What if one were to want to hunt for these hidden presences? You canât just rummage around like youâre at a yard sale. You have to listen. You have to pay attention. There are certain things you canât look at directly. You need to trick them into revealing themselves. Thatâs what weâre doing with Walter, Jaz. Weâre juxtaposing things, listening for echoes. Itâs not some silly cybernetic dream of command and control, modeling the whole world so you can predict the outcome. Itâs certainly not a theory of everything. I donât have a theory of any kind. What I have is far more profound.â âWhatâs that?â âA sense of humor.â Jaz looked at him, trying to find a clue in his gaunt face, in the clear gray eyes watching him with such - what? Amusement? Condescension? There was something about the man which brought on a sort of hermeneutic despair. He was a forest of signs. âWeâre hunting for jokes.â Bachman spoke slowly, as if to a child. âParapraxes. Cosmic slips of the tongue. Theyâre the key to the locked door. Theyâll help us discover it.â âDiscover what?â âThe face of God. What else would we be looking for?