Special Edition: Trying out the Mindset Simulator

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Dear Readers,

  As I mentioned earlier on Twitter, one of our professors, Sir Francis Bacon, has worked with Professor George Sphrantzes to build a device I call a mindset simulator.  It's not quite finished, but they let me test it out today.  It leaves a weird ringing in the mind.

  At any rate, I wanted to put myself into the mind of a personal hero, Mr. Samuel Butler, a Victorian novelist who was a contemporary and commentator of Charles Darwin.  He wrote an essay called Darwin amongst the Machines that I heartily suggest you give a read.  I set the Mindset Simulator to put me into his mind toward when he wrote that essay.

  Anyhow, below you'll find selected parts of a transcript of what I experienced with the headset on.  Enjoy!

  Always,

  Dr. John Skylar
  Chairman
  Department of Anachronism
  University of Constantinople


   I put on the headset and connect the electrical contacts for my skull.  They're supposed to disrupt my thought pattern just enough to let Mr. Butler in.  Francis flips on the machine, and we proceed to test it, beginning with the mind of a rat we collected from the biology labs.

  He turns up the dial.  I am overcome with a desire to eat.  I am so hungry.  I didn't know it would affect my emotions in this way.  I wish to run to darkness.  I tell Francis, and he turns it off.  Apparently the effect will be less unpleasant when I connect with someone across a time stream.

  Now we try connecting with Mr. Butler.  The middle of 1863.  He's reading Origin of Species for the first time.

  Suddenly I hear within my head, a foreign voice: "I am finished!  What a book.  It is like Goethe's work fully realized...truly the mechanism of the Divine.  This fellow is most astute.  I must correspond with him if I can."

  I smile.  I tell Francis that we have gotten it right.  He moves forward in time a little.

  "Well that's curious...selection is something that animal breeders already do!  If humans can select animals...what about cloth?  The best cloth is made by machines now...hah!  What if machines could be selected?  Now that's a ripping joke."

  I tell Francis that this is very good.  We move forward a tad more.

  "Oh this will make the ultimate written humor.  Bit whimsical, but really, who would not laugh at the idea of thinking machines?  Yes, yes, selection that can produce a loom with a brain?  Better yet, one that can enslave humans!  Absurd!"

  This thought is slightly before he published Darwin amongst the Machines.

  "That was better received than I had expected.  Perhaps I could work it into Erehwon...hmm...still not chuffed with that title...maybe I'll transpose the "w" and "h" to make it read better."

  Obviously this is from after he published the essay and worked it into a later novel.  We move on quite a lot, I want to get to the end of his life.

  "What's this?  I can see machinery...oh no!  My hands!  They're metal!"

   I am somewhat disturbed.  But hardly surprised.