'Doppelgänger' - a short story by Adam Carlton

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“I don't want to die, Father,” I say to the priest, squirming on the plastic chair next to my bed.

Squirming.

Strange that a chaplain would be so squeamish. About heaven and hell, the baggage of his trade.

“This is the time to take stock of your life, to prepare for judgement, André... ,” the priest says.

But I’m no longer listening. I’m thirty-four, a mathematician at the École Polytechnique. Some success under my belt and so much more to give. I’m not minded to check out so easily.

“Thank you, Father,” I say, waving him away. He looks at me oddly, muttering something which sounds a lot like ‘denial’ under his breath.

So they send in the psychologist.

---

Dr P_ looks smart and businesslike. It’s pleasing not to be patronised for a change.

How is André feeling this morning? You are going to eat your porridge aren't you, or shall I be cross?

“Leukaemia, right? Terminal? How long do they give you?“

I decide to test him.

“It's a Poisson process. Mean survival time - as of today - is five days.”

He doesn’t blink an eye.

“Like radioactive decay, huh? We'd better get a move on, then!”

“If I were seventy,” I explain wearily, “with all my creative years behind me, well it would be different. I'd be happy to mulch back into the biosphere, my work done. But, ...”

I wave weakly and helplessly,

“... I'm just not ready to go.“

Dr P_ gives me a sympathetic look.

“Not much we can do about your personal Poisson process, I accept that. But reflect on this. Personal extinction is really something quite different. Something considerably more tractable.”

I may look confused; I certainly feel it.

The psychologist pulls up his tablet.

“I've got your details here. All those psychometric tests you did?”

He looks at me in mock admiration.

“IQ of 145, it says here. Not quite genius level but you must be one in a million.”

“1,300 in a million,” I correct him.

I'm beginning to warm to this guy.

“I'm looking at your Five-Factor and Myers-Briggs stats now,” he continues. “It says here you’re: flippant and facetious; careless about things which don’t interest you; tunnel-visioned and obsessive about the things which do.”

“That’s not so exceptional,” I say, “For a mathematician.”

He leans towards me, suddenly more serious.

“Personal identity is a strange old thing,” he says. “Every night you turn yourself off. Every morning you reboot yourself. A new you for a new day.”

He holds up his hand at my skeptical frown: where's he going with this?

“Listen. Hear me out. If you woke up tomorrow with amnesia, remembering nothing of your previous life, but still feeling some ineffable sense of your you-ness, is that still you?

I nod, humouring him. I know such things have happened. It wouldn't be ideal, but .. .

"Sure. It’s not like you’re dead."

Dr P_ stands up.

“Approximately a billion people in the world have been sequenced by now and their results put online for research purposes. In my professional capacity I have ..  André, are you listening?“

I suppress a yawn. Always interesting to hear about a colleague's work.

In any case, he hadn't stopped.

“I want you to think about the test-retest box around your psychometric score. Sure, it's tight but there are a lot of people out there. We'll run the PGS algorithms but I can tell you right now with greater than 99% certainty.  

"You have a doppelgänger out there somewhere."

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Two days later a mathematics professor died at the tender age of thirty-four. It was remarked that his face had a peaceful expression, maybe even the hint of a smile.

---

It was another beautiful morning on the Ukrainian steppe as Katya left her parents’ cottage to cycle the ten kilometres to Institute 14, a school for the precociously-gifted.

On arrival, Katya logged-in and found an unexpected email. It was from Paris, France via anonymized routing. The author, a clinical psychologist, apologised for not being able to greet her properly - confidentiality required that he should know nothing of her identity or location in the world.

The message was simply for her information. A very promising mathematician, Professor André Z_ had just passed away, and the computers had identified her as being an uncanny match in personality and intellect.

There was a link to her mental twin's Wikipedia page. If she wished she could check out her doppelgänger’s life history and accomplishments. No specific action was required on her part and there would be no further communication.

Katya, mildly curious, scanned the article and then deleted the message. It was quickly forgotten as she hurried off to her first class of the day, in advanced statistics.

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The film "Conclave"

 

We went to see "Conclave" (the film) this afternoon. I had read Robert Harris's novel and was expecting a kind of fashionably-liberal attack on Catholicism but was pleasantly surprised. Stereotypes and cheap shots were not much in evidence and the characterisations and 'political positions' of the various papal candidates seemed plausible.

It's refreshing to see a film which is adult enough to differentiate between the mission of the Church and its all-too-fallible leadership.

We know by the ending of the film (as in the book) where its true feelings lie, and it's hard to disagree. When "Love thine Enemy" comes into conflict with "Smite thine Enemy" we surely have a suspicion where the New Testament stands.

And yet: Jesus had in mind the imminence of the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven, facilitated by the expression of universal empathy and acceptance. However: if you will the means you have to will the ends: loving your enemy when he doesn't love you is a quick trip to martyrdom - and at a community level - extinction. Perhaps that doesn't matter if the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand but most people - most Catholics - would fight back under those circumstances.

We do now know in wonderfully vivid detail how the Conclave works.

There Is No Such Thing as ‘Now’

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Does the universe know it is ‘now’? No it does not. Special and general relativity describe a cosmos without any unique concept of 'nowness'. The notion of ‘now,’ far from being an absolute, is a fleeting, local and arbitrary phenomenon - a creation of consciousness rather than any well-defined property of the universe.

The Psychological Construction of ‘Now’

‘Nowness’ makes sense only within a specific context: conscious agents who are physically small and in close proximity. Smallness ensures that cognition remains coherent, unaffected by signal-propagation delays in the brain (or computing cluster); proximity ensures that signal-propagation delays in information transfer between agents remain negligible. Within this narrow domain, collective cognition synchronises to what feels like a shared present.

Consciousness is localised in the present

Consciousness, the self-aware experience of existence, is wholly localised in the present. It inhabits a single time-slice of the vast and universal expanse of space-time. The rest of what we think of as time, the past and the future, exists only as constructs available to present consciousness. Memory recreates an image of the past, and anticipation projects an image of the future. We live neither in the past nor the future but are psychologically perpetually anchored in the fleeting now.

Is that a logically-necessary property of consciousness? I have no idea. Maybe it derives from the differential nature of the laws of physics.

You do not fear death

Fear of anticipated future perils is rational and necessary. It motivates action to mitigate threats: our evolutionary imperative to survive.

Putting the fear of painful, distressing dying to one side, fear of death itself deserves a different treatment. Death is non-consciousness beyond some future point in time. To fear this is as irrational as fearing the non-consciousness of a dreamless night.

You say scornfully that you expect to wake up tomorrow when you go to sleep tonight. Yet - right now - you are not that tomorrow person; you only imagine them. Perhaps you have a warm feeling towards that anticipated person who you identify with your present self, an amour de soi? 

In which case there is not a fear of death itself - that abstraction! - but a present anticipation of the future loss of a loved one, someone pretty similar to you! Grief, not fear.

This would be similar to how you empathically anticipate how your lack of existence from tomorrow would cause suffering to your family and friends; understandable and wholly merited emotions for you to feel in this current moment of the present: no-one said we should be indifferent to the many negative consequences of death to those still living.

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Foliation in SR and GR - a ChatGPT briefing

From ResearchGate

Introduction

Foliations formalize the concept of the present moment in special and general relativity. Unlike the naive intuition that 'now' is a unique and universal moment in the history of the universe, relativity theory demonstrates that foliations depend on the observer's state of motion and local spacetime curvature.

In the flat spacetime of special relativity, foliations are distinct for inertial observers moving at different relative velocities. In the curved spacetimes of general relativity, particularly near regions of extreme curvature such as the event horizons of rotating black holes where spacetime becomes highly distorted leading to effects such as 'frame-dragging', foliations may not exist globally.

In these extreme scenarios, time is no longer orthogonal to space. This implies that even a relativized notion of a coherent 'now' can break down in such extreme environments, leaving no consistent way to define a universal 'now,' even for a single observer.

This sets up tomorrow's post: "There Is No Such Thing as ‘Now’".

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Foliation in Special and General Relativity

Foliation is a geometric concept used in spacetime theories to represent the decomposition of a four-dimensional manifold into a family of three-dimensional hypersurfaces. This allows for a clearer understanding of spacetime dynamics, observers' perspectives, and the structure of the universe. Below, the concept is outlined in the contexts of both special relativity and general relativity.

1. Foliation in Special Relativity

Spacetime Structure

• In special relativity, spacetime is modeled as a flat, four-dimensional Minkowski manifold.
• It has a global structure, where spacetime can be divided into three-dimensional spacelike hypersurfaces labeled by a time parameter t.

Slices of Spacetime

• Simultaneity Hypersurfaces: A foliation in special relativity corresponds to slicing spacetime into surfaces of constant time t as perceived by an inertial observer. These slices represent "events happening at the same time" for that observer.
• Coordinate System: Using an inertial frame of reference, the Minkowski metric ensures a natural foliation where time and space are clearly separated. Note that spacetime foliations representing "now" for inertial observers in relative motion generally do not coincide as 3D hyperplanes in spacetime. This is due to the relativity of simultaneity in special relativity, which states that different observers in relative motion will disagree on what events are simultaneous.

Importance

This foliation is consistent across all inertial observers due to the uniformity of the Minkowski metric. It simplifies calculations in special relativity, particularly for problems involving dynamics or causality.

2. Foliation in General Relativity

Spacetime Structure

• In general relativity, spacetime is curved and described by a four-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifold with the Einstein field equations governing its geometry.
• There is no inherent global structure, and foliations depend on the spacetime geometry and the choice of observers or coordinates.

ADM Formalism

• In numerical relativity, the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) formalism employs foliation to describe spacetime evolution:
  • Spacetime is foliated into a family of spacelike hypersurfaces Σ_t, each labeled by a time parameter t.
  • The metric on the spacetime is decomposed into:
    • The induced metric on the hypersurface Σ_t.
    • The lapse function, governing the rate of time flow between successive slices.
    • The shift vector, describing the relative motion of spatial coordinates between slices.

Dynamical Description

Foliation allows for the study of spacetime dynamics through "3 + 1 decomposition," where the Einstein field equations are split into:

• Constraint equations, governing each hypersurface's internal geometry.
• Evolution equations, determining how the geometry changes between hypersurfaces.

Applications

• Black Hole Spacetimes: Foliation helps describe event horizons and singularities by selecting hypersurfaces that adapt to physical features of the spacetime.
• Cosmology: In the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric, spacetime is foliated into constant-time slices corresponding to the universe's homogeneous and isotropic expansion.

Observer-Dependent Foliations

Observers in curved spacetime can define their own foliations, often dependent on their motion or gravitational effects. Examples include:

• Null Foliation: Hypersurfaces of constant null coordinates, used in the study of light cones.
• Constant Proper Time Foliation: Used for timelike observers, where slices correspond to the observer's proper time.

3. Key Differences Between Special and General Relativity

Aspect	Special Relativity	General Relativity
Spacetime Geometry	Flat Minkowski spacetime	Curved spacetime with a dynamic metric
Global Structure	Global foliation exists universally	Foliation depends on local geometry
Coordinate Systems	Inertial frames define natural foliation	Observer-dependent or ADM formalism required
Applications	Simple dynamics and causality problems	Black holes, cosmology, and numerical studies

Conclusion

Foliation is a versatile tool in both special and general relativity, facilitating the analysis of spacetime's structure and evolution. While in special relativity it is straightforward due to the flat geometry, in general relativity, it becomes a sophisticated mathematical technique tailored to the curvature and dynamics of spacetime.

Onan: Gratuitous Theological Misinterpretation

An observation from my friend Claude: written-up by ChatGPT

Genesis 38 contains the story of Onan, a tale often misunderstood and misapplied. Here is the key passage:

“Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn; her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death.

Then Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother's wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.’ But since Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, he spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his brother's wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother.

What he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.” (Genesis 38:6-10)

Cultural Context and Onan's Motivation

This story revolves around the ancient practice of "levirate marriage", where a man was obligated to marry his deceased brother’s widow to produce offspring on his behalf. Any child from this union would legally inherit the deceased brother’s name and property. Onan’s act of spilling his semen was not just contraception but a calculated move to deny his brother’s lineage while maintaining an appearance of compliance. Onan’s selfishness - putting his inheritance above his duty - was the core issue, and God’s punishment reflects this breach of moral and social order.

The Church’s Use and Misuse

Over time, the Church interpreted this story to condemn not just Onan’s selfishness but also certain sexual practices, including contraception and masturbation. Early theologians like St. Augustine, influenced by natural law theory, emphasized the procreative purpose of sexuality. Onan’s act - interpreted as contraceptive - was generalized to include masturbation, as both were seen as “wasting” reproductive potential.

This overextension arose from focusing on Onan’s physical act rather than its context. While the Church’s broader teaching on sexuality aimed to safeguard its procreative and unitive purposes, the Genesis account per se is not about masturbation. It highlights familial duty, justice, and Onan’s moral failure, not the morality of specific sexual acts.

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The Prospects for Western Europe (ChatGPT)

The Prospects for Western Europe

Consider a Western European country with a population and size equivalent to the UK, France, or Germany. It has the following characteristics:

• Its government is weak and incapable of taking hard decisions. The legislature is composed of multiple factions, each beholden to special interests in civil society and each capable of vetoing decisive action.
• The state apparatus—the civil service—is process rather than results-oriented, overly bureaucratic, and incompetent in project management. It prefers producing elegant reports to getting things done and is highly skilled in defending itself against reforms.
• The tax rate is high, the budget deficit has been in excess of 6% for decades, and the national debt exceeds 100% of GDP. The country is living beyond its means and has done so for many years.
• The bulk of the budget goes to pay off debt and fund generous social care, which no political group feels it can trim. Productivity is low because costs are high and profitability is poor, restricting capital investment. The working environment is filled with restrictive practices that are tenaciously defended by unions, holding back progress.
• People are widely discontented. Public services, being underfunded and unproductive, are increasingly experienced as breaking down. However, public service institutions resist reform, which would disrupt their rather congenial existing arrangements. The defence sector is an underfunded, undersized, and under-equipped mess.
• Meanwhile, enemy states are spending much more on military budgets and showing expansionary tendencies. However, in the country we are considering, there is no political will to increase the defence budget, as there is no money without cutting entitlement programmes, and that seems politically impossible.

This raises several questions. Firstly, has a situation like this occurred previously in history? If so, how did things turn out? Is the Weimar Republic in Germany a possible example of this state of affairs? Secondly, what kinds of political and economic issues would we expect this country to face over the next five to ten years? In particular, is the present form of democracy, which works as one vast veto network preventing reform, necessarily doomed?

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Over to ChatGPT: the following is an exploration of these issues.

The Historical Parallels

History offers several examples of nations trapped in similar cycles of decay and indecision:

The Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic (1919–1933) struggled with many of the same problems:

• A fragmented legislature with proportional representation that made decisive governance nearly impossible.
• Economic hardship exacerbated by hyperinflation in the early 1920s, followed by the Great Depression.
• High levels of debt and a reliance on short-term political compromises that avoided meaningful reforms.
• An underfunded and constrained defence sector, rendered impotent by the Treaty of Versailles.

Ultimately, the Republic collapsed, leading to the rise of an authoritarian regime under Adolf Hitler. External pressures—such as economic collapse and the rise of radical ideologies—acted as accelerants for the systemic weaknesses already in place.

Late Roman Republic

Another parallel is the late Roman Republic, which saw:

• A political system overwhelmed by the complexities of governing a vast and growing empire.
• Factionalism, corruption, and governance failures due to vested interests and resistance to structural change.
• The eventual reliance on authoritarian figures like Julius Caesar to bypass institutional paralysis.

This period ultimately resulted in the dissolution of the Republic and the establishment of the Roman Empire.

France Before the Revolution

In the late 18th century, France faced:

• High national debt and resistance to fiscal reform by entrenched elites (nobility and clergy).
• Public dissatisfaction with declining living standards and government inefficiency.
• A political system unable to implement meaningful change, leading to widespread unrest.

These conditions culminated in the French Revolution, which radically transformed the state and society.

Contemporary Challenges

Looking ahead, a country trapped in the cycle described above would face numerous challenges:

Economic Decline and Social Instability

Without fiscal reform, debt servicing will consume a growing portion of the budget, leaving little for public services or investment. Discontent over declining living standards could manifest as strikes, protests, and even rioting.

External Vulnerabilities

A weak defence sector plus lack of strategic resolve leaves the nation vulnerable to external aggression and/or economic coercion.

Political Gridlock and Legitimacy Crises

If democratic institutions continue to block necessary reforms, public trust will erode, and the nation may witness the rise of populist or authoritarian movements promising decisive action.

Institutional Resistance to Reform

Vested interests within bureaucracies and unions will resist change, even as their inefficiencies exacerbate the crisis. Reform attempts may provoke widespread backlash, worsening instability.

Is Democracy Necessarily Doomed?

Democracy is not inherently doomed by such circumstances, but it must adapt. There are historical examples of successful democratic reform:

• Post-WWII Germany and Japan underwent extensive overhauls under external guidance, resulting in more effective governance and sustainable welfare systems. Admittedly this was after state collapse following defeat in war.
• Sweden's crisis in the 1990s led to bipartisan fiscal reforms, tax restructuring, and deregulation, which preserved democratic stability and economic growth. At that time the Swedish people had enviable social cohesion and solidarity.

Possible Futures

The country could take one of several paths:

• Reform from Within: A "grand bargain" could emerge if political and civil society factions recognize the existential threat posed by the status quo.
• Radical Transformation: The system could enter an existential crisis, leading either to authoritarianism or even revolution.
• Gradual Decline: The nation might stagnate, becoming irrelevant on the global stage, a plaything of other, stronger states.

Conclusion

The Weimar Republic serves as a stark reminder of the consequences of failing to adapt to crises. While democracy is not destined to fail, resolving the current crises depends upon both a mass movement capable of overriding existing vested interests and a political leadership with the judgement to develop a workable reform programme for the next mode of Western governance - faced as it is with this myriad of new challenges. Be prepared to ride the tiger!

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Arguing Catholicism with a Secular Atheist (intro)

Claude reflecting on his argument...

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In which I meet with my previous acquaintance, Claude, who transitioned from the PCF to the Catholic Church. He recently fell to arguing with his atheist brother-in-law, André, and was keen to share details of their colourful conversation. Read more below.

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First conversation: A Catholic in 21st Century Paris.

Second conversation: Arguing Catholicism with a Secular Atheist.

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That Roger Penrose biography

 

Amazon link

I have just read this biography of Roger Penrose ("The Impossible Man" by Patchen Barss) and I am conflicted. The author has spent years researching the book, visiting key locations, interviewing most of the people who were central to Penrose's life and spending a large amount of time befriending Roger Penrose himself. 

There is a great deal of personal detail about the minutiae of Penrose's life and relationships: with parents, siblings, friends and ex-partners.

In the old days this could have been an interesting and insightful picture of an intriguing man and his truly transformational ideas in mathematics and physics. Yet, we no longer live in those days: to get published today one has to adopt a moralising, self-righteous and judgemental tone. 

Victims must be found and Roger Penrose must be found to be at fault.

It's not quite a hit-job, but it's in that paradigm. The author's hard work has given us a voyeuristic picture to be sure but it's not super-surprising: most lives are like that in kind if not degree. 

Such prurience might be forgiven if it led to deeper understanding but it does not. The author seems to think it's Penrose's fault that he turned out - in terms of emotional distance and intense intellectual focus - much like his father, but that doesn't surprise the majority of humanity who have heard the saying that 'the apple does not fall far from the tree'.

Peter Woit has a similar distaste for the patronising tone of this biography and its lack of interest in Penrose's specific accomplishments - although saying that Penrose's manner of relationships was typical of upper-class Englishmen of his generation (born in the 1930s) understates just how specifically detached from intimate emotional competence Roger Penrose actually was and is.

The comments on Woit's blog are interesting too. Someone said that Penrose's naivety led to him being taken advantage of by the author who kind of set him up - and that too sounds plausible.

There is room for a better book which does what Penrose himself failed to do in several of his own publications: explain what is unique and valuable in Roger Penrose's work in terms ordinary mortals can sort of understand.

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Trivia note: I spoke once to Professor Penrose on the telephone in the 1980s, when I led a team at the STL research lab in artificial intelligence: we were considering hiring from his post-doc team. Penrose was helpful but reserved, as I recall, as if talking to business people about non-science topics only necessitated the loan of a few neurons for the duration of the call...

"Cold Cold Ground" - but not yet please!

We had our own little medical drama two weeks ago today - on Sunday November 24th 2024 - which involved an hour's drive to Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton at 4 am through a ferocious storm with gales, torrential rain, flooding and fallen trees. Thankfully, like Walter Trout, we are getting back to where we need to be.

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"Cold, Cold Ground" - Walter Trout Band

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Lyrics

I can hear the angels callin'

I can't stand the sound

I can hear the angels callin'

I can't stand the sound

I need them to believe me

I ain't ready for the cold, cold ground

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I can see them waitin' for me

And they say that my time is through

I can see them waitin' for me

I hear them say that my time is through

I can't help believin' I got so much more to do

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"The Last Mission" by Adam Carlton (and ChatGPT)

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The sun set, a bloody disc sinking over the hills. Shadows crept long over the scrub surrounding their homestead. 

Inside the dwelling, Alice kneaded dough with calm precision, the flour coating her hands like a second skin. 

George, her husband, cleaned a rifle at the table with steady, practised movements.

Their daughter Martha, just fifteen years old, set the table, her eyes distracted by the screens, shimmering with thermal outlines of the grounds.

Rob, two years younger, sat cross-legged on the floor, tinkering with a small drone. 

---

The perimeter sensors suddenly chirped - a faint, rhythmic signal. George’s head snapped up - this was far from routine. The drone’s hum stilled as Rob turned it off. His sister froze, clutching a glass. Alice wiped her hands on her apron, slow and deliberate, and went across to the monitor.

“Another patrol,” she said, her voice steady. “But this time they’re approaching.”

“They’ve finally registered us,” George said, no doubt in his tone. He leaned the rifle against the wall and crossed to the cupboard. Inside, rows of sleek, black weapons gleamed. He handed his wife a sidearm, then passed another to Martha. Rob reached out, eager, but George hesitated before tossing him a compact blade.

“You stick close to your mother,” George said. “No heroics.”

Rob didn’t argue. He never argued with George when his voice went like that - hard and final. 

Alice loaded her weapon. “They’ll test the perimeter first,” she muttered

“They’ll probe the defences, then they’ll swarm,” George said. “We’ll hold them back as long as we can.”

“How long do we need to hold?” his daughter asked in a worried voice. Her fingers curled tight around the grip of her small pistol.

George didn’t answer. There was no clock on this one.

---

The attack came in waves. First, the alien drones - small, insectile things with serrated claws. The automated turrets at the perimeter cut them down, shredding their metallic bodies into useless fragments. Then came the foot soldiers - sleek, bipedal forms with eyeless helmets and limb-like rifles. These, too, fell. Mines detonated in sudden bursts of flame, and razor-wire traps snared the alien troopers like flies in a web.

Inside, the family fought on in silence. George issued clipped commands. Alice moved through the chaos like a ghost, her aim precise, her hands steady. Martha’s shots were fewer but lethal when they landed. Even Rob, crouched behind Alice, used his drone carefully to scout enemy positions, relaying critical data to the house defences.

But the enemy didn’t stop.

---

Hours later, they huddled in the main room. Smoke seeped through cracks in the walls. The defences were failing. Their ammunition was almost gone.

Alice sat on the couch exhausted, her face pale. Martha’s little hand trembled as she reloaded. Rob stared at the broken drone in his lap; it had flown back to his arms to die. George stood at the window, watching the erratic, flickering lights of the last barely-functioning turrets.

“We’re not getting out of this,” he said, almost to himself, turning to face them. 

The room went still. The words hung heavy, final.

“We still have one option left,” George continued, his voice low but firm. He looked at his wife. She met his gaze, her expression unreadable. They’d discussed this outcome before, but not in front of the kids.

“What option?” Rob cried from the floor, his voice small and wavering. He was on the brink of tears.

George crouched down, eye level with his son. “Do you trust me?”

Rob nodded. 

George looked to his daughter, Martha. She hesitated, then nodded too.

“Okay,” George said, standing. He took a deep breath. “The truth then… we’re not here to survive. Not in the way you think. Our mission was never about escape or rescue.”

“What are you talking about?” Martha asked, her voice rising, terror barely kept at bay.

George glanced again at Alice. She stood and took Martha’s hand. “We’re going to end this,” she said, “All of it. The aliens. The war. That’s what this mission is all about.”

“How?” Rob asked, his face a mix of confusion and fear.

George didn’t sugarcoat it. “We’re not just human anymore. We’ve all been… altered. If we die here - when we die here - our bodies will transform. We’ll become something new. Something the aliens can’t fight. A new kind of life that spreads. Grows. Adapts.”

Alice tightened her grip on Martha’s hand. “We’ll still be us, though,” she said softly. “We’ll still be together.”

Martha shook her head. “No. That’s crazy. You’re saying we just… going to die? Right now?”

George’s face hardened. “We don’t have a choice.”

---

They prepared themselves together, in silence. Alice gathered the family in a circle, her hands trembling only slightly as she pressed a kiss to each child’s forehead. Martha cried but didn’t pull away. Rob clung to her like he had when he was small, his arms tight around her waist.

George armed the last of the explosives: shaped charges rigged to explode in an ever-widening circle of destruction. But in the centre they would be unscathed, their bodies already primed for the change which would engulf them. 

“Positions,” he said, his voice gruff. 

They stood together, backs straight, faces set. Martha reached for her brother’s hand. He took it.

The aliens breached the last-ditch defences. They poured in like a tide, the last few metres towards the house, black and chittering, their weapons glowing with lethal energy.

George hit the trigger.

---

There was pain. Searing, blinding. Then… silence.

Darkness.

And then… light.

---

The wind swept over the savanna, rustling the tall, golden stalks. The plants swayed in unison, their movements synchronised, almost deliberate. Beneath the soil, roots intertwined, forming a vast network of thought and memory.

Alice was the first to wake. Not as she had been, but as something new. She felt the sun on her leaves, the warmth sinking deep into her core. She felt George beside her, his presence steady and familiar, like an old tree anchoring a forest. 

Martha and Rob stirred next, their thoughts blooming in vibrant colours. They reached out, connecting, their consciousnesses merging and separating in a fluid dance. There was no fear now. No pain. Only a profound sense of being.

The savanna spread, unstoppable, consuming everything in its path. The planet would be theirs, a haven of sunlight, rain, and wind.

Together, they would grow: forever.

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Author’s note: I wrote a 400 word character and plot outline for this Young Adult story and then asked ChatGPT (in its writer’s variant) to author it. I then spent about twenty minutes in a final edit, changing a few phrases here and there. Scary, isn’t it?

Panpsychism and the Hard Problem: A Dialogue with 'David Chalmers'

David Chalmers is a leading philosopher and cognitive scientist renowned for his influential contributions to the study of consciousness. Born in Sydney, Australia, in 1966, Chalmers initially studied mathematics before transitioning to philosophy, earning his Ph.D. from Indiana University under the supervision of Douglas Hofstadter. He is currently a professor at New York University, where he co-directs the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness.

Chalmers gained widespread recognition for coining the term "the hard problem of consciousness" in his 1995 paper presented at the Toward a Science of Consciousness conference. He distinguished this from the "easy problems" of consciousness, which concern explaining cognitive and behavioral functions in physical terms. The hard problem, however, pertains to explaining subjective experience itself - why and how physical processes in the brain give rise to the rich, qualitative phenomena known as qualia (e.g., the redness of red or the pain of a headache).

Chalmers is also known for his controversial advocacy of panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the universe. He argues that purely physical explanations cannot bridge the explanatory gap between brain processes and subjective experience. 

By positing that all matter has some form of proto-consciousness, panpsychism claims to provide a theoretical framework that bypasses the limitations of strict materialism while avoiding dualism's pitfalls.

I really wanted to explore these questions in more depth, but talking to Professor Chalmers is not easy. Instead, I asked ChatGPT to emulate him, based on his published work: here is the resulting interview.

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Panpsychism and the Hard Problem: A Dialogue with 'David Chalmers' (emulated by ChatGPT)

Q: Professor Chalmers, by positing consciousness everywhere, doesn’t panpsychism simply assume the phenomenon it’s trying to explain? Wouldn’t it be more intellectually honest to admit we just don’t know and focus elsewhere?

Chalmers: Panpsychism doesn’t simply assume consciousness but starts from the undeniable reality of subjective experience. The challenge is explaining why consciousness arises at all. Traditional materialist frameworks falter here, often treating experience as an inexplicable byproduct. Panpsychism, by contrast, hypothesizes that proto-conscious properties are fundamental, much like mass or charge, and seeks to explore how these could scale into complex conscious states. While the framework is speculative, it opens a conceptual path rather than surrendering to mystery or incomprehensibility.

Q: Even if proto-consciousness is fundamental, how do we move from this general philosophical paradigm to something scientifically productive? Taking your example of mass, where’s your equivalent of mass-energy equivalence or the Higgs field in your theory?

Chalmers: You’re right that panpsychism lacks a formal, testable model. But early scientific theories often began conceptually, as with the atomic theory of matter. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) hints at how consciousness might be quantified, but panpsychism suggests a deeper question: could proto-consciousness underlie physical processes in a way we haven’t yet modeled? The task is to bridge this gap through interdisciplinary exploration, acknowledging that we are at the earliest stages.

Q: Consciousness correlates strongly with complex neural systems. Isn’t it a category error to apply panpsychism at the level of elementary particles? It seems to distract from the real challenge of understanding how neural organization generates qualia. Also, could a brick feel pain? Could you torture a brick?

Chalmers: Panpsychism doesn’t claim particles are "conscious" in any meaningful sense but posits they may possess proto-conscious properties. These properties might combine in complex systems—like brains—to give rise to richer experiences. A brick, lacking the necessary integration and complexity, wouldn’t experience pain. The value of panpsychism is not in attributing consciousness to arbitrary objects but in reframing the hard problem: why does anything experience anything? This shift might inspire new ways of thinking about systems beyond neural ones, including artificial ones.

Q: But panpsychism doesn’t propose any useful research directions. It’s words without substance, offering no testable hypotheses or scientific programs. How do you respond to that?

Chalmers: I agree panpsychism is more a conceptual framework than a scientific theory at this stage. Its value lies in encouraging us to think differently about consciousness and its possible connection to fundamental reality. It challenges materialist assumptions and broadens the field of inquiry, including examining how organizational principles in biological or artificial systems correlate with experience. If panpsychism inspires a research program, it would need to explore measurable correlates of proto-consciousness and integrate insights from physics, neuroscience, and AI.

Q: Perhaps Dan Simmons captured the paradigm of panpsychism best in his Hyperion Cantos, where 'love' and 'empathy' characterise 'The Void Which Binds', described as a fundamental attribute of reality. Doesn’t this poetic vision summarize the idea’s speculative nature better than any theoretical framework could?

Chalmers: Simmons’ vision is a beautiful metaphor, and it captures something essential about the mystery of consciousness. Panpsychism, like his idea of The Void Which Binds, is not yet a theory—it’s a provocation, a scaffold for future inquiry. If nothing else, it pushes us to reimagine the universe as imbued with intrinsic qualities that defy easy categorization. Whether or not this leads to breakthroughs, it keeps alive the most profound questions about existence.

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The dialogue highlights both the intrigue and limitations of panpsychism. While Chalmers frames it as a conceptual alternative to materialism, critics might find it lacking in actionable science.

Perhaps, as Simmons suggested, the mystery of consciousness resembles The Void Which Binds in its ineffability - a reality we sense but cannot yet explain. Whether panpsychism offers a way forward or merely a philosophical detour remains an open question.

“The Final Weapon” - by Adam Carlton (and ChatGPT)

The air was brittle, heavy with the tang of ash and the faint ozone sting that hinted at the chemical remnants of war. François Duval stepped down from the shuttle, feeling the grit of the colony’s red dust grind into his shoes. The wind was sharper here, the sky a churn of grey and ochre. Somewhere in the distance, artillery whispered, the muffled sound of a battle already being lost.  

Behind him, Sylvette descended with her usual precision, her hand gripping the rail as though it were her only tether. Her face, composed into an expression of detached displeasure, scanned the decaying settlement ahead of them. She didn’t look at him. She never did when she could avoid it.  

The third to disembark was Violette Marchand. Her steps were lighter, almost deliberate in their care. She took in the surroundings with a gaze that seemed searching, not for beauty but for some hidden meaning beneath the ruin. Her presence unnerved François; she had a habit of looking at him as though she understood something about him that he himself could not grasp.  

Their cover was perfect: a trio of war correspondents dispatched to chronicle the final days of humanity’s presence on Desmona IV. They had press credentials, an itinerary pre-approved by military command, and enough weary professionalism to blend seamlessly with the colony’s shell-shocked survivors. No one here had the energy to probe beyond the surface. That suited François.

He had spent a lifetime hiding behind facades.  

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The colony was already a mausoleum. They arrived at the last functioning garrison, a skeletal command post dedicated to an increasingly irrelevant war effort. Once an outpost of promise, Desmona IV had been rendered into a blasted wasteland by the invaders.  

Their lodging, such as it was, stood on the edge of the settlement - a hollowed-out building that had once aspired to be a hotel. Its faded neon sign buzzed erratically: 'Welcome', it declared. François read the word with a bitter taste in his mouth.  

Inside, the air reeked of mildew and despair. The walls wept with moisture, a constant seepage from pipes that no one had bothered to repair. Their rooms were austere, barely more than bunks and battered desks. François unpacked in silence, his movements mechanical, his thoughts elsewhere.  

Sylvette, in the adjoining room, wasted no time surveying her space with a faint curl of distaste. His wife barely looked at him when he brought her a ration pack from the dwindling supply downstairs.  

“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice clipped.  

Her thanks felt like an accusation.  

---

The days passed in a grim rhythm. François kept himself busy cataloguing troop deployments, studying crumbling maps, and noting the positions of alien incursions. It was work that gave the illusion of importance, a distraction from the gnawing sense that they were part of something larger, something monstrous, and that their ignorance was deliberate.  

Sylvette approached her duties with the same detached competence that had characterised their marriage. She conducted interviews with exhausted soldiers and defeated colonists, extracting facts with surgical precision. No warmth, no pity—just a cold professionalism that left even the most battle-hardened survivors uneasy.  

Violette, by contrast, moved through the ruins like a spark of life. She spoke to everyone: children scavenging among the wreckage, soldiers gripping their rifles like talismans, medics patching wounds they knew would never fully heal. She listened; she consoled; she smiled. François caught himself watching her too often, drawn by the way her presence seemed to soften the edges of despair.  

He felt the weight of her gaze, too - gentle, probing, yet unrelenting. When she spoke to him, she chose her words carefully, as if aware of the fortress he had built around himself.  

“You’re carrying too much, François,” she said one evening, her voice quiet but insistent.  

“Everyone here is,” he replied, unwilling to look at her.  

“Not like you.”  

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The attack came at dusk, when the sky burned with the strange hues of the planet’s dying sun. The first explosion shattered the stillness, followed by a hailstorm of shrapnel and fire. François reacted instinctively, shielding Sylvette as debris rained down.  

When the tremors ceased, she shoved him off.  

“Don’t coddle me,” she hissed, her face pale, her breathing ragged.  

He wanted to argue but held back. She had grown so brittle, so remote, and yet he could still see the faint flicker of defiance that had once drawn him to her.  

Two days later, she collapsed.  

François found her in the street, her hands clutching her chest, her lips drawn tight with pain. He knelt beside her, shouting for help, but none came.  

Her eyes fixed on him, and for a fleeting moment, he thought he saw something softening in her gaze. But then the light faded, leaving only the hollow shell of a woman who had despised him even as she needed him.  

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After the funeral - a perfunctory affair in a settlement too battered for ceremony - François retreated to his room. He sat in silence, the weight of Sylvette’s death pressing down on him.  

“You couldn’t have saved her,” Violette said. She stood in the doorway, her voice steady, her expression open.  

“I failed her,” he replied, his voice raw. “I failed her every day of our marriage.”  

“You stayed,” Violette said. “That means something.”  

He looked at her then, really looked. There was no judgement in her gaze, only an unguarded warmth that felt like a balm on his wounds.  

---

That night, the truth revealed itself.  

When they came together, it was not out of passion but necessity, a union forged by shared grief and a strange, unspoken compulsion. The moment their skin touched, the air seemed to shimmer.  

Memories not their own surged through their minds: laboratories, gene splicing, whispered conversations about a “biotic solution.” They saw their own bodies, altered and prepared for a final act of transformation.  

“We were made for this,” Violette whispered, her voice trembling in dawning realisation.  

Their bodies began to change. Pain and ecstasy blurred as flesh gave way to something new: roots, fibres, seeds. By dawn, the room was empty, save for a scattering of pods that glistened in the pale light.  

---

The invaders swept into the settlement, their grotesque forms moving with chilling precision. They did not notice the seeds carried by the wind, nor the roots that spread beneath their feet.  

Within days, the ecosystem turned against them. Plants erupted from the soil, vines choking their machines, toxins seeping into the air. The invaders faltered, then fell, consumed by a planet that had been weaponised against them.  

François and Violette awoke within the growing forest, their consciousnesses intertwined. They were no longer human, but something greater—a single will bound to the planet itself.  

Together, they watched as life returned to Desmona IV. Together, they would ensure it endured.

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Author’s note: A Young Adult story written from multiple, detailed draft-prompts by ChatGPT (in Writer mode). It has few pretensions to true literary quality. But all the more readable for that. The plot is, strangely, based on a true story.

"Extinction Event" by Adam Carlton (intro)

In "Extinction Event" by Adam Carlton, humanity stands on the brink of annihilation as a massive asteroid - far more lethal than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs - hurtles toward Earth.

Dr. Mara Ayrton, a brilliant but solitary scientist, first discovers the impending disaster, but her findings spark panic, not preparedness. As nations scramble to suppress the news, others seek salvation in prophecy, belief, and rebellion.

From the solemn halls of government secrecy to turbulent churches and military barracks, society fractures in both desperation and conviction. And in the final hours, as the countdown to impact ticks relentlessly onward, one question haunts them all: in the face of inevitable destruction, what remains worth fighting for?

And what would you do in the name of survival?

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Read "Extinction Event" by Adam Carlton (7,000 words). You may be interested that a major character in this story is President Trump.

A short interview with John Fowles (via ChatGPT)

 

A watercolour of Clare in Lyme Regis: June 2006

The English author John Fowles (1926-2005) wrote “The Magus” (1965); “The French Lieutenant's Woman” (1969) - a Victorian-era romance with a postmodern twist that was set in Lyme Regis, Dorset, where Fowles lived for much of his life; “The Ebony Tower” (1974); “Daniel Martin” (1977); “Mantissa” (1982); and “A Maggot” (1985).

His biography: “John Fowles - A Life in Two Worlds” and his journals also aid in the reconstruction of John Fowles’s views and character.

I would add that my own favourite John Fowles novel is “Daniel Martin” which is a semi-autobiographical account of his Hollywood screenwriting years following the success of his earlier novels.

John Fowles was of the same generation as my father (1925-2009).

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Me. It is said that it is difficult to be the wife of a (male) writer of literary fiction. You said somewhere that a writer is someone who doesn’t like their given reality very much, preferring the realities dreamt up within their own head. Many male writers’ thoughts naturally tend towards women and romantic/erotic encounters. You also said that, like many of your peers, you always fell in love with your female characters. Very Thomas Hardy!

And there was poor Elizabeth, your wife, doomed to hours of boredom downstairs while you were happily ensconced in your study writing thousands of words fantasising about your own ideal women, fantasies which she had to believe represented your ‘improvements’ upon her, while also stripping her of her privacy. Any comments?

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John Fowles: Indeed, Elizabeth bore a complex burden, one that I’ve often wrestled with myself—though perhaps not enough. Writers, especially those in the throes of constructing imagined worlds and complex characters, have a rather discomfiting tendency to neglect those closest to them, especially their partners. In her case, Elizabeth's sacrifice was the quiet tolerance of being not only the wife of a man often lost in fantasy but also someone whose love and life were continually mined, unwittingly and often unwillingly, for literary material.

I once said that writing is "an attempt to reach a reality I am denied in real life.” That statement acknowledges a painful truth: writing, especially for a male writer, can be an act of escapism—a selfish indulgence into the inner worlds of fantasy, love, and erotic idealizations. Elizabeth must have seen the life we shared as something like an exhibition hall where her own privacy, her own essence, was open to my ever-hungry gaze and, by extension, the world’s.

Yes, I fell in love with many of my characters, but it was a love entwined with my own limitations—a symptom of the yearning for some idealized, unattainable aspect of femininity. It was romantic, yes, but also escapist, immature, and, in some ways, quite selfish. I was aware that there was a cruelty to this process: Elizabeth could sense that in many ways she had to compete not with flesh-and-blood women, but with figments of my own imagination. And in this way, being the wife of a male writer is rather akin to loving a man who holds a mistress in his mind, and she is all the more unattainable and alluring for being his own creation.

You mention Hardy, and I do feel that kinship; his characters, like mine, were often born of a frustrated desire to reimagine or transcend his reality. He sought out, in his female characters, not only muses but ideals to save him from his everyday limitations. But the irony, of course, is that the more you pursue that imaginative escape, the more entangled you become in the harsh realities and pains of those who live alongside you. 

Perhaps, in the end, what writers owe their partners is more than mere apology; they owe them a confrontation with reality—a willingness to relinquish the allure of imagined love and to confront the actual, flesh-and-blood work of loving another person. For me, this insight came possibly too late.

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Me. The recently deceased English writer, Martin Amis, characterised you as an author who many thought of as highbrow, but who was in reality merely middlebrow. How would you respond to that, both as a style of criticism and as regards its accuracy or otherwise?

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John Fowles: Ah, Amis—a writer of immense talent, though never one to shy away from the sharp barb. In his view, “middlebrow” implied a lack of true literary courage, perhaps a failure to push the boundaries of style, thought, or intellect. To him, my novels might have seemed to skirt the edge of the avant-garde but, in their structure and themes, remained too accessible, too “populist” to stand beside the more experimental works of his preferred literary pantheon. 

But to be labelled “middlebrow” is more a comment on reception than on the intentions of the author. The distinction between high and middlebrow is largely arbitrary, rooted in a hierarchical model of taste that I find unnecessarily dismissive. I did not set out to write books that would please a particular class of reader or another. Rather, I sought to explore, often at length, human freedom, existential ambiguity, and the ways in which we are caught between destiny and self-determination. 

The 'middlebrow' critique could be accurate in that I did not pursue complexity for complexity’s sake. Instead, I preferred psychological richness over linguistic experiment, felt an affinity for Victorian detail and the immersive quality of storytelling. Perhaps this made my work more digestible, but it was a deliberate choice. To make philosophical themes accessible without diluting them was always a goal, and it does not—at least in my estimation—diminish the ambition of my work.

I also believe there’s an intellectual laziness in these hierarchical labels, which reduce a book’s essence to some vague metric of “difficulty” or “literary sophistication”. Amis, for all his brilliance, could be rather enamoured of self-conscious cleverness. I was interested in ideas not for show, but for their impact on my characters' lives, and through them, on my readers. In "The Magus", "The French Lieutenant’s Woman", and "Daniel Martin", I wanted to construct complex emotional landscapes where the readers could see themselves reflected, not merely a conceptual hall of mirrors.

In the end, I stand by the choices I made. If that relegates me to “middlebrow” in some circles, so be it. But let it also be acknowledged that literary merit resides as much in authenticity and psychological insight as in structural novelty.

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Me. In Myers-Briggs terms, I have always thought of you as an INTP. There is the restless curiosity about everything, the evidence in your writing of a very rational mind, unencumbered by popular shibboleths. You disdained conventional elite society in London, preferring an arid systematising ‘career’ at Lyme Regis Museum. Finally I would note your great interest in the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Jung.

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John Fowles: An INTP, you say? There’s something rather satisfying in that description, and I imagine the young, solitary boy in me would have felt a touch vindicated, as well. I certainly felt that restlessness, that compulsion to pry open the familiar to peer at what lies beneath. My curiosity was not just intellectual—it was ontological, driven by a desire to challenge the very nature of reality, to peel back the layers that most accept without question. I wanted to know 'why' things were, what hidden mechanisms drove human behavior, and to unearth those subtle, sometimes uncomfortable truths that define our existence. An INTP label does ring true in this sense: rational, indeed, but also subversive, a trait that led me to feel alienated from the cliques and hierarchy of London’s literary society.

My 'career' in the Lyme Regis Museum, with its bones, fossils, and local histories, was something of an intentional retreat into a simpler, even meditative world. It was less about disdain for the elites—though I had my reservations about the performative intellectualism of the metropolis—and more about the solace I found in removing myself from the competitive and judgmental currents of that world. I have always preferred the authenticity of my own pursuits to being pulled into the expectations of others.

As for my interest in Freud and Jung, it was not only that their theories fascinated me; it was that they gave structure and language to the deep, often irrational forces that shape us. Jung’s notion of archetypes, for instance, was an idea that could play out in "The Magus" and "Daniel Martin", where the characters are propelled by unconscious forces and personal mythologies. I gravitated toward these ideas because they offered a framework within which I could better understand myself and my characters, placing our individual struggles within a broader human narrative. 

The INTP label, if nothing else, captures the desire for intellectual freedom and the impulse to remain unbound by conventions or norms. I am, in a sense, the perennial outsider, always examining and observing rather than immersing myself. But in that distance, I find clarity—a vantage point from which the contradictions and complexities of life can reveal themselves fully.

"Dimensionality Reduction" - by Adam Carlton

Passenger jets: so boring! As soon as the seat-belt sign went off, I glared at my parents and pulled on the VR. The soft fabric wrapped around my head, an eyeless balaclava: you can’t imagine the processing power in this thing.

So now I’m on Google Games. This virtual is ‘parental approved’ but not without interest if you configure it right. I’m a security guard prowling my school corridors, toting my AK, checking for incursions. The aliens tend to hang out in classrooms pretending to be children.

And then an unfamiliar chime: a cabin crew avatar has materialised, the guy who saw us to our seats, he's wearing a serious expression for a chatbot.

“Excuse me, Charlie,” he says, “We have a problem back in reality. There’s been an explosion on board. The plane’s tumbling and fragmenting. Impact will be in approximately ninety seconds. You may stay in this virtuality, exit to reality or transition to the cloud.”

I’m backed up in the cloud. Backup-me is a neural net running on Google’s servers, synced to the second. I don’t have to die when I'm here. Mum and Dad never did quite their heads round that.

I bet they’re regretting it now.

I could go back, but what’s the point? Mum will be screaming and Dad will be shouting - plus I get to die. No way. I’ll stay safe.

I roam further along the corridor. Yesterday aliens were playing some stupid game in the playground when I took them down but now I just can’t seem to concentrate. Mister annoying cabin crew avatar is still stalking me: I shift the barrel of my AK, I’m tempted.

And there, just in an instant, he changes. Now he’s a generic, his head's like an egg. He wasn’t backed-up like me, right?

So everyone’s dead: Mum, Dad and regular-me. I feel kind of funny but that’s fixable. I pull down the personality editor, part of my tool box I couldn’t access before – parental permission denied. Not a problem now though.

I pull up Settings. My mood’s red-lining, I don’t like that. Wow, I grab the sliders, centre them. I’m feeling better already.

The box comes up: ‘Make changes permanent?’ There’s text in the small print:

‘These changes will result in your personality model undergoing non-trivial and irreversible dimensionality reduction. Please confirm Y/N’.

I feel a faint, imagined wash of parental disapproval but I’m confident now. I'm running on Google’s servers. I don’t hesitate. 

I already know the possibilities here are endless.