The Theory of Everybody

Copyright © 2017 Robert W. Fuller

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.

Cover Credit: Jenny Bloomfield, 1986

Book Design: Hynek Palatin

Robert W. Fuller’s web site: www.robertworksfuller.com

Dignity Movement: www.breakingranks.net

Huffington Post: www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-fuller

Email: robertwfuller@gmail.com

To my children:

Karen, Benjamin, Noah, and Adam

and my grandchildren:

Az, Arden, Thomas, and Charlie

and young people everywhere who may have to learn to get along with beings whose intelligence surpasses their own.

Man is not Man as yet,

Nor shall I deem his object served, his end

Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,

While only here and there a star dispels

The darkness, here and there a towering mind

O’erlooks its prostrate fellows: when the host

Is out at once to the despair of night,

When all mankind alike is perfected,

Equal in full-blown powers – then, not till then,

I say, begins man’s general infancy.

– Robert Browning, Paracelsus (Part V) (1835)

Contents

The Theory of Everybody: Getting Along with AI (Introduction)

Jennifer and God on Mount Palomar (Dialogical Stage Play)

Genomes, Menomes, Wenomes: Neuroscience and Human Dignity (Article)

When Robots Reign: Getting Along with Robo Sapiens

Part 1: An Interview with Robo Sapiens 2.11

Part 2: The Emancipation of Robo Sapiens: Recapitulation

The Epic of Gilbert Mesh

Part I: Story Board

Part 2: Blank Verse (by Noah Brand)

A New Default Self: Meet Your Superself (Article)

6 Reasons You Can’t Win (and 3 Reasons You Can Anyway) (Listicle)

Interstellar Wormhole Tweets (Fictionalized-Memoir)

The Moral Arc of History (Essay)

A New Age of Enlightenment (Rosy Scenario)

Appendix: On the Origin of Order in Behavior (A Model of Brain Function)

About the Author

The Theory of Everybody

As a graduate student in physics, I was part of a community committed to understanding how the world works. We sought to identify causes and effects, to explain everything from Nature’s tiniest building blocks to the Universe itself. We immodestly called our Holy Grail the Theory of Everything.

I thought I shared this goal but something held me back. I could not completely commit myself to this project. Not because the goal was too grand, but because it was too narrow. To explain, I have to say something about my upbringing.

My mother saw things as right or wrong; my father, as true or false. She judged; he questioned. My mother’s passionate convictions caused arguments, but she got things done; my father’s detached investigations promised to resolve disagreements, but rarely did.

As an unconscious carrier of both modi operandi, I toggled between them—from the moral righteousness of How could you possibly?! to the sober inquisitiveness of What happened? If I were not to take sides, I either had to reconcile their divergent ways or watch from the sidelines.

In my teens—the 1950s—I tried to emulate my father by becoming a scientist. But as a young adult, I took sides, becoming active in the movements for racial justice and gender equality.

Of course, most scientists, like most people, reconcile their partisan political beliefs with scientific objectivity by declaring morality and politics to be matters of the heart and science the business of the head. Perhaps because I identified with both parents, I kept trying to unify my heart and my head. To my surprise, the unification I sought led me back to physics, not for its predictions, but for the elegance of its explanations.

What had drawn me to theoretical physics in the first place were not its practical applications, but its beautiful, comprehensive theories. I was less interested in the details of how the world works, than in Nature’s intelligibility and its apparent conformity with simple, discoverable mathematical laws.

Animals register correlations between events, but humans go further. We imagine that things do not simply happen, but that they are caused. We may sneer at the causes our ancestors came up with (for example, Zeus, the God of Thunder, expressing his displeasure with humankind by hurling bolts of lightning at us), but a correctible cause, albeit it false, is better than no cause at all because, eventually, we identify a cause that correlates well enough with an effect to give us a measure of control.

What we can’t reduce to cause and effect, we attribute to divine intervention. As our explanations take in more of the material world, we have less use for god. The theory of everything that physics seeks would limit god’s jurisdiction to matters of morality. A theory of everybody would make him a figurehead.

There is no Theory of Everything yet, and, if every answer raises new questions, there may never be. Regardless, our penchant for explanation is stronger than ever and we’re now focusing our model-building skills not just on the world around us but on our own bodies and minds.

We have discovered the genome and figured out how it builds proteins and bodies. The heart, once the seat of the soul, has been revealed as a machine that can be repaired and even replaced. As our explanations take in more and more of Nature, the idea takes hold that we might even explain what we’ve been judiciously leaving out—our very own selves.

We’ve resisted the idea that our minds are machine-like: regarding our behavior as governed by cause and effect feels like an insult to our dignity. We prefer to believe that we do things because we choose to. Our system of jurisprudence presumes free will, individual agency, and personal accountability.

If human behavior, like the physical world, is caused, then how can we hold individuals responsible for their actions? If what we do is not a free expression of our personal will, but is determined by our interaction with other beings and the physical world, how can we pride ourselves on our achievements? Any theory of selfhood will have to answer these questions.

I know it sounds pretentious, and I didn’t dare say it out loud, but the reason I didn’t devote myself one hundred percent to the quest for a theory of everything, was that I was holding out for a theory of everybody. That is, a theory of human affairs that, today, seem as unruly as the physical world seemed to our ancestors.

If human behaviors were explainable, then there would not be two distinct realms—physical law and moral law—but a unification of causality and morality. My parents would be reconciled, and I’d no longer be divided against myself.

You could think of such a grand synthesis as one that more advanced beings, observing us from somewhere in the Cosmos, would use to explain humankind’s salient characteristics: we love and hate, we make war and peace, we take each other for somebodies and nobodies.

Understanding Nature has enabled us to harness her energy and shield ourselves from her ravages. Could a better understanding of ourselves enable us to get along with thinking machines who may soon be smarter than we are?

§§§

I’ve tried to make each of the pieces in The Theory of Everybody self-contained, so expect to find some overlap. Their common purpose, pursued in a variety of genres, is to mitigate what could be the most disruptive event in human history—the advent of robots that do everything we do as well or better.

Jennifer and God on Mount Palomar is a conversation between a young astrophysicist and God, who has concluded that his continued presence is prolonging humankind’s adolescence, and so has decided to retire. God becomes fond of Jennifer and tries to help her come to terms with the threat to human pride posed by artificial intelligence.

Genomes, Menomes, Wenomes: Neuroscience and Human Dignity traces the encroachment of mechanistic models of the body and the mind, and embraces the old but heretofore repugnant idea that Man is a machine. Surprisingly, this view of humanity does not diminish human beings. On the contrary, it elevates machines to the point that we are proud to be numbered among them. To find our proper place alongside sentient machines, we shall need a more inclusive notion of self. Meet the superself.

When Robots Reign: Getting Along with Robo Sapiens is a journalist’s interview of one of humanity’s new overlords, Robo Sapiens, who, it turns out, is more agreeable than we might think. There follows an equivalent bare-bones scenario for the emancipa­tion of Robo Sapiens.

The Epic of Gilbert Mesh is a contemporary retelling, in the form of a story board, of humankind’s first great work of literature, Gilgamesh, composed circa 2500 BCE in Babylonia. The story is then rendered in Iambic Pentameter (Blank Verse) by Noah Brand.

A New Default Self tracks the evolution of selfhood through three stages: singular self, plural self, and superself.

6 Reasons You Can’t Win (and 3 Reasons You Can Anyway) is a listicle that enumerates the limitations of our current concept of self and shows how reconceiving selfhood can change the game so that everyone wins.

Interstellar Wormhole Tweets (How to Dodge Extinction) is a short story—part memoir, part science fiction—that imagines how more advanced beings might take us under their wing, mentor us, and help us navigate the treacherous transition from a predatory to a dignitarian civilization.

The Moral Arc of History explains why Martin Luther King, Jr. was right when he said, The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Two proofs of King’s assertion are offered: one historical and inductive; the other, game-theoretic and deductive. King’s famous saying is tantamount to a refutation of might makes right. This article shows why, in the long run, it’s the other way round.

A New Age of Enlightenment proposes a sequel to the 18th century philosophical movement that gave us the Age of Enlightenment. Then, the agenda was science and reason, indi­vidual liberty, and religious tolerance. Now, it’s dignity for all sen­tient beings, including those whom we are designing to outdo us.

The Appendix—On the Origin of Order in Behavior by Peter Putnam and me—is a reprint of our 1966 exposition of Putnam’s functional model of the nervous system, which, by depicting the brain as working on Darwinian principles, undergirds the unifica­tion of morality and causality.

Jennifer and God on Mount Palomar

TIME: Near future

CHARACTERS:

JENNIFER: is a 26-year-old graduate student, and later, a post-doc in astrophysics, at the Mount Palomar Observatory.

GOD: is the biblical god, but he’s going through changes.

ATTENDEES at God’s press conference at the Holiday Inn:

Eugene White, a PhD student in political science at a nearby university

Catherine Rowe, an adjunct professor of religion at a local community college

Molly, cleaning lady at the Holiday Inn

Marty, the audiovisual technician at God’s press conference

Claire, a junior in the local high school

Anne, classmate of Claire and Joel

Joel, classmate of Claire and Anne

Mildred and Clarence Dobbs, retired couple

ACT I: Jennifer and God on Mount Palomar

The curtain rises to reveal a large telescope, the centerpiece of a domed astronomical observatory. The vertical plane of the curtain bisects the dome, so the audience has the illusion of being inside the observatory. Stars shine over the dome and on the theater’s ceiling above the audience.

The telescope is aimed up and out over stage right. An alcove filled with scientific instrumentation and computers is visible at stage left. Behind the bank of computers is a vending machine, beyond which is an exit to the outside world.

On stage right a door leads away from the dome to the outside world. Toward the top of the dome is a crow’s-nest, accessible by a spiral staircase, that allows a person to climb up near the telescope.

Jennifer is seen in the alcove peering at the computer screens. Then she goes to the spiral staircase and climbs to the crow’s-nest. As she gazes at the celestial sphere, her line of sight parallels that of the telescope. Shivering, she draws a blanket over her head, taking on the appearance of Madonna, or equally, of a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf.

Scene 1: The Observatory

JENNIFER: (Though apparently alone on stage, her tone of voice is conversational, as if she were talking to someone, or possibly, to herself.): I hope the rains hold off for a few weeks. Clear skies, if you please.

GOD: (a disembodied voice, a bit stern) I don’t concern myself with the weather. I thought you knew that. Besides, most people are praying for rain.

JENNIFER: (off-handedly) That wasn’t a prayer, just a personal pre­ference. My supervisor is pressuring me to get data for his research paper. Cloudy skies mean no data, no paper, nothing to pad his résumé.

GOD: (His voice softening) You do the work, he gets the credit?

JENNIFER: That’s the deal. His word is God’s.

GOD: (taking umbrage, God enters through the door on stage right) I beg your pardon.

In full beard and tunic; a commanding personality. It will gradually be revealed that God’s demeanor is bravado, an attempt to conceal diminished powers.

No one speaks for me.

JENNIFER: It’s just a figure of speech.

GOD: You don’t have to put up with a boss like that.

JENNIFER: It’s worth it to hang out up here with the stars. I’ve been hooked since I was seven.

GOD: (nods approvingly which encourages her to elaborate)

JENNIFER: My dad gave me a telescope for my birthday, and we set it up on the roof of our garage. I learned the names of the constellations and fell in love with Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s moons.

GOD: (appreciatively) Well, as a student of the heavens, you’re in the company of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Hubble—a grand lineage.

JENNIFER: Maybe so, but I feel like a mouse in a cathedral.

GOD: Don’t mix up ‘mouse’ and ‘mousy.’

JENNIFER: I can’t stand up to my supervisor without risking the only thing I’ve ever wanted.

GOD: Which is what, exactly?

JENNIFER: To find out if the Universe cares.

GOD: I can see why you might think it doesn’t: just one fiery galaxy after another, floating in cold, empty space.

JENNIFER: That’s it. I want to know if it has a heart? Do you know?

GOD: Yes, I know.

JENNIFER: Will you tell me?

GOD: Maybe some day…when I think you’re ready. Meanwhile, you should practice speaking truth to power. You can practice on me, if you like.

JENNIFER: (tentatively) I do have a bone to pick with you.

GOD: I won’t bite.

JENNIFER: (accusingly) You left Henrietta Leavitt off your list of cosmic explorers. Without her yardstick, Hubble wouldn’t have found the rest of the universe. You’re just like my supervisor: men get the glory; women do the work.

GOD: (apologetic) Old habits die hard, but I learn from my mistakes. You’re right: Henrietta belongs in the Astronomy Hall of Fame with Hubble and the others.

Beat, during which God recovers his aplomb and reverts to braggadocio.

Before her, no one had any idea of the scale of my magnum opus.

Beat.

A nice week’s work, if I do say so myself.

JENNIFER: Nice, but…

Beat.

…sometimes kind of spooky.

GOD: Huh? It’s just one galaxy after another, all the way out. I’m not one for reinventing the wheel. What’s so spooky?

JENNIFER: Looking into space, I sometimes wonder if anyone is looking back. See someone seeing you and you exist. Look long enough into an infinite void and you begin to wonder, Who am I? Does anyone care?

GOD: I care.

JENNIFER: Don’t take this personally, but the love of God is not enough.

GOD: I never intended it to be. Every creature on Noah’s Ark had a partner.

JENNIFER: (She busies herself for a moment with the telescope.) I don’t suppose you’d be willing to say something to my supervisor…

GOD: He wouldn’t listen to me. (self-pitying) Alas, no one does these days.

JENNIFER: (ignoring his complaint) I feel powerless.

GOD: That’s because you are powerless. Your salvation lies in numbers. The powerful back down only when confronted with greater power.

JENNIFER: If I challenged my supervisor, he’d replace me, overnight.

GOD: That’s my point. On your own, you’ll fail. You need allies. Even then, you’re likely to fail—at first.

JENNIFER: I can’t even make a friend, let alone organize a group. In school, I was too nerdy for the girls and too girly for the nerds. Besides, nobodies don’t make revolutions.

GOD: On the contrary, they’re the only ones who ever do. But by acting together, not alone. Acting alone is a recipe for martyrdom.

Dawn is breaking, the sky slowly brightens, extinguishing the stars. Jennifer gathers her things into a backpack and prepares to leave.

JENNIFER: I’ll be here tomorrow night. Will you be around?

GOD: ‘Just call my name and I’ll be there.’

Beat.

Goodnight, or should I say good morning?

God half-sings the title of the Beatles’ tune Here Comes the Sun.

‘Here comes the sun.’

Jennifer walks to the bank of computers and then exits sleepily.

GOD: (calling after her) Godspeed.

CURTAIN

Scene 2: The Observatory

Jennifer enters and puts her backpack down. She pulls out some large glossy photos and leafs through them, then resumes her conversation with God, who, initially, is off stage.

JENNIFER: The photos I took last night…they show something unusual in Orion.

GOD: Orion? That’s my favorite constellation—as seen from the Earth, I mean. None of your constellations look the same from anywhere else.

JENNIFER: (miffed by his condescension) I know that! (curious) Where are you looking from, anyway?

GOD: Everywhere, of course. I’m omnipresent.

Beat.

While Jennifer fiddles with the telescope, God, in Old Testament garb, ambles onto the stage.

You’re late. I was afraid I’d been too preachy last night.

JENNIFER: I know you mean well, but I want to understand the universe, not save the world.

GOD: The two are not unrelated. Most human suffering can be traced to mistaken beliefs.

JENNIFER: Tonight, I just want to understand that blur in Orion. Can you tell me what it is?

GOD: You’d better ask one of your professors.

JENNIFER: I don’t want to mention this to anyone just yet. Could it be a comet? They’re named after their discoverers, you know.

GOD: (a note of disapproval in His voice) Human vanity never ceases to amaze me. That comet is my comet. They all are. I trust you’re not expecting it to make you famous.

JENNIFER: Ah ha! So, it is a comet! If my supervisor gets wind of it, he’ll take the credit for its discovery. I just want to know where it’s headed. Do you know?

GOD: If I told you, what use would you have for all this technology?

With a sweeping gesture, God indicates the telescope and the computers.

JENNIFER: No problem. Newton’s laws plus my data will predict the orbit.

GOD: They were my laws before they were Newton’s, you know.

JENNIFER: Fine, we’ll use your laws to figure out where your comet is going. Same result either way.