Damn! Everybody knows MS is the thing to get into. It gives you real
standing in the field if it gets around that you're an MS man. I had my
heart set on getting into MS.
* * * * *
_October 6, 1959_
It never rains, etc.: now it turns out that Len Ellsom's here, and
_he's_ in MS! Found out about it in a funny way. Two mornings a week,
it seems, the staff members get into their skiing and hunting clothes
and tramp into the woods to cut logs for their fireplaces. Well, this
morning I went with them, and as we were walking along the trail
Goldweiser, my assistant, told me the idea behind these expeditions.
"You can't get away from it," he said. "E=MC^2 is in a tree trunk
as well as in a uranium atom or a solar system. When you're hacking
away at a particular tree, though, you don't think much about such
intangibles--like any good, untheoretical lumberjack, you're a lot
more concerned with superficialities, such as which way the grain
runs, how to avoid the knots, and so on. It's very restful. So long
as a cyberneticist is sawing and chopping, he's not a sliver of
uncontaminated cerebrum contemplating the eternal slippery verities of
gravity and electromagnetism; he's just one more guy trying to slice
up one more log. Makes him feel he belongs to the human race again.
Einstein, you know, used to get the same results with a violin."
Now, I've heard talk like that before, and I don't like it. I don't
like it at all. It so happens that I feel very strongly on the subject.
I think a scientist should like what he's doing and not want to take
refuge in Nature from the Laws of Nature (which is downright illogical,
anyhow). I, for one, enjoy cutting logs precisely _because_, when my
saw rasps across a knot, I know that the innermost secret of that
knot, as of all matter in the Universe, is E=MC^2. It's my job to
_know_ it, and it's very satisfying to _know_ that I know it and that
the general run of people don't. I was about to put this thought into
words, but before I could open my mouth, somebody behind us spoke up.
"Bravo, Goldie," he said. "Let us by all means pretend that we belong
to the human race. Make way for the new cyberneticists with their old
saws. Cyberneticist, spare that tree!"
I turned around to see who could be making jokes in such bad taste
and--as I might have guessed--it was Len Ellsom. He was just as
surprised as I was.
"Well," he said, "if it isn't Ollie Parks! I thought you were out in
Cal Tech, building schizophrenic bedbugs."
After M. I. T. I _had_ spent some time out in California doing
neuro-cyber research, I explained--but what was _he_ doing here? I'd
lost track of him after he'd left Boston; the last I'd heard, he'd been
working on the giant robot brain Remington-Rand was developing for the
Air Force. I remembered seeing his picture in the paper two or three
times while he was working on the brain.
"I was with Remington a couple of years," he told me. "If I do say
so myself, we built the Air Force a real humdinger of a brain--in
addition to solving the most complex problems in ballistics, it could
whistle _Dixie_ and, in moments of stress, produce a sound not unlike
a Bronx cheer. Naturally, for my prowess in the electronic simulation
of I.Q., I was tapped for the brain department of these hallowed
precincts."
"Oh?" I said. "Does that mean you're in MS?" It wasn't an easy idea to
accept, but I think I was pretty successful in keeping my tone casual.
"Ollie, my boy," he said in an exaggerated stage whisper, putting his
finger to his lips, "in the beginning was the word and the word was
mum. Leave us avoid the subject of brains in this _keen_ place. We
all have a job to do on the team." I suppose that was meant to be a
humorous imitation of the boss; Len always did fancy himself quite a
clown.
We were separated during the sawing, but he caught up with me on the
way back and said, "Let's get together soon and have a talk, Ollie.
It's been a long time."
He wants to talk about Marilyn, I suppose. Naturally. He has a guilty
conscience. I'll have to make it quite clear to him that the whole
episode is a matter of complete indifference to me. Marilyn is a closed
book in my life; he must understand that. But can you beat that? He's
right in the middle of MS! That lad certainly gets around. It's the
usual Ellsom charm, I suppose.
The usual Ellsom technique for irritating people, too. He's still
trying to get my goat; he knows how much I've always hated to be called
Ollie. Must watch Goldweiser. Thought he laughed pretty heartily at
Len's wisecracks.
* * * * *
_October 18, 1959_
Things are shaping up in the Pro lab. Here's how I get the picture.
A year ago, the boss laid down a policy for the lab: begin with legs
because, while the neuro-motor systems in legs and arms are a lot
alike, those in legs are much simpler. If we build satisfactory legs,
the boss figures, we can then tackle arms; the main difficulties will
have been licked.
Well, last summer, in line with this approach, the Army picked out
a double amputee from the outpatient department of Walter Reed
Hospital--fellow by the name of Kujack, who lost both his legs in a
land mine explosion outside Pyongyang--and shipped him up here to be a
subject in our experiments.
When Kujack arrived, the neuro boys made a major decision. It didn't
make sense, they agreed, to keep building experimental legs directly
into the muscles and nerves of Kujack's stumps; the surgical procedure
in these cine-plastic jobs is complicated as all getout, involves a
lot of pain for the subject and, what's more to the point, means long
delays each time while the tissues heal.
Instead, they hit on the idea of integrating permanent metal and
plastic sockets into the stumps, so constructed that each new
experimental limb can be snapped into place whenever it's ready for a
trial.
By the time I took over, two weeks ago, Goldweiser had the sockets
worked out and fitted to Kujack's stumps, and the muscular and
neural tissues had knitted satisfactorily. There was only one hitch:
twenty-three limbs had been designed, and all twenty-three had been
dismal flops. That's when the boss called me in.
There's no mystery about the failures. Not to me, anyhow. Cybernetics
is simply the science of building machines that will duplicate and
improve on the organs and functions of the animal, based on what we
know about the systems of communication and control in the animal. All
right. But in any particular cybernetics project, everything depends
on just how _many_ of the functions you want to duplicate, just how
_much_ of the total organ you want to replace.
That's why the robot-brain boys can get such quick and spectacular
results, have their pictures in the papers all the time, and become
the real glamor boys of the profession. They're not asked to duplicate
the human brain in its _entirety_--all they have to do is isolate and
imitate one particular function of the brain, whether it's a simple
operation in mathematics or a certain type of elementary logic.
The robot brain called the Eniac, for example, is exactly what its
name implies--an Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, and
it just has to be able to integrate and compute figures faster and
more accurately than the human brain can. It doesn't have to have
daydreams and nightmares, make wisecracks, suffer from anxiety, and
all that. What's more, it doesn't even have to _look_ like a brain or
fit into the tiny space occupied by a real brain. It can be housed
in a six-story building and look like an overgrown typewriter or an
automobile dashboard or even a pogo stick. All it has to do is tell you
that two times two equals four, and tell you fast.
When you're told to build an artificial leg that'll take the place
of a real one, the headaches begin. Your machine must not only _look_
like its living model, it must _also_ balance and support, walk, run,
hop, skip, jump, etc., etc. _Also_, it must fit into the same space.
_Also_, it must feel everything a real leg feels--touch, heat, cold,
pain, moisture, kinesthetic sensations--_as well as_ execute all the
brain-directed movements that a real leg can.
So you're not duplicating this or that function; you're reconstructing
the organ in its totality, or trying to. Your pro must have a full set
of sensory-motor communication systems, plus machines to carry out
orders, which is impossible enough to begin with.
But our job calls for even more. The pro mustn't only _equal_ the
real thing, it must be _superior_! That means creating a synthetic
neuro-muscular system that actually _improves_ on the nerves and
muscles Nature created in the original!
When our twenty-fourth experimental model turned out to be a dud last
week--it just hung from Kujack's stump, quivering like one of my robot
bedbugs, as though it had a bad case of intention tremor--Goldweiser
said something that made an impression on me.
"They don't want much from us," he said sarcastically. "They just want
us to be God."
I didn't care for his cynical attitude at all, but he had a point. Len
Ellsom just has to build a fancy adding machine to get his picture in
the papers. _I_ have to be God!
* * * * *
_October 22, 1959_
Don't know what to make of Kujack. His attitude is peculiar. Of course,
he's very co-operative, lies back on the fitting table and doesn't
even wince when we snap on the pros, and he does his best to carry out
instructions. Still, there's something funny about the way he looks at
me. There's a kind of malicious expression in his eyes. At times, come
to think of it, he reminds me of Len.
Take this afternoon, for instance. I've just worked out an entirely
different kind of leg based on a whole new arrangement of solenoids to
duplicate the muscle systems, and I decided to give it a try. When I
was slipping the model into place, I looked up and caught Kujack's eye
for a moment. He seemed to be laughing at something, although his face
was expressionless.
"All right," I said. "Let's make a test. I understand you used to be
quite a football player. Well, just think of how you used to kick a
football and try to do it now."
He really seemed to be trying; the effort made him sweat. All that
happened, though, was that the big toe wriggled a little and the knee
buckled. Dud Number Twenty-five. I was sore, of course, especially when
I noticed that Kujack was more amused than ever.
"You seem to think something's pretty funny," I said.
"Don't get me wrong, Doc," he said, much too innocently. "It's just
that I've been thinking. Maybe you'd have more luck if you thought of
me as a bedbug."
"Where did you get that idea?"
"From Doc Ellsom. I was having some beers with him the other night.
He's got a very high opinion of you, says you build the best bedbugs in
the business."
I find it hard to believe that Len Ellsom would say anything really
nice about me. Must be his guilt about Marilyn that makes him talk that
way. I don't like his hanging around Kujack.
* * * * *
_October 25, 1959_
The boss came along on our woodcutting expedition this morning and
volunteered to work the other end of my two-handled saw. He asked how
things were coming in the Pro lab.
"As I see it," I said, "there are two sides to the problem, the
kinesthetic and the neural. We're making definite progress on the K
side--I've worked out a new solenoid system, with some miniature motors
tied in, and I think it'll give us a leg that _moves_ damned well. I
don't know about the N side, though. It's pretty tough figuring out
how to hook the thing up electrically with the central nervous system
so that the brain can control it. Some sort of compromise system of
operation, along mechanical rather than neural lines, would be a lot
simpler."
"You mean," the boss said with a smile, "that it's stumping you."
I was relieved to see him taking it so well because I know how anxious
he is to get results from the Pro lab. Since Pro is one of the few
things going on at IFACS that can be talked about, he's impatient for
us to come up with something he can release to the press. As the public
relations officer explained it to me at dinner the other night, people
get worried when they know there's something like IFACS going, but
don't get any real information about it, so the boss, naturally, wants
to relieve the public's curiosity with a good, reassuring story about
our work.
I knew I was taking an awful chance spilling the whole K-N thing to him
the way I did, but I had to lay the groundwork for a little plan I've
just begun to work on.
"By the way, sir," I said, "I ran into Len Ellsom the other day. I
didn't know he was here."
"Do you know him?" the boss said. "Good man. One of the best
brains-and-games men you'll find anywhere."
I explained that Len had gotten his degree at M.I.T. the year before I
did. From what I'd heard, I added, he'd done some important work on the
Remington-Rand ballistics computer.
"He did indeed," the boss said, "but that's not the half of it. After
that he made some major contributions to the robot chess player. As a
matter of fact, that's why he's here."