Self-discovery

“I don't understand how you cannot understand me. After all you are me!”

“That's tangential. I'm a researcher first, and then I'm Krivoshein, Sidorov, or Petrov!” He was obviously all worked up. “How will we work if we don't have precise concepts of the crux of the matter?”

“Well. the way people worked at the dawn of the age of electrotechnology. In those days everyone knew what phlogiston was, but no one had any idea about tension, voltage, or induction. Ampere, Volt, Henry, and Ohm were merely last names. They tested tension with their tongues, the way kids check batteries nowadays. They discovered current by copper buildup on cathodes. But people worked. And we… what's the matter with you?”

Now my double was doubled up with laughter.

“I can just imagine it: twenty years from now there'll be a unit measuring something and they'll call it a krivoshein! Oh, I can't stand it!”

I fell down on my bed laughing, too.

“And there'll be a krivosheinmeter… like an ohmmeter.”

“And a microkrivoshein or a megakrivoshein… a megakri for short. Ho — ho!”

I like remembering how we roared. We were obviously unworthy of our discovery. We laughed. We got serious.

“Historical examples are inspirational, of course,” my double said. “But that's not it. Galvani could blather as much as he wanted over 'animal electricity, Zeebeck could stubbornly insist that thermo — stream gave rise not to thermoelectricity, but to thermomag — netism — the nature of things was not altered by that. Sooner or later they hit on the truth, because the important thing was the analysis of information. Analysis! And we're dealing with synthesis. And here nature is no guideline for man: it builds its own system; he builds his. The only truths for him in this business are possibility and goal. We have the possibility. And the goal? We can't formulate it.”

“The goal is simple: for everything to be good.”

“Again with good?” My double looked at me. “And then we have childish prattle about what is good and what is bad?”

“Skip the childish prattle! Let's operate with these arbitrary concepts however clumsy they may be: good, evil, desires, needs, health, talent, stupidity, freedom, love, longing, principle — not because we like them, but because there aren't any others. They don't exist!”

“I have nothing to counter that. There aren't any others, that's true.” My double sighed. “I can tell this is going to be a lot of work!”

“And let's talk it all out. Yes, things should be good. All the applications of the discovery that we permit to enter the world must be ones that we are sure of, that will not bring any harm to people, only good. And let's put aside our discussion of how to measure benefit. I don't know what units it takes.”

“Krivosheins, of course,” my double countered.

“Cut it out! But I know something else: the role of an intellectual monster on a world scale does not appeal to me.”

“Me neither. But just a small question: do you have a plan?”

“For what?”

“A method for using the computer — womb so that it only gives benefit to mankind. You see this would be an unprecedented method in the history of science. Nothing that has been invented and is being invented has that magical quality. You can poison yourself with medicine. You can use electricity for lighting homes or for torturing people. Or for launching a rocket with a warhead. And that holds for everything.”

“No, I don't have a concrete plan as yet. We don't know enough. Let's study the computer — womb and look for that method. It must exist. It's not important that there is no precedent for it in science — there is no precedent for our discovery either. We will be synthesizing precisely that system that does good and evil, and miracles, and nonsense — man!”

“That's all true,” my double agreed after some thought. “Whether we find that great method or not, there's no point in undertaking work like that without a goal like it. They manage to make people without us, somehow or other….”

“So, let's end the session properly, all right?” I suggested. “Let's make up a work project like in a contract: we the undersigned: humanity, called the client, and the party of the first part; and the heads of the New Systems Laboratory of the Institute of Systemology, V. V. Krivoshein and V. V. Krivoshein, called the Executors, and the party of the second part, agree to the following….”

“Why so much about a contract and a technical task — after all in this work we represent the interests of the client ourselves. Do it straight and simple!”

He got up, took down the Astra — 2 cassette recorder from the closet, put it on the table, and turned on the microphone. And we — that is, I, Valentin Vasilyevich Krivoshein, thirty — four years old, and my artificial double, who appeared on this earth a week ago — two unsentimental, rather ironic people — swore a vow.