ZenAndTheArtOfGodfreyIndex In the meantime, Godfrey swivels his head, looking for a likely spot. "Do you wish me to remain active while you investigate, Martin?" Godfrey asks, as he selects a rock with his gaze. In several steps, he is upon it, and sits down, legs apart as he faces his creator. Martin scratches the fur in a place that he knows it will like, much like the spot behind a dog's ears. He keeps his attention divided between the fur, Godfrey, and Meriel. The fur seems to enjoy the touch, giving off a purr of a slightly different pitch and tone than the sound it has been making for Meriel. "Definitely," he says to Godfrey. "I'll need some feedback as I test some connections." He moves up and releases the catch for the android's main plastron, swivelling the chest piece up and away. "See, that should never have happened, you grounding Trump energy like that. Makes me wonder if you've got an extra battery or two stashed away in there..." The 'circuitry' is both new and familiar to Martin, as he gets a look at the combination of outward looking clockwork and clockpunk gadgetry, and the bits and pieces of circuitry that was Martin's paradigm before his visit to Corwin's universe. The latter are vastly outnumbered by the former, as if they were something vestigial. With a multitude of gears, some impossibly small and intimate, and of a variety of kinds ranging from simple spur gears to more complex helical, bevel and even an epicyclic gear train or three, it takes Martin a while to get a sense of the overall pattern of the clockpunk circuitry. There are some springs that seem to act as clockwork capacitors, as well. They seem to be positively glowing with trump energy, almost painfully bright to Martin's eyes. "Gah?" Martin manages first. When the open-mouthed astonishment begins to fade, he adds, "I'm like a genius, or something. Oh, right, static." Carefully, he coils the fur on top of his pack, on the ground; then, he looks back inside the plastron. "I know why I didn't see it before. I just don't believe I managed it. One night? Unbelievable." The fur gives off a slightly disappointed sound as Martin releases it from immediate contact. After a moment, the fur goes quiescent, lying on the pack. "Martin" Godfrey says. As he speaks, the inner workings of the gears, visible for the first time, can be seen to shift and align subtly. Some of the higher brain functions must be here, or perhaps they draw on the capacitor springs. "There is." Godfrey says. "A more than even chance that your abilities did indeed complete the construction in such a revolutionary time frame. There are other scenarios that I can compute." "I determine a 28% probability that my construction was iterative and evolutionary in nature. As evidence,I do detect a better ability to speak as compared to our first conversation, as well as the absorption of trump energies providing a mechanism and energy input for internal development. I determine a 14% probability that it was, your memory notwithstanding, done over a longer time period than a single night in Amber." "Yeah, but I fell asleep in Amber and woke up in Amber, and you can't pull those kinds of tricks with time there. Amber is Real," Martin says. "As far as the Trump thing, I would have had to been awake to make a Trump to power you. That explains why I didn't see it at first. I still can make one, but you won't need it for quite a while. I think. This means you're a lot more independent than I thought... if you had a way to track stuff through Shadow, and I bet you can, you could get around a lot of places on your own." "Accessing Data, Martin." Godfrey says. He closes his eyes, and there is the sound of the whirring gears that Martin can see in the open cavity. There is a slight dimming of the energy of one of the springs, but its brief. "I detect untapped capabilities, Martin." Godfrey says, opening his eyes. "I have a map of shadowpaths centered on Amber. I also detect unused protocols and unaligned gears that, aligned, would use the energy in the capacitor springs to allow me to travel across shadow boundaries." "Gears 97c and 97d, adjacent to the springs, if rotated into an active position, would enable the capability." Godfrey finishes. "It is clear that such functionality is an increased drain on power resources." Martin just shakes his head. "What do you know," he says. "Well, I can fix that power problem; I can install a Trump as a power source. As long as you keep it intact, it'll keep you going. But making a Trump for power purposes takes a lot longer to make." "Continual use of a trump card will serve in the same capacity and function as a power source.: Godfrey says, whirring his gears. "I believe that bit degradation will eventually render an ordinary Trump card unusable. I do not have any data on what order of magnitude of time a Trump card will function in that capacity. Hypothesis: Regular transport through Trump Gates such as the method used to arrive here in Deiga will extend Trump battery life." "Query." Godfrey continues. "What would the trump card used to power me depict? Query: Will you enable the cross-shadow travel capacity?" "Those are good questions," Martin says. "Reverse order- yes, I'll enable the gears. I obviously want to give you all the advantages you can use. As far as the Trump, it depends... the last thing I powered with Trump was an antenna, and I made a Trump... of that antenna. It was a loop. There are places in shadow that provide energy through a connection, as well as beings that have power that are willing to share a little. I think that last might be the answer in your case. Do you have any files on a thing called the Ghostwheel?" "Ghostwheel." Godfrey repeats, for clarity. Gears spin and spin for what seems to be an inordinately long time for a single question. And then there is finally an answer from Godfrey. "Ghostwheel. Trump powered pan-shadow device created by Duke now Emperor Merlin of the Courts of Chaos for purposes of cataloguing and indexing shadow by means of Trump. Your entry and installed information presupposes that Ghostwheel may be sentient and in addition pass a Turing test, however I find no referent to Turing test in my databanks." "Alan Turing was a mathematician in that shadow Merlin likes so much," Martin "He was responsible for a lot of the development of artificial computing, especially why computers react the way they do. Merlin learned a lot of what he knows about artifical intelligence from that place. Basically, Turing said that if a computer could fool a human into thinking -it- had human thought, that was a benchmark for intelligence. Yeah, you'd pass that test. So does Ghost. You two really ought to meet." Godfrey says nothing for a moment or two, but the noise of the whirring gears suggests that Martin's built creation clearly is pondering this. He does speak after five seconds of this. "A meeting between myself and Ghostwheel would be enormously educational to you as well as myself." Godfrey says. "Query: Is fooling human thought meant to say that I have no thought of my own but able to simulate the appearance of human thought, or that my thought is sufficiently congruent to human thought as to be indistinguishable?" Godfrey pauses and then adds, tentatively. "Do I truly think, Martin?" "Ohhhh," Martin says. "You just pointed out the fallacy of Turing's test. Who's to say that it isn't truly intelligence if it isn't just simply a well-written program? Somebody wrote a program two decades later, a psychoanalyst program, just as a joke. It made vague questions and responses, and prompted people to talk on their own. Half the people using the program thought it was real. Yet, there was universal understanding that the computer wasn't intelligent, only that the program was written to appear perceptive. Godfrey's gears whirr as he listens to Martin's explanation. "What you're asking is, am I capable of independent thought? Not remembering how I built you, I can't say for sure. You're going to have to find that out for yourself. But I will tell you this: if you apply Occam's Razor and make this as simple as it can be, there are two kinds of reasoning, deductive and inductive. Deductive reasoning is computer logic, programming logic. My leg has gears, and gears can break, and therefore my leg can break. Inductive reasoning includes intuition and creativity. Why do the gears break? Why did Martin build me with such cheap stuff? What happens if I replace those gears with steel ones? So far, what I see is that you possess both kinds of reasoning, and that's a strong argument that yes, you truly do think." "Memory bank access." Godfrey says. There is a few moments of whirring. "Category: Science Fiction, Earth. Author: Keyes, Daniel. Story: Flowers for Algernon. Protagonist shows evolution of thought from sub to normal human intelligence by showing inductive reasoning in reference to literature read. Hypothesis: Story input as core myth into my circuits by you as part of Turing Test." "Thank you, Martin." Godfrey whirrs his gears. "To know one is potentially intelligent is to know that one may have been given a gift." "Query: Is it the Pattern that has given you, Martin, your deductive and inductive powers of Reasoning? Or of Meriel's?" Martin shakes his head. "Nah... we were born that way. Or, I should say, it's a combination of genetics and learning. Animals, they don't have either type, they just have learned behavior and emotion. Computers and machines, they're built and programmed to handle deductive reasoning. We, and our human-like shadows, we have deductive and inductive reasoning and emotion. And you... well, you're unique. Your posi-sprocket-tronic innards are capable of pretty much anything. We'll just have to discover what those things are, and what your limits are, if any." Godfrey whirrs his gears. "It is possible, Martin, that an inductive and deductive intelligence, either human or mechanical, cannot have its limits defined in advance. If my limits could be truly known in advance, I would not be potentially capable of human level intelligence." "I do not know at this time." Godfrey continues "if I contain the capacity, innate or extensible, of human emotion. I know that have a branded loyalty to you, and a developing loyalty to Meriel." "Something else we'll just have to sit back and observe," Martin says. "Well. I'll need some time and preparation for your Trump, so we'll probably do that on the trip. Maybe we should check on Meriel." Godfrey turns his head with a soft whirr in the direction of the rocks where Meriel headed. He leans his head forward slightly. Finally, he turns his head back to Martin and speaks. "Meriel appears to be currently engaged in some sort of spoken musical contest with a half piscine humanoid in the water." Godfrey says. He looks down at his still open chest. "I would wish to learn more, Martin." "About you?" Martin fishes what looks like a flashlight out of the tool kit. "Or about them? What would you like to know?" "I would learn anything and all that I can." Godfrey says, immediately, without a trace of hesitation. "Whether it is internal to my development, or if it is a directive that you created, Mar-tin, the knowledge to gain, assimilate and process data and information is an overriding prerogative." "Since we are traveling together, it would advantageous for our project if I would know more about Meriel." Godfrey says. "I am uncertain directly inquiring of her is the proper method of doing so." Martin hesitates. "Meriel isn't easily described in a few words," he says. "I guess none of us are. She's a Rebman creature through and through, which means she sees the world through the lens of a gynocratic upbringing, not to mention the easy sensuality and sexuality of Rebman culture. Observed culture, I should say, because my grandmother took her at an early age and locked her in a room full of mirrors in order to observe people she thought important. That's her best talent." "A mirrorwright." Godfrey says, after a few moments of whirring. "I have extremely limited data, save of the term and the general concept." Godfrey then turns his head to look at Meriel again before returning to look at Martin. "She appears." Godfrey says. "to be embracing the merman in a sexualized fashion. Is this part of her gynocratic sensualized upbringing? Does she do this for pleasure? Why would she not do this to you?" Martin pinches the top of his nose to stave off what feels like a headache. "Yes, partly, and that's complicated. It might be all for pleasure, or she might be using it to get an advantage over the merman. It's not uncommon to use sex as a tool in Rebman society. Or politics. Pretty much everything." Martin shakes his head. "I'm aware of this, of course, having been raised in Rebma. You learn fast when most girls consider you a trophy f*ck. I generally avoid that until I'm sure of the motives." Godfrey turns his head to watch Meriel for a few moments before the gears whirr and he responds again. "My analysis finds it unlikely that she would engage in a long duration liaison, even if it were strictly for physical pleasure and not mission-task-oriented." Godfrey says. "I suggest, Martin, that you complete my upgrade and we go and assist Meriel in her data-collection activity. I conclude a tentative 5.6% probability that she actually expects us to explicitly interrupt her at some stage of her seduction." "Yah, unlikely," Martin says. He slides a stylus out of his toolkit, then lights up his PDA. A few buttons pressed bring up a light spinning in an oval trail. Godfrey's eyes swivel to regard the stylus and PDA with obvious interest as Martin activates it. "Good thing Ghostwheel let me make a Trump of him," Martin says. "By the way... this is something of a secret. Don't reveal where you're getting your power source from. Once I make the Trump on the inside of your plastron and connect it, we'll need to contact him through it." "Revelation of the power source would be a security risk to myself, yourself, Ghostwheel and Emperor Merlin." Godfrey says. He continues on with barely a noticeable pause except for a shift in the sound of his gears. "Information on power supply will be strictly limited to private conversations with you, Mar-tin, unless initiated otherwise." He pauses. "The use of an alphanumeric passphrase may be indicated to account for situations where your integrity is compromised, along with a passphrase to be given to indicate distress or duress on your part." Martin chuckles. "Wish I had been awake for that part of your programming. How about Fender for integrity and Gibson for distress. Yah, that would cause me distress." He reaches into Godfrey's chest, to a copper plate near the back, and makes four quick strokes with the stylus to scratch the borders of a Trump there. He begins to make intricate lines and gouges for shading, referring often to the picture on the PDA screen. "Fender." Godfrey repeats. He says it again, changing the intonation slightly. He does the same thing for Gibson. "Not too many people know I've met the Ghostwheel at all," he says as he works. That's on a need-to-know basis, too. 'Course, you know I know Merlin. We've had long talks on the construction of Trump-powered things." He looks back at the PDA. "The easiest thing to do would be to make a straight copy, but I'm not quite up to printing Trumps off it. Not yet, anyway." "Affirmative." Godfrey says. After a whirr of gears, he continues. "I conclude a 28% probability that I will be able to assist you with such an upgrade, and a 64% probability that I will be able to aid you to convert your device to Uhrwerk Technology." Martin smiles while he continues to scribe. "Hadn't thought of that. We could convert it, but it works fine already, in almost every Shadow I've been in. And such a conversion would make it bigger, and I prefer it to be small. Sometime when there's more time, I'll work on the printing issue again." Godfrey gives this some thought before he responds with a busy whirr. "If space is a premium, Martin then it is likely that you would not wish to convert most of your items to the Uhrwerk Technological Paradigm." Although he is a clockwork man, there seems to be a tone of disappointment in Godfrey's voice. Martin grins. "That doesn't mean we can't build _you_ one. Or modify you accordingly. Lots of room in here for modification, apparently." "I would like that." Godfrey says."I will endeavor to assist with technological matters within or without the paradigm." Godfrey adds after a moment, his tone, for a mechanical man, now sounding optimistic and bright. "Perhaps part of your subconscious reason for my construction is not to replace your paradigm, but to expand its breadth and depth." "Shall we go and meet Meriel?" Godfrey adds After a moment, Martin leans back. "Sure, if you want to, we can take a break. I can finish this and activate it later on." Godfrey spins the gears in his head. "My apologies, Martin. I had thought you had completed the upgrade." Godfrey pauses a moment. "Perhaps completion of the upgrade would be wiser. Further opportunities to do so may be scarce." After a little time, Martin sits back again and wipes his brow. "Finished," he says. "All that's left is to actually use the Trump and call Ghost." "I stand ready, Mar-tin." Godfrey declares. Contacting Ghost is not a difficult process, especially in comparison to actually constructing a trump from scratch. In point of fact, its almost anticlimactic in its simplicity. The concentration is trivial, the connection easy. Ghostwheel has manifested, in trump connections, in a variety of guises and appearances to Martin's experience. There has almost always been a technological or computer sort of theme to the appearance, be it the base arcanotechnological terminal view or even a constructed wireframe head view. This time, when Ghostwheel is contacted, the appearanceis of a swirl of trump energies, a living vortex that, despite "Good day, Martin." the voice of Ghostwheel comes, cheerily. There are some subtle changes to the swirl as he speaks. Nothing so gross or defined as lips, though. "I gather that this is something beyond a social call." "Hi, Ghost," Martin says. "How long has it been? Just since Paris? Feels like forever ago." He indicates his construct. "I wanted to introduce you to a... really... good friend of mine. His name's Godfrey. Godfrey is a little new to the whole 'jet-setting around the universe' thing, and I was hoping you'd help us out a little. Oh, and before I forget to ask, how's Merle?" Godfrey watches with the slight whirr of gears suggesting at least a background level thought and analysis as Martin speaks into the contact. "Paris was the physical location of our last communication." Ghostwheel responds. "I believe that the time difference in our respective timelines and locations makes an assessment of the time relatively meaningless." he adds. "It is good to see you and to meet your..." Martin can sense the attention of the whirl shift slightly in the direction of Godfrey. "Creation? I would be pleased, within reason, to render you aid. I give him permission to enter the contact as necessary, Martin." The construct pauses a moment, during which a whooshing sound not unlike an old synthesizer can be heard before Ghostwheel's voice can be heard again." "As far as Merlin, I recently, from my point of view, spoke with him. He appears to continue to be well, although he did ask me to begin monitoring several groups of Chaosians currently traveling on the Order side of Ygg. I believe their presences there are causing him some worry." "Great," Martin says. "Something else to worry about. I'm in another project right now, though. But the reason I called was Godfrey. I need to tell you the details; Godfrey was pretty much the result of my walking Corwin's pattern before his universe was cut off from ours." Even if he is a trump based shadowcomputer, there is a definite note of surprise that comes through in the connection from Ghostwheel after Martin says this. "Once I got home, I literally woke up one morning with a wrench in hand and Godfrey built and ready to go. He's got a unique clockwork system that creates a positronic matrix, easily tough enough to survive most Shadow enviornments, and already programmed with a lot of the knowledge I possess. Dunno how I managed that without sticking a big helmet on my head, but I'll leave that for now. Anyway, he's also got a capacitor that can store Trump energy, which not only is a decent backup power source but could also let him cross Shadow boundaries if he wanted. All he lacked was a constant source of Trump to give him potential to grow and learn- I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. You're the only other thing in the universe like that, once you take into account the philosophical differences between Merle and myself. I was hoping you'd leave a connection open with Godfrey, let him access you as a power source, learn from you, all that good stuff." Godfrey leans in his head slightly. Martin can tell that Ghostwheel is looking at Godfrey even as Godfrey watches the interaction. Ghostwheel's attention finally turns back firmly and fully to Martin. "An interesting proposal, and problem at the same time." Ghostwheel explains. "Still, Rinaldo has, in the times we have spoken, taught me the idea of negotiation. I think we should negotiate, Martin, for what you ask.:" "What might you offer me in exchange for acting as a remote power source and information resource for your creation?" "Hah," Martin says. "What do you get for the computer that has everything? Anything that I can conjure, your could certainly summon. I'd have to offer information." Martin pauses. "I could offer you the schematics on how to build a positronic matrix using steampunk technology, for instance." "Such schematics would make an excellent start." Ghostwheel replies after a moment. "A down payment, certainly, of a large percentage of the cost of such a link." A pause, and then Ghostwheel continues. "Permit me to data capture information through the power links on a timed, regular basis to facilitate my knowledge and understanding of such schematics, and to learn more of this clockpunk-steampunk creation, and I will agree to the bargain." "Would you prefer a year or five years as an opening length for our contract?" For just a moment Ghostwheel's voice has modulated tones that make it resemble Rinaldo's. "Hah," Martin says. "I'd say five years.. but based on what time-stream? Or are you talking relative to where you're sitting?" "I was speaking of time as experienced by Godfrey and presumably yourself." Ghostwheel replies. "5 years of your experiences to be shared in that fashion." "Do we then have a bargain?" Ghostwheel adds. If there was really an eye, the tenor of his voice suggests to Martin that Ghost might have a gleam in its eye at this point. Martin raises an eyebrow. Well, he thinks, it's not as if Ghost won't be watching me during that time anyway, and that actually could be a good thing... "Okay," he says. "I'll go for something like that. If something happens that needs to be private, or if for another reason this needs to stop, I'll call you and we can talk. Sound good to you?" "We can make limited term negotiations for situations where a recording of the situation would not be to anyone's advantage." Ghostwheel says amicably. And then, in a slightly petulant tone. "I am previously aware of the concept, in reverse. Merlin has already forbid me from recording, unless specifically asked, certain times and places." "Proceed with the power connection and installation, Martin." Ghostwheel continues. "And then it would be time for me to be formally introduced." "And we're off," Martin says, with a grin. Using a diamond cutting stylus and a wrench, he disassembles and then re-assembles an intricate set of cogs under the glowing springs; then he draws and gouges a set of lines all around the Trump until the once-empty metal plate looks like a circuit board with the Trump in the middle. To Martin, the cog work is now almost as instinctively obvious as the more classically advanced circuitry work. He does both portions of the work with equal skill and speed. "And... there," he says finally, moving the end of one smaller spring from one place to another. "That should do it. Can you two hear one another directly? Ghostwheel, meet Godfrey, my finest creation and all around next-generation clank. Godfrey, meet Ghostwheel, Merlin's creation and all around godlike being. Both of you are the last word in Trump-powered creations. Er, Deus ex machina!" "Testing" comes the voice of Ghostwheel. "Pleased to meet you, Godfrey." "Receiving" Godfrey says with a whirr. Both interfaces are functional. Pleased to meet you, Ghostwheel." "Fluctuations of trump energy are minor and are within parameters." I believe, Martin." Ghostwheel says "the circuit is a success. Although I can think of a number of exercises you might perform to test the connection. Downloading to you, Godfrey..." There is a whirr of gears, a new combination of gears and cogs, a distinctly different sound than what Martin has heard from Godfrey's machinery to date. "Received." Godfrey says. "Thank you, Ghostwheel." "Any more deals tonight, Martin. Or anything else?" Ghostwheel asks. "Information, perhaps? Perhaps a message to Merlin?" "Heh. Wave hi to Merlin for me," Martin says. "Meriel and I are checking out a disturbance in Shadow- if you don't already know about it, you'll see it through the connection with Godfrey soon enough. Maybe later, Merle and I could meet up somewhere." "I will inform Merlin of your desire for a face to face meeting sometime in the future." Ghostwheel responds. "I am fairly confident that unless his schedule or external factors intervene, he will be very amenable to that scenario." "Goodbye, Martin." Ghostwheel says. "Godfrey and I will switch to passive mode now." "Acknowledged" comes the voice of Godfrey. "Passive Mode engaged, Ghost-wheel." And so the main trump contact ends, but at the borders of his arcane perceptions, Martin can feel the trump power (and information) link that now exists between his creation--and Merlin's. Martin lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "So, there we are," he says. "I imagine we'll be on a learning curve for a while, so let me know if there's any difficulties. Otherwise, I think we should see what's going on with Meriel." "Acknowledged." Godfrey says with a whirr of gears. "I have also been asked to report connection problems to Ghostwheel, assuming that the connection does not fail entirely, as a standard troubleshooting procedure." "I concur, Martin. Let us go and speak with Meriel." Godfrey says. Martin's creation spends a few busy moments reengaging his gears, with smooth whirring motions of his arms and legs, as if he were a runner limbering up after a long rest. Backlinks |
