QUANTUM SPACE TRAVEL
I have been contacted by alien ambassadors---or so they represented
themselves. They took me by surprise, not in mind-merge but as voices in
my head. They told me that to travel from star to star, nobody uses metal
ships. They use the 2 = 1 experience in which one mind looks out at the
world through two bodies. And where these two bodies could be located on
different planets or galaxies. All spacefaring races use mind-merge to travel
to distant worlds---they teach mind-merge to their young in kindergarten.
All space travellers prize the capacity for deep intimacy as the highest
possible form of intelligence. Most sentient beings possess no symbolic
language at all but are fluent instead in a dozen different styles of mind-merge.
Learning to be a star traveler means practicing reaching out to other minds
across the widest emotional gaps imaginable. If you wish to join the galactic
club---say the aliens---there is no better practice than reaching without
armor into the hearts of your enemies. As paradoxical as it seems, quantum
combat may be mankind's ticket to the stars.
I asked the aliens for some hints about practical ways for humans to achieve
mind-merge. They laughed and said that there are dozens of nearby alien
races who would love to teach mankind the "quantum facts of life"
but they are inhibited by a deep cultural taboo. Humans have such an undeveloped
capacity for deep intimacy that to mind-merge with us would be the alien
equivalent of the sexual molestation of children.
Aliens won't mind-merge with us but they did offer some practical advice
for Quantum Diplomats-in-training---a way of thinking that would in their
opinion optimize our chances for success in our own tentative attempts to
merge minds with other beings: "Give out what you expect to get," was their advice.
"Give out what you expect to get?" I exclaimed. "That's just
another version of our Golden Rule, isn't it?"
"Yes it is," the aliens replied, one voice speaking out of many
mouths. "Perhaps you could call it Golden Rule 2.0. It may not seem
like much to you now, but, believe Us/Them/We, to devise imaginative ways
to show off your mastery of Golden Rule 2.0 is mankind's first-class ticket
to the stars. Putting out what you expect to get back is also not a bad
way of handling non-quantum relations. But preemptive reciprocity will turn
out to be crucial when humans learn how 2 = 1 really works, when humans
actually learn to reap the consequences of the simplest and most important
equation in the universe."
In closing, I would like to thank the aliens for their help in nudging our
baby-step physics towards a radically new way of investigating this lovely
universe. I hope to meet my alien advisors again some day in deep space
where we will play/fight/copulate/study one another in the mutual unconditional
surrender of quantum combat. I wish to thank again the Nobel Prize committee
for its foresight in giving its highest award (Nick holds up Nobel medal) to this grateful grandson of Ukrainian-American
Appalachian coal miners.
And so, having opened Pandora's Box by handing out the secret of Weapon X
to every nation on Earth, I am ready to face the War Crimes Tribunal. There is no
need for handcuffs, gentlemen. We are not barbarians.
See also:
A Nobel for Nick
Stanford Grad Indicted for War Crimes
First Quantum Human Sighted
Jabir Proposes Middle East Peace Plan
Jabir's Final Solution for Peace in Palestine
Weapon X--the Ultimate Atrocity