Self-discovery

Chapter 20

January 5. Here I am in the position of a human rough draft for a more perfect copy. And even though I’m the creator of the copy, it’s still nothing to be happy about.

“You know, your nephew is very attractive,” Lena said to me after I introduced them at a New Year’s party. “Simpatico.”

Back at home, I spent a whole hour staring at myself in the mirror: a depressing sight. And he was good at small talk; I was no match for him.

No, Victor Kravets was behaving himself like a gentleman with Lena. Either earlier memories are having an effect or he’s just feeling out his possibilities in breaking hearts, but he appears to be uninterested in her. If he made the effort, though, I’d never see Lena again.

When he and I walk around Academic Town or along the institute grounds, girls who never nodded to me before greet me loudly and joyously: “Hello, Valentin Vasilyevich!” — with an eye on the handsome stranger next to me.

And he’s so good on skis! The three of us went out of town yesterday, and he and Lena left me far behind.

And how he danced at the New Year’s ball!

Even Ninochka, the secretary, who didn’t know the way to the lodge before, always seems to be dropping by with a paper from the office for me.

“Hello, Valentin Vasilyevich! Hello, Vitya… oh, it’s so interesting here, all these tubes!”

In a word, I now can observe myself every day the way I am and myself the way I would be if only… if only what? If only it weren’t for the hunger during and after the war, the strong resemblance to my father who — alas! — was not too handsome (“Pudgy — faced, just like his father!” the relatives used to say, cooing over me), the bumps and potholes in the road of life. If only it weren’t for my rather unhealthy life — style: the lab, the library, my room, conversations, thinking, the miasmas from the reagents — and no physical recreation. Really, I didn’t try to become an ugly, fat, stooped egghead — it just happened.

In principle, I should be proud: I beat Mother Nature! But something gets in the way….

No, there’s something damaging about this idea. Let’s say we perfect the method of controlled synthesis. And we create marvelous people — strong, beautiful, talented, energetic, knowledgeable — you know, masters of life from advertising posters like “We saved at the bank and bought this refrigerator!” But what about the people that were used as a basis for them — does that mean that they were nothing more than rought drafts sketched by life? Why should they be demeaned? That’s a fine reward for their lives: regret for your imperfections, the thought that you will never be perfect because you were made by a regular mama and not a marvelous contraption? It turns out that with our system people will still be pitted against people. And not only against bad ones — against everyone, since we all have some imperfections. Does that mean that good but ordinary people (not artificial) will have to be crowded out of life?

(There! That’s just like you, Krivoshein — you’re so thick — skinned. Until it affects you personally you don’t think about it. “Whup him with a two — by — four,” as your daddy used to say. But all right, I got it now. That’s the important thing.)

There’s plenty to think about here. I guess all human flaws have a common nature — they’re exaggerations. Take a quality that’s pleasant to have in people around you: simplicity. We’re inculcated with it from childhood. But if nature flubs it, or your upbringing spoils it, or if life goes the wrong way — you end up with sleepy stupidity instead of simplicity. You can also get cowardice instead of reasonable caution, false conceit instead of a necessary confidence, cynicism instead of sober daring, or sneakiness instead of brains.

We use a lot of words to hide our impotence in the face of human imperfections: jokes (“A bear stepped on his ear,” “He was dropped as a baby”), scientific terms (“anemia,” “personality breakdown/ “inferiority complex”), and homilies (“That’s not for him,” or “He has a gift for that….”). We used to say “God’s gift.” Now in our materialistic age we say “nature’s gift,” but basically, it’s the same thing: man has no control. Some have it and some don’t.

And you can guess why some don’t. In primitive societies and later social formations man’s perfection was not compulsory. If you knew how to live, work, multiply, and be a little crafty — fine, it was enough! Only now, when we have a constructive idea of communism, and not just a Utopian one, we are developing real demands to be made on man. We are taking man’s measure for this marvelous idea — and it’s painful to see the things we hadn’t noticed before.

January 8. I shared my thoughts with Kravets.

“You want to employ the synthesis method on ordinary people?” double number 3 quickly deduced.

“Yes. But how?” I looked at him hopefully. Maybe he knew?

He understood my look and laughed.

“Don’t forget that I’m you. On the level of knowledge, anyway.”

“But maybe you have a better idea of what that liquid is?” I pointed at the tank. “You came out of it after all… like Aphrodite from the sea spray. You know, its composition and so on.”

“In two words?”

“You can use three.”

“All right. That liquid is man. Its composition is the composition of the human body. Besides that, the liquid is a quantal — molecular biochemical computer that can teach itself and has a huge memory, and each molecule of the liquid has some unique bit of information. In other words, do what you will, the liquid of the computer — womb is merely man in a liquid state. You can draw scientific, practical, and organizational conclusions based on that fact.”

I had the feeling that this new problem hadn’t captured him the way it had me. I tried to stir up his imagination.

“Vitya, what if this method is really ‘it? It’s for ordinary people, after all, and not — “

“You go to — (tsk, tsk, and an artificial man at that!). I absolutely refuse to look at our work from the ‘it — not it’ point of view and in keeping with a vow I never made. Nowadays you should have a much cooler view of vows! (Well, if you call that a cooler view….) You want to use the discovery to transform people?”

“Into angels.” I threw fat on the fire.

“The hell with angels! An informational transformation of homo sapiens — and that’s it! You have to look at the problem from the academic point of view!”

It was my first opportunity to see him lose control and turn into… me. No matter how you try to hide it, the Krivoshein personality surfaces. But at least he was churned up. That’s the most important thing when you begin a new research project — to get churned up and hate the work.

As a result of a six — hour conversation with a dinner break we made four steps in the realization of the new problem.

Step 1: Artificial and natural people, judging by everything (well, even by the fact that ordinary food wasn’t poison for the double) are biologically identical. Therefore, everything that the computer — womb does with the doubles, can in principle (if you forget about the difficulties of technical realization, as they say in articles) be extended to ordinary people.

Step 2: The computer — womb obeys commands on alternations in the tank without any mechanical apparatus or control equipment. Therefore, the liquid in the control circuit is the executive biochemical mechanism; it performs controlled metabolism, as the biologist would say, in the tank —

— “Damn it!” the student muttered and smoked nervously.

— or more accurately, transforms external information into structured encoding in matter: organic molecules, cells, corpuscles, tissue….

Step 3: In principle, how can a person be transformed in the computer — womb? An artificial double is born in it as an extension and development of the machine’s circuitry. In the transparent stage he already senses and feels like a person, but cannot function actively (the experience with Adam and Kravets’s confirmation). Then the double continues to the nontransparent stage, detaches himself from the liquid circuit of the computer — womb (or it from him), takes control of himself, and climbs out — no, no, this must be academic sounding — and unplugs from the computer. With an ordinary person, apparently, we would have to operate in reverse, that is, plugging the person into the machine first. Technically: immersing the man in the liquid.

Step 4: But can a person be plugged into the computer — womb? After all, what’s needed here is no more and no less that — I do know something about neurophysiology; I’ve read Ashby — total contact of the entire nervous system with the liquid. Our conductor — nerves are isolated from the external environment by skin, tissue, and the skull. In order to get to them the liquid circuit would have to penetrate the person.

We decided that it could penetrate. After all, man is a solution. Not a water solution (otherwise people would dissolve in water); there’s not that much free water in a person. It’s that damn quantitative analysis that confuses everything, the hypnosis of numbers that comes when you take apart human tissue and get these figures: water 75 percent, protein 20 percent, fat 2 percent, salt 1 percent, and so on. Man is a biological solution, and all his components coexist within him in unity and interrelation. The body contains “liquid liquids”: saliva, urine, blood plasma, lymph, stomach acids — they can be poured into a test tube. Other liquids fill the cell tissues — the muscles, nerves, brain — and here each cell is a test tube itself. Biological liquids even permeate the bones, as if they were sponges. Thus, despite a lack of proper vessels, man has much more reason to consider himself a liquid than, say, does a forty — percent solution of sodium hydrate.

To be even more precise, man is information recorded in a biological solution. Beginning with the moment of conception, transformations take place in this solution; the muscles, intestines, nerves, brain, and skin all form. The same thing — but faster and in a different way — takes place in the liquid of the computer — womb. So, however you look at it, the two liquids are closely related, and their mutual penetration is quite possible.

No matter how much we wanted to check every hypothesis as soon as possible in the computer — womb, we controlled ourselves and spent the whole day on theory. We’ve played enough with chance. This time we’ll plan everything thoroughly.

So, the first thing is to plug in.

February!. Ah, those were good theories that we were tailoring to fit what had already been done! The building block game, the mathematics of “it — not it”… it’s nice to look back on how smoothly it all went. Build a theory to help you achieve new results that are much more complex.

For now the theoretical liquid (the liquid circuit) in the tank is behaving like vulgar water. Just thicker.

Do I need to write how the very next day we ran to the lab bright and’ early, and in trepidation and anticipation, stuck our fingers into the tank — “plugging in.” And nothing. The liquid wasn’t warm or cool. We stood around like that for an hour: no sensation, no changes.

Do I need to describe how we bathed the last two rabbits in the liquid trying to plug them into the computer? The computer — womb didn’t obey the order “No!” and didn’t dissolve them. It ended with the rabbits drowning, and we couldn’t save them by pumping them out.

Do I need to mention that we lowered conductors into the liquid and watched the movements of floating potentials on the oscillograph? The potentials vacillated and the plotted curve looked like a jagged electroencephalogram. And so what?

That’s the way it always is. If I were a novice, I’d quit.

February 6. An experiment: I lowered my finger into the liquid, Kravets put on Monomakh’s Crown and began touching various objects with his finger. J could feel what surfaces he was touching! There was something warm (the radiator), something cold and wet (he stuck his finger under the tap).

That meant my finger was plugged in!? The computer was giving me information about external sensations through my finger. Yes, but they’re the wrong ones. I need signals (even in sensations) of the work of the liquid circuit in the tank.

February 10. A small, innocent, trifling result. In scope it’s inferior even to making the rabbits. Simply, I cut the fleshy part of my palm today and healed the cut.

“You see,” Kravets said meditatively in the morning, “for the liquid circuit to have the sensation of working, it has to work. And what is it supposed to work on, I ask you? Why should it plug into you, or me, or the rabbits? We’re all complete. Everything is in informational balance.”

I don’t know if I really figured it out faster than he did (I flatter myself into thinking yes) or whether he just didn’t want to hurt himself. But I began the experiment: I destroyed the informational equilibrium in my organism.

The scalpel was sharp and inexperienced. I sliced through my flesh all the way to the bone. Blood drenched my hand. I put my hand in the tank and the liquid turned crimson around it. The pain didn’t disappear.

“The crown — put on the crown!” Kravets shouted.

“What crown? What for?” The pain and the sight of blood kept me from thinking straight.

He pushed Monomakh’s Crown on my head, clicked the dials — and the pain disappeared instantly; in a few seconds the liquid was clear of blood. My hand was enveloped in a pleasant tingle — and the miracle began: my hand became transparent before my eyes!

First the red plaits of the muscles showed. A minute later they had dissolved, and the white bones of the fingers showed through the red jelly. A violet blood vessel, thickening and thinning, pushed blood near the sinews in my wrist.

I grew scared and I pulled my hand out of the tank. Immediate pain. The hand was whole, but it shone as if it had been oiled; heavy drops dripped off from the tips of my transparent fingers. I tried wriggling my fingers but they wouldn’t obey. And then I noticed that my fingers were thickening into droplet — shaped forms. That was terrifying.

“Put it back or you’ll lose your hand!” Kravets shouted.

I put it back and concentrated on the cut. There was a delicious ache there. “Yes, computer… that’s it. That’s it,” I repeated. The tingle weakened and the wrist was losing its transparency. Sighing in relief, I took out my hand: there was no more cut, just a big reddish blue scar. A few transparent drops of ichor oozed in the crack. The scar itched and buzzed unbearably. This probably wasn’t the end, then. I put my hand in the liquid again. Again — transparency, tingling. “That’s it, computer. That’s it.” Finally the tingling stopped and the hand was no longer transparent.

The whole experiment lasted twenty minutes. Now I couldn’t show you where I cut myself with the scalpel.

I have to figure this out. The most interesting aspect of this was that I didn’t have to give the computer — womb any special information on how to heal a cut — as if I could. Probably my little encouraging that’s it’s were superfluous. The feeling of pain had given rise to rather eloquent biowaves in my brain as it was.

It looks like the computer — womb plugs into a person with a signal of imbalance in the system. But this signal wouldn’t necessarily have to be pain: it could be a willed command to change something in yourself or a dissatisfaction (“not it”). And then it could be controlled with sensation.

A minor, ineffective experiment compared with everything that came before it. After all the cut could have been doused with iodine, bandaged, and it would have healed on its own.

But it’s the most important experiment we’ve done in a year’s work! Now our discovery can be used not only to synthesize and perfect artificial doubles but to transform complex informational systems that are contained in a highly complex biological solution, which we simply call man. The transformation of any person!

February 20. Yes, the liquid circuit plugs into a human organism on a willed command, too. Today I removed the hair from my arm up to my elbow this way. I put my hand in the tank, put on the crown. “Not it,” concentrating on the hair. The prickling and itching increased. The skin became transparent. A minute later the hair had dissolved.

Kravets used the method to grow nails on his pinky and index finger that were over an inch long. He dipped both plams into the liquid and changed his usual fingerprint sworls into something resembling the tread on a winter tire. Then he tried to restore the original pattern, but he didn’t remember what it looked like.

Now I see why nothing worked with the rabbits — they have no consciousness, no will, no satisfaction with self. This is a method for man. And only for man!

Graduate student Krivoshein skimmed the rest, to memorize it. He flipped through the pages of the diary, photographing them with his memory. It was clear to him: Krivoshein and Kravets had reached the same thing a different way — they could control metabolism in man. But they needed a computer.

And it was important that they needed mechanical help. Now his discovery wasn’t unique, a freak, but knowledge on how to alter oneself. It wasn’t enough to have a method of transformation — you had to have complete information on the human organism. They didn’t have it and couldn’t possibly have it. And his “knowledge in sensations” could be encoded into the computer and passed on to the world. To every human being. And every human being could have unheard — of power.

The student slitted his eyes in thought, and leaned back in the chair. The fight against disease would soon be forgotten! The elements would be subordinate to man without machines.

The blue ocean depths, where he will go without diving gear or bathyscaphe. A human dolphin will be able to grow fins and gills at will and enjoy the water environment, live in it, work in it, travel through it.

If he wants to go into the air, he can grow wings and fly, soar like an eagle on the warm air currents.

Hostile alien planets: the poisonous atmosphere of chlorous gases, heated by the sun and the uncooled magma or chilled by the cosmic cold, full of fatal bacteria. And man will be able to live there as freely as on earth, without special suits or biological shields. He will merely transform his organism to breathe chloride instead of oxygen and perhaps change the usual protein of his body to an organosilicon one.

The important thing about man is not that he breathes oxygen. Not his arms and legs. You can develop fins, gills, wings, breathe fluorine, replace protein with organosilicon, and still be man. And you can have normal extremities, white skin, a head, and papers — and not be one! “Yes, but….” Krivoshein leaned on the desk. His eyes fell on his original’s notes.

Disease and freakishness will disappear. Wounds and poisons will be no threat. Everyone will be able to become strong, brave, beautiful, will be able to mobilize the resources of his organism to do work that once seemed impossible. People will be like gods! Well, what are you smiling wisely for? This is really the method for the limitless perfection of man!”

“I’m wise, so I’m smiling,” Kravets answered coldly. “You’re flying off somewhere again. That’s not the only possibility.”

“Oh, come on! Doesn’t every person strive to become better, more perfect?”

“Strives in keeping with his concepts of good and perfection. For one thing, you might end up with “Krivoshein’s cosmetic baths. “

“What baths?”

“You know… five rubles a session. A citizen shows up, undresses behind a screen, and sinks into the biological liquid. The operator — some Zhora Sherverpupa, former hairdresser — puts on Mono — makh’s Crown and asks: ‘What would you desire? This time I want to look like Brigitte Bardot, his client orders. ‘But make sure my eyebrows are thicker and darker. My guy really likes ‘em dark. Why are you frowning? She’ll even give Zhora a tip. And the male clientele will be turning themselves into Alain Delon or the Nordic handsomeness of an Oleg Strizhenov. And then next season the fashion will be for Lollabrigidas and Vitaly Zubkovs, as seen in the picture….”

“But we could program a minimal retrieval of information for the computer — womb… some kind of filter for banality and stupidity. Or program it to — “

“ — simultaneously instill inner qualities in the mass consumer? What if he doesn’t want any? Doesn’t he have the right not to want any for his money? ‘What am I, some little lady will ask, ‘abnormal or something. Why do you think you should change me? You’re the weirdos! You see, the reinforced concreteness of the position of the middle — class boob stems from his absolute certainty that his own behavior is the norm.”

“But we can make sure it’s not the norm for the computer — womb.”

“Hmmm… I suggest a simple experiment. Please put a finger into the liquid.”

“Which one?”

“Whichever one you won’t miss.”

I dipped my ring finger into the liquid. The double put on the crown and went over to the medicine chest.

“Attention!”

“Ow, what are you doing?” I pulled out the finger. It was cut and bleeding.

Victor Kravets sucked his ring finger and then wiped the blood from the scalpel.

“Do you see now?” The computer has no norms of behavior. It doesn’t give a damn about anything. Whatever you command it to do, it does.”

We healed the cuts.

Kravets brought me down from the heavens — headlong down a steep flight of stairs. We’re a dreamy lot, inventors. And Bell probably thought that people would use his telephone only for pleasant or necessary news, and certainly not for gossip, or anonymous denunciations, or for sending an ambulance to perfectly healthy friends as a joke. We all dream about the good thing, and when life turns our inventions inside out, we just slap our sides, like loggers in a forest, and ask: “What are you doing, people?”

The hellish part of science is that it creates methods and nothing else. So we will have a “method for transforming information in a biological system.” You can turn a monkey into a man. But you could also turn a man into a donkey.

But I can’t, I can’t believe that after our discovery things would go on as they were! Not for the sake of science — for the sake of life. Our discovery was intended for life: it doesn’t shoot; it doesn’t kill — it creates. Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place — the problem isn’t in the computer but in man?

Graduate student Krivoshein finished reading the diary to the inner accompaniment of these troubling thoughts. Had they worked for nothing? Was their discovery too soon, ahead of its time, and could it harm mankind? In Moscow he hadn’t given much thought to it: the discovery was only within him — it had nothing to do with anyone else — and he just explored it to his heart’s content and said nothing. Of course, after his bath in the pool of the reactor he was bursting to share his knowledge and experiences with Androsiashvili and the guys in the form: radiation and radiation sickness can be overcome! But this knowledge was top secret… “because of the dregs!” Krivoshein was angry. “Because of the dregs, of whom there are maybe one in a thousand and for whom that prostitute science prepares methods of destroying cities and nations! Only methods. I guess we’ll have to just wipe out those vipers. No one would catch me or shoot me… but then I’ll be just like them. No, that’s not it, either.

The student shut the diary and raised his eyes. The table lamp was lit without illuminating anything. It was light. Beyond the window the matching yellow faces of the buildings of Academic Town stared into the sun; it looked like the herd of houses would take off after the light any second. The clock said 7:30 in the morning.

Krivoshein lit up and went out on the balcony. People were gathering at the bus stop. A broad — shouldered man in a blue raincost paced under the trees. “Well, well!” Krivoshein was amazed by his tenacity. “All right, I have to save what can be saved.”

He went back inside, undressed, and took a cold shower. Then he opened the closet, critically eyed the meager selection of clothes. He chose a Ukrainian shirt with embroidery. He gave the worn suit a dubious stare, sighed, and put it on.

Then the student trained in front of the mirror for fifteen minutes and left the apartment.