Sci Phi: Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy
Sci Phi Productions
Copyright © 2008 Sci Phi Productions
NOTICE : This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License 3.0
“So why are you tying up this part of the cyclotron? I have no problem with particle interaction research; in fact I support it whole-heartedly. But it sounds like what you’re doing is gibberish. In the meantime I could be using the pion generator to treat more of my cancer patients.”
“People who have cancer have it because they’ve decided they should have it.”
“How’s that?”
“Reality isn’t imposed on us, we create it ourselves. People who have cancer know, consciously or subconsciously, that there are important lessons that they can only learn from having cancer.”
“Well, I thought I’d heard all the possible kinds of bullshit in my 63 years. ”
“It’s not bullshit. I can prove it and I will; with the pion – Iodine 131 interaction.”
“Again I say, you’re experiment is gibberish.”
“That’s the whole point. I 131 is radioactive you see.”
“I know that. I’ve scanned and treated dozens of thyroid patients with it.”
“Well, the half-life is known very precisely. Also, it’s very well known that the half-life of macroscopic amounts of Iodine isn’t affected by passing pions right through a sample of it. The point is, because it’s so well known and so obvious; if I can affect the half-life in this manner, it must mean I did so by affecting the nature of reality. Also I’ll have done it in specific controlled, measured conditions that others can’t deny. Because what I’m doing is known to be impossible, it will prove that I’ve changed reality by willing it. There wouldn’t have been any other way for it to have happened.”
“So why do you need the pion facility to do that?”
“I don’t. I could have used any particle interacting with any radionuclide interaction. I wanted to use the main portion of the cyclotron rather than just the pion wing. I needed the cyclotron though, any part of it, so I could record the interactions and anomalous half-lives in a way that the scientific community couldn’t deny. The cyclotron is the attention getter. It’s like using the Hubble telescope; you gain credibility just because you’ve used it. I could have done this in my basement in hundreds of different ways, but who would have even bothered to look at the data? I could have even willed myself a sample of Iodine with an altered half-life, but they would have just said it’s some new phenomenon that I had nothing to do with creating. But if I show them the recordings of the pion facility experiments and my target mass Iodine 131 with a 4-day half-life instead of 8, they’ll have to notice! And they won’t be able to deny my conclusions anymore. The reason I keep coming back is I need sufficient measurements to constitute a statistically significant sample. My Iodine samples are a lot smaller than I wanted. They only give me a little at a time”
“I can imagine. Why didn’t you will for the administrators to approve larger samples?”
“I could have, but I don’t like to use this ability to impose my will on others. We all have this ability to an infinite degree. Imagine what the world would be like if we spent all our time changing the nature of each other and each others wills.”
“So you’re saying that everyone’s ability to affect the nature of reality is unlimited?”
“I didn’t say that specifically. I’m saying that our ability to affect reality is limited by our ability to think up or imagine how we want to change reality, by our will and by how much our soul needs to learn.”
“So I can change the Earth so that I can have a long and healthy life eating Ho Hos and Ding Dongs and not exercising?”
“Why do people like you always try to make a mockery of this? I’ll be working on proving something astounding tomorrow. You’ll still be stuck in your job, thinking you’re treating people for diseases they willed on themselves. If they get better, it’s because they decided to, not because of anything you’ve done.”
“I’m part way through treating an eight month old baby with liver cancer. Are you saying someone that young willed herself cancer?”
“Our will is independent of age or education.”
“Why don’t you change the nature of reality so we don’t have cancer anymore? Then I’ll stop harping on you and the administration about wasted pion beam time.”
“It’s not my place to impose my will about cancer on those who’s souls think they need to learn from it.”
“Well I impose my will on cancer all the time. None of my patient’s souls have given me any grief on it.”
“That’s your choice and their choice. I could change the nature of that as well, but as I said, I don’t feel it’s my place to.”
“Okay, I’ll tell you what. I’ll try an experiment myself. I’m about to attempt to affect the nature of the whole universe. Um, do I have to hold my head like this or anything?”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Okay. I’m changing the nature of the universe. Here I go. I’m changing it... so that no one has the ability to change the nature of reality anymore... Sorry if that screws up your experiment.”
“You’re a real jerk, you know that?”
End