Technomancer: Genesis - 114 A Child's Lecture Part 1

“Thank you, Lord Father,” Ezra replied.

The nobles applauded Ezra’s introduction, the foreign nobles feigned faces of delight hiding their contempt while the local nobles genuinely wore curious faces at what Ezra had to say.

Hestia looked at Ezra intently full of curiosity as she looked Ezra.

Ezra held chalk in his hands and there was a slate blackboard on his back where we could write.

“Because of the variety of people present, instead of continuing where we left off from before,” Ezra’s address was focused mainly on the children, “I shall talk for a broader audience.”

The children stayed quiet and looked intently.

Hestia was grateful she seemed to have the impression that Ezra actually did it for her, her cheeks blushed red, as she giggled.

“How do we learn? How do we know what things exactly are?” Ezra asked. His question was directed on his students.

The nobles were taken aback this question wasn’t something people would exactly ask. Noren raised his arm.

Ezra nodded and pointed at Noren. “Well Lord Ezra, we look and then we think then we kind of know.”

“Very good Noren, nice answer.”

Most of the nobles smirked at such a simple answer, yet it was deemed very good. Their looks were peppered with skepticism they even laughed a little and some of them wore smiles of disdain, they had concluded that it wasn’t worth listening to the nonsense instead some of them started to whisper to each other.

Noren sat down and the children became a little more comfortable as it seemed that nothing had changed from their routine of, Ezra asking questions, they could raise their hand, and he would tell them his thoughts about their answer. Some of them had started to giggle.

“Yes, the first step is perception. If we cannot perceive something then how can we understand? And as Noren stated we think about it, we use our minds to internalize a problem. Then once we think about it we act,” Ezra nodded.

“But after action, there is actually another step, this occurs after we make a mistake. We go back to observation once again and do it all over till we get it right.”

The nobles were shocked, their faces wore a perplexed complexion. They had never thought something so deep could actually have come from a child. It was simple, yet this statement carried weight, and all this was gathered from such a simple answer not even worth their single thought.

The other nobles tried to ponder and even dissect the statement. The children, however, simply nodded along with Hestia. Erela frowned and even harrumphed loudly. The guards frowned and stared at her in scorn.

“Once we have ingrained it in our minds, we build models or representations of how we see the world. This so we can understand it as our observation dictates. These representations give us a way to explain the past, understand the object, predict the future, and yes control the world.”

There was a sudden ghostly silence on the noble’s area. While Reitz smiled proudly beside Aerwyna also beaming at their son’s statement. It was such a bold declaration, but one irrefutably undeniable. The Viscount of Fexil Fenteri furrowed his brows. The Viscount of Alyrne, a gnarled tough looking man, nodded. While the Viscount of Dragonorn looked to his right pondering the statement trying intently to look for a flaw.

“Great omnipotence!” Ulric swore as he whispered.

“This child . . .he is beyond overwhelming, to think he could state it in such a frank manner, it was as if he just gave a voice to things we already knew and brought it to the forefront of our thought!” Heinrich gasped thoroughly shocked.

There was some whispering that started to brew on the noble’s side pondering the implications of Ezra’s statement. What they thought was just unimportant drivel of a child instead made them start to muse and contemplate, what was most shocking was the lecture barely started.

“We have a name for this concept, where we look at possible outcomes and choose the best among them.” Ezra paused.

“For example, how do we know what a fruit is? Well if we don’t know we look at it from the book and turn the book page by page until we find a match.” Ezra started walking slowly to his right, like a master teaching his apprentice.

“This method is called generate and test. But we can apply it to a much broader area. Think about it we generate the possible paths be it in our minds or look at it in the real world, then we apply them and test them,” Ezra looked as if it was this was a natural thing for him without even a shred of nervousness on his face.

Beads of sweat began to form on Heinrich’s forehead as the silence that once engulfed the seats of the gentry turned into a murmur. It was as if the whole congregation started agreeing with him even those who were uninterested at first. Even the guards reacted.

“This is its abstraction.” The nobles wore bewildered looks as they didn’t know its meaning, however, when they looked at the children, most of them were expressionless, others were nodding, they concluded that the children understood the meaning of the word. Uneasiness befell them.

“Raydal, could you help me define what abstraction is, to enlighten those who don’t know,” Ezra smirked as he saw the expressions of the nobility.

“Yes Lord Ezra, Abstraction is applying certain concepts to a more general sense. From concrete examples to apply to a broader spectrum. It is applying ideas we have gathered where, in a sense Lord Ezra, it is sort of applying your definition of mental models to the real world.”

“Correct, very good Raydal, your opinion gave more flavour to the definition,”

Nervous giggling started to ensue from the back of the training grounds while some had frustrated frowns, they were utterly shocked that they were not only bested in mental aptitude by an eight-year-old noble, but also a peasant child, who could immediately put the concept together.

The children, however, became even more lively. Smiles began to be common among their faces because Raydal was called for recitation, the whole thing became more familiar to them, they soon forgot the decorations and the nobles staring behind their backs.

Erela was now frowning and muttering to herself about Ezra and nobles making a spectacle. “Such a lot of work to put forward a scene, the Emperor shall hear of this.” Saying it loud enough for some of the guards to hear.

“This is, basically intelligence, the ability to put two ideas and combine them to form into another without disturbing the two original ideas.” Ezra nodded again.

“From this, we get a glimpse into the world.” Ezra paused and looked at the audience and started walking back to the end of the platform.

” When we begin ascribing words and definitions to things, we are in a sense abstracting it. This abstraction gives us power. Words are power, once you give something a name you have power over it, “Ezra nodded and slowly paced again.

“You can start to talk about it, you can start to describe it. We can start giving it numbers or ascribing value to it. You then have a place to hang your knowledge on. These descriptions help us tell stories, it helps us understand what exactly what left or right is.

“This, in turn, helps us to generate even more ideas, it aids us in our perception once we have this ability, we can then command our imagination and run more models to even conceptualize things we have never seen, and because it is already ingrained in our mind, we know the outcomes to this imagined scenario.”

The murmurs had fully dissipated as everyone listened intently.

Ulric and Heinrich were at the edge of their seat concentrating, as not to miss a single word from the boy before them.

“We learn with our senses and ingrain them in our minds, we learn from reality and conceptualize in imagination, we learn from specific then we apply it to the broad.” Ezra paused.

Everyone looked attentively as he did.

“And if our model is incorrect, we repeat the process of perceiving, thinking and acting or testing.”

“Brilliant, just brilliant,” Heinrich shook his head, “to think he could so easily describe and summarize deep concepts.”

“How we learn is, in fact, a simple process,”

The nobility started to nod.

“But we should not confuse simple and trivial, trivial is a dangerous thought, trivial means an idea is of little worth. Often, simple ideas are the most powerful. They are the building blocks of the complex. They the foundations of what we know, concepts that we created from generating and testing.”

The whole audience was now captivated, listening to each word uttered by a simple child.

“And that is why we start today with a simple concept. The simplest of all, one that we have taken from nature itself. Remember simple is not trivial.”

Ezra took the chalk he was holding and drew a single point.

“Everything, the confounding mysteries of the universe that we can eventually describe, it all begins with something simple, In actuality, it is the simplest of all concepts,” Ezra smiled, “We start with a dot.”