Introduction - Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five


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----- Magical Recursive Five-Way -----


by Kevin Hutchins [Teledildonix]
kevinhutchinsNOSPAM@blarg.net

----- The Dichotomous Pentacle, Introduction: Recursion and Welcome -----


Recursion: a programming technique involving the use of a procedure, function, or algorithm that calls itself in a step having a termination condition so that successive repetitions are processed up to the critical step until the condition is met at which time the rest of each repetition is processed from the last one called to the first


Introduction: Welcome to Eudildonia

Suppose the multiverse is an indeterminate arrangement of universes, some which are closely linked, some which are completely disparate, and some whose relationships are unknown. Within this multitude of universes, there exists one which is your own; you are aware of it, aware of yourself within it, and aware that there may be inconceivable abstractions which may or may not be within it. Suppose also that among the other universes, there is one which is delicately intertwined with yours, entangled in such a way that you might imagine that it exists somehow, somewhere not far from your own, but you are not entirely sure of the circumstances. Your own universe, as far as you know, contains galaxies, stellar clusters, solar systems, planets and comets hurling through the vast spaces, strangely twirling in a dance of cosmological relationships. Near one of the stars in your universe, orbiting at approximately one hundred fifty million kilometers, is a planet; and you may be a denizen of this planet. You might prefer to call your world 'Earth'. You may be convinced that you are aware of a great many truths about Earth, facts which are evident to you as you inhabit its space. But in all fairness, you are reasonably sure that you do not know all truths, and you can not know all facts; therefore you are willing to entertain possible scenarios in which that other universe, the one entangled and enmeshed with yours, could somehow be involved in your own reality in ways that you had not yet conceived. If you are willing to explore these scenarios with your imagination, then please let me tell you about a world in this other universe: a world called 'Eudildonia'.

Unlike Earth, which is a planet that has been locked for billions of years in a spiral of attraction to its sun, Eudildonia is a different kind of world. Earth is a huge sphere whose circumference is roughly forty thousand kilometers, spinning on an axis, revolving around its fiery star, inhabited by many diverse forms of life, one of which is your own. You may be one person among billions of members of your species, and your species may be just one of the millions that have come and gone over the eons. You and your fellow people may have come close to a consensus about the facts of what constitutes the actual composition of your world. You may have greatly different opinions about all the details, but in general, you mostly agree about certain basic truths; for example, the length of the day as Earth spins, the length of the year as Earth revolves, the physical elements that are found in its substances, the energetic components that are observed in its systems, the concept that some creatures are sentient and self-aware, the belief that time is passing at a certain rate which is discernible to all the Earth's inhabitants; these are all considered to be truths, even if the exact specifications are arguable. And so having spent your life on this world, unaware of other alternative kinds of worlds, you may be doubtful about various imaginary scenarios in which worlds could exist in such a way that bears some resemblance to Earth, but is otherwise remarkably different. Nevertheless, if you are willing to forego your doubts temporarily, you may be interested to learn about this other possible world, this magically different place, this Eudildonia.

Eudildonia is not as large as Earth, with respect to its mass and volume. It is not actually a planet covered with many continents and many cities full of people, and it does not stay tethered in an orbit around a star. Instead, it is basically one enormous city with its own self-contained ecosystem, inhabitants, and subdivisions. Whereas the Earth is bathed in energy from its sun, Eudildonia provides its own energy from within itself according to its own methods. The Earth spins along, following an elliptical, almost circular orbit around its sun; but Eudildonia is free to roam across great interstellar and intergalactic distances, visiting many other kinds of cosmic phenomena, not affixed to any single permanent location, varying its motion according to dictates other than the simple rules of gravity and angular momentum. The surface of Earth is covered with large masses of land and even larger regions of water, all cloaked in layers of atmosphere; its inhabitants are spread in various configurations across most of the lands, sometimes concentrated in cities. But Eudildonia is encapsulated in layers of various materials which surround a sort of honeycomb of smaller spaces, designed and arranged according to the wishes of the inhabitants, each serving its own purposes, all of which are harmoniously intertwined as one enormous city. Earth has many countless kinds of inhabitants, but you probably consider yourself and your fellow humans to be the only kind of 'people' that are known; you may wonder and speculate about the whales and the gorillas and the dolphins and the lemurs, but the only people that you can identify for certain are the members of humankind. Eudildonia, by contrast, has a number of different identifiable kinds of peoples, and only some of them resemble humankind as you know it.

Some of the peoples that you would find living in the various sections of the city-world of Eudildonia are referred to as indians, androids, divirzions, and absurdities. These titles are derived from acronyms which describe some of the possible ways that the inhabitants of Eudildonia may manifest themselves. A person that is probably easiest for you to recognize, because it is somewhat similar to an Earthling, is an INDIvidual Autonomous citizeN, an INDIAN. This citizen of Eudildonia might be a biological entity, living and breathing and walking and thinking and talking and going about his business according to his needs and desires. His mind is aware of itself; he has thoughts and emotions and sensations, some which may resemble your own, some which may be entirely different. Earthlings almost invariably follow certain patterns during the course of their existences: usually they are born, they grow, mature, age, consume, express themselves, go through various changes, and eventually expire. But in this other world, the Eudildonians do not always follow this kind of pattern. Indians may do some of these things some of the time, but they may do them quite differently from the way you do, or they may not do them at all.

Contemporary Earthlings may feel that they have an understanding about the various ways that people on their own world might exist: they have records and memories of people who came before them historically, and they discuss and hypothesize about generations that may be born and live in the future. Earthlings think of their own minds as marvelous things which contain their thoughts and dreams and express their feelings, and they often look at the Earth around them with an interest in finding or making other things that can have thoughts, dreams and feelings. They study animals, computers, societies, and other systems which may potentially have these things in common with people. Many kinds of peoples on Eudildonia, on the other hand, may have these things in common-- even if they are not at all similar to humankind. Consider the sort of person on Eudildonia who is actually an ANthropomorphic mechanOID citizen: an ANdROID. He may have a physical body which bears some resemblance to a human's body, thus he is said to be anthropomorphic. But rather than having a lifeforce which emerges purely as a result of the biological facts of his creation, he may be animated and function according to other systems and patterns, which may be a combination of biological and mechanical and computational structures, so he is a mechanoid rather than a human. Even though his mind with all its thoughts and feelings and dreams may be quite different from your human mind, this Android is considered to be a person on Eudildonia, just like any other kind of person.

Earthlings sometimes imagine the culmination of technology and algorithmic design which could develop intelligences and existences which are not inhabitants of biological bodies, and they discuss and theorize about these artificial intelligences. On the world of Eudildonia, this kind of person is not theoretical; he is a real entity known as a DIffuse VIRtual deniZeN, a DIVIRZioN. Divirzions do not have physical bodies like the indians and androids per se, but are instead inhabitants of networks and systems of interconnected technologies, and their essences are dispersed and diffuse throughout these networks. An indian may use his mouth and ears to talk and listen; a divirzion may use his microphones and megaphones; the processes are different, but the result is still interpersonal communication. An indian may consume some kinds of foods for sustenance, and an android may consume some kinds of energy to sustain the functions of his systems; a divirzion may utilize other processes which transmute materials and energies into the sustenance of his algorithms and functions; these are all just different ways of living for different kinds of people. Earthlings such as yourself may consider certain complex systems of behavior and interaction to be normal and ordinary parts of their existence, even though these procedures might have been almost unimaginable to previous generations of humankind. For example, you might pick up your telephone, press a certain combination of buttons, speak the "magic words" into the mouthpiece, and thirty minutes later another person rings your doorbell and delivers the pizza that you ordered. If you were to attempt to explain that event to a human from a few centuries ago, it would seem quite magical and nearly impossible, but you would still know that it is a procedure which is factual and truthful. So it is that you may imagine this Eudildonia, with systems and procedures that operate according to designs and patterns whose complexities are wondrously magical from your viewpoint as an Earthling; but to the indians and androids and divirzions, they are quite normal.

Now that you have considered indians, androids, and divirzions, you see that there are some kinds of people on Eudildonia who manifest in various ways that are tangible, observable, and recordable. But there may still be another kind of person, one who can not be sensed by ordinary means, one who is not found in a body or a machine or a computer program; such a person may be an ABstract SUpeRsensible entITY, an ABSURdITY. This absurdity might not be an actual full-time inhabitant of the city-world of Eudildonia, but he may be part of the experience of some of the denizens. To the Eudildonians, he is an abstraction, an immaterial but potentially comprehensible and magical being, whose nature is so extraordinary that they may be eager to encounter him. This story is about some Eudildonians who set out to meet such an absurdity.

Continue to Part One