Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5)

by Dean C. Moore

  Winona sighed. “Very well, dear.” A shame, she thought. She was rather looking forward to Chomsky, the author of Manufacturing Consent, talk next.

  The plus side of moving on was there were no chairs for people to sit in at this gathering.

  ***

  Under a tree, one much like the one Buddha received his enlightenment meditating beneath, a manageable number of twenty or so had gathered, just out of earshot of Vans Evers’ booming microphone.

  Hartman and Winona plopped themselves down on two of the vacant folding chairs.

  Pedro Martinez—according to the literature he was handing out, which included a picture of his face—launched into a talk on the future of democracy. “We are shackled today by a representative democracy that was created over two hundred years ago, when, quite frankly, representative democracy made sense.

  “Back then, it took two days or more to drive a wagon from the colonies to Washington. Mail was carried by horseback, so even indirect communications were slow and ineffective. What choice did one have but to elect a representative to stand up for one’s rights?”

  Hartman took note of Martinez’s thick Monterrey, Mexico accent. He was possibly a recent import, which was a good harbinger immigration would continue to add a dearly needed infusion of life blood to the body politic.

  As a visual aid, Martinez pointed to a world atlas on an easel behind him with overlaid lines going every which way. “But in today’s world where communications to and from anywhere in the world are instantaneous, we have to ask ourselves, does representative democracy make any sense? Instead, we can use emerging technologies to create a participative democracy via the internet that allows everyone an equal say in policy making, in laws that affect us all. Hell, the technologies required for the task already exist.”

  The first couple rows exploded with noise, while hands went up in the latter couple rows. Hartman wasn’t sure if this indicated that Martinez’s voice wasn’t carrying, or if the crowd had divided along party lines. Perhaps unwittingly, they had picked up on unconscious cues given off by one another’s body language, manner of dressing and speaking, and seated themselves accordingly.

  As if anticipating the objections of those with raised hands, Martinez hurriedly interjected, “I agree, the civic-mindedness is another matter. Getting everyone to go on line to vote for their pet projects will take time.

  “But imagine, if you will, a leaderless society, with no centralized government or power, where everyone decides on matters that affect them locally and globally. Everyone gets a say.”

  Hartman squeezed Winona’s hand with excitement. She smiled and reversed their hold, as there was less chance that way of him getting carried away and crushing her hand.

  As new arms went up and others went down, Martinez segued to his next point, continuing to anticipate the crowd’s reaction. “I’m not saying anyone has perfected the tools to make this happen, has constructed the right websites with the right portals and rules of conduct, but the potential is there.”

  Martinez adjusted to his audience yet again, possibly reading the faces in the crowd better than Hartman could seated in the back row. “And the only real danger to be avoided is the tyranny of the majority, of the system being so effective, that minority voices are drowned out. But a system stripped of all politics, totally transparent, where no one voice carries further than any other save by force of reason, is already less likely to thwart majority and minority viewpoints alike.”

  Martinez received a standing ovation; Hartman was among those standing and clapping. Only a couple shook their heads and walked off—one, curiously, a pregnant woman, who Hartman would have thought would have been happy to take the long view for the sake of her child, for however little she believed in the possibility of Martinez’s vision materializing anytime soon.

  Hartman was in sync with Martinez’s thinking; he just didn’t think it went far enough. When he saw one of the flock rise, his eyes afire, as if with some idea Martinez had triggered in him, Hartman decided to follow him.

  ***

  The youth Hartman trailed had a laptop, which he had obviously tweaked himself, with super-cooling fluids and other gizmos designed to keep it from overheating; essentially a supercomputer tortured out of a standard laptop. The lad’s tech savvy held promise, and Hartman wanted to drill his way into his mind like a wasp laying eggs.

  “Young man, care to share your thinking with me?” Hartman threw his voice at the youth’s back. The lad stopped and turned. Up close he appeared gaunt, not fully alive, as if dying of cancer. All the same, his eyes sparkled with an aliveness Hartman had never beheld in anyone outside of himself. Thick black hair seemed to betray an Italian descent. He moved with spastic energy.

  “Why? Who are you?”

  “I’m Clay Hartman.”

  “The Clay Hartman?”

  “Professor of philosophy at Cal Berkeley,” Hartman said, shaking his hand. “What’s your name?”

  “Freeman Darkly,” he gulped. His huge Adam’s apple seemed to buoy up and down in the changing tide of discussion as a way of keeping him afloat of others’ b.s., and as an indicator of his excitement. “Yes, yes, of course. I… I think I know how to solve Martinez’s problem.”

  This time Hartman’s eyes twinkled. “I’m aflutter with anticipation, lad. Do carry on.”

  “A mind chip,” Freeman said. “One powerful enough to cram hours of mental activity into seconds, plugged wirelessly into the Internet, with Watson-like search algorithms so each of us can seek out like-minded souls. Connect up with them in a flash.”

  Hartman caught the Watson reference. It was a super-computer built to beat the best Jeopardy champions, and having succeeded at that, was now being rolled out in hospitals across the nation to assist doctors with diagnoses and prescribing of medicines.

  Hartman extrapolated for Freeman: “The mind chip would allow for a self-organizing universe of countless group minds to emerge, nested in turn within larger group minds, as many as necessary to tackle problems of compounding complexity. They could be interlinked all the way up to the level of the Godhead for projects sufficiently grandiose, as say tackling space colonization.

  “What’s more, a vanishingly smaller portion of one’s overall mind-power could be devoted to each topic, allowing even those with casual interest in certain fields to branch out into new frontiers; thus solving the problem of how do you motivate more people to participate in a participatory democracy.”

  Freeman pensively rubbed his chin, as if error-testing Hartman’s thinking on the fly.

  Hartman continued, “Out of the mind chip would arise a true leaderless society. One that lives up to the spirit of Martinez’s dream, only empowers it with the necessary technology to bring it to life in a flesh and blood sense.”

  Freeman scratched the back of his head. “God, I really do have to talk to you.”

  “Have you given any thought to insights coming out of the Singularity camp, and how they might inform your designs for the mind chip?” Hartman figured the youth had to know of The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil, who was one of his own, a computer-chip designer working on the bleeding edge. Certainly he had to know of Hugo DeGaris and his work with e-soft and e-hard—self-evolving software and self-evolving computer hardware. DeGaris was currently making robots that learn for China, as the next generation of domestic help for senior citizens no longer able to live on their own. And it went without saying he must keep up with Singularity Hub, Humanity plus, among other websites. These people lived for this shit. They probably would have crowned Freeman their messiah.

  “Huh?” When the lad looked genuinely clueless, Winona handed him a box of cookies from her pocket. “It’ll help get your blood sugar back into the zone, honey.”

  “Thanks.” Freeman ripped the box open, and bit into a handful.

  “I’ve been engrossed in the TED website,” Freeman mumbled through a mouth of cookies. “You wouldn’t believe how many ideas I’ve gotten h
anging out there. Many premier futurists gather at that watering hole.”

  “You definitely have an excellent pedigree, child,” Hartman said.

  Freeman Darkly’s eyes went up and to the right as he talked. “But the idea of human civilization migrating into Singularity state—which is what I presume you’re talking about—well, it’s a little wild for someone with a PhD in physics, like myself.”

  Hartman smiled. “Yet your chip provides the foundation, providing it were of a quantum dynamical nature. Surely, you would not set out to design anything but a quantum chip to achieve what you want it to.”

  Darkly gulped. “Not now. Not after talking to you.”

  “Singularity State is the only state in which any and all possible futures become possible,” Hartman explained, “not sequentially, but simultaneously. Your quantum mind chip could grant us complete access to the multiverse.”

  Freeman Darkly, after securing the laptop to himself with a strap around his neck, keyed away furiously. Meanwhile, he gestured with his hands as he talked. “You’re playing off Hawking’s idea that this is just one of infinitely many parallel universes existing within a multi-verse.”

  Hartman smiled. “With ability to move in and out of these parallel universes as desired, which a quantum mind chip alone could allow, we wouldn’t have to choose between futures. Better yet, we could invent entire universes which don’t exist yet, should we fail to find ones with any fantastical notion we care to entertain. We would have the mind power necessary to be builders of a new dawn in more than a symbolic sense.”

  “Holy shit!” Freeman blurted.

  Hartman adjusted his tone to sober Freeman. “This is contingent, of course, on the quantum mind chip’s ability to drill down to the vacuum of space, use the Godhead itself with inexhaustible energy and resources, either working in parallel with other mind chips for sufficient power to do that much dredging, of possibly, working alone.”

  “You aren’t just after participatory democracy, are you?” Darkly said.

  No, he wasn’t, he was after a mind worthy of him, especially as his was crumbling, but the kid didn’t need to know that. “Creating a more egalitarian world is just the start.

  “With the human genotype already mapped, think what your mind chip could do to speed the kinds of genetic alterations that would specify humanoids that could thrive on Mars, or any off-world habitat.”

  “Is that really necessary at this stage of the game?” Freeman asked.

  “Freedom and justice for all isn’t going to mean much if an asteroid hit blasts us back into the Stone Age, or a shift in the Earth’s magnetic field destroys all life as we know it, if Yellowstone erupts as predicted, throwing a gray cloud over the planet that wipes out all life. And that’s hardly the extent of the shortlist of potential candidates for obliterating life on Earth, all quite realistic, and overdue to happen.”

  Hartman rested his hand on Freeman’s shoulder and squeezed it. “No, my young friend, I’m afraid the time has come to interweave your mind chip with the People’s Movement agenda, with the Singularity is Near agenda, with the call to colonize space—before space falls into the hands of the corporate titans, necessitating People’s Movements on Mars next.”

  Freeman laughed. “When you say it like that—”.

  “You must become more of a Renaissance man.” Hartman traced a diagram on the cover of Darkly’s laptop to help his thinking along with regards to his mindchip. Until his mind was ready to receive the information, it might strike him as little more than a mandala shape. “You must learn to think across disciplines, not just the hard sciences, if your quantum chip is to live up to its potential.”

  “And how do I gestate those additional aptitudes?” Darkly asked.

  “Now that’s a discussion worth having lunch over. I can see you haven’t eaten in a while,” Hartman said, referring to Darkly’s excessively lithe figure. “Maybe now you have some motivation to hold on to the mortal coil a while longer.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do. And that’s yes to lunch too,” Freeman Darkly said excitedly.

  Hartman saw Winona smiling beside him, having tracked their conversation blow by blow. He was happy to please her. He had been stepping on a lot of toes lately and was beginning to feel he was losing his touch. But clearly, he was just a fish out of water. The idea that Cal Berkeley would be too backward for him wouldn’t have occurred to him. Funny what just a little change of perspective will do.

  THIRTEEN

  Robin realized his life had gone adrift. Drew’s admittedly sophisticated ploys to stabilize him, steeping him in routine, the comfort zone of a lush world of wealth, just weren’t cutting it. Even Just Drew and KAC, and his “gender play” with Drew, but extensions of Drew’s mindful attention to him, had failed to do much to center Robin. He had tried church (if he could believe that). If he could focus all his attention on the Hartman investigation, it might have the centering effect he was looking for, helping him to congeal his consciousness out of a fog into something coherent and focused again. But even after a visit to the Three Stooges to stoke the fires, he just couldn’t.

  He was desperate to find something that worked to help hold him together, feeling sanity slipping away, and not at all consciously. It was just a feeling, past the haze of anxiety; an uneasiness related to repressed demons he couldn’t face that were getting ready to break out of their cage.

  “I want to examine the Hartman tapes,” Robin said to the librarian at the information desk. Her nametag read: Rosy Li Delacqua.

  “They’re all checked out right now. He was popular before he went bonkers. Now he’s a complete sensation. Everyone wants to know how the smartest of us all caved.” Leaning into him and speaking in a more conspiratorial whisper, she added, “Not exactly a good message for our youth. Kind of saps them of all hope, you know?”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to insist you recall them,” Robin said, and held up his badge.

  “Very well,” she said in slow motion after a lapse in time. In her fifties, Robin could tell she was once plain looking. Now, with waxy, sagging skin, plain was proving a lot closer to grotesque than beautiful as a starting point once one started down that slippery slope. Still, she seemed genuinely warm-hearted and endearing in a way that just made him feel all the better for adoring her and choosing to ignore her looks, as if just bonding with her was his ticket to being a better person.

  Robin stood still while she scurried to the four corners of the library to rip the CD-ROMs out of the computers. She spared herself much explanation by chirping “police matter” to the students.

  The stack assembled in front of him, he said, “I’m sorry for making you run over hill and dale.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll burn some more copies tonight. I suppose it was inevitable.”

  Robin grabbed the stack. “Now I’ll need a computer.”

  She rolled her eyes. “There’s a mute student I can kick off one of the computers. She can’t complain much in her state,” she said in a huff, not having recovered her breath from the first race.

  “I’m getting better at picking my fights these days, as well.”

  She led Robin to where the very kind, demure girl from China, who had just been raised with far too much politeness to be anything but a recent import to America, bowed, and graciously slipped away. In less than a generation she too would be as entitled as the best of them, and Robin would have to beat her off with a stick.

  Robin slipped in the first CD, labeled, “Real People Can Only Be Found In Fiction.” As he settled into the lecture, Rosy Li returned with a door-stopper of a book, the DSM-IV. “You’ll want this, so you can profile all the players. Leastways, the students say it’s the only way to fly.”

  He smiled at her. “Thanks.” She went back to her information desk.

  Robin breezed through the book. “Phew. I guess there’s more than one portal to Narnia.”

  He set down the book just as the Hartman lecture was getting interesting.r />
  Robin twisted up his face. “Yeah, I get that people, seeing how fixed the game is, give up. They stop aspiring to greatness. But the politics that sticks you in place doesn’t guarantee you your job. You still have to reinvent yourself day in and day out, stay hungry, find ways to keep improving, or the next guy in a globally competitive marketplace comes along able to do more with less, and then where are you? Walk on quicksand long enough, it eventually dawns on you, hey, why don’t I apply all this creativity to actually get ahead in the world rather than being stuck in place in some stifling political hierarchy? And you’re off and running.” He must have been talking out loud—what’s worse, in an animated fashion—as he looked up to find a room full of people staring at him.

  ***

  Three hours later, Robin walked away from the library stack of CDs thinking, Hartman was right more than he was wrong. Even more impressive was the fact that his entire psychology was built on knocking down the jailhouse bars imprisoning people’s thinking without them realizing. Robin was finding himself every bit as intrigued as Hartman’s groupies as to how the greatest of them could have fallen, and why. He couldn’t imagine a better formula for shock-proofing the mind in an age where shell-shock was a given. Not yet. Maybe there was a better way. And maybe it was his job to find it.