Come with me, if you will, to a state of omnipresence. A god, you are, on an enormous other-worldly sofa, watching the reality show that is planet Earth, and its wonderful, empathic inhabitants (just suspend disbelief and go with it. Cheers).

This is like having a trillion tv channels…but not. The main difference? You’re witnessing everything at the same time. The all-at-onceness of the big bang, your own birth and demise, the end of the Earth, with everything and everynothing in between. It’s but one perspective, no matter how impossible it might seem to our finite, fickle minds. And from this particular vista, do you see time whizz by? Do you see it flow as events unfold? Do you bollocks. Because time (and its BFF-slash-identical twin, space) are static. They’re one and the same – and there’s no now. There’s no such thing as the present. That sentence just there? Gone. Time-flow is an illusion, and no matter how you measure or record it, nothing changes. Spring forward and fall back? Nah. STILL nothing. And time doesn’t exist in any case, being the construct that it is. So, yanno.

And here’s the kicker: what’s your now might not be someone else’s. Cuz Einstein said so, k?

IMAGE: Here’s a pretty little squiggle of Albie’s block universe, an eternalistic box. Pretty, isn’t it?

(Image: nicked wholesale from Google because I couldn’t be arsed making my own. Even if I had the skills. Which I don’t.)

If this is LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING as you look down upon it, then you can see that from your perspective, it’s all one. It’s static, and sure, it’s seen from an impossible vantage point, but if you roll with it, along with the the closing-off (never mind suspension) of your disbelief comes an OPEN MIND. Honestly – try it. Close your eyes, imagine the hitherto unimaginable.

The block universe has been said by some to be a bit bollocks, because it fails to represent the passage of time – time being one of our most fundamental experiences (even though—ssh—it isn’t even a thing). But who says it’s an irrefutable model of reality anyway? That’s why the word THEORY is just so niiiiice. (Greek – Theoria: contemplation or speculation) And from theories, little baby offshoots are born – theolets, if you will – and like all good thoughts, they grow and grow until they hit puberty and become A GREAT BIG HAIRY IDEA.

Logic tells us that indeterminate outcomes are governed/caused by (endless) probabilities in the “present.” Quantum objects exist in more than one state until we decide to measure ’em.

Because I’m feeling lazy, I’ll nick something from WIKI here, which pretty much sums it up:

“If the outcome of an event has not been observed, it exists in a state of ‘superposition’, which is something like being in all possible states at once….most quantum physicists now understand that the acts of ‘observation’ and ‘measurement’ must also be defined in quantum terms before the question makes sense. From this point of view, there is no ‘observer effect’, only one vastly entangled quantum system”.

IMAGE: Here’s a picture of a kitty. (Also stolen).

Let’s pretend he’s Schrodinger’s kitty. Think of a considerably more upsetting version of Does-a-Falling-Tree-Make-a-Sound-if-Nobody’s-There-to-Hear-It and you’re halfway there. You could also call this “The Observer Effect” (not to be confused with the Uncertainty Principle) if you can’t be bothered trying to spell Schro… Shcro…

So, yeah. Take a mog. Any mog. Preferably one you don’t want any more. Perhaps even someone else’s. Box him up with a vial of poison (because the box alone is presumably not cruel enough) and shove in a radioactive source. Add into the mix an all-singing, all dancing monitor that can detect the decaying state (or not) of a single atom, at which point the vial is shattered, releasing the poison that takes out the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation implies that after a wee while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Although logic would have it that kitty may be EITHER alive OR dead, never both, we doom-brains can not observe and impact upon the outcome until it’s possibly too late for puss. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or t’other. When the box is opened, kitty, for all intents and purposes, adopts one or other of the two potential forms.

Now, let’s suppose you’re in a motor, and even though you’re moving forwards at 80 miles per hour, you’re not wearing a seatbelt (you must be a bit of a deathwishing dick, but whatever). Now, let’s suppose you crash. You twat yourself into that windscreen so hard that you come through and land on the bonnet. In bits. This is because you are travelling at 80 miles per hour as well—and when the vehicle stops, so, my friend, do you. But, depending on the witness and whether or not they can intervene, you might be indefinably dead and alive at the same time. Not until Schrodinger’s box is opened, or your remains are scraped from the car (or not) does the observer discover the outcome. If there are no witnesses, does the crash still happen? If the observer has intervening potential to change to the outcome, are you a cat in a box?

Why does this stuff give us brainache? Simple: because we have finite minds. And if we practice, we can surely eventually begin to tease some infinite thought out of those things. Maybe. Ye cannae change the laws o’physics, but we do have a choice in how we interpret them, Cap’n. It’s a big ask, but if we don’t yet have the answers, there’s nothing stopping us from asking the questions.

(Disclaimer: No animals have been harmed in the making of this rant. The same cannot be said of words.)

The play’s the thing. And WHAT a piece of work is this play: how noble in structure, how infinite in interpretation. In form and moving, how express and admirable.

Our main guy, H, needs no intro, so I won’t give him one (keep it clean, folks). I’d refer to him as the titular character—but I frickin’ hate that wanky-ass phrase, so I’m not gonna. Anywho—he’s as Danish as bacon, his Dad (KING Hamlet—yup) has only gone and snuffed it, and his Pop’s brother Claudius has creepily snapped up H’s mother, Gertrude. Ew. Hence, King Claudius reigns, albeit rather sorta-incestuously-ish.

The Scene: swanky royal castle, Elsinore. Foreshadowing ante: upped to the max.

Some guard-dudes tell Hamlet’s buddy, Horatio, that they’ve seen King H’s ghost. This gets back to young Hammy m’lad, who resolves to see said apparition for himself. That night, the Ghost appears (nicely telegraphed, Shakey) and spookily informs Hamlet that Claudius was the geezer-wot-bumped him off, aurally. Ghostdad demands his son avenge his foul and most unnatural murder; H doesn’t need telling twice, and although he’s not altogether convinced, he goes with the flow, runs with it—feigning madness in the process (it’s Shakey, kids. Everyone’s either nutso or pretends to be).

Anxious about Ham’s increasing bonkersness, two of his chums go undercover to get the goss. Hammy cottons on pretty quickly that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are shifty little shits.

Polonius is Claudius’ counsellor-in-chief, and his daughter, Ophelia, is banging Hamlet. Probably. (She is a Nymph, in thy orisons, and he DOES love her, even more than forty-thousand brothers.) Shortly afterwards, Ophelia meets Hamlet in secret (her Dad and brother Laertes are none too happy about the dude) but tells her father about H’s crazy state. Polonius gives Claudius and Gertrude the heads-up, blaming H’s state on an ecstasy of love. At their next date, Hamlet kicks off at Ophelia, imagining all kinds of incestuous sluttery in his bonce, and insisting that she GET THEE TO A NUNNERY. Niiice.

Hamlet decides to stage a gig (play-within-a-play: Shakey 101) re-enacting his ol’ man’s murder, reckoning he can determine Claudius’ guilt by eyeballing his reaction. After seeing the Character-King murdered with poison in the ears (I told you —aurally), Claudius abruptly fucks off for a bit: PROOF! (It’ll never hold up in court, mate.)

Gertiebaby summons Hamlet to her boudoir (as y’do … bit icky, mind, but whatever). On his way, H passes Claudius praying his little arse off but lets him live, reckoning that death in prayer would send the twat to heaven rather than to the hell he so richly deserves. Hamlet and his Ma have a barney. Polonius, earwigging behind a tapestry, squeaks (or something like that) and Hamlet, believing it to be Claudius, gets a bit pissy and a tad stabby, killing said tapestry. And Polonius. Oops.

Ghostie comes back, nagging H to take Claudius out. Coz, yknow—he got it A BIT WRONG last time, the clumsy fucker. Gertie, blind and deaf to the spectre, is by now pretty certain her son has lost the proverbial plot. Ham hides Polonius’ DB; and Claudius, shitting himself, banishes Hamlet to save his own skin (but not before re-deploying his two spies).

Demented, Ophelia wanders around in bawdy banshee-mode. Claudius convinces Laertes that Hamlet is entirely to blame for all the death and all the crazy.

News arrives (as is often the case) that Hamlet’s badassery is still a threat, so Claudius concocts a fencing match between Laertes and Hamlet, with—GET THIS—poison-tipped rapiers (with a side order of equally bedrugged wine—gotta have a contingency plan).

Gertie reports that Ophelia has drowned. Two conveniently-placed gravediggers discuss her apparent suicide, all the while digging her imminent six-feet-underness. Hamlet arrives with Horatio and one of the gravediggers unearths the grinning skull of a jester. You all know the quote. Or you all THINK you know the quote.

Ophelia’s Laertes-led funeral procession approaches (they organised ‘em pretty quickly in those days). He and Hamlet have a bit of a go at each other but are swiftly told to knock it off.

Hamlet tells Horatio that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead (they have to be. They made a movie about it). He also details his escape, just so WE know Horatio knows …

With Fortinbras’ Norwegian army closing in, it’s Face/Off. It’s time for H and L to fence, grunting and sweating under their weary lives. Laertes pierces Hamlet with a poisoned blade but is fatally wounded by said weapon. Gertie accidentally drinks the poisoned wine (coz reasons) and rushes into the secret house (where she snuffs it). Just before he kicks the bucket, Laertes reveals Claudius’ dodgy death plot to Hamlet. Just before HIS expiry date (keep up, double-oh-seven), Hamlet manages to kill Claudius and names Fortinbras as his heir. Fortie orders Hamlet’s body be borne off in honour. Here’s the rub: (almost) everybody dies. Nobody wins*.

(*Except maybe Norway. It’s one-nil to Norway. Ish. Kinda. Not really. Maybe. I’m confused.)

Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives
must die; passing through nature to eternity.

^Except for Billy Bob Shakespeare, of course, who gets to live forever. Sigh.