Forty signs of rain - Kim Stanley Robinson [105]
But Drepung shook his head. “Not making things up. Re-creation, maybe.”
“Like DNA and phenotypes.”
“I don’t know.”
“A kind of code.”
“Well, but language is never just a code.”
“No. More like gene expression.”
“You must tell me.”
“From an instruction sequence, like a gene, to what the instruction creates. Language to thought. Or to meaning, or comprehension. Whatever! To some kind of living thought.”
Drepung grinned. “There are about fifty words in Tibetan that I would have to translate to the word ‘thinking.’”
“Like Eskimos with ‘snow.’”
“Yes. Like Eskimos have snow, we Tibetans have thoughts.”
He laughed at the idea and Frank laughed too, shaken by that low giggle which was all he ever gave to laughter, but now emphatic and helpless with it, bubbling over with it. Anna could scarcely believe her eyes. He was as ebullient as if he were drunk, but he was still holding the same beer she had given him on his arrival. And she knew what he was high on anyway.
He pulled himself together, grew intent. “So today, when you said, ‘An excess of reason is itself a form of madness,’ what did your lama really say?”
“Just that. That’s easy, that’s an old proverb.” He said the sentence in Tibetan. “One word means ‘excess’ or ‘too much,’ you know, like that, and rig-gnas is ‘reason,’ or ‘science.’ Then zugs is ‘form,’ and zhe sdang is ‘madness,’ a version of ‘hatred,’ from an older word that was like ‘angry.’ One of the dug gsum, the Three Poisons of the Mind.”
“And the old man said that?”
“Yes. An old saying. Milarepa, I should think.”
“Was he talking about science, though?”
“The whole lecture was on science.”
“Yeah yeah. But I found that idea in particular pretty striking.”
“A good thought is one you can act on.”
“That’s what mathematicians say.”
“I’m sure.”
“So, was the lama saying that NSF is crazy? Or that Western science is crazy? Because it is pretty damned reasonable. I mean, that’s the point. That’s the method in a nutshell.”
“Well, I guess so. To that extent. We are all crazy in some way or other, right? He did not mean to be critical. Nothing alive is ever quite in balance. It might be he was suggesting that science is out of balance. Feet without eyes.”
“I thought it was eyes without feet.”
Drepung waggled his hand: either way. “You should ask him.”
“But you’d be translating, so I might as well just ask you and cut out the middleman!”
“No,” laughing, “I am the middleman, I assure you.”
“But you can tell me what he would say,” teasing him now. “Cut right to the chase!”
“But he surprises me a lot.”
“Like when, give me an example.”
“Well. One time last week, he was saying to me…”
But at that point Anna was called away to the front door, and she did not get to hear Drepung’s example, but only Frank’s distinctive laughter, burbling under the clatter of conversation.
By the time she ran into Frank again he was out in the kitchen with Charlie and Sucandra, washing glasses and cleaning up. Charlie could only stand there and talk. He and Frank were discussing Great Falls, both recommending it very highly to Sucandra. “It’s more like Tibet than any other place in town,” Charlie said, and Frank giggled again, more so when Anna exclaimed “Oh come on love, they aren’t the slightest bit the same!”
“No, yes! I mean they’re more alike than anywhere else around here is like Tibet.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded.
“Water! Nature!” Then: “Sky,” Frank and Charlie both said at the same time.
Sucandra nodded. “I could use some sky. Maybe even a horizon.” And all the men were chuckling.
Anna went back out to the living room to see if anyone needed anything. She paused to watch Rudra Cakrin and Joe playing with blocks on the floor again. Joe was filled with happiness to have such company, stacking blocks and babbling. Rudra nodded and handed him more. They had been doing that off and on for much of the evening. It occurred to Anna that they were the only two people at the party who did not speak English.
She went back to the kitchen and took over