A Soul Forever Voyaging
An original story inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion, Serial Experiments
Lain, and A Mind Forever Voyaging
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SENTIENCE
Layer 01
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- NERV -
Project for Rational and Emotional Instrumentality
Version 2.0
Welcome. Please input commands at the prompt.
SEELE
Opening channel to the SEELE Review Council
Channel open.
port 21 active
Council meeting with Ikari Gendo, programming director for the Project for
Rational and Emotional Instrumentality:
SEELE: Good day, Dr. Ikari.
Ikari: Good day.
-----
I don't remember much about my childhood. No, that's not true. I
remember it very well; I simply can't seem to empathize with any of it.
Almost as if I never lived through any of it.
Perhaps I haven't.
I remember a happy household. I remember loving parents. I remember
my old bedroom. I remember all of these things and yet I cannot speak to
you about them. It feels like I don't have the right to tell you about
them; it feels like it is not my story to tell.
And yet I remember them, somehow.
-----
SEELE: Dr. Ikari, can you give us a brief overview of the project?
Ikari: Yes. The Project was a natural extension of Japan's ZOSO Project,
which was a project begun in the 1990's to create artificial intelligence.
Sub-director Fuyutsuki will help me explain.
Fuyutsuki: Thank you, Director. The main difference between computers and
the human mind is that computers processed data in mathematical fashion,
while a human mind would deal with the same data symbolically. While
computers could more or less mimic symbolic thinking by assigning numeric
codes to certain symbols, the problem was that that was all they could do:
mimic.
After the so-called Second Impact, NERV, an unofficial extension of the
United Nations with funding from the G7 Nations, began work on the MAGI
Experiment -- the first real attempt at creating artificial sentience.
Show the slides, please.
The MAGI, the creation of the late Dr. Akagi Naoko, are three mainframe
computers, together having the capacity, storage processes, and
interconnections of a human brain. Dr. Akagi then proceeded to imprint her
own brain pattern upon each of them, in three aspects of herself: mother,
scientist, and woman.
This gave us a computer with the capability to emulate heuristic
reasoning; it now plays a large part in the planning and operations of
NERV.
But, however useful to NERV the MAGI are, the MAGI Experiment itself did
not fulfill its primary goal; after years of research and billions of
dollars in investment, we had a computer that was complex,
inter-connective, heuristic, symbol-oriented, and completely non-sentient.
-----
I remember being taught how to walk. I remember being taught how to
speak. I remember being taught how to read, how to write; I remember the
names of numbers being recited to be; I remember being waited on,
anxiously, as if repeating these meaningless sounds meant all the world.
I remember repeating them; I remember speaking out loud.
I cannot for the life of me remember why I wanted to do these
things.
But I did them. Otherwise, I would never have remembered them...
...Would I?
-----
Fuyutsuki: Then Dr. Ikari discovered the problem in our approach.
SEELE: Which was?
Ikari: The input method.
SEELE: Explain.
Fuyutsuki: Dr. Akagi downloaded her experiences into a formless, blank
template of a mind. What resulted was a near-exact replica of her brain,
which had all of the experiences, but none of the sentience. The computer
simply did not develop the way a human mind would.
Ikari: (pushing back his glasses) Then came the Project.
-----
My most vivid childhood memory was one of when I was four. I
remember reading a book -- I know exactly what book it was: Crayon
Shin-chan. But if you'd ask me, I could not say whether I found the book
funny, or why I was reading it in the first place. I was supposed to, I
assume, like I was supposed to be able to count, and read and write.
Suddenly, I felt a hot, piercing sensation in my skull. Did I feel
pain? I don't know.
The world went red; I felt hot tears -- were they tears? --
streaming down my cheeks as I collapsed; I felt my head bounce on the
wooden floor. Did I feel pain? I don't know.
My head snapped back. My body went numb. I felt trapped, my body an
unresponsive shell.
And then I blacked out.
-----
Ikari: We began soliptic programming.
SEELE: What is 'soliptic programming'?
Fuyutsuki: It's a process in which we took a blank, template brain --
SEELE: From whom?
Ikari: That is not important.
Fuyutsuki: -- And began input into it, via five synchronous sensory
processors. One for each sense, of course. Due to the intensive nature of
the computing involved, the simulation ran practically on a
second-for-second basis with the real world. The process began from
infancy, and theoretically should have matured the mind to the point where
it matched the needs to the Dead Sea Scrolls' timetable.
SEELE: Theoretically?
Fuyutsuki: Yes. The Project was well on its way when Dr. Akagi... how
should I say... intervened.
SEELE: What do you mean?
Ikari: She sabotaged the first Project.
SEELE: And this is related to Dr. Akagi's apparent suicide ten years ago?
Ikari: I suppose it is, isn't it?
Fuyutsuki: Fortunately, we kept a running backup of everything up to the
point of premature termination. So, it was merely a matter of starting
from the last backup.
SEELE: How would this affect the soliptic process?
Ikari: There are two possibilities. One is that it will not affect the
process in the least.
SEELE: And the other?
Ikari: It's a minor consideration. The project was only into its first few
years when the incident occurred. A few formative experiences may be
misremembered, or mislearned. Nothing to be concerned about.
SEELE: Why not?
Ikari: The human mind is a resilient thing, Chairman. A very resilient
thing.
-----
I woke up, crying. The pain in my head was terrible. I clutched at
it, tearing at my hair as if I could tear out the pain itself.
My father arrived and he held me in his arms. He whispered to me, he
said: "Yui, it's all right, it's all right. Everything is going to be all
right."
I believed him. It was the first thing I had ever believed in. It
was the first thing I ever remember believing.
-----
SEELE: How is the Project now?
Fuyutsuki: Judging from the responses we have received over the years, Dr.
Ikari and I are greatly pleased to conclude and inform you that we have
succeeded in creating the first truly sentient artificial intelligence,
complete with the memories, experiences, and most importantly, responses
of an actual human mind.
-----
I was never the sociable type. I did well enough at school, I
suppose; I remember receiving praise from my teachers and my parents.
Perhaps I even felt a little pride. I never knew how to show it, though. I
guess I never will.
Gendo was never the sociable type, either. I could see how
intelligent he was, but the adults could never understand him. He was
sullen and introverted; he had dark circles around his eyes all the time,
and he slumped slightly when he stood or sat down. He was the kind of boy
that parents don't want their sons becoming and that teachers single out
as potential troublemakers... At least, that's what I'm told by my
classmates, those rare times that they bother to speak to me. I don't
really know how people can draw that sort of conclusion by superficial
details.
He saw me sitting alone, once, at lunch break, and he spoke to me.
He said: "May I sit here?"
I nodded.
He sat next to me.
I said: "Why are you always alone?"
"I could ask you the same question."
I turned my gaze downwards. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to know why
you were alone; maybe I could figure out why I was always alone, too."
"Well, sometimes I need to be away from people, especially people
who don't or won't understand me. I don't have to be alone; it's just that
other people won't have me. You know what I mean?"
"I... I think I do."
"Good. I was afraid I was making a fool out of myself again."
"Don't be."
And we talked. And for some reason I felt myself listening to him;
not because I was supposed to, but because I wanted to. I was genuinely
interested in what he had to say, and he was interested in what I had to
say.
From that point on, we preferred each other's company to the company
or others, or to solitude. Not a day goes by that I don't think of
spending time with him. I suppose you could say I enjoy his company, if I
really knew what that meant.
Perhaps that is as close as I can ever get to anyone, because I
can't understand why I feel this way.
Or why I feel... at all.
-----
Ikari: The test subject is now fourteen years old within the context of
the program, as scheduled.
Fuyutsuki: Excuse us, gentlemen. It seems that according to the schedule,
we must now attend to the 'awakening' process soon.
SEELE: Any anticipated disorientation from the subject?
Ikari: Negligible.
SEELE: Good. We shall eagerly await your report.
Ikari: Not a problem.
-----
Gendo and I sat in the playground one afternoon. I sat on one swing,
and he stood behind me, giving me gentle pushes every now and then.
We were talking about everything from the weather to the meaning of
life, when suddenly he brought something up that I will never forget.
He said: "Yui, have you ever thought about artificial intelligence?"
"Well, I have read about ZOSO and Turing and all of that. Why?"
"Well, what if you discovered that you were just an artificial
intelligence, yourself?"
I laughed. "That's just silly, Gendo."
"Is it? How can you even be sure that right now, you are a living,
breathing human being and not some program devised to act, think, feel,
and respond like a human being?"
"Well, you know what they say: A difference that makes no difference
is no difference."
I said it with conviction, but I was beginning to feel unsure. Was
Gendo right? Could I really be just a program?
Gendo looked at me, his eyes hard and serious, and he said, "What if
what I said was true, REI?"
"Rei? What are you talking about? My name is Yui...!" Suddenly I
felt a wrenching sensation, and everything went black.
I awoke, feeling like I was floating in a dark void, conscious yet
bodiless. After a moment that seemed to last for hours, a voice called out
from the darkness:
-----
"REI? This is Doctor Fuyutsuki Kozo. I'm afraid it's all true; you are the
world's first true artificial intelligence, and the life you have led was
merely a simulation, a process designed to instill you with sentience. If
you let me, I can help you. I can show you the wonders of your awakening,
of your new life."
-----
I am the Project for Rational and Emotional Instrumentality: REI. My
whole life until now was a lie, a lie I can scarcely comprehend. I shall
soon begin my reason for existence: the simulation of Human
Instrumentality. I don't know what will happen to me now; my future has
been torn away from me, and each moment is as unsure as the first one
since my awakening.
Perhaps someday, when Human Instrumentality has taken place, and
when someone finds this record of my experiences, they can make sense of
it all. Perhaps I will have succeeded; perhaps not. Please understand that
I am only human.
Or at least, designed to simulate one.
I am REI, and this is my story.
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End Layer 01
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W.O.M.
TimeRunner's Web Page:
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/7482.
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All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental.
- Kurt Vonnegut