Page 52 - Effable Encounters

Good and Dead

Einstein at the dawn of quantum theory, I could not accept the
paradigm shift. Certain neural functions could indeed be modeled
with built-up digital programming, just as sensory stimuli could be
understood and replicated in those terms—the music and video
industries took good advantage of that phenomenon. But the digital
signals sent through the neurons to the brain are obviously a later
evolutionary adaptation overlaying a primitive analogue transmission
along subtler pathways. Chinese medicine recognized this long ago,
but I had no time to wait for the West, blinded by the success of its
new computers, to catch up; I was already middle-aged and too
deeply involved in research seeking analogue structures in the brain.
Do you follow me?”
“Mostly. I am not a scientist, but I try to keep up with trends. I’m
in advertising, one of the people who plumb human motivation for
profit.”
“That will take some getting used to,” retorted Dr. Feinfedder. “I
never had much respect for that business. You’re the first I’ve met
who’s part of it. No doubt you have many stories to tell about your
life, and bring a very different perspective on events with which I am
already familiar. So, on balance, not the worst point of origin. Now,
my work and how it relates to you: as I neared retirement age—
mandatory at my employer, an electronics think tank—it became
clear to me that my private lines of investigation would have to
achieve resolution before that date. Why? Because I had been taking
advantage of all the facilities afforded by a large and well-funded
research institution, often staying late into the evening and working
on weekends, and I would lose access to equipment essential to
pursuing my goal of reproducing the nervous system in an external
self-sustaining electromagnetic field. I believed I had achieved this in
small invertebrate and mammalian test subjects, but two things
remained a mystery.”
“First, the creatures died as a result of the procedure. I had not
intended that to happen. It was an unforeseen consequence of
interfering with potentials at key cranial nodes. Second, I had no way
of determining if the reconstituted network functioned as did its
original, a conscious—though limited and nonverbal—mind. Only a
human brain would provide the answer to that. But once outside the
body, there was no return. The corpse could not be reanimated. Then

51