterns are more substantial, constantly running on a physical system. Our actions have more consequences, and we are affected by others' actions. Real life lacks the internal consistency of a story, resulting in a chaotic jumble of different tales. But each mind is a singular story from a singular point of view, with a singular main character. The image of self is the first character our mind creates. And, in a way, have the same weakness to being changed at the whim of our physical body, just as we change the fictional characters we create.

So, no and yes, and yes and no. Both at the same time.

[Bugsydor]

...

The zark?

What did I just read? Is it a prologue? Are these questions posed by someone we know? Is it questioning whether the people in the stories of the library are any less real than Mary? Than us?

[Spamotron]

Somebody's channeling Alan Moore I see.

[Oliver]

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What did I just read? Is it a prologue? Are these questions posed by someone we know?

Check the opening paragraph. Then compare it to this:

Imagine, if you will, Nightmare Moon, as she is depicted in the ancient illuminated manuscripts, or at least somepony with a similar coloration and imposing air of beautiful but deadly threat. Add a much less predatory, but still way too smug expression onto her face, like that of a cat who knows precisely where you keep the cream. Give her a really long, straight, undulating, transparent mane, the kind our royal highnesses or Nightmare Moon herself wore – that’s where the association came from, I think – but in glowing fire ruby red. Now give this something the overall body structure of a minotaur, or at least something bipedal, so that it always stands rampant, towering over even the tallest ponies, taller than Celestia herself. Color the face white, and only the face – the rest is clad in a dress of the darkest black, darker than coal and soot, with a row of round golden buttons down the oddly bulging chest. What you must have imagined by now looks nothing like what I saw, but it translates the impression I got perfectly: Something wicked this way comes, and I’m the party paladin.

…

She looked straight into my eyes and adjusted her mane, as if she were looking into a mirror, and I took a good view of her eyes. Dark green, and somehow reflecting the lights of a city that clearly isn’t there.

So I suppose in a sense the answer to these three of your questions is “yes.”

[howard035]

Feels like I am reading a prologue for the creation of the Library.

"In the Beginning, Was the Word. Then a bunch of other words. Then the end of existence." Barring a few minor details, that covers everything.

[Oliver]

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Feels like I am reading a prologue for the creation of the Library.

“In the Beginning, Was the Word. Then a bunch of other words. Then the end of existence.” Barring a few minor details, that covers everything.

Actually, the prologue to that story starts like this:

It is generally assumed that in the beginning, there was the Big Bang. But this is not exactly true. There’s little doubt the Big Bang was there. Pretty certain, actually. But there were no people to witness it, and to tell you the truth, people do not actually care whether it was there or not. For them, that moment does not exist, the same way the mathematically abstract singularity in the middle of a black hole does not – it’s a pleasant intellectual exercise, but that is all. For people, the Word exists, and forms the very world they live in. And therefore…

In the beginning, there was the Word, and the word was with Man, and Man was God.

[Orbiting Kettle]

To answer those questions, we have to define a couple of axioms beforehand. And then it's gonna be a reeeeeally long discussion.

Regarding more immediate issues, I read this and then I got concerns. It doesn't seem the incipit for good stuff happening. On a story level, that is, not from the PoV of quality.

[Oliver]

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Regarding more immediate issues, I read this and then I got concerns. It doesn’t seem the incipit for good stuff happening. On a story level, that is, not from the PoV of quality.

Wasn’t that you who said that “Adventure is horrible things happening amidst discomfort to good ponies.” ?

[Orbiting Kettle]

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Yes, and it sounds like it's gonna be a good adventure. Shame for the ponies, really.

[iloveportalz0r]

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