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John R. Lunise
2/8 near Recolle
On the subject of horses, allow me to ask you a question: When you were a child, what was the name of the bear family who taught valuable life lessons in easily digestible books?
Chances are, you answered 'the Berenstein Bears'. And, as it happens, that is incorrect; it is the Berenstain Bears.
How can everyone misremember this? How can something so patently true turn out to be terribly false? Some people will tell you it is the 'Mandela effect', named after a shockingly large number of people believed Nelson Mandela died in prison... but simple mass misremembering is a fairly boring answer, isn't it?
Consider instead a possibility physics allows us: that infinite universes exist, that every possibility spawns a diverging universe. Consider then that these different universes must be ruled by mathematics and science, that were were able to observe them, some concrete, tangible difference must exist to distinguish them.
Consider also that the laws of physics as we know them are, in some cases, simply and utterly inoperable. The quantum scale, for example. Or a naked singularity. It is, therefore, conceivable that through some quirk of physics, some awesome miracle... we have merged or shifted into a world in which horses never existed, and chocobos always did.
Impossible, you say, and perhaps rightly so... but I have no better explanation.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[There's a long moment as Alicia reads this that she's not entirely sure how to respond to it. It resonates, kind of, and it's really weird, but it isn't necessarily... wrong?]

Alicia Clover It would be impossible to say it's, well, impossible. There isn't enough information to disprove such a theory. Although I feel a little uncomfortable that we've experienced such a once-in-a-lifetime event to replace equines with massive birds. And why us? Why now? There are too many variables. That's... not a scientifically sound experiment.

John R. Lunise Unfortunately, you are correct; it is a plausible but nontestable hypothesis, which I offer only as a potential explanation.
John R. Lunise We lack another one, after all.

Alicia Clover I'm uncertain I want to have another - either it means we'd have another case of something fundamental about our world changing, or something even more unusual is going on.
Alicia Clover Both are unpleasant thoughts. Particularly when considering that, as with this change, another could happen without warning. We might not even know something had happened to start with!

John R. Lunise Consider this: these changes may be happening constantly, affecting such trivial things that we never know about them.
John R. Lunise Imagine that at this moment, we merge into a universe in which an ancient Roman soldier began a march with his left foot instead of his right.
John R. Lunise We would never, could not possibly, know the change happened.

Alicia Clover I feel like there's a word for that phenomena, but I don't remember it at the moment. Still, I understand what you mean.
Alicia Clover But it seems like another matter entirely when it's a huge change that ripples through space and time. All Papa's old westerns have chocobos on their covers, now.
Alicia Clover I think most of all, I fear the change coming to me, myself - to have something happen that fundamentally changes who I am. I happen to like who I am now, I don't want to change.

John R. Lunise The question is: if you changed, would you know?

Alicia Clover I suppose I don't know? We didn't all forget horses when they suddenly turned into chocobos, right? It's not us that changed, it's the world around us.
Alicia Clover But then if it's us changing... the rules are different. The previous assumptions no longer apply.
Alicia Clover So where does that leave us? You're right that we might not know if we'd changed, but would the people around us notice? Do the same rules apply?

John R. Lunise If at this moment, you transitioned into a universe in which, ten years ago, I set my left foot out of bed instead of my right foot to start the day -- how would you know?
John R. Lunise How often do you remember an event differently from a friend who was there, with you, at the time it happened?

Alicia Clover I see your point. I don't like the implications, but I definitely see the point. In short, I wouldn't know it were any different.
Alicia Clover Ugh, I think I have a headache. I don't think this is high school level... what branch of science is space-time transition covered by, even?

John R. Lunise Extremely esoteric physics. I deal in string theory and that just barely touches on it, while being closer than almost anything else.

Alicia Clover Lovely. We're not going to get homework on this, I hope? I have enough problems with modeling friction, let alone modeling transitions in subjective reality.

John R. Lunise It is slightly outside the scope of the syllabus.

Alicia Clover A small relief, I suppose. Though it would probably look odd to assign it to those that don't perceive the change.
Alicia Clover Is it unusual that this unsettles me? Even if it's not something I can control, even with everything you've said - and it makes sense, it does, but it...
Alicia Clover It scares me.

John R. Lunise Fear, especially in the face of the strange and the unknown, is natural and nothing to be ashamed of.
John R. Lunise Just so long as you do not allow it to rule you.

Alicia Clover I'm certainly going to try. I can't let something like this keep me down. I just need to think about how I'm going to handle myself and keep moving forward... probably.
Alicia Clover And I don't have my usual creative outlet to work with, either. It'd be nice to just set everything aside and deal with it later, but alas, it's not an option.

John R. Lunise Oh? What is the matter?

Alicia Clover Well, ordinarily I'm an actress. But Papa's new movie comes out next week, and we're not working on a project right now, so... I'm spinning my wheels a little bit.
Alicia Clover I mean, it's probably good for me to spend time around people and not be on set, but the distraction might be nice right about now.

John R. Lunise Why not gather some friends and film something just for fun?

Alicia Clover You know, that's not a bad idea. I hadn't thought of doing something like that.
Alicia Clover I'm going to have to scare up my cast first, though. I don't really have anyone I can call on quite that readily.

John R. Lunise We are on a social media network, are we not?

Alicia Clover I suppose that's not untrue... Honestly I've been off-balance the last couple days. Everything's just been so sudden.

John R. Lunise Take care of yourself. You have a great deal of things left to do in life; don't let a rough few days get you down.

Alicia Clover Mm. I can only hope it'll improve after this. This hasn't really been a good week, not with everything that's happened.

John R. Lunise The holiday was for the most part pleasant, I hope...

Alicia Clover Largely, yes. The ball of string that almost murdered me is another matter entirely, and the pageant could have stood to be better.