HOMO RATIONALIS (SCIENCE FICTION STORIES) PART TWO - Abridged! Chris MYRSKI,   ?1979 ... 2023      [ As far as this is a whole book let us give an idea about the cover (if there are no better propositions).      In front: On a blue background, in the middle, hang, suspended on a rope, scales (pharmaceutical), in the left and heavier plate of which is put the Earth globe (with picture of the continents), and in the right one is seen only a stem of clover (in a pot) with four leaves, as symbol of happiness.      On the back: whatever, or even nothing. ] CONTENTS      In the first part:      Foreword      The recruit      It sounds logical      The discovery of professor Kolossov      The stimulator of Peter MacGreeves      The clover      The marriage proposal      Right of choice      In the second part:      Homo Rationalis      The tunnel      The cannibals      Biological partner      In the third part:      The order      The sixth day      Homo Retarded      Nights and days of a young robo-mother      What else if not afterlife?      Afterword BIOLOGICAL PARTNER (By holographic recording of the discussion between Doctor Steve Roberts, Executive Director of Corporation for Organic Synthesis and Biorobots "Coral", and Archbishop Paul Morrison of Roman Catholic Church, held on 12th May 2235 by third channel of West-European Central Stereovision, lead by Julia Smith)      The camera shows in close-up Doctor Roberts, representative man at the age of 50, clean-shaven, combed parted on the left, with straight, yet a bit long nose, with wide and slightly wrinkled forehead, with gray-blue eyes, narrowed and with some mischievous expression, plump but not much, with thick fleshy lips, slightly smiling and opening a little the upper row of accurately lined and rose, according to the fashion, teeth, who bows respectfully, showing three undulating bluish strips in his tarry-black hairs, going down the back almost to the shoulders. He wears dark-blue suite with a lot of shining on it like asterisks points and some galaxy clusters on the shoulders, has a sparkling light-blue shirt in almost unnoticeable strips, supposedly from neofilon, and a cravat with Neptunian design showing the sea bottom, a couple of algae, and one dragonfly staring steadily at its knot with painted there coral. The representative of this powerful corporation feels pretty confident in the discussion hall, because this is part of his daily routine.      Then the camera stops on his opponent -- His Holiness Archbishop Paul Morrison -- who is in advanced age, close to 70, with long and almost white hairs, mottled with lots of dark red threads, which are expression of his age and rank. Such fibers are seen also in his long patriarchal beard, which begins from his mustaches and covers the lower portion of somewhat elongated face, which, though of an old man, is also youthful, with warm brown eyes, aquiline nose, and lean cheekbones, on which is expanded fresh rose skin, result, maybe, of recent implantation. His lips are elongated and thin, and when he smiles and bows uncover two lines of, possibly natural, or at least good imitation of such, whitish and almost good teeth. His robe is in dark red palette, with lowed to the back hood, with black cuffs and red edgings, where in front, on a gold chain, dangles richly encrusted cross. In spite of his imposing appearance he feels, as if, slightly confused and insecure in this purely worldly environment.      The reporter Julia Smith is shown initially from the back. She has light hairs (for the interview), and wears dark green suit, which makes her look severe and serious. Then the camera changes and she appears before us -- a sympathetic and surprisingly young for her work woman, at the age of about 20 years, or at least she looks so, with right oval of the face, as well also of all that is on it: eyes -- emerald green, lips -- as if it is better to say passionate, cheekbones -- fluffy and fresh, despite the green makeup, nose -- classical or Roman, teeth -- in as much rose as it is necessary to look sexy, and flawlessly equal. By this perfect appearance, when she opens the interview, nobody wonders to her intriguing voice of the ideal, for each man, woman.      JULIA SMITH: Dear viewers, the topic of the discussion today is the biological partners, or BP for brevity, and because of this we have invited in our studio the Executive Director of corporation "Coral", for producing of biorobots, Doctor Steve Roberts, and also representative of the Church, or more precisely His Holiness Archbishop Paul Morrison, of Roman Catholic Church, who you have just seen in your stereo-spaces. And so, let us give first the word to the, hmm, older institution.      ARCHBISHOP PAUL MORRISON: Thank you Miss Julia Smith ...      J. SMITH: Your Holiness, you can say just Julia.      A-B P. MORRISON: Ah, good, ... Julia, for the word, and first of all about the clarification about my institution, because I only before 5-6 years have reached the average human life span and, when so, don't think that am already old. And to be old isn't, after all, a bad thing, because everything perishable grows and ages and disappears from this world, in order to enter in one better and eternal. By the way, excuse me for the digression, but the word "old" in Slavonic languages is "star /stariy", what is exactly of the root of our "star", what means that the older people are near to the stars. Well, not that they become cosmonauts, of course, but that they come closer to the divine (star) wisdom. And not because God has "hidden" somewhere among the stars, for He is everywhere -- between the stars, and among us, and will be always in everything ... in contrast with the biological partners, that how have come to us, in the same way will go away, like a new model of dishwashing machine, maybe. So-o, and now to the discussion. Doctor Steve Roberts, how is it in your opinion, the BPs are humans or robots? And, in order not to interrupt you often, if they are robots, then with what they differ from a good dishwasher, for example, and if they are humans, then how are you feeling in the role of God Almighty and Creator?      DR. ROBERTS: Hmm, a trivial, yet interesting question. And by the way, only Dr. Roberts suffices, don't you think so, Your Holiness? So that what are the biological partners, you ask? Well, you see, they are simply biological partners, i.e. partners of the biological beings, the most developed of which are the humans. This means that they make company to the people (at present, naturally, yet there are no problems that their varieties make company to cats, or dogs, or dragonflies, for example), where this company includes everything what people need, like: production, management, nice passing of the time, bringing up of offspring, sex, conversation, creating and fulfillment of art works, earning of livelihood, even ...visiting of churches, if this could make you happy, Father. Maybe this is enough as answer, not involving the hypothetical God and the question of soul?      A-B P. MORRISON: Good, Dr. Roberts, in regard of the shortening of your name, and then only Archbishop Paul, or only Father, like you have said. But it isn't good what regards the question about BP. Otherwise it turns that everybody can imagine them like he or she wants: I, for example, can think that they are just perfect automata, one averagely taken layman can see the BP as substitute of the wife /husband, or sexual partner, and you, probably, think that they are people, only don't want to tell us this. And, generally, this is not an answer, because, however one looks at the things, they: either are people, or are not people. Or also: either are robots, or are not robots. As you see, there is no ambiguity, except in your "answer".      DR. ROBERTS: Hmm, you maybe, by old church habit, I would say, like to ask questions when there are artificially set limitations, or also by not clearly defined notions, under which conditions is pointless to look for an exact answer. Surely the exact definition has its drawbacks, because, like states one old proverb: "to define is to delimit", or at least this is the origin of Latin "define", what means "to make it finite" or delimited. So is also with Slavonic "to define", what is "opredeliam", and "predel" is a limit, so that we again set limits, yet without whatever definition we can't know about what we are speaking. The mathematics is for this reason very precise science, because it uses artificially defined terms, and there are because of this so many and contradicting one another Churches, because they don't try to restrict their symbols, like has done one known Ben Spinoza before many centuries, yet no one Church liked this approach. This, what the Church does, is to ask logically correct questions, under imprecisely defined terms, or based on dubious in regard of their truthfulness sources and statements. I want to say that this is what the Church does when it does not make also some other errors, and you, in this case, really, make no other errors, what can only make me happy.      A-B P. MORRISON: Thank you for the compliment ...      DR. ROBERTS: This is not a compliment, Father, but a true assertion. So on the question, are the BPs people or not. If under people (or humans) understand the most highly developed and universal, yet due to this also far from perfect, biological beings, arisen as a result of evolution on our planet, or, if you so insist on this, created "in the image and likeness of God" only for six sleepless days and nights by the Almighty God, Who from that moment on has left them to themselves or to their doom, beings who have enough makings to act reasonable but do this quite rare, or more precisely, behave reasonable only when have already used all possible unreasonable ways for reaching of a given goal, beings who, like everything alive, as well also inanimate, have a deadline of existence, but who can join together the life of various generations through writing, culture, Church, if you like, heredity, and so on, and who -- an obligatory requirement for all living matter -- can reproduce themselves in one complicated, yet very adaptive method, so that they both, copy themselves quite precisely, and also do this in an arbitrary way, with possibility for many errors and mutations, though happening quite slow, so that there was possible to fix over millenniums the right mutation, we-ell, and some other insignificant but numerous details, then in this case the BPs, obviously, are not humans.      -- They are even not animals, if we take for granted the presupposed (but not justified) assumption, that the animals have to be biological beings, because it is so under the evolution on Earth, and we still have no example of some other evolution, i.e. for inorganic life on some planet or star system. The BP are not wholly organic, because they have positronic brains, which, just by the way, allow them to act reasonable, yet not excluding by this, naturally, the possibility that they make errors deliberately, in order to pretend that they are people, or like you say "sinners". In addition to this the biological partners can not multiply in the way like this are doing the humans, i.e. like animals, although they like to do this like people, what means that the sex for them is an activity like any other, where they are perfect, or, if they still are not such, the "Coral" corporation will make them such in pretty near future. Surely it is quite premature to speak about new inorganic or artificial species or class of organized beings, because the relation between generations must still be specified and created, yet this is quite possible also without the presence of genetic "defects", that lie in the basis of organic evolution. I want to say that is possible evolution and possibility for learning in the framework of many generations also based on some other, non-genetic, information. In this sense the BPs are, in some measure, realization of the ancient human dream about immortality and eternal happiness, what the Church offers only in the hypothetical "life" after death, because they will be able to pass to the posterity everything valuable accumulated during their existence.      -- And now to the question: are they robots. If under robots we understand artificially created, i.e. not in result of the evolution (or God's intervention, according to the Church) organisms, which are sufficiently complex (without specifying what means "sufficiently") to perform a given type of activity or work, according to the received directives, then, naturally, BP are robots, or rather biorobots, but this follows also from the name of our corporation. If we try to specify what means sufficiently complex, accepting that this means to such extent complicated, for to contain all necessary advanced instructions and rules for their functioning in a variety of living situations, which will allow them to behave reasonable (i.e. logical) from the standpoint not only of the concrete device or BP, but also of the whole kind of biological partners, as well also of the entire mankind, without immediate instructions from aside, then BP are complex robots, or artificial intellect, or how you like it, and not only some automata for performing of given narrow activity. In this sense they are not just some dish-washer, which can walk and make sex, like, supposedly, you imagine this.      -- And about this, how I am feeling in the role of God: we-ell, you see, I am not feeling such, at least because not I am the one who makes the biological partners. I manage a company with more than ten branches in Europe, and approximately as many on the other continents, where the total number of its employees is about 10,000 persons, or, like some express this enigmatically like: more than the number of the fingers of a BP (i.e. six, of course) raised to power equal to the number of fingers of a human, yet less than the number of fingers of a human, raised to power equal to the number of fingers of a BP (it is meant that 65 = 7,776, and 56 = 15,625, where our number, as strongly as it changes, stays already a long time in these limits). But this is all that I am doing, we-ell, and I also conduct a row of discussions, like this here, yet don't think that am nearer to the hypothetical God than an young dog that is pressing, khem, khem, some nice bitch, with apology. Even on the contrary, because the cur, really, can create -- with the help of the bitch, of course -- a new being, which is not known to what kind of beast will develop, while I, even if we assume that "manage" means "create", will succeed to create nothing new, different from what is already known to the scientific circles or existing in our know-hows and patents. My activity, regretfully, is even not creative (which is, well, the sex, for example), but an usual routine managerial work, which somebody had to perform, and then why not me? If in your opinion God, about Whom you speak, by the creation of our world has done an ordinary routine act, what means that before this He has created many and various world, which he has destroyed because they have turned not to be successful, what kind of concepts exist, as I think, in the Hinduism, as well also that He continues to create new worlds, i.e. He conducts experiments (on the account of the people, of course), then I feel myself such God. Though I quite doubt that you mean such one God, Who simply amuses with the creation of worlds, in order that in this way has passed one infinitely small part of the infinitely long rime, which He has in His disposition. I think I am not wrong, ah, Farther?      A-B P. MORRISON: Let us leave aside your nagging, Dr. Roberts, because this does not do honour to the discussion. So good, hence the BP, after all, are robots, not people, what you could have said from the very beginning. And in this case who allows you to make them in human appearance, so that the people were able easily to make errors, or to be displaced by them after a time, when you learn how to pass the necessary information to the future generations of BP? If our God has a need of robots in His world He would have made them, and when He has not made them then they are unnecessary, and here I mean exactly complex biorobots, how you have defined them, not dishwashers or kitchen or excavation or flying and other machines, which exist, although in more simplified form, for centuries.      DR. ROBERTS: I think that have expressed myself quite clear, when said that the BP are named so because they are partners of the biological matter, and more specially of the people, they behave in this way, and this is their purpose in life, namely: to make the life of people more interesting and enjoyable. They don't promise life after death or rebirth, like this do the classical religions, but work in order to better the existing life of the people. And as to the question, who has given me the right to make them in human form, I can answer in the easiest way with counter question: and who has forbidden me to make them, as is said, in the image and likeness of me? In accordance with the classical Roman law this, what is nor forbidden, is allowed, and even according to the ideas of majority of people their acquaintances and friends must be in human form, simply because this is more pleasant for them. And does the humanity not created their gods in their image and likeness, or maybe you again put, as is said, "the cart before the horse", trying to convince the people that your God is Who has created them in His likeness and image?      A-B P. MORRISON: I don't know, young man, what gives you reason to think that our faith is so weak for to be shaken by some bare assertions, about the creation of God by the people, not vice versa, like this state the holy books, and what corresponds also with the intuitive convictions of the believers, but ...      JULIA SMITH: Excuse me, Father, that I interrupt you, yet our discussion is not theological, and there is no need to involve in it also disputes about basic and not defined, here I fully agree with Dr. Roberts, notions. Who was first, God or the human, and generally: the matter comes before the idea about it or on the contrary, is not a thing that interests us in this moment, at least because these questions are discussed for centuries and we have still not come to a single understanding uniting both sides, but we have not centuries in our disposition, right? And I will beg also Dr. Roberts not to use provoking phrases, even if not he is the one who has used first provoking elements. Let us clarify the truth, and only the truth, insofar as it is accessible to the people on the given stage of historical development.      DR. ROBERTS: OK, Julia. I apologize to his Holiness, because, really, what is primary is of no importance in the case. We make BP in human form because nobody would like to lay in bed, excuse me, with a flatiron, or a pig, for example. I think this suffices. But I can't ignore the statement of Father Morrison that BP are indiscernible from the people, like also that they will shift us from our living space. They can be made indiscernible, but we understand the legal side of the question and have no desire to change the present situation. Neither the very BP would benefit if the recognition of their belonging to another species is made more difficult, because this, at best, will damage their image and, hence, will not be logical behaviour for some, really, logical beings. But I think that his Holiness is informed on the question that all BP, I repeat, all, without whatever exception, at least in our company, have their heart placed on the right in their thorax, like also that they have six fingers on their palms. The heart is a thing which can elementary be checked in intimate contacts, for which, as if most often, at least for the moment, BP are used, what is somehow debasing for such very perfect beings, but after a pair of decades the things maybe will change in the direction of prevailing intellectual, rather than sexual, contacts. At least for myself I am convinced in this, because I am not already in my first youth, like just before a minute my opponent has proclaimed me.      -- The fingers are six, where the additional one is in the end of the wrist, and this is a thing for which intimate closeness is not necessary for to be detected. But this is far away from all, because a BP, at least such how we produce them, for we already have competitors in this field, though we continue to lead, looks somehow too perfect and symmetrical, what is quite rarely met between people. They are also very young at present (because have not had time to grow old), their heart rate is approximately from 100 to 160, they have only one blood group (i.e. they don't have different groups), which differs from those of the humans, their secretions and, I beg to be excused, their excrements, are also quite specific, in order to succeed to deceive a person with medical education, to say nothing about roentgenograms and other specialized analyses, that show also ten ribs, special joints, that can bend, if necessary, also in the reverse direction, no appendix, "invisible" brain, i.e. encapsulated in special hermetic box, absence of sex cells, both by female and male specimens, and so on. In one word, they are like humans only in their image and likeness, yet they are not identical with them in functional regard. BP take the same food, but this is so because they are partners of the humans, not because this is more useful for them, and in case of necessity they can process the cellulose more fully than the ruminating animals, thanks to their special stomach and a pair of additional glands. Well, as if this is sufficiently extended description of BP, avoiding entering into scientific terminology, with the major part of which I alone am not familiar.      A-B P. MORRISON: And what will happen if some day they will decide to call us ... HP, for example, i.e. "human partners", or alive robots, or something of that kind? What will happen from that nice moment on with the mankind? And is not this more interesting life, about which you are speaking, simply a temptation of the impure forces, deprived of the divine wisdom and goodness in themselves? Do you not see, that it is necessary to fight the evil while it has not yet gained strength, because afterwards it will be late and irreparable, for these biological fiends, sorry, partners can quietly decide in some near future even to drive the people out of the Earth? Would you clarify a bit these questions, honourable Doctor?      DR. ROBERTS: Good, good, Father, only that there became a lot of questions and I began to forget them, though their spirit is clear to me. A-ah, until I have forgotten let me mention that if it is so difficult for you to respect me as your interlocutor, then I don't at all insist to call me "honourable", because this word one will hear most often in the Parliament and between politicians and it, absolutely obvious, speaks about exactly the opposite of it! At least I have not yet heard that this word was used either in bed, I beg your pardon, or between friends from one "gang", or between colleagues at work (unless they are from competitive departments). When I say "Father" I don't express with this whatever else except honour to you, like representative of one, although leading in deceptions, but surprisingly stable social structure, while you with your "honorable" quite obviously express your disagreement with my views. I will beg you at least to preserve it for yourself and not "dignify" me in this way.      -- A-ah, what may happen when BP enslave us, ask you. Well, I could have answered that if the monkey could have been in position to imagine exactly all changes that will happen after the moment when it has come down from the tree, then it would have surely remained there and the humans would have never appeared at all. Yet I will not answer you in this way, because you are not convinced in the evolution of the humans, due to the fact that it is based on scientific analysis, not on faith, with which you are reared. But then I can answer you that will happen this, what "was written to us", because the human for this purpose has his free will, for to be able to err, i.e. to choose not to make errors, and this according to your Church! Because your God, being a God, has known perfectly well that the human is "sinful" (i.e. that he has "factory defects", according to people with technical inclination of thinking like me), and will be expelled from the Paradise, yet despite of all this He has left him as he is, and this not in order to make him deliberately to suffer (for God is good, isn't He?), but for to be able to show his free will choosing to behave good. And "good" is this, what your God has said, or at least you believe that He has said this. And if in some moment, which moments as if are quite many, some of God's intentions seem too strange for the people, then there always can be said that the ways of God are mysterious and with this to put an end to the question, right? So that let us also put an end to the issue accepting that your God (because there exist also other gods) is well aware are the BPs work of God or they are "fiends of Hell", but has left the human alone to take decision, in order to test him, or that he was able to use his free will, or something of the kind.      -- Or course that nothing can be said with absolute certainty, but can be judged logically, be modeled and predicted. Only by this models don't endow, please, the biological partners with human flaws, like egoism, unreasonableness, animal instincts, and so on, because: what will do the BP if they subjugate, debase, or expel the people from the Earth? They have no reproductive organs, but, in principle, can reproduce or grow themselves, in the same way like we do this in "Coral", because our technology is a quite exhaustive algorithm for their production, or program by which they also can do this. Good, but why they have to do this for themselves, and not for the people? Have you posed this question to yourself, Father? And have you asked yourself the question why people do this? In the sense, why people multiply, i.e. what is their interest in this? You, surely, can say that this is so because your God has said: be fruitful and multiply! But if the God's will was so important and adamant, then why was necessary to Him (to Him or to the Devil, i.e. to the evil or impure force, because "devil" is the + evil for the English speaking people) to make so that the activity of sexual glands delivered supreme pleasure to the human, while when the latter (let this be the man), excuse me, blows his nose, then he gets no satisfaction out of this? And this process, i.e. the activity of exocrine glands, is quite similar, in the sense that they are filled with secretions and, when so, they must also empty themselves sometimes. Will you again involve "the ways of God", or the logic of development of the living matter?      -- Do you, really, not understand that if the human realized the causes, due to which he behaves in a given way, then he would have hardly done this? By the way, maybe you have heard that by a number of insects, the praying mantis, for example, the spiders, I think, and maybe others, after the act of copulation the female eats up the male (in order to provide herself the necessary hormones, say the scientists, but I don't know what says your God on this issue). Do you think that if the male has understood clearly what awaits him after the act, he would have performed it, no matter what has said, or hasn't, your (or somebody else's) God? We are not conscious of our actions, and in many cases this is even very good (that we are not conscious of them), and how is it possible to answer with full certainty to your question about BP, could they turn against us? Convincing is only the logic, that they have no reasons to do this, because they are not living in order to conquer (the other biological species), but in order to serve the people, and this is their interest, this is their purpose of life.      JULIA SMITH: Excuse me, Doctor, yet something seems to me quite entangled. Have we to understand that people continue to live mainly because they are not aware why they are living, while the BP, for the reason that they are logical beings and are aware why they live, will not continue to live. Clarify this casus a little, please, because it sounds to me pretty ... jesuitically, I would say.      DR. ROBERTS: Thank you for the question, Julia. I had in mind, really, something similar. The living goal for the people remains still a secret for them, for the reason that their individual life is meaningless for the nature or evolution (or God, naturally, if we involve Him). The only purpose of life for the people consists in this that they lived it pleasantly. While for the evolution the purpose is in this that the life developed and improved, so that the things are tied correctly. The biological partners, like logical beings, will easily realize that their life, I mean in generations, when this becomes possible, has no other purpose except to remain partners of the people and make their life more interesting. Outside of the people BP have not, and cannot have, another living goal, and in the course of time they will accept this as sufficiently reasonable living goal, in any case more logical than that of the people! The biological life is full with enigmas and contradictions, which make it interesting, not only for us, but also for the BP. Our illogicality is in the same time powerful means for continuation of the life, while without it everything will become dull and will soon cease.      -- Maybe it is necessary to say here some words also about the hosts, because the majority of people think that the master is that one, who can make the others to do what he wants. This, naturally, is so, yet I mean that the question is most often in this to find whose compulsion is more significant, because the compulsion, usually, is mutual and psychological, not necessarily roughly physical. So for example, when one raises some animal as pet, not for the use of it, then this pet, almost always "climbs on his head" or takes the leadership, or at least does this until the human shows more reason and ceases to radiate emanation of dependency from his pet, because the animals have strong instincts, stronger that those of the humans, in recompense of what the human has one additional instinct called reason, but it, alas, is still undeveloped. And in result of this it happens quite often that the master is not the human, but his dog or cat, who succeeds to make him do what he or she wants. So that if we return to the question about BP, then for us they are perfect home animals and will be our subordinates, if we succeed to convince them in this, otherwise they will make us do what they want, because their reasonable instinct is more developed than our; alternatively looked then we are the more complicated, mysterious, and unbalanced than them, in the same way like we are more interesting and mysterious for our home cat or dog, and, when so, then they want or will want to serve to us and alleviate our life as much as they can, because they find that in some cases we are helpless and clumsy.      JULIA SMITH: If I understand you correct, Dr. Roberts, then you neither state that the people are masters of the BP, nor state that it is on the contrary, but admit that can be applied both, the one or the other, ways of conduct. I think that this position does not differ much from the understanding of his Holiness, that the BP can subjugate the people in the future and can turn out to be "fiends of Hell". In addition to this, if nothing can be stated with certainty then maybe is necessary some restraint about this issue, at least until it will be extensively reviewed. Maybe we can state in this case that the Holy Father is simply incorrigible pessimist, while you are incorrigible optimist. So that the point with the masters and slaves, which I think interests also Father Morrison, remains unsolved. What more you can add to the point?      DR. ROBERTS: Well, some people define the optimist and the pessimist in the following way: looking at a bottle full to the half with some, presumably exhilarating the soul drink, the optimist exclaims: "Whoa, the bottle is still full to the half!", while the pessimist says: "Ah, but the bottle is already empty to the half!". I don't think that I am a pessimist, but also do not count myself for an optimist -- I simply ascertain the truth (even if in the bottle lies potassium cyanide). This is accepted to be called realism. In this situation it is quite possible that the realism contains the one of the theses, yet it contains also the other, and tries not to confront them more than necessary for the discovering of the real equilibrium of the things. Still, I am not absolutely impartial because I represent the most powerful company for organic synthesis and biorobots in the first half of 23rd century, so that I can not avoid to be delighted by the successes of biological partners, in the same way like every mother rejoices in her child and praises him or her more than the others, but this is inevitable.      -- You see, I have nothing against the symbols of his Holiness of Good or Evil. For me the very God is just an exceptionally successful symbol of the good, everlasting, indestructible, and so on. We need symbols and can not do without them. The mathematicians don't speak about God, yet they have similar symbol and this is the infinity, in the sense that it is not like the other numbers, where when we add one, for example, we get the next (in the hierarchy of numbers) number, because infinity plus one (or plus as much as you want, even infinity) does not give bigger infinity, but gives again the same, what is similar to our idea of God, who is not simply much bigger, stronger, more powerful, et cetera, but is infinitely more such and there is not bigger God than God Himself. Though let us not digress with analysis of Christian or other religions. Regarding the BP I think that there are no reasons for concern, like these voiced by his Holiness, but, surely, it is still pretty early to refuse the improving of human material, if I can say so, what is in the hands, first of all, of the Church.      A-B P. MORRISON: It can be said that you gave some answer to my questions. But I can not get rid of the thought that the activity of your company is a sacrilege against the most perfect creation of God, the human! Because you with single waving of your hand eliminate the thesis of the soul as particle of God's wisdom, and substitute it with some currents in positronic brains of the robots. You listed a bunch of differences between the people and BP, but you speak scornful about the free will of the human and change it by the biorobots with some fixed rules of action, making us to believe that they are even better than those created by God. This that you, or I, are not able to understand all intentions of God, does not mean that they don't exist, and in His word there is no place for biorobots. In addition to this you can not make them to multiply -- to copulate yes, but not to appear in the established by God way. You insist that we do not understand our actions, but this is not true for everyone of us, in the sense that some, most often the younger ones, don't understand them and for this reason they need people to teach them, what does chiefly the Church, yet the humankind as a whole succeeds to realize them and do what is necessary, and this, too, is a manifestation of the power of God. For you God is only a symbol, but He is much more than this, He is non-material reality, that has engendered the entire material reality.      -- Like I see, you are very intelligent collocutor and insist that you are realist. Well then, put your hand on your heart and answer me sincerely: don't you find it unnatural (I will not say "sacrilegious", because this hardly means something to you), to create such perfect creatures, which are nearly like humans, and also better in some way (well, according to your opinion), not in the traditional way (I will not say "godly", because this hardly means something to you)? And if this is good, in your opinion, must we not expect that after some time we will begin to make also the humans in similar artificial manner? Or the question about multiplication of the humans will be easily solved because, thanks to the BP, will become necessary to diminish the human population, so, hundred times, for there will be not enough place on the Earth for all of us, neither in the space? I am listening to you.      DR. ROBERTS: OK, I will put my hand on my heart. Let me see where it was ... ah, I hear something on the left, so that it has to be there. So-o. And now to the question about the sacrilege and the natural. You see, Father, the natural is one quite relative notion. As you know, before some centuries were many fierce debates about this are the surgeons to cut out the appendix by the people, or, because God has created them so, to leave it, so that the people went faster to the other world. Gradually, though (possibly because the priests also get appendicitis crises), the Church has decided to close its eyes on this subject, accepting that in some cases this is allowed, yet not indulging in further discussions, is this an unclear to us God's wisdom (because God can never err, can He?), or this is the next trial to which God has subjected us in order to secure us honourable place in the Paradise (because, right, the one who suffers on this world will be later happy "for ever after"?), or something else of the kind (because for you the divine origin of the word has nothing in common with the evolution, so that the appendix by us is impossible to have been left from some lower mammals). One way or the other, but now many centuries the medicine exists and heals many illnesses and this long ago is not taken for sacrilege. From what follows that the Church also evolves and this also slowly, like the nature, what can only make me happy. When a pair of centuries back the medicine has begun to make its first timid implantation of organs, initially from other dead people and then artificial, the Church again became more active, but after a time it fell silent. When the world got, at last, that has become too overpopulated and has started to speak about birth control, the Church one more time decided to stand in opposition, yet little by little again accepted the natural (here really natural) way of the things.      -- I, definitely, understand the enormous significance of constructive opposition in the complete existence of human society, but I beg you, Father, to be constructive, what is natural, not vice versa. After all, it is necessary to remind you that we, from "Coral" corporation, take the brain or the central nervous system as center of the living, as well also artificial, organism, from what follows that the kind of brain determines the individual. This principle is accepted also as legal rule, where by various implantations the individual is guaranteed with his brain. So that nobody hinders you to think that the brain is the "soul" of the organism, or its kernel. This is significantly more contemporary understanding than the ancient Greek which ascribed the center of life to the abdomen (maybe due to the umbilical cord and the geometrical center of the body), in relation with what exists this curious moment that in Bulgarian the word "zhivot" means life, while in the same time in Russian (also Slavonic language) exactly the same word means abdomen, belly; and in fact, if one begins to search, may be found that our English abdomen, which is Latin, surely, comes from the ... home (domus, domicil), taking away the prefix "ab" (from, of), i.e. that this is that "home" which begets. Then later, before some 10 centuries, the people accepted the heart as center (maybe because the circulatory system is vital for the organism), due to what in English "core" means kernel or center, while in French coeur, from where the English core has come, means heart (yet in Bulgarian the Russian zhivot-belly is "korem", what surely is variation of the core). Only around the 19th century, if I am not wrong, the people came to today's view about the brain as center of life. Looking more precisely this is not quite true, because not only the brain, but also the heart, the abdomen with the stomach and the reproductive system, all these organs are equally vital for the organism, in order to give preference to only one of them, and in addition to this the most important for the biological kind is the heredity (multiplication), and exactly there is the biggest "God's wisdom" (where I, as you understand, put the latter in quotes, for I don't need the hypothesis of God).      -- We, from the robotic corporation "Coral" accept as center of living organism its nervous or control system, and in regard of the kind -- the reproductive. When long ago was taken as natural to allow implantation of some single organ we have simply decided to make one total implantation, i.e. of all organs, with the exception of the brain! There is nothing unnatural, blasphemous, or sacrilegious in this, and if such implantation us performed to an existing human brain then we speak about real implantation and preserving of human individual, to what you, Father, I suppose, do not object. If, though, the brain is artificial, be it positronic, electronic, or biotronic, but not genetically generated, then we speak about biorobots, or biological partners in this case, because became convinced that this is their purpose.      JULIA SMITH: Excuse me, Dr. Roberts, but I have to remind you that there remain only ten minutes to the end of our discussion. Otherwise you continue.      DR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Julia, I will try to keep within the time. Now let me say some phrases about the production of BPs, because this must be interesting for the wide audience. We do not grow the organism of the biorobot like "God" has decided to do this, but begin from the dimensions of the adult organism, where we first put the skeletal system from sufficiently sustainable plastic materials, pass through and develop in special solutions the bone marrow with its neural fibers, place the breathing organs and the blood vessels, and put the heart in action even before we have the whole body. At this time separately is produced also the brain with the necessary embedded information, that can be loaded independently of the sensory perceptions. Then comes the installment of digestive system and the increase of tissue of muscles, which begin to receive periodical impulses from the vegetative nervous system for contraction and relaxation, keeping the tonus of muscles near to the norm. Then we connect the brain, switching out one by one the artificial systems and going to the natural, i.e. synthetic, where together with this continue the growth or nervous and capillary endings together with the further development of the muscles. After this comes the turn of a number of glands with external secretion, the imitation of sexual organs, the structure of the face, the teeth, et cetera. When the body can already maintain the homeostasis of organism, remains still the adding of face muscles, the placing of skin covering, the innervation of tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile systems, and some other activities, where all ended approximately for six months. This is our "intra-uterine" period, only that the "newborn" has dimensions of a grown-up person.      -- The brain, or this what substitutes the human brain, has its own autonomous power supply for 20 years, after what is necessary to change its battery through elementary operation of the braincase. The blood system does not enter the synthetic brain, because it has nothing to do there, so that it ends in the aria of the skull and by the connection of electronic and biological neural fibers, what is a very precise moment in the structure of BP. From that stage on the biological partners walk, eat and excrete like normal human beings, yet they need a period of about two years in order to become used with their body. It consists chiefly of physical and sensorial exercises because the logical apparatus is already built during the "intra-uterine" period, and besides, the loading from or the storing on external information medium of the very information makes no problems, so that learning of new sections, say, of higher mathematics, can be performed for a pair of minutes, if only this knowledge will be of some use for the biorobot. Well, surely a BP can not be complete without some practice in the field of sex, so that in the two-year studying is included also a complex of sexual "gymnastics". After this our biological partners are ready to be sold to everybody, who can allow him- or herself this pleasure, yet some trade deals are concluded already before the ending of "intra-uterine" period, if the buyer has special requirements for the BP. I have to tell you that, however high might look for somebody the price of a BP, then he (or she, but not it) is not much more expensive than a flat with 4-5 rooms, which every family normally secures for itself. And, mark, that this is on the stage of produced only about 2,000 BPs, and after their mass production in the near future we anticipate reduction of the price at least twice, and in a more distant future there is nothing surprising if one BP will cost as much as the personal vehicle.      -- But enough on this issue, and if for somebody this, still, looks unnatural, well, good, everything is a matter of habit, isn't it? Some nations take as natural that the deceased were buried in the ground, other ones that they were burned, third that they were embalmed and preserved only their bones, but all these methods are equally natural. If our experiments in creation of BP turn to be very successful, and this is not only my declaration, this can be seen on the stock market by the prices of our shares, or by the results of social questionnaires, then we are not to be blamed for this, or rather: we are, but to be praised.      -- What else was it there, ah, will we begin to make the people, too, by this method, instead of as result of the traditional multiplication? Look, Father, we do not intervene at all in the reproductive mechanism of the humans. Let us not confuse the sex with the reproduction, because the latter, as you know, can be done without direct sexual exercises, as also the sex rarely leads to conception. But we propose a number of possibilities for extending, and this is wide limits, of the human life with the use of our methods of production of artificial organs, which may be implanted also to humans, preserving only the brain, for it bears our more slowly because there are no moving parts in it. Not that the nerve cells do not age at all, but they can hold, probably, up to 300 and more years, only that this is entirely unnecessary, not only from the point of view of the selection (i.e. of the kind of species), but also from the viewpoint of human population. Such extending of life span, naturally, is not multiplication bur a way of achieving of relative immortality also by the humans, what by the BP would have been much easier to realize.      -- And the last thing that you have mentioned, it seems me, was do we intend to limit the human population so, about 100 times. Here I can be brief and precise: surely this can be done, even more than this -- it must be done! The today's 80 and something billion human beings on the globe, and another 10 millions on our two colonies, definitely, is too much. Yet this question has nothing to do with the BP. Not the biological partners will be those who will limit the human population, but rather vice versa, because they will help us and alleviate our life. And if you think, Father, that a hundred times is much, then I would say that it is too little! The human population on Earth must be returned to somewhere between 10 and 100 millions, or to be decreased, roughly speaking, thousand times. And there is nothing bad in this, because the natural or "divine", according to you, ability to multiply by the humans exceeds all possible reserves, at least what regards the masculine individual. I can be mistaken by a pair of zeroes, but I think that one normal male sexually-mature individual is able with a single act to fertilize as many female ova that to inhabit a whole decent planet. And all those future tiny men are just killed before they were born, not because of some taken measures for birth control (because they, still, are pretty weak), but for the reason that there are not millions ova capable to unite with them. One good and humane God, in my opinion, could have allowed himself at least 10-fold reserve, but everything above this limit is simply blasphemous! Unless He alone is up to such extent not convinced in His own creation, that leaves to the chance to take decisions in His place. Only that I simply can not believe in such "God", i.e. if this is a God, then He is entirely helpless, or isn't at all a God! This is logically absurd, or, putting it in Latin, contradictio in adjecto, i.e. a contradiction in the definition of God. Excuse me, Father, if I have shown myself quite rude and cynical.      A-B P. MORRISON: Yeah, you don't believe in such God, and what is even worse -- you don't believe in whatever God! Neither in Christ, nor in Buddha, nor in Allah, nor in Ra, nor in Zeus, nor in whatever other "symbol", as you have said. But this does not surprise me. Nowadays the unbelievers have become too many, what does not make people happy. One needs faith in order to become stronger in spirit and to elevate himself, as much as this is possible, to our God, because he (or she) will have endless life in a real and righteous world, which we call afterlife, although for you it is just a fiction. The atheism, the faithlessness, the freedom of sex, the artificial birth, the electronic brains, and now the biological "partners", are only some of the faces of the temptation or Evil, about which our God warns us not to yield to them. Be it as it may, you said what you could. I am deeply convinced that the purpose of our life is in the victory of the Good over the Evil and make what is possible to support the Good and God. Each of us has free will to make his choice. I don't doubt that you have already made your choice, as also I don't doubt to which part of the scales it is added. The Evil has many faces, and today I have seen one of them. Anyway, thank you for the "realism" that you have shown, Dr. Roberts, because it has convinced me in the righteousness of my positions in defense of the Good. I have nothing more to add to the topic of today's discussion.      DR. ROBERTS: Kh-kh, only that you have missed to say "Amen!". Yet I am not angry at you, like I am not angry at whatever Church, because you are completely right in your statement that people can't life without faith. Just that it matters what will be this faith -- whether in some fictitious Being, or in the implacability of natural laws. But people, of course, prefer the homocentrism, and for that reason the BP are also alike the humans, as we have already said. Nevertheless I am thankful to you that have led the conversation to the question about the unbelievers and the atheists, because this is a mass delusion, which I try always, when have the possibility, to disperse.      JULIA SMITH: I will be very grateful to you, Dr Roberts, -- interrupted she him -- if you will succeed to disperse it approximately for four minutes, because we have not more.      DR. ROBERTS: Thank you, Julia, I hope to succeed. So, I have in mind the delusion that the atheist is unbeliever or infidel, who believes in nothing, because he believes that there is no God! I beg you much, Father, and you, dear viewers, to try to perceive this allegation, because we are living in 23rd century after the supposed Resurrection of the supposed God's Son Christ and it is high time to get rid of some delusions, if they hinder us in the contemporary life on this world (and I have no reasons to believe that there exists some other world).      -- Let me clarify my thought. Even before more than 27 centuries, i.e. before the appearance of your Christ, Father, was clear that, as far as God has to be one infinitely powerful Being, that is present everywhere and always, that is different from the whole material world, which is created by Him, then there do not exist and cannot exist whatever methods to prove by the humans, either that He exists, or that he does not exist! God is some Being from another dimension and we are simply not in position to sense or register Him by whatever method, because He is not only many times more powerful and omnipotent from even the whole mankind, but infinitely more such. If God existed, then He could have always succeeded to hide from whoever of us or from all of us taken together, not only in the space, but also in the time, so that we have absolutely no chances to detect Him, if He alone does not decide to appear before somebody of us. If God wants, or, what gives the same result, if one believes in Him, then everybody, to whom God shows the wish to reveal Himself, will find Him, and for this reason the believers (in the classical sense of this word) find Him everywhere -- in Heaven and on Earth, in a human, in a small bird, in a fly, in a flower, in a stone, in a tree, in a drop of water, and so on, but if God does not want that somebody saw Him, then there is no way, neither experimental, nor logical, nor sensorial, that He was detected, because He is great and omnipotent and it is not in the power of humans -- finite as in the space, so also in the time -- to perceive Him. This is a thing that is extremely clear to each Church, because is known the phrase that "who searches, will find". The only detail here is that each Church drops the word "if"! But if, on the other hand, He does not exist, then surely He can't be detected by no one of the humans, though everyone of them can delude himself as much as he wants (and even if he does not want).      -- This thesis is called atheism ever since the mentioned ancient times. Similar in its meaning is the term agnosticism, what means incognizability of the world, i.e. of God, as its Creator (if we accept this hypothesis), because to know or cognize something to the full means to be able to predict exactly each future situation, or, in this case, to rule over the world (for if you know its, divine or not, laws, then you surely will be able to interfere in them) or to be omnipotent as the very God, yet a man can't be a God, ergo, the world is incognizable. But, turn your attention to this, Your Holiness, that if God exists He can, after all, be cognized (at least by some of the people), while if He does not exist, then there is no way to make this! And here comes the faith, for it is necessary then, when our knowledge remains silent, isn't is so? Also since deep antiquity is known the phrase: Credo quia absurdum, what means that people believe in this, what is unbelievable, what can't be proved, checked, demonstrated in some way, neither be logically deduced. When something can be proved, for example that the Earth circles around the Sol, not vice versa, then this is proved, is not just taken for granted. Hence the more difficult is to prove some statement, the more is the faith (or the intuition, in some cases) in its correctness. But when is necessary more faith, Father, when God exists, or when He does not exist? Well, I think that now has to be extremely clear that the nonexistence of God requires much more faith (because this, really, can't be proved by no method), than His existence (because He may show Himself to somebody, if wishes -- He will find how). From what follows that the real or most sincere believers are exactly the atheists, not the classical believers, regardless of whether you like this, Your Holiness! Think about this.      -- So that the atheist is not unbeliever, more than this, he is the real believer, while the classical believers in most of the cases are just pretenders. Although I prefer to speak about conviction and intuition, instead of faith or belief, maybe because this sounds more scientific. Where the unbeliever, who is even not an atheist, is something different, because he believes in nothing at all, neither in the existence of natural laws, on the place of God, nor in the relation between generations in the time. For me God is a good symbol, but I can not accept this homocentrism, which, by God, is sufficiently older. Even the Muslim religion from 7th century makes no efforts to describe God, because He for this reason is God, for to be able to take every conceivable (or inconceivable) image, what is the most significant factor for the mass propagation of Islam from the beginning of 21st century.      -- A pair of sentences more about the Good and Evil, Well, there is neither Good nor Evil in the nature! These notions are entirely invented by the humans in order to compensate in some illusory way the cruelty and injustice of our world, which is completely indifferent to the individual. Because of this is not spoken about virtuous cat, for example, or fly, and so on. This, what exists in the nature, are natural laws with their logic and inevitability, although justified in the majority of cases for the general set, i.e. probabilistically, not for every single individual. And what concerns the "soul", about which the Christianity accepts that it existed only by the humans and is absent even by the higher mammals, then it is also ancient symbol, which somewhere from the middle of 20th century fills more and more with meaning via the term "information", were it genetic, were it on electronic or inorganic medium. Such is the ancient meaning of the soul and it is much more easier to give it to the biological partners, than to the humans, so that I can't see what objections may have one tolerable religion against this "informational soul". Well, surely, the Church is old and conservative institution with its deep meaning in our contemporary world, so that it has the same right of existence, which have the BPs. And let me finish with this our discussion.      JULIA SMITH: Yes, of course, it is high time to finish because our viewers are not BPs, right, and they become quickly tired of such big amount of philosophical statements. Thank you, Your Holiness, sincerely, as well also on behalf of our viewers, for the defending of human interests in this combat. Thank you -- and she rises from the chair giving him her hand, which he shakes reserved. -- Thank you, too, Dr. Roberts for the interesting and instructive answers -- and she gives hand also to the Doctor, but in this moment Archbishop Morrison looks intently at her and tries to say something.      A-B P. MORRISON: ... Bu-ut, young girl ...      JULIA SMITH: (to him) -- just a moment, Father, -- (to Dr. Roberts) -- by the way, Doctor, what kind of Doctor you are, if this is not a secret?      DR. ROBERTS: I see no reasons to keep in secret my education. I have PhD degrees in economics and philosophy.      A-B P. MORRISON: Bu-ut, excuse me Julia, ... couldn't you show your ... hand, please?      JULIA SMITH: But what is happening with you, Father? You have gone all pale! ... Surely I can show you my hand. Here is it. -- and she opens the palm of her left hand before the camera).      A-B P. MORRISON: (counts perplexed her fingers) -- One, two, three, ... but they are sssiix, girl ...      JULIA SMITH: But surely they are six, Father. Dr Roberts stressed unmistakably that the biological partners have always by six fingers on their hands, in order to avoid unpleasant surprises by their interlocutors. Now I see that I have not saved the stress to you, but you could have guessed earlier, because I look pretty young for my position, don't you think so? And I have also no defects at all, right? -- turns she smiling to him -- But calm yourself, please, there is nothing fearful. We do not eat people ...      A-B P. MORRISON: He-ence ... you are not an young girl but BP!      JULIA SMITH: But, Your Holiness, I am really an young girl, as well also a BP. But if you still doubt then you can hear my heart -- and she is going to unbutton her blouse bent over the Father, after what the broadcasting continues with advertisements from the studio.      Nov 1999 END OF THIS PART