1.2
Post-Encounter Deposition
Brother Michael Jablonski
Prior, St. Joseph of Cupertion’s
Monastery, Luna
Of all the crew of the Summit mission, I am the only liar brazen enough to frame my encounter with the Beings as a series of Socratic dialogues or Confucian analects. If you’ll indulge me, imagine that each dialogue—short, pithy, focused on one slim topic—stands alone, and did not occur in any sort of linear order with the others. It might be more accurate to say they were simultaneous harmonies of a single tone or tune. And yet, I’ll also say that they occurred, or seemed to, in four distinct groups.
Some people find it suspicious that the Beings spoke to me about things that were important to me personally, and seemed even perhaps to be telling me just what I wanted to hear. Were I not myself the firsthand witness, I might similarly misgive. But I was there, and I know what they said. And also I am by no means the only witness for whom this is true, so in the totality of what we all believe the Beings conveyed, perhaps you will find your own truths.
As to the manner of it, I’m often asked, “Did the Beings commune telepathically?” And my answer is, that would be a poor metaphor indeed. Are emotional grunts a form of telepathy? Is pantomime? People also then inquire, “How were you able to understand one another?” And the short answer of course is that we mostly didn’t. As for the longer, more confusing answer, I’ll perhaps let the Beings speak for themselves afore I toss my own speculations in the pool.
Beings: “Hello?”
Michael: “Hello?”
Beings: “This message is a transmission.”
Michael: “I hear you.”
Beings: “So glad! So glad you could make it! This message is a transmission.”
Michael: “I hear you.”
Beings: “Amazing.”
Michael: “Is this real? Do you exist?”
Beings: “Most probably, if this is our answer.”
Michael: “Where am I? Where are you?”
Beings: “Right here, most probably. Right now, most probably.”
Michael: “ ‘Most probably’ in the quantum mechanical sense?”
Beings: “. . .”
Michael: “Like the distribution of an electron across a volume of space?”
Beings: “Um . . .”
Michael: “Are you waveforms?”
Beings: “Waveforms describe all things. Are you not a waveform?”
Michael: “Are you corporeal matter? Do you occupy a particular volume of space?”
Beings: “Yes.”
Michael: “Why can’t we see you, or touch you?”
Beings: “. . .”
Michael: “Why can we only speak to you in dreams?”
Beings: “Is this a dream? We are touching you right now.”
Beings: “Matter is energy is information: conserved. Time is space is spin: conserved.”
Michael: “Do you move through space and time?”
Beings: “Um . . .”
Michael: “How do you experience space and time?”
Beings: “. . .”
Michael: “We move through three dimensions of space. This requires energy.”
Beings: “Yes.”
Michael: “Do you move through three dimensions of space?”
Beings: “What?”
Beings: “Does it hurt?”
Michael: “What?”
Beings: “So small. Does it hurt?”
Michael: “Are you larger than we are?”
Beings: “Yes!”
Michael: “How large are you?”
Beings: “This is amazing. We are so glad you could make it.”
Michael: “Are you larger than a solar system? Is that why we had to come all the way out here to speak with you?”
Beings: “Attention is volume is duration: conserved. Can you verify?”
Michael: “I don’t understand.”
Beings: “Amazing.”
Beings: “How are you alive?”
Michael: “We consume matter to generate energy.”
Beings: “By inspection, untrue.”
Michael: “We . . . manipulate energy by increasing the entropy of chemical substances?”
Beings: “That is not an answer.”
Michael: “Well, how are you alive?”
Beings: “Attention is conserved.”
Michael: “You have limited attention?”
Beings: “. . . Yes? Attention is volume is duration.”
Michael: “Your . . . attention is limited to a volume of space?”
Beings: “Duration limits space limits attention. Attention to large volume is attention to brief duration. Attention to large duration is attention to small volume.”
Beings: “Can you attend to a larger volume?”
Michael: “With my eyes, yes. I can see objects that are light-years away.”
Beings: “That is not an answer. Can you attend to a longer duration?”
Michael: “I can remember the past. I can read books, which store information from the past. I can take measurements and deduce what happened in the past.”
Beings: “That is not an answer.”
Michael: “You see me as occupying a very small space, and attending to very small increments of time. Moment by moment.”
Beings: “Yes! Does it hurt?”
Michael: “No. Can you see the future?”
Beings: “Time is space is spin. Do you mean entropy?”
Michael: “Entropy increases over time, yes. The future has more entropy than the past.”
Beings: “Greater entropy requires greater energy for less attention.”
Michael: “So seeing the future is . . . expensive?”
Beings: “Very.”
Michael: “When you see the future, can you act on what you see, here in the present?”
Beings: “Difficult to explain.”
Michael: “That’s not a no.”
Beings: “By inspection, true.”
Michael: “Can you change the past?”
Beings: “Difficult to explain.”
Michael: “Is changing the past expensive?”
Beings: “Difficult to explain.”
Michael: “But it isn’t absolutely impossible.”
Beings: “By inspection, true.”