【摘抄】Touchable Unreality Ⅱ
未来镜像第二部，期待了很久，读完却有点失望。
摘抄：
Mr. Lu once said that the progress of a civilization should be measured by its degree of empathy--whether members of the civilization are capable of thinking from the values and perspectives of others-and not some other objectified scale.
Blood had summoned us together. Thats what the funeral said. Blood kept us in this world, and now we'd returned to those who’d given it to us. They had been waiting at the other end of the world for a long time, extending a welcoming hand. Sing for her. She is finally at peace.
It was raining that day. I remember the rain washed the leaves of the flesh plants clean. They were translucent. When I took the infants out of the basket one by one, raindrops fell on their little closed eyelids. My hands were damp from the mist. She once told me an ancient story: she said every raindrop is the soul of a dead child. Those that we abandon at birth, their souls have no names. so after they fly to the heavens, they fall back down and permeate the earth.
Time can seem to ripple History can leave vestiges. I know watchmen have made such contact before Species more ancient than humans, they who watched us before we became the watchers, have done this before the universe cannot afford such contact. The ancients have warned me. But in the end you will do it anyway, they have prophesied.
No mood was the simple result of external events but the product of our understanding of external events at the deepest level. This cognitive process often happened subconscious sly, like a habit, and was finished before we even realized it was happening. Often we would fall into the clutches of some mood but could not explain why. To change the mood then by an act of will was very difficult.
Blaise Pascal said, “Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.” However, if reeds could think, what a terrifying existence that would be. A strong wind would fell all the reeds. If they were to worry about such a fate, how would they be able to dance?
Einstein said that God does not play dice with the universe. But to me, human cognition is just throwing dice after dice. It’s like a tarot spread everything is luck. Or you could argue that everything depends on a higher power, a power that determines the fall of each die. But no one knows the truth. Will the truth ever be revealed? Only God knows.
Raindrops obscured the windshield: I saw the snality of our fate, realising everything was done for Our relationship was like a balloon: at first, there was only a deflated circle; we took turns blowing into the balloon,then carefully pinched the end shut-we couldn’t allow any air to leak. It filled and swelled until one day, perhaps the tiniest touch would make it burst. Then the entire relationship dissipated without a trace; all our effort would be meaningless.
First I gathered all the data I could on Sol, and art based on it. Stars began to seem like minds, able to contemplate the void. For five billion years Sol had carefully evolved to his present state, with its flares, sunspots, blazing convection cells, and complex granulation--its every photon and mood prominence and heartbeat. I felt I wouldn’t be painting a sun, but a living, breathing entity.
The sun was getting further from Earth, or perhaps it was the other way around, and Earth was like a maturing child, packing its bags, leaving home on a long journey. Only this time it would be a one-way journey.
The world we live in is like a roll of tape: You are always traveling on the smooth side. Even if you kept pulling the tape, you’d still only ever know the one side. You’d never understand that the there’s another side, the adhesive one.
