Characters:
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Humpty Dumpty, pompous, self-assured, loves definitions
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Alice, patient and grounding, slowly disentangling nonsense
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Cheshire Cat, grinning, pointing out the structural underpinnings without judging
[Humpty Dumpty is perched on a wall of mathematical tomes, arms wide.]
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
When I use a word, it means exactly what I choose it to mean — nothing more, nothing less.
Thus, all laws obey me. Obey my definitions!
ALICE:
But laws… aren’t they meant to describe patterns, not to be decreed?
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Pattern? Ha! Pattern is merely what I call pattern.
I define the universe as I please, and the laws conform accordingly.
If light must travel at c, it’s because I have declared it so.
CHESHIRE CAT (appearing as a grin across the wall):
Ah, Humpty, how generous of you. So physics is a game of your rules?
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Exactly! And anyone who questions me misunderstands the word law.
Law is exactly what I say it is, by the authority of my wall.
Alice:
But isn’t there a difference between defining a term and declaring the universe must behave a certain way?
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Only for the unimaginative! If I say laws command, they command. If I say they summarise, they summarise.
Words are obedient to me — far more than your particles or time ever were.
CHESHIRE CAT:
So invariants are just… what you decide them to be?
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Indeed. The universe merely pretends to follow.
I am the only true governor here. And the law of gravity, the law of motion, the law of c? Mere echoes of my pronouncements.
Alice:
But physicists measure these “laws” as if they exist independently.
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Fools! They measure my declarations, never the universe itself.
A ruler is only as straight as I say it is.
A second is only as long as I decree.
An invariant is only invariant because I call it so.
CHESHIRE CAT:
And if you changed your mind?
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Then everything changes — except, of course, my authority.
I never waver. Reality, on the other hand, is infinitely flexible.
Which is why I prefer to sit on a wall — safe, observant, imperious.
Alice:
So the “necessity” of laws is… only relative to your choice of words?
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Exactly. Remove Humpty Dumpty’s decree, and the “law” vanishes.
Nothing compels the universe, Alice. Nothing governs.
I merely choose a vocabulary, and the world appears obedient by accident.
CHESHIRE CAT:
Ah! So necessity without enforcement — you’ve discovered the relational trick.
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Trick? Nonsense. It is simple — law is definition, not instruction.
Meaning belongs to me. Nothing else.
And once you see that, the universe obeys nothing but the logic of its own structure.
Alice:
Then the universe doesn’t need to be coerced.
All these “laws” are structural constraints, not commands?
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Exactly. I merely name them. That is all.
The only obedience is descriptive — not causal.
The only enforcement is semantic — not physical.
Which is why I always advise sitting on a wall.
From there, you can decree law, watch meaning dance, and nobody falls — except maybe themselves.
CHESHIRE CAT (fading, leaving only a grin):
And that, dear Alice, is why physics is never a tyrant, only a very polite wallflower.
Alice:
Then I suppose the Queen was never in charge, and the Hatter never pushed?
HUMPTY DUMPTY:
Precisely! And I, Humpty Dumpty, remain the ultimate legislator of words.
Everything else merely behaves as if it obeys.
[Curtain. The wall remains stable. The laws wobble gently.]
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