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carelessly discarded? In the theories that had cast light on marvelously precise calibration?… Onto the variety of interactions, onto their fragile balance, someone had imposed universal constants such that a human mind could be born, could exist. I now considered this the most useful lesson. Everything always, always depends on a handful of basic quantities – and I learned to extract them from the disorder. I selected its values – carefully, patiently, sensing how the basis for artificial thought attains harmony as it prepares to take on flesh. Afterward, like an electric current through my fingertips, confidence came: I got it! With these parameters, my new world was doomed to develop, not to perish. And I nurtured it, gave it complexity, altered it, and made it consistent…
    Later, quantum mechanics reminded me of itself again – when I felt that the essence of simulated reasoning was buried still deeper. I became surrounded with books, studied up on the biophysics of the brain, on the structure of neural membranes and the basics of how the synapses function. It was here that I was inspired – that is, I discovered how inspiration happens. How understanding occurs, the creative act itself. The nonlinear, the unquantifiable found its place in quantum entanglement, in the coherence of states. Hundreds of thousands of neurons sensed each other to form a single family, as it were – if even for the briefest millisecond. I imagined it, almost dreamt of it, and, in contradiction to the classics, assumed it was indeed possible in living cells. The neural layer in my models teemed with a myriad of combinations, an immeasurable multitude of variations gyrating in their feverish dance. It kept accelerating, and, at some point, the decoupling came, the waves collapsed, and the particles broke free of their bonds. The family of neurons produced thought!
    I understood: in the quantum collective are hidden the specifics of consciousness, intuition and enlightenment, latent free will, and common sense. It remained to guess how exactly bonding takes place; what is responsible for that instantaneous selection. I no longer considered the collapse of alternatives to be a problem. It was unavoidable – and soon its perfectly natural source became clear to me. Space itself, after all – through its geometry and curvature – determines when and how to bring order to the emerging chaos. It is a property of the universe with which it protects itself from disharmony, from local abnormalities in its structure. When the chaos becomes too great, it seems to say, “Enough!” Brain cell molecules move in microns to assert, “There it is, that’s correct.” And Bang! Thought is born.
    So I formulated the principle and now had only to calculate the determinative figures. Fretting and feeling my guilt, late one night I called that same professor from Manchester, the one who was the first to believe in me. The professor was not perturbed – not by the lateness of the call nor because I had previously turned renegade. He received with unexpected fervor the idea that the “Universe Metric” regulates thought – and mentioned useful things about changing the curvature of space through microscopic mass displacement. The concept of harmony being preserved by the universe itself was obviously to his taste: he was getting old and was afraid of death. And his assessments really helped – a month later I had completed a full mathematical model. I knew this was a breakthrough, a step beyond the horizon, beyond the boundary of the norm. Artificial intelligence became linked with the composition of the world!
    Then a stupid thing happened: I got involved in an affair that had nothing to do with me. By a funny coincidence, I became known in higher scientific circles. They heard about me and got excited, and invited me to a symposium where all the luminaries were gathered. This was a step toward recognition – in spheres I had never had any