The Days of Peleg

by Jon Saboe

  Eventually they bowed a farewell, and Shem again grasped Peleg’s elbow and they resumed their journey through the hallways. The brief moments of illumination ceased as they left the dwelling areas behind, and the normal blackness of the underground chambers returned.

  They continued downward at a rapid pace, with Shem guiding Peleg’s elbow through turns and occasional staircases. Suddenly they stopped after a single, small downward step, and Shem spoke a short sentence in his own language. A stone slab slid sideways in front of them, spilling bioluminescent light from within the room beyond, and revealing a guard who was actually moving the stone. They stepped through the opening and…

  …entered the back of the room where Peleg had first met Shem.

  Peleg looked around in the relatively bright light and saw the table, benches, wall hangings, and the low platform with its mosaic of small pebbles on top.

  The door slid shut behind them, leaving his two guards outside with the “doorman”. Shem indicated the stone bench that Peleg had previously occupied, and Peleg sat, resting his arms on the stone table. Shem resumed his position across from him in the large, cushioned, stone chair, and began to speak.

  “Peleg,” he began slowly. “I wish to try and explain something to you. But it will be difficult, because you lack much of the technical and scientific concepts necessary to understand.”

  Peleg was taken aback by this, and instantly offended. He had been educated in the finest institution on the planet, with its emphasis on reason and Knowledge. Shem might be older than he looked, and perhaps he did survive the Great Calamity, but this community certainly didn’t exhibit any remarkable technologies. As near as he could tell, it was simply an underground warrior outpost of Gutian descendants. Whatever this caveman knew was bound to be old and outdated anyway.

  But he slowly calmed himself. His mission was still to learn and (somehow) report back home. He reasoned that his chances of returning were much greater if he didn’t anger or offend his current host.

  Shem was continuing.

  “I shall try to create a comparison for you, and I would ask that you be open-minded to ideas that may be foreign to you, and to accept, for the purposes of speculation, certain concepts which may seem, initially, impossible.”

  Peleg nodded, anticipating an onslaught of more myth and superstition. Of course he would be expected to suspend belief. That’s what all cults were based on.

  “I would like you to join me on a thought experiment,” said Shem. “You are aware of what I mean by this?”

  Peleg again nodded, thinking of the thought experiments back at the Citadel. He remembered one of his favorites—trying to determine how a person would reason, if limited to a pre-selected, specified vocabulary. Great for fun and speculation, but very limited in actual, objective research.

  “I would like you to consider the planetary calculator designed by Tarshish. But instead of the gears moving arrows and indicators, I would like you to imagine they are connected to simple carpentry equipment, like saws and hammers. As the mechanism turns, it pulls the saw or raises and lowers the hammer. Never mind, for the moment what power is turning the mechanism—simply accept (for this experiment) that it is sufficient.”

  Peleg tipped his head for Shem to continue.

  “Now, obviously this mechanism is much larger, and it also has extensions for stitching cloth, sanding and polishing wood, and moving paint brushes. In fact, it is so huge that there is space in the middle for an large ocean vessel like your Urbat!”

  Shem looked sharply at Peleg to see his reaction, but Peleg was resolutely non-responsive, waiting for the point.

  “What this mechanism does is build ships!” Shem announced, and hurried on to avoid interruption. “Wood, pins, nails, cloth, and all other building materials are fed into it, and it cuts and assembles everything until, at the end, without any human help, a finished seaworthy vessel is ready and waiting in dry-dock!”

  The complexity of such a mechanism overwhelmed Peleg, and he blurted, “That is ridiculous! Such an assembly could never be built!”

  Shem raised his hand and nodded to calm him.

  “Remember, this is simply a thought experiment,” he said. “We are not concerned with feasibility or practicality, only theoretical possibilities. Levers could be built to operate such equipment, and there is nothing in the laws of nature that would prohibit such a device.”

  Peleg nodded in grudging acquiescence, and Shem continued.

  “Now we must add the ability to process the raw materials. Other mechanisms must be set up elsewhere, to collect wood, hemp, flax, metal, and other materials from other places, and then they must be connected to our main mechanism, along with conveyors to move the materials and then store them until they are needed. Of course, other devices would be needed to retrieve the materials from storage.”

  Shem sat silently, waiting for Peleg to process all of this. Peleg had resisted the urge to protest with his previous outburst, since it was very difficult to imagine such a monstrosity, but had to admit that there was nothing physically impossible about it. Except for…

  “Wait,” exclaimed Peleg. “Perhaps I can accept the mechanical aspects of this scenario, and you have explained ahead of time to ignore the energy requirements. But…”

  He raised a finger, eager to expose the breakdown in this chain.

  “You must have instructions!” he said triumphantly, thinking of how Untash had coordinated the refitting and rebuilding of the Urbat. “Simply having devices that cut wood and sew cloth are not enough. Decisions must be made. You must have people to determine how long a piece of wood is, where to cut it, at which angle a joint must be placed, and thousands of other options! Unless you can determine a method of instructing each device how and when to do what it does, you’ll never have a sea-going vessel. You’ll just have lots of sawing and hammering.”

  Shem was silent for a few moments, while Peleg experienced a very immature glee at stumping Shem. This was quickly followed by a slight embarrassment as he wondered why he felt so proud. Of course he should be able to stump this cave dweller. But he did have to admit, grudgingly, that he would never have imagined this thought experiment himself.

  Shem slowly came out of his deep think, and turned to Peleg.

  “You are absolutely correct,” he began slowly. “We must find a way of instructing our devices.”

  Peleg accepted his admission graciously and Shem continued.

  “You told me that when you were visiting Manco Chavin, he received a coded message made of knotted threads.”

  Peleg nodded.

  “Imagine,” Shem continued with increasing confidence, “if each of our devices, (the saw, the sewer, and so on) were able to read such a message.”

  Peleg started to interrupt, but Shem pressed forward, obviously thinking furiously as he spoke.

  “If a saw had a gauge that could be set to different lengths; for example, it could be set to cut one meter boards, or two meter boards, or any number of possible settings. Perhaps our threads could be fed into this device, and when it registered ‘three’ knots, it could set itself to ‘three meters’, or a certain joint could be set to forty degrees when the threads had ‘forty’ transcribed on them.”

  Peleg allowed this possibility to sink into his mind, but he also watched Shem who was speaking slowly and deliberately. He had the feeling that Shem was thinking hard; not because he was trying to figure out a solution, but rather because he was having difficulty explaining—with simplicity—something he already knew. Peleg decided it was because the language was new to Shem.

  “Each device could have many numerical settings,” Shem continued, “and different threads could be configured to control them as needed.”

  Shem turned to Peleg and smiled.

  “It is very remarkable of you to notice this need for information,” he said. “You make this much easier for me.”

  “What is the point of this exercise?” asked Peleg.

 
“Why does it need a point?” Shem looked defiantly at Peleg’s scowl, but answered his question.

  “I am constructing a model for an analogy which I will present later,” Shem said.

  “But why are we speculating on such an obviously impractical creation? No one would ever build something like this just because they can. It just isn’t that critical to assemble items without using people.”

  “No one?” asked Shem. “I have personally seen such assembly systems.” He smiled. “But they weren’t used to built ships.”

  Peleg sat stunned as he considered the possibility of such a mechanism actually existing. Shem saw it in his face, but continued resolutely.

  “So we have determined that we could feed information into each device using a variation of quipu threads,” he said. “So now I want to consider the possibility of using these threads to determine which kind of ship we wanted to build. We could have a ‘quipu library’, full of instructions for various ships, and all that would be required to build a given vessel would be to feed the right strings into our devices.”

  Peleg’s mind began to swirl in on itself as he tried unsuccessfully to comprehend the incredible complexities of such a creation.

  “It is time for our first observation,” Shem announced. “I’m glad you saw the need for instruction, because I am most concerned with this. If the goal is to assemble our ship without human intervention, this goal is definitely impossible.”

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to judge whether or not something was impossible?” Peleg asked, rather impudently.

  “Well,” said Shem, “we can here, because at some point there is a decision making process. Either someone is making decisions during construction, or they are making decision while building the quipu threads. Either way, a person is needed to create the instructions.

  He grinned.

  “Unless you want to design mechanisms for braiding the threads,” he said. “But that would require an incredible intelligence—unless you didn’t care what kind of ship was produced.”

  Peleg closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “I have two more simple steps, and then we are done with our thought experiment,” said Shem after a brief silence.

  “I wish to give a name to our completed mechanism. Let us call it, simply, a ‘Ship-Builder’.”

  Peleg nodded (with his eyes still closed) as Shem continued.

  “Now, I want to imagine a completely different assembly mechanism that assembles Ship-Builders! A Ship-Builder Builder! Raw material is assembled to automatically create the mechanisms we have been discussing. Which means that in addition to the instructions fed to our devices, we now must include instructions on how to build our devices.”

  Peleg groaned. It couldn’t get any worse than this. He felt as if his brain were preparing to shut down. It was really too enormous to contemplate.

  “I suppose that you going to tell me you have seen this kind of mechanism,” he said, sarcastically, his eyes still closed.

  “No, I haven’t,” admitted Shem. “There is no way any man-made creation like that can exist. It would break down too quickly, and, in addition to everything else, you would need separate devices to repair it automatically—and something that complex falls into disrepair faster than it can be built.”

  Peleg was glad to hear it, but he had the strange feeling that Shem was speaking from personal experience. He re-opened his eyes.

  “One final requirement for our thought experiment is this,” Shem continued, followed by a deep breath.

  “Our Ship-Builder Builder must, itself, be a completely functioning sea-vessel. By this I mean that it must look and function like your Urbat, yet it must be able to go anywhere there are raw materials, collect them, and assemble other Ship-Builders wherever it travels!”

  All of the visualizations in Peleg’s mind finally self-destructed in a kaleidoscope of ship parts and quipu threads. All thinking ceased, and Peleg felt a mental vertigo in his head as his mind teetered back from the brink of incomprehensibility.

  There was silence for a moment as Shem apparently refused to speak, waiting for Peleg to respond. Eventually, he did.

  “You said this was to be an analogy,” said Peleg, finally, stammering very slightly. “What could possibly be comparable to this thought experiment?”

  Shem opened his mouth, and paused, obviously for effect.

  “First, a question.”

  He looked into Peleg’s eyes.

  “If someone were to construct such a thing, would you agree that they would possess incredible intelligence?”

  “Of course!” stated Peleg impatiently, nodding.

  Shem nodded with him and proceeded to answer.

  “The analogy is this: This ‘vessel’, this ‘Ship-Builder Builder’, which automates the construction of Ship-Builders is a human being,” Shem stated calmly, choosing a metaphor over a simile. “In fact, it corresponds to all life. Every living thing collects raw materials and replicates itself.”

  He looked at Peleg’s face, where a look of confusion that bordered on glaring was slowly spreading.

  “The only adjustment we need to make with our analogy,” hurried Shem, “is to point out that our Ship-Builder Builder, in order to save space, assembles miniature vessels which eventually enlarge to full size. This means, of course, that they must also contain instructions for growth as well as the differing engineering and architectural requirements for changing dimensions.”

  He glanced at Peleg’s tortured face.

  “For example, the load-bearing requirements for a knee are much different for a child than an adult.”

  He waited again, refusing to speak until Peleg responded.

  Peleg had been prepared for a major confrontation of reason and logic, but had not been prepared for anything like this. However, he frantically assembled his thoughts and finally found an error in Shem’s thinking.

  “You can not,” he began slowly, “confuse inanimate matter with biological life. Lifeforce exhibits a much different order, and to create a comparison is simply not …”

  Peleg stopped when he realized that Shem had, once again, gone into one of his laughing fits. As before, Shem began to have breathing difficulties, and Peleg’s irritation suddenly flared in rage.

  “You ignorant dirt dweller!” Peleg shouted. “You can’t just laugh away reason!”

  Shem tried to calm Peleg with slow, downward movements of his palm, while attempting to regain his breath. Peleg recoiled slightly, as he realized he shouldn’t make his captor too angry.

  But Shem seemed unaffected.

  “As I recall,” he began, once his breathing had stabilized, “you and the Citadel were dedicated to the removal of all superstition, myth, and unreasonable thinking, correct?”

  Peleg inhaled loudly through his nose and nodded.

  “Then why do you insist that biological matter has some form of mystical properties that exempt it from the rules which govern the rest of the physical universe?”

  Peleg’s look of anger turned into confusion as he waited for Shem to continue.

  “The elements in our bodies, and all life, are the same as the elements of the dust of the earth. They are subject to the same conditions as all matter. They require energy for motion, mechanisms for animation, and instructions for assembly. The only difference is that the engineering is on a much smaller scale.”

  Peleg remained silent.

  “In fact, the only difference between the dust of the Earth and life itself is in its arrangement. Somehow, it has been assembled to perform the tasks of our Ship-Builder Builder with very little error. And to suggest that biological matter is exempt from the rules of the universe, and can somehow arrange itself with the help of some mystical Lifeforce is the epitome of myth and superstition! Design requires intent, and that requires decision-making and intelligence!”

  Peleg was reeling inside, but he wasn’t quite crushed. Shem pushed forward relentlessly.

  “If nothing
else, life requires animation. It must move, fly, swim, or grow of its own accord. The toy duck in the tunnel required the force of the child’s arm to move it. The toy duck’s sound required a mechanism driven by the force of the turning wheels. All animation requires force, an object against which to apply the force, and a mechanism for converting the reaction into motion. It makes no difference whether the object is a toy duck or a living duck—the same laws apply. And if you believe that the toy duck requires engineering, but the living duck does not, then I suggest it is you who live in a fantasy world of superstition and myth.”

  Shem shook his head in exasperated sarcasm.

  “Just add ‘Lifeforce’ and dirt starts moving all by itself.” He spoke in a boyish, singsong voice which was decidedly juvenile.

  Peleg searched his mind frantically for any random defensive thoughts that might help. He finally arrived at one which would restore the conversation to objectivity.

  “Your speculation is very impressive,” he began carefully but defiantly, “but it doesn’t meet the demands or criteria of Knowledge.”

  “Knowledge?” Shem nodded slowly. “From your Citadel?”

  Peleg nodded forcefully.

  Shem looked back at him with an irritating smile in his eyes.

  “Give me the definition of Knowledge from your catechism,” he asked quietly.

  Peleg smiled, glad that this conversation was returning to known territory.

  “Knowledge,” he recited, “is comprised of two categories. There is Objective Knowledge, which is derived from empirical observation based on the senses, and there is Deductive Knowledge, which is derived from mathematics and logic. All else is meaningless speculation.”

  He nodded triumphantly, intending that his emphasis on the word ‘speculation’ be an obvious reference to Shem’s analogy.

  “I see,” said Shem. “Very good.”

  But Shem’s expression suddenly changed into one of confusion.

  “That definition seems very comprehensive,” he stated slowly with a slight nod of his head. “But can you please tell me which category the definition itself falls into? Is the proof of this principle based on Objective or Deductive Knowledge?”