The Doomsday Plot (the possible fate of my body)

This is part three in a series about the deathbed regrets of a person with the dead man’s switch to a doomsday device implanted in their brain. Part one can be found here, and part two here.

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They must have known a way to keep me alive, or what would be the point? Why do the work of poisoning me rather than, oh I don’t know, just shoot me? Or for that matter, walk up to me and stab me? (Furiously, I would imagine.) That would have done it, if the intent was to simply deprive me of life – and with that, all other complex life on the planet, because I have a dead-man’s-switch wired to my Cartesian gland which the moment I die will trigger a great number of autonomous doomsday devices hidden around the globe.

I came to this conclusion just now, as I probably came to it many times before, because I must have been thinking through this a great many times. I mean, what else is there to do!

I exist in a purely theoretical state. My body evidently functions, or my brain at least must have living tissue. Another piece of evidence (I won’t say proof) I’m being kept alive. My mind, however, is cut off from all sense and motor function, this prevents me from activating the implant by will (unfortunately, also: From de-activating it).

They have effectively removed me from the universal chain of effect, the one believed to have started at the Big Bang event and is projected to end with far future dissipation of any kind of consequence at all.

My world now consists of inner monologue.

Which is why I keep it up.

Silence …

silence

silence

… would give me boundless space for reflection.

I must have said this to myself before …

and have I done the part about probabilities yet?

The part about regret?

I don’t remember very well.

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(Or can they monitor the workings of my brain somehow?

Decode whatever patterns of activity they find?

Let’s hope not. Where did that idea come from, anyway?)

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Assuming I have done the part about probabilities, there’s not much left for me, anyway, to think about. Except I could wonder what is happening to me, I mean my body, right now.

(Most likely not a lot …)

I can’t say when “now” is. Given I must have had these thoughts so many times (because – knowing myself – they’re the thoughts I would be most likely to have) – does it matter?

Wouldn’t the word “now” refer to more or less the same if this specific instance of self-monologue were iteration number X, and takes place say 10% into my remaining existence, or if it were iteration number Y, taking place 70% into same existence?

An existence one must assume extends far beyond the 120 years humans could live back when I was connected to the world – did I mention, I was in longevity research myself, before in my forties I became so incensed with myself – using so much of my limited time just trying to extend it – and for the same reasons, with humanity itself?

Which is why I decided to pull this prank – this social experiment – this art project. With the doomsday machines.

As pranks go, it was in poor taste, to say the least, and I regret it, to say even less.

One must assume they would spend the resources, the work force, the brain power needed to extend my life as far as they could. At least until …

but until what?

Until they could locate and deactivate enough of the devices that disaster would be diminished if not averted? (How would they know? I never told how many they were, or even what they would do, beyond proving beyond acceptable doubt they were there. Unless they can monitor my thoughts somehow, which again I suppose can’t be discounted). Until

they could evacuate Earth? Abandon the other animals, plants (fungi, bacteria, archaea etc might live through it) …

or until they could decide, they’ve had time enough to prepare, let’s now face doomsday with courage (it would again require a decision on behalf of so many other forms of life!)

Or just extend my life for as long as they could, until they reached some limit too hard to work around. Limited resources. Limited inventiveness. Limits intrinsic to life itself.

Thousands of years, maybe.

Would they extend themselves the same way, now the means existed?

(Might one say, I’d even done them a favor?)

(Nah. To say that, I’d have to have asked them first. “Hey, is it okay if I doom humanity to end when I do, so as to teach you a lesson, and if you want you can use it as a pretext for longevity research instead?”)

Or would they do some sort of math and conclude otherwise?

“In this paper, I argue that the preciousness of life is inversely proportional to the effort spent extending it.”

(One might wish …)

Would all humanity unite in the effort to keep me breathing? Well, on the matter of rising to action before an existential threat, I’d say our records is mixed. Not quite as bleak as leading misanthropes would have it, but since my actions means I’m definitely one of that kind, I deduce I would lean towards the lower end of faith myself.

Alternatively, I could be some country’s special project. Or an object of private initiative. Who knows which conception of economy they will maintain!

I would be expensive, with any kind of technology.

Not the mechanics that keep me breathing. Those would be so negligible! And the research – hopefully, bring benefits that repay some of the effort – but the security measures.

I would make a great hostage. For anyone willing to threaten all of humanity, including themselves, to get what their way, something I’d proved could happen …

I would be a target, too, for those who would destroy everything without even the threats first, for anyone who really hated life.

They would have to relocate me, they must have. To somewhere inaccessible, like the top of a remote mountain. Inside a mountain? Somewhere in Antarctica? On the Moon? But they would have to move me there safely, so they must have had some sort of access … and where they could go, potential ill-doers could follow …

It might be enough to stick me in a mountain and keep the location secret.

Insert some sort of nutrient replication device (they could get raw materials from the surroundings; wouldn’t have to be a closed system).

Stick everyone who knew in there with me.

The staff assigned to keep me alive would have to be small, meticulously vetted … and be unable to reproduce, because any children would have personalities the safety of which were harder to assess, especially if brought up in that kind of isolation … they would almost certainly become resentful against just the thing they were assigned to protect, ie me.

But if life extension existed for me, it would exist for them; they wouldn’t need any children.

They would be able to receive, but not send information – updates on medical data, the effort to search out and activate doomsday devices, as well as unrelated news … history simply going on without them …

Removed from the chain of cause and effect –

– except that at least on the planetary scale, they could cause a very large effect, by ending my life out of sheer frustration.

Because … oh, right. The implant.

The transmitter.

That would be active, so it wouldn’t be possible to hide me. It would send a signal that could be traced.

This is getting pointless. I’m just making things up now.

Like I must have done, many times before.

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All this, of course, rides on the assumption that their efforts to keep me alive will work.

I have deduced they must have had a plan. I have no standing for the hope it would be a good one.

For all I know, I haven’t been here for centuries at all. It could be minutes after they knocked me out, I could be at the operating table with doctors desperate to save me.

What if they can’t?

What if my next thought is my …

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Hah! Gotcha!

Got – myself, at least.

Really fooled me into thinking I was dead, didn’t I.

Well, no. But you got to have a sense of humor.

Even if it is in poor taste.

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Yeah. I hope no one found a way to listen in on my thoughts.

Why do I keep coming back to that?

Though if you did – the password for the implant is “password”, type it in and you can deactivate it safely. I’d like that.

Though I’m very aware – if you are listening at all – I’ve given you no reason at all to trust me.

You are right about that. No reason to trust you at all.

What if we could monitor your brain, though?

What if we could project thoughts into it, even?

What?