Chapter Twenty-One
541588 woke and saw the hideous being staring down at it. Its previous excitement had worn away with the anaesthetic and it was exhausted. It looked around. It was in a small room, lying on a bed, the man sitting on a chair, draped in black cloth. A door was at the foot of the bed. It closed its eyes again, and tried to find its bearings in time in its head. What had happened before it fell asleep? It remembered lying in its bed in its room, then running outside to do something. To do what? The memory eluded it, but it had a feeling that it was for some important task. It opened its eyes again. The man in the chair had not moved. 541588 shifted in the bed and attempted to sit up, but was forced to back into its original position by a searing pain in its upper back. This was too strange. 541588 closed its eyes again and promptly fell asleep.
The grand master waited patiently for 541588 to recover from the anaesthetic. He had some concern regarding the others, and feared that they might continue 541588’s crusade when they woke. The psychologists in the central command had predicted that they would either return to their apartments or stay where they were, and while the grand master trusted them, he still felt a growing discomfort the longer he idled. He wanted to complete his plans before anything went wrong, but he also wanted to speak to 541588. He was forced by curiosity. He was no different from I.
541588 woke up again, this time having recovered the full extent of its mental faculties. The ugly man was still there. Seeing him closely now it saw spots and stretchmarks on his face along with the wrinkles and white hair. He was old. He had to be from the central command like the others, but 541588 was too weak for animosity. “Where am I?”
“Still in the palace.”
Yes, the palace. 541588 now remembered that it had come to the palace to kill the leader of the commune and had instead succeeded in bashing two men from the central control.
“What happened to the people you were with?”
“You killed two of them. The rest, they’re gone now.”
Killed them? At least that was a success.
“Who are you?”
“I’m the leader of the central commune.”
541588 was quiet as it digested this new information. The leader of the central commune was right there. But it was still too weak.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“You’ll be killed of course, but before that, I’ve decided to humour you. That’s why I’m here, and you’re still alive.”
541588’s expression remained neutral. It did not want to provide the man any satisfaction.
“Well since you’re the leader you should be able to explain-”
“Explain what?”
“This world. Why do you oppress freedom and force a monotonous existence onto us?”
“I believe that you have read the pamphlet. The answers to your questions were explained forcefully and clearly there.”
“No they weren’t. The author just claimed that freedom was non-existent. That’s not my experience. I feel free and I am free. And so was the author of that pamphlet and the authors of all the other books I’ve read. And so are you. Freedom clearly exists and it is completely benign. And it’s only in freedom that things happen. That objects of beauty and interest are created. Our current world is dreary and repetitive. Nothing happens.”
“Are you happy?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Are you happy?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Well you’re free and you’re still unhappy.”
“No. I’m unhappy because I’m not properly free. You and the others destroyed my mission to achieve full freedom. That is the source of my unhappiness.”
“Then do you suppose that in a time when people were ‘free’ as you take the word to mean, people were happy? I’ll tell you now, they weren’t. Those works, those books you read were written by people who struggled with unhappiness, weighed down by their freedom and the freedom of their world. Works of beauty and interest, or whatever you crave, are only produced in unhappy states. A perfectly content person does not seek to change and create. And it is obvious that happiness is more important than unhappy creations. That is why our world is as it is.”
“But it’s not just happiness. When I was completely without freedom, before my rebellion, my experience also felt empty and meaningless.”
“Well how is that different to how you feel now? Life is intrinsically meaningless. The only fulfilment is in ignorance, in distraction. It’s always been like this. Before any organised society had been established, people were kept ignorant to the meaninglessness of their lives by the struggle for survival. In more recent history, it was in the attainment of material wealth and fame. But these distractions were unbalanced. People who conquered these distractions began to see the truth of the world, and those who failed were left unfulfilled and unhappy. Upon understanding this, it was only natural that a world was established in which a marriage of distraction and fulfilment was achieved. This is the world which we live in today.”
“No, I’ve thought about this too. Life may be meaningless, but it is possible to impose meaning with freedom. That was how I found meaning. I imposed it myself. And that was why my goal of achieving universal freedom felt worthy and important.”
“You’re very wrong. You haven’t imposed anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re not free; not in any sense of the word. You’ve been controlled by us in the central command your whole life.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. You couldn’t have. Did you want me to wander into the palace and read those subversive books? Or to convert others to my noble cause? To destroy the food of this commune and kill two of your allies?”
“Yes, to everything. There’s no BCM inside you. You aren’t conditioned properly. The books were right there for you to read. We didn’t intervene for months. Did you seriously think this was all just a lucky coincidence? You know the commune. It is perfectly efficient. Mistakes don’t happen, and if they did they would be corrected very quickly. No, I created you for a task, my task, to show the others in the central command that a commune could be destroyed if we were not careful[,]; but there was no danger. You were under our control the whole time. You can stop pretending that you are anything else, that you are special, that you can choose to impose meaning. I’ve imposed everything onto you.”
“I chose to go to the library myself, picked the books that I wanted to read myself. The contents of the books did shape my views but they were combined with my own judgements and perceptions.”
“You still don’t understand. I’m telling you the truth. You didn’t really pick the books yourself, or choose to go to the library. It may have seemed like it, but we placed the books there for you. We knew your nature, shaped your nature, and had the books we wanted you to read dressed up, placed in optimal positions to ensure that you would read them. And we knew exactly what effect those books would have on you because we created you and moulded you to be affected the way we wanted.”
“You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have known that I would end up killing two of your comrades. That I would starve the whole commune. You couldn’t have predicted that. I made those decisions after thinking deeply myself, alone. Hours spent considering different possibilities. I had failures before successes, went down wrong routes before finding the correct path. You’re telling me that you all put that inside of me, forced it to happen. Don’t be ridiculous. And what if I didn’t pick the books you wanted me to? Changed my mind, which I could easily have done at any moment. Your plan would have collapsed.”
“How do I make this clearer? We predicted and controlled everything, every aspect. If we thought that you might not pick the books we wanted, we would’ve given them to you directly. But we knew that you would choose them in the conditions we set up for you, without any doubt. We knew that you might kill some people. But that was always part of our plan. Why do you think you have been subdued so easily now?”
541588 looked around, looked down at itself and then turned back to the Grand Master.
“So you’re like Ingsoc, controlling absolutely everything.”
The grandmaster’s face darkened for a moment, and his lips curled upwards but his smile did not reach his eyes.
“Yes, we do control everything, but we are nothing like Ingsoc. How have you not realised this already? That society is one based on maintaining power for those in control. That society is a selfish one. As you well know, our goal is only achieving happiness and wellbeing for everyone. That is what our world is based on. Absolute control is just a necessary component of this. Unlike Ingsoc, where the leaders are happily and malevolently powerful, our leaders and controllers are the ones that are most unhappy; you as well of course, and I’m sorry that we picked you for fulfilling a task that doomed you to unhappiness.”
541588 turned away again, was silent for a long time gathering its thoughts. Did that man know what it was thinking now? Or did he only control the actions and not the thinking behind it? No that couldn’t be right. He wouldn’t be there arguing if he knew everything it was thinking. Eventually, 541588 turned back to the grand master and continued his questioning.
“What did I dream?”
“What?”
“You heard me. What did I dream?”
“You’ve never had any.” Dreams had been modified out of the people in the commune, and there was nothing in what they changed in 541588 that could’ve affected that. Or at least that was what the scientists in the commune had said.
“I had dreams. I certainly did. See, you don’t know everything.”
“We know enough. When I said we knew everything, I meant everything that matters. Your dreams are unimportant to us and we wouldn’t waste time learning what they are.”
“Do you have dreams?”
“No.”
He did.
“You’re missing something. Something greater, something beyond yourself.”
“I don’t really care.” The dreams of the grand master were all ridiculous and illogical scenarios, often centring on failures regarding his work. They were unpleasant and he wished he never had them.
“You don’t really understand what I think do you?”
“Yes we do. Things that matter.”
“Well what did I think when I saw the rising sun or this white palace or lightning or fire.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Beauty and sublimity. The experience of true, true peace; not what you’ve manufactured. You don’t understand”
“Well I have seen everything that you’ve mentioned.”
“So?”
“I’ve seen it. That’s all. It’s nothing special.”
“So you’ve never looked up at the stars at night. Admired it and lost yourself. You’ve never had the abandon of leaving your busy mind and having your experience completely overcome. Of having all your thoughts and feelings empty, overridden by nothing.”
“Okay, it’s nice to look at the stars.”
“Well the others don’t get that experience, do they?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Well these are just some of the things that are lost in this world. Losing yourself in a dream, or losing yourself in sublimity. Then awaking and feeling changed and being changed.”
“Is it worth it? Losing universal happiness for these intangible feelings? Anyway, the world will always be there for people to see, and if people don’t have the same feelings as you when seeing things, well, that’s just the way it is.”
“You control them.”
“We don’t control their perception of the sublime or whatever you’re talking about. Just like your dreams, we don’t control that.
What did you dream exactly anyway?”
It felt personal, and yet, 541588 was keenly willing to reveal it all. It was the first time it had talked to another person, and despite its hatred of the man, the human connection felt good. It felt good to share its thoughts with another.
“It was confusing. I dreamt about the Winston, from the book I read, being captured, and I dreamt about K being killed; and me trying to help them but being ignored. I dreamt about my own failures too. Being caught, and having things injected into me.”
The grand master shifted in his seat.
“Being just like Winston and K, powerless in the face of an evil authority. But the dreams, they weren’t defeating, no, they drove me, gave me my motivation; to improve, to never give up and make the same mistakes.”
“The dreams were true in the end though. You are defeated, exposed as an object of my control. Your suns, your palaces, your lightning, your dreams; they will go with you when you die and become nothing. They will just exist, the same as the organised concrete buildings, as the fields, as everything else in the commune, as everything you find ugly.”
“You’re a machine! There’s nothing inside you, that’s why you don’t understand it.”
“You can choose to believe that, but your end is coming soon. I will continue in the world I have built.”
“I’ve made my impact too. And you’ll also die. We’re all the same in the end.”
“Well I’ve had a real legacy. I’ve really changed the world. I’ve passed through a motion to replace everyone with artificial intelligence.”
“Everyone!”
“No, just the leaders I mean. That’s my legacy, and yours too, though you are just an extension of my work.”
“You’re just an extension of the forces that moulded you too.”
The grand master was quieted for some long seconds. When he began again, he seemed to be talking to itself.
“The future happiness and efficiency will soon be unequivocally secured. The system will be impenetrable. It will be great. There will never be someone like you again, created by mistake or on purpose. There will be no more pain or suffering or errors. It will be the physical manifestation of perfection. A perfect world.”
541588 listened to his words but its mind was somewhere else. A feeling of emptiness washed over it, triggered by the ramblings of the grand master. There was something wrong to all that he said, a fatal flaw at the bottom of his reasoning, the bottom of everything, and 541588 sensed it but could not form it coherently in its mind. The grand master had stopped talking and a dreadful silence enveloped the room as 541588 continued to think. The grand master rummaged his hand in his pockets, before pulling out a small device. Suddenly, 541588 made sense of it all and its previous feelings and thoughts were forgotten, replaced by an absolute and pervasive clarity. It was a rediscovery of an idea it had managed to capture before, and its next question struck deep into the heart of this reawakened understanding.
“What’s the point?”
The grand master looked up and realising that the conversation had not ended, pocketed the device it had in its hands.
“Of what?”
“Of all this. Of this society. Of replacing leaders with artificial intelligence.”
“Efficiency. Happiness. Security. I’ve told you again and again. What don’t you understand?”
“What’s the point of all that?”
“Well it keeps everyone content and it can last forever. It’s intuitively good. That’s what tells us what to strive for. It is probably quite intuitive that a world in which people are free of pain and suffering is good, even to you.”
“But what’s so good about a world where people are content and free of pain and suffering?”
“It’s self-evident.”
“No it’s not. I don’t believe in it. If it were truly self-evident, I would instantly agree with you.”
“Yes, but you were specifically engineered to not like the world.”
“You’re missing the point. You’ve said the world is meaningless and that it is impossible to impose meaning, which I now agree with. If it’s impossible to attain any meaning, how do you argue that anything should be done?”
“It’s to distract ourselves. If we were to truly contemplate meaninglessness, we would be left in a nihilistic stupor. Only when we are distracted from it, can we act, and decide on things that are good and bad and what we should do.”
“But why? What’s the reasoning behind preferring distraction over contemplation and confusion? What’s the reasoning behind anything, other than that it is ‘intuitively good’?”
“So you’re saying because the world is meaningless, we can only contemplate the absurdity of our situation.”
“No. I’m saying that with total meaninglessness, there’s no way to value anything over anything else. So there’s no way to decide what to do. Everything is equivalent. What’s your response to that?”
“We can judge a world that is happy to be intuitively good and pursue this world because of it.”
“Well your judgement is still a false construction of meaning, isn’t it? You don’t have a reason for explaining why you should pursue things that are intuitively good do you?”
The Grand Master gradually made sense of 541588’s argument. It had vocalised the obscure doubt and confusion the Grand Master had always held. This was why he was unhappy. It was nihilism. There was no reasoning that could escape it. 541588 continued staring at the Grand Master and he began his response. It was the only thing he could think that sounded feasible.
“I do what I do because it’s the way of the world. The way it’s been constructed. The way I’ve been constructed. It is. There is no other explanation, nothing else can be said that makes sense. But even knowing the world as meaningless, I cannot help but create arbitrary notions like intuition and goodness, cannot help but to see the world, through my actions, as having meaning, and myself as having free choice. Because it is the way I am. It is the way of the world.”
541588’s expression had changed. It had had a fiercely quizzical look about it before, but now its face was against its hand, and its expression was sombre. The grand master’s hands wandered into its pockets again, and the device was pulled out quietly. Seeing this, 541588 quickly interrupted his progress.
“Wait, I have one more question. Why is there a palace in this commune? Isn’t everything meant to be about efficiency and utility?”
It shifted in its bed.
“I have work to do, but I’ll give you one last answer. The commune we are in now is the first commune ever created. It was necessary to have someone who was from the outside be the first leader. It was the first commune after all. It took a long, a worldwide search to find a candidate who was capable enough to be the leader we needed and who was also willing to give up their old outside life. We had to throw in a few perks, like this palace, and the library to convince him. After that, it was more efficient to keep the palace than to destroy and replace it, and of course, it also served as an important structure in your developme-”
541588 pounced, launching from the bed hands first, knocking the device out of the grand master’s hands. This was the way of its world. The device flew into the wall, fell onto the ground and there was a snap as a piece smashed off. The two of them scrambled for the rest of it; the grand master was there first, snatching the device up with one hand and pushing 541588 away with the other. 541588 managed to shove its arm past him and knock it out of his hands again. There was a tussle; their arms locked together and they tried to manoeuvre the other into a submissive position. Eventually, 541588’s fatigue caught up with him, and the grand master pulled it onto the ground, placing a knee against its chest and wrapped both its arms wrapped in one of his. The grand master punched its face with his spare hand until it lost consciousness, then wiped his hand on the bed before picking up the device along with the piece that had broken off and sitting back on the chair to inspect the two pieces.
The damage was superficial. The device still turned on, and the grand master swiftly authenticated his identity and contacted the central command.
“Yes?”
“Start it. Start it now.”
“Yes.”
He should’ve been happy now. His life’s work was done. But 541588 had ruined it. He had been working toward implementing artificial intelligence because he had always been working toward artificial intelligence. But what was the reason? Because it was good. Because it thought it was good. Because it had been made to think it was good. Because he existed in a time and place when people were made to think it was good. Because the world had him exist in this time. Because there was no reason to think it was good. Because nothing.
Because nothing. That was the truth.