"He's still trying to get information out of Snookums. It's a weird
thing, Mike--a robot with a soul."
"You don't mind talking about it?"
"No; go ahead if you want."
"All right, answer me a question," he said. "Can Snookums read English?"
"Certainly. And Russian, and German, French, Chinese, and most of the
other major languages of Earth."
"He could read a book, then?"
"Yes. But not unless it was given to him and he was specifically told to
use its contents as data."
"Good," said Mike. "Now, suppose Snookums was given complete data on a
certain field of knowledge. Suppose further that this field is
internally completely logical, completely coherent, completely
self-consistent. Suppose it could even be reduced to a series of axioms
and theorems in symbolic logic."
"All right," she said. "So?"
"Now, further suppose that this system, this field of knowledge is,
right now, in constant use by millions of human beings, even though most
of them are unaware of the implications of the entire field. Could
Snookums work with such a body of knowledge?"
"Sure," said Leda. "Why not?"
"What if there was absolutely no way for Snookums to experiment with
this knowledge? What if he simply did not have the equipment necessary?"
"You mean," she asked, "something like astrophysics?"
"No. That's exactly what I don't mean. I'm perfectly well aware that it
isn't possible to test astrophysical theories directly. Nobody has been
able to build a star in the lab so far.
"But it _is_ possible to test the theories of astrophysics analogically
by extrapolating on data that _can_ be tested in a physics lab.
"What I'm talking about is a system that Snookums, simply because he is
what he is, cannot test or experiment upon, in any way whatsoever. A
system that has, in short, no connection with the physical world
whatsoever."
Leda Crannon thought it over. "Well, assuming all that, I imagine that
it would eventually ruin Snookums. He's built to experiment, and if he's
kept from experimenting for too long, he'll exceed the optimum randomity
of his circuits." She swallowed. "If he hasn't already."
"I thought so. And so did someone else," said Mike thoughtfully.
"Well, for Heaven's sake! What is this system?" Leda asked in sudden
exasperation.
"You're close," said Mike the Angel.
"What are you talking about?"
"Theology," said Mike. "He was pumped full of Christian theology, that's
all. Good, solid, Catholic theology. Bishop Costin's mathematical
symbolization of it is simply a result of the verbal logic that had been
smoothed out during the previous two thousand years. Snookums could
reduce it to math symbols and equations, anyway, even if we didn't have
Bishop Costin's work."
He showed her the book from Mellon's room.
"It doesn't even require the assumption of a soul to make it foul up a
robot's works. He doesn't have any emotions, either. And he can't handle
something that he can't experiment with. It would have driven him
insane, all right. But he _isn't_ insane."