Hal Clement - Answer

“I’m beginning to get an idea about all this, but it will take a while to work it out. You gentlemen may as well go and relax; you can’t help me, and it will certainly take some time. I’ll call you if and when I get what I think is the answer.”

Rudd and Wren looked at each other, and then at the old technician; and being able to think of nothing better, they followed his suggestion. There were recreation facilities in the station, of course, and they made use of them for some hours. They ate, and slept — or at least retired, though neither got much sleep — ate again, and finally settled down to a routine of three-dimensional billiards alternated with periods of unrestrained speculation on the nature of Vainser’s inspiration. Beyond the obvious fact that it had to do with the problem which he had taken from the table, they got nowhere.

It was fully twenty hours before Rudd’s personal call came clanging on the corridor bells. The two wasted no time in transferring themselves to the presence of Vainser. He greeted them rather absently, and for several moments did not speak in response to the inquiring expression on their faces. At last, however, frowning at the papers before him, he began his explanation.

“I am far from sure that this is correct,” were his opening words, “for I cannot be absolutely certain that the computer would behave this way under the circumstances I have outlined here; but it seems at least reasonable.” He looked up. “Rudd, have you ever considered the problem of building a machine that could repair itself? How would you go about it?” The big technician frowned.

“It would be — complicated. Aside from your primary-purpose machine — let’s say that’s an electric motor, for purposes of illustration — you’d need an attachment which could weld, and wind wire on cores, replace brushes, and do all a repairman can. It would also need some sort of guide, such as sets of blueprints and photoelectric scanners, of templates, so that it could do the right thing when something in the motor went wrong. As I say, it would be complicated.”

“And what would it do when one of its scanners, or welders, or some other part of the repair mechanism broke down?”

“You’d need a second similar attachment — ”

“With templates for the first. And in order to take care of matters if the second went out, the first would have to have templates for the second. And that would solve matters perfectly, except that each set of templates would have to include everything in the other repair gadget — including its templates. I imagine you see the slight practical difficulty.”

Rudd pulled an earlobe in meditative fashion, and nodded slowly. “I see your point. It is the old picture-within-a-picture problem, worked backward. But what has that to do with the present situation?” Vainser smiled wryly, and indicated the problem-graphs on which he had been working.

“I spent quite a while on these, trying to work out an answer without the aid of the machine. I already had an inkling of what had happened, so I was quicker than I might otherwise have been. Really, I don’t know why it didn’t occur to us sooner. The trouble is, the ‘circuit’ having the characteristics demanded by this set of data — a problem-solving circuit, in other words — is identical with the electronic setup in one of the tubes of this machine. Obviously! After all, that’s what the machine’s for, and whether the human brain really works that way or not, it’s certainly a possible solution. The thing is really a vicious circle; if the machine is capable of solving that problem at all, it will get that answer — one identical with its own setup. If it isn’t, we simply get nothing.

“You remember, once a given tube is in full use, it acts as a ‘memory,’ a set of templates, if you like, from our previous illustration, while one of its neighbors integrates. This time, each integration simply puts each tube in total equilibrium — and the next one took over. That’s why it took several seconds for anything to happen. Thirty thousand tubes charged to the limit, and trying to find more — naturally, as soon as the last tube had completed its integration, it tried to pass the load on to another, as usual, and the whole system began to overload. It’s a thing that never happened before, but there are safety devices, put in when the station was first started, which cut off all electronic currents in the place when such an event occurs. I had forgotten about them, and they don’t record; so there was no indication of their having operated — except the obvious fact that they had! When you desensitized the eye that was causing the trouble, you put a point of resistance in an otherwise superconducting circuit; and within a few seconds the load petered out, and the lights came back on. Simple?”

“Simple,” agreed Rudd. “But where does it leave us? Can we get any further with Wren’s business?”

“I’m sure we can,” said Vainser after a moment’s thought. “It’s just a matter of avoiding problems whose solutions are too similar to individual tube circuits; and we certainly ought to be able to do that. I think, Wren, that we had better skip the present problem — or take it as solved, if you prefer — and get on with whatever comes next.”

“I guess you’re right,” replied the psychologist. “Although I am unfamiliar with the interior of the computer, your analogies have given me what is probably an adequate picture of the situation. We will go on to imagination. There are a number of interesting experiments on record, dealing with eidetic imagery, lightning calculators, and similar phenomena, which should prove of value.”

The work progressed once more, but even more slowly. To the evermounting problem of graphic presentation of data was added that of avoiding particular solutions. They worked out what was in theory a simple method for this; they integrated each new method with all that had gone before, instead of treating it separately. The diagrams which resulted on the answer films were horrific in their complexity, as might be expected; and Wren had to spend a large amount of the time in studying these, trying to make sense out of them. Still, progress was made.

Emotions were dealt with, and, to Rudd’s unfeigned astonishment, handled on a combined chemical and mechanical basis. Habits had fallen under the same assault as conditioning; attitudes and ideals, slightly more resistant, had been added to the list; the ability of the human mind to generalize from particular incidents had proved easy to add to the running integration, though Wren suspected it might have been more troublesome by itself.

The stock of data which the psychologist had brought with him was growing low; the study was nearing the end of its planned course. There were a few of the human mind’s highest capabilities to be included — constructive imagination, artistic appreciation and ability, and similar characteristics; and these were making more trouble than all the earlier problems together. Without the practice furnished by those earlier jobs, Vainser and Rudd would probably never have succeeded in preparing this last material for use. Wren himself was little help; he was spending most of his time with the most recent of the answer sheets. They wrestled with the business for an entire week, Vainser letting subordinates handle the routine administrative work of the station instead of taking time out to do it himself; and in the end they were only half satisfied with the result.

They pried the psychologist forcibly away from the sheet which had been absorbing his entire attention, and put him to work with them; and only after three more days did the men feel that the thing could be given to the machine. Surprisingly enough, the material had boiled down sufficiently to make possible its presentation to a single eye. The previous total sheet alone was placed beneath another.