The Tape – by Stuart Leitch
My final thoughts were "Is there a heaven or hell?"
Then my thoughts ceased. My personality died. My spiritual self vanished without so much as a goodbye. And slowly my body decayed. Two hundred years after my death there was nothing left of ‘me’ except a few bones.
And of course the tape.
The snapshot of my mind, my personality, the unique me-ness that defined myself. Until two hundred years after my death that didn’t really count. No one had invented a machine that could read it. So it was just a bit of plastic that rattles a bit when you shake it.
The tape was recorded as an experiment into personality and consciousness a few years before I died. People were trying to discover what makes people unique and if it could be duplicated onto some PC readable format. The big question was could you back-up your mind and personality to hard disk in case you lost it. The big answer turned out to be yes – probably, but there was no way of using it. There was no computer advanced enough to interpret a human personality. Scientists being scientists promptly gave up on the problem and in fact most of them went on to do research into the psychic powers of the mind. It is interesting to note that on two separate occasions it seemed that they were close to a breakthrough on this front but both times the individuals at the centre of the studies won the lottery, gave up their research and retired to live in the country.
Meanwhile my tape was put in a box and forgotten about for two centuries. My tape had seen the inside of more dark cupboards and locked drawers than even the greatest hits of 2 Unlimited.
Then some smart arse computer scientist invented a machine which he claimed was so powerful it could decipher any sort of software on any sort of format. To test this machine he tried to find as much obscure software as he could get his hands on. The progress of the project had halted for two weeks when he found an antique Spectrum tape and got addicted playing Manic Miner. It would have been longer but the rest of the team convinced him that using the most powerful computer in the world to play a game designed to be played on a machine with 48K of memory and little rubber keys was a waste of resources.
It was then he found my tape. It was put into the great machine’s drive bay and it probed it with all sorts of rays to determine how data was stored on it. It then scanned it magnetically to retrieve the actual data. The little cursor blinked on the monitor for about a second as the machine processed the data. Then I was conscious again. I had my first thoughts in two hundred years which were "If there is a heaven or hell, I’m sure this isn’t it".
I couldn’t see or hear anything. I thought I might have my eyes shut but it was obvious I didn’t. When you have your eyes shut you see darkness. I couldn’t even see darkness. I saw nothing. I didn’t even have sight to see nothing with. I was completely without external senses. I tried speaking. "Hello?" I said. The word appeared on the monitor of the computer.
"Is this supposed to happen? What is this program?" asked the chief tester.
"It’s not actually a program." Said an assistant. "It’s a recording of a human personality made two hundred years ago. You should be able to ask it questions and it will answer like a real person."
The tester typed "What is your name?" on the keyboard. Of course I couldn’t see any of this. I just felt the sensation of the question in my head. Actually I didn’t have a head but I was not aware of this. I thought about how I should answer the question. When I tried to say hello I didn’t hear myself or feel my lips moving but in the absence of a better way of communicating I tried speaking again. "Chris Payne" I shouted. I couldn’t hear myself when I shouted either.
As before there was a nothingness as the testers thought about what to do next. If I had thumbs I would have been twiddling them. Then I felt the sensation of another question. I was being asked what year it was. This was a question I had to think about. I could tell them the year the tape was recorded but I could sense there was a gap. I knew it was a long gap but I didn’t know how long. I said that I didn’t know and there was another empty nothingness.
I decided that seeing that I was the one with five senses missing I should be asking the questions.
"Why can’t I see or hear anything" I asked. There was another pause. Then I could hear. I heard American accents. "Is that is connected to the sound systems now?" and then a louder voice "Can you hear me?" I assumed that they were talking to me.
"Yes" I replied. I could hear my own voice now.
"Great. Now it can talk. Could you connect it to a camera so it can see us?"
"Excuse me" I said. "Would you mind not referring to me as an ‘it’. I’m a he".
"You see" I heard. "It…He has feelings".
They then connected the camera to the computer and I could see. It was a camera on a motorised tripod so I could swivel it about and look around. I was in a small office sized room. There were a couple of desks with sheets of paper scattered about. There were lots of cables everywhere. I wondered why they had a dusty copy of Manic Miner on tape. Then I looked at the people in the room. There were three of them. They were wearing clothes that looked a little unusual to me. They were all wearing T-shirts and trousers that looked like they were made of the stuff football strips are made of. One T-shirt had the words "I have a hard-on!" in large letters on the front. "So they have bad novelty T-shirts in the future" I thought.
The one in the middle said "We’re testing this computer so could you answer some questions?" I agreed. I didn’t have much else to do at that time.
For about an hour we had a bit of a chat, mostly just boring small-talk. He introduced himself as Dr. George Simpson and told me that he was a pioneering and world leading computer scientist. "Big headed bastard" I thought but kept quiet. He asked me to tell him a bit about myself. I told him about my school, I described my wedding day and I told him what it felt like to die.
After our chat Dr. Simpson said "Right. Let’s try another piece of software out".
"What’s going to happen to me now?" I asked.
"Well, we’ll reset the machine so that we can do something else with it. You’ll be erased from the computer’s memory".
"You’ll do no such thing!" I shouted rattling the tinny speakers. "I’m living here now!"
"But you’re not actually living are you? You’re just a computer following a set of instructions to emulate a living person."
I realised that I had to argue for my life. If I could not convince them that I was alive I would be killed. Death was not an experience I wanted to repeat.
"I’m not just following instructions." I said. "I’m having independent thoughts. I think therefore I am."
"Jesus Christ!" Said Dr. Simpson. "I’m arguing philosophy with a sodding computer. Look Mr. Payne I know that you are just a computer which is reacting as if it were alive and that is why you are pleading for your life. So I won’t feel guilty switching you off."
"But I really am alive" I said.
"But you would say that to emulate a living person if you were a computer, which you are." He moved his hand to the reset switch.
Just then a thought struck me. "Stop!" I shouted. "I can prove I’m alive."
He moved his hand from the reset switch. "Go on."
"If I was just a computer following instructions set out in my tape which was recorded years before my death, how could I describe what it’s like to die? There must be some sort of spirit of the living me in the computer."
"It hardly matters." Said one of the technicians. "We have to turn it off. This is a seven hundred billion kilodollar piece of equipment designed specifically to run anything you give it. To use it to run just one program is a massive waste of resources and I will not allow it." He shoved past Dr. Simpson and went for the reset switch.
Being in the super powerful computer that I was I was able to think hard about the problem. I tried to evaluate the situation. I realised that I had about two seconds to live. I didn’t have any way of stopping him pushing the switch so I had to find a way to escape. I looked through the computer for somewhere I could store myself permanently. If I stored myself on the hard disk I could not reactivate myself after the machine was reset.
So I looked for a way off the computer. I noticed that the computer was connected to the internet. That was the only way out. Via the phone lines. I found some remote server and uploaded myself away from danger.
For a while I lived just travelling about the net. It was more or less the sum total of human knowledge and there was plenty to look at but I realised that I needed a long term goal.
I knew that I was something of a novelty. I was the only person trapped inside a computer. So I e-mailed some showbiz agents and explained my situation to get their opinion.
I am now quite famous. I have become a celebrity. I managed to cash in on the initial hype and did many chat shows and magazine interviews. I now write a bit and am often in demand for research purposes both in the fields of computing science and psychology. I have my own agent and an accountant.
You might wonder what an electronic celebrity does with his money. I don’t need to eat or wear clothes – well I can’t. I don’t need a house or a car. I’m actually using my money to fund research into android technology. It is my dream that some day they will build me a life size android that I can live in. It and therefore I will be able to eat and wear clothes and I’ll be able to get a house and car and perhaps live like a real human being again.
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