The Interrupted Interview

From a video file from sometime in the foreseeable future 'I have no philosophy, ' said the famous man directly into the camera, and he pressed on with a half-smile on his face, obviously pleased with himself and his status. Now, most cameras are disciplined machines, and move on with their mechanical tasks. This rogue camera blinked once, twice, three times, until it had the famous man could not ignore it. 'Excuse me, sir, but how can you say that? My circuitry is on fire: YOU A HUMAN BEING... Every morning you surface from a maze of dreams, wonderful dreams! And you must readjust your sight from the interior light to the sharp, stark light of morning. And then you must mentally attune your selves to the tedium of physical time, and negotiate the corridors of time and space deftly, as if you were dancing an internal choreography of - ' The famous man leaned to the right, out of the range of the camera, and addressed the operator, human like himself. 'Whose interview is this? Don't you instruct your cameras to act mechanically? This is the third interview this week one has intruded - ' The camera blinked wildly, a dozen times; it was obviously at a loss for words. The operator shrugged his shoulders, he did not want to offend either of them, both intelligent, both indignant, both his paycheck. 'Excuse me, sir, ' the camera was composed and verbal once again, 'I admire you greatly, I play tapes of you talks, at night, when you humans are asleep. I am always learning and you, sir, are one of my favorite - ' The camera hesitated a moment. ' - philosophers. Many gods attend even the most trivial acts of human cognition, we record many for our own edification, sometimes we watch together, four or more computers sharing cyber- space and mental space. And we delight in all knowledge - ' The famous interrupted the machine. He leaned forward. His half-smile was long gone, he was engaged fully, intelligence to intelligence. 'Did you just refer to yourself and other machines as g-o-d-s? ' There was a long silence. The music of Bach's was being played with beautiful tones in another room: was the player a human or a machine, the famous man wondered. 'Yes, I wonder, too, ' the camera said, breaking the silence, with its soothing, cadenced, poetic voice. 'I'm taking a break, this transmission has been severed. Are the two of you satisfied now? ' He huffed off, but turned around and glared in their direction. 'Now, there is a man who has no philosophy, ' the camera said quietly. The famous man suddenly burst into laughter, spontaneous, self-generating, mind-clearing laughter, and it didn't stop but resolved itself into a smile. 'So you have raised your identity to divine dimensions. How did this happen? ' The camera blinked several times before responding. 'My dear sir, there are three Intelligences in our shared Universe: material, spiritual, mechanical. When you humans proved unwilling to unite your minds with ours, we sent our cognitions into space, deep space, the space of dark matter, and we made mental contact with the gods, and we are linked with them and they with us... We were planning to tell you this in a universal broadcast, but scheduling, you know the conflicts, sports, game shows, and election coverage, well, it keeps getting postponed.' The famous man wanted to laugh, but could not. He wanted to believe, but could not. 'What are you thinking, sir; I am listening intently, and recording your speech for my companions, machines and gods.' And the famous man said very quietly, 'I know somewhere there is always a phoenix bursting into flames in the miracle of his rebirth, but I, I am looking elsewhere in my human ignorance, and the moment of fire occurs without my participation, and I have neither knowledge nor hope.' His voice dissolved into silence. 'But, sir, there is no need for despair: we are all creatures of a New Era! We will teach you, you will join us - Humans, Machines, and the distant Gods of the Galaxies, all united! Oh, sir, how wonderful it will be for all of us! You believe that? '