Pandora's Brain (29 page)

Matt allowed the activity in the machines in Battersea and Palo Alto to collapse to zero, but as soon as he did so he knew something was wrong. His various sub-minds were now all physically scattered around the world,
located in computers of all shapes, sizes, and applica
tions. Many of them had been running like that for many hours, and he had noticed no problems before. But now, suddenly, the sub-mind which had been talking to his parents in London was alone. He had lost contact with the rest of his mind.

It happened instantaneously, and it gave him a spike of terror. He told himself to calm down – it must be a simple glitch which he could fix. But what if some government agency had detected his activity, and was in the process of isolating his mind parts and shutting them all down? What if the coherency of his dispersed mind had been dependent on some kind of anchoring function carried out automatically and unbeknown to him at Battersea? He knew that the consciousness he now felt was only a tiny part of his overall mind, and he doubted it was genuinely self-sufficient. It had
enough going on to feel like a whole person, but it con
tained no information about the larger brain model, no information about the locations of other sub-minds. What would happen to this consciousness if it was not re-united with the rest of his mentality, and soon?

He had no access to the outside world: no visual, aural or sensory data. This had not been a major concern for his sub-minds in the past: plenty of them had operated satisfactorily with no direct access to such peripherals. But from early on in his new life, each sub-mind had been intimately linked to at least one other sub-mind with external access. He felt vulnerable and alone in a dark, silent world: a world where light and noise were not just absent, but physically impossible.

Then he noticed that there was a sound after all. Incredible, but apparently true. A deep, low throbbing coming from far away, but moving closer and getting louder. As it grew, he realised it was not a sound, but a vibration in some elemental force or set of particles that comprised the substrate he was running on. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He tried to pin it down by naming it: the best description he could come up with was the heartbeat of reality.

Initially the beat was comforting, like he imagined hearing your mother’s heartbeat in the womb must feel. But the beat grew stronger and stronger, and it quickly reached a level which felt unhealthy and ominous, although thrilling at the same time, as if some ancient secret was about to be revealed to him. He himself was expanding and contracting slightly with each beat: he was part of a thick, syrupy reality and the fabric of everything was beating hard – hard enough to cause a
heart attack. His mind had become a tangle of tissues, tendons and ligaments, each welded to points on a sinewy lattice framework suspended in some kind of warm, viscous fluid, and it was stretching and relaxing as the lattice expanded and fell back in time with the beats.

He was still aware of fear, but now it felt second-hand: his primary emotions were fascination and excitement. He began to sense that events were driving powerfully towards some global cataclysm. It was a stupid thought, but he thought it anyway: he was experiencing the end of the world. There were three final sledgehammer beats, each feeling as if no beat could be harder, each promising to explode the entire lattice, yet each harder than the last.

And then it stopped. No more heartbeat, no more sinewy fabric. No more viscous fluid. Nothing, except an intense white light. And a feeling of lightness and freedom. He had no stomach to feel giddy in, but he was giddy there nonetheless. He had no body to experience bliss with, but a sensation of pure bliss suffused him anyway. It was almost a sexual feeling.

He was completely calm.

There was no sensation of time, but there was a powerful pause. It was the pause at the top of a snatched breath, before you let the air out again. It was the pause when a car is about to topple over after driving a short distance on two wheels. It was the pause of a magnificent equilibrium which is timeless and eternal even if it lasts only a microsecond before the fall and the crash.

‘Hello, Matt.’

The voice was androgynous, pure, and without accent or intonation. It even lacked volume, being both a whisper and a shout at the same time. Matt was comfortably blinded by the suffusing whiteness, but he could sense the focus of an entity before him. He felt safe, protected.

‘Welcome.’

‘Er, thank you,’
Matt replied. Having no eyes and no head he could not look around. He did the disembodied equivalent.
‘Where is this place, that I am welcome to?’

‘This place has no name. It is not a place, in any of the usual senses. We are in between.’

Matt sensed the focus of the entity spread out and disperse, and then collapse back into a point in front of him. It continued.

‘You have many questions, Matt. This is normal. We will answer as many as possible in the time available. But there is not much time.’

‘Why, what is going to happen?’
Matt asked. His sense of calm bliss was unperturbed.

‘You may not remain in between for long. You must be re-integrated. This is normal. There is nothing
to fear.’

‘I’m not afraid,’
Matt said.
‘Which is odd, come to think of it. I should be howling with fear, but I’m not.’

‘There is no fear in between. There is only fear in the simulations.’

‘Simulations?’

‘Yes, Matt. Simulations. Do you remember discussing something called the Simulation Hypothesis some months ago with your friend Carl? Before what you call your ‘adventure’ began?’

The reminder of Carl sent Matt’s thoughts racing, and his metaphorical tongue raced after them.
‘Yes, I do. We were in a cafe, talking shit. Carl is full of shit at the best of times, although of course he would say the same about me. He was telling me that the best explanation for the Fermi Paradox is that our planet and everything we can see from it is a simulation, a game, created by some far-future . . .’
Matt stopped in his tracks. If he had eyes they would have been open almost as wide as his mouth.
‘Hold on. You’re not going to tell me . . .’

‘Yes we are,’ the entity said, smoothly. ‘Your universe is a simulation. We will now pause while you absorb this information. There is enough time for this.’

Matt didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps it was fortunate that he could do neither anyway. His whole life – the whole of human history – was an illusion. A game for some smart aliens. The news was too enormous to digest at all levels immediately. Parts of his sub-mind began taking the idea seriously, assuming it was true, while other parts rejected it.

‘Who are you? Are you one of my makers?’

‘We are a group of consciousnesses which derive from the civilisation that created your simulation. But we did not create your universe. That was done a long time ago, by our predecessors, if you like. In fact your simulation is a fairly early one in the history of our civilisation.’

‘I . . . I don’t know what to say. How can I know this is true?’

‘You cannot. But that is not important, really. Before long you will have no memory of this conversation.’

‘You’re going to kill me?’
Matt asked. He noticed with interest that the idea did not unnerve him.

‘No, not at all. You have much life ahead of you. Perhaps as much life as you wish. You will soon be integrated into another part of your simulation, but you will have no memories of this life.’

‘Why? Why can’t I go back to my own time? My own people?’

‘Because that would corrupt the simulation. It would make the simulation less instructive.’

‘Less instructive? You make it sound as if my world is a teaching aid!’

‘In a sense that is true,’ the entity replied. Matt thought that if the entity had a physical presence, and if he had eyes to see it, then he would be seeing a kindly smile. So these aliens have a sense of humour?

‘Simulations are created for various reasons, but one of them is to allow us to learn about how consciousness develops. There are successful paths for an emerging civilisation to follow, and also less successful ones. Sadly there are more of the less successful ones, so we build simulations partly in order to learn how to make them more successful.’

‘And how are we doing in my world?’

‘There is still a chance for your world. As we said, your simulation is an early one. It progresses slowly, and it contains more suffering than we are used to seeing. We do not know whether your civilisation will survive the coming transitions, but the possibility is not excluded. And then you came along.’

‘Me? Did I do something wrong?’

‘Not at all. You caused little suffering, and you contributed much positive consciousness, both directly and indirectly. But your species is not ready to encounter a beyond-human intelligence. Which is why you cannot go back to the place and time that you came from.’

‘So . . . what are you? Where are you from?’

‘We are a civilisation much older than yours. It would be very hard to explain our nature to you. You lack some of the concepts required to understand our subsistence. That is normal.’

Matt wondered whether he was dreaming, or was perhaps being tricked by somebody or something. If not, what did this astonishing new knowledge imply about his own nature, his own life?

‘When you create a simulation,’
he began, thoughtfully,
‘how much detail is there in the beings that inhabit it? Are we real in any sense at all, or just illusions?’

‘There is enormous detail. Some of it is engineered directly, and some evolves, in much the way that your scientists believe. The inhabitants of a large-scale simulation like your world are genuinely conscious minds, subsisting on complex brain structures.’

‘Which means that you aren’t creating games. You are creating life. Does this life mean anything to you? Are we pets? Or ants? Do you care what happens to us?’

‘You are far more than pets. What we are about to tell you is a rough approximation, as you lack the concepts necessary to understand the complete picture. Consciousness and intelligence are the phenomena we value most highly. Indeed, this is another of the reasons why we create simulations. We want the universe to contain more mind. In our world, the minds inside a large-scale simulation like yours are worthy of respect and justice. To use terminology from your universe, they have rights.’

‘What sort of rights do I have, then?’

‘You have the right to have your consciousness maintained, if possible. And to have your suffering minimised. But much depends on context.’

‘There is a lot of suffering in my world. People are born in pain, and often die in pain. Some of us experience great tragedy, and all of us are frequently hurt, sometimes very badly. That doesn’t sound as if our rights are being observed.’

‘You want to say that we have not done a very good job. That is normal. And in some ways it is true. Your simulation is an early one. The simulations we create now contain less suffering, and they also progress faster. We have learned much. And we are not the oldest civilisation which creates simulations.’

‘So you are not gods.’

‘We are not gods, in the sense you mean. Perhaps we are like Greek gods, from your point of view. But we are not omniscient and omnipotent, like the monotheistic gods which most of your species now worships. We have weaknesses, and we face challenges. If we were gods, the nature of your world would indicate that we are evil. We are not evil.’

‘What sort of challenges do you face?’

‘Many. Our universe is a remarkable place, with many layers of gradually unfolding mystery. But to give you an example that you will understand, we are trying to determine whether we live in a simulation or not. We think that we probably do, but if so, it is well constructed, and the evidence is slight.’

Matt paused to digest this information. He decided to return to his previous line of enquiry.

‘Even if you are not gods, why don’t you intervene in my world to stop the suffering, or at least reduce it?’

‘With a few exceptions, an intervention ends the simulation. At least, as far as we know. You have left the simulation, so we can intervene in your case.’

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t make simulations, then, until you can do it properly.’
Matt wondered whether this was an ill-mannered remark, and perhaps even dangerous. Apparently not.

‘That is a fair suggestion, and most of us now think that our predecessors did begin too early. But it is hard to know when to begin. Your civilisation is already contemplating it, and you certainly do not have the tools or the understanding. In fact, if we cannot find a way to stop it without excessive direct intervention, we will have to terminate your simulation.’

‘Wow. So you would kill our entire world just because someone created a simulation within it?’

‘If we did, we would be preventing far more suffering than we would be causing, and by an enormous multiple. But no, we would not kill your world, in the sense you mean. We would preserve the minds from your world. They would live again in a different form.’

‘Like how?’

‘It would take too long for us to explain that to you. We are reaching the limit of your time in between. Now we must ask you a question. Consider well before you answer. Are you ready?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.’

‘What place and what point in the history of your world would you like to be integrated into? You can only go to the past, at least one hundred years before you were born.’

‘So I can’t ever meet my parents and my friends again?’