The Days of Peleg (53 page)

Shem slowly came out of his deep think, and turned to Peleg.

“You are absolutely correct,” he began slowly. “We must find a way of instructing our devices.”

Peleg accepted his admission graciously and Shem continued.

“You told me that when you were visiting Manco Chavin, he received a coded message made of knotted threads.”

Peleg nodded.

“Imagine,” Shem continued with increasing confidence, “if each of our devices, (the saw, the sewer, and so on) were able to
read
such a message.”

Peleg started to interrupt, but Shem pressed forward, obviously thinking furiously as he spoke.

“If a saw had a gauge that could be set to different lengths; for example, it could be set to cut one meter boards, or two meter boards, or any number of possible settings. Perhaps our threads could be fed into this device, and when it registered ‘three’ knots, it could set itself to ‘three meters’, or a certain joint could be set to forty degrees when the threads had ‘forty’ transcribed on them.”

Peleg allowed this possibility to sink into his mind, but he also watched Shem who was speaking slowly and deliberately. He had the feeling that Shem was thinking hard; not because he was trying to figure out a solution, but rather because he was having difficulty explaining—with simplicity—something he already knew. Peleg decided it was because the language was new to Shem.

“Each device could have many numerical settings,” Shem continued, “and different threads could be configured to control them as needed.”

Shem turned to Peleg and smiled.

“It is very remarkable of you to notice this need for information,” he said. “You make this much easier for me.”

“What is the point of this exercise?” asked Peleg.

“Why does it need a point?” Shem looked defiantly at Peleg’s scowl, but answered his question.

“I am constructing a model for an analogy which I will present later,” Shem said.

“But why are we speculating on such an obviously impractical creation? No one would ever build something like this just because they can. It just isn’t that critical to assemble items without using people.”

“No one?” asked Shem. “I have personally seen such assembly systems.” He smiled. “But they weren’t used to built ships.”

Peleg sat stunned as he considered the possibility of such a mechanism actually existing. Shem saw it in his face, but continued resolutely.

“So we have determined that we could feed information into each device using a variation of
quipu
threads,” he said. “So now I want to consider the possibility of using these threads to determine which kind of ship we wanted to build. We could have a ‘
quipu
library’, full of instructions for various ships, and all that would be required to build a given vessel would be to feed the right strings into our devices.”

Peleg’s mind began to swirl in on itself as he tried unsuccessfully to comprehend the incredible complexities of such a creation.

“It is time for our first observation,” Shem announced. “I’m glad you saw the need for instruction, because I am most concerned with this. If the goal is to assemble our ship without human intervention, this goal
is
definitely impossible.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to judge whether or not something was impossible?” Peleg asked, rather impudently.

“Well,” said Shem, “we can here, because at some point there is a decision making process. Either someone is making decisions during construction, or they are making decision while building the
quipu
threads. Either way, a person is needed to create the instructions.

He grinned.

“Unless you want to design mechanisms for
braiding
the threads,” he said. “But that would require an
incredible
intelligence—unless you didn’t care what kind of ship was produced.”

Peleg closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I have two more simple steps, and then we are done with our thought experiment,” said Shem after a brief silence.

“I wish to give a name to our completed mechanism. Let us call it, simply, a ‘Ship-Builder’.”

Peleg nodded (with his eyes still closed) as Shem continued.

“Now, I want to imagine a completely different assembly mechanism that
assembles
Ship-Builders! A Ship-Builder
Builder
! Raw material is assembled to automatically create the mechanisms we have been discussing. Which means that in addition to the instructions fed to our devices, we now must include instructions on how to build our devices.”

Peleg groaned. It couldn’t get any worse than this. He felt as if his brain were preparing to shut down. It was really too enormous to contemplate.

“I suppose that you going to tell me you have seen
this
kind of mechanism,” he said, sarcastically, his eyes still closed.

“No, I haven’t,” admitted Shem. “There is no way any man-made creation like that can exist. It would break down too quickly, and, in addition to everything else, you would need separate devices to repair it automatically—and something
that
complex falls into disrepair faster than it can be built.”

Peleg was glad to hear it, but he had the strange feeling that Shem was speaking from personal experience. He re-opened his eyes.

“One final requirement for our thought experiment is this,” Shem continued, followed by a deep breath.

“Our Ship-Builder
Builder
must, itself, be a completely functioning sea-vessel. By this I mean that it must look and function like your
Urbat
, yet it must be able to go anywhere there are raw materials, collect them, and assemble other Ship-Builders wherever it travels!”

All of the visualizations in Peleg’s mind finally self-destructed in a kaleidoscope of ship parts and
quipu
threads. All thinking ceased, and Peleg felt a mental vertigo in his head as his mind teetered back from the brink of incomprehensibility.

There was silence for a moment as Shem apparently refused to speak, waiting for Peleg to respond. Eventually, he did.

“You said this was to be an analogy,” said Peleg, finally, stammering very slightly. “What could possibly be comparable to this thought experiment?”

Shem opened his mouth, and paused, obviously for effect.

“First, a question.”

He looked into Peleg’s eyes.

“If someone
were
to construct such a thing, would you agree that they would possess incredible intelligence?”

“Of course!” stated Peleg impatiently, nodding.

Shem nodded with him and proceeded to answer.

“The analogy is this: This ‘vessel’, this ‘Ship-Builder
Builder
’, which automates the construction of Ship-Builders is a human being,” Shem stated calmly, choosing a metaphor over a simile. “In fact, it corresponds to all life. Every living thing collects raw materials and replicates itself.”

He looked at Peleg’s face, where a look of confusion that bordered on glaring was slowly spreading.

“The only adjustment we need to make with our analogy,” hurried Shem, “is to point out that our Ship-Builder
Builder
, in order to save space, assembles miniature vessels which eventually enlarge to full size. This means, of course, that they must also contain instructions for growth as well as the differing engineering and architectural requirements for changing dimensions.”

He glanced at Peleg’s tortured face.

“For example, the load-bearing requirements for a knee are much different for a child than an adult.”

He waited again, refusing to speak until Peleg responded.

Peleg had been prepared for a major confrontation of reason and logic, but had not been prepared for anything like this. However, he frantically assembled his thoughts and finally found an error in Shem’s thinking.

“You can
not
,” he began slowly, “confuse inanimate matter with biological life.
Lifeforce
exhibits a much different order, and to create a comparison is simply not …”

Peleg stopped when he realized that Shem had, once again, gone into one of his laughing fits. As before, Shem began to have breathing difficulties, and Peleg’s irritation suddenly flared in rage.

“You ignorant dirt dweller!” Peleg shouted. “You can’t just
laugh
away reason!”

Shem tried to calm Peleg with slow, downward movements of his palm, while attempting to regain his breath. Peleg recoiled slightly, as he realized he shouldn’t make his captor too angry.

But Shem seemed unaffected.

“As I recall,” he began, once his breathing had stabilized, “you and the
Citadel
were dedicated to the removal of all superstition, myth, and unreasonable thinking, correct?”

Peleg inhaled loudly through his nose and nodded.

“Then why do you insist that biological matter has some form of mystical properties that exempt it from the rules which govern the rest of the physical universe?”

Peleg’s look of anger turned into confusion as he waited for Shem to continue.

“The elements in our bodies, and all life, are the same as the elements of the dust of the earth. They are subject to the same conditions as all matter. They require energy for motion, mechanisms for animation, and instructions for assembly. The only difference is that the engineering is on a much smaller scale.”

Peleg remained silent.

“In fact, the only difference between the dust of the Earth and life itself is in its arrangement. Somehow,
it
has been assembled to perform the tasks of our Ship-Builder
Builder
with very little error. And to suggest that biological matter is exempt from the rules of the universe, and can somehow arrange itself with the help of some mystical
Lifeforce
is the epitome of myth and superstition! Design requires
intent
, and
that
requires decision-making and intelligence!”

Peleg was reeling inside, but he wasn’t quite crushed. Shem pushed forward relentlessly.

“If nothing else, life requires animation. It must move, fly, swim, or grow of its own accord. The toy duck in the tunnel required the force of the child’s arm to move it. The toy duck’s sound required a mechanism driven by the force of the turning wheels. All animation requires force, an object against which to apply the force, and a mechanism for converting the reaction into motion. It makes no difference whether the object is a toy duck or a living duck—the same laws apply. And if you believe that the toy duck requires engineering, but the living duck does not, then I suggest it is
you
who live in a fantasy world of superstition and myth.”

Shem shook his head in exasperated sarcasm.

“Just add ‘
Lifeforce
’ and dirt starts moving all by itself.” He spoke in a boyish, singsong voice which was decidedly juvenile.

Peleg searched his mind frantically for any random defensive thoughts that might help. He finally arrived at one which would restore the conversation to objectivity.

“Your speculation is very impressive,” he began carefully but defiantly, “but it doesn’t meet the demands or criteria of
Knowledge
.”

“Knowledge?” Shem nodded slowly. “From your Citadel?”

Peleg nodded forcefully.

Shem looked back at him with an irritating smile in his eyes.

“Give me the definition of
Knowledge
from your catechism,” he asked quietly.

Peleg smiled, glad that this conversation was returning to known territory.

“
Knowledge
,” he recited, “is comprised of two categories. There is
Objective
Knowledge, which is derived from empirical observation based on the senses, and there is
Deductive
Knowledge, which is derived from mathematics and logic. All else is meaningless speculation.”

He nodded triumphantly, intending that his emphasis on the word ‘speculation’ be an obvious reference to Shem’s analogy.

“I see,” said Shem. “Very good.”

But Shem’s expression suddenly changed into one of confusion.

“That definition seems very comprehensive,” he stated slowly with a slight nod of his head. “But can you please tell me which category the definition
itself
falls into? Is the proof of this principle based on Objective or Deductive Knowledge?”

At first Peleg was taken aback, but slowly he realized that the authority for his definition did not fit into either category. The
definition
was not the result of objective observation, nor could it be arrived at by rigorous calculations. By his own logic, he was being forced into accepting that the philosophy by which his entire life had been led was nothing more than meaningless speculation—which he (and the
Citadel
) had fought so hard against.

Peleg suddenly felt dizzy.

Shem may have noticed, but he hurried to conclude the point he had planned from the beginning.

“As you stated earlier, only someone of immense intellect could construct such a system, and I must adjust that assessment by saying that only someone of
unlimited
intelligence and planning could assemble, not only life, but the world, the universe, and the elements without which nothing would exist.”

He now looked at Peleg with a touch of compassion.

“There is a third category of Knowledge,” he spoke softly. “It is Inference.”

His large hand reached across the table and rested on Peleg’s arm.

“We may not ever witness or calculate the existence of such a designer, but it
is
logical—by inference—that if such a system exists, it requires a creator: therefore, a creator exists.”

His hand squeezed slightly.

“That is who
we
call the
Creator
.” His voice rose slightly. “The
Creator
who pre-planned and assembled all that exists, and who brought forth all life on this planet, and who knows all that is knowable!”

Peleg continued to sit in his stupor, listening to Shem speak. As much as he abhorred such thinking, it was strangely compelling to consider a higher intelligence—one that might give purpose and meaning to life. Against his better judgment, he found himself strangely comforted at the prospect—and immediately moved to squelch such subjective reactions.