Magic, Machines and the Awakening of Danny Searle

by John McWilliams

  “It might,” Mohamed muttered.

  We finished the main course and a mango mousse dessert before my father got around to the evening’s topic. He always claimed that these after-dinner discussions (which were more like lectures) were an essential part of his thought process.

  “Tonight,” he began, “I’d like to talk about a magic act. Nature’s magic act.” He removed a bottle of wine from the sideboard, filled his glass, and passed the bottle on. “Specifically, the magic act that happens whenever we look at machines—be they mechanical or biological. Let me explain.” He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back.

  “Imagine that there’s this professor who wants to teach his engineering students how a Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine works. Well, the professor considers making drawings of each operational step—the intake stroke, compression stroke, power stroke, and exhaust stroke. But let’s imagine that this professor has an unlimited budget. Now what might he do? He could build an actual model of the engine, perhaps a cutaway model so his students can actually see the engine’s inner workings. But wait, we’ve given our professor an unlimited budget. How about a million cutaway models, each one representing a snapshot of what’s happening inside the engine every millionth of a second? That would be sure to convey the minutest details of engine operation. He could line these models up like dominoes along the Bonneville Salt Flats and—Stewart, if you’re about to tell me they won’t fit…”

  Stewart lowered his hand.

  “And before you ask, the models represent an engine at six hundred RPM. So this one second of operation captures ten full revolutions.”

  Stewart nodded.

  “So now imagine, having built these million models, our professor goes and takes his students out to the Salt Flats and whisks them along in a speedy golf cart, creating a kind of 3D flipbook effect of engine operation. The students can even stop anywhere they like along the line, to examine the operation in microsecond detail. The professor, proud as can be, believes he has created the world’s most revealing demonstration of engine operation.

  “That is, until, minutes later, one of his students—probably someone like Stewart here—looks at two of the cutaway models side by side and asks: ‘But what happens between these two?’

  “Chagrined, our professor scratches his head and mutters, ‘Good question. I guess there’s only one way to find out.’ So, with his unlimited budget, he sets out to build another million models—this time each one representing a millionth of a millionth of a second.”

  “A trillionth of a second,” Ishana interjected.

  “A picosecond,” Mohamed said flatly.

  “Now,” my father continued, “with these new models built, the professor loads up his students into his golf cart and speeds them along, hearing nothing but oohs and aahs, until, once again, they stop, and one of his students asks, ‘But what happens between these two?’

  “Well, I think you can see where this is going.” My father looked around the table.

  “He could keep building models forever,” Peter said. “At least to the limit of Planck time, anyway.”

  “Yes, but Planck time is just a limitation placed on our ability to measure,” my father said. “Since we can only ‘see,’ within limits, particles—and not their underlying probability waves—I agree, our world seems granular. But probability waves are certainly more than statistical nothingness, and so this professor has every right to keep breaking engine operation down into the quantum mechanical timescales as well.

  “So what does this all mean?” my father asked. “Mathematically, we can work around the infinitesimals, and clearly, at some point in a machine’s operation, the changes from one step to the next are so insignificant that they simply don’t matter. We can and do build boats, planes and spaceships—and all sorts of things—without anyone ever having ‘seen’ the infinite number of intervening steps.

  “But here’s the question that this then raises—at least for me: Do we ever actually see a machine’s operation? I agree it certainly seems as if we do.” He looked at each of us.

  “But, we don’t. And the simple proof of that is the brain—or, more precisely, consciousness. You see, as opposed to every other machine we have ever created or reverse-engineered from Mother Nature, when it comes to the brain, our own brain, we aren’t just racing by in a golf cart looking at a 3D flipbook version of its operation. This time we’re smack dab in the middle of it, inside our own operation. And that operation, like all operation, is a four-dimensional phenomenon—not three.

  “So, we will never find consciousness within our 3D models. Nature has us fooled. You see, Nature, as a part of its grand magic act, has us believing we see how other machines operate. But operation, all operation, is, and always will be, on the other side of the black scarf that is our perception.” He looked at the wine bottle that had at some point made its way back to him. “Anyone care for more wine?”

  Danny and I held up our glasses.

  “Is that what you call your Briggs & Stratton paradox?” Peter asked.

  “It is.” My father chuckled, refilling Danny’s and my glasses.

  “Cheers.” Danny raised her glass to me.

  I returned her salute, and suddenly it felt as if the room had become ten degrees warmer.

  “So,” Danny said to my father, “what you’re saying is that our failure to discover the mechanisms of consciousness isn’t really a failure but an unachievable goal.”

  “That’s right. And the real illusion isn’t consciousness. It’s what we believe when we look at other machines.”

  “The power of common objects,” Danny said.

  “Indeed.”

  ****

  Following a lengthy discussion about the implications of a four-dimensional reality on our free will, the Quantum Bay Labs dinner meeting was finally adjourned.

  While my father walked Mohamed, Jamila and Stewart out to their respective cars, I helped Ishana clear the table. From the dining room’s bay window, I could see Danny and Peter talking on the porch.

  When my father returned from the driveway, he practically dragged Peter off to his car.

  I kept my eyes on Danny. She seemed to be staring at the shadowy trees beyond the front yard. A breeze buffeted her skirt as she folded her arms and turned toward the front door. Something about the way she moved: it was… ethereal.

  Realizing I was about to get caught, I hustled into the kitchen with a handful of plates.

  “That sure took long enough.” Ishana looked at me suspiciously, adjusting her glasses with her pinky.

  I smiled at her crookedly, setting the plates on top of a mountain of others in the sink.

  “I can help with that,” Danny said from the doorway.

  So, while she and Ishana rinsed the plates and loaded the dishwasher, I cleaned the island—my excuse for remaining in the kitchen.

  “What did you think of Aiden’s koan?” Ishana asked Danny, referring to the Zen koan my father had recited on free will in a 4D universe at the conclusion of the dinner meeting:

  A Zen master hands a five-year-old girl a birthday present.

  What is it? she asks.

  Something for you to discover later, he tells her.

  But I want to know now, she insists. Or I don’t want you to know.

  But, how does my knowing affect you? the master asks.

  If someone else knows, the child says, how can it be a real, real surprise?

  Actually, your question surprises me, the master says.

  It does?

  Maybe. Of course I could be lying.

  That’s true, the little girl says. Thank you.

  And, contentedly, she runs off with her present.

  “It just means that someone knowing something about your future from the outside”—Danny handed Ishana a plate—“has no real insight into what that future holds from the inside—from your personal perspective.”

  When Ishana didn’t respond, Danny explained furt
her. “The little girl didn’t want anyone to know what her present was before she knew, believing that this might somehow lessen her surprise. But, as the master demonstrated by suggesting he might be lying, no one ever knows what’s going on inside another person. Her experience is exclusively hers.

  “Aiden was just using this koan to show that, even though the universe is a four-dimensional block that exists fully formed from the beginning of time until the end, we still have free will.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?” Ishana asked.

  “Honestly, I have no idea. It just comes to me.”

  “But…” I interjected, “if the universe is fixed and can’t be changed, how can we ever have free will?”

  “Because the fact that the universe is fixed has nothing to do with us getting there. Only we, individually, can experience our future. And, whatever we decide to make of it becomes what it is.”

  “But it already is what it is.”

  “Not your experience. Your experience only becomes what it is once you experience it. What you’re imagining is”—Danny waved the spoon she had been running under the faucet—“some kind of God’s-eye point of view.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, “forget about points of view. All I’m talking about is what exists: four-dimensional space-time.”

  “And that’s your mistake,” my father said. We all turned. He was leaning against the doorjamb. “How come Danny’s the only one who gets this? Whenever we talk about space-time, we automatically adopt a God’s-eye point of view, and that point of view has nothing to do with our own.” He stepped over to the island, picked up a knife, and stuck it into the cutting board.

  “Look, the sixteenth president of the United States made the choice to go to the Ford Theater on April 14, 1865. Does that statement resemble anything close to what it must have been like to be Abraham Lincoln? We know what he decided to do from our point of view. He certainly can’t change his mind from our point of view. His future is fixed from our point of view. But do you honestly think our point of view changes anything about Lincoln’s experience or his ability to freely make choices?

  “He was the first to get to his future and the only one to experience it. He could have made any choice he wanted. And, from his perspective, he still can.”

  We stood there for a moment. Then Danny nodded and returned to rinsing the dishes; Ishana, looking a bit unsure, returned to loading the dishwasher; and I turned and watched Danny.

  She was so graceful, even while performing such a menial task. Her hair pinned up, the back of her neck exposed, and that long, black, elegant skirt hinting at such perfect curves—

  My father hit me in the head with a cork.

  I looked at him, rubbed the side of my head.

  He shrugged innocently.

  “Hey,” he told the girls. “The maid service will take care of this stuff in the morning. Let’s go for a walk. It’s beautiful out.”

  “Out—where?” Ishana asked over her shoulder.

  “Down to the dock. We’ll bring some wine.” He held up a half a bottle of Chardonnay.

  Five minutes later, we traipsed across the moonlit backyard and out onto the dock’s planks, the night air seeming almost redolent of snow, though it wasn’t nearly cold enough for that.

  “Looks like the tide’s out,” Danny said, slipping off her heels and stepping down onto the floating dock. Shoes in hand, she padded to the far edge and looked out over the houselight-streaked bay. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I’m stepping down,” I warned her.

  She moved to the center of the floating dock as my added weight caused it to tilt. The bay protested and settled.

  A moment later, my father announced: “Coming aboard.”

  The dock rocked violently and Danny and I sat down before we fell down.

  “Sorry about that.” He offered Danny his hand, to help her back to her feet.

  “Thanks, but I think I’m better off down here,” she said, tucking her feet into her skirt like a nineteen-forties starlet. “I’m not exactly at home on the high seas.”

  My father chuckled as he helped Ishana down. Soon we were all sitting around campfire-style, looking out over the bay.

  “I like the idea of consciousness being part of a magic act,” Danny said, breaking the silence. “It adds to the mysteriousness of the world.” Air wafted off the water and she held the collar of her jacket.

  “‘Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment.’ Plato.” My father leaned back on his elbows, wine bottle in his right hand. “You’re not put off by my equating brain operation with that of a machine?”

  “You’re not saying we’re like machines; you’re saying machines are like us. But do you really think it’s possible to create machines that are conscious like us?”

  “Conscious like something. To create a machine that’s conscious like us would no doubt require the machine to be materially like us. So what would be the point? We can already do that.”

  “What do you mean? Oh.” Danny smiled.

  “What? I don’t get it,” Ishana said.

  “Babies,” Danny said. “People can have babies.”

  “A most delightful way of creating machines,” my father said.

  “Do you think Prometheus will have some level of consciousness?” Danny asked.

  “Does this bottle have some level of gravitational attraction?” My father rolled the bottle into a gap between the dock boards.

  Ishana whispered something into my father’s ear.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked. “It’s not my fault you don’t know where babies come from.” He laughed.

  She hit him and whispered again.

  “How is that flirting?” He looked at Danny and me apologetically. “Sometimes Ishana can get a little… insecure.”

  Ishana inched away from him.

  “It’s just jealousy. But who could blame her?” He feigned looking up at the stars and then grabbed her. She unconvincingly tried to escape, but they ended up kissing.

  “All right,” I said. “I think it’s getting kind of late.”

  “And cold,” Danny added with a shiver.

  “Tyler, would you please put your arm around that young lady.”

  “Aiden, you’re embarrassing them,” Ishana admonished.

  “I think we’re pretty well beyond that.” I stood and offered Danny my hand.

  “You’re both leaving?” My father looked up at us. “All right, all right. But, Tyler: Monday, Warwick.”

  “I know.” I helped Danny up off the floating dock.

  “Danny?” my father said as we started down the planks.

  “Yes?”

  “A magician understands how their illusions are done, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you say it’s sad to be a magician?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Imagine God, whatever you imagine God to be, looking down on the universe but seeing none of the magic. A magician never gets to see his own magic.”

  Danny leaned almost imperceptibly toward me, and I toward her. A fugue of country apple and her more exotic perfume blended mellifluously in my head as an errant thread of her hair wavered inches from my face.

  “Dr. Cipriani?” Danny said to the silhouetted figures on the dock, the bay shimmering like foil behind them.

  “Yes, Miss Searle?”

  “Is it sad to be a scientist?”

  4

  Monday morning at around eight o’clock I sat at the Quantum Bay break table, dreading this flight up to Warwick. I was hoping that I’d get to see Danny at least for a minute before I left. Her Camry was in the driveway, but the office door was closed. Somehow I was hoping I could make up for Saturday night.

  After leaving my father and Ishana at the dock, Danny and I had walked back to her car and, just outside the cone of one of the motion-sensing lights, had stood in silence. Eventually I had said, “Well…” And she had said, “Well�
��” And then we both said goodnight. All the way back to my mother’s house, I had admonished myself, thinking of all the clever things I should have said. And didn’t.

  Staring at the New Frontiers in Science poster—It is Alive!—I heard the outside door open.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” my father pronounced, his voice as subtle as a bullhorn in a library. A cool wave of air followed him in as the overhead heat kicked on. “Stewart, if you wouldn’t mind rounding everyone up.”

  “Ishana’s still at Cobalt,” Stewart told him.

  “Said she’d be back around eleven,” Mohamed added, eyes glued to his oscilloscope.

  “Tyler, I hope you brought a warmer jacket.” My father glanced at me as he headed for the office.

  “You mean a life jacket?” Mohamed quipped.

  “I heard that…” My father opened the office door and asked Danny and Peter to come out. He gathered his team around the break table.

  Danny, wearing an autumn-orange and black skirt, had her yellow pad and pencil at the ready.

  After a quick review of their goals for the week, my father explained that he and I would be bringing back a sample Revision D Warwick Chip. There’s just one, he warned Mohamed and Stewart, so we’d have to treat it like gold. He looked at his watch: “All right, we need to get going. The weather looks good—a clear shot up and back. Call with any problems. Ready?” He slapped me on the shoulder and we—with me glancing back at Danny—headed for the QBL exit.

  “Now, how’s that for service?” my mother said the instant we opened the outside door. A yellow leaf cartwheeled between my feet. The twins were with her, wearing white earmuffs and silly grins.

  “What’s this?” my father asked.

  “The NSF Mathematics Conference—remember? You said you’d watch them…?”

  “Didn’t I ask you to send me an email reminder?”

  “I sent two.”

  On her way to work, my mother would normally be wearing sneakers, jeans and a Gore-Tex running jacket (looking more like an aerobics instructor than a mathematical theorist). This particular morning, however, she had on a navy blue dress suit, high heels, and, evident even from where I was standing, her favorite Victoria’s Secret perfume.