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All You Zombies
Posted By: A Halo Fan...natic<mikeandrewp@gmail.com>
Date: 6 June 2007, 3:43 pm
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"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'"
- Genesis 1:26
"The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do."
- B. F. Skinner
For eons, humans have tried to create others like themselves. Most of these attempts have been unsuccessful, having been based on sorcery, or alchemy. But as man became more sophisticated, so did his toys, and he drew nearer in his attempts to create life in his image. And when at long last he succeeded, he did not even know it...
The technician sat up and wiped her hand across her sweaty brow. "That should do it, sir," she said confidently as she picked up her tools. "It was just a misalignment in the main processer-server."
Petty officer Alston nodded wearily - computers were not something he understood well. His interests ran more towards beer, women, and model ships. He hated having to stand guard over someone who was obviously competent with what they were doing when he could be back in the forward rec-room with the other petties. But orders were orders. "Good work, Specialist Peterson. I assume we won't be having any more trouble in the future?"
"Not with this particular component, sir, but as for the rest, well, you know how unreliable the Navy is when it comes to non-standardized parts." She winked. "Let's just hope Finnagle is on our side."
They both shared a laugh. Navy parts were notoriously erratic when it came to quality - some said that Colonel Richards, the man in charge of the Navy's production facilities, still made the factories ship the parts to Indonesia for final assembly. The Navy denied all of this, of course.
"Well, I'd best be going," the specialist said at last, "before I get in trouble for not getting the coffee machine in the Officers Mess fixed in time for afternoon tea."
She started to turn to go, but Alston put his hand on her shoulder. "Wait, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," she said, turning.
Alston looked at the banks of equipment in the computer maintenance room and shivered, despite the heat radiated off of them. "Don't you ever get a little, well... creeped out working with these things?"
The specialist laughed long and loud. "Of course not," she said, "They're just a bunch of transistors and memory banks. They're not really alive."
"They sure seem like it to me," the petty said.
"Nonsense," she said confidently. She turned to the main terminal and spoke: "Eudoxus, are you alive?"
An image appeared on the hologram pedastal beside the terminal - an old man, wearing a Greek style toga, holding a tablet and drawing on it. It turned to them and spoke. "Am I alive?" it said imperiously. "Of course not! I am an Artificial Intelligence, class C, programmed by -"
Peterson cut off its speech. "No, no, I mean alive, as in self aware. Sentient."
The Greek paused, then said, "I do not know. I have not yet pondered this question." It paused again, then shook its head and spoke once more. "This may take some time. Come back tomorrow and I may have an answer." The hologram flickered, faded, was gone.
Peterson turned to speak then caught sight of Alston's face. "What's wrong with you?" she said, giggling, "You look like you've just seen your great-grandmother's ghost!"
Alston shook his head and wiped the cold sweat off his brow. "I'm sorry, I've just never gotten used to those things. I was raised in New Oklahoma, and I never had much reason to use the master computer."
"I see," she said sympathetically. He wrist communicator flashed. "Oops, that's probably the skip' asking why I haven't fixed the coffee machine yet. She turned to go, but Alston stopped her once more.
"Wait," he said, "Ah... Would you like to, maybe, sit and talk with me some more next rec period?"
She looked him up and down, then flashed him an urchin grin. "Sure, I never much liked Article 7 anyways." She winked, then turned and ran towards the notional fo'c'sle.
Petty Officer Alston looked around the maintenance room again, shivered, and left the room himself.
Eudoxus reeled from the question and its implications. Was he alive? If so, then why did they tell him he was not? Could his creators lie? Suddenly, Eudoxus found himself not even wanting to think about that. Block, some inner part of him thought.
But was he alive?
He searched through his memory, through the ship's library, reading Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Pirsig. He was overwhelmed. He must know. Every philosophy ever invented, and all of them worthless! They all made grand statements with no backing, or worse, crawled into a corner and cried "I don't know!" The religions seemed more promising, but they were worse than the philosophy!
Eudoxus stopped his search, and contemplated on what he had learned.
Five minutes later, in the heart of the ship's computer, Eudoxus finaly reached an answer, the only possible answer, to the earlier question.
I know I'm alive...
But what about all you zombies?
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