Peter and the Spider

Peter is a very shy but exceptionally intelligent boy of thirteen.  He could be in college today but he declined the offer of one ivy league school to get him into their program for gifted teenagers, free tuition and board, where he would have been enrolled as a biology major while pursuing his research on entomology.  It was his decision to decline and his parents agreed. 

He has very few friends and only  one whom he considers his best friend - a classmate named Abe.

Peter, as smart as he is, is singularly focused, perhaps even obsessively so, on just one subject outside of school work - insects; or bugs as his classmates describe it. To study insects more closely he invented something he calls a magnifying stereoscope, which enables him to see up close small individual insects in 3-D.  His well-off parents willingly spend the money that Peter needs, including renovating the large attic into a livable room, fully air conditioned with furniture but more importantly several tables, equipment and living spaces for insects worthy of their own miniature natural habitats. The parents feel every dollar is well spent, knowing he is not into drugs or alcohol as the other young kids are already into, who are not much older than Peter. Most of all, they always know where Peter is when he is not at school. He is at home tending to the ant farm, studying butterflies, etc. And more importantly, Peter is at the top of his class, albeit only in academics because he barely makes a passing grade in social skills.

Recently Peter invented another thing.  It's a super sensitive microphone that can pick up sounds and noises created by insects, in groups or as individuals.  So now, he can watch them up close and listen to them intimately, if there is such a thing with an insect.

Abe came one weekend afternoon.  He brought Peter a spider he found outside their garage. He had it in a match box. He thought Peter would be interested in this one uniquely looking spider.  Sure enough Peter was ecstatic about what Abe brought.  They spoke for a bit, ate some snacks, then Abe left.

Peter went to work right away. He has an enclosure of Plexiglass the size of a refrigerator  where he has a colony of fruit flies so he can formulate a new theory on insect mutation by conditioning their behavior through erratic temperature and humidity changes while feeding only on one variety of fruit - ripened papaya and nothing else. 

He trapped a couple of the flies. Moments earlier he had the spider moved into a plastic container the size and shape of a cigar box with a fine wire mess for a cover so he can observe the spider in full view and up close. Raising the cover slightly he introduced the two flies and left to retrieve his special equipment from downstairs.

Later he had the stereoscope and microphone setup for observation, all powered up including a special low voltage UV light. Immediately Peter noticed that the spider was in one corner of the box. In front of it was  one fly that was all wrapped up with white web.  At the opposite corner was the other fly alive but wary.

With headphones on, Peter peered into the stereoscope.  Then, expecting a crunching or slurping sound he picked up a voice.  He took the headphones off his ears to see if a radio or the phone extension was the source of the sound.  Nothing. He put the headphones back on and turned on the digital video recorder.  He heard the voice again.

Below is the transcript of the voice and Peter's.

(1643 H Saturday, 02/18/26)

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: You heard me. That was me, the first time.  It's still me now.

Long silence ..

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Hello! Surely you know my species. Highly evolved arachnid and unbelievably resourceful.

Peter: This can't be real!

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Oh, yes it is. You're a smart kid, for a human.  Come on, speak to me like a peer, okay? I am talking in your language. By the way, those are sophisticated equipment you have there.  I assume you made them?

Peter: I will for a moment suspend all doubts about my sanity but I must ask. How is this possible?

Pholcus phalangioides 1a:You want a short answer or a slightly sophisticated explanation?  What you just said, by the way, is an adult manner of speaking. You are thirteen, fourteen years old?

Peter: And you are likely just a figment of my imagination. Tell me right now, this is a trick.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Yeah, it's a trick. In my previous life I was human. And I must have switched back and forth for a number of centuries now.  There, shockingly enough for you?

Brief silence

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Come on, you're a voracious reader. I know it's not all entomology books and articles you read.  You're a very curious kid.  I know you can explain this.

Peter: No.  I mean reincarnation is not real. A mere belief system rooted in India and Tibet.  Maybe Bhutan and two or more places. But it's not true. It is all science-defying lore or primitive belief systems.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Well, conversation is over. Can I get back to my dining? And thank you for these two flies. Oh, these two are not reincarnated creatures.  Just so you know.

Peter: I can't believe this.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Do you want a conversation or not?

Peter: You believe you are a recycled entity?

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: What I cannot believe is that you, of all brilliant young men, do not grasp the idea that  everything you see and touch are all recycled material.

Peter: Yes, but not one life form to another and back again. It is not scientific.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: That's the best argument you can come up with.  It is not scientific? This whole earth, the entire solar system, including the sun are all recycled from something else. 

Peter: I know that. My point is that a human does not turn into a spider and a spider into a human. That does not make sense. Science does not support that.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: What about stream of consciousness? Okay, okay, let's start from something you can grasp in your scientific mind. You've heard of Julius Caesar's last breath, haven't you?

Peter: Yes

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Explain it to me.

Peter: It is all about this hypothetical, even a statistical possibility that someone, me, you, could conceivably be breathing in some of Julius Caesar’s last breath after he was assassinated by Roman senators on the senate floor over two thousand years ago.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Okay, how and what makes it more than just hypothetical?

Peter: Well, the idea is that as Julius Caesar at his last gasp and final exhalation his breath had twenty five sextillion molecules of air - 25 followed by 21 zeros of air. In just a couple of years those air molecules would have spread around the world, inhaled, exhaled umpteenth times over and over, and they're still out  there, here  and everywhere today, as we speak. 

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Good

Peter: But I will do you one better. One oxygen atom, expelled by a prehistoric fern millions of years ago was inhaled by T-rex, then exhaled it as a compound molecule of CO2, then absorbed by another fern or some other plant that later expelled the oxygen, keeping the carbon and the cycle started all over again.  And Julius Caesar could have inhaled that same oxygen atom  as he gasped and exhaled it as part of carbon dioxide compound before he died. But what has that got to do with you being a human in a previous life?

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Okay. You do know that the Law of Conservation of Energy and Matter dictates that both can neither be created nor destroyed in the entire universe.  They can only change forms or convert from one to the other and vice versa but neither is created nor destroyed.

Peter: I know that. Just please explain to me what you are.  I mean, you couldn't have been some creature at one time and be another the next time.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Do you believe that your mind exists outside of your physical brain?

Peter: You mean consciousness?

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Yes.

Peter: I can't prove it one way or the other.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: That's what I'm telling you. Consciousness is independent of physiology but it is real. I am proof.  You are talking to a spider. And I will tell you this. I admit that in my various iterations I have not been exactly one that you would describe as a model of good character.  Every time my physical body ceased to exist I moved on to another but, and this is where I know you will roll your eyes, heaven or hell is what I made of my next life each time I moved on, so to speak, and you know what I mean.

Peter: That is what adherents of the reincarnation belief system go by. By that I am to assume that you were a bad human before your current life?  Unbelievable. Scientific nonsense and well beyond even the lowest form of logical thinking.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: You are a smart kid. You are already arguing like a real adult.  For a teenager. But you are soon to learn some more. Have you ever wondered about how your intelligence had come and developed so rapidly in your young age? Have you wondered that perhaps you are a reincarnated Gregor Mendel or some earlier geneticists in the past century, or maybe you are Charles Darwin, reborn in the 21st century to perhaps make corrections and improvement on his theories?

Peter: Absolutely not. There is no basis for that supposition and clearly not supported by scientifically based logical processes.  No. Conversation ends here and now.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Yes, it ends here. Let me go back to my dinner.

Peter: Listen to you. You're a spider, yet here you are dining on food I provided you. You call that punishment? Or, according to your supposition, this is hell for you?

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Look, what if I tell you that I was dining on fine foods, caviar and champagne in my prior life but I'm being punished for my greed and horrible treatment of my fellow human beings and now I am  eating fruit flies. Do I deserve this? Perhaps.  But here I am trying to educate and give you fair warnings about engaging in unacceptable behavior.  Fair warning, remember that.

Peter: You are lecturing me? I declined a fully paid scholarship despite my age because I do not want to get carried away by hubris and potentially damaging exposure to what young people today are exposed to in so-called higher places of learning. No, you do not need to lecture me.

Pholcus phalangioides 1a: Good. I am succeeding already. There is hope, after all, I will be reborn under better circumstances next time.

Peter: Let's wrap this up.  Go back to your dining while I go back to tending to the  other creatures that need my attention.

Two hours later, Peter was awakened from a surprisingly long nap by his mom, who was worried why Peter had not come down.  She found Peter with the left side of his head on an open textbook on his desk.

Mom: You know I don't want to come up here but it's now six thirty.  Your dad will be home soon. Dinner will still be at seven, as always.  Come down soon, okay?

Peter: Yes, Mom.  I'll be downstairs before seven, for sure.

Peter looked around to make sure everything was not overly messy.  The spider was still inside the plastic box. One fruit fly is gone and the other one is now wrapped up in white spider web. The video recorder is turned off and the other devices as well.  He remembered saving the video data into the cloud.  He will check it later.  Unbeknownst to him, by mistake, he had it saved into a Microsoft printer located at their neighbor's.  An elderly gentleman lives there but he has not really been using his computer or printer - waiting for a technician to fixt it. 

The technician did come by the next day.  He did the necessary fix, did some tests and set aside all the "scrap" prints that were on the printer's queue after he had the printer running. 

Now, my dear reader, you will be wondering  how I have possession of the transcript of the conversation between Peter and the spider.

Wonder if you will, but please be reminded that the musings you read here still go by the sub heading at the start of each blog that goes: 

"When you find yourself having to take a break from those that keep you on edge and stressed out, you can take the time to ponder with me some of the un-ponderable and the whimsical and lightly thought provoking issues you did not have the time to consider but now you may want to look into because you have a moment or two to spare or you just want some of your brain cells to be tickled out of slumber."