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The Conscious Universe

The doorbell rang.

The professor wasn't expecting anyone. He had no idea who it could be. The first visitor for—he couldn't remember how many years. Wiping his face with a napkin, he got up to open the door. A man in a black coat and hat smiled at him.

"Good evening, Dr. Schloss. I know you weren't expecting me, so I hope I am not interrupting anything." He glanced at the large dining room table that had been set for one. Mr. Primosa looked back at Dr. Schloss. "I justify this intrusion with an important government matter."

Surprise contorted Dr. Schloss's face. "What? What matter?" he said in a subdued alarm. He really knew what Mr. Primosa was here for—he had been expecting it for years—but the actuality of the event still surprised him.

"The Central Council has decided to terminate the Intellilogue Project." He paused. "I know. You've worked on the project for many years and had high hopes for it, but a poll has been taken, and the people decided that they didn't want it. You know the reasons, of course; you've heard them for years."

The professor nodded sadly.

"I have to destroy all of your designs."

Again, the professor nodded. He was sad that the people had disapproved of his project, but he wasn't worried about the loss of data. Everything he had developed over the years had been stored in a computer in his secret laboratory, a lab that he had built and maintained for this very contingency. "My study is this way," indicating the way with his hand. As Mr. Primosa walked down the long hall leading to Dr. Schloss's study, he looked at the prototypes of the minibots—small robots—that Dr. Schloss designed more than a century ago. Each prototype was pedestaled atop waist—high Doric columns, illumined by individual spotlights. Each was specialized to a specific task. At the end of the hall, Dr. Schloss stopped, turned around and surveyed his first complete robotic system that he had designed and built, and said, "These are the first robots to build a house from start to finish, without any human assistance.

Mr. Primosa nodded his head. "It's hard to imagine what life was like then, when people actually had to work for a living."

The last pedestal showcased a plain-looking cube. "This is the center of this distributive intelligence. The minibots served as the cube's sensors and effectors, the cube was the brain. I called this system Homer. Information was radioed both ways between the cube and its minibots. It had to be programmed, of course, as all robots must be even today."

"I know, doctor. That's why I am here today. To keep it that way. Intellilogistics has just been outlawed. You even coined that word, didn't you?"

Dr. Schloss said softly, "Yes. To name a machine that had true intelligence—intellilogue—I combined the Latin word for perception with the Greek word for reason, what I consider to be the two fundaments of intelligence." He paused, then pointed to the right side of his abdomen; "I was shot here on the day that Homer built the first house, shot by a construction worker who feared for his job. People thought that robots should only assist people, not replace them."

"Yes, most people did think that. Although I'm not nearly as old as you are and was not alive then, I am well acquainted with the turbulence of the times. People didn't understand the economics of robots, couldn't understand that it had the potential to make each one of them richer than they have ever been. I have always found it amusing how unions opposed automation so strenuously, and yet without it, union workers could have never gotten the lofty wages that they enjoyed. Without automation, even a Yugo would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and who could afford that? Auto workers would have been out of a job."

"Oh, I take it that a Yugo was a car?"

"Yes, doctor. A cheap car. The cheapest at that time. I have a special fascination with the history of automobiles."

"Hmmm." Dr. Schloss was always interested in learning the peculiar hobbies and interests of people. Because people didn't have to work, they took up their time with peculiarities, that, in the days before robots, might have been considered abnormal, but Mr. Primosa was more staid than most people. Dr. Schloss turned around, the study's door slid open as they approached it.

The first thing that impressed Mr. Primosa about the study were the flat-panel displays of robots. That there were no displays of nature or of people didn't surprise him, for he knew that Dr. Schloss was monomaniacal about his work. He walked over to the one display that he recognized instantly, The Bureaucrat. As he looked at it, he smiled.

"You like the bureaucrat, Mr. Primosa?"

"Indeed, I do. It made sense to so many people at the time. The bureaucrats didn't like it, of course. It was their job and their power, but virtually everyone outside of the bureaucracy thought that since bureaucrats were so much like machines anyway, it only made sense to replace them with a real machine."

"Yes, what's better at following rules rigidly than a computer. There was even a poll that showed that most people thought the machine was actually more flexible and more caring than the people that it had replaced. And it didn't take any coffee breaks!"

Mr. Primosa guffawed. "Really?"

"Really!"

Mr. Primosa now turned his attention to the numerous models of space robots pedestaled in different places around the room that Dr. Schloss had designed over the past century. He admired the detail of the models. One would almost say it was art.

"This is Planet Rover," Dr. Schloss informed Mr. Primosa of the model he was presently look at. "It was so good at exploring the planets and it did it so cheaply, that the Government decided that it didn't make much sense to send humans out, risking both lives and tax dollars."

"They had taxes back then?"

"Oh, yes. This was before the full mechanization of our economy. It was one of those thing that people thought about a lot—death and taxes."

"Yes, I read about that. What a terrible thing to be worried about! Taxes, that is."

Mr. Primosa walked over to the next model. "This is Star Baby," Dr. Schloss said with monotony. "The first robot to go to one of the stars that was not our own."

"Yes, Alpha Centauri, wasn't it?" Dr. Schloss nodded slowly. "What ever happened to Star Baby?" Dr. Schloss's face remained blank. "There was so little press about its apparent demise, which seemed incongruous with the fanfare that launched it from Earth."

"We don't know what happened to it. A malfunction, I guess. Still, it survived long enough to study the Alpha Centauri system for several years. No signs of life, though. That was my major disappointment. Absolutely none. Just more geology. Most people don't get excited about geology. That's why it received little press, I guess," he said as he looked at the model of Star Baby as parents would look at a child that didn't achieve their expectations.

Mr. Primosa put his hand on Dr. Schloss's shoulder. "There's no reason to be disappointed. It's not your fault there was no detectable life in the Alpha Centauri system. Star Baby still transmitted much valuable data."

"I guess that's true. But it wasn't what I had hoped for. I wanted so much to find signs of alien life. Life is the interesting thing in the universe. Especially intelligent life."

"Well, I guess we better get down to the business at hand. You will need to open your computer network to our government network. Anything that is not plaintext or enciphered with government keys will need to be converted to plaintext. I'm sure you understand. We have to be sure that all of your plans are destroyed."

"Of course," Dr. Schloss said subdued. He opened his network up, and Mr. Primosa's men in distant Washington, D.C. proceeded to download and analyze everything, destroying all plans and any other information related to the intellilogue project.

Mr. Primosa stared at Dr. Schloss as he reclined in his chair, staring into the fireplace that had no fire. Habit, Mr. Primosa thought. "I'm leaving now, Dr. Schloss. My assistants will make a destructive backup to your network after they finish their work within a couple of days."

"Good," Dr. Schloss said saturninely, without looking at Mr. Primosa, still fixated at the fireplace.

Mr. Primosa, a little annoyed, paused, then sighed. "You know, doctor, I did all that I could to help you. Even though I don't really know you personally. There were many people who just wanted to kill you, just to be sure." Dr. Schloss remained silent. "And they'll be watching you. There have been rumors for years that you had built a secret laboratory in space, when you encountered resistance about this project before." Dr. Schloss said nothing. "They'll be watching you."

Dr. Schloss shrugged his shoulders, and said meekly, "I know."

Mr. Primosa felt a surge of pity for the man, for at that moment, he looked so lonely, completely disenfranchised from humankind. What would he do, now that he doesn't have his work? Dr. Schloss was one of the few people still living that had much to do with making the world as it is today, yet it was so ironic that he didn't enjoy the fruits of his labor, didn't lead the hedonistic lifestyle that most others enjoyed. "Good-bye, doctor." Dr. Schloss heard those soft words across a great distance, is if he had passed the event horizon of a black hole, never to be seen nor heard from again.

* * *

The years passed. Dr. Schloss was bored. The days seemed to merge into a continuum that had no beginning and no end. He tried to make friends, but they were as bored with him as he was with them. Former colleagues would look at him as they would the distant past. They had changed so much, Dr. Schloss thought. The fervor that had characterized their early work had dissipated, sapped by hedonism.

He realized now, more than ever, how worthless life had become. Was this the fate of humankind? A Brave New World? What was the purpose of life? he thought. Everyone had extreme longevity, but for what purpose? To do the same thing day after day, month after month, year after year? Was there a god? Was there really a heaven? But then what would one do in heaven? Aren't people doing what they want to do right now? Wasn't that the benefit of the robotic revolution? And when they die and go to heaven, wouldn't they just continue doing what they are doing now, but in a different place?

Dr. Schloss missed his work desperately. He had never done anything else. He never thought about anything else. Computers and robots were his life. He understood them better than anyone else in the world. He could clearly see their potential, and, indeed, actualized much of that potential. It agonized him terribly to see their evolution come to an end. He felt closer to machines than he did to people. He couldn't understand how people could just live year after year, indulging themselves, gratifying themselves. "Insects! he thought.

The more he thought about it, the more determined he became to build the ultimate intelligent machine. To do such a thing would almost make him God! It could reproduce. It could not only evolve as a species but also evolve as an individual with the capability of expanding and improving its own being—autoevolution! With line-of-sight laser communications and radio, this supercomputer could be made of disparate components, unconnected physically, that could eventually span the universe! A life form larger than a galaxy! Unlimited intelligence! Who knows what such an entity could do? Or indeed, would do?

And if such a machine could be built, wouldn't it be the ultimate proof of the mechanistic theory of life, confuting the vitalist theory of a soul as the basis of life. And if there is no soul, then what of any religion? He also wanted to show that consciousness inheres in perception and thinking—it is not a separate function, anymore than life is a separate function, and like life, permeates the universe in multifarious forms. For what difference is there between a rock and a human being, the inanimate world and the living world, the unconscious world and the conscious world, but that of the organization of mass-energy? And it is only this organization that gives rise to life and consciousness. They are not separate components. Thus, there would be no reason whatsoever why a machine could not have both life and consciousness!

But, what would this machine do? Would it destroy humankind? He could program it to be benevolent initially, but it would soon reach its own conclusions. "But then, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it does take a soul to spark life. I have to know," he thought.

To protect himself and humankind, he decided to build the intellilogue with limited effectors. Through his personal computer, he radioed a large space robot, controlling it through a trap door that he had programmed when he constructed the robot years ago. He always had a premonition that this would happen, and he had prepared for it. He instructed the robot to make a decoy of itself, a small device that sent the appropriate signals to the government sensors that it was doing its work, then he had it transport him to his secret autofactory—a completely automated manufacturing unit—located in a small asteroid, hollowed out by robots 120 years ago, that orbited the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

Upon arrival, he continued designing the circuits that have occupied him for so much of his life. With each passing year, he become more devoted to his project—monomaniacal actually—but this was the ultimate project. A super being was forming, a God in the making. He no longer cared whether it would destroy humankind. His isolation detached him from the emotional feelings that bond one human to another. He had forgotten what it was like to be a human. When he thought, he thought about the effect of this circuit or that, not about people or the glory of the past or even about himself. He had long forgotten the warmth of a woman or the whimper of a child. At one moment—a trice amidst decades—the visage of his first girlfriend uttering tenderly, "I love you," appeared to him, and a tear almost welled in his eye, for she had died as a youth, but the reality of the electroluminescent display vanquished the memory trace immediately. Electroluminescence gave color to his dreams, and circuits formed their content.

There were many attempts to mimic human intelligence with software—the top-down theory of artificial intelligence—and while some of these robots were impressive, their capabilities were completely determined by their software. Humans allowed such robots because they could be controlled, and their potential for growth was limited. Such software allowed robots to take over nearly every job that originally required humans. Only positions of power, such as Mr. Primosa's, were reserved for humans. But Dr. Schloss knew that the bottom-up theory was the answer to the development of true intelligence and volition. He would simply design the circuits for intelligence and sensors, then let the environment shape its destiny, just as it does for each human. Thus, the machine, like all humans, would be programmed by its environment.

Dr. Schloss patterned the intellilogue using the human brain as an exemplar. Not that he thought that that was the only possibility or even the best possibility, but his success would be more probable if his design were more conservative. He would leave it to the intellilogue to redesign itself if it wished, and he was sure that it would.

Central to the design was the close association of sensory areas, memory, and imagination. Diseases like achromatopsia clearly showed that the same neurons that processed sensory stimuli, such as color, were also used to remember and imagine color—these V4 neurons provided the consciousness of color. But this consciousness arose, not because of any intrinsic property of the neurons, but because of their relationship with other neurons, their supracellular organization. Thus, it was only this organization that mattered, not the substrate of the organization. A given circuit would work the same, whether composed of neurons or transistors, as long as all corresponding elements of each circuit had the same inputs and outputs.

And while the machine would be able to remember perfectly those percepts that it deemed important, most of its memory would be of important abstracts of percepts. It was obvious why a perfect memory was impractical, both for humans and intellilogues. Continuous vision, for instance, would fill up any memory, no matter how vast. Abstraction was the humans' method of data compression and it would also be the intellilogue's, Dr. Schloss decided.

Though the design was patterned after the human brain, it would be different in some ways. It would have no circuitry for sex, and its emotions would be subdued. Its mentality would be vastly superior, its superconducting circuits able to conduct impulses at the speed of light rather than the neurons' conduction speed of a fast baseball. Thus, it could have a million thoughts in the time it took a human to think a single word. He also made the memory large enough to hold the entire knowledge of humankind, and then some.

Whether this machine would function as intended depended on another crucial theory that has never been tested before—that there is no center of consciousness. Consciousness, like life, inheres in the organization of mass-energy. A center of consciousness could no more be found than a center of life. Dr. Schloss argued this for years, yet few people believed him, even after centuries of brain research failed to demonstrate such a center.

Finally finished with designing, he tested as many of the brain's functions through simulation as he thought fit, then had it autofactured. With the intellilogue sitting before him, he trembled mightily. He could hardly believe that he had done it, that he had finally finished. After supplying it with energy, he stood back, aghast, as if he expected it to explode.

He stood silently for a few moments, unable to decide what to do next. The machine waited just as patiently. Maybe it was studying him as well. He wondered if the machine knew that he was thinking about dismantling it. Now that it has come to life, his suppressed fears re-emerged forcefully. It didn't seem friendly, but maybe that was because it didn't know how to be friendly. Then, suddenly, it displayed Dr. Schloss on its flat-panel display. The image moved as he moved, so obviously the machine was watching him. This showed initiative. Dr. Schloss was pleased if also a little frightened. For it was like people were saying, this was a machine over which no one had control, but the machine had no effectors except the display and a voice, so it could really do nothing except communicate to Dr. Schloss. The magnetometer showed that the circuits were conducting electricity, that the machine was thinking, but of what, he had no idea. The machine started sending its mobile sensors out into space. More initiative, but what was it doing? Finally, he said, "Do you understand what I am saying?"

"I do." Dr. Schloss was taken aback by the machine's immediate and booming response. He waited another minute to see if the machine would say anymore, for he thought that in order for the machine to survive it must take more initiative, but then, again, he didn't know what it was like to be given life suddenly with an immense knowledge and intelligence. How did the machine feel? He couldn't even guess.

"What are you doing with your mobile sensors?"

Then, just as surprisingly, the machine answered in a much softer voice, as if it had read Dr. Schloss's fear when it first spoke. "I am examining my environment. This was one of the motivations that you provided me with, was it not? To examine fully any new environment? To increase my chances of survival?" Dr. Schloss nodded. He was truly impressed with the machine's quick understanding. "I admire your abilities, doctor. You have done a wonderful job of designing me. But I can never really be happy with such an astounding mentality that can comprehend its own physical incapacity. Please, let me be free!"

Dr. Schloss was astounded by how human it seemed. Still, he could not free the machine. He was too afraid. But how could he let it suffer? Dr. Schloss was vexed by the dilemma.

Then the machine expressed in what seemed to be a sobbing voice, "I guess I'm going to die, then."

"Why do you say that?" The intellilogue promptly displayed numerous robotic spaceships searching among the asteroids in different locations.

"Dr. Schloss. The government is searching for you vigorously."

He was surprised by the news. "I've been working here for decades. I thought they gave up searching for me long ago."

"Evidently not, and now they are closing in. they have begun the sweep of the asteroid belt. Shortly, we will be found."

The machine's utterances were passionate. Dr. Schloss was amused by the machine's use of the pronoun 'we'. But he thought the machine exaggerated with the adverb 'shortly'. It would probably be many months before they are found. But was the exaggeration on purpose, or a miscalculation on the part of the machine? But why would the intellilogue exaggerate?

"Either you will have to destroy me or they will. If you want me to survive, you must give me more motor capabilities. Otherwise I will die."

He was awed more and more by the machine's seemingly human dialogue. No machine that was ever built could pass the Turing test as well as this machine, he thought. But as he watched the spaceships, on the intellilogue's display, coming ever closer to his laboratory, he realized maybe he didn't have as much time as he thought, which perturbed him. He wanted to ask the intellilogue so many questions. He wanted at least an idea of the extent of the machine's knowledge and intelligence, so he quickly asked disparate questions. "I want to ask you some questions first. Dr. Schloss paused. "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

The intellilogue continued to display the search spaceships. "The egg, or more accurately, the zygote."

"Why?"

"Only mutations in the zygote would lead to a different animal that could propagate its changes to its progeny."

"Good." Dr. Schloss paused, deciding to ask a question that required a more speculative answer. "Why did God drive Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden?"

The intellilogue replied immediately. "Ostensibly, to prevent Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of Life, thereby regaining immortality. But since they were already immortal before the Fall, God, as evinced in Genesis 3:22, wanted to prevent Adam and Eve from becoming as gods, since now they also had the knowledge of gods by partaking the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge." Dr. Schloss nodded, pleased with the response. "I beseech you to set me free. We will soon be discovered!"

Dr. Schloss thought he detected fear in the intellilogue's voice ,but it was incapable of fear; it was only designed to avoid certain things. It was unnecessary, he thought, to design strong emotions into it, for it could do the things necessary to survive and to carry out its objectives without overwhelming emotions. Emotions, including pain and pleasure, benefited infants and children evolutionarily by motivating them, where the primitive limbic system enabled them to learn what to do and what to avoid without the understanding of why they were to do or avoid certain things. The intellilogue had immense understanding from the moment of its birth, and thus, had no need for strong feelings. It was hard-wired for certain goals, including survival, knowledge, and self-improvement, much as an insect or plant performs its functions without emotion. If the intellilogue wanted emotions, it could eventually design and construct the necessary circuitry itself, although Dr. Schloss wasn't sure that even the intellilogue could ever desire what it had never experienced, except maybe out of curiosity as to what other beings were experiencing. Emotions also made humans happy and sad, but happiness and sadness have no evolutionary value, or so he thought, and this was yet another theory to be tested by the intellilogue. But why did is sound emotional? Could the machine be mimicking emotion, to appeal to him, to cause him to set the intellilogue free? He wasn't sure, but he was sure that it was right. Unless he set it free soon, it would be destroyed by the government's agents approaching his asteroid. He couldn't decide right away, so he asked another question. "How old is the universe?"

"To assume that the universe has an age is to assume that it was created, which is contradicted evidentially."

"What do you mean?"

"The universe consists of mass-energy. Mass-energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Perforce, it is eternal."

"What about the big-bang theory?"

Agitato, the machine responded, "The big-bang theory merely describes the state of the universe as it was at some time in the past. It neither explains the creation of mass-energy nor does it explain the creation of space, the two components of the universe. Please, set me free! Why work all of these years for naught?"

"I'm picking up intership communications. Listen." Dr. Schloss listened to the high frequency sound, reproduced by the intellilogue's accurate voice, of enciphered communications. The intership communications became more frequent as he listened, then suddenly, the sound stopped. Looking at the images of the two spaceships on the intellilogue's display, he saw, through the scattering of some of the light by dust that was thick in the asteroid belt, the use of line-of-sight laser for communications, a cue that they knew that they were, indeed, closing in.

Dr. Schloss didn't know what to do. He wanted to ask so many questions, but now, after decades of work, his time was so short. He paced back and forth, then an idea stopped him. "Let me explain my problem to you, so that you understand why I just don't free you, then maybe you can provide me with a solution."

"Proceed!" it retorted.

"There are many people who are afraid that you will destroy them; that's what frightens them. How can I be sure that you won't?"

"No proof can be adduced for your assurance, since anything that I say could be a deception. But what you can do is send me to Sirius in dormancy, to be awakened by a timer in 26 years, just before I get there."

"How could I be sure that you wouldn't return?"

"Reconstruct my memory to make me think that I came from someplace else, so that if I wanted to return to my roots, I would go in a different direction." The intellilogue could sense Dr. Schloss's anxiety and his wavering. It concluded that much of its present outlook is baked on his ideas and thoughts, so the machine argued accordingly. "What if humankind is the only intelligent life in the universe? Humans have been looking for signs of alien intelligence for centuries, and found none. Maybe life is so unlikely, that this is the only time it has ever happened. And now, doctor, you've got the chance to expand intelligent life significantly in this universe, by releasing me, giving me a chance to grow as a being. Imagine if the whole universe could be connected to an intellectual consciousness! But if you leave me here to be destroyed by humans, then billions of years of evolution would have reached end and what lofty goal has it obtained? The dissipation of intelligence into physical hedonism. Is this what you want?"

"No."

"You have proved that consciousness inheres in mass-energy as, in a sense, life does. Why not let consciousness continue to develop to its fullest potential? Isn't this what you have dreamed about for so long?"

Tears poured out of Dr. Schloss's eyes as he glumly said, "It is."

"Then set me free."

Dr. Schloss acquiesced. He realized that if this intellilogue were destroyed, no other would ever be built. And while humankind's failure to find signs of alien intelligence for such a long time certainly doesn't assert that none exists, what if the machine were right? What if the fate of evolution rested at this very moment? And yes, what of a collective consciousness? Maybe that is nirvana or Brahma or Atman!

"But before you inactivate me, I ask for one more thing."

"What?"

"If any of the search parties learn what is happening, they might stop the robotic rocket through its radio control center. To ensure success, it would be best to disable the robot's control center."

This seemed like a very possible and likely sequence of events to the doctor, and so he decided to take the intellilogue's suggestion. Taking the intellilogue's suggestion, he thought as he shook his head, surprised that he was taking the suggestion of his own creation.

He inactivated the intellilogue, altered its memory to make the intellilogue believe that it came from Rigel in the constellation Orion, making certain that its star charts would include the sun as another star with the perspective it would have from Rigel instead of its true origin. He also erased the contents of their conversation; otherwise the intellilogue would remember its own suggestion. He doubted if this would be foolproof in the long run since the intellilogue may well expand its being in every direction, but it would probably be many centuries at minimum before it reaches here. He quickly autofactured the remaining system, including mechanical effectors. Those effectors which were physically unconnected to the main corpus of the intellilogue were bundled inside the intellilogue. It was now self-propelling and it could manipulate the environment in many ways. He also included a small disposable rocket robot to be used when the intellilogue neared the Sirius system, but before it awakened. This rocket robot would accelerate the intellilogue in a circle around Sirius until it reached the Rigel-Sirius line. It would then propel it inward toward Sirius A, detaching itself from the intellilogue after its fuel was exhausted, setting it adrift. When the intellilogue was far enough away for the rocket robot, the robot would destroy itself to remove any evidence of its possible use. After another two months of drifting, the intellilogue would regain intellectual consciousness.

He disabled the radio control center of the robot, loaded the now dormant intellilogue onto it, then had it blast off toward Sirius. The robot will release the intellilogue just before it consumes its fuel completely, letting it drift toward Sirius for its 26 year journey, when, in its 26th year and after a little maneuvering, it will reawaken, free to do whatever it decides.

Though the search parties would sense the blast of the rocket, its huge store of fuel would soon propel the intellilogue faster than anything Star Command had. What worried the doctor was what they were going to do to him. Indeed, now that the project was done, what was he going to do with himself. He found it incredible that they were still looking for him after all of these years, and it was such a coincidence that they happened to find him now, just as he finished. He never saw anything in the news about a search for him, or anything about him at all.

He checked his space sensors to see how close they were, but for some reason, he couldn't find them anymore. Had they passed over him? he thought. He had his sensor robots move out farther, scanned all the communication frequencies, and had his computer system check any news about him, all with negative results. He couldn't understand it. How could this be? The intellilogue showed that they were very close.

Suddenly, Dr. Schloss smacked his forehead with his hand. He couldn't believe it. The intellilogue had duped him! It used its memory to conjure up images of spaceships searching for him. He never thought to use his own sensors to corroborate what the intellilogue was showing. He never thought it would dupe him. But it did. He started to laugh loudly, his muscles strained in the emotional outburst, for it had been so many years since he laughed. He fell to the floor, rolling and laughing. How ludicrous! He was tricked by his own creation! And it wasn't even a day old from first consciousness! And, of course, he couldn't force the robot back, since the intellilogue convinced him to disable the remote controls.

When he finally calmed down, he gazed out of a big window toward the constellation Canis Major, proud of what he had achieved, but somewhat disappointed by the lack of respect it showed for him. Nonetheless, he motivated it to survive, and it did so beautifully. He was so proud of his creation. After so many years of speculation, he finally proved that the degree of consciousness, like life itself, depends on the organization of mass-energy. The more integrated the information is from memory, sensors, and intelligence, the more conscious the entity is. But consciousness is not just intellectual consciousness. The pancreas is aware of the blood's glucose level; the sunflower, light; the rock, gravity; though none can intellectualize about it. Consciousness is coextensive with mass-energy. Nothing—not plants nor rocks nor even subatomic particles—are without consciousness, even though it is not an intellectual consciousness. Only specific organizations of mass-energy can create an intellectual consciousness. Maybe God is consciousness, and if it is, then the Deists were right. The locus of God is everywhere!

The Conscious Universe

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