The Machine that controls reality
In his review of Talking Man by Terry Bisson, Treveino writes,
I am not familiar with the book, author, or reviewer. But I am familiar with the idea under discussion.
Imagine a concealed something (a machine or god, for example) that has absolute control over the universe, including, importantly, absolute control over the memories of its inhabitants. The machine is free to make changes to reality, and so long as my memories are adjusted to correspond to these changes, I will not be able to tell the difference. But what if, from time to time, It made minute but revealing errors? On occasion I have experienced the fleeting yet disconcerting conviction that a certain letter of the alphabet or a word did not use to exist. I gaze at it in perplexity until, under my gaze, its aura of unfamiliarity fades and it assumes its place in the known universe. Yesterday, while counting boiled eggs, I experienced the arithmetical equivalent of this phenomenon. For one insane moment, I was gripped by the eerie certitude that three plus two had until that moment equaled six. In addition to these jamais vu experiences is a certain class of perceptual anomalies that inspire the suspicion something is ontologically awry, foremost among which I would cite the inexplicable duplication of objects and events. Walking home from work about a year ago, I passed an elderly Korean man in a threadbare tweed jacket. He was carrying a crumpled newspaper under his arm. About fifty meters farther on, I passed the same man. A skeptic who accepts this story at face value and wishes to avoid making an extraordinary claim is required to postulate two identical twins, identically dressed, strolling down the same side of the street fifty meters apart carrying a newspaper apiece under their arm. Very well. It's possible. I thought of it myself at the time. But the explanation failed to completely satisfy me. A few years later, I found this image on Google Maps. The final experience I will mention is for me the most disturbing. I ordered a book for my daughter, which arrived by post and then, a day or two later, mysteriously doubled itself on the shelf. Perplexed, I showed the second copy to Hana and asked her where it had come from. She said nothing at first and appeared as puzzled as me. Was this a glitch in the Machine that Controls Reality? If so, it was quickly patched. After short silence, during which I began to feel genuinely uneasy, Hana told me simply, but it seemed to me somewhat extemporaneously, that she had ordered a second copy of that book to set aside as a gift for someone. Who, I wanted to know. She said she didn't have anyone special in mind. This made no sense at all. I placed the book on the table because I did not want to touch it. With time I ceased to read into these experiences. But perhaps the Machine is responsible for that too. |