by John Fajo
“Thank you,” the general said. “Although I consider being called many things a greater compliment than pretty.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” she said with some resentment.
But Nameless Andrew didn’t know. The only thing he knew was that he wanted the general. As a beautiful, flesh and blood woman. And he was in a hurry. However, everyone else seemed to be in a hurry too. Before Nameless Andrew could attempt kissing the general the break was over. The delegates returned, and the discussion continued. Nameless Andrew shambled back to his chair in despair. But he knew he would eventually have his way.
****
“So how was dinner?” the scientist asked.
Nameless Andrew smiled complacently as he peered into the darkness surrounding the airplane. He couldn’t even hear the rattling sounds of the engines. “It was absolutely...,” he searched for the right word, “phenomenal.”
The scientist glanced at him, the lights of the instrument panel reflecting on his glasses. “I hate to admit it but I guess the baron was right. I have always been naive. For what is the first thing you do when seeing a good looking person of the opposite sex? You jump on her. It’s all very primitive.”
“That’s not even true. I am not interested in other women.”
“For the time being.”
Nameless Andrew shook his head. He was too much in the throes of love to argue.
“You know I had a dream,” the scientist said. “A dream that all my ancestors shared, but none of them had the opportunity to fulfil. It is an age old dream. Since the development of life, evolution has always occurred in the same manner. A species survived if the best characteristics of its members were lucky to prevail. It was all a matter of probability. Mostly physical changes occurred due to physical incentives from the environment. This is what I call hardware evolution. But now the time has come for the next stage of evolution. Software evolution. When it isn’t the physical influences which determine the development of a race, but the mind and thoughts. We can fulfil the dream. For the first time we can determine our own fate, we can control our bodies. We can move forward. For the past millennia, our species barely changed. And now we can suddenly achieve a sophistication that would take millions of years if it occurred through hardware evolution. It is software evolution that creates the new hardware. No more malfunctions, no more of these damned glasses. Do you get my point?” the scientist asked.
Nameless Andrew looked at him suspiciously. He had heard of men wanting to create a super race, wanting to harness the forces of nature for their own interests. And these attempts had always led to tragedy and disaster. He liked things as they were. He was young, healthy and now had a mistress. He thought there was nothing else he had ever wanted out of life.
“Are you a crazy maniac?” Nameless Andrew asked, although he admitted the scientist was everything but a maniac. He looked calm and controlled as always.
“No,” the scientist answered. “My objective is to make the world a better place to live in, and not to destroy anything.” He had again read the thoughts of Nameless Andrew. “I myself look with great scrutiny at my work. I realize how easily things might get out of hand, how easily people we know could use my results for their own interests. Of course, a transition like this, namely software evolution will by its nature meet great resistance. For fear is associated with change. Suddenly current lifestyles will be challenged. Suddenly the baron will disappear from the scene. And even though most people dislike him they will weep for him. And they will curse me until they realize how beneficial this change really is to them. But software evolution must occur or there is no future for our species.”
Nameless Andrew hummed in distress. His mistress had warned him about the scientist. He was unnerved. She had told him of the scientist’s past, a story he had refused to accept at the time. But now he was in doubt concerning what the general had said. Perhaps she had been right. Perhaps he was sitting next to a dangerous masochist, who had rejected life’s little pleasures just because they had made him feel good or special, and now wanted others to do the same. She held a lecture after they had dinner and some hanky-panky. He had been exhausted by the latter engagement so she could bulldozer him with her malicious remarks. He felt like he was trapped between two fires, both of which tried to extinguish the other, in the meantime killing poor him. Who was he to trust? The general was one of the three representatives of the order of the day, the scientist her main adversary. He was lost. He wanted simple answers to the most complicated questions. And he wanted them fast.
****
He met the scientist in one of the hallways of the great underground complex.
“Are things working out?” Nameless Andrew asked.
“Perhaps,” rejoined the scientist seeming deeply in thoughts.
“We have a nice weather outside, don’t we?”
“Possibly,” answered the scientist.
“Can I join you?”
“Perchance.”
Nameless Andrew was close to raging.
“Can I kill you?” he inquired quickly losing his temper.
“Maybe,” said the scientist and left him in the hallway banging his head against the wall.
****
The scientist sat on a bed staring at the clean white floor when he entered the room. He seated himself beside him. Afterwards they watched the floor together in silence. Certainly, there was nothing interesting about the floor, Nameless Andrew thought. But there must have been some reason why the scientist peered at it. After all he was a man of reason, he pondered. Thus, he continued staring at the floor.
Then unexpectedly the scientist asked: “Do you know what I fear the most?” Nameless Andrew didn’t answer, this was a question he felt the scientist had asked of himself. “I fear failure. I am afraid that one day I may awaken to the fact that I have grown old. When not only my body, but my mind will start to break down. And there I would be, all alone. Sitting on the bed just as I am now. Repenting all the things I didn’t do, and all the things I’ve done. And feeling sorry for myself. Imagining how it would have been to have a family I never had, love I never had. And blaming all this on what I fought for, what I have been.” The scientist went silent for a while. “And remembering. That’s the worst part. For there is no present, only the past and the future. The past is something that has taken place, something you cannot alter. But the future is something you can influence. Remembering things you cannot alter makes one less than a mere observer. A shadow in a dream. A tarnishing shadow. I can imagine myself sitting on the bed as an old man, remembering that not so long ago when I sat on the same bed I could get up. I can imagine myself in the future seeing myself in the present. And it is the man of the future who feels sorry for the man of today. I refuse to prepare myself for growing old. Perhaps because for some reason I don’t think I will.” The scientist stopped for a moment, and then simply said: “Death is failure.”
Nameless Andrew looked at him and wondered. “Why isn’t there any present?” he inquired.
“Present is nothing but a perception. For can I say that this point in time is the present? No, because by the time I uttered the end of the sentence it has already become the past. Time doesn’t come in quanta, it is an abstract invention. The meaning of time becomes useless if you don’t define it as a line. That is my view anyway.”
Nameless Andrew really couldn’t care less if time was a blown up balloon. He thought if this was the reason why the scientist was looking at the floor, then he certainly needed help. Help Nameless Andrew was unable and unwilling to provide. Therefore, he swiftly left the premises.
****
The scientist was preoccupied by looking at a jelly-like bluish substance in a narrow tube when Nameless Andrew appeared. Again, he was perplexed by how the scientist found interest in something of no value to him.
“What is it that is so exciting about this blue substance?” he asked.
The scien
tist glanced at him, looking distant and displeased for being disturbed.
“The shape,” he briefly commented. “It’s highly unusual. This might be the key.”
Nameless Andrew sighed. He couldn’t recollect how many times before the scientist had said this very last sentence. But the key was never found. And over and over again the scientist stooped over tables and figures until his eyes went each in a different direction. If he only knew, Nameless Andrew thought, that there were so many different kinds of figures and shapes worthier to watch. If he knew. Nameless Andrew smiled, and began to resemble the way the scientist looked when about to make an earthshaking discovery.
“Completely in love,” the scientist suddenly said. “I can hardly believe it. Loving a woman who wanted to wipe the floor with him not so long ago.”
“She did not,” Nameless Andrew said in a childish manner.
“Did too,” the scientist rejoined sarcastically. “I always thought mutuality was the most vital thing if a relationship was to work. Any relationship for that matter. But you proved me wrong again.” Nameless Andrew wanted to say something, but the scientist’s countenance made him change his mind. “When will you learn? She’s just using you. Against me. It’s all part of the scheme. She doesn’t really want you. She’s the general.”
“So what?”
“She is the system.”
“She is a beautiful woman,” Nameless Andrew shouted angrily.
They stared at each other in silence for a while. Then the scientist said calmly: “I’m sorry. It’s simply that I cannot forget the way she treated you. The way she treats you.”
“And how is that?” Nameless Andrew asked.
“You keep sending flowers to her. You keep spoiling her. That isn’t the way it should work. Was there or wasn’t there an emancipation? Or was it an emancipation without mutuality? Yes to everything that was favourable, no to everything that wasn’t, that’s the way she thinks. We’ll take revenge on men for the sufferings and all the suppression in the past. We’ll do that on today’s men. Not for a moment realizing that conditions were different altogether in the past. There were no machines, brute force was necessary for the simplest of tasks. That is why men went to work and women stayed at home. After all, men are stronger by nature. And if I remember correctly there were women leaders in the past as well, just think of the countless queens who ruled for decades.” The scientist stopped speaking for a second. “But you had to fall for her. Why? What is her secret? Is it that she’s so distant?”
“No,” Nameless Andrew answered. “She is pretty, charming, intelligent, funny...”
The scientist laughed loudly interrupting his enumeration. Nameless Andrew was sour.
“Quite an amusing model,” the scientist said.
“A what?”
“A model. Of course, I guess I can’t say that my model of her is much better than yours.”
“I think you’re completely mad,” Nameless Andrew remarked listlessly.
“No. You see, when one thinks of something or someone one creates an image of the object or person. This image is always subjective, as there is no objectivity, and an oversimplified version of the real thing. An abstract. That is what a model is. I think of the general as an enemy, you as an adorable woman. We have two completely conflicting models of the same person. Probably we are both missing some details. I believe I’m right, and so do you that you’re right.”
“I don’t believe in anything,” Nameless Andrew said. “But naturally I am right.”
The scientist started wiping his spectacles. This was a sign of a prolonged debate. “Everyone believes in something. If in nothing other than existing. I have heard the sentence you just said many, many times before. From people who, I thought, should have known better. I, for instance, believe that what I observe is real. I believe the baron is my adversary. I believe in the model I have created for myself about the Universe. But it is only a belief, a model, for proof I have none. You see, a given model might be more efficient than another might be at a given time in describing or solving a given problem. But that does not mean it is more right than the other. For what is the essence of science? I believe it is to provide alternatives, different ways and methods to solve a problem. Alternatives are the key issue in my view. Models seek to provide alternatives. Let me illustrate my point. Assume there is a patient who is sick. In the past this patient’s disease would have been deadly. Thus in the past there was only one alternative for the patient, namely to die. In the meantime, a cure was found, but it caused great pain. At this point a patient with this disease could have chosen two alternatives, namely to die or to suffer, but survive. But now,” the scientist raised his voice and pointed a finger upwards, “a cure was found without causing pain. This yielded a sum of three alternatives for the patient. However the search still goes on to find measures to prevent the disease from occurring or developing in the first place. Other alternatives are sought. And to find the different alternatives models are created of the disease. But remember, models are all bound to fail. Even if there was a perfect model available, we probably wouldn’t be able to recognise that we had a perfect model nor prove it. Take another example. There is an ongoing search to find a very small particle that makes up the Universe. Assume it was found. Could we then claim that we had the ultimate substance that is the basis of everything? No, absolutely not. All we could say would be that we have found a particle that makes up the Universe according to our currently applied and accepted model. That’s all.”
“Then there is no perfect model.”
“Really? But by saying that there is no perfect model you created, indeed, a perfect model completely negating your own statement. Such questions and statements constitute vicious circles in our logic, and when attempting to answer such a question you are confronted by another question and so on. Finally, you arrive back at your original question, solving nothing. There are questions which are better to be left untouched.”
“Isn’t that in essence an escape? An escape from the great questions?”
“You may believe that it is an unscientific attitude. But tell me then this,” the scientist put on his glasses, “what are the great questions?”
Nameless Andrew was in thoughts for a while. Then he said: “Who are we? What is the importance of our lives? Is there a God? Where do we come from?”
“I can answer the questions only from my point of view,” the scientist answered. “We are what we believe we are. You have heard the saying that the insane are the truly happy and satisfied, have you not? They are insane because they entirely believe in their convictions. Unalterably. As for what the importance of our lives is, I don’t know. Sometimes I see no purpose of my life. The battle which goes on seems remote and unimportant, or at best boring. You see, science can be very boring at times. But it is important to generate interest at such times. To achieve anything one needs to work constantly and aggressively. There can be no ups and downs. If one loses the grip it will take a long time to rewind. Wasted time. And right now I am running out of time... Is there a God? There is in as much we cannot disprove Him. I hope there isn’t a God as depicted by some religions, because then he would be the ultimate dictator. As for the last question, I never cared too much where I came from. I have always felt that it was more important where one was going than where one came from.”
“But aren’t you then saying that the past is unimportant? But don’t our roots determine who we are? Can we entirely disconnect ourselves from our surroundings?”
“No,” the scientist answered, suspecting that Nameless Andrew has not yet finished.
“Do you think that we can completely change over time? What are we without our past? Do you think there is a future without the past? What matters if not the past?”
The scientist was silenced. He rather glimpsed at his tube containing the jelly-like substance, ostensibly occupied with it. But then suddenly he said, evading Nameless Andrew’s questions: “Perhaps we are both
right about the general. We have two seemingly conflicting ideas of her...”
“Then how can both of us be right?” asked Nameless Andrew interrupting the scientist. The scientist frowned. He didn’t like to be interrupted.
“It is possible,” he said. “Let us, once again take an example. What is time? Someone may claim that time is a measure of changes. With this definition in mind we can securely conclude that time passes more quickly where more changes occur. On the other hand, one may postulate time to be a constant throughout the Universe. Although these two definitions seem to contradict each other, I see no reason why both couldn’t hold simultaneously. The correctness and falsehood of these statements depend upon what model one uses. Again, one of these definitions might be more convenient to solve a given problem than the other. What I cannot say is that one of them is more correct than the other. This would lead to another vicious circle. There was a time, when I was younger, when I saw things differently. I had a maths teacher more pious than anyone I have met since. I thought this was an impossibility. How could someone believe in God and also believe in logic? This was a paradox to me. I perceived logic as the absolute method. But then one day I asked myself: isn’t logic illogical itself? Isn’t it illogical that it works so brilliantly in some cases and fails so miserably in others? Perhaps these questions seem rather absurd and irrelevant. The point I would like to convey to you is that although manifestations might be different, the causes, reasons or physical laws governing them are the same. But the latter are like infinity, one can never reach them, it is only through the manifestations that one tries to infer what they may be.” The scientist let the jelly-like substance slide out of the tube right into his hands. “If they exist at all,” he added. “It all comes down to beliefs, dreams and emotions. Those are the real driving forces behind any human endeavour.” The scientist went silent for a short while. “The problem confronting us today is that there is only one accepted model of the Universe, the others are all said to be incorrect. There is only one correct way of life. It is the baron’s model. It is the baron’s lifestyle.”
