The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August(34)

“God?” I queried.

“We are to suppose,” he retorted, dumping his surprisingly spry though hardly nimble frame back down in my second-favourite armchair, which now bore the imprint of his body well into its cushions, “that there are only two solutions to this paradox? That one–the universe, finding itself unable to sustain this great burden on its being, simply ceases to be? Or that two–the universe, finding itself still somewhat confused, fixes itself in a way beyond our ken and which, by its express interest in the events of our time traveller, rather does imply conscious structure and thought more than a mere amalgamation of matter might be expected to provide. Are we to posit God?”

“I thought we’d concluded that this hypothesis was impossible.”

“Harry!” snapped Vincent, throwing his hands up into the air. “How long have we sat here?”

“I assume you query not some imposed measurement of time, rather how long since you first walked into my rooms to refute my errors?”

“Whenever,” he replied, “we come close to the thorny uncertainties of this life, whenever we bring into question the notion of what if, you retreat from the argument like a cocker spaniel from a bulldog’s bone!”

“I see no point arguing on a subject upon which, by all scientific measurements of the time, we cannot gather any data that might give us an answer,” I replied.

“We cannot measure gravity, not in any practicable sense,” retorted Vincent, his face settling into something of a sulk. “We cannot say how fast it is, or even what it is, yet you believe in it as much as—”

“Through observable effect.”

“So you limit our debates based on the tools available?”

“A scientific argument must have some degree of data, some… some sniff of theoretical basis behind it; otherwise it’s not a scientific argument, it’s a philosophical debate,” I replied, “and therefore hardly my department.”

Vincent gripped the arms of his seat, as if only that solid presence would prevent him springing up in rage. I waited for the tantrum to pass, “A thought experiment,” he said at last. “You will at least tolerate that?”

I gestured vaguely over the lip of my glass that, just this once, I might be open to the idea.

“A tool,” said Vincent at last, “for the observation of everything.”

I waited.

There seemed nothing more.

“Well?” I asked at last. “I’m waiting for the development of the argument.”

“We accept the existence of gravity not because we can see it, or touch it, or say with any great certainty what it is, but because it has observable consequences which can be predicted through consistent theoretical models, yes?”

“Yesss…” I concurred, waiting for the snag.

“From observable effects, we deduce non-observable consequences. We observe that an apple falls and say, ‘It must be gravity.’ We watch the refraction of light through a prism and declare it must be a wave–and from that deduction more deductions follow on behaviour and effect, amplitude and energy. So, by very little effort you can quickly theorise your way to the very bottom of things based on rather crude observable effect, as long as it fits the theory, yes?”

“If you’re about to propose a better method than the scientific one…?”

He shook his head. “A tool,” he repeated firmly, “that can deduce… everything. If we take a building block of the universe, the atom, say, and announce that it has certain observable effects–gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear, strong nuclear forces–and proclaim these to be the four binding forces of the universe, then, if this is so, should it not be theoretically possible to extrapolate from this one tiny object, within which the very basis of everything is contained, the entire functioning of creation?”

“I can’t help but feel we’re straying back into God’s territory,” I reminded him.

“What is science for, if not omnipotence?”

“Are you looking for an ethical answer, or an economic one?”

“Harry!” he blurted, jumping back to his feet and pacing the slim area of floor I’d carefully cleared some months ago for just this purpose. “Always you dodge the question! Why are you so afraid of these ideas?”

I sat up a little straighter in my chair, his indignation reaching almost unusual levels. There was something odd in what he was saying, a little warning at the back of my mind which slowed my speech, made me answer with more care than usual. “Define ‘everything’,” I said finally. “I assume that your… tool, if you like, your hypothetical, impossible tool, will, by deducing the state of all matter in the universe, be deducing both past and future states as well?”

“It would stand to reason, yes!”

“Allowing you to see everything that is, and everything that was, and everything that will be?”

“If time is considered to be non-absolute, then yes, again, I think that’s reasonable.”

I raised my hands, placating, thinking it through slowly. Alarm was growing at the back of my mind, seeping into my throat, trying to get past my tongue, which I moved so carefully. “But by the very act of observing the future, you yourself change it. And so we’re back with our time traveller who stepped from his machine and saw the past. You, in seeing the future, will model your behaviour differently or, if not that, the future will be entirely tempered by the single moment in which you came to know it, altered by the act of being observed, and we return again to a paradox, to a universe that cannot be sustained, and even if that were not enough, surely we must ask ourselves what will be done with this knowledge? What will men do when they can see like gods, and what… and…”