For Further Consideration
The question arises as to whether or not Your A can be aggregated with the A of other Yous in such a way as to satisfy the concentration-demands of fullthings.
I.e. Suppose there are 4 Yous. With 175 A-units per You, the aggregate number of A-units is 700, which is exactly as many A-units as it takes to concentrate on 7 fullthings.
So, if A can be aggregated, then 4 Yous should be able to concentrate on 7 fullthings at once= 4 Yous should be able to perform the tasks of 7 normal people within the same amount of time and space as it would take 4 normal people to perform 4 tasks. In concentrating on 7 fullthings, then — if 4 Yous can in fact aggregate their A to do so—4 Yous would not become hyper; the kind of A-unit slippage that leads to the thievery cycle that occurs when 1 You attempts concentration on 2 fullthings would never begin, for there would be no remainder of A-units in the case of 4 Yous and 7 fullthings.
And just because 4 Yous who are concentrated on 7 fullthings would almost definitely look very H to an outsider, that does not make it so. Looking H to the eyes of outsiders may, in fact, be to the advantage of 4 Yous.
E.g. If 4 Yous were soldiers, the 4 Yous could conceivably prepare for and maybe even launch a war’s decisive battle right in front of their enemy without their enemy knowing it = The appearance of the 4 Yous’ H-ness could provide a kind of cover similar to that of David ben-Jesse’s youth or the Yiddish accent of that Palmach operative’s telephone voice when he gave fair warning to the British. For what did Goliath see from across the battlefield? He didn’t see a killer taking aim with a deadly weapon. He saw a boy inexplicably swinging a leather strap over his head. A moment later, Goliath was gone. And what did the British colonists hear when the operative phoned in the Palmach’s warning to vacate the King David Hotel? They didn’t hear the voice of a stealth guerilla group that was about to explode British headquarters. They heard a nut with a Yiddish accent making a prank call. A couple hours later, there was one less place for the Brits to sleep, and quite a few less Brits.
The capacity to aggregate A would be a very useful capacity. Whether or not such a capacity exists, and how one (or 4 or 8 or 12 or 40) might engage it if it does exist, is surely worth further consideration.
10 ARTFUL
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Interim — Intramural Bus
The tale of Avraham’s tenth test is not about faith, no matter how bad any Israelite or Danish scholar wants it to be. If you’re enough a wiseman to patriarch all Israelites, and you know you’re being spoken to by Adonai — the same Adonai Who made your disobedient in-law a salt-pillar, your barren wife fertile at the age of eighty-nine — you do what He says because you know that if you don’t, He’ll do it Himself, then punish you and the world for your disobedience.
The tale of the tenth test is a testament to Adonai’s mastery of language.
To Avraham, He said, “Please take your son, your only one, whom you love — Isaac — and go to the land of Moriah; bring him up there as an offering upon one of the mountains which I shall tell you” which ≠ “Sacrifice Isaac on the mountain,” even though it seemed to, to Avraham.
And it would have seemed that way to me if I was Avraham, instead of Gurion reading about Avraham. If I was Avraham instead of Gurion, I would not have suspected God of artfulness. I would not have suspected Him of having built a sentence around loopholes. And I would have done exactly as I was told — exactly as I thought I was told. I would have brought my son up the mountain, prepared to kill him. I would have thought: “Better by my hand than an angel’s, for Isaac is my son, not Theirs, and I will kill him better than would They.”
But despite my sympathies with Avraham, it would be chomsky to insist that Adonai ever explicitly told him to sacrifice Isaac. He only told him that he should bring Isaac up the mountain “as an offering,” which is a very slippery phrase, since it could mean at least a couple of things that ≠ “Sacrifice Isaac on the mountain” (e.g., “bring Isaac as you would bring an offering” or “place him on a mountain as you would place an offering”), so although Adonai didn’t lie to Avraham, or even reneg, He did mislead Avraham, and He knew He was misleading Avraham, and that has always seemed shady to me. Avraham loved Adonai, and Adonai Avraham. And both of them knew of the other’s love, but only one of them acted like he did.
To hide my anxiousness from June, then, was not to lie to June, and to show up second to detention was not to reneg on her, yet to do these things was shady. Whether she would consider my level of anxiousness or even notice I’d arrived second was beside the point — I hoped she would notice and consider (I knew that I would), and I knew she’d be misled if she noticed and considered, but I would show up second anyway. It is true I had a justification: I’d told my friend I’d wait for him. It is true the explicit trumps the implicit and that the spoken is a contract, the unspoken at best an understanding, and June and I hadn’t spoken about the exact time at which we’d meet (I’d asked her in Main Hall the day before, leaning back on the lockers, sitting beside her, But how will I see you tomorrow? at which point Miss Gleem said we both had detention, and June answered, “That’s how”), so the most we had was an understanding. But it is also true that I’d arranged my justification (or at the very least allowed for the arrangement of my justification by Nakamook) with no less lawyerliness than Adonai had placed His “as” in that shady commandment.
By the time Benji returned to the Office with Vincie and Leevon, I’d spent an hour hoping to be undermined. If only June could arrive second, I thought, despite my artfulness…
But that’s not what happened.
We arrived at the southern doorway of the lunchroom thirteen minutes before detention started, and June was already inside, at the northern end — Benji’d rushed the last few steps ahead of us and checked.
He told me, “She’s waiting for you. I’ll shut this door and guard it. When the monitor comes up Main Hall, I’ll give you a warning. Get to the other doorway,” he said to Leevon and Vincie, “and if you let anyone in, or start spying on our boy, I’ll pull your guts out through your mouths and feed them to Botha with a shovel. I’ll cut your arms off and roll you down a hill like logs.”
Vincie and Leevon went to the northern doorway. The northern doorway was doorless. They stretched their arms like tortured Yeshuas across the space between its sidewalls.
“Don’t look so worried,” Nakamook told me. “It’s fine you’re jumpy. It’s a serious thing to be in love with a girl, but worrying is stupid. If she loves you back, it’s because she can’t help it, and if she doesn’t love you back, then you can’t help it. All you’re about to do is find something out. You have no control over this. It’s not a fight and it’s not an argument. Don’t strategize. And forget what I said about anything having to do with girls and how to kiss them. It was just talk. I was just talking to talk because it’s fun to talk. Especially about girls. You look like you’re about to cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry and don’t strategize. This is exciting. That’s why you’re jumpy. No one knows how to first-kiss anyone, Gurion. That’s why it’s so good. That’s why you’re so nervous. It’s probably why you look like you’re gonna cry.”