David Brin - Existence

Then there were the ones generating so much excitement and controversy-victims of the Autism Plague who had been sent here from all over the world by parents seeking hope. The Atkins specialized in “savants,” so Tor had come expecting feats of mathematical legerdemain and total recall. And there were a few impressive demos-mentally calculating long-ago dates and guessing correctly the number of beads in a jar-stunts that were old news. Dr. Sato wanted to show off more recent accomplishments-less flashy. More significant.

Tor watched as boys and girls, long mentally isolated from close human contact, now held normal-looking conversations, even collaborating in a game. After going on a while about eye-contact rates and Empathy Quotients, Sato made his point.

“We start by stimulating brain regions that ‘ mirror ’ the body movements we see other people perform. Also manipulating the parieto-occipital junction, to provoke what was called an out-of-body experience. These mental states once carried a lot of freight among religious types. But we now trigger outward-empathy or self-introspection, on demand.”

Tor had commented that some of the faithful might find this offensive. One more grab by science at territory once reserved for belief. But Sato shrugged as if to ask, What else is new?

“Call it a technologization of compassion, or induction of insight.

“The next question is, can we do all this, awakening other-awareness and self-appraisal in some autistics, without sacrificing their savant skills? Or the wild alertness that sometimes makes them seem more natural and feral than the rest of us?

“And then…,” Sato had mused, with an eager glint in his eyes. “… if we can manage that, will it be it possible to go the other way? Give savant-level mental powers to normal people?”

Conversing with some patients, Tor came to realize something that distressed her as a reporter-there’d be little useful video from this tour. The Atkins patients, once crippled by a deep mental handicap, some of them effectively disconnected from the world, now seemed talkative, cogent, not so much hopelessly detached as… well… nerdy.

She did have shots of some beaming parents, visiting from faraway cities, calling the work here miraculous. But I can get some balance from the demonstrators outside, Tor recalled. Activists who posed a pointed question.

Who are we-who is anybody-to define what it means to be human? To “cure” a condition that might simply be closer to innocence or nature? Closer to the Earth?

Or-perhaps-closer to a onetime state of grace?

Now, ensconced in a plush chair with her stalk-cam panning across Sato’s office, she hurried back on topic. “You say you just offer options, Doctor. But folks in Carolina didn’t want those choices. And those here in Albuquerque range from ambivalent to hostile. Is it a case of too much too soon? Or something deeper?”

“I think you know the answer, Miss Tor,” Sato replied, placing both hands on the desk. “If we were merely helping some types of borderline autistic children to behave more normally, to be more empathic and communicative, to get jobs and raise families, then few would complain. Just a few diversity fetishists who think nature is always better than civilization and animals are wiser than people. But anyone can see our work will have implications, far beyond helping a few kids to fit in.”

Tor nodded. “Hm, yes. We’ll get to all that. But first, let me ask, after being forced to leave Charleston, why didn’t you resettle in one of the high-water townships along the coast where you’d fit in? Just another merry band of would-be godmakers, no more offensive than your local biotinker.”

Sato frowned, a deep furrow creasing his youthful-looking brow above soft, almond eyes. He had seemed about forty, but Tor now guessed higher. Triggered by attention cues, her aiware sifted, finding the professor’s latest sculpt, last month, at Madame Fascio’s Facelifts. So? Scientists aren’t immune to vanity.

“We dislike the term… ‘godmaker’…, It implies something elitist, even domineering. Our goal is the opposite. A general empowerment, across the board.”

“Commendably egalitarian, Doctor. But does it ever work out that way? All new things-from toys to tools of power-tend to be gathered up first by some human elite. Often as a way to stay elite.”

Sato arched an eyebrow. “Now who’s sounding radical? Are you suggesting we revisit the Class War?”

“It’s a simple question, Professor. How will you ensure that everyone gets to share these mental augmentations you seek? Won’t equality be stymied by the very same human diversity you celebrate?”

“Explain, please.”

“Suppose you find a way to enhance human intelligence. Or for people to focus attention more creatively, beyond the Thurman Barrier. Assume the process is cheap with few side effects…” It was her turn to express doubt, with an ironic lift of an eyebrow for the jewelcam. “And further that your process isn’t monopolized by some clade of aristos, who use wealth or influence or public safety as an excuse-”

“Are you really that suspicious of aristocracy?” Sato tried to cut in. “How old-fashioned.”

And how out of touch you are, she thought. If you haven’t sensed the recent shifts back toward conflict. But Tor forged on.

“-even assuming all of that, there will be no way to avoid one final division-between those who choose to accept your gift, and those who do not.”

“Our… gift.” Sato mulled for a moment. Then he turned back to her with a gaze that seemed dark, glittering. “You know, our modern endeavor as would-be godmakers, to use your term, is not without precedent. The dream goes back a long way. For example, it is said that after Prometheus was chained to a rock, in punishment for giving humanity the boon of fire, his children thereupon chose to live among men. Made families with them. Reinforced his gift by breeding divinity into the race. And there are countless other legends-even in the Judeo-Christian Bible-implying the same thing.”

“Stories about humans trying to be godlike. But don’t most of them portray that as sin? Prometheus was punished. Frankenstein gets killed by his creature. The Tower of Babel crumbles amid chaos.”

Bridging his fingers, Sato intoned: “‘And the Lord said, See, they are all one people and have all one language; and this is only the start of what they may do: and now it will not be possible to keep them from any purpose of theirs.’”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Babel. Building a tower to heaven. The attempt failed when we were deliberately sabotaged by a curse of mutual incomprehension, by forcing us to speak a multitude of languages. Most theologians have interpreted the Babel story the way you just did-as showing God angry at humanity, for this act of hubris.

“But read it more carefully. There is no anger! Not a trace. No mention of anybody suffering or dying, as they surely do in murderous mass-fury, at Sodom, or in Noah’s flood, or innumerable cases of heavenly wrath. There’s none of that in the story of Babel! Sure, we were thwarted, confused, and scattered. But was that meant to stymie us forever? From achieving what the passage clearly says we can achieve? What perhaps we’re ultimately meant to achieve?

“Maybe the confusion was meant just to delay things. For us to learn by overcoming obstacles. In fact, didn’t the scattering-of-manmake us more diverse and experienced with overcoming hard challenges? Better able to grasp and apply a myriad points of view? Think about it, Miss Tor. Today, someone with simple aiware can understand what any other person says, anywhere on the globe. Right now, in this very generation, we have come full circle. Language has ceased to be any sort of barrier. And our “tower” covers the globe.