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============= = Chapter 2 = =============
"How do you want to get to Peppermint Grove?"
The laundry machines has, by now, all stopped their rumbling, and
Stephanie was inspecting the many rows of the equipment that had all
been installed inside the house. Drago has removed several walls, as
well as the carpet and tiles, from all the surfaces elsewhere in the
house. The cavernous space was lit with a single fluorescent tube from
the ceiling, and by all accounts exactly resembled a dry-cleaning
facility.
"Let's drive." Drago was learning against the doorframe of the
division between the habitable part of the house and the facility.
"Really?" Would be it be faster to get you to teleport us?"
"No---let's not transmit today. The weather has cleared up and I would
like to spend some time in the sunlight. If we managed to see the Army
Boss then I will probably not be back in Perth for some time."
"Do you want to drive then?" Stephanie turned to Drago, banging her
hand twice on a laundry machine. "We can take the scenic route."
"You are a better driver than me, Drago."
"I suppose so."
The two had reached the Indian Ocean, and the weather was indeed
pleasant. The sun shimmered off the water, and the sky was clear, and
it was possible to see for kilometres. Rottnest was easily visible,
and the Toyota sped past the many beach goers.
"I think that man is being sick."
"Yes---he has had too much to drink."
"So what is going on back in your ... land ... with your people?---You
told me ages ago that you couldn't tell me the reason for all this
questing and all these missions. You said you were sworn to
secrecy. Can you tell me what all of this is about? It's about to be
over---and if I am right, I may not see you again for a long time."
"Oh of course. Yes, I can tell you now."
"What?" Stephanie threw her hands up in frustration. "You're just
going to tell me now?" At that instant a car had pulled up beside
them. Two blonde men wearing highly reflective sunglasses,
transporting surfboards in the tray of their car turned to face the
exclaiming Stephanie. The traffic lights changed green and Drago
waited for them to speed off.
"I'm sorry Stephanie." Drago looked very sheepish. "But there is no
need for secrecy now. Letting you know the reason I am here on Earth
will now no longer put anyone in danger."
"Well I am---and have been---very curious. Spill the beans, space
man!"
"Alright. Well, as you know, my race was once a people who existed in
a physical form beyond this dimension---the third dimension. The
official label that many human science fiction authors have had
for beings such as myself is that we are an "extra-dimensional
sentience". It is highly likely that humans possess the possibility of
evolutionary trajectory exactly the same as my people. We once existed
as biological life forms, and we have a good idea about which part of
the Milky Way we originated from. A great deal of human folklore and
supernatural philosophies---such as, say---theology, mysticism,
mythologoies that involve magic and creatures such as Gods and Deities
speculate about the possibility of humans being able to subvert or
transcend what Western academies refer to as the 'laws of nature' or
the 'laws of physics'. As far as my people understand the composition
of ..." Drago paused for a moment, searching for the right word in
English---"... 'reality', that is, all that is real and true and
actually existing---there is no such opposition between what the
dominant model of science humans currently conduct, and what these
practicioners of science, these ... bureaucrats consider to be
supernatural. Whatever passes for science and truth now under class
society on Earth is a very dim shadow of all the methods of inquiry
and exploration of the physical universe.
"Anyway, humans usually depict beings who are able to do 'magic' or
break the laws of nature as gods, or demons, or highly perfect, or the
absolute reverse, as evil spirits that need to be purged from society
and so on. In fact all sentience is exactly the same---so far as my
people have been able to discover, much of the enormous bodies of
human thought that have performed investigations of methods of inquiry
into the nature of reality and the universe are absolutely correct."
Stephanie turned to Drago, as they passed right by the Swanbourne
Barracks---"Really?"
"Absolutely." Drago nodded. "Oh look, the gate is wide open."
"Would you look at that...! Anyway--go on--I find it hard to believe
that a civilisation of tyrranical and destructive people such as
humans have gotten anything right."
"Oh you have perhaps stumbled ignorantly, or recklessly onto some
incredible discoveries that my people also did, but for the most part
humans are highly intelligent---and perhaps more to the
point--compassionate, empathetic, and loving people."
"I think I am going to need you to unpack this a little more for me,
Drago. So far, I don't really agree."
"You might find it hard to believe, but humans can rid themselves of
political devices of oppression such as states, armies, police,
prisons, the bureaucracy. All forms of external and coercive
discipline. I'm sure you agree with this as well---punishment,
especially in the form the state prefers best, retributive punishment,
is entirely temporary and will eventually be overthrown. In fact for
long stretches of the history of humanity there were no political and
social hierarchies and humans were in fact the happiest and most
content they have ever been."
"No, that is true, I suppose I need to have a little more faith in
humanity."
"Yes, I have noticed how it is fashionable and highly persuasive among
all kinds of humans in Perth to avow about how humans are somehow
treacherous and oppressive by nature. Even when all the best human
scientific inquiry shows that there is very little evidence at all to
support this sort of common colloquial topic of conversation.
"But it is true that Earth is currently in the grip of political and
economic control of a small group of tyrants who are making life
miserable for those Earthlings who are sentient. In fact the parallels
between the current condition of your society and mine are very
close. My people are also in the grip of a horrible authoritarian
class-based political system much like humanity. Except instead of our
state oppression being administered by third dimensional instruments
of torture and misery, it occurs extra-dimensionally."
"That sounds horrific."
"It is. The perfection of our social system is regressing. It is very
similar to human social regression---we are slipping back into a mode
of existence with less individual and collective personal autonomy,
and as a result we are becoming plagued by pestilence and great
misery.
Except we are much closer to the destruction of our kind than humans
are. Our former mode of political existence enabled us to persist
extra-dimensionally indefinitely. But since our society regressed back
into class society, we have been descending through the full gamut of
physical modes of existence, and have barely been able to support
ourselves within the third physical dimension."
"So is your political system related to how many ... dimensions of
reality you can exist in and ... travel through?"
"It is the same way for all beings which exhibit properties of
sentience."
"What? Even humans?"
"Oh especially humans. Like I said, one day, humans may discover how
to move out of third dimensional physics."
"How is a political system related to science at all? I don't
understand you in the slightest!"
"Humans have some conception of liberating themselves from the
... 'prison' or limitations of third dimensional space and time most
definitely."
"I certainly don't have any cocneption of that at all."
"Oh, every culture does. I quite like the story told by the German
Idealist philosophers. I seem to remember you told me that you once
studied philosophy."
"They never spoke of moving beyond the third dimension."
"It's certainly not a big jump to extend what they were talking
about---especially Hegel. What if I told you the corrent political
authorities that my people suffer under are currently operating within
a political structure very similar to the Prussian state that Hegel
theorised about in his text the _Philosophy of Right_? The main
reason why I am here on Earth is to gain the necessary resources to be
able to carry out a transformative revolution within my colony so that
we may be able to overthrow our rulers, collectivise our current forms
of property once more, and abolish the state which currently controls
and parasites off our labouring classes. The same thing is without a
doubt similar by analogy to the human conception of libertarian
communism."
Stephanie furrowed her brow, and gazed out leftward from her car
passenger window and saw a little glimmer of the ocean again from
Cottesloe beach.
"I think we've driven too far, Drago."
"Ah. Yes---"
"Anyway go on. I've heard this stuff before, but I had never thought
about it much, it seemed too fantastic and disconnected from my
life. I hear people in silicon valley talking about "Social
Technology" and bitcoin and software project governance based on
federation and decentralisation, but those people---they all seem to
be men---all talk with enormous words that really have me the
impression that they had no idea what they were talking about."
"Ah---the techbros. Quite a few of them are millenarians, aren't
they. If they had gained anymore power that would go from saying: The
World Is Ending! To: Let's End It!"
"That's the impression I got as well. But from what it sounds like,
humans would be able to---I don't know---leave this planet and
initiate some sort of social system of infinite productivity and
perfectly equality."
"Equality of some kind is part of my point---I suppose I talk more in
terms of absolute and infinite freedom, but that is just my own choice
of English words. Anyway computers are currently in the grip of
Earth's ruling class, and for that reason I would probably not use
them as a tol for achieving total human liberation. Not right now,
anyway. Computers are deployed right now as a means for making humans
work harder and surrender more of their freedom."
"I certainly agree with that. What was supposed to be a technology for
increasin economic productivity and allowing more free time for humans
has enslaved us and robbed us of even more of our time---have you seen
the videos of warehouse workers competing against robots in their
workplaces?"
"It has been the same way for all class societies whenever they sink
into a more stratified and unequal form of class society---it is the
same for mine right now."
"Do you use computers where you come from? Robots and automation and
the like?"
"Oh. No. Actually I cannot think of another civilsiation compared to
humans who are so obsessed with computers. I will admit that they are
quite entertaining, but they have none of the magical properties that
humasn regularly attach to them. Really, humans are quite fetishistic
about these machines. The way they are presently used socially will
not bring humans any closer to liberation.
"There are probably some computer system still in operation in my
colony, but they are an obsolete technology to us. Where humans would
deploy computation to solve a probelm or achieve some task, we would
appeal to the Transcendental Aesthetic. But even that is an ancient
technology in our civilisation---they way we used to live required no
recourse to objects or processes in third dimensional physics
or---individual personal consciousness for that matter."
"What is the Transcendental Aesthetic?"
"It is a label I borrowed from the German philosophy Kant, and the
capacity we have to use it is not quite the same as he explained, but,
put simply, it is the ability or 'technology' my people use in order
to 'look into' the third dimension and see objects and relationships
between third dimensional physical entities."
"How does that work?"
"Well, the universe does not really operate the way humans normally
think it does. Humans think that the world is made up of objects like
atoms and photons and pet animals, all of which are neutrally given to
them in empirical experience. When you close your eyes and go to sleep
and become unconscious, it is true that the world does indeed go on
existing, and that when you resume consciousness, time has passed and
yo are experiencing a world which your mind is not wholly involved in
creating or maintaining, but that is where humasn usually stop in
their understanding of the metaphysics of the objectivity of the
universe. Actually, the consciousness of the minds that stient beings
possess---and it is absolutely true that all sentience requires a
mind of some sort---is actually a critical element in 'constructing'
or 'creating' the objectivity of the universe. There is nothing
neutral and uncontested about empirical facts. All knowledge and
experience through the conduit of a conscious mind is ladenw ith
concepts and values, and interpretations. Nietzsche used the phrase
"transvaluation of norms" to describe the process whereby a
... rational or autonomous agent would be able to reintepreted the
meaning of sentient experience in such a way as to radically and
completely transform the appearance and function of living
existence. Not that Nietzsche would ever have said the words
'rational' or 'autonomous agent'.
"So are you saying humans just have to think differently in order to
free themselves from their fleshy, puny bodies---and ... transcend the
third dimension?" Stephanie was absolutely not buying it. "You don't
slip me something every time I come see you, do you? I'm not tripping
right now, am I?"
Drago sighed. "It is difficult to explain. Maybe I'll start from a
different perspective. Every sentient creature of some kind possesses
some form of consciousness, and therefore some kind of mind. The
... awareness you have of your experience of being awake and alert,
and being able to monitor your emotional state---as well as being able
to detect continuity and a reliability in your conscious awakeness is
a critical and active capacity. For that reason, humans are definitely
not a kind of computer made up of little biological machines like
proteins or cells or even physical objects. That is not what makes
humans humans. You would be able to put me on a surgical table
right now and cut me open and give me an autopsy right now, and my
body in this dimension would flawlessly appear to be human, but I can
assure you that this manifestiation of the person you know is a
Zombie. This body has no mind or consciousness. This body is a puppet
for a ... consciousness or spirit that exists beyond this
dimension. Whereas you, and every other actual human, possesses a kind
of ... kernel of what Hegel called 'spirit'. You possess the capacity
for 'apperception'--that is, you have the active rational capacity for
forming a unified and coherent experience of space and time within the
third dimensio. That is the most advanced stage of your civilisation's
development and sentient beings."
"I think I follow---you're right, humans usually don't acknowledge
that all of the 'facts' or objects we see or ake as verification of
our theories all _take place_ within and through our _conscious
experience_."
"Yes. It is a shame indeed that the phrases 'expand your mind' and
'transcend your consciousness' have both acquired derogatory and
derisive connotatios within English-speaking society. That was my
point earlier: when humans---and all civilisations of sentient beings,
for that matter--free themselves from the oppression of tyrranies and
absurd irrational social modes of organisation such as 'work' and
'war' and 'accumulation of capital', the social and mental development
of their race will, in time, be able to advance to such a stage that
the physical limitations of the third dimension, and all other
physical dimensions of extension, will not be a productive or useful
mode of existence, and will be a fetter upon the operation or
organisation of their sentinence, and it will be dispensed with and
left with altogether."
"The same way your people did."
"Yes, the way we were once able to existence without having to worry
or navigate what English refers to as third, or even fourth physical
dimensions. But once you move beyond those sorts fo axes of physical
extension, I believe you are no longer really referring to anything a
human would comprehend as, or desire to refer to as 'physical'."
"It sounds quite blissful..."
"Well, it is anything but blissful for us right now. I think we have
arrived in Peppermint Grove. Let me just get out and ask someone where
the Commandant lives."