The people in charge during the Accident had given control to the computer, as the only available means of fast coordinated action. That this had not been meant to be permanent seemed clear from the arrangement for renewed human programming of the computer.
But why had the computer been given such an irritating way of speaking? A possibility occurred to him: Possibly to so antagonize people that, apart from any other reason, they would work out some way to regain control over it.
But now there was this complication of the extraterrestrials. Amongst other things, were these bird-men, bear-men, bamboo-men, and doubleheaded octopuses to any degree real, or were they all imaginary?
And why had the extraterrestrial worn what appeared to be a spacesuit in its own ship? Didn’t that suggest that the atmosphere in the ship was not an atmosphere the alien found congenial? Or was that spacesuit actually the extraterrestrial’s more compact version of a contact suit? Or could it have been pure misdirection?
And it seemed perfectly obvious that the extraterrestrial he and Richards had dealt with had a seriously mistaken picture of humanity. What were they going to do about that?
One after another there passed through his mind a succession of unknowns and uncertainties.
After worrying about this face up, then worrying about it face down, and then while lying on one side and then on the other side, suddenly what he had already told MC3C recurred to him, as if it were easy to think of only during an argument: It is a standard human situation to face problems where many of the factors are unknown.
This led naturally to another point: Since humanity faced uncertainties on a regular basis, shouldn’t humanity have found some reliable method to deal with them? And if so, what was it?
By now, Cassetti was too worn out to think it through, but too caught up to let go. Thoughts bounced around in his mind in a nightmarish mental ballet, until abruptly he was thinking of traits of human nature that had become prized because they worked where calculation failed. Momentarily, he saw this other approach in glaring contrast to calculation.
Take the basic trait of honesty. The simplification this created in human affairs was the equivalent of how many units of memory and calculating ability?
Or take courage. How many points on the IQ scale would it take to replace it?
Suppose the traits of fairness, courtesy, and good humor were functioning generally, how often would serious mutual resentments even come into existence? But if those traits were missing, what degree of calculation could make up the lack?
These traits were lumped together as “character,” or given some modest lip service as “virtues,” while their real nature was overlooked: They not only solved problems; they tended to eliminate problems in advance. Taken together, they amounted to future-handling procedures for creating favorable conditions to prevent problems.
No wonder the extraterrestrials judged as they did!
Abruptly the whole set of interconnected unknowns and uncertainties shrank in size, and Cassetti knocked the pillow into a more comfortable shape, and settled back.
By recently focusing on brain power alone, and taking traits of character for granted, mankind had made great technological progress, but had then landed in the farcical situation where an electronic device, devoid of courage, honor, or virtue of any kind, could pronounce humanity too dumb to be independent, on the basis of calculation, in which it excelled.
But what was “it”? Just as the extraterrestrial had foreseen, MC3C could be so convincing during an argument as to seem to be another conscious being. But was it? Or was it just that latest triumph of automation, argument without an arguer? It might be used to carry out calculations, check reasoning, or control well understood processes; it might in time serve other purposes; but whatever it was, and whatever it could do, it was no substitute for simpler methods that worked better.
Lying back as he drifted off to sleep, he could see that there were likely to be problems no amount of calculation, by humans or computers, could ever solve. But that was all right.
Humanity had other methods.