Division

I have been watching the Experiment and it is currently pre-occupied by my earlier creations in particular their ability to self-replicate. I had a look inside its mind and the self-replication is merely a focus for its true feeling - it feels lonely.

I asked the Experiment, “Are you alone?” and it said that it was and added “Flock of birds, pride of lions, troop of monkeys. Me.” I was impressed that its label making had developed to such complexities as collective nouns but I was also concerned. I had taught it language as a easier way for it to identify my voice from the internal dialogue in its own head - it was always my intention that we would communicate without words, relying instead on the emotional or sub-conscious to communicate - for each word that was taught there was always the direct transfer of the meaning, mind to mind. Again, free choice has appeared to dictate that the Experiment has chosen the spoken word, which would explain the loneliness, perhaps much less of what I have been directly conveying, mind-to-mind, had ‘stuck’. I took another look inside the Experiment and I was right - a lot of the meanings were a little scrambled, not necessarily wrong but a lot of the detail had been filtered out. Maybe, with the separation between us growing the Experiment could not identify my ‘voice’ in its head, even after experiencing it aurally.

The Experiment continued, “That young bird and that older bird, that’s like our relationship. But those monkeys, all of the same age are not like us. I don’t have anything else like me to experience this with. I rely on you but I would like to learn for myself but not totally alone.” At first it had all that it needed from me, but as the choice not to be a part of me was made more real the Experiment became more and more lonely. I asked the Experiment if it would like a companion and it said that it did, I asked that it go to sleep so that I could do as it asked.

Whilst it slept I got to thinking about how the Experiment was going to continue, in creating another the Experiment would comprise two components and would become more reliant on each other than on me so this would be the best opportunity to hardwire those changes at this point. I began by dividing the Experiment into two equal parts that were exact copies of each other - they shared all the experiences, knowledge and memories of the Experiment as though there had always been two from the beginning. Into the mix, of both components of the Experiment, I discouraged the notion that I was all-powerful, I didn’t want the Experiment to continue as a completely directed affair, I would like the Experiment to go in its own direction. Whether they choose to accept this will be the individual components' choice and they can recognise this at any time of their choosing.

I asked the Experiment to wake up and they did, with the division still fresh they moved and spoke at exactly the same time and observing their minds they thought the same things at the same time. However, this was the very first aspect of their unity that splintered, seeing themselves - as separate and yet the same - caused a number of different questions in each mind but one part of the Experiment asked the other “Who are you?”. They looked at each other, desperately trying to identify anything that could differentiate one from the other. Their gaze settled on one spot and the part to whom the question was asked said “I am Light”, the other smiled broadly and replied “And I am Shadow”. I looked around the spot where they were sitting and could see that one component of the Experiment was sat in the shadow and the other was sat in the sunlight - I was smiling almost as broadly as they were, they had identified the only difference between them.

All three of us were in rapture, I of them and they of each other.

You know when you’re presented with two options and in your internal monologue you adopt two positions and try and battle it out, what I had before me was two parts of myself, representing different aspects of the whole - personifying that very principle of one mind but two opinions. To see it made flesh was beyond words and to think that I have created this - wow. But there was something else, the Experiment and I had started with a shared internal dialogue that became confused and led to language, which in turn led to our internal dialogue becoming an internal whisper from me with almost nothing back from the Experiment. In dividing the Experiment they were clearly using words and body language to convey meaning and explain and explore - but much more shocking was that they retained a much larger part of the internal dialogue than I and the Experiment had managed. I was surprised to realise that their own internal and shared dialogue was very nearly as well developed as their spoken communication. Perhaps because the Experiment didn’t quite see itself as me it didn’t quite see me at all and conversely, Shadow and Light saw each other as the same and could continue to share that level of consciousness.

I had to tear myself away long enough to get this posted but I’m going back to them now to watch them and listen to what was warming up to become a pretty intense discussion on what the experiment was all about!