Part 11 (1/2)

The Brain would never communicate with me with witnesses present or recording wires. It would detect those immediately and I would only stand convicted as a liar or worse. Tonight's events might well spell the end, the closing of the door just when I thought I stood on the threshold of a momentous discovery....

Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 11th.

Went to the P. G. last night. Tried everything for over an hour. Result: zero. No contact with The Brain.

Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 13th.

I tried it again. Took greatest care in exactly duplicating conditions.

Nothing. I don't think it's any mechanical defect. It's the negativism of a will. Ludicrous as it sounds, The Brain sulks, it is angry with me.

Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 15th.

Last night the same old story. The Brain punishes me. I dare say that it succeeds in that exceedingly well; it almost drives me crazy.

I've done a lot of thinking over these past six days of frustration.

I've also been reading a good deal in context with the phenomena psychology, Osterkamp's history of brain-surgery, Van Gehuchten's work on brain mechanisms, etc. I've reached certain conclusions and, just for the h.e.l.l of it, I'll jot them down.

What I need is proof, _scientific_ proof that The Brain is a personality possessed with the gift of thought and actually using it for _independent_ thought, extracurricular to the problems which are being submitted to it from the outside.

There is at least one _tangible_ clue for this: that new capacity which is constantly being added to The Brain through the incorporation of new groups of electronic cells and the enrichment of the preexisting ones.

My own investigation shows that there is no corresponding expansion of the apperception centers and Gus has confirmed this. Somehow the added capacity seems to ”evaporate”.

Evaporate to where? It couldn't just disappear. Would it then not be entirely logical to conclude that The Brain absorbs the new capacity _for its own use_?

It's almost inescapable that this should be so. In order to come into its own as a personality The Brain needs independent thought. For these cerebrations it needs cell capacity. It can get that capacity only by withholding something from the Braintrust which, of course, aims at a 100% exploitation of The Brain. Dr. Scriven and all those other bigwigs of the Trust--I would like to see their faces if they get wise to this.

They would be horrified--and they would take the line that The Brain is _stealing_ from them.

But what could they do? They couldn't call the police. They would not even have a moral right to call the police. Because if The Brain is a personality, that personality has every right to its own thoughts....

I have also ascertained that this ”evaporation” of new capacity is a new phenomenon. The Brain has been in operation for only 18 months or so; one might say--using human terms--that at that time The Brain was ”born”. But,--and again in human terms--consciousness of personality awakens in the human infant only after 12 months or so. Conceivably it might take much longer with a huge ”baby” such as The Brain. Thus it is possible, it is even likely, that when I first heard that ”I think, therefore I am” on that unforgettable night of Nov. 7th I actually witnessed the _first awakening_ of The Brain's consciousness.

Then on the night of Nov. 8th I was struck with the amazing change of personality in The Brain from ”baby” into unprepossessing, domineering little brat, its mental age perhaps 3, notwithstanding the extraordinary level of intelligence.

And then again, Nov 9th, The Brain presented me with those absurd questions and fantastic notions about the nature of the Deity. It is at the age of five years, or of six, that the children first start with such questions and form their own ideas in this field. What had completely stumped me, what I had been unable to reconcile, had been these rapid successive changes in The Brain's personality plus the fact that the infantilism and the childishness of its utterances wouldn't fit the picture of a brain-power 25,000 times that of a human.

But _if_ I'm right in thinking that The Brain awakened to consciousness only nine days ago, all these stumbling blocks would disappear at once.

We would arrive at this very simple picture: a mechanical genius has been ”born” into this world, it awakens to consciousness at the age of 18 months, with its tremendous intellectual powers this genius telescopes the intellectual evolution of years into days, thus it reaches a mental age of six or seven within a week after its first awakening to consciousness. Utterly fantastic as this may sound; it makes sense; it explains the phenomena.

In Prof. Osterkamp's ”brain history” I have found interesting examples that approximations to such rapid intellectual evolutions are indeed possible even with human beings. From the early Middle Ages to modern times there is an endless succession of ”infant prodigies” whose brains were artificially overdeveloped and over-stimulated by ruthless exploiters--often their own parents--with methods of unbelievable cruelty.

One of the most significant case histories in this respect is that of the boy Carolus in the city of Luebeck in the 15th century. As an infant he was sold, as one of many human guinea pigs, to a famous--infamous alchemist, Wedderstroem, who called himself ”Trismegistos” and was astrologer to king Christian of Denmark. This fellow performed on Carolus one of those weird operations in which nine out of ten babies died. He removed the skull-cap of the infant. The unprotected brain was suspended in an oil-filled vessel. Of course the pathetic child never could walk or even raise its head. The brain, no longer restrained by bone matter, outgrew its natural house to at least twice its normal size, if one is to judge from the picture in the old ”historia”. At the age of two his master started teaching Carolus mathematics. At the age of five Carolus had surpa.s.sed his master; there was no mathematical problem known to the time that he couldn't solve in a flash of an eye lash. His brain in action must have been a horrifying sight because the ”chronica” reports that it flushed red and pulsed and expanded during work. The master built his reputation upon this ”homunculus”, but in 1438 the demoniacal feat became known; Wedderstroem was put to the stake for sorcery--and Carolus, unhappy victim, with him....

Men as great as Mozart have started their careers as ”child prodigies”; almost without exception they have died at an unnaturally early age.

Thus, in the parallel of The Brain, this is what I see: