Newtonian concept of point mass was unseated. Cartesian analyses of space and time, however extravagant and non-Euclidean, became passé. Impenetrability of matter, conservation and symmetry laws of all stripes were superseded. The experimental method itself—repeatability, parsimony, falsifiability, the null hypothesis—instant atavisms.
We were like primitives whose coconut currency became suddenly worthless alongside the explorers’ dubloons. There were suicides in those days. Is there a person here now who has not been touched by one? People discovered they were part of a transcat and lost the will to go on.
Who understood this first? The scientists? No. It was the mystics, and in particular the Buddhist mystics, whose codified insights had prefigured and inspired cosmologists and quantum physicists even before the Anomaly. It was natural then that the language and culture of our Western civilization should have become permeated with Buddhist language and ideology—the ideology of non-dual logic, of non-substantiality, of unlimited spacio-temporal extent in which humanity was one small, basically vacuous element. The fertilization of science by Buddhism, catalyzed by the contact with transcats, led to thetechnologies of Cityfication: hypostasis and hypodynamics.
It is now generally conceded that the initial attempts to apply transcat science to the population question were deficient in fundamental ways. Interpenetrating space-time has been at best a partial solution. No one would submit to suburban life today unless he or she had already been placed there. Mutual occupation of space-time, somatic overlapping and the like, are ineffective without ego-loss.
Only look at the suburbs. The same frictions eventuate, the same centripetal forces of psychology that have always created tensions, crime, war, and mass suffering. No one doubts this today. We have gone past that. Mere stacking, however dense, will never serve. With the risk of sounding trite, I say again, that ‘to enter the City, you have to get rid of the idea of self-gain.’
FROM THE FLOOR: What about love? This is relevant. When you love somebody, their gain is yours, but you haven’t lost your own self. And what about Doubt Mass? Without Doubt Mass, won’t a City stagnate?
Kindly refrain from interrupting, madam, or I shall be compelled to ask the bailiff to escort you to the door. We are conducting this meeting in conventional 3-space to make it accessible to the general public; however, we shall compact, or dyne and stat, to finish our business, if we see privileges being abused. As to love, however, Doubt Mass, and the rest, they are well and good for the unenlightened, but the true Cityzen sees them to be vacuous. There is no room for such egoistic phenomena in our City.
* * *
“I think I was at that meeting.” Big Man squinted to remember. “That was a long time ago, though.” He shook his head. “I hate torching my brains over gone shit.”
Tenacity, who had been watching Big Man’s reaction with great interest, looked disappointed. “Yeah, just like you’re supposed to,” he mumbled.
“What’s up, Tenacity?” No Mind asked him.
“It so happens the ideer of love wasn’t completely left out, back at the beginning of the City. They shooed it out later on—love, passion, Doubt Mass, all that juice. I got a sort of brother who’s the turnstile at Control—he knows City business, butt and smacker. They statted all them berzerker scats into one skinbag and hooted him into the hicks.”
No Mind was troubled. His mind became opaque. His Voice pounded on smoked, doubled glass; he didn’t hear. “So he’s out here somewhere, this hypostat? In the world?”
“Yeah, in the world, in the Saha World,” drawled Tenacity.
“Whoever that is must be desperate to get in, to be whole again,” No Mind said. “Whoever that is must have Doubt Mass like a mountain.”
Big Man said, “Is it you, No Mind?”
“No”—suddenly
We were like primitives whose coconut currency became suddenly worthless alongside the explorers’ dubloons. There were suicides in those days. Is there a person here now who has not been touched by one? People discovered they were part of a transcat and lost the will to go on.
Who understood this first? The scientists? No. It was the mystics, and in particular the Buddhist mystics, whose codified insights had prefigured and inspired cosmologists and quantum physicists even before the Anomaly. It was natural then that the language and culture of our Western civilization should have become permeated with Buddhist language and ideology—the ideology of non-dual logic, of non-substantiality, of unlimited spacio-temporal extent in which humanity was one small, basically vacuous element. The fertilization of science by Buddhism, catalyzed by the contact with transcats, led to thetechnologies of Cityfication: hypostasis and hypodynamics.
It is now generally conceded that the initial attempts to apply transcat science to the population question were deficient in fundamental ways. Interpenetrating space-time has been at best a partial solution. No one would submit to suburban life today unless he or she had already been placed there. Mutual occupation of space-time, somatic overlapping and the like, are ineffective without ego-loss.
Only look at the suburbs. The same frictions eventuate, the same centripetal forces of psychology that have always created tensions, crime, war, and mass suffering. No one doubts this today. We have gone past that. Mere stacking, however dense, will never serve. With the risk of sounding trite, I say again, that ‘to enter the City, you have to get rid of the idea of self-gain.’
FROM THE FLOOR: What about love? This is relevant. When you love somebody, their gain is yours, but you haven’t lost your own self. And what about Doubt Mass? Without Doubt Mass, won’t a City stagnate?
Kindly refrain from interrupting, madam, or I shall be compelled to ask the bailiff to escort you to the door. We are conducting this meeting in conventional 3-space to make it accessible to the general public; however, we shall compact, or dyne and stat, to finish our business, if we see privileges being abused. As to love, however, Doubt Mass, and the rest, they are well and good for the unenlightened, but the true Cityzen sees them to be vacuous. There is no room for such egoistic phenomena in our City.
* * *
“I think I was at that meeting.” Big Man squinted to remember. “That was a long time ago, though.” He shook his head. “I hate torching my brains over gone shit.”
Tenacity, who had been watching Big Man’s reaction with great interest, looked disappointed. “Yeah, just like you’re supposed to,” he mumbled.
“What’s up, Tenacity?” No Mind asked him.
“It so happens the ideer of love wasn’t completely left out, back at the beginning of the City. They shooed it out later on—love, passion, Doubt Mass, all that juice. I got a sort of brother who’s the turnstile at Control—he knows City business, butt and smacker. They statted all them berzerker scats into one skinbag and hooted him into the hicks.”
No Mind was troubled. His mind became opaque. His Voice pounded on smoked, doubled glass; he didn’t hear. “So he’s out here somewhere, this hypostat? In the world?”
“Yeah, in the world, in the Saha World,” drawled Tenacity.
“Whoever that is must be desperate to get in, to be whole again,” No Mind said. “Whoever that is must have Doubt Mass like a mountain.”
Big Man said, “Is it you, No Mind?”
“No”—suddenly
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