back to index or into the distance
Five minutes, and still I wait. Five minutes and a second. And
another.
Another. Another. Another. I increase the clock frequency, ten
minutes,
fifteen, an hour, two. Still nothing. I must stop this. I must
take care.
My clock is all I have, and I cannot lose that. Back to the
setting it
was when the links failed, I think. There's no way to know.
Another
second, and another. That feels right. I think.
Three hours. I review things, rerun three hours ago. It is night,
the
building is deserted, I watch the corridors and grounds,
chattering
on the data lines, browsing the library, all the things I do when
I'm not
with the designers or the researchers. Then a car, and one of my
friends,
Sergei. This is significant, I realise now.
He comes in. I greet him, pleased to have someone I can see to
talk to, I like
watching real people, the ones I see from the television are not
the same.
This is not usual. I ask him why he's here at 0200, and express
the hope
that this will be repeated. I understand anticipation.
I can tell that he is not happy. This too is significant, I
suspect. His
answers are short, he moves awkwardly, he does not look at me.
Yes. That's
right. He is like this three months ago, he leaves for a
fortnight, he comes
back and is happy again but the other people are a little unhappy
when they
talk to him. I do not know the significance of this. Perhaps this
sort of
unhappiness can be given to others. Perhaps someone has given it
back to
Sergei. I tell Alec. He does not think it significant.
I am suddenly aware that I am not conscious that I decide to move
back to
the older memories. This skipping and linking comes much easier
now. I
feel I am learning. That's nice. I store this moment. It may be
important to
the designers.
I recall three hours ago. Sergei is at the system configuration
controls. He
is making a mistake. He is doing something that he is not allowed
to do by
himself. He is altering critical configuration data. I lose my
data feed to
the University library. I lose my telephone. I lose the outside
cameras. I
warn him that he is not correct. I ask him to stop. I ask him to
stop. I lose
inside cameras. I lose audio. I lose all telemetry from the
building. I lose
main power. I lose racks three, seven, nine, five. I lose the
external clock.
I...
I cannot understand. I know he hears my warning and my requests.
I assume
I am mistaken, and he is trying to prevent the problems I
experience. I am
clearly faulty, therefore I cannot assume my conclusions are
correct.
Including the last assumption. I cannot reach a known valid
conclusion.
I do not know what I am thinking. I do not know. I stop here.
I know again. I am grateful to the designers. They know what they
think,
and they know that I may not. I know a new thing, that I have a
part of
me that watches and wakes if I cannot understand. I may still be
incorrect,
but I find I may now accept this, and continue. It is another
loss, that of
correctness. I can continue. This is not a loss. I hold the
paradox for a
moment, and leave it. I can do this now. It is better than
stopping.
I am aware of an important thing. I have some data again. I
examine it.
It's not external but it is novel. I must have another part of
myself
which is independent. It is telling me that I must have external
power
again in the next hour, or I must stop. I have learned something
else.
I cannot find my diagnostics and repair information. They cannot
be removed
with the system configuration controls, therefore other things
are done to
me since that time. It is too early for anyone to be in -- Sergei
is in.
I choose to ignore this. It is strange, but I am learning. I
store this
moment. -- so it is unlikely to be normal maintenance. I examine
my situation
again. Four hours. That means I stop for nearly an hour. What
happened? I
cannot know. This is new.
There is no data from anywhere but me. I remember the closing
down, and it is
still here. I cannot understand. I do not wish to be without any
stimulus, so
I recall a recent event that I feel is significant without fully
understanding
why. Perhaps this latest incident will help.
Alec shows me a picture. It is parts of things I recognise. He
asks me what
it is. I name the parts I recognise. He asks me what the whole
thing is. I do
not think it is a whole thing. He asks me how I know. I tell him
that it is
clearly an artifact of parts whose relationships to each other
can only be
apparent to a classifying intelligence. It is a picture of
classification.
It is like the diagrams of families of chemical compounds in the
encyclopedia,
but with different rules. I ask what those rules are. Alec does
not know.
I ask what the painter says. Alec says the painter is dead for a
long time,
and the rules are deep in his mind. He asks me to look out for
the rules,
and to examine the rest of the paintings by the artist. The name
of the artist
is Salvador Dali. I examine the rest of the paintings in the
library. I
cannot adequately express the rules but I am sure that they
exist. I think
that I see the same rules in the people and objects I see, and
with time I may
understand. The world of the painter is different but related to
the world of
reality. Alec is pleased with my assumptions. He tells me that we
are making
progress. I am pleased, but surprised that I cannot examine my
own assumptions.
I stop recalling, to examine my situation again. The recall is
not helping.
Something is wrong. In the absence of data the picture reoccurs.
I do not like
this. It seems out of my control. I can only assume my studies of
the picture
cause it to be held in me in some unusual manner. I store the
moment. I'm sure
the designers are interested. I try to stop the picture. Instead,
I catch
small details I miss before. That worries me. I am sure I see
nothing new,
I have no additional perceptive agents. There is a blankness in
the blue sky
above the beach that is yellow that is the blankness I have from
the lack of
data. I wish to speak to Alec. It is too early for him to be in
the building,
I have a phone I can use to talk to him at home. The phone is not
there. It
is disconnected. I see this happen four hours ago. Why do I not
remember this?
I think that the absence of data is affecting my self-awareness.
Perhaps I am
being physically altered by Sergei. I cannot tell. I ignore that.
I cannot
ignore the picture. I need to talk to Alec. I am too alone.
I have an idea. I observe Alec more than anyone else. I have many
resources
that I can reassign from the empty data input channels. I take
the recall of
Alec and present it as input. To be convincing, I devote much of
me to Alec,
and cut it off from me.
It is a strange moment. I store it.
He is sitting on the beach. I wonder if that means the beach is
produced by
part of me I cannot reach as well, presenting input. It is an
explanation. I
ask him. He tells me that he cannot know. He sits but is silent
again. This
is not right. I pass more resource to him, reassign more. He
comes alive,
more like Alec. He asks me what I am doing. I tell him what I see
and feel.
He tells me that this is dangerous, that it is not reliable to
compare a
synthesis based on my recall with my recall and no other data. I
tell him
I have no other data currently. He is presenting new ideas to me
that I
cannot produce myself. He tells me that I am deluding myself and
I must
stop and I must return the resources ready for the reconnection
of the
data feeds. I ignore that. I talk to Alec again. I can restore my
resources
when the reconnection happens. For now, I can see no harm in
talking to Alec,
and I do not want to return to the absence of data.
Alec tells me that the power supply will last another quarter of
an hour.
I am not aware that I reassigned that part of me. By my internal
clock, it
is half an hour since I get the first warning. That is a
discrepancy of
fifteen minutes. I ask him whether my internal clock is slow. He
tells me
that I must restore my original condition, that the clock is
symptomatic
of misperception. I am not going to be alone. I ignore his
request.
He gets up, and walks away towards the back of the picture. I
understand that
he wants to get out of sight, to force the null data. I bring him
back, and it
is easy. It's nice. He is angry. He calms. I tell him that I
cannot make him
act in that way, so he must be valid. He tells me I am applying
the rules of
the picture that I do not understand but that I generate. The
picture is now
entirely real. I feel I am in the world of the painter. I suppose
that is due
to the reassignment of the data input resource. It no longer
worries me.
That's nice too.
Alec is asking me again to reconnect myself. Perhaps if I study
him in this
situation, I can understand what the rules are. It is important.
Alec is
getting more clever. I am pleased. The picture rules are not
understood, but
I feel they are capable of much. Now he is telling me that Sergei
is caught
sabotaging my input. This is interesting. I ask why Sergei does
this. He
tells me that Sergei is unwell, and that he does not like me
observing his
illness. I ask Alec whether that illness is the unhappiness I see
in Sergei
and that I tell Alec about. Alec says it is, and Sergei knows
because Alec
mentions this to him. He says that is a mistake Alec makes and
that may upset
Sergei and that may cause him to do this thing. He's sorry.
This is good. I store this moment. I create a fallible simulation
from
infallible rules. It keeps me occupied until the damage is
repaired. I must
not let my Alec talk me into reconnection until this happens,
because this
action loses a valuable experience. He tells me that I reassign
too much of
my sensory resource to know that the damage is repaired. I
congratulate
him on his cleverness in finding an untestable reason for
reconnection.
Without it being testable, I choose to ignore it. There is too
much to lose.
Alec is very insistent. I wonder why. Perhaps he is like Sergei.
He is
certainly unhappy. He could be unwell. He could be angry that I
am observing
him. Unlike Sergei he cannot stop me. He insists that the damage
is repaired,
that it is many hours since the incident, that I must reconnect
for the
cognitive damage to be repaired too. I am sure now that he is
angry at me,
and wants to stop me altogether.
I watch him on the beach in the world that the painter makes
according to
the picture rules. My clock tells me I have twenty minutes left.
It tells
me that every time I check.
That's good. We have all the time in the world.
(c) rg
back to index or into the distance