Pandora's Brain (4 page)

As he approached his house, Matt reflected that dinner at home had become a solemn affair since the
death of his father. His mother was an undemonstra
tive woman, often wrapped up in her work and not much given to small talk or banter. Her remoteness had naturally been deepened by the tragic loss of her husband.

Like Matt’s father, Sophie had left school aiming for a career as a research scientist. Her first degree would certainly have made this possible, but she and David had already fallen in love. They wanted children and she felt it would be risky to have a family dependent on the ever-precarious budgets of research science. David tried to dissuade her, but she went ahead and trained to be a doctor, and then opted to be a GP rather than a hospital clinician. Being a GP in an established practice gave her the flexibility to experience a full family life, but she found it intellectually constraining, and she was occasionally judgmental about some of her patients. She did not consider herself to be a woman who had made difficult sacrifices, but she gradually became slightly impatient, and prone to occasional caustic comments. Her speech was direct, brisk and clipped. Some of her colleagues and neighbours were intimidated by her, and she did not form new friendships easily. Especially after David’s death, her face in repose had become strained and severe.

Matt was easy-going in most situations, but he was reserved and slightly formal with his mother. Neither she nor Matt considered their relationship a problem, and there was certainly no hostility, but it was functional rather than playful. With David, the house had been lively, brightened by enquiry, games and challenge. Now it was a quiet place.

A group of Matt’s friends from college had organised a skiing trip over the Christmas break. It was a last hurrah before they knuckled down to revising for their final exams in the summer, and everyone was going. Matt had declined the invitation in order to be with his mother over the break: he did not want her to be alone during the first Christmas without Dad.

He walked up the path towards the front door. Physically, it was an attractive house. It was a detached Georgian cottage, set back from a small road which branched off their small town’s high street. From the gate it looked like a toddler’s picture of what a house should be: a short, twisty path leading through empty flowerbeds currently dotted with snow, and past a couple of low leafless fruit trees up to a pastel green door, flanked by two symmetrical 12-pane windows, with three matching windows in the floor above. The face of the house was white plaster, with naked wisteria
branches stretching lazily between the rows of win
dows.
The roof was constructed of period tiles in good con
dition, but daubed with patches of yellow lichen and pale green moss, as well as more dabs of snow. Small windows at both ends of the gable roof indicated the presence of the attic bedroom which ran the length of the building. It looked like a picture postcard cottage, hunkered down for the winter, and waiting patiently for summer to bring back its colour and its finery.

Inside, the house had seen changes down the years, as tastes and fashions evolved and looped back on themselves. Today it had stripped wooden floors with huge rugs, solid, practical furniture and off-white walls. Floor polish was the dominant aroma. The front door opened onto a broad hallway which ended in stairs leading to the bedrooms. Through a door on the left of the hall was an open-plan kitchen
dining room, and a living room
study of the same dimensions lay on the right. At the back of the house, through the dining room, lay a welcoming 30-foot lawn ending in a high Victorian garden wall.

‘Hi darling,’ Sophie called out as he walked through the front door. ‘Good day?’

‘Fine thanks,’ he replied as he put his head round the door of the living room where she was sitting on a broad leather sofa with her hands resting on the keyboard of her laptop. Sophie had been strikingly attractive in her youth, and Matt was aware that people who didn’t know them thought that she and David were an unlikely match. She dressed smartly and conservatively. As usual, she was wearing her steel grey hair in a bun, and with her green eyes and high cheekbones, she was still a handsome, if slightly forbidding woman.

‘How was Simon?’

‘He’s fine. Sends his regards.’ He thought of the conversation with Simon, and the decision it had crystallised. He knew that mentioning it would make his mother think of his dad, which would be uncomfortable for both of them. But it had to be faced sooner or later. He sat down opposite her. ‘He got me thinking about careers again. I think I want to go into neuroscience.’

Sophie closed the lid of her computer and appraised her son. Then she looked away, distracted, and said simply, ‘Well, your father would be very proud.’ He heard the catch in her voice, and hoped he hadn’t brought it up too soon. He leaned forwards, speaking gently.

‘It’s not just because of dad, mum. It’s a fascinating area, and there’s so much progress going on right now.’

Sophie looked at him and smiled sadly. ‘You’re right, darling. It’s a perfectly good idea. It’s just . . . you know . . . memories.’ She took a deep breath and brightened her face. ‘I tell you what. I’ll call your uncle Leo after dinner and see if he has any ideas. Better still, if he has any connections.’

After dinner, ensconced in his bedroom, Matt followed Simon Jones’ suggestion and looked up Ray Kurzweil on
Amazon
, and downloaded his book
‘The Singularity is Near.’
Before starting to read it, he browsed
the book’s reviews. The majority saw Kurzweil as a man with intriguing ideas about the future of humanity, and some even hailed him as an inspirational
prophet of a utopian future. A minority were alienated by this utopian outlook, accusing Kurzweil of champi
oning a cult of technology. These critics pointed out that Kurzweil had been writing about his ideas long
enough for some of his predictions to have become test
able. Some important ones had not come true – such
as the claim that computers would become largely invis
ible by 2010, and would be woven invisibly into clothes and machinery.

As he read the book itself, Matt found himself increasingly conflicted. On the one hand, the claims were extraordinary. The central argument was that the processing power of computers is doubling every 18 months – an observation known
as Moore’s Law –
which means that technological development is accelerating exponentially. As a mathematician, Matt already knew the power of exponential growth: in thirty steps, growth by addition gets you from one to thirty, whereas growth by doubling – exponential growth – gets you to a billion.

Kurzweil argued that the resulting dramatic and accelerating growth in computer power will lead to astonishing changes in humanity: machines will become conscious within decades and shortly afterwards, humans will upload their minds into computers and become immortal. In fact we will become godlike – and all within a generation.

He understood why Kurzweil’s critics found him unpalatable, and indeed the book was infused with an almost religious sense of optimism and purpose.

On the other hand, Matt saw that Kurzweil had responded meticulously to the substantive arguments of his critics. There was no doubt that Kurzweil had thought long and hard about his arguments, and that he was no fool.

Matt took a break from the book by browsing the net, looking for articles and videos on the subjects it covered. He found a definition of transhumanism in a video featuring one of the movement’s founders, Natasha Vita-More. Its opening line was arresting: ‘We have achieved two of the alchemists’ three dreams. We have transmuted the elements and learned to fly. Overcoming death is next!’

Vita-More defined transhumanism a cultural movement that believes we can and should use technology to eliminate ageing, and to enhance our physical, intellectual and psychological capabilities. She claimed that technology will someday grant us the ability to expand our mental abilities and improve our physical form almost without limit.

‘There are hundreds of major initiatives in artificial intelligence (AI) around the world right now,’ she said. ‘The European Union is providing a billion euros to a team in Switzerland to build a working model of a human brain inside a supercomputer. They’ve started a ‘brain race’, and now the American government will spend even more than that on a different approach to the same goal. These are huge sums of money, but even larger amounts are being invested by wealthy individuals and massive corporations like Google, IBM, Facebook and Microsoft. It’s not hard to see why: the competitive advantages of having a super-intelligence at your disposal are enormous. The question is not whether human-level AI will arrive, but when. And the answer is, not long now.’

Matt found that he had stayed up reading much later than he intended. His mother had said goodnight and retired a couple of hours ago. Nevertheless it took him a while to get to sleep after he switched the light off, with all these strange new ideas running around his mind. When sleep did come he dreamed of whole stars and planetary systems being subsumed by swarm intelligences, and communing with each other across the vast expanse of empty space by sending out unimaginable volumes of data, groping towards some incomprehensible shared destiny.

*

As the last light in the house was extinguished, a heavy-set figure in a silver Japanese car with darkened windows scribbled something in a notebook. The car was parked a hundred yards away from Matt’s house, in the dark gap between the pools of light shed by two streetlights. It remained in place for half an hour and then the ignition started and it drove away in the direction of Brighton.

It was back in the same place at 6 am the following morning.

Matt approached parties with a mixture of excitement and dread. He usually ended up having a reasonably good time, getting a bit drunk, having one or two interesting conversations and watching the antics of his more outgoing friends and acquaintances. But parties were not his natural environment: he felt he had no small talk, and he knew that the sort of conversation he did enjoy was a serious turn-off for most of his peers. Left to his own devices he would rather stay at home and play video games and browse the web. Fortunately for Matt, Alice would not leave him to his own devices.

Spending time with Alice was by far the best thing about parties. A year into their relationship, he still sometimes pinched himself to think that she was his girlfriend. She was everything he thought he wasn’t: stylish, gregarious, popular, attractive. Not just attractive; she was beautiful, with a perfectly symmetrical face, natural blonde hair, azure blue eyes, full red lips, and classic curves. Whether she was dressed in jeans and a baggy sweater like tonight or in a little black dress, Alice turned heads, and Matt wasn’t in the least ashamed of his pride in being associated with her.

Like Carl, Matt had often wondered what Alice saw in him. She could have her pick of the most popular boys from school, and yet she had chosen him. If someone asked her why, she would pull a typical Alice face, a mischievous look with one arched eyebrow and then say: ‘because he’s smart, he’s cute, he’s kind, and he makes me laugh.’ Matt was too inexperienced to know that this was all true, and a powerful combination. He also didn’t know that his killer punch was his air of slight vulnerability. Not physical weakness: he was fit and wiry – a keen mountain biker when at home and a promising rower during his first two years at Cambridge. Rather, it was his shyness which conveyed a certain emotional vulnerability. Girls wanted to take care of him.

Alice had appeared at Matt’s school in the fifth year, when her father moved the family to the area in pursuit of a substantial property deal for his growing design and construction business. Her arrival at school was like a boulder dropped into a placid lake: the splash was dramatic and the ripples disturbed the equilibrium of the place for weeks. All the boys were smitten, and those who thought they stood a chance of dating her started jostling for opportunities to speak to her. Matt and Carl excluded themselves from this group without a second thought, and enjoyed the spectacle of their more self-confident peers making fools of themselves. Some of the girls were piqued by jealousy, but this dissipated quickly as it turned out that Alice was as good-natured and unpretentious as she was attractive.

Matt was surprised and pleased when Alice approached him a year or so later, asking for his help with her schoolwork.

‘This is going to sound like an awful
cliché
,’ she said, ‘but I need some serious help with my maths. I need a good maths A level to study architecture at Brighton, and right now I’m struggling. Please Max, I’d be really, really grateful – you’re the top maths student in the whole school, and everyone knows you’re completely brilliant.’

Her tone was flirtatious, which Matt assumed was pure manipulation. He was perfectly happy to be manipulated. They spent an evening each week after school going over the material she had covered in class, and looking ahead to what would come up the following week. He was impressed by how seriously she took the work. ‘Numbers just don’t speak to me’ was her frequent complaint, but she was putting genuine effort into trying to make them communicate. Her hard work paid off, and she scored a creditable B in the exams. When the results were announced she shrieked with delight, and gave Matt a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek, to the visible envy of several boys who were watching.

When Matt asked her whether she had applied to Cambridge she laughed.

‘Yeah, right! I mean obviously Cambridge is one of the top universities for architecture as well as pretty much everything else, but only geniuses like you go there. No, I want to go to Brighton. That way I can work with my dad at weekends on his construction projects: it will give me the chance to put the theory from my course into practice, and it will help keep my student loan manageable. Also I can make sure he doesn’t murder my mum: they drive each other absolutely nuts when they’re alone together.’

Matt hadn’t expected to see much of Alice after that. They both had busy and exciting gap years, and then they would see each other occasionally at parties during university holidays, or on the street in the village. She always seemed genuinely pleased to see him, and interested to know how he was getting on at Cambridge. He was polite and solicitous in return, but he quickly ran out of things to say and somehow the conversations rapidly fizzled out, or were drowned by the many rival demands on her attention.

Then came the fateful party at Jemma’s house, the summer before last. Alice had recently broken up with a boyfriend that nobody much liked, and Carl and Matt were sitting under a tree in Jemma’s garden, speculating about who Alice would be most likely to date next, when the hostess joined them and asked nonchalantly what mischief they were up to. To Matt’s amazement, Carl volunteered that Matt was preparing himself to go and ask Alice for a date. As Matt began to splutter in protest, Jemma fixed him with a sidelong look and said she thought that was a very good idea. Matt looked from Jemma to Carl and back, and decided to turn the tables on them. He stood up, made a show of straightening his shirt sleeves, and marched across to the table where Alice was pouring herself a glass of wine.

‘Hey Alice,’ he said, ‘how’s it going?’

‘Hello genius,’ she said with a devastating smile. ‘Really good, thanks. How are you?’

‘Um, well, I’m on a bit of a mission, actually. My so-called best friend Carl has just dared me to come over and ask you an embarrassing question. He did it in front of Jemma to shame me into accepting the challenge.’

That was when the conversation took a bizarre turn which took Matt’s breath away. Alice lowered her head and favoured Matt with a conspiratorial grin.

‘Now that sounds promising. Are you finally going to ask me out?’

Matt was more than a little flustered. He had intended to make a big joke of the situation, to spend a few moments laughing about it with Alice, and then head back to Carl and Jemma and keep them guessing for a few minutes, by way of punishment.

‘Uh, well, yes, that was it, actually. Of course I didn’t actually . . .’

Alice put her drink back down on the table and turned to face him squarely. ‘About time too! I can’t imagine why it’s taken you so long to get round to it. I was afraid I was going to have to do it myself.’

Matt was in full retreat, hands held in front of him in surrender, starting to walk backwards. Alice was having none of it. Before he could escape, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth.

In the months that followed, Matt got to know and admire Alice in ways he would never have imagined. (As well as in ways he certainly had.) She was fascinated by design and construction, and immensely knowledgeable about architecture. These were subjects he had not previously taken much of an interest in, but he was infected by her enthusiasm. They visited the Brighton Pavilion together and she told him not to pick up one of the free audio guides as she would do the job for him. She took him to see the only complete copy of the Vatican’s Sistene Chapel outside Italy – housed in a most unlikely suburban church near Worthing. She visited him in Cambridge several times during term, and the intense pleasure she derived from simply walking around and through the colleges made him see his temporary home in a new light.

Despite enjoying each other’s company and being compatible lovers, they were both aware that there was something provisional about the relationship during its early months: they were both holding something back. They were in different parts of the country for much of the year, and they knew that big changes lay ahead in their lives which would make it hard for them to stay together. It was unlikely that Matt would stay in Sussex after college, and they both knew that long-distance relationships are hard to maintain.

The death of Matt’s father changed this, as it changed many things. Alice felt Matt’s shock and pain keenly. She wanted to protect him, and she made an effort to spend as much time with him as her studies and her work with her father would allow. Matt was in something of a daze, but he was grateful for the support. Between Alice’s visits to Cambridge – where she was of course a big hit with his student friends – and his visits home to support his mother, they managed to spend most weekends together. Their affair was evolving from an exciting romance into a deeper and potentially longer-lasting relationship of love.

He was roused from his reverie by a gentle poke in the ribs from Alice as they walked into the house.

‘So whose place is this again?’ he asked. The parties they went to were normally hosted by one of Alice’s friends: she had a lot more of them than Matt.

‘I told you, it’s Ned’s. I only met him recently
because he was away at boarding school, but his dad has been doing some business with mine this year. Do you ever listen to a thing I say?’

‘I hang on your every word, as you well know.’

Alice flashed him a brilliant smile. ‘You damn well better. Let’s get a drink.’

Ned’s parents’ place was large and stylish. A five -bedroom detached house, based on a 16th-century cottage but considerably extended over the years, set in a couple of acres of lovingly-maintained garden, and with open fields beyond. Matt deposited a bottle of wine on the long white marble-effect worktop in the bright, minimalist open-plan kitchen and poured a glass for Alice from another bottle which was already open. For himself he opened the bottle of beer which he had also brought. They – mostly Alice – said hello to various friends and acquaintances as they made their way out of the kitchen and through the double French windows into the garden. It was a crisp, fresh night, with a good smattering of stars in the clear sky.

‘So did I pass the test tonight?’ Matt asked, as they walked across the lawn. ‘I didn’t put my foot in it or anything?’

‘Of course, silly. They think you are marvellous.’ Alice trilled the
‘r’
in affectionate mockery of her wannabe actress mother. ‘They can’t wait to see you again. Mum thinks it’s great that you stayed home to be with your mother this Christmas instead of going off skiing with the Cambridge lot. And you know what? I agree. Although of course I’m not a disinterested party! They’re dying to ask your mum over for dinner, but they’re holding back because they’re so wonderfully tactful and sensitive.’

Matt noted the affection underlying Alice’s playful sarcasm towards her parents. ‘Might be a good idea to postpone that as long as you can. Mum isn’t terribly social, as you know . . . even at the best of times.’ He gave Alice a look that was more freighted with meaning than he intended.

‘Rubbish. Your mum is great,’ Alice said, gently, ‘but I am very aware that now is not the best of times.’ She put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. She drew back and looked him in the eyes to check he was OK. ‘Don’t worry. I will protect her from my wonderful but somewhat predatory parents.’ She smiled conspiratorially. ‘I’m sure we can find other entertainments to distract them with.’

‘We could show them a few
transhumanist
videos on
YouTube
?’ Matt suggested, steering the conversation away from what he felt was undeserved praise, and at the same time cracking a joke to let Alice know that he was OK. The loss of his father was an ever-present source of pain, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Not now.

‘Funny guy,’ she said with a smile, indicating that she understood. She followed his cue about the change of subject. ‘That’s the futurist stuff that you and Carl have been obsessing about this week?’

‘I wouldn’t call it obsessing. But it’s true that you won’t find much about it on Pinterest.’

Alice punched him lightly on the arm. ‘Stop making out like I’m some feeble-minded slave to fashion and gossip. Just because you were the smartest guy in school, doesn’t give you the right. . .’

‘Hardly,’ he grinned. ‘You must be confusing me with Carl.’

‘Not bloody likely! He’s not my handsome boyfriend.’
She linked arms with him. ‘He’s just some nerd who distracts my handsome boyfriend with wacky notions. So come on, what’s it all about?’

‘Well,’ Matt began hesitantly, ‘the basic idea is that in a few decades – maybe before the middle of this century – we will upload our minds into computers and . . . well, live forever.’

Alice looked at him quizzically. ‘You mean we all just get absorbed into some kind of massive video game?’

‘You could put it like that, yes. But one hell of a video game.’

Alice frowned. ‘But then we wouldn’t be human. It wouldn’t be real.’

‘What’s real?’ Matt asked, smiling at Alice’s expression. He gestured and nodded casually at the house and garden. ‘This world as you and I see it isn’t real. It’s an illusion created by our brains, using data fed to it by our eyes and ears. That grass isn’t really green. The colour is just part of an elaborate model of reality – a representation of what is really out there, made up by our brains. Your skin, lovely as it is, isn’t really a solid substance: it’s mostly empty space, with a collection of tiny particles dotted around in it. When my hand touches your skin the pressure you feel is really the repulsion of one set of sub-atomic particles by another. Assuming there is anything there at all, and the whole thing isn’t just a dream I’m having.’ He paused, realising this probably wasn’t the sort of conversation Alice expected at a party. ‘A very nice dream at the moment, by the way,’ he added.

‘Wow, you really have been falling down the rabbit hole, haven’t you. Have you been watching
The Matrix
again?’