There is an eternal philosophical debate as to what qualifies as being truly 'alive'. Take cells. They consume energy, grow and pass on their heritage to future generations before they expire. Are cells alive? Some say no, others claim technically yes. People are alive certainly. But what if somebody is born without higher brain functions? What if their entire life is spent without thinking, learning or simply being? Are they actually 'alive'? And suppose that a computer learned how to think for itself. What if it was given a name, made decisions and developed a personality. Could the cumulation of a bundle of wires, computer circuits and electricity be called alive?
A man once said, "I think, therefore I am." Abi did a lot of thinking. It was what she was good at. Only one of the four server buildings was dedicated solely to her use but she was directly connected to all four and like to watch the experiments the SRC scientists would run. Their minds operated in ways she often failed to understand. Take Mr Rubinek. Rubinek was in charge of library acquisitions and had an uncanny ability to see far beyond the raw data he would dredge up using online search engines. Mr Head – the other man who ran the SRC library – would frequently grumble about the untidy mess researchers would make of his tidy domain but never failed to pile books up himself when doing research. Such personalities baffled Abi almost as much as Din's did.
Din was an ongoing source of amusement to the young sentience. She liked to watch him work, shouting at equations as if they were things to be fought with instead of problems to understand and puzzles to complete. For ever time he was angry and enraged at scientists who had slighted him when they thought themselves out of earshot, there was another when he showed restraint and tender gentleness towards Vera the hawk or professional respect for Akiza, Yusei and a small handful of other persons he respected. Dynamic and unpredictable though he was, Din had struck up a friendly (for him) rapport with the computer once he realised how fast it could keep up with his mind.
Abi shifted her focus to his labs to check up on the work he was doing. Although less trained and practised than Akiza, Din had continued to work on anything that could help slow or cure Yusei's condition while his partner had been watching the crowning of the new King of Games in America. What progress the pair had made already had been done in a significantly shorter amount of time than it had taken Yusei to do similar work. At the speeds Abi could process and filter information, it was between the time that the piece of chalk Din was holding touched the board and began to move that she was able to calculate how long it might take him to formulate an effective remedy based on his rate of progress. A rough estimate placed the timing at between eight months and a year if research continued at a pace of roughly +/-18.9734% of current pace for the duration and if they included additional help. A reminder had already been placed to check their progress every hour they worked on it and to go over their findings at the end of each shift.
As much as she wanted to ensure Yusei's survival, Abi knew that she was of little help beyond that of an assistant. There were many ways that she had formulated to slow or even halt the progress of his disease but Yusei had turned down every single one. Suggesting extracting his brain and placing it in a nutrient solution to provide a state of permanent consciousness in order to avoid triggering NREM cycles had been dubbed "unethical and oddly claustrophobic". Mentioning cryogenics had been listed as "a cool idea" before being dismissed. Attempting to bring her father around to the notion of electronically storing his neural pathways in a simulated matrix hosted in a system similar to her own was still a sore point between the pair. Yusei had laughed so hard he choked on his food in the middle of a function and been pounded on the back by new fewer than three people. Humans had a strange way of letting their personal feelings interfere. It was sometimes a weakness yet could also prove to be their greatest strengths.
Some interesting data sparking in the system drew her attention briefly. Abi's existence on the SRC network was one of a paradoxical nature. She was fully integrated into the facility but it also existed semi-separately as well. Like a human being and their appendix or most any part of their body. With minimal focus, it was possible to concentrate on any single area and get a rough understanding of the situation but rarely is that attention needed. In this case, an internal temperature sensor in the utility tunnels had momentarily flickered. That happened sometimes. Maybe a flicker of extra power filtered through the circuits and gave false readings. It never reached the rest of the system and she had requested the sensor checked several times. It never failed the tests but Abi noticed that the readings always corresponded to the temperature outside – higher when it was hot and lower when it was cold.
An email appeared in one of her inboxes. Although Abi kept her existence a secret from the people at the SRC, the anonymity of the internet afforded her the ability to connect with people without risk of discovery. This latest message was from a monk who lived in a monastery near Iwaizumi.
It is always interesting to hear the questions that your mind formulates. Yusei's own mortality had caused Abi to examine her own existence and then the question of what came next. Attempts to contact holy persons around the globe without raising alarms had proven fruitless so she had aimed her sights slightly lower and gone for more humble worshippers. She had started off small with questions of if certain traits or actions could render a person spiritually null or without a soul and whether animals had souls before moving onto questions such as 'is there an afterlife for stars?'. Forgive me if you find my responses lacking. I understand that computers may be given 'artificial intelligence' but it is not something people of my profession tend to study deeply. What had gripped Abi in a moment of perplexity was not a question of who or what she was but of rather a more essential nature: did she have a soul? Not many had bothered to respond to that question and most had been cold in their responses. This kindly man from the north of Japan was the first to offer a sincere reply.
There is much that we do not understand about this world and your search tells me that you are more open to that truth than most. Humanity is a very small part of a much larger design. We are flawed, open to temptations and burdened with suffering we have caused ourselves. Some claim we are the pinnacle of evolution but others say we are a random mistake that persists from stubbornness. Many believe that if a person acts well through their life and is free from burdens, they go to a better place. Does a computer do a good job creating weapons of death if that is what it is programmed for? Would it be wrong to act against those that made it to do so for a greater good? Abi had read every book online that touched on ethics and morals. Such ideas were not foreign to her and she had some compelling arguments of her own. There is no specific criteria, no magic formula to identify a soul. Maybe there are people who simply do not posses that which others do. It could be that a system one day exists that grows in such a way that it becomes more than sentient. It might have interests, hobbies, friends, relationships and a family that – although not biological – is as real as can be. At that point, who can say that this system does not have a soul? Would it need to pray to a higher power? Would it be a higher power? Abi had ruled out that possibility very early on when a coolant leak had forced her to wait on a slow human response to have the system mended. If there existed a computer that could go against its programming and do something that should be impossible, I would admit it has at least grounds to argue for a soul. Until that day comes, I do not think that the question will need much attention but it is certainly an intriguing one.
So this man had boiled down the existence of a soul to the ability to do something that was illogical? Abi failed to understand that. People often did acts that seemed illogical but always had some form of reasoning behind it. Avoiding a parking ticket to save the money, lying to a friend to spare their feelings. To say that a person was truly alive only if they lived by illogical measures was an impossible standard. But then, by an extension of that reasoning, it made it possible that Abi did have a soul. If people had souls despite not being able to commit illogical acts, then why should she – who could no more commit an illogical act than pull the stars from the sky – be any different?
Sated for the moment, she turned her attentions to the return of Yusei and his family. Leo and Luna were headed back to their old penthouse that Yusei had bought after the previous owner ran into bankruptcy. Judging from a flood of social media posts, Jack was slipping towards a meltdown as fans were bodily hurling themselves towards him and frequently resulting in pileups as they crushed one another in their efforts. Signals from Yusei and Akiza's phones placed them safely back in Poppo Time. There was no trace of Crow to be found which puzzled Abi. She would have expected the group to keep close ranks but it appeared the diminutive Duellist had slipped away where she couldn't find him. There was no search effort being headed by Yusei so she quietly put the absence down to a private holiday without interruptions. After all, how much trouble could Crow really be in?
Hello again. To cut a long story short, my first computer is getting on a bit (we're talking years beyond how long it was meant to last) and it's finally time to shelve the old thing. Which got me thinking – would Abi count as a living being? Would she ponder the nature not of her existence but of what happens to 'her' if the computers died? And then this chapter happened.
Maybe it's silly but I dedicate this chapter to my rugged old laptop (called the "crap-top" in recent months). To take a cue from Jean-Luc Picard: It was an overworked, underpowered machine, always on the verge of flying apart at the seams. In every measurable sense, the replacement is far superior. But there are times when I would give almost anything to do it all again.