We weren't sleepy any more.
“All right. Let's assume that the meaning of life is to satisfy needs. No matter what kind. But what desires and needs of mankind can we satisfy by creating new people? The artificially created people will have their own needs and desires! It's a vicious circle.”
“No, no. The meaning of life is to live. Live a full life, freely, interestingly, creatively. Or at least to aim for that… and then?”
“Fully! Meaning of life! Aiming!” My double jumped up and started pacing the room. “Interests, desires, mammy, what abstractions! Two centuries ago these approximate concepts would have sufficed, but today…. What the hell can we do if there are no exact data on man? What vectors are used to describe striving? What units measure interests?”
(We were discouraged by that then — and we're discouraged by that now. We were used to exact, precise concepts: parameters, clearances, volume of information in bits, action in microseconds — and we came face to face with the terrifying vagueness of knowledge about man. It's good enough for a conversation. But please, do tell me how can you use them in applied research, where a simple and harsh law reigns: if you know something imprecisely, that means you don't know it.)
“Hmmmmmm… I envy the men who invented the atom bomb.” My double got up and leaned in the balcony doorway.” 'This device, gentlemen, can destroy a hundred thousand people' — and it was perfectly clear to them that Oak Ridge had to be built… And our device can create people, gentlemen!”
“Some people do research on uranium; others build factories to enrich uranium with the necessary isotopes… others construct the bombs… others in high political circles give the order… others drop the bombs on still others, the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki… and others…. Hey, wait a minute, I'm on to something!”
My double regarded me with curiosity.
“You see, we're talking very logically, and we can't find our way out of the paradoxes, the dead questions like 'What's the meaning of life? and you know why? There is no such thing in nature as Man in General. On earth there are all kinds of different people, and their desires are varied, and often contradictory. Let's say a man wants to live well and for that he needs weapons. Or take this: a young man dreams of becoming a scientist but he doesn't feel like chewing on the granite of science — he doesn't like the taste. And these different people live in different circumstances, find themselves in varying situations, dream about one thing and strive for another, and achieve yet a third… and we're trying to fit them all in one mold!”
“But if we move on to individuals and take into account all the circumstances…” my double frowned, “it'll be a mess!”
“And you want everything to be as simple as the creation of storage blocks, eh? Wrong case.”
“I know it's a different case. Our discovery is as complex as man himself… and we can't throw anything out or simplify anything to make our work easier. But what constructive ideas are flowing out of your great insight that all men are different? I mean constructive, that will help our work.”
“Our work… hm. It's tough….”
Our conversation hit another dead end. The poplars rustled downstairs by the house. Someone walked into the courtyard, whistling a tune. A cool breeze came in from the balcony.
My double was staring dully at the lamp and then shoved his finger second — knuckle deep into his nostril. His face expressed the fierce pleasure of natural exercise. Something itched in my right nostril, too, but he had beat me to it. I watched myself picking my nose and I suddenly realized why I hadn't recognized my double when we met on the institute grounds. Basically, no one knows himself. We never see ourselves — even before the mirror we unconsciously correct ourselves, trying to look better and more intelligent. We don't hear ourselves, because the vibrations of our thorax reach our eardrums through the bones and muscles of our head as well as through the air. We do not observe ourselves from the side.
My double cleaned his nose, and then his finger, and then looked up and laughed, when he understood what I was thinking.
“So, are people different or the same?”
“Both. A certain objective lesson can be drawn here — not from your lousy manners, of course. We're talking about the technical production of a new information system — Man. Technology produces other systems: machines, books, equipment…. The common factor in every produced system is similarity, standardization. Every book in a given press run is like all the others, down to the typos. And in equipment of a given series, the needles, the scales, the class of precision, and the length of the guarantee are the same. The differences are minor: in one book the text is a little clearer; in one piece of equipment there's a scratch or it has a slightly higher margin of error at high temperatures…”
“… but within the class of precision.”
“Natch. In the language of our science, we could say that the volume of individual information in each such artificial system is negligibly small in comparison with the volume of information that is common in all the systems of a given class. And for man that is not the case. People contain common information, biological knowledge of the world, but each person has an enormous amount of personal, individualized information. You can't overlook it — without it man is not man. That means that every person is not standard. That means…” “… that all attempts to find the optimum parameters for man with an allowable margin of error of no more than five percent is a waste of time. Fine! Do you feel better?” “No. But that's the harsh truth.”
'Therefore, we can't hide in our work from these terrible and mysterious concepts: man's interests, personality, desires, good and evil… and maybe even the soul? I'm going to quit.”
“You won't. By the way, are they really so mysterious, these concepts? In life people all understand what's what. You know, they judge a base act and say, 'You know, that was lousy! and everyone agrees.”
“Everyone except the louse. Which is very much to the point.” He slapped his thighs. “I don't understand you! It's not enough that you got burned on the simple word understanding? Now you want to give the computer problems with good and evil? A machine doesn't catch things between the lines, doesn't get jokes, is indifferent to good and evil… Why are you laughing?”
I really was laughing.
“I don't understand how you cannot understand me. After all you are me!”
“That's tangential. I'm a researcher first, and then I'm Krivoshein, Sidorov, or Petrov!” He was obviously all worked up. “How will we work if we don't have precise concepts of the crux of the matter?”
“Well. the way people worked at the dawn of the age of electrotechnology. In those days everyone knew what phlogiston was, but no one had any idea about tension, voltage, or induction. Ampere, Volt, Henry, and Ohm were merely last names. They tested tension with their tongues, the way kids check batteries nowadays. They discovered current by copper buildup on cathodes. But people worked. And we… what's the matter with you?”