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    Mad Scientist Journal: Summer 2012
    Mad Scientist Journal: Summer 2012
    Mad Scientist Journal: Summer 2012
    Ebook190 pages2 hours

    Mad Scientist Journal: Summer 2012

    By Dawn Vogel and Jeremy Zimmerman

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    About this ebook

    This anthology collects the first three months of Mad Scientist Journal in one book. In addition to new exclusive fiction by Emily C. Skaftun and flash fiction classified ads, this book includes tales by Jeffery Scott Sims, Adam Israel, Ash Krafton, M. Bennardo, Gary Cuba, Christos Callow, Jr., Darren Goossens, Paul Williams, Jack N. Waddell, Kyle Yadlosky, Nathaniel K. Miller, Django Mathijsen, Andy Brown, Rebecca L. Brown, R.G. Summers, and Virginia M. Mohlere. Art by Eleanor Leonne Bennett, Justine McGreevy, and Katie Nyborg.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDefCon One Publishing
    Release dateSep 25, 2012
    ISBN9781301878857
    Mad Scientist Journal: Summer 2012
    Author

    Dawn Vogel

    Dawn Vogel has been published as a short fiction author and an editor of both fiction and non-fiction. Her academic background is in history, so it’s not surprising that much of her fiction is set in earlier times. By day, she edits reports for historians and archaeologists. In her alleged spare time, she runs a craft business, helps edit Mad Scientist Journal, and tries to find time for writing. She lives in Seattle with her awesome husband (and fellow author), Jeremy Zimmerman, and their herd of cats.

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      Book preview

      Mad Scientist Journal - Dawn Vogel

      Mad Scientist Journal: Summer 2012

      Edited by Jeremy Zimmerman and Dawn Vogel

      Cover Illustration by Eleanor Leonne Bennett

      Cover Layout by Katie Nyborg

      Copyright 2012 Jeremy Zimmerman, except where noted

      Smashwords Edition

      A Critique of Vorchek's Holobiologia is Copyright 2012 Jeffery Scott Sims

      Man Out of Time is Copyright 2012 Adam Israel

      Application of the Scientific Method to Family Management: Informal Observations and Conclusions is Copyright 2012 Ash Krafton

      Selected Correspondence from the Pages of National Chronologic is Copyright 2012 M. Bennardo

      A Resubmission to Xenobiology by Clark et al.is Copyright 2012 S.R. Algernon

      Gauss's Invitation is Copyright 2012 Gary Cuba

      Bears is Copyright 2012 Christos Callow, Jr.

      Notes From a Recent Polar Expedition is Copyright 2012 Darren Goossens

      The Rods of Bagdad is Copyright 2012 Paul Williams

      A Thread Finer than Hope is Copyright 2012 Jack N. Waddell

      Death-Ray Barking Dog Torches Home is Copyright 2012 Kyle Yadlosky

      Maturity is Copyright 2012 Nathaniel K. Miller

      Robot Ethics and the Turkish Turtledove is Copyright 2012 Django Mathijsen

      Ray, Disintegrating is Copyright 2012 Emily C. Skaftun

      Prof. Ripper's Body Parts, Prof. Whale's Lab Dressing, Prof. Wallaby's Clearance Sale, Estate Agents, and Lonely Hearts: Men Looking for Women are Copyright 2012 Andy Brown

      Reward Offered! is Copyright 2012 Rebecca L. Brown

      For Hire: Freelance Femme Fatale is Copyright 2012 R.G. Summers

      Work Listing; Scientist’s Apprentice Sought, OFFERED: Brother Vadim’s Pet Crematorium, and WANTED: Your fireplace ashes are Copyright 2012 Virginia M. Mohlere

      Lonely Hearts: Women Looking for Men, Men Looking for Men, Women Looking for Women, Other and Minion Bootcamp are Copyright 2012 Dawn Vogel

      Illustrations accompanying Man Out of Time and Bears are Copyright 2012 Katie Nyborg.

      Illustrations accompanying Application of the Scientific Method to Family Management: Informal Observations and Conclusions, Gauss's Invitation, Notes From a Recent Polar Expedition, and The Rods of Bagdad are Copyright 2012 Justine McGreevy

      Photos accompanying A Critique of Vorchek's Holobiologia, A Thread Finer than Hope, and Death-Ray Barking Dog Torches Home are Copyright 2012 Eleanor Leonne Bennett.

      All other art is stock art courtesy of 123RF

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      A Critique of Vorchek's Holobiologia

      Man Out of Time

      Application of the Scientific Method to Family Management: Informal Observations and Conclusions

      Selected Correspondence from the Pages of National Chronologic

      A Resubmission to Xenobiology by Clark et al.

      Gauss's Invitation

      Bears

      Notes From A Recent Polar Expedition

      The Rods of Baghdad

      A Thread Finer than Hope

      Death-Ray Barking Dog Torches Home

      Maturity

      Robot Ethics and the Turkish Turtledove

      Ray, Disintegrating

      Classifieds

      Bios for Classifieds Authors

      About the Editors

      About the Artists

      A Critique of Vorchek's Holobiologia

      An essay by Leonard Smok, as presented by Jeffery Scott Sims

      Photography by Eleanor Leonne Bennett

      In this latest edition of Weird Case Files we consider the curious new book, just published by Starfire Press, entitled Holobiologia: Unlocking the Ultimate Secrets of Life. This largish volume, by one Anton Vorchek, Professor of something-or-other, purports to be the latest entry in the life, the universe, and everything contest, and seems to be making quite a splash in certain fringe circles. The book has not yet received wide distribution but, if it should do so, may excite the fantasies of die-hard true believers everywhere. As always, this is a pity, for despite some more than usually imaginative elements, Vorchek's work is merely another contribution to the pseudoscientific literature of the abnormal and the hypernormal.

      First it must be noted that, by even stooping to review this work, we are violating our standard policy of not paying attention to strange claims without possessing adequate background data. Vorchek, and for that matter, Starfire Press, are quite unknown to us. The latter, to the best of our knowledge, has never previously published anything. Its personnel, and the location of its offices, remain obscure. The distinct possibility exists that Starfire is one of those home presses, operating for the sole purpose of putting out this book, in which case it may well be the brainchild of the author himself. If so, he has done a fairly good job of printing, but we learn little more from this deduction, for Vorchek, as of this writing, remains a complete man of mystery. Frankly, we are not convinced that there is such a fellow; the name may be a pseudonym. On the title page, and in the introduction, he identifies himself as a professor--he omits, however, his actual profession--but otherwise provides no personal information of any kind. After considerable checking, we may state with near certainty that the name of Vorchek appears in no recent academic listings; he is associated with no prior publications; and all attempts to make contact with him have been fruitless.

      Secondly, it should be pointed out that Holobiologia, on the question of style, is a terrible book. This volume clearly received no quality editing: grammar is often weak, and the structure is hopeless. Vorchek rejects the tried and true formula of stating a claim, amassing the evidence for it, and then presenting his conclusion. Instead, what we find is argumentative chaos, with data scattered willy-nilly throughout the four hundred closely written pages, conclusions preceding evidence, claims separated from argument by many chapters, and odd anecdotes distributed randomly. In short, the book is a mess. In this critique we will do our best to sort the material, create order where it is not originally found, and explicate the grandiose and bizarre views of this remarkable man.

      Thesis

      Vorchek argues that all systems of human thought, including the scientific and religious, have missed the boat when it comes to understanding the nature of life and consciousness. Although he gives passing credit to all, he rejects the fragmentary approach which fails to realize a coherent theory which covers all known facts. The basic facts in question, as he assures us, are: the existence of self-perpetuating organic forms; the impossibility of such forms in a purely material universe; the ubiquity of consciousness in all living things; and the necessity for a higher mind underlying life. Some of this sounds drearily familiar to students of the weird. If one presumes, however, that Vorchek is just another creationist on the rampage, presume again. He actually has very little to say that they  want to hear, and nowhere in the text does one find evidence that he is the orthodox religious type. He passes himself off as a true scholar. On the other hand, he has no use for what he styles the Darwinian dead dust hypothesis. Our budding biologist (he may be, for all we know) tells us that evolutionary theory explains only the form, not the substance, of life and mind. Complex, willful action is invariably a sign of a higher, thinking mentality.

      The substance of life is far different from what we have supposed. Living creatures are not specific, concrete entities connected only by descent, but rather tiles in an unseen mosaic, organic shadows cast by an overarching being of infinite possibility. In all their variety they are products of mind/energy templates, which must be seen as deliberate conceptions of the Ultimate One. More will be said about him later. What matters here is that life, these template images, are embedded within a cosmic matrix, which supersedes the universe as we know it, especially in relation to time. At the cosmic level, there are no temporal bounds; in a very real, though untraditional sense, the consciousness of living forms inherently possesses immortality.

      While this is the least of his findings, Vorchek claims to have conducted experiments which prove the underlying intelligence of all living things, even at the microbial level. In a long, involved passage he describes chemical tests performed upon living material--which range from dogs to bacteria--tests which reveal mental components in all cases. The same tests, performed upon dead specimens, yield similar but more diffuse results.[1] We must consider ourselves enlightened.

      Communication With the Dead

      At this point Holobiologia begins to get very strange. As consciousness is disconnected from matter, it logically follows that it survives the death of the physical body. If the mind lives on, there might be a way of contacting it and learning a thing or two about the future state. This Vorchek claims to have done so. Being a clever fellow, he doesn't try to palm us off with a medium or any séance nonsense. This is science in action, after all, and the methods employed must be appropriate. Instead of making do with old fashioned mechanisms, Vorchek developed a new technique which, he says, can read the lingering consciousness in dead organisms as a camera fitted with the right filter can detect fading phosphorescence. In addition to a complicated electrical apparatus, the nature of which we are not competent to judge--nor to understand--he writes of a radioactive plutonial solution injected into dead tissue in order to excite the latent mentalism. What makes this attempt interesting is that, for the first time, Vorchek acknowledges that he is experimenting with a human corpse.

      Where did he get it? He does not say. Was he legally authorized to acquire it? No comment. He admits that the body, of a young male, is alarmingly fresh, which conjures up sinister ideas. Whatever the source, it is upon this single case (presuming that any of this really happened) that he derives some of his most unique conclusions.

      Once again, we must point out that Vorchek does not follow the standard rules of mystical story-telling. Professional spiritualists, a class of people singularly weak in originality, will not be pleased by his claims. While their profitable beliefs, however tiresome, offer lachrymose comfort to the living, this author's findings are merely outrageous. He has spoken to the dead; he has received responses; and these responses, in the tale they have to tell of the afterlife, are simply horrifying.

      Vorchek paints a picture of the scene: a small chamber, the walls crowded with hardware, a single burning light bulb dangling from the ceiling, and below that a lab table bearing the body, extensively betubed and wired to the instruments. The experiment begins as the dead man is irradiated. Constant checking of needle fluctuations in graphs, the wavering of oscilloscope readings... and then the first sign of mysterious, impossible life. The indications mount in intensity and then, without warning, from a connected microphone: speech!

      At first haltingly, then with greater ease, a conversation of sorts ensues. Vorchek has transcribed the fun bits; what follows is representative.

      Vorchek: Where are you now?  Are you aware of your surroundings, your body?

      X: Absolute awareness of infinite nothingness.

      Vorchek: Do you retain your identity?  Do you know your name?

      X: All is remembered. I was ____, now I am nothing.

      Vorchek: But you speak. You still exist.

      X: Only the living exist. Only they hope and dream and love. I can only hate.

      Vorchek: Hate?  Whom do you hate?

      X: The living. All who live, who still have possibilities.

      Vorchek: You had a wife, children--friends, I presume--surely you do not hate them.

      X: Hatred for all. My only satisfaction lies in knowing that one day they will all become like me.

      It is not a pretty picture that Vorchek paints of the future state, based on his experiment and other source materials.[2] The dead seem to continue as a kind of psychic residue, awareness without real life, sustained only by a cancerous envy of the living. In general they are inert, incapable of volitional action. At times, however, their rage may take on such concrete form as to render them able to lash out at the living, including at those once their nearest and dearest. Vorchek believes that the more substantial cases of historic hauntings may be explained in such terms. Visitations may come to persons or places to which the residue clings most closely. In all these anecdotal reports, he points out, the effects eventually fade.

      So do the living dead fade, apparently. The recorded conversations reveal a gradual lessening or disintegration of the surviving personality over a period which appears to have lasted some weeks. Vorchek thinks that his specimen was a man of weak will, with insufficient mental energy to last long without organic support. Others may continue longer--even much longer, with more of the persona intact--but in the end all (barring a freakish exception, discussed below) will dwindle into nothingness. This energy, which the author considers the scientific basis of the soul, is reabsorbed back into the cosmic matrix from which it originally came, and at that point, as a rule, the trappings of individuality vanish with it.

      Here we reproduce a telling item from one of the final transcripts:

      Vorchek: Can you still hear me?

      X: Very faintly. All is going away.

      Vorchek: You are going away? Where are you going?

      X: Fragments breaking off--consciousness crumbling--enormous power drawing me down into it. Can not maintain contact much longer.

      Vorchek: What is the source of the power?

      X: Blinding light within total darkness--the sightless Eye which observes

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