The Complete Roderick by John Sladek

Author:John Sladek
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: High Tech, FIC028000, Computers, Fiction, Science Fiction, SciFi-Masterwork, General, Artificial intelligence
ISBN: 9781585675876
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2001-01-02T07:00:00+00:00

XXIV

It was the best of time, it was the worst of time. Choose one.

The pigeon hesitated before the two windows, trying to get it right this time. Finally it pecked the left-hand window. Almost immediately the window lit up, and a tiny feed pellet rattled down into the magic cup. From the pigeon’s point of view it was a triumph of the righteous: yea, God doth reward those who keep His commandments and His rites. Before the next trial, the pigeon worshipped, stepping three times to the left, twice to the right, and lifting its head in turn towards each of the four upper corners of its prison. The pigeon was not aware of the computer.

From the computer’s point of view, the cycle had brought a special instruction into force. It knew only that it had generated the pseudo-random digit o, and that this matched the input o (from the Skinner box). The instruction therefore was to add 1 to the number T (trials), add one to the number H (hits) and calculate P (probability). The computer was aware neither of the pigeon nor of Dr Tarr.

Dr Tarr sat in his new office watching the printer. From his point of view, the test was on the whole a qualified success. Pigeons were precognitive.

Or at least this pigeon, now and then, seemed uncannily able to peer a split-second into the future, determine which plastic window (of a randomly-selected pair) would deliver the goods, and peck that window. Now and then.

Now and then, that was the trouble. Not enough hits, not near enough to convince those Dr Tarr needed to convince. There was NASA, first of all, paying $150,000 towards his expenses; expecting results. Likewise the University, providing not only computer time, but an empty office and lab in the Computer Sciences building. And how about the parapsychology journals, the professional associations waiting for the paper that could make him, career-wise? Finally of course the professional sceptics: he saw them as hyenas, forever trailing the herd of parapsychologists, forever waiting for some weak individual to fall behind. Ready, yes ready to bury their bloodstained snouts in his entrails …

More hits, damn you! he willed at the bird, more hits! Unaware of his telepathic command from the office, the creature in the laboratory preened, digging its beak deep in iridescent neck feathers to chew at a parasite. For the moment, it was aware of nothing else, not even of the cruelly erratic God it had learned to love.

Tarr, acutely aware of his own predicament (for not since Mary of Nazareth had anyone risked so much on the behaviour of a single pigeon) turned to the printer, whose ultimate line still read:

TRIALS = 980 HITS = 502 P < 0.444

Computer error? Sure, damn thing probably wasn’t working at all! Poor pigeon probably pecking away, hit after hit and nothing coming through. He examined the cable running from the computer to the printer, experimentally unplugged it and plugged it in again.

TRIALS = 981 HITS = 503 P < 0.

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