Patricians: Power Politics (2 of 9)

Chapter 8: Eureka

No sounds came from the labs in the Atlantis Deep Ocean Research Facility owned by Muse. Most of the scientists were sleeping in their quarters. Only one light remained on in the labs. Nicholas Slate sat in front of a screen, looking at his latest design. For the last ten years, the secrets of human consciousness had remained out of reach, but, tonight, all that would change. Something had compelled Nicholas to try this new design, and he had spent weeks programming the 3-D model for all the cybernetic components. All that remained was a push of a button and he would know if it worked.

Fear of failure caused Nicholas to hesitate. So many failures over the last ten years had demoralized the brilliant neuroscientist. Nicholas had built hundreds of cybernetic brains, but not one of them worked. At best, they allowed a human mind to direct a cybernetic body, but the soul was still chained to the body. Still, the hope of success had never left the diligent scientist. Death could be obsolete.

Nicholas had realized he was trying to replicate the functionality of the brain, but not the purpose, and that idea had changed everything. This new brain did not seek to emulate human brain function, instead focusing on housing infinite storage. Technological progress had increased data storage beyond expectations in the last ten years, but it had never come close to the size of the human brain. People seemed able to store infinite amounts of information, and trying to replicate that had so far proven impossible.

Memory might seem infinite, but it acted similar to the internet, and the culmination of ever-increasing data required the computer to catalogue everything. That was where the previous models had gone wrong. Nicholas had realized the brain possessed filters and buffers from which it only gleamed small pieces of data considered important. The brain, when required to reassemble information from memory, relied on pattern recognition, and each time it was pulled to consciousness it was re-written into memory. Every time, the memory changed. This new cybernetic brain would only store human consciousness, and it would be the consciousness that directed the brain, as opposed to the brain directing the consciousness.

Staring at the button, Nicholas swallowed hard before pressing. Machines came to life and began working on the brain in the sealed environment. A bar on the screen showed the percentage of progress. With each passing moment, Nicholas found himself growing ever more anxious. There was no way to know if it had worked until it was done and the computer could compare human brain functions to the cybernetic brain functions. If the two didn't match exactly, there was no way the board, or Henry, would allow a test.

Pacing back and forth, Nicholas waited for the final percentages to tick down. Doubt lingered in the doctor's mind. There was no accounting for the differences between brain function in the models and a human brain. Early trials had not run into any problems with animals. The first human attempt, and the casualty it had caused, had prevented Henry from further attempts until success was guaranteed.

Nicholas had spent his life researching the consciousness equation, trying to reconcile science with the metaphysical idea of the human soul, and, so far, he had failed. There was something beyond human understanding, and freewill wasn't just a concept created to explain reality, but a concept contained inside of each cell of the human body, which was why the earlier test had failed. The early models Nicholas had used to explain the human mind were based on the idea that people were the sum of their memories, but the first test had proven that that, too,was inaccurate. This was when he came up with the idea of the conscious equation, and the mathematical explanation of free will. Each cell in the human body had a purpose, all the cells worked together to create a unified whole, but the mind was much different, with each neuron having a purpose, but not influenced by thought. Choice had the ability to rewrite the entire neural network of a person over time, and Nicholas figured the sum of each human being's soul was an unanswerable question. When he tested the first cybernetic brain with the conscious equation, the results had been shocking. The computer determined the model could only handle .0001% of the consciousness equation volume.