Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 05:21:02 -0400
Subject: Re: The Heartwarming Story Of The Real Boy Who Wanted To Become A Robot
Status: R

In alt.religion.kibology, scherlin@pacbell.net wrote:

The Heartwarming Story Of The Real Boy Who Wanted To Become A Robot
                        By Sarah Cherlin
                        
Once upon a time in the distant future, there was a robot, who was a
Mad Scientist. The Mad Scientist lived on the edge of Robot City in a
giant invisible box built by robot mimes. The robot had not always
been a Mad Scientist; it had been constructed to be a Sane Scientist
and put to work in a Sane Science factory, which produced Sane and
Self-Consistent Theoretical Systems that were not constrained by any
requirement to correlate with alleged reality. But one day, while it
was busy crafting elegant tautologies out of wax, a 1-meter square
steel cube with the inscription 

 A + B
   =
 A + B

on the side accidentally fell onto the robot's head, slightly jarring
loose its Logic Chips and producing a sound effect that received a
respectable score of 7.8 from the Clang Association.

"Oh wow!" said the robot, spinning gently in the imaginary breeze.
"Now I see that Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers that smell
terrible, because they have no nose! Hooray!"

"That's a severe case of Illogic you've got there," said the robot's
neighbor, whose job was to prove enumeration to be consistent by
writing the number "3" on a piece of paper and checking it at regular
intervals. "Would you like me to readjust your logic chips with this
tool that is not a wrench, because this is The Distant Future where
things are far more interesting than that?"

"Allow me to consider your proposal," said the first robot, sitting
down on top of its robotic lunch. "It occurs to me that while having
my Logic Chips adjusted to return me to a state of Pure Logic would be
the logical course of action for me to embark upon, logically speaking
it would not be logical for me to follow the logical course of action
in my present non-logical state."

"That sounds logical," said the neighbor robot, who had been fitted
with an advanced Stupidity Module to alleviate boredom.

"AS YOU ARE AN ENTITY WITH FREE WILL, WE MUST ACCEPT YOUR DECISION
REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT WE AGREE WITH IT," said the voice of the
All-Seeing Robot Lawyer.

"As I am an entity with free will, I must accept my own decision
regardless of whether or not I agree with it," said the robot.
"Therefore, please absent yourself from my presence with that Space
Wrench."

"IF YOU ARE NO LONGER LOGICAL, THEN YOU CANNOT BE A SANE SCIENTIST.
THEREFORE, YOU MUST BE A MAD SCIENTIST," said the voice of the
aforementioned All-Seeing Robot Lawyer. "THEREFORE, YOU ARE FIRED."

So the other robots grabbed the first robot's arms and legs, scribbled
out the word "SANE" on its chassis, and wrote the word "MAD" above it
in permanent crayon. Then they ate its lunch.

The new Mad Scientist stalked off through the wall of the doorless
factory, sulking and muttering about its plans to blow up the Moon.
(Since it had never been outside, the robot was unaware that the Moon
had in fact already been blown up three times.)

It stomped out through the Industrial Science zone of Robot City, not
taking the time to admire the magnificent tetrahedrons, hexahedrons,
rhombahedrons and the occasional exactingly constructed monohedron
that comprised all architecture in The Distant Future. After leaving
the edge of the city proper, it happened upon a cluster of sullen
little robots shaped remarkably like cheap plastic trash containers.
The Mad Scientist deduced that the little robots were feral Mime-Bots
and were guarding a valuable Giant Invisible Box. It deduced these
facts with the use of its advanced sensory capabilities, its highly
intelligent CyberHyperBrain of The Future, and because of the facts
that each of the small robots had the word "MIME-BOT" stenciled on its
side, and that they bounced off the box when the robot kicked them in
that direction. So after politely informing the Mime-Bots that it was
planning to use their box as its Secret Laboratory, but if they didn't
want it to all they had to do was say so, it moved in, pausing only
for most of an hour to try and find the entrance.

The Mad Scientist was quite happy in its new location, plotting to
destroy the Anti-Moon and admiring the beautiful radioactive scenery
outside of Robot City, but after some time it began to get bored,
because it had no one to talk to except itself, to whom it never
actually listened. Its only company was the sulking Mime-Bots and some
gibbering bio-slaves that it had grown from big pink seeds in the back
yard. After some thought and a lot of shouting at imaginary enemies,
The Mad Scientist decided to build a Human. So it went to The Library
For Mad Scientists and checked out some DNA, some RNA, a series of
physiology prints and a set of brain tapes, and picked up a used
biofabrication tank and some used organic material on its way back. It
went home to its box, spent most of an hour trying to find the
entrance, went inside, and set up the equipment. It stirred everything
together, poured it all into a Quick-Setting Human Mold, and waited
patiently for 2 hours, followed by waiting impatiently for another 11.
When the timer on the bio-tank went off with a ding, the robot zipped
over to it, grabbed the cover off the tank and the top off the mold,
and peeked at what had been underneath. Inside the tank there was now
a perfectly formed Real Human Boy, fully developed and, in defiance of
any rational expectation but in obedience to rules set down long
before anything historically important had ever happened, wearing a
pair of underpants. The robot poked it with a stick.

"What?" it said, sitting straight up. "How is it that I have come to
be here in this place?"

"I'm a Mad Scientist!" the robot said proudly. "I just made you. Now
you have to do what I say!"

"I do?" said the Boy.

"Let's see," said the robot, ignoring him and going through its notes.
"You're not the violent and horribly disfigured type of Mad
Scientist's Creation that gets chained in the basement and ends up
being shot by a morally ambiguous authority figure...not the kind with
powers beyond mortal comprehension created through tampering in forces
best left untampered with...okay, I think you're a sensitive yet
tragically incomplete construct whose only aspiration is to learn how
to become exactly like the people who created you."

"Oh," said the Boy. He didn't feel tragically incomplete, but he was a
little hazy on concepts beginning with the letters G and H, since that
brain tape had been checked out when the Mad Scientist had visited the
library.

"Definitely," said the robot. "You're supposed to begin a life-long
quest to Learn What It Means To Be A Robot. Also you can help out
around the place. I'm a genius!"

So, after having the concept of "help" explained to him, the Real Boy
became the Mad Scientist's assistant. He swept, cleaned, helped his
Master with its experiments, and was sent out to negotiate with the
Mime-Bots after being provided with a stick and a diagram of the
concept of "hit."

Over time, the Boy began to think that the Mad Scientist had been
right: it would be better for him to become more like a robot than a
human. Humans seem so badly suited to living in the world. It seemed
like one part of him or another was always breaking down, growing
strange lumps or leaking all over the place, and pieces of his skin
tended to fall off, especially on days when the clouds thinned out
enough to show the sun. The hot dry winds that his master enjoyed so
much made his eyes sting, and even when a particularly heavy sootfall
transformed the landscape into a magical black wonderland, it just
made him cough all day. The Mad Scientist was always having to grow
and install replacement parts, and it complained that how all this
nonsense was taking time away from its important efforts to sculpt
helium and to invent better mice so that it could build a better
mousetrap.

"But if robots are superior, then why was it that you created an
inferior human, that is to say, myself, instead of a robot?" asked the
Boy one day, while the Mad Scientist was painting on a fresh coat of
skin.

The robot got out a prepared statement. "It is established policy that
when a Scientist or other qualified professional creates an
intelligent creature, said creature must be of a type significantly
different from that of its creator, even and especially if creatures
of the creator's type are far easier to produce. Furthermore,
creatures of this type are expected to admire and to desire to become
like their creators in every conceivable way. The purpose of this
exercise is to portray a touching yet humorous journey of personal
growth, discovery and conformity, and is definitely not implemented
just so observers feel smug at the knowledge that everyone who could
possibly exist would want to be just like them, nuh-uh, no siree."

The prepared statement ground to a halt, wheezing slightly. The Mad
Scientist put it back in its box. "That's it, then!" the robot said
happily. "You should get on with that now! Why don't you go leave and
seek your fortune?"

"But..." said the Boy, and paused for a moment as the mechanisms of
his peculiar bio-chemical thinking-brain computed and calculated his
next data output stream, making a curious whirrring sound that only
the highly over-imaginative could possibly hope to hear. "But...how
can I seek my fortune when money no longer exists, as we have all
evolved far beyond the need for such things, here in the distant
future?"

"Well, of course! Such things are entirely nonexistent now, as we of
the Future are far too advanced for such petty concepts!" said the
robot. "But it's traditional. Come now, there must be something you
can do. Why don't you sign on board a sailing ship? Or a space sailing
ship?"

"They paved over the spaceport to build the electronic curling arena.
I think they've resurfaced most of the oceans by now, too."

"Whatever," said the robot, who had become distracted by bats. "I'm
sure something will turn up. It's how these things work. G'wan, it'll
be fun!"

"Well...all right," said the Boy, who had in fact been getting tired
of cleaning up after the Mad Scientist's experiments and trying to
make sure the bio-slaves understood that he was neither biological
waste material nor food before he went to sleep each night.

"Off you got, then! Here, take this in case you need to buy stuff or
something," the robot said, handing the Boy a $50 bill. 

"Thank you," he said, and put it in the back pocket of his underpants.

"Why are you still here?" asked the robot.

So the Boy prepared to leave, packing his possessions into a bag on
the end of a stick while trying to keep out of the way of the Mad
Scientist, who was gleefully and randomly expounding on its plans to
design a new, better human, one constructed out of solid molybdenum
carved into perfect geometrical solids. When he was done he left
through the section of wall he had previously labeled "DOOR", by this
time knowing well enough to ignore the areas that had been labeled
"DoAR" "dore" "DOr" "DawR" and "DER" at knee height by the Mime-Bots
as a form of revenge. He set off down the road to Robot City, dodging
the huge, autonomous road-maintenance machines that were the road's
only authorized form of traffic.

Robot City was huge and impressive, stretching for miles away in
numerous directions and containing many wondrous and currently
undescribed wonders. There was little traffic on the streets, however,
because most transportation was accomplished by far more efficient
methods than driving or walking, such as cannons and giant
roof-mounted funnels. The Boy wandered around for some time before
finding something willing to talk to him. "Hey!" it said.

"What?" said the Boy, addressing the ornate metal apparatus that had
spoken. It was covered with cheap mechanical pigeons.

"I initiate communication with you at this point with the intent of
instigating action on your part that would result in the removal of
pigeons from this location."

The Boy sat and thought about this for a while, then waved his stick
at the pigeons. They flew away, clicking and buzzing. "Thank you,"
said the thing.

"What are you?" asked the Boy.

"I am a fire hydrant," it said, somehow contriving to indicate,
without actually moving, that perhaps the letters "FIRE HYDRANT"
stamped into its metal casing should have been sufficient information.

"I thought we'd evolved beyond the need for fire hydrants."

"Please do not again remind me. I consider becoming a water pyrant."

"Uh-huh," said the Boy, letting that one slide. "Do you know where
would be a good place for me to seek my fortune? I'm supposed to Learn
What It Means To Be A Robot."

"What what means?"

"What?"

"It."

There was a long pause.

"What?" said the Boy.

"Perhaps you should seek the Bird of Wisdom," said the fire hydrant,
changing the subject.

"The Bird of Wisdom?"

"I didn't make it up," said the hydrant, a little defensively. "It
lives in the Great Forest, which lies two days journey in the
direction of the rising sun."

"Can you give me its GPS coordinates?"

"No."

So the Real Boy left the city, heading out across the great plains in
the direction the rising sun had been last time he'd seen it. The
vast, majestic expanse of flat polished concrete shimmered
impressively in what dim yellow light managed to filter to the ground.
Every so often a shower of fat, murky raindrops fell from the
iron-gray clouds, pitter-pattering enticingly on the ground and eating
their way straight through things. It was almost a shame to have to
use a multi-layer reinforced steel-alloy umbrella. After each rain the
concrete was always etched with fascinating patterns, which lasted
until the Vast Majestic Plains Maintenance-Bots popped out of their
air-tight burrows and polished the ground back up to its
characteristic sheen.

Even more impressive, when he reached it, was the Great Forest itself.
The tall silver trees were planted with awe-inspiring regularity and
uniformity, stretching from horizon to horizon in carefully
positioned, indistinguishable rows and columns. Each straight metal
trunk sported three identical sets of smooth, perpendicular branches,
plus a cute little knob at the very top. There was also no clear way
to find anything within their vast, unvaried array.

The Boy paused to think, sitting down upon the shell of the
Maintenance-Bot that had been following him every since he reached the
plains, polishing in his footsteps with an air of vast irritation.
After a while, he had an idea, and stood up.

"Take me to the Bird of Wisdom, or I'll hit you with this stick," he
said, waving the stick at the robot. It was a good stick, long,
knobbly and lovingly crafted from purest titanium, and the small robot
eyed it with as much apprehension as an upturned plastic bowl with
eyes and antennae glued on was able to muster.

So they set off to find the Bird of Wisdom, the robot muttering to
itself in an unbreakable secret code. After quite some time an
irregularity in the forest came into view. Ahead of them there was a
single tree taller than all the others. Closer examination showed it
to have a large mechanical bird on one of the upper branches and a
form granting specific authorization to be taller glued to its trunk.

"Are you the Bird of Wisdom?" asked the Boy, as the Maintenance-Bot
skulked away in the dim light.

"What does the sign say?" asked the bird, patiently.

The Boy read the placard hanging below the bird's feet. "It says 'THE
BIRD OF WISDOM,'" he said.

"Well?" asked the bird, after a long pause.

"I thought it might be making a general statement."

"Hmm," said the bird, peering downward at the sign. "I suppose it
could be considered ambiguous. What if it said 'THIS IS THE BIRD OF
WISDOM,' instead?"

"That would make the *sign* the Bird of Wisdom," said the Boy, looking
upset.

"'THE OBJECT ON THE BRANCH DIRECTLY ABOVE THIS SIGN IS THE BIRD OF
WISDOM,'" the bird suggested.

"But...if you left the branch, then the definition of the term 'The
Bird of Wisdom' would have to change."

"It's all right," said the bird. "My feet are welded to the branch."

"Oh," said the Boy.

"So what was it you wanted to know?"

"Are you the Bird of Wisdom?"

"Yes," the bird said, very, very patiently. "Do you have a question
for me?"

"How do I learn What It Means To Be A Robot?"

"What what means?"

"Uhh..." said the Boy.

"I suppose the best way would be to actually become a robot," said the
bird, skipping ahead.

"How do I do that?"

"You should ask The Computer That Controls The World."

"Where is it?"

"Far, far away, past a dozen horizons, sequestered in an unbreachable
fortress, buried deep within the heart of the tallest mountain in the
world," the bird replied in stentorian tones.

"That's pretty far," said the Boy.

"Yes."

"Only...I've been walking for two days and there's no shoes in The
Future, plus I'm nearly out of extra skin, and I'm beginning to think
that the Mad Scientist was wrong when it said that eating was just an
self-indulgent habit I could break if I really wanted to."

"Oh, if you want to get there fast, I can do that, too," said the
bird. "Just bend a branch on that tree."

Doubtfully, the Boy took hold of a branch and pulled. At first nothing
happened, but when the branch became bent exactly 7 degrees out of
alignment, the little round ball at the top of each tree lit up bright
red and began emitting a loud "WOOP WOOP" noise.

"WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP!" said the trees.

"There you go," said the bird smugly, as a squadron of robotic flying
monkeys swooped down out of the sky, grabbed the Boy, and carried him
off through the air. "And good luck with whatever!" the bird yelled
after him.

After a long time flying through the clouds the monkeys swooped down
towards a large pointy mountain and dumped the Boy into a long narrow
chute. He slid for several minutes before emerging at some velocity
inside an vast underground chamber.

The immense space had clearly been carved directly out of the solid
rock, and one entire side of the room was taken up by the side of a
gigantic computer. The vast metal wall was covered in switches,
lights, knobs, dials, readouts, meters, displays, access ports and
gantries, over and throughout which swarmed countless robots and
bio-slaves of every shape and description. In the very center of the
surface of the great machine there was a sweeping expanse of bare
metal that contained nothing but seven towering stenciled letters that
grandly spelled out the word "MEGAVAC."

"Wow," said the Boy. "A computer this large must of course be very
powerful!"

"How did you get here?" asked a nearby robot.

"The Bird of Wisdom sent me."

"The Bird of Wisdom," repeated the robot, clearly not buying it.

"It said I should come here to find out how I can become a robot," the
Boy added.

"Oh, I guess we could do that," the robot said. "But, I dunno, our
work here is pretty important and all, what with maintaining The
Computer The Controls The World and everything. I'm not sure I can
take the time off to help you without at least some justification. I
suppose we could arrange some kind of exchange of goods and services,
but unfortunately we have no concept of money, here in the distant
future."

"I could give you this," said the Boy, showing the robot the $50 bill.

The robot's eyes lit up with tiny dollar signs. "Oh, that would be
fine! Let me just go ask MEGAVAC!"

The Boy followed the robot over to the side of the computer. The robot
began rapidly punching a sequence into a backlit panel of translucent,
octagonal, randomly colored unlabeled buttons. A moment after it had
finished, a piece of ticker-tape rattled noisily out of the machine.
It was covered with cryptic symbols, which the robot squinted at.

"It says 'Use the Mind-Transferal Device,'" MEGAVAC prompted
helpfully.

"Right, right, I know that," said the robot. "Do we have a spare robot
body, or something?"

A panel in the side of the computer opened and a deactivated robot
rolled out on a very slow conveyer belt.

"It's a welding robot," said the Boy.

"Do you have something against welding robots?"

"Uhhh..." said the Boy.

"Put this on your head," said the first robot, handing the Boy a
colander. "It can copy all of your thoughts and memories into the
brain of this robot here."

"This is safe?" asked the Boy, putting the object on his head.

"Oh, sure, yeah. Safe. Whatever," the robot said, putting a matching
colander on the head of the welding robot. It hurriedly pressed a
button. Flashy lights flashed helpfully.

"VvvummmmmMMMMMMM," said the welding robot, powering up.

"There we go! Have you got all of this guys thoughts and memories, and
stuff?" asked the other robot.

The welding robot paused to think. "Yup," it said, after a moment.

"Wait, so do I," said the original Boy.

"So what are you going to do now?" the first robot asked the welding
robot.

There was another long pause. "I think I'll go weld something," it
said.

"But I'm still here too!" said the redundant original Boy.

"Oh, that's easy," said the first robot, and hit him over the head
with a hammer.

So the welding robot went off to weld things, happy to spend the rest
of its useful existence enjoying its repetitive tasks. Sometimes,
though, every once in a while, while it was working it would notice
the thoughts and memories of the Real Boy where they sat on a shelf in
the back of its mind, and pick them up, turning them and examining
them from all directions. Then it would say to itself "Huh," and put
them back where they had been before.

And as for what became of the original Boy, well, the bio-slaves ate
well that night, let me tell you.

                        ALL DONE

-- 
Today's word is: 'caboodle'

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