The traveler had so many worries on his mind right now that he felt incapacitated for a minute.
There were good news as well, for starters, he was alive, but was it worth it? He could not decide. He made the solemn promise to never use the forbidden technology again, or could he trust himself, with such power in his control.
If he could not trust himself with his years of self discipline, his training at Space academy, his long professional career, and most of all, his spiritual training with his Sheikh, which strengthened him internally, still the temptation to never die was too much. So how-come, if the technology fell in the hands of people with no spiritual training and only material goals in life as their ultimate end, it could be trusted. He was horrified of the implications.
Then there was the problem of hard breaking before Alpha Century. The task was still pending. The 1g Drive had the built in safety mechanism never to reach the universal constant of speed of light, which could make the ship mass to become infinity, however, till the time, they applied the hard reverse thrust, they could end up out of known universe in a few years time, and die horribly due to lack of food and shortage of supplies.
And the AI was behaving very strangely. However she was intelligent enough to detect his mood in a minute, and suddenly, her tone became flat. He made a mental note of the change and confront her at a later time.
They both set to work on the hard breaking problem immediately. The Wormhole was locked in place near the Alien Sun, due to control circuits burnt to a crisp, during the sudden sun flare. Wania could have rebuilt the circuits, if she had the access, but unfortunately she did not have it. She had the knowledge, that all ship schematics were tied to his Retina and Bio Scans, so his death was the ultimate cause of her panic. Without him she could not access the backups, could not repair the control mechanism, couldn't stop the ship.
He understood her panic, the self preserver nature of AIs was a known issue.
He gladly opened the backup archive for her, and extracted the designs, she sorted out the bill of materials, and finally concluded, "With new metallic ore, being mined by Atlas robots, we will be barely able to print the required circuits to apply the breaks, hopefully after a week. However for direction setting circuits, we don't have any gold ore on board. we will have the materials to print circuits less gold, don't have enough of it on board".
"OK, go ahead, lets see where this effort leads", He gave his consent, thinking hard of the gold problem. Maybe they could stop at Alpha Century and then give SOS, and wait for 4 years for help to arrive. They would not survive this plan. His mind kept thinking of the possibilities, but could not come up with a solution. Finally he sighed and let go of the problem for time being, trusting fate and Allah to present a solution when the time came.
"So what makes you so nervous about the new Chiliads problem back at home", she asked after an hour, flatly.
He duly noted her now flat tone, and started explaining his logic, slowly, methodically.
"For some one, with no belief in after life, the material worlds is the start and the end" he said, thinking inwardly that it applied to her as well.
"It seems logical", she asserted her point of view.
"Well, it is the immorality of the soul, which can make a short but meaningful life worth it, in this world", he explained.
"But what is the proof that Soul exists?", she applied her logic.
"For starters, it is the absence, which makes its presence known." , he laughed. "Consider my death a week ago, till then there was something making me tick, and then suddenly there was not"
"Many things are alive, but not all are conscious"
"Yes, the old consciousness problem", he smiled. "No one can point out what defines consciousness, is it the brain, with its chemical reactions, which is me, or something outside of it?. It is the ultimate hard problem of consciousness".
He continued, "God endowed us humans with rūḥ (1) and nafs. ; rūḥ makes the body alive, it gives us humans enhanced consciousness".
"Any proof of it, any experiment which can be performed", she was challenging.
"Well, the path to God either elevates the Soul to highest planes, it can provide us with the highest consciousness, the Consciousness of God. Or one can lower himself to be no better than animals' consciousness, just to be alive, eat, drink , sleep, die", he continued, "The potential is limitless, but true Consciousness of God again takes a life time, otherwise, who would sin, if one is truly conscious of His ever presence within us and all around us. Also, the mere mortal simply does not have the capacity to ascend so high, unless, he is guided by someone who has travelled the path before him, and who in turn is guided by our Beloved, The Prophet (Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon Him) spiritually."
"You can scan my brain during sleep, to find any clues during the sleep period", he smiled, "although it takes a life time to elevate the Soul or consciousness to any meaningful place. For most of humanity, the natural surroundings are where the soul moves during the night".
"Your brain is not in your control during sleep, it can be unconscious activity ", she was skeptical.
"Well, who says, it is restricted to sleep only, path to God can take a person during full waking period as well".
"To where?"
"Sky is the limit, my dear, or any of the 7 skies, so they say", he was quiet, not desiring to share his innermost experience with an AI, let alone any one.
"There is only one known or verifiable universe", she was now considering his sanity seriously. "If by sky you mean the concept of visible universe"
"One day, i will give you my theory with some scientific experiments, on board, i promise", he had a twinkle in his eyes.
"So it is your Ghost in the Machine (2)(3)", she was wondrous, considering the implications, and the possibilities. "For that high a goal, one can forsake the safety of a synthetic Life", finally she concluded after a minute of introspection, making him start from his own deep thoughts.
References:
(1) The rūḥ (Soul) "drives" the nafs, which comprises temporal desires and sensory perceptions. The nafs can assume control of the body if the rūḥ surrenders to bodily urges. The nafs is subject to bodily desire, whereas the rūḥ is a person's immaterial essence, beyond the emotions and instincts shared by humans and other animals as per Islamic teachings.
(2) The "ghost in the machine" is British philosopher Gilbert Ryle's description of René Descartes' mind-body dualism (4).
(3) In popular Culture, In I, Robot, Dr. Alfred Lanning, who is a central character, uses the phrase "ghosts in the machine" to refer to the process of artificial intelligence unexpectedly evolving past its original intended purpose. Wania is referring here to this phrase.
(4) One of the deepest and most lasting legacies of Descartes’ philosophy is his thesis that mind and body are really distinct—a thesis now called “mind-body dualism.” He reaches this conclusion by arguing that the nature of the mind (that is, a thinking, non-extended thing) is completely different from that of the body (that is, an extended, non-thinking thing), and therefore it is possible for one to exist without the other.
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