The Grand Design

I was in the Bullseye book exchange, a poorly lighted, largish alcove across from the café proper, crouching over and sorting through a stack of newly arrived paperbacks. I had just come across an ancient copy of I, the Jury and was trying to decide if I had already read the novel when I became aware of someone just behind me.

Before I could turn, warm, slim hands encircled my head and covered my eyes.

“Hello, Meg.” I struggled to rise. Having my eyes covered somehow threw off my balance, but her hands fell away as I managed to stand upright and turn to face her. “How are you today?”

“Terrible. Depressed. In crisis.” She gave me a frown that would have melted most men’s hearts and sent them off to slay dragons for her. “I’ve lost my faith.”

“I thought you were an atheist.”

“I was. I’ve lost my faith in atheism.”

“It’s probably only a stage you’re going through. Maybe you’re only a ‘lapsed atheist,’ to use C. S. Lewis’s phrase.”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. I’m afraid I’ve found the truth, and I don’t like it. It frightens and depresses me.”

“The truth about what?”

“About everything. You know, ‘life, the universe, and everything.’”

“Forty-two?”

“No. Unfortunately my answer to the ultimate question makes all too much sense . . . explains too much . . . more than I really wanted to know. What do you think the answer is?”

“Well, when I was in college I had a flippant reply to metaphysical questions. It boiled everything—the meaning and purpose of life—down to a single two-syllable vulgarity, apt for a man at that stage in his life, but not suitable for the ears of a young lady.”

“Tell me!” she demanded, throwing back her shoulders and squaring them. It’s amazing to see how imposing a five-foot-three, hundred-ten-pound blonde knockout can look.

I told her.

Red Meg’s expression might have reflected mock offense, but she recoiled slightly from me. Then her thin hand flashed out to slap my face. But it stopped just short of contact, the swift motion suddenly transformed into a tender caress as her fingers ran slowly over my cheek.

“You need a shave, Books,” she observed.

“Are you flirting with me?” I asked. It wasn’t as clever a comeback as you might think; I’ve used it on a number of occasions, usually on women who have been ignoring me. It gets their attention.

“Probably. You know, I don’t think I know anyone else who has ever applied that particular juvenile slang for an area of the female anatomy in just that way. It displays the typical wrong headedness of your gender . . . you know, men so often think with their wrong head.” Her smile teased, but didn’t acknowledge the double entendre.

“Okay, so what’s your ultimate truth?”

“If there is any obvious purpose to the universe,” she said slowly, “it’s to explore the possibilities. If anything can happen, it will happen eventually, because the universe is so big and there is so much time involved. Billions upon billions of stars and planets form, crash into each other, die, and are reborn from the rubble, all over billions of years. It’s like evolution on a cosmic scale. Evolution isn’t simply survival of the fittest. At its heart it’s trial and error—seeing what works, then building on that. It’s the process of elimination through trial and error. What works, prospers; what doesn’t work, dwindles. That’s the logic of the universe. Just as evolution works in biology, giving us antibiotic-resistant germs and poison frogs, evolution works on the cosmic scale, giving us atoms and black holes and neutron stars—and life.”

I was nodding my tentative understanding.

“Don’t you see?” she went on. “It’s a grand experiment. Someone—something! —has set up this experiment to see what is inherent in the system—what can happen. The universe is like a gigantic Petri dish. I don’t mean to imply that life is the goal. It may just be an offshoot of the process. The goal is to learn everything that is possible.”

“And like a good scientist, this Something doesn’t interfere with his experiment once it’s begun. Sounds a lot like Deism to me.”

“Yes, but there’s more. There are things in quantum physics that hint at the true scale of the experiment. You’re familiar with the Uncertainty Principle—Schrödinger's Cat—that at the quantum level things are neither one way nor the other until they’re observed? And the Many Worlds Theory? That every decision splits the universe into two, one where x happened and another where it didn’t. If that’s true, then every time a quark changes its spin—I’m just using that as an example; I don’t understand quarks—another universe is created.”

“You’re starting to make my head spin, Meg, but I’m still with you—just barely. Go on.”

“Well, you see where I’m going with this. Panpeiron, the Great Empiricist behind all this, has set up a system where everything that can possibly happen will happen, or has happened—when we figure out time, we’ll really start to understand the universe. Do you see how troubling this is? We’re going about our daily lives worrying about our little problems—will I get that job, will I be late for work, does my boyfriend still care about me. None of it really matters, because whatever we do or decide, there is another universe where we do or make the opposite choice. Every single possible permutation will be acted out. All our struggles are just vain attempts to prevent what will happen anyway, somewhere. We’re just one of a virtually infinite number of virtually identical clones. And more than that, it means that we are not unique in any meaningful way. I think that’s what really troubles me.”

“Where did you come up with the name Pan-whatever?”

“Panpeiron. I made it up. It helps me crystallize my thoughts to have names for concepts. It’s from the Greek, pan for ‘all’ and peiran for ‘try,’ ‘attempt,’ or ‘test.’ It’s the same root as empirical.”

“So why has Pan-whoever done all of this—all these inter-linked universes, differing from each other by the tiniest detail?”

“To know everything that is possible, everything that can possibly happen,” Meg said with a sigh. “But if you mean why does he want to know everything, I can’t answer that. He—or more properly It—isn’t human and certainly doesn’t think at all the way we do. For all we know he may be searching for the perfect slime smear left behind by a slug, or perhaps he’s the greatest Elvis fan of all.”

“At least that would mean that Elvis really is still alive, in some of those other universes.”

“Singing his heart out.” Her smile was bittersweet, then flashed into a lopsided grin in imitation of the King. “Thanks for listening to me, Books. ‘Thank you, thank you very much.’”

“A scientific experiment must be closely observed,” I said. “Do you think Pan-whoever is watching us?”

“A creature capable of creating such a multitude of universes would not be satisfied with casual observation. Panpeiron would want to know everything about everything, down to our most fleeting thought or emotion. He would know more about us than we can ever know about ourselves—know us inside and out, perhaps even experiencing everything with us—but as an outsider witnessing and recording our lives, not really as part of us—because when we die, he continues. Our memories would live on in him while we are snuffed out.”

“There’s a long religious tradition holding that we are all part of God. Why couldn’t we each be part of your Panpeiron?”

“That’s the comforting interpretation, but less likely, I think. When we watch a movie, we and the movie aren’t one. The movie ends and we go on. When we end, Panpeiron will go on. Frankly, the idea gives me the creeps. It’s like a consciousness parasite. It reminds me of H.G. Wells’ description of the Martian invaders: ‘intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic’ that scrutinize and study us the way we study bacteria in a drop of water—but from the inside!”

“But you aren’t really worried about this, are you?” I asked. “It’s an interesting idea, but even if you’re right, nothing in your daily life changes. And personally I’d be reassured to know that my thoughts and memories won’t die with me.”

She paused to contemplate her answer. “It does trouble me, Books. I’d rather feel like an accident of mindless nature than a lab rat. At least as an accident, my uniqueness would have some meaning. As to the survival of our memories, I don’t know.”

I put an arm around her shoulder and led her toward the restaurant area.

“You know, Meg, if I had to choose between your meaning of life and the one I arrived at in college, I think I like mine better—and its name is easier to pronounce. It gives understandable purpose to a man’s life. And you might say that it, too, is about exploring the possibilities.”

Meg managed to grimace and smile at the same time. Then her mood seemed to change on a dime. “So what cute name shall we give the female meaning of life?” she asked.

Then she did something provocative with her eyebrows, making me wonder what she and I were up to in some of those other universes.

_________________________

Wikipedia Links of Possible Interest:

I the Jury by Mickey Spillane: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_the_jury

Forty-Two: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything#Answer_to_Life.2C_the_Universe.2C_and_Everything_.2842.29

Uncertainty Principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_Principle

Schrödinger's Cat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_Cat

Many World theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_worlds_theory

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells: http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=98461