by Spencer Wolf
“Share more little monster horror stories?” Daniel asked.
“Well, yes, since you put it that way.”
Cessini followed his tablet up from the floor in Daniel’s hands as he refolded its wings. “Or, we can get them together for a play date,” he said. “Either way, it’s my thanks for getting us in when I was running so late.”
Cessini stood behind Daniel’s leg and locked eyes with Meg, looking down from Robin’s arms. Meg looked away and rubbed her nose straight across Robin’s shoulder.
“I’d like that,” Robin said as she looked at her sleeve. She stuffed Meg’s bag from the nurse into her purse. “Fate works in mysterious ways,” she said as she twisted her neck to release her hair from the pull of Meg’s fist.
Daniel reached into a jar by the sink and handed an alcohol wipe packet to Cessini for having crawled around on the floor.
“’Bye,” Cessini said to Meg. He opened the packet and pulled out the wipe.
Meg watched him, but said nothing. She stuffed her knuckles back into her mouth. Robin opened the door and carried her out first. She stretched around the corner to the last moment, watching him unfold the towelette and rub his hands.
Daniel held Cessini’s tablet case as he followed out after Robin. Meg eyed the tablet’s dangle, and then glared back at Cessini. He pushed his finger into his ear and stuck out his tongue. They didn’t get along at all.
Cessini stepped on the pedal of a tall garbage can by the door, tossed the packet’s wrapper in, and then ran to catch up with Daniel’s hand. He followed Daniel, Robin, and Meg out, but only because he had to. It was better than being alone.
FOUR
COLORS AND CODES
THE GREEN GRASS fields of Silver Springs Elementary in the southwest suburbs of Minneapolis were stimulating and safe. The surrounding trees were stricken with fall color. First and second graders laughed and chased each other around their playground of structures and games. Recycled shredded-rubber chips cushioned their falls from metal apparatus and kept them contained within a safety border of play.
Six-year-old Cessini stood still outside one of the railroad ties that constructed the border. He tore a dry-rub towelette from one of the packets he carried in the front pocket of his fire-red, cotton hoodie. Water, as a recent phenomenon, had started to burn even deeper. He could have let his body go dirty for days without cleaning, but he became meticulous, instead. And as an extra benefit, his packets kept him a step ahead of the first grade battle with germs.
He was disinfecting as usual when a pack of immature boys one grade older darted by from the field. The dew-covered grass under his shoes was a sparkling field of unease. He took a step forward into the border’s ring. He made sure his heels stayed secure against the black railroad tie. The reddish-brown rubber mulch was dry. He dared to go no farther in. A cool-water sweat beaded ahead on the red, yellow, and blue jungle gym bars. Fits of chases and laughter swirled by as three older boys circled in, taunting.
“Cessini is a packet. Cessini is a packet,” chanted one second grader. The two older boys gaggled in behind him.
“Come on, wet wipe, why don’t you come in the ring and play?”
“All wet wipes are a packet. Not all packets are a wet wipe,” Cessini said. “That means I’m decidedly not a wet wipe.”
“That makes no sense,” the second grader said. He laughed.
“It does to me,” Cessini said.
“Come on, wet wipe, run,” the second grader said as the bell rang and another bully pushed him straight on.
Cessini tripped back over the railroad tie border and fell onto the morning dew. His hands touched down to break his fall. He sprang back up as fast as he hit. He rubbed his hands onto his rough pleated pants. They hurt. He patted them on his fire-red hoodie as a much softer cloth.
The boys skipped backward toward the door as the bell rang. They left him standing on the playground alone.
His hands were dry, but sore. The grounds were almost empty. He reached to the back of his neck with reddened hands and pulled his hood over his head.
The bell stopped ringing and the bullies were gone with a last taunting call. “Cessini is a packet, Cessini is a packet.”
He pinched closed his hood around his face and hid. He held back the tears that he didn’t want to fall. He waited a moment in silence, and then looked out through the slit of his hood over the green fields of play. He sniffled to dry his nose. He took another packet from his pocket and rubbed the remaining bit of soreness from his hands. He followed a stern wave-in from a teacher at the door, and hurried on his own back to class.
He hated being alone.
*
As Cessini fought the urge to be scared, long-term memories of bullies on a field bubbled up in his mind, but on October fifteenth he was full of strength and pride as he climbed the steps to a stage. The University of Minnesota hosted a pod session and pushed it live for broadcast. On the small stage set with five chairs around a semicircle table, Cessini grabbed the front bottom of his assigned seat and pulled himself in. He sat beside Daniel, who was next to Robin, then two other men, all of them invited experts, including him. The host, who hadn’t yet arrived, was expected any minute on a pedestal screen.
Meg sat alone in the front row of the empty theater, waiting and swaying her feet as she began a game of Sea Turtle Rescue on Cessini’s borrowed, handmade tablet. She began at its most basic level and took control of a hatchling to cross a dangerous beach and enter the ocean tide. The game had become a fascination, but also an annoying obsession. Nurture a turtle every day as it grew and sought life or leave it unattended as it starved, was attacked, or was lost to the sea, all in a manner of swirls.
Cessini fidgeted in his chair up on the stage, anxious to get his tablet back.
The host arrived on the pedestal screen, sitting in his own private cubicle. An airplane logo scrolled by at the bottom of the screen, followed by “Origination from the Sea-Tac International Airport at the Port of Seattle,” and then the complete captioning of their recorded session.
“Okay, then, we’re on,” the host said. “My apologies first for why I was late and not there with you in Minneapolis-St. Paul. I missed my plane. I’m still at the airport in Seattle. But, welcome, and let’s jump right in.”
The toes of Cessini’s shoes scraped the floor and he stopped his chair from twirling.
“My first question to you is: Does free will exist or are we bound by fate? Did I miss my plane because I’m afraid to fly and busied myself on the way to the gate? Or by the simple fate of traffic snarl? Andy Fisher, let’s start with you at this end of our table of experts and go around, ending with a special question for you, young man,” the host said to Cessini, “so get ready. Professor, you’re our panel’s evolutionary psychologist. What do you think?”
“That’s a fair question to start,” the professor said. “Physically, I think we’ve reached the height of evolution as a species. But now, I think we’re taking the next step forward from our ancestors. Now, what do I mean by that—”
“I’m asking why I missed my plane, not how do I look in the walking lineup of man,” the host said with an awkward smile.
“My point is,” the professor said, “that various fears developed across the span of history in order to improve survival. Humans developed fear during the Paleolithic Era, or early Stone Age. We had to. And any complete discussion of ‘free will versus fate’ must throw the evolution of fear into the mix. I think we’re evolving psychologically as a species with a new set of fear associations. Fear of too many people, fear of technology. Fear of death itself, thanatophobia. Death fear is surprisingly common today across religions, ages, cultures, and backgrounds. We’re evolving a fear of death that’s affecting a greater percentage of the population with each successive generation.”
“So, you and I are alive today because early humans developed a healthy fear of being eaten by saber-toothed tigers, and they lived to pass on that fear?” the
host asked.
“Exactly. During the Mesozoic, mammals developed a fear of heights. Then during the Cenozoic, ape-like creatures added a fear of snakes. And when we humans in the Neolithic Age discovered rats and bugs were carriers of disease and destroyed our food, we became afraid of them, too. Continuing to evolve our fear of death is essential for allowing our species to live.”
“So, then, why did I miss my flight?”
“Technology is our next evolution of fear. And as a species, it wasn’t only you caught in that traffic snarl. The difference with technology this time around, though, is that we can use our minds to solve where and how far we want it to take us.”
Cessini raised his hand, and then spoke. “My dad said he’s going to take me and that girl sitting down there to the fair this summer to win stuffed animals and eat some cotton candy,” he said. Meg glanced up, but then hunched back down over her game. “I let her play with my tablet. My dad made it for me.”
Daniel rested his hand on Cessini’s arm.
“Interesting, young man,” the host said. “But we’ll get to you in a minute.” Then the host snapped his fingers and pointed. “Wait a minute, Professor. You dodged my question. Free will or fate?”
“There is no free will to choose,” the professor said. “Our fundamental behaviors guide us whether we realize it or not. We’re pre-programmed over thousands, millions of years.”
“It’s far more recent than that—” Robin said as the man next to her sprang forward first.
“I am convinced—” the man interrupted.
“Reverend?” the host allowed.
“I am convinced societal fear is due to the decay of religious unity,” the reverend said. “And I wholeheartedly disagree with Andy’s evolutionary hypothesis. Individuals who practice their faith most adherently are those least afraid of dying. But an entire generation of technology is taking us further away from our faith. And without faith, we have more fear. More fear raises feelings of loss of control, and with that, the loss of free will. But ironically, this loss of free will one feels, in the absence of religion, more than reinforces my theological view that a higher being is the one in control. Free will belongs only to God.”
“If you’re suggesting we shut off the flow of technology and everything will be fine,” Robin said, “then that’s a dream that simply won’t work. Speaking both as a mother and cognitive neuroscientist, I can tell you molecular processes are directly linked to behavior. We don’t have to go back thousands or millions of years. It’s happening now. I’ve studied fear-conditioning behaviors in the real world, the processes that bring about long-term potentiation, or LTP. LTP is the induction of synaptic plasticity by the electrical or chemical stimulation of the lateral amygdala neural circuits.”
“Whoa, you just blew my lateral amygdala circuits,” the host said. “Anyone ever tell you that you talk like a computer?”
“I’ll vouch for that,” Daniel said, leaning in.
“To translate,” Robin said, “Fear is learned.”
“A chicken pecks on a kernel of corn and gets shocked, so it decides to eat lettuce instead,” the host said.
“Exactly. It’s called Hebbian synaptic plasticity. For modeling, in the lab, we’ve already completed large-mammal brain emulation. Soon, we’ll be announcing the completed scan and modeling of a human brain in its entirety, beneath the connectome’s one hundred trillion neuron pathways, to the level of the synaptome. We’ll scan every property down to the individual receptors and small molecules in the synapse, every signal state, including phosphorylation and methylation of the proteins. Given that model, we’ll be able to measure the very subjects of our discussion: free will, fate, and fear. But for now, no, it’s not free will. It’s chemical fate.”
Cessini swiveled to find what Daniel was looking for on the ceiling. The lights, the tracks? There was nothing different up there, but then, Daniel’s eyes were actually closed, and he was grinning, listening. When Daniel opened his eyes, he looked happily at Robin. She shifted in her chair and ran her fingers across the top of her ear to tuck back her hair. Pressed tight to her lobe was a tiny red earring in the shape of a key. She didn’t wear much jewelry but it made her look really pretty.
“Back in grad school, I studied the problem with imagination,” Robin said. “How the mind goes immobile in the face of a constant reminder of death. DigiSci was searching for the body’s longevity switch, and found the mind’s counterpart instead, a death switch, if you will, a trigger. The hypothesis was, by activating that trigger, the person would enliven with a sense of imperative, a ‘live now’ mentality to enjoy life. But we observed the opposite effect. It depressed the hell out of the mice,” she said with a laugh.
“It’s nice to see you have a sense of humor,” the host said.
“I do,” she said. “The mice seemed tormented knowing death was imminent, even suicidal to get it over with. Dizziness, hallucination. And thankfully, DigiSci abandoned that line of research. But some of the early, most promising concepts were refined and repurposed into the development of the early VaXin series of sprays—” She stopped and squinted, put her hand to her forehead. “No. Actually, no. I’m mistaken.”
“I don’t follow,” the host said. “Which sprays?”
Robin put her hands down into her lap and lowered her head. She spoke again, but more reserved. “I agree there’s a definite fear of loss of control. A loss of control to government, to technology, to corporate intrusions. So, laws are passed to lessen the impact. One of which is all sims and chatbots must self-identify when initiating a session or are directly questioned.”
A digital stamp appeared and rotated at the bottom right corner of the screen for the HACM Lab US at the University of Washington in Seattle, sister lab to the Human & Cognitive Machines lab, HACM Lab AU in Tasmania.
“Snubbing that law only promotes further unease,” Robin said. “People like to know they’re not being interrogated and with whom their ideas are being shared. They like to think they have a choice, even though they might not.”
“Understood,” the host said.
“Reverend, you’ll appreciate this,” Daniel said. “My father gave me the name Daniel after the man who was called to interpret the dreams of the king.”
“I do appreciate the reference,” the reverend said, “but who’s the king in your analogy?”
“I don’t think I’ve met him yet,” Daniel said. “But you never know. Fate works in mysterious ways.”
“Daniel, by way of introduction, you’re here tonight as an invited guest of Robin Blackwell, alumni of the university,” the host said.
“Thank you. Robin was kind enough to invite me and my son as guests of your panel, thinking we might have a unique perspective to offer.”
“Thanks to the hand of fate just a few years ago,” Robin said, “our paths crossed over our children. We met at a doctor’s appointment. If one of us wasn’t early or late, we might never have met.”
“It was me. I was late,” Daniel said.
“Congratulations,” the host said. “It looks like fate is the unanimous winner so far.”
“No, just a minute,” Daniel said. “I think the most direct answer to your question on why you missed your plane is algorithms. It’s not because of what happened millions or thousands of years ago or even what we’ve learned in our lifetimes. It’s because the algorithms in our brain are processing far faster than we are even aware. All possible decisions are pre-calculated in the microseconds before your body responds, or you even know why you’ve made such a decision in the first place. Your brain decided on a 0 or a 1 before you even know why you picked a door on the left versus a door on the right. Understand the 0s and 1s of the brain, and you can play the mind like the keys of a piano. Tune an off key. Replay entire days. Reduce the spikes that are too painful to bear. So given the advantage of microsecond speed, I’d have to say fate is the winner. That is, according to my first attempt with the question.”
�
��I’ve reviewed your bio,” the host said to Daniel. “You have no formal education. Bringing you here to this stage, Robin is the biggest success you’ve had to date, is she not?”
“I am self-taught, yes,” Daniel said, “and you’re pretty transparent, you know? You’re mixing your context references. But to answer your question, yes, Robin’s invitation ‘to date,’ as in bringing me here with her to speak, is my biggest success.”
The host ticked a smile. “Maybe you mixed your references. Being that this is your biggest success ‘to date,’ as in ‘up until now.’ So, tell me in your own words, why are you here?”
“Did you know he still listens to really old music,” Cessini said. “And he still makes his own parts by hand sometimes instead of printing them.”
“I’m nostalgic for the old days,” Daniel said as Robin snickered. “But I’m learning. Teaching myself to code. I’ve got some great ideas on a new kind of test, I think. An inversion test.” Then he glanced up at the host on the screen. “You’d love it. I’m also thinking of self-publishing a paper on algorithm compression, maybe kernelling. I don’t have that fully fleshed out yet, but I think it could transform robotics. I don’t know where it’ll take me. But as a dad, I interpret fate and free will every day.” He nodded like he figured out something great. “So, I guess you could say by interpreting Cessini’s world that, yeah, maybe that makes him the king.”
“That’s a wonderful segue,” the host said. “And as a father myself, so you don’t think I’m a complete faux pas, I have a founders’ relationship with the prestigious Journal of Advanced Design and Computational Dynamics for Intelligent Systems. If one of your papers pan out, submit it to me. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you,” Daniel said, humbled. The host seemed sincere.
“You’re very welcome. So, introduce your son so he can grant us his unique perspective on our topic of free will versus fate.”
Daniel leaned forward with his elbows up on the table. He pinpointed his focus with his fingers scratching his brows. “Throughout all of history, we have had a symbiotic relationship with water. In order to live in this world, one must learn not to be reactive to water. Seventy percent of our bodies are made of water. Technology is ubiquitous, like water. Since we don’t genetically fear water, we shouldn’t genetically fear technology.”