The Last Question
Trecia’s last post reminded me that I’ve been meaning to share with you a short story by Isaac Asimov called “The Last Question” that I read when I was a kid.
It seems pretty dated in many ways (it was written in 1956) but there is an underlying theme in it that has stuck with me. I’ve always thought of it as somehow reassuring if a little cheesy.
I don’t want to spoil it for anyone so if you want to read the whole story you can find it here: http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm
For the rest of you living in this century where nobody has time for anything here’s a summary courtesy of… you guessed it wikipedia:
“The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way…”
—Opening line, The Last QuestionThe story deals with the development of a computer called Multivac and its relationship with humanity through the course of seven historic settings, beginning in 2061. In each of the first six scenes a different character presents the computer with the same question, namely how the threat to human existence posed by the heat death of the universe can be averted. The question is equivalent to: “Can the workings of the second law of thermodynamics (used in the story as the increase of the entropy of the universe), be reversed?” In each case Multivac finds itself unable to answer, due to having “insufficient data for a meaningful answer”.<
In the last scene, the god-like descendants of humanity watch the universe finally approach the state of heat death and ask the Cosmic AC, Multivac’s descendant, the question one last time before “Man” then merges with it. The Cosmic AC is still unable to answer, but continues to ponder the question after space and time have ceased to exist…”
And below an excerpt from the end of the story [SPOILER WARNING]:
Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer technician ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that. And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter, the answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”
And there was light.
Isaac Asimov, The Last Question
source: filer.case.edu
pia
That is interesting. I like the fact that it the *existence* of the unanswered question which kept consciousness alive, despite the obliteration of everything else, that a ‘timeless interval’ was required for the answer to be found, and that the answer could not be given, only demonstrated.
And what if the question had never been posed?
Makes one ponder on the importance of asking the right questions.
This story sits alongside Trecia’s previous post very nicely.
Mar 20, 2009 @ 1:02 pm
nicholas
It’s funny how the idea of the omiscient machine returns in so many fictional works. From Asimov to Douglas to Lem. It seems the principle of artificial minds is one of the most fascinating in a world without gods. Reminds me of the opening scene of Alien 1, when the ship gives live to the hybernated crew and in the end destroys itself and ends history after ripley triggered the self-destruction, but quite ceremonially . Another funny thing is then: Machines always HAVE to communicate either visually or auditorily, but in a most spectacular way; don’t know why i had to think of it, though. Maybe it’s because of Trecias post. Science-fiction always is a powerful source.
Mar 22, 2009 @ 6:09 pm
girish
Douglas Adams’s “ultimate question”, (the answer to which was famously 42, for which the earth had to be created in order to find out what the actual question was) is an obvious subversion of this sci-fi trope. In Asimov’s “last question” the human race and the artificial mind work together through future history to find an answer, solving all of humanity’s other problems along the way and eventually merging to become one – in a sense it is our destiny. For me the thing about this story is the idea that there is ultimately no question that cannot be answered.
Mar 22, 2009 @ 11:24 pm
pia
I do love the way that the absurdity of 42 as an answer to the meaning of life (or the ultimate question) takes all the earnestness of the quest and shakes it apart through laughter. To pick up on nicholas’ point that AI becomes so poignant in a world without Gods, ’42′ takes the godliness out of the Ultimate. On that score, I would recommend a look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D7rWLzloOI It’s a guru figure talking about how ‘fuck’ is the word that has replaced God. A rip off of monty python, actually. Its a good laugh. If nothing else this is a celebration of the ‘slow movement’ via talking
, and check out his outfit and silver chair (sci-fi meets indian guru?).
What has been running about in my mind about this AI, computational-god tendency in sci-fi, is the emphasis on MIND over body. A very western, Cartesian legacy. I tend to think that our ‘evolution’ is more about transformation through *incorporation* – or the degree to which we incorporate ideas, technologies, and all manner of things into our bodily acts of living. Bodily modification, which involves brains, is surely a key issue. And by this, i don’t mean surgery or physical modification necessarily, I mean everything from our daily habits, to our buildings/habitats, to our personal technological devices … as that which we incorporate and becomes part of our bodies.
One of the functions of laughter, i believe, is to open us up in a very bodily way (opening mouths, shuddering body with rapid inhale/exhale) to allow for disjunction, conflict, incompatibilities to be accepted. Laughter has much in common with gasps of delight, for instance, but this is more of ‘swallowing’ than a negotiation with and acceptance of incompatability.
Mar 23, 2009 @ 1:10 pm
trecia
The idea of ‘incorporation’ is so strongly illustrated in the last text ‘the brain that changes itself’. I had always been fascinated by the limits of our humanly mind, how much it can be pushed out of its ‘comfortable processes’. and more interestingly, with the advancement of the nanotechnologies, is there any limits to our this humanly flesh at all? I really do enjoy the ending to the story that somehow ends with an explosive beginning, that draws similar context to the bible, a religious source.
Mar 24, 2009 @ 12:26 am
pia
yes, the last becomes, in a way, the first.
a massive, global, universal LOOP, not unlike those tiny weeny neural loops that Stern writes about.
Mar 24, 2009 @ 12:47 am