Human Error Read online

for!"

  "What are you talking about?" Paul demanded.

  "We've got proof that a human being is nothing more nor less than asimple cybernetic gadget. It's a laugh--people trying to build amechanical man all these years. That's the only kind there is!"

  "You still aren't making sense."

  "Come on over and see for yourself."

  Puzzled and irritated, Paul left his office and went down to theanalyzer laboratory. There he found Holt and his staff in a buzz ofexcitement.

  The multiple recorder sheets were laid out on long tables, being studiedintensely. Paul followed Holt to one series that was separated from therest.

  "We didn't know we had anything at first," said Holt. "The pulse was solow in amplitude that it was hard to pick out of the noise, but theanalyzer showed it was consistently present under certain conditions ofthe subject."

  "What conditions?" said Paul.

  "At the exact moment of committing an error! I should say it occursbetween the moment of making the decision to carry out an erroneous actand the triggering of the motor impulse that executes it."

  Paul frowned. "How can you be sure it doesn't occur at any other time aswell?"

  "Because we've run every set of charts through the analyzer and thisparticular impulse comes out no other place."

  "It looks very interesting," Paul said. "But why did you say you've gotproof that a human being is nothing but a cybernetic gadget? I don't seewhat this has got to do with it."

  "I didn't give you quite all the story," Holt said smugly. "I shouldhave said that the pulse occurred every time there was an _intent_ toperform an error. Sometimes that intent was not carried out."

  "I don't understand."

  "That pulse is nothing more nor less than a feedback pulse indicatingthat an action matrix has been set up which is in non-conformity withthe previously chosen pattern of learning or intent. It's a feedbackalarm carrying the information that an error will result if the proposedaction is carried out. When the feedback is successfully returned to theaction matrix a change is made until there is no feedback and a correctaction is taken. When the feedback is blocked or ignored, an errorresults. It's as simple as that! Your complex human being is nothing buta fairly elaborate cybernetic machine operating wholly on feedbackprinciples. The only time he fails and breaks down is when he ceases toact like the cybernetic machine that he is!"

  * * * * *

  Holt's eyes shone triumphantly as he patted the long strips of paper onthe table. Paul followed the motion of his hand and remained staring atthe graphs in a kind of stunned recognition. There must be some mistake,there _had_ to be. Holt's interpretation was wrong, even if the datawere correct. Man, a feedback response mechanism--! If that were true avacuum tube structure could eventually be devised to do _anything_ a mancould do.

  "I think we'll hold off on that dinner a while yet," Paul said. "Thedata are interesting and, I'm sure, important--but I can hardly agreewith your conclusions." Inwardly, he cursed the stiltedness he feltcreeping into his voice, and his irrational resentment of Holt'scontinued smug grin.

  "Take all the time you want," Holt said, "but when you're through you'llcome up with the same answers I've got. Man is a machine and nothingelse. Our only job now is to discover why the feedback sometimes fails,and to set it back on the job."

  Paul took the recordings and the analyzer graphs back to his own office.

  He called Barker and showed the older man what Holt had found out. "Ifthis is true," he said, "we don't need to worry about validating SpaceCommand's pre-chosen conclusions. It has already been done."

  Dr. Barker looked puzzled and a little frightened as he sat down at thedesk to examine the charts. After an hour, he looked up. "It's true," hesaid. "There's no escaping the fact. Look what we have here--" Hepointed to a corresponding sector of the six charts he'd lined up.

  "After the first feedback impulse, there was no attempt to correct," hesaid, "or, rather, there was a deliberate effort to suppress thefeedback. This created a second, larger feedback, which, in turnresulted in increased suppression and a simultaneous enlargement of theerror. The result was a hunting effect in increasingly large amplitude,like the needle of an autosyn indicator with undamped positive feedback.

  "Now, here's another one with the opposite effect. In this case thehunting shows diminishing amplitude as correction of the effort resultsfrom application of the feedback pulses. One pulse is not sufficient,but they are applied in decreasing force as the intent is brought intoalignment with the learned pattern. A purely mechanical response!"

  Paul turned from the window through which he had been staring toward thelaunchers. "Then Space Command is perfectly right," he said bitterly."We _can_ give them their errorless, mechanical men--just as soon as wefind ways of correcting the blockage of the feedback pulses!"

  Barker leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his moderatepaunch. "I'm afraid that's right. We've been wrong all along in buckingthe mechanical concept of Man. The technologists saw it long ago in asort of intuitive way, but they couldn't prove it. Now, they can!"

  "And the soul of Man is nothing but a feedback impulse!"

  Barker sighed heavily. "What else, Paul?"

  * * * * *

  Morgan's Caravan appeared that evening and camped at the ten-mile limitimposed by the military police guards. They posted their signs ofprotest and began their picket lines. Oglethorpe sent out his soundtrucks to try to scare them away, but they wouldn't scare.

  Paul watched at home the broadcast of the scene, but the fate of theBase and the Wheel had almost ceased to concern him. He told Betty ofthe discovery Holt had made on Superman.

  "It leaves nothing to account for the most valued acts of Man," he said."It can't account for creativeness, because a cybernetic device cannotcreate; it can only follow a pattern. So where is the poetry, the art,the scientific invention if this is the essence of Man? It can't be, yetthere's no way of getting around this thing."

  "Where does the pattern come from?" asked Betty. "Isn't that the createdthing which the cybernetic system tries to follow?"

  Paul shook his head. "The pattern we're talking about is no more than aresponse to stimuli, a purely mechanical thing also. Holt claims this isall there ever is, that what we call art, poetry, music inspiration, andintuition are nothing more than the results of badly functioningcybernetic systems. The more or less irrational results of errors inaccommodating to the real world. We find pleasure in them because theytend to excuse our badly malfunctioning circuits.

  "The ideal race of Man would be devoid of all this, a smoothly operatinggroup of individuals unperturbed by emotional or artistic responses,completely capable of solving any problem in a purely cyberneticmanner."

  "And do you agree with it?" Betty asked.

  "There's nothing else I can do! The evidence is there." He laughedshortly and moved to the window where he could see the nearby camp ofMorgan's Caravan. "Human development has moved--is moving--in acompletely different direction from anything I ever dreamed.Oglethorpe's iron-hard, emotionless machine-men are the only ones who'llget there. The rest of us who can't match the pace of a technologicalsociety will be shucked off as the waste part in the development of aspecies meant to inhabit galaxies instead of a single world."

  "If I had ever wondered how you'd sound when you were completely out ofyour mind I'd have the answer now," said Betty.

  In the morning he turned over to one of the units the task of furtheridentifying and analyzing the feedback impulse they had discovered. Inthe middle of this he was called to Oglethorpe's office. Theinvestigating Senators had arrived.

  They were favorably impressed by the day-long tour that GeneralOglethorpe provided for them around the entire Base. But they found inPaul's announcement the strongest single factor in favor of permittingSpace Command to continue with its work.

  "We know now," he said, "and this is something I haven't even had timeto present
to General Oglethorpe--we know that a completely mechanicalman is possible."

  The General's eyes narrowed as Paul's flat statement continued. "We knowthat it is possible to have men at the helm of our ships, who areincapable of error. We have hopes of producing them within a very shorttime if Project Superman is allowed to continue. And when this is done,there is no technical goal we cannot reach."

  This was the thing the Senators had come to find out, and they weresatisfied. "But the public has got to be reassured