by John Norman
Comments on the Halliburton Case
One of the problems with being a brain in a vat is that one can never be quite sure that one is not a brain in a head.
It was this sort of thing which led, eventually, regrettably, to the downfall of Horace G. Halliburton.
Vat technology had proceeded to the point where brain vacations were not unusual. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these things, recall that at one time, long ago, vacations were quite expensive. One actually went somewhere, literally, and stayed somewhere, literally, and so on. It cost money to get there, and it certainly cost money to stay there. If you were going to cycle you had to buy or rent a bicycle, or drag yours from home. If you were going skiing or scuba diving that cost you, too. And the casinos weren’t set up to help you meet your expenses.
Some individuals were suckers, or sticklers, for the real thing, of course, and you had to admire them for that, I suppose, though it is not really so clear why, but once you couldn’t tell the difference, between the brain vacation and the whole-body vacation, the matter tended to become somewhat abstract, if not academic.
And, after a time, the brain vacations were not only competitive with the whole-body vacations but considerably less expensive. To stay overnight at the Plaza Hotel could cost you a bundle, but to have the experience of staying there, without staying there, was comparatively cheap, and could be included in the basic vacation package. And brain vacations were secure in their way, as well. There was never any danger of breaking your leg skiing unless you wanted that included in the package, and you didn’t have to worry about losing your travelers’ checks, or your luggage. Too, no brain floating about in a vat, as far as I know, was ever mugged. And think of the savings on your wardrobe, and dining. Incidental expenses at the Plaza were even covered. Tickets for any show you wanted, too. Ringside seats at Madison Square Garden, whatever, the whole works.
These developments probably saved an ailing travel industry, whose costs had become prohibitive, certainly for the usual pocketbook. And if they did not save it, they surely transformed it. Indeed, many resorts and tourist spots shut down, except for supplying software to the new competition. Many travel agents unwilling to make the transition to designing and marketing vat trips went predictably to the wall, demolished, superseded by science, time, and change, rendered extinct by the newly evolving mammals of progress.
There were dangers, of course. One could get sucked into these things. Some folks wanted to fight at Actium, storm the walls at Acre, assist Nelson at Trafalgar, Wellington at Waterloo, and so on. Some went so far as riding with the Scarlet Pimpernel and matching silver bullets with the Lone Ranger.
Vat technology, at the time in question, had advanced to the point where brains could be removed, immersed, stimulated, and then, after a time, depending on the contract, reinserted in the original, waiting body, itself well maintained in the interval. Originally it had been hoped that the stimulations required could be electronically processed through the skull, to economize on nutrient fluids, and such, but this proved cumbersome and imprecise. Recall the impracticality or difficulty, at least, of making reliable astronomical observations through the shaken quilt of a turbulent atmosphere. Recall the canals of Mars, attested to by more than one astronomer of unchallenged talent, sincerity, and expertise.
To be sure, one could always hope that less invasive, if no more safe, techniques may be developed in the future.
Occasionally a mistake would be made, of course, for technicians, engineers, absent-minded janitors, electronic geniuses, and such, are, after all, human, and thus, from time to time, not surprisingly, fallible. Occasionally the wrong brain would be returned to the wrong body, so to speak, but these errors, clerical in their nature, were easily corrected. After all, it seldom took a brain very long to discover that it was not in its usual body. Usually both subjects good-naturedly took the mistake in stride, and relished the humor of the situation. Occasionally delightful domestic confusions ensued, and sometimes a blackguard tried to make off with a better body, but these were only anomalous, occasional incidents, incidents usually involving no more than minor lapses of judgment or propriety, and tended to be speedily rectified.
To be sure, the technology was occasionally abused or applied to disreputable ends. For example, more than one fleeing tyrant had his brain ensconced in a nondescript, innocent-looking body, even one waving a pitchfork and seemingly a dedicated member of a mob seeking the blood of the very tyrant in question. Occasionally there occurred situations which seem to have verged on the criminal, for example, transplanting the brain of one’s inveterate enemy, perhaps a district attorney, into the body of a noted schizophrenic medically famous for his delusion of being the very district attorney in question. Another case involved a transplantation into the body of a gorilla incarcerated in a well-known zoological garden, in one of the boroughs of New York City, a gorilla denied crayons and writing materials. Too, occasionally an unscrupulous wastrel of a nephew would resort to this technology, morally neutral in itself, to obtain a coveted inheritance. Decrepit tycoons took to inhabiting the bodies of dashing young men, in order that their charms for the opposite sex might transcend those of the economic order, and so on.
But our primary concern here is with the tragic case of Horace G. Halliburton. Halliburton was a kindly, decent, well-respected member of the upper section of the lower middle middle class, in Patterson, New Jersey, who had originally been attracted to vat vacations, as were many others, in virtue of their affordability. Such vacations, however, soon became a passion with the fellow, and if one may speak of addiction without involving oneself in questions of liability, risking legal challenges from a powerful industry, and such, one might speak of addiction, but we will not, as questions of liability, and such, might be involved.
At that time it was difficult to externally monitor the subject’s experiences. Indeed, even today, one is not allowed to look in on such matters, in virtue of various titles and sections in a variety of annoying privacy acts. Accordingly, although one could know very well the environment one produced for him, one was not aware, usually, and even today one is not legally entitled to be aware, of what he might be doing in that environment. A man’s brain was his castle, so to speak. A man’s thoughts are his own, even today, an outdated Enlightenment concept perhaps, which puts at jeopardy civilization itself, but one whose revocation would be time-consuming and expensive, involving as it would one or more amendments to the Constitution. One wonders, sometimes, what went on in the heads of the founding fathers, beneath those wigs, that they saw fit to so jealousy guard the obscure chambers of the imagination. Did they in their lewd thoughts, say, peep beneath hoopskirts? It is hard to know. One supplied a background, but what the individual did within that background was pretty much up to the individual. One gave him the pad and paper, so to speak, but did not dictate what he would write, that indeed an old-fashioned concept itself which in its own way poses challenges to the stability of a harmonious society. So, as it turned out, one could provide him with the dream, so to speak, but one could not control what he dreamed within it. This was much like reality. And it was supposed to be. Otherwise the experience would smack of fraudulence and inauthenticity. One finds in “reality” that one can do little with brick walls and buses, but one may choose to avoid them or not, as one wishes, ride the bus, or walk, and so on.
By now you have doubtless anticipated what brought about the downfall of Horace G. Halliburton.
Halliburton, and I fear many others, lurking behind antiquated privacy acts, carried on, so to speak, on their vat vacations. He began in a simple enough way, becoming an outrageous flirt, smiling winningly, and suggestively, at innocent cashiers, distracting them from their bar codes, following beautiful women about for no better reason than that they were beautiful, and so on. Later, when individuals showed up who reminded him of his boss he would gleefully pummel them, disregarding the protests of these bewildered vic
tims. He later took to supplementing his income by rifling parking meters and, as he grew more bold, robbing several banks, usually but not always those most convenient to his home. He soon became notorious as a reckless rogue with the ladies, a bully on the streets, selective in his victims, and the subject of several all-points bulletins broadcast by a number of police departments within one hundred miles of his home. His loot from parking meters he would bestow on worthy charities, and, later, that from banks he would devote to various indulgences and dissipations appropriate to his new standing in the community, that of a infamous, much envied, much feared, glamorous, night-clubbing mobster. One of his habits most offensive to the forces of law and order was his predictions of the time and place of each of his next “jobs,” which capers he would then, invariably, as though under the very noses of the police, by means of a disguise or two, pull off, and with an insolence and bravado which might, in a more romantic time, have earned him a place in song and legend. Behind him, at the scene of the crime, a neatly lettered card would be found, with thereon inscribed the simple, tasteful, but arrogant message: Halliburton was here.
It was these cards which finally betrayed him, as energetic, relentless officers traced them to the printer from which they had been ordered.
Halliburton was apprehended, tried, and sentenced, which sentence he is now engaged in serving.
His downfall was brought about, at least in part, it seems, by the developed state of vat technology. Brain experiences and whole-body experiences were now, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable. Unbeknownst to himself Halliburton’s brain at one point had been removed from the vat, his vat vacation having been concluded, and returned to his body.
One of the problems with being a brain in a vat, as we noted earlier, is that one can never be quite sure that one is not a brain in a head.
And it was this sort of thing which led, eventually, regrettably, to the downfall of Horace G. Halliburton.
His stories, however, are still told in the taverns and night clubs and it seems possible, even in our somewhat prosaic times, that he may well live on in song and legend.
That, one supposes, is some compensation
For a modest fee, autographed license plates are available.
Buridan’s Ass
Psychologists let us know that the choice between an alternative which is perceived as abysmally horrible and one which is perceived as attractive, even desirable, is usually not difficult to make. When faced, for example, to allude to a well known story, of a choice between a tiger and a lady, and the choice is yours, and not that of an insanely jealous queen, you would probably choose the lady, if healthy, nonsuicidal, gifted with normal vision, and so on, though, to be sure, it might depend on the lady and perhaps, in unusual cases, on the tiger. For example the choice between, say, Clytemnestra or Medea, and an affectionate, well-fed tiger, one genetically engineered to thrive on breakfast cereal, might be less clear.
Now we come, in our perusal of the literature, to the choices between goods and between bads.
Here the researchers tell us that it is easier to choose between goods than to choose between bads. As one oscillates between goods, eventually, rather sooner than later, the closer one comes to A the better it is likely to look, and then one tends to slide toward it, rather than toward a similarly desirable B. In many situations the important thing is to make a decision, rather than not make a decision, even if you are not sure that the decision is the absolutely best decision possible. Often the routes to the same destination are not that different, but if you want to get there before dark, you had better take one of them. The Japanese supposedly have a theory of postponing decisions as long as possible while accumulating more and more data, or whatever, until the better decision of its own weight, so to speak, topples into your lap. This is not a bad way of going about things but if you want to get there before dark, you may not have time for it. People tend to admire, and follow, people who make decisions. The trick is to make a decision as if you knew what you were doing. People like that and as things are still mysterious to them, as they probably still are to you, too, actually, they will give you credit for leadership, probably correctly. Also, you can usually live with any decision, and a decision made is a decision likely to be subconsciously commended. Once made it usually seems right. Also, if it is a good decision, even if not the best decision, it should look better and better to you as you work it out.
Now the hardest decision, according to the studies, is the decision between two bads, between, say, bad A and bad B, between, say, Lucrezia Borgia or Charlotte Corday. Would you prefer to be poisoned or stabbed in the bathtub? The closer you approach one alternative the worse it looks, and this impels you toward the other which, predictably, the more closely approached, looks worse and worse, and so on. As a result many will prefer to choose neither alternative. If one is obliged to choose one or the other, of course, the dilemma grows desperate. Should one satisfy the distribution requirement by hazarding mathematical logic or mathematical mathematics?
At this point one might consider recourse to a random-selection device, say, a fair coin, an item frequently encountered in probability theory but scarce in most actual economies. Dice or cards will do, too, but not much better. Certain shamans use charred reindeer bones to direct hunters. That seems to work pretty well. It keeps the reindeer guessing. But sometimes the bones are unreliable. But then, so, too, sometimes are the coins, the dice, the cards.
This brings us to Buridan’s ass.
For those of you who might be unfamiliar with medieval animal husbandry Buridan’s ass was placed equidistant between two bales of hay, and accordingly starved to death. This is fictional of course, for an undergraduate animal-rights activist at the University of Paris stealthily made his way into the barn and nudged one of the bales a bit closer to the imperiled beast.
The point that Buridan, who was a professor, of course, for professors sometimes concern themselves with such things, was making had less to do with animal abuse than free will. A decision in his view, it seems, was purely dependent on the intellect and so, if the alternatives presented were intellectually equivalent, the will could not act. Remember that Buridan was a professor. They do things like this. An analogy would be if a fellow was poised between two equally delicious young ladies, each clamoring to bear his children, and be his abject and eternally devoted spouse, he would remain celibate, as, we suppose, did Buridan.
In the case of an ass, which is a donkey, which I hope is clear to everyone, or even a chipmunk, this sort of dilemma seems unrealistic, for both practical and theoretical reasons. Imagine the difficulty of placing bales of hay equidistant from a donkey. Consider the precision of measurement required. And what if a slight movement of the air might stir a random straw a bit closer? Or what if the donkey, fainting from hunger, could not manage to fall precisely equidistant between the bales of hay. But there are theoretical questions here, as well. Is protoplasm, or DNA, or whatever, actually all this smart, or intellectual? Do not emotional elements, accidental elements, biographical elements, historical elements, social elements, and such things, often figure in decisions? What if one of the young ladies in our previous example should wink at the fellow stranded between them? It seems unlikely he would remain stranded for long.
Now you must have begun to wonder if there is a point in all this.
There is, a most important point.
You see, there was once this amazing engineer who was bored, and decided to make himself some toys. After experimenting with teddy bears, dolls, toy soldiers, balls, blocks, prototype hula hoops, and such, he was still discontented. He was not a happy engineer. And unhappy engineers, as we know from the history of technology, are capable of just about anything. In any event this engineer who was lonely as well as unhappy decided to produce some more interesting, more complex toys, to while away the time, of which he had plenty, rather in the line of wind-up toys, thou
gh much more complicated. This was not as good as having a girl friend, one supposes, but we may certainly suppose it was better than nothing, at least from his point of view. Now, as he was an engineer, he did not want to produce sloppy artifacts, but things he could be proud of, objects well-tooled, shipshape, reliable, precise, and smoothly functioning.
Accordingly our engineer designed and manufactured some phenomenal little thingamajigs, dohickeys, whatchamaycallits, and so on. These little toys were on the whole active and complex. They were also responsive to their environment in a variety of ways, for example, if one tumbled off a cliff or was struck repeatedly with sledgehammers, its functions were often impaired, sometimes seriously, sometimes irremediably. The engineer became fascinated with his hobby, and constructed ever more fascinating and intricate toys. Eventually he had built a set of remarkably sophisticated machines programmed with simple rules of the sort from which surprisingly complex behavior can emerge. Some of these models worked better than others and the ones that worked less well were scrapped.
Finally, our engineer produced something which he hoped would endlessly delight and amuse him, a set of complex mobile computers. For a time the engineer was quite pleased with these toys, and rightfully so, for they were in their way masterpieces of the toy maker’s art, sophisticated, impressive wonderworks of unprecedented design. Nothing quite like them had been seen before. The engineer played with them for a time, and sat back and watched them running about. He varied their programming so they would not all be doing the same thing. But they were mechanisms, of course, and it soon seemed to the engineer that, in a way, they had been built too well. After a time, they were not that much fun to watch. The engineer had built them and so he always knew what they would do. Once again the engineer began to be bored.
Things came to a head one day when he noted one of these mechanisms poised precisely between two goals, both of which it had been programmed to seek. The machine, interestingly, was immobile, unable to function.
