Second Coming the novel: Extending the Entertainment

What is memory?

In the novel, Paul Genet tells his story to the abbot of a monastery he seeks to join. After Paul finishes, the abbot asks Paul questions to further help decide whether to admit him or not. Here, Paul discusses the nature of memory. —Editor

Abbot: What is memory?

Paul: From my point of view of all-things-One through balance, there is no such thing as memory.

The mental experience we call “rememberance of things past” is actually an interface with all-things-One where every event is always happening. The event we remember as past is happening now, even through it seems to have already happened. . My friend, Ben Sachs, says déjà vu is our interface with all-things-One. I say, so is ordinary memory.

Are all-things-One? Is it possible for all events to be always happening? Yes, but not in the local universe of classical physics. All-things-One is only possible in the non-local universe of quantum physics. Non-local means every particle instantly connected with every other particle in the universe as if time and space did not exist.^*

What could possibly account for the non-locality of quantum physics? We can eliminate all physical processes because they take time thus preventing them from operating instantly across the universe. However, balance qualifies since it is not a process. Balance is a non-physical principle that does not require time to influence everything throughout the universe.

Well, you ask, if all events are always happening because they are superdetermined by balance, why do we not have future memory? We do. It is called premonition, a mental experience even more unreliable than past memory. Ben Sachs offers this explanation: “Can’t remember the past—faulty equipment. Can’t remember the future—inadequate equipment.”

balance as the universal operating principle | time does not exist in Palul’s balanced quantum universe

Okay, so time doesn’t exist in the novel’s universe, but time certainly exists in the real universe—doesn’t it?

“Any successful merger of quantum theory with general relativity will inevitably describe a universe in which, ultimately, there is no time.” Discover Magazine

^* Instant connections are demonstrated mathematically by Bell’s Theorem (1964) and scientifically by the Aspect experimment at the University of Paris (1982), which has been repeated many times since with ever greater sophistication. —Editor

‘Second Coming’ protagonist, Paul Genet, answers questions about his universe:

What is time?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

What is the true nature of existence?

Does God exist in the balanced universe of Paul Genet?

Does life exist elsewhere in the universe?

Is the universe a computer?

Will there ever be a coherent theory of quantum gravity?

Are superstrings the theory of everything?

Is Schrödinger's cat both alive and dead in a balanced quantum universe?

What is the origin of language?