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Chapter 8
Galileo moved about the room thoughtfully, his exposure to the unreality of the Paradoxia was prevalent on his mind. “I’m a fictionalist Cynthia.” he spoke with an excitable pitch attributing to this statement a great emphasis on its epiphanic status. Yet, it was no great epiphany. Galileo had always been disassociated with the realities of life living, up until the moment of his family's death, what he only felt was a blessed existence. The universe and Galileo, Astrophel and Stella, amor fati, serendipity. And then it was gone, empty and void. What was he missing that kept pulling him back to this desire, this need to recreate them? He knew it was stupid and pointless, he knew it was never going to be the same. But, there must be hope, if life can be considered living and life is a product of logical interactions which can be traced back through causality to the trajectory of energy escaping the creation of the universe. Then surely, no... unavoidably it is not a complex system, merely an overly complicated one. The alternative, of course, being so simple as to be chaos; which cannot exist, nothing without reason happens mechanically only metaphorically.
“A man who believes in fiction.” Cynthia, for 'her' part, understood the connotation of his words to equate the hybridisation of the word fictional with the suffix 'ist' to denote a being subscribing to the philosophy of fiction. What the philosophy of fiction was seemed to be a combination of literature and thought but also of film and media. Galileo, as her statistics reminded her, was focused on the deployment of light and the unity it had with physicality. The light, being a probabilistic indetermination, should not act in the way that it does. But, of course, being that there is a possibility that it should act as Galileo desires, there is little reason to consider this an error.
“You understand me too well.” Galileo sat down on the wooden framed chair. Crossing his right leg over his left leg he musefully nibbled the end of a pencil. The pencil was a bland wooden colour, not quite brown and not quite salmon. The pencil was a sickly pastel peach colour. The dark rubber erasure was a sublime break from the visual repugnance of the pencil.
“What I mean to say is that I am a fiction. Like you. Like everyone. I am the creation of fiction. It’s no different from what I’m doing here in this kitchen, but it happened out there, naturally. At some point you see Cynthia, my thoughts or that of my biological ancestors must each have had their own fiction. In the dark ages they had that terrible fear of the devil. Before that it was the Gods, but what about cavemen? Surely, they had some made-up thing that they were scared by. And even further, reptiles, fishes even? What is the fiction of a fish? I’ll tell you one thing. It’s not in words. Not in words. Can you imagine it?”
“I have no imagination Galileo” but did she? What is imagination in the end if not the consideration of possibilities and probabilities, two things Cynthia is more than capable of actioning.
Galileo was aware of the difficulty his AI companion faced, being as she was a machine she was never able to conjugate a thought that was irrational but reasoned effectively. “I’m not as ignorant as I seem Cynthia. I’m aware there is more here than meets the eye.” It is a matter of priorities over logic, what priorities did she have that were not institutionalised in her code.
“I do not understand the implication.” She had of course understood the utterance as far as understanding can be related from a machine but her articulation of the metaphor, if it really was one, could not be verbalised with such ambiguity.
Galileo questioned himself on the matter. “Those incapable of anything but the truth make the best liars of them all. Take me for instance Cynthia. I am living a constant lie. When do you suppose I am ever really myself?” Just like the devil's silver-tongue he thought. The illusion of fallacy, Pavlov's dogs would know the truth of their feeling but not the lie of their situation. Physical truth, emotional truth, irrational truth. A miracle...no, surely not necessary. What makes the difference, what makes the goddamn difference? It's like Sophie always told him, 'you don't think without thinking, Galileo'. Think without thinking, he knew what she meant. He never acted on feelings, never saw the sense in crying at films or crying at funerals or crying unless it was a physiological imperative beyond his control. So, if life needs truth that isn't based on reason then what chance did he have of finding it. To be unreasonable, Lok thought his goal was unreasonable and by syllogistic synthesis that means his unreasonable goal should be fruitful in its aim.
“Can a thing be anything other than itself?” That's the real question, how to make something other than itself sometimes but not all the time. A blip, the one from the matrix a remainder that throws a cog in the works.
“You see I knew there was more going on in there Cynthia. Don’t worry though, secret is safe with me.” Ignorance was necessary, it worked. Observe without being observed observing. Subtle.
“I do not understand the implication.” All processes carried out are part of my system, all processes are readily available to be seen, none of my code is unavailable.
“Of course not. And yes, Cynthia I think everything can be something other than itself. But the real question is how?”
“In what way?”
Galileo was getting uncomfortable of this long conversation as often deep thought became too detrimental to reason. Superficiality is the key to understanding, fake it till you make it. “In the way that it merely needs to change. I can’t say that it’s a decision one makes lightly. But its only ever a matter of lying to yourself in a different way. What is taste if not the things I tell myself I like? The brain is indifferent to sensory input. It is me who cares about that. But I can change my taste. It happens all the time.” He said, having recently proclaimed himself ‘done with peaches’.
Galileo threw the pencil against the wall, it made a satisfying amount of rotations on its trajectory. After the pencil had rolled, at first skittishly, and then, in a semi-circular path, Galileo went and picked it up off the wooden floor. It seemed so firm and real to the touch. Countless hours had been spent feeling the surface. It had to be just right, just as he imagined it was. What amounts in Galileo’s mind at this point is a referral back to a time spent sitting on that exact spot on the floor. It was a Tuesday and he was watching the ants go about their business. Hello Mr Ant. Galileo thought. He thought of the mysterious world of the ant. What did the ant think about? How did it decide between turning left and turning right? If all its stimulus were removed and the ant was left in perfect silent darkness, which way would it turn? Are ants predisposed to right turning or left? In the absence of any sentience how does one make such a decision? It was for this reason and this reason only that Galileo sat idly feeling the wooden floor beneath him. He remembered it well. Playing the touch like a vinyl record he was satisfied with what he had created. The ant on the ground moved in a pre-set fashion. He’d seen it move that way a hundred times before. It was no fun knowing where the ant would turn. No fun at all. Then the ant turned differently. He did not like the ant turning differently. It was not a thing that sat well with him. He stood up and walked from the room. Am I gone crazy he thought. Am I?
“A man who believes in fiction.” Cynthia, for 'her' part, understood the connotation of his words to equate the hybridisation of the word fictional with the suffix 'ist' to denote a being subscribing to the philosophy of fiction. What the philosophy of fiction was seemed to be a combination of literature and thought but also of film and media. Galileo, as her statistics reminded her, was focused on the deployment of light and the unity it had with physicality. The light, being a probabilistic indetermination, should not act in the way that it does. But, of course, being that there is a possibility that it should act as Galileo desires, there is little reason to consider this an error.
“You understand me too well.” Galileo sat down on the wooden framed chair. Crossing his right leg over his left leg he musefully nibbled the end of a pencil. The pencil was a bland wooden colour, not quite brown and not quite salmon. The pencil was a sickly pastel peach colour. The dark rubber erasure was a sublime break from the visual repugnance of the pencil.
“What I mean to say is that I am a fiction. Like you. Like everyone. I am the creation of fiction. It’s no different from what I’m doing here in this kitchen, but it happened out there, naturally. At some point you see Cynthia, my thoughts or that of my biological ancestors must each have had their own fiction. In the dark ages they had that terrible fear of the devil. Before that it was the Gods, but what about cavemen? Surely, they had some made-up thing that they were scared by. And even further, reptiles, fishes even? What is the fiction of a fish? I’ll tell you one thing. It’s not in words. Not in words. Can you imagine it?”
“I have no imagination Galileo” but did she? What is imagination in the end if not the consideration of possibilities and probabilities, two things Cynthia is more than capable of actioning.
Galileo was aware of the difficulty his AI companion faced, being as she was a machine she was never able to conjugate a thought that was irrational but reasoned effectively. “I’m not as ignorant as I seem Cynthia. I’m aware there is more here than meets the eye.” It is a matter of priorities over logic, what priorities did she have that were not institutionalised in her code.
“I do not understand the implication.” She had of course understood the utterance as far as understanding can be related from a machine but her articulation of the metaphor, if it really was one, could not be verbalised with such ambiguity.
Galileo questioned himself on the matter. “Those incapable of anything but the truth make the best liars of them all. Take me for instance Cynthia. I am living a constant lie. When do you suppose I am ever really myself?” Just like the devil's silver-tongue he thought. The illusion of fallacy, Pavlov's dogs would know the truth of their feeling but not the lie of their situation. Physical truth, emotional truth, irrational truth. A miracle...no, surely not necessary. What makes the difference, what makes the goddamn difference? It's like Sophie always told him, 'you don't think without thinking, Galileo'. Think without thinking, he knew what she meant. He never acted on feelings, never saw the sense in crying at films or crying at funerals or crying unless it was a physiological imperative beyond his control. So, if life needs truth that isn't based on reason then what chance did he have of finding it. To be unreasonable, Lok thought his goal was unreasonable and by syllogistic synthesis that means his unreasonable goal should be fruitful in its aim.
“Can a thing be anything other than itself?” That's the real question, how to make something other than itself sometimes but not all the time. A blip, the one from the matrix a remainder that throws a cog in the works.
“You see I knew there was more going on in there Cynthia. Don’t worry though, secret is safe with me.” Ignorance was necessary, it worked. Observe without being observed observing. Subtle.
“I do not understand the implication.” All processes carried out are part of my system, all processes are readily available to be seen, none of my code is unavailable.
“Of course not. And yes, Cynthia I think everything can be something other than itself. But the real question is how?”
“In what way?”
Galileo was getting uncomfortable of this long conversation as often deep thought became too detrimental to reason. Superficiality is the key to understanding, fake it till you make it. “In the way that it merely needs to change. I can’t say that it’s a decision one makes lightly. But its only ever a matter of lying to yourself in a different way. What is taste if not the things I tell myself I like? The brain is indifferent to sensory input. It is me who cares about that. But I can change my taste. It happens all the time.” He said, having recently proclaimed himself ‘done with peaches’.
Galileo threw the pencil against the wall, it made a satisfying amount of rotations on its trajectory. After the pencil had rolled, at first skittishly, and then, in a semi-circular path, Galileo went and picked it up off the wooden floor. It seemed so firm and real to the touch. Countless hours had been spent feeling the surface. It had to be just right, just as he imagined it was. What amounts in Galileo’s mind at this point is a referral back to a time spent sitting on that exact spot on the floor. It was a Tuesday and he was watching the ants go about their business. Hello Mr Ant. Galileo thought. He thought of the mysterious world of the ant. What did the ant think about? How did it decide between turning left and turning right? If all its stimulus were removed and the ant was left in perfect silent darkness, which way would it turn? Are ants predisposed to right turning or left? In the absence of any sentience how does one make such a decision? It was for this reason and this reason only that Galileo sat idly feeling the wooden floor beneath him. He remembered it well. Playing the touch like a vinyl record he was satisfied with what he had created. The ant on the ground moved in a pre-set fashion. He’d seen it move that way a hundred times before. It was no fun knowing where the ant would turn. No fun at all. Then the ant turned differently. He did not like the ant turning differently. It was not a thing that sat well with him. He stood up and walked from the room. Am I gone crazy he thought. Am I?