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mallorys_cameraWow! America's Foremost Unicycling Family became a Jeopardy question! (Check out Double Jeopardy, Question 29)
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On the drive down to Erie, RTT devoured Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – the Tompkins County Library’s 2010 pick for the Community Read.
On the drive back to Ithaca we talked about it.
“So,” he asked me, “are you a replicant?”
“Pretty sure I’m not,” I said.
“But how do you know?”
I glanced at the gas gauge and sighed. I could spare exactly $45 in gas money for the Erie trip, not a penny more. “If someone is going to go to all the trouble to manufacture a robot, they’re not going to program it to be an abject failure.”
RTT slipped me a sly sideways glance. “But maybe you were programmed to be my mentor. Maybe there are important life lessons they programmed you to impart, you know, for my intellectual and spiritual wellbeing, stuff that can only come from knowing what it’s like to be truly down and out.”
“I commend them for their verisimilitude then,” I remarked drily. When the gas gauge was at the half-tank mark, there was actually considerably less than a half tank left. “But, no. I remember my life very well before you were born – there was quite a bit of it to remember, as a matter of fact – I was 42 when you were born, after all. Middle aged by anyone’s standards.”
RTT snapped his fingers, shook his head. “Implanted memories.”
When the needle was on the half tank point, that meant there was something like five gallons left. That should get me another 125 more miles but you never know – roads have a way of stretching when you’re stuck doing a road trip you didn’t really want to do. Ithaca was 135 miles. Probably I’d make it. But maybe I wouldn’t. “Nah. It’s easy to tell the difference between real memories and implants. Ever see the movie The Thirteenth Floor?”
“No-o-o-o –“
“Great, under-rated flick. Implanted memories always fade around the edges. Like in that movie. Anyway, someone who gets hysterical and cries uncontrollably as often as I do is unlikely to be a replicant.”
“It’s just that it’s so weird when I think about it,” said RTT, “It’s like I know all these people in New York and I know all these people in California and their only connection is through me –”
“I know,” I said. “It still boggles my mind sometimes. All these billions and billions of people on planet Earth. And each and every one of them has an inner life. Each and every one of them loves and thinks and feels and hurts –“
“But that’s impossible,” said RTT.
“Why is that?”
“Because then they’d be the narrator. And they’re not. They can’t be. I’m the narrator.”
Oh, right. Of course!
On the drive down to Erie, RTT devoured Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – the Tompkins County Library’s 2010 pick for the Community Read.
On the drive back to Ithaca we talked about it.
“So,” he asked me, “are you a replicant?”
“Pretty sure I’m not,” I said.
“But how do you know?”
I glanced at the gas gauge and sighed. I could spare exactly $45 in gas money for the Erie trip, not a penny more. “If someone is going to go to all the trouble to manufacture a robot, they’re not going to program it to be an abject failure.”
RTT slipped me a sly sideways glance. “But maybe you were programmed to be my mentor. Maybe there are important life lessons they programmed you to impart, you know, for my intellectual and spiritual wellbeing, stuff that can only come from knowing what it’s like to be truly down and out.”
“I commend them for their verisimilitude then,” I remarked drily. When the gas gauge was at the half-tank mark, there was actually considerably less than a half tank left. “But, no. I remember my life very well before you were born – there was quite a bit of it to remember, as a matter of fact – I was 42 when you were born, after all. Middle aged by anyone’s standards.”
RTT snapped his fingers, shook his head. “Implanted memories.”
When the needle was on the half tank point, that meant there was something like five gallons left. That should get me another 125 more miles but you never know – roads have a way of stretching when you’re stuck doing a road trip you didn’t really want to do. Ithaca was 135 miles. Probably I’d make it. But maybe I wouldn’t. “Nah. It’s easy to tell the difference between real memories and implants. Ever see the movie The Thirteenth Floor?”
“No-o-o-o –“
“Great, under-rated flick. Implanted memories always fade around the edges. Like in that movie. Anyway, someone who gets hysterical and cries uncontrollably as often as I do is unlikely to be a replicant.”
“It’s just that it’s so weird when I think about it,” said RTT, “It’s like I know all these people in New York and I know all these people in California and their only connection is through me –”
“I know,” I said. “It still boggles my mind sometimes. All these billions and billions of people on planet Earth. And each and every one of them has an inner life. Each and every one of them loves and thinks and feels and hurts –“
“But that’s impossible,” said RTT.
“Why is that?”
“Because then they’d be the narrator. And they’re not. They can’t be. I’m the narrator.”
Oh, right. Of course!
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Date: 2010-07-22 10:50 am (UTC)