Difference between revisions of "I'm from the Church of AEtheric Consciousness"

Friday, August 31, 2018 9:00

It's late morning for an ornithologist. Alma is already back from her daily (mostly daily, depending on car crashes) observations. She's already collected her thoughts in her journal, and now she's moved on to contemplating weighter things. Her desktop has a cleared area in the middle. It's a little larger than the space she normally makes for laptops or writing. Off to the side are four books, but she's not looking at them at the moment. She is staring at tarot cards, and a silk cloth is draped over her desk in that cleared spot.

Arthur has heard vague rumors. It's unclear precisely where he heard them, but the Doctor is on the move. With a micro SD card in his pocket, he maks his way to Alma's office. The door being open, he knocks it open. "Good mornin... am I interrupting something?"

"Not too much. It's okay. I'm interruptable." Alma searches Arthur's face for signs of disapproval. Emma and Aaron didn't react to her too keenly. Everyone else didn't leap for joy but they did what she might call some active listening mixed up breaking up and crying and all kinds of things. What a week. At least she has some measure of equanamity this week compared to the week before. Clarity. "What's on your mind?"

<<DICE>> Arthur rolls manipulation + subterfuge, difficulty 6 
<<DICE>> 1 success (3 10, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)
<<DICE>> Alma rolls perception + empathy, difficulty 6 
<<DICE>> 2 successes (1 3 5 7 10, Specialty: Yes, Willpower: No)
<<DICE>> Arthur rolls charisma + expression, difficulty 6 
<<DICE>> 3 successes (2 3 5 6 7 8, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)

Arthur is visibly disappointed at first when he sees the Tarot cards, but he puts that thought away, and puts on a smile as he closes the door behind himself. "Good, because Alma, I wanted to speak with you. I've heard things, and I Was hoping to discuss opportunitise with you. May I sit?"

Alma sighs when he looks at the cards. She knows how it looks like superstition when she does this. She cringes a little inside. But not for long. She appreciates the enthusism Arthur shows for his work, plus he's not glaring or looking down at her. He definitely won't be once he "Yes, take a seat" sits down.

Arthur does sit. Glancing at the cards. "I know you've done work with the Euthanatoi, and I've come to understand you're dropping your affiliation with that group. I also know you're a scientist, doing legitimate work with a real team. That is all true, right?"

Alma nods. "Yes yes! definitely." She looks down at the cards. They're not actually laid out in a spread. She's got five major arcana out, and she's been studying them. She looks over at some of the spangly twirling things hanging from her lamp--there's a gentle breeze coming in through the window, and then back at Arthur. "I know what it looks like, that these are not science, but," and here she takes a deep breath. She's had less coffee this morning. She's still fizzing from the moment of deep Clarity but is managing to ride the edge of it. Maybe she can talk straight to Arthur instead of sproinging all over the place like she did yesterday.

"But, I'm sure you can understand chaos? right? and how things move through time. And n dimensions that are not actually space or time but /qualities/. In cognitive psychology we do latent semantic analysis. Well, we, I should say they. I focused on cognitive psyc research before moving--anyway where was I?" She shakes her head at herself. self? pull yourself together. "And we use the same tools that quantum physicists use to pull meaning out of that--Singular Value Decomposition. Am I making sense? I started to explain this to Aaron yesterday, and then tried to explain to Emma about looking forward in time." She pauses to admit, "Backwards is easier on me, to be honest."

Arthur looks very happy at the things she's saying. As she speaks, and inf act as soon as she says the word chaos, he goes into his pocket and pulls out a micro SD card in a little plastic case. Setting it on her deck. "What if I told you there's more to the universe than Quantum Theory? And that the Union scientific paradigm is holding you back? I have a book for you. it's called Kitab al Alacir. That's Arabic, because the book was first rediscovered by the Arabs. It was written by Aretus in ancient Greece. It lays out the philosophical foundations of science unbounded by anything but the human mind and the infinite universe."

Alma considers Arthur during his pitch, then looks at the card. "Did you give me the one in Ancient Greek? I'm working on learning Sanskrit, Greek, Japanese...," She trails off. "Look, I have to admit that I /don't/ think it's all just Quantum Physics explaining everything. Have you read about Jainism? Taoism? Zen practice? The Euthanatoi stopped themselves from engaging with the whole of reality, and because of this they can do a lot of harm. Jainism isn't exactly right. They've got the part about interdepence right. One of their statements of faith can be read as 'Souls render service to one another' but one of their great minds has restated this in a form that an ecologist can really appreciate: 'All of life is bound together by mutual support and interdependence.'" She smiles at Arthur, "I really like what you're doing in the lab. I can see everyone working together there. I don't make inventions, you know?" She's questioning him, like, if he expects her to be able to engineer stuff like that he should know she has absolutely no experience making those kinds of devices. She's more of a muck and stompy boots kind of girl.

Arthur taps his finger on the case. "This is an English translation. We keep this book widely translated, because we often use it, when awakening the Genius within a student." Shaking his head momentarily, he's hardly distracted by her question. "I haven't read much about religions. But I am inviting you to consider the S...ociety of Ether. We have all kinds of scientists, explorers, researchers. We put a man on the moon in the 19th century. Many, perhaps most of us work in physical sciences and engineering, but we havea long tradition in the natural sciences. You would fit in, if you wanted to."

Alma starts to Almasplain how one has to look past the religious trappings to get to the underlying philosophies but she doesn't spend too much time on this because they don't have all day. She nods keenly at him then explains, "Look, I don't want to rush in to things. I've been doing too much of that. Jumping to wild conclusions without any proper examination of things. I have this new clarity, and I'm going to sit with it a while. I don't know where I'll end up, but I'm not rushing in anything. Understand?" She says that with a firm and confident voice. "And this is not a hasty decision. Emma and Aaron don't trust that. They seem to think I'm haring off randomly at the slightest impulse." She frowns. "I'm not, really I'm not. Ok? Thank you for hte book. I love reading. Can I share this with people?"

Arthur nods. "OF course. Take your time." He raises his hand from the case. "I'm offering you the book. Take it as an exploration of the philosophy of science with no strings attached. I would suggest not sharing it willy nilly. It has power."

She narrows her eyes at him. She hates being manipulated by language. "language has power," She says. She lightens up. "Thanks for coming by. I'm gonna go back to studying everything."

Arthur smiles, and stands. "It does. But think of when you first tapped into the power within yourself. Awakening that kind of power must be done thoughtfully. Good luck. Even if you don't join the society, at some point in the future. Please just... consider it as you take your time considering your options."