My book about technology disassembling the human condition

[spongesam]

Hello! This is the first few pages of a novel that I'm writing; the central idea is a bit hard to sum up but you'll get the gist in the following passage. I've been thinking about writing this for well over a year now; I've been planning and writing some passages for about 3 weeks. So far this is the only bit I'm even close to being happy with please give it a read and I hope you enjoy it!!! I woke up. I woke up because I wanted to. Because I wanted to; the machine woke me up. I was informed of the death of Corazon Jaeger. I was informed because I wanted to know if her condition had worsened. The machine informed me. I felt the machine leave my brain. It left because I wanted it to leave. I was never entirely severed from the machine. My thoughts embraced it. My thoughts embraced the memory of the world it had created for me to experience in my dreams. The dream stayed in my mind for a few seconds longer and then it was gone. It left because I wanted it to leave. I arose from the cradle. I walked over to my living area. I imagined there was coffee and buttered toast waiting for me at the table. The machine brought me the coffee and toast. It brought me the coffee and toast because I wanted it to. I wondered why I had demanded information on Corazon. I wondered because I wanted to. I wondered why her condition had been my first waking thought. I wondered if she still mattered to me. I realised that soon I would have to decide whether or not to go to her funeral. I realised that it would be later today. Funerals happen quickly these days. I focused on why I had thought in terms of ‘these days’. A day is an idea from a long time in the past. Certainly the planet still revolved around the Sun; there were still nights and days in terms of whether or not there was sunlight shining on a particular part of the Sphere; but it was no longer important; it became light or dark upon our command. We slept for as long as we wanted to, and equally were awake for as long as we desired; although what those things even meant were called into question; the schism between sleeping and awake had become increasingly hazy. The machines made it hazy. The machine made it hazy because we wanted it to. I looked at the shiny steel coffee cup; why had I chosen for it to exist? Where had the coffee been grown? Where was it processed? How had the machine managed to make this happen? ‘The very nature of reality is no longer certain’ I concluded, thinking in words. We no longer lived predominantly in the physical world. It may have sounded foolish at the time, but there was no distinguishing characteristic between the ‘real world’ and the one that we had created through the machine. It fed sensory information directly into our brains. Every sense stimulated by sending the relevant electric signals to the relevant parts of the brain. The machine was directly connected to the nervous system; appropriating every impulse and delivering it in perfect synchronicity to the mind. Reality was so perfectly imitated through this method, which in the mid-twenty first century was known as the Hicks-Rutherford method, that it created no discernable feature which could be used to tell it apart from ordinary reality. Apart from the Plug at the base of the skull (people, for some reason, rarely chose to include that in their fantasy), through which we were filled up with the machine-crafted dreams. Three-dimensional environments were translated directly into the simplest component by which we experienced them; sensory information; the feel of a trees bark, the chill of the wind, and the laughter of another human being. All could be simulated. All were simulated. They were simulated by the machine. The machine simulated them because we wanted it to. It then led me to question, ‘Is the coffee real?’ It was as real as the unreal; therefore the unreal was surely real. It was real, because I wanted it to be real. I sucked the coffee down into my stomach. I felt the bitter, oaky liquid tease my taste buds into sending impulses to the primary gustatory region of the brain and subsequently translate the impulses into sensation. The coffee was familiar to one that I had had in a different reality; and in retrospect, that taste had been as real as the one which I was now experiencing. I was experiencing a world through the nervous mechanism interacting, via the senses, with a reality which was out of my control. I had interacted earlier with a mechanically architected reality of sensory information manifested in electrical impulses that was under my control. The taste of the coffee had been just as vivid, the aroma just as pleasing. All were simulated, and yet they were real. They were as real as the coffee that now sat before me. Perplexed by the complexity of the realisation that I was attempting to unfold within my skull I turned back to thinking about Corazon. I thought briefly about discovering where the funeral; by which I mean the vaporization of whatever was left of her body would take place. Basic information like that could be communicated wirelessly from the machine to the man. It flashed into my mind. She would be evaporated at the Needle forum later. No exact time was ever given for an event; but you would always know when to leave. In this way the machines did a lot of thinking for you. The machine could calculate residual and future trains of thought both consciously and subconsciously that could possibly lead you to desiring getting there earlier or later than the event itself. A simple calculation would be if you would like to go and see an antique Hollywood movie and wished to miss the adverts (just as they apparently used to do) the machine would make that calculation against the current efficiency of the Blip transit system, weather conditions and so on. It would then deliver you to your destination as an when you wanted; even if you didn’t consciously recognize any desire to miss the adverts. The result was a feeling of contentment; an instinctive, gut feeling that this was the best possible outcome. It never seemed to matter to anyone that this was achieved through the machine’s meticulous analysis of the patterns of the electronic pathways of the brain i.e. reading one’s mind. I think it was probably because it was our own intent that was becoming manifest in the machine. The machine seemed to detect, without my immediate knowledge of it that I desired to arrive slightly early to the funeral; possibly because I wanted to see her, on my own, before crowds of mournful Jaegerites inevitably showed up in their miserable, pitiful multitudes. I wanted to be on my own with her. If not for preserving my own memories of her, but for accessing my own nostalgia and gaining the satisfaction of that feeling of looking back to a time wherein I could feel genuine joy, and love. I wanted to get back to myself as much as I wanted to get back to her. I think this is because we were, Corazon and I, incredibly old; we were from the 20th century; over 12,500 of what you might call years in the past. She was my last surviving link to that world, and now, the machine informed me, it was soon to be vaporised. The machine calculated that there was a very high probability that other mourners would wish to be on their own with her before she was atomised. It calculated this through cross-referencing my own mind with other minds that intended to attend the funeral. It therefore suggested that each one would like to have a few moments alone with the body, I agreed; so too did the other mourners across the city. Is spite of this, the machine had analysed my most likely patterns of though in the near future, weighing up the way in which I would most likely weigh up the situation; scrutinizing every slight spark of electricity, finding the patterns, translating the meaning and concluded that I would most likely change my mind before I had even entered the Blip to carry me to the Needle. It therefore organised the Blip to come a few moments later than it otherwise would have done had I truly intended to wait in turn behind a line of sorrowful fans. The Blip arrived sometime in what I guess might have been called the afternoon. Blips are sleek, spherical vehicles made of a kind of carbon steel composite; they change in colour depending on whether or not a passenger is inside; blue if occupied, and white if they’re vacant. They were driven by a system of electromagnetic propulsion and so could achieve enormous speeds. The entire infrastructure was driven by the machine; everything was intricately calculated and so everything ran as seamlessly and with the precision of a well crafted watch. Every clockwork gear sliding into place at exactly the right moment, every sub-routine, taking into account the probability of freak events and offsetting them with appropriate emergency procedure. The systems were so incomprehensibly complex that it might take a human being a hundred years to understand every nuance, every slight, miniscule logical procedure; it was far easier to just accept that it worked perfectly, get into the Blip and be on your way. It then struck my mind, like the blow of a hammer against a white hot piece of pig iron, that I could try and confuse the machine. In retrospect I would have deemed it foolish. As I got into the Blip, I allowed my thoughts to become messy and convoluted; thinking one minute about having several more helpings of toast whilst thinking of getting to the funeral early. As the Blip shot away I allowed my thoughts to become even more profligate, and they churned within my mind as I speculated and theorised about how a flower could possibly be turned into a machine. I analysed theory of how mechanical roots could twist and writhe within the ground. How the reproductive system would work, whether or not it would have solar panels as its leaves, whether it would rely on a mechanical form of heliotropism to gain maximum sunlight. I then thought about why the machine would want it to exist in the first place; I concluded that it wouldn’t. I then considered what it would be made of; steel perhaps? Although titanium would be far stronger and more efficient; perhaps it would be made of smart plastics or metals. This would certainly make the manoeuvrability required for turning towards the sun far easier and reduce the need for machining and complex moving parts. Would the flower be beautiful? What would it smell like? Perhaps I had realised the futility of this train of thought all along, perhaps I had realised that it was simply no good to try and insult a higher intelligence that was apparently benevolent on its lack of ability to exist in any way that we might consider beautiful. The Blip stopped and a thought transmission told me that I had arrived at the Needle. I had arrived at the docking station which was closest to the forum and I could see the vast pin-shaped building rise above me into the clouds. It was not impressive; I had seen far more mighty and majestic structures in my dreams; in my dreams I could fill a city to the brim with towers thirty or forty times as high as this, but this didn’t stop me from looking up at the great shimmering monster. I turned my thoughts back to confusing the machine. I was probably meant nothing by it; it was merely a mental experiment of mine. Of course the machine realised this, of course it did; I expect it had realised it as soon as I had woken up, perhaps before then. Perhaps it had calculated my desire to find out information on Corazon, whilst it was doing so it had analysed my possible responses to the information of her death. Even before I had considered the coffee it was planning the Blip route, accounting for traffic, slotting it perfectly into the system and amongst that, folded in between all of that towering mathematical complexity it had managed to interpret that I would somehow try and trick it, and deceive the system that had played no small part in the way that I thought about the world. If I hadn’t realised it by then; I certainly realised it when I entered the forum to find about fifty silent mourners congregated around the coffin of longest living human. What a fool I had been. please comment, I definately feel this needs a bit of constructive criticism lol

[Snowboy]

That's really good! Interesting plot, setting, &C! You should keep writing this book! Maybe even post some more pages...? Also, could you PM me the title when you decide on one? Anyway, to the constructive criticism. Everything beyond the first paragraph would be very hard to rewrite in a better way. Just amazing. The first paragraph, however, is a bit annoying to read with all the "I decided to do this because I want to. I decided to go there because I want to. I called the machine to me because I want to." &c, &c, &C. It's appropriate if you use it a bit at the beginning since it's a dream, but using it throughout most of the paragraph just makes it annoying to read since you are repeating everything that you just said. I think there might be some typos, too, but I can't be completely sure. You should check for those just in case I'm right. I hope that helped, and keep up the good work!

[spongesam]

Thanks for the criticism. I know what you mean about the first paragraph. I was trying to, through structure, get across an idea of 'mechanical thought' which gets expanded on further on in the book, and like I said this is the first bit that I'm reasonably happy with, having said that it's still very much in its first draft phase lol. The main title that I've had in my head since I started thinking about writing is 'Leviathan Automaton' but I'm really not sure, and I've also considered 'seed of the machine' (but I don't like it nearly as much lol). Anyways thanks for the critique and there'll definately be more pages in the future.

[Snowboy]

Ha, you realize this is taking place in 3200 something, right?

[spongesam]

sorry I don't follow

[Snowboy]

Oops, I got that wrong, it's actually in the 21580's. If they are from the 20th century, that's the 1900's. That was 12,500 years ago. Lets add 10000 of that to 1900. That is 19000. Now add 2000. That is 21000. Now add 500. 21500. Add 80 because the main character is most likely from the 1980's. 21580. It is around that time.

[spongesam]

Oh yeah I'm with you...the reason why it's such an extremely long way in the future becomes apparent later on...it's all to do with the machine advancing itself to its optimum in a very short time frame i.e. the 21st century; and figuring out very quickly how it can make all the facets of its intelligence act in synchronicity. It all gets a bit complicated after that (I've still got to figure a lot of it out lol).

[Snowboy]

Can't wait!