Oscillation

There was chaos in the convention center.

The First Annual Meeting of the Deconstructive Postmodern Surridealist Society was in a full-blown uproar. Scientists and artists were shouting at each other. Zealots championing various theologies were each heatedly outlining how history demonstrated the truth of their faith over the others. Philosophers were squabbling with poets over semantics.

“Everyone, please, be calm,” pleaded Albert Einstein, slamming his gavel down repeatedly upon the podium. As he pushed his mouth closer to the microphone, the feedback squealed through the hall. “Please, let us discuss the issues at hand.”

The commotion died down. Einstein stared out at the crowd. His white hair flowed backwards as if it was being pulled by some electrostatic charge. The wrinkles across his forehead weighed down his expression, amplifying its sadness. His mouth barely seemed to move beneath his moustache. “Please, we do not accomplish anything by hostility. We must maintain our focus on the issues.”

“That’s preposterous,” bellowed Sir Isaac Newton from among the crowd. “We can’t even agree upon what the issues are.” Newton, it seemed, was still a tad bitter that his laws of gravity had been proven insufficient by relativity.

Einstein sighed and began shaking his head, feeling despondent. It was Lao-Tse who came to his rescue. “Yes, we can, my friend,” he told Newton. The withered Chinaman spoke slowly, as if the pacing of his syllables would cement the authenticity of his wisdom. “We all look at many different issues. But in the end, we seek one path. That is our goal. To find what that one path is. As humans, we have thrown the world out of balance. And we must find that balance again.”

No one was surprised when Ayn Rand stood up and cleared her throat. “With all due respect,” she began, “why is it that we should believe there is any sort of universal balance in the first place that has been disturbed? What evidence do we have that some supernatural force has put us all here on some path that we are supposed to follow?”

“In response,” said Lao-Tse, “ I would ask, ‘How is it that you are here in this room?’ ”

“How can you answer a question with another question?” Rand retorted, obviously agitated.

“But isn’t that what you just did?” Lao-Tse replied.

“Look here, you mystical little…”

She was interrupted by Einstein slamming his gavel again.

While the gavel was still incessantly smacking against the wood of the podium, Jim Morrison took a swig from his beer bottle and offered, “Hey, I think what my man Low here is trying to say—”

“Lao,” Lao-Tse corrected.

Morrison was oblivious. “—is that people need Connectors. People need Writers, Heroes, Stars, Leaders, to give life form.”

“No, actually that is not what I’m trying to say Jim,” Lao-Tse interrupted.

“Shit man, I’m just trying to help you out.” Morrison smashed his half-full bottle to the ground, much to the disgruntlement of Soren Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard, wiping splatters of Morrison’s beer off himself, muttered, “I can see that you will be stuck at the Aesthetic Stage for eternity.”

The crowd began to bicker amongst themselves again, and Einstein had decided to give up. He put the gavel down and took his seat, burying his face in his hands. It was at this point that an old man no one recognized stepped up to the podium. He was an incongruous figure, dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, where everyone else was in suits. He cleared his throat and began to speak. “I think I can help.”

The crowd was somewhat stunned by the audacity of the interloper. Some were disdainful, some were curious as to who he was. But everyone was listening to him.

“Concerning Taoism, you all know its symbol of Yin and Yang. Two swirling shapes, black and white, the ultimate representation of any two opposite forces we can think of—man and woman, day and night, matter and anti-matter, and so on. Besides this, they suggest the idea of balance. And, swirling as they are, they represent a self-contained motion.

“Now, let’s look at quantum mechanics. A complicated subject, but the whole thing boils down to the fact everything is both a particle and a wave. It’s an interesting dichotomy. And, as I’m sure you know, a wave oscillates.”

A tide of murmurs came from the crowd. They seemed to think they knew where he was going with this. The anonymous stranger gave a slight smile and continued.

“When you think about it, quantum duality is kind of a metaphor for being human: a person is both rational and emotional. Which leads us back to the Taoist idea of Yin and Yang. But there’s a problem with Taoism. It advocates balance. That balance is akin to a state of equilibrium in physics. And I would like to point out that when the universe reaches its state of final equilibrium, that means it will be useless. Thermodynamics tells us that entropy will always increase, which means that at the end of the universe, there will be no fuel left to do anything. All matter will be at the same temperature, and the only activity will be in the random oscillations of atoms, forever swirling around themselves in the pointless motions of Yin and Yang. We don’t have to seek the path to balance. That’s where all paths already go. It’s just that enlightenment needs to be redefined as non-existence.

“Taoists say that humans put nature out of balance. This also is analogous to the way that humans affect the quantum world. Another fact of quantum mechanics is that anytime you observe anything, you alter it. There is no way to examine anything without changing what you are examining. So, the only way to keep anything in a state of unperturbed equilibrium is for there to be no observers. No us.”

The murmurs were now louder. Many were obviously in disagreement with the old man’s presentation of reality, but he kept on.

“We can accept that entropy has doomed the universe to a worthless state of existence. Or, we can try to knock the oscillation out of balance even farther than we can hope is possible to break that cycle of Yin and Yang.”

Someone from the back of the room yelled, “And why should anyone accept your theory over anyone else’s?”

“Because if I’m wrong, something better will happen at the end of the universe anyways. And if I’m right, we won’t get a second chance.”

There was a sudden, uncomfortable silence. The old man put his hat on, turned away from the podium and walked out the door. Einstein and several others followed him out, bewildered. As the stranger entered the tunnel which connected the convention center to the hotel, Einstein asked him, “Who are you?”

The old man didn’t turn around. “I’m a temporary Solipsist. Which means you all probably are products of my imagination. So I may as well go to the hotel bar and have a drink while I believe it’s still there.”