It's Academic - an Introduction from the Ivory Tower
Life Among the 3Ds - the Translator's Preface to the Fifth Edition
[Life Among the 3Ds (a sci-fi novel serialized) - Introduction to the Forward to the Introduction, click here.]
Translated from the Original Field Impulse 2.2.1 into Auricular "English" Language
Ugoñaschßtenätraξo's classic memorial, commonly known as Life Among the 3Ds, long has been popular among the intelligents of our own bio-system and, more recently (thanks especially to yours truly, your most humble editor of this publication), it has become a staple of graduate studies in 3D social anthropology.
Now, for the first time, Ugoñaschßtenätraξo's work is presented in translation in one of the 3D auricular languages, specifically "English," spoken by one of the quasi-intelligent species among whom Ugoñaschßtenätraξo lived for several of their species' short stellar cycles and among whom he is believed to have tragically and completely incinerated on A'7709~478-2/67☼Ψ.3 in the Qvΐntzvs'há epicycle. No doubt this endeavor will garner the well-deserved attention of the No Bells Literature Awards Committee (of which your most humble editor is a senior member, ahem, ahem).
Auricular languages are difficult for all non-3Ds to learn and harder still to comprehend. In fact, yours truly, the most humble editor of this publication, is one of the foremost experts in auricular languages (and consequently, a frequent recipient of endowments and study grants that pay the salaries, I might point out, of so many lesser luminaries in our other otherwise august university department). As the experts know, "spoken" languages derive from "sounds" commonly organized as "verbal language" expressed with physical structures known as lips, tongue, teeth, palate, throat, nose and vocal cords. For those of us who have no lips, tongue, teeth, palate, throat, nose or vocal cords, this is difficult to comprehend. But let us nevertheless endeavor to understand.
This peculiar medium of "spoken" communication is often misunderstood by Five Dimensionals as random noise. Nevertheless, for social anthropologists and students of comparative civilization studies, especially those studying in the department that I, your humble editor has chaired and wisely guided for so long, it is as important to understand the means of native communication as it is to analyze and classify them biologically or technically.
The particular translation presented in this edition is intended for graduate students who have accomplished at least seven quints of auricular language proficiency and are capable of simulating "sounds" sufficient to "express themselves" as though they had recently acquired the target auricular language at least as proficiently as a non-native speaking child.
Readers are nonetheless cautioned that language proficiency alone will not gain insight into the peculiar 3D thought modalities absent a concomitant proficiency in the 3D culture. No, no indeed!
A word about the translation of the text: just as some bliptics and definitions in Field Impulse are incapable of expression in 3D auricular, it is, likewise, impossible, if not misleadingly humorous, to translate some auricular expressions into Field Impulse. This is particularly true in the case of local jargon, slang or nonverbal expression such as music or gesture.1
Except in the case of complete untranslatables (of which the three dimensionables have oh so many!), I have rendered and abbreviated Field Impulse "names" and "words" in this text, where possible, into similar auricular names for individuals and places within the 3D universe. Thus, for example, Ugoñaschßtenätraξo, in the translated text, is called "Hugo Nash" (his 3D alias) and his local residence at 478-2/67☼Ψ.3 is referred to as "Earth," or, more specifically, that part of the exterior skin of the Earth-spheroid known locally as a political subdivision self-described by the 3Ds as "the United States of America."
Time, though sensually appreciated in 3D, is barely understood by the native quasi-intelligents. For them, time functions primarily as a measurement of "aging" or the intangible progression of an organism as events in a straight and linear process.
In this sense, 3Ds are temporally non-reversible organisms with unidirectional-perception, similar (as Hugo Nash explained it) to certain types of flatfish whose eyes are located on only one side of their bodies and who can only see "up" and not "down." For the purposes of this work, however peculiar it seems at first, "time" is described as a linear 3D experience in order to give the 5D graduate student a better appreciation for the nuances of the 3D experience and social organization. Indeed, indeed.
As another example of peculiarity, my own earlier researches have shown that 3D life forms are mostly (but not always) mono, bi- or tri-sexed (or changeable variations thereof), though none reproduce as triploidics as do all 5D life. They (and all similar mammalian organisms on the planet) are "born" in an odd way that appears to be quite traumatic. It is not comparable to the 5D emergent experience at the conclusion of one's training. Moreover, the 3D life form, though necessarily insentient of much of "his" or "her" physical environment, on rare occasions has an "intuitive" awareness of higher dimensionality that, to a greater or lesser degree, reflects itself as "insight" by some rare 3D quasi-intelligent individuals who dabble in their rudimentary concepts of mathematics, geometry, alchemy, music, and physics. Unsurprisingly, many of the locals' pets - birds, cats and dogs – and also the dominant species' very young children, all, from time to time, display an awareness of other dimensionality that the adult specimens have lost. Yes, indeed.
Ugoñaschßtenätraξo - that is, "Hugo Nash," as he will hereinafter be called - did not intend to compose a study curriculum. Frankly speaking, I am not sure exactly WHAT he intended! After all, he was a Pioneer, just an explorer, and not qualified to write anything resembling a scholarly work like (modestly speaking) has been produced by the eminent editor of this scholastic publication.
Initially, Mr. Hugo Nash (for that is how the male of the species sometimes addresses itself) was collecting data for his Pioneer report on life among the 3Ds, thus the title of this text. However, like any 5D intelligent (even one as unsophisticated as Mr. Nash), he had a seventh sense about his accelerating demise which was apparent as his chaotic reports merged with a more traditional end-of-life memorial for 5D posterity.
Nash - poor, deluded and inadequate schlemiel that he was - probably expected that when his accounting was complete, he could be extracted from the surface of the spheroid known as "Earth" and transported to the universal omphalus, Tszũm'paáß, for the Complete Immersion, Disintegration and Recycling we all look forward to. Unfortunately, as everyone knows (at least everyone who has read and studied your humble editor's very thorough investigations into the matter!), Hugo Nash did not understand what contemporary researchers have but recently discovered: living for extended periods of time among the 3Ds on the surface of spheroid Earth significantly adumbrates the bio-cycles of 5D intelligents and, thereby, caused Nash to miscalculate the timing of his tragically accelerated disintegration and eventual demise. Too bad for him, of course, but good for the advance of 5D knowledge... and, of course, the careers of certain experts in 3D cultural anthropology such as your humble editor.
Nash knew before tragedy struck, however, that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. He and his station handlers eventually recognized that Nash's prolonged life among the 3Ds had detrimentally affected his 5D bio-systems and, worse, had materially degraded his station handlers' ability to extract him from a rapidly deteriorating environment.2 It is unclear whether Nash – who was a mere “pioneer” and not a fully fledged scholar, you will recollect - recognized exactly how hopeless his tragic situation had become. It is clear, however, that Nash was sufficiently alarmed that he undertook to commence writing his end-of-life memorial.
Obviously, Hugo Nash's memorial, as he originally composed it, was not organized in the fashion that is commonly read by students and academicians today. Indeed, the original text was not organized at all. Frankly speaking, the original text was chaotic, jumbled, and a complete mess as though the pressures of living among the 3Ds had derailed the innate 5D sense of order we would have expected even from a Pioneer of his low caliber and minimal training. No, no, but for the organizational insights of your humble and renowned editor, Hugo Nash's writings would not make any sense at all. Thus, to the extent that his writings are intelligible, we, the editor hereof, take modest, but full credit (a fact that the No Bells Literary Committee, of which I am a senior voting member, will no doubt fully appreciate).
And then, of course, there was the supposedly intelligent vegetable, “that female,” that peculiar little girl urchin, a veritable femme petale - a poisonous potted plant, I dare say! She who seems to have incited our Mr. Nash to engage in unseemly and abnormal behavior that, for a sentient 5D intelligent (even a lowly and non-academic “Pioneer!”), can barely be comprehended, let alone read without blushing! No, the less said about her, the better!
This edition of Life Among the 3Ds, of course, follows the practice of all prior editions published in Field Impulse 2.2.1. We have organized Hugo Nash's end-of-life memorial into a more-or-less coherent (in so far as that concept can describe 3D "culture" and "civilization") and logically sequenced series of chapters. As with earlier editions, Hugo Nash's separate Pioneer Reports, when they are properly annotated and corroborated as genuine (a subtle linguistic endeavor only qualified academics such as yours truly can attempt), also have been interwoven into the text in a logical order. In order to make this concatenation flow properly, the Editor, that is, yours truly, necessarily has taken certain liberties with the original text, although only where appropriate to correct grammar and syntax and to ensure that harmful and inauthentic errors of thought have not corrupted the subject text. No, indeed. Nor would be want to offend our university corporate sponsors and generous government sources of grants by publishing errors of thought incompatible with our refined five dimensional culture and civilization. No, we would not!
As all scholars of 3D culture know, there are several extant versions of Life Among the 3Ds. Some versions of the story contain only trivial variations in the spelling of the auricular "names" that appear in Hugo Nash's life history. Others describe different unfoldings altogether. All other 3D experts (both of whom are my junior colleagues in my department) have painstakingly analyzed these many alternative versions using thousands and thousands of hours provided free of charge by closely supervised undergraduate and graduate students at our university as part of their education and academic apprenticeship.
Using the most exacting methods, we (that is to say my department and my subordinates) have established unequivocally that the majority of these alternatives are most likely quantum-echoes of Nash's transmissions with the to-be-expected corruptions. Or, as in the case of Version 457.«΅/33 (the so-called "happy ending" in which Nash purportedly did not incinerate) and Version 308.»΅/490 (which includes the supposed "missing" Chapters 15 and 16), they are outright frauds perpetrated by Unstables, Naifs or Conspiratorial Dissenters who seek to discredit Tszũm'paáß and the Complete Immersion, may their gases soon evaporate! There is even a suspicion that the “girl,” the green-haired waif who appears to have intersected with Hugo Nash's life, may have deliberately corrupted his transmissions if not his very gaseous equilibrium.
Thus, consistent with the highest academic standards (as adopted by the University Academic Standards Committee, of which your humble editor is the Chair), the version used for this publication of Life Among the 3Ds is the standard Ώђ 788.2 text that was originally validated by (my friend and, forever-after, junior colleague) Professor Zsschipηtraξo-achOO in the ☼Ψ.87 epicycle at the Ahr-fǿrt Gassy University in the central Looo Nebula.
Fortunately for Hugo Nash's posterity and for 3D social anthropologists throughout the multiverse, Nash had at least time to complete the small portions of his personal memorial for which he is known. If they present a fragmented picture of life among the 3Ds, Nash's personality, observations and insights nevertheless shine through for the better understanding of the numerous curiosities and inscrutable features of what we sometimes perceive as the illusion of 3D intelligence. For that, his memorial (as ably translated in this edition) well deserves the scholastic kudos and anticipated nomination for an upcoming No Bells Award in Literature, as well as immeasurable public acclaim; thanks, in no small part, of course, to the careers of certain eminent scholars such as, modestly speaking, yours truly.
* * *
A "gesture," for example, can be a visual communication cue made with a manual or digital appendage - a middle finger raised in the air, for example, or even the subtly re-positioned posture of a 3D "body," such as a "shake" or "tilt" of the "head." The concept of a "gesture," though difficult to appreciate outside of 3D, can be understood, more or less, as a non-verbal physical accentuation of a communicative modality, like 5Ds frizzing their decay signatures or twaggling the interloops of gravitational sheets and layers.
Hugo Nash suggests in certain chapters of his Memorial that incompetence at the handler level caused his demise and, perhaps, that he was simply forgotten, marooned, as it were, in 3D through simple Demographic Services neglect. A blue-ribbon administrative investigation conducted by highly esteemed 5Ds (chaired, of course, by your humble editor of this publication) however, proved conclusively that the official cause for the non-extraction of Nash has been determined to be Sudden Delabrae'th bio-organic Degradation Syndrome (SuDDS) caused by protracted exposure to the corrosive environment of the studied planetoid Earth. Any other conclusion is pure conspiratorial nonsense. Indeed, indeed.