02.02.2020: Paradigm Discussion

Paradigm Discussion out at the Nextus
Two Etherites and a Hippie Hermetic discuss Science vs Mysticism.
IC Date	02/02/2020
Players	Arumi, Bobbi, and Mikaela
Location	The Nexus

Mikaela walks into the lounge with a couple of text books tucked to her hip, and a leather bound journal that's a little smaller than the text books. She looks for a place to sit down, though she blinks with surprise at seeing people out here. She smiles and rolls the fingers of her free hand, "Heya." She then claims a seat and sets those books aside.

Arumi leans on a vending machine when Khol offers to help with the unusual payment methods, and the next thing she knows, she's squatting down to get her coke. "Thanks, and pregnant? Good luck!" she giggles, leaning her back on the glass again, cracking open the coke. "Having to travel to shower? Yeah get yourself one, totally. If you need help with that..." Mikaela's arrival gets her waving. "Hi!" before sipping her coke.

Mikaela shurgs, hearing the part about needing a shower. "There are shower facilities set up here." She wrinkles her nose, "We're out in the desert. Most people bake out here during the summer months." She then flips open a textbook on fusion energy, then another book on isotopes. Finally, her own journal is opened up as she compares some of the drawings found there. A majority (like most) of the pages of the journal have burnt edges - some worse than others.

Bobbi shrugs. "It's just a block away," she says. "I just worry that if I get a proper bathroom and kitchen, then one day I'll be super busy and decide to cook one of the main meals at home instead of the communal meal at Tent City. Then it's just a slippery slope to skipping more and more days. Before you know it it's been months since I've been there. I got to make sure my soul is strong against the temptations of bubble paths and home cooked meals. They've brought down more people than hubris and the Technocracy combined." She looks to Arumi, "Sorry, no offense. I know you're one of the good Technomancers." Bobbi looks to Mikaela, "Oh, hey there. You're one of the good ones too. As I noted a moment ago, I have access to a nearby shower, just not exactly at home."

Khol nods to Mikaela, politely ,but then offers "Well.. I need to get into the library for a few minutes, then head home.. Johanna doesnt want me gone too long at a time right now.. " he nods "Please, you are all welcome to visit our Home, the Serenity Grove, anytime." he pulls out a card and offers it to Arumi, "In case you need to contact me."

Arumi smiles to Khol. "Serenity Grove, understood, thank you." She'll take the card, take a picture of it with her phone, and going into her bag, quickly writing her number on her card to hand it right back. "Likewise, just text me whenever. And Bobbi, I'm glad it's close." Another sip, looking to Mikaela. "That book. Been busy in a lab?"she giggles, noting the burned edges.

Mikaela looks up from her reading, mumbling, "... the beta decay of Pd-107 ions are the source fo the electron capture of Pd-103..." She finishes whatever thought she had, or at least puts it on hold. "Hm?" She then looks back to her journal, "Ah, uh... yea. It used to belong to my mentor. Some of his scribblings are hard to decipher." She then taps the other two text books, "So there's a lot of cross-referencing that he probably did in his head."

Bobbi looks to Khol. "We should talk later about showers and baths," Bobbi says. "I want to better understand what it is you do. I think I'm starting to get it." Then she looks to Mikaela and Arumi. "What these to do?" she starts, "Now that's weird. Classical physics totally violates the natural order of the universe. If you ask me, these two are the real magicians. Using science to subvert the way reality works. It's just so odd."

Khol smiles a little "you know where to find me Bobbi." he then nods respectfully to theothers "see you all around." then slips out..

Arumi waves to the departing Khol, rapidly drinking from her coke. "Beta decay of Palladium ions? Huh. I haven't really done much nuclear work. Fun stuff. So yeah, Bobbi, I think... and this is just my opinion, restraining your ability to care for yourself, so that you'll help others, is a thing that could like, make you resent the people you're trying to help, if you're not careful."

Mikaela looks at Bobbi with confusion. She shakes her head, "How does it violate the natural order of the universe?" She tilts her head, setting one of the bigger text books aside. "You're wearing clothes. Clothes do not grow on trees, do they?" She grins, "Malls are not groves of various trees or other plant life that have a variety of blouses, dresses, and other garments growing from them, that can be plucked at your convenience? Yet, you still choose to wear them." She then looks to Arumi, "The electron capture produces the electricity needed for the reactor's output. Unfortunately, it does require the reactor's core to be ejected once it's fully decayed." She makes a face, "So I'm trying to figure out how he made the core self-sustaining without the need to replace the Pd-107 core."

Bobbi nods to Arumi. "You're probably right," she says, "and that's good advice. It's just something I thin I need to consider before making a major change. I mean, that's like basic magick, right? Consider the change you're making in the world before you do. Bobbi switches up her legs, putting her left foot on her right knee. She leans back into the couch and smiles. "Cotton? Hemp? Clothes do grow on trees, I don't know what kinda space age fabrics you're wearing. I just mean ... like Arumi doesn't believe in the vibrational nature of time-space, she seems to think that we're in some concrete ... moment ... that has actual rules for how things work. Like you can just make stuff instead of passing a note to the Goddess-within to have your soul understand the needs of flesh. It's weird voodoo if you ask me, but I get that it works for you, so don't let me tell you otherwise."

Arumi blinks. "Really, Palladium based reactors, instead of a heavier element. Oh that's neat." Her coke she finishes, finding a place to toss the can before she continues. "And um, I wasn't going to say anything at first, since it's kind of a tangent, but since we're still talking about it, I have to disagree. Simple, orderly, classical physics provide the building blocks to understand all of nature. That's all I do. That's all I use. It's the... Void Engineers who decided to suck the essence out of the universe, declare that vibrations are happening in literally nothingness, and say that makes sense and that's how things are." She then rolls her eyes and folds her arms tightly.

Mikaela smiles with amusement, shaking her head, "Their components are found 'in the wild', but someone had to apply knowledge and craft to take that cotton and weave it or knit it or do something with it, so that it takes on a new pattern such as a shirt or a bracelet. They applied Science." She gestures to the books by her side, "Isotopes, electrons, molecules all exist 'in the wild' just like your cotton, hemp, and silk. You might use something like knitting needles or a loom or some other 'contraption' to turn that cotton into fabric. We do the same thing. We take the ions produced by Palladium, capture the electrons through our 'gadgets' to produce the effects we need."

Bobbi nods, "Yeah, and you see, what the Void Engineers say make sense. I mean, not the way they say it." She shrugs, "but I understand they're assholes on the wrong side of history, and the Etherites and Adepts despite all their kooky idea about science and information are my allies in this fight." Bobbi looks from Arumi to Mikaela, "I hope you're not offended. I have no problem with what you do. I'm just saying to bend reality so much to make science work for you? That's some serious effort. Like wouldn't it just be easier to /be/ a nuclear reactor and have enough timeline vibrate in one to make the power you need? Of course I don't know what you actually need to power, but you get the idea."

Arumi has her arms folded tight, her eyes rolling halfway out of her head. Bobbi's comments make her look sharply, then sigh heavily. "You see," she starts softly, trying to calm herself, as she goes back to the vending machines, poking at them, hitting the coin return. "I'm. Look. Light is a wave. Right? We know this. We measure frequencies. We look at the stars, and we see red shifts, which is how we know the universe is still expanding from whatever great impetus it got at the start." Then with a jiggle, she gets another coke to fall. "And well, we were getting there. The Electrodyne Engineers were on the moon, venturing into space, which made the Void Seekers feel bad. They were the explorers, but we beat them there." Cracking her coke again, turning back around. "So they got political and lobbied us out of the consensus. They're wrong, it's politically motivated gobbledygook, and.... I just can't even." She says that last part staring off into space.

Mikaela looks at Bobbi as if she's not offended, "Many of the brothers and sisters who remained with the Union did so because of political reasons." She shakes her head, "They have wonderful ideas on how to improve Science. Unfortunately, it's their ideology that is troublesome." She gestures to Arumi, "Arumi and myself? We're like Oppenheimer. We discovered a wonderful and powerful way to create a lot of power and energy within a confined space. It could help fuel a large population without that much of a carbon footprint. The world become cleaner, and still get the energy they need. There would be no more coal mines or green house effect gasses." She shrugs, "The others? They realized that they could store that some energy in a weapon, knowing it would create mass destruction, and serve as a deterrant for anyone who opposed or questioned them."

"Yeah, but to get the light," Bobbi says, "you have to meditate it outwards from your third eye, collapse probability into a single point, and then you get the waveform of light, but also the particle of light, because you've reduced the waveform of the flesh temporarily into a single point, even though it will eventually start vibrating again once you hand things back to the soul." She shrugs, "It's all politics, though, I mean look at the Verbena and the Choristers if you want to see someone so close yet so far, worshipping themselves as a separate cosmic entity, and then arguing if it's one thing or a triple headed Goddess. I mean, you're misunderstanding your own paradigm if you don't realize it's both." She shrugs, "Not everyone can be academic and rigorous about this whole thing, I guess some people just stumble on things that /kinda/ work via intution." She then looks to Mikaela, "We are power and energy in an unconfined space that we confine with our will. I don't see how you can say you discovered that, everything was discovered before it was limited, and just because you limit and then expand doesn't mean you're discovering." She shrugs, "Wouldn't it make more sense for the things you codify in your science books to be based on an actual coherent system. But ... whatever works, works? Right? You have no argument from me."

Arumi looks to Mikaela, raising her can and smiling, but then Bobbi decides to fire back again. Arumi is supping, and nearly chokes when Bobbi REPEATS the particle-wave duality of light, but manages to swallow. Coughing a little. "I don't know anything about third eyes. I just know that all my work is with light waves, and it works... largely according to my predictions. If there weren't fringes of science we didn't yet know, and couldn't predict, there'd be no room left for scientists." Cough cough. "I will agree though, that a coherent system makes sense. Which is my point exactly."

Mikaela rolls her eyes, "The imaginary third eye." She smirks, "That no one can admit that it's the Knowledge that we ascertain and gives us the understanding and power over reality. Instead, they want to believe in mystical foolishness rather than quantify it and /truly/ explain how it works. The 'psuedo-Science' is worse than some of the Star Trek episodes I've seen." She holds up her hands while looking at Arumi, "Ok, they're closer on point than ... mystical karma powers." She clears her throat. "Anyway, your 'coherent' system is much like the filing system in the Nexus' library. I swear, if I would be allowed, the Dewey Decimal System would be in full effect." She looks around for a moment, "Or at least, I'd be teaching the mice about the Dewey Decimal System."

"Where do you think light comes from?" Bobbi asks as she taps her forehead where a third eye would be. She looks to Mikaela, "You can't have power over Karma, man! It just is. That's where the Euthanatos get it wrong, treating Karma like a cosmic take-a-penny leave-a-penny that they have the duty of monitoring like a narc." She raises an eyebrow at Arumi, "but what if you're looking for a book in the reality where the Dewey Decimal System doesn't exist? It would be chaos! You wouldn't be able to find anything. Much better to organize things by stuff that probably won't change like the taste of the color of your first love's eyes." She shrugs, "but yeah, it doesn't matter how wrong people get it, it matters their intent and will and the path their soul has them working. That's why the Void Engineers, despite being so close, are so far away. Assholes, every last one of them. I'll take the phallacy of nuclear power over them anyway." She looks to Mikael and Arumi, "Now how about a hug? We can all agree that the unvierse is powered by love, right? Why not let our chakras connect for a moment so that we can celebrate are commonality? ... or I guess realease some oxytocin if you wanna be weird about it ..." she's trying.

Arumi is still breathing, gathering herself after coughing. "We're fine," she croaks, then taking another drink. "I was warned, before I moved, that I'd be hearing all sorts of things from our friendly allies. I just didn't expect wave particle duality to be one of those things."

Mikaela wrinkles her nose at Bobbi and her odd explanations. She then picks up a text book, making sure to keep it on her lap. She understands that lead shielding can protect against radiation. Perhaps textbooks and quantifiable studies can protect her from the ramblings of a crazy person. She shakes her head to Bobbi, "I'm fine. But thank you." She then looks to Arumi, and then back to Bobbi, "I'm sure if I consumed enough lysergic acid diethylamide, much of what you just said would make perfect sense." She then furrows her brow, "Or, I suppose, if it was tetrahydrocannabional, then I'd be looking for the nearest bag of potato chips."

Bobbi shrugs, "Suit yourself." She then looks to Mikaela, "Oh, no, don't smoke pot. That stuff is terrible for you." After a beat she adds, "but yeah, if you want to go out to the woods and take lsd in a tent with me, I promise you a life-changing experience."

Arumi giggles. "I'll stick to uh, stuff like this, and coffee, and keeping my self at peak mental performance. You can take what you want, doing whatever you want, but... I know what I'm going to do. As long as we all agree we're on the same side though, that's what matters."

Mikaela closes up her textbooks and her journal, "Actually, I should probably return to the lab. I might have a theory on preventing Pd-107 from decaying completely into Ag-107. If I can get that theory to work, then the arc reactor can exist on a single core and provide self-sustaining energies without any of the Palladium toxicities." She then winks, "And preventing Pd-107 from decaying into Ag-107 is indeed where the..." Her hands are full, but you can almost envision her using air quotes, " ... Magic happens." She smiles politely enough, in good spirits. "Enjoy the rest of your day."

Bobbi looks to Arumi, "don't forget adderall." She bops her head from side-to-side, "Yeah, ok, I guess I can appreciate some of the stuff your types can do. It's just ... kinda freaky and weird. But yeah, we're on the same side, you two are even more on my side than a lot of the others. Sisterhood comes first. Well ... maybe after whatever saying fuck you to the Nephandi and Technocrats is called, but ... I wouldn't want to smash the patiarchy with anyone else." She smiles warmly at Arumi and Mikaela. "Can we at least agree that both of are Traditions are sexist as fuck, and that /that/ is the wrong paradigm?"

Arumi nods to Mikaela. "Good luck with that, and let me know if you need any help." she grins. Sipping again. And then looking to Bobbi. "I'm not even getting into THAT though. There are some of us who have decided to give the.. Society a different name, but I'm not even getting into that." A giggle, and a sip.

Mikaela really did try to leave. She was even in good spirits. But then the sexist card is brought up. Fortunately, for Bobbi, it's Bobbi with an 'i' and not Bobby with a 'y' - indicating the feminine or masculine versions of the name. She turns to look at Bobbi with much disdain, "Apparently, the genitalia between a person's legs almost has much to do with the organ that's protected by their cranial skulls. They would sing praises of sildenafil citrate while working on their sexual constructs, so that they can bask in their discovery." She looks as if she could easily say more. She takes a cleansing breath, "Palladium isotopes. Half-life decay. Arc reactor." The words are perhaps a mantra or at least something to help her focus on what's important. She takes a moment, but then nods her head, "Like I said, I have a theory that needs testing." As she's walking out, she mutters under her breath, "Besides, some of them would need an electron microscope to find their genitalia."

Bobbi laughs, "Good luck. I have a feeling that in every reality, you succeed. You go girl!"