“Oh, no, no!” his companion said. His demeanor was agitated, but happily so. “I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host, crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty!”
Pelerin turned quickly, surprised to hear such talk in a building full of scientists. The table was vacant. The person closest to him was a cafeteria worker who looked up curiously from the table she had been wiping. Pelerin turned back to his tray. His hands shook.
“Theo! Thank God I've found you. I'd heard that you quit.” Dave Hancock hurried over to his table. Dave had been put in nominal charge of the Meme Team after Goldsmith's death. Ever since then, he'd had the frazzled expression of a man who knows himself to be out of his depth.
Pelerin blinked, still trying to focus on a single reality. “I have quit. I am just clearing up a few things before I leave.”
“That's terrible. But you can't quit this afternoon. We have the briefing!”
“The briefing?” From far back in his mind, a memory tried to surface.
“Our sponsors. The quarterly report. When we tell them how great we are so they keep the money gates open.”
“I don't know if I can help you,” Pelerin said. “I have not been feeling well. I just came from talking to Dr. Joyce.”
“Oh, dear,” Hancock said. “And?”
“He says that I am under stress but otherwise okay.”
“Well, then, come on,” Hancock said. “You're putting me under stress.”
* * * *
Meeting room lights went down as Hancock brought up the presentation on his laptop. Give me PowerPoint, and I will rule the world. Or so it seemed after you attended enough meetings with businessmen and government officials.
The sponsors sat across from him, now hardly more than silhouettes. Emma Brand, a short, plump woman with graying hair, represented DARPA. Jim Reed came from Mather & Crowley. He was probably the only person in the building wearing a coat and tie. In the past, Pelerin had been amused by their interaction. Brand had security concerns. Reed wanted to treat anything useful as a trade secret for his company. But the ground rules of the contract, not to mention the charter of the Da Vinci Institute itself, mandated that all research be freely publishable. If the clients wanted to develop it further on their own and keep that secret, that was their business.
Hancock brought up the first slide. “Our expenditures for the last quarter. As you can see, we are still under budget—”
“Dr. Hancock, I have repeatedly explained to you that the piddling sums being expended on this project are too small to catch the attention of cost-cutters.” Brand sounded irritated, though that was probably the result of a long, uncomfortable flight from Washington. “In fact, our main money concern is that the institute has been so slow in invoicing its costs that we won't make our disbursement goals.”
“Uh, right,” Hancock said. Like many taxpayers, he could not become used to the idea that the sooner money was spent, the better. “In any event, I can demonstrate that all your funds have been well spent. Let me start by explaining the advances we have made in connecting memes with information theory.”
This was Hancock's field, and his demeanor became steadily more confident as he spoke of source coding, data compression, and channel capacity. In the dimly lit, overheated room, with the projector fans making a relaxing whirr, Pelerin's attention began to wander. His thoughts drifted back to the work he had been doing earlier. How easily the ideas had flowed, faster than his pen could put them on paper. So quickly, in fact, that he had no time to assess their value. You could add columns of figures almost automatically, but only when you understood the context would you know, for example, whether or not you were facing bankruptcy. It seemed to Pelerin that each line he had written was like a brick, and each line led to its successor. But he was too close to see the structure, or even if there was an overall structure. He needed to step back.
“How does any of this help me strengthen my message?” Reed asked. “It seems to me that at most you have a way of quantifying what most advertising men learn through experience.”
“That's ... there's certainly some truth to what you are saying,” Hancock replied, thrown off his stride by the question. “However, you should not disparage the quantification. Maybe biology will provide a helpful analogy. Antibodies work in part because their physical structure is such that they fit invading bacteria the way a key fits a lock. So to construct the right antibody, you have to know the shape of the invader.
“The collection of memes that constitute a human personality give rise to what may be considered a surface, at least in the sense that certain free-floating memes are more or less likely to be accepted based on their structure. Using the tools we have developed so far, we can determine which ideas will be accepted and motivate which types of personalities. It is to be expected that this will parallel what you already know, but will allow to understand the interactions much more precisely.
“Let me put it this way. With the tools we are providing you, you will always be able to craft commercials that will induce large numbers of people to try, say, New Coke. But we can't make them buy a second time if they don't like the taste.”
“All very interesting,” Emma Brand said, “and potentially invaluable to our PsyOps people. But from what I can understand of his work, your colleague has been exploring a very different line of research. I would appreciate it if he would brief us on his progress.”
Pelerin had once watched a television nature special about exotic sea creatures. At one point, he had seemed to be watching seaweed attached to a rock, when it moved and he suddenly realized that he was looking at a skillfully camouflaged fish. Now he had much the same shock as Brand turned her gaze on him. She wore her unprepossessing body as a disguise, hiding an extremely sharp mind.
“Dr. Pelerin has not been feeling well today,” Hancock said quickly. “I don't think he can—”
Pelerin stood up and waved Hancock to silence. “I think I can at least give our guests a synopsis of my work,” he said, forcing a smile as he stepped over to the whiteboard. Hancock looked worried, wondering what he would say.
Well, I'm wondering, too.
“Science begins with close observation, with a profound humility before the facts. We do not endlessly debate the number of teeth in a horse's mouth; we go out to the paddock and count them.
“As the number of precise observations increase, something marvelous happens. We discover underlying relationships that allow us to explain and even predict phenomena.
“Even more remarkably, we come to realize that apparently disparate phenomena are merely different faces of the same underlying reality. Maxwell's unification of magnetism and electricity laid the groundwork for Einstein, who in a deceptively simple equation defined the relationship between mass and energy.”
Pelerin wrote E=mc2 on the board and stared at it, as if seeking inspiration.
“I'm sure your undergraduates find this fascinating,” Reed said, “but I don't see what—”
“Hush, James,” Brand said. “I'm sure this is necessary groundwork for what Dr. Pelerin has to say.” The words were encouraging. The tone, though, seemed to carry an implied threat.
Pelerin nodded, still not sure himself where he was going with all this. “Einstein, and those who followed, have since that time endeavored to formulate a unified theory, a theory of everything. Although not yet successful, they have made incremental progress. Except in one area.
“That area is the mind. For centuries, people believed that we were dealing with the intersection of two separate realms: that of the body, which was governed by scientific laws, and that of the spirit, which was not. Reductionists, claiming that all mental phenomena could be ultimately explained by physics, derisively referred to this as the ‘ghost in the machine’ theory. However, after all these years, the reductionist view is still a statement of faith. We know that biological changes affect mental processes, but we also know that strictly mental changes, such as aversi
on therapy, can trigger biological changes. Cause and effect switch places in ways disturbing to reductionists.
“There have always been indications that their ideas were, at best, incomplete. Quantum superposition collapses when an observer takes a measurement. Why should a human be a better observer than the cat itself, or than a rock?
“Our work on memes allows us to deal with mental entities in a way that is scientific without being reductionist. We are beginning to see how they grow and multiply in their noosphere. We perceive, though dimly as yet, how they form into the architectures we know as human personalities. What I hope to do is to express the relationship between the physical and mental worlds as precisely and succinctly as Einstein did with the relationship between mass and energy.”
* * * *
“Well, they were certainly impressed, even though I doubt they understood half of what you said.” Hancock gave a shaky laugh. “Not that I can claim much greater understanding myself.”
“There may not be anything to understand,” Pelerin said. “I told you earlier that my mental state is ... suspect. The preliminary equations I put up—they seem meaningful to me, but maybe they are no more than chicken scratches.”
Hancock put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. It took all of Pelerin's self-discipline to keep from flinching away.
“I can't claim to follow everything you put on the board, much less to understand all the implications,” Hancock said, “but I can see the pattern, the progression as you move from one step to the next. They are not chicken scratching.”
Pelerin nodded his thanks, unable to say anything.
* * * *
It was dark by the time Pelerin returned to his apartment. He reached for the light switch—and stopped, as he inhaled the slight scent of what had once been a familiar perfume.
Slivers of light from the parking lot escaped the shades to fill the apartment with a dusky half-light. In the dimness, familiar objects took on unfamiliar outlines. The eye insisted on imposing patterns on randomness.
Someone faced him on the opposite side of the room. Terri...
Pelerin opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. His hand trembled above the light switch. The shadowed figure was motionless, waiting for him to make the first move.
Fear crescendoed, collapsed into despair, settled into something like fatalism. Anything was better than this continual flight, this constant guilt. Bring ‘em on, whether ghosts or the men with the straitjackets, and end it one way or another.
He hit the switch. For an instant he was helpless, blinded by the light. He blinked away tears as his eyes slowly adjusted. The full-length mirror on the opposite wall reflected the coat rack behind the door. A coat on a hanger and a hat atop the central pole could easily give the impression of a person in the dark.
Only there was still that almost imperceptible scent....
It changed nothing. No more hiding, no more denial. Work it through to the end, no matter what that might be.
* * * *
The next morning, he drove up to the institute, half convinced that he would find his office locked and his belongings stacked in the corridor. Hancock would shake his head dolefully and say, “We took another look at your math after the meeting and, man, it's total bullshit. We're pulling the plug.”
His door opened to his key. His papers were just as he had left them. For the time being, at least, he was a researcher in good standing. After getting a cup of coffee from the cafeteria, he settled down to work.
It was a frustrating morning. The equations kept spawning infinities. Renormalization techniques could eliminate the infinities, but even after that was accomplished, he ran into a series of dead ends.
Finally, he just gave up and left them in. And, astonishingly, the dead ends vanished. Infinity, in this context, was not a nonsense answer. Indeed, it fit perfectly and allowed him to continue piecing together the components of the structure.
He came back to his office after a restroom break to find egg rolls steaming on a plate on his desk. It was one of his favorite lunches because he could eat with his left hand while working a keyboard or a pencil with his right. A note in small, precise handwriting accompanied them.
“It looks like you have had a productive morning. Glad to have you back with us. -Julian.” A kindness typical of Julian. He grimaced. It was the sort of thing that would never occur to him.
He sat down, took a bite from an egg roll, and reviewed his progress. Hancock, for all his dexterity in manipulating the mathematics involved in information theory, did not really believe that information was ... real. It was just a way of keeping score as you tried to eliminate static or speed up computers. Many physicists had behaved the same way in the early days of quantum mechanics, utilizing the equations in their work while denying their real world implications—until experiments confirmed the actuality of, for example, single photons creating interference patterns with themselves.
Too somewhat similar effect, there were now experiments showing light waves exiting a chamber before entering it. A violation of Einstein's laws! No, because no information was transferred. So in an odd way, what had been thought to be an abstraction was now more real than matter or energy.
The universe was information. Complexes of information formed memes. Complexes of memes formed personalities.
He had been staring at the papers for fifteen minutes when the importance of the obvious finally impressed itself on him. The equations were equations: they worked both ways. Matter gives rise to mind.
And vice versa.
His hands shook. He flipped through page after page, searching for the mistake that had to be there. Yet each step followed inexorably from the one preceding. There was no error.
Well, I will just prove it wrong. He took a self-consciously dramatic pose, standing with his hand extended. “Fiat lux!"
Nothing happened. His laughter was ragged with relief. I don't think I could handle the responsibility of creating a universe.
On the other hand, his failure to do so did nothing to disprove the equations. The conversion factors demonstrated that any transmutation would be at the low end of the energy curve. The easiest way for him to fill his office with light was to flick the light switch. Rubbing two sticks together was much less efficient, and so would take more personal energy. As for creating a universe...
An infinite universe, or set of universes, would need to be upheld by an infinite mind.
Pelerin held his face in his hands. It was too much to comprehend at once, and it might not even be true. He would turn the results over to Norwich. She would appoint a review committee. If the committee judged his work to be gibberish, no one would object to his departure. On the other hand, if they certified its validity, he would have time to consider the implications then.
* * * *
Without Pelerin noticing it, the day had progressed to late afternoon. Mid-December shadows had already swept across the desert below, leaving the institute and the mesa on which it stood floating in the last blaze of twilight. Coming to her office door, Pelerin thought Norwich had already gone home. Although the door was open, the room within was dark. He was turning to leave when he heard voices.
One voice was clearly Norwich's. The second was unfamiliar. Its tone was confident and friendly, occupying a range somewhere between low alto and high tenor. Peering into the office, Pelerin saw Norwich seated at her desk. Her visitor was leaning over the desk, apparently holding something cupped in his hands. From it, a soft white light flickered over her face like ripples on a pond.
“What is it?” Norwich asked, her voice filled with wonder.
“It is all that has been made.”
Norwich looked more closely. “But it's so small and delicate. What keeps it from just falling apart?”
“It lasts, and shall last, because I love it.”
Norwich's face lit with delight. Pelerin felt an unexpected pang. I could never make anyone that happy.
“No need to be
bashful, Theo. Come right in.”
The desk lamp spread a golden oval on her desk. Pelerin looked into the corners of the room, momentarily bewildered. “I didn't want to interrupt your visitor.”
Norwich frowned. “What visitor? I'm the only one in here.”
“But there was. He was showing you something.”
Her eyes narrowed as she realized how serious and distressed he was. “Theo, please come in, sit down, and tell me what you saw.”
Pelerin did so, throwing in the previous day's cafeteria vision for good measure. Norwich's sudden, almost embarrassed, smile surprised him.
“Well, no one can accuse you of having boring hallucinations. Heisenberg, Blake, and my namesake.”
“Blake?” Pelerin asked.
“William Blake,” Norwich said. “Poet, painter, and all around oddball. And Julian of Norwich, fourteenth century English mystic. You just recounted one of her most well-known visions, casting me as that Julian.”
“I have never heard of either one,” Pelerin said. Though wasn't there some silly poem about a burning tiger? “Who did I see talking to you?”
She seemed to color slightly. “That would have been God. Showing me the universe. Which is why it must have been a hallucination, of course. It isn't the sort of thing I would forget.”
“No, of course not.” He wondered which should bother him more: having visions or the fact that Norwich was so at ease with them. “Look, I did not mean to get distracted. A little bit ago I completed the memetic synthesis. I believe the equations I have copied onto this disk define the relationship of mind and matter. It should go without saying that they will be subject to intense scrutiny and criticism, especially when word of my mental state gets out.”
Until that very moment, he had told himself that he would be able to keep things quiet, that he could retire from public life and lapse into insanity with private dignity. But the claims he was making with these equations, whether they turned out to be valid or not, would make that impossible.
“I want—I would appreciate it very much if you would appoint a review committee to evaluate the work. Right now, I can't be sure there is anything to it.”
Analog SFF, October 2008 Page 10