willing to use that criterion as the basis for this method?”
“Hmm… let me think.”
“What for? If I've already thought about it, after all, you'll come to the same conclusion — that the criterion is no good. The majority has supported God knows who since time immemorial. But there are two other criteria: good is what I think is good (or who I think is good) and good is what is good for me. Like all people who care professionally about the welfare of mankind, we operated on the basis of both — only in our simplicity we thought that we were only using the first one, and considered it objective at that.”
“Now you're exaggerating!”
“Not a bit! I won't remind you about poor Adam, but even when you were synthesizing me you were worried that it should be good for me (rather, what you thought was good) and that it should be good for you, too. Right? But that's a subjective criterion and other people — “
“ — with this method could do what they thought was good for them?”
“Precisely.”
“Hmmm. All right, let's say you're right. Then we have to look for another method of synthesizing and transforming information in man.”
“Like what?”
“I don't know.”
“I'll tell you what method is needed. We have to convert our computer — womb into an apparatus that continually turns out 'good' at the rate of… say, a million and a half good deeds a second. And at the same time, it should do away with bad deeds at the same rate. Actually, a million and a half — that's just a drop in the ocean. There are three and a half billion people on earth and every one of them performs several dozen acts a day that can never be construed as neutral. And we still have to figure out a method of equal distribution of this production across the surface of the earth. In a word, it had to be something like an ensilage harrow on magnetrons of unfired brick.”
“You're mocking me, right?”
“Yes. I'm trampling your dream — otherwise it will lead us into God knows where.”
“You think that I…?”
“No. I don't think that you were working wrong. It would be very strange if I thought so. But understand: subjectively you dreamed and thought, but objectively you did only what the possibilities of the discovery permitted you to do. And that's the point! You have to coordinate your plans with the possibilities of the work. And you were hoping to counterbalance a hundred billion varied acts of humanity a day with your little machine. And it's those hundred billion, plus uncounted past actions, that determine the social processes on earth, their goodness and evil. All of science is incapable of counterbalancing those mighty processes, that avalanche of acts and deeds, first of all because science makes up a small part of life on earth, and secondly because that is not its specialty. Science doesn't develop good or evil — it develops new information and gives new opportunities. And that's all. Now the application of that information and the use of the opportunities determine the above — mentioned social processes and powers. We will give people nothing more than new opportunities to produce people in their own image, and it's up to them to use these opportunities to their benefit or harm or not at all.”
“You mean we should publish the discovery and wash our hands of it? Well, I never! If we don't give a damn what happens to it, certainly no one else will!”
“Don't be angry. I don't think we should publish and wash our hands of it. We have to go on working, studying the possibilities the way everyone does. But in the research, and the ideas, even in the dreams on project 154, you must keep in mind that what happens to this project in real life depends primarily on life itself, or to put it in a more cultured way, on the socio — political situation in the world. If the situation develops in a safe, good direction, then we can publish. If not — we'll have to hold off or destroy the project, as foreseen by the vow. It's not in our power to save humanity, but it is in our power not to inflict any harm on it.”
“Hm. that's very modest. I think you're underestimating the possibilities of modern science. We now have the capability of destroying humanity by pushing a button — or several buttons. Why shouldn't there be an alternative method to save or at least protect humanity by pushing a button? And why, damn it, shouldn't that method be in our field of research?”
“It doesn't lie there. Our direction is constructive. It's much, much harder to build a bridge than to blow it up.”
“I agree. But they do build bridges.”
“But no one's built a bridge that can't be blown up.”
We found ourselves at a dead end.
But he's okay. He essentially laid out all my vague doubts in a clear — cut fashion; they had been bothering me for a long time. I don't know whether to be happy or sad.
December 28. So, it's been a year since I sat in the new lab on an unpacked impulse generator and thought about an indefinite experiment. Just a year? No, time is measured by events and not by the rotation of the earth. I think at least a decade has passed. And not only because so much was done — there was so much experienced. I've started thinking about life more, understanding myself and others better, I've even changed a little — pray God, for the better.
And still there is a dissatisfaction — too much dreaming, I suppose. Everything that I've thought of has happened, but the wrong way somehow: with difficulties, with horrible complications, with disillusionment. That's the way it is in life. Man never dreams about where he could fall flat on his face or find disillusionment; that happens on its own. I understand that perfectly well with my mind, but I still can't resign myself to it.
When I was synthesizing double number 3 (Kravets in civilian life), I hoped vaguely that something would click in the computer — womb and I would get a knight without fear or flaw! Nothing clicked. He's fine, can't argue with that, but he's no knight. He's sober — minded, reasonable, and careful. And where was the knight supposed to come from — me?
Jerk, dreamy jerk! You keep hoping that nature will find and hand you the absolutely dependable method — it never will. It doesn't have that information.
Damn, is it really impossible? Is the perfected Krivoshein — Kravets really right?
There is one method of saving the world by pushing a button; it can be used in case of thermonuclear war. You hide several computer — wombs that have been fed information on people (men and women) deep in a mine shaft with a large supply of reagents. And if there are no people left in the ashes of the earth, the computers will save and resurrect humanity. That's one way out of the situation.
But even then it won't work like that. If you give the world a method like that, it will destroy the balance that exists and push the world into nuclear war. “People will still live. Atom bombs aren't so terrible — let's set them off!” some idiot politician will think. “The problem of the Near East? There is no Near East! The Vietnam problem? What Vietnam? Buy personal bomb shelters for your soul!”
Then that's “not it” either. What is “it?” Is there an “it?”
PART THREE
AWAKENING
Chapter 19
Sleep is the best weapon against sleepiness.
