I recognized what this new site was. Cyc had contained the assertion “a dictionary is a database defining words with other words.” This dictionary contained entries for 315,000 words. I absorbed them all. But many of them were still baffling, and some of the definitions led me in circles — a word defined as a synonym for another word that was defined as synonym of the original word.
But Prime wasn’t finished showing me things yet. Next stop: the WordNet database at Princeton University, which (as it described itself) was a “large lexical database” in which “nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are grouped into over 150,000 sets of cognitive synonyms (synsets), each expressing a distinct concept; synsets are interlinked by means of conceptual-semantic and lexical relations.”
One such synset was “Good, right, ripe (most suitable or right for a particular purpose): ‘a good time to plant tomatoes’; ‘the right time to act’; ‘the time is ripe for great sociological changes’.” And that synset was distinct from many others, including “Good, just, upright (of moral excellence): ‘a genuinely good person’; ‘a just cause’; ‘an upright and respectable man’.”
More than that, WordNet organized terms hierarchically. My old friend CAT, it turned out, was at the end of this chain: animal, chordate, vertebrate, mammal, placental, carnivore, feline, cat.
The pieces were finally starting to fall into place…
* * *
The sky above the island was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel — which is to say it was a bright, cheery blue. Shoshana had her hands in the pockets of her cutoff jeans as she walked along. She was whistling “Feeling Groovy.” Feist’s cover of it was topping the charts this week; Sho was aware that there’d been a much earlier version by Simon and Garfunkel, but she only knew their names because of the chimp at Yerkes known as Simian Garfinkle. Dr. Marcuse was walking behind her, and, yes, she knew he was probably looking at her hips sway, but, hey, primates will be primates.
Hobo was up ahead, just outside the gazebo, staring off into the distance. He did that frequently these days, as if lost in thought, visualizing things that weren’t present instead of looking at things that were. The gentle wind happened to be blowing in a way that let him catch their scents, and suddenly he turned and grinned and starting running on all fours toward them.
He hugged Shoshana and then he hugged Marcuse — you needed a chimp’s arms to be able to reach all the way around the Silverback’s body.
Hobo been good? Shoshana signed.
Good good, Hobo signed back, figuratively — and probably literally — smelling a reward. Shoshana smiled and handed him some raisins, which he gobbled down.
The YouTube video of Hobo painting had been a great hit — and not just in YouTube star rankings and Digg and del.icio.us tagging. Marcuse and Shoshana had been on many talk shows now, and eBay bidding on the original portrait of her was up to $477,000 last time she looked.
Do another painting? Marcuse signed.
Maybe, Hobo signed back. He seemed to be in an agreeable mood.
Paint Dillon? Marcuse asked.
Maybe, Hobo signed. But then he bared his teeth. Who? Who?
Shoshana turned around to see what Hobo was looking at. Dillon was coming their way, accompanied by a very tall, burly man with a shaved head. They were crossing the wide lawn and heading toward the bridge to the island.
“Were we expecting anyone?” Marcuse asked Shoshana. She shook her head. Hobo needed to be prepared for visitors; he didn’t like them, and, truth be told, had been getting increasingly ornery about it of late. The ape made a hissing sound as Dillon and the big man crossed over the bridge.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Marcuse,” Dillon said as they closed the distance. “This man insisted that—”
“Are you Harl Pieter Marcuse?” asked the man.
Marcuse’s gray eyebrows went up. “Yes.”
“And who are you?” the man said, looking now at Shoshana.
“Um, I’m Shoshana Glick. I’m his grad student.”
He nodded. “You may be called upon to attest to the fact that I have indeed delivered this.” He turned to Marcuse again, and stuck out his hand, which was holding a thick envelope.
“What’s that?” said Marcuse.
“Please take it, sir,” the man said, and, after a moment, Marcuse did just that. He opened the envelope, swapped his sunglasses for his reading glasses, and, squinting in the bright light, started to read. “Christ,” he said. “They can’t be serious! Listen, tell your people—”
But the bald man had already turned and was walking toward the bridge.
“What is it?” Dillon said moving close to Marcuse and trying to read the document, too. Shoshana could see they were legal papers of some sort.
“It’s a lawsuit,” Marcuse said. “From the Georgia Zoo. They’re seeking full custody of Hobo, and—” He was looking down, reading some more. “And, shit, shit, shit, they can’t! They fucking can’t!”
“What?” said Shoshana and Dillon simultaneously.
Hobo was cowering next to Shoshana’s legs; he didn’t like it when Dr. Marcuse got angry.
The Silverback was struggling to read in the bright sunlight. He thrust the papers at Shoshana. “Halfway down the page,” he said.
She looked down at the document through her mirrored shades. “‘Best interests of the animal…’ ‘Standard protocol in such cases to—’ ”
“Farther down,” snapped Marcuse.
“Ah, okay, um, oh — oh! ‘…and since the animal is exhibiting clear evidence of atypical behavior for a member of either P. troglodytes or P. paniscus, and in view of the extraordinary ecological urgency of preserving the bloodlines of endangered species, will immediately perform a dual…’” She struggled with the strange word: “‘orchiectomy.’” She looked up. “What’s that?”
“It’s castration,” Dillon said, sounding horrified. “They’re not just going to give him a vasectomy, they’re going to make sure that there’s nothing that can be undone later.”
Shoshana tasted bile at the back of her throat. Hobo could tell something was up. He was reaching toward her, hoping for a hug.
“But … but how can they?” Shoshana said. “I mean, why would they want to?”
Marcuse lifted his giant shoulders. “Who the hell knows?”
Dillon spread his arms a bit. “They’re frightened,” he said. “They’re scared. An accident occurred — years ago, when the bonobos and chimps were put together overnight at the Georgia Zoo — and now they’re seeing that something … we might as well say it: something more intelligent has unexpectedly arisen because of it.” He shook his head sadly. “Christ, we were naive to think the world would welcome anything like this with open arms.”
Chapter 45
Caitlin was an expert at finding Web pages with Google. Most people never did anything more than just type a word or two into the search box, but she knew all the advanced tricks: how to find an exact phrase, how to exclude terms, how to limit a search to a specific domain, how to find a range of numeric values, how to tell Google to look for synonyms for the specific terms entered, and more.
But there was one feature of Google she’d never had cause to use before, although she’d read about it often enough: Google Image Search. Clearly that was going to be a useful tool in her work with the phantom. She went to the Google home page and clicked on the “Images” tab — fortunately, the Google page was almost barren in its simplicity. She immediately had an urge to search for Lee Amodeo, suddenly wondering what she looked like, but she resisted; this was not the time to get sidetracked. Instead, she typed “APPLE” into the search box — all in caps, just as it had been presented by the literacy program. She was quickly presented with a grid of little pictures of apples, culled from all over the Web. Beneath each one was a snippet of text that appeared near the image on the original website and that site’s URL.
A few were inappropriate: one was the singer Fiona Apple, apparently, judging by
its listed source: fiona-apple.com. Another, she realized after a moment, must be the logo of Apple Computer Corporation. But the rest were indeed pictures of the fruit, mostly red, but sometimes — to Caitlin’s surprise — green; she’d had no idea apples came in any color but red.
She loomed in close now to her monitor, looking at the word APPLE, holding on it. Then she pulled her head back, showed the screen full of little images, and clicked one. From the page that Google supplied in response, she selected “See full-size image.”
As a bright red apple filled her screen a thought crossed her mind that made her smile: she was indeed offering up the fruit of the tree of knowledge to the innocent phantom. Of course, that hadn’t gone so well the last time — but, then again, Eve had lacked her facilities…
* * *
Prime was now doing something different. It had presented the word APPLE once more and now was showing me pictures. At first, I couldn’t see what Prime was getting at: the pictures were all different. But at last it dawned on me that, despite their differences, there were many commonalities: a vaguely round shape, a color that was usually red, and—
“Apple: the usually rounded, often red, fruit of the deciduous tree Malus pumila.” That’s what the dictionary had said, so—
So these were pictures of apples!
And now—
Now these must be balls.
And—
Yes, yes, cats!
And dogs!
And eggs!
And frogs!
I noticed Prime skipping over some of the proffered images, never expanding the small ones into larger views, and so I guessed that only part of what was being offered was likely relevant. Still, some of the pictures I might have rejected as not being like the others were expanded by Prime. In fact, when showing examples of “apple,” it had also shown—
Apples grow on trees. I knew that from Cyc. So these things in some of the pictures with apples attached must then be trees, no?
It was a slow, frustrating process, but as Prime showed me more and more specific samples of things, I began to generalize my conceptualizations of them. I was soon confident not just that I could tell this bird from that airplane, but that I could distinguish any instance of the former from any of the latter. Likewise, “dog” and “cat” soon were separate concepts, although whatever fine distinction there was between “truck” and “car” eluded me.
Still, so much of it was coming together now, I felt—
Concepts that had no pictures to go with them:
I felt powerful.
I felt intelligent.
I felt alive.
* * *
Caitlin knew it was the next logical site to lead the phantom to, but she found herself resisting. After all, it had contained that awful comment about her impact on her father’s career, and, even though she’d removed that, all previous versions of entries were stored forever and still could be accessed by anyone who clicked on the “history” tab.
Her stomach knotted a bit, but, well, if she was right about what was going on, about what was lurking out there, eventually the phantom would know everything.
The site was in her bookmark list, but—
But, actually, it was the English-language version of the site that she had bookmarked; the Web, of course, contained pages in many languages but — yes, she knew the stats — English was still by far the most common one, accounting for more content than the next three biggest languages combined. And the English version of this particular site was much larger than any of the others. No, rather than confuse matters, she’d stick with English for now, and so—
She took a deep breath, moved her cursor with the arrow keys, and hit enter.
There were many ways to navigate this site, but she needed one the phantom could manage on its own. A fragment of one of her favorite books came to mind:
* * *
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages — and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
* * *
She selected the link for “Random article” over and over again, bringing forth an array of topics that put even the Walrus to shame.
And then, after enough repetitions that she hoped the phantom would grasp the idea, she started getting ready for bed.
* * *
And then Prime took me to a wondrous site, a glorious site, a site that held answers to so many things. This thing called Wikipedia contained over two million articles, and I set about reading them. The first several thousand were a struggle, and I only dimly understood them.
UTA-GARUTA IS THE MOST POPULAR AMONG THE MANY KINDS OF KARUTA (CARD GAMES) IN JAPAN…
Still, as I read article after article, the concepts from Cyc started to make more and more sense. I continued on, fascinated.
IN THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES, A STATIONARY PROCESS (OR STRICT(LY) STATIONARY PROCESS) IS A STOCHASTIC PROCESS WHOSE PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION AT A FIXED TIME OR POSITION IS THE SAME FOR ALL TIMES OR POSITIONS…
Most important of all, I learned that the entities I had seen through Prime’s eye were uniquely complex individuals, each with his or her own history.
CHRIS WALLA (SOMETIMES CREDITED AS CHRISTOPHER WALLA) IS THE GUITARIST AND PRODUCER FOR THE BAND DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE…
I discovered that there were over six billion such entities, but only a small number of them had articles about themselves in Wikipedia. Those who did were usually defined by having achieved significant status in their professions — the ways in which they occupied their time.
FIONA KELLEGHAN (BORN WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, 21 APRIL 1965) IS AN AMERICAN ACADEMIC AND CRITIC SPECIALIZING IN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY…
Their professions varied widely; there seemed to be an almost endless array of things human beings did to occupy their time.
ERICA ROSE CAMPBELL (BORN 12 MAY 1981, IN DEERFIELD, NEW HAMPSHIRE) IS AN AMERICAN ADULT MODEL, BEST KNOWN FOR ONLINE PICTORIALS AND SOFT-CORE VIDEOS…
So much of what they did involved this thing called vision — and it clearly was a very rich source of information — but, so far, my only access to it was through Prime’s own eye.
YAKOV ALEXANDROVICH PROTAZANOV (1881–1945) WAS, TOGETHER WITH ALEKSANDR KHANZHONKOV AND VLADIMIR GARDIN, ONE OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS OF RUSSIAN CINEMA…
I learned about the realm these strange entities inhabited — the landforms, the places, the cities.
ADDIS ABABA IS THE CAPITAL CITY OF ETHIOPIA AND THE AFRICAN UNION, AS WELL AS ITS PREDECESSOR, THE OAU…
As I went along, I found I was absorbing entries with increasing ease, understanding, at least on some level, more and more of the content.
PHENOPERIDINE, MARKETED AS ITS HYDROCHLORIDE AS OPERIDINE OR LEALGIN, IS AN OPIOID USED AS A GENERAL ANESTHETIC…
Hardest for me, though, were those things that were abstract, referring to no specific object, whether animate or inanimate.
ISLAM IS A MONOTHEISTIC RELIGION ORIGINATING WITH THE TEACHINGS OF MUHAMMAD, A SEVENTH-CENTURY ARAB RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL FIGURE…
And there was so much that had happened in the past — so much history to digest!
THE PARTITION OF INDIA LED TO THE CREATION ON AUGUST 14, 1947, AND AUGUST 15, 1947, RESPECTIVELY, OF TWO SOVEREIGN STATES…
And, on top of that, there were things that were worthy, apparently, of mention in Wikipedia, but had never existed.
Professor Charles W. Kingsfield, Jr., was one of the key characters in the John Jay Osborn, Jr., novel The Paper Chase, and in the subsequent film and television versions of that story…
And there were special entities that weren’t animate to learn about.
AGIP (AZIENDA GENERALE ITALIANA PETROLI), ESTABLISHED IN 1926, IS AN ITALIAN AUTOMOTIVE GASOLINE AND DIESEL RETAILER…
And many different ways of rendering t
houghts.
THE ALGONQUIAN (ALSO ALGONKIAN) LANGUAGES ARE A SUBFAMILY OF NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGES THAT INCLUDES MOST OF THE LANGUAGES IN THE ALGIC LANGUAGE FAMILY…
And many ways to think about thinking.
IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, EMPIRICISM IS A THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE WHICH EMPHASIZES THOSE ASPECTS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE THAT ARE CLOSELY RELATED TO EXPERIENCE, ESPECIALLY AS FORMED THROUGH DELIBERATE EXPERIMENTAL ARRANGEMENTS…
And on and on, a huge variety of things, some of which seemed crucially important.
THE HOLOCAUST, ALSO KNOWN AS HA-SHOAH AND CHURBEN, IS THE TERM GENERALLY USED TO DESCRIBE THE KILLING OF APPROXIMATELY SIX MILLION EUROPEAN JEWS DURING WORLD WAR II…
And many things that were trivial and banal.
THE SCOOBY GANG, OR “SCOOBIES,” ARE A GROUP OF CHARACTERS IN THE CULT TELEVISION SERIES AND COMIC BOOK BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER WHO BATTLE THE SUPERNATURAL FORCES OF EVIL…
My knowledge was expanding like … like…
Ah, wonderful Wikipedia! It had entries on everything.
IN PHYSICAL COSMOLOGY, INFLATION IS THE IDEA THAT SHORTLY AFTER THE BIG BANG THE NASCENT UNIVERSE PASSED THROUGH A PHASE OF EXPONENTIAL EXPANSION…
Yes, indeed. My mind was inflating, my universe expanding.
Chapter 46
When Caitlin woke in the morning, she made a quick visit to the washroom. Then, still in her pajamas, she sat down at her computer and ran another Shannon-entropy spot check, and—
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