Part 45: Takeshi/Sora Route - Part 2

Track—Hologramm




"In 2010? Human cloning, which had been illegal up until then, was allowed by law. Currently, as long as anyone receives the approval of the authorities, cloning may be used as a method to treat infertility. They take the nucleus from an already-cultivated somatic cell, and then insert it into an egg that has had its original nucleus removed. Then they implant it into the mother's womb..."


"Oh, that's right, I remember now! One of my friend's relatives went through it."


"Do you understand?"


"Uh...uhm...well... But what does that have to do with this? Clones develop separately. In other words they are different entities. They're not the same person. They're more like twins..."


"But, their source is the same."

She spoke almost casually.


"Let's go back to what we were talking about..."



And she'd said she wouldn't do it anymore... Sure enough, I was dizzy.


"This 'Me', evenly divided... are all Sora Akanegasaki. That 'me' is over there, and at the same time this 'me' is not there. I am here, but the 'me' over there is a different 'me.' But they are all me, the same, 'Me'... All me. Which means... I am one, yet at the same time I am many. I can be in any place, exist everywhere. I am—omnipresent. Yes, that's right. There can be several of me existing in the same space, at the same time. For example, in front of you and in front of Coco. There and here, there are two of me. But they are definitely not 'W'... but 'Y'."


" 'Y' ? "


"'Y' because we split from our source branching off."

Sora danced around in midair. Her other images multiplied and disappeared. It was impossible even to tell their size, amount, or distance.


"You see...please think of it this way. What if you could be copied exactly, just the way you are?"


"??"

...What is she saying...?


"For instance... For instance, what if every recollection, thought, feeling, character trait, personality, and emotion that is etched into your mind... In other words, your whole intelligence, could be perfectly, exactly extracted... and then duplicated in some kind of storage medium, even reproducing all your abilities..."


"Then, where is the real you? The you who stays in your body, is that the real you? Or is the duplicate character in fact you?"


"........."


"The answer is, in any case, the real you does exist in both. If such a thing were possible... You would split in a form of non-meiotic division. In other words, it is not the same as splitting an apple into two... It is as if another apple with the exact mass, shape, and composition comes into being. When that happens, you become two."



Now, there were two copies of Sora before me. There was no way to tell which was the original...

Enter sub-choice “Hear more/Struggle.” I’m aiming for the Good End here, so it’s time to hear more about this silly thing.

(But why is Sora telling me all this...?)

I wondered, but kept quiet and listened.


"Yes...you became two."

The two Soras were speaking in unison.


"Historically, and from that moment forward, the two of you are traveling down the time axis as separate entities. But, if you turn around and look at the journey you have taken, you will see that at one point the two of you were joined together. It is split like a 'Y,' with two points emerging from one line. Not a 'W,' with two separate points of origin. You may be unable to imagine two of yourself, splitting apart and going different ways at a particular moment which we will use as a reference point. But that is something that has already happened."



"You are always, incessantly, approaching a choice in each present moment that becomes the past the instant you visit it. Will you choose path A? Will you choose path B? The you that is standing here may have come down path A, but in another time axis, there may be a you who is going down path B. And both the you on path A and the you on path B are both still you."


"Except that, the 'you' on path A doesn't know about the 'you' on path B. Because there is no way to know. In the same way, the 'you' on path B probably isn't aware of the 'you' on path A, either."


"Do you?"

Last sub-choice is “I don’t know/I know.” She likes knowing that we’ve been paying attention, so we’re gonna pretend we get this stuff for now.


"It's obvious."

I answered.


"You just stated that 'there is no way to know.' There is no means in existence to let my 'A' self see my 'B' self. For a person to see a 3-dimensional body, they have to receive flattened visual information from two eyes, and the brain has to make sense of it. In the same way... To know that both 'A' and 'B' of yourself exist, you'd have to move to a perspective completely outside the 'Y'. Even if you understand it intellectually, you can't actually confirm that 'A' and 'B' both exist."


"That's right."


"Wonderful...Takeshi, you might be a natural at this."


"At what?"


"At physics...or perhaps even philosophy."
That’s lovely. Please stop making me think I’m having double-vision.


"You don't have to flatter me."

Sora held her hand up in the air. I could see a holograph...



Then a point of light appeared, and started moving.


"Let's say that there are intelligent beings in a 2-dimensional world. Can they see a 3-dimensional object?"



The square changed into a cube.


"The reason is, since they only exist in two dimensions, they can only perceive those things which happen on a plane. In a 2-dimensional field of vision, only straight lines (one dimension) can be reflected."

The dots of light were now on all six faces of the cube. But each light only moved around the surface of its own square, never intersecting with the other lights.




"Then, in their 3-dimensional range of vision, only planes - two dimensions - can be reflected."

The lights from the six surfaces gathered together to become one and moved to the center of the cube.



The cubes lined up surface to surface, without even a crevice between them.


"With 3-dimensional sight, all that happens is that the plane reflected in the right eye and the plane reflected in the left eye are synthesized into one image. It would be impossible to achieve something close to the real image of Mount Fuji, for example, even with a finely-drawn backdrop."

A light floated in each of the cubes. These lights moved incessantly, vigorously colliding into the six faces of the cubes and moving. But each light never left its cube, and never intersected with any of the other lights.


"Shall we go over it again? By combining 2-dimensional information coming in at the same time from two different sources, you are really just hallucinating that you are perceiving a solid form. That is not true 3-dimensional vision. 3-dimensional vision is when you can see all six sides of a cube, at the same time. In an 'n' dimension, you can only obtain visual information in the dimension of 'n-1'. This is why if you are on one tip of the 'Y' shape, it means that you cannot be aware of what is happening at the other tip. Let's say that you did obtain a 3-dimensional range of vision... So if you escaped the plane of 2-dimensionality, and when you looked 'down' from a 3-dimensional space at the 2-dimensional plane? You would realize for the first time that you were at a particular point on the 'Y’...and realize too that there could be another you that took a different path on the 'Y'."


"........."





Sora looked distorted. Then she split into countless versions of herself. I couldn't see anything but Soras.



Which one was she? Was she all of them…?


"You see, it's the same for a 3-dimensional space... When you acquire 4-dimensional vision. In other words, if you escape this 3rd-dimensional space, and look 'down' at it from a 4th-dimensional space... You will realize for the first time that you were on one point of the 'Y'...and realize too that there is another you who took a different branch of the 'Y'."


"........."


"In a different history, in a different world, in a different place... another you exists. Do you understand this? You are omnipresent in the world. And in the same way, so am I. You and I... We are just branches of the 'Y'... However... These divided selves can become one..."



The brightness faded and then was gone. The single Sora quietly fluttered down to stand before me. The dolphins behind us had stopped their revolutions at some point.


"If the self you don't know were to become inseparably bound with you? If you could stand in a place where you could see and understand all the others that were 'you'? Then all the experiences of your other selves would become like your own experiences. In the truest sense, you would become one being with one experience."


"........."

I let out a long sigh.


"Listen... Can I just ask you one thing?"


"Please do."


"Why are you telling all this to me?"


"Hmm...that's a good question..."

Sora turned in a full circle right where she was, and smiled.


"It is a legend. Of the origins of LeMU...it's the legend passed down through the Lemurian continent. Let's just leave it at that."
…Lemurian legend includes n-dimensional theory? Damn.


"...and you must understand, it's a secret."

Sora put a finger to her lips and smiled once again.

The rest of the update is stuff we’ve already seen back in Day 3, Part 3 and from the line “In the end, I didn’t fix anything for dinner.”


_{Next time: Sora and Takeshi wax philosophical on love and we discover the ingredients list for the Coco Special.}