Miss Buddha (37 page)

“I’m flattered.”

“Though now you feel to me more like a
brother than anything else. A dear and close brother.”

“Amazing,” said Julian. Again reflecting on
finding his tongue, and on hearing her thoughts. Then he said, “We
have to establish some sort of protocol.”

“What do you mean?”

“Privacy,” he said. “Respect thereof.”

“Ah, yes. Yes, we have to establish some
sort of protocol.”

But instead of discussing protocol, Julian
said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“What is it like to be the Buddha’s mother?
If that is that how you see yourself.”

Good question. “No,” she said after a little
while. “That is not how I see myself. I see myself as Ruth’s
mother. She’s the one I carried in my belly, and she’s the one I’ve
worried about and raised. That fact that she’s also the Buddha
Gotama, well, somehow that is secondary.”

Julian nodded. Yes, he could see that.
“But,” he said. “The responsibility?”

“The responsibility?”

“She’s on a mission. A crucial mission.”

“I know.”

“Legally, I mean. You’re still her
mother.”

“Of course I am.”

“Is it a burden?”

She shook her head. “No, no burden. Not at
all. A joy.”

He smiled at that. “She told me once that
she chose you. She chose well.”

“I hope so,” said Melissa.

“I know so,” said Julian.

“Flat-out know?” wondered Melissa.

“Yes.”

:

On paper, what Julian and Ruth wanted to
prove was straightforward enough: that life—at its most
fundamental—was indeed the medium that facilitated instant
communication between the twin particles. This, however, proved
extremely difficult to demonstrate.

Ruth had told Julian that from the ultimate
view of the Buddha and his insight into the truth about nature—the
thus-ness of things, as she put it—in that light neither of the
correlated twin-particles really existed. She had told him that
they—in truth—were a result of life thinking them, and that without
life there would be neither particle or instant communication
(knowing) between them.

Julian was on board with this. Generally
accepted research had already established that these particles were
and also were not particles. What Ruth said—that these were direct
products of life thinking them—was not beyond the realm of reason.
But it would take some proving.

At this proving this had proved more than
just elusive, it was flirting with the impossible.

A string of experiments were running into an
either/or brick wall. Either life was present and looking, and then
the instant communication between twinned particles did take
place—Julian had already proven this

But to show that instant communication did
not take place when life was not present and looking, well, that
was the problem, how on earth could you prove that since you were
not looking? How could you tell anything about them if you were not
observing?

It was very much like the tree falling in
the forest with no one to hear. Did it indeed make a sound? There
was no real way of telling, was there? And never would be. For
you—life, in other words—would have to be present to register the
sound or non-sound to prove it one way or another, but in being
present there would, of course be a sound.

Perhaps non-local communication between
twinned particles is impossible in the absence of life, but how on
earth would you go about proving that?

After many attempts, and many failures, they
were quite literally back at the proverbial drawing board.

::
84 :: (Pasadena)

“So, how do we fool them
into thinking that we’re not looking,” said Julian. He said this
partially as a joke, but as he said it, he also felt a deep-within
rumbling sense of
onto-something
about that.

Ruth shook her head. “As long as life is
intimately involved in the experiment, the particles will exist and
non-local communication will occur.” Then she went on to think out
aloud: “If there were to be no life whatever involved in the
experiment, there would be no communication possible. No instant
communication between the twins will take place. Nor, of course,
would there be any twin particles to experiment with.”

“So, simply not provable. Is that what
you’re saying?”

“I don’t know, Julian. We’re back to our
either/or proposition. Either life is present to exist the twin
particles into being, and with that the instant communication—their
co-knowing; or, there is no life to facilitate their co-knowing,
but then, by the same token, there will be no twin particles
either.

“So, not provable?”

Ruth sighed. “I honestly don’t know.” Then,
after a brief silence, she added, “I wonder if there can be a way
to provide or display or manifest—I don’t know what the right word
would be—to show a sufficient amount of life to keep the particles
in place, to exist them, but not enough life to facilitate
co-knowing.”

Julian remained silent, still rumbling
inside, waiting for more.

“The real problem, of course,” she
continued. “Is that life is always present, to some degree or
other, or there would be no universe, no world, no twin particles,
nothing to prove, nothing.

“That’s a thought,” said Julian. “Problem
solved.”

“In more ways than you’ll ever know,” said
Ruth.

That earned he a long glance, which she
chose to ignore. Instead she said, “Being, at heart, the product of
thought and nothing else, the twin particles are finely attuned to
thought, and they know that we—as experimenters—expect them to not
only exist, but to instantly communicate. And, being friendly
particles they oblige.”

Julian remained silent. Listening
intently.

“This behavior was agreed upon aeons ago,”
she said. “The physical has a long memory. And always does what
it’s told.”

“You lost me there.”

“I’ve said it before, Julian. It is all
illusion. All of it. Some a bit more illusion that others.
Non-local communication is very fundamental to matter, without it
matter would, literally, fall apart. The left hand has to know, at
all time, precisely what the right hand is doing. Always
coordinated. It is, truly, one body. As long as life is
involved.

“But life is always involved.”

“Yes,” Ruth said. “That is the problem.”

Julian sat very still while within him the
rumble turned small geyser of intuition that gathered strength and
then erupted, and then took wing, “Perhaps if we don’t observe
directly.”

Ruth looked up at him, with that look that
took in everything, both external and internal. Still, she didn’t
quite follow, “What do you mean?”

“Perhaps if we place enough vias, enough
relays, between us as observing life and the particles we observe,
perhaps they won’t notice our looking?”

Now she saw his reasoning, and smiled. “I
don’t know,” she said. “But it’s worth trying.”

“Or, perhaps they will see through the
charade.”

“I don’t know, Julian,” she said. “Chances
are that they will, but we won’t know until we try. How do you see
us setting this up?”

Julian’s private geyser seemed to have had
it all worked out from the start, and as he listened to it (if that
is what he did) he nodded to himself and saw that if there indeed
was a way to fool life into believing there was no life there
looking, this would be it.

“Remember the Colombia-Borneo experiment?”
he asked.

“Of course.”

“We should duplicate that experiment, but
rather than having the data sent directly to our monitoring
computers, we should first beam it to a communication satellite,
and from there to another satellite, and from there to a third, and
so on, until we have enough relays and vias to appear to the
particles that no one is looking. Nothing alive anyway.”

Ruth smiled and nodded. “Worth trying,” she
said.

::
85 :: (Pasadena)

The experiment took three grueling months to
arrange. The sites in Colombia and Borneo were easily enough
brought online—lasers calibrated and made ready, as was Cambridge,
it was the communication satellites that was the problem. One or
two, fine, it was Cal Tech asking after all, they could have them
on short notice; but Julian wanted ten, twenty, and that raised not
only quite a few eyebrows but a host of objections. Julian stuck to
his guns, he needed a minimum of ten, twenty would be better. In
the end they managed to line up sixteen, for a window of precisely
four minutes and twelve seconds.

“Is sixteen enough?” wondered Ruth.

“Is four minutes enough?” wondered
Julian.

They sat looking at each other across
Julian’s desk, cluttered as usual, lately striking Julian more like
something alive than simply wood and paper. How many relays were
enough? Julian had pondered this what felt like endlessly. He’d
like a hundred, a thousand, but that was not going to happen, was
it? Sixteen relays would inject roughly thirty milliseconds to the
data path, which in particle physical time was a small eternity.
Still, would it fool the twins? He hoped, but he was far from
sure.

He said, “I have to assume that if sixteen
doesn’t fool them, then no amount will.”

“I don’t know,” said Ruth. “I don’t
remember.”

“You don’t remember?”

“There are so many agreements,” she said. “I
don’t remember their sequence, in what order they were made. I
don’t remember if delays were ever agreed upon. Or whether it was
ever agreed that life could mask its looking.”

“You are talking long ago,” said Julian, who
by now had ceased to be surprised by anything Ruth said.

“I am talking very long ago,” Ruth
agreed.

“There’s only one way to find out,” said
Julian. “Although I am concerned about the window. Four minutes is
not much.”

“And twelve seconds,” added Ruth.

“And twelve seconds, yes. But a single
hiccup will eat all of that, and then we have no experiment
left.”

“So, we won’t have any hiccups,” said
Ruth.

“Let’s hope so,” said Julian.

:

The year was 2026, the day
was December 16
^th
. It was a Wednesday, and
everything went smoothly.

At precisely 14:10 hours, Cambridge time,
the sixteen communication satellites would sync up and provide a
path of relays for the data sent by the Borneo detecting laser.

At precisely that time Cambridge fired a set
of negative particle twins for the lasers, the Colombia twin
hitting firsts and reversed to positive, the Borneo particle
hitting its laser that hair-breadth of time later, which detected
and reported back, via, via, via—through all sixteen relays—and the
particle was: positive.

And again, and again, and again. All
positive. Non-locally told by its twin to change polarity, again
and again.

There was no fooling life.

“Oh, well,” said Ruth.

:

December
17
^th
was
a gloomy day. I many ways.

Pasadena did its best not to rain, but
didn’t do a very good job of it. Clouds ran low and intrusively.
The wind blew in no particular direction but that which at that
moment would find some unprotected spot to usher the rain toward—at
least that’s how Julian felt as he rang the doorbell. Melissa
answered it. “Julian, you’re soaking.”

He nodded in agreement and scrambled
inside.

“They have a thing called umbrellas,”
Melissa informed him. “It’s supposed to keep you dry in weather
like this.”

“This is not England,” said Julian. “Or
Boston.”

“Boston’s into umbrellas?” said Melissa.

“Oh, I don’t know. They’re an east-coast
thing.”

“Here,” said Melissa. “Give me that
jacket.”

Julian obliged, and Melissa hung it up, away
from the other coats and jackets to give it space to dry.

“Ruth?” said Julian.

“Yes,” said Melissa. “She’s waiting for you.
She and Ananda. They’re in Ananda’s room. Do you want anything?
Coffee? Have you had breakfast?”

“Coffee would be great.”

“You go on,” said Melissa, “I’ll bring
it.”

“Thanks.”

Julian had visited the Marten household at
least once a month over the last few years, and knew where to go.
The door to Ananda’s room stood open, but he still announced his
arrival with a soft knock.

They both looked up from a diagram that Ruth
was drawing.

“Julian,” said Ananda. “Good to see
you.”

“Do you remember EPROMs?” asked Ruth.

“EPROMs?”

“Erasable, programmable, read-only
memory.”

“Yes, I know the acronym.”

“Do we still use them?”

“I’m sure we do. In some fashion or
another.”

Julian looked around for somewhere to sit
down. Something Ananda would notice, and did. “Oh, I’m sorry,
Julian—here.” He stood up and fetched a chair for him. He placed it
by his desk, next to Ruth’s. Julian eased into it, and eyed the
diagram Ruth was still sketching.

“Why do you ask?” he asked.

“Remember we talked about sequences of
agreements?”

“You talked about.”

“Well, yes.”

“Yes, I do.”

“By that sequence, some
things can, by agreement, be undone. Others can’t. Yesterday, we
didn’t know whether the Borneo twin was positive or not until we
looked, until, even after sixteen relays, we
looked
. Even had the data up to that
point shown a negative Borneo particle, when we looked it was
instantly positive, for that is what life has agreed will happen.
We’ve certainly proven that there’s no way around that.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Julian agreed.