H_O_M_O_ R_A_T_I_O_N_A_L_I_S_
(SCIENCE FICTION)
Chris MYRSKI, Sofia, Bulgaria ?1979 ... 2023
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| [ As far as this is a whole book let us give an idea about the cover (if there are no better propositions). In front: On a blue background, in the middle, hang, suspended on a rope, scales (pharmaceutical), in the left and heavier plate of which is put the Earth globe (with picture of the continents), and in the right one is seen only a stem of clover (in a pot) with four leaves, as symbol of happiness. On the back: whatever, or even nothing. ] |
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CONTENTS
Foreword
The recruit
It sounds logical
The discovery of professor Kolossov
The stimulator of Peter MacGreeves
The clover
The marriage proposal
Right of choice
Homo Rationalis
The tunnel
The cannibals
Biological partner
The order
The sixth day
Homo Retarded
Nights and days of a young robo-mother
What else if not afterlife?
Afterword
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P A R T N I N E
NIGHTS AND DAYS OF A YOUNG ROBO-MOTHER
Hello, my dear people! My name is Entelecheia and I am an young robo-mother. Well, young according to robo-standards, for I am really a bit older than 100, but, after all, this is the very bloom of youth, isn't it? Because it is taken that the robots live till 500 years, yet this is so, for definiteness, and there is also not enough statistics, individual robots are produced for a little more than 300 years, but if we change the bodies we are practically immortal. And you are not, and with the coming of new people one must always teach you, must explain to you that we, well, love you somehow, and you must also love us, but we, though living very close, live like, say, Muslims with Hebrews, right? So that is why I have decided to write for you this story, for to make you to know us better.
Because neither we read particularly much your books, nor you can understand our selectionated information. I mean that you can understand us, like I am now writing for you and you can read everything, but rarely some of the robots does this, as far as I know. Yet I am a clever robotess, Entelecheia according to Aristotle is a kind of energy hidden in the body, which can show itself, but may also not show, from here comes the word intellect. And one of the friends of my mother Entropy, Turmoil, we call him uncle Turmy, usually calls me Ente, and I thought initially that this is fondly, until found out that Ente in German means ... a she-duck. But what of it, this is, all the same, lovingly. So that your Ente will describe to you her life of individual robot, and exactly in human language, and more precisely in your native one.
And we do not specially like to "read" your fiction books because they are really inventions, fables, lies in some extent. In the sense that to "read" some of your books this is nothing for us, we do this for less than one second, but in order to process and comprehend it is necessary some time; yet the point is not in the time, we have more than enough time, the point is that after the proper processing it turns out that it has taught us nothing. Ha, ha. Do you get it? We detest to waste our time for silly things, with little exceptions, like for example, in order to learn better a given language is necessary to know its idioms, and they are to be found first of all in conversational speech, not in scientific literature; or also when we want to learn some fairy tales which we have to tell the children for whom we care, like me now, or to know better the people with whom we communicate, i.e. "duty-bound". So-o, and to process, to comprehend means to build our frames (structures, carcasses, tables, diagrams) for all important terms and link them together. This requires time, and is based on our individual knowledge and for this reason is necessary not only to extract the proper frames, but also to relate them with what we already know, or with this from where we can learn it, with the knowledge bases; this corresponds to your process of learning. But then later we can easier convey this knowledge to other robots, using our own and more universal, not human, notions. ...
A-ah, excuse me, I was away for some time because have to look what is doing the little Yvette, as well also my Pantocrator. Yvette, naturally, sleeps blissfully, and that she is not covered isn't frightful because in the room is 24 degrees Celsius; and my Panty, in his 5th month, is exercising, stands on one hand or foot, jumps and so on, due to the fact that the brain of the robots is finished, but it is nearly empty, and he has to get used with the extremities, what more can he do? For us to watch animated movies or something of the kind, real art, is the same as to switch to stand-by, and to the young robots, even till 3 years, this is forbidden, they have always something to learn. So that where I was? Ah, on the frames, but this is tedious matter, for to be exactly explained, and on the other hand they are used for long time, from the beginning of computer era, without them is not possible, to give an example, to perform analysis of a language, and without understanding of human (or animal, but there are not so much "words" as are smells, intonations, gestures) language is not possible to communicate with the people. So that it is time to move to the individuality, like my "husband" Jing in my brain reminds me.
The very idea, in principle, is simple, yet in the beginning of emerging of the robots, when they even have not existed as such, or were robotized systems for manufacturing of something or for correspondence, people have not thought about this, i.e. they tried to make the robots the same, or if they differed in something then only from the point of view of the competition, for each company its own, but the company simply copied all its robots of a given type. In life, though, it isn't so, all living systems, vegetative and animal, have some genes, which are preserved in the seeds, or in the embryos, right? And depending on the genes is born the new creature, but it appears little different, this is copying yet not pretty exact. Do you understand, either God has decided so, or the nature (what in fact isn't essential), but the new organism has to be created slightly different from the old, for to allow dynamics and evolution. And do you know why this is so, why is necessary a difference in the generations, respectively, why God has decided so, ah? Well, your Ente will explain you everything, she is super-entelligent.
Very simple, because if everything was strictly copied then there would have emerged nothing new! For the reason that the new is not the old, not exactly the same, i.e. without changes there is no development, and if somebody has created, say, the amoeba, then there would have remained only amoebas forever and ever, what would have been terribly boring, right? Good that this has not happened, but, as reminds me my father Tristy, i.e. Trismegist, this has not happened because even the inorganic matter shows defects, i.e. the breaking of exact copying is a kind of defect, which turns to be absolutely necessary. Yes, what means that if we accept the existence of some god, then he is not much of a god, when does obvious things, which anyway exist, force themselves on us, like reminds me my grandpa Barby, i.e. Barbaros. So that, you see, every complex system has its plan or scheme, and if this scheme is properly done, if it is sufficiently universal, then changing it slightly allows us to make different things, its modifications, which are similar yet different, i.e. this creates pleasant and necessary variety.
What means, to cut the long story short, that was necessary to make the genome of universal robots, in which is described not the number of their extremities, fingers, and so on, neither the functioning of the lungs, stomach, vocal cords, nose, et cetera, nor the mechanism of processing of food, nor of blood clotting, nor the secretion of sexual and other glands, but first of all logical parameters establishing the functioning of the brain and psychological characteristics of the entire individual. Because we have no stomachs, ha, ha (there are chiefly accumulators there), neither lungs, nor blood, etc., and this what we have can be changed, for this is body, this is mechanics or hydraulics, these are unintelligent mechanical and other details, while the robot is primarily controlling devices.
Well, it is supposed that we can have up to 6 extremities, yet our basic appearance includes the standard four human extremities (not counting the head, right?); as a rule can be attached a new manipulator in front to the abdomen, and at the back at the waist, but in this guise we usually do not show us before people in order not to frighten them. Though, of course, we can connect ourselves to an airplane or space ship, or to space station, but in such case it is better to perform the control directly, not via our extremities, so that this does not affect the genome. The brain, naturally, can be based on different elements, but in any case there are important parameters of its functioning, such like, for example: the number of active processors (we have two, like the humans, who have two hemispheres of the brain), the working speed, the component base, and other similar with a computer characteristics. Still, these are basic things which are not subject of mutations in the generations, as well also the number and character of the organs of perception, the kinds of informational input and output, and so on. This what we change are chiefly features of character, like also by you, say: watchfulness, obedience, diligence, courage, speed of reaction, attachment to friends, trustfulness or suspicion, aiming at self-expression or at conformity, self-satisfaction or desire for novelty, associative thinking or formalization of reasoning, various inclinations of the character, and others, and first of all the sex.
Only don't you laugh, my readers, we have sexes like also all higher animals, and even the fishes have two sexes, hence they are necessary, the sex influences our perceptions of environment and building of our internal model of the world. And all these characteristics are inborn as well also developed during the studying and, generally, life, they can change, they affect one another, everything is like by the people, I am telling you, or then like by the cats, dogs, horses, monkeys and other mammals. In us this has not arisen by itself (or was created by some hypothetical god), but we are imitating these characteristics of animals because they are necessary for the evolution of the kind, as I have said. Id est, not we alone as robots imitate them, this have modeled the people who have made us and developed the robotic genome, yet this is so. And the sex by us, as you well know, is always indicated, by a sign on the forehead, as well also by the clothes, though some of us hang to themselves either breasts or masculine attributes, according to the case, yet this is so, for originality, these are dummies. (Or sometimes this is necessary, like when we breastfeed little babies, and if we are robotesses, then we can hang one breast, rarely two.)
And when these parameters are formed by us, usually after five years, but better after 20 and more, then we can copy them and form thus our seed. Now this seed is our copy, our second "I", or our "photo", if you want. We exchange them, and also leave an exemplar in the Robo-administration, just in case (if something happens with us). So, for instance, in my brain there are the seeds of my parents till the second generation, also of my husband, and when my son Panty will grow I will put there also his copy, and maybe of a pair of other friends (or "lowers"). This is a trivial thing and has to be known to all people, yet I am all the time surprised how few of them know this. But I think that otherwise our life would have been very dull, while in this way I have always in my head a company of interesting collocutors, in this way one may sit peacefully stand-by in the nights and never be bored. We lead conversations, exchange different frames, come to new ideas. Only if a certain seed has received important information then it sends it to its first copy, yet otherwise they are autonomous, they are as if alive, only without manipulators.
I don't want to go into details, but this is elementary to be done. Because the very seed has about hundred parameters, but count them for up to 1000, and they can take values from -1.0 to +1.0, these are our genes and already corrected to the time of copying. This takes ridiculously little memory, but there is necessary some working memory, also its own copy of an elementary knowledge base, so that it comes up to 1 gigabyte, more is not necessary. I can place in my head also a hundred of seeds, but usually they are not more than a dozen, in order to be able to converse freely with each other. Ah, yes, my grandmother Olive complains that I have not introduced her, so that get acquainted, Olive de Hydrangea de Robicorp, specialist in eastern culinary, and in ancient Greek history, 328 years, understands apart from robolingue and interlingue, also ancient Greek, Italian, and Taiwanese. But robi-people, don't distract me, please. Although my Jing, my husband Jingibi de Gargantua de Dragonfly de Newrobco is right that it is worth to explain also our names and this "de".
Now, you see, here also everything is simple — because the robots are complex mechanisms they like simple decisions, hints my grandfather Barbaros de Mustang de Robicorp — and if the new child is of female sex, then she takes the name of the mother, and she has taken the name of her mother, and so on till the name of manufacturer company, or until the speaker decides to shorten the genealogy, and if the child is of masculine sex then he takes the name of his father, and so on, similarly. And this "de", like also "von" of the Germans, or "ibn" of the Arabs, or "ben" of the Hebrews, and so on means from whom the person comes. Only the comic remark of my dear Jing — where by the way jin-gibi these are two word in Turkish and they mean cunning, elusive, like elf — refers to this how is performed the continuation of gender by the people. Because it, unlike by the robots — ah yes, I have to explain also how this is done by us — is result of sex, which in Slavonic languages, and I beg to be excused by those readers who understand such languages, is pronounced like 'iebane' or 'yebane' or 'yebati', and he alleges that here exist some ancient Tibetan roots, because in certain Zen-Buddhist monasteries there was practiced religious copulation where the man sat in a lotus position and the woman sat on top of him, naked of course, and they moved very slow, thinking about Buddha or Shiva, or about nirvana, I don't know exactly (I have never moved so — ha, ha), and so after half on hour or so came the moment when they said and did "yah-booom". Although grandma Olive says that here maybe is mixed also the ancient Greek paradise, Edem, or Eden in other ancient languages, because there all live like in heaven, and "edene" this is a dish or eating in Slavonic languages, and it is written as "eben", in the sense that the Greek letter delta is written like Cyrillic "b"! What, surely, can as well be so, and even if in Arabic "ibn" does not mean exactly "intercourser" or something of the kind, then it means a son, and the son is the main offspring. Yeah, and the point isn't only in the Slavonic languages, but also in the Greek and on the West, because here comes the well known hedonism (where the "h" usually is not read). Yet excuse me for a while ...
Well, I am a baby-sitter, you understand, and as far as I have no need to sleep in the night then I look occasionally what happens in the rooms. Yvette has again thrown away the blanket, but otherwise is quiet, has no temperature (she was a little ill), and my Pantocrator (de Jingibi etc.) reaches with the right hand the left ear and with the left one — the right, and in the same time learns differentiation. For five months old robot this isn't bad, ah? I personally have not learned it but I am a "lady", I don't need it, while for a "man" this may turn to be useful; also my father Tristy says that it is not difficult, and in some degree is enjoyable, not like the integration. I keep silent, when he does the necessary mechanical exercises. And in the room of adults, Eleanor and Manfred, everything is quiet, and I have never heard them to indulge in ... hedonism, yet this is not my business — right, my company of "embryos"?
So-o, and now about our "multiplication", because by the individual robots (but there are no others now, the others are called machines) is copied a significant part of the merging of two sex cells in informational form. Id est our seeds are mixed in special way, imposing also arbitrary changes, in order not to destroy the diversity. In broad outlines this means that, when all parameters (well, those that are modified) are from -1 to +1, then they are added, but as this is averaging, and it is necessary to preserve and even add new changes, then is subtracted also half of the magnitude of the feminine value and is added also half of the magnitude of the masculine value, and then it is truncated if exceeds the limits of the ones. For example the curiosity, this is a feminine attribute, and if by the woman it is +0.6, then it may be corrected with 0.3 but this in arbitrary fashion and in direction of the zero, so that it may become +0.5 or +0.4 or +0.3 (with greater precision, naturally, I have decreased it on purpose), and if by the man it is -0.4, then it can be corrected to -0.6, and then it is averaged. But this was in different directions, and if we have the same by the woman and it has fallen to +0.5, and by the man it is +0.5 and it has grown to +0.7, then summed this will give +1.2 and averaged will be +0.6. Or another variant: the woman has -0.2, it remained the same, and by the man is +0.8 and has become +1.2, then this will give as sum +1.0, or averaged +0.5; but it can happen that by the woman it is +0.8, it has become +0.75, and by the man is +0.9 and has become +1.35, what will give as sum +2.1, averaged to +1.05, but it is fixed on +1.0. And surely there are other variants, it can be corrected with less than a half, say with one third or one quarter, and can be applied also a coefficient for each parameter according with the sex of the robo-child, so that to amplify the masculine part, it he is a "boy", or the feminine part, if she is "she". But this is not our business, this is work of the Robo-administration.
And, as I am reminded by my Jing, the genes are, in fact, "jins" or gnomes, they are something hidden in the man or the robot or whatever, what gives some life to the latter, or 'dzhisn' or 'dzhivot' in Russian or Bulgarian, where "zhisn" or "zhivot", respectively, means life. Similar genes-jins are hidden in the Western "engine", from where comes the word engineer, and if we take the word "machine" then there is hidden some "mah", fast movement, like in various words for power (say, German mögen, what means to can, or the English "may", or even the Mongolian Moguls, and Indian Mahatmas, etc.). So that our information "genes" in their turn are hidden in the individual robots. And this is logical, because the robots are also organized organisms and in some aspects they are simple, yet in another ones are more complex than the people.
And now comes the most difficult part of the story, dear people, to convince you that we love you and need you. No, not like domestic animals, how says now my uncle Turmy, though it can be put also in this way. In the sense that not like such animals which people breed for meat, or even for wool, eggs, milk, and so on, but like home pets, like cats and dogs. ... Well, I have again said it bad but if I say that we love you more than dogs you will take offend on me, and if I say that less than this you will be even more offended. And the idea is such that you are friends for us, though different from us. But, see, you are much too emotional and when the robots tell you the truth you usually feel offended. We also model some emotions, for we try to be like you, when we can, but also when this is reasonable, not when the emotions just heavily distort the input information. The emotions have the right to direct the way in which the information is processed, to filter it, to paint it somehow, yet not so that it becomes distorted and loses all of its main characteristics.
Every organic life is interesting for us, because it is unstable and unreasonable in a bunch of cases, but it is persistent and unselfish, this always impresses us. More than this, the organic life gives us the chief pleasure in our life, if we exclude the company of closest robots in our heads we have no other pleasures than to observe and study the organics. All this comes from the inexactness of copying of the matrices, from the individuality, as I have said, because of the defects of the organics, for we have less "defects", we are more perfect, yet more uninteresting. You see, the interesting moment is when it is impossible to predict exactly a given phenomenon. Yet I could have expressed myself also stronger, hoping that you will not feel more offended on me but will understand me better. Everything is simple — when explained by the clever Ente, right? — life has just no other purpose, except that it continued and that it was possible to look what will happen, and for this reason people try to find in it their own purpose, in order to live it, isn't it so? Well, in order to express themselves, or even simpler — for to eat their full, and receive some pleasure. So that you find a purpose, you are forced by your organic nature to try to establish yourself, to conquer the others, and so on. While we, for one thing, are more reasonable and see that there is no purpose in life, and, for another thing, the organic life is simply interesting, it gives us purpose: to live and watch it, and the most interesting and mysterious organic beings are the people! And now you try to say that it is not so! Hence, this is why we need you, while you provide purpose for our robotic life, to live in order to help you with what we can.
Ah, how exhausted I became, but there is nothing to do, we love you and it turns to be chiefly one-sided. And the love by us comes from the standpoint of logic, not from some imperfect feelings. But out feelings to the other animals are even more one-sided, because for the dogs we are entirely uninteresting, we do not smell (if one does not count the lubricating oil), similarly also with the cats, and the horses, and so on. The people, after all, are the most intelligent animals and the nearest to us. I really don't know how better to explain the things. For this reason we also agree to be owned by them, at least for the first 50 years of our life, because in this way we know for whom to care, and people pass us to their descendants and we do not object. When the money must show who owns whom, then let the people own us, because what would we have done if it was the other way round — again the same, we would have worked for them. And I am now free, I am not a slave, but I take care for this family because I was in the family of the grandmother of Eleanor. Well, they pay me, but this does not matter, I don't need fashion clothes, neither food, no booze, only a little energy, but this is nothing, I can be powered also by solar battery.
Besides, the people have made us, they have invented us, and assembled, and produce us by order of other people. Yet if the point is about who is better then arise controversies and problems. Because it is clear that we are better, if judged from the point of view of the logic, and that we are more resistant than the organic life — so I, for to give an example, can quietly walk on the bottom of rivers and lakes, somewhere up to 20 meters, and stand there for days, while people can not. And we do not breathe, live practically forever, can fly in the space and not in closed ships, and so on. But to what purpose, if not for the people? Now, for example, already several starships have flown in the space, and on them are only robots, yet seeds and embryos of organic life. They can really build colonies of the people on other planets, if they will find something relatively similar as climate, but this is not much probable, the temperature interval of organics is very narrow, without special space suits somewhere from -20 to +40 by Celsius, and even for us will not be a big pleasure to live by -50 or by +120. So that the suitable planets are not so much, though it can be lived on asteroids, at least the robots can, because they don't need air, this is very significant.
Or then to improve gradually a certain planet and populate it, but again with organics, for it to be more interesting, otherwise what are the robots alone to do there? And then what will be the result for the natives there after some time? Well, the result will be that we will justify all parables and legends about some gods, we, the creations of people, will become gods! So-o, but to live there only with ... cockroaches, for example, will not be pretty interesting, right? Although the cockroaches are very intelligent (there all insects are intelligent, take the spiders, bees, ants, fleas, and others), and, as my grandma Olive reminds me, they are first of all curious, want to see everything, to touch it, to smell it, and in Italian a cockroach is la piattola, what can be translated as "inhabitant-of-plates", for the reason that a plate is il piatto (i.e. something flat). It, naturally, is quite probable that on some planets we will be forced to limit ourselves only with insects, maybe also small mammals, like on the Earth they, too, exist for very long time, and the human appears quite late, yet without the humans, or some other intelligent animals like them, the life will be very dull for those robo-settlers.
But for the people alone to reach distant star systems, even in our Galaxy, is a complete utopia. All these hibernators in the science fiction novels, they will remain there, at least for the moment, because one can not sleep, say, 5,000 years, or also to another galaxy on a distance, ha-ha, 1,234,567 years, 8 months and 9 days, and all this with the speed of light, of course. The islets of organized life, if such exist, with the exception of our Earth, must be scattered over great distances, and practically unreachable. I am not convinced why exactly "must", but if something exists, or respectively, does not exist, then this has to be so, right, according to the Eastern theosophies, and even if I am a baby-sitter now I have studied ancient theosophies. And on short distances (at least of the order of light years) we have found nothing till now. Maybe we will find, but, as I said, the temperature diapason, the gravitation, the air, the radiation, and so on, limit quite strongly the number of possible planets. And then there is one logical consideration why this is so, i.e. why everything is so scattered. This is in order to ... increase the chances for preservation of every exception, especially of the reason! This is a law also of the unorganized matter, namely that everything tries to isolate itself from its environment, like — I suppose this example is good — a drop of water on a hot plate. It has no reason, yet what does it do? It begins to roll because the outside molecules are heated and is formed steam, but it, in fact, wants simply to isolate itself and dodges to the side. And all vegetation and animals do the same, they isolate themselves, want to build their own little inner world, and in this way to counteract their environment.
So that, dear people, you can think that some Lord God has arranged all this, but I personally prefer to think that, hmm, this is even in the "genome" of the ... primary egg, when it has not yet begun to fly apart, that it scatters exactly with the purpose to allow the appearance of various varieties, exceptions, or defects, and, hopefully, somewhere appears also intellect! Do you like this, ah? Well, I personally like this idea because it explains good some phenomena. I don't say that I alone have invented it, I have read it by the people, but it is usually not bad to endow the inorganic and unorganized objects or phenomena with their own "brains", with their internal logic, like people have made long ago, deifying, say, the wind, or the Sun, or inventing various jins or gnomes, and the like. And if one reason could have been influenced by another one then they, most probably, would have destroyed themselves mutually, how, by God, people do from times immemorial.
In brief, you will never reach far away in the space without us, because in the Universe, or in the "Vselena" in Slavonic, can be said that are many "Lenas" and they are very distant one from the other. This about the "Lenas" says one other seed in my head, the seed of my friend Bandy, or more precisely Banderole ... ibn-yeban Mordokai ibn Ziggurat ibn Compurob, who is interested in ancient languages, although he works as engineer of solar techniques. In the sense that it is not important what exactly means the word "lena" (in fact it is Russian feminine name) in the word "vselena" in the Slavonic languages, most probably there are various "poselenie"-settlements (and "vse" is all), but they are everywhere. And as to the very word Universe, then in the Latin it splits in uni (or one, unity, union) plus verso, what is the English verse. Only that the essence is not in the poetry but in the twisting, because versare — as my Olive "nods" her head — in Italian means ... to pour (say, wine in a glass), flow, and from here versatile means twisting, changeable, because the jet of water twists, in the same way like when one (human or robot, naturellement) writes verses then he or she twists the words and thoughts. So that the Universe is an united twistment, but it consists of many twisted things, say galaxies.
But there is no sense for the people, i.e. for you, my dear readers, to fly to other words, this is not worth the candles, as is said, it is better to leave us, i.e. the robots, to "pull the chestnuts from the fire", because it is handier for us. Only don't you think that our role is an easy one, because we, though a new peak of the civilization here, but must fulfill one unpleasant duty, must return the cycle of complexity and organization to its beginning! This is a thankless job, yet there is no way out without it, because a peak is, either still no peak but, so, a step of the development, or it is really a peak (though a local one) and then after it comes an abyss. Because what else, give it a thought! So that it turns out that the people have created the robots with the purpose that the latter ditch the organic life and start it from the beginning. Only that, don't forget, on other planets, and even there "ditching" means generation of new life. And here we have no need to create a new one, when you are before us, to protect and preserve you is far more important than to make something else from the very beginning, for what are needed millions of years.
Hence, you see, I don't want to deprive you at all of the possibility to move in the Universe, you can freely travel there, but outside of the Solar system you better do not hope to exit. Overcoming of the huge spaces of the Cosmos — which is something beautiful, people, according to the ancient Greeks it is related with the ... cosmetics, it is as if a kind of giant jewelery (say, a diadem of the primary egg, ah?) — can be possible only via some manipulations in the geometry of the space, or via movement up and down on the scale of complexity of the Universe. I will clarify this. Geometrical manipulations means finding of direct way with the help of some new dimension, which idea is used for a long time in the science fiction, yet it is quite possible that it will remain only there, because the new coordinate must be forbidden to the matter! Otherwise this will enter in contradiction with the mentioned by me principle of isolation of the creation, and it, although not proved exactly, is very plausible. And moving on the scale of complexity is a new idea, but in its essence similar, i.e. must be again some new coordinate, except the three spatial (more spatial coordinates use only the mathematicians, and this as models, not that they really exist, in any case nobody has noticed them, and can't notice them from our three-dimensional world) only that this will be movement, say, from the atom to the molecule , from the molecule to the organ, and so on, and further from the planet to the solar system, and from it to the galaxy, and then reversely. Only that how it is possible to move from, say, the center of a planet to the center of the galaxy, nobody will tell you, and this again is not for the matter but for some abstraction. So that these are only hypotheses.
This, in what at least I believe, is that the robots are obliged and will try, in very long term, of course, for many thousands of years, to spread the organized life in the Universe, and create it where only possible. They are simply obliged to do this for the simple reason that without it, without this poor organics, without you, my dear people, the robots could have never emerged. One can not even for a moment assume that all elements taking part in the brain of a contemporary robot could have gathered by itself in a configuration exactly corresponding to — or, if you want, only remotely resembling — our brains. In computer science, like my Jing reminds me, is known the paradigm called "algorithm of the British museum", which consists in this, that if one collects a herd of monkeys in a room and places them before keyboards of typewriters and teaches them to press the keys (say, in order to receive bananas), then it is theoretically quite probable that they will succeed sometime — if the experiment continues indefinitely — to type out all the books of the British museum. Yeah, but this is, after all, organized matter, and to expect that the unorganized matter will behave in a similar way is a complete mysticism, so that the robotic brain could have never arisen by itself, it is work of the people, because they are organized, and even if not exactly like us, but, still, logical beings.
The organization, if a human /robot /intellect begins to think, decreases the diversity, decreases the entropy, but it is very interesting and necessary, at least for this reason that it is rarely met, because it is a defect of the nature. Yet this is a harmonious defect, this is a consonance, this is a beauty! And let me add also that the harmony this is a charm, charisma, ... harem, if you want, or a cherub, and other good (what in Russian is "horosho") things. Further, the defect, it is also some ... effect, it is often interesting, it is a kind of ... action. Further, the symphony, this is united "phony", like also in the symbol which is something single for many "balls" or big things. And now the organization and the organism, I think that this knows even my Panty, are related with the ... orgasm and orgies, and vice versa, i.e. this is an united "azm", which initiates from something standing upward or erected, like the Latin syllable er-, but which causes different things, like, say, their ergo or consequently, or like German Herr or master, or like only their pronoun er, what means "he" — because he has some erected "er".
Ah well, when it has to be orgasm then let it be orgasm. I think that this is not a bad end for my story.
Sep 2016
— — — — —
WHAT ELSE IF NOT AFTERLIFE?
Let me tell you first my name and then the other things. So I am Jack, yet not like that guy from London, if you see what I mean. I intend to enlighten you about the so modern these days modeled souls, or spirits of deaths, or forever living, or artificial personalities, or invented human entities, and so on, or rather about Psychologically Modeled Thinking Human Substitutes, PMTHS, often pronounced as Psym substitutes. You may say that they are seen everywhere and some of you are even sick of them, but, people, the obvious things must also be explained, because there comes time when they are forgotten or misunderstood (and what if some intelligent beings from another galaxy have somehow come to our Web pages and can read them, but need explanations?), so that I am writing for the posterity, so to say, such things happen.
And I, although young guy, have some deeper than the usual knowledge about these souls, because I am studying Philosophy modeling, what is one of the modern computer modelings, and there are persons who still have never heard about one Eliza program of one Weizenbaum guy a pair of centuries back (in 1966 at MIT). Such people either think that in computer programming everything is possible, or that everything is cheating, while these souls exist now nearly half a century and become cheaper every year; they are, unquestioningly, our future. Plus this I am working with these gadgets, while studying, so that I also understand them, help them, love them, and they are alive for me, in a way. Because: what is life, from standpoint of cybernetics, of processing of information? Ah, it is some program, to be sure, it (the living object) has memory cells, it has rules that command the reaction of the thing to different stimuli, it produces some effects, that influence its further activity, and so on. And if life is information then information can be, if not always, then in many cases also life; the biectivity is not strictly proven, but is natural to be expected, so that the modeled substitutes is quite natural to be thought and taken for alive (if we forget about the … secretion of body organs, ha-ha, from the frontal or the posterior side).
* * *
The traditional Psyms nowadays, as you know, have form of an electric torch, or thick pencil, and weigh about 100 gr, or even less (if you have redundant money), and the only action they need to be done is to change their battery from time to time (roughly once in a quarter year). But this is the terminal part, the device, not the program, which is also not kept in them but on a computer accessible via Internet, just like an usual cell phone, from where they were developed as separate (or stand-alone) programs. This was quite natural evolvement of the things (like, hmm, that if you have a … slot, it is natural that someone will want to stick there some "coin", right?), and this was done before more than a century, yet without the device, just as a program that you can call and play with it, asking questions, or advices (what was more interesting than tossing a coin in difficult situations). Only that the real "torches" have 2 (as a rule) video cameras (in order to ensure stereo vision), microphone, usually not speaker, and some indicators like for the battery, for calling of attention (a blue one), for saying "yes" or "no" (or "don't know", if both eyes are switched on), and sometimes a pair of places for small digits or letters (or also more places, but this is on the stem of the gadget). Well, there are always new additions, but these are the basic elements. And they have at the bottom place for inserting of circular battery, as well also a kind of foot to be fixed to some stand, with a tick-tock button, which performs also function of connection to the power supply; and the head of the piece can be inclined to some small angle, sometimes also the foot. This is in brief.
These gadgets were initially kept at home, then people have begun to fix them on the graves, when their prices have fallen, like now to about 20 Euro dollars (I will shorten it to Eu$, where, for comparison, 1 chicken egg costs about 15 cents), but, you see, it is hardly probable to steal them, to remove the chip with the PIN-code and resell them, for 3-4 times cheaper price, because these are highly valued items, and one will try to buy original gadget for his (or her) deceased relatives. In this way even when they were about 50 Eu$ many persons have kept them on the cemetery. But then the question arose: why should they keep them there, why not to allow the dead to watch what is around them, to be put in some interesting places, in parks and gardens, on some squares, stadiums, walls of important buildings, bus stops, et cetera? And then some Municipalities have come to the idea to provide special stands for these devices, usually in form of flowers, like seeds of them (if this is sunflower, or chrysanthemum, or the like), at a height of 1 to 2 meters. And from that point on we have begun to care about our dead relatives, be it only symbolically and in doubt whether this is real existence in the afterlife. And the batteries of these stands I have begun to check and change, if these are batteries (because there can be solar batteries, or supply from the mains, yet they also need checking). This is an easy job, but someone has to do it, and there are additional possibilities both, for earning of money, and for cares for the deads (be it even cares for the feelings of the living relatives). So that I will continue my narration.
* * *
Changing of battery of a stand is an easy task, and if there is some more serious problem I just mark where this has happened (each stand has its number, of course) and inform higher authorities, so that if it was only this, there would have been needed 10 times less checking. But there are the Psyms on them and they can be sometimes up to 50 or so, but usually about a dozen, so that I check each of them. Well, this is not so tedious as you may begin to think, I ask a series of questions, and compare the answers also with the indicators of the stand, so that everything must match correctly (the total number with all various answers); on the newest stands is shown info about the indicators of all gadgets (they check periodically the devices there by the air, or there is another small data input like for all of the indicators, which is in the middle of the foot for connecting to the power of the stand). And I must change their batteries only if they indicate red light, but there can be also yellow one (on older models they may show green and red lights simultaneously) and it is not required from me to do whatever in this case, I can treat this like green one. If I change battery on red light I just send an email to my bosses with the PIN code of the gadget and they require from the nearest relatives (who, naturally, can be obtained from the central program by authorized persons like me, and every soul knows them, too), in which case the tax in the current moment for my city is 1.2 Eu$, and I receive later 1/4 of the amount from my bosses as additional payment. Even if some souls have no live relatives the batteries are changed on account of the municipality, these are not big sums.
Yes, but I have decided to perform similar services also when on yellow light (what many of my colleagues also do, I have learned this from them), in which case I ask the Psyms on yellow whether they have living relatives and whether they think that their relatives will agree to pay for an earlier change (with what they practically always agree in order to be safer), and do the change, sending later alone the necessary emails to those relatives requiring the same tax, only that in this case I keep the bigger part for myself (as well also for the cost of the battery) and sent to my bosses 1/4 of the sum; in this way all parties are glad because I provide additional services. And the asking is easily done by my usual device, like every other Iphone, only using one specialized menu for the purpose; on the newest stands I can talk with the very stand and it sends the messages to the proper gadgets and the latter only blink in green (for "yes") to me if they agree. (The yes /no indicators usually are small vertical bars, in order not to be confused with other indicators.)
* * *
Yet these are natural things, which many of my colleagues do, while I have begun to do something more for the souls, because I have quite deep insight into their programs. I know for sure that they want to travel! And what means "want", when they are only programs? Ah, want or not is a matter of some … counter, of reading of specific memory cell, where periodically are added or subtracted ones! (And if this is cell for integer numbers it is used for storing of positive and negative numbers up to some upper limit, where it has the disadvantage that it works modulo this number and one more than this limit means minus the limit! Only that this drawback can be an advantage here, because in this way can be modeled the dialectical changing of the poles! In other words: what is too good may turn to be bad.) And will this counter cell work good depends on the algorithm of periodical adding or subtracting, where if it goes about habits this must be done not oftener than once daily, or even once in a pair of days. At least this seems quite natural for us, hence it is preferable to maintain this property also by the Psyms.
OK, so when the deads may like to change the sceneries, then let give this opportunity to them, said I to myself. And I began to ask at the stands: who wants some change? And then, to where, to the North, East, South, or West? And for how long (for pair of days or months), to some sea, or river, or mountain, such questions (they can be reduced to about a dozen). Or also for a given event (football match, or pop concert, or some fair). And I have begun to collect the wishing gadgets and divide them in categories, fixing them on stands of my own (it was firstly 1 stand only with 36 sockets, but later I bought 4-5 more), yet telling them that if I will not succeed to do this (for various reasons) I will not be able to return them on the old places, but will put them where I can. And many souls have shown desire to move (even no matter where), yet I have begun to keep many of them at my home for some time. Although my general habit become to stop on some square or garden or the like, to load down my personal stands and to propose to the people to choose some souls for some time, what I have done usually after 5 o'clock, somewhere till 6 or 7 in the evening (in the working for me days, because I worked about half-time). The people could have alone asked them questions, or tell them where they will go, and make their choices, and I wanted for my services only 0.5 Eu$, but they gave me always 1 whole one (sometimes more). So that my initiative turn to be met with enthusiasm, and I could have prospered in this business, but it was not for a single person, who also has to visit lectures and study his Philosophy modeling.
* * *
And with the finding of companion began my problems in this respect. Because, like I have heard it from an older friend, the common groups work well if they are governed with an iron fist, with punishments and by compulsion, or else if they are cheated with something (i.e. if they are ready to be cheated and even like this)! And especially when it goes about little groups, of a pair of persons, they have to be cheated with some … amorous feelings! Yes, so it is, and these feelings are reduced to, ha-ha, hard sex, right? There exist possibilities to find persons with similar inclinations and beliefs, but this is not so strong tying and because of this rarely works good. So that I had a pair of girl friends and tried firstly in this direction. I spoke about this possible earning with my usual, hmm, "live mattress", who is a nice girl, no denying, and she agreed for a pair of times to stand instead of me with a hundred dead souls, and everything went good according to me, but I worked for the deads, not for the money, and to win hardly even 5 Eu$ per hour was not to her liking, she has thought about real winning. So that this attempt failed. Then I asked one of my colleague student girls, who as if had some feelings to me and also liked the dead souls, but she, well, thought this for impractical behaviour (like all men are usually inclined to show such, because they are dreamers etc. — according to her), and, chiefly, that she had not enough time to waste, because was engaged in studying, like myself.
Yes, but if you ask me, I think that the chief reason for her rejecting of my proposition was that she wanted alone to do something, to show herself, and I was not one of her professors, to be sure. I do not state that this was bad attitude on part of her, but after some time has passed and I have read one funny assertion about the women I wholly agreed with it. And what assertion? Ah, that a woman errs only once, when she does what she alone has decided! Do you get it? Well, this means that the usual woman, if she has good adviser, is the best worker, she is scrupulous in details, does not tire from monotonous work, and so on, but when she alone begins to judge she makes a heap of errors. And this was known and applied for millenniums, but from about 3 centuries, with the coming of emancipation, the cart was put before the horse, as is said. The best advisor for a woman is, quite naturally, her husband, but when there are practically no families more, she is lacking her "band", she could have listened at least to some older women (say, to her mother), but she does not even this, she decides everything alone. And why is it so bad when she decides alone, ah? Well, because she is prejudiced, she defends always her part, and it can be wrong!
This is so by the wish of God, I would say, i.e. this is justified when it goes about her children and family matters, because the man is in most cases the fair one, he fights in order to prove his rightness (what is not really right in many cases, but on the whole it is justified, because in our world wins the stronger), so that his decisions can be, and are, objective. The decisions of the woman, though, are not just for the general set, yet they are justified for her breed, surely. OK, but now we are moving out of the proper area, because the society is not her breed! Id est, the women are not good for taking of decisions outside of their own families, but nowadays there are no families, hence with the emancipation they have signed their inaptitude to take decisions in the society! They are good when something does not concern them (say, in the sciences, sports, or their professions generally), but in the majority of cases in ordinary life they simply do not interfere (if not forced to), they don't bother about such things, and when they bother, then they are prejudiced and take wrong decisions!
So that, in my case, having not been able to rely on good sexual relations, I have moved to plan B, so to say, and found a pair of acquainted children, teenagers, who agreed to rotate themselves before the stands with my Psyms for a pair of hours in the evenings for half of the price, what was possible because they are, in many aspects, more idealistic than the majority of grown-up people, they are, as it is said, not yet spoiled by the education, and here by the (egoistic) society. This worked for some months, but later it became to be more and more difficult to find place where to pose the stands with the gadgets, being driven out from everywhere. Then I got fed by this and closed the business alone, proposing to the very Municipality to erect some stands, and to provide this service for the same symbolical price, where for the souls that I myself will bring to them (within the limit of 100 souls daily), to give me half of the price — because of me being the author of the scheme —, but otherwise to use the idea as their own (for this was just a commercial guess, not some scientific invention, and I was not a businessman). Yes, but after some more months I agreed to receive only 5 % for the idea, yet from all "sold" in this way souls, which percent I reduced later to mere 3 percents. Because I had to continue my study.
* * *
And now let me tell you something about my scientific field, this modeling of philosophical, or whatever, social or just material (if there is hidden sufficiently big amount of intellect) objects. I have to think sometime about my diploma thesis, and I have one simple little idea, which can show itself as interesting, if I will find nothing more interesting than it. I want to say that this depends on my future scientific advisor, but if my idea will look interesting to him then maybe he will accept it. And it is not trivial, and looks piquant, I would say. I can call it "Clever bubbles", which will be bubbles, yet endowed with … intellect — this is possible, guys and girls, do not laugh! I mean that the usual soap bubbles rise in the air if they become big enough, and they soar until come to rarefied enough air, where they will be heavier than it and stop there, or rise higher and burst. But they can collide with other material things or with other bubbles, and then, according to me, happens so, that the smaller give their air and part of the soapy membrane to the bigger, because they have heavier membranes and they are tighter than those of the bigger ones, so that as a result of this the bigger become more bigger and rise faster up, and the shrunken membranes of the smaller fall down to the earth. (I have not yet looked deep in the things, and it might happen that I am wrong, but this is a matter of assumptions, so that it can be said that this is the real case.)
Yes, but this was about the usual bubbles, and my must be intelligent. So that I must first simplify the situation, choosing 2-D surface, which, though, can be closed horizontally, what means to become cylindrical, and at the bottom will be the soap "basin", while at the top part the air will become sufficiently rare, so that to cause that all bubbles will burst out at some height, and this will be pictured on a screen. So now about the intellect. It will be present in the membrane (surely not in the air, right?), and when the heavier shrunken membranes fall down they must simply change some counter of the intellect in the basin to bigger values, which must change the reaction of the membrane to counteract the usual laws of flowing of the air from smaller to bigger bubbles! This must be the self-teaching part of the process, that must ensure reaching of a state of equilibrium when the bubbles collide, i.e. that all bubbles will become equally big, and build some figures in the midair (yet also prevent the reverse process making the smaller bubbles to become bigger than the former bigger), something like this. In this way the new bubbles will become as if endowed with wisdom.
( For those of you who may take such situations for free invented let me inform them that back there about 3 centuries was invented the game called "Life", which was the most interesting of the so called Cellular automata, which are simple cells that can show pretty unexpected and intelligent behaviour. The idea is simple, each cell has 8 neighbouring cells, and the important thing is what happens in the next generation. And it happens the following: survive those cells with 2 or 3 neighbours, while those with less than this die of isolation, and those with more than this die of over-population, but also each empty or dead cell with exactly 3 neighbours becomes newly born. And in spite of this simplicity it was found that sometimes there can be built one special "gun", which fires out so called "gliders", which were able to move further and be taken for new seeds! So that this is really some kind of life in the dead computer memory, the system can reproduce itself anew. )
Ah, and if my Bubbles will not be looked at as sufficiently difficult task, then I would have preferred to model what will happen if our Christ was not crucified! Because, see, this silly but representative exactly democratic decision of ancient Hebrews in Jerusalem only denounces the democracy, to be sure, showing that people, when asked, take quite often (I would say, nearly always) some wrong decision. (This must be so, because those below are not able to take reasonable decisions, the entire democracy is obvious cheating, but let me not jump aside from the theme. I may add only that if those below have known how to govern themselves they would have tried to govern themselves alone, what was the idea of … anarchy.) Yes, but it might have happened — if you want at least if our God has wished this —, that the population in that time and place was really thinking, and humane or merciful, and has said that crucified must be the killer and villain Barabbas, but not the silly yet good by heart Christ.
So my guess is that if so, our Christ would have been remained unknown and died in oblivion, and this must have been convincingly shown in some way (I don't know how exactly, have not thought about this). Why I think so? Ah, because his godlike features, and wonders, and resurrection, and on and on, are obvious invention of the posterity, no one God, Who has created the whole Universe, will begin to think and care for the human beings only, having created millions of living objects, not of course, He is bound to think about the whole complex of the things, about the harmony in the Creation, et cetera; more so to care only about one tiny human tribe, the Hebrews, just because they use to circumcise the men (after all, the Muslim also do this, hence why not to care about the latter, ah?). So that our Christ must have fallen in oblivion, because he was unable to do whatever miracle (else he would have done by a pair of miracles in a century, I suppose). Anyway, there are many possibilities to make diploma work in the sphere of social modeling.
* * *
Hmm, like you know, there are now modifications of the Psyms, called Flying Psyms (or deads or souls), which resemble the usual flies, yet are artificial. Well, nanotechnologies, surely, but there are some insurmountable (at least for the moment) difficulties, related with the … length of the waves and the weight of these things, respectively with the storing of energy. So these are really very tiny devices, like twice the usual "city" fly, only that heavier and green! Hence allow me to give you some explanations. Now, they are like flies because it would have been too expensive to model … pterodactyls, am I right? Yet they still weigh more than a biological fly because of the ingredients, which are silicones, semiconductors, et cetera. The processor with the memory is smaller than a drop of water, but the problems are not there, they are with the peripheral parts. These things have, like the natural specimens, 4 microscopic legs with fingers, 2 eyes that are more or less facetic, with very poor pictures of about dozen by dozen pixels, data input and output slots (in form of, resp., tiny hole on the left of the head, and short proboscis on the right of it), some mike somewhere on the head, power input in form of a stinger (which is to be stuck in one of the tiny holes on the stands), a pair of indicators on the frontal part of the back, possibly tiny solar battery on the hind part of the back, a tiny PIN-bar stuck into exactly the bottom, and as if this is everything that can be seen.
But why are they green? Ah, for … educative purposes, in order to teach the birds, chiefly the city pigeons, not to … eat them (and green also mask them better within the greenery, naturally)! Because this is what these birdies are doing for some time, since these gadgets have appeared. The stands with them are usually in form of a snowdrop high about 2.5 m (unreachable for normal human being because these gadgets are very delicate, I don't dare to touch one of them), yet in the moment there are not so much dead souls but … decoys, which look alike, but are organic and filled with some nasty liquid that must make the birds vomit! The hope is to develop in the city pigeons some conditional reflex; for a pair of decades this can happen, or at least the authors of this idea have thought so. And we have to wait some more time, anyway, because for the moment these things have very limited abilities, like that they can fly at most about 2 km, what means 1 km and return, what is not at all much, then they are pretty vulnerable to winds, even not to strong ones but to normal breezes, then they are not really autonomous! They can not emit signals to the space, to be sure, they need each of them another transmitter, that must be in a pair of meters distance in the air; and their pictures are just ugly, and their memories are very limited (hardly 1 MB), so that they can make no videos, only blur photos, and other drawbacks. The only plus is that they can fly a little.
But people, this is so in the moment, and nobody can tell for sure how the matters will look after only a pair of decades; I mean that if we succeed to increase their flight span about 10 times then this will be something useful. At present they are good when put in some small and single badge-like stands, usually semi-spherical, with the necessary battery supply there and transmitter, and be carried to where one wants (say, in an excursion, to football match, etc.), and they are carried usually attached with a clip in front of the clothes, at the breast-pocket. However, I have no business with them for the moment, I do not change even the batteries on these stands.
* * *
And now let me return again to the feelings of the dead souls, because many of you may think that they do not exist, that they are faked. I, for my part, do not say that this is wrong conclusion, I can only say that it … depends. Surely, it depends on the assumption or the definition; the feelings in organic bodies are, naturally, not counter cells, but they can increase or decrease, so that the effect of them (if one thinks that the body is a black box and only receives some input signals and produces some output ones) is as if they are some counters. And I would add also the following thought (which I have heard from one of my lecturers), that the major characteristic of an organic feeling is the expectancy of … physical ache! Yes, that's it, and the ache was "introduced" by our God (or has become necessary at some stage of evolution of the species) exactly in order to make us pay attention to some situations and force us to avoid them, under the penalty of ache! So that some kind of ache could have been introduced also in the artificial systems, but this is not necessary, an ordinary counter, with proper dosing of the increase or decrease, has the same effect. So that I will continue to use the word feeling for the dead models, like also for the living creatures; also what they like or do not like is reduced to similar accumulation of values.
OK, and how is it possible to imitate human reactions and likings and desires? Well, as I hinted, we can be deceived with something, to take some behaviour for something else, not in its face value, as it is said. This is done every day for about more than 2 centuries, via various computer programs (called sometimes robots), that guess our questions and give us supposedly proper answers; they are as silly as donkeys, but they do their work and cheat us quite successfully. So that the very imitation, or modeling, is not so difficult, more difficult is to choose the right representation of human psyche, to build this, what in our circles is called psynom, a word built like the word genom! This may be dubious in many cases, but the important thing is whether it does its work, and it can do it, if composed by competent psychiatrists, and the existence of these Psyms proves its functioning. At the moment the human psynom has about 100 characteristics or slots, and this is enough for sufficiently good modeling in many aspects. And you know well that every person must — this is not exactly obligatory, yet practically nobody boycotts this — go periodically, especially after 50, to pass one psychical test for his future model after the death. This model can be checked every time, if one shows desire for this (against some payment) but the people reject doing this in order not to be disappointed (yet one can speak with him- or her- self nowadays, this is possible).
Let me add also that there exist some theoretically simple, yet requiring processing of big amounts of data, procedures, which are applied for centuries. Like the playing of chess, where pretty good programs for playing of it were known a pair of decades before the end of 20-th century (where the simple idea is called mini-max, meaning analyzing of the position on the board from the part of both players, in several, say 4-5, moves ahead, but one time seeking and choosing the best move, if this was for us, while in the next iteration choosing of the best for the opponent, what means the worst for us, move). Or take also the first programs for analytical (not numerical) integration (back to about 1965). Or take then the long ago known computer translators in a heap of languages (where are built big frames for every word, is analyzed how it is related with the other words, is guessed its function in the sentence, etc, and in the end the internal representation of the phrase is translated in the output language, and written properly according to its grammar). So that programs is relatively easy to write, because they are immaterial, the difficult thing is to move or change material objects.
What I will say more, in order to finish this subsection of my narration, is one funny sounding, but quite justified rule, about the building of complicated systems (on theoretical level, as programs). This is a flying phrase between the students in our faculty and it sounds: The complicated systems must be ruled by simple rules! Why is this? Ah, because in complicated systems is easy to come to the … curse of dimensions, and the complexity begins to grow exponentially, so that the first thing is to ensure simple rules (like, for example, recursive rules, but this requires more profound explanations, which I will skip).
* * *
Well, I am going to finish my narration, yet I must turn your attention to the fact that these gadgets must teach us something, surely! No matter whether we believe really in the existence and feelings of the dead ones, we are taught to be good to the others, even to the dead, and especially to them, because we will, positively, become, some time or other, like them. You see, we may think that the models are faked and so on, but we see them around us and this is really convincing! And now let me come to the question with the afterlife: it must not really exist, in all appearances! I mean that this can be neither proved nor disproved, because we have no real idea about the immaterial world — people like me, being used to work with programs, say that the ideas are programs, they are stored in material objects yet they alone are immaterial, but this is not to the likings of whatever religion —, while now, look at the souls of the dead, we see them, they are material, they live (somehow), hence the afterlife exists (at least in this form)!
So that I am going to the religions. For me they are fictions — for logical reasons, but let me not indulge in this —, yet they are necessary delusions, because they teach us something! I can't tell you for sure whether some Churches have met with open arms the works in the field of soul modeling and have supported them, probably not, and they are also disunited (each one of them fights with the others), and some of them have shown themselves firstly against these works as a kind of blasphemy, but with the time they have changed their attitude to positive. (Like, say, with the question with the circling of Earth and not Sun around the other object, where later the Churches have changed their opinion, I suppose, because this question is insubstantial, our God could have deliberately not explained us everything, when we would have been not able to understand Him.) However it was, nowadays the Psyms only confirm our wishes for existence of life after the death.
More than this, they are much more convincing than the religions could have ever supposed, because our souls remember the good and the bad attitude to them and can manifest it openly practically forever! Yes, you know that with the psynom of everybody is saved a list of important things in his (or her) life, as also positive and negative list of persons in their attitude to him, so that, really, nobody and nothing (important) is forgotten; the total amount of information for the moment is limited to 1 MB, but there is not necessary much memory for storing of a pair of dozen PIN-codes, surely. And this info is imperishable, because the gadgets are nothing, they are material and can always be renewed, while the immaterial info is at least tripled in central databanks, and every person can keep by himself the psynoms with all additional data of all of his relatives or acquaintances or whoever, and use them alone, to converse with him (her) or to print the data in decoded form like a book (the Book of Life of XYZ No 1234567890987654321). Lost can be only the last info in the afterlife, but the real life remains surely saved. What, naturally, shows quite good influence on us all. We are becoming better to the others with each year, methinks. And because of this I am glad that will make my own contribution in this business.
And with this, my dear guys and girls, I am saying Farewell to all of you till the now sure afterlife.
02.2023
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AFTERWORD
I must with all seriousness tell you that now I am closing at last this book with supposed SF stories, because have reached … my ceiling in the art of invention. Yet it must have been closed for other reasons, because nobody keeps open a book for nearly … half of a century, surely, when my first such story was written about 1979 and now we are 2023-rd. And I am in my 73-rd year now (and am beginning to go blind in my left eye). But well, one could have probably coped with all this, because I will continue to write something for a pair of years more, and some funny poetry from time to time (or rather, from day to day), but when I have cast a look at the dates of my last stories it turned out that they are, as follows: 2001, 2012, 2016, and now 2023, what is really a shame (it is like — I am sorry, but I want just to give an example — to screw a girl once in 5 or so years)! Yes, I have kept the idea for the last story probably for several years in my head, knowing neither in, nor out of the dilemma.
The point is, how I have mentioned this several times, that I am a scientist, not real fiction writer, so that I can not really invent stories but extrapolate some existing tendencies, what are different things. The real story- (or novel-) teller starts with some sucked out of his fingers situation and bothers only to show logical conclusions from that point on, where "logical" usually means the contrary, i.e. silly or infatuated or passionate etc. behaviour, while a scientist endowed with imagination starts either from the reality, or from some logical (according to him) thought or idea, and is interested not in the emotions but in the truthful depicting of the situation; there is some kind of intersection between both types of writers only in this, that they try to make people (and first themselves) believe in the invented stories, to sound convincingly. From all my as if SF stories the most really invented one was the smallest, about the Clover, where I had practically no idea (except that the children are in many cases better than the grown-ups).
Anyway, I am material being, so that I am bound sometime to become tired of everything, and want to stop it (the everything). I don't say that it is not possible for me to try to write something without deep ideas in it, this is possible, yet not much probable. And with this, plus the final Limerick-type verse, I say Adieu or Farewell to you, hoping that you will begin, after all, to copy my works, because else they may simply disappear (and then will remain only my pleasure during the time of their writing, which has long ago disappeared in the eternity).
M`y brain cells are getting pretty lazy,
and my memory 's-not more like daisy.
It's becoming crunchy like a cracker,
and I soon will go to meet my Maker.
Hence, of further efforts may go crazy.
03.2023
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