Latest / INSPIRE STORY / The Inspiring Story – Full Story

Transcript

The Inspiring Story – Full Story · INSPIRE STORY

0:14
Speaker 1: Story of Your Life by Ted Chang. Your father's about
0:24
to ask me the question. This is the most important
0:29
moment in our lives, and I want to pay attention
0:34
note every detail. Your dad and I have just come
0:39
back from an evening out dinner into show. It's after midnight.
0:47
We came out onto the patio to look at the
0:49
full moon. Then I told your dad I wanted to dance,
0:54
so he humors me. And now we're slow dancing a
0:59
pair of thirty things, swaying back and forth in the
1:02
moonlight like kids. I don't feel the night chill at all.
1:09
And then your dad says, do you want to make
1:13
a baby right now? Your dad and I have been
1:18
married for about two years, living on Ellis Avenue. When
1:23
we move out, you'll still be too young to remember
1:25
the house, but we'll show you pictures of it tell
1:29
you stories about it. I'd love to tell you the
1:33
story of this evening the night you're conceived, but the
1:38
right time to do that would be when you're ready
1:40
to have children of your own, and we'll never get
1:44
that chance. Telling it to you any earlier wouldn't do
1:50
any good. For most of your life, you won't sit
1:53
still to hear such a romantic, you'd say, sappy story.
2:01
I remember the scenario of your origin, you'll suggest, when
2:04
you're twelve, the only reason you had me was so
2:09
you could get a maid. You wouldn't have to pay,
2:13
you'll say, bitterly, dragging the vacuum cleaner out of the closet.
2:19
That's right, I'll say, thirteen years ago. I knew the
2:24
carpets would need vacuuming around now, and having a baby
2:27
seemed to be the cheapest and easiest way to get
2:29
the job done. Now, kindly get on with it. If
2:34
you weren't my mother, this would be illegal, you'll say, seething,
2:40
as you unwind the power cord and plug it into
2:42
the wall outlet that will be in the house on
2:49
Belmont Street. I'll live to see strangers occupy both houses,
2:55
the one you're conceived in and the one you grew
2:59
up in. Your Dad and I will sell the first
3:03
a couple of years after your arrival. I'll sell the
3:07
second shortly after your departure. By then, Nelson and I
3:13
will have moved into our farmhouse, and your dad will
3:16
be living with what's her name. I know how this
3:21
story ends. I think about it a lot. I also
3:27
think a lot about how it began. Just a few
3:30
years ago, when ships appeared in orbit and artifacts appeared
3:35
in meadows. The government said next to nothing about them,
3:40
while the tabloids said every possible thing. And then I
3:48
got a phone call, a request for a meeting. I
3:54
spotted them waiting in the hallway outside my office. They
3:59
made an odd One wore a military uniform in a
4:03
crew cut and carried an aluminum briefcase. He seemed to
4:07
be assessing his surroundings with a critical eye. The other
4:12
one was easily identifiable as an academic, full beard and mustache,
4:18
wearing corduroy. He was browsing through the overlapping sheets stapled
4:24
to a bulletin board nearby. Colonel Weber, I presume I
4:29
shook hands with the soldier Louise Banks. Doctor Banks, thank
4:36
you for taking the time to speak with us, he said,
4:41
not at all, any excuse to avoid the faculty meeting.
4:46
Colonel Weber indicated his companion, this is doctor Gary Donnelly,
4:51
the physicist I mentioned when we spoke on the phone.
4:55
Call me Gary, he said, as we shook hands, I'm
4:59
anxious to hear what you have to say. We entered
5:03
my office. I moved a couple of stacks of books
5:07
off the second guest chair, and we all sat down.
5:11
You said you wanted me to listen to a recording.
5:15
I presume this has something to do with the aliens.
5:19
All I can offer is the recording, said Colonel Webber. Okay,
5:25
let's hear it. Colonel Weber took a tape machine out
5:29
of his briefcase and pressed play. The recording sounded vaguely
5:34
like that of a wet dog shaking the water out
5:36
of its fur. What do you make of that, he asked,
5:43
I withheld my comparison to a wet dog. What was
5:47
the context in which this recording was made? I'm not
5:52
at liberty to say, well, it would help me interpret
5:56
those sounds. Could you see the alien while it was speaking?
6:00
Was it doing anything at the time? The recording is
6:04
all I can offer. You won't be giving anything away
6:10
if you tell me that you've seen the aliens. The
6:12
publics assumed you have. Colonel Weber wasn't budging. Do you
6:19
have any opinion about its linguistic properties? He asked, Well,
6:26
it's clear that their vocal tract is substantially different from
6:29
a human vocal tract. I assume that these aliens don't
6:33
look like humans. The colonel was about to say something
6:38
noncommittal when Gary donnelly asked, can you make any guesses
6:43
based on the tape? Not really. It doesn't sound like
6:50
they're using a larynx to make those sounds, but that
6:52
doesn't tell me what they look like anything. Is there
6:57
anything else you can tell us, asked Colonel Weber. I
7:03
could see he wasn't accustomed to consulting a civilian, only
7:08
that establishing communications is going to be really difficult because
7:12
of the difference in anatomy. They're almost certainly using sounds
7:16
that the human vocal tract can't reproduce, and maybe sounds
7:20
that the human ear can't even distinguish. You mean infra
7:26
or ultrasonic frequencies, asked Gary donnelly, Not specifically. I just
7:36
mean that the human auditory system isn't an absolute acoustic instrument.
7:40
It's optimized to recognize the sounds that human larynx makes.
7:45
With an alien vocal system, all bets are off. I shrugged.
7:51
Maybe we'll be able to hear the difference between alien
7:53
phonemes given enough practice, but it's possible our ears simply
7:58
can't recognize the distinctions they can consider meaningful. In that case,
8:03
we'd need a sound spectrograph to know what an alien
8:06
is saying. Colonel Weber asked, suppose I gave you an
8:12
hour's worth of recordings, how long would it take you
8:15
to determine if we need this sound spectrograph or not.
8:21
I couldn't determine that with just a recording, no matter
8:23
how much time I had. I'd need to talk with
8:26
the aliens directly. The colonel shook his head. Not possible.
8:35
I tried to break it to him gently. That's your call,
8:39
of course, But the only way to learn an unknown
8:43
language is to interact with a native speaker, and by
8:46
that I mean asking questions, holding a conversation, that sort
8:50
of thing. Without that, it's simply not possible. So if
8:57
you want to learn the alien's language, someone with training
9:01
in field linguistics, whether it's me or someone else, will
9:04
have to talk with an alien. Recordings alone aren't sufficient,
9:11
Colonel Weber frowned. You seem to be implying that no
9:16
alien could have learned human language by monitoring our broadcasts.
9:23
I doubt it. They'd need instructional materials. Specifically designed to
9:28
teach human languages to non humans, either that or interaction
9:33
with a human. If they had either of those, they
9:37
could learn a lot from TV, but otherwise they wouldn't
9:40
have a starting point. The colonel clearly found this interesting.
9:48
Evidently his philosophy was the less the aliens knew, the better.
9:55
Gary Donnelly read the colonel's expression too, and rolled his eyes.
10:00
I suppressed a smile. Then Colonel Weber asked, suppose you
10:08
were learning a new language by talking to its speakers.
10:12
Could you do it without teaching them English? That would
10:18
depend on how cooperative the native speakers were. They'd almost
10:22
certainly pick up bits and pieces while I'm learning their language,
10:26
but it wouldn't have to be much if they're willing
10:29
to teach. On the other hand, if they'd rather learn
10:33
English than teach us their language, that would make things
10:37
far more difficult. The colonel nodded, I'll get back to
10:44
you on this matter. The request for that meeting was
10:53
perhaps the second most momentous phone call in my life.
10:57
The first, of course, will be the one from Mountain Rescue.
11:03
At that point, your dad and I will be speaking
11:05
to each other maybe once a year tops after I
11:09
get that phone call, though, the first thing I'll do
11:12
will be to call your father. He and I will
11:17
drive out together to perform the identification, a long, silent
11:21
car ride. I remember the morgue, all tile and stainless steel,
11:31
the hum of refrigeration and smell of antiseptic and orderly
11:39
will pull the sheet back to reveal your face. Your
11:44
face will look wrong somehow, but I'll know it's you. Yes,
11:53
that's her. I'll say, she's mine. You'll be twenty five.
12:02
Then the MP checked my badge, made a notation on
12:11
his clipboard, and opened the gate. I drove the off
12:17
road vehicle into the encampment, a small village of tents
12:20
pitched by the army in a farmer's sun scorched pasture.
12:25
At the center of the encampment was one of the
12:27
alien devices nicknamed looking glasses. According to the briefings I'd attended,
12:38
there were nine of these in the United States one
12:41
hundred and twelve in the world. The looking glasses acted
12:46
as two way communication devices, presumably with the ships in orbit.
12:54
No one knew why the aliens wouldn't talk to us
12:56
in person. A fear of Cootie's baby. A team of scientists,
13:03
including a physicist and a linguist, was assigned to each
13:07
looking class. Gary Donnelly and I were on this one.
13:15
Gary was waiting for me in the parking area. We
13:19
navigated a circular maze of concrete barricades until we reached
13:23
the large tent that covered the looking glass itself. In
13:28
front of the tent was an equipment cart loaded with
13:30
goodies borrowed from school's phenology lab. I had sent it
13:36
ahead for inspection by the Army. Also outside the tent
13:43
were three tripod mounted video cameras whose lenses peered through
13:47
windows in the fabric wall into the main room. Everything
13:52
Gary and I did would be reviewed by countless others,
13:55
including military intelligence. In addition, we would each send daily reports,
14:02
of which mine had to include estimates on how much
14:05
English I thought the aliens could understand. Gary held open
14:10
the ten flap and gestured for me to enter. Step
14:14
right up, he said, Circus Barker's style, marvel at creatures
14:20
the likes of which have never been seen on the
14:21
God's green Earth, and all for one slim dime, I murmured,
14:29
walking through the door. At the moment, the looking glass
14:33
was inactive, resembling a semicircular mirror over ten feet high
14:38
and twenty feet across. On the brown grass in front
14:43
of the looking glass, an arc of white spray paint
14:46
outlined the activation area. Currently, the area contained only a table,
14:54
two folding chairs, and a power strip with a cord
14:57
leading to a generator outside. The buzz of fluorescent lamps
15:03
hung from poles along the edge of the room, commingled
15:07
with the buzz of flies in the sweltering heat. Gary
15:12
and I looked at each other and then began pushing
15:16
the cart of equipment up to the table. As we
15:20
crossed the paint line, the looking glass appeared to grow transparent.
15:25
It was as if someone had slowly raised the illumination
15:28
behind tinted glass. The illusion of depth was uncanny. I
15:36
felt I could walk right into it. Once the looking
15:40
glass was fully lit, it resembled a life sized diorama
15:43
of a semicircular room. The room contained a few large
15:48
objects that might have been furniture, but no aliens. There
15:54
was a door in the curved rear wall. We busied
15:59
our connecting everything together microphone, sound spectrograph, portable computer, and
16:07
a speaker. As we worked, I frequently glanced at the
16:12
looking glass, anticipating the alien's arrival. Even so, I jumped
16:20
when one of them entered. It looked like a barrel
16:26
suspended at the intersection of seven limbs. It was radially symmetric,
16:34
and any of its limbs could serve as an arm
16:36
or a leg. The one in front of me was
16:40
walking around on four legs, three non adjacent arms curled
16:44
up at its sides. Gary called them heptapods. I'd been
16:53
showed videotapes, but I still cocked. Its limbs had no
16:59
distinct joint. Anatomist's guests they might be supported by vertebral columns.
17:10
Whatever their underlying structure, the heptopod's limbs conspired to move
17:15
it in a disconcertingly fluid manner. Its torso rode atop
17:22
the rippling limbs as smoothly as a hovercraft. Seven lidless
17:29
eyes ringed the top of the heptapod's body. It walked
17:33
back to the doorway from which it entered, made a
17:36
brief sputtering sound, and returned to the center of the room,
17:41
followed by another heptopod. At no point did it ever
17:45
turn around. Eerie but logical, with eyes on all sides,
17:54
any direction might as well be forward. Gary had been
17:59
watching my reaction. Ready, he asked. I took a deep breath.
18:08
Ready enough. I'd done plenty of field work before in
18:13
the Amazon, but it had always been a bilingual procedure.
18:18
Either my informants knew some Portuguese which I could use,
18:22
or I'd previously gotten an introduction to their language from
18:25
the local missionaries. This would be my first attempt at
18:30
conducting a true monolingual discovery procedure. It was straightforward enough
18:36
in theory, though I walked up to the looking glass
18:43
in a heptopod on the other side the same The
18:48
image was so real that my skin crawled. I could
18:52
see the texture of its gray skin like corduroy ridges
18:56
arranged in whorls and loops. There was no smell at
19:01
all from the looking glass, which somehow made the situation stranger.
19:08
I pointed to myself and said, slowly human. Then I
19:15
pointed to Gary human. Then I pointed at each heptopod
19:22
and said, what are you? No reaction. I tried again,
19:31
and then again. One of the heptopods pointed to itself
19:37
with one limb the four terminal digits pressed together. That
19:42
was lucky. In some cultures, a person pointed with his chin.
19:48
If the heptopods hadn't used one of its limbs, I
19:51
wouldn't have known what gesture to look for. I heard
19:56
a brief fluttering sound, then saw a puckered orifice at
19:59
the top of its body vibrate. It was talking. Then
20:06
it pointed to its companion and fluttered again. I went
20:11
back to my computer. On its screen were two virtually
20:14
identical spectrographs representing the fluttering sounds. I marked a sample
20:20
for playback. I pointed to myself and said human again,
20:26
and did the same with Gary. Then I pointed to
20:30
the heptopod and played back the flutter on the speaker.
20:35
The heptopod fluttered some more. The second half of the
20:39
spectrograph for this utterance looked like a repetition called the
20:45
previous utterances flutter one. Then this one was flutter two,
20:49
flutter one. I pointed at something that might have been
20:53
a heptopod, share what is that? The heptopod paused, and
21:01
then pointed at the chair and talked some more. The
21:06
spectograph for this differed distinctly from that of the earlier sounds.
21:12
Flutter three, once again. I pointed to the chair while
21:18
playing back Flutter three. The heptopod replied, judging by the spectograph,
21:26
it looked like flutter three Flutter two optimistic interpretation. The
21:32
heptopod was confirming my utterances as correct, which implied compatibility
21:37
between heptopod and human patterns of discourse. Pestimistic interpretation. It
21:44
had a nagging cough at my computer. I delimited certain
21:50
sections of the spectograph and typed an attentative gloss for
21:56
each heptopod for flutter one, Yes for flutter two, and
22:03
chair for flutter three. Then I typed language heptopod A
22:11
as a heading for all the utterances. Carrie watched what
22:15
I was typing. What's the A for? It just distinguishes
22:21
this language from any other ones the heptopods might use.
22:25
I said. He nodded. Now let's try something just for laughs.
22:35
I pointed at each heptopod and tried to mimic the
22:38
sound of flutter one heptopod. After a long pause, the
22:43
first heptopod said something, and then the second one said
22:46
something else, neither of whose spectrographs resembled anything said before
22:53
I couldn't tell if they were speaking to each other
22:55
or to me, since they had no faces to turn.
23:00
I tried pronouncing flutter one again, but there was no reaction,
23:06
not even close. I grumbled, I'm impressed you can make
23:12
sounds like that at all, said Gary. You should hear
23:16
my moose call sends them running. I tried again a
23:23
few more times, but neither heptopod responded with anything I
23:28
could recognize. Only when I played the recording of the
23:32
heptapod's pronunciation did I get a confirmation. The heptopod replied
23:38
with flutter too. Yes, so we're stuck with using recordings,
23:45
asked Gary. I nodded, at least temporarily. So now what
23:55
now we make sure it hasn't actually been saying aren't
23:58
they cute? Or look what they're doing? Now, then we
24:03
see if we can identify any of these words when
24:05
the other heptopod pronounces them. I gestured for him to
24:10
have a seat, O get comfortable. This will take a while.
24:22
In seventeen seventy, Captain Cook's ship Endeavor ran aground the
24:27
coast of Queensland, Australia. While some of his men made repairs,
24:33
Cook led an exploration party and met the Aboriginal people.
24:40
One of the sailors pointed to the animals that hopped
24:43
around with their young riding and pouches and asked an
24:47
Aborigine what they were called. The aborigine replied congaroo. From
24:57
then on, Cook and a sailors referred to the animals
25:00
by this word. It wasn't until later that they learned
25:04
it meant what did you say? I tell that story
25:12
in my introductory course every year. It's almost certainly untrue,
25:18
and I explained that afterwards, but it's a classic anecdote.
25:24
Of course, the anecdotes my undergraduates will really want to
25:27
hear are ones featuring the heptopods for the rest of
25:32
my teaching career. That'll be the reason many of them
25:36
sign up for my courses, So I'll show them old
25:40
videotapes in my sessions at the looking Glass, in the
25:44
sessions that the other linguists conducted. The tapes are instructive,
25:50
and they'll be useful if we're ever visited by aliens again,
25:54
but they don't generate many good anecdotes. When it comes
25:59
to life language learning anecdotes, my favorite source is a
26:03
child language acquisition I remember one afternoon when you were
26:09
five years old. After you've come home from kindergarten, You'll
26:14
be coloring with your crowns while I grade papers. Mom,
26:21
He'll say, using the carefully casual tone reserved for requesting
26:25
a favor. Can I ask you something? Sure, sweetie, go ahead?
26:34
Can I be honored? I'll look up from the paper
26:41
I'm grading? What do you mean? At school? Sharon said
26:49
she got to be honored? Really? Did she tell you
26:56
what for? It was when her her big sister got married.
27:02
She said only one person could be honored, and she
27:06
was it. Ah, I see you mean Sharon was made
27:13
of honor? Yeah, that's it. Can I be made of honor?
27:23
Gary and I entered the Prefound building containing the center
27:26
of operations for the looking Glass Sight. Inside it looked
27:30
like they were planning an invasion or perhaps an evacuation.
27:36
Crew cut soldiers worked around a large map of the area,
27:40
or sat in front of Burley electronic gear while speaking.
27:43
In the headsets, we were shown in a Colonel Weber's office,
27:48
a room in the back that was cool from air conditioning.
27:52
We briefed the colonel on our first day's results. Doesn't
27:57
sound like you got very far, he said. I have
28:03
an idea as to how we can make faster progress.
28:06
I said, but you'll have to approve the use of
28:10
more equipment. What more do you need? Digital camera and
28:17
a big video screen. I showed them a drawing of
28:21
the setup. I imagined, I want to try conducting the
28:24
discovery procedure using writing. I display words on the screen
28:29
and use the camera to record the words they write.
28:33
I'm hoping the heptopods will do the same. Weber looked
28:38
at the drawing dubiously. What would be the advantage of that?
28:44
So far, I've been preceding the way I would with
28:47
speakers of an unwritten language. Then it occurred to me
28:51
that the heptopods must have writing too. So if the
28:57
heptopods have a mechanical way of producing writing, than their
29:01
writing ought to be very regular, very consistent. That would
29:05
make it easier for us to identify graphemes instead of phonemes.
29:10
It's like picking out the letters in a printed sentence
29:12
instead of trying to hear them when the sentence is
29:15
spoken aloud. I take your point, he admitted, And how
29:22
would you respond to them? Show them the words they
29:25
displayed to you basically, and if they put spaces between words,
29:32
any sentences we write would be a lot more intelligible
29:35
than any spoken sentence we might slice together from recordings.
29:40
He leaned back in his chair. You know, we want
29:44
to show as little of our technology as possible. I understand,
29:50
but we're using machines as intermediaries already. If we can
29:54
get them to use writing, I believe progress will go
29:57
much faster than if we're restricted to the sound spectacle.
30:02
The colonel turned to Gary, your opinion it sounds like
30:10
a good one to me. Curious whether the heptopods might
30:13
have difficulty reading our monitors. Their looking glasses are based
30:17
on a completely different technology than our video screens. As
30:21
far as we can tell, they don't use pixels or
30:23
scan lines, and they don't refresh on a frame by
30:25
frame basis. You think the scan lines on our video
30:31
screens might render them unreadable to the heptopods. It's possible,
30:37
said Gary. We'll just have to try it and see.
30:42
Weeber considered it. For me, it wasn't even a question,
30:47
but from his point of view, it was a difficult one,
30:51
like a soldier, though he made it quickly request granted
30:57
talked to the sergeant outside about bringing in what you
30:59
need ready for tomorrow. I remember one day during the summer,
31:10
when you're sixteen, For once, the person waiting for her
31:15
date to arrive is me. Of course, you'll be waiting
31:19
around too, curious to see what he looks like. You'll
31:25
have a friend of yours, a blonde girl with the
31:27
unlikely name of Roxy, hanging out with you. You may
31:32
feel the urge to make comments about him. I'll say,
31:36
checking myself in the hallway mirror. Just restrain yourselves until
31:41
we leave. Don't worry, Mom, You'll say, he'll do it
31:47
so that he won't know. Roxy. You ask me what
31:50
I think the weather will be like tonight. Then I'll
31:53
say what I think of Mom's date. Right, Roxy will
31:59
say no, you most definitely will not. I'll say, relax, Mom,
32:05
He'll never know. We do this all the time. What
32:09
a comfort that is. A little later on, Nelson will
32:14
arrive to pick me up. I'll do the introductions, and
32:18
we'll all engage in a little small talk on the
32:20
front porch. Nelson is ruggedly handsome, to your evident approval.
32:30
Just as we're about to leave, Roxy will say to
32:33
you casually so, what do you think the weather will
32:37
be like tonight. I think it's going to be really hot,
32:42
He'll answer, Roxy will nod in agreement. Nelson will say, really,
32:50
I thought they said it was going to be cool.
32:53
I have a sixth sense about these things. You'll say,
32:57
your face will give nothing away. I get the feeling
33:03
it's going to be a scorcher. Good thing. You're dressed
33:06
for it. Mom. I'll glare at you and say good night.
33:11
As I lead Nelson toward his car, he'll ask me, amused,
33:16
I'm missing something here? Aren't I a private joke? I'll mutter,
33:22
don't ask me to explain it. At our next session
33:27
at the looking Glass, we repeated the procedure we had
33:31
performed before, this time displaying a printed word on our
33:35
computer screen at the same time as we spoke, showing
33:40
human while saying human, and so forth. Eventually, the heptopods
33:47
understood what we wanted and set up a flat, circular
33:51
screen mounted on a small pedestal. One heptopod spoke and
33:57
then inserted a limb into a large socket in the pedestal.
34:01
A doodle of script, vaguely cursive, popped onto the screen.
34:09
We soon settled into a routine. I compiled two parallel corpora,
34:15
one of spoken utterances one of writing samples. Based on
34:20
first impressions, their writing appeared to be logographic, which was disappointing.
34:28
I'd been hoping for an alphabetic script to help us
34:31
learn their speech. Their logograms might include some phonetic information,
34:37
but finding it would be a lot harder than with
34:39
an alphabetic script. By getting up close to the looking glass,
34:45
I was able to point to various heptopod body parts
34:49
such as limbs, digits, and eyes in illicit terms. For each.
34:57
It turned out that they had an orifice on the
35:00
underside of their body, lined with articulated bony ridges, probably
35:05
used for eating well, the one at the top was
35:09
for respiration in speech. There were no other conspicuous orifices.
35:17
Perhaps their mouth was their anus too. Those sorts of
35:21
questions would have to wait. I also tried asking our
35:27
two informants for terms for addressing each individually personal names
35:33
if they had such things. Their answers were, of course unpronounceable,
35:39
so for Gary's in my purposes, I dubbed them Flapper
35:43
and Raspberry. I hoped i'd be able to tell them
35:48
apart the next day, I conferred with Gary before we
35:53
entered the looking glass tent. I'll need your help with
35:57
this session, I told him, Uh, sure, what do you
36:02
want me to do? We need to elicit some verbs,
36:07
and it's easiest with third person forms. Would you act
36:11
out a few verbs while I typed the written form
36:13
on the computer. If we're lucky, the heptopods will figure
36:17
out what we're doing and do the same. I've brought
36:20
a bunch of props for you to use. No problem,
36:26
said Gary, cracking his knuckles. Ready when you are. We
36:32
began with some simple intrinsitive verbs, walking, jumping, speaking, writing.
36:40
Gary demonstrated each one with a charming lack of self consciousness.
36:44
The presence of the video cameras didn't inhibit him at
36:47
all For the first few actions he performed. I asked
36:51
the heptopods what do you call that? Before long, the
36:57
heptopods caught on to what we were trying to do.
37:00
Raspberry began mimicking Gary, or at least performing the equivalent
37:04
heptopod action while Flapper worked their computer displaying a written
37:09
description in pronouncing it aloud. In the spectrographs of their
37:16
spoken utterances, I could recognize their word I had glossed
37:20
as heptopod. The rest of each utterance was presumably the
37:25
verb phrase. It looked like they had analogs of nouns
37:29
and verbs thank goodness in their writing. However, things weren't
37:35
as clear cut. For each action, they had displayed a
37:40
single logogram instead of two separate ones. At first, I
37:45
thought they had written something like walks with the subject implied.
37:50
But why would Flapper say the heptopod walks while writing
37:54
walks instead of maintaining parallelism. Then I noticed that some
38:01
of the logograms look like the lagogram for heptopod, with
38:05
some extra strokes added to one side or another. Perhaps
38:11
their verbs could be written as a fixes to a noun.
38:16
If so, why was Flapper writing the noun in some
38:19
instances but not in others. I decided to try a
38:23
transitive verb, substituting object words might clarify things. Among the
38:29
props I brought were an apple and a slice of bread. Okay,
38:35
I said to Gary, show them the food and then
38:38
eat some. First the apple, then the bread. Gary pointed
38:44
at the golden delicious, and then he took a bite
38:47
out of it while I displayed the what do you
38:50
call that? Expression? Then we repeated it with a slice
38:55
of whole wheat. Raspberry left the room and returned with
38:59
some kind of giant nut or gord in a gelatinous ellipsoid.
39:05
Raspberry pointed at the gourd while Flapper said a word
39:09
and displayed a logogram. Then Raspberry brought the gourd down
39:14
between its legs. A crunching sound resulted, and the gourd
39:18
re emerged minus a bite. There were corn like kernels
39:23
beneath the shell. Flapper talked and displayed a large logogram
39:28
on their screen. The sound spectograph for gord changed when
39:33
it was used in the sentence, possibly a case marker.
39:38
The logogram was odd. After some study, I could identify
39:43
graphic elements that resembled the individual logograms for heptopod and gord.
39:49
They looked as if they had been melted together, with
39:52
several strokes in the mix that presumably meant eat. Was
39:57
it a multi word ligature? Next we got spoken in
40:03
written names for the gelatine egg and description of the
40:06
act of eating it. The sound spectrograph for heptopod eats
40:11
gelatine egg was analyzable gelatine egg bore a case marker,
40:17
as expected, though the sentence's word order deferred from last time.
40:23
The written form another large logogram was another matter. This
40:28
time it took much longer for me to recognize anything
40:31
in it. Not only were the individual logograms melted together again,
40:37
it looked as if the one for heptopod was laid
40:40
in its back, while on top of it, the logogram
40:43
for gelatine egg was standing on its head. Uh oh.
40:51
I took another look at the writing for the simple
40:53
noun verb examples, the ones that had seemed inconsistent before. Wow,
41:00
I realized all of them actually did contain the logogram
41:03
for heptopod. Some were rotated and distorted by being combined
41:07
with the various verbs, so I hadn't recognized them at first.
41:12
You guys have got to be kidding me, I muttered,
41:16
what's wrong? Asked Gary? Their script isn't word divided? A
41:22
sentence is written by joining the logograms for the constituent words.
41:27
They joined the logograms by rotating and modifying them. Take
41:31
a look. I showed them how the logograms were rotated,
41:37
so they can read a word with equal ease, no
41:40
matter how it's rotated, Gary said. He turned to look
41:44
at the heptopods impressed. I wonder if it's consequence of
41:49
their bodies radial symmetry. Their bodies radial symmetry. Their bodies
41:55
have no forward direction, so maybe their writing doesn't either.
42:00
Highly neat. I couldn't believe it. I was working with
42:07
someone who modified the word neat with highly. It certainly
42:12
is interesting, I said, But it also means there's no
42:16
easy way for us to write our own sentences in
42:19
their language. We can't simply cut their sentences into individual
42:23
words and recombine them. We'll have to learn the rules
42:26
of their script before we can write anything legible. It's
42:31
the same continuity problem we'd have had splicing together speech fragments,
42:35
except applied to writing. I looked at Flapper and Raspberry
42:41
in the looking glass, who were waiting for us to
42:44
continue inside. You aren't going to make this easy for us,
42:49
are you? To be fair? The heptopods were completely cooperative
42:56
in the days that followed. They readily taught us their
42:58
language without requiring to teach them any more English. Colonel
43:02
Weber and his cohorts pondered the implications of that. While
43:07
I in the linguist that the other looking glasses met
43:09
via video conferencing to share what we had learned about
43:12
the heptopod language. The video conferencing made for an incongruous
43:19
working environment. Our video screens were primitive compared to the
43:23
heptopods looking glasses, so that my colleague seemed more remote
43:27
than the aliens. The familiar was far away, while the
43:32
bizarre was close at hand. It would be a while
43:37
before we'd be ready to ask the heptopods why they
43:40
had come, or to discuss physics well enough to ask
43:43
them about their technology. For the time being, we worked
43:47
on the basics phonemics, graphe mix, vocabulary, syntax. The heptopods
43:55
at every looking glass were using the same language, so
43:58
we were able to pool our data and coordinate our efforts.
44:03
Our biggest source of confusion was the heptapod's writing. It
44:08
didn't appear to be writing at all. It looked more
44:11
like a bunch of intricate graphic designs. The logograms weren't
44:15
arranged in rows or a spiral or any linear fashion. Instead,
44:21
Flapper or Raspberry would write a sentence by sticking together
44:25
as many logograms as needed into a giant conglomeration. This
44:30
form of writing was reminiscent of primitive sign systems, which
44:34
required a reader to know a message's context in order
44:37
to understand it. Such systems were considered too limited for
44:42
systematic recording of information. Yet, it was unlikely that the
44:47
heptopods developed their level of technology with only an oral
44:51
tradition that implied one of three possibilities. The first was
44:57
that the heptopods had a true writing system, but they
45:00
didn't want to use it in front of us. Colonel
45:03
Weber would identify with that one. The second was that
45:07
the Heptapods hadn't originated the technology they were using. They
45:11
were illiterates using someone else's technology. The third, and most
45:17
interesting to me, was that the heptopods were using a
45:20
nonlinear system of orthography that qualified as true writing. I
45:31
remember a conversation we'll have when you're in your junior
45:34
year of high school. It'll be Sunday morning, and I'll
45:38
be scrambling some eggs while you set the table for brunch.
45:43
You'll laugh as you tell me about the party you
45:45
went to last night. Oh man, you'll say they're not
45:50
kidding when they say that body weight makes a difference.
45:53
I didn't drink any more than the guys did, but
45:54
I got so much drunker. I'll try to maintain a
45:59
neutral place, pleasant expression. I'll really try. Then you'll say, oh,
46:06
come on, mom, what you know you did the exact
46:13
same things when you were my age. I did nothing
46:17
of the sort. But I know that if I were
46:19
to admit that, you'd lose respect for me completely. You know,
46:24
never to drive or get into a car if god,
46:27
of course I know that. Do you think I'm an idiot? No,
46:32
of course not. What I'll think is that you are clearly,
46:37
maddeningly not me. It will remind me again that you
46:42
won't be a clone of me. You can be wonderful,
46:46
a daily delight, but you won't be someone I could
46:49
have created by myself. The military had set up a
46:58
trailer containing our offices at the looking Glass Sight. I
47:02
saw Gary walking toward the trailer and ran to catch
47:05
up with him. It's a semasiographic writing system, I said
47:12
when I reached him. Excuse me, said Gary, here, let
47:17
me show you. I directed Gary into my office. Once
47:22
we were inside, I went to the chalkboard and drew
47:24
a circle with a diagonal line bisecting it. What does
47:29
this mean not allowed? Right next, I printed the words
47:35
not allowed on the chalkboard, and so does this, but
47:40
only one is representation of speech? Gary nodded, Okay. Linguists
47:47
describe writing like this. I indicated the printed words as
47:52
glattagraphic because it represents speech. Every human written language is
47:57
in this category. However, this symbol I indicated the circle
48:03
and diagonal line is some massiographic writing because it conveys
48:08
meaning without reference to speech. There's no correspondence between its
48:13
components and any particular sounds. And do you think all
48:18
of Heptopod's writing is like this from what I've seen
48:22
so far. Yes, it's not picture writing. It's far more complex.
48:27
It has its own system of rules for constructing sentences,
48:30
like a visual syntax that's unrelated to the syntax for
48:33
their spoken language, a visual syntax. Can you show me
48:39
an example? Coming right up? I sat down at my
48:43
desk and using the computer, pulled up a frame from
48:46
the recording of yesterday's conversation with Raspberry. I turned the
48:50
monitor so he could see it. In their spoken language,
48:54
a noun has a case marker indicating whether it's a
48:57
subject or object. In their written language, however, a noun
49:03
is identified as subject or object based on the orientation
49:07
of its logogram relative to that of the verb. Here
49:10
take a look, I pointed at one of the figures.
49:15
For instance, when heptapod is integrated with hears this way,
49:20
with these strokes parallel, it means that the heptopod is
49:24
doing the hearing I showed him a different one. When
49:27
they're combined this way, with the strokes perpendicular, it means
49:31
that the heptapod is being heard. This morphology applies to
49:36
several verbs. Another example is the inflection system. I called
49:42
up another frame from the recording. In their written language,
49:46
this logogram means roughly here easily or here clearly. See
49:52
the elements it has in common with a logogram for here.
49:55
You can still combine it with heptopod in the same
49:58
ways as before to indicate that the heptopod can hear
50:01
something clearly, or that the heptopod is clearly heard. But
50:06
what's really interesting is that the modulation of here into
50:09
here clearly is int a special case. You see the
50:12
transformation they applied. Gary nodded, pointing. It's like they express
50:19
the idea of clearly by changing the curve of those
50:21
strokes in the middle right. The modulation is applicable to
50:26
lots of verbs. The logogram for C can be modulated
50:30
in the same way to form c clearly, and so
50:33
can the logogram for reed in others, and changing the
50:37
curve of those strokes has no parallel in their speech
50:40
with the spoken version of these verbs. They add a
50:42
prefix to the verb to express ease of manner, and
50:46
the prefixes for c and here are different. There are
50:52
other examples, but you get the idea. It's essentially a
50:55
grammar in two dimensions. He began pacing thoughtful. Is there
51:02
anything like this in human writing systems? Mathematical equations notations
51:07
for music and dance, but those are all very specialized.
51:11
We couldn't record this conversation using them. But I suspect
51:15
if we knew it well enough, we could record this
51:18
conversation in the heptapod writing system. I think it's a
51:21
full fledged general purpose graphical language, Gary frowned. So their
51:29
writing constitutes a completely separate language from their speech right right.
51:35
In fact, it'd be more accurate to refer to this
51:38
writing system as heptopod B and use heptopod A strictly
51:42
for referring to the spoken language. Hold on a second,
51:47
Why use two languages when one would suffice that seems
51:51
unnecessarily hard to learn, like English spelling, I said, ease
51:56
of learning isn't the primary force in language evolution. For
52:00
the heptopod's writing and speech may play such different cultural
52:04
or cognitive roles that using separate languages makes more sense
52:08
than using different forms of the same one. He considered it,
52:14
I see what you mean. Maybe they think our form
52:18
of writing is redundant, like we're wasting a second communications
52:21
channel that's entirely possible. Finding out why they use a
52:28
second language for writing will tell us a lot about them.
52:32
So I take it this means we won't be able
52:34
to use their writing to help us learn their spoken language.
52:38
I sighed, Yeah, that's the most immediate implication. But I
52:43
don't think we should ignore either heptopod A or B.
52:47
We need a too pronged approach. I pointed at the screen.
52:51
I'll bet you that learning their two dimensional grammar will
52:54
help you when it comes time to learn their mathematical notation.
52:59
You've got a point there, So are you ready to
53:02
start asking them about their mathematics. Not yet, we need
53:06
a better grasp on this writing system before we begin
53:09
anything else, I said, and then smiled. When you mind frustration, Patience, good, sir,
53:16
Patience is a virtue. You'll be six when your father
53:25
has a conference to attend in Hawaii and will accompany him.
53:31
You'll be so excited that you'll make preparations for weeks beforehand.
53:35
You'll ask me about coconuts and volcanoes and surfing and
53:39
practice hula dancing in the mirror. You'll pack a suitcase
53:43
with the clothes and toys you want to bring, and
53:46
you'll drag it around the house to see how long
53:48
you can carry it. You'll ask me if I can
53:51
carry your etches sketch in my bag, since there won't
53:54
be any more room for it in yours and you
53:56
simply can't leave without it. You won't need all these,
54:02
I'll say. There'll be so many fun things to do there.
54:05
You won't have time to play with so many toys.
54:09
You'll consider that dimples will appear above your eyebrows when
54:13
you think hard. Eventually, you'll agree to pack fewer toys,
54:18
but your expectations will, if anything, increase. I want to
54:23
be in Hawaii. Now you'll whine. Sometimes it's good to wait,
54:29
I'll say the anticipation makes it more fun when you
54:33
get there, and you'll just pout. In the next report
54:40
I submitted, I suggested that the term logogram was a
54:45
misnomer because it implied that each graph represented a spoken word,
54:50
when in fact the graphs didn't correspond to our notion
54:53
of spoken words at all. I didn't want to use
54:57
the term idiogram either, because of how it had been
55:00
used in the past. I suggested the term semigram instead.
55:09
It appeared that a semigram corresponded roughly to a written
55:12
word in human languages. It was meaningful on its own,
55:17
and in combination with other semigrams, could form endless statements.
55:24
We couldn't define it precisely, but then no one had
55:28
ever satisfactorily defined word for human languages either. When it
55:35
came to sentences in heptopod B, though, things became much
55:39
more confusing. The language had no written punctuation, Its syntax
55:46
was indicated in the way the semograms were combined, and
55:49
there were no need to indicate the cadence of speech.
55:54
There was certainly no way to slice out subject predicate
55:57
pairings neatly to make sentences. A sentence seemed to be
56:03
whatever number of semigrams a heptopod wanted to join together.
56:08
The only difference between a sentence and a paragraph or
56:11
a page was size. When a heptopod b sentence grew
56:17
fairly sizable, its visual impact was remarkable. If I wasn't
56:23
trying to decipher it. The writing looked like fanciful praying
56:27
man hits drawn in a cursive style, all clinging to
56:32
each other to form in as curesque lattice, each slightly different
56:38
in its stance, and the biggest sentences had an effect
56:44
similar to that of psychedelic posters, sometimes eye watering, sometimes hypnotic.
56:57
I remember a picture of you taken at your college graduation.
57:04
In the photo, you're striking a pose for the camera mortarboard,
57:10
stylishly tilted on your head, one hand touching your sunglasses,
57:16
the other hand on your hip, holding open your gown
57:19
to reveal the tank top and shorts you're wearing underneath.
57:24
I remember your graduation. There will be the distraction of
57:29
having Nelson and your father and what's her name there
57:33
all at the same time, but that will be minor
57:39
an entire weekend while you're introducing me to your classmates
57:43
and hugging everyone incessantly, I'll be all but mute with amazement.
57:50
I can't believe that you, a grown woman taller than
57:54
me and beautiful enough to make my heartache, will be
57:58
the same girl I used to off the ground so
58:01
you could reach the drinking fountain, the same girl he
58:05
used to trundle out of my bedroom, draped in a
58:07
dress and hat and four scarves from my closet. And
58:14
after graduation, you'll be heading for a job as a
58:17
financial analyst. I won't even understand what you do there.
58:23
I won't even understand your fascination with money, the pre
58:28
eminence you gave to salary when a negotiating job offers.
58:34
I would prefer it if you'd pursue something without regard
58:36
for its monetary rewards. But I'll have no complaints. My
58:42
own mother could never understand why I couldn't just be
58:46
a high schooling list teacher. You'll do what makes you happy,
58:52
and that'll be all that I ask for. As time
59:00
went on, the teams at each Looking Glass began working
59:04
in earnest on learning heptopod terminology for elementary mathematics and physics.
59:09
We worked together on presentations, with linguists focusing on procedure
59:14
and the physicists focusing on subject matter. The physicists showed
59:20
us previously devised systems for communicating with aliens based on mathematics,
59:26
but those were intended for use over a radio telescope.
59:30
We reworked them for face to face communication. Our teams
59:36
were successful with basic arithmetic, but we hit a roadblock
59:40
with geometry and algebra. We tried using a spherical coordinate
59:44
system instead of a rectangular one, thinking it might be
59:48
more natural to the heptopods given their anatomy, but that
59:51
approach wasn't any more fruitful. The heptopods didn't seem to
59:56
understand what we were getting at. Likewise, the physics discussions
1:00:02
went poorly. Only with the most concrete terms, like the
1:00:06
names of the elements did we have any success. After
1:00:10
several attempts at representing the periodic table, the heptopods got
1:00:14
the idea. We tried to demonstrate basic physical attributes like
1:00:19
mass and acceleration so we could elicit their terms for them,
1:00:23
but the heptopods simply responded with requests for clarification. To
1:00:29
avoid perceptual problems that might be associated with any particular medium,
1:00:34
we tried physical demonstrations as well as line drawings, photos,
1:00:38
and animations. None were effective. Days with no progress became weeks,
1:00:46
and the physicists were becoming disillusioned. By contrast, the linguists
1:00:53
were having much more success. We made steady progress decoding
1:00:57
the grammar of the spoken language heptod It didn't follow
1:01:02
the pattern of human languages as expected, but it was comprehensible,
1:01:06
so far free word order, even to the extent that
1:01:10
there was no preferred order for the clauses in a
1:01:13
conditional statement, in defiance of a human language universal. It
1:01:20
also appeared that the heptopods had no objection to many
1:01:23
levels of center embedding of clauses, something that quickly defeated humans.
1:01:29
Peculiar but not impenetrable. Much more interesting were the newly
1:01:35
discovered morphological and grammatical processes in Heptopod B that were
1:01:40
uniquely two dimensional. Depending on a semigram's declension, inflections could
1:01:46
be indicated by varying a certain stroke's curvature or its thickness,
1:01:52
or its manner of undulation, or by varying the relative
1:01:56
sizes of two radicals, or their relative distance to another rats,
1:02:01
or their orientations, or various other means. These were non
1:02:08
segmental graphemes. They couldn't be isolated from the rest of
1:02:12
a semigram, and despite how such traits behaved in human writing,
1:02:17
these had nothing to do with calligraphic style. Their meanings
1:02:21
were to find according to a consistent and unambiguous grammar.
1:02:27
We regularly asked the heptopods why they had come. Each time,
1:02:32
they answered to see or to observe. Indeed, sometimes they
1:02:39
preferred to watch us silently rather than answer our questions.
1:02:44
Perhaps they were scientists, perhaps they were tourists. The State
1:02:49
Department instructed us to reveal as little as possible about
1:02:53
humanity in case that information could be used as a
1:02:56
bargaining chip in subsequent negotiations. We obliged, though it didn't
1:03:02
require much effort. The heptopods never asked questions about anything,
1:03:08
whether scientists or tourists. They were an awfully and curious bunch.
1:03:17
I remember once, when we'll be driving to the mall
1:03:21
to buy some clothes for you. You'll be thirteen. One moment,
1:03:27
you'll be sprawled in your seat, completely un self conscious
1:03:31
all child. The next you'll toss your hair with a
1:03:36
practiced casualness, like a fashioned model in training. You'll give
1:03:41
me some instructions as I'm parking the car. Okay, Mom,
1:03:46
give me one of the credit cards and we can
1:03:48
meet back at the entrance here in two hours. I'll laugh.
1:03:54
Not a chance all the credit cards stay with me.
1:03:58
You're kidding. You'll become the embodiment of exasperation. We'll get
1:04:04
out of the car and I'll start walking to the
1:04:06
mall entrance. After seeing that I won't budge on the matter,
1:04:10
you'll quickly reformulate your plans. Okay, Mom, okay, you can
1:04:16
come with me. Just walk a little waist behind me
1:04:18
so it doesn't look like we're together. If I see
1:04:21
any friends of mine, I'm gonna stop and talk to them,
1:04:23
But you just keep walking. Okay. I'll come find you later.
1:04:28
I'll stop in my tracks. Excuse me. I'm not the
1:04:33
hired help, nor am I some mutant relative for you
1:04:36
to be ashamed of. But Mom, I can't let anyone
1:04:40
see you with me. What are you talking about. I've
1:04:43
already met your friends. They've been to the house that
1:04:46
was different. You'll say, incredulous that you've had to explain it.
1:04:52
This is shopping too bad. Then the explosion. You won't
1:04:58
do the least thing to make me. You don't care
1:05:01
about me at all. It won't have been that long
1:05:05
since you enjoyed going shopping with me. It will forever
1:05:10
astonish me. It will forever astonish me how quickly you
1:05:14
grow out of one phase and enter another. Living with
1:05:18
you will be like aiming for a moving target. You'll
1:05:22
always be further along than I expect. I looked at
1:05:30
the sentence and heptopod B that I had just written
1:05:34
using simple pen and paper. Like all the sentences I
1:05:38
generated myself, this one looked misshapen, like a heptopod written
1:05:45
sentence that had been smashed with a hammer and then
1:05:47
inexpertly taped back together. I had sheets of such inelegant
1:05:53
semigrams covering my desk, fluttering occasionally when the oscillating fan
1:05:58
swung past. It was strange trying to learn a language
1:06:03
that had no spoken form. Instead of practicing my pronunciation,
1:06:08
I had taken to squeezing my eyes shut and trying
1:06:11
to paint semigrams on the insides of my eyelids. There
1:06:16
was a knock at the door, and before I could answer,
1:06:18
Gary came looking in jubilant. Illinois got a repetition in physics. Really,
1:06:27
that's great. When did it happen. It happened a few
1:06:30
hours ago. We just had the video conference. Let me
1:06:33
show you what it is. He started erasing my blackboard.
1:06:39
Don't worry, I didn't need any of that. Good. He
1:06:43
picked up a nub of chalk and drew a diagram. Okay,
1:06:47
here's the pathay ray of light takes when crossing from
1:06:50
air to water. The light ray travels in a straight
1:06:53
line until it hits the water. The water has a
1:06:56
different index of refractions, so the light changes direction. You've
1:06:59
heard this before, right, I nodded. Sure. Now here's an
1:07:06
interesting property about the path the light takes. The path
1:07:10
is the fastest possible route between the two points. Come again, Imagine,
1:07:17
just for grins, that the ray of light travel along
1:07:20
this path. He added a dotted line to his diagram.
1:07:24
This hypothetical path is shorter than the path the light
1:07:27
actually takes. But light travels more slowly in water than
1:07:31
it does in air, and a greater percentage of this
1:07:33
path is underwater, So it would take longer for light
1:07:37
to travel along this path than it does along the
1:07:39
real path. Okay, I get it. Now, imagine if light
1:07:46
were to travel along this other path. He drew a
1:07:49
second dotted path. This path reduces the percentage that's underwater,
1:07:54
but the total length is larger, So it would also
1:07:58
take longer for light to travel along this path than
1:08:00
along the actual one. Gary put down the chalk and
1:08:06
gestured at his diagram on the chalkboard with white tipped fingers.
1:08:11
Any hypothetical path would require more time to traverse than
1:08:14
the one actually taken. In other words, the route that
1:08:18
the light ray takes is always the fastest possible one.
1:08:22
That's Fermit's principle of a least time. Hmm. Interesting, And
1:08:30
this is what the heptopods responded to exactly Morehead gave
1:08:36
an animated presentation of Fermat's principle at the Illinois Looking Glass,
1:08:40
and the heptapods repeated it back. Now he's trying to
1:08:45
get a symbolic description, he grinned. Now, is that highly
1:08:50
neat or what? It's neat? All? Right? But how come
1:08:55
I haven't heard of Fermat's principle before I picked up
1:08:59
a Binder in at him. It was a primer on
1:09:02
the physics topics suggested for use in communication with the heptopods.
1:09:07
This thing goes on forever about plank masses and the
1:09:10
spin flip of atomic hydrogen, and not a word about
1:09:14
the refraction of light. We guessed wrong about what'd be
1:09:19
most useful for you to know, Carrie said, without embarrassment.
1:09:24
In fact, it's curious that Fermat's principle was the first breakthrough,
1:09:29
even though it's easy to explain. You need calculus to
1:09:32
describe it mathematically, and not ordinary calculus. You need the
1:09:37
calculus of variations. We thought that some simple theorem of
1:09:42
geometry or algebra would be the breakthrough. Curious indeed, you
1:09:50
think the heptopod's idea of what simple doesn't match ours exactly,
1:09:55
which is why I'm dying to see what their mathematical
1:09:57
description of Fermat's principle looks like. He paced as we talked.
1:10:02
If their version of the calculus of variations is simpler
1:10:05
to them than their equivalent of algebra, that might explain
1:10:08
why we've had so much trouble talking about physics. Their
1:10:11
entire system of mathematics may be tops to turvy compared
1:10:15
to ours. He pointed to the physics primer. You can
1:10:19
be sure that we're going to revise that. So you
1:10:24
can build from Fermat's principle to other areas of physics.
1:10:28
Probably there are lots of physical principles just like Fermat's.
1:10:34
What like Luisa's principle of least closet space? When did
1:10:39
physics become so minimalist? Well, the word least is misleading.
1:10:47
You see, Fermat's principle of least time is incomplete. In
1:10:51
certain situations, light follows a path that makes more time
1:10:54
than any of the other possibilities. It's more accurate to
1:10:58
say that light always follows an extreme path, either one
1:11:02
that minimizes the time taken or one that maximizes it.
1:11:06
A minimum and a maximum share certain mathematical properties, so
1:11:11
both situations can be described with one equation, so to
1:11:15
be precise, Firmat's principle isn't a minimal principle. Instead, it's
1:11:20
what's known as a variational principle. And there are more
1:11:26
of these variation principles, he nodded. In all branches of physics.
1:11:32
Almost every physical law can be restated as a variational principle.
1:11:37
The only difference between these principles is in which attribute
1:11:40
is minimized or maximized. He gestured as if the different
1:11:44
branches of physics were arrayed before him on a table.
1:11:48
In optics, where Fermat's principle applies, time is the attribute
1:11:52
that has to be an extreme. In mechanics it's a
1:11:55
different attribute. In electromagnetism it's something else again. But all
1:12:00
these principles are similar mathematically. So once you get their
1:12:06
mathematical description of Format's principle, you should be able to
1:12:10
decode the other ones. God, I hope. So I think
1:12:14
this is the wedge that we've been looking for, the
1:12:16
one that cracks open their formulation of physics. This calls
1:12:20
for a celebration. He stopped his pacing and turned to me. Hey, Luisa,
1:12:26
want to go out for dinner? My treat? I was
1:12:30
mildly surprised. Sure, I said, it'll be when you first
1:12:40
learn to walk. Then I get daily demonstrations of the
1:12:43
asymmetry in our relationship. You'll be incessantly running off somewhere,
1:12:50
and each time you walk into a door frame or
1:12:52
scrape your knee, the pain feels like it's my own.
1:12:57
It'll be like growing an errant limb extension of myself,
1:13:01
whose sensory nerves report pain just fine, but whose motor
1:13:06
nerves won't convey my commands at all. It's so unfair.
1:13:12
I'm going to give birth to an animated voodoo doll
1:13:14
of myself. I didn't see this in the contract when
1:13:19
I signed up. Was this part of the deal. And
1:13:24
then there will be times when I see you laughing,
1:13:28
like the time you'll be playing with the neighbor's puppy,
1:13:32
poking your hands through the chain link fence separating our backyards,
1:13:37
and you'll be laughing so hard you'll start hiccupping. The
1:13:42
puppy will run inside the neighbor's house, and your laughter
1:13:45
will gradually subside, letting you catch your breath. Then the
1:13:50
puppy will come back to the fence to lick your
1:13:52
fingers again, and you'll shriek and start laughing all over again.
1:13:59
It will be the most wonderful sound I could ever imagine,
1:14:03
a sound that makes me feel like a fountain or
1:14:06
a wellspring. Now, if only I can remember that sound
1:14:12
the next time your blithe disregard for self preservation gives
1:14:16
me a heart attack. After the breakthrough with Fermat's principle,
1:14:25
discussions of scientific concepts become more fruitful. It wasn't as
1:14:31
if all the heptopod physics was suddenly rendered transparent, but
1:14:35
progress was suddenly steady. According to Gary, the heptopod's formulation
1:14:41
of physics was indeed topsy turvy relative to ours. Physical
1:14:46
attributes that humans defined using integral calculus were seen as
1:14:50
fundamental by the heptopods. As an example, Gary described an
1:14:56
attribute that in physics jargon bore the deceptively simple name action,
1:15:02
which represented the difference between kinetic and potential energy integrated
1:15:07
over time. Whatever that meant calculus for us elementary to them. Conversely,
1:15:19
to define attributes that humans thought of as fundamental, like velocity,
1:15:24
the heptopods employed mathematics that were Gary assured me highly weird.
1:15:31
The physicists were ultimately able to prove the equivalents of
1:15:34
heptopod mathematics and human mathematics, even though their approaches were
1:15:39
almost the reverse of one another. Both were symptoms of
1:15:43
describing the same physical universe. I tried following some of
1:15:50
the equations that the physicists were coming up with, but
1:15:53
it was no use. I couldn't really grasp the significance
1:15:57
of physical attributes like action. I couldn't with any confidence
1:16:03
ponder the significance of treating such an attribute as fundamental. Still,
1:16:09
I tried to ponder questions, formulated in terms more familiar
1:16:14
to me. What kind of worldview did the heptopods have
1:16:18
that they would consider Fermat's principle the simplest explanation of
1:16:22
light refraction? What kind of perception made a minimum or
1:16:27
maximum readily apparent to them? Your eyes will be blue
1:16:36
like your dad's, not mud brown like mine. Boys will
1:16:43
stare into those eyes the way I did and do
1:16:47
into your dad's, surprised and enchanted as I was and
1:16:54
am to find them in combination with black hair, will
1:17:00
have many suitors. I remember when you are fifteen, coming
1:17:06
home after a weekend at your dad's, incredulous over the
1:17:10
interrogation he'll have put you through regarding the boy you're
1:17:13
currently dating. You'll sprawl on the sofa recounting your dad's
1:17:20
latest breach of common sense. You know what he said,
1:17:24
He said, I know what teenage boys are like, roll
1:17:28
of the eyes like I don't. Don't hold it against him.
1:17:34
I'll say he's a father. He can't help it. Having
1:17:39
seen you interact with your friends, I won't worry much
1:17:42
about a boy taking advantage of you. If anything, the
1:17:47
opposite will be more likely, and I'll worry about that.
1:17:54
He wishes I were still a kid. He hasn't known
1:17:57
how to act toward me since I grew rests Well.
1:18:01
Development was a shock for him. Give him time to recover.
1:18:05
It's been years, mom, How long is it going to take.
1:18:11
I'll let you know when my father has come to
1:18:13
terms with mine. During one of the video conferences for
1:18:19
the linguists, Cisnaros from the Massachusetts Looking Glass had raised
1:18:24
an interesting question. Was they a particular order in which
1:18:29
semigrams were written in a heptopod B sentence. It was
1:18:34
clear that word order meant next to nothing when speaking
1:18:37
in heptopod A. When asked to repeat what it had
1:18:42
just said, a heptopod would likely as not use a
1:18:45
different word order unless we specifically asked them to. Was
1:18:50
word order similarly unimportant when writing in heptopod B. Previously,
1:18:57
we had only focused our attention on how a sentence
1:19:00
and heptopod B looked once it was complete. As far
1:19:04
as anyone could tell, there was no preferred order when
1:19:07
reading the semigrams in a sentence. You could start almost
1:19:11
anywhere in the nest, then follow the branching clauses until
1:19:15
you'd read the whole thing. But that was reading. Was
1:19:20
the same trewe about writing. During my most recent session
1:19:24
with Flapper and Raspberry, I had asked them if instead
1:19:28
of displaying a semigram only after it was completed, they
1:19:32
could show it to us while it was being written,
1:19:36
and they had agreed. I inserted the videotape of the
1:19:41
session into the VCR, and on my computer, I consulted
1:19:44
the session transcript. I picked one of the longer utterances
1:19:48
from the conversation. What Flapper had said was that Heptapod's
1:19:53
planet had two moons, one significantly larger than the other.
1:20:00
The primary constituents of the planet's atmosphere were nitrogen, argone
1:20:05
and oxygen. In fifteen, twenty eighths of the planet's surface
1:20:11
was covered by water. The first words of the spoken
1:20:15
utterance translated literally as an equality of size rocky orbiter
1:20:21
rocky orbiters related as primary two secondary. Then I reround
1:20:28
the videotape until the time signature matched the one in
1:20:31
the transcription. I started playing the tape and watched the
1:20:35
web of semigrams being spun out of Inky Spider's silk.
1:20:40
I rewound it and played it several times. Finally, I
1:20:45
froze the video. Right after the first stroke was completed
1:20:49
and before the second one was begun. All that was
1:20:52
visible on screen was a single sinuous line. Comparing that
1:20:59
initial shit with a completed sentence, I realized that the
1:21:03
stroke participated in several different clauses of the message. It
1:21:09
began in the semigram for oxygen as the determinant that
1:21:13
distinguished it from certain other elements. Then it slid down
1:21:18
to become the morpheme of comparison in the description of
1:21:22
the two moons sizes, and lastly it flared out as
1:21:27
the arched backbone of the semigram for ocean. Yet this
1:21:33
stroke was a single continuous line, and it was the
1:21:36
first one that Flapper wrote. That meant the heptapod had
1:21:41
to know how the entire sentence would be laid out
1:21:44
before it could write the very first stroke. The other
1:21:50
strokes in the sentence also traversed several clauses, making them
1:21:54
so interconnected that none could be removed without redesigning the
1:21:58
entire sentence. The heptapads didn't write a sentence one semigram
1:22:03
at a time. They built it out of strokes, irrespective
1:22:08
of individual semigrams. I had seen a similarly high degree
1:22:13
of integration before in calligraphic designs, particularly those employing the
1:22:19
Arabic alphabet, but those designs had required careful planning by
1:22:24
expert calligraphers. No one could lay out such an intricate
1:22:29
design at the speed needed for holding a conversation. At
1:22:33
least no human could. There's a joke that I once
1:22:42
heard a comedian tell. Because like this, I'm not sure
1:22:48
if I'm ready to have children. I asked a friend
1:22:51
of mine who has children. Suppose I do have kids,
1:22:55
what if when they grow up they blame me for
1:22:58
everything that's wrong with their lives. She laughed and said,
1:23:03
what do you mean if that's my favorite joke? Gary
1:23:14
and I read a little Chinese restaurant, one of the
1:23:17
local places we had taken to patronizing to get away
1:23:20
from the encampment. We sat eating the appetizers, popstickers redolent
1:23:27
of pork in his sesame oil my favorite. I dipped
1:23:33
one in soy sauce and vinegar. So how are you
1:23:37
doing with your heptopod B practice, I asked. Gary looked
1:23:43
at the ceiling. I tried to meet his gaze, but
1:23:47
he kept shifting it. You've given up, haven't you, I said,
1:23:55
You're not even trying anymore. He did a wonderful hang
1:24:00
dog expression. I'm just no good at languages, he confessed.
1:24:06
I thought learning heptopod B might be more like learning
1:24:11
mathematics than trying to speak another language. But it's not.
1:24:16
It's too foreign for me. It would help you discuss
1:24:22
physics with them, probably, but since we had our breakthrough,
1:24:28
I can get by with just a few phrases, I sighed.
1:24:34
I suppose that's fair. I have to admit I've given
1:24:38
up on trying to learn the mathematics. So we're even.
1:24:44
We're even. I sipped my tea. Though I did want
1:24:50
to ask you about Fermat's principle. Something about it feels
1:24:54
odd to me, but I can't put my finger on it.
1:24:57
It just doesn't sound like a law physics. A twinkle
1:25:03
appeared in Gary's eyes. I'll bet I know what you're
1:25:08
talking about. He snipped a pot sticker in half with
1:25:11
his chopsticks. You are used to thinking of refraction in
1:25:16
terms of cause and effect, searching the water's surface is
1:25:19
the cause and the change in direction is the effect.
1:25:23
But Fermat's principle sounds weird because it describes light's behavior
1:25:27
in goal oriented terms. It sounds like a commandment to
1:25:31
a light beam, thou shalt minimize or maximize the time
1:25:35
taken to reach thy destination. I considered it. Go on.
1:25:43
It's an old question in the philosophy of physics. People
1:25:47
have been talking about it since Fermat first formulated it
1:25:50
in the sixteen hundreds. Pluck wrote volumes about it. The
1:25:56
thing is, while a common formulation of physical laws is
1:26:00
a variational principle like Fermat's is purposive, almost teleological. Hmm,
1:26:09
that's an interesting way to put it. Let me think
1:26:12
about that for a minute. I pulled out a felt
1:26:16
tip pen and on my paper napkin drew a copy
1:26:20
of the diagram that Gary had drawn on my blackboard. Okay,
1:26:25
I said, thinking aloud. So let's say the goal of
1:26:28
a ray of light is to take the fastest path.
1:26:31
How does the light go about doing that? Well, if
1:26:37
I can speak anthropomorphic projectionally, the light has to examine
1:26:41
the possible paths and compute how long each one would take.
1:26:46
He plucked the last popsticker from the serving dish, And
1:26:50
to do that, I continued, the ray of light has
1:26:55
to know just where its destination is. If the destination
1:26:59
were somewhere else, the fastest path would be different. Garry
1:27:04
nodded again, that's right. The notion of a fastest path
1:27:09
is meaningless unless there's a destination specified. In computing how
1:27:14
long a given path takes also requires information about what
1:27:17
lies along that path, like where the water's surface is.
1:27:24
I kept staring at the diagram on the napkin, and
1:27:28
the light ray has to know all of that ahead
1:27:30
of time before it starts moving right, so to speak,
1:27:36
said Gary. The light can't start traveling in any old
1:27:40
direction and make course corrections later on, because the path
1:27:44
resulting from such behavior wouldn't be the fastest possible one.
1:27:48
The light has to do all its computations at the
1:27:51
very beginning. I thought to myself, the ray of light
1:27:57
has to know where it will ultimately end up. It
1:28:00
can choose the direction to begin moving in. I knew
1:28:04
what that reminded me of. I looked up at Gary.
1:28:10
That's what was bugging me. I remember when you're fourteen,
1:28:22
you'll come out of your bedroom a graffiti covered notebook,
1:28:26
computer in hand, working on a report for school? Mom,
1:28:32
What do you call it when both sides can win?
1:28:36
I'll look up for my computer in the paper, I'll
1:28:38
be writing, what do you mean a win win situation? Now,
1:28:46
there's some technical name for it, some math word. Remember
1:28:50
that time Dad was here and he was talking about
1:28:52
the stock market. He used it then? Hmm, that sounds familiar.
1:28:59
But I can't remember or what you called it. I
1:29:02
need to know. I want to use that phrase in
1:29:04
my social studies report. I can't even search for information
1:29:07
on it unless I know what it's called. I'm sorry,
1:29:11
I don't know it either. Why don't you call your dad?
1:29:16
Judging from your expression, that will be more effort than
1:29:19
you want to make. At this point, you and your
1:29:22
father won't be getting along. Well. Can you call dad
1:29:26
and ask him, but don't tell him it's for me.
1:29:29
I think you can call him yourself. You'll fume. Jesus, Mom,
1:29:35
I can never get help with my homework since you
1:29:36
and dad split up. It's amazing the diverse situations in
1:29:42
which you can bring up the divorce I've helped you
1:29:46
with your homework like a million years ago. Mom. I'll
1:29:51
let that pass. I'd help you with this if I could,
1:29:54
but I don't remember what it's called. You'll head back
1:29:58
to your bedroom in a huff. I practiced heptopod B
1:30:05
at every opportunity, both with other linguists and by myself.
1:30:10
The novelty of reading a samassiographic language made it compelling
1:30:14
in a way that heptopod A wasn't, and my improvement
1:30:18
in writing it excited me. Over time, the sentences I
1:30:22
wrote grew shapelier, more cohesive. I had reached the point
1:30:27
where it worked better than when I didn't think about
1:30:30
it too much. Instead of carefully trying to design a
1:30:33
sentence before writing, I could simply begin putting down strokes immediately.
1:30:38
My initial strokes always turned out to be compatible with
1:30:41
an elegant rendition of what I was trying to say.
1:30:45
I was developing a faculty like that of heptopods. More
1:30:49
interesting was the fact that heptopod B was changing the
1:30:52
way I thought. For me, thinking typically meant speaking in
1:30:57
an internal voice, as we say in the trade. My
1:31:01
thoughts were phonologically coded. My internal voice normally spoken English,
1:31:06
but that wasn't a requirement. The summer after my senior
1:31:10
year in high school, I attended a total emergent program
1:31:13
for learning Russian. By the end of the summer, I
1:31:17
was thinking and even dreaming in Russian, but it was
1:31:20
always spoken Russian. Different language, same mode, a voice speaking
1:31:27
silently aloud. The idea of thinking in a linguistic yet
1:31:33
non phonological mode always intrigued me. I had a friend
1:31:37
born of deaf parents. He grew up using American Sign Language,
1:31:41
and he told me that he often thought in ASL
1:31:44
instead of English. I used to wonder what it was
1:31:47
like to have one's thoughts be manually coded to reason
1:31:51
using an inner pair of hands instead of an inner voice.
1:31:55
With heptopod B, I was experiencing something just as foreign.
1:32:01
My thoughts were becoming graphically coded. There were trance like
1:32:05
moments during the day where my thoughts weren't expressed with
1:32:08
my internal voice. Instead, I saw semograms with my mind's eye,
1:32:13
sprouting like frost on a window pane. As I grew
1:32:18
more fluent, semigraphic designs would appear fully formed, articulating even
1:32:23
complex ideas, all at once. My thought processes weren't moving
1:32:28
any faster. As a result, though, instead of racing forward,
1:32:32
my mind hung balanced on the symmetry underlying the semigrams.
1:32:38
The semigram seemed to be something more than language. They
1:32:42
were almost like Mandela's. I found myself in a meditative state,
1:32:48
contemplating the way in which premises and conclusions were interchangeable.
1:32:53
There was no direction inherent in the way propositions were connected,
1:32:57
no train of thought being along a particular route. All
1:33:02
the components in an act of reasoning were equally powerful,
1:33:06
all having identical precedents. A representative from the State Department
1:33:17
named Hasner had the job of briefing the US scientists
1:33:20
on our agenda with the heptopods. We sat in the
1:33:24
video conference room listening to him lecture. A microphone was
1:33:29
turned off so Gary and I could exchange comments without
1:33:32
interrupting Hasner. As we listened, I worried that Gary might
1:33:37
harm his vision, rolling his eyes so often. They must
1:33:42
have had some reason for coming all this way, said
1:33:45
the diplomat, his voice tiny through the speakers. It does
1:33:49
not look like their reason was conquest, Thank god. But
1:33:52
that's not the reason. What is? Are they prospectors? Anthropologists? Missionaries.
1:33:59
Whatever their motives, there must be something we can offer them.
1:34:03
Maybe it's mineral rights to our solar system. Maybe it's
1:34:07
information about ourselves. Maybe it's the right to deliver sermons
1:34:11
to our populations. But we can be sure that there's something.
1:34:17
My point is this. Their motive might not be to trade,
1:34:20
but that doesn't mean that we cannot conduct trade. We
1:34:23
simply need to know why they're here, in what we
1:34:26
have that they want. Once we have that information, we
1:34:29
can begin trade negotiations. I should emphasize that our relationship
1:34:35
with the heptopods need not be adversarial. This is not
1:34:39
a situation where every gain on their part is a
1:34:41
loss on ours, or vice versa. If we handle ourselves correctly,
1:34:46
both we and the heptopods can come out winners. You
1:34:50
mean it's a non zero sum game, Gary said, mockingly.
1:34:59
A non zero some game what you'll reverse course heading
1:35:04
back from your bedroom when both sides can win. I
1:35:08
just remembered it's called a non zero sum game. That's it,
1:35:14
you'll say, writing it down on your notebook. Thanks, Mom,
1:35:19
And I guess I knew it after all. I'll say,
1:35:23
all those years with your father, some of it must
1:35:26
have robbed off. I knew you'd know it. He'll say,
1:35:31
you'll give me a sudden brief hug and your hair
1:35:35
will smell of apples. You're the best, Lois m Sorry,
1:35:46
I was distracted. What did you say? I said, what
1:35:51
do you think about our mister Hosner here, I prefer
1:35:56
not to I've tried that myself, ignoring the government, seeing
1:36:01
if it would go away. It hasn't. As evidence of
1:36:07
Gary's assertion, Haisner kept blathering, your immediate tasks is to
1:36:13
think it back on what you've learned, look for anything
1:36:16
that might help us. Has there been any indication of
1:36:18
what the heptopods want, of what they value? Gee, it
1:36:24
never occurred to us to look for things like that.
1:36:27
I said, we'll get right on it, sir. The sad
1:36:32
thing is that's just what we'll have to do, said Gary.
1:36:36
Are there any questions? Asked Hasner. Berghart, the linguist at
1:36:42
the Fort Worth Looking Glass, spoke up. We've been through
1:36:46
this with the heptopods many times. They maintain that they're
1:36:49
here to observe. Then they maintain that information is not tradable,
1:36:55
so they would have us believe, said Hasner. But consider
1:37:00
how could that be true. I know that heptopods have
1:37:03
occasionally stopped talking to us for brief periods. That may
1:37:07
be a tactical maneuver on their part if we were
1:37:09
to stop talking to them tomorrow, wake me up. If
1:37:13
he says something interesting, said Gary, I was just going
1:37:19
to ask you to do the same for me. That day,
1:37:27
when Gary first explained Fermat's principle to me, he had
1:37:30
mentioned that almost every physical law could be stated as
1:37:34
a rational principle. Yet when humans thought about physical laws,
1:37:39
they preferred to work with them in their casual formulation.
1:37:43
I could understand that the physical attributes that humans found intuitive,
1:37:48
like kinetic energy or acceleration, were all properties of an
1:37:52
object at a given moment in time, and these were
1:37:56
conductive to a chronological, casual interpretation of events. One moment
1:38:02
growing out of another, causes and effects created a chain
1:38:07
reaction that grew from past to future. In contrast, the
1:38:13
physical attributes that the heptopods found intuitive, like action or
1:38:18
those other things defined by integrals, were meaningful only over
1:38:23
a period of time, and those were conductive to a
1:38:26
teleological interpretation of events. By viewing events over a period
1:38:32
of time, one recognized that there was a requirement that
1:38:36
had to be satisfied a goal of minimizing or maximizing,
1:38:41
and one had to know the initial and final states
1:38:45
to meet that goal. One needed knowledge of the effects
1:38:49
before the causes could be initiated. I was growing to
1:38:54
understand that too. Why You'll ask again, You'll be three,
1:39:08
because it's your bedtime. I'll say again. You'll have gotten
1:39:13
as far as getting you bathed and into your jammies,
1:39:16
but no further than that. But I'm not sleepy, You'll whine.
1:39:23
You'll be standing at the bookshelf, pulling down a video
1:39:26
to watch your latest divisionary tactic to keep away from
1:39:32
your bedroom. It doesn't matter. You still have to go
1:39:35
to bed. But why Because I'm the mom and I
1:39:40
said so, I'm actually going to say that, aren't I God,
1:39:46
Somebody please shoot me. I'll pick you up and carry
1:39:50
you under my arm to your bed. You're wailing pitifully
1:39:55
all the while, But my sole concern will be my
1:39:58
own distress. All those vows made in childhood that I
1:40:02
would give reasonable answers when I became apparent, that I
1:40:05
would treat my own child as an intelligent, thinking individual,
1:40:10
all for no I'm going to turn into my mother.
1:40:15
I can find it as much as I want, but
1:40:17
there'll be no stopping my slide down that long, dreadful slope.
1:40:26
Was it actually possible to know the future, not simply
1:40:31
to guess at it? Was it possible to know what
1:40:34
was going to happen with absolute certainty and in specific detail.
1:40:40
Gary once told me that the fundamental laws of physics
1:40:43
were time symmetric, that there was no physical difference between
1:40:46
past and future. Given that, some might say yes theoretically,
1:40:53
but speaking more concretely, most would answer no, because of
1:40:58
free will. The existence of free will meant that we
1:41:02
couldn't know the future, and we knew free will existed
1:41:06
because we had direct experience of it. Volition was an
1:41:10
intrinsic part of consciousness? Or was it? What if the
1:41:16
experience of knowing the future changed a person? What if
1:41:20
it evoked a sense of urgency, a sense of obligation
1:41:23
to act precisely as she knew she would? I stopped
1:41:30
by Gary's office before leaving for the day. I'm calling
1:41:34
it quits, but you want to grab something to eat? Sure,
1:41:38
just wait a second, he said. He shut down his
1:41:41
computer and gathered some papers, together. Then he looked up
1:41:44
at me, Hey, want to come to my place for
1:41:47
dinner tonight? I'll cook. I looked at him dubiously. You
1:41:53
can cook just one dish, he admitted, But it's a
1:41:58
good one. Sure, I said, I'm game. Great. We just
1:42:05
need to go shopping for the ingredients. Don't go to
1:42:09
any trouble. There's a market on the way to my house.
1:42:12
It won't take a minute. We took separate cars, me
1:42:16
following him. I almost lost him when he abruptly turned
1:42:20
into a parking lot. It was a gourmet market, not large,
1:42:24
but fancy. Tall glass jars stuffed with imported food sat
1:42:29
next to specialty utensils on the store stainless steel shelves.
1:42:34
I accompanied Gary as he collected fresh basil, tomatoes, garlic, linguini.
1:42:40
There's a fish market next door. We can get fresh
1:42:42
clams there, he said. Sounds good. We walked past the
1:42:47
section of kitchen utensils. My gaze wandered over the shelves,
1:42:52
pepper mills, garlic presses, salad tongs, and stopped on a
1:42:58
wooden salad bowl. When you are three, you'll pull a
1:43:07
dishtowel off the kitchen counter and bring that salad bull
1:43:10
down on top of you. I'll make a grab for it,
1:43:15
but I'll miss the edge of the bowl, will leave
1:43:18
you with a cut on the upper edge of your
1:43:20
forehead that will require a single stitch. Your father and
1:43:25
I will hold you sobbing and stained with Caesar salad
1:43:29
dressing as we wait in the emergency room for hours.
1:43:36
I reached out and took the bowl from the shelf.
1:43:39
The motion didn't feel like something I was forced to do,
1:43:42
and said, it seemed just as urgent is my rushing
1:43:45
to catch the bowl when it falls on you, an
1:43:48
instinct that I felt right in following, I could use
1:43:52
a salad bull like this. Gary looked at the bowl
1:43:57
and nodded approvingly. See wasn't it a good thing that
1:44:01
I had to stop at the market? Yes? It was.
1:44:06
We got in line to pay for our purchases. Consider
1:44:12
the sentence the rabbit is ready to eat. Interpret rabbit
1:44:18
to be the object of eat, and the sentence was
1:44:22
an announcement that dinner would be served shortly. Interpret rabbit
1:44:27
to be the subject of eat. And it was a hint,
1:44:32
such as a young girl might give her mother, so
1:44:35
she'll open a bag of parina bunny chow two very
1:44:40
different utterances. In fact, they were probably mutually exclusive within
1:44:45
a single household. Yet either was a valid interpretation. Only
1:44:50
context could determine what the sentence meant. Consider the phenomenon
1:44:57
of light hitting water at one angle, traveling through it
1:45:00
at a different angle. Explain it by saying that a
1:45:04
difference in the index of refraction caused the light to
1:45:07
change direction, and one saw the world as humans saw it.
1:45:13
Explain it by saying that light minimized the time need
1:45:16
to travel to its destination. And one saw the world
1:45:19
as the heptapods saw it, two different interpretations. The physical
1:45:27
universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every
1:45:32
physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in
1:45:35
two entirely different ways, one casual and the other theological,
1:45:42
both valid, neither one disqualifiable, no matter how much context
1:45:48
was available. When the ancestors of humans and heptapods first
1:45:53
acquired the spark of consciousness, they both perceived the same
1:45:57
physical world, but they first their perceptions differently. The world
1:46:03
views that ultimately across were the end result of the divergence.
1:46:09
Humans had developed a sequential mode of awareness, while heptopods
1:46:14
had developed a simultaneous mode of awareness. We experienced events
1:46:20
in one order and perceived their relationship as cause and effect.
1:46:26
They experienced all events at once and perceived a purpose
1:46:33
underlying them all, a minimizing, maximizing purpose. I have a
1:46:47
reoccurring dream about your death. In the dream, I'm the
1:46:53
one who's rock climbing me. Can you imagine it? And
1:46:59
your three years old writing in some kind of backpack
1:47:02
I'm wearing. We're just a few feet below a ledge
1:47:06
where we can rest, and you won't wait until I've
1:47:09
climbed up to it. You start pulling yourself out of
1:47:13
the pack. I order you to stop, but of course
1:47:17
you ignore me. I feel your weight alternating from one
1:47:22
side of the pack to the other as you climb out.
1:47:26
Then I feel your left foot on my shoulder, and
1:47:29
then you're right. I'm screaming at you, but I can't
1:47:34
get a hand free to grab you. I can see
1:47:37
the wavy design on the soles of your sneakers as
1:47:40
you climb, and then I see a flake of stone
1:47:43
give way beneath one of them. You slide right past me,
1:47:49
and I can't move a muscle. I look down and
1:47:53
I see you shrink into the distance below me. Then
1:47:59
all of a sudden, I'm at the morgue and orderly
1:48:04
lifts the sheets from your face, and I see that
1:48:08
you're twenty five. You okay? I was sitting upright in bed.
1:48:21
I'd woken Gary with my movements. I'm fine, I was
1:48:25
just startled. I didn't recognize where I was for a moment. Sleepily,
1:48:31
he said, m we can stay at your place next time.
1:48:37
I kissed him. Don't worry, your place is fine. We
1:48:43
curled up my back against his chest and went back
1:48:48
to sleep. When you're three and we're climbing a steep,
1:48:56
spiral flight of stairs, I'll hold your hand extra tightly.
1:49:01
You'll pull your hand away from me. I can do
1:49:04
it by myself. You'll insist and then move away from
1:49:09
me to prove it, And I'll remember that dream. We'll
1:49:15
repeat that scene countless times during your childhood. I can
1:49:20
almost believe that, given your contrary nature, my attempts to
1:49:25
protect you will be what create your love of climbing.
1:49:31
First the jungle gym at the playground, then trees out
1:49:36
in the green belt around our neighborhood, the rock walls,
1:49:40
the climbing club and ultimately cliff faces and national parks,
1:49:50
just like the one you would fall from in my dreams.
1:50:00
I finished the last radical in the sentence, put down
1:50:04
the chalk, and sat down in my desk chair. I
1:50:07
leaned back and surveyed the giant Heptopod B sentence I
1:50:10
had written that covered the entire blackboard in my office.
1:50:14
It included several complex clauses and had managed to integrate
1:50:18
all of them rather nicely. Looking at a sentence like
1:50:23
this one, I understood why the heptopods had evolved a
1:50:26
semisographic writing system like heptopod B. It was better suited
1:50:32
for a species with simultaneous mode of consciousness. For them,
1:50:37
speech was a bottle neck because it required that one
1:50:40
word follow another sequentially. With writing. On the other hand,
1:50:46
every mark on a page was visible simultaneously. Why constrain
1:50:51
writing with a glottographic strait jacket demanding that it just
1:50:55
be a sequential as speech? It would never occur to them.
1:51:00
Semisographic writing naturally took advantage of the page's two dimensionality.
1:51:06
Instead of dueling out morphemes one at a time, it
1:51:10
offered an entire page full of them, all at once.
1:51:16
And now the heptapod B had introduced me to a
1:51:19
simultaneous mode of consciousness. I understood the rationale behind heptopod
1:51:25
a's grammar. What my sequential mind has perceived as unnecessarily
1:51:31
convoluted I now recognized as an attempt to provide flexibility
1:51:36
within the confines of sequential speech. I could use heptopod
1:51:41
A more easily as a result, though it was still
1:51:45
a poor substitute for heptopod B. There was a knock
1:51:50
at the door, and then Gary poked his head in.
1:51:54
Colonel Weberrell be here any minute. I grimaced. Right, Weber
1:52:02
was coming to participate in a session with Flapper and Raspberry.
1:52:07
I was to act as translator, a job I wasn't
1:52:10
trained for and that I detested. Gary stepped inside and
1:52:15
closed the door. He pulled me out of my chair
1:52:18
and kissed me. I smiled. You trying to cheer me
1:52:23
up before he gets here. No, I'm trying to cheer
1:52:28
me up. He weren't interested in talking to the heptopods
1:52:32
at all, were you? You worked on this project just
1:52:36
to get me into bed. Ah, you see right through me.
1:52:41
I looked into his eyes. He better believe it. I said,
1:52:52
I remember when you'll be a month old, and I'll
1:52:55
stumble out of bed to give you your two am
1:52:57
feeding nursery will have that baby smell of diaper rash
1:53:03
cream and talcum powder, with a faint ammoniac whiff coming
1:53:08
from the diaper pail in the corner. I'll lean over
1:53:12
your crib, lift your squalling form out, and sit in
1:53:17
the rocking chair to nurse you. The word infant is
1:53:22
derived from the Latin word for unable to speak. But
1:53:26
you'll be perfectly capable of saying one thing, I suffer,
1:53:32
and you'll do it tirelessly and without hesitation. I have
1:53:38
to admire your utter commitment to that statement. When you cry,
1:53:43
you'll become outrage, incarnate every fiber of your body employed
1:53:47
in expressing that emotion. It's funny. When you're tranquil, you
1:53:54
will seem to radiate light, and if someone where to
1:53:58
paint a portrait of you like that, I'd insist that
1:54:01
they include the halo. But when you're unhappy, you will
1:54:08
become a claxon built for radiating sound. A portrait of
1:54:13
you then could simply be a fire alarm bell. At
1:54:18
that stage of your life, there will be no past
1:54:21
or future for you until I give you my breast.
1:54:26
You'll have no memory of contentment in the past, nor
1:54:29
expectation of relief in the future. Once you begin nursing,
1:54:35
everything will reverse and all will be right with the world.
1:54:40
Now is the only moment you'll perceive. You'll live in
1:54:44
the present tense. In many ways, it's an enviable state.
1:54:54
The heptopods are neither free nor bound as we understood
1:54:57
those concepts. They don't according to their will, nor are
1:55:02
they helpless automatons. What distinguishes the heptopod's mode of awareness
1:55:08
is not just that their actions coincide with history's events.
1:55:11
It is also that their motives coincide with history's purposes.
1:55:16
They act to create the future, to enact chronology. Freedom
1:55:22
isn't an illusion, It's perfectly real. In the context of
1:55:26
sequential consciousness. Within the context of simultaneous consciousness, freedom is
1:55:32
not meaningful, but neither is coercion. It's simply a different context,
1:55:38
no more and no less valid than the other. It's
1:55:43
like that famous optical illusion, the drawing of either an
1:55:47
elegant young woman face turned away from the viewer or
1:55:52
a warp nosed crone chin tucked down on her chest.
1:55:57
There's no correct interpretation. Both are equally valid, but you
1:56:04
can't see both at the same time. Similarly, knowledge of
1:56:11
the future was incompatible with free will. What made it
1:56:15
possible for me to exercise freedom of choice also made
1:56:19
it impossible for me to know the future. Conversely, now
1:56:25
that I know the future, I would never act contrary
1:56:30
to that future, including telling others what I know. Those
1:56:35
who know the future don't talk about it. I turned
1:56:41
on the VCR and slotted a cassette of session from
1:56:44
the fort Worth looking Glass. A diplomatic negotiator was having
1:56:48
a discussion with the heptopods there, with Berghardt acting as
1:56:52
a translator. The negotiator was describing humans' moral beliefs, trying
1:56:58
to lay some groundwork for the concept of altruism. I
1:57:03
knew the heptopods were familiar with the conversation's eventual outcome,
1:57:07
but they still participated enthusiastically. If I could have described
1:57:14
this to someone who didn't already know, she might ask
1:57:19
if the heptopods already knew everything that they would say
1:57:22
or hear, what was the point of their using language
1:57:25
at all? A reasonable question. But language wasn't only for communication,
1:57:33
he was also a form of action. According to speech
1:57:37
act theory, statements like you're under arrest, I christened this vessel,
1:57:43
or I promise were all performative. A speaker could perform
1:57:49
the action only by uttering the words. For such acts,
1:57:54
knowing what would be said didn't change anything. Everyone at
1:57:59
a wedding antisated the words I now pronounce you husband
1:58:02
and wife, but until the minister actually said them, the
1:58:07
ceremony didn't count. With performative language, saying equal to doing.
1:58:17
For the heptopods, all language was performative. Instead of using
1:58:24
language to inform, they used language to actualize. Sure, heptopods
1:58:29
already knew what would be said in any conversation, but
1:58:33
in order for their knowledge to be true, the conversation
1:58:37
would have to take place. First, Goldilocks tried the Papa
1:58:47
Bear's bowl of porridge, but it was full of Brussels sprouts,
1:58:52
which she hated. You'll laugh, No, that's wrong. Will be
1:59:00
sitting side by side on the sofa, the skinny, overpriced
1:59:04
hardcover spread upon our laps. I'll keep reading. Then Goldilocks
1:59:12
tried the Mama Bear's bowl of porridge, but it was
1:59:14
full of spinach, which she also hated. You'll put your
1:59:20
hand on the page of the book to stop me.
1:59:23
You have to read it the right way. I'm reading
1:59:27
just what it says here, I'll say, all innocence. No
1:59:33
you're not. That's not how the story goes. Well, if
1:59:39
you already know how the story goes, why do you
1:59:41
need me to read it to you? Because I want
1:59:44
to hear it. The air conditioning in Weber's office almost
1:59:55
compensated for having to talk to the man to engage
2:00:00
in a type of exchange, I explained, But it's not trade.
2:00:06
We simply give them something and they give us something
2:00:08
in return. Neither party tells the other what they're giving beforehand.
2:00:14
Colonel Weber's brow furrowed just slightly. You mean they're willing
2:00:19
to exchange gifts. I knew what I had to say.
2:00:25
We shouldn't think of it as gift giving. We don't
2:00:28
know if this transaction has the same associations for the
2:00:30
heptopods that gift giving has for us. Can we he
2:00:36
searched for the right wording drop hints about the kind
2:00:40
of gift we want. They don't do that themselves, For
2:00:45
this type of transaction. I asked them if we could
2:00:48
make a request, and they said we could, but it
2:00:52
won't make them tell us what they're giving. I suddenly
2:00:56
remembered that a morphological relative of performative was performance, which
2:01:03
could describe the sensation of conversing when you knew what
2:01:06
would be said. It was like performing in a play.
2:01:12
But would it make them more likely to give us
2:01:15
what we asked for? Colonel Weber asked, he was perfectly
2:01:20
oblivious of the script, yet his responses matched his assigned
2:01:25
lines exactly no way of knowing, I said, I doubt it,
2:01:33
given that it's not a custom they engage in. If
2:01:37
we give our gift first, will the value of our
2:01:40
gift influence the value of theirs? He was improvising while
2:01:47
I had carefully rehearsed for this one and only show. No,
2:01:54
I said, as far as we can tell, the value
2:01:57
of the exchanged items is irrelevant. If only my relatives
2:02:03
felt that way, murmured Gary Riley. I watched Colonel Weber
2:02:10
turn to Gary. Have you discovered anything new in the
2:02:14
physics discussions? He asked, right on cue, if you mean
2:02:21
any information new to mankind? No, said Gary. The heptopods
2:02:27
haven't varied from the routine. If we demonstrate something to them,
2:02:31
they'll show us their formulation of it, but they won't
2:02:34
volunteer anything, and they won't answer our questions about what
2:02:37
they know. An utterance that was spontaneous and communicative in
2:02:43
the context of human discourse became a ritual recitation when
2:02:49
viewed by the light of heptopod B. Weber scowled, All right,
2:02:58
then we'll see how the State Department feels about this.
2:03:02
Maybe we can arrange some kind of gift giving ceremony.
2:03:09
Like physical events with their casual and teleological interpretations, every
2:03:15
linguistic event had two possible interpretations, as a transmission of
2:03:21
information and as the realization of a plan. I think
2:03:27
that's a good idea, Colonel I said it was an
2:03:31
ambiguity invisible to most a private joke. Don't ask me
2:03:38
to explain it. Even though I'm proficient with heptopod B,
2:03:47
I know I don't experience reality the way a heptopod does.
2:03:52
My mind was cast in the mold of a human
2:03:55
sequential languages, and no amount of immersion in an alien
2:03:59
language can completely reshape it. My worldview is an amalgam
2:04:04
of human and heptopod. Before I learned how to think
2:04:09
in heptopod B, my memories grew like a column of
2:04:13
cigarette ash, laid down by the infinitesimal silver of combustion
2:04:18
that was my consciousness, making the sequential present. After I
2:04:26
learned heptopod B, new memories fell into place, like gigantic blocks,
2:04:33
each one measuring years in duration, And though they didn't
2:04:38
arrive in order or land contiguously, they soon composed a
2:04:44
period of five decades. It is the period during which
2:04:50
I know heptopod B well enough to think in it,
2:04:53
starting during my interviews with Flapper and Raspberry and ending
2:04:58
with my death. Usually, heptopod B affects just my memory.
2:05:06
My consciousness crawls along as it did before, a growing
2:05:10
sliver crawling forward in time, the difference being that the
2:05:16
ash of memory lies ahead as well as behind. There
2:05:21
is no real combustion. But occasionally I have glimpses when
2:05:28
heptopod B truly reigns, and I experience past and future
2:05:33
all at once. My consciousness becomes a half century long
2:05:37
ember burning outside time. I perceive during those glimpses a
2:05:45
period encompassing the rest of my life and the entirety
2:05:50
of yours. I wrote out the semograms for process yate
2:06:00
endpoint inclusive, we meaning let's start. Raspberry replied in the affirmative,
2:06:08
and the slide shows began. The second display screen that
2:06:12
the Heptopods had provided began presenting a series of images
2:06:16
composed of semigrams and equations, while one of our video
2:06:20
screens did the same. This was the second gift exchange.
2:06:27
I had been present for the eighth one overall, and
2:06:31
I knew it would be the last. The looking glass
2:06:35
tent was crowded with people. Berghart from Fort Worth was here,
2:06:40
as were Gary and a nuclear physicist, assorted biologists, anthropologist,
2:06:46
military brass and diplomats. Thankfully, they had set up an
2:06:52
air conditioner to cool the place off. We would review
2:06:56
the tapes of the images later to figure out just
2:06:59
what the Heptapod's gift was. Our own gift on the
2:07:04
Lusco Cave paintings. We all crowded around the Heptapod's second screen,
2:07:12
trying to glean some idea of the image's content as
2:07:15
they went by. Preliminary assessments. Asked Colonel Weber it's not
2:07:24
a return, said Burghardt. In a previous exchange, the heptopods
2:07:29
had given us information about ourselves that we had previously
2:07:32
told them. This had infuriated the State Department, but we
2:07:37
had no reason to think of it as an insult.
2:07:40
It probably indicated that trade value really didn't play a
2:07:43
role in these exchanges. It didn't exclude the possibility that
2:07:49
the heptapods might yet offer us a space drive, or
2:07:53
cold fusion, or some other wish fulfilling miracle. That looks
2:08:00
it's like inorganic chemistry, said the nuclear physicist, pointing at
2:08:04
an equation. Before the image was replaced. Gary nodded. It
2:08:09
could be materials technology, he said. Maybe we're finally getting somewhere,
2:08:15
said Colonel Webber, I want to see more animal pictures.
2:08:22
I whispered quietly so that only Gary could hear me,
2:08:26
and pounded like a child. He smiled and poked me. Truthfully,
2:08:33
I wished that the heptopods had given another zenobiology lecture,
2:08:38
as they had on two previous exchanges, judging from those,
2:08:43
humans were more similar to the heptopods than any other
2:08:46
species they'd ever encountered, or another lecture on heptopod history.
2:08:53
Those had been filled with apparent non sequiturs, but were interesting. Nonetheless,
2:09:00
I didn't want the heptopods to give us new technology
2:09:03
because I didn't want to see what our governments might
2:09:06
do with it. I watched Raspberry while the information was
2:09:12
being exchanged, looking for any anamelous behavior. It stood barely
2:09:18
moving as usual. I saw no indications of what would happen.
2:09:22
Shortly after a minute, the Heptopod's screen went blank, and
2:09:29
a minute after that ours did too. Gary and most
2:09:34
of the other scientists clustered around a tiny video screen
2:09:37
that was replaying the heptopod's presentation. I could barely hear
2:09:42
them talk about the need to call in a solid
2:09:45
state physicist. Colonel Webber turned you too, he said, pointing
2:09:52
to me, and then to Burghart. Schedule the time in
2:09:56
location for the next exchange. Then he followed the others
2:10:01
to the playback screen. Coming right up. I said to Burghart,
2:10:08
I asked, would you care to do the honors? Or
2:10:11
shall I? I knew Burghart had gained a proficiency in
2:10:15
heptopod b similar to mine. Means you're a looking glass.
2:10:21
He said, you drive. I sat down again, at the
2:10:26
transmitting computer. I bet you never figured you'd wind up
2:10:30
working as an army translator back when you were a
2:10:33
grad student. That's for goddamn sure, he said, Even now
2:10:39
I can hardly believe it. Everything we said to each
2:10:43
other felt like the carefully bland exchanges of spies who
2:10:46
meet in public but never break cover. I wrote out
2:10:51
the semigrams for locus exchange transaction converse inclusive, we with
2:10:58
the projective aspect mind. Raspberry wrote its reply. That was
2:11:06
my cue to frown and for Berghart to ask what
2:11:11
does it mean by that his delivery was perfect? I
2:11:18
wrote a request for clarification. Raspberry's reply was the same
2:11:23
as before. Then I watched it glide out of the room.
2:11:30
The curtain was about to fall on this act of
2:11:33
our performance. Colonel Weber stepped forward, what's going on? Where
2:11:39
did it go? And said that the heptopods are leaving now.
2:11:45
I said, not just itself, all of them. Call it
2:11:52
back here now, ask it what it means. Hum, I
2:11:58
don't think Raspberry's wearing a pager, I said. The image
2:12:02
of the room in the looking glass disappeared so abruptly
2:12:06
that it took a moment from my eyes to register
2:12:09
what I was seeing. Instead, it was the other side
2:12:13
of the looking glass tent. The looking glass had become
2:12:17
completely transparent. The conversation around the playback screen fell silent.
2:12:24
What the hell is going on here, said Colonel Webber.
2:12:29
Gary walked up to the looking glass and then around
2:12:32
it to the other side. He touched the rear surface
2:12:36
with one hand. I could see the pale ovals where
2:12:40
his fingertips made contact with a looking glass. I think
2:12:46
he said, we just saw a demonstration of transmutation at
2:12:50
a distance. I heard the sounds of heavy footfalls on
2:12:55
dry grass. A soldier came in through the tent door,
2:13:00
short of breath from sprinting, holding an oversized walkie talkie.
2:13:05
Colonel message from Weber grabbed the walkie talkie from him.
2:13:18
I remember what it'll be like watching you when you
2:13:21
are a day old. Your father will have gone for
2:13:25
a quick visit to the hospital cafeteria, and you'll be
2:13:29
lying in your basinet, and I'll be leaning over you.
2:13:34
So soon after the delivery, I will still be feeling
2:13:38
like a wrung out towel. He will seem uncongruously tiny,
2:13:44
given how enormous I felt during the pregnancy. I could
2:13:48
swear there was room for someone much larger and more
2:13:51
robust than you in there. Your hands and feet will
2:13:56
be long and thin, not shubby, yet your face will
2:14:04
still be all red and pinched, puffy eyelid squeezed shut,
2:14:09
the gnome like phase that precedes the cherubic. I'll run
2:14:15
a finger over your belly, marveling at the uncanny softness
2:14:19
of your skin, wondering if silk would upbraid your body
2:14:24
like burlap. Then you'll writhe twisting your body while poking
2:14:29
out your legs one at a time, and I'll recognize
2:14:33
the gesture as one I had felt you do inside
2:14:35
me many times, So that's what it looks like. I
2:14:42
feel elated at this evidence of a unique mother child bond,
2:14:47
this certitude that you're the one I carried. Even if
2:14:51
I had never laid eyes on you before, I'd be
2:14:54
able to pick you out from a sea of babies.
2:14:58
Not that one, No, not her either, Wait that one
2:15:04
over there, Yes, that's her, She's mine. The final gift
2:15:17
exchange was the last we ever saw of the heptapods.
2:15:21
All at once, all over the world, their looking glasses
2:15:25
became transparent, and their ships left orbit. Subsequent analysis of
2:15:32
the looking glasses revealed them to be nothing more than
2:15:34
sheets of fused silica, completely inert. The information from the
2:15:40
final exchange session described a new class of superconducting materials,
2:15:45
but it later proved to duplicate the results of research
2:15:49
just completed in Japan, nothing that humans didn't already know.
2:15:56
We never did learn why the heptopods left, any more
2:16:00
than we learned what brought them here or why they
2:16:03
acted the way they did. My own new awareness didn't
2:16:08
provide that type of knowledge. The heptopod's behavior was presumably
2:16:13
inexplicable from a sequential point of view, but we never
2:16:17
found that explanation. I would have liked to experience more
2:16:23
of the heptapod's worldview, to feel the way they feel,
2:16:29
than perhaps I could immerse myself fully in the necessity
2:16:34
of events as they must, instead of merely waiting in
2:16:38
its surf for the rest of my life. But that
2:16:42
will never come to pass. I will continue to practice
2:16:47
the heptopod languages, as will the other linguists on the
2:16:51
Looking Glass teams, but none of us will ever progress
2:16:56
any further than we did when the heptopods were here
2:17:01
working with the heptopods changed my life. I met your
2:17:05
father and learned heptopod B, both of which make it
2:17:11
possible for me to know you now here on the
2:17:15
patio in the moonlight. Eventually, many years from now, i'll
2:17:21
be without your father and without you. All I will
2:17:27
have left from this moment is the heptopod language. So
2:17:32
I pay close attention and note every detail. From the beginning.
2:17:41
I knew my destination, and I chose my route accordingly.
2:17:47
But am I working toward an extreme of joy or
2:17:51
of pain? Will I achieve a minimum or a maximum?
2:18:00
Questions are in my mind when your father asks me,
2:18:04
do you want to make a baby? And I smile
2:18:09
and answer yes, And I unwrap his arms from around me,
2:18:16
and we hold hands as we walk inside, to make love,
2:18:22
to make you s