many-worlds-twoparticlesonedimension-18E (2011)

All is mutable. In the course of time we pass through innumerable things and innumerable things pass through us. For whatever reason things, being both objects and people, are constantly transmitted, transformed, reflected and-or sometimes simply left behind. Parallels the 162th episode of the TV-series Star Trek: The Next Generation opens with a scene featuring the Klingon crew member Lieutenant Worf by himself in a small space shuttle comfortably floating through the space-time continuum as he makes his way back to the Federation Starship Enterprise. All seems to be in perfect order as we watch him proudly record a log entry in which he describes his triumphant participation in the bat’leth tournament he is returning from. Neither Worf nor the viewer is at this time aware that he is in the process of traveling through a quantum fissure, effectively causing him to shift from a state in which linear time is the norm to one where he exists in constant quantum flux between parallel realities. What entails is a fragmented and confusing world, a kind of soft non-euclidean reality where everything and everyone is constantly changing. The only fixed point seems to be Worf, which in the end also turns out to be the key to solving the puzzle. Centered around the majestic Klingon anchored as a sort of exotic Heideggerian hero the episode invokes various philosophical questions such as what it means for a person or an object to exist in time, to occupy a place and to interact with the other elements in a given milieu.

In the sixties the American philosopher W.V.O Quine presented the argument “to be is to be the value of a variable”, loosely reiterated this makes the distinction between name and value and the connection of these represents an ontological commitment. This field is closely related to set theory which is even more evident from Bertrand Russell’s extrapolations on how to avoid commitment to artifacts like numbers. The integrity of these variables is crucial to human beings conceptions, interactions and social navigation. The episode illustrates several of the problems that arise if the integrity of naming conventions are violated. If we introduce Russell’s binary definition of the knowledge we have of things, one being direct in nature namely that which we acquire by acquaintance and the other being what he labels descriptive which is concerned with attributes then when we as sentient beings accumulate forms of data it enters into an intense constantly comparative and evaluating process. This qualitative process that distinguishes a person from a plant is also the one that consequently allows us to navigate, circulate and function amongst each other in a non-finite environment. In circumstances where this process is corrupted it logically follows that any existing perception of reality is also substantially altered, a disorienting experience Worf repeatedly suffers as the story unfolds. Continuing as things progress and the variations of his once familiar now senescent surroundings rapidly increment he too begins to disintegrate synchronously. Consider the problems pertaining to unsound naming conventions relating to variables and beyond vis-à-vis form and mode as the Ancient Greeks understood it and we recognize the possibility of anomie. It is helpful to think of these names as pointers, for instance what if a name points to multiple people, artifacts, mental constructs and so forth how can you know what to choose? How to correlate unique data scattered across multiple variables? And finally what are the implications of a pointer which is void i.e. represents the absence of any value. The latter is delineated when Worf at one point is confronted by the condition that his beloved son Alexander Rozhenko never existed. In its simplest formal notation one encounters an increasing amount of contradictions: x = ¬x. This applies both to lifeforms as well as things as the viewer and Worf witness party hats and birthday cakes change colour concurrently with paintings morphing from abstract to concrete all while his marital status alternates just like the state and general well-being of the people around him. Everything seems uncertain and viable to change as it applies to all aspects of the story that, all considered, because of their instability share the feature of inhibiting individuating description, i.e. the technique of breaking up mass into appropriated segments or divide-and-conquer as Caesar put it. The only reason Worf ultimately prevails is that he is able to uphold an acceptable correspondence with his surroundings, albeit to a less and less satisfactory degree.

“O MY FUCKIN GOD Why DID I WASTED MY FUCKIN 3:01 MINUTE OF MY LIFE TO THIS BULLSHIT” ~ @ // youtube