...He asked what they would all want to know. He asked first and he asked alone.
Why did you kill him? Why did you burn the lab?
He had it, proof of the soul. Instrumentation and a theory of how and why it is there, concrete proof that this is not all that there is. I saw it! We three know probably the most important fact ever proven by humanity.
The man just shook his head. And took a deep sigh, the kind one takes before trying to explain fractions to a third grader, again.
Where to begin?
I'm sure a lack of imagination is a bonus in the field of law enforcement. How could it not be? With even a shadow of real imagination you could quickly picture a world without your jack booted thuggery.
Well, you may be better off than you know slave, because I am not so impaired as thee. I see worlds that could exist. And killing that nameless bastard, and burning his one in a Googolplex chance discovery, has forever annihilated one of those hideous worlds and perhaps indeed prevented the perpetual enslavement and torture of all possible worlds.
The inspector clearly did not understand this answer but knew that others might and so he let the man speak.
The arsonist and murderer continued, with animated passion, seeming angry at everything to the untrained eye. But to the investigator however, he knew this was probably the happiest this man had ever been. Clearly he believed what he was saying with a conviction that went beyond faith or proof. He saw in a simple set of physical gestures and tones of voice that this man in his estimation had completed the sum goal of life, not merely his, but all life.
The murderer continued... They have inflicted every horror they could imagine on us in their quest for control! Who you ask? The companies and churches and governments, not one being a worthwhile ethical endeavor! They have burned us and tortured us, and stolen from us and poisoned us slowly, they have lied to us and corrupted the minds of our children and our parents.
They have caged and sold and crushed and profaned all that is sacred and necessary. Our country has executed children and we think ourselves the seat of rationality and vision despite our chief exports being sexual tension and violence. Sure it was young when ti executed a young black 13 year old but then does it thus forgive? How many young men have paid with their entire lives either at the moment or with merciless protraction at the hands of our government because of one small mistake, like say selling a pound of plant matter for a stack of plant matter?
We sentence children to rape, beatings, stabbing, and humiliations we punish others for inflicting on animals, and for what? Trading paper for plants again! And why? If the matter is even discussed which it isn't, its a health or a social issue. In other words we say its toxic, and at the same time we give a billion to Monsanto and the like for coming up with new and more lethal sugar substitutes.
Look at what we've done to our bodies! We have no freedom. They rule us from before the cradle by selling our mothers to our fathers and thus enslaving them both, they rule us from the cradle with their vapid baby shows, toy ironing boards, and bob the builder play sets. They turn men into ruthless bloodthirsty ignorant thugs and women into brutal greedy possessive Eloi.
This and volumes more you know, deep down, even if you refuse to face it or admit it. There is a point, I see your dreadfully short attention span nearing the breaking point, in fact I'm sure you'd have walked away if I hadn't just vaporised someone, along with what you call the most important discovery in human history.
I ask you given what I've mentioned and what you know, were the soul detectable, malleable, would they not use it and the world it's a part of against us as well? Would it not be like the Spanish finding gold among the Indians or us finding oil anywhere else?
Imagine executions, and torture, and realize that they spring from a desire to do the worst thing imaginable. Imagine that desire elevated to the scope of eternity.
Were it conclusively proven that the soul exists and that it could be harnessed and manipulated, can you imagine the damage The Company in its wisdom would inflict?
Think of the pedophiles and the witches. Think of the Nazis and the Communists. Think of true human hate. And now unleash it on a populace newly robbed of even the solace and escape of death.
That man's discovery would have brought us pain beyond the ability of human imagination to comprehend.
That's why I did it.
The investigator stood there for a moment, and then left the room.
By a weird twist of chance and timing he was the only one here just now. He walked to the locker where the recording equipment for the interview room was and he pulled the discs. He then went to his partners desk where a can of Zippo fluid was.
He returned with the discs to the interview room.
He piled the discs up on the floor in front of the man, and doused them with the fluid.
He looked into the man's eyes. And then struck a match from the pack he found at the hotel this morning and dropped it on the pile. Neither set of eyes moved to the flames.
As the tiny bonfire of discs did what was natural, the investigator drew his side arm knelt close to the fire, watching it as he spoke to the man who was smiling now, with a look of utter peace.
I see your point, and I tell you we're at the end of our lives. You say this chance is is infinitesimally small, but what if others hear your story and believe that the soul can be harnessed and so inspired by the knowledge that it can be done, they follow in your target's footsteps?
No, your reasons as well as his theory and discovery must be a mystery. You are clearly willing to take a life to prevent the fall of sentience, but are you prepared to give one?
The man answered almost instantly. Yes. Without hesitation.
The investigator nodded. Then you know why I'm doing this.
The investigator then stood while raising his pistol and shot the smiling man once in the head and twice in the heart. He stood there for six minutes, and then shot himself in the roof of the mouth.
They were both mercifully forgotten in the fullness of time.
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Story: The Preserver
Simon loved his job.
He sat in his den sipping bourbon and milk. He smiled to himself. Simon was always an inquisitive mind. He had always thought in strange directions. He liked to tree things out, take an idea and make it grow in all directions like a mold or a snowflake.
Take this drink for example. The personal facts about it were that everyone whom he had ever offered a sip turned their nose up either before or after. This to him was just another confirmation that people not only have different opinions but experience the world in fundamentally different ways. He suspected all the way down to having different qualia for color perception, that is what I see as blue you see as green, which would explain the 70s, and golf pants.
To him bourbon and milk tasted like a milkshake, and he sipped it with a smile. Then he thought about the production of each, both originally and post synbio. The resources it took to get that glass in his hand during his adolescence had been staggering by any subjective human measure, beyond what it took to pick up the milk and the bottle at their respective stores. From care and feeding of the animal, tot he agricultural base needed for the liquor. These days, his drink despite tasting Exactly like he recalled, was what people born in his era would have called synthetic, despite the fact that there would be no scientific test that could tell the difference.
Humanity had perfected the art of food construction, and had done so in 6 months. He smiled with a deep sense of pride at that. His species had undeniably survived its infancy. The singularity had come and gone, the transhumanists were claiming the galaxy in ways he literally could not imagine. He himself had an echo out there somewhere. Or perhaps he was the echo. Anyway...
The choice was put to everyone for the first week or so and then someone realized that there was the third choice of all choices and that space was massive enough to leave room for all of them. You see, mind copying and backup and persistence of consciousness, while once esoteric concepts, quickly became practical. Indeed, this era could likely be seen as the philosopher's renaissance. With the utter mastery by any previous human scale of the material world, the realm of mind and the creation and cultivation of ideas had become far more important.
In that vein someone realized that copying the mind, toughening and altering the person was not the end of the road, indeed a person now had the choice to externalize physically facets of their personality. Now, one's desire to travel and explore need not be tied to ones desire to sit and have a nice cool drink and curl up with a good book. Simon you see, was Simon's desire to share, and to enjoy life quietly. Simon's sense of adventure was probably swimming in Jupiter's red spot, while Simon's curiosity was fully observing the event horizon of the nearest black hole.
This Simon, was not a pet, even though the transhumans humanity had spawned were incomprehensibly intelligent compared to him. He had an important function.
Simon was a preserver. Simon's job was to offer humans from his era passage into this one. He himself had been a cryonicist, and smiled at the resources he expended to ensure his place in the future. He was amused with himself for having thought the matter through in such a linear fashion. Time travel had never occurred to him as a serious option.
Yes, at one time Simon would never have even imagined being a time traveler, but that was now his day job, his lovely 9-5. Of course there was no pay except the joy he brought, but for a person like him, that was more then enough since all his creature comforts were met.
Simon went back in time, and used a small space folder, as he liked to think of it, how it really worked he probably could never understand, to remove and replace human brains with exact duplicates picoseconds before irrevocable failure. He then put the brains into a communication vat, again his terminology, and put the question to them.
Shall I build a new body for you? Would you like to see the future? Or would you rather continue dieing? Many chose to die, because part of the question, was the clear impression that this was not a threat, and he did not feel sorry for them because they were given a real choice. Many chose to live and he watched them sail into his world. Some asked for second chances, but once he explained the damage that could cause, they didn't ask again.
He took the whole brains to avoid the duplicate problem and the persistence of consciousness problem.
You see a perfect copy of a mind is still a copy, to avoid the philosophical conundrums, the whole brain was taken and an inert copy left behind to "die".
Humanity had conquered death for keeps. It was in the process of going back to every human era, and offering the choice. Many referred to this era as heaven, or whatever they called their after life, and in many ways that was the case. We could manufacture or perfectly simulate whatever sort of existence was desired within the realm of physical possibility.
Simon didn't see it as heaven, he just saw all this as a natural outgrowth. Personally he felt this option was the granting of his greatest wish. “I wish everything would work out in a manner of which I would approve.” he was so proud of himself as a child for having thought of that, and he still was.
This world was everything he could have hoped for and more. For him, it was proof that yes there was a god, and it clearly loved all existence. It amazed him how close it had come to the brink of annihilation before its meteoric rise.
He remembered the debate from his era, and he had always found it amusing the clash between science and religion, and how it was totally manufactured since the two don't really cross paths.
He sipped and thought of all that, and then set it down so that he might prepare for work.
Today he had a very special client, and he didn't want to be late, but of course he knew he wouldn't be.
...his client's name was Simon.
He sat in his den sipping bourbon and milk. He smiled to himself. Simon was always an inquisitive mind. He had always thought in strange directions. He liked to tree things out, take an idea and make it grow in all directions like a mold or a snowflake.
Take this drink for example. The personal facts about it were that everyone whom he had ever offered a sip turned their nose up either before or after. This to him was just another confirmation that people not only have different opinions but experience the world in fundamentally different ways. He suspected all the way down to having different qualia for color perception, that is what I see as blue you see as green, which would explain the 70s, and golf pants.
To him bourbon and milk tasted like a milkshake, and he sipped it with a smile. Then he thought about the production of each, both originally and post synbio. The resources it took to get that glass in his hand during his adolescence had been staggering by any subjective human measure, beyond what it took to pick up the milk and the bottle at their respective stores. From care and feeding of the animal, tot he agricultural base needed for the liquor. These days, his drink despite tasting Exactly like he recalled, was what people born in his era would have called synthetic, despite the fact that there would be no scientific test that could tell the difference.
Humanity had perfected the art of food construction, and had done so in 6 months. He smiled with a deep sense of pride at that. His species had undeniably survived its infancy. The singularity had come and gone, the transhumanists were claiming the galaxy in ways he literally could not imagine. He himself had an echo out there somewhere. Or perhaps he was the echo. Anyway...
The choice was put to everyone for the first week or so and then someone realized that there was the third choice of all choices and that space was massive enough to leave room for all of them. You see, mind copying and backup and persistence of consciousness, while once esoteric concepts, quickly became practical. Indeed, this era could likely be seen as the philosopher's renaissance. With the utter mastery by any previous human scale of the material world, the realm of mind and the creation and cultivation of ideas had become far more important.
In that vein someone realized that copying the mind, toughening and altering the person was not the end of the road, indeed a person now had the choice to externalize physically facets of their personality. Now, one's desire to travel and explore need not be tied to ones desire to sit and have a nice cool drink and curl up with a good book. Simon you see, was Simon's desire to share, and to enjoy life quietly. Simon's sense of adventure was probably swimming in Jupiter's red spot, while Simon's curiosity was fully observing the event horizon of the nearest black hole.
This Simon, was not a pet, even though the transhumans humanity had spawned were incomprehensibly intelligent compared to him. He had an important function.
Simon was a preserver. Simon's job was to offer humans from his era passage into this one. He himself had been a cryonicist, and smiled at the resources he expended to ensure his place in the future. He was amused with himself for having thought the matter through in such a linear fashion. Time travel had never occurred to him as a serious option.
Yes, at one time Simon would never have even imagined being a time traveler, but that was now his day job, his lovely 9-5. Of course there was no pay except the joy he brought, but for a person like him, that was more then enough since all his creature comforts were met.
Simon went back in time, and used a small space folder, as he liked to think of it, how it really worked he probably could never understand, to remove and replace human brains with exact duplicates picoseconds before irrevocable failure. He then put the brains into a communication vat, again his terminology, and put the question to them.
Shall I build a new body for you? Would you like to see the future? Or would you rather continue dieing? Many chose to die, because part of the question, was the clear impression that this was not a threat, and he did not feel sorry for them because they were given a real choice. Many chose to live and he watched them sail into his world. Some asked for second chances, but once he explained the damage that could cause, they didn't ask again.
He took the whole brains to avoid the duplicate problem and the persistence of consciousness problem.
You see a perfect copy of a mind is still a copy, to avoid the philosophical conundrums, the whole brain was taken and an inert copy left behind to "die".
Humanity had conquered death for keeps. It was in the process of going back to every human era, and offering the choice. Many referred to this era as heaven, or whatever they called their after life, and in many ways that was the case. We could manufacture or perfectly simulate whatever sort of existence was desired within the realm of physical possibility.
Simon didn't see it as heaven, he just saw all this as a natural outgrowth. Personally he felt this option was the granting of his greatest wish. “I wish everything would work out in a manner of which I would approve.” he was so proud of himself as a child for having thought of that, and he still was.
This world was everything he could have hoped for and more. For him, it was proof that yes there was a god, and it clearly loved all existence. It amazed him how close it had come to the brink of annihilation before its meteoric rise.
He remembered the debate from his era, and he had always found it amusing the clash between science and religion, and how it was totally manufactured since the two don't really cross paths.
He sipped and thought of all that, and then set it down so that he might prepare for work.
Today he had a very special client, and he didn't want to be late, but of course he knew he wouldn't be.
...his client's name was Simon.
Fiction
I'm going to start writing fiction, or rather I'm going to start publishing it.
Most of you jackasses think I'm full of shit anyway.
I'm not going to copy protect my work. Either my work won't be good enough to steal, or you people will be good enough not to steal it. Not because you fear the law, not because you fear your god, and not because your girlfriend told you not to, but because you're just not that guy.
Data is free. Time and again I've explained that. But you people still insist on owning it, packing it, planting flags in it, buying it, and selling it.
A real artist gets paid for production not product. A real artist profits on commission, or not at all.
My profit will be the telling.
As a race we have forgotten how to tell stories. I look back and realize that's all we have. We dos something cool or see something cool and the best part is telling everyone. Because in the end, what does it matter? Its only real if other did or could have experienced it.
It's not the experience itself. If that were the case we'd tell everyone our dreams constantly and be ashamed of our real stories due to their blandness. Sure we share the particularly outlandish dreams but only in so far as they relate to reality. You were in my dream last night only his eyes were made of crickets and he was trying to sell me a bakery that specialized in cat medicine.
What's the important part? You.
I know the truth, and I'm sure I'll keep trying to tell you people the truth, and I'm sure you'll ignore it. But I'm also going to tell you some stories, because I like telling them and because if no one is going to listen, then I better find a way to enjoy talking.
Most of you jackasses think I'm full of shit anyway.
I'm not going to copy protect my work. Either my work won't be good enough to steal, or you people will be good enough not to steal it. Not because you fear the law, not because you fear your god, and not because your girlfriend told you not to, but because you're just not that guy.
Data is free. Time and again I've explained that. But you people still insist on owning it, packing it, planting flags in it, buying it, and selling it.
A real artist gets paid for production not product. A real artist profits on commission, or not at all.
My profit will be the telling.
As a race we have forgotten how to tell stories. I look back and realize that's all we have. We dos something cool or see something cool and the best part is telling everyone. Because in the end, what does it matter? Its only real if other did or could have experienced it.
It's not the experience itself. If that were the case we'd tell everyone our dreams constantly and be ashamed of our real stories due to their blandness. Sure we share the particularly outlandish dreams but only in so far as they relate to reality. You were in my dream last night only his eyes were made of crickets and he was trying to sell me a bakery that specialized in cat medicine.
What's the important part? You.
I know the truth, and I'm sure I'll keep trying to tell you people the truth, and I'm sure you'll ignore it. But I'm also going to tell you some stories, because I like telling them and because if no one is going to listen, then I better find a way to enjoy talking.
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