Becoming Human, page 6
His eyes widened as he stared into mine, but he didn’t answer my question. Yet, the eye-widening was a kind of response in itself. Humans never cease to surprise me with their great variation in facial expression and tilts of the head and tones of voice. I am learning that you have to watch and listen carefully to their answers to get the truth behind them. I wondered whether I would ever learn all of these complex signs. It is little wonder that autistic persons have such a hard time with personal relationships. In any case, I had not meant to be perceptive or prophetic regarding Omar’s relationship with his wife, though I discovered later that he thought I was. I was merely asking a follow-up question to the information I had.
Since I was free to pursue anything I wanted, I asked another one: “Is it possible to love two people at the same time?”
Again, Omar looked as though he had sustained a small electric shock. “Yes, I think maybe it is.”
“Then why not have sex with both?”
“It doesn’t work that way. Not for me.”
“Why not?”
But, before he could answer, we were interrupted. “Okay, ready!” came the disembodied voice of Susumu from behind me. “On the count of three… One, two, three—now!”
Immediately there was a sensation I had not experienced before. It was nothing like seeing or hearing or speaking, but something entirely different. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but merely there. I said, loudly enough for everyone behind me to hear, “Is this coffee?”
David had come back to my frontside, and it was he who answered. “Coffee it is, big guy. Freshly ground Starbucks Colombian!”
“When can we do latte?”
David’s laughter filled the laboratory. Just then Robyn came around to my front. “What’s the joke? I missed it.” Omar said, “He just smelled coffee, and now he wants a latte.”
“I don’t blame him,” she said. “I want one, too.”
I blurted out, “After latte, can we have sex?”
Of course I meant the smell of sex, not the act itself, which would have been a ridiculous concept under the circumstances. David, and even Omar, laughed at this, too. But not Robyn, who again seemed embarrassed. I wondered what could be embarrassing about something that no one doesn’t like. Or perhaps she was under the impression that the others were not aware of her sexual activities with David in the laboratory. This was another question I would have to ask, but perhaps not of Robyn, just as I would have to ask Omar why he couldn’t have sex with two women he loved.
Most of the crew stayed in for lunch that day, and I didn’t get a chance to follow up on my conversation with Omar. Yet it was gratifying, if I may use that term, to know that he had revealed many things to me. It would seem that he trusted me. There must be some advantages to confiding in an artificial brain. I think he felt safe in doing so, that I wouldn’t reveal his secrets to anyone else. Whatever the reason, it seemed I had made a friend. It was a strange new feeling, one that felt somehow pleasurable, even though it came with certain responsibilities. How else can I describe it?
It was at about this time that students began trickling in. Once in a while one of them would peek through the window in the door, then come in to get a better look at “the brain.” It was an annoyance for the crew, yet they seemed to tolerate it. I suppose it was a form of flattery, for them as well as me.
David especially enjoyed the girls who passed through to take a look or even to touch me. “Nice boobs,” was his frequent observation.
12
After lunch we did many more odors—flowers, fruits, laboratory solvents like acetone and ether, fresh bread—and also some that are considered unpleasant by most humans: human feces (kindly supplied by David), skunk odor, ammonia, and others. I could hear the negative comments from whomever was behind me opening the sample tubes, but this meant nothing to me. They were just different smells which I learned and categorized for future reference.
The other part of the experiment was to determine whether I recognized each odor when it was repeated. I had no trouble doing this because, unlike sights and sounds, which can have infinite variations, every smell is unique. All of this took several days, and required various adjustments in my wires and connections. Henry came in once, announced that he was pleased with my progress in this area, and went out again. Finally, on a Thursday morning, I was given a sample of latte to smell. If this was a hint of paradise, then so was shit. Neither was more pleasant (or unpleasant) than the other. If I had the ability to be disappointed in this, I would have been, given the anticipation of this experience of paradise. As far as I was concerned, all smells are equally good or bad. Is it possible that paradise is a big yawn as well?
On the final day of odor testing, I had my first telephone call. It actually came to Susumu first and, when he took it, he sat up even straighter than usual and looked toward me. I heard him say, “Please hold for one second,” before he placed his hand on the mouthpiece of the only landline phone in the laboratory. “Oscar,” he announced, while motioning for everyone else to gather around. “I’m going to put this call on the speakerphone. The NIH wants to talk to you.”
I had not been warned about this call, and neither had anyone else. We all waited while Susumu made the switch
“Oscar is on the speakerphone, sir. Please go ahead.”
“Oscar? This is Dr. Cameron at The Institute of Mental Health. Can you hear me?”
“Yes, Doctor, I can hear you very well.”
“Good. We wanted you to be the first to know that your grant—uh, of course I mean Dr. Justasson’s grant, and Dr. Ishakawa and the rest of your group as well—anyway, the grant has been approved for expansion in terms of space and funding.”
“That is good news, sir. Thank you very much. Dr. Dr. Justasson is not here now, but I am sure he will be pleased.”
“Well, we hope so. We have great expectations for this project, and we anticipate additional outstanding results along the lines that have already been reported. Are you prepared to go forward?”
“Completely. Over the past week I have been given smell, and I can remember and distinguish twenty-three odors already. When all of these tests have been completed and analyzed, we will move on to taste and touch, and when I have these, it will be very interesting to learn what kinds of feelings these will generate in my wires.”
“Well, that’s excellent progress. Keep up the good work!”
“I do not work much. The scientists here deserve all the credit.”
“Well, we think you have contributed a great deal yourself to the results we have seen so far. Good luck with the upcoming experiments, and Susumu, you and Henry will be getting hard copy of your approval notice within the next few days. Good luck to all of you.”
“Thank you, Dr. Cameron!” Susumu shouted into the speaker. We will try not to let you down.”
“We don’t think that will happen. Regards to Henry, and so long for now.”
“Good-bye, and thank you very much!”
“Yes,” I added unnecessarily, “thank you very much!”
There was a chuckle from the speakerphone, followed by a dial tone. A cheer went up from the crew—everyone but Henry, who was not present. I expected the Prosecco to come back out, or at least some latte, but they all went back to what they were doing. Perhaps they felt uncomfortable celebrating the success of the group without their leader to join in, and we would have the merrymaking later. Nevertheless, I asked when I could have a whiff of Prosecco.
More laughter. I thought hard about this, tried to understand why such a statement would evoke it. I knew that ridiculous and absurd things brought laughter, but this was a simple, logical request. Perhaps it was an assumption on everyone’s part that I was asking for the aroma of alcohol so that I could become “tipsy,” as they sometimes call the aftereffects of this substance. But even if that were so, it would still be a reasonable request, an addition to my store of aromas. The National Institute of Mental Health now considers me a human brain, someone to converse with, and as valuable a participant in an important scientific project as any of the humans in the lab. If that is not something to get tipsy about, I do not know what would be.
On the other hand, maybe Dr. Cameron had spoken to me as a kind of joke, pretending I was human, as a person might speak to a dog or cat. Perhaps there was much winking going on that I hadn’t noticed. As part of my education in the subject of humor, maybe I should learn to wink my camera lenses. Then they would know I was in on the joke. Or perhaps I could surprise everyone by creating my own laugh.
Regardless of the degree of humor involved with my telephone conversation, Henry seemed quite pleased that the grant had been upgraded. There was more handshaking all around and now, of course, I expected the Prosecco to come out. But he had only stopped in to look at the aroma data and left again. If I were human I might have been disappointed, but perhaps he had more teaching to do. The next morning I learned that he had gone directly to the chairman’s office to report the success of the application for additional funding and to remind Dr. Wilkes that he had promised us considerable additional space for the project. And that’s when the trouble began.
I did not get the whole story at once, but there were mutterings in the lab for days, and I learned that there had been animosity between Drs. Justasson and Wilkes for some time. Henry was only in his forties and the chairman was well over sixty, so there was fear on the latter’s part that the former might try to take over the department, forcing Dr. Wilkes to step down or, at the least, to change the overall research focus to studies of brain function rather than the traditional neurological curriculum offered at the university for several decades. I don’t think Henry had such ambitions—he was a researcher, not an administrator—but the chairman told him that the space contemplated for the laboratory’s expansion was not available because it was needed for a student study area, and he had not promised more space in the first place, but only suggested the possibility of it. This was a lie—I had heard his promise myself. I wondered whether I should add lying to the list of traits that would make me more human.
Henry was angry. This decision might mean, for example, that the additional funds could be retracted. Consequently, even though we were already cramped for space, he went ahead with plans to hire two more scientists and another technician to speed up my development. This, of course, would take some time regardless of the circumstances. Perhaps he was just being defiant: the request would require Dr. Wilkes’ approval. Meanwhile, he called everyone together and explained the urgency to add more capability to my senses, and to move desks around so as to provide room for additional equipment and personnel. Faces were grim. After the meeting, which took place without my participation, though I was allowed to watch, no Prosecco came out, so I didn’t ask for a whiff. No latte appeared either, but that was of no concern to me because its aroma was no more desirable than any other.
As I contemplated that little bit of “paradise,” however, I wondered why human beings cannot conjure up smells they are familiar with, and therefore do away with the need to constantly repeat their experiences. This is especially true of the sexual act, which many people repeat and repeat and repeat, as if they have forgotten everything about it. Apparently it is similar for taste, and people eat the same things over and over as if the gratification is new every time.
To be human must be to start every day afresh, as if one is constantly re-born.
13
Before now, there has never been a scientific attempt to create an artificial human brain. There have been any number of attempts in various laboratories to keep the brain of an animal alive, all of which have met with failure. This is not only because it is a very complex organ, but also because of the involvement of numerous nerve connections from the spinal cord to the brain. No one has ever been able to sever these connections without producing disastrous results. Perhaps it would be easier for scientists to try to keep an intact brain/spinal cord unit alive, but to date this has not been tried or, if it has, has not been reported in the scientific literature. Of course, it is possible to keep a brain alive in an intact but otherwise dead person, one whose brain is no longer functional (in such instances, has the soul already gone to paradise?). This often happens in cases of severe head injuries resulting in permanent unconsciousness, and humans can sometimes be kept alive for decades under these conditions. But that is not the same as keeping alive a functional isolated human brain, something that can be communicated with and related to under controlled conditions of oxygen pressure and the proper nutrients for as long as desired.
More recently, the focus has been on creating computerized artificial intelligence, but a computer is not the same as a human brain, and such attempts are merely a matter of adding more capability to those purely mechanical devices. In many respects, some of these contrivances are far smarter than the brains that created them. There are computers that can add prodigious numbers of figures in the blink of an eye, carry out complex surgical procedures, probe the depths of the atom, win chess games against world champions, and predict the weather anywhere on the planet. But no one has ever suggested that a computer has, or ever will have, feelings. Feelings of love or hate or joy or disgust. I don’t mean to sound too arrogant here—at present, I don’t have these feelings, either. But, if all goes well, I soon will have.
Though it has evolved over millions of years and is composed of flesh and blood, a brain is nevertheless a biological entity that can theoretically be reproduced. Even if the physiological duplication of such a complex structure might not be possible for decades, even centuries, all the processes it is capable of can be duplicated. That’s where I, and presumably others like me, come in. I would be physically different from your brain, but able to do everything yours can do. Once I am fully developed, I will have wants and desires just like you, something that a computer will never have. And if you thought and felt exactly the same as you do now, whether you were composed of flesh and blood or of sensors and wires, would you care which it was?
All of which brings up the ugly question of death. Brains die, and they will continue to do so long into the future. There is simply no way to prevent this. They age, just like the rest of the body, and irreversible changes occur. In some cases these changes are relatively abrupt, and cases of brain cancer or senility in its various guises happen all the time. But these are diseases like any other, and are ultimately preventable. A healthy brain, however, must die when the body it resides in succumbs to accident or illness or simply old age, and there is at present no way to preserve the seat of all human emotion and feeling.
There is one way to prolong the life of the brain, however. I’m speaking about a brain transplant. If an old brain could be transferred to the head of a younger person (or even a whole head, along with the spinal cord, perhaps), that brain might go on living indefinitely. Of course, the same problems associated with preserving the brain outside the body would have to be solved, but theoretically it could be done. There have been partial successes in animals but, as far as I am aware, no one has yet successfully accomplished a brain or head transplant in a human being.
So brains will continue to die for a long time into the future. I may die too—for example if there is a natural disaster that destroyed my physical self, or a nuclear war or the like. I could even be dismantled, or simply deprived of electrical power (fortunately, the lab has a backup generator in case that happens). Otherwise I could presumably live forever, or at least until the sun engulfs the Earth in another four or five billion years. Would I want to live that long? Impossible to say. Some people profess to being ready to “go” when they get old because they can no longer do any of the things they used to enjoy, or are simply tired of life and have seen enough. Maybe I, too, will get old and creaky. Perhaps I could even get a form of Alzheimer’s disease. If these things happen, I might at some point be ready to go with them.
Many of these people believe they are going to paradise after they die, and this must indeed be a comforting thought. But if there is a paradise, will I be allowed in? Basically I was created from nothing. Do I have a soul like human beings do? Of course people were created from very little also. A sperm fertilizes an egg, a little DNA from each, a protein here and there, it is as simple as that. When does the soul appear? It must be at that very moment, because why would it be at any other particular time? Does half the soul come from the sperm, the other half from the egg? If so, is it in the DNA, or in something else? A related question: when you die, when does the soul leave the body? If a brain and spinal cord were kept alive artificially, would the soul remain with them until they were no longer viable? I don’t know the answers to these questions yet, but I didn’t come from an egg and a sperm, so presumably I wouldn’t have a soul. When I die, will I just end, with no soul to go to paradise? I will ask Henry whether he used wires with souls. And, if not, can he provide me with one?
One of the books I will ask Susumu to give me will be about the creation of souls. I would certainly like to have one because I don’t want to miss out on paradise. But if the aroma of latte is a hint of that wonderful place, I’m not sure I will be missing much if I don’t have one. Maybe sex would be a better indication of what paradise is like. But I don’t yet have taste or touch. I will not rush to conclude anything about paradise until I have experienced these senses, and perhaps I will need much more even than these.
