Human history is full of true stories in which the people in a
small village or a small island suddenly discover that their fate depends on
larger struggles which they know nothing about, totally different from the fuzzy
myths and dreams of their people, where they don’t even know which side is good
for their people and which is bad – or what is important to the struggle.
We today on this tiny planet we call Earth or Terra do not know
what we do not know, by definition. But because we are ignorant, it is good
that we consider a DIVERSITY of different science fiction stories. Here I will
offer you one of those, ONLY ONE of many possible stories, because even though
it is not likely to be true, it raises interesting questions. (It is certainly
more likely to be true than the Caliphate or Koch or Social Progressive or Old
Mao story in which the good guys totally, firmly take over the world, rule it
the right way by following old catechisms and we all live happily ever after!!)
It is related to a well-written story in the edited book Far Futures https://www.amazon.com/Far-Futures-Gregory-Benford/dp/0312863799/.
In that other story, the vast computer intelligence assigned to
manage this solar system on behalf of the larger galactic system is named “Gaea.”
Here I would use the term “Solaris” because it is the whole solar system, and
not a story about genders or old Greek myths.
Solaris has the full powers of the highest levels of quantum
intelligence. Life on earth as we see it is not just a computer simulation (as
in the Far Futures story), but it is just an assemblage of “possible universes”
in the larger “multiverse.” Earth as WE experience it is just one big “macroscopic
Schrodinger cat.” Our brains cannot directly see the sister universes next to
us, because they do not possess quantum intelligence, but Solaris can. Because
quantum mechanics is ultimately symmetric with respect to time, Solaris has the
power to “change the past” by exchanging information and doing things which end
up dissolving whole “universes”, not by filling them with disorder but by
lowering their probability strength such that they fade away into nonexistence.
It also has limited ability to exchange information in two directions with
human brains, in most cases by diffuse actions of low density but large impact
because of the huge volume of space they affect.
The story begins near the end of the Hilary Clinton Presidency,
when things did not work out. In fact, the “end” is such a disaster that the
human species seems likely to self-destruct altogether, and Solaris cannot
accept that. But what to do? There were two obvious choices: to undo her
election, and create a Trump universe, or go back further, and create a McCain
universe. Since the backwards time capability would be there still in a Trump
universe, the decision was made to create a Trump universe, allow the Hilary
universe to fade away into nonexistence (like a virtual particle far from its
source, a kind of time loop), and then let the Trump universe decide whether
the trends are still fatal.
Then in 2018 it all hits the fan, here and
now. Solaris can hold back the worst fatal climate change (death by H2S) by suddenly turning down the
thermostat of the sun itself for a few decades, but cannot continue it much
more than that. The swamp and the Caliphate go nuts, and overwhelm chances of
survival. The decision is made by Solaris to go back in time and make McCain
President… and to dissolve our entire “universe” into nonexistence.
The main question would then become: what should WE do, we tiny
creatures caught in a universe about to dissolve?
Nothing we do to build the economy or build anything tangible
and physical matters at all, since they are going to dissolve into nothingness.
(Hard to imagine? Well, it really happens to photons in our labs, and studying
photons across space-time can help clarify what this means.)
The only really useful thing we can do in that case is to develop
and pass on information which, by way of Solaris, might be useful to people in
the new McCain universe (including the alternate versions of ourselves). But what
could that be? Warn that other McCain about the swamp? New technology or
science? How would Solaris’s own knowledge play out?
Just questions, hypothetical questions, not answers. Even this
story would be more plausible with more details factored in, but I am no good
in writing longer stories people enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment