"A Short Discussion about `The Universe'"
by Neil Reynolds
Chapter 4: The Vivisection of Thought
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Dr. Tashikaha. What can I do
for you?"
"I'm calling you as both a member of the city council, and as the
responsible adult for the two families living under your roof."
"Yes? Is there a problem?"
"Well, you know I live down the street from you, and I see most of the
bizarre events that go on around your house. I want to complain about
the amount of lascivious behavior, implied sex, and outright
violence!"
"I'm sorry, but you know how hard it is to control so many
teenagers. I'm doing the best I can!"
"Yes", replied Dr. Tashikaha, "But it wont do. There simply isn't
enough of it!"
Soun sweat-dropped.
* * *
Nabiki gathers up the Saotomes and the Tendos. "I'd like to try a
little test, about a hypothesis about Kasumi's spoonerisms. I ran this
by Cologne, and she OK'd it as being impossible to hurt Kasumi,
Therefor, daddy, you don't have to worry at all about this. Kasumi,
make yourself comfortable. Daddy, you can sit anywhere you like as
long as your aura of chi doesn't contact Kasumi's."
Nabiki turns to Akane. "You and Mr. Saotome stand near the
yard. Akane, when I give you instructions later, do them immediately,
OK?" Nabiki turns to Ranma. "Have you told Ran'neko what to watch out
for?"
"We're as ready as we'll likely get. You'd better put a hand on my
shoulder to keep me still, he's in a playful mood. I think he can only
be sober and serious for a little while. He wants to help, but he's
easily distracted."
"Ok, Ranma, go into the nekoken, and watch how Kasumi reacts."
After everyone is more or less in place, Nabiki hands Akane a
mallet. "Akane, remember how the nekoken was taught? Think what it
must have been like to experience that over and over. Got it?" Akane's
rage had grown throughout this. She only wordlessly nodded at
Nabiki. "Good, now be ready to act, the timing is essential."
Everyone poises for the fatal moment. Within the silence, Nabiki's
almost whispered command carried clearly to all of them. "Akane,
punish Mr. Saotome."
After the pandemonium dies down, Soun and Kasumi turn to Nabiki. Soun
asks "What was all that for?"
Nabiki beams "One scene of measured, controlled chaos. Do you realize
how difficult that can be when chef-assassins and bimorphic schizoid
are roaming the neighborhood? Kasumi was safe. I needed Ran'neko and
therefor Ranma as a measuring instrument, so Akane and Genma were the
chaos. Simple, ne?"
"What does this have to do with Kasumi?"
"I won't know until I pick Ranma's brains over his observations. Let
Ran'neko romp around the yard a bit more though. It deserves it after
all the help it's giving us."
Kasumi looks puzzled "You act like you rike Lan'neko, but you keep
alling cim hit, like he's some ort of sobject."
"Ran'neko is halfway between a small child and a bright pet. It's fun
to watch how easily it's amused. Ran'neko doesn't have a gender
yet. or if it does, it's hidden from us. It might eventually evolve
into a he or a she, but right now, it's without even tertiary sexual
characteristics. Ranma can't help but think of it as a male, but I
want to allow it as much freedom to develop as it will, so I'm
avoiding gender pronouns."
"Still, using 'it' keems awfully sold."
"You can try to avoid it by using pronouns like 'they' or 'one', but
that's awkward. I think it's best to stick with 'it' and show Ran'neko
that I don't consider it furniture. Besides, it's pre-verbal. It only
responds to words because Ranma hears them, and it picks up emotional
cues from Ranma."
"That just shifts the sloblem prightly. Now you need to make sure
Thanma doesn't rink you're righting Slan'neko."
"I don't think that'll be a problem any time soon."
* * *
Nabiki relays the information to Cologne. "Near as we can figure it,
when Akane started attacking Mr. Saotome, his face was priceless,
Ran'neko noticed a surge of emotions, and a pumping of chi due to
this. Some, or maybe alot of the colored chi was drained into this
aberration of Kasumi's soul, after which the aberration was changed in
some way, and nothing flowed back out. I suggested that the aberration
might be swollen, like a bladder holding it, but Ranma said that that
wasn't really right, although he couldn't say why. He did say chi
didn't really behave like a fluid, but that treating it like a fluid
was the easiest way to talk about it."
Cologne chuckles "He's right there. Chi isn't some incompressible
fluid, so the bladder analogy is probably off. I'd suspect the anomaly
is more akin to a kidney or liver, removing and conditioning the chi
like the organ's recondition human blood, instead of a bladder
separating out unwanted materials for later expulsion. I checked
pretty thoroughly, and the anomaly isn't living off of her chi. If it
absorbs chi then at some point it is returning it."
"I've got some problems understanding this body/chi/spirit thing. Sure
I've got proof that all three exist, and I can accept on principles
that this applies to me, and that I have a soul or spirit that exists
independently from my body, but interacts with it. But if the soul can
think, and can exist separately from the body, if it can experience
things after death, and possibly go somewhere for processing, then
what purpose does the brain serve? It can't just be five pounds of
gristle."
"You'd think more religions would discuss this sort of thing, Still
when Paul was trying to pass on his impression of Christ's teachings,
people thought that the liver was essential for thought, so I guess it
isn't odd that this is glossed over."
Cologne continues, "There's still quite alot we don't know or
understand about the processes, but while western science has done a
better job probing how the brain works, our understanding more closely
meshes with what's going on at a non-physical level."
"The first thing you must understand is that thought, and especially
self awareness is not a simple process, but a jumble of different
things all going on at once, and affecting each other. Any explanation
which tries to map these types of cogitation to a small set of types
is doomed to be inaccurate, while any explanation which treats them
all differently is too clumsy to be useful. We make up classifications
like Freud's 'id', 'ego', and 'superego' as an aid in understanding,
but that doesn't imply that anyone could separate things out
completely that way. All of the divisions of types of thought I'll
suggest are merely useful only insofar as they help clarify
things. They're a guide, but not a description of reality."
Cologne chuckles, "Bounding the whole process of cogitation into one
word 'thought' is alot like bounding myriad emotions under the heading
'love.' 'Love' is merely a group heading for a huge collection of
feelings including attraction, jealousy, possessiveness, caring,
desire to protect, passion, amicability, lust, admiration, empathy,
respect, and a thousand other feelings that we have towards
others. 'Love' covers so many emotions that the statement 'I love you'
contains almost no information at all. The important message is
conveyed in the way it is said, the words mean almost nothing."
"You can almost picture the same conversation and the same
understanding if different words were used, can't you? Two passionate
movie-star lovers rush across the screen, fall into each other's
arms. He looks her in the eyes, and says 'Fried chicken for dinner.'
The type and intensity of the caring is conveyed through the way it's
said, not with what's said."
Nabiki interrupts "Much as I like discussing Romance, I see what you
mean about 'love' and 'thought' being umbrella terms for a huge number
of different types of things. But we were talking about thought as it
pertained to the soul and the brain?"
"Quite right. Very roughly speaking, The brain and the soul are
responsible for different kinds of thought. In addition, souls tend to
be resistant to change. The brain also serves as a feedback device for
modifying one's soul. That's their relationship at it's crudest
level."
"If you believe that we evolved to our present state, either through
random chance or natural selection, or you believe we're the result of
an evolutionary design process by a higher being, the brain's primary
function is the manipulation of the body. For example we need to
breath regularly. This insanely difficult task is handed by a
subroutine, or sub-ganglion created pre-natally specifically for this
task. When someone learns a new martial arts move and internalizes it,
they're making a sub-processor to handle it. When the raw data comes
in from the eyes, the first few steps are performed long before the
rest of the brain gets a chance to look at it. When Ryouga shouts for
the millionth time 'Ranma, this is all your fault' all this is done
purely mechanically by the brain, and the soul is barely touched if at
all."
"All of this processing has an effect on the thought processes, and
insofar as all people are similar, they have similar effects on our
thoughts. This is what Jung referred to as a collective
unconsciousness. It doesn't suggest that they're all connected in some
way, it means that the effects on my thoughts due to my breathing
processes are the same as the effects on you. In this way we share a
common part of our subconscious thoughts. Subconscious because they
arise out of the physical body, will I, nill I."
"Most of one's actions throughout the day are performed automatically
by the brain. In fact many of the things we think we've decided on are
done automatically, and an excuse is thought up afterwords to explain
it. Most of the time, this is the true answer to the rhetorical
statement 'How could I have been so stupid'"
"Logical thought is still a huge umbrella term, but most of it could
be done either in the soul, or in the brain, but the brain is much
much better at it. So for creatures that have both, the brain does
most of it. However this doesn't imply that incorporeal creatures are
incapable of it. In practice any being has as much logical strength as
they are willing to develop, whither it be brain or soul."
"Inspiration, hypothesis, and leaps of thought are solely the purview
of the soul, with the exception of hunches based on inexact sensory
data. As Hamlet says 'In action, how like an angel, in apprehension,
how like a god.' The soul contains the divine spark that provides
those moments when we exceed our intellectual capacities to achieve
something new. The brain as a whole could endlessly rearrange past
things to try out all combinations, the soul is where brand new
non-derivative ideas come from."
For example, when you wake up on a school morning, you start on your
morning routine, doing the same things you've done hundreds of times
before. All of this can be done solely by the brain, not even
bothering the soul for thinking power. At the same time, your soul
might be daydreaming, engaged in an almost completely separate process
of thought than the brain. As your on your way to school, your soul
might ask itself the question 'What would happen if I didn't go to
class?' The brain would probably be responsible for tallying up the
pros and cons, and possible repercussions. The soul could do this kind
of processing, but the brain is much better suited to doing it, so
those beings with a usable brain, usually use the brain for this kind
of thought. The brain would throw up some scenarios, and the soul
would allow you to flesh out these possibilities as visions. Say for
the sake of argument that the balance between the pros and cons is
about the same. Then the decision would be made through a conflict
between the brain and the soul. The soul would be pushing for doing
the unusual, and the brain would be in favor of going to class, and
returning to it's normal routine.
This covers most kinds of thought, except memory. Memory is still
largely a mystery to us. We do know that when a body and soul split,
both the soul and the body retain memories, in some cases keeping the
memories redundantly in both the soul and body. Some memories seem to
be lost in the split, but that might be due to normal forgetfulness,
or it may be tied into the mechanism that protects people from
drowning in years of memories, or reliving horrible events.
What do you mean by drowning in memories?
Imagine you recalled everything you remembered in the last 16 years,
and tried to think about it all at once. The brain and the soul are
ill equipped to handle years compressed into an instant, so the brain
blocks all but short term memories from flooding the person's
awareness. At the same time, the soul goes fishing in the backlog of
memories, and holds them up to view to see if there's anything there
that applies to the current situation. This can often be called
daydreaming, but it occurs somewhat even when you are
concentrating. People with eidetic memories just have a more refined
memory block that allows more of each memory into the brain, they
don't seem to have any difference from normal people when it comes to
actually storing memories.
How the brain selects a memory based on an association with something
the brain or the soul is thinking about is a mystery, although it is
believed to be related to how the memories are actually stored. In
this matter I think modern science may well come up with the correct
answer long before mystics do.
If everyone stores memories the same way, but eidetic people use a
different method of recalling things, is there a way using magic to
completely recall things?
Cologne chuckles "There definitely are. I have a ritual I do involving
potions, incense and a trance that I perform when I need that
ability. Unfortunately that method will almost definitely fail for
you. As you have some strength in dealing with spirits, you might be
able to make a contract with your own spirit to do this, but I'd
strongly recommend against this. Having one's soul make a contract
with itself has many far reaching implications. Your best bet would be
to craft something, or make a deal with something that can do it for
you. Something like the necklace you made for Ranma that maintained
the happy feelings of associating with cats, but dealing with memory
is much harder than emotions. Objects retain emotions easily, but they
don't remember. Or if they do remember, then they do so without eyes
and ears, so their memories are not too useful.
What about stories of people reading the past out of items they touch?
Well, many items that we deem exceptional take on a sort of
proto-spirit. For example, there's a spirit within your dojo that was
born when it started to be cared for. This can store memories. This
spirit is probably not even self aware, and less intelligent than a
fish, but it can remember. This is what's contacted when someone reads
the past from an item. Also items that were made from living things
might have something of the original's memories. These are probably
not useful to recall, but they might add potency to the item crafted
if the memories corresponded to the item's use. That's one of the
reasons feathers are often used in spells involving flight.
So I might one day achieve flight?
Probably not without trickery. Imagine how much power it would take to
fly with a rocket pack. A straight forward method of flying would
require the equivalent amount of magic. But there are a number of ways
around this problem, dealing with the nature of time and space, and
Newtonian physics. If you want to fly, we'll discuss it at length some
other time.
One other thing you have to remember about thought is that the brain
is an analogue computing engine, and therefor subject to the same kind
of chaos theory that is used in Mandelbrot drawings. We don't know
what kind of engine the soul uses at all. That's one of the reasons
it's referred to as the divine spark living within us, it operates in
ways we can only observe and guess at, never model or understand it.
The importance of the brain's analogue nature is subtle, but far
reaching. A digital computer operates in a deterministic nature. Given
the same setup, the same output is returned every time. However an
analogue computer is subject to an infinite number of states at any
one time. It's good for fast computations, but without the certainty
of the digital model. A program to produce a cloud will always produce
a similar cloud if given the same input parameters, but each cloud
will be subtly different. This is one of the reasons that people will
always do something unpredictable. The other reasons are based on the
theories of Goedel and Waite, and are unnecessary for this
discussion.
Can you give me a brief summary of those theories?
Alright. Goedel suggested that any system is too complicated to be
solely explained within itself. This implies that any brain is too
complicated to be understood by that brain. You could never remember
the state of each neuron, and predict it's future. Waite said that for
every machine there is a process which the machine could execute, that
the machine couldn't figure out if it would ever end. That the only
way to know would be to run it, and wait for it to end. Their
applications to human thought is difficult, but it does exist. The
brain is set up to make decisions based on only possessing some of the
needed information, it is not set up to find the right solution, as
this could only be determined with all of the information, which it
never has.
* * *
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Dr. Tashikaha. What can I do
for you?"
"Please don't call me Doctor anymore. I've put aside that title, and
assumed a new one more in fitting with my life."
"I'm sorry, what would you prefer to be called?"
"I'm now Archbishop Tashikaha of Nerima. It's a bestowed title, as I
don't have a degree in theology."
"Really. Well congratulations. Who bestowed it on you?"
"Oh, I did, last night. I heard the voices, you see. There was a
shortage of bushes in my apartment, so it would have been
inappropriate for the holy ghost to speak to me from inside a burning
bush, you see."
"So where did the voices come from?"
"My dishwasher, of course. It said `Go forth, and spread the new
gospel to all who will listen.'"
"And what was the gospel?"
"I've no idea, the rinse cycle finished then. I'll have to get back to
you on that."
"I see. Why did you call me about this?"
"Oh, well the reason I called is indirectly related. Only slightly
related, you see. I know you have an excellent speaking voice that can
be heard across a huge room if necessary. I've seen you at council
meetings and such."
"Why, thank you."
"I was wondering if... Well, after I get a hall to rent, ... I don't
want to impose, but I was wondering if you'd ..."
"Please go ahead."
"Would you mind... Calling out bingo numbers on Saturday evenings?"
* * *
Ranma enters Dr. Tofu's clinic to get some advice from the youngest
calm person he could find after Kasumi's useless answer(useless to
Ranma, even if it was helpful to Nabiki's diagnostics). "Dr. Tofu, I
need help learning to use emotionless chi. The 'soul of ice' isn't
true emotionlessness, and I can't seem to use chi without
emotions. How do you manage to be so calm most of the time?"
Tofu smiles, "Most of it is due to experience. Seeing how things
resolved in the past, makes it easier to remain calm in the present."
Ranma asks "So what do you suggest I try?"
"I think you'd have better luck if first you mastered some of the
Hindu forms of meditation linked with Buddhism. Through meditation it
is possible to consciously pump chi through the body without using
emotions. The exercise is to move chi, through the seven chakra within
the body, from the base of the spine to the crown of your head. If you
can master moving chi through your body without using emotion to pump
it, then you can more easily work on creating emotionless chi."
"But I move chi through my body all the time when I fight. I've done
it for years."
"What you have to understand is that chi is continually flowing
through your body, and it is the flow of chi, not the chi itself that
you use to strengthen your muscles or to heal your
wounds. Acupuncture, shiatsu, and moxibustion all work on the
principle of modifying the flow of chi through the body. Your mouko
takabisha works on a completely different principle."
Tofu continues "When you feel strong emotion, the flow of your chi
changes, and forms a reservoir or pool of chi. Your attack draws off
of this more concentrated chi, and thrusts it outward. Without the
emotions, at your level of ability, you'd have to shut off the flow of
chi in one part of your body in order to dam up your chi to form the
chi pool. Such a method could easily hurt you, and in a serious fight
would almost surely mean your death or defeat.
"The pumping and storing chi in different parts of your body is a side
effect of the emotions you are undergoing at the time, and affects the
reservoir that you plan to fire off.
"This exercise is to move your chi through your body, as a pool,
regardless of the emotions you're feeling, which is a different skill
altogether from the regulating of the flow of chi that you're doing
when you fight. The chi you'll be moving will be tainted by whatever
emotions you're currently feeling, and will want to run to the parts
of your body where your emotions would naturally pump it. If you can
achieve this level of control, you should be able to throw a chi ball
without focusing on a particular emotion.
"Once you have achieved that, then you should return to a Japanese Zen
Buddhist school of meditation in order to learn to create truly
emotionless chi. You'll be attempting to enter into the state often
called "no mind" where you are completely focused on the present, and
the past and future have no meaning.
Ranma looks worried. "I'm trying to create a new attack. Does this
mean I wont be able to use it unless I can meditate during a battle?"
"No. But you'll need the meditation to do it in the beginning, until
you get a feel for manipulating emotionless chi. With practice, you'll
be able to manipulate it while feeling strong emotions by either
filtering out the impurities or by using the chi that isn't affected
by your current emotions. But this is impossible until you know what
it feels like, so to do it at the beginning will require the
strengthening of the unused mental muscles used for moving chi, and it
will require that you only have chi unaffected by emotions.
"The first part is like learning to wiggle your ears. Anyone can do
it, but until you figure out how, and can do it on command, your
ear-wiggling muscles are largely unused, and weak. The second part is
like learning the hiryuu shoten ha, that's an exercise of the mind and
spirit. Together they should help you achieve your goal."
Ranma asks "How come Ran'neko can do it so easily?"
"He probably does it instinctively, like a rabbit moving its
ears. Humans have to do it the hard way."
* * *
Nabiki asks Cologne "So what do you recommend we do for Kasumi?"
"The ideal change would be a gradual change over months or years,
where through counseling, Kasumi would learn better ways of
channeling her negative emotions. This aberration Kasumi has acquired
has probably saved her from worse psychological problems. People
naturally experience negative emotions, and it is impossible to
dismiss them without hurting yourself.
"It is possible, in fact for some it is easy, to ignore negative
emotions to the point that eventually you don't even feel anger or
frustration. But the truth is that you still feel the emotions, and
wind up directing the emotions against yourself. The better you get at
being perfect for others, the more you're likely to turn to self
loathing, or self abuse.
"I knew a large male amazon, who endeavored to make himself the
perfect person. The idea of defeating someone for love was abhorrent
to him. He believed that if he improved himself continuously, he'd
eventually be asked for a date, in spite of the minor flaws in his
appearance. I think he always considered himself unattractive, even
though he really wasn't.
"For years he worked to be unassuming, understanding, and to never act
in anger towards someone who didn't deserve it. He was always willing
to offer advice to help other people form relationships, sometimes
acting as a crying post for both sides of a relationship. He would
always deprecate himself, while he worked to improve his mind, and his
spirit, believing that eventually someone would look beyond his
surface and seek him out. In truth many couples valued him, but they
were always in love with someone else."
"He was always somewhat melancholy, but he never regarded it as
odd. He never regarded this as odd until much later when the rest of
his life fell into place, when he realized that the sadness was
unlinked to the events of his life. Over time that he became a better
and better person, the lower his self-esteem would go. He looked upon
an unachievable perfection and felt guilty for every time he fell
short.
"He turned to eating, not due to physical hunger, but as a means of
enjoyment, or filling the hole he saw inside him. Maybe it was a
self-inflicted damage, or an attempt to make himself less attractive,
to explain his lack of girlfriend. Withdrawing from people to avoid
the feelings of rejection coming from being alone in a crowd. You
could spit on him, and he wouldn't feel anger. His first reaction
would have been sadness. It took him several minutes of deliberation
to get mad.
"When the extent of the damage was realized, it took him years to
learn to feel and admit anger. It went against everything he stood
for. It was only after relearning anger that it was possible to
attempt to do something about the nearly bottomless pool of misery.
"Luckily Kasumi has this oddity of the soul that has dispersed the
emotions, instead of letting them strike like daggers into her
subconscious. Now that it cannot cope, the effect is spoonerisms. The
overflow could have been directed inward and caused her further
problems."
Nabiki interrupts "So is there anything we can do that'd help her
right away? Or should we just put up with it while she seeks outside
advice? We'll put up with the oddity if it's good for Kasumi, but if
there is something we can do right away before it starts to hurt
her..."
"There are several things. Shiatsu to prevent all of the negative
emotions to enter the oddity. A potion of mine that'd prevent her from
ignoring her own anger. Some breakable things to allow Kasumi to vent
anger like Akane smashes bricks. For a few months, her mood will swing
rapidly, as her subconscious learns to deal with the changes. Not
unlike the mood swings women experience during PMS or advanced
pregnancy. She will lose control of her emotions from time to time.
Cologne continues, "This is just as it should be. After a few months
her personality would stabilize, at which point you could define her
as being perfectly cured."
Nabiki asks "How do you think I should break this to the whole group?
I know for a fact that Genma hasn't the brains or the empathy to
understand half of what you told me."
"Kasumi needs to hear the whole truth, or she'll feel unnecessary
guilt. Also anyone she would want to confide with should understand
the truth. Invite her over, and I'll tell her everything I just told
you, plus a few other stories. Everyone else neither needs nor could
make use of the whole story. Just convince them that Kasumi has been
like a spring bending under every slight since the age of six, which
now needs to be released a bit at a time. That way they'll understand
that every time she over-reacts, the extra anger is still their fault
for past events she ignored."
* * *
Nabiki acquired several crates of chipped, cheap plates that Kasumi
could smash whenever she liked. Kasumi hated the idea of snapping on
her family, but she could intellectually understand the
necessity. Kasumi was pleased to learn that when she was cured, she'd
always be more accepting and understanding of others than people in
general. The oddity of the soul she had, meant that she'd always have
a calmer emotional state, but she couldn't go through life being
totally calm, without achieving enlightenment, or becoming a
bodhisattva.
The shiatsu went without event. The potion was drinkable, since
Cologne added a huge amount of sugar. The spoonerisms disappeared
immediately.
* * *
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Archbishop. What can I do for
you?"
"I'm no longer an Archbishop. You see, I learned that religion is
merely opium f or the masses. A tool to keep the common herd in order
for the ruling class to maintain control. Unfortunately you can get
into alot of trouble distributing opium for the masses."
"I see. Shall I refer to you as doctor, then?"
"Oh no. I'm now Colonel Tashikaha. Leader of the army, and of The Free
People's Republic Of The Corner Of Mori Street And Ume Avenue."
"I see. Your house is now a free people's republic?"
"Yes. I seized power, and imposed a communist dictatorship over myself
and my dog Wuffles."
"Riiiight. What can I do for you, Colonel?"
"Well seeing as you're on the council I thought you could advise me
who to contact."
"I'll try. What's the problem?"
"Who do I contact to get an ambassador from Japan to move in here, and
who do I bribe to make sure it's a young female?"
* * *
Ranma manages to find Nabiki while everyone else are occupied, to ask
her one of the things that had been bothering him. "You said that I
couldn't solve this mess my life is in; why can't I?"
Nabiki pauses, and comes up with an analogy. "Ranma, you're familiar
with the idea of looking at things as if they were a fight, right?"
"Of course!"
"Well, now I want you to look at your relationships as if it were a
knot."
"I don't get it."
"Imagine each person was a string, and they all came together in a
horrendous tangle. Now if you wanted to remove the knot there are
several methods that you could try. The simplest would be to try to
pull one of the strands free. If it worked, you'd have a simpler knot,
and an easier time untangling the rest."
"Ok."
"This would be like trying to get one person out of this tangle of
lives surrounding you. Say for example, If you could convince Mousse
to go home. Unfortunately you can't pull any of the strings out of the
knot, because it's too tangled. In fact the harder you pull, the
tighter the tangle becomes. Another thing you could try is to cut the
unimportant threads. Cut enough threads and you could untangle the
important ones. But in this case, the threads are people's lives and
happiness. It's obvious that you aren't willing to do that if it's at
all possible."
"Right."
"Well, there's a third way to untie tangles. It's not guaranteed to
work, but it makes most knots easier to untangle. You try to loosen
the tangle, not by pulling on any of the obvious strings, but by
pulling random strings slightly, stopping if it makes the knot worse,
and then trying something unrelated again."
"To loosen your knot, you have to stir up change in the people
involved, without bringing new people into the knot. You have to do
things by yourself and with others that you've never tried
before. Things unrelated to romance and honor. And you have to keep
doing different things, because no one thing will work."
"I don't see how that'd help."
"Let me put it another way. You've got a dozen people trying to get
you to do what they want, and they all have a grip on you. You've
reached a state that if you do nothing, nothing changes because the
rest are working against each other. But if you try to break out, they
all agree you shouldn't and push you back to your initial
state. You're strong enough to get out, but not without hurting
anybody, which is why you're still trapped. Stop struggling to break
out, and work on changing the people. Develop a hobby. Walk on your
hands for a day. Stop making an effort to oppose people. I'm not
saying give into their demands, but put them off for later
worry. Become a different Ranma, and encourage others to grow and
change too. It's not guaranteed to work, but it is likely to make the
knot easier to untangle later."
"I think I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't make sense to
me."
"Your problem is such that trying to fix it causes it to worsen. Try
to do small things that don't directly involve your problem to see how
the web might loosen"
"Why are you telling me all this if you're one of the people who has a
grip on me? Aren't you afraid I'll slip out of your grasp?"
"With the way things are tangled, I can't do anything either. Besides,
if you follow my advice, the first players to be pulled out of the
knot, are those who can't understand that you're changing. I'm already
watching for that, so it wont be me." Nabiki grins "Not unless you do
something really unexpected, like turn into a girl when splashed with
water."
"Sometimes I don't know whither to laugh or seethe at your jokes."
"There's often only a very thin line between laughing and crying,
Saotome."
* * *
Nabiki asked Cologne, "Is it true that 'Any sufficiently advanced form
of science is indistinguishable from magic.'?"
Cologne thinks a bit on how to explain the difference. "The reason for
the inherent separation of science and magic goes back primarily to
Newton and Descartes, but also to the Greek and Egyptians. Rather one
could say that Descartes independently hit upon the idea after
centuries of neglect. Science is concerned with an ever increasing
precision of our beliefs about reality as it nears actual reality.
"It is interesting to note that science has yet to fulfill this goal,
and it is widely suspected that this goal may be unobtainable. This
lack of precision is why so many beliefs are termed as "theories". It
is not because these beliefs are wrong, but because there might be
more to it than initially supposed. Both magic and science make use of
the scientific method, which is a method of experimentation designed
to always provide better answers to why things happen. Better in this
case meaning that our predictions match what actually happens.
"The scientific method works as follows. You make an educated guess as
to how things really work. This is called the hypothesis. Then you
create a test which proves or disproves the hypothesis. Finally you
run the test, and if it works, the hypothesis is now a theory. If it
fails, the hypothesis is called nonsense. While this method has some
flaws, particularly in the stage of creating new hypotheses, the
testing stage guarantees that each iteration of creating a new theory,
creates a more accurate theory.
"The difference between science and magic rests on Descartes'
contribution to the scientific method. He said for an experiment to be
valid, it must be repeatable, and it must not depend on whom is
conducting the experiment.
"These are perfectly reasonable requirements, and have brought us all
of the advantages of medical and scientific knowledge since the start
of the renaissance. Unfortunately the world doesn't work that way.
"As was shown when the question on the nature of light was first
explored, whether light was a wave, or a photon, the nature of the
observer making the measurements affects the result. Likewise magic
works differently depending on who is casting it.
"Scientists have known for the last century that Descartes'
requirements were wrong in explaining reality, But they are such
powerful tools, that most of the discoveries in the last century were
made using it. The only places it fails are the quantization of
energy, dealing with parts of atoms, things traveling at near light
speed, and of course magic.
"Had Einstein, or someone else, actually discovered a unified field
theorem to explain the interactions of different types of energy
fields, and how they are generated by matter, then physicists would be
well on their way to incorporating magic into science. In that case,
they'd only have missed the existence of spirits manipulating the
world. In fact, science would be able to prove the existence of
Kami. Unfortunately this is still beyond us.
"Descartes' tools are so useful, it is often easier to study magic
using a relaxed set of these rules. Certainly we want
reproducibility. Who'd want a spell that behaves different each
time. But taking into account the differences in whom is casting the
spell, and whom is being affected, what kind of magic is being cast,
what items are being used, which spirits are involved, and so on, we
can study magic scientifically and reach an improved understanding how
things work.
"This method is inherently flawed in reaching a true understanding of
the nature of existence, just as the Cartesian scientific method is
flawed. But even with a flawed scientific method we've gone from
teletype machines to computers, our flawed magical method is very
useful in learning magic.
"Just don't rely on normal spells while traveling at the speed of
light. Also quantum tunneling teleportation is more trouble than it's
worth."
Nabiki notices the lecture is winding down, "That's an interesting
lecture, but how does it apply to my learning magic?"
"Well, unless you plan to study the nature of reality itself, and
expand on the corpus of mystical knowledge, not alot."
"So why place so much emphasis on it?"
"I've effectively described the methods of a physicist, or a
thaumologist, whereas you want to become the equivalent of an
engineer, or in other words a magic user. The engineer takes the
results of the physicist, and uses it to construct something, whether
it's a computer or a bridge. A knowledge of what physicists have done,
and how they do it is necessary for an engineer. Without it, they're
just craftsmen.
"Likewise you can craft spells without an understanding as to how
things work, by guessing, and making it good enough. But without an
understanding of the underlying principles, the highest you could
aspire to is the magical equivalent of building a chair. With the
understanding, you could construct the equivalent of a computer, or
better."
"So everything I've done with Ranma's Nekoken..."
"Is the equivalent of a well done amateur crafts project. You know
enough to do more and greater things, with a lessening success rate as
you become too ambitious. And you'll need the insights gained from
this in order to study magic. But by learning alot of trivia, you can
expand your ambitions, and through tedious scientific work, you can
expand your limits up to the point where the magical scientific method
breaks down."
"And those borders are?"
"Wild magic, and spells involving beings whose thought patterns we
can't comprehend. And you'll want to avoid those beings if you can
help it at all. They're by definition unpredictable, and therefor
dangerous in proportion to how much power they have."
"So in terms of this, I'm an apprentice craftsman, with a very limited
supply of raw materials, living in an area where there are few of us,
and potentially a great need, but no demand as almost no one believes
we exist. If I can come up with something simple, and cheap to make,
say a simple ritual that fixes some small problem, then it's merely a
matter of advertising."
"Advertising magic in this day and age is also problematical, but yes,
that sums it up. You're homework for this lesson, think up several
types of rituals you think you could make, and a rough sales plan for
each of them."
* * *
"Now that dinner is over" Kasumi announced, "we need to discuss the
increasing levels of housework that need doing around here. I can no
longer handle all of the chores that no one else bothers to do, so I
will start apportioning out tasks based on the amount of free time
each of you seems to have, on the amount your actions disturb the Wa
of this household, and based on the amount of housework you generate."
Soun interrupts "You're right, we should discuss how to relieve you of
some of your burdens."
Kasumi silences her father, "You can discuss it at length later, if
you wish. I'm assigning new tasks now. You and Mr. Saotome have the
most free time, and have created the problems that generate the most
discord through your insistence on the family merger, and your refusal
to do anything about it but shouting and blackmail. As the supposedly
responsible adults you also bear the greatest responsibility." Kasumi
hands them both slips of paper. "These are your new chore schedules."
Soun comments, "Now, Kasumi. Saotome is our guest. You can't ask him
to do housework."
"If his chores aren't done, I will not cook for him. You should be
able to do both lists daddy, if you feel that strongly about it. If
you refuse this new arrangement, I will simply refuse to put all the
effort into this house that I have for so long." Kasumi hands Ranma,
Akane, and Nabiki shorter lists. "I've tried to make these fit your
skills, and make them as quick as possible. Furthermore I'm issuing a
blanket rule. If someone breaks something because they've been sent
flying, the person who sent them flying is responsible. Everyone here
should be skilled enough to beat up anyone they like without causing
damage to the surroundings. This applies to the various people who
drop over. If they cannot obey the house rules, then they are no
longer welcome here. Nabiki is in charge of making sure visitors clean
up after their rampages, and Ranma is responsible for telling the
Kunos, amazons, and Ukyou about this. Akane is in charge of the dojo,
as she's going to inherit it. The kitchen is mine!"
* * *
Author's note:
The scenes involving Dr. Tashikaha loosely inspired by the two
comedians Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams. I recently had the
pleasure to discover recordings of their 1960's British radio
programs.
by Neil Reynolds
Chapter 4: The Vivisection of Thought
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Dr. Tashikaha. What can I do
for you?"
"I'm calling you as both a member of the city council, and as the
responsible adult for the two families living under your roof."
"Yes? Is there a problem?"
"Well, you know I live down the street from you, and I see most of the
bizarre events that go on around your house. I want to complain about
the amount of lascivious behavior, implied sex, and outright
violence!"
"I'm sorry, but you know how hard it is to control so many
teenagers. I'm doing the best I can!"
"Yes", replied Dr. Tashikaha, "But it wont do. There simply isn't
enough of it!"
Soun sweat-dropped.
* * *
Nabiki gathers up the Saotomes and the Tendos. "I'd like to try a
little test, about a hypothesis about Kasumi's spoonerisms. I ran this
by Cologne, and she OK'd it as being impossible to hurt Kasumi,
Therefor, daddy, you don't have to worry at all about this. Kasumi,
make yourself comfortable. Daddy, you can sit anywhere you like as
long as your aura of chi doesn't contact Kasumi's."
Nabiki turns to Akane. "You and Mr. Saotome stand near the
yard. Akane, when I give you instructions later, do them immediately,
OK?" Nabiki turns to Ranma. "Have you told Ran'neko what to watch out
for?"
"We're as ready as we'll likely get. You'd better put a hand on my
shoulder to keep me still, he's in a playful mood. I think he can only
be sober and serious for a little while. He wants to help, but he's
easily distracted."
"Ok, Ranma, go into the nekoken, and watch how Kasumi reacts."
After everyone is more or less in place, Nabiki hands Akane a
mallet. "Akane, remember how the nekoken was taught? Think what it
must have been like to experience that over and over. Got it?" Akane's
rage had grown throughout this. She only wordlessly nodded at
Nabiki. "Good, now be ready to act, the timing is essential."
Everyone poises for the fatal moment. Within the silence, Nabiki's
almost whispered command carried clearly to all of them. "Akane,
punish Mr. Saotome."
After the pandemonium dies down, Soun and Kasumi turn to Nabiki. Soun
asks "What was all that for?"
Nabiki beams "One scene of measured, controlled chaos. Do you realize
how difficult that can be when chef-assassins and bimorphic schizoid
are roaming the neighborhood? Kasumi was safe. I needed Ran'neko and
therefor Ranma as a measuring instrument, so Akane and Genma were the
chaos. Simple, ne?"
"What does this have to do with Kasumi?"
"I won't know until I pick Ranma's brains over his observations. Let
Ran'neko romp around the yard a bit more though. It deserves it after
all the help it's giving us."
Kasumi looks puzzled "You act like you rike Lan'neko, but you keep
alling cim hit, like he's some ort of sobject."
"Ran'neko is halfway between a small child and a bright pet. It's fun
to watch how easily it's amused. Ran'neko doesn't have a gender
yet. or if it does, it's hidden from us. It might eventually evolve
into a he or a she, but right now, it's without even tertiary sexual
characteristics. Ranma can't help but think of it as a male, but I
want to allow it as much freedom to develop as it will, so I'm
avoiding gender pronouns."
"Still, using 'it' keems awfully sold."
"You can try to avoid it by using pronouns like 'they' or 'one', but
that's awkward. I think it's best to stick with 'it' and show Ran'neko
that I don't consider it furniture. Besides, it's pre-verbal. It only
responds to words because Ranma hears them, and it picks up emotional
cues from Ranma."
"That just shifts the sloblem prightly. Now you need to make sure
Thanma doesn't rink you're righting Slan'neko."
"I don't think that'll be a problem any time soon."
* * *
Nabiki relays the information to Cologne. "Near as we can figure it,
when Akane started attacking Mr. Saotome, his face was priceless,
Ran'neko noticed a surge of emotions, and a pumping of chi due to
this. Some, or maybe alot of the colored chi was drained into this
aberration of Kasumi's soul, after which the aberration was changed in
some way, and nothing flowed back out. I suggested that the aberration
might be swollen, like a bladder holding it, but Ranma said that that
wasn't really right, although he couldn't say why. He did say chi
didn't really behave like a fluid, but that treating it like a fluid
was the easiest way to talk about it."
Cologne chuckles "He's right there. Chi isn't some incompressible
fluid, so the bladder analogy is probably off. I'd suspect the anomaly
is more akin to a kidney or liver, removing and conditioning the chi
like the organ's recondition human blood, instead of a bladder
separating out unwanted materials for later expulsion. I checked
pretty thoroughly, and the anomaly isn't living off of her chi. If it
absorbs chi then at some point it is returning it."
"I've got some problems understanding this body/chi/spirit thing. Sure
I've got proof that all three exist, and I can accept on principles
that this applies to me, and that I have a soul or spirit that exists
independently from my body, but interacts with it. But if the soul can
think, and can exist separately from the body, if it can experience
things after death, and possibly go somewhere for processing, then
what purpose does the brain serve? It can't just be five pounds of
gristle."
"You'd think more religions would discuss this sort of thing, Still
when Paul was trying to pass on his impression of Christ's teachings,
people thought that the liver was essential for thought, so I guess it
isn't odd that this is glossed over."
Cologne continues, "There's still quite alot we don't know or
understand about the processes, but while western science has done a
better job probing how the brain works, our understanding more closely
meshes with what's going on at a non-physical level."
"The first thing you must understand is that thought, and especially
self awareness is not a simple process, but a jumble of different
things all going on at once, and affecting each other. Any explanation
which tries to map these types of cogitation to a small set of types
is doomed to be inaccurate, while any explanation which treats them
all differently is too clumsy to be useful. We make up classifications
like Freud's 'id', 'ego', and 'superego' as an aid in understanding,
but that doesn't imply that anyone could separate things out
completely that way. All of the divisions of types of thought I'll
suggest are merely useful only insofar as they help clarify
things. They're a guide, but not a description of reality."
Cologne chuckles, "Bounding the whole process of cogitation into one
word 'thought' is alot like bounding myriad emotions under the heading
'love.' 'Love' is merely a group heading for a huge collection of
feelings including attraction, jealousy, possessiveness, caring,
desire to protect, passion, amicability, lust, admiration, empathy,
respect, and a thousand other feelings that we have towards
others. 'Love' covers so many emotions that the statement 'I love you'
contains almost no information at all. The important message is
conveyed in the way it is said, the words mean almost nothing."
"You can almost picture the same conversation and the same
understanding if different words were used, can't you? Two passionate
movie-star lovers rush across the screen, fall into each other's
arms. He looks her in the eyes, and says 'Fried chicken for dinner.'
The type and intensity of the caring is conveyed through the way it's
said, not with what's said."
Nabiki interrupts "Much as I like discussing Romance, I see what you
mean about 'love' and 'thought' being umbrella terms for a huge number
of different types of things. But we were talking about thought as it
pertained to the soul and the brain?"
"Quite right. Very roughly speaking, The brain and the soul are
responsible for different kinds of thought. In addition, souls tend to
be resistant to change. The brain also serves as a feedback device for
modifying one's soul. That's their relationship at it's crudest
level."
"If you believe that we evolved to our present state, either through
random chance or natural selection, or you believe we're the result of
an evolutionary design process by a higher being, the brain's primary
function is the manipulation of the body. For example we need to
breath regularly. This insanely difficult task is handed by a
subroutine, or sub-ganglion created pre-natally specifically for this
task. When someone learns a new martial arts move and internalizes it,
they're making a sub-processor to handle it. When the raw data comes
in from the eyes, the first few steps are performed long before the
rest of the brain gets a chance to look at it. When Ryouga shouts for
the millionth time 'Ranma, this is all your fault' all this is done
purely mechanically by the brain, and the soul is barely touched if at
all."
"All of this processing has an effect on the thought processes, and
insofar as all people are similar, they have similar effects on our
thoughts. This is what Jung referred to as a collective
unconsciousness. It doesn't suggest that they're all connected in some
way, it means that the effects on my thoughts due to my breathing
processes are the same as the effects on you. In this way we share a
common part of our subconscious thoughts. Subconscious because they
arise out of the physical body, will I, nill I."
"Most of one's actions throughout the day are performed automatically
by the brain. In fact many of the things we think we've decided on are
done automatically, and an excuse is thought up afterwords to explain
it. Most of the time, this is the true answer to the rhetorical
statement 'How could I have been so stupid'"
"Logical thought is still a huge umbrella term, but most of it could
be done either in the soul, or in the brain, but the brain is much
much better at it. So for creatures that have both, the brain does
most of it. However this doesn't imply that incorporeal creatures are
incapable of it. In practice any being has as much logical strength as
they are willing to develop, whither it be brain or soul."
"Inspiration, hypothesis, and leaps of thought are solely the purview
of the soul, with the exception of hunches based on inexact sensory
data. As Hamlet says 'In action, how like an angel, in apprehension,
how like a god.' The soul contains the divine spark that provides
those moments when we exceed our intellectual capacities to achieve
something new. The brain as a whole could endlessly rearrange past
things to try out all combinations, the soul is where brand new
non-derivative ideas come from."
For example, when you wake up on a school morning, you start on your
morning routine, doing the same things you've done hundreds of times
before. All of this can be done solely by the brain, not even
bothering the soul for thinking power. At the same time, your soul
might be daydreaming, engaged in an almost completely separate process
of thought than the brain. As your on your way to school, your soul
might ask itself the question 'What would happen if I didn't go to
class?' The brain would probably be responsible for tallying up the
pros and cons, and possible repercussions. The soul could do this kind
of processing, but the brain is much better suited to doing it, so
those beings with a usable brain, usually use the brain for this kind
of thought. The brain would throw up some scenarios, and the soul
would allow you to flesh out these possibilities as visions. Say for
the sake of argument that the balance between the pros and cons is
about the same. Then the decision would be made through a conflict
between the brain and the soul. The soul would be pushing for doing
the unusual, and the brain would be in favor of going to class, and
returning to it's normal routine.
This covers most kinds of thought, except memory. Memory is still
largely a mystery to us. We do know that when a body and soul split,
both the soul and the body retain memories, in some cases keeping the
memories redundantly in both the soul and body. Some memories seem to
be lost in the split, but that might be due to normal forgetfulness,
or it may be tied into the mechanism that protects people from
drowning in years of memories, or reliving horrible events.
What do you mean by drowning in memories?
Imagine you recalled everything you remembered in the last 16 years,
and tried to think about it all at once. The brain and the soul are
ill equipped to handle years compressed into an instant, so the brain
blocks all but short term memories from flooding the person's
awareness. At the same time, the soul goes fishing in the backlog of
memories, and holds them up to view to see if there's anything there
that applies to the current situation. This can often be called
daydreaming, but it occurs somewhat even when you are
concentrating. People with eidetic memories just have a more refined
memory block that allows more of each memory into the brain, they
don't seem to have any difference from normal people when it comes to
actually storing memories.
How the brain selects a memory based on an association with something
the brain or the soul is thinking about is a mystery, although it is
believed to be related to how the memories are actually stored. In
this matter I think modern science may well come up with the correct
answer long before mystics do.
If everyone stores memories the same way, but eidetic people use a
different method of recalling things, is there a way using magic to
completely recall things?
Cologne chuckles "There definitely are. I have a ritual I do involving
potions, incense and a trance that I perform when I need that
ability. Unfortunately that method will almost definitely fail for
you. As you have some strength in dealing with spirits, you might be
able to make a contract with your own spirit to do this, but I'd
strongly recommend against this. Having one's soul make a contract
with itself has many far reaching implications. Your best bet would be
to craft something, or make a deal with something that can do it for
you. Something like the necklace you made for Ranma that maintained
the happy feelings of associating with cats, but dealing with memory
is much harder than emotions. Objects retain emotions easily, but they
don't remember. Or if they do remember, then they do so without eyes
and ears, so their memories are not too useful.
What about stories of people reading the past out of items they touch?
Well, many items that we deem exceptional take on a sort of
proto-spirit. For example, there's a spirit within your dojo that was
born when it started to be cared for. This can store memories. This
spirit is probably not even self aware, and less intelligent than a
fish, but it can remember. This is what's contacted when someone reads
the past from an item. Also items that were made from living things
might have something of the original's memories. These are probably
not useful to recall, but they might add potency to the item crafted
if the memories corresponded to the item's use. That's one of the
reasons feathers are often used in spells involving flight.
So I might one day achieve flight?
Probably not without trickery. Imagine how much power it would take to
fly with a rocket pack. A straight forward method of flying would
require the equivalent amount of magic. But there are a number of ways
around this problem, dealing with the nature of time and space, and
Newtonian physics. If you want to fly, we'll discuss it at length some
other time.
One other thing you have to remember about thought is that the brain
is an analogue computing engine, and therefor subject to the same kind
of chaos theory that is used in Mandelbrot drawings. We don't know
what kind of engine the soul uses at all. That's one of the reasons
it's referred to as the divine spark living within us, it operates in
ways we can only observe and guess at, never model or understand it.
The importance of the brain's analogue nature is subtle, but far
reaching. A digital computer operates in a deterministic nature. Given
the same setup, the same output is returned every time. However an
analogue computer is subject to an infinite number of states at any
one time. It's good for fast computations, but without the certainty
of the digital model. A program to produce a cloud will always produce
a similar cloud if given the same input parameters, but each cloud
will be subtly different. This is one of the reasons that people will
always do something unpredictable. The other reasons are based on the
theories of Goedel and Waite, and are unnecessary for this
discussion.
Can you give me a brief summary of those theories?
Alright. Goedel suggested that any system is too complicated to be
solely explained within itself. This implies that any brain is too
complicated to be understood by that brain. You could never remember
the state of each neuron, and predict it's future. Waite said that for
every machine there is a process which the machine could execute, that
the machine couldn't figure out if it would ever end. That the only
way to know would be to run it, and wait for it to end. Their
applications to human thought is difficult, but it does exist. The
brain is set up to make decisions based on only possessing some of the
needed information, it is not set up to find the right solution, as
this could only be determined with all of the information, which it
never has.
* * *
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Dr. Tashikaha. What can I do
for you?"
"Please don't call me Doctor anymore. I've put aside that title, and
assumed a new one more in fitting with my life."
"I'm sorry, what would you prefer to be called?"
"I'm now Archbishop Tashikaha of Nerima. It's a bestowed title, as I
don't have a degree in theology."
"Really. Well congratulations. Who bestowed it on you?"
"Oh, I did, last night. I heard the voices, you see. There was a
shortage of bushes in my apartment, so it would have been
inappropriate for the holy ghost to speak to me from inside a burning
bush, you see."
"So where did the voices come from?"
"My dishwasher, of course. It said `Go forth, and spread the new
gospel to all who will listen.'"
"And what was the gospel?"
"I've no idea, the rinse cycle finished then. I'll have to get back to
you on that."
"I see. Why did you call me about this?"
"Oh, well the reason I called is indirectly related. Only slightly
related, you see. I know you have an excellent speaking voice that can
be heard across a huge room if necessary. I've seen you at council
meetings and such."
"Why, thank you."
"I was wondering if... Well, after I get a hall to rent, ... I don't
want to impose, but I was wondering if you'd ..."
"Please go ahead."
"Would you mind... Calling out bingo numbers on Saturday evenings?"
* * *
Ranma enters Dr. Tofu's clinic to get some advice from the youngest
calm person he could find after Kasumi's useless answer(useless to
Ranma, even if it was helpful to Nabiki's diagnostics). "Dr. Tofu, I
need help learning to use emotionless chi. The 'soul of ice' isn't
true emotionlessness, and I can't seem to use chi without
emotions. How do you manage to be so calm most of the time?"
Tofu smiles, "Most of it is due to experience. Seeing how things
resolved in the past, makes it easier to remain calm in the present."
Ranma asks "So what do you suggest I try?"
"I think you'd have better luck if first you mastered some of the
Hindu forms of meditation linked with Buddhism. Through meditation it
is possible to consciously pump chi through the body without using
emotions. The exercise is to move chi, through the seven chakra within
the body, from the base of the spine to the crown of your head. If you
can master moving chi through your body without using emotion to pump
it, then you can more easily work on creating emotionless chi."
"But I move chi through my body all the time when I fight. I've done
it for years."
"What you have to understand is that chi is continually flowing
through your body, and it is the flow of chi, not the chi itself that
you use to strengthen your muscles or to heal your
wounds. Acupuncture, shiatsu, and moxibustion all work on the
principle of modifying the flow of chi through the body. Your mouko
takabisha works on a completely different principle."
Tofu continues "When you feel strong emotion, the flow of your chi
changes, and forms a reservoir or pool of chi. Your attack draws off
of this more concentrated chi, and thrusts it outward. Without the
emotions, at your level of ability, you'd have to shut off the flow of
chi in one part of your body in order to dam up your chi to form the
chi pool. Such a method could easily hurt you, and in a serious fight
would almost surely mean your death or defeat.
"The pumping and storing chi in different parts of your body is a side
effect of the emotions you are undergoing at the time, and affects the
reservoir that you plan to fire off.
"This exercise is to move your chi through your body, as a pool,
regardless of the emotions you're feeling, which is a different skill
altogether from the regulating of the flow of chi that you're doing
when you fight. The chi you'll be moving will be tainted by whatever
emotions you're currently feeling, and will want to run to the parts
of your body where your emotions would naturally pump it. If you can
achieve this level of control, you should be able to throw a chi ball
without focusing on a particular emotion.
"Once you have achieved that, then you should return to a Japanese Zen
Buddhist school of meditation in order to learn to create truly
emotionless chi. You'll be attempting to enter into the state often
called "no mind" where you are completely focused on the present, and
the past and future have no meaning.
Ranma looks worried. "I'm trying to create a new attack. Does this
mean I wont be able to use it unless I can meditate during a battle?"
"No. But you'll need the meditation to do it in the beginning, until
you get a feel for manipulating emotionless chi. With practice, you'll
be able to manipulate it while feeling strong emotions by either
filtering out the impurities or by using the chi that isn't affected
by your current emotions. But this is impossible until you know what
it feels like, so to do it at the beginning will require the
strengthening of the unused mental muscles used for moving chi, and it
will require that you only have chi unaffected by emotions.
"The first part is like learning to wiggle your ears. Anyone can do
it, but until you figure out how, and can do it on command, your
ear-wiggling muscles are largely unused, and weak. The second part is
like learning the hiryuu shoten ha, that's an exercise of the mind and
spirit. Together they should help you achieve your goal."
Ranma asks "How come Ran'neko can do it so easily?"
"He probably does it instinctively, like a rabbit moving its
ears. Humans have to do it the hard way."
* * *
Nabiki asks Cologne "So what do you recommend we do for Kasumi?"
"The ideal change would be a gradual change over months or years,
where through counseling, Kasumi would learn better ways of
channeling her negative emotions. This aberration Kasumi has acquired
has probably saved her from worse psychological problems. People
naturally experience negative emotions, and it is impossible to
dismiss them without hurting yourself.
"It is possible, in fact for some it is easy, to ignore negative
emotions to the point that eventually you don't even feel anger or
frustration. But the truth is that you still feel the emotions, and
wind up directing the emotions against yourself. The better you get at
being perfect for others, the more you're likely to turn to self
loathing, or self abuse.
"I knew a large male amazon, who endeavored to make himself the
perfect person. The idea of defeating someone for love was abhorrent
to him. He believed that if he improved himself continuously, he'd
eventually be asked for a date, in spite of the minor flaws in his
appearance. I think he always considered himself unattractive, even
though he really wasn't.
"For years he worked to be unassuming, understanding, and to never act
in anger towards someone who didn't deserve it. He was always willing
to offer advice to help other people form relationships, sometimes
acting as a crying post for both sides of a relationship. He would
always deprecate himself, while he worked to improve his mind, and his
spirit, believing that eventually someone would look beyond his
surface and seek him out. In truth many couples valued him, but they
were always in love with someone else."
"He was always somewhat melancholy, but he never regarded it as
odd. He never regarded this as odd until much later when the rest of
his life fell into place, when he realized that the sadness was
unlinked to the events of his life. Over time that he became a better
and better person, the lower his self-esteem would go. He looked upon
an unachievable perfection and felt guilty for every time he fell
short.
"He turned to eating, not due to physical hunger, but as a means of
enjoyment, or filling the hole he saw inside him. Maybe it was a
self-inflicted damage, or an attempt to make himself less attractive,
to explain his lack of girlfriend. Withdrawing from people to avoid
the feelings of rejection coming from being alone in a crowd. You
could spit on him, and he wouldn't feel anger. His first reaction
would have been sadness. It took him several minutes of deliberation
to get mad.
"When the extent of the damage was realized, it took him years to
learn to feel and admit anger. It went against everything he stood
for. It was only after relearning anger that it was possible to
attempt to do something about the nearly bottomless pool of misery.
"Luckily Kasumi has this oddity of the soul that has dispersed the
emotions, instead of letting them strike like daggers into her
subconscious. Now that it cannot cope, the effect is spoonerisms. The
overflow could have been directed inward and caused her further
problems."
Nabiki interrupts "So is there anything we can do that'd help her
right away? Or should we just put up with it while she seeks outside
advice? We'll put up with the oddity if it's good for Kasumi, but if
there is something we can do right away before it starts to hurt
her..."
"There are several things. Shiatsu to prevent all of the negative
emotions to enter the oddity. A potion of mine that'd prevent her from
ignoring her own anger. Some breakable things to allow Kasumi to vent
anger like Akane smashes bricks. For a few months, her mood will swing
rapidly, as her subconscious learns to deal with the changes. Not
unlike the mood swings women experience during PMS or advanced
pregnancy. She will lose control of her emotions from time to time.
Cologne continues, "This is just as it should be. After a few months
her personality would stabilize, at which point you could define her
as being perfectly cured."
Nabiki asks "How do you think I should break this to the whole group?
I know for a fact that Genma hasn't the brains or the empathy to
understand half of what you told me."
"Kasumi needs to hear the whole truth, or she'll feel unnecessary
guilt. Also anyone she would want to confide with should understand
the truth. Invite her over, and I'll tell her everything I just told
you, plus a few other stories. Everyone else neither needs nor could
make use of the whole story. Just convince them that Kasumi has been
like a spring bending under every slight since the age of six, which
now needs to be released a bit at a time. That way they'll understand
that every time she over-reacts, the extra anger is still their fault
for past events she ignored."
* * *
Nabiki acquired several crates of chipped, cheap plates that Kasumi
could smash whenever she liked. Kasumi hated the idea of snapping on
her family, but she could intellectually understand the
necessity. Kasumi was pleased to learn that when she was cured, she'd
always be more accepting and understanding of others than people in
general. The oddity of the soul she had, meant that she'd always have
a calmer emotional state, but she couldn't go through life being
totally calm, without achieving enlightenment, or becoming a
bodhisattva.
The shiatsu went without event. The potion was drinkable, since
Cologne added a huge amount of sugar. The spoonerisms disappeared
immediately.
* * *
Soun takes the phone from Kasumi "Hello, Archbishop. What can I do for
you?"
"I'm no longer an Archbishop. You see, I learned that religion is
merely opium f or the masses. A tool to keep the common herd in order
for the ruling class to maintain control. Unfortunately you can get
into alot of trouble distributing opium for the masses."
"I see. Shall I refer to you as doctor, then?"
"Oh no. I'm now Colonel Tashikaha. Leader of the army, and of The Free
People's Republic Of The Corner Of Mori Street And Ume Avenue."
"I see. Your house is now a free people's republic?"
"Yes. I seized power, and imposed a communist dictatorship over myself
and my dog Wuffles."
"Riiiight. What can I do for you, Colonel?"
"Well seeing as you're on the council I thought you could advise me
who to contact."
"I'll try. What's the problem?"
"Who do I contact to get an ambassador from Japan to move in here, and
who do I bribe to make sure it's a young female?"
* * *
Ranma manages to find Nabiki while everyone else are occupied, to ask
her one of the things that had been bothering him. "You said that I
couldn't solve this mess my life is in; why can't I?"
Nabiki pauses, and comes up with an analogy. "Ranma, you're familiar
with the idea of looking at things as if they were a fight, right?"
"Of course!"
"Well, now I want you to look at your relationships as if it were a
knot."
"I don't get it."
"Imagine each person was a string, and they all came together in a
horrendous tangle. Now if you wanted to remove the knot there are
several methods that you could try. The simplest would be to try to
pull one of the strands free. If it worked, you'd have a simpler knot,
and an easier time untangling the rest."
"Ok."
"This would be like trying to get one person out of this tangle of
lives surrounding you. Say for example, If you could convince Mousse
to go home. Unfortunately you can't pull any of the strings out of the
knot, because it's too tangled. In fact the harder you pull, the
tighter the tangle becomes. Another thing you could try is to cut the
unimportant threads. Cut enough threads and you could untangle the
important ones. But in this case, the threads are people's lives and
happiness. It's obvious that you aren't willing to do that if it's at
all possible."
"Right."
"Well, there's a third way to untie tangles. It's not guaranteed to
work, but it makes most knots easier to untangle. You try to loosen
the tangle, not by pulling on any of the obvious strings, but by
pulling random strings slightly, stopping if it makes the knot worse,
and then trying something unrelated again."
"To loosen your knot, you have to stir up change in the people
involved, without bringing new people into the knot. You have to do
things by yourself and with others that you've never tried
before. Things unrelated to romance and honor. And you have to keep
doing different things, because no one thing will work."
"I don't see how that'd help."
"Let me put it another way. You've got a dozen people trying to get
you to do what they want, and they all have a grip on you. You've
reached a state that if you do nothing, nothing changes because the
rest are working against each other. But if you try to break out, they
all agree you shouldn't and push you back to your initial
state. You're strong enough to get out, but not without hurting
anybody, which is why you're still trapped. Stop struggling to break
out, and work on changing the people. Develop a hobby. Walk on your
hands for a day. Stop making an effort to oppose people. I'm not
saying give into their demands, but put them off for later
worry. Become a different Ranma, and encourage others to grow and
change too. It's not guaranteed to work, but it is likely to make the
knot easier to untangle later."
"I think I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't make sense to
me."
"Your problem is such that trying to fix it causes it to worsen. Try
to do small things that don't directly involve your problem to see how
the web might loosen"
"Why are you telling me all this if you're one of the people who has a
grip on me? Aren't you afraid I'll slip out of your grasp?"
"With the way things are tangled, I can't do anything either. Besides,
if you follow my advice, the first players to be pulled out of the
knot, are those who can't understand that you're changing. I'm already
watching for that, so it wont be me." Nabiki grins "Not unless you do
something really unexpected, like turn into a girl when splashed with
water."
"Sometimes I don't know whither to laugh or seethe at your jokes."
"There's often only a very thin line between laughing and crying,
Saotome."
* * *
Nabiki asked Cologne, "Is it true that 'Any sufficiently advanced form
of science is indistinguishable from magic.'?"
Cologne thinks a bit on how to explain the difference. "The reason for
the inherent separation of science and magic goes back primarily to
Newton and Descartes, but also to the Greek and Egyptians. Rather one
could say that Descartes independently hit upon the idea after
centuries of neglect. Science is concerned with an ever increasing
precision of our beliefs about reality as it nears actual reality.
"It is interesting to note that science has yet to fulfill this goal,
and it is widely suspected that this goal may be unobtainable. This
lack of precision is why so many beliefs are termed as "theories". It
is not because these beliefs are wrong, but because there might be
more to it than initially supposed. Both magic and science make use of
the scientific method, which is a method of experimentation designed
to always provide better answers to why things happen. Better in this
case meaning that our predictions match what actually happens.
"The scientific method works as follows. You make an educated guess as
to how things really work. This is called the hypothesis. Then you
create a test which proves or disproves the hypothesis. Finally you
run the test, and if it works, the hypothesis is now a theory. If it
fails, the hypothesis is called nonsense. While this method has some
flaws, particularly in the stage of creating new hypotheses, the
testing stage guarantees that each iteration of creating a new theory,
creates a more accurate theory.
"The difference between science and magic rests on Descartes'
contribution to the scientific method. He said for an experiment to be
valid, it must be repeatable, and it must not depend on whom is
conducting the experiment.
"These are perfectly reasonable requirements, and have brought us all
of the advantages of medical and scientific knowledge since the start
of the renaissance. Unfortunately the world doesn't work that way.
"As was shown when the question on the nature of light was first
explored, whether light was a wave, or a photon, the nature of the
observer making the measurements affects the result. Likewise magic
works differently depending on who is casting it.
"Scientists have known for the last century that Descartes'
requirements were wrong in explaining reality, But they are such
powerful tools, that most of the discoveries in the last century were
made using it. The only places it fails are the quantization of
energy, dealing with parts of atoms, things traveling at near light
speed, and of course magic.
"Had Einstein, or someone else, actually discovered a unified field
theorem to explain the interactions of different types of energy
fields, and how they are generated by matter, then physicists would be
well on their way to incorporating magic into science. In that case,
they'd only have missed the existence of spirits manipulating the
world. In fact, science would be able to prove the existence of
Kami. Unfortunately this is still beyond us.
"Descartes' tools are so useful, it is often easier to study magic
using a relaxed set of these rules. Certainly we want
reproducibility. Who'd want a spell that behaves different each
time. But taking into account the differences in whom is casting the
spell, and whom is being affected, what kind of magic is being cast,
what items are being used, which spirits are involved, and so on, we
can study magic scientifically and reach an improved understanding how
things work.
"This method is inherently flawed in reaching a true understanding of
the nature of existence, just as the Cartesian scientific method is
flawed. But even with a flawed scientific method we've gone from
teletype machines to computers, our flawed magical method is very
useful in learning magic.
"Just don't rely on normal spells while traveling at the speed of
light. Also quantum tunneling teleportation is more trouble than it's
worth."
Nabiki notices the lecture is winding down, "That's an interesting
lecture, but how does it apply to my learning magic?"
"Well, unless you plan to study the nature of reality itself, and
expand on the corpus of mystical knowledge, not alot."
"So why place so much emphasis on it?"
"I've effectively described the methods of a physicist, or a
thaumologist, whereas you want to become the equivalent of an
engineer, or in other words a magic user. The engineer takes the
results of the physicist, and uses it to construct something, whether
it's a computer or a bridge. A knowledge of what physicists have done,
and how they do it is necessary for an engineer. Without it, they're
just craftsmen.
"Likewise you can craft spells without an understanding as to how
things work, by guessing, and making it good enough. But without an
understanding of the underlying principles, the highest you could
aspire to is the magical equivalent of building a chair. With the
understanding, you could construct the equivalent of a computer, or
better."
"So everything I've done with Ranma's Nekoken..."
"Is the equivalent of a well done amateur crafts project. You know
enough to do more and greater things, with a lessening success rate as
you become too ambitious. And you'll need the insights gained from
this in order to study magic. But by learning alot of trivia, you can
expand your ambitions, and through tedious scientific work, you can
expand your limits up to the point where the magical scientific method
breaks down."
"And those borders are?"
"Wild magic, and spells involving beings whose thought patterns we
can't comprehend. And you'll want to avoid those beings if you can
help it at all. They're by definition unpredictable, and therefor
dangerous in proportion to how much power they have."
"So in terms of this, I'm an apprentice craftsman, with a very limited
supply of raw materials, living in an area where there are few of us,
and potentially a great need, but no demand as almost no one believes
we exist. If I can come up with something simple, and cheap to make,
say a simple ritual that fixes some small problem, then it's merely a
matter of advertising."
"Advertising magic in this day and age is also problematical, but yes,
that sums it up. You're homework for this lesson, think up several
types of rituals you think you could make, and a rough sales plan for
each of them."
* * *
"Now that dinner is over" Kasumi announced, "we need to discuss the
increasing levels of housework that need doing around here. I can no
longer handle all of the chores that no one else bothers to do, so I
will start apportioning out tasks based on the amount of free time
each of you seems to have, on the amount your actions disturb the Wa
of this household, and based on the amount of housework you generate."
Soun interrupts "You're right, we should discuss how to relieve you of
some of your burdens."
Kasumi silences her father, "You can discuss it at length later, if
you wish. I'm assigning new tasks now. You and Mr. Saotome have the
most free time, and have created the problems that generate the most
discord through your insistence on the family merger, and your refusal
to do anything about it but shouting and blackmail. As the supposedly
responsible adults you also bear the greatest responsibility." Kasumi
hands them both slips of paper. "These are your new chore schedules."
Soun comments, "Now, Kasumi. Saotome is our guest. You can't ask him
to do housework."
"If his chores aren't done, I will not cook for him. You should be
able to do both lists daddy, if you feel that strongly about it. If
you refuse this new arrangement, I will simply refuse to put all the
effort into this house that I have for so long." Kasumi hands Ranma,
Akane, and Nabiki shorter lists. "I've tried to make these fit your
skills, and make them as quick as possible. Furthermore I'm issuing a
blanket rule. If someone breaks something because they've been sent
flying, the person who sent them flying is responsible. Everyone here
should be skilled enough to beat up anyone they like without causing
damage to the surroundings. This applies to the various people who
drop over. If they cannot obey the house rules, then they are no
longer welcome here. Nabiki is in charge of making sure visitors clean
up after their rampages, and Ranma is responsible for telling the
Kunos, amazons, and Ukyou about this. Akane is in charge of the dojo,
as she's going to inherit it. The kitchen is mine!"
* * *
Author's note:
The scenes involving Dr. Tashikaha loosely inspired by the two
comedians Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams. I recently had the
pleasure to discover recordings of their 1960's British radio
programs.