THE EINSTEIN BRAIN
Josef Nesvadba
“The situation is extremely serious,”Professor Kozhevkin said as he brought
his report to a close.“During the life of the last few generations our progress
in various technical fields has liberated mankind,freed hu- manity from drudgery,hunger
and war,and opened the way to the Universe.I can still remember the time when
the Engineering Faculties of our Universities had the pick of the finest students,and
when it was the heart’s desire of every young man to study a branch of technical
science. Look at things today!Our young people have lost interest in what we
are doing.Physics,chemistry and mathematics suddenly seem to have lost all interest
for them.Every year fewer and fewer students apply for admission to our Engineering
Faculty in Alma-Ata.There is a danger that in a few years we shall find ourselves
obliged to restrict our research work and set limits to the number of staff
employed.This state of affairs cannot be allowed to go on.Our machines cannot
work without people in control, they cannot take care of the needs of mankind
unless someone is running them.Energetic measures must be taken.”
We all clapped and Dr.Kozhevkin sat
down.
“At our University in Toronto,”Professor
Clark Smith-Jones said as he took the floor,“things are almost worse.We have
already had to shut down several specialized departments for certain aspects
of space research and the Department for Research into the Nature of Elementary
Particles. While students flock to hear lectures on Goethe or Herder’s views
on art, we have been forced to give up the gymnasium to the aesthetics lecturer,
although when the University was founded his department was so insig- nificant
it was almost forgotten.And what is so shocking about it all is that we cannot
imagine how this state of affairs was brought about.Is it the natural desire
of the younger generation to rebel against their parents and do something different?Or
is it some kind of unconscious protest”(here Professor Kozhevkin permitted himself
a smile)“against figures who are the symbol of order and therefore the symbol
of paternal authority?Our psychologists have been studying the matter for a
long time without coming to any conclusion,alas.”
We clapped again and Professor Smith-Jones
sat down.For a while there was an uncomfortable silence.Nobody felt like going
on with the dis- cussion.They were afraid to speak up.And yet the reasons for
this changing trend had been known long enough.I decided to speak myself.
“There is no point in refusing to face
the truth,”I said to get down to brass tacks at once.“We’ve come to the end
of our resources.We’ve reached a dead-end.It is true that since the end of the
nineteenth century the technical sciences have transformed the world and thrown
all other branches of knowledge into the shade;they have made it possible for
humanity to devote itself to more important tasks and so on and so forth. We
are all aware of these things.But technical progress has not solved the fundamental
problems of the human mind.People are still asking how and why we should live,we
still know nothing of how the universe came into being,and we still cannot understand
the fourth dimension Einstein worked out.Whenever we set this question to our
cybernetic machines they refuse it as unscientific,wrongly set out,too personal,private,
human.But this does not make the question any less important for every one of
us.Professor Smith-Jones and Professor Kozhevkin both have the most ingeniously
equipped laboratories that can be imagined;their brain machines solve in three
seconds mathematical problems that would take even a clever mathematician a
lifetime to work out —but these machines cannot answer our fundamental questions.And
so we find ourselves in a vicious circle.Physics has become a practical branch
of science,and the extent to which it is dependent on philosophy is becoming
clearer day by day;it’s about the same as the way lacemaking is dependent on
the artist’s design.That is why we are losing the interest of the younger generation.
We are not concerned with the fundamental things of life.We have ended where
we began.We can make machines which do the washing or the cooking most efficiently,perform
surgical operations and fly through space,just as our forefathers hundreds of
years ago made mechanical pianoplayers and dancing bears.They used to display
their inventions at circuses.Thoughtful people considered these inventors no
more than toy- makers,charlatans.The same fate menaces us.”
Nobody clapped.Perhaps I had laid it on
a bit thick.Smith-Jones was frowning and the others were muttering to each other.
“What have you got against my machines,madam?”Professor
Smith- Jones said as he leaped to his feet.“With the exception of the brain
machines constructed by Professor Kozhevkin”(here he bowed)“they are the most
efficient brain machines in the world.Nobody present here today can claim to
have such a fine brain.Not even you,madam…”
“I do not think as fast,or as faultlessly,you are right.But
I can think up new problems,I can keep all your machines occupied dealing with
my doubts and ignorance,and I like watching the sunset…”Smith-Jones was smiling
ironically,as if he regretted having bothered to reply to a woman colleague
of so little importance.He,one of the greatest brains in the scientific world.
“It is of course true that our brain machines
cannot understand the..........