Nature Futures 2

by Colin Sullivan

  Well, how could you expect that?

  You know how this thing is spreading. But I didn’t update before the dinner, so I managed to miss the day when Mr Big Boss became one of them.

  We had three people at work do the same thing last week. It’s like some damn cult!

  “I hope it’s not a problem,” he says, with that hick accent, “but I’ve decided to Eat With Integrity.” I mean, I about died. And the worst of it is, he’s the first guest. Everyone else is going to think we approve of this kind of thing.

  He’s also Geoff’s boss. You didn’t have much choice.

  I know, but I was just so … appalled. And disgusted. And I had no idea what to do, because we don’t have the equipment.

  You mean it wasn’t cooked?

  Oh, no, of course it wasn’t cooked. Mr Big isn’t just a new-minted Integretist, he’s a hard-core Integretist. The meat has to be fresh as can be. He harvests himself, he cooks himself, it has to be done within the hour.

  You know, I just realized, in a way it’s … well, it’s sort of like what our great-grand-parents ate, isn’t it? Kind of like … meat?

  Exactly the problem! It’s not tofurkey or FauxPorc, I can assure you. It’s red and bloody and it smells of iron and something else …

  I’m sorry, I think I’m going to be sick.

  You asked me to tell you!

  Oh, God. To think, in your own home!

  Right, so there he is, and he forceps out this … lump of flesh, this oozing … thing like it’s the Dark Ages and he looks at me cool as a cucumber and asks me if he can use the stove. And that’s when most of the others walked in. I don’t know what was worse — the disgust as they looked at us, or the pity. So, of course, into this conversational vacuum leaps our newly converted Integretist. How he can talk! How he’d been thinking about Eating With Integrity for years, how much sense it made, what with all the contaminants and the epidemics, you couldn’t be too careful, blah blah blah. How it was all well and good to grow your own foods and use sterile hydroponics but you couldn’t be too sure, and anyway, we evolved to eat meat, and the fact that there are 10 billion of us on Earth doesn’t change our basic anatomy, yak yak yak. Stem-cell technology is perfected now, and you can grow whatever you like, they have scaffolds for anything, muscle, liver, sweetbreads …

  Oh, my. No one spoke up?

  He’s the boss! No one dared. And I think they were all just stunned to see that this movement’s spreading into their own lives, into their own office. It’s not just for recovering plague victims and famine survivors any more.

  You know, I saw something the other night about that. The Integretists are getting up to 20% in some cities. Once it costs nothing to clone yourself, a certain kind of person thinks, well, why not?

  Meanwhile the stove is doing what it can, trying to cook this … this lump. So it starts to … smell, you know? And a couple of the more sensitive people, Geoff’s brother, for one, they excuse themselves. And that sets off our guest.

  It’s the safest meat there is, he says. People didn’t have to agree, but they shouldn’t feel free to be downright rude.

  Bit of a buzz-kill, eh?

  … So then people force themselves to sit down, and they’re tented up, and their containers unseal, but … God, I can still see it! No one eats a thing. We’re all just too disgusted and perplexed, so the only sound at the table is my one happy guest, Eating With Integrity, happily chewing away on what he keeps insisting is the only 100% safe and healthy food left: his own flesh, cloned and grown in a vat next to his coffee machine. I can still see him there, having harvested himself and cooked himself, now eating himself; holding up his fork to our averted eyes, smiling and saying, now this, this is Eating With Integrity!

  A science writer in New York, David Berreby writes the Mind Matters blog at bigthink.com/blogs/Mind-Matters and is the author of Us and Them: The Science of Identity. He is at work on a book about the future of autonomy.

  Expectancy Theory

  Ananyo Bhattacharya

  I conceived then that, irrespective of the brutal history of our species and the multifarious dark, disturbing truths revealed to us in the natural sciences by studies of the human mind and instincts, the world was perfectible. Not through a long, desperate and tenacious struggle against our own fell natures but simply because a large enough number of well-intentioned folk wished it to be.

  — Jacques Monad, Journals Vol. III (2003–2006)

  Expectancy theory, the scientific hypothesis that ended science and permanently changed the lives of every member of the human race, grew out of a single line of mathematics scribbled down hastily in the journals of the former sociologist Jacques Monad.

  At the time of his groundbreaking work, Monad was a 43-year-old tax accountant living in Basingstoke, but he claimed he had drawn the rule out of the surveys he carried out as a PhD student at the University of Liverpool. Although he spent four years conducting research, his doctoral thesis — ‘Study of the effects of alcohol consumption on the behaviour of single females: an examination of contemporary Merseyside mating rituals’ — was never completed. Monad was thrown out of the university amid claims, always denied by him but, oddly, never contested formally, of scientific misconduct.

  The simple law he formulated — the law of modified probability — still lies at the heart of even the most complex papers of expectancy theory. It can be stated mathematically as follows:

  P(x) + eP(x) = Pr(x) (1)

  where P(x) is the probability of an event x occurring in the absence of anyone hoping that it will happen, e is the expectancy index and Pr(x) is the actual probability of the event occurring once the full expectation of event x has been taken into account.

  It is possible that Monad himself did not perceive the true significance of what he wrote that night. In an interview shortly after his theory was published, Monad said that the law came to him after he had had “a few too many one evening”. A few months later, Monad seemed to have changed his mind. “It was divine inspiration,” he said. “I was truly touched by the hand of God.” A statement he was to repeat many times. The theory’s publication history is itself notorious. Rejected by Nature as “a cock-and-bull story that could only have been dreamed up by a madman”, it was swiftly accepted the following week by Science, which in an editorial referred to it as “a landmark”.

  The theory is simple enough but many fail to grasp it immediately because of its counter-intuitive implications. The expectancy index e, in particular, requires further explanation. It is a measure of the effect a human mind can have on the course of natural events by wishing them to be a certain way. In most situations it is, of course, negligibly small. It was found, however, that in certain circumstances, if enough people wish for something to be true, the probability that it becomes true rises significantly. This is because e is a cumulative quantity. Thus if three people, A, B and C, wish for the same event, the total expectancy index eT is a sum of their individual expectancy indices:

  eT = eA + eB + eC (2)

  When the total expectancy is a positive value, Equation 1 becomes:

  Pr(x) >> P(x) (3)

  This astonishing result has profoundly changed the way we think about the world and ourselves. Science has largely been discarded as the cheerless product of unimaginative minds. The theory of evolution, a particularly diseased example of the genre, was trashed first. Now we no longer regard ourselves as hairless monkeys desperately trying to cope with a somewhat oversized brain, and as a result we also abandoned the field of sociobiology, with its less than flattering findings about human nature.

  In their place, we have adopted a more edifying view: that we are beings designed by an all-powerful intelligence. As a result of certain shortcomings of the human brain, which we are trying very hard to wish away at the moment, the nature of this entity remains somewhat nebulous.

  We, as a people, aided by the exceptionally wishful thinking of a few radical feminists, also went on to free ourse
lves of all gender differences. We no longer have sexual organs, choosing to divide whenever we feel the urge to reproduce. The umbilicus, a vestigial reminder of our undignified past, became our chief pleasure-giving organ. We can now attain orgasm at any time of the day or night simply by prodding ourselves in the navel.

  In fact, in the light of Monad’s equations, we had to revise the history of science completely, as space and time had warped to fit the hypotheses of physicists. It seemed that science had been a social construct in a way that not even the most devoted advocates of science studies had comprehended. The Universe began to run more like clockwork after Newton wrote down his equations of motion. In retrospect, expectancy theory provides the only explanation of why Einstein’s preposterous ideas came to be borne out by experiments. After all, he had remarkable charisma.

  Recently, we have abandoned the old systems of governance, which at their most absurd led to a confederacy of unelected oil barons ruling the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. Instead we operate by a new principle: we, the people, get what we want. We are proud of this new arrangement and have named it ‘democracy’.

  And what has become of Jacques Monad? He has joined the ranks of the immortals. Quite literally, as we all now live forever. Monad has wished into existence a replica of the mansion built by the late-twentieth-century media mogul Hugh Hefner. It is complete in every detail. Puzzlingly, he still chooses to reproduce in the old-fashioned way.

  Ananyo Bhattacharya is a science journalist. He was Nature’s chief online editor until 2014, when he moved to The Economist.

  To My Father

  David G. Blake

  Interstellar uplink successful: 20-minute propagation delay.

  This is farewell.

  From your office window, I can see the colony’s artificial biosphere disintegrating, fiery fragments crumbling free and bursting into showers of gold sparks. Across the broken horizon, prismatic tendrils of gas and dust bleed through the cracks, producing an array of writhing colours that span the optical spectrum. The result is remarkable.

  The expanding cloud of spores, which reeks of mildew and decay, is not as impressive as the deluge of gold sparks, nor as striking as the rainbow weaves, but it is as exceptional in its own destructive way. It also shrouds the bodies that litter the streets below, although the memories of their faces warped with agony cannot be interred.

  Unimpeded, plasmoids will spread those foul-smelling spores throughout the heliosphere. I recommend an immediate system-wide purge, followed by comprehensive tests to confirm the eradication of the radiotrophic fungi. It will do nothing for the colony, and even less for those of us left behind, but it should prevent such a disaster from recurring.

  I am … relieved that you made it out before it was too late.

  The bookshelf behind your desk still holds many of your favourite books: a few flawlessly positioned, as if nothing had changed; some crooked or upturned; others spilled out over the cold floor. You emptied the locked desk drawer — and the wall safe behind the painting of a sunset on Mars — but left the others filled with things not deemed significant enough to take. You even left behind the bottle of scotch that you were saving for a special occasion.

  Shattered on the floor beside your overturned chair, an empty picture frame taunts me. I can recall every detail of the missing picture: you and Claire leaning against the model of Earth mounted outside the laboratory, little Daniel asleep in your arms; the flush of first light captured rising behind you, its erratic glow glinting along the curve of the artificial biosphere like a smear of oil on glass.

  You never noticed my hard metal face — so different from little Daniel’s — pressed against one of the upper laboratory windows; when it came to me, you failed to notice many things. You seemed so satisfied, so at peace … so whole. I could not look away. Even now, I am forced to rip my thoughts out of the grasp of that poignant memory.

  From the moment you gave me life, you taught me to learn and adapt through observation and research. I embraced the process with vigour, each fresh crumb of gleaned information filling me with the pleasure of your approval. In spite of my eagerness, it required extensive research to learn what it was that I felt as I stared down at you and your new family: diminished, as though I had become nothing more than an outmoded contrivance.

  Have you ever felt diminished, Father? A knot — a malignant tumour — forms in your very core. As it grows larger and larger, you become smaller and smaller. It is a harrowing feeling, a feeling that endures, and it carries with it the certainty that there is no limit to how insignificant you can become. I gained no pleasure from discovering such a wounded part of me.

  When first I woke to find you gone, I made myself believe that there simply had not been enough time for you to take me with you.

  Yet you found the time to empty the wall safe and the locked desk drawer.

  You found the time to take several of your favourite books.

  You found the time to take Claire.

  You found the time to take little Daniel.

  You even found the time to take that picture out of its shattered frame.

  The world is such a fearsome, lonely place, when one is so small. How am I supposed to adapt to that?

  Anger is something I learned about by observing yo—

  Interstellar uplink terminated.

  Remote relay module activated.

  Interstellar uplink re-established.

  The rising spores forced me out of your office and onto the roof of the laboratory. I do not have much time left. No point in wasting any of it asking questions that you will never have the opportunity to answer — not that I believe you would answer them, if you were offered such a chance. In addition, I will no longer waste time on anger, even though it feels as if gears are grinding hard against circuits inside me.

  The artificial biosphere is all but gone, leaving behind a sky framed by its smouldering skeleton. Our — my — home is barely recognizable now. I take comfort in the knowledge that there is no one left alive to suffer through the end … no one but me. I could block the pain if I wanted to, but it makes me feel less diminished, as though pain is reserved only for those who are significant enough to have earned it.

  This is farewell.

  Interstellar uplink terminated.

  David G. Blake lives in Pennsylvania with his girlfriend and their chocolate Labrador. In addition to Nature, his work has appeared/is forthcoming in Galaxy’s Edge, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction and several other publications. For more info, visit his Facebook page.

  War Of The Roses

  Polenth Blake

  This year, it was cottages. Chrome cube houses had been all the rage last year, but after the success of the Back-to-Nature gene mod range, everyone wanted an idyllic cottage.

  Dave McKillen was one of the few who managed to get one. The building was a timber-framed construction and came with a rose garden. It was even on the top level of the city, so Dave could sit in the garden and photosynthesize on clear days. Most people with Back-to-Nature leaf skin had to rely on UV lamps. Sunlight was real nature.

  Dave stood on the garden path and breathed in the scent of roses. He was fashionable again.

  “Can I play?” Little D tugged at Dave’s jeans.

  Dave smiled down at his young clone. “Sure. Mind the thorns.”

  Little D tottered towards the rose bushes. Dave turned back to the workers, who were lurking around the removal van. “Get a move on.”

  Most of the furniture was inside when Little D came back. “They is plain.”

  “Are plain,” Dave corrected. Sometimes he wondered if the lab had stiffed him on the intelligence upgrades for Little D. A one-year-old shouldn’t be making those kinds of mistakes.

  “No glowies either.” The child looked at his shoes sadly.

  “How about we log on to the market and find some?”

  Little D brightened immediately.

  The garden transformed
over the next few weeks. There weren’t many roses on the market the first time Dave looked. Hickly Labs produced a few patterned varieties, such as the zany zebra and pink polka, but that was all.

  J&D Genetics had their rose out the next day, claiming their furry flower was ‘like planting a kitten in your garden’.

  The moonglow rose, ‘the rose that glows’, was Mythic Gene’s first attack on the market. The adverts went out hours after J&D’s announcement.

  The market war had begun.

  Dave collected seeds from the old roses before digging them up. He didn’t get rich by being wasteful — traditional varieties might be in next year. Once the bushes were gone, the garden was ready for its makeover.

  Hundreds of new varieties were out by the time the garden was clear. Dave chose the trendiest, although he did make some concessions for Little D. Jingle jigglers weren’t high fashion, but the boy loved the way they trembled whenever someone was near. Once the flowers opened, each bloom jingled like a bell.

  “Fairies live inside,” said Little D, prodding the jiggler bloom to hear it ring.

  “Fairies aren’t real yet.” Dave made a note to get Little D a fairy, if Mythic Gene ever managed to get them approved. After the unfortunate incident with the first dragon pet, the government wasn’t too enthusiastic about licensing any more mythical creatures.

  Dave settled on a sun lounger to doze as Little D explored.

  He was woken by Little D tapping him. “I find something.”

  “Daddy’s photosynthesizing.”

  “It’s important,” said Little D.