Mushroom.Man Read online

  Jane came back with three mugs of coffee. She handed one to Greg.

  ‘Don’t take it personally,’ she said, ‘I don’t take any shit from him either.’ She sat down and laughed. ‘You can’t expect me to take talking to mushrooms seriously.’

  It was a long night. Greg had a lot that he wanted to tell us and there was a lot I wanted to hear. He had some grass that he rolled California-style, no tobacco and a single skin. ‘Home grown,’ he told us proudly. We smoked, we talked, we listened to James Taylor. I remember that night vividly, it was the night I decided to go travelling. Well maybe not right then, but the seeds were planted. We’d got comfortable, lounging on cushions, long pauses in the conversation. Tired, stoned and relaxed.

  ‘Dreams,’ said Greg, ‘have you considered them? That’s another reality that we all experience nightly. A whole realm of consciousness where the daily rules don’t apply. If you could grasp hold of that reality as an actor, rather than as an observer, think what you could do. Anything would be possible, from the mundane to the bizarre. Travel to the places that you dream of, make love to your dream women, do whatever you want. There’s a freedom there for the taking. There’s a guy in California who teaches you to control your dreams; shows you how to inject self-awareness into them so that you gain control of where the dreams are leading. Think of that. If you can do it, then you’re like a man staring at an ocean for years who is suddenly handed a boat. You can find out what’s over the horizon for the first time in your life. Think of it, a dream traveller. An oneironaut. You see, it’s all connected. The realities of dreams, drugs and daily life are part of a continuum. It’s just that we can only see them one at a time. We see, experience, walls that divide them. Huxley talks of doors of perception. Our view is not uninterrupted; we have to find ways of opening the doors to these other realities. All this matters to me, because it’s all information that I use when I think about artificial intelligence. If I don’t have a clear idea of what perception, intelligence and awareness are all about then how the hell can I hope to create it?’

  There was more of this monologue, but that’s the gist of it. I was too stoned to make it into a conversation and I think Jane was too. All the while he talked I couldn’t help reflecting on my life. I looked around at the dreary wallpaper, the dusty paper lampshade, the coffee stains on the carpet, the secondhand sofa and chairs. Briefly I toyed with the idea that even Jane was a cast-off, but dismissed it. It was a line of reasoning I didn’t want to follow. And tomorrow? Tomorrow I would have to deal with yet another Tom Greenan; same ilk, same ignorance, same aggression. Stupid parties where you drank too much and got sick, nights spent with the same people none of whom had Greg’s fire or breadth of vision. I watched him while he talked. We’d had the same start, he and I, and yet he was riding a wave, surfing joyously through his life. Why was mine so bloody humdrum?

  He stayed on the sofa that night. Before we went to bed we decided that the next day would be a day in the hills even if it meant Jane and I would miss work. We got up late and ate a leisurely breakfast. Greg was quiet, but I put it down to a hangover; I wasn’t feeling too great myself. The combination of the two – weed and alcohol – can be debilitating. Greg had hired a car, a further sign of his material success. I couldn’t even afford to run a motor-bike. We hadn’t gone far when he announced he had to pick something up. He called into a house, greeted the owner warmly, and emerged with a roof-rack and a canoe.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ he grinned as he got back into the car. ‘We’re going canoeing.’

  The day was grey and damp, but we arrived in the hills to find that the rain had stopped. It was still threatening, but dry. We parked by the river and got the canoe to the shore. Greg went first, tossing me the car keys. ‘Meet me at the next bridge.’ Jane and I drove about two miles downstream to the bridge and waited. The river was low, no fast white water today. All the better, since I’d only ever been in a canoe on a lake. I stared at the river and decided that I could handle it.

  ‘Good to see Greg again, isn’t it?’ said Jane.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘He seems to be very happy. I mean, he seems to have found something that suits him. He looks well.’

  ‘Yeah. He does.’

  I watched a pair of dippers going about their business in, on, and over the river bed. What was she thinking? Last night she had refused sex, saying she was too tired. She didn’t go to sleep, though. I knew she was awake, because I was. I could hear the way she breathed and it wasn’t the breathing of sleep. Something was on her mind.

  ‘Do you miss him?’ I asked.

  ‘Miss Greg?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a long pause. I watched the dippers. I began to think she wasn’t going to answer.

  ‘I suppose I do, yes.’

  ‘So do I.’

  We waited in silence. How long does two miles in a canoe take? It seemed forever. Eventually we saw him rounding the bend in the river about four hundred yards upstream. I went down to the river.

  ‘God that was good. Your turn, old buddy.’

  ‘What about Jane?’

  We both looked up at the parapet.

  ‘Not me. God no. I’d get soaked.’

  ‘Right,’ said Greg, ‘you take it down to the next bridge, and we’ll meet you there.’

  The next bridge was about six miles downstream by road. God knows how far by river. I’d never been down it before. Most of the way the going was easy, slow lazy bits of river that needed no concentration. I was able to look at the banks, the forests, the occasional field of sheep. A heron took off lazily as I rounded a bend. Where the river got wide it became so shallow that there were times that I had to do a kind of bum-shuffle, pushing down on the river-bed to make the canoe slide onwards. One place was awkward. There was a pile of huge boulders blocking the river, making a dam that I was not prepared to shoot. I carried the canoe downstream and started again. I thought in the silence about what Greg had been saying the previous night. About dreams and mushrooms, about realities and their connections. I began to think how unfocussed my own weekend trips were. I was like a tourist, not a traveller. I was just there for a good time, not to make any sense of it. If the experience was to mean anything other than recreation, then there had to be some kind of plan. It couldn’t just be dipping in, randomly visiting new realities. It had to be thought through, the way Greg had done. It had to be done with care and preparation, just as you would if you were going to a far-off country. What I had been doing was childlike. Like a child in a fairground I was simply engrossed in the magic of each ride, unable to comprehend the reality of stalls and hucksters. I paddled and thought. I had to address the work thing. I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing; it was time for a change.

  When I came to the bridge I pulled the canoe ashore and walked to Greg’s car which was parked a little way off. There was no one in it, and it was locked. I thought of going looking for them, but I didn’t want to leave the canoe unattended. I stood on the bridge and waited. Maybe they had simply gone for a walk, tired of waiting for me. Maybe Greg had deliberately taken the short run and left me the long one to be alone with Jane. I thought about it. A strange idea occurred to me. I didn’t mind, and it puzzled me. Jealousy was something I took for granted, something as natural as breathing, and yet I didn’t feel it. In fact, I was almost pleased to believe it if it was true. If he had wanted Jane he would never have left her, or she him. I couldn’t be jealous of Greg, he was my friend. Such strange thoughts: if I was honest with myself there was even a frisson of excitement in it. For a moment I pictured them in the act, and then I studied the river instead.

  There were small trout darting in and out from under the bridge. River weed with long white flowering tresses moved sinuously in the current. Through the shallow brown water the trout were hard to see; only when they moved did the eye pick them up. A watery universe, theirs. Shallow horizons. Then they called me. Greg and Jane with their arms full of mushrooms.
>
  ‘Look! We’ve found supper.’

  Their pleasure was infectious. My brooding thoughts dispersed and Greg and I busied ourselves getting the canoe back on the roof-rack. We got in and set off.

  ‘When are you leaving, Greg?’ I asked.

  ‘This evening. It was just a short visit. I have to get back. I’ll leave you two off, then I’m off to the airport.’

  ‘I didn’t know. I mean, I had no idea you were off today.’

  ‘Seven o’clock flight, a real red-eye.’

  We didn’t talk of much in the car on the way home. Just banal small talk. Greg made us laugh with his descriptions of the Santa Barbarians, their gurus, their crystals, their re-birthing. Talk about different realities. It all seemed a million miles from mine. It all seemed to boil down to money. They had it there, in abundance. Enough to indulge the flimsiest of whims. They seemed to have so many choices in their lives that choosing became a problem. You needed a guru to tell you how to spend your time and money. Perhaps it’s a problem that would be fun to have, I thought. Maybe I should make some money.

  After we left off the canoe I asked whose house it was.

  ‘The brother’s. Remember? He runs a carpet warehouse now.’

  We got back to our house and Greg turned off the engine. He turned around in his seat and looked back at me and smiled.

  ‘Good to see you both again. It’s been a while.’

  ‘Four years.’

  ‘I know. I did want to see you both, though. I’m glad you’re together. I always thought you two would get it together. It’s a reference point for me.’

  ‘Glad to be of service.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that you two are so much a part of me. I just want to say thanks.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Forget it. Just thanks for a good day. I enjoyed it.’ He smiled at Jane.

  ‘Look,’ he turned to me, ‘I don’t know if I should say this, but you seem like you’re stuck in something you don’t like.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true.’

  ‘I’m not trying to give you advice or anything, but it’s not just the destination – you have to enjoy the ride as well.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been thinking about it. About what you said last night. Plenty to mull over.’

  ‘Listen, I hope you two aren’t going to get into trouble at work over me.’ He turned to Jane. ‘I’m going into the boutique on my way to the airport to pick up that coat. Do you want me to pass on a message?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  He turned to me again.

  ‘Well, so long old buddy. See you the next time.’

  ‘Bye, Greg. And good luck.’

  ‘You too.’

  I got out onto the pavement. Jane leaned over to kiss him goodbye. She got out and we stood, waving, as he drove away, one hand raised out of the window.

  ‘Did he just say he’d been to the boutique?’

  ‘He bought a coat the other day. It needed alterations.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Didn’t I? I must have forgot.’

  ‘Forgot to tell me Greg was back from the States?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She turned and walked to the front door. She stopped at the door.

  ‘Are you coming in or staying there?’

  I followed her in. I didn’t pursue it, didn’t want to start a fight. Didn’t ask about what had happened at the river. Left it all unsaid. Whatever her relationship was with Greg she clearly felt that it was none of my business. I did ask her about the mushrooms they had picked for supper.

  ‘I think I left them in the car.’

  Sparassis crispa. The Cauliflower Mushroom.

  Large, 8–20 inches diameter.

  Cream to nut-brown. Smell pleasant. Fragile.

  At base of coniferous trees. Late summer to late autumn.

  Edible. Nutty flavoured flesh.

  six

  I was sure that the reason the mushroom.man had sent me the last piece was because it described his conversion from being a day-tripper to a full-time traveller. The message was clear: if you want to know about psychotropic mushrooms you’re going to have to try them. This was definitely not on my agenda in the near or distant future. I felt that somehow he was trying to push me in that direction and it panicked me a little. I didn’t want to become his acolyte – I wanted him to be the subject of my research.

  Possibly I was imagining it, but I sensed a danger that I was being manipulated – drawn like a fly into a web. I also felt that to continue the dialogue between us I had to change its direction. The computer reference seemed a good starting point, so I asked him to tell me about that. At least computers were real and tangible. If we could stick to topics that were rooted in the reality that I understood then we would be corresponding as equals. Specifically I expressed an interest in machine intelligence, and I asked him if he had more to say on that topic. He replied within the week.

  Attn. mushroom.seeker.

  Subject: AI.

  23 July.

  What fascinates me is taking of a piece of silicon and making it think. It’s not the technological wizardry of layering millions of transistors by photo-etching onto a thumbnail-size chip; it’s the logical arrangement that allows that chip to process information. That’s what’s clever. I mean, the chip comes from the manufacturer with a simple instruction set and a couple of memory registers, but that’s it. Now comes the creation of the higher-level languages.

  I like the creation of language. If language not only reflects but also creates reality, then the creation of a computer language is the creation of a computer reality. I believe that. You have to look at the development of computer languages as you would a child learning its native tongue. At first few words have a meaning for the child, but gradually the child begins to string them together and syntax emerges. With that, higher thought processes become possible. It’s the same with silicon thought.

  All that a silicon chip can do is add one number to another. You make it multiply by making it add sequentially, subtract by negative adding, divide by sequentially negative adding. The instructions you give to perform these tasks are called routines. Then you build up a library of routines that perform more complex arithmetical functions: then they in turn become the building-blocks of the language.

  The chip’s own instruction set is called a low-level language because you’re dealing with the elementary bits. When you’ve built up a library of routines you can build a command interpreter, in which one instruction can bring into effect many of the primary routines. It’s like the beginning of syntax: you can now talk to the chip in a first-generation language rather than talk directly to the chip’s own instruction set.

  Like building blocks this process continues. Higher-level languages approximate closer and closer to English. The main difference, apart from a smaller vocabulary, is the need for rigorous internal logic – something we don’t really expect from normal language. There is a built-in cost to the construction of higher-level languages, and that is loss of efficiency. An instruction in a high-level language is in many ways a crude instrument. It’s simpler to use and much quicker than writing your own instruction set from basics; but it’s like a bus. It goes close to where you want to go, but never to your door. It’s a compromise between ease of use, compactness and precision.

  In practical terms what that has meant is that programs have grown in size exponentially. I had a word processor years ago that was 16k of code, including its own character set and screen handling routines. Today there are word processors that take up a thousand times that memory. They are better and easier to use, but the cost has been in memory requirement. Fortunately memory is cheap and abundant.

  For a programmer there is a choice: he can fit the language to the task. If you’re writing the world’s best chess program, then you write it in as low-level a language as you can, in as tight a code as possible. That ensures speed of processing with no
time wasted on higher-level interpreters. Operating systems and device drivers work best when written like this. Other tasks benefit from the ease of programming in higher-level languages – database applications, for example, where blistering speed is not the main requirement. If your typing doesn’t leave the cursor behind, then the program is fast enough. In the silicon world you match your language to the task.

  The parallels between an infant’s first steps in language and the growth of computer language are unavoidable. They follow the same route of development. Since human language dictates the patterns of human thought, it’s no surprise that the creators of silicon language have followed the same path. But whereas human language turns to self-reflection, as yet silicon has not.

  Years ago I got a long letter from Greg detailing his ideas on this. I don’t know why he sent it to me, perhaps it was simply an exercise to clarify his own ideas – maybe it was his testament. He wanted to find the silicon equivalent to psychedelics, something that would have the same effect on silicon-based life as psychedelics had on carbon-based life – a catalyst. He was increasingly convinced that there was no answer to be found in programming. Human genetic code has similarities with machine code. Sometimes when you disassemble code to see what someone else has done, you find chunks that serve no purpose. They’re left over from previous versions that no one ever got round to cutting out. There are chunks of human genetic code that serve no apparent purpose; they too seem to be leftovers from a previous version, or a version that never got finished.