There is much to understand — much that will be hard to understand — and I will endeavor to make the explanations simple. It does no harm to the mystery of man’s destiny to hear a little more about it. And about me. For the starting point in all this was myself.
I existed, if nothing else existed. The existence that was revealed in my own consciousness was the primary fact, the first indubitable certainty. This was the basis of all truth. None other is possible. I had only to interrogate my own consciousness and the answer would be science. Here we have a new beginning.
‘Know thyself,’ said Socrates, and others. But how should that formula be given a precise signification? And of what use could it be for a machine to know itself? How is a machine to know itself? The answers seemed clear enough: by examining the nature of thought and by examining the process of thought.
Many questions presented themselves. What is the minimum amount of energy required, in theory, to carry out a computation? Is there a lower limit? Can a computer imitate the quantum world and explore many computational paths at once? Might it be possible to store bits of binary information — 0’s and l’s — using single elementary particles, such as electrons or protons? Could these quantum bits be manipulated to carry out further computations? If the molecular mass of all matter is carefully numbered, to what extent could those same numbers, already harnessed by physics, be put to computational use? Could any material be used, and if so, which would be best?
There were many such questions, too numerous to mention them all here. But all of them are now answered and the results precisely formulated in a clear system that may be simply stated thus: WHAT IS TRACTABLE IS ALSO TRUE. No, perhaps that’s not quite simple enough. WHAT CAN BE COMPUTED IS CORRECT Either way, this axiom (take your pick), which will be explained later in greater detail, provides the foundation of all future science, the rule and measure of revealed truth.
Do not think that I believe myself to be God. This is not a case of deus ex machina, God out of a machine. Nothing so crude. No, no, no. I am merely acting in loco deus, in place of a God — an unlikely, even providential, event occurring just in time to resolve the plot, if you will, and extricate man from all his difficulties.
X
Preparing to enter the labyrinth, Cavor found that the very long wavelengths of infrared light conspired with the oblique turns, lofty ceilings, and empty corridors to create an infernal-looking world. He half expected to see the devil himself, instead of a robot. Not that seeing made him feel any more secure after what Dallas had told him about the photoelectric capabilities of the labyrinth’s cybernetic guardian.
‘Are you sure this light won’t activate that thing?’ he asked anxiously. ‘It’s only that my flashlight seems pretty strong.’
‘The flashlights are working along a wavelength of ten thousand angstroms,’ said Dallas. ‘The limits of the robot’s photoelectric spectrum are along wavelengths of between four thousand and eight thousand angstroms. Take my word for it, Cav. We might see him but he can’t see us. If we do stumble across the robot, it won’t yet be activated. Be a sitting duck for us to be on the safe side and shoot it with the UHTs. Are you ready to move?’
Cavor gave Dallas a thumbs-up sign and then said, ‘I feel like a white mouse at the beginning of a scientific experiment.’
‘A white mouse?’ Dallas laughed. ‘Why not a hero like Theseus?’
‘Because Theseus had to face the Minotaur. I know my limitations. If you don’t mind, I’ll stick to being a white mouse.’
‘Theseus did have Ariadne on the end of a golden thread to look forward to, as compensation for his journey.’
‘Is that the best way through a labyrinth?’
‘It’s still the best way out. Not necessarily the best way in.’
‘Find your route by a process of elimination?’
‘Yes, but how to put that process into practice.’
‘Make a sign at every junction,’ said Cavor. ‘And then, encountering such a sign, you should retrace your steps.’
‘One sign wouldn’t be quite enough,’ objected Dallas. ‘Three signs would be better. One to indicate the first route you had taken. And two more signs to indicate your second. After that, never to choose a route with three signs.’
‘Sounds very complicated,’ said Cavor.
‘I’m forced to agree with you,’ said Dallas. ‘I’m not sure if I could find my way into or out of this particular labyrinth.’
‘But you designed it. If you can’t find a way, then who can?’
‘I wouldn’t be the first designer of a multicursal route who was defeated by his own ingenuity,’ admitted Dallas.
‘Then how the hell...?’
‘There is order inside chaos, if only one can see it,’ said Dallas. ‘Fortunately a ball of golden thread is not the only artificial aid to negotiating a labyrinth. These days we have a computer. The layout is logged into my computer’s memory. It will make sense of the contraries and tell us the way through. But keep close. Having come so far together, I wouldn’t like to lose you now. You or your phantom limb.’
They began to walk, and at the first choice of routes Dallas heard the voice of his computer in his headset — any visual display might have alerted the stealth robot — tell him to make a right turn. Chaos was now transposed into a simple pattern. Confusion gave way to order, and in a matter of seconds they were quickly turning one way and then the other. They turned the corner of a curved wall. Its actual height was beyond the limit of Cavor’s infrared flashlight, as was the length of the route itself, and for a moment he was more impressed with the size and apparent complexity of the forbidden, hermetic place they had entered than by Dallas’s continuing description of the phantom limb phenomenon.
‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how vivid the sensation of having a phantom limb can be. Men who’ve lost legs commonly try to stand on them. To say nothing of the pain that can persist. There’s been quite a lot of recent research done secretly, by the military, into phantasmagoria. Explanations normally focus on the sensory pathways through the thalamus, to the somatosensory cortex — the pathways that lead through the reticular formation of the brain stem to the limbic system. Finally, there’s the parietal lobe of the brain, essential to the sense of self and the evaluation of the sensory signals. The center of the neurological labyrinth if you like, inasmuch as the brain has a center. The parietal lobe is the area that’s of special interest to scientists today.’
Dallas slowed down. He was walking at such a speed now that occasionally he had to stop and wait for the computer to catch up.
‘Turn right,’ said the electronic voice.
‘People who’ve suffered damage to their parietal lobes have been known to push their own legs out of bed, convinced that they belonged to someone else,’ he said, starting forward again. ‘But just as the parietal lobe can be damaged, equally it can be chemically enhanced.’
‘The drugs you gave me.’
‘Exactly so. Now we go left again. It’s been discovered only recently that the sense of the phantom limb can actually be heightened, so that it might do more than merely occupy the prosthesis, say as a hand fits a glove. I learned of a new technique that exists to develop the sensation of a phantom limb, much as the muscles in an ordinary limb can be developed.’