Plus Twenty
“…Some modern physical speculations… regard space and time as being abstractions which apply to our size level, but which become utterly meaningless out past the thirtieth decimal place…”
Rudy Rucker in Infinity and the Mind, p. 31
Don’t you think, Rudy,
we’d better ask whoever inhabits
the thirty-first decimal dimension
whether he or she is an abstraction
and utterly meaningless? Rudy,
did you know that you inhabit
the thirty-first decimal dimension
to a being far enough out there
in that abstraction which is space?
And don’t give me someone’s rejoinder
about the utmost boundaries of space
or how meaningless infinite numbers are.
to the Kalahari bushman
all our numbers were meaningless
except the first twenty
counted on toes and fingers
and that twenty’s mighty hard
to think about—as close to infinity
as it is—the Omega number
of the bushman’s vision.
But the difference between
his twenty and your thirtieth decimal place
is just the difference between
your lining up laser beams
and his good hot chase after
lizards in the desert.
And that difference is less important
than anyone thinks, Rudy.