Lower than the Angels

Chapter 12, Tengri's Turn

Back on Coon Island, back in the lounge, back in their bodies, Tengri turned to them and said, 

"Mister Green has shown us other realms, realms distant from our reality despite at times being overlaid on our realm of Earth.

"Like you, in the old days I would have shaman dream visions of being in such distant realms. Sometimes in the company of beings to whom I was less than a child. Many of them were lucent dreams, in which I could be an active player. 

"But they were still dreams. They were shaman dreams, which I now know were  unique to myself, for all that those realms felt real to me.  In those dreams, terrifying things would happen. I might be disemboweled. Eaten. Then spit up again and reassembled by these beings. With new parts, stone bones and other changes, which I was told made me a more powerful shaman, more acceptable to the beings who had changed me. 

"In those distant days I could not know that these changes were only dream changes, and hadn't altered my living flesh. I could not know that to others this could not be more than a story, no matter how impressive I made it sound.

"There were times when I lost contact with my physical body while in those realms, not recalling those dreams until I became a shaman again in a new body. 

"Now we have access to the Q, and have found it to be real, as real as anything can be despite its dreamlike nature. So we know that the risks of becoming lost in it are real, and can be terrifying. 

"I want us all to avoid any chance of that, not for our own sakes so much as for those of others who depend on us in this reality."

Tengri had paused. Kore spoke. She simply said, "How?"

Tengri replied, "That's the real question, isn't it.

"First, let me try to summarize the situation. We are all aware of the uniqueness of each person's understanding, and also of the infinite potential influences on that understanding. To understand these Dark Angels we must comprehend both. As I see it, the point of trying to understand these angels is to understand their potential impact on our personal choices. To be aware of them as potential sources for the content of our Q dreams when judging the importance of those dreams.

"There are limiting factors when one is trying to incorporate external data into one's world view, factors which affect the importance of evaluating the potential impact of new data. This is because all we can possibly know of external data stems from a previous Now. 

"Emergent physical phenomena are inherently unpredictable, because each new Now arises from a potentially infinite set of possible next Nows. Now is the manifestation of a reality that was only possible, not inevitable, before it was realized. 

"It may seem strange to invoke Isaac Newton in the context of this discussion, but it was he who first expressed this limiting factor in terms of mathematics. It became known as the three body problem. Newton applied it to the motions of planets.

"The limit of exact mathematical calculability is hit with just two bodies. As soon as a third is added some form of cut and try is needed to solve most problems. This situation can be called three degrees of freedom. That the third is inherently unpredictable stems from the way we move in the material universe, walking through the network of possible connections, going from Now to a next Now one step at a time. With three or more degrees of freedom, basically the number of variables in the equation, the difficulty of finding exact solutions increases rapidly. 

"So it can be said that in an infinite material universe, with everything in theory able to affect anything else, there are an infinite number of degrees of freedom available. All practical problems can become almost infinitely unsolvable. The only way to approach this situation is to reduce all problems to a series of two-body problems. And try to optimize the sequence of their solution in the order of the factors that matter most.

"For Newton this meant simplifying the mathematical model of each planet to a single point of mass. Then an exact solution for their orbits could be found for each pair of bodies. Such a solution could be valid as long as the bodies stayed far enough apart that their actual dimensions became insignificant. Once a solution for the first two bodies was found, a solution for the third could be found by using the center of mass of the first two as one body relative to the third. And so on.

"A significant variation on this approach is known as Field Theory. Here the forces exerted on any one point particle by all other point particles is described as a field of force, with the result of the forces from all the particles being combined together into one resultant force, definable at any given point in the field. This was workable as long as the subject particle itself could be assumed to have no significant influence on the field. Otherwise each motion of the subject particle changes the entire field. If only slightly.

"If time is a factor, which it usually is, there are cases where unless the initial conditions are known precisely, which can be quite impossible, the results can be unpredictable even when exact equations are known. This is called Chaos Theory.

"For our purpose, these ideas can be applied to an individual, and all the influences exerted on that individual by others, either singly or collectively. If the individual could be perfectly aware of all those outside influences, then his responses could be perfectly valid. To the degree that the individual's awareness is erroneous or incomplete, his responses may be inappropriate.

"So to the degree that we as individuals are unaware of the influences exerted by unknown factors, including the beings we've been calling Dark Angles, our responses to our own world may be inappropriate. Fortunately, our real world is a manifestation of many deep agreements. So it is normally true that those unknown factors are insignificant, at least for most practical purposes."

Tengri paused again. This time it was to assess the response of his listeners to his summary. He didn't really expect more than a general concept of what he had talked about to be retained. It appeared that at least that much had been achieved. So he began to follow that up with what he hoped would be a sufficiently vivid example.

"Every living creature, no matter how small, evolves ways to deal with its immediate environment. Its purposes may be as simple as, find food, avoid being eaten. A small fish, living in a pond, hiding in the duckweed, may avoid the ducks that eat the weeds. Or it may learn that the ducks eat only duckweed, and do not eat small fish. It may also learn that certain parasites, which it likes to eat, may often be found attached to the feet of ducks. So it may learn to inspect the feet of ducks and nibble at their parasites. If it does this it becomes a symbiote of the ducks.

"What our small fish may fail to learn is that loons, which to its senses may be indistinguishable from ducks, do eat small fish if approached incautiously. And may even chase a small fish if they happen to see one.

"Now the number of loons may be small compared to the number of ducks. A typical fish may live out its life in the duckweed without ever encountering a loon. In the scheme of things, the number of small fish eaten by loons may nicely balance the number of parasites eaten by fish. So the survival skills of the fish as a group may be adequate, if not perfect.

"We are neither fish nor loons. But we habitually respond to our world based on very limited sensory inputs. Our survival skills may be perfectly adequate within our limited environment. Outside of that environment, it may be a different story. We may be perceived as small fish by creatures who are as scarce in our accustomed world as loons in a duck pond.

"Until recently, we have not even been aware of dark matter, let alone dark matter entities. Now we are using dark matter engines to move about our planet, and even to spread out to nearby planets. Perhaps this activity has not yet impinged on dark matter entities, or has not been perceived as a threat. But that may change. 

"As Kore suggested, we will need to know how to deal with that situation if it arises.

"Any ideas?"