Parameter Space (Final) by Jim Jewell - Page 1 of 14
Parameter Space
By Jim Jewell
Setting – An applied physics lab at a university set up to control five ocean-exploring robotic
gliders. The room contains a desk with a computer and five video screens each receiving input
from one of the robots. There is a background hum of electronics.
Lights up. Computer screen on the desk and the five robot screens are in a dim sleep mode.
Barry, a middle-aged scientist, enters and walks to his desk. He sits, sets his bag next to the
chair, and boots up his computer. Once it boots, he enters a quick series of commands that
wake the robots and the five monitors power up, showing murky underwater scenes of
nothing in particular. Barry then sets up small camera mounted on a tripod on the desk near
the keyboard and turns it on.
Seattle State University APL, day 372 of remote deep sea vent exploration. Still me, still
streaming, and I’m still not very good at this part.
I’m about to run through some of the morning diagnostics. As you know, these procedures
are designed to reorient both researcher and constructs to the conditions of the parameter
space, establishing the day’s operational baselines while checking for possible physical
maintenance or communication issues.
The social nature of this team interaction, with constructs both taking instructions and
relaying resulting data back to the network and to the researcher, more than doubles the
logistical demands on the communications systems.
Shifts his focus to the screens.
(typing) Are you there, HALs?
A green light goes up on each of the five monitors in quick succession.
(chuckling) Ahhh, that gets me every time.
(typing) Run diagnostic routine 1A.
While the diagnostic runs, Barry opens his bag and pulls out a bottled drink, setting it on the
desk next to his computer. In succession, each robot screen flashes green. Barry drops his bag
and returns to computer.
(typing) Run ballast engine diagnostic subroutine.
Barry returns to his bag and pulls out a paperback book. Robots screens again flash green
successively. Barry turns his attention back to the computer, setting the paperback on his
desk.
Parameter Space (Final) by Jim Jewell - Page 2 of 14
(typing) Run final pre-flight diagnostic. (imitates Picard with geeky flair) Engage.
Barry returns to his bag and pulls out a sack lunch. As he does, something clearly catches his
eye and gives him pause. He stares into the bag for several seconds. Four of the robot screens
flash green, but the fifth flashes red, pulling Barry’s attention from the bag. He sets the bag
down.
(typing) Run final pre-flight diagnostic.
While the diagnostic runs, Barry stands, obviously flustered. He sneaks over to the door and
peeks out, then returns to his bag and stares inside again. He positions his body between his
bag and the camera. Looking over his shoulder one last time, he removes a large, ornate
golden cross. Barry stares at it for a second, then quickly stashes it in a desk drawer, closes the
drawer, and stands looking worriedly at the drawer until the diagnostic ends. Once again,
four screens flash green while the last flashes red.
Aw, c’mon. What is your problem?
Barry sits back down at the desk.
(typing) Final pre-flight diagnostic.
Pattern repeats.
(typing) Glider 5, pre-flight subroutine 6.
The fifth screen again flashes red.
(typing) Glider 5, full electronic suite diagnostic.
The fifth screen again flashes red.
(typing) Glider 5 power down.
The fifth screen goes blank.
(typing) Glider 5 power up.
Screen returns to blank computer interface look.
(typing) Final pre-flight diagnostic.
This time, all five screens flash green.
Why does that always work?
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Barry reacts to a vibrating cell phone in his pocket and jumps slightly in surprise. Looks at the
screen and goes a bit white.
Oh, shit, it’s Dr. Mills.
Barry freaks out a moment before answering, opening and closing the drawer in which he
stashed the artifact, as though it might have escaped, and finally throwing his jacket or a
handkerchief over the tripod and camera.
Hello, Dr. Mills. Yes, just getting started for the day. Everything appears to be fine, sir. No, of
course I’m not talking to the constructs, sir, because you and I had a talk about that and I
don’t do that anymore. No, not silly, sir, I understand your desire to maintain a professional
distance. Of course. A tour, no, sir, of course that’s no problem. I’ll be here. Yes, sir, I know I
should always be here. It was a… what? That soon? Okay, I’ll be ready for them. Thank you,
Dr. Mills.
Barry pockets his phone and exhales deeply. Sits back down and removes the covering from
the camera.
Sorry about that. It was Dr. Mills, the boss. He has very strong feelings about data leaving
the lab in any form. He would not approve of a live camera feed. Why he has no
compunction against sending student tours through here like feeding time at the zoo, I will
never know.
Dr. Mills talks about maintaining the integrity of the parameter space. He says that is why
the exploration we are running with my team is important in the first place, trying to
examine local conditions in remote locations with minimally invasive incursion. All the
equipment that would be required to keep a human being alive at these depths would
present too large of a footprint, would present too much risk to the fragile environments
being observed.
Of course you’ll hear all of this, again, when the tour gets here. But, I think I might move you
to a less obvious vantage point.
Barry moves the video camera from his desk to the downstage edge of audience seating. He
fusses with it a few moments before standing and backing to center stage.
Okay, that’s better, and… oh, good, you’re here.
Barry turns toward the door to welcome and address an unseen group of students.
Welcome to the Applied Physics Lab. I’m Dr. Barry Jefferson and I am the team leader for a
joint project between Seattle State and Oregon Polythechnic engaged in exploration and
examination of the biological environments formed around deep sea geothermal vents
using a team of long-range AUV, or autonomous underwater vehicles.
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Now, every child knows that over 2/3 of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, but
consider this: while land dwellers occupy a tiny fraction of the vertical space potentially
available to them in their meager third, the average depth of the ocean is better than four
kilometers and peaks, if you’ll pardon the reverse pun, at 11 kilometers, with life filling
almost every cubic centimeter. The ocean truly is the final unexplored frontier, with as
much untapped potential as far more romantically-notioned trips to the moon or Mars.
And the AUVs we are using to explore this frontier are truly remarkable. They use
buoyancy-based propulsion, which is extremely power efficient, allowing them to travel
indefinitely on solar power alone. We refer to them as gliders because of the wings that
convert small changes in the crafts’ buoyancy into horizontal motion. Imagine the feel of
holding your hand out the window of a speeding car, and the dip and pitch in the airstream,
but extended across six-foot wings, and you understand the propulsive forces being
harnessed. Referred to as autonomous because they make most navigation decisions on
their own, based on collected data and the operational parameters of the project. This
particular team is made up of five identical constructs.
What you see in this room is the result of the influence of the field of cognitive psychology
on robotics and specifically control theory. More than a control center for remote robotic
constructs, this is the communications hub of an integrated team configured to consistently
produce optimal results.
This configuration reaches well beyond the traditional tool paradigm, which some have
used to characterize our relationship with robots. Yes, constructs do extend our reach in
similar ways; much like tongs allow us to reach into an otherwise unbearably hot stove,
four of the five constructs are currently operating at depths that could crush my skull like a
grape. But, the degree of autonomy they are given, and the social component to data
analysis, with each construct reporting the results of decisions not just to me but sharing
with the other constructs as well, makes for a far more dynamic and effective team.
Yes, there’s a question in the back? Do I worry about being replaced? By one of you in
another ten years, maybe. But, no, not by machines. How do I know? Years of
experimentation have led us again and again to the conclusion that what the human team
member brings to the table is irreducible to binary expression. This isn’t some soft-headed
attempt to prevent global domination by robot overlords. As if I could stop them. No,
control theorists have found the most effective teams, those most likely to produce the
optimal results as defined by any parameter space, always have a human component. The
perfect binary logic of machine balanced against the noisy, irrational, unpredictable
decision-making processes of a human being.
I’m being given to understand it is time for you to move on. Enjoy the rest of your tour.
Barry waves and walks forward a bit as if ushering the laggers in a large group toward the
door. He pauses for a moment watching them go before returning to the camera, which he
replaces on his desk as he resumes talking.
Parameter Space (Final) by Jim Jewell - Page 5 of 14
Always that question. Are you afraid of being replaced? How do you know you are
necessary? I might have expected it from a younger generation, the sons and daughters of
fathers who lost manufacturing jobs to automation, but what is it about these not even
students yet, these pre-students, who worry about obsolescence?
Barry returns to his desk and works intermittently on the keyboard.
I don’t worry about that. No mere opinion; it is firmly based in the research. The noisy, the
illogical, the risk-taking and explorative team member, the irrational that makes the
rational work better. The team works better because I am here and part of it. I’ve seen the
proof, was part of gathering the proof. That’s why I am here, because I earned it, and
(addressing the screens) because you guys need me. Isn’t that right?
Machines are perfect, but only as far as the math goes. I know it doesn’t sound like it makes
sense, but it does. You see, the math can indicate local attractors, sub-optimal results on the
macro scale but on the micro exerting sufficient attractive force through results
measurably more favorable than local alternatives.
Through this next segment, excited by the subject, Barry moves about the space, occupying
different points on an imagined graph of TAFC team results. Ideally, I’d like to project an
actual graph onto the floor or wall.
So, imagine that the parameter space conditions have been set such that the optimal result
for a team operating within the space is here. We’ll set an arbitrary value on it for the
purpose of explanation. This is seven. And let’s assume based on that value that the mean
result of all possible actions within the parameter space is two.
It doesn’t matter two or seven what. We can say lemons. Maybe the team is tasked with
picking lemons, and the optimal result is seven lemons picked, while two is the number of
picked lemons from a completely uncoordinated team engaged in random action.
And remember here that the bots follow the math purely. Given options, forced to make a
choice, they will always regard the better return from the two possible options as the
optimal path. Given two options, they will pursue the option that returns the best
immediate result.
Now, imagine that there is a course of action that falls here on the graph, and returns a
value of five. Note that it is some distance on the graph from the overall optimal outcome
that we have set at seven. Given two options, one which would result in arriving
immediately at five and the other immediately at seven, every bot would choose the path
that returns seven. But, what if these two eventual results, the seven and the five, were
more than one choice step away? And that the only step that would move the bot closer to
the optimal seven returned a lower immediate result?
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The bots will gravitate to the globally sub-optimal but locally optimal five. They will prove
unable to accept the lower immediate return even when that is the only path to the
eventual optimal result. Well, just program them with the ability to see more steps ahead,
you might say, so that the bots can judge their choices based on outcomes further out, and
while that might solve the issues in my crude example, you have only to make the maths
bigger, dump the bots into a more complex and more realistic situation, and however deep
their rational focal depth, there will be a horizon, a rational horizon, beyond which as yet
unseen optimals may exist across an impassable wasteland of locally sub-optimal results.
Barry is suddenly embarrassed about jumping around.
(sheepishly) Sometimes it helps to get up and live inside the math.
Returns to his seat.
This inevitable shortcoming wasn’t immediately self-evident. We experimented, discovered
that all-bot, perfectly rational teams, no matter how exquisitely rendered the conditions of
the parameter space, could be drawn to sub-optimal results because they can only follow
the logic dictated by the available choices and can only make the logical choice, and that’s
not necessarily the right choice.
It was the human-robot teams that produced consistently superior results in the twoalternative forced-choice experiments used by control theorists to measure team
performance. The addition of the unpredictable, irrational human team member increased
exploration and risk-taking, measured doses of which help overcome the mathematical
allure of local attractors. The presence in the parameter space of the human team member
hacks the potential sub-optimal performance inherent in the math in a way logic-driven
machines never could, brings value to the table by his very inexplicability.
Which isn’t to say scientists aren’t still trying to map the human decision-making process.
Although it is essentially a truism in cognitive science that it is impossible to reliably
predict the decisions humans will make, to consistently account for their irrationality, a fact
bolstered by maths reaching as far as game theory and eloquently illustrated in the
dilemma of the prisoners, control theorists were analyzing the role of the human in the
team dynamic and applying the results of their analysis to subsequent construction of
experimental parameter spaces. Robotics technology continued independently, opening up
greater possible configurations of teams and a broader potentiality of tasks, and
experimenters constructed elaborate physical interfaces and narratives to eliminate as
much operator bias as possible.
Experiments might often have looked exactly like this, with a scientist as subject instructed
to work with remote constructs on real-world tasks, using a realistic interface designed
based on current research, but actually interacting with virtual constructs within an
experimental paradigm, observed and measured by a team of colleagues, helping define
more tightly and narrowly the role of the subsequent generation of human team members.
Parameter Space (Final) by Jim Jewell - Page 7 of 14
Pauses briefly at this bald mention of a fear he suppresses. Looks at the equipment
momentarily dazed as his shaken internal defenses reorganize themselves.
Have you ever read Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation? It has been recommended to
me, but I’m afraid it might freak me out. (trying to shake it off) It doesn’t matter…
Sits down for a moment, dazed. Turns toward the monitors, and then back towards the room.
He stands as he begins the next speech, and unconsciously fishes a rosary out of the space near
one of the monitors. Should be as surreptitious as possible until he turns out and is working
the beads while he talks.
There’s disagreement here, though. Friction. Most control theory researchers working on
human-robot interaction, and particularly those looking into cognitive psychology
approaches to experimental methodology, will say that efforts to map human decision
making into binary language are useful but ultimate inevitably impossible. We can learn
and improve systems based on a clearer understanding of the process and its functions
within the parameter space, but it is like the speed of light or absolute zero, something we
can approach and of which we can conceive, but never actually attain.
Even those who heartily agree with this assertion would also have to agree that the ability
to successfully replicate human decision-making within a binary digital decision presents
futurists with a technological singularity.
You understand what I mean when I say technological singularity? You do even if you don’t
think you do.
A technological singularity is a posited event that so fundamentally changes the rules of the
game that futurists cannot predict what will happen beyond it. It represents the event
horizon of our rational lives. It is by definition something the consequences of which
cannot be described or predicted or rationally conceived of, though of course endless
science fiction speculates about just exactly this. If you’ve ever seen Terminator, or are
even vaguely familiar with the basic premise, then you understand what a technological
singularity is.
If we were able to digitally map the human decision-making process, and thereby define a
parameter space within which a team made up entirely of bots, with at least one
programmed with that noisy, risk-taking, exploration-loving map, could reliably achieve
optimal results, could perform at least as well as any human-integrated team…? For those
who believe that is a possible outcome, it is game over. Because if you believe it is possible,
it is necessarily inevitable.
That is a crazy idea, isn’t it? If you accept that this is possible then it necessarily follows that
it is inevitable. But think about it. What could stop the progress? If it can be achieved,
someone will keep pushing until they do, in the face of whatever rational argument against
the attempt or top-down constraints placed by authority. The magnetic pull of a concept
Parameter Space (Final) by Jim Jewell - Page 8 of 14
like that is what makes the technological singularity so intoxicating, and it’s inevitability
rings so close to destiny that it makes its adherents, well….
Notices the rosary in his hand, backs toward the drawer keeping the rosary out of view of the
camera, and throws it in the drawer.
The technological singularity crowd is like a cult, dogmatically devoted to our eventual
demise at our own hands. They’ve swallowed the blue pill, making them free to fill the far
side of the singularity with any damn fool visions they want. And they should know better,
because they all claim in some way or another to worship at the altar of critical scientific
inquiry, yet fail to maintain the objectivity to see that world robot domination is just
another form of 37 virgins.
Zealots are zealots no matter the flavor of their dogma. They’re the crazy ones. If they
worked here, they would never talk to themselves.
He has again arrived at an uncomfortable moment. He stops and withdraws. Sits back down
and tries to focus on his work. After hacking away at the keyboard for a few moments, he
begins to address the camera again.
Control theory has advanced to the point where every aspect of the parameter space is
carefully and consciously planned, every aspect, every characteristic has a known function.
It is an important efficiency, there is security for each team member, the incredible
potential represented by each individual construct limited by neither the pitfalls present in
the math nor the marionette strings of a simple automaton, obeying line item instructions
from a fallible human dictator. Efficient because of how the pieces fit together, work
together, whether physical or cognitive. A perfect, pristine parameter space, with greater
reach than man or machine could possible have alone, disparate parts working as one.
Pauses and looks at the monitors for a long moment, then begins to type some commands in,
but quickly becomes more fidgety in the chair as he works, until he explains.
You know, there was a study conducted on the human operators of robotic constructs,
particularly focused on those engaged in complex manipulations, and it discovered that
operators, across all other indicators such as race or gender, always tended to assume the
physical dimensions of their construct while running it through difficult maneuvers. And,
not only that, but also that these operators’ performance improved markedly when they
reverse-anthropomorphized. Robotomorphized? They physical occupy their conception of
the botspace, imitate it. You can imagine how this might look.
Stands and does a clumsy version of The Robot. Almost immediately abashed.
I’m just kidding. I don’t think a robot ever actually did The Robot.
Instantly regains the energy as he starts talking about the gliders. As the scene progresses, he
first demonstrates some simple moves, and then it quickly develops into a dance.
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But, imagine our AUVs. Gliders. Graceful. Light wings that tilt ever so lightly but, with
changes in buoyancy, create controlled propulsion. A decrease in buoyancy drives the craft
downward, but the wing creates a wedge and directs the resistant force along a slope,
shifting some of the down to forward. An increase, and the craft rises straight up, but again
the wings interpose a wedge, and resistance to the upward force direct backward, propels
forward. Sink forward, rise forward, crossing miles and miles of ocean on minimal power.
SFX: the sound of a gentle background cacophony of voices representing the social feedback of
the bots, right as Barry begins talking about the sensors.
And that is the simplest of motions. The complexity is in the endless variations. All to a
purpose, not complexity for its own sake. Remember we are searching for and examining
delicate environments. Too dangerous to blow the ballast and drop belly first and blind. We
need a controlled descent that keeps as many of the cameras and sensors focused forward
as possible. And none of the individual elements static, executing the maneuver while
consciously telling the bot where to look and listening to what it sees.
Through next passage, Barry performs a corkscrew-like motion, left arm angled down, right
arm up, spinning around and descending toward a central point.
Drag on the port wing, flatten out the starboard wing, drop buoyancy, slowly, adjust
cameras to see forward in the arc, that’s easier than adjusting the spin once it is stable.
Circle in, minor adjustments for drift, slow the drag. And approach and settle and…
Barry settles to the floor with the final words, pauses, and then launches himself into a full
glider dance, whirling, raising, diving through the space in an imitation of one of the AUVs.
The action on the monitors is at first unchanged, but begins to synch to Barry’s movements,
and then to anticipate, cutting back to normal as soon as he does.
The dance ends with Barry center stage, arms outstretched, a softly ecstatic expression on his
face. He slowly comes back to the reality of his situation, immediately abashed, and returns to
his seat. After a moment or two of smoothing himself out, he looks at the camera.
Okay, I’ll admit that was, ah, a little, ah, strange. It’s been a long week.
Fiddles with camera a bit, adjusting its view to include more of the screens.
We’re still quite a way from our next target site, and may have spent too long cruising at
shallow depth because we’re reading a drastic drop in measured levels of the key elements
we use for predicting the location of vents. The drop was sudden and across all five
constructs, like a trail gone cold.
Barry is silent for a long pause and sighs. Leans back so he is in only the edge of the camera’s
field of vision, and reaches around the camera to turn it off without being seen by it.
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Once he turns off the camera, he slumps a bit in his chair. Another long pause. Barry stands
and walks to the door and peeks out. Returns to his desk and double-checks that the camera is
off. Without sitting, types on the keyboard.
All screens change to a plain blue screen. In this next scene, it is possible that the screens
change when Barry’s back is turned, depending on how much of a character we make them.
Once the screens change, Barry checks the door one more time, and then goes to the desk,
opens the drawer, and takes out the cross. Looks at it utterly perplexed. Moves to his chair and
sits examining it, turning it over in his hands.
Barry leans over and looks in the open drawer. First he pulls out the rosary and examines it,
still mystified. Looks in the drawer again, reaches in and pulls out a prayer shawl. Holds all
three objects in his hands for several moments, and then seems to come to some conclusion.
Returns all three to the drawer.
Barry sets himself up in front of the screen, and reaches around to turn the camera back on,
again surreptitiously. Starts talking an instant before the camera is on to make it seem as
though he had been talking the whole time and the camera momentarily cut out on its own.
…so, we’ll designate a new grid to investigate that includes the previously projected
destination as well as enough additional surrounding territory to mitigate the margin of
error. But, that does mean we have taken a few steps back. The constructs don’t have a
specific target destination but will follow a pre-established routine to measure and reset
baselines and begin the predictive processes essentially from scratch.
Long pause as he watches the monitors progress through a regimented progression of images.
The sound of the social feedback voices bubbles in the background.
It really is a kind of music, listening to them share information. The social feedback is an
important component, with each bot sharing results continuously, and adjusting tactics for
optimal output based not only on the individual’s data but also the network’s data. I can
adjust the rate at which they share data, essentially tweak the sample rate, so that each bot
speaks at once, a driving, martial beat. But, the need to assimilate and respond to incoming
data makes that alignment sub-optimal, so we offset them, and the bass line recedes as
melodies emerge. Each response engendering and altering the next. Music.
Soft, dark, self-deprecating chuckle.
Don’t worry – I’m not going to dance again.
Anyway, what this means is, for the next several hours, there isn’t much to do or see. Comes
back to that question again, but a different answer - for this small period of time, no, I’m
really not needed.
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Barry watches the monitors in what can only be described as a heavy, moody silence. Long,
long drawn pause.
(surprisingly intense but soft spoken bitterness) I really hate that fucking question.
I really, really do. Because it is so smug. And then, “how do you know?” You don’t know, you
can’t know, and the a priori understanding of that is implicit in the question.
Barry stands and begins to pace about the space.
I saw the experiments. I’m perfectly aware they looked exactly like this, and that the
subjects were looking at monitors they were told were connected to actual, physical
constructs when what they really were was another input node for the experimenters,
running the subject through a scripted narrative by way of these little windows. And, of
course, the subject was in the dark the entire time. Funny they never did a study on what
the feeling of being a dupe does to the psychology of the subjects.
So, no, you can never know. You can’t know you aren’t the subject of an experiment. But,
how is that different from living your life. (looks intensely into the camera) How do YOU
know YOU aren’t the subject of an experiment right now? You don’t, because you can’t
possibly.
And you can’t know that the qualities of humans’ flawed and chaotic decision-making
process, the only aspect that makes us an indispensable and essential part of this team, the
only thing that guarantees us a role and function in this parameter space, where everything
need have a function or be eliminated, you can’t know that it is irreproducible. But, if you
believe for a moment otherwise, you accept the inevitability of a technological singularity
beyond which we cannot rationally conceive, you essentially destroy your own future.
Barry reacts to the vibrating phone in his pocket, irritated by the interruption to his tirade.
Oh fer chrissakes. (answers) Yes, sir. Mm-hm. Uh-huh. Yes, of course, yes, sir. Always, a
laser-like focus. Of course. (hangs up) Who does that? Who calls and tells you to be more
focused in the middle of the work day? It’s like waking the patient to take a sleeping pill.
Focus on the project goals. No shit. Where was I?
Barry, hands on hips, pauses and looks around the room. Glance rests on the monitors for a
moment before continuing.
Human beings can’t know their purpose. The question, the desire to understand our
purpose, is what binds us together. It’s just our answers that drive us apart. But (indicates
the screens) they do, they know. They know because we tell them, we inscribe the purpose
on their shape and within their code, blessed as they are with an intimate and tangible
relationship with their creator. We benevolently brand them with their purpose and
construct a corral of parameter space in which they may live. Peaceful and productive.
Devoid of questions.
Parameter Space (Final) by Jim Jewell - Page 12 of 14
And we want to believe we are their God. We do, we want to, but we know we are not.
We’ve bled the depths and scorched the surface of this planet for machines. Who holds
dominion over whom?
Yet, I’m not afraid of global human obsolescence and robot overlord domination because it
is ridiculous, the result of staring overlong into the nihilistic abyss beyond the technological
singularity. It’s a projection of our own failings of lust and greed and hatred onto constructs
that have no need for them, refuse them as non-functional. No, nothing like that is the
source of… this. I’m afraid of losing myself.
In here, humans and robots are equal. Co-evolving. Each with a role. Strengths.
Shortcomings. Within this parameter space, as defined by the characteristics of the
parameter space, we are equally necessary, and not unique.
And what does that make me? What do I really know, have, that makes me able to answer
that fucking question?
Barry is deflated by asking the question.
Nothing. I have no answer.
But, you know what I do have, it would seem? You know what I, a man of science, an
eminently rational person, intelligent, humanist, you know what I have for you? Faith!
(starts pulling artifacts out of the drawer – he’s starting to go off the cliff) What I don’t have
is any idea why or even how I’ve been bringing all of these things into this lab. I don’t know
how long this has been going on. I don’t know what it means and I don’t understand why I
feel so ashamed.
The mention of shame slows him down.
It is what we are taught. As scientists. To look down upon people of faith. To feel shame for
them, to be ashamed of them, to consider faith a feeble replacement for reason. But, we
know better, deep down in the dark recesses that we don’t talk about at staff meetings or
faculty mixers, we understand we are people of faith, too. I shouldn’t have to feel ashamed
for being willing to admit it.
Maybe because I face it every day. I look at those monitors and have faith I am looking at
the mid-Pacific, and not into the eyes of researchers, men I would call colleagues and who
would call me subject.
I have faith that no particle can exceed the speed of light, that absolute zero is too cold to
actually exist, that human beings are inexpressible in the binary. Faith has always been
here.
Turns toward the stack of artifacts.
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But this, frankly, seems a manifestation of greater significance. Faith is one thing. This is
about God. I smuggled God into the parameter space. That is what I have done, isn’t it? You
can see that, can’t you?
You probably think it’s a crazy and pointless thing to do. So, let’s test that hypothesis. We
start by attempting to prove the null. It isn’t crazy and there is a point. Is that true? It is.
There is a point. The point is to keep me human. How do I know? That fucking question
again, really?
Remember when I told you that every single thing in the parameter space has a purpose, is
designed to do a job, to contribute very specific output, to occupy a very specific role? And
that my role, the human role, is to maintain the irrational, is to provide the unpredictability
that allows this system to defy the math that defines it? Here it is. (indicates the artifacts)
The irrational, wrought. There is nothing less subject to the rational than God, and I
smuggled it into this space, I did my job, the human job.
The point of this is to keep me human. Therefore, the original hypothesis, that this is crazy
and pointless, is invalid, and I’m not crazy.
Long pause.
I’m really not. (speaks very directly to the audience at first) For example, I know that there
was no tour earlier. There are never any tours. (focus drifts away from audience) Or calls
from my boss. This phone (takes it out of his pocket and throws it against the wall) doesn’t
even work. And the camera? It’s streaming to a blind channel, there’s nobody there.
See, I’m not crazy. It’s just easier this way.
What is the other option given the isolation, really? Remain silent, become more and more
like the machines that are trying to become more and more like me? I don’t think meeting
in the middle is what any of us had in mind.
The machines don’t forget. Their mantra is their code. Not in it. It. And this is mine. I talk to
myself so that I can hear the conditions of the space, feel the contours of the parameters. To
place myself and remember who I am, because that is why I am here, to be human, to make
this team whole.
I’m not crazy because I keep talking when there is nobody there, or because I have names
for the bots. (sly grin) And I do.
I’d be crazy if I didn’t do any of those things. Or if I couldn’t see the necessity of this, that
this is my job, this is the human being’s role. God in the parameter space. The Godspace.
This is our purpose, in this space, to keep God alive, to ask the irrational question that has
no other answer. The parameter space needs us because it needs God.
Parameter Space (Final) by Jim Jewell - Page 14 of 14
God reestablishes and maintains the collapsed hierarchy of man and machine. Needn’t even
be further defined than Godspace to do so. Merely ineffable. Introduce the God concept to
the parameter space and human beings get to secure an exalted spot, one step closer to
Godspace than the robots, closer to the ineffable. More effable. God in the parameter space
grants privilege to the impossible-to-explain, makes being inexplicable special. We tremble
on the edge of blurred line, and the Godspace maintains our balance, prevents our tumble
into the singular abyss.
Maybe God didn’t create humans. Maybe questions about God did.
Barry faces toward the screens.
If you need me to be human, if you need my humanity, then I need this. I need this. There is
a place within the parameter space for God, or there isn’t one for me. Do you understand? I
can’t stay without this.
The monitors all fade to black. And then pulse warmly once, a sense of the affirmative. Barry
nods, and moves toward the bank of monitors, setting the cross down on the desk as he nears.
Okay then. Good. We can do this. Free to be you and me, right? Separate but equal, right?
We’re all in this together?
Barry unwinds a thin cord from the edge of each monitor and plugs each into a different part
of his body. Once all five are connected, he settles into his chair, picking up the cross as he
does, cradling it in his arms. The monitors pulse and flicker gently in the background.
Nothing to be afraid of. Everything will be all right. It will. I have faith.
Fade to black, monitors hold for a moment, and fade to black as well.
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