First Off

Reality operates under a fiercely ordered set of maths and sciences which, even when we can't sufficiently describe them, are observable in their perfect static. A belief in miracles could be allowed or even encouraged if asynchronous phenomena were observed with any degree of veracity (beyond the basic miracle that it exists in the first place, and continues, inexorably, without fucking up, unlike human endeavor.)

And so it is left to humanity (and, er, vogonity) to sow chaos into order, to the extent that we are able to subvert biology and physics, for good or ill. And yet for all of our hubris, nothing we've accomplished measures to fuck-all against the scope of this universe, let alone any cosmology allowing for the possibility of (infinite) multiple universes.

I don't like it at all.

Assuming a sentient intelligence existing in the fifth dimension (which is to say that we exist in the fourth dimension, time, unable to affect it in the manner of the other, 'lower' dimensions), we would still be incapable of recognizing it as such, being limited as we are in our fourth dimensional existence (you've read Flatland, right?). We would readily, and perhaps somewhat justly, nominate such a thing as a god, regardless of alignment or intent. Even the most warlike and misogynistic, egregiously shitheaded example of fifth dimension life could seem as a god to those of us with lowly, fourth-dimensional senses. (Faith as Stockholm syndrome: yeah, the pain and death and assrape has gotten old, but he keeps telling me he loves me and anyway, it'll all be over soon.)

And so it is left to we criminals and rudeboys and -girls to proselytize in favor of the known, the human, the fourth- dimensional base and debauched matter, the very stuffs of which we are made; to learn our country and its attendant exegeses, to know Spaceland and Flatland as thoroughly as possible, to know our universe, its constituents, and any fellow inhabitants of the fourth dimension, lest we go traipsing into (apologies to Joe Casey) Godland gullible and weak-willed, ignorant, and easily over-awed.

posted by Ian Quinn  : 5/28/2008 06:32:00 AM