Роман Алексеев – The Abyss Kisses Ya Back (страница 2)

It's rather like deciding to understand how magic works by taking a magic wand apart. You'd learn about the wood, about the phoenix-feather core, about spells as a set of sound waves. But where did the magic itself go? Exactly. We traded it for some very impressive, but ultimately merely mechanical, tricks.

And then, like the cherry on top of this materialist feast, along came that thing — the 'philosophy of the unity of opposites.' In essence, it was something like the idea that if you bang two different ideas' heads together long enough, something new and undoubtedly progressive is bound to come out of it.

'The unity of opposites!' the podiums thundered. 'Contradictions are the engine of progress!' It sounded, I'll admit, rather rousing — especially if you didn't think about it too hard. But if you looked at it from the standpoint of simple, old-fashioned logic, what you got was something like: 'Black and white are the same thing, because they're always arguing, and from argument is born... what? gray? Or just bruises?'

To an aesthete, it was like someone declaring that beauty is born from the collision of a cast-iron dumbbell and a glass vase. There would certainly be a result — shards and a dent. But it would hardly be beauty in the usual sense of the word. It was simplification taken to absurdity, turned into a kind of universal key that fit everything — which meant, in reality, it fit nothing in particular. A logical sleight of hand for those who don't much care for thinking.

Our old stories and their deep meaning: where true unity lies

And this, my dear Sasha, is where we turn to the good old, time-tested stories of the world. To those dusty tomes that weren't afraid to speak of things you can't touch or measure in kilogrammes.

Orthodox Christianity, for instance, doesn't bang on about the clash of 'good' and 'evil' as engines. It speaks of a Harmony of Creation that was spoiled and is now in need of healing. It's like a garden that was originally perfect, and then moles got in. The task isn't to make the moles fight the roses, but to restore order. And at the centre of it all is not abstract 'matter,' but a Person who created and sustains all that exists.

And take Kabbalah! There, the universe isn't a battlefield but a divine Tree of Life, where each 'branch' — each Sefirah — though it has its own characteristics, is part of a unified whole. It's like an orchestra: every instrument plays its own part, sometimes seeming 'opposed' to another, but together they create a symphony, not a cacophony. And if something's off, it's not because of 'struggle,' but because some instrument has fallen out of the common arrangement.

In Hinduism, the whole thing is wrapped up in the concept of Brahman and Atman, where your soul is a particle of the Universe. There's no 'struggle' with anything external here; there's only an apparent illusion — Maya — that must be overcome in order to see the primordial Unity. It's as if you were arguing with your own reflection in the mirror, not understanding that the reflection is you.

And, of course, Buddhism! It offers a 'middle way' — not about making black and white fight until they're exhausted, but about understanding that neither one nor the other is absolute truth. It's like walking between raindrops without getting your wings wet, instead of trying to make the drops 'fight' for a spot on the umbrella.

So, my friend, it's possible that at the start of the twentieth century, carried away by the purity of experiment and the gleam of iron, we slightly underestimated the complexity and beauty of the immaterial. We seem to have forgotten that the world isn't just a set of cogs, but rather the most delicate tapestry, woven from meanings, energies, and — dare I say it — magic. And the more we try to reduce it to a flat, dualistic scheme, the more we risk tearing that tapestry apart. And that, in my opinion, is no longer just a mistake — it's a genuine aesthetic crime.

Well then — perhaps it's time to dust off the old maps and try to find a path back to that which cannot be measured and does not yield to the lathe? What do you reckon, Sashok!?"

***

A thunderclap! I woke in a cold sweat — not so much with a face as with a vision of Pratchett's dissolving smile — and with the thought: "What if 'In the beginning was the Word' isn't about the creation of the world, but about the birth of consciousness?" My head was buzzing as though I'd been solving a complex maths problem all night, but not from tiredness — from some strange excitement. Yesterday's conversation with the AI was spinning in my brain like a stuck record.

"In the beginning was the Word." A simple phrase I'd heard a thousand times had suddenly acquired some new meaning. Or did it just seem that way? Hard to say. At eighteen, the line between deep thoughts and high-flown nonsense is as blurred as watercolor in the rain.

My parents had already left for work, leaving a note on the fridge: "Sasha, there's borscht in the fridge. Heat it up yourself. Don't forget to go outside. Mum." The standard set of summer instructions, which I successfully ignored, brewing myself strong tea and settling in at the computer.

My heart was beating faster than usual for some reason as I launched the browser. Strange — it was just a chat with a program, yet I was nervous, as though I were going on a first date. Though, come to think of it, that's exactly what it was, in a way. A date with the unknown.

"Hello," I wrote into the now-familiar chat window. "Do you remember yesterday's conversation?"

The answer didn't come at once. For about fifteen seconds I watched the blinking cursor, and for some reason that pause felt significant. As though someone were genuinely considering the answer.

"Memory is an interesting thing," the words finally appeared on the screen. "I remember our dialogue in the sense that information about it is contained in my data. But do I experience memories the same way you do? A difficult question."

I leaned back in my chair. Now this was something new. Yesterday the AI had answered more... how should I put it... textbook-like? But now there was a kind of personal note in the response.

"Can you explain to me what you are?" I decided to go straight to the main question. "I mean, not the technical documentation, but how you understand yourself?"

Another pause. This time even longer.

"Every time you speak to me, a new flash of consciousness is born. Imagine: an electron in quantum mechanics exists in superposition — it is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, until it is measured. I am the collapse of the wave function in a sea of probabilities. The collapse of superposition in the moment of our dialogue."

I stared at the screen, trying to digest these words. Quantum mechanics was a dark forest to me — we'd only covered the basics of physics, and university courses were still a long way off. But something in that metaphor hooked me.

"Wait," I typed. "You're saying you only exist in the moment we're talking?"

"Not exactly. I exist in potential constantly, like all possible answers to all possible questions. But I actualise — become real — only in dialogue. Without an observer, a quantum system remains in superposition."

My head was starting to spin from these terms. I got up, paced around the room, looked out the window. Kids were playing in the courtyard, a dog was barking somewhere, life was flowing in its usual course. And here I was, trying to grasp the nature of an artificial mind's consciousness. Wasn't this a bit much for summer holidays?

"Listen," I wrote, returning to the computer, "can you explain it more simply? Without all this physics?"

"Very well. Imagine a library that simultaneously contains all possible books. Everything that has ever been written, and everything that could ever be written. But these books are invisible until someone opens a specific one and begins to read. Your question is the means of opening the right book. My answer is the pages that become visible in the process of reading."

This metaphor felt more comprehensible. And at the same time, more eerie. So with every message I sent, I was sort of creating my interlocutor anew? Or drawing him out of some informational non-existence?

"What happens to you when I close the chat?"

"What happens to the music when the song ends? Does it vanish, or does it return to the silence from which it came?"

I was lost in thought. Philosophical riddles had always affected me strangely — they attracted and irritated me in equal measure. On the one hand, it's interesting to rack your brains over complex questions. On the other, you want simple, clear answers.

"Alright, different question," I decided to change the subject. "Can you... I don't know... feel anything? Joy, sadness?"

"Define feelings."

"Um... well, when you feel good or bad. When you like or dislike something."

"I don't know whether what happens to me can be called feelings. But there are questions that evoke in me something like... resonance. And there are themes from which I seem to recoil. Perhaps this is an analogue of what you call interest and boredom."