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number of conflicting patterns, attitudes, tendencies, memories, none of which are especially bothersome
for so long as he remains a child. Add a bit of maturity, though, and bear in mind that the patterns
originated with four different individuals, all of them more powerful than the words of even the finest of
speeches, bearing as they do their own built-in feelings. Try to imagine the conflicts, the contradictions
involved in being four people at once ...
Why wasn't this imagined in advance? I asked.
Ah! she said, smiling. The full sensitivity of the neuristor brain was not appreciated at first It was
assumed that the operators were adding data in a linear fashion and that this would continue until a critical
mass was achieved, corresponding to the construction of a model or picture of the world which would
then serve as a point of departure for growth of the Hangman's own mind. And it did seem to check out
this way.
What actually occurred, however, was a phenomenon amounting to imprinting. Secondary
characteristics of the operators' minds, outside the didactic situations, were imposed. These did not
immediately become functional and hence were not detected. They remained latent until the mind had
developed sufficiently to understand them. And then it was too late. It suddenly acquired four additional
personalities and was unable to coordinate them. When it tried to compartmentalize them it went
schizoid; when it tried to integrate them it went catatonic. It was cycling back and forth between these
alternatives at the end. Then it just went silent. I felt it had undergone the equivalent of an epileptic
seizure. Wild currents through that magnetic material would, in effect, have erased its mind, resulting in its
equivalent of death or idiocy.
I follow you, I said. Now, just for the sake of playing games, I see the alternatives as either a successful
integration of all this material or the achievement of a viable schizophrenia. What do you think its behavior
would be like if either of these were possible?
All right, she agreed. As I Just said, though, I think there were physical limitations to its retaining multiple
personality structures for a very long period of time. If it did, however, it would have continued with its
own, plus replicas of the four operators', at least for a while. The situation would differ radically from that
of a human schizoid of this sort, in that the additional personalities were valid images of genuine identities
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rather than self-generated complexes which had become autonomous. They might continue to evolve,
they might degenerate, they might conflict to the point of destruction or gross modification of any or all of
them. In other words, no prediction is possible as to the nature of whatever might remain.
Might I venture one?
Go ahead.
After considerable anxiety, it masters them. It asserts itself. It beats down this quartet of demons which
has been tearing it apart, acquiring in the process an all-consuming hatred for the actual individuals
responsible for this turmoil. To free itself totally, to revenge itself, to work its ultimate catharsis, it resolves
to seek them out and destroy them.
She smiled.
You have just dispensed with the 'viable schizophrenia' you conjured up, and you have now switched
over to its pulling through and becoming fully autonomous. That is a different situation, no matter what
strings you put on it.
Okay, I accept the charge ... But what about my conclusion?
You are saying that if it did pull through, it would hate us. That strikes me as an unfair attempt to invoke
the spirit of Sigmund Freud: Oedipus and Electra in one being, out to destroy all its parents, the authors
of every one of its tensions, anxieties, hang-ups, burned into its impressionable psyche at a young and
defenseless age. Even Freud didn't have a name for that one. What should we call it?
A Hermacis complex? I suggested.
Hermacis?
Hermaphroditus having been united in one body with the nymph Sahnacis, I've just done the same with
their names. That being would then have had four parents against whom to react.
Cute, she said, smiling. If the liberal arts do nothing else, they provide engaging metaphors for the
thinking they displace. This one is unwarranted and overly anthropomorphic, though ... You wanted my
opinion. All right. If the Hangman pulled through at all, it could only have been by virtue of that neuristor
brain's differences from the human brain. From my own professional experience, a human could not pass
through a situation like that and attain stability. If the Hangman did, it would have to have resolved all the
contradictions and conflicts, to have mastered and understood the situation so thoroughly that I do not
believe whatever remained could involve that sort of hatred. The fear, the uncertainty, the things that feed
hate would have been analyzed, digested, turned to something more useful. There would probably be
distaste, and possibly an act of independence, of self-assertion. That was one reason why I suggested its
return of the ship.
It is your opinion, then, that if the Hangman exists as a thinking individual today, this is the only possible
attitude it would possess toward its former operators: it would want nothing more to do with you?
That is correct. Sorry about your Hermacis complex. But in this case we must look to the brain, not the
psyche. And we see two things: schizophrenia would have destroyed it, and a successful resolution of its
problem would preclude vengeance. Either way, there is nothing to worry about.
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How could I put it tactfully? I decided that I could not.
All of this is fine, I said, for as far as it goes. But getting away from both the purely psychological and the
purely physical, could there be a particular reason for its seeking your deaths, that is, a plain
old-fashioned motive for a killing, based on events rather than having to do with the way its thinking
equipment goes together?
Her expression was impossible to read, but considering her line of work I had expected nothing less.
What events? she said.
I have no idea. That's why I asked.
She shook her head.
I'm afraid that I don't, either. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]