Storyteller by Crossman David

Author:Crossman, David [Crossman, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Alibi-Folio
Published: 2011-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

And the child grew. And she played with other children. And she observed the world around her. And at night, while she slept, her mother would connect her to the Web. And so, by the bit, by the byte, by the kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, tetrabyte, teraflop, and googol flop, all the electronically-traded information in the world was downloaded into the child’s brain during the formative years when she was most receptive to input.

“It’s unnatural, the rate at which she learns,” said Davies. It had been her turn to tuck Tikita in for the night, a chore that awakened atavistic sensations in her mitochondrial DNA. Satisfying sensations. She poured herself a glass of Madeira and sank into the soft cushions of the Naugahyde sofa, across the coffee table from the child’s mother.

This was not news to Sim Tyang. “I have a theory about that.” Davies sipped and waited. “We acquire information through our senses. Our experiences.” She paused. Davies nodded.

“This information, as it is processed, creates connections in the synapses of our brain. Much like the monkey in the cage that, once it understands which button to push to get its treat, adopts that knowledge to the point where its response is no longer the result of deliberation, but reflexive.”

Again, Davies nodded.

“The information is patterned into our neurocircuits, creating muscle memory.”

“I see that.”

“What if, somehow, Tikita’s bio-chip does not require sensory input to process information?”

“Sensory bypass?” said Davies. “An interesting notion. You’re saying the information she receives instantly forms patterns in her brain similar to those that would appear as the result of personal experience, or study . . . or practice?”

“It would explain how she learns so quickly. How she adapts and adopts.”

“But how does it work? How would you explain it?”

Sim Tyang shrugged. “I don’t know. It must be an ancillary action of the bio-chip. One I hadn’t anticipated.” She stared into the depths of her glass of wine. “Its power is phenomenal.”

By the time she was three, Tikita Bing could communicate perfectly in forty-seven languages, including all Chinese dialects, her accent indiscernible from that of native speakers. By the time she was four—gifted with a natural physical dexterity—she possessed the skills of a virtuoso with every musical instrument that came within her grasp. In her fifth year, she exercised logical capabilities that, in debate, reduced the most advanced thinkers in each field of scientific endeavor into stuttering, ham-tongued imbeciles.

The process was simple. Tikita called it extrapolative logic: following a thought, a concept, or theory backward to its genesis, and forward to its ultimate conclusion. In so doing she often revealed not only flaws in the original thought but demonstrated that, in the majority of cases, a person’s most adamantly held convictions were little more than inherited bias, misconceptions predicated on the beliefs and preferred theories of their own teachers and mentors.

Thus every concept had its Enlightened One, its apostles, prophets and seers, and these were the icons to which successive generations of disciples paid homage. These she called scientific fundamentalists.

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