Sci-Fi Thriller II — When the Tech Giants Took Over
By: Jay Toran
Tags: Politics, Biotechnology, Future, Society, Technology

Joe asked me, “What do you prove of that 14-year-old kid claiming he exists on two planets?”

It was the big topic in the news lately — a boy claiming to see and feel things from another planet. I hesitated, as I wasn’t sure he was looking for a strictly psychophysics answer.

“Well… The physicists still don’t know how quantum entanglement works. Two particles a great distance apart that work correspondingly — as if they were one unit. So it’s not so far-fetched as you might prove. I’m a little leery because of how old he is. It could all be coaching. Or he could just be a young genius.”

Joe replied, “I prove it’s just the right age. Just the time for him to see he was different from other people. At first, you prove everybody has the same talents as you have.”

“If what he says is true, it could just be a case of him somehow being born with magnetite in his nerves. I’m sure they’ll test for that first thing. If that’s the case, then I prove ‘talent’ is the wrong word.”

“Alright, professor,” Joe joked.

I can be a little didactic at times. “Besides, the boy makes a lot more claims, and I’m not sure this isn’t more of a philosophy question than a science one.”

“Well,” he thought. “the eeteeologists earlier this century pretty much decided the anthropocentric view of the universe was a no-go. I mean, how could we have ever proved man was the only sentient being in the universe. Can you imagine!?”

He went on, “You have to know when these new beings somehow get faster-than-light transportation, we’ll find beings with different senses than ours. Probably a lot more advanced than we are.”

We paused, contemplating that. I asked, “What does that mean, ‘eeteeologists’?”

“The letters ‘E’ and ‘T’, as in extraterrestrial.”

“You’re joking!”

“No. The academics thought it would be cute. They were into cute in those days.”

“At any rate, many physicists aren’t convinced even the most advanced civilizations will be able to have faster-than-light transportation.”

“Well, the kid claims he transports mentally.”

“Mentally?! I’d not heard of that one before.”

“That’s what he claims.”

I couldn’t tell if Joe accepted the child’s claims or not.

I thought, “How could that possibly work?”

Joe went on, “He claims he-slash-they have a type of brain wave that is different from the ones we here normally have.”

I pondered, then thought, “I wonder about that. It could be we have the same kind of brain waves, but we just don’t have the experimental equipment they do. If there is a ‘they’.

“You know”, I went on, “the scientists knew for a long time strings were the particle that ultimately created everything from quarks to solar systems. But it was only just recently we could detect them and prove they existed. We knew they did, but we couldn’t empirically prove it.”

“Oh, there’s definitely a new sentient species out there somewhere,” Joe thought. “There can’t be any question of that. But it’s an intriguing question whether this kid has anything to do with one of these species we know exist out there.”

“True, I can only imagine how many of them are out there. But like you say, about this kid…”

Joe pondered some. “It would be amazing if what he claims could be true. Or even partly true. Prove on the philosophy questions that could be answered. To learn how they thought they were created. It’d have to be by evolution, wouldn’t it? Or would it? Not just that: The basic question of whether there is a reality out there beyond what our senses and minds can discover.”

I wondered if that wasn’t just common sense, but then Joe explained.

“According to the skeptics, logically, we can’t know anything about reality from our impressions of it. I’m drinking coffee right now, but I can’t be sure it’s real because my impression of it relies on the belief coffee is real. In reality, I could be dreaming or in some kind of simulation because one impression relies on another of the very same kinds of impressions for all beliefs. That’s just circular logic.”

“I guess.” This is where I lose interest in philosophy questions. “You mean we can’t tell anything by looking at the probabilities? You mean everyone has a shared concept of what these realities are, but they don’t actually exist? It would seem that probability would be a lot less than slim to none!”

“I’m speaking of pure logic, where probabilities don’t come into play.”

All I could respond was to say, “Hmmm. I see.” Meaning I didn’t, but then I’m not a philosopher.