New Writing
"intellectronics" on Earth. My imagination gathered momentum,
A Challenging New World
An extract from
A Blink of an Eye
Stanisław Lem
Introduction
In 1993, a study titled Technology of the Twenty-First Century
was published in Germany under the auspices of one of the
federal ministries. [1] Specialists working on the project for the
ministry cited the following areas as most important for activities
in the field of technology:
1. Nanotechnology—molecular and atomic architecture
that allows switches and fully functional mechanical
parts to be made extremely small.
2. Sensor engineering—the construction of microscopic
sensors that imitate models in nature.
3. Adaptronics—understood as a bridge between modern
materials and systems displaying structural
intelligence.
4. Photonics—foreseeing that photons will replace
electrons in collecting, processing and transmitting
information, thus achieving a higher speed than current
microelectronics.
5. Biomimetic materials—the imitation of materials
originating in live tissues, of which a commonly cited
example has been recent attempts to reproduce spider
silk artificially, a natural material that demonstrates a
degree of elasticity and endurance exceeding
everything our technology has been able to develop up
to now.
6. Fullerenes—the third elemental form of carbon,
together with diamond and graphite. The brochure
predicts that fullerenes will be utilized in the future—for
example, in electronics.
7. Neuroinformatics—aimed at developing artificial
intelligence which will be able to take data processing
a step further by actually creating knowledge.
It is worth noting that the brochure has no separate section on
the revolution in the field of global communication (the World
Wide Web) or biotechnology, which has stirred up interest in the
ethics of technology. In fact, its authors do not even mention
these issues. The above example shows how thankless a task
predicting future technologies can be. Even more difficult is
what Americans call "technology assessment," in other words,
predicting the civilizational, social and cultural effects of new
technologies.
In my current analysis of what has happened over the past forty
years or so (since I wrote Summa technologiæ, and an earlier
book, Dialogues), I will refer to various chapters of Summa—but
not because I wrote it, or as an indulgence in self-praise.
Readers should bear in mind that, during the half-century that is
now coming to an end, I found myself in a terrible situation, cut
off from information, scientific or otherwise, by the system in
power in Poland at the time. Today, however, it seems that my
way of getting around this was especially fortunate. I started by
showing the similarities between two kinds of evolution,
technological and biological. Then I began to consider the as
yet unresolved problem of extraterrestrial civilizations, then
Stanislaw Lem - A Challenging New World - Review of Stanisław Lem's Okamgnienie
turning later to a description of the development of
as the following chapter titles show: "Prolegomena on
Omnipotence," "Phantomology," and "Creating Worlds."
"Lampoon on Evolution" completed the work.
This work reflected my tendency to observe the past from a
bird's-eye view. Maybe the distance in space and time was
even greater for me. There was not much point, however, in a
formulation that attempted to present future human endeavors
in detail, together with the dangers that arise as a result. The
innumerable predictions made in the second half of the
twentieth century have been tripped up by attempts to describe
the future in detail. Detailed predictions are simply impossible. I
do not say this to defend myself, but rather because we know
now about futurology's failures when attempts have been made
to go beyond generalizations.
To demonstrate the difference between theoretical knowledge
and practical human activities, I recall the words of an
outstanding scientist, Richard Feynman, who worked in Los
Alamos on the atom bomb project as one of a select few. In his
memoirs Feynman noted that all the theoretical knowledge
about atomic and quantum phenomena had proved insufficient
to determine which elements would slow neutrons down. This is
essential for initiating or halting the chain reaction process. In
order to obtain such data, scientists had to examine the
properties of a great many elements. Eventually, they
discovered that one of the best absorbents of neutrons—
especially those that accelerate an atomic reaction—is
cadmium. It should be realized that there is still a huge gap in
our knowledge, even today, between theoretical physics, which
is able to construct an atomic model for a given element, and
the chemical properties of that element, which are manifested in
complex molecular structures.
For this same reason, however unwittingly, my work falls into
two categories: general prognostications and science fiction. In
the latter I could indulge in shows of audacious bravery. As I
near the end of my life, it seems that I have thought and acted
with respect for the principles of the natural sciences. Only
rarely did I find myself at a dead end. Now it is time to confront
my positions as essayist, those in Summa Technologiæ and in
Dialogues—with the realities that face us on the threshold of the
twenty-first century, and with the new areas of human activities
and knowledge that are beginning to take shape. I do not mean
to make myself out to be an omnipotent sage, just a writer who
is free.
Dilemmas
When those two books of mine were
Man's published, they were met with a
"autoevolution," deathly silence. Now, at the
beginning of the twenty-first century,
repainted to suit
the situation has essentially changed
the times, has for the worse, since the problems
become a that I discussed alone several
catchword. decades ago have now been
accosted, with particular alacrity, by
hordes of laymen and ignoramuses ignited by the fire of fashion.
Man's "autoevolution," repainted to suit the times, has become a
catchword. We are dealing here with a flood of information,
often coming from scientific charlatans. In such a situation, it is
easy to get lost in the vast new field of biotechnology. These
can no longer be limited to discoveries about genes, because
an indisputable fact is the universal uniqueness of the genetic
nucleotide code, always comprised of four nucleic acids in
various combinations, which controls the origins and extinction
of all living species in the biosphere. We are already talking
1
here about macro-genetics, a field still only in its early stages.
One of its specific tasks is to develop a map of the human
genome, together with the minor changes in it that determine
the formation and existence of the visible variety of phenotypes
(characteristics that superficially
differentiate an Eskimo from a black man,
for example), as well as with the
microgenetics that determines the
constitutional makeup of particular
human individuals. Because of the
enormous complexity of life's
determinants, ensconced in the genomes
of all plant and animal species, I will only
be able to mention a few select examples
that are not directly linked to knowledge
about the human genome.
Spiders (Araneida), for example, thanks
to a group of specific genes, produce silk many times more
elastic and tear-resistant than that of the silkworm—or than
steel and all known synthetic polymers including nylon. Spider
silk was already being used in telescopes a very long time ago.
Certain genes are responsible for the synthesis of spidroins. An
individual strand of that remarkable silk is comprised of a large
number of these interlocking spidroin molecules produced by
the spider's glands. Compared to spider silk, the material made
from synthetic polymers turns out to have an unusually simple
and primitive structure. Although it is extremely difficult for our
technology to reproduce silk similar to that of spiders, a rich
scientific literature on the subject has described the microfibrillar
structure of the silk, thus enabling production of materials
similar to the spider. The synthetic production of spider silk has
at least one practical use. Any line released from an orbiting
spacecraft to Earth would tear under its own weight. Learning
from spiders, however, we would be able to create lines so light
and strong that the spacecraft could use them to raise loads
while in orbit, like an elevator.
This would be only one of the numerous effects of
biotechnology's adoption of methods that nature had developed
over tens of millions of years. The above example allows us to
appreciate better the audacity of those who have called for the
quick development of an "artificial brain." No one knows how
many neurons an average human brain has. Once I was taught
that there were ten billion of them, but now there are thought to
be many times more. If we then consider that each individual
neuron, via synapses, is in contact with hundreds of other
neurons, and sometimes thousands, then we can see that the
computer that beat Kasparov in chess, Deep Blue, is
disproportionately heavy by comparison. The human brain
appears to be "a reliable system comprised of unreliable
elements," in the words of John von Neumann. Artificial
intelligence enthusiasts still face a long haul ahead of them,
fraught with obstacles and traps.
Perhaps it will be possible to construct artificial intelligence
thanks to the development and implementation of
nanotechnology. Scientists working in leading American
laboratories are convinced that we are now at the threshold of a
new era in electronics. Recently, they
succeeded in constructing "logic gates,"
the basic components of computer
systems, from a single molecule. Thus,
molecular electronics is no longer a
vague prophecy—the first steps in this
direction have already been taken. This
success has been crowned, furthermore, with a new technique
for making conductors only a dozen atoms thick. Molecular
switches, or gates, must be appropriately linked by microscopic
conductors. As a result, work is being done on RAM (Random
Access Memory) systems that will not only be hundreds of times
smaller than those currently produced, but will also have their
Stanislaw Lem - A Challenging New World - Review of Stanisław Lem's Okamgnienie
cost of production drastically reduced. Components are being
produced, based on silicon microelectronics, which are one-
thousandth the thickness of a human hair, that is, about one
hundred nanometers thick (a nanometer is one billionth of a
meter). However small that may be, molecular electronics will
make it possible to reduce the size of components to a single
nanometer. In five years or less, computer design will be based
on an entirely new technology, which will mean an industrial
revolution as big as the one that resulted from the move from
vacuum tubes to transistors in the 1950s. If all difficulties are
overcome, the new digital technology will find itself having to
grapple with the principles of quantum mechanics. The outcome
will be a veritable revolution that turns the global semiconductor
industry upside down.
Up to now, chips have been produced by etching pieces of
silicon. The dimensions of these chips are becoming inversely
proportional to their production cost: the smaller the chips, the
more expensive their production. It turns out that the huge
manufacturing plants which use lasers to etch individual layers
of connections on silicon bases are now outmoded. An entirely
different kind of method is looming up before the specialists,
one based on chemical reactions that will be able, at very low
cost, to assemble numerous molecules into infinitesimal circuits.
This could lead to the ruination of manufacturers, as their
expensive production methods begin to resemble a candle-
manufacturing plant rather than a fluorescent-lamp factory. The
Clinton Administration has considered embarking on the
"National Nanotechnology Initiative" early in the year 2000 in
order to organize and supervise research in this developing
specialist area of molecular architectonics. Perhaps
"quantechnology," having no name other than the one I have
coined myself, will soon move from laboratories into industrial
plants.
The silicon era seems to be nearing its end. At the same time,
this next phase in micro-miniaturization seems to suggest that
we will be one step closer to the type of construction methods
that have been employed by living beings for billions of years.
The biological inheritance of structural traits is, after all, based
on molecular nucleotide structures, which form the basis for the
evolutionary transmission of all life forms. We must also take
into consideration the fact that that no one knows as yet how life
originated: current views range from the hypothesis that life had
its origins in the inorganic molten liquid of the Earth's core, to
the conjecture that prebiotic compounds were formed in
freezing temperatures. Our situation, I would say, is analogous
to that of a savage who, having discovered the catapult, thought
that he was already close to space
travel.
There is a well-known saying in no complicated
scientific circles that no complicated phenomenon
phenomenon exists which will not exists which will
turn out to be even more complicated
on closer inspection. The current talk
not turn out to be
of man's quickly taking control of his even more
own evolution, which can even be complicated on
heard even among philosophers of closer inspection
nature, is quite unnerving. When
Dolly, the famous sheep, was cloned, after almost three
hundred unsuccessful experiments, people began to imagine
scores of mass-produced Einsteins and film stars. The savage
mentioned above was actually closer to constructing his rocket
than the self-styled bioengineer is to cloning people at will. Yet it
was not only politicians, but also many other people in many
different professions who were so taken aback by the specter of
replicated human beings that legislative steps were taken to
block the experimental use of those totipotent embryonic cells.
Such measures are also as premature as would have been the
case if the ancient Chinese had been forbidden to fly kites in the
2
fear that this might lead to fatal collisions between supersonic
jets.
There is also the issue of medical therapy based on current
knowledge of genetics. From previously secret Soviet materials,
now published, we learn that attempts were already being made
in the Soviet Union in the 1920s to cross higher apes with
humans. Fortunately, nothing came of this. True enough, there
is only a two percent difference between the materials of
chimpanzee and human genomes, but this difference still
amounts to billions of nucleotide pairs. The question whether we
can, may, or should remove genes whose developmental
expression leads to genetic defects is quite in order. Yet there
has been no definitive answer to this question up to now
because we are already concluding that there can be no simple
"yes" or "no" answer when it comes to human genetic defects.
It seems to me that there is an urgent need for a new, heavily
revised edition of The Encyclopædia of Ignorance. [2] The
previous edition was already outdated when it appeared twenty
years ago: absolutely no mention was made in it of
biotechnology, nor of the ethical questions arising from such
experimentation. Transgenetic experiments allow us to cultivate
many useful plants, though such experiments are accompanied
by a fear of the unknown consequences of growing and
consuming such modified plant products. One thing can be said
with certainty: this entire field is unusually complex—so complex
in fact that no one person alone is capable of comprehending it.
A new branch of medical therapy now in its experimental
stages, like the spider silk, shows the kinds of innovations that
can be expected to result from attempts to live up to the slogan
"overtake and surpass life processes." This phrase, which I
introduced in 1963, is no longer a deceptive dream. It is
becoming a promising, though threatening, reality.
Phages several hundred times smaller than a single erythrocyte
parasitize bacteria, such as the bacilli in our intestines.
Biologists say that a phage is neither alive, nor dead. It is not
alive, because there are no metabolic processes going on
inside of it. Such a phage has a "head" beneath which, under
magnification, thread-like "legs" can be seen. Having found an
Escherichia coli bacterium, and recognized it biochemically, it
thrusts its "head" into it. From that moment, the phage takes
over the life processes going on inside the bacterium. By
dominating it in this way, the phage manipulates the
biochemical signals so that the bacterium produces hundreds of
phages. Eventually, it bursts, whereupon the new phages set off
in search of more "victims."
Many biologists believed a phage met its "bacteria victims" by
chance. Nowadays, the processes behind this "hunt" are
thought to be somewhat more teleological. A phage's basic path
is similar to the zigzag-like path of a particle subject to Brownian
motion. Bacteria, however, excrete metabolic waste into the
fluid environment surrounding them. A kind of asymmetrical
concentration of this waste then arises, which provides the clue
which the phage is able to use in order to find the bacteria.
Biologists are inclined to call this kind of phage an "inanimate
chemical mechanism" that reproduces only inside bacteria cells,
after taking over their metabolisms.
Biophysics attributes the phenomenon of phage behavior
described above to Brownian motion, directed by weak
asymmetrical poles. These processes can often be detected in
conjunction with "fibrillar proteins." In a net of fibrillar fibers, live
tissue undergoes a process of energetic charging. A
"fermentation motor," as biologists call it, then moves along
such fibers, guided by the genes of a micromolecule that
exhibits a periodic asymmetry. Groups of this kind—measuring
many microns and thus large in cellular terms—are able to
transport various substances as genetic information is being
built, such as ribonucleic polymers.
With this knowledge about the role of Brownian motion, we can
form some idea of what future biotechnology will be like. It
Stanislaw Lem - A Challenging New World - Review of Stanisław Lem's Okamgnienie
would allow us to introduce entirely new methods of transporting
active compounds deep inside the body. It would no longer be
wishful thinking, for example, to suggest that a vehicle filled with
a substance the body needs could be transported via the
circulatory or lymphatic system. The first rather simple versions
of this microapparatus technology are already being developed.
Let us suppose, for instance, that these are gases transporting
blood substitutes. They operate on the principle that very small
molecules of
fluorocarbon derivatives transport oxygen from the erythrocytes
to the tissue. In the arterial blood supply, the erythrocyte, which
is about one hundred times larger than the molecules in the
emulsion, acts as a vehicle loaded with oxygen. Circulating
periodically between the erythrocytes and tissue, thanks to the
normal circulation of blood, the fluorocarbon molecules, which
dissolve oxygen well, carry the gas from the erythrocytes to the
blood vessels, from where the oxygen permeates the tissue.
This kind of biotechnology would allow us to send therapeutic
substances into the body directly to the organs which need
them. Up to now, medicines have normally been delivered
orally, and thus distributed throughout the body in a rather
random way. The new method will allow specific organs to be
targeted for therapy, or to receive the vital support they need to
continue functioning.
Although we are far from knowing the processes of biogenesis,
we already know that in addition to nanotechnology, or
molecular architectonics, something exists in the biosphere
called picoarchitectonics. The prefix "nano" means one-billionth,
"pico" means one-thousandth of one-billionth in the metric
system. Thus, summing up this chapter, we must unfortunately
conclude that everything is far more complicated than the
human mind can comprehend—especially if we move away
from experimental science and take refuge in the realm of
philosophical thought instead.
Stanisław Lem
Translated by Christina Manetti
Special thanks to Stanisław Lem and to the journal Dialogue
and Universalism for permission to publish this extract
Footnotes:
1. Technologien des 21. Jahrhunderts, Bundesministerium für
Forschung und Technologie, Bonn, 1993.
2. Ronald Duncan and Miranda Weston-Smith, eds, The
Encyclopædia of Ignorance, New York, 1978.
3