Scene : David Hilbert and Theodore Geisel are strewn haphazardly across a couch in a dimly lit, smoky den with an empty bag of Doritos, a half eaten pan of brownies, and a broken wine jug on the floor. On the tray of brownies is a note that says, “Enjoy the brownies, guys, and see if you can find God while you’re at it!”.
* Take one! *
Hilbert:
Imagine the following.
The spiritual world is a multi-dimensional sphere.
In the center of this sphere
lies the origin,
or destination,
or god,
or meaning,
or the key to happiness and acceptance,
or the representation of all that seems as intangible as it is valuable,
or whatever you want to worship and find your significance in.
Let’s call it the Unknowable Center, or UC.
Geisel:
Ah, so the UC is the unseen
in the middle of it all.
It’s the god that fills my longings
and fine lass that meets my call?
Hilbert:
Each individual can be considered a point on the boundary of this sphere.
There is a metric on this boundary:
individuals are close if the phenomena
(such as culture and genes and memes)
that determine one’s predispositions and intentions
are close.
The cardinality of the set of such phenomena
is the dimension of the sphere.
The open neighborhoods can be considered the different cultures.
Geisel:
You mean the people
are the dimples
on a golf ball’s outer shell
and they’re closest
when their cultures
have the same memetic smell?
Hilbert:
Now, we can define one’s ideal spirituality,
one’s enlightenment,
one’s ideal religion,
the perfect way for an individual to come to grip with his own ego’s need to find place;
one can define these as directed radial lines, vectors,
emanating from the given individual,
terminating at this unseen UC.
We can call this Ideal Vector the individual’s IV.
Geisel:
So the segment to the center
is the path that leads us home
it’s the IV that supports us
it’s the way our thoughts should roam?
Hilbert:
Perhaps one may also define an individual’s religion at a given moment
as a vector emanating from the individual.
We may refer to this Religion Vector as the individual’s RV.
That vector may or may not point towards the UC.
But certainly, if it does point towards the UC,
if the individual is enlightened,
then his neighbor’s ideal
cannot be exactly the same religion,
assuming two individuals cannot occupy the same point at the same time.
Thus, religion can be described as a vector field on the boundary of the spiritual sphere.
Geisel:
I think I get it,
I think I get it,
my religion is a ray
that may point to where I’m looking
or may point to Doris Day.
It may be my road to Eden
or it may wander like a stray,
but my religion’s not your reason
and my IV’s not your way!
Hilbert:
Now, this vector field is being acted upon by a function.
It is a dynamical system, if you will.
It is continuous almost everywhere:
the RV of an individual at one moment
is very close in both direction and magnitude
to the RV of the individual at recent subsequent moments.
True, there may be isolated singularities for this function,
individuals whose religion changes abruptly and drastically,
but the function is continuous for almost all individuals.
We’ll call this function, Religious Evolution, or RE.
Geisel:
So the RE
is what moves me
in my heart all rough and red;
it directs my inner thinking
(almost always back to bed)?
Yes I get it,
Dave, I get it,
it’s the struggle in my head.
Hilbert:
A given RV may be ideal for one individual,
if it is of the right magnitude and there is an individual alive at that instant filling the appropriate point on the boundary of the sphere,
but it is certainly not ideal for more than one individual,
and perhaps not even the individual that maps to it.
Geisel:
But of course what I desire
is not quite another's feed,
the direction of my wire
suiting only my weird needs
like my need to ride a pony
with big breasts and vacant stare
versus hers to find a rider
who won’t treat her like a chair.
Hilbert:
The really interesting thing:
the defining feature of spheres
is that every point on the boundary
is exactly the same distance from the center.
One’s RV may or may not be close to one’s IV,
but that is unique to the position of the individual.
Regardless of enlightenment,
No individual is closer to the UC,
the perfect nipple that marks the center of our universe,
the Great G spot in the sky,
that Really Really Really Big O,
than any other.
Geisel:
I don’t care what other’s say, dear Dave,
you're neither boring nor depraved!
I think I know your raison d'etre
in spite of all you’ve raved!
* Bring in the dancing girls! *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Geisel summarizes:
On this balloon
that we live on
there’s not one way to point.
All the gurus that
we live by
have no insight to anoint,
no direction
for our arrow
nor a center for our sphere,
their positions are quite different.
They are not as I right here.
Buddha is just gouda
and Mohammad’s
just a name
for all the cheeses
that do please us
none of ours are quite the same.
And though Jesus
might entreat us
he is just a wayward meme
and the RE is the monkey
that directs the RV theme.
When your vector
is directed
through the Pleiades
and your neighbor’s
is projected
through your
dislocated knee,
keep your arrows
pointing inward
for true spirituality
and remember
you’re no closer to the great unseen UC,
you see?
When your meaning
is in tatters
and your RV’s way too small
take the RE
when it matters
let it swing you
through the ball
til the poker
that we ponder
is right angles
to the wall
and your IV
is connected to the big O that’s it all.
Hilbert paraphrases:
Baron Samedi is too seedy
and Samadi is too sultry
feeding all our fears and greed
with plates of pork and poultry.
Confucius conflicts Krishna
so you kosherize knishes.
Karma makes us cook
and it is hell to wash the dishes.
Although my guru is a good egg
his words are jest a bad yolk
or a smolder in his pipe
from which we all might toke,
and rapture is a rupture in the bubble that surrounds
the rubber flutter laughter propels
me round and round.
* Cut! *
.
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