Travels with Duncan

Book 1 – Duncan in the Forest

Chapter 4. On space, scale and relativity

Our duo is chased by bipeds but they escape over the hills. They meet an eagle, who tells
them about seeing the world from great heights and close to the clouds.

Once again trotting through the forest with Pico perched up on his neck just behind and between
his floppy ears, Duncan came across a trail that seemed to go through the wild woods in the
general direction they were traveling in. Despite the risks, he decided to take it, as it would be
much easier for them than tackling the underbrush and meandering here and there.

The going was easy indeed, but soon he picked up something in his nostrils that made him pause.
Was that the smell of the bipeds or something else? Before he could even decide what to do
though, two bipeds emerged from where the trail turned around a bend in the hill. As soon as they
spotted each other, Duncan turned on his heels and fled. But the bipeds took up the chase, yelling
as they gave pursuit.

With Pico holding on for dear life, Duncan scrambled through the forest, not as fast as he would
like, but still ahead of their pursuers. He had to be careful that Pico did not fall off as he jumped
over branches and scrambled under others. It did not matter where they were going, they just
needed to get away.

Some distance over the hill and down into the next valley, Duncan paused to get his breath. He
knew he needed to rest a second, but also that they needed to keep going right afterwards. Did
the bipeds want to eat them? Why were they so determined to catch them? It had been said that
bipeds had strange behaviors, that they sometimes just killed animals and lay them on the ground
while chanting to the moon. It made no sense whatever, but then, they were a strange lot, weren’t
they?

Duncan and Pico kept on going at a quick pace and after some good time, they figured that their
pursuers must have given up. They started to take things easier.

They soon came upon a long dead tree still standing - it must have been struck by lightning from
the looks of it. On its topmost branch, a white-headed eagle studied the surrounding area and kept
them in his watchful eyes. Pico of course had the fright of his life and snuggled ever more deeply
into Duncan’s silky fur. Eagles were sworn enemies to his kind.

This one, however, was peaceful. He had seen Pico of course. But he reassured them that he had
just eaten his daily lunch and was not hungry at this moment. Duncan asked him about the
mountains, as the eagle knew the land well.

- I see the land everyday from way up there in the sky. At times, I see the mountains on one side
and far off in the yonder, the great plains of the savanna. Of course, I can go heavenly high in the
warm streams of air as they form in late afternoon. Quite a view it is from up there.

Duncan could only vaguely imagine what it must be like, having never before been far away from
the savanna in its great flatness and of course, never having even been up a tree. Pico had once
gotten halfway up a tree before getting queasy, and he remembered the view well. Quite
extraordinary it was, unlike anything he was used to at ground level. He just couldn’t fathom what
the eagle must see from way up there in the clouds. It must be exhilarating.

Soon, they were off again, this time at a comfortable yet quick pace through the woods. There
was no sign of pursuit of any kind, but they both realized they needed to put some distance
between themselves and their pursuers.

They traveled up and down hills and valleys, only stopping briefly now and again for a drink of
water from a brook or a short rest in a clearing atop a hill. The views were at times spectacular
and Duncan thought that it would be good to return to these areas some time later on. For now,
though, they just had to move ahead, in one single direction - away from the danger.

By dusk, they had come to an open clearing in the forest and just naturally settled down in a
corner of it for the night, tucked away in the briars along its edge, out of sight and in any case,
Duncan thought, out of range.

The next morning awoke with them stretched out at length enjoying the rich warmth of the early
sunshine through the clearing.

- You know, Duncan, it’s amazing the distance we covered yesterday. I don’t think I have ever
been as far in all my life.
- Why, that was nothing, Pico. When I was a youngster, I once traveled until the moon was full
twice. And in any case, who knows where this trip will take us. We might be many moons from
here yet.
- With your big legs, you travel faster than I can and end up further.
- Yes, isn’t it strange how size affects it. You know, Pico, there are three important dimensions
that situate us in our world. Oh, there are very many dimensions that affect how we view the
world, but three of them stand out in everyday affairs: time, space, and scale. We talked about
time just the other day, about it being part of our fabric of being, so to speak - our inability to be
outside of time, actually outside of right now.
- Well,’ said Pico, ‘space is just like it. To be is to be in space, in some space, right?
- Yes, and it is similar to time in many ways. We often think of space as having three dimensions
itself, of situating something within it by providing three coordinates. But those are unimportant.
Space as a dimension is like time in that we always point forward. We never go back.
- Hey, that can’t be right! I can ramble over there to the stream and come on back right here
where I am now.
- Ah, but in doing that, aren’t you traveling over there, uni-directionally, then turning around and
traveling back, again uni-directionally. There is only one direction you travel in, whatever it is.
- Yes, that’s true. So, let’s see here. The usual space coordinates describe a static space within
which I operate, but my own personal directional space is always pointed forward, always
unidirectional. A global space and a personal space, two different conceptions of space, right?
- Yes, Pico, just like time, too. Our private time is always just a single experience of present time.
But we frame that within a global time with three dimensions: past, present, and future. Time and
space are also alike in that they are both imponderable at the edges...
- Yikes, imponderable!...
- You know what I mean, they are infinite, just spilling off into nowhere... and we just can’t
understand that, now can we? The notion of infinity is totally befuddling! Just beyond our meager
means of comprehension.
- Yep, you’re right. I always thought that notion was accepted too glibly. Makes you wonder how
such notions come about, doesn’t it?
- Ah, that is a whole other story... let me tell you about scale, the third dimension we live in.
Remember earlier, you were saying how far we had traveled and I was saying the opposite, that it
really wasn’t that far at all. The reason is our difference in scale - what is large for you, you small
little thing!, is small for me...
- You big bully, you...
- Now, now... I’m just talking about how things are. Now imagine this: if I were a giant, say a
hundred times bigger than I am, or a thousand times bigger, the ground we covered yesterday
would be nothing at all to me. It would be just like taking a single step away from where we were.
- And if I were a hundred times smaller, the size of an ant, why... we would have covered an
immensity of land! Yep, I see how scale is important, but how do we fit into it?
- Ah, that is a tricky one. Scale is generally an unrecognized dimension, the poor stepchild within
the trio. Time and space get all the attention. That is because we flow in time and space, we seem
to move around them - even if that is illusion, in a way: we are just here and now; it is time and
space that move around us.
- Oh yes?
- At any rate, we perceive a flow. But with scale, there is no flow. We do not change to a new
scale, we do not get bigger or smaller. We are stuck at the scale we are at - I’m big and you are
small, that’s that!
- Yes, I will always be small.
- Because of this scale stability, we have not developed a vocabulary to speak about it
comfortably, so we have no equivalents to now and then, or to here and there... It remains yet
little explored as a conceptual frontier.
- So what’s the big deal, Duncan? Isn’t it much ado about nothing?
- Maybe, my little furry friend. But consider. Just like time and space, scale reaches into infinity -
in both directions. And it has a private and a global perspective - we are in our own scale, always,
even if inattentive to it; and we can appreciate the differences in scale, just as we did with our
respective views of how far we traveled yesterday, right?
- Yes, for sure. I guess it shows how blinkered we are, how we see things from our own
perspective only. Since we can’t move up and down in scale, we have trouble getting out of our
own perspective, of seeing the world within another scale. Just image the view of the world that a
great big giant has - very different from yours and mine, right?
- Oh yes, it would be indeed. That is precisely the point about scale - it brings out the relativity of
our perceptions, and hence of our conceptions of the world.
- And of us in it too!
- Uh huh... us too - we are just as much part of the world as anything else, after all.
- Ok, so where does this lead to?
- Well, let’s see. These three core dimensions situate us, each of us, in the world, turning it into
‘our’ world.
- Yes, we each have our own perspective on things. You will think one thing and I another - but
that is all quite natural, isn’t it?
- Sure. We all think that our opinions give us a personal perspective on things, which they do, of
course. But we are well beyond opinions here. We are talking about the very process of
perception, about conception, about how we situate ourselves in the world and hence also how
we respond to it. We are talking about the core act of experiencing, Pico. About being!
- Hmm... yes, well...
- Hold on, we can go further... We sentient beings experience the world in that certain way, each
our own version of it, of course. Now, what about non-sentient beings?
- Eh?
- Well, how about that tree over there? It is a living creature. It is situated in the world, right?
Along the three dimensions we discussed earlier. It has a here and now, and its own given scale.
So how does it experience its world?
- Oy, this is getting out of hand, my big fellow. The tree has no perception of the world!
- Not one like ours, but it does react to the world. If you tear off a branch, it forms a scar over the
area, doesn’t it?
- Well yes, but that is very different...
- Precisely! You and I react differently to the world than that tree does - after all, we are sentient,
aren’t we? We react in a sentient way, a very much more complex way, but still in a way that is
relative to what we are and how we are situated in the world. Now, what about that big stone just
behind you? How is it situated in the world? What is its relative position to this world?
- Oh, now Duncan, me boy, you have really gone overboard!
- Yes, I guess this is going a little far. But we must ask what it is to be. Everything exists within
these three dimensions of time, space and scale. And these dimensions are what give everything,
each thing, its particularities of being, its essence.
- But these are relative... Do you realize what we are saying here? That essences are relative!
Yikes!
- Yes, I guess so. Let’s give that some more thought as we push along. Hop on up. Let’s go find
something to eat - I’m getting hungry.
- Yeah, I could use some nice little grains to nibble on.
- Ha, that’s not food. Give me a good chunk of meat!
- Relativity, my dear boy!...