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Across the universe, two billion years ago, there too a planet coalescedfrom the mutually attracted vortices of twisted space; gases compelledby gravitational forces solidifying to hardened matter, forming a crustover a molten core. In the soupy atmosphere of metallic salts and gases,tortured and rent by electrical storms of incalculable fury, among thevibrating crystals one formed that was aware.
Not in the sharp awareness of later times, but at the first onlyill-defined, perhaps no more than the awareness of acid chains ofmolecules that formed into non-crystalline viscid protoplasm on anotherplanet across the universe. No distinct line of cleavage where affinityto other chemicals left off and sentient selectivity began marked thedistinction here as in that protoplasm.
As with its cousin across the universe, the one-celled amoeba, thesecrystals too were sensitive to light, to heat, to cold--to food.Ill-defined, but distinct already from the non-sentient crystals aboutthem, these life forms grew through absorbing from the rich and soupyatmosphere those elements necessary to growth, to branching, to cleavageinto new individuals.
What is awareness? At what point even in protoplasmic life does itappear? The amoeba avoids pain, seeks food, reproduces itself, andblunders blindly through its environment in search for condition morefavorable to its continuance.
In the monotony of a purposeless existence, most humans do no more thanthat.
Must awareness, too, be defined in terms of the consciousness ofme-and-mine? Defined only by what me-and-mine can feel, know? Aprotoplasmic growth feeling awareness, excluding all possibility ofawareness in other kinds of growth because they are not a part ofme-and-mine, therefore too inferior to know awareness?
Each crystal structure has its own vibration characteristic, and on thatplanet, in time, one special vibratory rate knew awareness of self.Mutation here too gave added complexity to the structure, andself-awareness took on that added growth of awareness of surroundings.
Through eons of time, and the mutations brought by time, awareness ofself and surroundings grew into awareness of wider peripheries, tosensing their world, its structure, its nature.
Another mutant leap and there was comprehension of other worlds, ofother stars. Theirs was a vibratory awareness, directly akin to thevibrating fields of force which compose the material universe, and thevibrations of fields of force can be altered. To change theirsurroundings to a more suitable environment through vibration rates ofthings led surely to negation of distance. To change from crystal formto fields of energy and back again combined with negation ofdistance--they too spread out and out among the stars.
At first it was enough. But awareness is never still. Questions form.
In all the universe were they the only sentient thing? Did any cry buttheirs rise to the stars, seeking to know? Because of the nature oftheir being their search was unconcerned with the outer shape of thingswhich could be changed by them at will, but rather with the innervibratory rate which would signal sentience, awareness.
They found no more than unconscious interaction of forces. Water runsdown hill without knowing that it does, without the internal structureto provide the vibratory rate which would permit knowing.
For long eras they too were imprisoned within the confines of ame-and-mine envisioning, and it took a major leap for them to conceivethat other structures than the crystalline might have a form ofawareness. Alien to their kind, perhaps, yet a kind which must beacknowledged.
For they found something, at last, in a viscid non-crystallinesubstance, protoplasm.
On one distant planet this substance was already differentiated andspecialized to a high degree. From the simplest to the most complex ofits organization there were degrees of awareness, and in the mostcomplex of these there was undeniable evidence of sentience outside ofself.
Joy! Unparalleled ecstasy!
Recognition is not wisdom. With the unwisdom of inexperience incommunicating with an unlike thing, not realizing that the values oftheir kind of awareness might not be the values of this differing kind,they rushed in with all their powers and forces, a joyful rapturouspyrotechnical display of material manipulation to show this new lifeform that they too were aware--to communicate that the loneliness of onemight now be softened by the presence of the other.
And man fell down to the ground and groveled his face in the dust.
His awareness was of the outer shapes of things, his security lay inadapting himself to those shapes, his certainties lay in thedependability of those shapes. A rock was a rock.
But no! The crystals were delighted that they had brought somethingwhich they could share with this new life form. The rock could be atree! See!
And lo, the rock was a tree.
And the people were sore afraid.
For that which had been certain and sure was no longer so. Thismountain wall which had formed an impassable barrier to migration into anew and richer valley was rent asunder, so! And beyond, the new valleybeckoned. But the people huddled in their caves and dared not ventureforth.
The vibrating entities, no longer dependent upon their crystallineforms, withdrew to confer among themselves. To one life form, awarenesscomposed of the outer shape of things, the relationship of those shapes,security in the unchanging shape. To the other life form, awarenesscomposed of the inner vibration, the relationships of those vibrations,with outer shapes changed at will, and therefore meaningless.
Yet even this protoplasmic life must see the changing shapes of things.The clouds that formed and disappeared; the seed that became root andstem and leaf and flower; the infant that became man, and man thatdecomposed as corpse. Surely this life form must see an inner cause!Surely they must see that even the permanent rock changed slowly intodust, that the eternal sea was restless, never still; that stars movedin the vault of heavens, warmth changed to cold and night to day. Howdid they account for changes in these outer forms if not by inner cause?
They changed the shapes of things themselves, these men; the seed groundinto meal, the moving animal shot down with stick or stone and stilledand changed to food, the moving of the smaller rocks, erection of adwelling made of poles and thatch to change environment for the maninside. Change, then, man knew; why fear the greater change, the easierone? Why tug and lift and strain to move the boulder from the path, whenall was needed was to shift proportion in one tiny way, rebalance theequation of relationship with one slight thought, and lo, the stone nolonger barred the way?
Too long ago, lost in the distant past, the crystals had forgot theirown once-orientation of all other things to me-and-mine, forgot tocredit it to man. To lift the boulder with one's strength to serve apurpose was within the ken of man, a thing that he could do. To see itlifted, moved, without his strength, bespoke a greater strength thanhis, and purpose that he could not understand. And man fell to his kneesin fear and awe.
For man knew only one relation to all things--to conquer if he could,and force acknowledgment of superior strength and purpose. To kill ifthat acknowledgment was not given. To survive by giving thatacknowledgment to a stronger one than he.
Man groveled in the dust, the only pattern of survival that he knew whenstrength beyond his own was shown. But even while he knelt, to scheme away that he-and-his might find ascendancy in future days. The oneinvariable pattern persisting from the cave man dressed in furs todiplomat in striped pants, the only pattern possible while me-and-mineascendant is the aim and goal.
To show another pattern then, the crystals aim. Ascendancy ofme-and-mine was meaningless, belonged to orders of awareness lower thanintelligence that they could meet in partnership. Instruct them, then.No joy or purpose in conquering them. No companionship in thesedisgusting grovelings. Show them the inner forces that controlled theouter shapes of things.
Once crystals, now divorced from hardened form, the outer shape ofthings was no longer a consideration in their life; but for this form oflife, still dependent for that life upon the maintenance of materialform, no doubt the shapes and forms o
f things were paramount to them.Well then, show them the true relationship, sketch out upon the sandsthe diagram of how the forces that control the shapes of things areinterwoven, interact.
Before the kneeling men, the cabalistic diagrams took shape, and lo, aspring of water flowed from dry and barren stone.
But man saw only shape of diagram, its cabalistic lines and form. Asacred thing, a magic thing, a sign that he might draw with finger inthe air or in the sand, protection from the evil forces that surroundedhim.
The sentient fields of force withdrew. Too soon, too soon. Man was notready for communication. Too soon, too soon.
But man did not forget, the memory lived on. And fathers spoke to sons,and made the outer forms of gestures, drew the cabalistic signs, andtold of magic things and powers that these signs could do. To some, onediagram was shown, a way to build a house of stone that better weatheredthe storms of Earth. The house of stone became a holy place, a thingexisting in its own right, and not, as was intended, an example of oneuse to which this arrangement of forces might be put.
And to some other man another diagram was shown, this time to slay ananimal for food. And men fought wars over these differing symbols, eachside determined to make its symbol ascendant over the other.
Deep within the Asian land where contact had been made, the memorieslived on, and some of the meaning of the diagrams beyond their outershape had gained sway. The racial memory persisted, and in the latterPleistocene epoch the knowledge of altering shapes through force of mindbecame a racial memory, coalesced into cults of belief, degenerated intoforms and phrases; but from generation to generation the memory was keptalive that once, when the world was new, the form of things was indeedchanged by thought. This holy man, far away and long ago, had pointedhis finger at a tree, and lo! a beautiful nymph had stepped forth cladin jewels and coins to make him rich. This hero climbed a mountain and avoice spoke unto him, and proof of this were letters cut in stone.Well-witnessed, this divine one changed some water into wine, and fed amultitude from five small loaves and fishes.
A kind of radiation of its own, always the cults who sought the innermeanings formed within that Asian land and spread outward through theworld.
But out on the periphery, and not exposed to thought of inner meanings,another cult took shape. Here concern was solely with the outer shapeand size and weight and measurement of things, and how the size andshape and weight of one interacted with another. The Dravidian culture,which grasped only the idea but not the method of how the innervibration could change the outer shape receded and became submerged inthe Western cult that found a method in the measurement of shape andweight of things to make them change.
It was Rabindranath, centuries later, who described the essentialdifference between the Indian and the Grecian civilization as thatbetween a forest culture which had known no walls, and a city culturewhere everything has limit and every inch must be mapped.
But perhaps, also, the Greeks had never seen this tree changed intobird, this cloud changed into flower. Not trapped by memories grown intotradition that must not die, they hit upon an approach that man couldmaster. For it was the Greek beginnings which led to the Oxforddefinition of how to make scientific inquiry into the properties ofthings.
Inquiry into the properties, at first the outer shapes and weights, ledinevitably straight back to vibrations. All matter is merely a specificvibration of energy, a range of vibrations feeling solid to the senses,as a range of light vibrations translate into color through the eyes.
E = MC^2!
It took man far. He too began an exploration of the stars!
Failure in their first attempt had brought a wisdom to the sentientfields of force. This time they did not rush in with pyrotechnicdisplays to show the wondrous power they knew. Observing patientlythrough the centuries, by now they knew man well. They knew hisweakness, yet by making thing react with thing, he'd proved hisstrength. For here he was among the stars.
Perhaps by now he might communicate? Perhaps, by now, he would notprostrate himself and grovel in the dust, if someone said, "Hello!"
But careful, perhaps he would.
There had been a man by name of Galileo, with the first crude telescopehe'd made, who first saw the rings of Saturn. But not as rings, butrather in the planet's tilting, he had seen a spot of light on eitherside. And sometime later, when he looked again, the tilting of theplanet back had made the rings edge on, and so they disappeared. Henever looked again, nor told of what he'd seen; for legend had it thatthe god Saturn periodically devoured his own children, and thisphenomenon he'd seen, if it became widely known, would be interpreted asthe proof the legend was correct--and do incalculable damage toscientific inquiry. He'd known the temper of his fellow man well enoughto take no chances of this kind, to note the experience in his works,perhaps discuss it with a cautious friend or two, but to add no furtherfuel to the raging fires of superstition that consumed men's minds andseared out possibility of rational thought.
So walk with care. For superstition still is paramount, despite the factthat some men know how to reach the stars.
To communicate this time, the fields of force took a sere planet, ofbarren, blistered rock, and with a concept made it into the garden ofman's dreams. On one island, they set up a crystalline structure, athing, this much concession to the mind of man; a tool, to amplify andclarify their thought to reach the still rudimentary but neverthelesspresent centers of man's mind--some certain man who might be ready toreceive that thought.
Placed in man's exploratory path, the waiting was not long until manfound it. They had not led him to it through any intuitive change ofcourse that he might find suspect. The explorers landed, claimed it forEarth, and went away. None among them felt any pull from the crystaltool upon the mountaintop.
The scientists came to make their measurements. Their busy minds werefull of weight and size and the relationship of thing to thing. Perhapsby now they too were so committed to the use of a thing to act uponanother thing that they could not countenance the thought that thoughtcould act upon a thing direct. They measured the crystal tool, andrecorded all their measurements, but found no meaning in its arches andits spires. If any felt the impact of the thinking of the fields offorce, he made no sign nor gave response. Indeed, to preserve hisstatus and reputation with his fellow scientists he'd not have daredadmit a meaning that could not be measured with his instruments.Forevermore he'd be outcast, if he but hinted that he thought theirscience was insufficient to capture everything of meaning there. And toscientist most of all, his status with his fellow man means more thantruth. At least to most. But are there some to whom the truth isparamount?
Yes, for had not scientist after scientist through the years risked andlost his status through his questioning? And then perhaps today thereare such men.
So walk with care, and wait.
The colonists came, and as the scientists' minds had been filled withmeasurements and weights and analyses; the colonists' minds were filledwith cabins, fields, food.
Surely, among men somewhere, there must be those not wholly captured onthe one hand by formless superstition; and on the other hand not boundwithin the tightly narrowed circle of weight and measurement! Surely manmust know by now he could not capture the inner meaning of a thingthrough a description of its outer surface.
But as long as man got by, and did great things by using physical thingsto act upon other physical things, even in considering the universalenergy as a thing, he would look no farther.
All right then, a little nudge in another direction. Change the conceptof the planet slightly, so that one thing cannot act upon another, notool be used except this crystal set to act as intermediary. Let thathappen, and out from Earth a man would come, perhaps a dozen men,perhaps a hundred ships, a thousand men, and all to find their ships,their tools, were gone. But someday there would come a man with mindtrained in the ability to conceive that there might be a road to truthoutside the useless superstitions that sent man to grovelin
g in the dustat each small breath that blew, and also one who would not quit becausehe had no weather vane to test the direction of that breath.
And they would know when that mind came.
The first man came. Take away his tools and wait. He did not fall toearth in awe nor freeze in fear. His mind searched curiously. Enough.The man was here. Shield off the planet from the rest that he beundisturbed in his thought.
Could he go farther? Conceive the purpose of this lack of tools, that itwas by design? And still not grovel in the dust? They'd made their move.Could he respond?
He drew a circle in the sand!
Joy! Ecstasy!
This time there might be surcease to the loneliness, and twointelligences so unlike commune. The very unlikeness of each bringing tothe other thought not yet considered, and together going on to find ...to find ...
Now let him see the fallacy of such strict measurement. Now let himthink, to realize that measuring the balance of the status quo of thingsin only one relationship of an infinity of possibilities, to realizethat he can change his measurements to balance an equation designed toexpress the status quo, or with equal truth, at his desire, he canchange the status quo, the shape of things, to fit the equation hedesires.
Let him wander, puzzled, worrying on this. Let him work it out himself,for experience from long ago had taught them that if man was not readyto accept an alien thought he could not, would not, accept but in hisown interpreting.
Now, at last, at his readiness to make things fit the equation heconceives, instead of making the equation fit the things as they are,bring him closer in the range of the amplifier, the crystal tool, thatcommunication might be direct.
He holds the key.
He knows the lock.
He finds the door.
Show him the one small step remaining--the diagram, the design, themovement of the forces of his mind.
To turn the key.
Unlock the lock.
Throw wide the door.