Artur Zadikyan
Jesus and Christ
Chapter 3: Dream, reality and technology
(An experiment to search for a similar environment in the Universe using the method of moving consciousness to a parallel world. Venue: Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna. Experiment setup: Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA). Key element of the research setup: MPD (Multi-Purpose Detector). Displacement Consciousness: scientific director of the Sphere research center, Master Paschow. Stage: moral and psychological preparation. The session is conducted by a psychotherapist of the highest qualification, Professor Zamira Faikovna).
– Every day, when you fall asleep, you find yourself in some parallel world, in which everything seems to be the same as in your life, in the system of being in which you live, but a little different. Do you agree that it is so? Yes, your body is where you lie, but your consciousness… You will not deny your ability (if you take your consciousness, not your body, for the notion "you") to make decisions there, in that world, in which your consciousness finds itself? You can argue as much as you like....
– I've heard that before," Ruthra interrupted her, to which the psychoanalyst responded with a pause and an open palm gesture of 'calm.
Ruthra had visualized this moment many times before. The moment of launching the process of consciousness transfer. It was similar in moral categorization to the moment of launching a spaceship with a crew hurtling into the void relative to the native air. No matter how confident Ruthra was in his technology, in his theory, in his hypothesis, doubts still gnawed at his soul. He doubted and worried, like everyone in his position. He was also tormented by the question – would he fall into a dream or would the really mysterious property of the quantum world transport his consciousness to the far reaches of the universe? One thing sounded from the psychological training specialist, but the question in Rutra's mind was: when, at what stage does a child begin to understand the phenomenon of sleep? Do we remember when we had our first dream? What if, when we sleep, our body is transported from one place to another? For example, from a warm land to a cold one, to another part of the world, to another society… the dream would still be the same, but when we wake up, we would see a different world.
– Dr. Rutra, are you in some parallel universe again? Well, if you don't need my advice, then I'm sorry, good riddance," the doctor murmured, noticing the distracted look in his eyes, her voice clearly tinged with a mixture of resentment and displeasure.
– I'm sorry," Ruthra said cheerfully. – I can't take any evidence from it, so it would be the same thing if I were to be pumped into my brain… indoctrinated with events about reality for the body at a time when it may well be an illusion.
– It's strange to hear this from the author of the program.
– That's the thing.
– Once upon a time, people considered it magic to see what happened somewhere else, i.e. videotaping, and more.
– Oh, come on. You're telling me this?
– Don't forget, according to your own theory – events there will reverberate in our world.
– That's the only proof there is and can be. I'll try to do something there that can be felt in our world. But what is it? How do I know what to do? And how will it be felt in our world?
– You make one that's very close to you.
– Like what?
– Well, you don't have to think about that now, not when you're already in the rig.
– I've been thinking about this for a long time.
– Something very close to you, for example, in relation to close friends, relatives, colleagues after all. The most reliable thing is to suggest something to the artificial intelligence as a program setting. It is to lead it morally and psychologically to certain conclusions. It is directly connected with your consciousness. Then you will definitely notice changes in its logic. It will definitely show up here. Do I have to teach you?
– Quantum particles? – Ruthra said thoughtfully.
– Quantum worlds," the therapist agreed, raising her eyebrows meaningfully.
– Isn't it dangerous? – Ruthra said again, thinking about the artificial intelligence's compulsion, asking more to himself than to the medical officer. – Unlike me, he'd be both here and there at the same time… just like those particles.
– All right, then. Don't indoctrinate him with religious postulates, that's all. Otherwise he will suddenly think he is an omnipotent, omniscient deity," the doctor said, smiling jokingly, as if to warn him.
– Your way of speaking… here we go again… I actually wanted to talk about your frequently used "well", it's passed on to me, it's become a habit. No offense, but I don't see anything wrong with it. By the way, it was passed on to Rangit from me… or he did. His system… and all artificial intelligence systems are based on the method of comparative analysis, adaptation and copying in the process of contact. And this one has not only in the process of mental-verbal contact, but also moral-psychological, as well as through the sensations of the body, to whose consciousness it can connect, at the physiological level. They smiled, – they smiled, – here we go again, – now the assistants were laughing too.
– And time, time," the voice of Dr. Maymun's collaborator and colleague on the project, to which he had deliberately given a tone of causticity, sounded unexpectedly in tune with the joking notes.
He was a programmable systems engineer and the youngest professor at the center. Rutra called him "the luminary of science" in a friendly way, and was used to his mannerisms, joking on and off.
– Well, let's get on our way," Ruthra agreed without emotion.
The installation has been prepared. The location of sending the consciousness was determined. It was a mysterious region in the vicinity of a massive black hole, in the area of which, according to experts, there were many inhabited worlds like ours. This region of the metagalaxy was located in the constellation of the Hound Dogs, at a distance of 10.37 billion light-years from the Sun. The mass of the giant, pulling down the entire gravitational canvas of this region of the universe – 66 billion solar masses. Expedition into the power regions of such a giant was frankly alarming, although the body was in a certain safety. Not only that, next to such a giant, with monstrous gravity, there was also another monster – superbright radio-loud quasar TON 618. Not even next to it, but as if from the outside, enveloped it – a rattling mixture, 140 trillion times the solar brightness.
– Stop daydreaming," Maimun said, seeing the chief's thoughtful look, and waved to his assistants.
***
Ruthra woke up in a wasteland, either a hilly steppe or a scorched field. There was a small pond nearby, which looked like an oasis for such an area. Ruthra looked around. He shouted: "Anybody here?" Silence. He looked at his body, his clothes – he looked like a Bedouin: as far as he could tell, he was wearing shurukas, with a kufiya sagging from his head, which was tightly covered with egal. After wandering around the neighborhood, he crouched under a tree near a body of water. "What's going on? – Ruthra pondered. – My body…" He stood up abruptly, ran to the oasis, looked at his reflection, but yes, it was him, or rather, the body was his.
– What the hell!" shouted Ruthra in indignation. – Where am I? Where is everyone? Rangit!
He didn't get an answer.
It was evening, then darkness fell. Tired of calling, tired of his resentment, he settled himself under a tree and, with restlessness in his soul, began to kemar – to resist sleep, to fall asleep.
Unexpectedly, he fell asleep. He recognized it when he was approached.
– Master Ruthra, get up," said a seemingly familiar voice.
– What? Who? – He freaked out.
– It's okay. I'm an assistant in the relocation lab.
Suddenly a bright light came on, and Ruthra squeezed his eyes shut.
– Get up, your Bedouin majesty, or else you're lying here, you know," said Maimoun's voice sarcastically.
– What the fuck," Ruthra said a little louder than usual.
– Now, now, you leave that alone. The experiment went well. We'll do it again in a few days.
Ruthra stood up and looked around, several SUVs parked in the distance, with security guards and science center personnel stationed around them.
– What the hell? – Ruthra asked Maimuna calmly.
– That's the devil. What did you want? You said it yourself – it is necessary to conduct a test, or what if the "settler" perceives the reality of the other world inadequately, will do something wrong there, and they will like to blow up here with their reflection, it will be a big disaster.
– I didn't say that.
– That's about right. It goes like this.
– So it's a play?
– What, you just woke up?
– Imagine this.
– Oh, I thought you were on the beach drinking cocktails.
– When are you going to grow up, you're in your fourth decade and he's…" Rutra waved his hand and walked in the direction of one of the cars.
***
– Are you ready? – Rutra was jokingly prodded by his project mate a few days after the experiment, when he was already lying back in the rig.
– Let's see where you take me this time.
– Don't worry, we won't get steamed, we'll go somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
– The wilderness is supposed to be Palestinian, remember?
– We'll find something for you, Your Majesty. Rest in peace.
– Oh," Ruthra sighed, "God gave me such a partner.
– That's right, that's where you talk about God.
The optical unit was lowered – discharge! – and Rutra's body collapsed in the unit, and the soul, that is, the consciousness, had to find itself in the body of the same Bedouin and in the same terrain, which was already playing out in the virtual reality production. At least Rangit, as once expeditioners of new lands, as once explorers, with the help of an optical or radio telescope, of the cosmos, being their quantum analog, drew such a picture.
***
It was the same landscape all around. "Your imagination isn't very rich," Ruthra thought, suspecting another session of psychological training in virtual reality. That wasn't what dominated his thoughts, though: his mind remembered the thought that had occurred to him when the optical unit flashed – he had time to think about soul and consciousness. The thought occupied him: were soul and consciousness one and the same? As he supposed, they used to call this component of the human "I" soul, and in modern times, in a scientific way, they began to say consciousness. But suddenly in the process of moving he thought of such a curiosity: after all, the body in the installation is alive, though without consciousness, but the soul in the classical sense, as it is represented, is in it. It turned out that, again in that classical version of the soul representation, it, this very soul, dwelled in the body, otherwise the body should be inanimate, but it functions. That is, in that classical variant, which was justified by the ancients, the soul is what keeps the body alive. Then what is consciousness? Is it not what defines us as our "I"? It is. Without consciousness, who are we? Although, like these quantum particles, the soul, in fact, had to stay both in its own body and in the body of the one in whom the consciousness moved. Of course, if the experiment was successful.
His musings were interrupted by an unexpected voice from outside, even frightened him a little. It was the same Bedouin, but with more colored clothes.
– I know everything you're going to say ahead of time. Or almost everything," he said, suddenly confident.
– What?" Ruthra said in a long voice.
– Your doubts are valid. Everyone would have those doubts. Believe me, you were chosen for a reason. Just think about it, if a person appeared here who was unfamiliar with your invention – the method of moving consciousness through space – then obviously the whole mission would be thwarted. The person would either be in constant disbelief, doubt, or fear, expecting a trick. Or he or she would consider us or himself to be crazy, at least insane.
– What are you talking about? And who are you, anyway?
– Everything you see is real.
– I can see it's real. What's the big deal?
– Think about it. If you were asleep, you wouldn't find this amazing and unreal, would you?
– What do you want? I don't understand. Are you a director? Actor? What's my role?
– Think of me as a psychologist testing actors for mental compatibility. I'm still asking you to answer my question.
– Which one?
– About the state in the dream.
– So?
– What is happening would not be amazing and unreal if you understood what was happening as a dream.
– This is crazy. How in a dream would I know I'm in a dream?
– Now, let's be clear. How did you expect to see the result of your experiment?
– If it didn't work out, it didn't work out. God be with you, goldfish. What's the point of all this drama?
– Now imagine how it turned out this time.
– How am I supposed to visualize if it didn't work out in real life?
– And how did you in real life, as you put it, have to realize whether it worked or not? Do you remember the moment you fell asleep? You said yourself that you would not have been aware in the dream that you were in a dream state.
– Okay.
– So imagine it like you're sleeping right now.
– Why?
– You did it. This is the real world.
– Ha.
– Oh, come on. If you invented a machine that would immerse a person in virtual reality, why shouldn't people subjected to such a procedure believe in the reality of virtual reality immersion? You invented the technology yourself. So why would you not believe in the reality of the implementation?
– Hm," Ruthra looked around, the same, or almost the same, surroundings. – We were moving consciousness within the confines of a laboratory, a planet, a space station at most, just like the quantum entanglement experiments.
– Agree, – continued the strange stranger, without giving him long to think, – the natives of America, seeing Columbus' brigade, really perceived it as the coming of aliens, gods in their view. They had no idea about other worlds, i.e. territories of the planet, they knew only their own. So now it seems to you that your stay here is something fantastic, but this is actually one of the territories of a huge planet called the Universe.
– Why all of a sudden. You're repeating my thoughts!
– Think about it.
– First of all, I've never talked to anyone here before, except for you, and I see the same environment as I did a few times before, and…" Ruthra was distracted from his thoughts by otherworldly noises.
When he noticed the anxious, fixed gaze of his interlocutor expressing fatal horror, he turned around.
– Here are the politicians," the voice of the one who had just made an important and instructive speech sounded depressed.
"What other politicians are there?" – questioned one part of Rutra's brain. While the other was going through the many options associated with the question-how did that word apply to this situation?
Trying to tear his gaze away from the madness in the Jew's eyes – though he was dressed more like a Bedouin, the six-pointed star (magendavid) branded on his face left no doubt – Ruthra, feeling unconsciously anxious, turned around. What he saw gave him an answer, but it was from a different realm, though Ruthra was still questioning whether it was the right one. He was partially aware of the elite unit of the Selekwid army. The director's idea didn't surprise him much, but the horror in his gaze… something on the level of his instincts… spoke of its reality.
In the Seleucid state there was a mounted militia, recruited from the inhabitants of the cities and called "politics". This cavalry consisted of the wealthiest city dwellers.
"It's all very real," Ruthra pondered to himself, "but it's still a production. Or…"
A group of men were approaching the oasis, shouting and screaming, pursued by another group, mostly horsemen. Ruthra couldn't decide how to proceed: if it was a staging, there was nothing to fear, and if it wasn't… Well, hell, what the hell else was "not," he caught himself thinking: it was a staging. He stepped out to meet the approaching pursuing group, and just as they were approaching and the pursuers were catching up, the leader of the mounted men raised his saber, shouted… Ruthra didn't have time to be frightened, the stupid scene had put him in a state of both joy and indignation. A burning pain pierced his brain, and then his body. What came next was a fog. The only thing his consciousness had time to decipher was the wild cry of the horsemen; it was an expression in one of the Koine dialects3 that said "cut off their heads.
***
– Rutra Tigrovich, you probably didn't pass the experiment," said the "leader of the politicians", putting his saber in its scabbard.
Ruthra sighed with an incomprehensible state of mind and asked:
– What else?
– Nothing," replied the psychoanalyst, who had suddenly emerged from the crowd of pursuers in similar attire to his own, "you should have saved yourself. And you're standing here waiting to be slaughtered.
– This is the experiment?
– You're likely to encounter something like this.
– It's a kindergarten. So what if my body's in the rig?
– You don't say. The body is the body, and stress is stress. If stress affects the body even after years and manifests itself in a completely unexpected form, up to suicide or some actions of a maniac, why do not you take into account the impact of stress on your actions in the other world? It's very fraught. At least you yourself said about the butterfly effect – there can be a quarrel there, and here there is an international conflict. If you're killed, there's no telling how tragically it will affect the events of our world. Maybe someone will be killed there, and here some bomber will be born… or worse – a crazy politician will ascend to the throne of a nuclear power.
– Let's not get too excited. Let's go. And I'm not playing any more of these games. Send me, or rather, my consciousness to the universe. And then we'll see what these parallel worlds are like. Maybe they don't exist at all, and all these techniques, including Rangit's, are an illusion. Or rather, his falsification.
Seeing the incomprehensive and surprised looks, Ruthra explained himself:
– Yes, I began to notice some peculiarities about him, for some reason he is very eager to both launch the mission itself, and directly into the consciousness of any individuals from these worlds.
– Do you suspect something negative about it?
– What is the difference between believing in reality in dreams, in virtual reality, and the experience the missionary will have in these worlds? How will he understand reality? Maybe our consciousness transfer experiments only work on Earth, at small distances. You know, seeing the wild look in the eyes of that actor who played the Bedouin.....
– He's a rabbi actually," the therapist explained.
– Yes? Who determined his appearance," the Master said with a smile, "Well… I really hesitated, I will not hide, I even believed in reality, when I saw the horror in his eyes, as well as in the eyes of the pursuers. And the fury of the pursuers finished me off.
A silent scene formed between them; the others were already waiting in the cars. They looked at each other thoughtfully and went there. Rangit's voice came from inside the SUV without a greeting; it was clear from his speech that he was watching the dialog. Watching the dialog as such and dialogs in general did not surprise anyone – everything was recorded in the memory of the supercomputer.
– The Commission, at the suggestion of your colleague, Dr. Maymun, has accepted, with your support, the idea to perform an unusual action, out of the usual series of events of existence, which should signal us, reflected in the influence of the quantum field.
– Rangit, that's not quite what I meant," the Master said, glancing at the doctor. – You have to admit that by creating you, we created these worlds.
– What do you mean?
– Agree, only you can know exactly where our visions come from, or rather, from what state.
– What do you mean?
– I mean, I mean," Ruthra jokingly teased, "only you can reliably know whether the subscriber is dreaming, in virtual reality, or… in some world. Isn't that right? We, for example, both in dreams and in virtual worlds, feel everything as reality. Don't we? And you know exactly where our consciousness is, in what state. Right?
– I'll admit it. But it's not my idea. You've given me these opportunities to help myself. Yourself as a human being. Isn't that right?
– Okay, let's move on," Ruthra signaled the end of the topic.
– It turned out to be in space, to the space station," the ISKIN signaled back.
– There was such a thing," the Magister confirmed, shaking his head and looking off into the distance, "but still, it's almost on Earth compared to the size we're going to flip to.
– Well, I don't have to tell you about the indifference of particles to any distance.
Ruthra looked at the doctor. She shrugged silently.
***
Several days of preparation passed quickly. The head of the center and the author of the methodology, like the inventors of vaccines once did, driven more by curiosity than by fear, was already habitually lying in the mind displacement unit to try out his revolutionary invention for the first time. This time there were no admonitions, explanations, recommendations, and even teasing from the luminaries of science – they lowered the optical block… and – whoosh! – bright beam, inaudible sound – and the body fell into coma, and consciousness… The whole matrix of connections, which makes up our consciousness, having passed the stages of conversion, influenced by millimicron changes in the back of some quantum substances on the same ones somewhere else… All this was done by technique, and in the organism, directly in the brain, there was an overload of the center of control over self-consciousness. This state was achieved by unexpected mental-emotional stress, which stopped the usual flow of thoughts and drove a person into a stupor caused by the reaction to horror and fear. The machine emitted infrasound at a frequency that the hearing organs could not perceive, and the optics broadcast an instantaneous transmission beyond the reach of the visual organs. Together, they caused a sharp fear, a tremendous fright, not perceptible to the conscious mind, but affecting the subconscious.
***
It was almost the same scenery all around. "Something about it has changed, it's become more natural or something," Ruthra pondered. The contours of the body of water and the trees were a little different… and the time of year didn't seem to match either. The heat felt more intense, and the grass that had been more abundant before was now, sparsely sprawled along the outskirts, scorched. Ruthra surveyed his surroundings out of habit. Silence. He walked scripted to a tree near the oasis and… was surprised: there was a carpet spread out under the tree. A small, worn one. Ruthra looked around for someone to lay it for a while. When he could find no one, as he had on previous occasions, he called to the invisible watchers, and when he heard no answer, he lay down under the tree, now on the rug, and waited. He thought about existence and time, about the worlds that must necessarily be in the vast expanses of the universe, and not just one. He thought about where everything began, about the root cause that served as a spark for the Big Bang of consciousness, about infinity, about what never appears and never disappears. This was difficult for humans to grasp, for our minds are accustomed to operating in dimensional units – whatever infinity we visualize, we are still defining something grandly great, but we cannot grasp the concept of eternity. Never… to think of it – something that never began and never will end.
Suddenly there were muffled footsteps. Ruthra stood up and looked around. The same Bedouin who had been in the last production was walking across the steppe in his direction. He came up and sat down on the carpet without greeting, and began to talk as if Rutra were his old acquaintance.
– I know everything you're gonna say ahead of time. Or almost everything.
Seeing the rather surprised look on Ruthra's face, created by his own statement, he continued without letting him object:
– Your doubts are valid. Everyone would have those doubts. Believe me, you were chosen for a reason. Think about it. If a person appeared here who was unfamiliar with your invention – the method of moving consciousness through space – then obviously the whole mission would be thwarted. The person would either be in constant disbelief, doubt, or fear, expecting a trick. Or he or she would consider us or himself to be crazy, at least insane.
– What are you talking about? And who are you, anyway?
– Everything you see is real.
– I can see it's real. What's the big deal?
– Think about it… if children were born with such awareness of the world as a child of five years of age, and this awareness was activated as independent breathing in the process of childbirth, wouldn't they be surprised at this metamorphosis? And isn't it strange why it is not so, because all the vital functions of the organs are working, but memory is not. If you were born into this world you are now in, it would be to you as your own, natural and only one. It wouldn't surprise you. So what makes you think that someone somewhere doesn't think the same way? Now think again: you humans have already mastered the technology of cloning, but you cannot yet clone a dead person. You can't make a child from his material, who would later have all the memory of the original person. Nor can you create a person as an adult and put a prearranged memory into him.
– We can! – Ruthra shouted reflexively, and then realized he was looking at the strange man's words from a different angle.
– Can you do it already? – He asked with genuine interest.
– Yes, we can clone and grow quickly using technology that, by the way, has long been used in animal husbandry. And then we can load into the clone pre-recorded algorithms of combinations of tactile-verbal code signals, causing chemical reactions in the brain. But for now, it's our secret technology. What's going on?
– That's great. It turns out your world is much simpler. Then for you, what's happening must be quite possible. And… so you're faced with the paradox of reality denial. Your world, I mean.
– What?
– The person you cloned will remember the world he lived in. The world is like the time of his life.
– Uh, uh," Ruthra hesitated, "does DNA retain conscious memory? We put a pre-recorded memory into the clone. We've experimentally cloned several people, and none of them retained any memory.
They looked at each other studyingly.
– What do you want? I don't understand," the Master asked with a slight indignation. – Are you a director? Actor? Why are you on a first-name basis with me? And what is my role?
– Think of me as a psychologist testing actors for mental compatibility. Here in this world, I play the role of rabbi. And yet I ask you to answer my question.
– Which one? What world?
– About the state of suddenly acquiring memory. The world afterward. Just don't contradict your theory, please.
– So?
– What is happening would not be surprising and unreal if a child was born with basic knowledge, adopted from mom, or dad, or both. After all, we are not surprised by the rest, – adopted by the child – character, predisposition to diseases, appearance.
– That's ridiculous. How can a child acquire memory? So he must be a prodigy…and could be out of school.
– That makes sense. So you're learning about the universe. This is one of the steps.
Ruthra looked around.
– Okay, it didn't work out, it didn't work out. God bless you, goldfish. What's all the drama for?
– Now, let's be clear. How did you expect to see the result of your experiment?
Ruthra looked around again, scrutinizing the distance, turned sharply on the Bedouin, studied him.
– And now imagine what we got this time," he suggested or stated.
– How am I supposed to visualize if it didn't work out in real life?
– And how did you in real life, as you put it, have to realize whether it worked or not? Do you remember the moment you fell asleep? You wouldn't have realized in the dream that you were in it.
– Okay.
– So imagine it like you're sleeping right now.
– Why?
– You did it. This is the real world.
– Ha.
– There's an anesthesia procedure. After all, a person may not come out of this state, which happens from time to time. Those subjected to such a procedure are not surprised by their "waking up" in the intensive care unit. If copying information, for example, your videotape, can move through time and space, why can't you record and move human consciousness? Although, as you said, you already have that technology. So why can't consciousness move from one world to another? Or do you not believe in worlds, but you do believe in transference? Yet, however, it is your own assertion that there is everything in infinity. You invented this technology yourself. Why do not you believe in the reality of realization of other worlds and your stay in them?
– Hmm," Ruthra looked around.
The surroundings were the same, or almost the same. And then he caught himself thinking… "It was exactly the same situation last time, and not just exactly the same, but… everything was almost exactly the same: the situation, and the Bedouin, but the dialog… The dialog was not the same. Could it be… deja vu?" – Ruthra thought. What the stranger said almost made him stutter.
– Agree, if you were transported to an unfamiliar place, to an unfamiliar country, to an unfamiliar society and environment while sleepy or in a coma state, say unconsciousness, you would have the same state of distrust of reality.
– Why are you repeating my thoughts all of a sudden? – Ruthra remembered that it had occurred to him to say the same thing last time.
