Existence (13 page)

“I beg your pardon?”

“Babel. Building a tower to heaven. The attempt failed when we were deliberately sabotaged by a curse of mutual incomprehension, by forcing us to speak a multitude of languages. Most theologians have interpreted the Babel story the way you just did—as showing God
angry
at humanity, for this act of hubris.

“But read it more carefully. There is
no
anger! Not a trace. No mention of anybody suffering or dying, as they surely do in murderous mass-fury, at Sodom, or in Noah’s flood, or innumerable cases of heavenly wrath. There’s none of that in the story of Babel! Sure, we were thwarted, confused, and scattered. But was that meant to stymie us forever? From achieving what the passage clearly says we
can
achieve? What perhaps we’re ultimately
meant
to achieve?

“Maybe the confusion was meant just to
delay things.
For us to learn by overcoming obstacles. In fact, didn’t the
scattering-of-man
make us more diverse and experienced with overcoming hard challenges? Better able to grasp and apply a myriad points of view? Think about it, Miss Tor. Today, someone with simple aiware can understand what any other person says, anywhere on the globe. Right now, in this very generation, we have come full circle. Language has ceased to be any sort of barrier. And our “tower” covers the globe.

“Recall what scripture says—there’s no limit to our potential. We’re inherently able to do or be anything. Anything at all. So, what’s to stop us now?”

Tor stared at the neuroscientist.
Are you kidding?
she thought. Clearly, at one level, he was pulling her leg. And yet, equally, he meant all this. Took it seriously.

“What do ancient myths have to do with the question at hand? The issue of arrogant scientific ambition?”

“The old tales show how long humans have pondered this problem! Like, whether it is proper to pick up the same tools the Creator used to make us. What could be a more meaningful concern?”

“All right then.” Tor nodded, with an inward sigh, if Sato wanted to look foolish on camera, so be it. “Don’t most legends answer in the negative? Preaching against
hubris
?” Tor didn’t bother defining the term. Her audience was generally with it. They’d have instant vocaib.

“Yes,” Sato agreed. “During the long Era of Fear, lasting six to ten thousand years, priests and kings sought—above all—to keep peasants in their place. So naturally, ambition was discouraged! Churches called it sinful to question your local lord. Even worse to question God. You brought up the Tower of Babel. Or, take Adam and Eve, cast out of Eden for tasting from the tree of knowledge.”

“Or the mistake of Brahma, or the machine of Soo Song, or countless other cautionary fables.” She nodded. “The Renunciation Movement mentions all of them, forecasting big trouble—possibly another
Fall
—if humanity keeps reaching too far. That’s why I’m surprised that you took this path in today’s interview, Doctor. Are you suggesting that tradition and scripture may be relevant, after all?”

“Hm.” Sato pondered a moment. “You seem to be well read. Do you know your Book of Genesis?”

“Reasonably well. It’s a cultural keystone.”

“Then, can you tell me which passage is the only one—in the whole Bible—that portrays God asking a
favor,
out of pure curiosity?”

Tor knew this interview had spun out of control. It wasn’t being netcast live, so she could edit later. Still, she noted a small figure in a corner of her aiware. Twenty-three MediaCorp employees and stringers were watching. Make that twenty-four. And with high interest levels.
All right, then, let’s run with it.

“Offhand, I can’t guess what passage you have in mind, Dr. Sato.”

He leaned toward her. “It’s a moment in the Bible that comes
before
that darned apple, when the relationship between Creator and created was still pure, without any of the later tsuris of wrathful expulsion, gritty battles, or redemption … or egotistical craving for praise.”

He’s sincere about this,
Tor realized, reading his eyes.
A biologist, a would-be godmaker-meddler … yet, a believer.

“You still don’t recall? It’s brief. Most people just glide past and theologians barely give it a glance.”

“Well, you have our interest, Doctor. Pray tell. What is this special biblical moment?”

“It’s when God asks Adam to
name the beasts.
Perhaps the only moment that’s truly like parent and child, or teacher and favored pupil. Indeed, what better clue to what humanity was created for? Since it had nothing to do with sin, redemption, or any of that later vex.”

“Created for…?” she prompted. Interested, even though she could now see where he was going, and wasn’t sure she liked it.

“Names have creative power! Like the equations God used to cast forth light and start the cosmos. What action makes up half of science? Naming moons, craters, planets, species, and molecules … even wholly new living things that men and women now synthesize from scratch. What could that passage represent other than a master craftsman watching in approval, while His apprentice starts down the road of exploration?

“A road that led to Babel, where premature success might have spoiled everything … so He made the
naming process
more challenging! Still taking the apprentice toward one destination—a role and duty that was intended all along.

“Co-creation.”

Tor had to blink a few times. “Well, that certainly is a unique perspective on—”

“On a passage so brief it was ignored for millennia? The implications—”

“I see what you
think
it implies, Professor,” Tor cut in, anxious to reestablish some control. “And we’ll supply links for our viewers who don’t. But there’s a huge step between calling yourself a ‘co-creator’ and having enough wisdom not to botch it up! What we—my viewers and I—want to know is how—”

Tor trailed off. The neurosmith was holding something out, gesturing for Tor to reach for it. The stone paperweight he had been handling—roughly cylindrical, tapering toward a rounded point at each end. The sides bore many fluted hollows.

“Take it,” Sato urged as she put out her hand. “Don’t worry, it’s only thirty thousand years old.”

Tor almost yanked back, before accepting the object. It felt cool. The stone must have once featured many sharp edges before getting rubbed smooth by countless fingers.

“It is a prepared-core, either late Mousterian or early Châtelperronian, from a period when two hominid species occupied Europe, living side-by-side for quite some time, sharing almost identical technologies and—apparently—similar cultures. Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans had an especially long overlap in the Levant, where both groups seemed to be
stuck
at the same level for as much as a hundred thousand years.”

Tor turned the artifact over. It wasn’t glossy, like obsidian, but gray and grainy. Her aiware identified the material as
chert
, offering links that she subvocally brushed away.

“I thought humans wiped out the Neanderthals.”

“It’s a prevailing theory. The long stable period ended at the dawn of the Aurignacian, with astonishing abruptness. Within a few dozen generations—an eyeblink—our ancestral tool kit expanded prodigiously to include fish hooks and sewing needles made of glistening bone, finely shaped scrapers, axes, burins, nets, ropes, and specialized knives that required many complex stages to create.

“
Art
also erupted on the scene. People adorned themselves with pendants, bracelets, and beads. They painted magnificent cave murals, performed burial rituals, and carved provocative Venus figurines. Innovation accelerated. So did other deeply human traits—for there appeared clear signs of social stratification. Religion. Kingship. Slavery. War.

“And—for the poor Neanderthals—genocide.”

Tor felt nonplussed by the sudden shift. One moment, Sato had been talking in the cramped, six-thousand-year context of the Judeo-Christian Bible. The next, he was suddenly back in the vast realm of scientific time, reflecting on the fits and starts of humanity’s hard, slow climb out of darkness. Still, there was overlap … a common arching theme. And Tor saw, at last, where this was going.

“You think we’re heading for another of those sudden speedups.”

Sato tilted his head slightly.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Suddenly, the scientist’s voice was free of any games. Contemplative, even concerned.

“The question, Miss Tor, isn’t
whether
change is coming. Only how we can be smarter about it this time. Perhaps even wise enough to cope.”

SCANALYZER

Greetings. I’m
Marcia Khatami
, sitting in for Martin Raimer, who is following a hot story in Cuba. Good luck, Martin!

Today we return to a favorite topic. For a century, the
Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence
has drawn both radio astronomers and zealous supporters with hopeful tenacity that rivals any previous faith. Sometimes funded by governments, by rich enthusiasts, or micro-donations, SETI uses sophisticated apparatus to sift the “Cosmic Haystack” for a single, glittering needle that may change our lives, telling us we’re not alone.

The effort isn’t without critics. Let’s continue our debate between two mavens of superscience. Dr. Hannah Spearpath is director of Project Golden Ear, combining the Allen, Donaldson, and Chang SETI arrays. Welcome back, Hannah.

DR. SPEARPATH:
My pleasure, Marcia.

MARCIA KHATAMI:
Also with us is his inimitably provocative rasta-self, star of the popscience show
Master Your Universe!
and just returned from a touring with his sci-reggai group Blowing Cosmic Smoke. Welcome, Professor Noozone.

PROFESSOR NOOZONE:
Praises to Almighty Jah and
Wa’ppu,
Marcia. Much respect and a massive
big up
blessing to all viewers an’ lurkers out there!

MARCIA KHATAMI:
Doctors, our last session got heated, not over
listening
for alien signals, but endeavors to
beam
messages from Earth to outer space. Shouting “yoohoo!” at the stars.

DR. SPEARPATH:
Yes, and I want to correct any impression that Golden Ear beams “messages” into the sky. Our antennas aren’t set up for transmission. We leave that to others.

PROFESSOR NOOZONE:
But Hannah, your verysame statement amounted to upfull support for the wicked men perpetrating this irresponsible behavior, nah even botherin’ to
discuss
it ’pon the people or dem scientific bredren. This is
rhaatid
! It violates a basic livication laid down, long ago, by Ras Carl Sagan himself, when he said any superadvanced races out there should “do the heavy lifting” of makin’ contact. An’ Mas Carl also said that youth like us should quietly listen. Ya haffa creep an’ walk before ya run.

DR. SPEARPATH:
Well, conditions change. Last time, I simply stated the obvious, that no possible harm could come from such transmissions.

PROFESSOR NOOZONE:
But hol’ on my dear. How can dem be “obvious” when well-informed people disagree? “No possible harm” is nuh-easy to say! It is based on many sad-unexamined
assumptions
about the cosmos, about intelligence, and the way so them aliens must think! Especially the unproved postulate that
altruism be universal
among advanced life-forms.

You declare that upfulness and overstanding will drive every people, soon come all a time, out there among the so-bright stars.

Oh, surely, I-and-I find dat notion super-attractive! Beneficent star-mons, bright-doing, everywhere across the galaxy! It what I hope to be a-true! Praise Jah an’ His Interstellar Majesty.… But scientists shoulda be Ras-
skeptical
. An’ the underlying tenet of universal altruism is one that you people refuse to offer up for analysis or peer review by your own-very science bredren, dismissing all other views as paranoid—

DR. SPEARPATH:
Because anything else is silly. If aliens wanted to harm us, they would have done it by now.

PROFESSOR NOOZONE:
Oh buckery an’ bodderation! I could list
six dozen
ways that statement oversimplifies—

DR. SPEARPATH:
Anyway, the potential benefits of contact—of just detecting that another civilization is out there—outweigh any of the harm scenarios on your list, since you admit that each one, separately, seems unlikely.

PROFESSOR NOOZONE:
Everything irie … I-and-I admit that. What
you
don’t admit is that the odds of harm aren’t
zero.
Kill-mi-dead if the sheer number of ways don’t add up to a whole heap—

DR. SPEARPATH:
How can anything compare with the top benefit of SETI? Beyond all the wonderful things we might learn. Just detecting
that
other intelligent species exist! Right now we don’t necessarily see a long future for technological civilizations on this planet. So many ways it could fail. A proof of existence, that
someone
survived their technical infancy, is valuable! Successful detection means longevity of civilizations is the rule rather than the exception.

PROFESSOR NOOZONE:
All very moving. Maybe even true, Hannah. But inna case, does not your
failure
to find anybody have the worrisome
opposite
meaning? Anyway, you describe a benefit of
detection.
Not of
transmission,
which increases the risk, without affecting any of the benefits—

DR. SPEARPATH:
Your
patois
is slipping again. If it were genuine—

MARCIA KHATAMI:
I want to focus on something else the professor said last week, about how the classic SETI
search strategy
has been all wrong for decades. Because it assumes that extraterrestrials are constantly transmitting in all directions, at all times.