“Conventional science becomes decadent when it relies too much on thought experiments—and the present-day multimode simulations are really nothing more than hugely elaborate thought experiments. They ask what would happen if, rather than what is really happening.
“Every working scientist has experienced at least occasional difficulty in distinguishing between simulation and reality. It is far from rare for a researcher to discover that reality does not behave as predicted in the model—and then proceed with a new experiment to show why reality was in error. We start to worry about building the perfect model, the perfect simulation, rather than dealing with the imperfections of the theories that produce the model.
“We base new experiments on results from a simulation that was itself developed based on the results of a previous sim. Our studies too often deal with an idealized universe of formulae and advanced displays, a place that is far removed from the real world, and yet is sometimes more compelling, more interesting, than our perceptions of reality. Too often, the modern researcher is given the choice between an ideal world and reality. Is it any wonder that they often choose the ideal dream, sometimes without even being aware of it?
“Science also fails when it merely relies on received knowledge, takes on faith what the past teaches, rather than going out to look for itself. When we acknowledge our own failings, our own limitations, is it not the height of presumption to assume that our predecessors got everything right? No data should be accepted as correct unless it is testable and confirmable. That which is not subject to proof is not science; that which is subject to proof must be tested again and again if it is to remain science.
“Science is meant to be a means of increasing knowledge by taking a skeptical look at the real world. The contemporary conventional approach to science is becoming little more than a credulous glance at a simulation.”
The simulation came toward its ending, again. The images froze in front of a gaggle of excited scientists and researchers, again. Half of them promptly began arguing every possible point raised by the sim with the other half. Again.
Sianna Colette was close to asleep on her feet. She had long ago lost all track of time. But now, down in this subterranean hole, in the dark, with the same depiction of imaginary times to come being shown backwards and forwards at various rates of passage, over and over again—each time with minor improvements and refinements, courtesy the relentlessly eager and energetic Wally—she had lost all connection with time as well.
Yesterday, they had gotten to the top people by blundering into them. No such luck today. Sakalov was nowhere to be found, and none of Bernhardt’s people would think of disturbing him on the say-so of an undergrad and an overage sim hack. Seeing Bernhardt, as she had the day before—if it had been the day before, and not merely some far-off frontier of the same endless day—was no more an everyday occurrence than getting a good hard look at the Easter Bunny. In the normal course of events, Sianna would have as much chance of seeing Wolf Bernhardt as she would of getting the Autocrat of Ceres to come to lunch.
The only way to get this thing to anyone’s attention was to move it up the food chain, one step at a time. They had to show it to each person’s superior, convince that superior of the idea’s logic, and then get that person to get his or her superiors to come down and have a look for themselves.
This was the third showing of the sim, each time to a slightly larger and more prestigious audience. None of the lower ranks seemed interested in clearing out, once they had dragged their bosses down, with the result that it was getting more than a little crowded in the sim tank. The air conditioning was not quite able to hold its own. That in and of itself tended to degrade the authenticity of the presentation. Outer space was not supposed to smell like a locker room.
The lights came up a bit so that everyone could see each other and talk more easily. It worked; the decibel level went up almost as fast as the lights. Sianna looked toward Wally at the controls. Nice touch, knowing that people don’t like to talk in the dark. But then, it made sense that the only insight Wally would have on the human psyche would involve how they reacted to a sim.
Look at him over there. Wally should have been as exhausted as Sianna, but instead he was glorying in it all. Very probably more people were paying attention to him right now, taking him seriously, than at any other time in his life. He was surrounded by a whole mob of researchers who usually paid him just enough mind to make jokes about him, all of them asking questions, making suggestions, in short treating him like a colleague rather than as some lower form of life.
Sianna blinked awake as her head sagged forward. Dammit! Had she dozed off? For how long? A minute? An hour? She peered through the darkness and the clamor of the crowd. Something was happening. A knot of people was standing about the latest arrival on the scene, Dr. Ursula Gruber, director of Observational Research, and one of the most dignified-looking women Sianna had ever seen. Her iron-grey hair was done up in a bun, and pulled back tight. She was in a stiff white lab suit, and her grey eyes had a firm and steady gaze.
Gruber was surrounded by her own subordinates, and seemed to be in the midst of a spirited conversation with them, judging by the expression on her face. Sianna could not hear much of the discussion, but at last Gruber raised her hands and spoke in a louder tone. “All right. Settle down so I can make the call.” Gruber pulled her phone from her pocket and punched in a code.
Gruber was far enough up the food chain that it might be Bernhardt’s office she was calling, and that Bernhardt would take the call. Gruber was gesturing toward the simulation, clearly talking about it.
At last Sianna couldn’t take it any longer. She ventured close enough to hear what Gruber was saying.
“Yes, yes, we are all here in the Simulation Center. In the tank. I have just seen it. It has some real internal logic. It might well be significant. What? I am sorry, they are all talking here. Oh. That Wally Sturgis fellow is running it. Yes, Sturgis. No, I don’t think he—I’m sorry, please say again. What was that?” She waved her hand, gesturing for silence, and then covered her free ear up with her hand and listened for a moment. “One moment. I will ask.” Gruber hit the mute button on her phone and looked around the room, a rather sharp expression on her face. “Which one is Colette?” she called out. “Sianna Colette?”
Sianna felt a sudden cold lump in the pit of her stomach. She stepped forward, and was all too aware that the people around her were stepping aside, making way. Suddenly she was alone in the middle of a circle of eyes. Behind her, the simulated Dyson Sphere went on building itself out of the rubble of a ruined imaginary Solar System.
“I’m Sianna Colette,” she said, her voice sounding a bit high and squeaky, even to herself.
“Dr. Bernhardt wants to know if this is your idea?” Gruber asked. She gestured at the simulation, at the highlighted image of what everyone was already calling the Lone World. “Did you think of this?”