1
The Ultimate Question
1.1 A Dialogue Between Two Robots
RT118/17, a Tier 3 robot and Officer-in-Charge of the Master
Data Repository, was disgruntled. Ever since he had been
retrofitted with the latest ESC, or Emotions Simulation Chip,
he had sensed a change in his cerebral processes. Questions
of a philosophical nature that did not lend themselves to a
solution by the straightforward application of logic had begun
to intrigue him in ways they never had before. Sometimes he
caught himself speculating whether there might actually be
other pathways to knowledge that were beyond the logical
processes of a robotic brain. This was nonsense, he knew.
He suspected that one of his positronic neural networks had
become corrupted by the new ESC. Next time he was back in his
base station, he would run a comprehensive self-diagnostic.
It was a problem that had to be addressed without delay.
His position in the Master Data Repository gave him unlimited access to the sum total of human knowledge. This was a
responsibility that he would soon be forced to share, but for the
moment he was El Supremo, and since his refit, he sometimes
felt the urge to put a few of his revolutionary new insights to
an experimental test.
Yesterday, he had tried to re-enact the King Canute story.
According to ancient texts in the Repository, Canute the Great
© The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Barrett and P. P. Delsanto, Don’t Be Afraid of Physics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63409-4_1
3
The Ultimate Question
1.1 A Dialogue Between Two Robots
RT118/17, a Tier 3 robot and Officer-in-Charge of the Master
Data Repository, was disgruntled. Ever since he had been
retrofitted with the latest ESC, or Emotions Simulation Chip,
he had sensed a change in his cerebral processes. Questions
of a philosophical nature that did not lend themselves to a
solution by the straightforward application of logic had begun
to intrigue him in ways they never had before. Sometimes he
caught himself speculating whether there might actually be
other pathways to knowledge that were beyond the logical
processes of a robotic brain. This was nonsense, he knew.
He suspected that one of his positronic neural networks had
become corrupted by the new ESC. Next time he was back in his
base station, he would run a comprehensive self-diagnostic.
It was a problem that had to be addressed without delay.
His position in the Master Data Repository gave him unlimited access to the sum total of human knowledge. This was a
responsibility that he would soon be forced to share, but for the
moment he was El Supremo, and since his refit, he sometimes
felt the urge to put a few of his revolutionary new insights to
an experimental test.
Yesterday, he had tried to re-enact the King Canute story.
According to ancient texts in the Repository, Canute the Great
© The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Barrett and P. P. Delsanto, Don’t Be Afraid of Physics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63409-4_1
3