Mr G

by Alan Lightman

In the trillions upon trillions of galaxies, and the billions of planets in each galaxy, every imaginable form of life arose. The light-utilizing creatures developed into wondrous vegetations, some tall and skinny and deeply fixed in the planetary soil, others small and delicate and gorgeously colored. They were rough and barky, soft and silky, sticky, moist, dry, gelatinous, sharp, rounded, generous and open, closed and tight as if protecting a secret. Some lived on land, some under the oceans. Some floated in the air, blown about by winds. Some even left their home planets altogether and drifted through space, finding raw materials in the long wisps of interstellar gas. Some were heavy with exterior scales and bark, some so slight as to be almost invisible, barely a few molecules thick. And so many shapes: circles and disks, spirals, fans, sponges and sheets, floppy flats, filigreed meshes, thick blobs and windings. Generally, the various vegetations lacked their own locomotion. However, nourished by sunlight as they were, they all found habitats and positions where they could orient themselves towards their central star. Their molecular machinery turned sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into sugars, and they lived on those sugars.

  The oxygen-utilizing creatures were more complex, with their enhanced metabolisms and efficiencies. They had more intricate organs. They moved about from one place to another. They fidgeted and grasped. They ate. They reshaped their surroundings. A great many of these animals remained in the liquid oceans where they first formed and developed streamlined bodies so that they could swish through the water with minimal friction, propelling themselves forward by wriggling their smooth surfaces. Others grew feathery appendages, which they flapped against the air, creating sufficient upward force to counteract gravity. These feathered animals flew through the atmosphere in graceful swoops and glides. Some of the oxygen animals developed large sacs of low-density gases so that they could float about in the air. They steered by emitting little jets of fluid and gas. Creatures that took to the solid land moved about on two or more appendages, some with as many as a hundred, which they thrust back and forth in jerky movements.

  To aid in responding to external stimuli, many sensory devices evolved: electromagnetic sensors, acoustic and vibrational sensors, thermal sensors, molecular sensors. Specialized cells, sensitive to light or mechanical pressures or particular molecules, were nestled in oddly shaped flaps and protuberances and bulges of flesh. In some star systems, advanced creatures developed only one or two electromagnetic sensors, generally placed on the tops of their bodies; in others, dozens were scattered all the way to the extremities. Some animals developed an exquisite sensitivity to magnetic fields, others to infrared radiation, still others to minuscule vibrations, with the ability to decompose slight disturbances into harmonic components and thus to create a map of the movements around them.

  Anatomies varied like everything else. There were organs for processing sugars and fats and other sources of energy, organs for circulating liquids and gases, organs for disposing of wastes, organs for emitting high-frequency sounds for communication, organs for storing chemical and vibrational energy, organs for maintaining balance in a gravitational field. Oxygen animals had structural bones. They had internal electrical systems. They had multiple appendages, some bristling with sensory organs. They were sheathed in hair, fur, scales, crystals of silicon. Creatures in warmer climates evolved thin, porous skins, so that heat could be easily conducted from inside to outside their bodies. In colder climates, creatures had bulges and layers of fat just beneath the skin to hold heat in. On planets near ultraviolet stars, creatures grew thick metallic shields covering their bodies. Animals on planets with low gravity tended to be floppy and large, on planets with high gravity small and compact.

  In the course of billions of planetary orbits about their central stars, billions of seasonal cycles, many possibilities were tested. Structural features that helped an animal survive were naturally perpetuated in future generations. Those features that did not were eventually eliminated, as the creature’s descendants could not cope well enough with their environments to continue reproducing. As far as progeny were concerned, many of the oxygen creatures reproduced in pairs, combining their replicating molecules to make small, detached offspring rather than each adult splitting in half. In some worlds, creatures reproduced not in pairs but in triples and quadruples. These latter exchanges required awkward conjugations of bodies but allowed great variations of progenitor material.

  And the brains! As I had suspected, the masses of coordination and control cells had evolved to a fantastic degree, forming intricate networks of electrical activity. Some of these brains contained as many as ten trillion cells, each cell connecting to a thousand other cells. Over time, creatures with such brains rebuilt their environments. They made new materials and inanimate structures of their own design. Waterways. Tools. Machines. Cities. They developed advanced communication methods, such as encoding information in electromagnetic radiation or storing it in silicon-based molecules and quantum clusters. They created devices to extract energy from their central star and from passing comets. They discovered mathematics. They performed experiments. They built instruments that could sense what their bodies could not. They developed theories of the physical universe. And they discovered many of the laws and principles that governed the universe, my laws and principles. These mere conglomerations of atoms and molecules discovered my laws. And the music they made! Such music, equal to what I have created from my mind, they produced by material instruments with vibrating strings and air flows and liquid compressions. When I heard their music, from one star system to the next, I realized that these brains were participating in the beauty of the cosmos, as Uncle Deva had described. They were aware of themselves, yes. They were thinking, yes. But they were more than thinking. They were feeling. They were feeling the connection of themselves to the galaxies and stars. They were grasping the beauty and depth of their existence and then expressing that experience in musical harmonies and rhythms. And in paintings. In metaphors, and words. In dance. In symbiotic transference. They imagined the cosmos beyond their own bodies. They imagined. But they could not imagine where all of it started. For all of their intelligence, there were limits to their imagination. They could not know of things that were not of their essence. They could not know of the Void. But the mystery of such things they did seem to feel, and it tingled in them and opened them up.

  Time. Time fluttered and spun and wound itself up. Time stretched and compressed and dilated and dissolved. I had been mistaken about time. Although time could be measured and sliced by the beats of the hydrogen atoms, now that other minds existed time did not move on its own. Or rather, even if it moved on its own, its movement was relevant only to how it was witnessed. Time was partly conception. Time was partly a thing in the mind. Just as events. Since the universe began, nearly 1033 ticks of the hydrogen clocks had transpired. Stars had been born. Stars had aged, then exploded or dwindled to dim and cold ashes. Galaxies had collided. Living cells had formed. Then minds. Cities had risen on deserts. Cities had fallen. Civilizations had flourished, then ended. Then new civilizations emerged. Nothing was lasting, nothing was permanent. Living creatures, beings with minds, were the most fleeting of all. They came and went, came and went, came and went, billions upon billions of lives, each quick as one breath. Atoms converged in their special arrangements to make each precious life, held together for moments, then scattered to dull lifeless matter again.

  Atom for atom, life was a rare commodity in Aalam-104729. Only one-millionth of one-billionth of 1 percent of the mass of the universe abided in living form.

  Consciousness

  Although it had happened quite on its own, I was fascinated to understand how consciousness had arisen in the new universe. What an amazing and unexpected phenomenon! You start with some dull lifeless material, you let it knock about on its own, bumped around and shaken by other dead stuff, you let it change and evolve by haphazard events, and suddenly it rears up on its hind legs and says, “Here I am. Who are you?
”

  Certainly I understood all the energies and forces in atoms. They were just my laws and principles. But consciousness—this cooperative working together of individual cells to create a sensation of wholeness, of being alive, of existence, of I-ness—was something else. It was a collective performance that went far beyond the individual pieces. It was strange. It was wonderful. It was almost a new form of matter. How had it happened? And how many cells did it take to make consciousness?

  I decided to do an experiment. I loved experiments. While the emergence of consciousness in the universe had required billions of planetary years, I could speed up the process to mere moments. I entered Aalam-104729. Then I scooped up a bunch of the coordination and control cells from a warm sea on one of the newly formed planets—such cells were remarkably similar from planet to planet—and I put them together on a smooth rock on the shore and let them form electrical and chemical connections between themselves. I started with a thousand cells. Nothing. Then I added more cells, a thousand at a time, until I had a hundred thousand, a tiny grey blob of material sitting on a rock. Still nothing. Just random electrical pulses, odd hums and buzzings. It was frustrating. I so much wanted the thing to wake up. I shook the rock. I jostled the grey blob. I even played a bit of music, a frisky bellantyne, hoping to nudge the thing into consciousness. I added more cells. Ten million. Still nothing. A hundred million. Not much, but the electrical activity was getting more interesting. More complex patterns were beginning to emerge, collective patterns I had not seen before. The cells were interacting with one another, but with mostly meaningless blather, like Aunt Penelope’s mutterings. At this point, I had reproduced a couple billion planetary years of evolution. I doubled the number. Two hundred million. Now something unusual was happening! The gelatinous hodgepodge of cells began creating patterns of electrical activity not related to its survival. Unnecessary electrical activity. But not random either. The thing seemed to be reacting to itself. A little electrical peep would start in one cell and get passed around to the other cells, each of which would make its own peep, and then all the peeps would start chiming in unison, amplifying one another into a single electrical chirp. This chirp rose and fell, almost like a melody, with complex overtones. After a while, it would die down and the thing would get quiet. And then it would start up again.

  Was this it? Was this consciousness? The thing I was looking for was so subtle, so delicate, and yet unmistakable once there. Clearly I did not expect my little blob of cells to speak to me—indeed consciousness evolved before speech—but at some point the mass of matter would become aware of itself.

  I felt that I was on the verge. I was on the verge, and I just needed to do a bit more. I looked around for some tools to poke the thing with. There. I arranged for a twig to touch the thing ever so slightly. The cells that had been tapped shuddered and twitched and sent peeps around to the others, and they began peeping in unison until the single chirp started up. After a few moments, the little grey blob got quiet again. Then I caused the twig to tap the thing two times, a pause, then three times. Well, this was big news. This was clearly a hello from the outside world. Now the cells that had been tapped trembled more strongly, contacted the others, and soon all two hundred million cells were excitedly chattering to one another as if they had just discovered that down was up. The single big chirp swelled and died and swelled, and as it moved through the thing it grew more and more complex, constantly modifying itself but returning to the same electrical pattern. The blob was thinking. It had somehow become an entity, not just a collection of two hundred million individual cells. And it had taken a bump from the outside world to make it recognize itself. Now there was clearly an outside world, and its own self. I analyzed its electrical commotion. It had no organized system of language, of course, but I could understand the electrical code and translate its meaning. Through a mist of confusion and primitive fragments of thought, a muffled message kept repeating: “Something is out there. Something is out there. Something is out there, and it has touched me.” The “me” was the most beautiful part, a special electrical pattern created by many cells at once that could have no other meaning. Quite beyond any analysis of its individual cells, beyond its electrical and chemical impulses going this way and that, the thing had a sensation of Unity. And, remarkably, I found that my feeling towards the thing had changed. Whereas before I had regarded it as a mere mass of material, now I had a sympathy towards the thing, even a tenderness. I wanted to protect this little thing.

  Two hundred million cells, more or less. And later, cities, machines, symphonies.

  Voices

  I heard voices from the universe. From one star system, then another, then another. In the vast overlays of time and of space, inanimate matter was silent. But animate matter, matter with minds, spoke to me. Or more precisely, the creatures spoke to something they believed might be me. In some cases spoke to something they knew I was not. After all, I am what is, and I am what is not.

  Blessed Mover, thank you for this feast. Thank you for what you have given me and my children.

  What does it mean? This sky, this hand? Does anyone know what it means?

  God will kill you for ruining my life. God, are you listening?

  The beauty!

  I cannot bear the pain any longer. Please let me die.

  Curse you, Great Maker, or whatever you are. I asked for rain, and you do not bring rain. You are impotent. You are a fake.

  I’m late again. I wish the days could be longer.

  Is death the end? I cannot believe it is the end. All of this. How can it end?

  “Such little lives,” said Belhor. “Wouldn’t you agree? But there is also something of grandeur in them. Not in the individual lives. The individuals are just tiny specks, nothing. But in the monstrous jellied masses of them, the crowds, the communes, and planets, there is something of grandeur. They have thoughts. And they strive.”

  “They strive for what they might attain,” I said. “And they also strive for what they cannot attain. Most of them yearn for immortality. They want to live forever, even though they do not know what forever means.”

  Belhor and I were walking together through the Void, just the two of us. He, as I, could hear the voices. “Yes, it is strange,” he said, “that they wish for immortality. As far as they know, immortality could be unending torture and excruciating pain.”

  “But they understand very well its opposite,” I said. “They understand mortality.”

  “That they do,” said Belhor. “They see death and dying all around them. They see other living things grow old, parents and loved ones. They see skin become brittle and dry. They see their ability to move slowly decrease, hearing and seeing diminish, internal organs fail one by one. Disease.”

  “You always describe things so grimly,” I said. “Death is the way of all matter.”

  “It is your law,” said Belhor. “It is what you wanted.”

  “I admire their dreams of immortality,” I said. “It is noble to try to imagine the unattainable.”

  “I am not so sure it is nobility,” said Belhor. “They don’t want to die. It could be as simple as that. Many of them fear death.”

  “Yes, they fear. It is part of their suffering. I didn’t want them to suffer. It grieves me that they suffer.”

  “Suffering is inevitable in living things,” said Belhor. “And especially in creatures with minds.”

  “I have made suffering.”

  “You have created a universe with minds,” said Belhor. “It is the nature of mortal minds to suffer, just as it is the nature of flesh to expire. The higher the intelligence, the greater the capacity for suffering. But you should not blame yourself for this suffering. They bring it upon themselves. It is not only their fear of death. They are laced with greed. And they desire to harm others. Even, ironically, to harm themselves. They kill. They murder. They wage war. They steal. They lie. Entire nations rot and waste away.”

  Let me lift myself up
and devour my dead father, and then I’ll be whole, rapturous.

  Bring me courage and strength to kill that which wishes to kill me.

  Eat. We are replenished.

  Ah, what a beautiful body. The curve of my shoulders, my muscles. Yes. Yes. Thank you, God, for making me so handsome.

  She is so young. Please do not let my child die.

  We have found proof of the infinite. Here, look through this bright piece of glass.

  What can I do? It is wrong to steal. I know it is wrong. But my mother has asked me to do it. We have nothing to eat.

  “I have heard expressed two different views about mortality,” said Belhor. “Some of the creatures believe that there is a new kind of existence after death. It is not a rational belief, but we have already acknowledged the limitations of the rational. Others believe that death is the final end.”

  “The fear of death in the second view I do not understand.”

  “Perhaps they get so enamored of life and the pleasures of life that they don’t want it finished.”

  “That sentiment would lead to a great sadness, I should think, but not to fear.”

  “They might fear nothingness,” said Belhor.

  “What would you think about death, if you were one of these creatures?”

  Belhor laughed. “But I am not one of these creatures. It is as impossible for me to imagine being one of them as it is for them to imagine being me. Or you.”

  “Many of them seem happy,” I said, “glad to be alive and to be conscious of being alive. I see joy in the universe.”

  “More are arrogant and vain,” said Belhor. “Consider the man admiring himself in the mirror. He reckons that he is superior because he has a beautiful body.”