Society of the Mind

Eric L. Harry Society of the Mind

'Like Michael Crichton and H. G. Wells, Eric L. Harry writes stories just this side of science fiction that entertain roundly while they explore questions of scientific and social import.'

— Publishers Weekly

'Gripping, exciting and fast-paced, this Jurassic Park of the mind integrates plot and current scientific theories extremely well.'

— New Scientist

'Informed, cutting-edge flair… refreshing… Harry has a first-rate speculative mind well grounded in current science.'

— Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Eric L. Harry graduated from the Marine Military Academy and holds BA, MBA and JD degrees from Vanderbilt University. He has also studied at Moscow and Leningrad State Universities. A corporate securities attorney and expert on military affairs, he lives with his wife and two sons in Houston, Texas, USA. He is the author of the best- selling novels of future war Arc Light and Protect and Defend.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my parents to whom I owe far more than mere words could ever express.

Great thanks and appreciation go to my wonderful wife, Marina, without whose editing and constant support and encouragement this novel could not have been written; to my tireless and loyal agent, Nancy Coffey, and to Bob Thixton, Dick Duane, Jean Free, and all the others at Jay Garon-Brooke Associates who have the patience to put up with me; and to my editors at Harper Collins: Vice President and Associate Publisher Gladys Justin Carr and Elissa Altman. They not only rendered invaluable editorial comments — they were a joy to work with.

And my acknowledgments go also to the many great thinkers whose works I read with awe. To Daniel C. Dennett, director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts, and author of Consciousness Explained, who has deciphered the seemingly indecipherable. To Marvin Minsky, a co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, whose seminal collection of essays titled The Society of Mind provided much more to this author than the obvious. And to the visionary Hans Morevae, director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon, for the profound dreams and nightmares of Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence.

Finally, in memory of Jay Garon, who had a habit of breathing life into the literary careers of the unpublished.

Neural network: A web of densely interconnected processing elements, or 'neurons,' modeled on the architecture of an animal brain. Through interaction of individual neurons, a neural network is able to improve its performance through experience. Also called neurocomputer.

1

'Dr. Aldridge?' the messenger asked, holding an envelope in his hand.

There was no postmark on the luxuriously thick paper, just—'Dr. Laura Aldridge, Harvard Psychology Department' — hand-printed in black.

When she looked up, the man was gone, Laura's classroom buzzed in anticipation of the robotic surgery.

But color test bars filled the high-definition screen, and Laura used the time to open the letter.

'Dear Dr. Aldridge,' it began — the script bold and black and sweeping. 'I would like to engage you as a consultant for one week. Tonight at ten P.M., a plane will be waiting at the civil aviation terminal of Logan Airport to bring you to my corporate headquarters. The fee will be one million dollars (U.S.). Thank you for considering this offer.'

It was signed

'Joseph Gray' — the letters of his name unrestrained by the 'Very truly yours' written above.

Joseph Gray — the richest man in the world.

Laura read and reread the note, her mouth agape. A million dollars, she thought, struggling to comprehend what had just been handed her. Joseph Gray? It had to be a joke, of course. A million dollars for one week!

She rubbed the paper between her fingers, marveling at the quality of the stationery. Marveling at the penmanship, each letter distinct and legible. There were no flaws to evidence an indecisive hand. All was perfect and controlled.

It was the signature, however, that broke the mold. The name—'Joseph Gray' — was slashed in upright spikes, the letters J and G soaring above the rest. It wasn't a name, Laura thought, but a mark, the bold strokes of a man with an ego to match his notoriety.

A collective gasp rose up from her students. Many sat covering their mouths or cringing. Laura turned to the front of the small amphitheater to see that the large screen had split into two pictures, side by side. On the right, a surgeon was seated at a computer terminal. On the left, a robotic arm held an electro stimulator an inch above the shiny surface of the patient's cerebral cortex. The picture of the exposed brain switched to a close-up, and there were gasps and moans of 'o-o-u' from the undergraduates.

'There won't be any gore,' Laura said to quiet the disturbance. 'The surgeon is going to locate the correct entry point for the incision by testing the responses of the patient to stimulation of particular areas of the brain.'

'All right, Doug,' the surgeon's voice came over the television speaker. 'Johns Hopkins' appeared under the crystalline image of a man who was wearing a white lab coat and staring at his computer monitor.

'Cedar Sinai, Los Angeles' was printed under the incredibly sharp picture of the wrinkled gray mass on the left side of the screen. Just beneath it the Internet address of the channel on which they viewed the procedure was printed.

The human brain lay exposed under the waiting robotic arm and was surrounded by light green surgical cloth. 'We're going to begin stimulation,' the surgeon said from his office thousands of miles away.

'Now I want you to report to me exactly what you see, hear, feel, taste, smell, remember, whatever. Just relate to me as best you can the experience that the stimulation triggers.'

Laura put the letter onto the podium and tried to compose her thoughts for her lecture. 'The surgeon on the right,' she said, clearing her throat and then raising her voice to get the students' attention, 'is located at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore. The subject,' she began, aiming her laser pointer at the picture of the patient, 'is a nineteen-year-old male with severe epilepsy.' An arrow-shaped cursor generated by the television's built-in microprocessors followed her laser pointer to the well-lit hole in the skull. 'He's at Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los