Quantum Times

by Bill Diffenderffer

  Now Plato wants us to see the reality of our future as driven by present events. Seeing that reality is harder than seeing realities of events that are separated from us just by geography. We know that what goes on in Africa and the Middle East are real – we can see it on the news on our TV’s.(Though judging reality by virtue of seeing it on TV must be discounted by all else that shows up as ‘reality TV. ) No, Plato wants us to see a reality that we are separated from only by TIME. Can something be real if it hasn’t happened yet?

  Here is where things get tricky. Einstein has taught us that time and space are inter-related. His theory of relativity is based on that interrelationship. So I think we should listen to Einstein when we think about the future Plato has presented to us. It is as real as a child walking up to a classroom blackboard and writing in chalk that two plus two is five. Sure it is a mistake, but the child really wrote it. But another child could follow that child and erase the five and write a four. Only what Plato is showing us won’t be so easy to erase. And if we don’t treat what he shows us as real, then we won’t start trying to change it now – and maybe there won’t be any children then.

  When David finished his blog’s first piece he hoped over time his audience would grow. At first only a few people would find his blog online, but perhaps over the months to come his following would grow to hundreds – maybe even thousands of readers. Plato had other ideas. Plato sent out a note to all computer and smartphone devices worldwide that David’s blog was worth following. Within hours of his posting it, David’s blog was accessed by millions of people. And that was just the first few hours.

  Chapter Nine

  “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

  Hamlet, Act I Scene V

  By William Shakespeare

  On Sunday morning in front of his two thousand strong congregation of the Church of Universal Blessings in Houston Texas, with his cable TV channel viewers watching from their homes in the suburbs and countryside around the fifty states, the Reverend Teddy Wentworth focused his sermon on Plato’s miraculous arrival in The Object and on the message Plato had just delivered to the peoples of the world. When the reverend focused on a subject people listened. A former University of Houston offensive lineman, he was a big man with a deep base voice and a powerful presence. At a little over fifty years old with a shock of silver hair down to his collar and a face with craggy features and glistening blue ‘born again’ eyes, his fervor and faith and his caring for his flock of church-goers radiated out of him.

  For months now his sermons had stressed his concern for the dark and dangerous path he thought the world was on. He had found biblical parallels that worried him and caused him to fear God’s wrath as the peoples of the world seemed to be getting further and further away from doing God’s will. Then there was the horror of nuclear devastation in North and South Korea followed by the arrival of The Object. All his fears were being confirmed. His most recent sermons had been dark and foreboding.

  Then Plato came out of The Object and beamed out his message of looming and predictable mass deaths and planetary destruction, followed by the optical illusion of the heavens on fire. But Plato had offered up hope too. The future was not written. Man could save himself. Reverend Teddy Wentworth found in Plato’s message both a confirmation of his beliefs that the people of the world were heading toward doom and damnation and a pathway for salvation if mankind would return to a righteous path.

  Moreover, as it happened, he had a parishioner who taught Physics at the University of Houston who had two days earlier sought to explain to him the basis of Planck’s work. Reverend Teddy, as everyone called him, was fascinated by the relationship of consciousness to the workings of the universe. During that hour with his physicist parishioner, Reverend Teddy had a flash of insight he believed came straight from God that consciousness was God’s great gift to the universe.

  That Sunday morning as he gave his sermon the passion of his beliefs welled up in him and he departed, as he sometimes did, from his prepared text. In his text he had planned to say how interesting he found the timing of Plato’s arrival. He found it interesting because it came at the same time as he, Reverend Teddy Wentworth, had been declaiming in his sermons in recent months how dangerous the world was becoming and how much we needed our savior Jesus Christ to send us guidance from above. And he had planned to say how interesting he found the work being done by Benjamin Planck with its emphasis on consciousness. That was really all he had intended to say.

  He had started his sermon as planned by talking about how mysteriously The Object had arrived. And then he quoted from Plato’s message to the world about the dangerous state the world was in. Then he switched to how Plato had come looking for Benjamin Planck and confirmed that Planck’s theory was true. And he presented what his parishioner physicist had told him about how Planck’s theory had consciousness as the foundational force of the universe.

  Experienced public speaker that he was, he could see that his audience was following his words with rapt attention. Two thousand pairs of eyes, not counting the many more watching on their televisions, were focused on him; no one was walking to the restroom or whispering to people next to them or coughing or even moving restlessly in the wooden pews. They were fully caught up in what he was saying. And it was at this point that his insight and his passion took over. Here he departed from his text.

  “My fellow believers in the power of God, we are indeed at a time of miracles! We have prayed for guidance from our savior Jesus Christ in these perilous and confusing times and he has answered our prayers. I know that Plato’s coming here at this time is no accident. It is no accident that he comes with great powers and a warning of things to come – terrible things to come. And when he spoke to us, you knew as I knew that he was telling us the truth. He was telling us God’s truth – just as God told Noah of the coming of the flood!”

  Reverend Teddy paused there to catch a breath. In that moment he saw his audience had ramped up its attention even further. They wanted him to keep going.

  “It is no accident that Plato has come among us. It is no accident that he is giving us God’s message and God’s warning. Did not God send us his only son, Jesus Christ, when we were in need of a savior? Was that an accident? I ask you was that an accident?” Reverend Teddy’s voice rose as he demanded an answer from the crowd. “Was that an accident or just a random event? Was the arrival of Jesus Christ at a time of dark days, was that an accident?” Then he shouted at them, “Tell me that was no accident!”

  And the crowd responded as he knew it would, “No accident! No accident! No accident! No accident!” And “Praise God” was shouted and repeated by others. Then Reverend Teddy held his hands up to quiet his crowd even as the passion and energy of the two thousand people in front of him flowed back to him.

  “So I say it is no accident that Plato is here now bringing us God’s message. He has been sent to us by God to deliver us from the evils we are facing. We must listen to him, be guided by him, we must embrace him.” The reverend paused then. He looked deeply into the hearts of his audience and they felt his eyes upon each of them, for he truly cared for them and believed his own words – and they knew that he cared for each of them. Reverend Teddy, they knew, was a good and godly man who lived humbly and did good deeds for the poor and the afflicted. And he was a wise and intelligent man. And it didn’t hurt that he was a natural orator and charismatic leader.

  “And I will tell you another thing!” Reverend Teddy continued, still speaking spontaneously, his prepared text no longer in his mind as he moved about the front of the stage to stand closer to his people. “It is no accident that Plato has sought out Benjamin Planck to share with us Planck’s wondrous theory of consciousness. Planck’s theory will give us the tools to lift ourselves up again and restore us in God’s bounty. We must heed Plato’s warnings and embrace Planck’s theory. Did not God give Noah the tools to build his ark? He didn’t
just warn Noah of the coming of the flood! We must accept the rightness of Planck’s theory of consciousness. It is God’s mind we will be tapping into.” Reverend Teddy paused again and when he resumed his voice was quiet and soft. The audience held its breath and not so much as sighed.

  “God wants us to know his presence through consciousness. It is God’s great gift to us! Now is the time for us to learn how to use it. It is the wonderful tool that God has given us to defeat the darkness.”

  Reverend Teddy was finished. He knew he had said more than he had ever intended. But it had felt right. The audience was stunned he could tell. But his instincts told him they needed one more thing.

  “Come, pray with me. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name….” The crowd prayed with him. And his viewers watching the telecast across the country on that Sunday morning followed along.

  That is how the fastest growing religious movement of the century began.

  The second stage of Plato’s plan began when the first of many private jets landed at Pirate’s Cay. Several days earlier, David had completed the task he had been assigned by Plato of identifying the most influential people in the United States. He had given the list to Plato and then Plato had taken it from there. Plato had sent out invitations. And he had modestly admitted to David that the RSVP’s had come back almost without exception positively. When the Leader of The Object invites you to come meet with him, it’s a hard invitation to refuse – especially given the egos of most of the attendees.

  So coming to Pirate’s Cay in waves would be tech company Founders, Media company CEOs, Global bank CEOs, million-follower bloggers and tweeters, famous actors and athletes, political pundits, self-help gurus, religious leaders, billionaire hedge fund managers and a few thoughtful people who when they discovered who else was invited, thought they had been invited by accident, not knowing how influential they actually were. They were chosen regardless of political or social ideology. In fact their diversity was intentional. The date and time of their invites were staggered so that no more than twenty were on the island at any one time, so meetings with Plato could be small.

  The meetings would be held in the lobby of the retreat with chairs positioned in a U formation with a seat for Plato at the front of the U. The meetings started with Plato introducing himself briefly and then introducing Dr. Benjamin Planck. Planck with the help of Ozawa and several other meditation practitioners demonstrated ‘mentalization’ by first ripening a banana before their eyes. Then Planck asked anyone in the meeting to stand up and then they made the chair that person had been sitting upon disappear and then reappear. Planck then introduced Dr. Wheeling who gave a ten minute discourse on the fundamentals of what they were now calling ‘Participatory Physics’ while highlighting the primacy of consciousness. Dr. Wheeling then took the group through the history of physicists’ views of the ‘Many World’s Theory’ first proposed by Hugh Everett III, a student of the great John Wheeler.

  Then Plato reasserted himself. He did so by first screening a silent documentary of a world looking like Earth but subtly different. The cities had similar names but the skylines were different, people looked the same but their clothes were different. This planet which Plato labeled Earth #278 looked modern and prosperous and healthy in the early pictures but with a time stamp that marched forward in years it could be seen to first lose its look of prosperity and then all the pictures showed a sickening people and planet until the whole of the planet looked desolate and empty.

  At the conclusion of the screening, Plato said only that the people of that Earth #278 evolved cultures that were constantly at war with ever increasing deadliness. No one country was strong enough to prevail militarily and no culture prevailed ideologically. But the countries stayed separated from each other with rigid boundaries so no integration took place. Then one culture attacked its neighbor with advanced biologicals that poisoned water reserves. That action was duplicated elsewhere and soon water shortages existed where none had before. Then the wars for water began and lasted for years as the world became a dry and barren place.

  Then Plato ran another screening. This silent documentary showed two countries with thriving cities with millions of people and beautiful countryside. Then with a time stamp that rolled forward in minutes not years, the cities and countryside were obliterated and covered with mushroom shaped clouds. The world travelers in the audience had recognized their own Seoul and Pyongyang.

  After the second screening, Plato turned to the meeting attendees and looked to them one after the other while saying nothing. When he had finished looking at each individually, he started to speak.

  “Earth #278 was lost because the prevailing cultures never sought integration among themselves. They each thought they were superior to the others, they never sought their commonality. Leaders gained political strength by emphasizing their differences and denigrating those who were not like them. They deliberately brought out the tribal instincts in their followers, instincts developed over mankind’s million years of evolution. Tribalism – that most destructive of man’s sociological tendencies. When one tribe attacks another tribe all of man’s worst attributes come to the fore. Murder, rape, cannibalism and torture are all aspects of tribal warfare.

  “Tribalism exists in many forms and in all cultures, both primitive and advanced. It shows itself in social, political and even athletic alliances. As cultures decay it is the lowest common denominator and its most dangerous. Tribalism is what tore Earth #278 apart.”

  That was the blueprint for what would be many meetings. Then Plato would take questions and interact with the actual participants.

  So it was at the first meeting, which went much as planned up to the point when things changed.

  Plato paused and asked, “Are there any questions?”

  Plato looked around the room at faces that were too stunned to speak.

  “All right then,” he continued. “Let’s talk about the second set of pictures. Would someone please identify them?”

  After a few moments where no one spoke up, the CEO of a global bank stated they were pictures of what had been North and South Korea.

  Plato searched out each of the faces in the room and then returned his gaze to the bank CEO. “Thank you. Now since you were bold enough to speak up, would you please tell me who is responsible for this tragedy? Note I am not asking you about Earth #278, you weren’t there. But you were here for the destruction of Korea.”

  The bank CEO refrained from speaking. He had come to the island expecting some form of ‘meet and greet’ with some variety of an ‘alien’. He had expected something he could tell his family and friends about. He had not expected what he was getting at this meeting.

  “Perhaps the question is ambiguous,” Plato said. “So let me make it clearer. “The idiot twenty something year old Supreme Leader was not responsible. You don’t charge the mentally incompetent child who starts a fire with arson. Nor were the brow beaten and destitute people of North Korea responsible – they are the victims. So who is responsible?”

  Pairs of eyes looked upwards, others downwards and others to the sides. A few looked expectantly back at Plato.

  Plato began again. “As you look around you here, you will see some of the most influential people in the world, certainly in your country. More people like you will be coming to later meetings like this. Collectively you all influence to a substantial degree almost every major social and political activity and event. They too will see what you have seen. They too will be asked what I have just asked you.”

  Plato approached a tall balding man in a dark gray suit. “Mr. Washburn, you are CEO of a Communications empire, is it fair for me to say that you and the other people here and others like you, have the power to influence almost everything that occurs through political action?”

  Jack Washburn looked back at Plato. Known for his take charge manner, he was not cowed. “Though it is true that we all together have great influence, the truth is that for the
most part we cancel each other out. There is disagreement on every issue. So our influence is much less than you might think.” He then looked to the room, confident in his response.

  “Oh, I see,” said Plato. “Mr. Washburn here believes that some of you here actually thought that the idiot Supreme Leader should have had the power to start a nuclear war. Now which of you actually believed that? Please don’t be shy.”

  Davis Strohan, the self-help guru who had a million followers spoke up to say, “I’m sure none of us believed that.”

  Plato shot back, “And by extension would you say that none of the other influencers who will come to later meetings would have believed that either?”

  “I’m sure they too would not have believed that the Supreme Leader as you call him should have had that power.”

  “So Mr. Strohan, on this issue, you would disagree with Mr. Washburn. All of you influencers would not have cancelled each other out on the issue of the Supreme Leader having nuclear weapons for toys. Is that correct?”

  “Yes I suppose so.”

  “Mr. Washburn do you think your views would have been cancelled out on this issue.”

  “I suspect we would all agree on this one.”

  Plato looked around the room again. “So let’s come back to the issue of responsibility. Who is responsible for the death of millions of people in the land of Korea?”

  Then from the President of an Ivy League university, “No man is an island unto himself but each a part of the continent…ask not for whom the bell tolls, the bell tolls for thee.”

  “Thank you Ms. Latham,” said Plato. Then he added, “Is there anyone here who thinks they do not share some responsibility?”