Hi everyone! I'm back! And since the writer's block on my other (very inappropriately named) work, Reawakening, shows no signs of abating, I decided to celebrate the end of my exams (at last!) with a (kind of) essay instead.

I AM a fan of Philip Pullman and HDM, so hardcore (and...err...violent) fans, don't take this the wrong way.

DISCLAIMER: Dust, and a load of other stuff, belongs to Philip Pullman. I'm just borrowing them for a while.

The Question of Dust

As much as I love HDM (and I do, to the point of obsession), I can't help but disagree with its basic message. I reckon you all know what that is, so let me clear up one thing in advance. I'm not a religious zealot. This just occurred to me, and I was seized with a desire to publish it (also, I was bored:).

The many-worlds hypothesis (which really exists by the way) was denounced as heresy, even in our world. Have you ever wondered why? I did, and even though I did absolutely NO research on the matter, so I don't why anyone else might've done it, I think it's because it deprives us of free will. Don't start yelling just yet, I know the whole point of HDM is TO exercise your free will, but the fact remains that (if the many worlds hypothesis is true) all of us, (who we are, what we do, where we go) are determined by the completely random movement of quantum particles. I, for one, don't want to think that I'm gonna flunk the science exam I wrote yesterday because a quark decided to move up instead of down. That's me in this world, of course, in another; I might be a Nobel Prize winning Astrophysicist.

I think (this is something I realized a full 3 years after I read the book, I'm not the fastest of thinkers) that that is what Philip Pullman was referring to, that if Lyra failed to achieve her destiny. (That all the worlds would become nothing but interlocking machines devoid of thought, feeling, life)

So what is protecting us from that state? Dust? Pullman says so. But what is Dust? Consciousness?

A single consciousness perhaps?

Omnipresent? (Apparently, since it makes up 90 of the mass in the universe)

Omniscient? (Yes, think alethiometer)

Able to influence the lives of people, although it refrains from controlling them. (In other words gives them free will)

So we have a consciousness which knows everything, is every where, tell people what to do, but doesn't make them do it. And basically wants to make the world a good place.

Sound familiar?

Pullman has never satisfactorily addressed the question of Dust in his books. Well, yes he says it's Angels, but it can't all be angels, can it? Intention, consciousness, thought, perhaps all of it. But this is also our interpretation of God. A God that says life will perhaps be better if we live by His ways, doing good, and sacrificing ourselves for others. A promise, a reward is in there too. If we are good, and kind, and all the rest, we get to go to heaven, which is different for each of us. Pullman thinks it is sharing for ever the joy and life of the physical world, I think it is chocolate, ice cream and cheese for ever and ever. Perhaps it will be different for each of us, such as the world of the dead was, indeed, heaven for the holy men in TAS.

If you're preparing the flame-throwers...hmmm...well this is just my interpretation of HDM, and no one is under any obligation to agree with me. Perhaps we could set up a forum and discuss it?