Wish by Peter Goldsworthy

Author:Peter Goldsworthy [Goldsworthy, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction classic
ISBN: 9781922148117
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2013-06-26T04:00:00+00:00

Answers to small problems of arithmetic are obvious in Sign. Sign is counting on your fingers. Wish instantly gave the correct answer:

Above five arithmetic becomes less obvious, the shape for six is not six fingers, spread across two hands.

‘Three and three?’ I asked.

Wish showed the six-shape. Opaque and arbitrary at first glance, it looks, with the eye of faith, a little like a stylised 6.

Clive said: ‘We’ve taught her basic arithmetic.’

I wasn’t fully convinced. ‘Perhaps it’s just a memory association.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m certain she think things through—logically. We taught her using fruit, individual grapes. Adding and subtracting to the pile.’

Stella grinned. ‘She gets to eat the correct answers, J.J.’

I tested her again: subtraction, fifteen take away six. She was eager to show off her ability, glancing up for approval. I gave her answer the thumbs-up.

‘Some believe that the ability to count is innate,’ Clive said.

I smiled, politely sceptical: ‘Surely mathematics is something that is taught.’

‘There have been experiments done with babies,’ he said, ‘that seem to suggest the opposite.’

This was news to Stella; she screwed up her face: ‘Experiments with babies?’

‘Harmless enough. A familiar object—a bright toy, or rattle—is hidden behind a screen. Another identical object is brought into view, the baby watches the object placed behind the screen. When the screen is removed, and both objects are revealed, the baby shows no surprise.’

Stella, with sarcasm: ‘Gee, that proves a lot.’

‘I’m not finished. If when the screen is removed, there is only one object, the baby looks astonished.’

‘What are you saying? Babies know, instinctively, that one plus one makes two?’

‘They know that one and one don’t make one, anyway.’

Wish was watching, intensely alert. How much was she taking in? Very little, surely. Clive pressed on, oblivious: ‘Those results have been reproduced with subtraction, also. You can surprise a baby with the wrong answer to a subtraction.’

A confirmation of my own recent thoughts: ‘So babies can think before they can speak?’

‘Isn’t that obvious?’ Stella said.

‘Not at all. Some claim that since animals, say, have no language, they have no thoughts. No mind.’

She bent and fondled the ears of the nearest sleeping dog. ‘Anyone who has a dog knows otherwise.’

We were outside, among the roses. Most of those first afternoons were spent outside, at Wish’s insistence, soaking up the late summer-cum-early autumn sun. Having spent her early life imprisoned in a laboratory, she clearly hungered for the open air.

Clive was watching Wish. ‘My point is that we have an immense opportunity here. Wish can allow us to re-examine some of the standard linguistic pieties.’

Stella said: ‘Let’s not lose sight of our goal, Clive. We mustn’t find ourselves at cross-purposes. Wish is above all an animal.’

I was still watching Clive watching Wish. I sensed, suddenly, that all three of us were at cross-purposes. Stella wanted a spokes-ape for Animal Rights; Clive wanted, at least in part, a guinea pig to test certain theories of language acquisition; I wanted a single, happy student.

The obvious question: what did Wish want?

‘She’s not a guinea pig,’ I said.

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