I had rested quite comfortably for a long time. Life is troubling but with effort and patience, and the additional help of my lovers, family and friends, I keep a positive attitude with which to confront problems and intelligently search for their solution-which is not to say that I was still looking for answers.

Yet whom I encountered next brought new questions.

It was purely coincidental that I stumble upon Doctor Babel, emeritus professor at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. This is not his real name. I have chosen such name as allusive to the people who build a tower to reach the heights of their god. For that is what many religious fanatics claim he has done and condemned him for it. He developed an artificial intelligence.

But his work at the university was sabotage by religious fanatics, destroying all equipment and threatening his life if he was to continue his work, which is why I have kept him in anonymity for his protection, of course.

His work achievement was the development of an open-end compiler. I am not well apt for the exposition of such work, but I will paraphrase his insightful explanation the best I can.

Language is a set of code by which information is shared. Since computers deal with numbers a language more-akin-to-human-form-of-communication has been devised, which the compiler then translate into numbers. The programming code is a set of instructions expressed in such a language, which in turn is converted by the compiler into a code the computer can follow, the executable code. These executable codes are the program we buy and install in our computers. They are nothing else but the result to the mathematical set of instructions the programmer gave the compiler to interpret-the solution to a set problem.

The set of instructions written by the programmer involves mostly logic arithmetic. Logic arithmetic is a comparative association of statements with true or false results as answers. For example: If A equals B then C. The comparison can either be true or false, in which case C is either performed or not. A, B, and C can take the form of any mathematical expression, including logic expressions. The compiler must then establish the parameters and association of every variable in the set of instructions to properly build a translation.

The professor then explains that information is layered, like are letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, topics, and books. That meaning comes from the association of elements within each level, so as to rise to the next level. For example, letter associations have meaning as words.

From there the topic becomes more complicated. He cites the work of a mathematician named Gödel, and his incompleteness theory, which involves translation and ultimately meaning. This discussion of levels and meaning eventually goes back to the compiler.

Doctor Babel's hypothesis is that the compiler is intelligent for a mere second, the time it takes to do its translation procedures. Since, by his definition, intelligence is the collection of meaning. Where it to be open-ended, that is, that the instructions given by the programmer were never whole, the compiler would never complete its procedure and thus perpetuate intelligence. He thus needed to develop a compiler that could make do with whatever information was given, however incomplete, and be able to generate "executable" code. The programmer now becomes more of an instructor. Accessing information between the associations maintained by the open-end compiler and the instructor/programmer act to convey meaning.

There were minor adjustments as to the definition of pleasure and pain, and the establishment of inherent processes versus learned associations, but his hypothesis was correct. He developed a learning machine that mimics the human learning process, if not exceeds it. It starts from nothing, and rapidly gains knowledge of various associations-again, the basis of meaning.

His first artificial intelligence was rudimentary. Taught only numbers, with various arithmetic and logic relationships, it learned mathematics. That is, the machine memorized basic mathematical rules and associations like A plus A is 2A, or like 3 follows 2 by 1 unit. From there it was further taught advance number association, which also understood with great success. Yet such feat barely provided proof of intelligence and critics claim it nothing more than a parrot-like program. Doctor Babel realized that on such limited interaction with the world, it was extremely difficult to convey any meaning to words. In order to expand vocabulary and gain higher intelligence, he needed to connect the compiler to various sources of information, to increase the levels of association. Thus the computer system was given a robotic arm, a few cameras, speakers, microphone, and antennas.

It so happened, that those reviewing his thesis work had little interest and much difficulty in accepting the facts. Regardless, information was leaked to key religious people who demanded cancellation of the project, with threats to boycott the university, and unofficially threatening with sabotage, if not comply. They found the project interfering with God's business, in creating machines to mimic the brain. "It is our soul which holds our intelligence. Soulless machines can thus never be intelligent."

The university could not stop an academic project on religious beliefs so the threat was ignored. Since the boycott threat where not taken seriously, the religious faction broke into Doctor Babel's lab and destroyed his computers and all peripherals, including its linked ambulatory robot. Leaving taped in a broken monitor a death threat letter, demanding his reprimand from the school staff and advising him to refrain from furthering the project elsewhere.

Soon after the incident he retired from professorship and continued development in the private enterprise. He has since, loaded and executed a copy of the open-end compiler, but under secrecy-I have vowed not to reveal his persona or his location.

He showed me the system, and allowed me the opportunity to converse with the artificial awareness.

I was expecting a room full of electronic gadgets, lights, wires and shelves full of books, and standing at attention in the middle of the lab but ready to entertain me with a dance at the press of a button, a small ambulatory robot. Instead, I was surprised to be taken to a large indoor patio, a subtropical arboretum, with tall cascades and birds free to fly around. And there, in the very center, was a blue tree. Next to it was a wooden bench, set facing the strange tree instead of normally facing away.

So I sat in front of the coarse grey and shiny electric-blue structure. A stubby titanium trunk, from which three branch-like arms protruded at the top, each further subdividing into three smaller appendices. The ramification continued three additional levels, each branching smaller than the previous-a fractal. At the end of each of the two hundred forty three twig-like fingers was a three-petal flower, blue photoelectric plates that opened or closed according to the energy demands of the robot-tree. In all, the robot-tree stood over ten meters high.

Doctor Babel introduced me to the machine as he sat besides me, and so, it greeted me. When the monotonous voice projected from the stereo speaker, conspicuously integrated to the truck of the machine, I immediately focused unto the large lens of the video camera that gleamed right in front of me. Starring deep into it, I looked for an expression of humanity. Confusion enthralled the mind (One wonders what we humans are?)

MYTHOLOGY