Chapter XXV. Frame of Reference

Adana is the fourth largest Turkish city, an architectural masterpiece in the Ottoman style, and a lively city, its geographical location to the south in the Cilicia plains on the Seyhan River, the largest river in Turkey, gave it great importance, as it is its gateway with Arabia. This is the last large Turkish city in the south, then the Iskenderun Mountain range and the Hatay region, which until 1926 was part of the Arab state of Aleppo, during the era of the Ottoman Empire.

Ruslan was walking on the ancient stone bridge of the Seyhan River, not far from the hotel. He stopped facing south, looking at the river waters running under it on their way to the Mediterranean Basin.

-A voice behind him: It is one of the oldest bridges in Turkey and the whole world.

-He turned to him: Hello brother, when did you come back?

-Ozcan: This morning, how did you spend the past two days?

-Ruslan: Nothing important, I was moving around the city, and waiting for you.

-He looked at the floor of the bridge paved with stones: these stones had been paved like this since the Roman era, from here passed civilizations, empires, victorious armies, and others dragging the tails of disappointment, and here we stand over them as if they were now paved.

He came towards him: look there, and he pointed with his hand to the other end of the bridge, do you see it? A simple Roman worker, he is paving those stones.

There, he pointed to the other side of the river, a Roman market, teeming with life.

There, with his head raised, a flock of migratory storks flew south.

There, he beckoned to the waters of the river, a Roman fisherman in search of food for his children’s day.

Do you see them?

-Ruslan: This is the world, nations go and others come, and the bridge remains.

-Do you see them? He asked again in a serious tone

-Ruslan: No, I do not see any of them

-The old cinema museum is near here, did you visit it, brother?

-Not yet

-What do you think of visiting it now? Ozcan asked him, Ruslan shook his head in agreement

They crossed the bridge towards the nearby Zubeida Hanim Park, took a walk in it, one of the most beautiful gardens in the city, drank Turkish coffee, exchanged various conversations, and then continued on their way to the nearby museum.

A white two-storey building, its edges decorated with brown wooden pieces, and its windows painted brown. It specializes in the history of Turkish cinema, old movie posters, cameras used in their manufacture, and wax statues of Turkish actors and actresses, especially those whose origins are from the city of Adana.

-Ozcan laughed as they passed through the museum gate: There is no one here but us. Do you know why?

He answered himself: No, we did not empty it of people, but because entry is free. If people had to pay for the entrance ticket, they would have different views of it, and they would feel its importance, and the higher the ticket price, the more important it became.

This is how the mind works, Ruslan. The comparison, to estimate the size or importance of something, must compare it with something else known to it, and here the comparison that it is accustomed to is comparing the importance of the museum with the price of the entrance ticket.

If you put an object in space, your mind will not be able to estimate its size unless you put something else next to it that knows its size in advance, from which a reference frame will be taken for measurement, and the object’s size is estimated based on the size of the reference.

He added: You may have seen this trick in the videos, they photograph a small group of stones closely so that nothing of their surroundings appears, and they put a very small model between them and it looks real to a truck, you will see it as a truck between a quarry of rocks because your mind assumed the huge size of the truck, and building They have huge stones the size of becoming boulders.

And if there is any defect in the scene, such as a toothpick thrown among the stones, the whole deception will be exposed, because your mind knows the true size of the toothpick.

He looked straight into his eyes: It is not difficult for you to understand this, Ruslan, you are a sniper.

Indeed, this is well known to him. Before shooting, he must adjust the scope of his sniper, by means of small wheels on both sides, one for the height and the other for the width, and this adjustment process is carried out on an object whose exact length and width are known.

He measures the height and width of a plank, puts it upright, and then moves away from it by 100 meters, for example, measures its dimensions with the scope. Then he moves away 200m, and sets it again to check, then 300m, and so on to the sniper’s maximum range.

Thus, the measurements become the horizontal scope lines, at a distance of 100 meters the distance between each line is one centimeter, and at a distance of 200 two centimeters, and so on. He can manipulate the measurements as he wants, setting the line of one sniper to a tenth or a half a centimeter.

And when the target is in the range of his scope, he must estimate its length, and if possible, wait for it to stand next to a column, or anything whose length is known in advance, and after estimating the height of the target’s head from the ground, and estimating the distance, he places it between the appropriate scope lines, and shoots the bullet, at the middle of the head.

And if it happens that the target stands next to an object that the sniper thinks is two meters high, while it is less than this, he will estimate the length of the target incorrectly, too long, and the bullet will fly from above his head far away, so in case he does not know the length of the reference, or there is no frame of reference next to the target, he estimates it and decreases it a little, instead of the bullet flying over his head, to settle in his chest, or his neck.

Only professionals can put a bullet in the head from a distance, very few, He is the best of them.

They walked around the museum, and Ozcan stopped in front of a poster on the wall of an old Turkish movie.

-Then he said, I can manipulate your mind and make it believe that this poster is worth traveling specifically to see it, by manipulating the reference frame, and here is the ticket price, inflating the frame of reference, means inflating the image that the mind has measured its size based on.

But they do not, for national considerations. In this kind of museum, which is directed at the Turkish people, they give it for free. People have the right to know their history for free.

He moved to a shelf in which was placed a group of books, all related to Turkish cinema, next to a table was placed a set of blank-colored papers, and posters.

-He continued: Comparison exists in everything material and immaterial, when you stand in front of the library shelf to buy a book on a subject, you look at the author’s name first, to compare the quality of his presentation with the fame of his writer.

When you enter a café, you look at the people in it, associating its importance with the importance of the customers, their looks, their clothing brand, and their watches.

I know a café in Vienna, that you are not allowed to enter unless you wear specific clothing brands, and its prices are very high, although the coffee in it tastes bad, yet everyone sees it as an excellent coffee.

And at some point, you can compare backward, ie estimate the importance of customers from the name of the cafe, it works in both directions.

You can estimate the size of the large body from the small body, or vice versa, your mind chooses the appropriate frame of reference between them according to the characteristic on which it will be based in comparison, its size, its fame, its quality, its color, many things.

And your mind decides which is the frame of reference based on the most intense of them in its immediate memory, so if I show you something in yellow now, and then you put two white and yellow papers next to each other, your brain will take the yellow to compare the color of white with it.

And if I showed you yellow for a whole hour, then showed you white for a few seconds, then put two yellow and white papers, your mind will also take yellow as a reference because it always prefers to take the most momentum in its near memory.

But if I showed you yellow for a year, then I gave you comfort for a month from seeing colors, then I showed you white once, and then I put the two papers in front of you, your mind will take the white color as a reference because the yellow color has sunk far into its memory, and the reason is to save effort, so searching in the near memory easier for him than searching in the far.

Even ideas, Ruslan, when you want to evaluate an idea, you need another idea that you have a background of knowledge about to compare these with those, and beliefs as well, to evaluate the quality of a belief, the possibility of your belief in it, it must be compared with other beliefs that you have a background on.

The mind cannot find anything out of nothing, it builds its fantasies, ideas, and beliefs, on other things, it has a database of them, compares, estimates then imagines, and embodies.

Watch your thoughts, if I tell you to think of a mythical creature, it is impossible to find something that is not like something you have seen or thought of before, your mind must be based on a previous database, from which it runs, even if it is a spot of light in the void, it must have something to build on, to embody the new in your head.

That is why we are not able to imagine something or think of something, we have no background about it, and this applies to all the existential questions that you can think of, they all have an origin within you, perhaps sinking far into the memory of human beings, but as long as we are able to think about them, it means that the answers are inevitably there, and we can reach them.

What does this mean, Ruslan? He did not wait for his answer and continued…

This means that to be able to estimate anything, you not only need light to be reflected from it, but a frame of reference as well, you cannot estimate anything without it, and sometimes you cannot see, hear, or even imagine it without the reference.

He took a yellow paper from the table, cut a small part of it, and placed it on top of the big one. If you had not seen me doing this, you would not have discovered the existence of the little one.

These two papers are of the same color, you will not see them, not because they do not reflect light, or because they are colorless, but because there is no frame of reference on which the mind can rely to distinguish between them.

He bent the little one to stick out its tip: but now, you have another frame of reference, this bend exposed it.

Just because you see something when you do not have a proper frame of reference to base it on does not mean it does not exist.

He smiled and looked him straight in the eye: just as you did not see that Roman worker on the bridge, it does not mean he does not exist.

It is not hard for you to understand, is it?

A soldier in camouflage, hiding among the trees, you will not be able to detect him unless the wind blows and the tree branches sway around him, then everything will move in harmony and he will remain in his abnormal stability in the middle of the movement, and even if he camouflages himself well, you will discover his presence then.

He moved him to a large glass box, which contained a number of old cameras, and pointed to one of them.

-He asked him: If they decided to auction this camera, how much would it cost?

-Ruslan: According to its archaeological history, the older it is, the more expensive it is. I do not think it is worth much, because its history is not that old.

-Ozcan: But it is still worth much more than the older ones, which are thrown in junk bins in people’s homes, which they inherited from their fathers and grandfathers, and are of no use.

He added: All the countries of the world, those that are not ruled by thieves, refuse to sell any of their antiquities, for national considerations only. He knows his story, dating back two thousand years, against the Mona Lisa, so how will your mind decide which is more expensive?

-He replied: The Mona Lisa, of course, is the most famous, not to mention that it is done by Da Vinci.

-Ozcan: Although the statue is much older than it?

-Yes, workmanship, fame, the artist’s name, time prevails here.

-What if we discover that this statue was carved by the hand of Jesus, son of Mary?

-It is different, now it is priceless.

-Smile: What if the Mona Lisa was painted two thousand years ago?

-The statue is still more expensive, even if Da Vinci painted it ten thousand years ago.

– What if we assume that there are two statues carved by Jesus, the son of Mary with his own hand, one of them older than the second by a thousand years, which one will be more expensive?

-The occasion will then play a role; If the latest was carved on a greater occasion, it would be more expensive, and vice versa.

-Why not time?

-Ruslan was silent, thinking, and then said: No, it is not time. The stones in the mountains are older than the age of humans on earth, and no one pays attention to them. The matter has nothing to do with age and time, but rather with the cause, the occasion, the action, and the actor.

-Ozcan: Yes, so it could be a stone statue made today, more expensive than a gold statue made a thousand years ago, if the occasion is, the name of its maker is more important.

He added: Contrary to what it might seem to you at first glance, the true value of antiquities is not because of their antiquity, but because of the lack of reference frames with which we can estimate their value. How many antique statues are for sale around the world?

He answered himself: If the museums of the world open their doors and offer all their possessions for sale, then you will buy an original stone statue of Nefertiti for only a thousand dollars and perhaps less, and the merchants begin to think about the material of the statue, its quality, the material it is made of because then there are thousands and millions of other artifacts that are sold and bought. Hence millions of frames of reference with which you can compare.

As for time? There is a lot of it, it alone will not increase the value of anything or reduce it, in fact, the most existing thing in this world is time, there is nothing of its size, we have a lot of it, if it is the only frame of reference, then the value of everything will become nothing If we find a dinosaur skeleton, it is worth millions, but if we find a million skeleton? Then time will not be that important.

The important question here, Ruslan, is when time becomes a frame of reference? And what is the mechanism by which the mind works when it takes it as a reference?

-Ruslan: history?

-Yes, it takes the calendar as a frame of reference, and what is the calendar?

He answered himself: It is a straight line, which our mind divides into seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years, and takes it as a frame of reference in everything related to time.

A straight line, which does not really exist, an imaginary line, drawn by the mind, to be able to compare only, and the problem is that everything around us is built on this imaginary line.

When you buy a product from the grocery store, you will find the production date, and then you can compare today’s date with the production date and validity of the product, or compare two products together, whichever is valid for a longer time.

Knowing that my grandmother did not do this, it was enough for her to smell or taste anything with the tip of her tongue to know whether it was fit for consumption or not, as cats and any other animal do.

What if they write on the milk carton, that it becomes undrinkable when it swells up?

He answered himself: Housewives know this very well, even if the expiry date of the milk has expired, you can drink it because the cartoon has not swelled yet and its smell and taste have not changed, and if the smell and taste changed or the cartoon swelled, even within its expiry time, they threw it away immediately, knowing that it has spoiled, the manufacturers write the expiry date is based primarily on this rule, which is their expectation of when it will swell and change in taste.

In war medicine, they treat the youngest because their chance of life is longer, based on the frame of reference, and here is the date of birth, even if the older one looks younger and in better health.

Even the dates of our death, Ruslan, after you exceed your seventy or eighty years of age, begin to count your days, even if you feel that you are able to live more. You do not get the idea; the dummy line tells you that you are in overtime.

Everything around us, everything from our ideas, our plans, and our ambitions, to the computer and its software that organizes our lives, is built on this timeline.

Its influence is important, regulating our lives, but my only problem with it is that it is an imaginary line that does not really exist.

What if time was not a straight line, Ruslan?

He answered himself: Then we are deceived, in everything, we will discover that our whole life is a hoax, and everything we have built, made, and understood, is a hoax based on a wrong frame of reference, just as the video maker has deceived us with the size of the truck and the stones.

And if you know what time really is, its material, shape, and identity, you will take the correct frame of reference, and then, Ruslan, everything built on this imaginary calendar will collapse, the straight line will collapse, including the barrier between you and that work on the bridge.

To be able to do this, you must first see the toothpick

The wind must be blowing on the tree branches