Tal, a conversation with an alien (13 page)

The fact that the universe is
constantly growing more vast and more complex in your mind, can make you feel as though you are ever less and less significant within it. This feeling is actually more a matter of how you interpret what you perceive, or rather, how people of your paradigm tend to perceive things. I will give you a suggestion, though it is from an alien outside of your paradigm. It may seem a bit philosophical, but perhaps it could help you reconcile, and even seek out, the knowledge of a far greater and more interesting universe. Do you know what duality and non-duality are in a mystical or spiritual context?

Not really.

The concept of duality is that you are a separate thing from the things around you. That you are you, and that the universe is something else. You are not intricate parts of each other. It was not always this way, but modern humans tend to think of themselves as separate entities from their environment. You have your bodies, small and puny, and your world, massive and vast. Since you are separate, as the universe gets bigger, you in relation, get smaller. Non-duality is the opposite concept. You are an inseparable, integrated, part of the universe, or God. You are it and it is you, there is no actual separation between you and the universe, the separation is purely a perceptual one.  Therefore, as the universe gets bigger and more interesting in your mind, as your concept of the vastness and beauty of the universe expands, you yourself expand. 

This
does sound like a bunch of mystical mumbo jumbo to me.

Well
I didn't think you were going to take an alien's personal account to heart, so I will use a human example. Remember Sue, who gained stereoscopic vision? She writes that a mystical experience happened when she was walking through a snowstorm after she had first gained her ability to see the dimension of depth.  What she saw was beyond her imagination. Instead of falling in a flat sheet in front of her the snow fell all around her, she felt she was within the snowstorm, not observing it from some other place. She writes, and this time I will quote her, because I also have a pretty good memory, "I was completely unprepared for my new appreciation of space and the deep feelings of joy and wonder, the enormous emotional high. I had no idea just how different and how magnificent the world would appear in all its glorious dimensions." Sue's perception of the universe expanded immensely, immeasurably, when she could perceive space from a new perspective. Her universe became vast, not just a simple flat plane, but a three dimensional all-encompassing world. Yet instead of making her feel smaller, she felt larger, she felt more complete. She felt enveloped in the universe, it was to her a mystical experience, and much more amazing than she could have ever imagined. So being able to experience a grander universe does not have to make you feel smaller, in fact it is usually the exact opposite. For thousands of years, in many cultures outside of your paradigm, this was the belief. The removal of that feeling of separation was the ultimate spiritual goal. 

--
I think he saw that I wasn't really buying the argument, and so continued,

Look you don't have to think this way
. Just understand that feeling less significant is an interpretation manifested by your mind. Having a closed mind due to fear of a sense of lost uniqueness can stop you from observing a more interesting and varied universe.

Tal

--There was a moment of silence now. My guest stood up, went to the kitchen and brought me my teakettle. He poured some tea into my now empty cup, put the teakettle on a coaster on the table and sat down. It was getting quite dark and I could now hear the rain outside tapping my window. The silence was beginning to be uncomfortable so I asked him a further question.

Ok
, so I think I understand the science behind the multiverse. Any single universe is just one of many variations in the multiverse. And you are claiming you can observe these variations. But how can you possibly observe many worlds simultaneously?

--
He opened his next bottle of juice, looked down at my chessboard and said,

Do y
ou know the great chess grand master Mikhail Tal?

Of
course. He was the eighth World Chess champion, won the title in 1960, at the age of 23, at that time the youngest champion ever. He was known as the Wizard of Riga, his birthplace, for his imaginative and aggressive attacking style. I personally prefer the more conservative controlled approach of Karpov. But Tal is a favorite of many chess players. His style was both ruthless and beautiful. He sacrificed his pieces in suicidal attacks that almost always lead to an awe-inspiring win. He was also known for his steely glare, which he used to great effect in intimidating the young Bobby Fischer.

A very anima
ted description! As with many geniuses, Tal's life imitated his art. He drank, smoked and was constantly hospitalized for various health conditions. At fifty-five, he already looked like a ghost. I was there when he rose from his deathbed, walked over to a famous chess tournament in Moscow, and proceeded to beat the reigning World Champion Gary Kasparov, then in his prime. When the tournament ended, he went back to the hospital and died shortly after. 

Yes, that story
is legendary in chess circles. 

Tal was famous, like Paul Morphy before him, for playing interesting simuls.
You have heard of a simul?

Yes,
it is a simultaneous exhibition. Many grandmasters will show off their skills by playing games versus many players simultaneously, often 30 or 40 players, but the record is over 600.

Correct
, and how does the grandmaster play against all of these players, do his opponents all get together and decide on a move?

No, each opponent has his own chessboard
and makes his own unique moves. The grandmaster will go from board to board in order, making one move at each board.  Usually his opponents are arranged in a circle or square so that the GM will return to his starting point. He will then make the second move and go around the circle again. This can take some time. As he wins, players drop out, and by the end, there are usually just a few players left. Grandmasters perform simuls just about everywhere they go, this way many people get a chance to play them. They are so good at what they do, even though they are contemplating 30 or 40 different games, they still win a vast majority of the time. It's funny that you mentioned Kasparov earlier, because I played him in a simul. I was holding my own at first because I had memorized a lot of opening theory. But once we got into the middle game and I was one of the few survivors, he focused on my game for a few moments. I felt his intensity and lost my nerve. I made a blunder and ended up losing badly.

Don't
feel bad, when facing Kasparov, most people lose their nerve. Just as Fischer did when facing Tal. I spent quite a bit of time in the U.S.S.R during the cold war, when the art of chess was being elevated to its highest levels. Once, I observed an interesting simul featuring Tal. In this simul, a number of players, mostly youths, were seated on one side of a very long table in a massive auditorium, with chess boards in front of them. They were playing chess versus an opponent, but he was not there. Tal was thirty-three then, and recovering from major surgery, always a risky proposition in those days. He was sitting in a chair in a small room separated from the auditorium. He was wearing a short sleeve white shirt and black tie, smoking a cigarette. The room otherwise was empty aside from a single microphone. He had no chessboards in this room. Occasionally he leaned forward and spoke chess moves into the microphone.

Ah,
Tal is playing blindfolded chess. Many great chess players do not even need to see the board or the pieces. They can play without ever looking at it, in their mind.

That is right
, Tal does not physically see any of the boards. He is not even in the main playing hall. Each move by his opponents is relayed to him through a speaker in his room, and he in return speaks his desired move back through a microphone. After he calls out a move, an arbiter in the playing hall moves Tal's chess pieces on the boards of his opponents. Tal is not only playing multiple games against multiple opponents, but also playing those games completely in his mind. At no time has he ever physically seen the boards, nor has he ever physically touched the pieces. In his mind, he is keeping track of all the games, in each game considering many possible moves, positions and consequences. Though they all start the same, each game will evolve in different ways.  Each board is going to have completely different positions for all of the pieces, with its own googols of possibilities. Yet he has no problem keeping it all in order. At one point he even stops one of his youthful opponents who makes a blunder, and tells him to change his move. If the youth stays with his errant choice, Tal will win. With some embarrassment, the youth changes his move, and the game continues. So you see, you are like those young aspiring members of the Russian chess machine, each one extremely focused on controlling their own single chessboard. And I, am Tal. You are one consciousness that observes one world, your own personal chessboard. I am one consciousness that observes many worlds.

--
He stopped to take a drink and let me think a bit. As I disengaged from the narrative I heard the sirens of several police or ambulances, they passed in a few seconds and were gone.

But i
s Tal observing all the games at once, or just continuously switching his attention from game to game?

When
you observe your thoughts, you are observing conscious thoughts. These thoughts come one at a time, so humans tend to think that this is their entire mind. Yet their subconscious mind is always working, performing many tasks simultaneously. Though Tal may be consciously observing one game at a time, his subconscious mind is still solving problems in the other games. Think of the times you forget some name or fact, and once you stop thinking about it, it will suddenly pop out of your subconscious. Many scientists and artists who are stumped by a tricky problem will focus their mind on something else. After a good night's sleep, or a brisk walk, the answer will come to them; usually quite unexpectedly. My mind is less separated and more developed than yours. I do retain multiple streams of consciousness at the same time. I can make multiple plans, observe multiple possibilities, make multiple, what you would consider, rational conscious decisions, simultaneously. I can observe many worlds and therefore can observe many thoughts. Imagine that fork in the road again. When you come to the fork, once you have followed one path, the other path falls away. You cannot observe the other path, though you could use your mind to imagine what it might look like. I am actually able to observe both paths, and then the next branching of those paths, and the next. As the paths diverge farther from each other, they take on very different qualities. The paths that take on the most interesting qualities are the ones which I am attracted to. This is similar to how some Grandmasters approach the challenge of playing a simul. No matter how brilliant, every GM has some limit to his mental resources. Therefore, while he is considering the various chess positions, he cannot dwell upon all of the specific games equally, as he will be wasting valuable time and energy. Hence, while playing each game he will choose to play moves that lead to exciting positions. In games where he has easily won, a GM will pay little attention, just for a few moments, and win quickly. In games that are going badly, a GM will tend to let them end quickly, instead of wasting too much energy trying to save a lost position. Most of the GM's attention goes to the interesting close games.

So you do not change your future, you choose your future.

That is right. And here we have a few things in common. Just like humans, I also prefer certain possibilities or outcomes over others. To me, to paraphrase another famous literary line; all the worlds are equal, but some are more equal than others. Thus I choose which worlds to observe more closely.

Can you
actually see all possible variations?

No
, that would mean processing an infinite amount of information. Then I would not need to choose, I could just sit back and observe everything. 

Like
an all powerful God.

Yes, but l
ike you, I am limited in what information I can gather, and how much I can observe. Very likely and unlikely variations branch out from every moment in the multiverse. I easily observe the most likely variations, but the very unlikely ones are harder to see. Granted my mind is very powerful, so I can observe some very unlikely outcomes. Still it is an infinitesimally small part of what is possible. You can compare my ability to see different variations with your ability to see objects in space. You have very sensitive eyes that can certainly observe many objects in your world. Yet you cannot see everything. In the grand scheme of things, your eyesight is very limited. Large objects reflect a lot of light, so they are easy to see. Small objects that reflect less are much harder to see. As objects get smaller, they slowly fade from your vision, or they melt together to create one seamless object. You can't differentiate the parts, even though they are separate. Can you see the various dust particles, pollen, or bacteria floating between us in this room? Can you see the individual cells in your skin?  To see these details you need special tools.

Like a microscope.