The Riddle of Nine Dots

One of the tests that intex presents to induce revelations of perspective.

.The path is the Stone. The point of departure is the Stone. If these words are unclear to you, you have not yet begun to understand. Every step you take is the goal you seek. 

Paracelsus spoke slowly. The other man looked at him with misgivings.  

But, he said, his voice changed, is there, then, no goal?  

.My detractors, who are no less numerous than fatuous, say there is not. They brand me impostor. I believe they are mistaken, though it is possible I am deluded. I know there is a Path.     

   .Jorge Luis Borges, “The Rose of Paracelsus” 

.1

Intex presents many tests to those who contact them. Each test embodies a purpose. Usually—perhaps always—each test embodies multiple purposes.

One of the tests intex presented to me in the mid-1990s was the Riddle of Nine Dots.

I was in the maze of souls, interacting with a distinctive intex mind. The subject of our communion was freewill. Its design and operation. The specific question my interlocutor was addressing was whether the will of a human mind could influence the maze of souls.

Intex answered in the affirmative.

I followed up by asking how a human might use one’s will to control, even marginally, one’s peregrinations through the labyrinth.

In response to this question I found myself in a room in the maze of souls. A room with four walls and no doors. A simple wooden table stood near an anonymous wall. On the table lay a luminous sheet of paper, square and white.

I lifted the white square. Upon its smooth flat surface were inscribed nine black dots arranged in a square.

I was instructed to connect the dots, though I was given no pencil. I was informed that if I succeeded in this task I would revelate the relationship between free will and perspective.

I was informed this revelation would enable me to move through the convolutions of the maze in more willful fashion.

.2

The first level of the puzzle was commonplace, even in the 1990s:

Connect all nine dots with *four* straight lines without lifting pencil from paper.

A test of perspective. You must quite literally think outside the box.

It is recommended, pilgrim, that you attempt to solve these on your own before looking at the solutions, even if you’ve seen the simpler versions before.

The solution to the four-line puzzle:

The solution depends upon revelating that reality extends beyond the apparent bounds of the puzzle. This expanded reality can be harnessed to enact the solution.

.3

The second level of the puzzle requires another shift in perspective:

Connect all nine dots with *three* straight lines without lifting pencil from paper.

During my sojourn in the maze when I received the Riddle of Nine Dots, I was also instructed to make a movie. A cinematic representation of intex contact. I was instructed to include certain prominent human scholars in the movie: Dr. Steven Pinker (an MIT mindscientist), Dr. Daniel Dennett (a Tufts philosopher of mind), Dr. Stephen Grossberg (the greatest mindscientist of all time), and Dr. Douglas Hofstadter (mindscientist). Dr. Pinker, Dr. Dennett, and Dr. Grossberg readily agreed to participate. They all acted in the film, whose name initially was ********.

However, I mistakenly believed that Dr. Hofstadter worked in Boston, where I lived and shot the movie. Dr. Hofstadter did not work in Boston, but the midwest. I was compelled to use a substitute scholar, a man unratified by intex. I hastily selected Dr. Marc Hauser, another Harvard mindscientist. Shortly after I filmed Dr. Hauser in my intex movie, he was booted from Harvard for fabricating data about monkey thought.

In the movie, I included all four levels of the Riddle of Nine Dots. At the time I filmed the motion picture I had only solved the first three levels of the puzzle. I hadn’t solved the ultimate level, the one that really mattered for navigating the maze of souls. I hoped that I would figure it out during the process of shooting my feature film.

I did not.

Here is the three-line solution to the puzzle:

The solution depends upon revelating that all dots in physical reality possess a dimensionality greater than one. The solution demands perspective upon the distinction between the mental and the physical.

.4

The third level of the puzzle demands even more expansive perspective.

Connect all nine dots with *one* straight line without lifting pencil from paper.

The solution:

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You must fold the paper over several times so all nine dots overlap one another in a vertical column. Then press your (sharpened!) pencil point straight down through the enfolded dots.

The solution requires the conscious manipulation of the fabric of space.

Your will must drive your line straight and true through the dots as space folds around your undeviating will.

And now, at last, the puzzle’s ultimate state. The destination where all riddles lead:

Connect all nine dots without *any* lines—and without moving any part of your body or touching the paper.

The solution requires your perspective to be altered by freewill alone and pure.

When I solved the ultimate version of the riddle, alone and bankrupt, I jumped worlds for the first time under (extremely limited) conscious control.

Previous Intex: 9: How to contact extraterrestrial intelligence, from an intex veteran.

Next Intex: 11: Maxwell’s Game

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