Decisions About the Continuum Hypothesis
Short Story
1
In a country that does not exist, in so many spellings even the same sign uses two different ones. Oh, how I wish to see my homeland city - even though it is dying – as it was.臺北, 台北, Taibei or Taipei?
Where are you going to? Is it East to riches, or West to opportunities? And which direction should I take? I must decide after the plane lands. Gripping my purse, and searching for the face, which I have only seen in pictures taken by phone.
The moment of decision is upon me, both enraptured and derided in the same breath because I have dreamed of this moment so many times - and each time it comes out differently. Sometimes I have swept away, in his powerful arms - and sometimes my face scowls as the words of Chinese come stumbling out his mouth, and wind up on the floor - a pile of nouns and verbs with contorted pronunciations from a class forgot which he took to master the intricacies of my native tongue.
My mind wanders to the night markets, and to the various small restaurants, which if he is good he will take my hand and I will show him a taste of the land of my birth.
Then, when he does return to his native land, I shall wait for a plane from the other direction, with another man who is quite different, and also unique in his way. From the mainland of place where the invaders call home, and which my little island still claims to be the capital of, even though everyone knows that, in their spine - if not always their mouths - is not the case.
Decisions decisions, and soon I will have all of the information that I will be allotted to in my lifespan. East or West? It is almost time to decide. And the outcome is in my own hands.
But I must remember to not tell them exactly where I live, there are too many variables - and some of them are evil. Tread carefully, Ms. Winnie Tsai. Tread carefully, Ms. Winnie Tsai.
Now, they are spilling out – a disgorgement of faces. Some know who they are looking for, and some are seeking a new face, one that will have the look of hope. I am searching for one who looks like that. A bright face, and eager face, one which has possibilities in the twilight sky in the broad hallways of Taipei International Airport. During the rush of passengers, habit makes me touch up my rouge in preparation for the meeting which could be the turning point of my short fragile existence. Everything has to the perfect or at least seen to be so, under fluorescent lights.
She stood up – and waited. And waited. Through all of the passengers departing. Each one she checked her the signs of filtering from West to East. This was not a trip designed for this - the flight itself was actually from Narita - in Japan. The center of the transition from one to the next. Several times she inspected her trousers and flecked tiny threads which were coming to be unraveled because the pants were not new. She hoped he would not recognize that they were last year's fashion. There were many things from the shoes to her blouse which suggested she was not altogether what she said she was.
Then, when all of the passengers were disgorged, and none had stopped in front of her - she sat down and tried to cry. But it was no good - as yet she did not have sufficient emotions to invest much effort into him. But is where about's disturbed her. Instead, she plopped herself down on a petite wiry chair and began to think of her next move. Perhaps he was not coming at all - this would not be the 1st time that some man had decided that she was not worth the effort. Reflexively she popped out a mirror and examined her face - it was pretty but not beautiful, serene but not truly composed.
An hour passed, then two, and just as she stood up and decided whether the taxi or the bus would be the best - her phone rang. She answered it of course - and a voice that she knew as his reached out for her and began a conversation:
“Hello? This is my phone while in Taiwan. Where are you?” It was in English, he did not even pretend that he had sufficient Chinese to muffle along. Bad sign.
“How are you? Where are you? I am waiting for you at the airport, it was to be a surprise. Where are you?”
“My company sent a limousine, I did not check for anyone waiting for me other than that. Right now I am standing next to the window of the hotel, across from the train station.” also about the sign - many men would have checked.
“How did you get past the customs security point?”
“There are two customs signs: the common one, which I think you are waiting for me - and the express which is meant for people who have no luggage and already have a shuttle waiting. Which of course I fit.” there was a long pause, it was clear he knew the airport better than I did - “I am glad that you thought that I might need assistance, thank you. So what do we do now?”
“It would take me two hours to reach you. We could visit the night markets, and go from there.”
“Sounds like you know Taiwan intimately. So I will be waiting at the Hilton - and leave down at the concierge department that someone will be coming up.”
“Could you wait down for me? Otherwise, they will think,” - at this point, she giggled and then steadied her voice - “that I am a little prostitute. And I would prefer not to be thought that way.” She said this in a sing-song pattern, much as the poetry of the Song Dynasty would have done.
“Of course, I will wait downstairs.”
2
Long is the pause that brings you from here to there, from Pittsburg to Taipei – though he thought of the metropolis as Taibei, though not a synecdoche for the region of ROC. Republic Of China – a small division against the mainland, but as well a little boy trying to walk in the footsteps of its CommuCapitalist larger cousin. Normally, it was hard to decide if it was CommunoCapitalist or CapitaCommunist (only television personalities pretended that it was communism, full stop) but the grand pooh-bah leader of the North declared precisely that it was capital-communism, from deep inside its spine. Get with the program.
Truly, that is why he was here, to manage the flow of owners of capital, and owners of work that populated the trade between ROC and PRC. That “O” to an “R” made millions of hectares of difference. It was the smell, between submission and victory. Between money accepted in a few places, and cards accepted almost everywhere. 4 little letters.
Once upon a time, the two lands were joined, but there was little doubt that Taipei 101, with its soothing shimmer of the spectrum, would be built here. In the morning he would be ensconced in one of the cubiclevilles whose web the spire was made out of, setting output for a few widgets, wodgets, or boffs from the great machine factory which was the Mainland. But that would be tomorrow.
Urmstemeanwhile, the limousine had emerged from the frenetic highway system to the more conventional grid. And looming above all the rest was the highest, tallest, greenest building in Taiwan. And the limousine went from freeway to floating on the mass of limited access, ( where the cars moved at 100 kph and bumper to bumper) to the train trails that form a square. And finally to the signs that announce you were there – whoever “you” were, and whether “you” were singular or plural. Mandarin has this distinction. Mandarin is roughly “Ni” versus “Ni-men”. French has this distinction. Even English, up until it is early modern forms, (both the King James Edition and Shakespeare used it) but in Standard Written English, it was deemed a waste of good letterage, though it repeatedly attempted to be revived, especially in the southern dialects, both white and black: “you all”, and “y'all” - and finally, “y'all y'all”.
Crisp and clean he greeted for the limousine to be opened, and then inspected his luggage as a bellboy rolled out his stuff. Then he was on his way to check in, knowing that there would be a line (whether in miles or kilometers made no difference). He decided at this point to call the girl who had been waiting to hear from him.
After that conversation was through, he knew that he had little time to prepare, because the clothes that he had traveled in were distinctly grungy and would not do. The check-in was mercifully short, and he was off on his way to his room.
There he laid out his best Suitsupply (not the cheapest - but inexpensive, not the most bland - but not ostentatious) from his nylon travel bags, without most of the trimmings which expensive consultants would have made an expression of their wealth, not because he did not like the flourishes and flares, because it would be too much of a show about him (which he never liked). Quickly into the shower, using their own shampoo and assorted supplies, he was organized and efficient. He had just enough time to brush himself down with a towel and began to dress himself in Tommy Hilfiger underwear before going on to a Brooks Brothers shirt and the aforementioned suit. He wanted to impress just a little, but not too much. This was because of where he met the girl - it was on Facebook, and that meant that she was not the most refined specimen in the world. Then as an afterthought, he grabbed a book to read.
He made tracks for the concierge, to meet the girl which he had arranged from across the world. He did not know what to expect - one never could width a foreign girl.
When downstairs he perused the assembled vagabonds and other assorted personages, but he did not see the girl he was looking for. Which was not extraordinarily unusual - told him that it was highly likely that she did not own a car, whatever protestations she might make. Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw a person that he was looking for, coming in the side entrance from the outside. Again, it confirmed that she did not have an automobile, because the entrance from the parking lot was in the other direction.
How should his meeting strategy unfold? Would it be a chance encounter, with actually nothing left to chance? Or should he be abrupt and meet her with a question? (Which he would now concoct) or some other gambit to take the edge off of the ever-sensitive rolling of the dice?
Quickly, quickly, there was little time to make a decision and then to execute perfectly the implications. He hustled down, came up and her, and tapped her on the shoulder. It seemed like the best thing to do. But he was not exactly sure of this. Chance had its say.
Bloom had opened its petals, and she turned around, too much makeup for his taste. It was clear that she was younger than her photograph suggested, and was trying to look much older than she was. Attire counted for a great deal, and hers suggested that she was doing the best she could, but there was no getting around the fact she was distinctly downscale. Pants that had been handed down from someone else, a blouse that was much too explicit for someone trying to make a good impression, though hardly all that revealing. And the makeup again pointed itself to being too much of too much.
Urtext was: it was not a good first impression, and one only gets one opportunity to do that.
“Are you Winnie?”
“Yes?”
“I am Robert, please to make your acquaintance.”
Then bowed over and kissed her hand.
She blushed.
And then Robert said: “I thought I was waiting on the phantom of Godot.”
“Godot? I do not understand.”
“The play which everyone knows the title of, but very few people have read.”
“Is it important?”
“Mostly for people who like to show off. Though GB Trudeau, among many others, made a parody of it.”
“Have you read it?”
Inside the suit, he showed a worn paperback of the plays of Samuel Beckett. “It is a play in here. It is original in French: En attendant Godot.”
“So you reread it.” With an air of balmy confidence.
“Re-rereading it.” She looks at him quizzically. “The two main characters wait for Godot, twice.” At this point, her face settled down to the quiesce.
They went upstairs, but nothing happened – she was too dull, especially when she found the very rough draft of his economics paper that he was going to deliver to a private group that paid for such things.
But they met again tomorrow, and she was more excited during the time at a dumpling shop, and more particularly so it has they wandered the night markets – heat above heat, for in Taibei it is still comfortably above 30°C - until daybreak when they shopped for flowers. The flowers were always put out for the major customers - hotels and the like. She bought a group of pale pink hyacinths, which she grabbed around her countenance and smiled at him as if she wanted to have him by then. With that, he took out NTD purchased them, and gave them to her with a wink in his eyes.
3
The problem with trade is one sad fact of de-admission: when does trade move from legal to illegal? Legal trade must have no trade problems, including – most specifically - no tariffs, while illegal trade should be quashed. But unfortunately, trade does not work on a binary system, and there is math to prove it.
We should all be aware of Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem, and in a perfect world our children could recite the proof from memory - it is not that hard. Unfortunately, things such as the nature of proof, have an inconvenient way of standing in practical miswisdom. We should all know about the problems with God, but I am concerned about Gödel's dalliance with the world will economics, which also assumes things that it knows to be untrue because they will not admit the seminal basis of their discipline relies on the map that flows from his theory, but they do not embrace the entire nature of his theory.
Economics assumes a 2-D view of interest rates, even though Gödel preaches against such a view. And economics is based intimately on the results of Gödel. But it is not a 3-D view of the world, any more than a painting is a 3-D – it is a fractal, with a Feigenbaum constant as its parameter. The problem with any Feigenbaum constant is that at a certain point in time, a rough approximation becomes exact. At a certain point, everyone knows – at least who is watching the Fed.
The problem can be stated simply: there is no way – in a manner akin to the Arrow Uncertainty Principle – to both have any uncertainty and have everyone know. There is no way to have everything good to be legal, and everything bad to be illegal – because it is only statistically bad. Similarly – we cannot have a yield curve that is always right. And sometimes, statistically, it will be very very wrong, as was in 2007. this is always the case, it cannot be ignored because Gödel says that when we have a perfect system there will always be a variable that is either both true and false or will be the opposite of what we think it is. This means that, especially in economics, there is not just true and false, but true, false, and indeterminate.
Talking is the 1st problem: this is a problem of economics, not diplomacy. The 2nd problem is that there are numerous boards that set economic interest rates, and they do not talk to each other when setting. The 3rd problem is that economic interest rates are only part of the story: there is also national interest. Only the 4th part of the problem is that interest rates are set by humans, rather than by statistical economic rates. As you can see, just in this setting, there is a boiling over human desires – greed, hubris, fear, and national interest - which gets in the way of setting economic interest rates, which is a problem that theoretically could be done without referencing any of the problems entailed.
There is also, then there is only one way to reward ideas: and that is by wealth itself. If there is only one way to reward ideas, then everyone will line up for a share of the take. That is the macro sense of things - but we only need to concern ourselves with trade. Thus we must set our rates more closely with other major powers, and have other all people look into what we are doing. We also must more closely tie national spending with economic interest rates. And the hard part is making humans a subsidiary part of the process. The most logical thing to do is to substitute a Feigenbaum curve for something needed out of the mind of a human. Shocking as it is to hear, humans make illogical decisions.
We can not have both a tariff-free system, and a system that rewards illegal trade making its members wealthy, and slapping most of them with trivial fines. They also cannot have a system whereby people whose only sin is to have the wrong skin color are excluded. Or we can just have people have done nothing wrong, and pay the price for the next economic meltdown. It worked in Mozart's time.
This is why I began by saying that we do not talk about illegal trade, even though it encompasses far more than selling heroin, and that math proved it. Every time a person is discriminated against, that is illegal trade, every time two larger than large enough merge and do not pay their worker enough, or a hedge fund drives a health corporation out of business, that is illegal trade. And we can ascertain by economic means, just how much is done. It is at least 10 times more than is nominal as illegal trade, currently. The logical consequence of this pile of dirty money is that there is no way to reduce the amount of it, and simultaneously, have a cleaner system. But what we can do is make it a great deal harder to know when the accounting happens by appealing to Gödel and Feigenbaum, because history shows that human beings are unwilling in the long term to do what is right. But perhaps they can be used to doing what is less wrong, at least for some time.
I know – it needs much more detail and concision. Like gold in a pseudo-wallet. Circles with circles with circles of Gödel and Feigenbaum. The and a Bitcoin of Ethereum of Litecoin – ad infinitum.
Alright – it is a mess.
4
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.
“I am sorry I am not here right now, please leave a message.”
“Huài Dàn! No bèn dàn! You stupid gǔnkāi! Cào nǐ zǔzōng shíbā dài. You thought it was funny. I can't believe I fucked you. More than once. Now you are back over there, in the United States, and you do not think I will follow you. Well, I have news for you, I have a plane ticket from another man who spent time with me. So be warned, I am coming for you, and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”
Buzz.
5
Ring.
“Hello, this is Robert.”
“Good to hear that something would grab your attention, and you know swear words, at least I think you do.”
“I knew more putonghua than I let on.”
“That's great, really good - for a mainlander. We do not call Mandarin by that name. That must mean you spend more of your time there.”
“Yes. That is true. But there is a lot that I have to explain to you.”
“You better talk, and very nicely, because from my point of view, did something truly awful.”
“I probably did something awful, but not in the way you think. I did not have a wife or girlfriend when I went to Taiwan to meet you.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“But I had just broken up, and the body was not even warm when I started hunting for another person to be with. And I had no intention of even thinking about marrying you, and I know that that implication on over our conversations. There is more than I will tell you when you are with me in the flesh.”
“It certainly did. So what are you going to do about it?”
“I am with someone else now.”
“That is not going to stop me, for you and I will have fun when I am over there.” Meaning sex, bien sûr.
He stopped, and thought, and then opened his mouth: “Hǎo.”
Such were the waves that cheating occurred: by happenstance and collusion.
6
It was Chicago, at O'Hare airport - there were in the interim some small steps to cover his tracks, but which do not need to concern anyone but the pair of illicit lovers.
Of course, he was waiting by the departure area and saw her immediately. They buried each other in a hug, rather coquettishly in fact, and stood there arms locked in a mutual embrace. Could see in their eyes that each was looking at the other, not in love, but certainly in lust, the curves which they knew well. So they went off arm in arm, with him leading her to the Metro stop. It seemed to her that he was taking the simple route, rather than showing her the gleaming heart of the city, but her face did not betray any of this emotion.
Hopping on, he leads her to a stop which had a Hyatt Regency. They got out and checked in - with miles attached - to a nondescript room under an assumed name. He was not particularly careful, but careful enough.
After having placed their bags in the appropriate places she slithered her way onto the bed and beckoned him with the crook of the index finger because she wanted the feeling insider which only knew on an outlet. It was after this foray into, if not ecstasy then at least pleasure, that the conversation began in earnest – which she began with alto pitched voice.
“Why did you come to me?”
Muffle then turned to face her, the sheets were not doing what he wanted to do. “What I want to, and hoped you would settle for, was an agreeable tête-à-tête Between 2 people for the time that I was commissioned to stay in Taibei.”
“What does 'tête-à-tête' mean?”
“It is French, and it means between two people.”
“Maybe you should find a French girl.” Her face had torn, and there was an edge.
Sitting in stony silence he looked calm but inside his brain, a surge of thought came over him:
Why do I engage in such a manner of rapprochement? It never ends with a detente, but only with recriminations from her against me? Other than sex, I want to talk of important things – the Mandelbrot set, or Vladimir and Estragon. Or even matter of the heart, on some higher plain. He meant by her as an indifferent thing, for all of hers. Anyone at all.
Bawl came from her eyes and the cheek glistened, ripe as a plum.
“I know that you think of yourself as brighter than I am. And it is probably true. But I need someone to love me just the same. Why do you boys place so much emphasis on some ethereal thing?” she sobbed as if she were a fountain.
The geometry of the situation called for him to reach out and gently nestle her, but her body refused.
She stared up at him, her face a mess of tears. There was nothing to do but weep.
“Did not mean to cause such upset.”
“I wish I was a prostitute so that you could pay. I tried it after you left - but there is a hollow feeling that cannot be erased.”
“It is in my paper, as badly written as it is. No, I did not deliver it. ”
“Maybe your paper is the best thing I can leave you with.”
“It needs to be something, because the paper, as it is written, is truly terrible.”
Magically she had grown close to him.
“Hold me, because we will not see each other again.”