Friday 10th June
Record date 20661020
At long last a date has been agreed for my stage two conjoining. This has never been attempted before, and there was no way that a computer simulation could be run either. How can you possibly sim a Hypercom meshing with a human. What will the com make of my mind, my connections, my thought patterns. Well, we will see. I predict it will be less confused than I was receiving the com’s ‘brain’ into my own. The process is similar to stage one conjoining except that the transference is reversed. All the data in my brain is to be transferred back to the hyper-computer network. Or not exactly. Again the caution of those in charge means that my memories, my feelings, my emotions will be held in abeyance, on a separate unlinked section of my hyper-computer twin. It will then be analysed, and checked for any potential risks before being completely linked with the network. Of course the memories will not actually leave my brain at all. They will still be there, but copies, imprints if you like, will be transferred. In a process similar to the unfolding of dna itself, an unraveling will take place, almost exact copies of my memories and emotions, the thoughts and feelings, the whisper of the breeze on a summer’s day, the sound of a symphony tuning up, the smell of sex itself, everything I have ever felt or thought will be replicated and shared for my Hypercom twin. Just as the computer shared its data with me, I will be sharing mine with it.
But what it will do with it; with this imperfect and yet incomprehensibly complex form of intelligence is still unknown. The hope, indeed the fervent wish of those running the programme, is that the Hypercom will learn to think in a human way but with Hypercom speed. The sort of artificial intelligence the Hypercoms run on is logical, straight-line thinking, building block on block of knowledge, it learns in a formal way, checking and rechecking data to ‘learn’ the best way of solving problems, going back time and again to tried and trusted formula’s. So, still in essence a machine, if an incredibly clever one. The hope is that those leaps of imagination, those intuitive jumps which the human brain is capable of will enable the Hypercom to ‘think’ like a human.
But no-one knows for sure if it will work. So I will still therefore have to wait until stage three before a final two-way link is established. I have tried to persuade them to press on, not to wait until the Hypercom has digested my memories, worked out how my synaptic connections can reproduce not only accurate memories but the impressions of those memories. Just as the Impressionist painters of nearly two hundred years ago managed to evoke feelings from blobs and blurs of paint, rather than just trying to reproduce as exact an image as a photograph, or daguerreotype in all probability. Reality was never their goal, but the essence of, the distillation of a feeling, a mood. So too, our brains not only remember but remember remembering, and cast over both a cloak of feelings and impressions and emotions that subtly changes the reality of what was into what we had hoped or feared might have been. But they barely listen to me. They hear my words and go back to their charts and their projections and their secret little conferences, but they don’t really listen. They nod, and smile and treat me like a small child who thinks he might know better than Mummy, but understand they do not. Superior in intelligence to them I might be, but as helpless as that small child I am too.
So, I wait and do what I am told, and I am told I must learn to be patient. Though this is the patience a parent must have with a recalcitrant child who is taking forever to learn to feed itself. The parent has to keep trying, letting the child deposit food everywhere but in its own mouth, willing to step in to ensure that at least some food is actually consumed, while all the time the stubborn child is determined to feed itself. No, I am not the child; I am the patient parent waiting for the refusenik childish powers that be to acknowledge that I was right all along. And meanwhile the food is getting cold. Ah, enough of talking in metaphors, if I were using ZoroAstrian it would be just as hard to make them see.
But patience is hard to learn, especially when I know that I am right. (and to be fair, better informed than they are) After all, I have access to all their data, but have analysed it from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. I also know my own brain far better than they do. They can only see one side of the coin; they can only see their data. They cannot see, as I can, my own mind and how it will react to a final conjoining.
In all other respects I am progressing brilliantly. I can now walk and run, though exercise does tire me out quickly. My manual dexterity and senses of touch and smell are over ninety percent returned to their former levels. I feel great. I haven’t had a moment’s depression or any feelings of doubt or inadequacy since my first conjoining. My emotions seem to be mostly happy and contented; misery has disappeared from the range of emotions I feel. Melancholy, my almost constant former friend has waved goodbye, it has got on a train and departed, forever I hope. Though I can of course rerun those dark, dismal days whenever I fancy – I do occasionally, in fast-forward mode, my brain skims in and tastes the discordant broth I stewed in for so long. But the taste does not linger, it is gone as quickly as I had summoned it up, and I return to my slightly euphoric but ultimately contented self.
I have even requested and received a session of syn, and I can tell you that all my equipment is working very satisfactorily indeed. It was actually a bit weird being able to experience those incredible sensations at the same time as analysing and recording the minutiae of every wave of pleasure completely simultaneously. Having recorded the memory perfectly I can replay it with all the accompanying sensations whenever I want, without the cumbersome syn tube, and helmet. So, even the problem of sex being very ephemeral is now dispensed with. It is still ephemeral, (wasn’t it ever) but the crystal clear memory can be recalled instantly, and the experience is the same. Ephemeral or not, it is quite sensational; every graze of moist lips, every fingertip touch, every sticky taste is there, bright and clear as holo-tv, only I can slow it down, or speed it up, rewind and experience those few pre-orgasmic seconds time and again. I have in fact become a veritable sex-machine myself. If I were using simple terms I might say it was mind-blowing, though of course my mind is never blown, and not yet even full-blown either. That was another joke by the way, just in case you were wondering.