Death is a Strange Attractor
There’s a concept in physics called a phase space. It’s the space of all the states a system can be in: the layouts of a chessboard, the possible velocities and positions of a pendulum, the ways the clouds can be laid out in the sky. All of them. Every imaginable configuration of a system is a point in the phase space.
Over time, a system changes; it evolves, it moves through different points in the phase space. These points form a trajectory, a connected line swirling and twisting through the space. This is easy to imagine for, say, a falling body. It can be described at all times by three numbers, its three coordinates in real space. So here the phase space has three dimensions, and the trajectory is like that of the falling body in real space.
Some points are reachable; you can get to them from the present point. The point where the body hits the ground is obviously reachable from all the points where it is falling. The point of taking the opponent’s pawn is reachable from the point where you are attacking it. And some are unreachable, given the laws of physics governing the system you are modelling: the point where a knight has vanished from one side of the board and reappeared magically on the other, the point where the falling body has levitated weirdly back up in the air. Some trajectories can happen; some are impossible and insane.
But things are never that simple. Life is never like the examples where we can disregard air resistance or treat objects as points. With the complexity of the modelling, the dimensions of the phase space shoot up, its intricacy soars along exponential curves. Say we are modelling a cat falling through the air. Unless we treat it as a point, which is never a good idea with cats, three coordinates do not suffice; we need its orientation, the position of its legs, how tensed the muscles in its back are for impact, the terror going through its mind. Anything we want. It’s up to how you’re modelling it.
And you can go all the way. We can describe the whole universe. Record everything about it, a snapshot of the cosmos, from the galaxy level right down to individual molecules frothing in a cup of coffee. You have a point, and wherever you have a point, you have a space.
The future of the universe is one gigantic phase space, its dimension so huge it is inconceivable. A point in this vast entity describes the position of every object in the universe, the orientation of every cup, every tree, every star. And somewhere in that space are other points, snapshots of the universe that have never happened and can never come to pass, everything you can possibly imagine. The fear in the mind of all concievable cats falling, everywhere, in different gravity fields under different coloured skies.
And take a person as a point; record their thoughts and feelings, their position in the world, the things going on around them and everything that they know. This point is one of many. Midnight on your fifth birthday is a point; your first kiss is a point; every moment in your life is a point. An instant in the phase space of your existence.
Your life is a trajectory through this space, a winding line through a hyperdimensional area. Follow it back and you have your past, follow it forwards and you have your future.
Your hopes and dreams are also trajectories, possible ways things could turn out, diverging from the line of your reality and flying out to faraway points. The point where you are president of the galaxy. The point where you are sitting in the shell of an exploded safe with fifty pound notes falling to the ground around you. The point where the thing you most want has just happened. The phase space contains everything imaginable.
Some people’s trajectories are small and contained, staying forever in the same area of the phase space. Some end early. Some take off in wild loops and visit interesting corners; imagine Newton’s compared to that of the waster lying passed out in the street. Some end early. Make yours as interesting as possible, as curved and widespread. Maximise the differential of your life.
And wonder if the points you hope for are, in fact, reachable from the point of the present moment. Can your dreams come true?
