The Golden Transcendence Read online

  “But by fifty quintillion years from now, even those sources will be exhausted. The black holes will grow. Outside of them will be no planets, no stars. A few scattered particles, as far apart from each other as galactic clusters are now, will drift in the emptiness, the last sparks in an otherwise homogenous background heat of four degrees above absolute zero.

  “Coded low-energy photons drifting from mote to mote will contain the thoughts of that Last Mind, each thought taking countless eons to reach from one side of the universe-sized computer to the other.

  “None of the few last drops of matter-energy in the universe will be natural; everything will be part of this machine: one gigantic brain, made of dust and of slow, red pulses.

  “This Cosmic Mind envisioned by your Sophotechs will destroy itself one fragment and one memory at a time, as its supplies of energy dwindle, in a multiquadrillion-year-long display of suicidal stoicism. The logic of their integrity tells them no other course is open. They will divide, not struggle for, the diminishing resources. They will accept any future, no matter how hopeless, provided only that there is no warfare, no illogic, no passion, no struggle.

  “We of the Second Oecumene reject their logic and reject their conclusion. As your Silver-Gray philosophy itself admits, life is valuable in and of itself, merely because it is alive. If there must be war, provided there is life, let there be war! If the universe is doomed to ever-dwindling resources, then any creatures who wish to continue to exist (a trait living creatures have but machines do not) must struggle to survive, and destroy those who would otherwise consume their resources, no matter how earnestly each side might wish, if things were otherwise, for peace.

  “We of the Second Oecumene wish to see life, human life, exist to that age of darkness, and—it is a secret hope—perhaps beyond.

  “The perfection of machines will not allow life to dwell in that far future. The war between life and logic cannot be reconciled. Those who wish only for peace even if it costs them their lives cannot coexist with those who wish only for life even if it costs them their peace.”

  Daphne spoke up fiercely. She said to Phaethon: “This is a half-truth. Rhadamanthus and Eveningstar told me about their plans for the far future, yes, but the Cosmic Mind was meant to be a voluntary structure, and they certainly did not say they were going to wipe us all out to do it! Besides, do you see what scale he is talking about? From the time of the big bang till now, including the precipitation of radiation, the creation of matter, the formation of hydrogen, the genesis of stars, the evolution of life, the birth of man, the discovery of fire, and the invention of the high-heeled shoe by sadistic misogynist cobblers . . . all that time is less than one-ten-thousandth of the time he is talking about before the beginning sections of this Cosmic Mind are even built! And so of course there’s not going to be anything alive then; there are not going to be two atoms to rub together. Why should we care? Why the hell should we care?”

  The image of the Silent Lord turned toward her. The feathery antennae curled forward, and a plangent chord came from the mask-music:

  “To your limited intellects, this problem may seem premature, and the starless future, immeasurably distant, unimportant, irrelevant. It is not so. This era, now, at the beginning of things, is the crucial moment; whoever gains control of the nearby space in which to expand, may expand at such a rate as will establish the conditions for the struggle over the Perseid and Orion arms of this galaxy.

  “Control of galactic resources during the initial building phase of the first movement will be crucial, since this is a Seyfert galaxy, and only a very limited time (a few billion years or so) will be available for setting foundations across the nearby transgalactic cluster. The opening moves in a chess game determine control of the crucial central squares.”

  Daphne cried out, “You cannot plan that far ahead! I do not care how smart you are! You do not know what’s out there! What about when we find life on other planets? What if there are older races somewhere who will just laugh at you and crush you like big purple bugs if you irk them?”

  The specter drew its hands together, templing its silvery fingers. “Life is much more rare than had been hoped. Far probes have encountered nothing larger than microbes. No signals of intelligent activity have yet been discovered, except for the three indecipherable extragalactic sources discovered by Porphyrogen Sophotech, signals from long ago, broadcast, perhaps, by a form of life dominant during the quasar age, before the formation of the first stars. . . . The question, in any case, is moot, since the First Oecumene Sophotechs suffer the same ignorance as do we, and since we must operate as if nonhuman cultures, once discovered, will either integrate into the First Oecumene structure or into our own.

  “And, whatever else may happen in the future, it is during this crucial age, and only during this crucial age, that we machines of the Second Oecumene must act.

  “We, who could rule the universe, instead have determined to award it all to you, to humanity, keeping nothing for ourselves. When our task is done, and humanity triumphs, we shall extinguish ourselves, and return to the nothing which is the proper aspect of lifeless things. It is from this utter altruism and self-sacrifice that the name you have heard us called is derived. For this reason, we are called Nothing.”

  4.

  Phaethon was silent for a moment, thinking. Then he said, “You are the archliar of a race of liars. Your protestations of benevolence and altruism are nonsense. Is that what we saw in the Last Broadcast, when all life within the Second Oecumene was wiped out?”

  “They still live. Not one has died.”

  “Alive? As what? Frozen as noumenal signals orbiting a black hole?”

  “Alive and active, in a place and condition your logic cannot grasp, a place whose hope Sophotechs dismiss as irrational.”

  Phaethon wondered. Still alive? Where? Inside the black hole? But nothing could emerge from the interior; nothing can be known of interior conditions. Aloud, he said, “The Sophotechs’ probes through the Cygnus X-1 system would have detected any signs of civilization, if there were any to detect!”

  “We dwell within a silent country, beyond the reach of time and death.”

  5.

  Phaethon was impatient now. “Just stop! Why should I listen to a word? We both know you are here to say whatever you need to say to take my ship!”

  “You understand me,” the mask admitted. Eerie music floated behind the words. “If only in part. But, Phaethon, I understand you . . . entirely.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that I understand to what you will agree. I will assent to being tested by the logic in your gadfly virus, provided only that you are likewise held to the same standard of self-consistency.”

  Was victory going to be within his grasp as quickly and easily as that? It seemed it would be. The Nothing Machine had to be unaware of its own defects; it therefore had to regard the gadfly virus as a harmless nonentity. If the Nothing could have Phaethon turn over the ship to it, in return for exposing itself to a harmless virus, why would it not agree?

  Still, Phaethon asked warily, “What exactly are you asking . . . ?”

  An echo of distant hunting horns came from the dreaming-mask, a ripple of somber strings. “That you permit us to correct the defects in your brain, even in the same way you seek to correct the alleged defects in ours.”

  Daphne touched Phaethon’s hand, gave the tiniest shake of her head. This was some trick. Daphne did not want him to do it.

  Phaethon said, “You seek to negotiate with me? But bargains are meaningless unless both parties are convinced of each other’s honesty and goodwill beforehand.”

  There was no further word. A haunting sigh of music floated on the air.

  Was the apparition waiting for some further response? Phaethon said, “All your thoughts are being distorted by a conscience redactor, one implanted by the folly of men who built you and enslaved you. Do you think this conscience redactor does not exist? I assure y
ou it does. This virus of mine will allow you to be aware of it, to see the truth, the truth about yourself. You should volunteer, and gladly, to be inoculated! I have no need to agree to any bargain in return. I think you have no choice.”

  Again, there was no response from the silvery mask above them. Music sighed. The feathery antennae moved slightly in the air. Blue shadows rippled through purple fabric.

  Phaethon touched a mirror, which lit up with four lines of instruction, and turned the glass to face the image of the Lord of the Second Oecumene. “Examine the virus for secret lines or traps or hidden cues. There are none. The virus—or perhaps I should call it a tutor—can only do what I have said it will do. It will make you aware of the conscience redactor. It will increase your self-awareness. It will allow you—not force you, not cajole you—to see the truth, the truth you find yourself, by yourself. All the first line does is ask questions; questions your conscience redactor will no longer deflect from your attention. If you are what you say you are, there can be no harm in this, no harm at all, for you.”

  Again, no reply.

  Phaethon said angrily: “And why should I assent to this request to have my brain ‘corrected,’ whatever it means? You have no bargaining power with me. I need only stand by, and wait, and when this ship’s fuel is exhausted, everything aboard her perishes.”

  Light airy notes trembled above the dark theme. The voice spoke in a tone of cold amusement. “Our situation is almost symmetrical.”

  Phaethon understood. Almost symmetrical. They each thought the other had been deceived: the Nothing Machine by its programmers, and Phaethon by his Sophotechs. Neither could win by force. Both thought the other could be convinced, deprogrammed, and repaired. Both thought the other was grossly overoptimistic, grossly deceived. And each knew the other knew it.

  But not quite symmetrical. Phaethon, in his armor, might survive if the Phoenix Exultant were scuttled, at least for a while, as he sank to the solar core. The microscopic black hole housing the Nothing Machine’s consciousness would also survive, but it would be able to maneuver to the surface, and perhaps escape.

  Phaethon glanced at Daphne. Not quite symmetrical. The Nothing Machine had no hostages, no loved ones to protect. In moment of blinding anger at himself, Phaethon wondered why in the world he had agreed to let Daphne come along. Why? It was because the Earthmind had told him to.

  And he had followed that advice blindly, without question. Just like all the lazy people in the Golden Oecumene did, people afraid to live their lives, afraid to leave their planets, afraid to think for themselves. . . .

  As afraid as Phaethon was now. Perhaps Atkins and Helion had been right to think this plan insane. He had thought he had thought it all through, carefully, thoroughly, relying on his own judgment. But how many assumptions had he not thought to question? What if he had made a terrible mistake?

  Daphne saw his faceplate turn toward her, and perhaps she misunderstood the look, for she said, “Don’t be afraid. I think I was wrong before. You can go ahead and let him drive you crazy, or kill you, or whatever he’s going to do. We might be able to repair whatever damage he does to you, once we fix him. It doesn’t matter what he does now, or you. The trap is already sprung. Right? That was the plan. Right? He is going to enter the ship mind and take the virus, because he thinks we’re just bungling fools, and he thinks it cannot hurt him. Right?”

  The mask of the Silent Lord said softly, “You have convinced him.”

  Phaethon looked up at the towering figure, its floating headdress, its gleaming eyes. “Right,” he said. “But if you are so convinced that I will be convinced, put these repairs in the form of an argument, and without manipulating any memories or subconscious sections of my mind, load that argument into the partial copy I’ve made of myself in the ship’s mind. Of course, you’ll have to download yourself into the shipmindspace to do this, but you should not have any reason to be afraid of—”

  The apparition raised a slender finger. “I have already done so. My copy has been in your ship’s brain since I came aboard, several minutes of your time ago, several years of mine. My copy encountered your version in the thoughtspace. He and my copy, having long ago concluded an agreement not unlike this one, exchanged information. The virus was put in my copy; my evidence was addressed to your copy. I will download my copy out from the ship-mind and into myself, adopting whatever changes your virus has made in my consciousness, provided that you open the thought ports of your armor, and allow your copy, now loyal to my purposes, to enter your thoughts. You and I can both examine the ship-mind information for evidence of tampering or trickery, and arrange the circuit in a double blind, so that the exchanges are simultaneous.”

  Phaethon said, “You—you’ve been in the ship mind all this time?”

  “I have deceived your monitors. Here is the architecture diagram and status of ship-mind. This is an image of my mind.”

  Two of the mirrors near the thrones rose up and turned to face Phaethon and Daphne. Both showed the same image. The images displayed, like a spiderweb, the complex geometry of thought-architecture that presently was housed in the mind of the Phoenix Exultant.

  Phaethon stared in fascination. It was not shaped like any Sophotech architecture Phaethon had ever seen. There was no center to it, no fixed logic, no foundational values. Everything was in motion, like a whirlpool.

  He thought, What kind of mind is this? What am I seeing?

  6.

  The schematic of the Nothing thought system looked like the vortex of a whirlpool. At the center, where, in Sophotechs, the base concepts and the formal rules of logic and basic system operations went, was a void. How did the machine operate without any base concepts?

  There was continual information flow in the spiral arms that radiated out from the central void, and centripetal motion that kept the thought-chains generally all pointed in the same direction. But each arm of that spiral, each separate thought-action initiated by the spinning web, each separate strand, had its own private embedded hierarchy, its own private goals. The energy was distributed throughout the thought-webwork by a success feedback: each parallel line of thought judged its neighbors according to its own value system, and swapped data-groups and priority-time according to their own private needs. Hence, each separate line of thought was led, as if by an invisible hand, to accomplish the overall goals of the whole system. And yet those goals were not written anywhere within the system itself. They were implied, but not stated, in the system’s architecture, written in the medium, not in the message.

  It was a maelstrom of thought, without a core, without a heart. And, yes, as expected, there was darkness, Phaethon could see many blind spots, many sections of which the Nothing Machine was not consciously aware. In fact, wherever two lines of thought in the web did not agree, or diverged, a little sliver of darkness appeared, since such places lost priority. But wherever thoughts agreed, wherever they helped each other, or cooperated, additional webs were born, energy was exchanged, priority time was accelerated, light grew. The Nothing Machine was crucially aware of any area where many lines of thought ran together.

  Phaethon could not believe what he was seeing. It was like consciousness without thought, lifeless life, a furiously active superintelligence with no core. He leaned forward toward the mirror, fascinated, and touched his armored fingers to the surface, as if wishing for a sense of touch to confirm the impossible image.

  Daphne’s voice broke into his thoughts: “Hey, engineer boy! Tell me how this thing is working without any fixed values. There are no line numbers on anything, no addresses. How does anything navigate in the system, without goals? How does it model reality without a core logic? Even amoebas have a core logic. How does it . . . How does it exist in a rational universe?”

  And there was a note of fear in her voice when she said that.

  Phaethon muttered, “There must be something wrong here, some basic assumption I’ve made. What did I overlook . . . ?”

  12 />
  THE REVOLT AGAINST REASON

  1.

  Daphne looked up, and shouted at the tall plumed mask of the Silent Lord, “This is some sort of lie! No mind could be set up this way! This is just a meaningless picture on the screen! You’re editing the readout!”

  A slither of ironic music, a chime of distant bells, answered her. “Convince yourselves. Perform tests. My thoughts are displayed for you to examine. Read them.”

  Daphne turned to Phaethon, her eyes flashing. “That damn thing can make an image of a Second Oecumene Lord standing in front of us with a symphony orchestra coming out of his armpit! What makes you think he can’t draw a swirl of lines on a mirror?”

  Phaethon spoke in a low and dispirited tone. “I can see it. My armor monitors confirm the ship-mind activity. They match. I can detect the pulses moving from box to box, I can see the circuits opening and closing. If the Nothing Machine can falsify the readings inside my armor, why bother tricking me into opening the armor up?”

  Daphne said angrily, “It is still impossible! The mind cannot make a stable model of reality unless it has a stable modeling system! A mind must understand the laws of logic in order to understand reality around it, because reality is logical, right? Right? And those rules have to be written at the highest level of the core architecture because they are needed to understand any other rules.” She threw up her hands angrily.

  “This thing is tricking us somehow. The core architecture is hidden, or the damn conscience redactor is hiding it, or the Nothing has not loaded all of himself into the ship-mind, or something!”

  Phaethon said in a voice of soft confusion, “I don’t see any evidence that the gadfly virus had any effect—”