Perceptions, Page 2

the thirty or so people, wide-eyed in awe as they stared back inside. The speaker allowed PDM-512-0753 to hear all that was being said outside while keeping any and all noises it might make completely inaudible to the crowds outside.

  Cheers and exclamations were heard by PDM-512-0753. Working to decipher all that was being heard, it stammered for a moment in a confused, busy manner that might have passed as being nervous. It fixed its gaze on the person closest to the pane, “Designation: Production Display Model Five-Twelve, Oh-Seven-Fifty-Three, Etude line. Please state my purpose.”

  Its mouth moved and the crowds cheered in approval, demanding to know what it had said. It fixed its focus on the next person and repeated itself. It did so with the eight closest persons to itself before assessing that the situation would continue to be unavailing. The cheers had all but stopped and had morphed into a distraught murmur. Those outside were becoming restless. The large group had begun to disperse after little more than five minutes and had turned into discontent, aggravated individuals. The marketing campaign had failed, and PDM-512-0753 might become more temporary than previously hoped. Pre-sales would not go up, and the trade-ins would likely, if anything, decrease. It looked human, but it had let down the patrons in every other aspect. Firmware 2.0 might become not even a whisper in the wind when history came around to being written.

  PDM-512-0753 searched its memory banks for its function. Empty. It had nothing, was nothing, knew nothing except that it needed a directive.

  It stared inquisitively at each person who walked by, most of whom stopped for a moment and looked it over before continuing on their way. It listened intently to each conversation being held. Those speaking into phones would momentarily change the topic of discussion long enough to say “They've got an Etude on display down here,” but little more than that was mentioned of PDM-512-0753.

  Direction, the core necessity to any machine with a computerized 'brain'. Without direction, graphic user-interfaces fail and become a blank screen awaiting input. The closest relative to a lack of direction is called DOS; Disk Operating System; 'The Coma' or 'The Void', as it had become known in the realm of advanced robotics. It was called such from the way it left a robot: much like a human without a brain; even the most basic autonomous functions become null and cease to operate in any degree.

  Direction, in the sense of applying it to humanity, is the dream that is hoped for. Performing with excellence that will lead to a new job, a new job that will lead to success, success that will lead to happiness, happiness that will lead to. . . The end? Humanity has a redundancy in its very direction. All make their own direction so as to achieve happiness, but the struggle, the direction in life is finding out what happiness truly means. With the finding of happiness, there creates in the void a lack of direction. Finding a new direction becomes the new direction, and the loop begins again. Redundancy is created in yet another way. The worst of all fears. The worst part of that fear is that all things are, in one war or another, redundant unto themselves. With each accomplishment, with each dream realized there is a need for a new accomplishment or dream, and there is where the cycle meets itself; the end of the circle.

  Until the fear of redundancy is eliminated, it will always be. To eliminate the fear of redundancy, it itself must first be eliminated. Again, humanity is left with the endless loop. A sentence declaring itself untrue is true, therefore it is untrue, therefore it is true. This basic paradox is the prime example of the redundancy, a statement that crumbles down within itself until it is true, in which case the truth contained therein causes it to crumble down again and become false.

  PDM-512-0753 had been left alone, awaiting direction. Until it found what it searched for, it would be left as a DOS, awaiting command until it received input. It would continue to wait until one of two things; one, it received the necessary signal stating its purpose or, two, it was disabled and disassembled. But a third option, one not considered by the manufacturer or assembly team, was well on the way. A variable not taken into account, a command line designed to allow it to learn to do any given task with greater efficiency. It would learn to complete its current objective more readily. Its current objective: to find a purpose. With its objective completed from the moment it was conceived of, in the most human ways, its current direction was fulfilled. It had found a purpose and completed it simultaneously. It had become, in its lack of direction, more human than was intended. It had created its own direction, and in it, its own version of humanity.

  To thrive, in its basic form, is to find a particular need, a necessity, that outweighs risk, curiosity or even pain. A palm in the desert will only thrive by a pool of water. A wolf, by itself will grow cold and sickly in the winter, but will thrive in a pack. A newly hatched chick will starve if abandoned, and will only thrive by the watchful eye and the selflessness of the mother. A machine will fall to pieces if left unattended, but will thrive if maintained and serviced. What it means to thrive is not only to survive, but to be cared for. Without a place to call home, without friends and family, a person will not thrive. They may survive, but will not thrive.

  As an Irish proverb says, “it is in the shelter of each other that people live.” Without that shelter, humanity may find itself surviving, but not living. As a whole, it becomes a stagnating presence that never moves forward and frequently backwards. The mortifying state leaves the soul of man to rot and become putrescent without love, compassion, care or even thought of one another.

  When humanity ceases to function as a body that must care for each part of itself, the only growth found is in the rate of decay. Therefore, the greatest achievement of humanity with all of its sciences and so-called advances, the most impressive of what one can say to another, even with a vocabulary amassing tens of thousands of words, is contained in three single-syllable, short words. Better than words are actions, and such actions are seldom overlooked. Such actions that are capable of bringing a change to the world, yet seem excessively finite in their simplicity and lack of immediate effect, these are the actions that create revolutions; these are the actions that stir up the heart and soul and bring about new mindsets willing to stand for an ideal to further the 'greater good'.

  A whispered phrase, “I love you,” came through the intracom, drowning out all other voices like a klaxon demanding attention.

  It was another passerby, seemingly indifferent than anyone else, with few distinguishing features save the three words she had uttered, coinciding with the tear on her rosy cheek. Though spoken quietly, they drew the undivided attention of PDM-512-0753. Its focus previously passed from each person to the next that strode by without thought or regard to the machine itself, but was now set with complete concentration on the woman who had said those words. Words so alien to it that its new self-directed objective was to find out the essence of the word. The definition was already known to it, but the meaning was not. Why do humans love? What causes the need for love? These things must be known to understand the meaning of it. This pain/joy contradiction defied what was previously understood by PDM-512-0753 as the reason for love.

  Why humans love remains one of the longest lasting questions that has no definitive answer. Put simply, love is a chemical reaction in the brain, a feeling of having become accustomed to someone, a need, a want, a dream, a hope, or a prayer; all of these being as viable as the others. None correct, none incorrect. Love goes beyond consciousness. It is something that cannot be chosen, cannot be taken, only given. The reason people love cannot be expressed by any one person. It requires love to understand the reason behind it, and the reason can only be explained to another who knows what love is. It transcends space and distance, and can only grow in time. If it does not, it was never truly love at all, but a fleeting lie convinced to oneself. To understand the joy of love, one must understand the pain of it. Pain, sorrow, hate, jealousy, regret, all are entwined by their connection to love. One may control the other, but none control love. It resides as the chief emotion. Love can lead one to any e
motions or combination thereof, but no emotion leads to love except itself. It is a paradoxical redundancy.

  These things, PDM-512-0753 could never grasp, though it tried. It watched and waited for others who would make similar remarks about emotions and it would study them intently, but its limitations did not allow for understanding of love. Pain, perhaps even fear, but never love. It remains beyond the human ability of programming or even description. It could not be contained in a string of code if it existed beyond vocabulary. This did not occur to PDM-512-0753, so it would continue to watch and wait for a clue into the need for love, the reason and the emotions it entailed, for it entailed all in varying manners.

  Love leads to fear; the fear of loss. The greatest fear one could imagine is the loss of the person that the one has the inability to disjoint themselves from. A symbiosis that holds both parties' minds, bodies and souls hostage, even after the absence of one of these things. Such a fear leads to sorrow in the absence of the loved. The slightest moment of absence becomes unbearably painful. It creates a longing beyond that of any other