Chapter 11.
Observer.
It was a beautiful summer day.
We, as a whole big friendly company, as always gathered on the river.
We had something to discuss - after all, so much has happened recently.
We learned so much new things. How differently everyone lives. What different problems we all have.
There was something to argue about. Everyone is different, everyone has their own outlook on life, their own way in this sometimes difficult but interesting life.
One thought still haunted me.
Our Wizards have recently argued, that the Universe has a beginning.
The age is even called about 14 billion years.
Of course, you need to be skeptical about everything, but…
If so, then every beginning must have an end ... This is the law.
All inhabitants feel like whole conscious organisms. And since everything in this world is connected, the whole infinite system is also nothing but a single conscious organism.
- So how old is the Universe? asked the rabbit getting out on the shore.
The question sounded like a bolt from the blue. Everyone even froze for a while.
- What's question ???
The amazed friends asked, as if a rabbit asked how old the most important ruler, sung by all the religions of the world, was.
- Now you can often hear, that you can recalculate the age of any species in the age of your species ... answered the rabbit guiltily.
- For example, our cat Marquis is 15 years old. It is equal to 80 years of by human measure.
Then everyone attacked the rabbit.
I wonder, what the Universe is,…. a little girl, playing with dolls, an adult warrior, or maybe an elderly old woman, knitting a sweater ?? the rabbit did not calm down.
Everyone, of course, took this question as a joke. And the fortune-telling began. There was no limit to imagination.
In the end, everyone went swimming, sunbathing and eating watermelon again.
Finally, after taking a bath, everyone began to go home.
After seeing Lulu home, I wondered, what to do next. It was not too late.
Sometimes I like to walk in the evening on some memorable places. So, walking past the library, which was located right by the park, I decided to take a little rest.
Sitting on a bench, among some white, incredibly tasty-smelling flowers, I began to look around at the inhabitants passing by.
After a while, a librarian I knew, appeared from the door.
She was already quite old, having worked with books almost all her life.
Seeing me from afar, she came up, and sat down.
I greeted her with delight, began to ask about life, business.
After a pause for a while, she said firmly:
- I would like to talk about you.
- About something very important.
- About me ?! I exclaimed, not understanding anything.
- Yes, she replied.
- So important, that the very approach to this topic, is maddening.
- But I will try to explain to you the inexplicable.
- As you know, every system always has two sides. This is a prerequisite and necessary condition. Two opposites, that complement each other, being one whole.
- In our case, these are Observer and Observable.
- The Observer cannot exist without the Observed and vice versa.
- The Observer is you ... The Observed is all, that you see. The whole Universe, that you are able to see, is your world, peculiar only to you, due to your peculiarities of perception.
- I will say, perhaps, the most bitter thing, that you have ever heard, but it seems to me, that you are ready enough to know this too.
- Everything, that you see around you concerns only you and no one else.
- It's endless loneliness.
- How so? I asked. I have a lot of friends, I'm not lonely at all.
- Everything depends on the system. No matter, how you view yourself, there is always only one Observer in the system.
- The rest of the picture is the Observable. Scenery.
- When one of the parts disappears in the system, the other also disappears.
- One part cannot exist without the other.
- You mean, when someone dies, the whole Universe… dies with him ?!?
- Oh well, complete nonsense! Nonsense! I could not resist.
- Death is the most common occurrence of all that can be!
- I see a disappeared friend of the same species ... I know, that he is the same as me ... But the Universe does not disappear anywhere.
- A? What do you say to that ?? ... I cried, jumping up.
The old librarian looked at me intently, in her eyes I noticed, that something flashed treacherously.
- The fact is, that a lost friend, just like you, is not an Observer, but just a decoration in your Universe. This is one of the countless mind traps, which acts as a protective buffer, to keep you feeling comfortable, and not going crazy with horror, she answered excitedly.
- It is impossible to imagine !!
- You live among billions of creatures similar to you, and do not know, who they are !!!
There is always only one Observer ... You.
You, the Observer, will not become, the whole Universe will not become.
You are like two climbers on a rock, tied by one rope.
This is the most important of all the laws of the System - The Law of Two Halves.
- Can you imagine ?!?
- The whole Universe is on one side of the scales and you are on the other !!
- And both parts are equal and balance each other !!!
- Everything, that is in your Universe, is concentrated in you.
- You yourself are the most perfect instrument for understanding the world.
- To know how the Universe is born, you need to know, how it disappears.
- Sooner or later, you have to learn one of the most difficult secrets, she answered with tears in her eyes.
-There was a painful pause. The librarian hesitated for a long time to say something ...
- Speak, I said.
- In conclusion, I would like to touch upon the key, and most important issue of your whole life.
“It has tortured you from the moment you became conscious.
- This question is the basis and cornerstone of all endless philosophical treatises about nothing, pouring from empty to empty, to which there is still no answer.
- You, after birth, noticed one thing, that distinguishes you from the rest of the world.
“You were born alive.
- The other half of the world has a different form of life from yours.
- Its not alive.
- You accurately and unmistakably feel this difference, but you cannot understand anything.
- Your only explanation is the difference in the form of life.
- Biological and the rest.
- But, at the same time you know, that you and everyone around you are made of the same material, only in a different shape.
- My riddle is this:
- What is your difference from the rest of the world ??
- What makes you ….so… Alive ???
- And most importantly - Why?!?
- What reason ?!?
I looked in bewilderment at the keeper of ancient books, not understanding anything.
She, not paying any attention to me, continued.
- You know, what's the matter.
- Our scientists tell us about one, at first glance, obvious thing.
“They tell us, that among all the biological species living here, ours is the most complex and developed.
- We used to consider ourselves the most alive among all.
“But this is a monstrous delusion.
- Delusion?!? I exclaimed.
- Yes, she answered.
- Among the organisms living here, our species, in terms of the concentration of life in us, is in this list in a deplorable place, closer to the very end.
“There are creatures among us, with such a high concentration of life, that, even thinking about it, head starts spinning.
- Yes, there are many things, that I do not understand, whispered the keeper of the treatises, as if afraid, that someone might hear us.
- The inhabitants of our species have long noticed, that all living organisms, in most cases, live and act instinctively.
- This in no way interferes with the performance of their direct functions; on the contrary, it even helps.
- We do not know for certain, how much this feature is developed in other species of living beings, but we definitely have it.
- This distinctive feature is …Reason.
- What is Reason?
- Mind is the ability to stop, and look around in the middle of the river called life.
- It is the ability to ask questions about yourself and the world around you.
- You know, all these years of observation, one question haunts me.
Then, bending down sharply and trembling all over, she in unconsciousness and fear began to repeat the same, like a spell.
- Why does the System, that created both us and the Universe, want us to know about her ???
- Why ?!?
- When everything that is required of us, we instinctively, like all other living organisms, do it so well ???
Then, without saying a word or saying goodbye, she got up heavily, and walked on.
I sat on a bench for a long time among all the surrounding beauty, but I did not see or feel anything.
The time was already getting late. I should have gone home. In order to somehow calm down, back, I decided to walk past the old University, with which I had the warmest memories.
As always, there were many young inhabitants around. Everyone was discussing something and laughing. Probably the time had come, and the graduates were preparing for the exams.
I wandered on ... and then, in the distance, in front, I noticed … a lonely ... a young woman in the rays of the sunset.
In one hand she was carrying some kind of book, and it seemed, she was deeply thinking about something of her own.
- There was something in her gait ... unusually light and carefree ... She was dressed in everything airy, on her head some kind of transparent cape was fluttering, covering her head.
- This ….can't be ... I was taken aback ... my legs refused to go.
Waking up from some kind of oblivion, already in the dark, I wandered home.