The Point of ViewWeinbaum, Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman)
Science
The Point of View
Weinbaum, Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman)
Science fiction; Short stories
"How the devil do you see through somebody else's eyes?"
"Very simply. You will recall the idealizator. Now it is obvious that
when I peered over your shoulder and perceived in the mirror your
conception of the ideal woman, I was, to a certain extent, adopting your
point of view. In that case the psychons given off by your mind were
converted into quanta of visible light, which could be seen. In the
case of my attitudinizor, the process is exactly reversed. One flashes
the beam of this light on the subject whose point of view is desired;
the visible light is reflected back with a certain accompaniment of
psychons, which are here intensified to a degree which will permit them
to be, so to speak, appreciated?"
"Psychons?"
"Have you already forgotten my discovery of the unit particle of
thought? Must I explain again how the cosmons, chronons, spations,
psychons, and all other particles are interchangeable? And that," he
continued abstractedly, "leads to certain interesting speculations.
Suppose I were to convert, say, a ton of material protons and electrons
into spations--that is, convert matter into space. I calculate that a
ton of matter will produce approximately a cubic mile of space. Now the
question is, where would we put it, since all the space we have is
already occupied by space? Or if I manufactured an hour or two of time?
It is obvious that we have no time to fit in an extra couple of hours,
since all our time is already accounted for. Doubtless it will take a
certain amount of thought for even van Manderpootz to solve these
problems, but at the moment I am curious to watch the workings of the
attitudinizor. Suppose you put it on, Dixon."
"I? Haven't _you_ tried it out yet?"
"Of course not. In the first place, what has van Manderpootz to gain by
studying the viewpoints of other people? The object of the device is to
permit people to study nobler viewpoints than their own. And in the
second place, I have asked myself whether it is fair to the world for
van Manderpootz to be the first to try out a new and possibly
untrustworthy device, and I reply, 'No!'"
"But _I_ should try it out, eh? Well, everytime I try out any of your
inventions I find myself in some kind of trouble. I'd be a fool to go
around looking for more difficulty, wouldn't I?"
"I assure you that _my_ viewpoint will be much less apt to get you into
trouble than your own," said van Manderpootz with dignity. "There will
be no question of your becoming involved in some impossible love affair
as long as you stick to that."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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