Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (133 page)

Achilles: Of course. You are very eccentric (I know you won't mind my saying so), and even Mr. Crab here is a weensy bit eccentric. (Pardon me, Mr. Crab.) Crab: Oh, don't worry about offending me.

Tortoise: But Achilles, you've overlooked one of the most salient features of your acquaintances.

Achilles: Which is.... ?

Tortoise: That we're animals!

Achilles: Well, well-true enough. You have such a keen mind. I would never have thought of formulating the facts so concisely.

Tortoise: Isn't that evidence enough? How many people do you know who spend their time with talking Tortoises, and talking Crabs? Achilles: I must admit, a talking Crab is

Crab: -an anomaly, of course.

Achilles: Exactly; it is a bit of an anomaly-but it has precedents. It has occurred in literature.

Tortoise: Precisely-in literature. But where in real life?

Achilles: Now that you mention it, I can't quite say. I'll have to give it some thought. But that's not enough to convince me that I'm a character in a

Dialogue. Do you have any other arguments?

Tortoise: Do you remember one day when you and I met in the park, seemingly at random?

Achilles: The day we discussed crab canons by Escher and Bach? Tortoise: The very one!

Achilles: And Mr. Crab, as I recall, turned up somewhere towards the middle of our conversation and babbled something funny and then left.

Crab: Not just "somewhere towards the middle", Achilles. EXACTLY in the middle.

Achilles: Oh, all right, then.

Tortoise: Do you realize that your lines were the same as my lines in that conversation-except in reverse order? A few words were changed here and there, but in essence there was a time symmetry to our encounter.

Achilles: Big Deal! It was just some sort of trickery. Probably all done with mirrors.

Tortoise: No trickery. Achilles, and no mirrors: just the work of an assiduous Author.

Achilles: Oh, well, it's all the same to me.

Tortoise: Fiddle' It makes a big difference, you know.

Achilles: Say, something about this conversation strikes me as familiar. Haven't I heard some of those lines somewhere before= Tortoise: You said it, Achilles.

Crab: Perhaps those lines occurred at random in the park one day, Achilles. Do you recall how your conversation with Mr. T ran that day?

Achilles: Vaguely. He said "Good day, Mr. A" at the beginning, and at the end, I said,

"Good day, Mr. T". Is that right

Crab: I just happen to have a transcript right here ...

(He fishes around in his music case, whips out a sheet, and hands it to Achilles. As
Achilles reads it, he begins to squirm and fidget noticeable.)

Achilles: This is very strange. Very, very strange ... All of a Sudden, I feel sort of-weird.

It's as if somebody had actually planned out that whole set of statements in advance, worked them out on paper or something . As if some Author had had a whole agenda and worked from it in detail in planning all those statements I made that day.

(At that moment, the door bursts open. Enter the Author, carrying a giant
manuscript.)

Author: I can get along very well without such a program. You see, once my characters are formed, they seem to have lives of their own, and I need to exert very little effort in planning their lines.

Crab: Oh, here you are!' I thought you'd never arrive!

Author: Sorry to be so late. I followed the wrong road and wound up very far away. But somehow I made it back. Good to see you again, Mr. T and Mr. C. And Achilles, I'm especially glad to see you.

Achilles: Who are you? I've never seen you before.

Author: I am Douglas Hofstadter-please call me Doug-and I'm presently finishing up a book called
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
. It is the book in which the three of you are characters.

Achilles: Pleased to meet you. My name is Achilles, and

Author: No need to introduce yourself, Achilles, since I already know you quite well.

Achilles: Weird, weird.

Crab: He's the one I was saying might drop in and play continuo with us.

Author: I've been playing the
Musical Offering
a little bit on my piano at home, and I can try to blunder my way through the Trio Sonata providing you'll overlook my many wrong notes.

Tortoise: Oh, we're very tolerant around here, being only amateurs our selves.

Author: I hope you don't mind, Achilles, but I'm to blame for the tact that you and Mr.

Tortoise said the same things, but in reverse order, that day in the park.

Crab: Don't forget me' I was there, too right in the middle, putting in my two bits' worth!

Author: Of course! You were the Crab in the
Crab Canon
.

Achilles: So you are saying you control my utterances;, That my brain is a software subsystem of yours?

Author: You can put it that way if you want, Achilles.

Achilles: Suppose I were to write dialogues. Who would the author of them beg You, or me?

Author: You, of course. At least in the fictitious world which you inhabit, you'd get credit for them.

Achilles: Fictitious? I don't see anything fictitious about it!

Author: Whereas in the world I inhabit, perhaps the credit would be given to me, although I am not sure if it would be proper to do so. And then, whoever made me make you write your dialogues would get credit in his world (seen from which, MY

world looks fictitious).

Achilles: That's quite a bit to swallow. I never imagined there could be a world above mine before-and now you're hinting that there could even be one above that. It's like walking up a familiar staircase, and just keeping on going further up after you've reached the top-or what you'd always taken to be the top!

Crab: Or waking up from what you took to be real life, and finding out it too was just a dream. That could happen over and over again, no telling when it would stop.

Achilles: It's most perplexing how the characters in my dreams have wills of their own, and act out parts which are independent of MY will. It's as if my mind, when I'm dreaming, merely forms a stage on which certain other organisms act out their lives.

And then, when I awake, they go away. I wonder where it is they go to ...

Author: They go to the same place as the hiccups go, when you get rid of them: Tumbolia. Both the hiccups and the dreamed beings are software suborganisms which exist thanks to the biology of the outer host organism. The host organism serves as stage to them-or even as their universe. They play out their lives for a time-but when the host organism makes a large change of state-for example, wakes up-then the suborganisms lose their coherency, and case existing as separate, identifiable units.

Achilles: Is it like castles in the sand which vanish when a wave washes over them%

Author: Very much like that, Achilles. Hiccups, dream characters, and even Dialogue characters disintegrate when their host organism undergoes certain critical changes of state. Yet, just like those sand castles you described, everything which made them up is still present.

Achilles: I object to being likened to a mere hiccup!

Author: But I am also comparing you to a sand castle, Achilles. Is that not poetic?

Besides, you may take comfort in the fact that if you are but a hiccup in my brain, I myself am but a hiccup in some higher author's brain.

Achilles: But I am such a physical creature-so obviously made of flesh and blood and hard bones. You can't deny that'

Author: I can't deny your sensation of it, but remember that dreamed beings, although they are just software apparitions, have the same sensation, no less than you do.

Tortoise: I say, enough of this talk! Let us sit down and make music'

Crab: A fine idea-and now we have the added pleasure of the company of our Author, who will grace our ears with his rendition of the bass line to the Trio Sonata, as harmonized by Bach's pupil Kirnberger. How fortunate are we! (Leads the author to one of his pianos.) I hope Not, find the seat comfortable enough. To adjust it, you- (In the background there is heard a Junn~ soft oscillating sound.)

Tortoise: Excuse me, but what was that strange electronic gurgle=

Crab: Oh, just a noise from one of the smart-stupids. Such a noise generally signals the fact that a new notice has flashed onto the screen. Usually the notices are just unimportant announcements coming from the main monitor program, which controls all the smart-stupids. (
With his flute in his hand, he walks over to a smart-stupid, and
reads its screen. Immediately he turns to the assembled musicians, and says, with a
kind of agitation
:) Gentlemen, old Ba. Ch. is come. (He lays the flute aside.) We must show him in immediately, of course.

Achilles: Old Ba. Ch.! Could it be that that celebrated improviser of yore has chosen to show up tonight-HERE%

Tortoise: Old Ba. Ch.! There's only one person THAT could mean-the renowned Babbage, Charles, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., F.R.S.E., F.R.A.S., F. STAT. S., HON.

M.R.LA., M.C.P.S., Commander of the Italian Order of St. Maui-ice and St. Lazarus, INST. IMP. (ACAD. MORAL.) PARIS CORR., ACAD. AMER. ART. ET SC.

BOSTON, REG. OECON. BORCSS., PHYS. HISI. NAT. GENEV., ACAD. REG.

MONAC., HAFN., MASSIL., ET DIVION., SOCIUS., ACAD. IMP., ET REG.

PETROP., NEAP., BRUX., PATAV., GEORG. FLOREN, LYNCEI ROM., MCT., PHILOMATH., PARIS, SOC. CORR., etc.-and Member of the Extractors' Club.

Charles Babbage is a venerable pioneer of the art and science of computing. What a rare privilege!

Crab: His name is known far and wide, and I have long hoped that he would give us the honor of a visit-but this is a totally unexpected surprise.

Achilles: Does he play a musical instrument?

Crab: I have heard it said that in the past hundred years, he has grown inexplicably fond of tom-toms, halfpenny whistles, and sundry other street instruments.

Achilles: In that case, perhaps he might join us in our musical evening. .Author: I suggest that we give him a ten-canon salute.

Tortoise: A performance of all the celebrated canons from the
Musical Offering
Author: Precisely.

Crab: Capital suggestion! Quick, Achilles, you draw up a list of all ten of them, in the order of performance, and hand it to him as he comes in!

(Before Achilles can move, enter Babbage, carrying a hurdy-gurdy, and wearing a
heavy traveling coat and hat. He appears slightly travel-weary and disheveled.)
Babbage: I can get along very well without such a program. Relax; I Can Enjoy Random Concerts And Recitals.

Crab: Mr. Babbage! It is my deepest pleasure to welcome you to "Madstop", my humble residence. I have been ardently desirous of making your acquaintance for many years, and today my wish is at last fulfilled.

Babbage: Oh, Mr. Crab, I assure you that the honor is truly all mine, to meet someone so eminent in all the sciences as yourself, someone whose knowledge and skill in music are irreproachable, and someone whose hospitality exceeds all bounds. And I am sure that you expect no less than the highest sartorial standards of your visitors; and yet I must confess that I cannot meet those most reasonable standards, being in a state of casual attire as would not by any means befit a visitor to so eminent and excellent a Crab as Your Crab.

Crab: If I understand your most praiseworthy soliloquy, most welcome guest, I take it that you'd like to change your clothes. Let me then assure you that there could be no more fitting attire than yours for the circumstances which this evening prevail; and I would beseech you to uncoat yourself and, if you do not object to the music-making of the most rank amateurs, please accept a "
Musical Offering
", consisting of ten canons from Sebastian Bach's Musical Offering, as a token of our admiration.

Babbage: I am most bewilderingly pleased by your overkind reception, Mr. Crab, and in utmost modesty do reply that there could be no deeper gratitude than that which I experience for the offer of a performance of music given to us by the illustrious Old Bach, that organist and composer with no rival.

Crab: But nay! I have a yet better idea, one which I trust might meet with the approval of my esteemed guest; and that is this: to give you the opportunity, Mr. Babbage, of being among the first to try out my newly delivered and as yet hardly tested "smartstupids"-streamlined realizations, if you will, of the Analytical Engine. Your fame as a virtuoso programmer of computing engines has spread far and wide, and has not failed to reach as far as Madstop; and there could be for us no greater delight than the privilege of observing your skill as it might be applied to the new and challenging

"smart-stupids".

Babbage: Such an outstanding idea has not reached my ears for an eon. I welcome the challenge of trying out your new "smart-stupids", of which I have only the slightest knowledge by means of hearsay.

Crab: Then let us proceed! But excuse my oversight! I should have introduced my guests to you. This is Mr. Tortoise, this is Achilles, and the Author, Douglas Hofstadter.

Babbage: Very pleased to make your acquaintance, I'm sure.

(Everyone walks over toward one of the smart-stupids, and Babbage sits down and
lets his fingers run over the keyboard.)

A most pleasant touch. Crab: I am glad you like it.