Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26
Page 5
If we move away from photos and back into the realm of biology, rewritability becomes even more difficult. Do you think we’ll be able to take an ultrasound of your failing kidneys, edit the image to one of a healthy kidney, and save the changes back into your body? Do you think we’ll have an x-ray machine that will let the doctor repair fractures using a mouse cursor, and then overwrite your broken bone with the intact bone? No, of course not. So why do we see so many stories in which it’s possible to do this to your brain? It’s because we’ve been seduced by the idea that the brain is a computer. We accept those stories because we are still engaging in folk biology.
Okay, that’s enough ranting. You may say, we don’t actually believe that what those stories describe is possible, we’re practicing suspension of disbelief when we read them. That’s true, although I don’t think most readers put memory uploading or downloading in the same category as, say, faster-than-light travel; I think a lot of readers imagine that some of those brain technologies are coming in the relatively near future. But the more general point is that science fiction doesn’t have to be scientifically accurate to be interesting or worthwhile, and I absolutely agree with that.
One of the ways a speculation can be interesting, even if it’s not scientifically accurate, is if it raises philosophical questions. And the idea that the brain is a computer can be interesting in that regard; it lets you examine questions about free will and the material basis of consciousness. In a similar vein, the idea that the mind can be treated like software offers an interesting metaphor for the ways workers are dehumanized and commodified by modern society. But a lot of that territory is well explored by now, and most current stories that treat brains as computers are not trying to break new ground in that regard.
Perhaps the biggest reason we enjoy speculations in science fiction is for their strangeness, the sense of wonder they provoke. This, I think, is where the idea of the brain as a computer really falls short. Because nowadays it is anything but strange; it is commonplace. So, in a way, my complaint about this fallacy is really just a specific version of a very common complaint about science fiction: that so much of it is familiar instead of mind-expanding. This is why it bothered me when I realized that thinking of the brain as a computer is a kind of folk biology. Because science fiction should challenge us, and folk biology is not challenging. Folk biology cannot be challenging, by its very nature, because it reflects our intuition. Science fiction should not reinforce naïve ideas about how the world works.
Now, I realize that this is subjective: not everyone agrees on what’s strange or challenging. An idea that seems strange to me might seem perfectly ordinary to you, and vice versa. So let me give you an example of a property of the brain that something I find strange.
There is a memorization technique known as the “memory palace.” This is a method for remembering things that’s been used in various forms for thousands of years; you may have read about it in John Crowley’s novels Little, Big and Ægypt. The idea is to think of a building that you know so well you can walk through it in your mind and picture the decorations in each and every room. To memorize facts like names or numbers, you construct scenes that represent those facts; the more outrageous the scene is, the better. One example I recently read is that, if you want to remember the number 124, you could picture a spear cutting a swan into four pieces, because the spear looks like the number one, the swan looks like the number two, and the four pieces represents the number four. You’d picture this gruesome scene within one room of your memory palace. Then, when you need to recall that number, you mentally walk to that room, see a swan being cut into four pieces, and remember the number 124.
I once asked John Crowley if he used the memory-palace technique himself, and he said, no, he couldn’t see how it could possibly work in practice. This was a relief to me, because I had the exact same reaction when I read about it. But the fact is that people have used it with enormous success. People used it in ancient times, when parchment was so expensive that you couldn’t readily write things down. Memory artists today use a version of this technique. So even though I find it a completely bizarre concept, I have to assume that it actually works.
There are a number of things about this that are worth noting. One is that this is absolutely nothing like the way a computer’s memory works. Thinking about the brain as a computer does not help us understand why the memory-palace technique is effective; neither does thinking about the brain as a telephone switchboard, or a steam engine, or a clock. If we ever come up with a metaphor for the brain that helps us understand why the memory-palace technique works, then I think we’ll really be getting somewhere.
Another thing worth noting is that the memory-palace technique was developed before we had mechanical aids to memory. Many people have observed that the widespread use of writing reduced our reliance on our memories, but I think it had another, subtler effect. It started changing the way we think about our minds. Once people had seen a library of books, they could imagine their own memory as being like a library of books. And once people started doing that, they had taken the first step toward thinking about the brain as a technological device. And that makes me wonder, if we were all using the memory-palace technique, would we have come up with different metaphors for understanding the brain?
Earlier I mentioned that early attempts at blood transfusion failed because we didn’t know about blood types. Has there been a similar mistake made because we used folk biology when thinking about the brain? Yes, I think there has been: the belief that repressed memories can be recovered via hypnosis. I don’t mean to deny that it’s possible for a person to repress memories, but I believe many people have been unjustly accused of crimes on the basis of so-called recovered memories. I think the implicit assumption underlying the idea of recovered memory is that our brain is some kind of mechanical recording device, like a camera or a tape recorder. Because if you think that brains act like cameras or tape recorders, you’re likely to believe that an objective account of events is recorded somewhere in your brain. Even if you can’t immediately access it, you imagine that an accurate memory is there.
However, it turns out that it’s easy to implant false memories. You don’t need hypnosis to do it; you can just ask some leading questions and make someone think they saw all sorts of things they didn’t see. Some psychologists believe eyewitness identifications shouldn’t be used in court because of their unreliability. Our memories are so inaccurate that they are pretty much the opposite of cameras or tape recorders. And I wonder, if we were all using the memory palace technique, would we have been more skeptical of memories recovered by hypnosis? This is purely speculation on my part, but I feel like the memory-palace technique makes it clearer that memories can be based on your imagination just as much as your sensory impressions.
Anyway, the reason I brought up the memory-palace technique is that I find it astonishing. Maybe it seems ordinary to you, but it feels much stranger to me than thinking about the brain as a computer, and I’d like to read a science-fiction story about the brain that has the same effect. Maybe that would require writers to come up with a new metaphor for the brain, but maybe it wouldn’t. I don’t ask that this story reflect the latest research in neuroscience; I just want it to talk about the brain in a way that I haven’t seen a hundred times before.
I think science fiction has reached the point where it’d actually be more interesting for a story to explore the ways that the brain isn’t like a computer. Even comparing the brain to a steam engine might be preferable, if it helps readers realize that the computer metaphor is just a product of our times.
As I said before, science fiction doesn’t have to be scientifically accurate. But there are some things I want science fiction to have in common with science. Science is about examining your assumptions and not simply relying on common sense about the way the universe works. I think science fiction should do the same. And that’s why I think we should be on the lookout for folk biol
ogy in science fiction, and avoid it when we can. Because folk biology confirms what you already think you know, and we should ask more of science fiction than that.
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Elite Institute for the Study of Arc Welders’ Flash Fever
Patty Houston
It’s true, I’m a little dizzy, but not falling over; not that I’m whining: where would that get me?—in the Toxicologist’s office, that’s where, so I recite, “When welding’s lethal, use asbestos-free electrodes.”
I’m crouching, sparks flying, the glow of super heat lighting up the space around me, wondering if a study nurse will stop by. Up to now, no nurse has donned a mask and sampled the fumes. Aida Blue’s having sudden freezing spells and threatening to call the Reverend Francine, Angel Communicator, which is against study rules and, well, frankly, worries me.
“Howard,” Aida says during a thaw, “I don’t so much mind the manganese in the air, but I might’ve caught a neurodegenerative disease.”
How am I supposed to feel about that? Aida’s ailing scares me. Though what she truly believes is that her stiff arms and legs are passing and that by guinea pigging we’re not only getting paid plenty, we’re also helping all welders all over. I hope she’s right. Because this study’s a lung-buster. Every day we enter the shed, put on our personal protective gear, our ppg (steel-toe boots, skullcaps, stout jeans, gauntlet gloves, goggles, hoods with the two-color lenses, earplugs) and doctor race cars: Barracudas, Mustangs, Firebirds, that variety, with monikers like Banshee, Belly Up, Burn in Hell.
At least our shed has a fume extractor, which is better than others. Some welders catch metal fever from breathing the mist of vaporized lead, nickel, chromium. Before Aida incurred gait disturbances, before she lost the knack of her ultraviolet welding smile, we’d visit the Alaska Pipeline shed for fish fries. Best grilled salmon this side of Wind Gap, Kentucky. There was Lamar and Rastas. Lamar had a crush on Darlene, an artist who sculpted Foo Dogs from bronze; one Foo’s foot rested on the world, another’s foot on the belly of a baby Foo to stand for protection. But those sentinels slept on the job because fumes brought on welder’s flash, and the Alaska Pipeliners, their brain signals gone haywire, had zappers implanted by the Toxicologist’s team. Now they’re kaput. But where? “ECU,” Darlene says, “Eternal Care Unit.” After Lamar’s termination, she abandoned her fiery art, and I can’t sleep at night for fretting I’ll go to the shed and find no fume extractor.
Today I go to the shed and there’s no fume extractor. In its place is a Post-it:
Don’t get your stout jeans in a wad. The fume extractor’s coming back. Keep your pants on.
Here’s our predicament: how are we supposed to breathe while torching the innards of a Pinto—Up in Smoke—?
Aida shuffles over from the women’s trailer, a welding rod stuttering in her hand.
“Is the extractor missing?” she says.
“It’s right in front of you,” I say.
“My foot,” she says. “I’m calling the Reverend Francine.”
I put on my gauntlet gloves and hand her a pair.
“Why are you wearing those?” she says. “Is your helmet next? Is this some sort of ritual to appease the great Toxicologist? What would we do on a real job if there wasn’t a fume extractor? We’d strike. Where the hell’s that extractor?”
I shuck my gloves and toss them on the floor beside a Vega, Snuff You Out. “Maybe they replaced it with personal respirators,” I say. I check. Nothing.
“Son of a gun,” Aida says. “I’m going to see the Toxicologist and tell him no fume extractor, no welding.”
Scratch that. We both know she won’t. Instead she calls the Reverend and leaves a message then hands over a skull cap to duct tape over my nose and mouth. We both flip down the viewers on our masks and light our torches.
No study nurse stops in, no fume extractor shows up, and pretty soon manganese is punching us in the lungs, which starts Aida coughing till she can’t stop; I get chills and feel queasy. But we keep welding until our corpus callosums seize up.
Aida peels off her ppg and heads for the women’s trailer, her shoulders jerking with each step. “No extractor tomorrow, I vamoose,” she chokes out. “They can’t stop me. You’ll see.”
So many hot rods have to be welded each day so after I square-butt the front suspension on a Bonneville, Buzzard Bait, I finish off Aida’s chassis with a passel of horizontal lap-joints.
In the men’s trailer I wrap myself in two blankets, boil some water for instant decaf then fill out my End-of-the-Workday Medical Report:
While breathing in welding smoke today, did you notice any short-term physical effects? No.
Are there any long-term effects you are beginning to observe in yourself or your co-worker? None.
Is there anything you would like to report to the Toxicologist? Negative.
I click submit and email the report.
In the morning, the fume extractor has not been replaced and there are no individual respirators either. Yesterday’s Post-it is still stuck up. Aida leans against a Nova, Death Rattle, finishing her coffee, each swallow a major workout for her, then she shakes out her filthy skull cap so I beat my filthy cap, too. But we don’t tape them on; we wait.
No study nurse anywhere so Aida phones the Angel Communicator and leaves a message.
Que sera, sera.
An hour goes by before we put on our ppg. Today, using the fusion-only double-butt on a Plymouth, Dirge, we set the current too low for penetration. When Aida turns the juice up, spatter burns our hair since our skullcaps are on our faces; in the moment before the spray lands, Aida strikes me as a wonder, like a bottle rocket, a Roman candle.
She runs a hand through her singed locks and, as she hobbles back to the women’s trailer, I hear her leave another message for the Reverend. I adjust the current to a medium hiss and work on the day’s double-butts until every muscle convulses.
Back in the men’s trailer I rub myself with Ben Gay, head to foot, and make some decaf. On the End-of-the-Workday Medical Report, I type No, None, Negative, click submit.
The next day, the fume extractor’s in the shed. A new Post-it’s stuck up:
Didn’t mean to drown you in inert gasses. But if you’re feeling feeble, we’ve got cutting edge deep brain stimulation. Free. Happy welding!
I turn on the fume extractor. Aida quakes in, sighs when she sees the extractor, shakes out her skull cap, puts it on her head then tugs on the rest of her ppg. She does not once mention the Reverend Francine.
In the afternoon, I high-speed butt-weld window brackets on an Olds, On Ice, and Aida does the same with its seatbelts. When I take a coffee break, Aida finishes all the window brackets. Her way of saying thank you—I always cc her my reports.
No study nurse shows up.
Back when we first started this study, the Reverend Francine, Angel Communicator, made a shed visit.
“The air in here is fetid,” she said.
“That’s the manganese,” Aida said.
“You called?” the Rev said.
“For angel guidance,” Aida said.
First, the Reverend Francine placed her fingertips between her eyes, next her crown, then the back of her head. Pointing one finger, she drew a line connecting the three points to form a triangle. Last, she found a spot above each ear and rested her fingertips there.
“My inner telephone’s ready,” she said.
“I really need the money from this study,” Aida said. “And, sure, I want medical breakthroughs for us welders, but the treatment, if I end up needing it, petrifies me. Should I stay or quit?”
The Rev closed her eyes and placed her fingertips on her Adam’s apple. From throat to ears, she vibrated for a minute before she said, “Angelic vacuum cleaner.”
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br /> “Say what?” Aida said.
Eyes still closed, the Rev said, “Visualize angels floating above your head holding vacuum cleaners, suctioning up all the vitriol in here. Aim the nozzle at your body, your mind, your feelings, whatever needs cleaning.”
Aida hummed like a Hoover.
“May the angels watch over you,” the Rev said and left.
“That oughta keep Uriel and Raphael busy,” I said.
“Hmmm-mmm,” Aida said.
“No outside intervention allowed,” I said, then I went to the men’s trailer and submitted my Workday Medical Report: No, None, Negative.
Today’s the day I replenish our welding supplies, for which I’m compensated mucho bucks a month, plus I get away from the shed and the trailer for a change of scenery. When I go to the shed to take inventory, Aida’s in there still Hoovering and walking as if she’s in a trance. I jot down a list.
“Are you restocking supplies?” she asks. “Can you bring me back a bottle of wine? For medical purposes.”
“Yes,” I say. Many bottles. For love purposes, I channel to her.
I’m very fond of Aida. Even though boyfriend-girlfriend liaisons are against regulations. How could I stop myself from falling for a woman who’s not only an arc stunner with the double butt and joint welds, in both the horizontal and the vertical positions, this rascal also telephones angels! Aida says ours is a spiritual friendship. To which I say, Caught on fire! In time, I’ll merge, unite, weld myself to her, I know I will.
Aida Blue’s thirty and has perfect posture, if a bit inflexible; grey pops up in her dark hair like arc strikes; her rich voice sounds smoky and she smells of cilantro; tucked into her stout jeans, tight as a burrito, I can’t keep from noticing her wrinkled crotch, her dungaree-swathed labia. One ogle gets me whistling, “What’s new pussycat? Mee-eee-eee-eee-eee-ooowww!” At times, to stretch out her wine, she spikes it with water—kink-ky. Of course, booze is prohibited on the study, and so is vitamin E, brain shield, but here’s my credo: Don’t ask. Don’t tell.