Dopamine

Intelligence is a tendency to reject mediocre solutions. Anybody can learn it. A rough and ready intelligence test is how long someone googles a problem.

Megacles

6 Hours Later

Wake up. Hurt. Nope. Can't live like this. Go back to sleep.

3 Hours Later

Wake up again. Feel a bit better. Strong but weak. Like a poorly fed monster. Holy shit, I made an ass of myself last night. Oh well.

I grab my phone. Got a few messages from Doc-Danger. Crap, what did I say to him? Nothing. Well, that's not great. But probably better than drunken lunacy.

The mini bar provides $30 worth of nuts for breakfast, before I realize the hotel’s 5 star restaurant will be cheaper.

I go to the hotel bar. Hey! Found the old people! May have overshot a little. It's like heaven's fucking waiting room. I order some food. It's great.

A big guy approaches. “Hello, I'm Isaiah. The manager mentioned you were traveling alone and might like some company. Are you here on business?”

“Not really. Just got divorced and I'm looking for a good time.”

He laughs. “I love a good time. We should have a good time together.” He writes a cell number and a room number on my receipt. “I live at the hotel. I'm off at 11 tonight, and all day tomorrow. Please call at any time. I’ll show you the city.”

I watch him leave. He looks like he loves a good time. He looks like he’s in a battle to the death with a good time and is losing with style. Holy fuck, I have a date!

My confidence somewhat restored, I’m ready for Doc-Danger's messages.

D - Hey! You made an astral projection app? Looks cool. I don't have glasses tho…

Of course he doesn't, no one does.

D - Let me see if I can get it to work on my projector.

D - Okay, I got glasses. Way easier than inventing a 3D projector.

D - Holy mother of fuck! This is amazing!

D - Okay, I'm going to be playing with these all night. Let me know if you want to meet some virtual somewhere.

That's not too bad. He thinks I'm an amazing inventor and didn't get butthurt when I ignored him. I think I can fix this with groveling and filthy sex.

M - Hi! So sorry for bailing last night. I had a beer miscalculation and fell asleep on my face. It's a standard mistake after inventing. Really sorry, I'm free all today, please let's try again.

And now I wait.

D - No problem, that's what I do too. I'm at work till 11, but I can text.

Okay, that was a 30 second wait. Damn. Now I'm double booked for 11. Still, better than last night.

M - Awesome! Use Astral to find me after work. I'll have something fun to watch.

Like, maybe a virtual threesome with a large waiter. No, better not. I’m solving problems at an accelerated rate, but that’s still too fast.

I spend the day walking the city, browsing bookstores, drinking coffee and texting with Doc-Danger. It’s delightful. We decide to call my app AsPro, and fuck the haters. I ask about his brain creation experiment.

M - Why warp to a black hole? Seems like a lateral move. Very, very, lateral.

D - Well, according to quantum mechanics, a particle doesn’t have a position in space until you observe or measure it. Before that, it’s just sort of everywhere at once. Boltzmann's brains are formed when a measurement finds a fully formed brain floating in space. Statistically, you’d have to do trillions of measurements for billions of years before you found one, but it would eventually happen.

M - Okay. And you’re warping to a black hole because…

D - Right! So, string theory suggests that the odds of finding anything are astronomically higher inside a black hole. It’s an easy way to speed things up.

M - Really? Wouldn’t it be easier to clone a brain, or something?

D - Yeah, but then it would be a different person.

M - Oh, you’re after a specific brain. Wait, are you trying to save the guy who’s getting the new brain?

D - Yes. Of course. What did you think I was doing?

M - No idea. A lot of this is going over my head.

D - Honestly, me too. Warp drives are theoretically possible, but building one is a real bitch.

M - But then you’ll be able to warp into a black hole and come back with a replacement brain?

D - Oh, there’s no coming back from a black hole, even with a warp drive. Also, I have no idea how to find the right brain, or any brain really. Also, string theory could be totally wrong. Also, quantum mechanics, while verifiably correct, may be incomplete. Particles may have positions even when unobserved, which would make a lot of sense, but probably also means the future of every particle is already determined and that free will is an illusion.

M - Right… So, you’re still trying this?

D - Yeah.

M - Cool.

We discuss the problems with A.I.

M - The goal of A.I. is unsupervised learning. Where we plunk a bunch of shit we don’t understand into a computer, and it tells us something useful.

D - Cool. Science and automation made the modern world. If we mash them together we get super science. Let’s do that.

M - Good idea. Doesn’t work. The best we have now is unsupervised pattern recognition.

D - Close enough?

M - Nope. Most patterns are nonsense. There’s a thousand coincidences for every cause and effect. We’re not sure what intelligence is, but it ain’t sticking with your first idea.

D - Dang. So we’re not getting super intelligent robot friends?

M - Oh, we’re definitely getting super intelligent robot friends. We just need to figure out our own intelligence first.

We discuss the problems with modern storytelling.

M - Why are they making another Batman movie? I know money’s the reason, but still, why?

D - Money.

M - Dammit. I’m sick of Batman. And his remakes, and his parodies, and his grimdark alternate realities. I want a new original story.

D - They made hundreds of original stories last year. Did you go see them?

M - No. I saw Batman.

D - Well, there you go. Art is communication, and you want to hear the same thing over and over again.

M - But I don’t! I may get overwhelmed when picking shows and go for something familiar. But I do want new stories! I just don’t watch them…

D - So, you think artists should go broke making original stories that no one sees?

M - Yes. Success is overrated. Also, speaking of repetitious art, why is every sci-fi story the same? First something weird happens, then everyone kills each other. How did violence become the solution to all sci-fi problems? It’s fucking useless.

D - That’s awesome. You’re awesome. Also, I have an idea for a Superman movie starring Samuel L. Jackson.

M - You have my attention.

D - The first act is Kingdom Come, the second act is All Star Superman. A bitter Superman tries to fix the world by force, fails, makes everything worse, forgives the world, forgives himself, saves the world, saves his enemies, and dies.

M - You’re awesome too.

We talk about how fucked up the economy is getting.

M - Smartphones are hellaciously complicated microtech that we give away for free. Houses are piles of clay and sticks that cost millions. How the fuck does that make sense?

D - Yeah, and why don’t rich people pay taxes? Are we too stupid to figure this out? Like, if you’re charging billions, and somehow never make a profit, can’t the IRS call bullshit?

M - If corporations are people, can they die with dignity? News agencies should stop selling their souls to live another day, and decide what they want to do with the time they have left.

We get into foreign policy.

D - We should decide what we want done if we’re blown up, before we get blown up.

M - Like, planning your own funeral so your kids don’t spend too much.

D - Yeah, like, find the guys who killed me and fuck them up. But, don’t blow up a whole country. That’s too much.

I share my desire for esoteric knowledge. He shares how he learns complicated physics.

D - Pick a crazy ass goal, like time travel. Then when you read physics you can sort the information as either relevant to time travel or not relevant. Sorting ideas makes you think about them, let's you know if you understand them yet. Without a goal, none of the information is relevant and good luck remembering that.

M - I think I understand. You have a time machine.

D - Baby, I am fucking close.

Then we get metaphysical.

M: If we are a simulation, can we be the A.I. that runs amok.

D: What if we’re already the A.I. that ran amok?

M: Exactly.

It was an awesome date.