“And Arkady,” Nadia said, still trying to defuse things. “And Frank.”
“We can do without Frank Chalmers,” Kasei said bitterly.
“Why do you say that?” Maya exclaimed. “We would be lucky to have him here now! He would know how to handle Fort, and Praxis, and the Swiss and you Reds and the greens, all of it. Frank, Arkady, John— we could use all three of them now.” Her mouth was hard and downturned. She glared at Jackie and Kasei as if daring them to speak; then her lip curled, and she looked away.
Nadia said, “This is why we must avoid another sixty-one.”
“We will,” Art said, and gave her another squeeze.
Nadia shook her head sadly. The peak always passed so fast. “It’s not our choice,” she told him. “It’s not something that is entirely in our hands. So we will see.”
“It will be different this time,” Kasei insisted.
“We will see.”
Part Eight
Social Engineering
Where were you born?Denver.
Where did you grow up?
Rock. Boulder.
What were you like as a child?
I don’t know.
Give me your impressions.
I wanted to know why.
You were curious?
Very curious.
Did you play with science kits?
All of them.
And your friends?
I don’t remember.
Try for anything.
I don’t think I had many friends.
Were you ambidextrous as a child?
I don’t remember.
Think about your science experiments. Did you use both hands when you did them?
I believe it was often necessary.
You wrote with your right hand?
I do now. I— I did then as well. Yes. As a child.
And did you do anything with your left hand? Brush your teeth, comb your hair, eat, point at things, throw balls?
I did all those things with my right hand. Would it matter if I hadn’t?
Well, you see, in cases of aphasia, the strong right-handers all conform pretty well to a certain profile. Activities are located, or it is better to say coordinated, at certain places in the brain. When we determine precisely the problems the aphasic is experiencing, we can tell pretty well where the lesions in the brain are located. And vice versa. But with left-handers and ambidextrous people there is no such pattern. One might say that every left-handed and ambidextrous brain is organized differently.
You know most of Hiroko’s ectogene children are left-handed.
Yes, I know. I’ve spoken with her about it, but she claims she doesn’t know why. She says it may be a result of being born on Mars.
Do you find this plausible?
Well, handedness is still poorly understood in any case, and the effects of the lighter gravity . . . we’ll be sorting those out for centuries, won’t we.
I suppose so.
You don’t like the idea of that, do you?
I would rather get answers.
What if all your questions were answered? Would you be happy then?
I find it hard to imagine such a— state. A fairly small percentage of my questions have answers.
But that’s rather wonderful, don’t you agree?
No. It wouldn’t be scientific to agree.
You conceive of science as nothing more than answers to questions?
As a system for generating answers.
And what is the purpose of that?
. . . To know.
And what will you do with your knowledge?
. . . Find out more.
But why?
I don’t know. It’s the way I am.
Shouldn’t some of your questions be directed that way— to finding out why you are the way you are?
I don’t think you can get good answers to questions about— human nature. Better to think of it as a black box. You can’t apply the scientific method. Not well enough to be sure of your answers.
In psychology we believe we have scientifically identified a certain pathology in which a person needs to know everything because he is afraid of not knowing. It’s a pathology of monocausotaxophilia, as Pöppel called it, the love of single causes that explain everything. This can become fear of a lack of causes. Because the lack might be dangerous. The knowledge-seeking becomes primarily defensive, in that it is a way of denying fear when one really is afraid. At its worst it isn’t even knowledge-seeking, because when the answers arrive they cease to be of interest, as they are no longer dangerous. So that reality itself doesn’t matter to such a person.
Everyone tries to avoid danger. But motivations are always multiple. And different from action to action. Time to time. Any patterns are a matter of— observer’s speculation.
Psychology is a science in which the observer becomes intimately involved with the subject of observation.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t think it’s a science.
It is certainly a science. One of its tenets is, if you want to know more, care more. Every astronomer loves the stars. Otherwise why study them so?