Imaginary Friends

                                      Imaginary Friends

                                                       by Marco M. Pardi

“A friend is a second self” Aristotle.

All comments are welcome, and will receive a response.

Everything I’ve read about early childhood development indicates having an imaginary friend, or friends, is normal. Normal? Although certainly a candidate for such a phenomenon, I never had an imaginary friend. Wow, talk about getting picked last for the team, or not at all. But, the whole Cosmos?

So, I learned about this later in life, like I learned that many people dream in black and white. Surely these must be people who didn’t have color tv?

I also learned some people talk in their sleep. Long ago and far away, on a bona fide Category 1 Alert, I had to temporarily bunk with two other guys. That made for really crowded quarters but, working solo and only at night I was on a different schedule. Quietly preparing to leave for duty late one night I noticed that one of the two sleeping guys was mumbling something. I was certain he was asleep but I engaged him with a question. As he answered, the other guy started talking, answering the comments the first guy made in response to my question. Curious, I coached a bit more and by the time I quietly left they were in conversation with each other. I was positive then, and now, they were asleep. The next day they each said they remembered nothing of it.

I think the term friend is applied too easily and has been for long before Facebook. How many times have you heard someone referring to a friend of theirs and, when you asked the name, they said, Uh, I can’t remember just now? What about this person qualified them for the category Friend? I think the term acquaintance is not only more appropriate, but more likely accurate. Yes, I realize that word is multi-syllabic and therefore too inconvenient for many. In a society fueled by grunts it is unlikely to gain currency.

Some years ago I worked with a man who told me he had a girlfriend for sex and a girlfriend for intelligent conversation. So I asked him, Where does your wife fit in all of this? His answer: Oh, you know. Family, kids and all that. Of course, it’s also too easy to presume that every relative is a friend. When facing pressure to attend a relative’s party or other function I have long been in the habit of asking myself, If this person were not a relative, would I have them as a friend? It’s interesting to see how the balance of answers plays out.

I was reminded of those two sleep talkers when I visited a cousin at his home in Newport, Rhode Island. This guy is a relative and a friend, though he and I both seem to understand we can take just so much of each other. Short visits are best.

Several of us gathered before dinner in his upstairs drawing room filled floor to ceiling with centuries of art and antiques mostly from Central and Eastern Europe. Watching everyone settle their modern physiques into ancient furniture, my gaze fell upon a “something in this picture doesn’t belong” object. It seemed to be a truncated plastic cone sitting on a table probably once owned by some moustachioed potentate. As I was about to ask the provenance of this exquisite object my cousin said, “Alexa….” and asked “her” to play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in B Flat Minor. A very lovely voice agreed to do this and in an instant we were transported. Thereafter I found it was possible to engage Alexa in basic conversations. You just have to know how to appropriately phrase questions and statements; a bit like conversing with a stranger.

Still warm inside from that marvelous voice, I found that Google had come out with a similar device. Of course, my first thought was to get them both in a room and try to get them talking to each other. Admittedly, my inspiration came not simply from the sleep talkers cited above, but largely from Alan Turing. The polymath who spear headed the cracking of the German Enigma code, Turing is also considered by many to be the father of the modern computer. Turing’s central dream, before he was driven to take his own life, was to develop a computer of such sophistication that a human, in a blinded test, would be unable to determine if he was communicating with another person or with a machine. Some readers will recognize this as a central theme in the recent television re-make of Westworld. Much attention in the series is placed on the cosmetics, the human appearance and movement of the cyborgs. More on that later, but my focus is on whether the software in the Amazon device and the Google device could be tweaked such that placing them in the same room we could present each of them with the Turing test; could we ask them to tell us if they are communicating with a human or with a computer. Could they become friends? Would they argue? (Of course, a chaperone would be present to prevent untoward outcomes like little plastic devices popping out all over the room.)

The possibility that one plus one might equal more than two got me scanning my bookcases for Ray Kurzweil’s book, The Singularity is Near. A dense but readable tome, Kurzweil outlines and explains how we, albeit unknowingly, have marched to the edge of a new domain in which the equation will be reversed: Machines which had hitherto accepted instructions from Man and existed only as products of Man begin issuing their own instructions, including to Man, and begin constructing their own machines with intelligence and capabilities beyond our ability to understand. I have long thought many of us are already there. An avid fan and owner of sports/racing cars since my teens, I continually marveled at acquaintances who had no idea what happens between the ignition key and the wheels. “Somebody does” seemed to be the dismissive answer.

But to be frank, I have little to no idea what happens between my keyboard and the monitor I’m watching. By the way, I never went to secretarial school so I’m a few finger typer and I have to look at the keys, pausing to see if what I think I’ve (written?) makes sense. With voice command software I wonder if I could get Alexa to write my blog for me, or would it be far too atmospheric for the meager 3 pound jelly bean in my skull. Would you be able to tell?

Getting back to the perfectly realistic androids of West World, Japan has made amazing advances in this area, even developing a sex android that enables the user to simulate rape. Should that be off the market, or should it be considered a deterrent, a kind of release valve for those who would rape humans in its absence?

I’m well beyond the age where a mere assemblage of parts inspires me to do the Hokey Pokey. But I never considered that a basis for friendship anyway. What Kurzweil predicts is an autonomous (mind?) of such capacity as to leave me standing with ignition key in hand asking, What do I do now? Now THAT is exciting. But of course, we all know of the advent of self-driving cars. My question is: What happens when my car gets mad at me, perhaps for leering at the Aston Martin in the next lane?

As for looks, we’ve all heard someone say, Looks don’t matter. I’m not pushing Beauty and the Beast but I am seriously doubtful that that statement has no limits. But the age old question applies: What do you see in that person? I’ve had some friends, and still do. They are a very tiny percentage of my acquaintances. But this tiny percentage spans a rather large spectrum of easily apparent traits. The common denominator among these friends is a profoundly intellectual mind, the secret in plain sight. Over the years I’ve not been at all surprised when some acquaintances and certain relatives dismissed my friends as strange or out for something. Physically attractive female friends were dismissed as passing sex interests. Obviously, it takes a mind to recognize a mind.

If completely autonomous and self-conscious androids with emotional ranges to match mine were developed would they be a good choice as a friend? Up into my late teens I was a “hide my light” kind of kid. But I slowly opened up and even college was mostly a sleeper. However, what would a friendship be like with “someone” who could learn, understand, and apply an idea in a minuscule fraction of the time it takes me, if I do it at all? Before her death a woman lived and traveled several years with me. We were seamlessly matched, often deeply engaged in cooperative conversations into dawn of the next day. Of course, those acquaintances and relatives cited earlier presumed it was mainly sexual. As the saying goes, When you know only a hammer everything’s a nail.

I suspect some people with android friends may have a problem reconciling the onset of aging in themselves while the android is, physically, just as originally assembled. And, as the human mental function declines we might see the android having to ascend to a caretaker role. After all, we see versions of this play out in human to human relationships; one partner’s performance declines while the other remains basically vigorous. Unless you have a Galapagos tortoise or certain species of parrot for pets you experience similar disparities with your pets.

I have to cut this short for today. The toaster has plans.