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Sarah: | Ill email a complaint the minute I sit down. Nothing will improve unless someone takes the initiative. Overcrowding on this train a disgracescientific approach needed to predict passenger numbers. Theres a seat. Oh, Bobwhat a nice surprise! |
Bob: | Afternoon, Sarah. |
Sarah: | Its been ages since we last met. Butyour leg! Poor Bob. What happened? |
Bob: | My garden wall collapsed. I was planting bulbs right beside it at the time. Fell on my leg. The cast will stay on for months. |
Sarah: | How awful for youIm so sorry. |
Bob: | Im hardly ever in that bit of my garden. The one time I am, the wall falls down. |
Sarah: | Yes, that was such bad luck. |
Bob: | It wasnt a matter of luck. |
Sarah: | What do you mean? |
Bob: | Remember that old woman who lives next door to me? Been giving me some nasty looks recently. |
Sarah: | Maybe you misinterpreted them. She seems quite nice to me. She always contributes when Im collecting for charity. Anyway, what has she to do with your garden wall? |
Bob: | More than you might think. |
Sarah: | What on earth are you getting at? |
Bob: | Shes never really liked me. Convenient for her it fell just when I was there. |
Sarah: | Youre not implying that she pushed it on top of you? I cant imagine for a moment that she would do a thing like that. In any case, shes much too small and frail to push that wall over. |
Bob: | I didnt mean she pushed it over. |
Sarah: | Then what did you mean? |
Bob: | Ive seen her muttering to herself. |
Sarah: | We all talk to ourselves sometimes. |
Bob: | Not ordinary talking to herself. It had a purpose. |
Sarah: | What was she saying? |
Bob: | I couldnt hear, but it was nothing good. |
Sarah: | Im lost. |
Bob: | When the wall collapsed, she hurried out into her garden to look. Like checking it had fallen on me. Of course she pretended to be worried. She had to call an ambulance. It would have been too obvious otherwise. |
Sarah: | There you are. Youve just admitted, she was in her house when the wall fell. It must have made quite a noise. Anyone would run out to see what had happened. Im sure she was as surprised as you were. |
Bob: | There are ways of making a wall fall over from a distance. |
Sarah: | Dynamite? Thats ridiculous. |
Bob: | There are words, powerful words. |
Sarah: | Well, she could tell someone else to push it over, but then youd have seen this supposed accomplice. |
Bob: | Words can act in other ways. |
Sarah: | It almost sounds as though you were talking about a spell! |
Bob: | Thats exactly what Im talking about. |
Sarah: | Come on, Bob, this is the twenty-first century. We all know such things dont work. Even if your neighbour thought she was casting a spell on your garden wall, which Im sure she didnt, that obviously had nothing to do with the real cause of its collapse. |
Bob: | Which was? |
Sarah: | That wall has been looking pretty dilapidated for some time. The tiles on top were in bad condition, so the rain could easily get in and soak the wall inside. The mortar was missing in lots of places. It was bound to collapse sooner or later. |
Bob: | Yes, but why did it collapse just when I was planting my bulbs beside it? Explain that. |
Sarah: | There will be a perfectly natural scientific explanation of why the wall fell just when it did. Through ordinary physical processes of decay, it had simply reached the point of collapse. Unfortunately for you, by sheer coincidence you decided to plant your bulbs at the critical moment. |
Bob: | Coincidence! Thats not much of an explanation. |
Sarah: | If we knew all the microscopic initial conditions in sufficient detail |
Bob: | What do you mean? |
Sarah: | I mean a description of all the particles and force fields in your wall and brain and their surroundings before the collapse. If we knew all that, together with the laws of physics, we could explain scientifically why the two things happened at the same time. There is no mystery. |
Bob: | Its easy to say science could explain the coincidence. You havent actually got a scientific explanation, youve just asserted there is one. |
Sarah: | Thats unfair! You dont expect all the scientific resources of the Western world to be concentrated on explaining why your garden wall collapsed, do you? Im not being dogmatic, theres just no reason to doubt that a scientific explanation could in principle be given. |
Bob: | You expect me to take that on faith? You dont always know best, you know. Im actually giving you an explanation. (Mustnt talk too loud.) My neighbours a witch. She always hated me. Bewitched my wall, cast a spell on it to collapse next time I was right beside it. It was no coincidence. Even if you had your precious scientific explanation with all its atoms and molecules, it would only be technical details. It would give no reason why the two things happened at just the same time. The only explanation that makes real sense of it is witchcraft. |
Sarah: | You havent explained how your neighbours muttering some words could possibly make the wall collapse. |