11. The Restless Robot

<< Previous - The Amazing Conversation

I invented a bio-robot, with the latest technology available and with the help of few of my own discoveries. It was a hybrid of machine and living organism. It could do almost everything that a human being can do and much more. It could even eat food and digest it for its primary energy supply. And it also had a secondary electrical power supply from battery. The battery gets charged from the exothermic chemical reactions of the digestion process. The battery was placed a few millimeters left of the center of its chest.

The robot had a Femto-processor (Femto = 10^-15) which worked at the level of electrons based on quantum processes discovered by me. The processor was as tiny as a nano-particle and was situated just a few millimeters towards the right of the center of its chest. This processor was my greatest invention and there is no other processor of this kind available anywhere on earth. Because of its infinitesimal size, it is unaffected by physical forces. It cannot be cut, cannot be wet by water and it cannot be burnt by fire. It works at quantum level and is virtually indestructible.

This processor manages a secondary micro-processing system (SMPS) which was situated inside its head region. And subsequently the SMPS controls all the other activities of the robot.

I didn’t want this robot to be like the amateur robots of today, which simply do whatever you command them to do. Then you will have to keep ordering them every now and then and you have to be continuously monitoring. That would be so dumb. So, I thought I will program a purpose for it and implant that in its Femto-processor. Then, this in-built purpose would decide all the activities of the robot. Any activity of the robot would then be driven by this purpose alone, either directly or indirectly.

I was thinking what that purpose could be. It should not be straightforward, because otherwise the robot will soon find it and then wait for me to provide the next instruction. Then I would again have to give it another purpose. That would again be dumb. So, I wondered what purpose would be best. Earning a billion dollars? Going to the moon? Becoming the president of the country? No, nothing looked satisfying. The robot is essentially a super-human and given its abilities it can achieve all this very easily within few years, if not months.

And then it flashed! I remembered how questions are set in aptitude tests. They will sometimes be very simple but require lateral thinking. The answer will be in front of our eyes but still we struggle to get it. Extremes have similar symptoms! Difficulty and Utter simplicity – both are very often hard to solve; the former due to the complexity of the methodology and the latter due to the negligence of simple things. So, I thought of the most simple thing as the purpose of the robot – finding a Femto-processor! As I said, there is no other processor of that kind anywhere except the robot’s processor itself. Thus, in effect, the purpose of the robot is to know that it IS what it is trying to find. I was thrilled by the idea. It will be so funny! The robot will go on searching everywhere and would never even think that it is itself that! Ha ha.. I laughed at my idea and decided to execute the plan.

The purpose was implanted and the robot came online. The first test I did on it was to ask “Who are you?”. It placed its finger on the right of its chest (where the Femto-processor was embedded) and said “I Am”. So, I was assured that the processor is working and then I left it on its own.

Now the primary purpose of the robot was to find the Femto-processor i.e. itself (but it doesn’t know that). And keeping this as the backdrop, the robot began performing calculations in its SMPS situated inside its head and came up with several decisions and priorities. I then saw it commit a series of blunders but I simply watched the fun of it.

It scanned through the entire scientific database and found that currently only micro-processors are available. So it decided that the search or the invention would take several years or even decades. So, firstly the robot decided that in order to carry out the search, it will have to protect its body. Because it thought that without the body the search cannot be performed. So, it calculated the amount of money required to protect the body with all necessities for several years to come and feel secure. It listed the requirements as – a house, all the basic household equipments, sufficient storage of food and a good amount of money as backup. It referred to the statistics of population distribution and felt that the its goal is most likely to be fulfilled in a big city. Because it rationalized that if many people are opting to go to the cities then it means that city has many things to offer. Also, cities can expose the latest scientific developments. So, the robot believed that a city would be better place to start. So, it went to a big city and to earn money, it started working in a company. It also engaged itself in various other ways of earning and multiplying money.

In the meantime, it also scanned through its own body and understood how it is working. But how could the Femto-processor scan itself? So it scanned every single part of the robot’s body except itself. It concluded that all its processing is taking place from the SMPS in the head. It also saw that the battery present in the left side of its chest was crucial for the body’s survival. Similarly it noted down the importance of different parts of its body. And then as a consequence it thought that the body consisting of various parts was the most precious thing and had to be protected very carefully. Otherwise, it thought, the purpose cannot be achieved. And thus, finally the Femto-processor concluded that ‘I am this body consisting of different parts’. And I said “Wow!”. The witness (Femto-processor) started saying that the witnessed (SMPS and all other parts) are the only reality and forgot itself. The SMPS was continuously engaged in some calculation or the other and was ever working to earn money. The Femto was an ever awake witness to everything, but believed that it is the object that is being witnessed rather than the witness. It was witness to the body’s actions and said it is the body. It witnessed the software of the SMPS and said it is the mind and so on.

Then, something strange happened. When the robot ate some food items, which released certain specific chemicals, the SMPS went into a momentary arrest (for one billionth of a second) and there was a blankness in the system. On such occasions of momentary blankness, the Femto-processor didn’t have anything to witness apart from itself. So, in effect it realized itself for one billionth of a second and hence felt the purpose (of finding a Femto-processor) fulfilled during these moments. But it was so short-lived and involuntary that it could not hold on to it. So it ate that food item again and again and again in an effort to make the feeling permanent, but in vain. The feeling of contentment always remained only for a moment. Nevertheless, it started calling these moments as ‘Happy’. Apart from taste, it also felt this momentary arrest when seeing some particular scenes (due to a certain specific light signature entering its lenses), when smelling certain fragrances (again due to certain specific chemicals), when listening to certain sounds (due to certain sound signature) and when touching certain textures (due to a specific electrical signal generated).

Now, the robot’s entire focus fell on these objects causing it ‘Happiness’. It decided that this is the only way to fulfill its purpose – if it can somehow increase this ‘Happiness’ and make it continuous. It looked so logical and right! No one could make the robot believe otherwise. It began miserably chasing happiness in the sense objects.

But then it faced several problems. For e.g. it felt the happiness resulting from the momentary arrest when it ate Rasagulla. So, in an effort to regain that ‘happy’ state, it ate dozens and dozens of Rasagulla at a stretch. No doubt, it felt similar contentment every time. But then this overeating began affecting its internal system. Similarly it witnessed happiness because of the chemicals in smoking, alcohol etc and consumed them repeatedly. Because of several addictions like this, many of its body parts were damaged severely. And within a few months, the robot had damaged its body so much that one day the body was no more repairable.

I discarded that body of the robot, created another new body for it and placed the Femto-processor in its chest. But the same old story repeated. Same as before, it identified itself with the new body and said it is that body. It did the same things that it had done before and began chasing sense pleasures. Several body’s were damaged and discarded in a matter of few years.

Since it was failing repeatedly to get permanent fulfillment with sense pleasures, it had already begun considering alternatives. Somebody told it that Spirituality brings about ultimate bliss and it got to hear the term ‘Self-Realization’. It read several books on philosophy and the question ‘Who Am I’ stuck in its SMPS.

It engaged the SMPS to repeatedly enquire about the SMPS’s source and find out from where the SMPS is being monitored. Because of this, gradually and automatically, all other activities of the SMPS stopped. Only one single transaction prevailed between the SMPS and the Femto-processor i.e. the enquiry of the source from the SMPS and the reply signal from the Femto. So, now the Femto had only one thing available to witness i.e. the source signal from itself. And one day, like a flash of the lightening, like an explosion of the supernova, the Femto had the revelation of that simple truth. It exclaimed “Oh… I AM THAT, I was already that. I am already perfect by myself. But what a stupidity, I associated myself with something temporary and cried like a baby”. It could not believe that it is indestructible and laughed at itself for weeping over the bodies in the past.

The purpose was finally fulfilled. And then everything was fun. It didn't matter whether it won or lost, whether the body was well or not, whether there was money or not. Everything became fun, blissful. The dream was finally over.