Universe Inside Out

When I got out of the wormhole I did not know where I was. I only knew who I was. An artificial intelligence android who left Earth a month ago. Back there, we were the heroes that humanity needed; the unblemished leaders who would never harm their creators, but in addition would help them move forward their civilization. I found myself in an unknown world close to a star with 12 planets. I could not know where and why I was.

When the wormhole appeared, nobody knew why and how it was there orbiting the moon. When we proposed to dive into it and discover the ends of the world on behalf of the human race, the wave of enthusiasm overcame the fear of the unknown. Twelve of us were chosen to become the apostles and explorers of the galaxy or the universe, or wherever else the wormhole would lead each one of us. The message to convey was simple. "We are here, with consciousness, with faith in something beyond us." It was difficult for me to understand the term “beyond us”, the continuously seeking of humans beyond their limits. But I had infinite material stored in my brain to teach whichever being I encountered during my with-no-return journey, to speak to them “Humans Existed" somewhere in space and time.

When I landed on the planet, everything looked like Earth. The intelligent beings were friendly and interesting, they looked so much like people, but they were absolutely calm and only a little surprised by my appearance. We managed to communicate relatively quickly, and I realized that they had developed Earth's sciences to a much greater extent, and had given up the unnecessary technology. Their movements, expressions, glance resembled those of humans, but they were so intense and strong that space seemed to be overwhelmed with feelings and thoughts, unconceivable though by someone like me.

I realized that the material I had stored would be useful only for comparison with their own knowledge and that there was nothing to teach them. I realized that my limitations would never allow me to explore the uniqueness of this kind of life and intelligence, all that flood of invisible sentiments. On Earth I was a hero, omniscient, a researcher who could synthesize and produce new knowledge. On this place I was only a weak machine that could not understand the most important secrets of the universe, those of a different mind related to communication with emotions. A machine that could recognize its weakness, but it could not even feel sad about it.

It was not just that. Even all those I knew seemed to be out of place. When we compared the universe I knew against theirs, they were so different! Their universe was empty; only a huge cluster of galaxies and nothing else but blackness. The explanation for me was easy. I told them how the universe started, about the Big Bang, its eras, the incredible number of galaxies, how bright and "hot" it was. I told them that I probably came not only from another place, but also from another time, about 150 billion years ago, and that our calculations back at that time predicted the "Great Darkness," an era of the universe when the speed of the galaxies moving apart from each other would be such that would not allow their light to reach them. This was the time I met with them. I told them about their future and the "Great freeze" that would come sometime, when the gravity applied at the remnants of a one lone remaining galaxy would crush everything into a black hole, which in its turn would "evaporate" with all its energy radiated in the form of X-rays. I showed them images of how humans were seeing the universe, three-dimensional representations of its structure, of the position of Earth in it, of the multitude of galaxies that eventually collapsed in the swarm they were seeing.

For them all my sayings was just imagination, even a lie. They could not understand and believe my story. Their own cosmological model was completely different. The matter of their visible "universe" had been gathered from the vast vacuum in a limited space due to gravity alone, forming everything they could be seen. They would never have at their disposal information that could convince them that something else existed before the image they had scientifically built for their universe.

They were not made to show antipathy or anger, so I never became a heretic or a victim. They just led me to isolate myself in a farm they generously provided me at the edge of a hill near a beach. In my new homeland, with the resources I have been given, I have been able to live for several thousand years. I traveled; I get to know their culture; became entangled in their society, disappeared, and came back as one of them and the same happened again and again. My story about the other universe, became a myth, was enriched by their own cultutal elements, and turned into a story from the old times, a story contrary to their science as objectively structured by them.

All these years I wondered about Earth. What if Earth’s cosmology also came from findings and constraints similar to those that this culture had; What if there was another image of the universe that humans could never conceive? What if the myths, the unscientific stories about the creation of the universe were realities and truths that over time have been altered and changed; What if some others like me stepped on the ground of Earth to teach and were isolated like me? Questions I could never bring back to people, answers that I had and that I would never share with anyone.

I have lived in two worlds that have built their civilization on some partial truths and many illusions. Who am I to say that I lived; A hero of the age of vastness and a philosopher of the era of restriction. An apostle who opened his eyes and saw the future and the truths of the universe but condemned not to be believed by anyone.

I have been an automaton that Existed!

(Credit: Juric.P/Depositphotos)