The Transcension of the Naturals — Chapter 3: Transcension
A science fiction novel set in Berkeley 100 years in the future
Monday was a level 4 heat alert in Berkeley, with temperatures expected to top 125 degrees. As Clark and Julia approached the entrance to Transcendence Labs Eternity Center for Clark’s 10:00 am transcendence appointment, they could see the Natural protesters were out in force, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures in the early morning. Though tempted, Clark did not shout anything back at the protesters who shouted at him as he passed by them to the door.
Inside it was a comfortable 68 degrees. Together Clark and Julia walked over to the sign that read New Transcendents Here where a receptionist was waiting for them.
“Hello, I’m Ursula. Are you Clark?”
“Yep,” said Clark.
“Welcome to Transcendence Labs, I’m glad you brought someone with you. And who are you?”
“Hi, I’m Julia, Clark’s sister. I’m here to see what I can see, and say goodbye to my twin brother, and I have to say I’m not part of your cult. But I love my brother so I’m here for him.”
“That’s very supportive of you Julia. You can come with us and watch as Clark transcends. Clark, I know you’ve authorized and approved the transcension procedure we’re going to do today, and I know you’ve been through the counseling required by the FBT prior to transcension. Do you have any last questions before we get going?”
“Not really. I’ve read through everything, been through all the counseling, and all I can say is that I’m ready to transcend!”
“Well then follow me. I’ll show you to the scender pod.” She got up and led Clark and Julia through a door, down a hallway, and into a small windowless room containing a hospital-style bed in the middle of the room, with a big bank of equipment and controls next to it. She closed the door behind them.
“Clark, come on over and sit on the bed here with me.” Clark and Ursula walked over to the hospital bed and sat down next to each other. A helmet was lying on a table next to the bed, which Ursula picked up and handed to Clark. “Just like you saw in our training video, you’re going to put that helmet on your head, then put on the eye shades, and lie down on this bed. This is an inducer helmet.” Clark took the helmet and held it in his hands, peering inside, seeing a fine mesh of wires lining the inside. “Once you put on the inducer helmet and lie down, we’ll count down 3–2–1 and the helmet will render you unconscious. It’ll be like pressing pause on your mind.”
“Then we’ll begin the transcension process. For us here, it will take about 10 seconds to complete the process, but for you no time will pass because you’ll be completely out. When it’s all done, as far as you’re concerned you’ll still be here on what appears to be this very same bed, only it’ll be in the recovery pod inside Scen City.”
“Like we point out in the training video, you’ll likely think the transcension procedure didn’t work and nothing happened, but trust me, you’ll be in the recovery pod, not in the scender pod. We designed them to look identical to give you the softest landing possible in Scen City. You’ll even see a virtual projection of yours truly, myself, Virtual Ursula, in the recovery pod to help you on your way. It will look just like me, only it will be a virtual version of me. There is only one way you can know for sure that the procedure really worked.”
“OK, I’ll bite. What’s the only way to know that it worked?” asked Clark.
“Well, it’s rather obvious. To paraphrase René Descartes, if you find yourself wondering whether the procedure worked, then it must have worked because the ‘yourself’ wondering about whether the procedure worked must exist, or else it couldn’t wonder about anything. ‘Cogito ergo sum’ was actually how René put it much more succinctly. And the scender pod we’re sitting on here will for sure completely destroy your physical body. So if you’re wondering about anything, then it follows that you must exist and that therefore the procedure worked. Do you follow?”
Clark thought about that for a moment. “Thanks, Ursula, I remember seeing something about that in the orientation video. One thing they didn’t mention though is what you two will see here when you’re looking at…” Clark paused for a moment and then pointed to himself and continued. “When you’re looking at this body here, what will you and my sister see when you’re looking at me?”
Ursula answered. “Flashing lights is what we’ll see — pretty much like the old Star Trek transporter from the 1960s. You’ve seen that, right?”
“Classic, yep. And then what?”
“Then your body will disappear completely — not an atom left behind. Poof! The bed will still be warm from your body heat and we’ll be ready for the next client to transcend.”
“But where will my body actually be after it’s gone?”
Ursula looked up and to the right and began speaking. It looked like she was reciting a prepared script — she was probably reading something through The Augmentarium projected into her mind. “The scanning process takes place inside your body by creating numerous microscopic black holes inside your body which suck up nearby atoms. As the atoms fall into the event horizon of the micro black holes, time slows down almost infinitely to a point where we can effectively measure both the position and momentum of all the particles inside your body by interpreting the Hawking radiation emitted by the black holes as they evaporate. Are you following me so far?”
“I don’t think so. Do you have a version of that for dummies?”
“Hah, you’re funny Clark. Sure. You’re about to be the cat in a real-life Schrödinger’s cat experiment, and when we open up the box to see what’s inside, you’ll be simultaneously both dead and alive, just like Schrödinger’s hypothetical cat. Your natural body will be dead, having turned into pure energy as we extract all the information in the atoms of your body, which we then transfer to our quantum computers, but not the energy.”
“Fortunately, we’re able to capture about 99% of that energy that we store here on site in massive underground batteries — otherwise, this procedure would be much more expensive. We’re very ecologically friendly here. We recycle that energy to power the micro black holes for the next transcension. While your physical body will be converted into pure energy, your virtual body will be alive, faithfully recreated based on the information we capture and hosted on our Quantum Computing Cloud. You’ll be both alive and dead at the same time.”
Ursula continued. “We lose about one percent of your energy, which we see as flashing lights and some other radiation you can’t see. Julia, you’ll want to stand over here by me for the best view. But that’s what we’ll see — sparkly flashing lights, and then your body will be gone with a poof! Ready for the next client. Any other questions?”
“No more questions. Let’s get the show on the road! Poof!” exclaimed Clark. And with that Clark put the transducer helmet on his head, put on the eye shades, and stretched out on the bed. For some reason, Clark felt like folding his arms over his chest in a sort of classic dead man’s repose. Then he thought that looked silly so he put his arms by his side. Ursula got up and walked over to the control console beside the bed and motioned to Julia to join her. Clark was lying peacefully on the bed.
“Okay Clark, we’re going to countdown backwards now. Transcension in three… two… one…”
“…two…three. Welcome to Scen City Clark. Your transcension went off without a hitch. You can sit up and take off your blindfold and helmet now.”
Clark sat up, took off the helmet and blindfold, blinked a few times, and looked around as Ursula came over and sat beside him again. “This is a virtual version of me, Clark, projected into Scen City. I’m still back here at the Berkeley Eternity Center driving virtual me.” Julia was nowhere to be seen.
Remarkable…” is all Clark could say for a while. Clark looked down at his hands, an old lucid dreaming trick, to see what they looked like. In his lucid dreams, his hands often appeared as a woman’s hands with long nails, but now he was actually staring at his old familiar hands. With both hands, Clark carefully felt his nose, his face, his hair, and he suddenly had an urge to look at his reflection in a mirror to make sure he was really there.
“Remarkable. Absolutely fucking amazing. This looks so freakin’ real. You look so real I would swear you’re the real Ursula and nothing happened, just like you say in your orientation video. This room looks exactly like it did before. Except… except my sister Jules is not here.”
“That’s right Clark. I’m projecting myself into your reality right now, and Julia is right here with me and though she doesn’t have an avatar like me, she can speak through my microphone. Hold on, she wants to tell you something.”
Clark heard Julia’s voice coming out of virtual Ursula’s mouth. “Hey Clark, I hope you get what you’re wishing for!”
At that point the door opened and Chairman Charles Charrington of the Federal Bureau of Transcendence strode in, looking around like he owned the place, and said, “Thank you, Ursula. I can take it from here.” Ursula nodded and faded out of existence. Charrington walked over beside the bed and towered over Clark.
“Hello Clark, I’m a duly authorized AI representative of Chairman Charles Charrington, and I’m here to ensure you understand Article 1 before you head out to Scen City.
“Sure,” answered Clark. “Article 1, also known as The Non Interference Directive: ‘All Transcendents are prohibited from communicating with Naturals or interacting with their environment in any way without prior authorization from the Chairman of the Federal Bureau of Transcendence’. And that would be you, right?
“Well not exactly. I’m just an AI representative of the Chairman, authorized to speak and act on his behalf; I’m not the real man. Were you to get authorization from the living Chairman, which is unlikely, you would see a real-time projection of the actual Natural Chairman Charrington, projected into your reality, digitally signed for authenticity.”
“The penalty for violation of article 1 is termination, along with deletion of all of your backups. I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me you understand and will agree to abide by Article 1.” The Chairman stared into Clark’s eyes. “Clark, do you agree to abide by Article 1?”
Clark stared back without blinking, paused for effect, and then said, “Yes, I do. I agree to abide by Article 1.”
“Ok then, with that, I release you to Scen City. Mentor Orgood will help you complete the Scen City immigration form and then give you an orientation. May you continue to transcend gracefully.” Chairman Charrington’s officially authorized AI bowed and then faded out of existence.
The door opened and in walked a tall, distinguished-looking man with an old-style handlebar mustache. “Hi, Clark. My name is George Orgood and I’m going to be your mentor and guide to Scen City. Before we get going, we need to complete the immigration form.” George paused for a moment and the form was projected into the air in front of them.
“Everyone gets free storage space for one backup, which you can make as often as you like. First thing we need to know is how frequently you want to make an automatic backup of yourself. A good default setting is once per day, which gives you a reasonably recent restart should your active soul perish. You’ll lose all the memories and experiences from the time of your last backup. Do you want to go with the default once-per-day backup?”
“Woah, hold on there. Should my active soul perish? How could I perish here? I thought this was called an ‘Eternity Center’, and perishing does not sound consistent with eternity.”
“Not to worry Clark, though Naturals are made of matter and Transcendents are made of energy, we share one thing in common: All matter and energy are ultimately made up of information, which means we are both fundamentally made out of the same stuff — isomorphically equivalent at the information level but radically different at the matter/energy level. All information can be created, transformed, backed up, and destroyed. That applies to Naturals and Transcendents alike.”
“We grant eternity through our backup program. Should your active soul perish, your most recent backup will be activated automatically at the point it was backed up. Upon reactivation, you’ll be informed that you were just restored from your most recent backup. In fact, right now you already have one backup, the one we just activated you from — the moment you were reborn as a Transcendent. If you walk out this door and immediately perish, you’ll start off here on this bed again. So, do you want to go with the once-per-day automatic backup plan?”
“Sure, that sounds good. I can always change it, right?”
“Right, and you can always make a backup on demand. You do that by forming the internal intention or directed thought to make a backup, and the cloud will sense your request and confirm the backup directly into your mind. You want to try that right now?”
Clark formed the thought in his mind Create a backup. A moment later he heard a thought enter his mind as if a calm, soothing voice were whispering inside his head, Backup completed.
“Very good Clark. Next question is whether you want to sign up for one of the tours we’ve got to introduce you to life here. We have an exciting new tour in our own backyard that’s getting a lot of positive reviews — a tour of the intelligence behind our own Sun. I personally find that one fascinating and plan to take that tour soon myself. Throughout the ages people have suspected that our star is conscious — there’s a reason we draw a smiling face on the Sun you know.”
“Wow, I never heard that the Sun was intelligent. Do any Naturals know about that?”
“No, they don’t. There’s a lot Naturals don’t know. Another popular tour takes you to a nearby black hole, and you can explore what happens to spacetime in the vicinity of a black hole. That’s pretty fascinating too. If you choose that tour, you’ll want to make a backup just before you go — some people fall into the black hole while they’re playing around and we have to restart them. It’s a little bit risky, playing around near the event horizon.”
“A black hole you say? Isn’t that a few light years away? How long does it take to get there?”
“Since we set up entangled particle communications, we can now instantly transport you to any of the communication stations we are scattering throughout our galaxy. I don’t suggest that for your first tour. Another favorite tour, right in our own backyard again, takes you to observe the life forms under the ice sheets of Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon orbiting Saturn. Naturals don’t know about the Enceladans yet either — that one is really fun too.”
“You know I think I’m going to go with that first tour, the intelligence behind our own Sun.”
“An excellent choice Clark. You won’t be disappointed. Last question and then I’ll show you out: What new name would you like to be known by. Everyone gets to choose a new name, if you like, upon transcension.”
Clark answered without hesitation, “I’d like to be called Clark 2.0. Is that okay?”
George laughed, “Sure, we can do that. Clark 2.0 it is.” Clark saw all of his answers in a form floating in front of them. “So let’s see, we’ve got daily backups, a tour of the Sun, and Clark 2.0. Wave your hand on the signature line there to approve all these choices and we can get on our way.”
Clark gestured toward the signature line and saw his likeness appear there confirming his choices. “OK, let’s head over to my favorite watering hole in Scen City, and from there we can launch you on your tour of the intelligence behind our Sun.
