“ARE you serious?-do you really believe that a machine thinks?”
I got no immediate reply; Moxon was apparently intent upon the coals in
the grate, touching them deftly here and there with the fire-poker till
they
signified a sense of his attention
by a brighter glow. For several weeks I had been observing in him a growing
habit of delay in answering even the most trivial of
commonplace questions. His air,
however, was that of preoccupation rather than deliberation: one might
have said that he had “something on his mind.”
Presently he said:
“What is a ‘machine’? The word has been variously defined. Here is one
definition from a popular dictionary: ‘Any instrument or organization by
which
power is applied and made effective,
or a desired effect produced.’ Well, then, is not a man a machine? And
you will admit that he thinks-or thinks he thinks.”
“If you do not wish to answer my question,” said, rather testily, “why
not say so?-all that you say is mere evasion. You know well enough that
when I say
‘machine’ I do not mean a man,
but something that man has made and controls.”
“When it does not control him,” he said, rising abruptly and looking out
of a window, whence nothing was visible in the blackness of a stormy night.
A
moment later he turned about and
with a smile said: “I beg your pardon; I had no thought of evasion. I considered
the dictionary man's unconscious testimony
suggestive and worth something
in the discussion. I can give your question a direct answer easily enough:
I do believe that a machine thinks about the work that
it is doing.”
That was direct enough, certainly. It was not altogether pleasing, for
it tended to confirm a sad suspicion that Moxon's devotion to study and
work in his
machine-shop had not been good
for him. I knew, for one thing, that he suffered from insomnia, and that
is no light affliction. Had it affected his mind? His reply
to my question seemed to me then
evidence that it had; perhaps I should think differently about it now.
I was younger then, and among the blessings that are not
denied to youth is ignorance. Incited
by that great stimulant to controversy, I said:
“And what, pray, does it think with-in the absence of a brain?”
The reply, coming with less than his customary delay, took his favourite
form of counter-interrogation:
“With what does a plant think-in the absence of a brain?”
“Ah, plants also belong to the philosopher class! I should be pleased to
know some of their conclusions; you may omit the premises.”
“Perhaps,” he replied, apparently unaffected by my foolish irony, “you
may be able to infer their convictions from their acts. I will spare you
the familiar
examples of the sensitive mimosa,
the several insectivorous flowers and those whose stamens bend down and
shake their pollen upon the entering bee in order
that he may fertilize their distant
mates. But observe this. In an open spot in my garden I planted a climbing
vine. When it was barely above the surface I set a
stake into the soil a yard away.
The vine at once made for it, but as it was about to reach it after several
days I removed it a few feet. The vine at once altered its
course, making an acute angle,
and again made for the stake. This manoeuvre was repeated several times,
but finally, as if discouraged, the vine abandoned the
pursuit and ignoring further attempts
to divert it, travelled to a small tree, farther away, which it climbed.
“Roots of the eucalyptus will prolong themselves incredibly in search of
moisture. A well-known horticulturist relates that one entered an old drain-pipe
and followed it until it came to
a break, where a section of the pipe had been removed to make way for a
stone wall that had been built across its course. The
root left the drain and followed
the wall until it found an opening where a stone had fallen out. It crept
through and following the other side of the wall back to
the drain, entered the unexplored
part and resumed its journey.”
“And all this?”
“Can you miss the significance of it? It shows the consciousness of plants.
It proves that they think.”
“Even if it did-what then? We were speaking, not of plants, but of machines.
They may be composed partly of wood-wood that has no longer vitality-or
wholly of metal. Is thought an
attribute also of the mineral kingdom?”
“How else do you explain the phenomena, for example, of crystallization?”
“I do not explain them.”
“Because you cannot without affirming what you wish to deny, namely, intelligent
co-operation, among the constituent elements of the crystals. When
soldiers form lines, or hollow
squares, you call it reason. When wild geese in flight take the form of
a letter V you say instinct. When the homogeneous atoms of
a mineral, moving freely in solution,
arrange themselves into shapes mathematically perfect, or particles of
frozen moisture into the symmetrical and beautiful
forms of snowflakes, you have nothing
to say. You have not even invented a name to conceal your heroic unreason.”
Moxon was speaking with unusual animation and earnestness. As he paused
I heard in an adjoining room known to me as his “machine-shop,” which no
one but himself was permitted to
enter, a singular thumping sound, as of someone pounding upon a table with
an open hand. Moxon heard it at the same moment
and, visibly agitated, rose and
hurriedly passed into the room whence it came. I thought it odd that anyone
else should be in there, and my interest in my friend-
with doubtless a touch of unwarrantable
curiosity-led me to listen intently, though, I am happy to say, not at
the keyhole. There were confused sounds, as of a
struggle or scuffle; the floor
shook. I distinctly heard hard breathing and a hoarse whisper which said
“Damn you!” Then all was silent, and presently Moxon
reappeared and said, with a rather
sorry smile:
“Pardon me for leaving you so abruptly. I have a machine in there that
lost its temper and cut up rough.”
Fixing my eyes steadily upon his left cheek, which was traversed by four
parallel excoriations showing blood, I said:
“How would it do to trim its nails?” I could have spared myself the jest;
he gave it no attention, but seated himself in the chair that he had left
and resumed
the interrupted monologue as if
nothing had occurred:
“Doubtless you do not hold with those (I need not name them to a man of
your reading) who have taught that all matter is sentient, that every atom
is a
living, feeling, conscious being.
I do. There is no such thing as dead, inert matter: it is all alive; all
instinct with force, actual and potential; all sensitive to the
same forces in its environment
and susceptible to the contagion of higher and subtler ones residing in
such superior organisms as it may be brought into relation
with, as those of man when he is
fashioning it into an instrument of his will. It absorbs something of his
intelligence and purpose-more of them in proportion to
the complexity of the resulting
machine and that of its work.
“Do you happen to recall Herbert Spencer's definition of ‘Life’? I read
it thirty years ago. He may have altered it afterward, for anything I know,
but in all
that time I have been unable to
think of a single word that could profitably be changed or added or removed.
It seems to me not only the best definition, but the
only possible one.
“‘Life,” he says, ‘is a definite combination of heterogeneous changes,
both simultaneous and successive, in corre spondence with external coexistences
and
sequences.’”
“That defines the phenomenon,” I said, “but gives no hint of its cause.”
“That,” he replied, “is all that any definition can do. As Mill points
out, we know nothing of cause except as an antecedent-nothing of effect
except as a
consequent. Of certain phenomena,
one never occurs without another, which is dissimilar: the first in point
of time we call cause, the second, effect. One who had
many times seen a rabbit pursued
by a dog, and had never seen rabbits and dogs otherwise, would think the
rabbit the cause of the dog.
“But I fear,” he added, laughing naturally enough, “that my rabbit is leading
me a long way from the track of my legitimate quarry: I'm indulging in
the
pleasure of the chase for its own
sake. What I want you to observe is that in Herbert Spencer's definition
of ‘life’ the activity of a machine is included -there is
nothing in the definition that
is not applicable to it. According to this sharpest of observers and deepest
of thinkers, if a man during his period of activity is alive,
so is a machine when in operation.
As an inventor and constructor of machines I know that to be true.”
Moxon was silent for a long time, gazing absently into the fire. It was
growing late and I thought it time to be going, but somehow I did not like
the notion
of leaving him in that isolated
house, all alone except for the presence of some person of whose nature
my conjectures could go no further than that it was
unfriendly, perhaps malign. Leaning
toward him and looking earnestly into his eyes while making a motion with
my hand through the door of his workshop, I
said:
“Moxon, whom have you in there?”
Somewhat to my surprise he laughed lightly and answered without hesitation:
“Nobody; the incident that you have in mind was caused by my folly in leaving
a machine in action with nothing to act upon, while I undertook the
interminable task of enlightening
your understanding. Do you happen to know that Consciousness is the creature
of Rhythm?”
“O bother them both!” I replied, rising and laying hold of my overcoat.
“I'm going to wish you good night; and I'll add the hope that the machine
which
you inadvertently left in action
will have her gloves on the next time you think it needful to stop her.”
Without waiting to observe the effect of my shot I left the house.
Rain was falling, and the darkness was intense. In the sky beyond the crest
of a hill toward which I groped my way along precarious plank sidewalks
and
across miry, unpaved streets I
could see the faint glow of the city's lights, but behind me nothing was
visible but a single window of Moxon's house. It glowed
with what seemed to me a mysterious
and fateful meaning. I knew it was an uncurtained aperture in my friend's
“machine-shop,” and I had little doubt that he had
resumed the studies interrupted
by his duties as my instructor in mechanical consciousness and the fatherhood
of Rhythm. Odd, and in some degree humorous, as
his convictions seemed to me at
that time, I could not wholly divest myself of the feeling that they had
some tragic relation to his life and character-perhaps to his
destiny-although I no longer entertained
the notion that they were the vagaries of a disordered mind. Whatever might
be thought of his views, his exposition of
them was too logical for that.
Over and over, his last words came back to me: “Consciousness is the creature
of Rhythm.” Bald and terse as the statement was, I
now found it infinitely alluring.
At each recurrence it broadened in meaning and deepened in suggestion.
Why, here (I thought) is something upon which to found
a philosophy. If Consciousness
is the product of Rhythm all things are conscious, for all have motion,
and all motion is rhythmic. I wondered if Moxon knew the
significance and breadth of his
thought-the scope of this momentous generalization; or had he arrived at
his philosophic faith by the tortuous and uncertain road
of observation? That faith was
then new to me, and all Moxon's expounding had failed to make me a convert;
but now it seemed as if a great light shone about
me, like that which fell upon Saul
of Tarsus; and out there in the storm and darkness and solitude I experienced
what Lewes calls “The endless variety and
excitement of philosophic thought.”
I exulted in a new sense of knowledge, a new pride of reason. My feet seemed
hardly to touch the earth; it was as if I were
uplifted and borne through the
air by invisible wings.
Yielding to an impulse to seek further light from him whom I now recognized
as my master and guide, I had unconsciously turned about, and almost
before I was aware of having done
so found myself again at Moxon's door. I was drenched with rain, but felt
no discomfort. Unable in my excitement to find the
doorbell I instinctively tried
the knob. It turned and, entering, I mounted the stairs to the room that
I had so recently left. All was dark and silent; Moxon, as I
had supposed, was in the adjoining
room-the “machine-shop.” Groping along the wall until found the communicating
door I knocked loudly several times, but
got no response, which I attributed
to the uproar outside, for the wind was blowing a gale and dashing the
rain against the thin walls in sheets. The drumming
upon the shingle roof spanning
the unceiled room was loud and incessant. I had never been invited into
the machine-shop- had, indeed, been denied admittance,
as had all others, with one exception,
a skilled metal worker, of whom no one knew anything except that his name
was Haley and his habit silence. But in my
spiritual exaltation, discretion
and civility were alike forgotten, and I opened the door. What I saw took
all philosophical speculation out of me in short order.
Moxon sat facing me at the farther side of a small table upon which a single
candle made all the light that was in the room. Opposite him, his back
toward
me, sat another person. On the
table between the two was a chess-board; the men were playing. I knew little
of chess, but as only a few pieces were on the board
it was obvious that the game was
near its close. Moxon was intensely interested-not so much, it seemed to
me, in the game as in his antagonist, upon whom he
had fixed so intent a look that,
standing though I did directly in the line of his vision, I was altogether
unobserved. His face was ghastly white, and his eyes
glittered like diamonds. Of his
antagonist I had only a back view, but that was sufficient; I should not
have cared to see his face.
He was apparently not more than five feet in height, with proportions suggesting
those of a gorilla-a tremendous breadth of shoulders, thick, short neck
and broad, squat head, which had
a tangled growth of black hair and was topped with a crimson fez. A tunic
of the same colour, belted tightly to the waist,
reached the seat-apparently a box-upon
which he sat; his legs and feet were not seen. His left forearm appeared
to rest in his lap; he moved his pieces with his
right hand, which seemed disproportionately
long.
I had shrunk back and now stood a little to one side of the doorway and
in shadow. If Moxon had looked farther than the face of his opponent he
could
have observed nothing now, except
that the door was open. Something forbade me either to enter or to retire,
a feeling-I know not how it came-that I was in the
presence of an imminent tragedy
and might serve my friend by remaining. With a scarcely conscious rebellion
against the indelicacy of the act I remained.
The play was rapid. Moxon hardly glanced at the board before making his
moves, and to my unskilled eye seemed to move the piece most convenient
to
his hand, his motions in doing
so being quick, nervous and lacking in precision. The response of his antagonist,
while equally prompt in the inception, was made
with a slow, uniform, mechanical
and, I thought, somewhat theatrical movement of the arm, that was a sore
trial to my patience. There was something unearthly
about it all, and I caught myself
shuddering. But I was wet and cold. Two or three times after moving a piece
the stranger slightly inclined his head, and each
time I observed that Moxon shifted
his king. All at once the thought came to me that the man was dumb. And
then that he was a machine-an automaton
chess-player! Then I remembered
that Moxon had once spoken to me of having invented such a piece of mechanism,
though I did not understand that it had
actually been constructed. Was
all his talk about the consciousness and intelligence of machines merely
a prelude to eventual exhibition of this device-only a trick
to intensify the effect of its
mechanical action upon me in my ignorance of its secret?
A fine end, this, of all my intellectual transports -my “endless variety
and excitement of philosophic thought”! I was about to retire in disgust
when
something occurred to hold my curiosity.
I observed a shrug of the thing's great shoulders, as if it were irritated:
and so natural was this-so entirely human-that in
my new view of the matter it startled
me. Nor was that all, for a moment later it struck the table sharply with
its clenched hand. At that gesture Moxon seemed
even more startled than I: he pushed
his chair a little backward, as in alarm.
Presently Moxon, whose play it was, raised his hand high above the board,
pounced upon one of his pieces like a sparrow-hawk and with the exclamation
“check-mate!” rose quickly to his
feet and stepped behind his chair. The automaton sat motionless.
The wind had now gone down, but I heard, at lessening intervals and progressively
louder, the rumble and roll of thunder. In the pauses between I now
became conscious of a low humming
or buzzing which, like the thunder, grew momentarily louder and more distinct.
It seemed to come from the body of the
automaton, and was unmistakably
a whirring of wheels. It gave me the impression of a disordered mechanism
which had escaped the repressive and regulating
action of some controlling part-an
effect such as might be expected if a pawl should be jostled from the teeth
of a ratchet-wheel. But before I had time for much
conjecture as to its nature my
attention was taken by the strange motions of the automaton itself. A slight
but continuous convulsion appeared to have possession
of it. In body and head it shook
like a man with palsy or an ague chill, and the motion augmented every
moment until the entire figure was in violent agitation.
Suddenly it sprang to its feet
and with a movement almost too quick for the eye to follow shot forward
across table and chair, with both arms thrust forth to their
full length-the posture and lunge
of a diver. Moxon tried to throw himself backward out of reach, but he
was too late: I saw the horrible thing's hand close upon
his throat, his own clutch its
wrists. Then the table was overturned, and candle thrown to the floor and
extinguished, and all was black dark. But the noise of the
struggle was dreadfully distinct,
and most terrible of all were the raucous, squawking sounds made by the
strangled man's efforts to breathe. Guided by the
infernal hub-bub, I sprang to the
rescue of my friend, but had hardly taken a stride in the darkness when
the whole room blazed with a blinding white light that
burned into my brain and heart
and memory a vivid picture of the combatants on the floor, Moxon underneath,
his throat still in the clutch of those iron hands, his
head forced backward, his eyes
protruding, his mouth wide open and his tongue thrust out; and-horrible
contrast!-upon the painted face of his assassin an
expression of tranquil and profound
thought, as in the solution of a problem in chess! This I observed, then
all was blackness and silence.
Three days later I recovered consciousness in a hospital. As the memory
of that tragic night slowly evolved in my ailing brain I recognized in
my attendant
Moxon's confidential workman, Haley.
Responding to a look he approached, smiling.
“Tell me about it,” I managed to say, faintly- “all about it.”
“Certainly,” he said; “you were carried unconscious from a burning house-Moxon's.
Nobody knows how you came to be there. You may have to do a little
explaining. The origin of the fire
is a bit mysterious, too. My own notion is that the house was struck by
lightning.”
“And Moxon?”
“Buried yesterday-what was left of him.”
Apparently this reticent person could unfold himself on occasion. When
imparting shocking intelligence to the sick he was affable enough. After
some
moments of the keenest mental suffering
I ventured to ask another question:
“Who rescued me?”
“Well, if that interests you-I did.”
“Thank you, Mr. Haley, and may God bless you for it. Did you rescue, also,
that charming product of your skill, the automaton chess-player that murdered
its inventor?”
The man was silent a long time, looking away from me. Presently he turned
and gravely said:
“Do you know that?”
“I do,” I replied; “I saw it done.”
That was many years ago. If asked to-day I should answer less confidently.
The End
