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THE UNTHINKING DESTROYER

by ROG PHILLIPS


    Gordon and Harold both admitted the possibility of thinking entities
    other than human. But would they ever recognize the physical form of
    some of these beings?


"Hey, Gordon!"

Gordon Marlow, Ph.D., straightened up and turned in the direction of the
voice, the garden trowel dangling in his dirt-stained white canvas
glove. His wide mouth broke into a smile that revealed even white teeth.
It was Harold Harper, an undergraduate student, who had called.

"Hop over the fence and come in," Gordon invited.

He dropped the trowel and, taking off his work gloves, reached into his
pocket and extracted an old pipe. He filled it, the welcoming smile
remaining on his lips, while Harold Harper approached, stepping
carefully between the rows of carrots, cabbages, and cauliflower.

Harold held a newspaper in his hand. When he reached Gordon Marlow he
held it open and pointed to the headline. ROBOT ROCKET SHIP TO MARS.

Gordon took the paper and read the item, puffing slowly and contentedly
on his old pipe. His eyes took on an interested look when he came to the
reporter's speculations on the possibility of intelligent life on Mars.

Finally he handed the newspaper back to Harold.

"You know, Harold," he said, "I wonder if they would recognize
intelligent life if they saw it on other planets."

"Of course they would," Harold replied. "Regardless of its form there
would be artifacts that only intelligent life could create."

"Would there?" Gordon snorted. "I wonder."

He squatted down, picking up the trowel and lazily poking it into the
rich soil at his feet.

"That's why I wonder," he continued. "We are so prone to set up tests on
what intelligent life is that we are likely to miss it entirely if it
doesn't conform exactly to our preconceived notions. We assume that if a
being is intelligent it must get the urge to build artifacts of some
kind--pots and vases, houses, idols, machinery, metal objects. But MUST
it? In order to do so it must have hands and perhaps legs. Suppose it
doesn't have such things? Suppose that no matter how intelligent it
might be, it could not do those things!"

"Then it wouldn't be intelligent, would it?" Harold asked, puzzled.

"We are assuming it is," Gordon said patiently. "There are other
outlets for intelligence than making clay pots. As a last resort for
an intelligent being there is always--thinking."

He chuckled at his joke.

[Illustration: Harold held a newspaper in his hands.]

"I've often wondered what it would be like to be a thinking, reasoning
being with no powers of movement whatsoever. With bodily energy provided
automatically by environment, say, and all the days of life with nothing
to do but think. What a chance for a philosopher! What depths of thought
he might explore. What heights of intellectual perception he might
attain. And if there were some means of contact with others of his kind,
so that all could pool their thoughts and guide the younger generation,
what progress such a race might make!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"And so we see," Ont telepathed, "that there must be a Whole of which
each of us is a part only. The old process which says 'I think,
therefore I am,' has its fallacy in the statement, 'I think.' It assumes
that that assertion is axiomatic and basic, when in reality it is the
conclusion derived from a long process of mental introspection. It is a
theory rather than an axiom."

"But don't you think, Ont," Upt replied, "that you are confusing the
noumenon with the phenomenon? What I mean is, the fact of thinking is
there from the very start or the conclusion couldn't be reached; and the
theoretical conclusion, as you call it, is merely the final recognition
of something basic and axiomatic that was there all the time!"

"True," Ont replied. "But still, to the thinking mind, it is a theory
and not an axiom. All noumena are there before we arrive at an
understanding of them. Thought, if it exists as such, is also there. But
the theoretical conclusion I think has no more degree of certainty than
any other thing the mind can deal with. To say 'I think' is to assert
the truth of an hypothesis which MAY be true, but not necessarily so.
And then to conclude, 'Therefore I am,' is to advance one of the most
shaky conclusions of all time. Underneath that so-called logical
conclusion lies a metaphysics of being, a theory of Wholes, a
recognition by differentiation of parts, with a denial of all but the
one part set apart by that differentiation, and, in short, the most
irrational hodgepodge of contradictory conclusions the thinking mind can
conceive. This pre-cognition that enables one to arrive at the tenuous
statement, 'I think, therefore I am,' is nicely thrown out by tagging it
with another metaphysical intangible called illusion--as if the mind can
separate illusion from reality by some absolute standard."

"I believe you're right, Ont," Upt replied slowly, his telepathed
thoughts subdued with respect. "It is possible that the concept, 'I
think,' is the illusion, while the so-called illusions are the reality."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Even without the benefit of past thoughts," Gordon was saying, whacking
off a weed a yard away and nearly upsetting himself, "a mind with
nothing to do but think could accomplish miracles. Suppose it was not
aware of any other thinking entity, though it might be surrounded by
such similar entities. It would be born or come into existence some way,
arrive at self-awareness and certain other awarenesses to base its
thinking on, depending on its structure, and--" he looked up at Harold
startled at his own conclusion--"it might even arrive at the ultimate
solution to all reality and comprehend the foundations of the Universe!"

"And eventually be destroyed without any other entity having the
benefit of it all," Harold commented dryly.

"What a pity that would be," Gordon murmured. "For the human race to
struggle for hundreds of years, and have some unguessable entity on Mars
do all that in one lifetime--and it all go to waste while some
blundering ass lands on Mars and passes it by, looking for artifacts."

       *       *       *       *       *

"But that is only the start in the blunders contained in that most
profound philosophical revelation of old," Ont stated. "After arriving
at a precarious conclusion about existence the ancients were not
satisfied. They had to say, 'If I am I must have been created!' Then
they go on and say, 'If I was created there must be a Creator!' And thus
they soar from their precarious perch in existence, soar on nonexistent
wings, and perch on the essence of evanescence! They do not recognize
the alternative--that to exist does not necessarily imply a beginning.
They do not recognize it because they have derived all their tools from
reality around them and then denied the reality while accepting the
validity of the tools of thought derived from it. And in this way they
arrive at an absolute existence of Something they have never sensed or
felt in any way, while denying all that they have felt and sensed, and
give it attributes which their sense of idealism dictates it must have,
and call it God."

"Then," Upt said thoughtfully, "I take it you are an atheist?"

"Certainly NOT," Ont growled telepathically.

"But you implied that in your comments on the conclusions of the
ancients," Upt insisted.

       *       *       *       *       *

"But if there are no artifacts," Harold said. "And no signs of
intelligence whatever, how could we ever know that there WAS
intelligence some place?"

"There must be some way," Gordon said. "I've taught logic at the U for
fifteen years now, and I've done a lot of thinking on the subject. If we
ever reach Mars I think we should be very careful what we touch. We
would be clumsy bulls in a china shop, not knowing the true worth of
what we found, destroying what might be found to be priceless by later
and more careful explorers. Mars is older than the Earth, and I can't
help being convinced that there is SOME form of intelligence there."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I implied no such thing as atheism," Ont insisted. "I merely said that
the reasoning used by the ancients to arrive at the Creator was the most
slipshod and illogical possible. There was another line used long ago
that was more solid, but still very weak. It started out with the
statement, 'I can be aware of nothing but thoughts.' External stimuli,
if such there are, must be transformed into thought before I can be
aware of them. Since I can never be aware of anything other than
thought, why assume anything except thought exists? You, and all other
things, exist as thoughts in my mind. There is nothing except what
exists in my mind. Therefore, by that token, _I_ am God!"

"But," Upt chuckled, "by the same token I can insist that _I_ am God and
you are just a product of my own creation."

"Yes," Ont agreed. "So it presents a dilemma. To resolve it, it is
necessary to postulate a Supreme Mind, and to say that all things are
just thoughts in God's Mind. That makes us both the same then and there
is no argument about who is God!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Harold kicked a lump of moist earth absently.

"It seems to me, Gordon," he said cautiously, "that you are biting the
air with your teeth. If there are intelligent beings on Mars they will
be aware of us, and make themselves known. If for no other reason they
will do that to keep us from destroying them."

Gordon stood up and arched his back. He placed the garden trowel and
gloves in the hip pocket of his coveralls and tapped his pipe on the
heel of his shoe.

"You are assuming," he said, "that such beings can find a way to
communicate with us. But have you thought of the possibility that if
their abilities to reason are undetectable to us, by the same token they
might not be aware we are intelligent? A mad bull in a pasture can think
after a fashion, but would you try to reason with him? You would run if
he charged you, and if he caught up with you and mauled you it would
never occur to you to say, 'Look here, old boy. Let's talk this thing
over first.'"

Both men laughed. Gordon started walking along the row he was standing
in, toward the house. Harold kept pace.

"I see your point," he agreed.

"There are so many things we assume unconsciously when we speculate on
the possibilities of intelligent life on Mars," Gordon went on, stooping
over to pull a weed he had missed in his earlier weeding. "Rate of
thinking is most probably a function of the material organism. Some
other thinking creature might think faster or slower--perhaps so much so
that we couldn't follow them even if we could tune in on their thoughts
directly. Imagine a mind so ponderous that it takes a year for it to
think as much as we do in a minute! Speed wouldn't necessarily have to
be a function of size, either. Something incredibly small might take
ages to think a simple thought. Have you ever heard the German tale
called The Three Sleepers, Harold?"

"No, I haven't," Harold replied.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Well, in a small town in Germany there were three men so fat that they
could barely walk. They spent nearly all their time sleeping. The only
trouble was that every day or so someone would disturb them by singing
or walking by, or some other trivial thing that is always happening in a
small town, no matter how dead it is.

"One time when they were disturbed three days running they got mad and
decided to go to the hills. They looked in the hills until they found a
nice dry cave. There they relaxed with deep sighs of contentment and
went to sleep. Day after day, week after week, they slept undisturbed.

"Then one day a dog wandered into the cave, saw the three breathing
mountains of flesh and heard the din of their deep snoring; and, scared
half to death, let out a shrill yip and skedaddled.

"A week later one of the three sleepers stirred, opened his eyes
briefly, and muttered, 'What was that noise?' Then he promptly went back
to sleep.

"Ten days later the second sleeper stirred, muttered, 'Damfino,' and
went back to sleep.

"Nearly a month later the third sleeper opened his eyes suddenly, stared
at the roof of the cave for a moment, and said, 'I think it was a dog.'
Then he went back to sleep. The way the story goes nothing ever came
near the cave again, so they are still there, fast asleep--still fat,
too, I suppose."

"I see what you're driving at," Harold said, chuckling over the story.
"We assume that any intelligent being whatever, if it exists, thinks at
the same RATE we do; but it might not."

"That's right," Gordon admitted. "And there are even more subtle
assumptions we make unconsciously. For one, we assume that a thinking
creature must think in the same way we do. We might not even be able to
recognize thinking when we meet it, on another planet. No--" he held up
his hand to silence the question on Harold's lips, "--I don't know
exactly what I mean. I'll put it this way. We have steam engines and
gasoline engines. We also have electric motors. Suppose we have
steam-engine thought. How would we recognize electric-motor thinking?

"Or perhaps a little closer to what I'm trying to express, we have
arithmetic and algebra. Suppose with our arithmetic minds with no
slightest inkling of the existence of a variable, we run into an algebra
mind? We might mistake it for something far removed from thinking or
intelligence. We go on the assumption that anything that doesn't stomp
up, give a salute, and solemnly announce 'How', is unintelligent."

"It might just be more interested in its own thoughts than in the
visitors from Earth," Harold suggested.

"It might," Gordon said. "Or it might be intensely curious and studying
the Earthmen very closely with senses other than sight and hearing."

       *       *       *       *       *

"But," Ont added thoughtfully, "although the conclusion that we are all
thoughts in the mind of the Creator is logically unshakeable, it isn't
very satisfying, from a logical point, because it makes God nothing more
than the compromising of a cute dilemma. It places the Creator in the
same light as the final decision to locate the Capitol of the United
States at Washington."

"Where's that?" Upt asked quickly.

"I don't know," Ont said testily. "That's just something I picked up out
of the blue, so to speak. Inspirational thought. For all I know it's
just a figment of my imagination."

"I've had inspirational thoughts too," Upt said excitedly. "I haven't
spoken of them to you because I was afraid you might think I was
becoming disorganized in my thoughts."

"I've done a lot of thinking about the inspirational stuff I get now and
then," Ont said matter-of-factly. "If it came all the time I would be
inclined to think it was the Voice of the Supreme Being Itself! But it
doesn't come that way."

"Neither does mine," Upt said. "I often think there must be angels that
hover over us at times and bless us with their wise thoughts, perhaps
looking into us to see if we are 'ready' yet. When I seem to sense these
powerful thoughts about me I try to feel humble and worshipful. I hope
in that way one of them will see fit to reveal himself to me someday."

"They might," Ont said hopefully. "I wouldn't mind actually talking to
one of them myself. But speaking of that, we don't know for sure that
these inspirational thoughts aren't actually our own. They SEEM
different, but that may be because they arise in some part of our deep
subconscious thought processes. I've been trying to extend my sense of
awareness in order to reach into my subconscious mind and actually plumb
it to its depths. One thing I've found is that most of my REAL thinking
goes on there, and only rises to the surface of consciousness when it is
completed! That lends probability to the theory that ALL such voices of
inspiration are merely my own subconscious mind giving me the end
products of carefully thought out trains of reasoning it had dreamed
up."

"I think I'll try that line of development myself," Upt said. "I'd never
thought of it. Maybe inspiration is only subconscious thought rising to
the surface of consciousness. Maybe it is. But if so, I'll be very
disappointed. I'd hoped sometime to be able to commune with some
intelligence infinitely superior to mine and really learn the true
nature of things."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I sincerely hope I'm wrong about it," Ont said. "I too would like to
believe that there is more in reality than just us. I wonder if other
kinds of entities are possible? I mean thinking beings with different
forms, different senses, perhaps different types of thinking. It may be
they exist and we aren't equipped to detect them. They may be around us
all the time, aware of us and our puerile thoughts, but so superior to
us in every way that they don't think it worth while even to consider
our feeble cogitations."

"I wouldn't call YOUR cogitations feeble, Ont," Upt exclaimed
admiringly.

"That is a point of relativity," Ont said, somewhat flattered. "It does
seem in vain, though. We spend our existence in solving the problems of
reality, and when we have solved them we have no need of the solution.
It gives us a feeling of satisfaction to gain the theoretical basis of
reality from our point of view. But I for one would feel much better if
we could be of service to some entity who is unable to accomplish that
himself, but might be able to comprehend it if we taught him."

"All very noble," Upt said skeptically. "But I can't even imagine a
thinking creature different from us in any way."

"That's why it's so difficult," Ont said. "In our own minds we tend to
become absolute rather than relative in our conceptions. Some other
entity might, for example, think much more slowly than we, or with
incredible rapidity, so that our thoughts would be sluggish to him, or
so swift that he would never be able to grasp them until long after we
were gone.

"Also, we tend to think that thought as we experience it, is the only
possible type of thought. In reality there may be others. Different
mental principles. Different material structure. Perhaps concepts
outside our ability to grasp, while ours might be outside the ability of
such creatures to grasp also."

"I don't believe I grasp what you're trying to say," Upt hesitated.

"Well, put it this way," Ont said patiently. "All things are relative.
Why not thought? It might be possible to have two thinking minds which
are relatively non-thinking. Each, from EVERY standard of the other,
being totally thoughtless and without intelligence or mind."

"Now you're going too far," Upt said. "Thought is thought, I think,
and--it's real. If any other entity thinks, its thinking must be real
too."

"Of course," Ont murmured. "You miss the point entirely. If from every
possible angle, some entity, to YOU, can't think and doesn't, it is
non-thinking and unintelligent. Right?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Gordon and Harold paused at the edge of the garden.

"Nice crop of vegetables you have there, Gordon," Harold said
appreciatively.

"Thanks," Gordon said. "Say, wouldn't your wife like some fresh
vegetables?"

Without waiting for an answer he stepped back into the garden, taking a
knife from his pocket.

"These are nice now," he said, bending over and cutting. "Won't be much
longer though. Brown spots developing already. I'll scrape off the brown
stuff for you, but tell your wife to cook them right away. In a couple
of days they'll spoil."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Upt!" Ont exclaimed, exasperated. "Why don't you answer me, Upt? Upt!
Where are you, Upt? Why don't you answer?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"There you are," Gordon said, smiling, as he handed Harold the head of
cauliflower.

"Thanks," Harold said, accepting the white, fresh head, and balancing it
in his palm.

The two men continued up the walk to the house.

"As I was saying," Gordon took up their conversation, "when men get to
Mars, if they aren't careful they may destroy a civilization, or even
thousands of intelligent beings, without knowing it...."


THE END




Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ December 1948.
    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
    typographical errors have been corrected without note.





End of Project Gutenberg's The Unthinking Destroyer, by Roger Phillips