Alice’s question to the inhabitants of the wonderland
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Alice’s question to the inhabitants of the wonderland

Neither the cat nor the Hatter; neither the caterpillar nor the rabbit; nobody whosoever had an answer to her question, “What is it that aches us all?”

Post by on Thursday, August 5, 2021

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“What is it that aches us all?” asked Alice. The Cheshire cat replied, “That what aches us starts with the letter S”. Alice asked, “What is it? Can you give me a few more clues?” The cat replied, “Let me think. Oh! That which aches us all must be known to all. Isn’t it so?” At this stage, Alice was more than puzzled. She started her best to figure it out, but all she could get was chaos and confusion. After a deep thought, she decided to go to the mad Hatter. She went to the Hatter and asked her the same question. She asked, “What is it that aches us all?” The Hatter, somewhat tickled by the question, started to laugh hysterically. Not before more than half a dozen minutes had passed did he stop his hysterical laugh. And once he was done with this laughing, he said to Alice, “What is it that you wanted to know?”. Alice repeated her question once more only to send the Hatter into another indistinguishable hysterical laugh lasting not less than another half a dozen minutes. 
 
Although frustrated by the puzzlement of the inhabitants of the wonderland, Alice decided to give it another try and she decided to go to the hookah-smoking caterpillar. As soon as she reached the caterpillar, she found herself bamboozled by the smoke that was, not just a persistent companion of the caterpillar, but an incessant and hard-to-get-rid-of epidemic engulfing all in the wonderland. At last, making her way through the smoke, and catching a glimpse of the caterpillar, she asked him, “Will you for the sake of god tell me what is it that aches us all?”. The caterpillar, somewhat unmoved and unexcited by Alice’s question, replied “I don’t think that there is anything that aches us all. I don’t think there is anything that aches me. And I don’t think, as long as I am smoking my pipe, anything can ever ache me. And I do not think that the divinity that binds us all, to which I am a special representative, and which invites all of us to think and ask, lets or allows you to think or ask this question.” 
 
At this stage, Alice was more than sure that ached them all was unknown to them all. She decided to find a cure for the ailment despite knowing not what the ailment was. While Alice was in this state of puzzlement and confusion, she caught sight of the white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and taking out a pocket watch now and then to see what time it was even though his watch was completely out of function and it did not even have the hands to tell the time. Alice decided to ask him the same question. As Alice went to the rabbit to ask him this question, the rabbit started to sprint and soon the sprint changed into a run. Alice decided to dog the rabbit. She ran as fast as she could and noticed that the distance between the two was decreasing and she was getting closer to the rabbit. It was not very long though when she realized that the sequence of the distances between her and the rabbit converged to a positive number and not to zero and as such she would never be able to catch hold of the rabbit. 
 
That was simply too much for Alice. She was completely devastated by seeing that neither the cat nor the Hatter; neither the caterpillar nor the rabbit; nobody whosoever had an answer to her question, “What is it that aches us all?”. 
 
Alice who had once commented upon the Hatter, “I think you might do something better with the time than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.”, is now thinking if her own question is one of those that have no answers. She is thinking of if her being in the wonderland and being able to get her answers can go hand in hand. She is thinking of if, like Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem, she is going to be unable to get her answer as long as she is in the wonderland.
 
 
(Author is Assistant Professor (Mathematics), Govt. Degree College Sopore, J&K. He can be reached at: firdousmala@gmail.com)
 

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