They used one of those side-by-side frames for the interview, the reporter, Eileen Fairbanks, in the newscenter on the left, the professor in what seemed like his office on the right, seated in front of a camera. The title underneath the professor read, “Professor Mads Lund, University of California at Berkeley”.
Fairbanks began by introducing him as the chair of the Speculative Physics Department at Berkely, with a radical new theory that might help explain humans with powers. She first asked him about his department with the unusual name.
Professor Lund chuckled a moment. When he spoke, it was with a deep and gravely voice, tinged with good humor. “Well, Eileen, actually the full name of my department is the “Speculative Department for Physics Speculation – SDPS, you see.” he smiled. Fairbanks frowned and tilted her head in inquiry. “SDPS,” he continued, “Like Super Dooper Pooper Scooper.” He laughed again as a slightly worried look crossed the interviewer’s face.
Lund jumped back in, “You see, what people often call crackpot theories sometimes turn out to be the paradigm reinventions needed to take physics to the next level. Reality is frequently stranger than the establishment is willing to admit, so my department exists to push at the boundaries of what physicists are willing to consider. The SDPS is actually the only funded scientific establishment in the world dedicated to pursuing fringe hypotheses and deeply alternative conjectures.”
Fairbanks asked, “So for people who thought regular physics is strange…”
Lund chuckled again, “Exactly, our ideas make normal physics seem positively ordinary.”
“How many successful discoveries have you been able to nab, being at the vanguard of physics?”
Lund’s smile lessened, “Well, none yet, but all it takes is one! And even if we never produce an actual verifiable theory, we do great work in just broadening the overall global conversation of physics.”
Although Fairbanks was a pro, I could tell she was starting to be concerned with the interview, but having no other choice, she gamely continued. “Well, maybe you have your moment to shine now, Professor Lund – do I understand correctly that this new theory that you claim can explain these new abilities, is your own?”
The Professor grew cheerful again, replying, “Yes, indeed – as the chair of this department, I am of course one of the most prolific authors of these cutting edge ideas. Although I do need to correct you on one minor point, this is not a new theory of mine, but one I came up with over fifteen years ago. However, like many of the conjectures introduced in the SDPS, there was at the time no way to proceed with it, so I noted it and moved on to other ideas.”
“Could you tell us a little about this theory?” asked Fairbanks.
“Be glad to. Now one of the more mainstream theories in physics – at least to us in the SDPS – says that our entire universe might well be a multi-dimensional hologram encoded in a two-dimensional surface. That got me thinking that perhaps the standard laws of physics, everything we know about the universe until now, might be just the first layer of truth about how reality works. I came up with the idea that quite possibly there could be a deeper physics above and beyond – or hidden underneath, if you prefer – everything we know today,
“So I tried to imagine how that would work, and what evidence for such a hypothesis would look like. The second part was easy – if there were deeper physics, the evidence would be observations of events that seem to contradict our understanding of the universe on a fundamental level. And with the abilities of Glory and the Arbiter, I think we now have that.
“Glory’s abilities may just seem like what you’re used to seeing in blockbuster superhero movies, but to a physicist they are outrageous and dumbfounding. When she flies, for example, she utterly ignores inertia – likewise when bullets impact her and fall to the ground. Not to mention that there is simply no mechanism for a biological body to generate the kind of energy it would take to perform the acts she does. No, these abilities seem to violate known science on a fundamental level.”
Fairbanks interjected, “So you must be feeling vindicated. Tell us about what this deeper physics you worked on might actually look like, and what that says both about the universe as a whole, and for those of us without powers who may have to figure out how to live on this planet with those that have them.”
“Yes, exactly. I call the base approach Quantum Noetics – the idea that perhaps in a very real way, Plato was somewhat right, and quantized thoughts and concepts are ultimately the fundamental building blocks of reality. Of course, that was just the bird’s eye view of my insight, but to get serious, I needed to systematize it. So I built an abstract model of how such a system could, and possibly would, operate – a specific implementation of the overall concept that I call Attribute Theory. Let me present a simplified, math-free summary.”
“Please, the world is all ears.” invited Fairbanks.
“If we analyze the world in terms of pieces and parts, we look at matter, which breaks down to molecules, which break down to atoms, which break down to protons, electrons, which in turn break down to quarks – all relatively humdrum and materialistically reductive. And of course that approach does produce useful rules of matter and energy – the heretofore laws of physics.
“There’s an utterly different way to frame reality, to look for how it’s put together – instead of focusing on material constituents, we focus on conceptual constituents. ‘What’s a conceptual constituent?’ I’m glad you asked.
“In order for human beings to make the world intelligible, to understand it at all, we have to describe it. Those descriptions are made of attributes: tall, blue, heavy, transparent, and so on. Attribute Theory posits that attributes may be the fundamental noetic building blocks of reality. That every entity from galaxies to subatomic particles are simply bundled attributes, and that every process in reality can be understood as attributes being added or removed from entities.
“This oversimplifies things a bit, but consider attributes to be reality’s adjectives; bundled attributes, reality’s nouns; and changing attributes, reality’s verbs.
“This is Attribute Theory, and it explains a lot about what we are seeing with these unusual abilities.”
Fairbanks interjected, “How?”
Lund continued, “Well, for one, it explains how they do what they do. When they use their powers, they aren’t operating at the standard physics level at all. Rather, they are working at the quantum noetic level. So when Glory, for example, stops a bullet with her shield, the shield isn’t operating according to the usual rules, as it’s not having to counter the energy of the bullet’s inertia. Instead, at the noetic level, Glory is simply unbundling the bullet’s attribute of inertia – deleting it, if you will.”
Fairbanks carefully responded, “So basically you are saying that these quantum noetically empowered people are essentially editing reality itself, bypassing the normal rules?”
“Exactly!”
“But then doesn’t that make these Quantum Noetics practically gods?”
“That’s for religion to answer, not science, but I would say no, it doesn’t. The Arbiter aside, most of them will be mortal. Most will still have feet of clay – that is, they are no more wise for having these powers. Really, they are just gifted people, albeit with some potentially amazing gifts.”
“Why would meteors give these Quantums their abilities, though? And why those specific abilities? And where did those meteors, unlike anything we’ve seen before, come from?” Fairbanks asked.
“Well, I was getting to that.” replied Lund with a twinkle in his eye. “We know that some of the meteors that landed carried a crystal that contained an unusual kind of energy, both from first-hand reports and from Glory’s video. I believe this energy was Quantum Noetic in nature – a vibration, in essence, of the higher-order physics. When a person makes contact with it, they are literally touching the Quantum Noetic level of reality – not just with their body, but more importantly, with their minds. Attribute Theory is after all about how the mind noetically interacts with reality. So when their minds are exposed directly to this energy, it imprints on their minds – on their very essence of self – expressing itself as a specific capacity to modify attributes on the noetic level. And I strongly suspect that the particular abilities that Quantums receive is directly related to their mind states at the moment of empowering – either due to a prevalent thought, an ongoing concern or focus, or a strong kind of personality.
“Sadly, as far as we can tell, once the crystal broke apart and crashed landed all over North America, the energy within it only lasted a few hours before dissipating, We’ve recovered several meteor crystals from remote locations untouched by humans, none of which show any but the faintest trace of noetic energy that they once contained.’
“As to where the meteor crystals came from, or why they contained noetic energy to begin with, that I cannot say. Perhaps there was noetic energy leftover from the beginning of the universe that coalesced into certain crystaline rocks large enough to contain it, where that energy remained until the rock found itself falling to earth and blown into a thousand pieces, I really don’t know.”
Fairbanks paused. “Two final questions for you, Professor Lund. Will our new Quantums eventually run out of or lose their powers?”
“If my theory is correct, no – these people have been fundamentally changed, so now their powers work just like their capacity for music, or math, or trivia.”
“And lastly, can you imagine a way to suppress or remove a Quantum’s powers?”
“No, I cannot. A Quantum’s noetic ability is simply too fundamental.”
“Thank you for speaking with us. That was Professor Mads Lund, chair of the Speculative Physics Department at the University of California at Berkeley – and if even half of what he says is true, we may see him accept a Nobel prize before too long.”
I switched off the TV.
Time for the Arbiter to visit the professor.