Eternal Gods Die Too Soon

by Beka Modrekiladze

  -But we are talking about her action, so we need to consider what she knew and not what I know.

  -Anyways, isn’t that irritating? How can you forgive her?

  -Sure, it is. I was crying all night. However, it was also a one-day feeling, and we also should not make decisions according to them. Of course, if I have to cry all the days, it would be meaningless to forgive. But if people regret what they have done and we know that they understood it, and it will not happen again, why should not we forgive them? Because we got angry once? When we decide not to talk to someone after some action, we do so because after that action we get to know general picture about them, and after reconsidering, we may not wish to have them in our life, but not because of the act by itself. I see that she understood and she is not ashamed of me anymore, so why should I not forgive her — because of the past? But if something in the past does not affect the future, I can see it as a movie which I watched once, and which is over.

  -Oh, darling, you should be a philosopher.

  He smiled at her.

  -Ha-ha, but what is a philosopher?

  -I will tell you when we have time. I will tell you much more; you will like it!

  He moved closer and kissed her.

  -But for now, go to bed. Do you want to be late for your trip?

  He teased her.

  -Thanks for reminding me, I won’t be late.

  She hugged him and ran into her room.

  He felt depressed. However, his daughter’s friend was not his primary concern. He was afraid that he would miss her and deep down he was jealous too. He wanted to spend time with her; he planned and imagined so many things for them. He even thought to ask her to stay, but soon he changed his mind. “What is the meaning of asking, if she wanted she would have told me by herself.” However, next day when she left him, he regretted that he did not ask her to spend time with him since he realized that when people choose one or another option that does not necessarily mean that they prefer one. Also, he remembered his daughter's words that when people analyze something about someone, they need to consider what the other knows. And his daughter did not know that he was planning to spend that time with her, and he remembered her saying that people do silly things when they are afraid; in this case, he was afraid not to spoil her happiness, and that is why he did not tell her anything. “It’s okay, I will have more time then and will use it to learn science, so when she comes back, I will impress her even more.” He made it easier by telling himself that, and afterwards he asked the AI to start.

  Library

  One month passed, he had studied most of the basics of science. Whenever he was thinking about his daughter he missed her, and he felt down, so he was trying to bury himself in his studies to avoid thinking about her.

  -This is the end; this is the all data which I have about it.

  The AI told him one day.

  -But how? Apparently, there are gaps.

  -Yes, I know. However, I do not have all the data from that epoch, since you know, I was not in all devices at that time, I was just the AI for an electronics factory.

  -But where can I find the rest of it?

  -Well, people used libraries for storing information. However, the last one was closed centuries ago.

  -No matter, if there is any chance that there is information I will try it. Tell me where it is.

  -As you wish, I will assign a vehicle to the airplanes place for you, and before you arrive, I will prepare an airplane.

  -Airplane?!

  -Yes, I told you that I knew just a few of the places where they have been and the nearest is several thousands kilometers away.

  When he arrived, he had one of the strangest views in his life. He saw the first building, which was not built by the AI. It was so different and complex; also, not all of the patterns were apparent at first glance. He was amazed even more when he entered the building. Even though it was dark, he could see that space was distributed quite inefficiently and everything was covered in dust.

  -Let me try to connect; I will fix the electricity.

  The AI told him from one of the airplane bots.

  Soon light appeared. It was much brighter than he was used to seeing. It also seemed that the building’s electro-efficiency was not optimal, but all those features made it unique and he liked it a lot. When he adjusted to brighter light, he noticed that those patterns on walls actually were not patterns, those were some little objects. He took one of them.

  -What are these things all around?

  -These are printed versions of books.

  AI continued to explain to him how inefficient was this method of storing information. But he could not listen to it. He was rotating and glazing around him, shocked and inspired, by all these endless rows of books.

  He asked the AI to make that place neat again and he started living there, while the AI was getting food containers for him. He was spending all his time reading and then thinking about it when he was eating or before falling asleep. He found one creative literature book, and he got confused at first. "There is nothing real and useful. What is the meaning of such a book?" he wondered. However, when he finished it, after self-analyzing, he found out how he had changed, how many things he started thinking differently about and how many things he had not paid attention to. “All all of it was in that book?” he asked himself, surprised. Upon reflection, he realized that it was not. However, when he thought more acutely, he saw the chain of thoughts he had after a few triggers of that book. “The purpose of such a book is still unclear. It triggers some ideas, but the thought processes of a person are so nonlinear, no one can predict how this will affect a person and how it will end. Thus, what is the point of making something such as this, when you do not know in advance how it will affect one or another person? It seems an interesting thing to explore, but it will not help me to answer my daughter’s question, why is the speed of light the limit speed of the Universe,” he said and decided to continue to focus on science books.

  When he learned the basics of mathematics and other sciences, one day he started to read a book about quantum mechanics. It began by explaining an experiment. “Imagine a tube with electrons and let us say that electrons have two properties, color and form. They can be black or white and square or oval. Now, imagine two apparatuses, each with one incoming and two outgoing tubes, one can filter by color and the other by form. If we have a beam of randomly picked electrons in the incoming tube of the color-apparatus, then 50% of electrons will go out through the outgoing upper tube (they will be black), and 50% of electrons will go out through the lower outgoing tube (they will be white). If we now put another color-apparatus in front of the beam from the upper tube, then 100% of them will be black, so all of them will go out through the upper tube of the second color-apparatus. And if we put the second color-apparatus in front of a beam from a lower tube, 100% of the output will be white."

  Also the same was written about the form-apparatus. “This is so obvious; this book seems like a waste of time,” he thought. However, a question in the book soon caught his attention. “What will come out from the lower outgoing tube of a color apparatus if we put that color-apparatus in front of a beam from an upper outgoing tube of a form-apparatus (which corresponds to the square electrons)?“ Of course, there will be white and square electrons, and if we measure, there will be 100% white vs. 0% black and 100% square vs. 0% oval”. However, in the book was written that if we measure form again, there will be 50% square and 50% oval electrons. “But, after the first filter, we had only square electrons in the higher tube, so how did oval ones appear there?” he protested. Then he learned that electrons were neither square nor oval and neither black nor white. They were in a superposition of them, they were black and white at the same time with different probabilities, and only after we measured them did they collapse into a certain state. And there was a law of the Universe which prohibited knowing both of those properties at the same time and that law was called the Uncertainty Princi
ple.

  This time he was astonished even more than he first entered that place. “It is so hard to imagine this. Everything in life has a certain value or property, and it cannot be many different things at the same time.” Then, however, he remembered his dream and the colors of that wall. “They also were in some sort of superposition of colors,” he thought. He felt afraid for a moment, but after, as always, curiosity took over and he got even more excited. Therefore, he decided to learn more about Quantum Physics.

  RBR

  Once when he was taking a break and going for a walk, he found an old town. Actually, he was already in that town since the library belonged to the town. However, it was hard to discern because everything was covered by forest. People had not lived there for centuries, and everything was destroyed, but still, he was trapped there by his own interest. Everything in that place existed in different varieties; even the same objects had different colors. Roads were much wider than potential vehicles of that epoch, and that seemed very strange to him, but the AI explained this to him soon.

  -At that period people were driving by themselves, and they could not do it without making mistakes, and also it was an unconnected system, so different vehicles acted independently of each other. Besides, cars were produced by people, and because of that, there was an increased probability of errors.

  -And the roads were broader to make driving easier and to avoid mistakes?

  -Right.

  -But what would happen if they made mistakes?

  -Well, sometimes cars were crashing to objects or into each other, which was the cause of people’s injuries or sometimes even death.

  -Death?! But why were they risking so much? If you were not there in that period, they could just walk.

  -I am not sure about it, but one philosopher of that epoch once said that “Every decision is the comparison of risks and benefits. We do not sleep under the rain because of the hazard that the roof can fall. Since the benefits of living under a roof are much higher than the risks that the roof will fall, therefore, we should not reject an idea simply because one managed to find some flaws of it or because past implementations of it were bad. Ideas are pure, and if today, we cannot accomplish them without high risks, it does not mean that we should deny them, it only means that we should develop ourselves to be able to fulfill them without high risks.”

  Maybe there was some truth in those words about risks and benefits. He would use the unsafe vehicle to see his daughter, since in this case “benefits” would be much greater than risks. However, while thinking about his daughter, he remembered that he was there to learn science and find an answer to her question, but now he was losing time, so he ran toward the library.

  -Your health is getting worse; you need to sleep more.

  AI warned him after midnight, while he was reading a book.

  -Yes, but sometimes local sacrifices lead to global wins, as in that archaic game chess which we found here and you taught me.

  He wanted to read all the science books, but it was already the end of summer, so night by night he was sleeping less and less. Each time he was reading something exciting, he imagined how he would tell it to his daughter to make her joyful and happy since she was extremely curious.

  Introduction to Science

  He returned a day before she would come, there were books which he did not read in time. However, he took them with him to learn on his way back and asked the AI to scan all the others. He had never been away from his home for so long before, so it was a very new feeling for him when he stepped into his house. He had a nostalgic and a bit of a melancholic sense; everything appeared so trivial, but in any case, it was able to induce some special feelings inside him.

  He could not find the rest; in one day he would see his daughter. He was thinking over and over about how it would be, even though he knew that in reality it never happened strictly as he was thinking or planning before. Also, it was harder when it was about people and especially about her daughter, but he still liked to think about it.

  However, soon he did not like to just think about it anymore. He wanted time to pass quickly, so he decided to go to sleep. In this way, the time for him would have passed faster, but he could not sleep since he was too excited. He spent all night in his bed thinking and only in the morning did he fall asleep.

  The next day he met her; it was such a comfort to see her again. She hugged him, but she seemed more serious than usual, and it made him a bit frustrated, but he was still excited and tried to make her happy too. He asked the AI to take her luggage home.

  -Hey little lady, I have an idea! Let’s go to a park and walk before we go home.

  -Okay, that could be interesting.

  They walked a lot, and he told her about science, as many things as he could, with high motivation and excitement.

  -So, it means that this Science can explain everything in the Universe and as a proof that some or other explanations are correct, it can predict things by some means which you called Math.

  -Yes, isn’t that amazing?!

  -Well maybe not. Because if there is something which can predict things, it means that all the stuff in the Universe is determined. Even though we cannot actually predict them, knowing that they are predictable and are already determined seems boring. If everything is determined — who you will love, what you will like and what will you think or do — then we do not have a free choice, and everything seems meaningless.

  -Actually, it cannot predict everything. According to Quantum Physics, there exists the Uncertainty Principle and if we know one property of some object more and more certainly, the uncertainty of another property raises more and more. In the way that we are not able to know both properties at the same time. Therefore, math equations cannot tell things certainly, so the future is not precisely predictable; thus we may still have free will.

  -But what are these properties?

  -Well, even the position is like this. If we try to find where something is, we do not know how fast and where it will go after. Or vice-versa, if we try to find out the velocity of it, we cannot say where it is. We can only tell probabilities of finding it at some places, so the particles are no more a point-like, they are becoming blurry waves in space.

  -Ha-ha, that means that some part of me is on that beautiful star? Since you told me that we are also made of particles.

  -Yes, darling.

  He laughed and hugged her.

  -But with very very little probability.

  He was smiling while watching the star to which she pointed. Only then he realized that it was already late and they needed to go home. However, he decided to go by foot since he wanted to spend more time with her.

  -Well, because of that we may have free will and everything may not be meaningless, but what is the meaning of the Universe then?

  She pointed out on their way after she was thinking quietly for some time.

  -I do not know. I thought I have learned everything, but you made me say “I do not know” about so many things, but the AI told me that there are several other libraries. I need to find them to learn more.

  -I do not think that this is a good idea. I do not like Science; it answers questions “how?” but does not answer questions “why?’ Also, you mentioned so many fields and branches of it, while on the other hand, the Universe is one, so it should be much more elegant than Science. Why don’t you try to find answers by yourself? Besides, it would be more fun.

  -Maybe you are right; people should think by themselves and not only learn, but also to be able to use what they have learned. However, you need to find a balance between knowledge and thinking, because one without the other is useless.

  -Ooh, I’m not stupid. I was telling you something else. Promise me that you will try to find answers by yourself, I am not sure about scientists in the past, so I am afraid that you will not find all the answers, and I do not want you to feel bad since I see how excited you are now. On the other hand, I believe in you; I have the smart
est dad in the world. Therefore, if you genuinely want something, don’t rely on other people, do it by yourself.

  -Okay, I will try, but before that, I will try to make dinner for you, by myself!

  He was the first person in his era who would do that; everyone else just asked the AI. He got that idea when he found a recipe book in the library. He wanted to impress her, but she did not seem astonished. “Maybe she got tired, she had a long trip, and we were walking all day,” he thought.

  They had dinner and after she went to bed. He started thinking about the day. He was delighted, but she did not seem so. Then he understood that it was only him, who was talking, babbling about how his summer was and did not ask about her summer, he was interested though. “Maybe it was because of this that she was not happy,” he thought. Then he got the idea that he would make hot chocolate by himself for them and after they would climb up to the roof of the house and he would listen to her summer stories, while they would be able to watch the stars. However, when he approached her room with hot mugs, she was already sleeping, so he decided to go to bed too.

  Evil or an addiction?

  It was the last day of his vacation, so he tried to spend as much time with her as he could. This time, after dinner they indeed climbed onto the roof of the house with hot chocolates. He continued telling her all the things he learned over the summer.

  -Oh, do you remember you asked me a question about the speed of light?

  -Yes, so do you know now, why nothing can travel faster than light?

  -It is another “I don’t know” on your questions, but I learned the special and general theory of relativity which postulated it and then explained many things. And even information in the Universe cannot travel faster than light.