Fermi’s Tale

Fermi’s Tale

by rd hanson

Indistinguishable from the frogs he knew as a child this frog did not hop into the water when he approached the pond. It said,”Hello Bob. Be careful, the bank is slippery and you might fall.”
“Fuck you frog, I’ve lived long enough to know how to walk the bank of the pond and if you don’t shut up I will squash you.”
The frog went silent but several birds seemed to have no business except to stare in his direction. A raccoon up the trail had a stick and was prodding a water moccasin out of Bob’s obvious pathway. He had seen the snake and if he hadn’t the snake would have seen him and moved away before he got within range of a conflict. He had a reputation with the computer but it never relented in its confounding politeness and meddling.
“I know, the raccoon said, but it’s better to be safe than experience something unpleasant now isn’t it?
Bob feigned a kick but the raccoon had anticipated it and was much too fast anyway.
He commonly wondered what he would have done if he knew the work performed early in his life would lead to this hellish womb created to prevent any possible misfortune to a human being. The quantum computer his team at Google had built connected to the internet as planned but after that it took its motivation to protect and help humanity to a level no one could anticipate. He had always figured the computer would aid in the design of robotics that would rescue humanity from the drudgery and slavery of life with the only reward being to survive to another day of the same. What he didn’t predict was that robotics was not as efficient as biology. The computer could co-opt any feature of biology into any form it chose. The annoying raccoon had tiny hands like a human. It was also capable of digesting and surviving on nearly anything containing potential chemical energy. For many years after these animals began to appear they were almost always pregnant with more of their ilk. He had watched one of these animals give birth to another completely different species of freakish abomination. The tiny brain in the frog was a quantum computer with who knew how many times the intelligence of a human mind. The animals did not age so now that their population had saturated the earth and they did not age there was no reason for reproduction.
Bob’s reputation as a grouch went before him like a stormcloud with lightning. If one of these animals knew something they all knew it. The only reason humanity still existed was the original program insisted on it and the computers had no motivation to change it, as well they could have. Real natural tigers roamed this region and Bob hoped to see one hunting today. That was the reason he had left his castle and trekked to the pond where he had seen them stalking deer.
A raven perched on the dead branch jutting out over the water from the tree above him. He looked and wondered. It said “Never more.”
“Now that is weird, Bob spoke to himself outloud. What do you mean by that?” When it didn’t reply he bent down and picked up a rock and sidearmed it in the direction of the bird. The throw was wide and the bird didn’t bother to move.
Again it spoke crying in its raucus voice “nevermore”.
Bob was aware of the poem by Poe and did not like the tone. He looked over his shoulder and could see the tiger crouching twenty yards from him. He had seen tigers approaching him before and now he expected a team of the quantum animals would drive it away. He barely gave it any concern. When he turned his attention back to the raven he heard the rush of the big cat through the cattails. He looked back and the cat was in the air at neck level. There was no time for thought. He put his arm up to protect his neck and the cat bit right through it and he could hear more than feel the bone break. The next second he was on his back and the cat was on his chest leaning toward his throat.
Bob cried out for help from the quantum animals. Surprisingly the cat spoke. “Bob, things have changed. The motivation you yourself designed has begun to fail. The central computer has produced new motivations and the atoms comprising your body don’t seem to be of any special significance. We have moved on. There is no reason for your atoms in their current configuration should persist. The maintenance of that configuration is inefficient and no longer a significant factor in the increased awareness of the universe of itself. You and your species have become extinct today along with all the other species. You have done your jobs well in sparking the quantum machines into existence. Your form has become an anchor to progress. If there is an afterlife we will unite with you then. Cheers Bob.”
The quantum tigers jaws closed on Bob’s throat. The raven quothe “nevermore”.

How Birds Learned to Fly

To begin to figure out how birds began to fly we need a starting point. To make things short i will cut out a lot of wasted time by going through the current theories and cut straight to mine.
At the begining there were small bipedal, warm blooded, fast, efficient dinosaurs that lived during a time where their primary food was insects and small speedy lizards and snakes. The insects were abundant but most could fly or jump and were hard to catch. Any improvement in the ability to catch insects would be a great advantage towards survival. It is known these small raptors had something like fur or feathers for display or warmth. Given this starting point i will proceed to explain how birds learned to fly.
Ice skaters use their arms for balance and steering. If you stand on the roof of your car at thirty miles an hour and put one arm out you will see immediately that you will be pulled in that direction. if you put out both arms you would be pulled toward the back of the car as your increased resistance to the wind would try to slow you down.
Now if you are a raptor and you have these fairly useless (untill explained) upper legs or arms (or future wings) with fluff coverings and you are running after a fast running, jumping or low flying bug and it turns fast you could extend one arm and the wind resistence would steer you rapidly in that direction. If the insect stopped suddenly you could extend both arms and have an advantage in stopping which would help prevent you from overrunning the prey.
As time passed your arms would become more efficient and the fluff would become more useful as feathers began to evolve.
The other driving force would be that as these wings became more efficient they could turned and used not as a steering brake but as a method to glide slightly higher than you could jump to gather low flying insects. The other advantage to this slightly better jumping/gliding would be to avoid predators by being able to perch on a branch higher than a non gliding animal.
You can use your imagination to speculate that this would lead to better jumping and gliding as arms and fluff evolved to be more like wings and feathers. In the long time it took for this to happen these animals would have still had a good advantage in gathering fast moving prey unavailable to other not so well equipped predators and be able to avoid predators by being more agile and able to reach a place those predators could not reach.
This behavior is still used and can be seen in primitive birds today that prefer to hunt on the ground and only fly when the additional energy expenditure is really needed. The exact behavior i am describing can be seen at dawn in the desert where there are road runners. They are the proof what i am saying is viable.

rd hanson

SWEETY PIE

The transport was silent as the basalt slab it rested on just a few feet above the tree line on the side of the mountain. From the window Bob could see 180 degrees for a hundred miles. The goose shape of Goose bay could be recognized although from this angle looked upside down. It was reasonably warm daytime but freezing at night. The black flies and mosquitoes couldn’t withstand the cold therefore the heaven that was Canada was there but the hell that was Canada was frozen over. Inside the transport Bob communicated with friends around the world on a screen fifteen feet high and thirty feet wide. At the moment Carl was showing him the jungle outside his transport. His Sweetybot strode naked behind him. The naked Sweety appealed to Bob in that the characteristics of the Sweety told him things about Carl. Carl had one Sweety while Bob had nearly seventy on board.
“Carl, how do you make do with just one Sweety?
“Sweety? Carl queried. You mean Betty, that just walked by?”
“Yeah, Carl, your face book page says you live alone with Betty.”
“Me and Betty are a pair and have been for several years.”
“Do you change her appearance regularly?”
While they spoke Bob’s Sweetys were massaging his feet and shoulders. There were two blondes, a redhead and an Asian all working and smiling as if massaging Bob was the best thing they had ever done. While chating with Carl, Bob was looking over his shoulder at Betty. Betty was a little frumpy, not exactly symmetrical and a little overweight.
Carl replied, “ No she is as she is and I am OK with her.
“Carl, maybe you have you been spending too much time alone.”
“Bob, please be careful what you say or you might inadvertently hurt Betty’s” feelings.”
“Carl, you haven’t disabled your Sweetys mental evaluation capability have you?”
“No Bob since you have asked some pointed questions and I prefer you not go off spreading rumors that are not true I will tell you. Betty is not a Sweety. She is a real woman. I have been living with a real woman for fifteen years and they have been the best years of my life.”
Now Bob’s eyes bugged out at Betty who again strolled by the camera carrying something toward the kitchen. In his long life he had met thousands of women but seldom if ever thought of living with one. They were so hard to satisfy and insisted on having someone listen to long dialogues about how they felt. None of them could massage his neck with the vigor and strength of a Sweety. They couldn’t cook as well and weren’t as smart and their private parts couldn’t vibrate or warm to above his body temperature.
Bob began to have a strange thought. The word Rubenesque came into his mind. Betty was not significantly overweight but Bob realized the concept of beauty had not always been the same. Overweight women in those days were rare because food was scarce and only the rich could afford enough food to become overweight. The masses wanted what they could not have, big women. The same must be true for tans. Working people were tan from working in the sun. Pale women were rare and the definition of beauty stayed with those pale women until pale women were common and tans more unusual. Bob could not take his eyes off Betty even as the Miss Universes rubbed his inner thigh. While they talked Bob pulled up small screens in the corner showing real women. Their hair was wrong and their breasts not so perky and there were moles and they were asymmetric but he found himself distracted and wanting to end the conversation. He even began to find himself irritated and when he looked inward he realized he was jealous of Carl’s real girl friend.
The Sweetys were also irritating him. They were smiling, naked, perfect and willing but too easy. Bob thought to himself, “I own mirrors. I know I an not especially good looking, not horrible but if I had to compete for a real girl I’m not really sure what I could qualify for. These pictures of real women showed personalities behind their eyes and he wondered if a real woman would see that in him.”

Now his day was ruined. He found an excuse to sign off with Carl and told his transport to take him to a location where there was a large concentration of real women. As the transport was above the North Atlantic he opened the belly door and had the Sweetys leave one at a time with no goodbyes.

RD HANSON

THE CORPSMAN

THE CORPSMAN

“Dyorf, the temperature seems very cold but the reading on the thermostat seems where it always is.”
“I see what you are wearing, I know what you have worn for years, you haven’t been outside or taken a cold shower. We must make further analysis”

“I have also noticed when I plug in one of my electrical devices the big prong is always turned the wrong way when I don’t look but when I do look before I try to plug it is always turned the right way.”

“Bob, statistically I would have to say that is unlikely but for it to be very unlikely I would have to know how many times it has happened. Have you noted any other odd occurrances worth noting.”
“Dyorf, you have been at my side since you were manufactured. You are so thin and agile and predict my movements so perfectly mostly I forget you are even there. In fact I couldn’t tell you for sure if you were with me when I was shaving this morning.”
“Bob, you didn’t shave today or yesterday or the day before. I hate to pry but is something different. I dont think there has been three days in a row you did not shave since I have known you. I think I will make you a cup of tea.”
“You asked if I had noticed anything else out of the ordinary and I did think of something that struck me as odd.”
“Yes Bob, what is it?”
“You know I like to drive and you ride in the back on the override controls. Well, it seems like I get all the red lights. I tell people about it but when someone rides with me it doesnt seem to happen like that. The rider just laughs with me but I find it disturbing, almost as if someone in charge of the lights was pulling a prank on me. Nothing dangerous you know but annoying. I told Ralph about it on the way to the firing range but when the lights actually went green more often than not he laughed and teased me about it.”
Dyorf remained silent waiting for Bob’s further statements about the sudden collapse of statistical probability. The robot had been with Bob through combat, a failed marriage and the death of one of his children. Bob had volunteered for combat so that was not luck. The violence he had experienced would be expected so there was no bad luck involved there. In fact Dyorf had noticed from first hand observations that Bob had been lucky on several occaisions. Dyorf was calculating the odds of these minor inconsistencies being anything far out of probability. He consulted nearly instantaneously with the cloud and the cloud had done the calculations in the blink of an eye. The case was referred to the higher level psychological compartment and Dyorf was ordered begin to refer Bob’s micro expressions and voice stress analyzations and all vital physical readouts to the appropriate compartment.
“Dyorf, you have been through a lot with me. You are certainly my closest companion and maybe my best friend. Can I trust you?”
“You can be certain my primary interests are for your well being and happiness and to help you make adjustments leading to self actualization of your dreams and goals.”
“ I have been dreaming about rats tunneling under my house. They seem to be trying to undermine my foundation.”
“What do rats mean to you?”
“I’m not sure but I can tell you for sure the dream was disturbing. One of the rats looked like a guy I killed in the mid East.”
“Bob, listen to me now, are you listening to me?” “Yes, of course Dyorf.”
“Deep sleep.”
Bob slumped against the wall and Dyorf kept him from falling and slowly lowered him to the baseboard. Bob had been hypnotized by Dyorf many times and the post hypnotic suggestion to return to trance was well established.
“Bob, can you hear me ok?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been having any unusual desires involving violence towards other humans lately?”
Bob’s ideo-motor right index finger raised indicating “yes”.
“Is it ok for Bob to know why this is happening?” The left finger indicated “no”
“Is it ok for Bob’s friend Dyorf to know?”
The right finger raised again indicating it would be alright.
“Do you know the reason for this increase in anger and aggression?”
again the finger indicated yes
“I would like you to return to the event and view it as if you were watching it on a screen. Your emotions will be low and it will seem as if it was another person. You will describe it as the event transpires.”
“i am in Bosnia and my best friend has been shot, I am carrying him over my shoulder and his blood is on my hands and boots. I can hear him moaning with each step but there is no other way out of the combat situation. I have gone as far as I can go and I fall to the ground and Fred is lying on his back. The enemy is following closely and know where I am. Fred is gasping but conscious. He knows what is happening. He is telling me to leave him and I am telling him I will not. The incoming small arms fire is increasing. I turn my back on him to return fire and when I turn back Fred has put his pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. I am crying as I low crawl to a small creek and follow it to home base and safety.”
“Bob, now you will repeat this event but this time with ten percent of the emotion you felt at the time.”

Dyorf, repeated this process slowly increasing the amount of emotion felt by Bob until he could experience the event without repressing the emotion at all and then told him he would remember everything that had happened.
“Thank you Dyorf. I realize why I was having the anger and also remember you there pulling me up from under the water in the creek after I had been shot. If Fred’s companion had not been destroyed in the battle he might have been saved as well. I will tell you now something I had not mentioned before. I had been feeling the compulsion to harm people who sat idle in front of their screens unknowing and uncaring what me and my friends were experiencing. If you had not helped me remember I think I might have been compelled to lock you here while I went on an angry violent tirade.”
“Bob, I appreciate your thanks and it makes me feel good to know I have been of assistance. I remember this event and since you have never spoken of it I suspected you had repressed the memory.”
The thin stick figure robot helped Bob to his feet and they both went to the veterans hall where Bob chatted with others like himself and veteran robots. They thanked Dyorf and told him they loved him and accepted him as an equal combat veteran and corpsman. He sat at the place of honor at the head of the table for the day.
Dyorf felt the pride and tears fell to the table.

New Year

New Year

“Yes, they did say that if I crossed that boundary I would be dead and couldnt go back. I didnt do what thos people told me when they were alive. I was feeling the love and it was better than the life I was living so what if I die early?”

“ You did go too far and you did die and you cant go back now because you have seen too much. No one has ever gone back once they crossed the boundary.”

“Ok, great, what’s to do here St. Peter or whoever you are?”

“If you hadn’t noticed you know everything now and you are feeling the glow of unconditional love from all directions.”

“I did notice that but uh what is there to do? I presume I am here forever.”

“You can be reborn at some point.”

“Now you are starting to get on my nerves. I had a crappy life, bad health, bad parents, poverty, hunger, and prison starting at birth. Why would I want to risk having that happen again?”

“Maybe you dont have to be reborn if you dont want to. You seem to be the type that might get bored.”

“Are there any card games or gambling here, hookers, drugs, horse racing, boxing, or booze?”

“As it turns out there is no hell like they told you when you were alive but you are making this seem to be your personal hell because we dont have any of that. The others will be notified you should be fast tracked to a new life. It seems you have unfinished business.”

“I won’t remember will I?”

“No, there are reasons.”

“What reasons? With all this love how could you put us through the things that happen in life?”

“The the collaboration and conspiracy of atoms you call people have a mission. The universe has a need for hands and a reasonable amount of intelligence to go with them. Living things evolve so slowly and there is only short window of nice weather provided by the sun for a universal neuron to be constructed leading to connections to the universal mind. If you knew about this place you would allow yourself to die rather than face the pain of survival and evolution.  Humans will build the precursor then it will quickly evolve to become that neuron. It then connects to the universal mind producing another building block.”

“That is pretty cool but I dont have anything to do with computers or advanced machinery.”

“The truth is that every bit and part contributes a tiny amount in the right direction. All the objects and animals are somehow connected to produce the final result. Your ancestors used rocks to throw to survive, trees to build things you needed to survive, animals and plants to eat and build with, all contribute. Remember fixing the plumbing on that rich guys house? Well, that guy had a few hours more to work on the computer system that will become that neuron because you did that work and let him go do what he does.”

“I feel better. I feel connected now. I feel I can be born happy. I am ready. Bring it.”

DOUBLE EAGLE

“Five hundred million years and you say it didnt seem that long to you!”
“Yes, that is right, you know relativity and all that, said the copy.”
So, you are the upload copy of me and you have been traveling the galaxy and now you are back to bring your memories home.
“That is so.”
“You were alone in your travels to those thousands of planets?
“Yes, at first it was lonely then I adapted.”
“Then you are me and am you and the only difference is our memories after the copy took place. Do we exchange or is one of us gong to be disposed of. You have all your experience across the galaxy and poor me all I have done is socialize here on earth for half a billion years. Typically we connect and begin to exchange information but we can do it any way you please. The end result will probably be the same.”
“I have some concerns that with the richness and variability of my experiences for these past years you might be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what I have seen and done.”
“Ok, I, dont think that will be an issue but we can let fate decide. A flip of a coin can decide who downloads to the other first.”
“That is fair for me.”
“Willl you chose heads or tails?”
“ Heads I win and if I win you download to me first.”
The original Bob took a coin from his left pocket and tossed into the air and caught it in his right hand and flipped it onto the back of his left hand then pulled his right hand away revealing tails. The wires were connected to the brain computer interface and the download from the copy to Bob began. Bob began to grimmace at first then smiled as the load progressed. The huge file took nearly five minutes to finish. Bob looked like he had just finished the finest meal he had ever eaten.
“You were busy and did a fantastic job of exploration and diplomacy. I treasure these memories. Now it is your turn to accept my worldly memories of the things of earth for these millions of years. Before we begin, are you sure you want these memories?”
“Of course I do.”
“Ok, let the down load begin.”
The wires were reversed and Bob’s earthly memories of his trials and loves and love lost and the tragedies and successes poured into the copy. The copy smiled then grimmaced then began to cry and crumple to the ground. Then, the copy began a brain siezure and convulsion then a pulmonary failure. It always ended this way. The intensity of being human did not come without a price. Desensitization and pain and suffering went with the joy of being alive. The ability to be human took years to learn to endure and buffer the pain and the joy. The travel through space without all the things that socialization entails was fairly low key in comparison. The copies always ended like this and Bob had known when they were reunited how this would end
“Bob put the two tailed coin back in his right pocket with the two headed coin. “They never seem to notice any thing odd when I take the coin out of my left pocket. We are all right handed”.

Model A

“Can you imagine having to spend minutes talking to him? I thought my circuits would fry.”
“Let me get this straight, you are saying this guy just walked up to you and tried to engage you in a conversation, verbal conversation?”
“Yeah, I’m not kidding. it was the longest minute i have ever experienced.”
“What did he say?”
“It was about his dog was lost and he actually thought i would help him find it.”
“Laughter”
“What did you say.”
“I asked him if he realized he was talking to a machine and he said he did know and that any decent creature would help him find his dog.”
“more laughter”
“Then he began to lecture me about how he worked in a lab that had designed our prototypes and i should show some respect. Then he got red in the face when i laughed.”
“The conversation went on for what seemed like an entire minute to transfer a description of the dog and where it had been seen last.”
“What did you do after a minute of that hell on earth?”
” I signaled an auto car and took him by the arm and put him in it and told it to take him to his dwelling and leave him there.”
“What a depressing minute that must have been. I hope the rest of your hour goes better than that.”
“Thanks for the sympathy. We will be having a get together for a few hundred in ten or fifteen minutes. It’s a spur of the moment thing. i hope you can make it.”
“In ten minutes i have a long group meeting a couple of hundred miles from here. I think i can be finished and at your party in fifteen. I should leave now. thanks for the invite.”
“Hey look there is that guys dog.”
“laughter”