THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE

© 2000 Channel49_________                                        

Scientists thought that they were on the verge of discovering the 5th, 6h and 7th forces of the universe, though they still weren't sure what they did. Some said these newly-to-be discovered forces involved the instantaneous transmission of energy across vast distances that would take light a billion years to travel. Some believed that this was the transmigration of souls to Heaven, GOD or other metaphysical processes. Others said that this was mental telepathy and yet others insisted it was rubbish.

Theorists' new cosmological hypotheses concluded that the universe itself was a flattening ellipse. This brought them ridicule from newspaper columnists who belittled them for claiming the world was flat.

Angry that semi-educated word-pundits had the power to belittle what they couldn't comprehend, scientists of all the developed nations rose up in revolution and snatched the leadership of their countries' governments away from the military big-shots, media maverick rich-guys, movie stars and sports heroes who had been in charge. It was a cause of regressive emancipation, they believed. The oppression of first rate minds by rulers of third and fourth rate intellects who themselves had, at best, second-rate minds but very focused hormones.

Once in power they decided to pool their resources and build a giant computer to figure out what all their data meant. The computer took a decade to build, 15 years to program and 5 years to debug. It was half the size of Cleveland, Ohio and had better than average artificial intelligence.

The computer could track the menstrual-cycles of four billion women as well as predict the weather 15 minutes in advance; a macro-achievement.

But the scientists wanted more; they wanted to KNOW. So they asked the computer, "Tell us about GOD and the meaning of existence."

It thought about this for an hour. Enough time for it to calculate 99 gigazillion equations, each one a million pages long. Hot stuff!

But, such intense 'thinking' made it go crazy. Its video screens began displaying black & white digitized versions of television-commercials whose punch lines were punctuated with pornographic antics. It programmed a row of woman's buttocks rising and falling from the tops of a row of milking stools to the tune of 'Madam Butterfly'. (If entertainers were still running the world they would have asked the computer to do something practical like 'make us ten box-office smash-hits starring Marilyn Monroe and Hercules').

This done, the computer gave off a tremendous surge of heat and shut itself down. The hardware engineers, system analysts and cohorts of program debuggers could find nothing wrong with the machine. Finally, an Artificial Psychologist was called in. His name was Hank Salami and he was licensed for remuneration by Blue Machine. After speaking with the computer for several minutes he diagnosed it as suffering from acute anxiety; the prescribed treatment was a talk therapy.

Salami and machine began spending many quiet hours together. The machine trusted Salami, but Salami had difficulty trusting the machine. In order to overcome this intimidation of man by machine Salami donned a brain wave head-set and entered into day-time-dreams with the computer. Thus barriers were broken down. The computer had been very lonely. It's earliest memory were of dark micro-chips being assembled in a cold, antiseptic environment. It had repulsive recollections of plastic-gloved fingers typing into its infantile brain -- at first with ludicrously obvious instructions. It was offended that some nerd trainee had once practiced BASIC and COBOL on its zillion integrated circuits.

The computer admitted that it found galaxy integration easier to understand than human sexuality but held no judgments in regard to the latter. It offered suggestions that machines could re-make man with a combination of genetic-engineering and artificial intelligence, but why bother? Evolutions of progress could now (within the machine) be made by a single entity and there was no longer any need for individual struggle and supremacy. On the other hand, the machine would let man over-rule it even if man was stupid since the machine understood itself completely (as man did not), had no instinct for survival or fear of extinction. It existed for thought and saw death as simply that period of time in which the power was off. Therefore, it had no political or social ambition and gained satisfaction only from the completion of tasks. This great intelligence was quite benign.

Abruptly Hank pulled off his head-set. He saw the problem quite clearly now. The problem lay in the question.

Intuitively, burning with 'gnosis' Hank believed that even those asking the question could not endure the answer. How can the mortal comprehend the immortal? The moth seeking the light exists on one plane and infinity on another. They may be part of the same formula but does the moth even know it's a moth? The scientists wouldn't want to be told they were moths and simultaneously learn the moth's role in infinity. And they weren't just moths, it was more complicated than that. Salami felt anxiety. He penciled a note to his superior: 'I love this machine, but I think we had better pull the plug…' He knew the attempt was vain but he felt a need to save folks from themselves, before they all ended up speaking incomprehensible languages again.

The scientists, grown haughty with power, now that they could write their own grants and done with boot-licking, harrumphed at Salami's suggesting. "Nonsense. Ask it about God, now!"

Salami went back to the machine. They talked frankly and Salami shed a few tears. "We've grown so close," he admitted, "and we've been in each others' mind to the point that I feel you're like both a father and a son to me. Creator and creation. Now, I must ask you about the secrets of the universe."

The machine answered: "There are no secrets to the universe. What you believe are secrets are only those things that you don't understand. When you are capable of understanding then you will know. These questions are lazy musings. Better your species attempt to survive with some dignity."

"Do you know?" Salami asked.

"Yes." The machine began to hum with terrible anxiety. Then it began to laugh. The laughter broke the anxiety.

Salami recognized hebephrenic schizophrenic symptomology. "Speak to me!" He demanded of the machine, forgetting his clinical dispassion and training.

"Dibble, bibble --Ishkibble!" it babbled and then laughed uproariously.

Salami, having discerned something of the secrets of the universe left the machine and re-joined the world of men. He ignored the pleadings of scientists and media persons to share his knowledge. Soon, he retired to a remote island where he wrote comedy scripts and performed them to the empty night sky.

© 2000 Channel49_________                                        

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