The Free Radical

(Author Narration with musical accompaniment)

Edwin’s Note: This off-world visitor, the alien, was forcibly assimilated into the Mi-Fu continuum by Paul early on in our epic tale. Interestingly, it was the “foreignness” of the alien’s mind which forced the data storage unit within Mi-Fu, the Refraction Module, to spontaneously evolve a new means of organizing the data comprising the inner continuum… which led to radical alterations in how the inner continuum was experienced by all assimilants and their “progeny.” When all of the assimilants were Earth-based humans, there was a great deal of redundancy throughout the experiences (memories) comprising their lives. Data storage was easily layered in a linear/geometric configuration. At the moment of the alien’s forced assimilation however, there was suddenly a whole new data set of “bounded infinity” that needed to be instantly accommodated… which it was. Anyway, the point is that although the alien no longer exists as a discreet flesh-and-blood character in the Muse tapestry, all of his memories have been flawlessly preserved… including this conversational exchange prior to the moment of his assimilation.

A young couple are strolling through a city park when the wife notices a rather odd and forlorn soul slumped introspectively on one of the benches. Much to the husband’s chagrin, she marches right over to him to start a conversation…

Wife: Excuse me… but are you okay? You look a bit down in the dumps.

Alien: Oh… sorry… greetings. Yes, I am okay… but well displaced from the dump.

Wife: Haha! You’re funny.

Husband: You’ll have to forgive my wife. She takes every frown as her personal duty to turn upside-down.

Alien: Indeed…?

Wife: Yeah, I suppose it’s true. So, what’s got your brow so knitted in yarns of tangled thought?

Husband: She thinks she’s a bit of a poet too.

Alien: Well… I have been conducting research for quite some time and I am having difficulty understanding Earth-based science.

Husband: Science! Well then you’ll probably be wanting to talk to me. The wife is more into all that new age airy-fairy crap.

Wife: Honey!

Alien: You are a scientist then?

Husband: Well, not exactly a scientist per se; just that my beliefs are a bit more scientific than hers. That’s all.

Alien: (puzzled) Science is a belief you say?

Husband: Well… yeah. What else can it be? Either you believe in science or you don’t.

Alien: (hesitantly) Much like religion then? Science is a dogma?

Husband: No. No, not at all! Science isn’t anything like religion. Science is proven.

Alien: Meaning it is verifiable.

Husband: Exactly!

Alien: And being scientific, you have verified your own scientifically held beliefs?

Wife: Ha! Yeah right. He’s not much into experimenting, if that’s what you mean… unless it’s experimenting with beer and a new kind of pretzel.

Husband: I don’t have to duplicate every scientific discovery for myself. When reputable scientists around the world obtain similar results and draw identical conclusions, that’s good enough for me. I trust that they’re not all lying… conforming to some grand conspiracy or something.

Alien: You trust that the current orthodoxy is correct?

Husband: Well sure. They’re the experts, right?

Wife: Just like Father Thomas is the expert in religious matters… right honey?

Husband: Again, you’ll have to forgive her. She really enjoys trying to get my goat.

Alien: (puzzled again) I am forgiving… but this reference to a goat…?

Wife: I’m just saying that the “scientific” consensus you believe in is just another bible with a different title.

Husband: Oh and the crap you choose to believe in is spoon-fed to you during your “conversations” with Arch Angel Michael! Might as well just close your eyes and make up whatever you want!

Wife: At least I test whatever Michael tells me!

Husband: Like when he told you to drink your own pee?

Wife: It cured the arthritis in my hand… just like he said it would.

Husband: Purely the placebo effect; you’ll believe anything… if it comes to you in one of your mystical moods.

Wife: It’s called meditation, dear. Our thoughts create our reality.

Husband: Oh, here we go… Reality is whatever you believe it to be… regardless of what science has to say on the matter, eh?

Alien: Might I interject here? You mentioned the placebo effect– which is precisely the efficacy of belief in causing a physical cure in the patient… And yet you also deride the potential of belief to affect one’s experience of physical reality. Do you accept the placebo effect or not?

Husband: Well sure. It’s scientifically established. The placebo effect is real.

Alien: Then do you believe that the placebo effect is only operational and valid within the specificity of medical cures? What prevents the placebo effect from spilling over into other areas of human experience?

Husband: Look, I’m no expert… But drinking your own piss! There’s nothing in your own wastes that’s medicinal. There can’t be. It’s disgusting!

Alien: You have eliminated the possibility… how?

Husband: If there was any scientific merit to drinking your own urine, you can be damn sure that we’d all be doing it. And we’re not… so there isn’t.

Alien: I see. So then in your estimation, is the goal of science to limit possibilities?

Husband: Well you don’t want to go barking up the wrong tree every day. Science points you in the right direction, keeps you from wasting your time with absurdities.

Wife: And he doesn’t like to appear gullible.

Alien: But the absurdities cannot be distinguished in advance from the “true” possibilities.

Husband: And that’s why we have the experts– the scientists. They figure it all out for us.

Just then the wife takes a drink from her water bottle.

Husband: I hope that’s not–

Wife: So what if it is? But if you must know, it’s just distilled water.

Husband: Honey, I told you that too much of that stuff is dangerous! It’ll leech minerals from your body. Stop believing all the hokum on the internet.

Alien: This is the orthodox scientific consensus– that distilled water will rob the body of valuable minerals?

Husband: Yup. There’s plenty of MDs who’ve come out saying exactly that. Prolonged use of distilled water is definitely dangerous.

Alien: Interesting. I wonder though how animals in the wild avoid the danger…?

Husband: What do you mean?

Alien: Well, for instance, any wild animals inhabiting temperate or polar climates will have nothing but snow to meet their hydration needs for a significant portion of the year. Snow is devoid of minerals; it is essentially distilled water.

Husband: Hm… I never thought of that.

Alien: Quite understandable. The scientism to which you subscribe obviously requires no thinking.

Wife: He’s got you there, dear.

Husband: Look, we really should be going. Sorry we couldn’t be of more help.

Alien: On the contrary. You have done much to resolve my confusion.

Wife: Oh… how so?

Alien: Prior to our conversation I was attempting to distinguish between Earth-based science and common religion… and having great difficulty. I clearly see now that they are one and the same.

Husband: Say what!

Alien: Both rely upon an orthodox consensus provided by a few elite experts… and the masses adopt the prevailing view as the basis for their own beliefs. It is authoritarian.

Husband: You gotta be kidding me! Science and religion are the same? Come on!

Alien: Perhaps my terminology is somewhat misleading. It is your brand of scientism which is indistinguishable from religion. Science, the type your wife seems to engage in, is a process, a methodology which presupposes nothing. Science is based in experience, not belief. One does not believe in science; one practices it. It is the same distinction between religion and spirituality. One is indoctrinated within religious dogma, whereas spirituality is an open exploration of mystical states and subtle energies. Again, spirituality is a process, a fluid orientation toward discovery; religion is a static system of belief. On the one side of the line, scientism and religion stake their claim with authority; on the other side, science and spirituality move and dance to their own validation. I see now where I had it all wrong.

Husband: Yeah buddy, I think you got a whole lot of wrong going on!

Wife: Now it’s my turn to apologize for my husband. You seem to have stepped on his poor little ego.

Alien: My apologies.

Husband: This is ridiculous! I don’t care what this freak says! My views are sound, based on solid science… and I’ve got some of the best minds on the planet backing me up! Are you going to sit there and tell me that our science is all wrong?

Alien: Beliefs are neither right nor wrong. They are the testable parameters of one’s experience. But as far as your scientism goes, it is only able to penetrate the domain of infinite reality according to its founding premises. The premises of your scientism are extraordinarily limiting… even misleading.

Husband: Care to elaborate on that? Maybe an example or two?

Alien: Certainly. Let us take the premise of universal constants. How can you know that they are universal or constant? Hint: they are neither. Or allow us to examine the premise that matter is primary… and this one really puzzles me. Science seeks to understand causality; its power lies in predictability. In the reductionists’ quest to discover the basis of matter it was fully a century ago that the consensus arrived at energy as the ultimate answer. The irreducible basis of all matter is energy; it is an energetic universe. Yet more than a hundred years later, scientism still wallows in materialism, just as though matter is still regarded as being primary. The causal plane is energetic; matter is an effect. As long as the experts insist on focusing mainly upon objects, scientism will remain as a doctrine of shadow-play, nothing more.

Husband: Well aren’t you quite the little expert, able to denounce centuries of humanity’s finest reasoning in a matter of minutes!

Alien: You do realize that the history of science– as a collective endeavor– is always bound to be a litany of errors? Every consensus among experts through the centuries has been overturned and supplanted by new discovery and insight. Collective science is always in error. You need only look in any book of scientific history for confirmation.

Husband: Yeah, well, that was in the past. We’ve come a long way in recent years. Look around at all the technology. I think that this time we’ve gotten more than a few things right!

Alien: And that is precisely the argument offered up by every preceding generation of scientists. They have all insisted at every point that “This time we’re right!”

Wife: Kinda like all the different factions of religious folk always insisting that they’re right, eh honey?

Husband: Who are you anyway? Are you a scientist?

Alien: Science officer, actually.

Husband: So… military.

Alien: No–

Wife: I think he might be an extraterrestrial!

Husband: Yeah right. There’s no such thing as aliens, dear. And even if there were, I hardly think that they’d be interested in talking to the likes of you and me.

Alien: On the contrary–

Husband: Yeah… excuse me, but I think we’ll be going now.

He grabs his wife by the elbow and begins dragging her away.

Wife: Bye now! Nice to meet you.

Husband: That was one strange little dude!

Wife: I rather liked him.

Husband: Yeah, you would.