Memoirs of a Space Traveler

“Don’t bother me with him!” He bridled and thrust his fists into his apron pockets. “Corcoran, my dear sir, fell prey to a common fallacy. He wanted to philosophize, that is, to play God; for what is philosophy, in the end, but the desire to understand things to a degree greater than science permits? Philosophy wants to answer all questions, like a God. Corcoran tried to become God; cybernetics for him was merely a tool, a means of accomplishing his purpose. I want only to be a man, Tichy, nothing more. But that’s precisely why I’ve gone further than Corcoran. He was so intent on his goal that he immediately limited himself; he set up a pseudo-human world in his machines; he created a clever imitation, nothing more. If that were my goal, I could create any world I pleased … but what’s the use of plagiarisms… And maybe one day I’ll do it. But for the time being I have other problems. You’ve heard about my rowdiness? You needn’t answer, I know you have. That stupid reputation of mine brought you here. It’s nonsense, Tichy. I was simply annoyed by the blindness of those people. But, gentlemen — I told them — if I present you with a machine that extracts square roots from even numbers but doesn’t want to from odd numbers, that’s no defect, damn it, that’s an achievement! A machine has idiosyncrasies, tastes, already shows something like a rudimentary free will, the seed of spontaneity — and you say it must be rebuilt! Of course it must, but in such a way as to increase its capriciousness… Meanwhile… it’s impossible to talk to people who cannot see the obvious. The Americans are working on a perceptron, Tichy — they think that’s the way to build an intelligent machine. That’s the way to build an electronic slave! I put my money on the sovereignty, the independence of my constructions. Needless to say, it didn’t go smoothly; I was perplexed at first; there were times I even doubted that I was right. This happened then.”

He rolled up a sleeve; above the biceps was a whitish scar as large as a palm, surrounded by a pink welt.

“The first manifestations of spontaneity were not pleasant. They didn’t arise from intelligence. You cannot build an intelligent machine straight off. It would be like someone in ancient Greece wanting to go from quadrigae to jet planes. You cannot skip stages of evolution — even if it’s a cybernetic evolution begun by us. This first pupil of mine” — he put his hand on his mutilated arm — “had less ‘intelligence’ than any beetle. But it showed spontaneity, and how!”

“One moment,” I said. “You’re saying strange things. Haven’t you already built an intelligent machine? It’s in that clock.”

“That’s precisely what I call plagiarizing!” he replied vehemently. “A new myth has arisen, Tichy, the myth of building a ‘homunculus.’ Just why should we build people out of transistors and glass? Perhaps you can explain it to me? Is an atomic pile a synthetic star? Is a dynamo an artificial storm? Why should an intelligent machine be a ‘synthetic brain’ created in the image and likeness of man? For what purpose? To add, to these three billion proteinaceous beings, yet another, but one made of plastic and copper? That’s fine as a circus stunt, but not as a cybernetic creation.”

“What is it, then, you want to build?”

He smiled unexpectedly, and his face, amazingly, became that of a willful child.

“Tichy… now you’ll surely take me for a madman: I don’t know what I want!”

“I don’t understand…”

“But at least I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to repeat the human brain. Nature had her reasons for constructing it — biological, adaptational, etc. She worked in the ocean and in the branches where apemen climbed, amid fangs, claws, and blood, between the stomach and the sexual organs. But how does that concern me as a constructor? Now you see who you’re dealing with. But I don’t despise the human brain at all, Tichy, as that old fool Harness accused. Studying it is extremely important, absolutely vital, and if someone wants, I can immediately pay my humblest respects to that magnificent creation of nature!”

The professor really did make a bow.

“Does that mean, however, that I must imitate it? All of them, the poor devils, are certain I must! Imagine a group of Neanderthals who have their own cave and need nothing else! They don’t care to know what it’s like having houses, churches, amphitheaters, any buildings at all, because they have a cave and will go on hollowing out the same caves forever!”

“All right, then, but you must be striving for something. Heading in some direction. Therefore you expect something. What? Construction of a genius…?”

Diagoras looked at me with his head tilted, and his beady eyes suddenly became mocking.