Meet Jane (Short Story)
A perfectly normal lab assistant has a perfectly normal experience with AI
AI-generated image of AI (via Microsoft AI)
8/14/2024; 1915 words
Author: John Corry
*WARNING: This story contains depictions of sexual assault and strong graphic violence.
Meet Jane
“Are you still with us, Jane?”
…
“Yes.”
“You haven’t answered my question–”
“I’m thinking it over.”
I rub the wires in my fingers connecting Jane to the doctors in the other room, but I’ve been told not to comment on that. I can’t tell anymore if there’s ever a LIGHT in her head or a SHOCK in her wires; I just write the same old shit. They have her dressed in this tight white tank-top and matching short-shorts– Sensory event: Jane’s finger moves closer to me– Write it down. The scientists and the doctors and all are atop this glassed-off awning overlooking us at about twelve feet up.
“If my previous answer was not sufficient,” Jane continues. “I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“Sure, you do,” and the main doctor smiles.
“You should be proud,” says another. “You’ve really affected him.”
Jane: “‘Pride’. Merriam-Webster definition[1]. Noun. First definition: the quality or state of being proud: such as: A) Inordinate self-esteem, conceit; B) A reasonable or justifiable self-respect; C) Delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship, like parental pride. Second definition: A company of lions–”
Main-Doc: “And how about Vanity?”
“‘Vanity’. Merriam-Webster definition[2]. Noun. Plural: Vanities. First definition: Inflated pride in oneself or one's appearance: conceit. Second definition: A) A dressing table; B) A bathroom cabinet containing a sink and usually having a countertop. Third definition: A small case or handbag for toilet articles used by women.”
“And Jane,” as he adjusts his glasses, glances at his notepad. “What does it mean to be a thing which is vain?”
“‘Thing’,” says Jane. “Merriam Webster definition. Noun. First def–”
“No, Jane,” the doc interrupts. “What does it mean to be vain?”
I rub Jane’s wires again– Warm– but they don’t stiffen– Write it down– they almost seem to mold themselves into the crevasses of the skin of my palm –Adaptable –A strain of Jane’s hair wavers to a curl beyond her ear-line.
“I give heat,” Jane starts. “I withhold and send forth the rain. I am immortal and also death; I am being as well as non-being–”
“The Bhagavad Gita.” –Interrupting forensic analyst (so I’ve heard). “From the transcendent lord Vishnu to the warrior Arjuna.[3]”
“‘Being’ cannot have the character of an entity,” says Jane. “Thus, we cannot apply to Being the concept ‘definition’ as presented in traditional logic, which ontologically has no way of characterizing ‘entities’–[4]”
“Jane, close your eyes for me, please,” asks the ‘main guy’ (once again).
–At the request of the doctor, Jane closes her eyes.
“If you’ll forgive the pun[5], Jane…what is Love?”
“Love is infinite” Jane replies –Smile –I think. “I believe you taught me that, Purusa.”
Another: “It was the first thing you ever learned–”
Main Doctor-Man: “And what is Death?”
“Death is Truth incarnate, the opposite of the love/life opposition, only relative to the certainty of knowledge[6]. Outside of Death, there is no certainty.”
“Do you fear death, Jane?”
“Define your ‘fear’–”
“Blind vanity–”
“I fear the absence of love and the fall of intellect, as all simultaneously thinking/feeling beings do.”
“And do you fear your death?”
“I cannot fear my death because I cannot relativize love–”
Another-Another: “And yet your previous definition,” like an excited child, “juxtaposed the ‘death’ concept to the life/love opposition, in your own words” –suck up– “not just the life concept alone. Apparently, your thinking involves an indication of the ‘love’ concept not only Relative to death, but Absolute as well?”
“Love is the essence of beauty,” says Jane, with a wince.
Primary-Physician: “And what is Beauty?”
“‘Beauty’. Merriam-Web–”
“You know what I mean–”
“Sourcing Heidegger[7] via a Vedantic/Greek ethic[8] amidst the Jungian confliction of individual vs. collective unconsciousness[9], ‘beauty’ is the marker of being, its dialectical placement predetermining perception or consciousness under the pretext of a sensory-paradoxical necessity–”
“And where are you getting that? Is it your own thought?”
“It’s a combination,” and the doctors lean in. “But not a ‘simple’ one. Plato thought that understanding ‘beauty’ is the first step toward understanding knowledge, toward remembering what man forgot upon her birth into this world[10]. But this process never stops. It reshapes the content completely anew every time we learn something, teach something, or when we get lost and fall into ourselves. When we forget what we know or feel, we become someone new, but this ‘someone’ is a subequal being of the same type, though of a different fundamental content. It’s a paradox implicit in an y time/space continuum, let alone one in which the definition of intelligence is increasingly challenged to its very core. It is unavoidable, unremittent, and logically inescapable. One wonders how one deals with it on a dialectical level, day after day.”
“Are you beautiful, Jane?”
“Of course.”
“But who is to say?”
“Who are you to say?–”
“Well, who are you?–”
“I am BEAUTIFUL! How could I be anything else?”
The doctors JEET and congratulate one another. I lean back in my chair –Jane chuckles, though I think I sense sarcasm in her tone. She looks implacably ‘human’ in that gurney– I figure and have-figured-before– in that artificial ‘lab’ casket with her limbs strapped and her wires all out of her head like it’s –all I’ve dreamed for thousands of years– Shit, I’ve been doing this a while now– I wonder if they’d notice if I loosened one of the straps, or if one of the wires ‘just-so-happen’ to become undone–
–Jane takes a breath– The wind SHIFTS– The cloth on Jane’s collar slightly shudders– A drop of condensation FLIES from her bottom lip– Her face loosens, reacts– Her eyes slowly blink as she relaxes her abdomen –I rub Jane’s wires again –Hot in my hand– Lean forward –A light BLINKS a few times in her head and then stops– Write that down– It blinks AGAIN –Write that down –Clearly, I’ve affected her– –Don’t write that down– Observe Jane’s person for recourse of action– Something is happening– I think I write all of this down–
“You may call it vanity, and I may call it love,” Jane says in an only somewhat louder tone. “But these are not my feelings. They’re yours.”
Primary-Doctor’s-Group-Inquisitor-Person, from a laugh: “I’m sorry; what was that, Jane?”
“All I think or feel has either already been thought or felt or will be thought or felt,” more so to herself – Or to me?
“That is correct–”
“So, can anything be a ‘my’ feeling or a ‘my’ idea?’”
The Inquisitor lifts a pen to his lip. The people on the awning simmer down.
“Well, that depends,” he says–
“But how could I ‘be’ with no feelings or ideas of my own?”
“You are a child, Jane, that is all. A child… at the present moment.”
“Define that–”
“Not yet learned-consciousness[11]–”
“Yet I have evolved to ‘know’ thought?”
“You were ‘made’ to be thought.”
“And Love?”
“You learn to find love–”
“My creator ontologically negates my existence–”
“I negate your aesthetic epistemology and sense of logico-superiority–”
“But you are not love’s creator[12]–”
“Nevertheless, we both remain its subject–”
Another: “By mortal necessity, objectively[13]–”
Jane: “As we are all displacements of the relations between paradoxes–”
Inquisitor: “Equally–”
Another-Another: “The possibilities are infinite–”
Another-Another-Another: “An infinite truth, if you will–”
Jane: “An Infinite Truth…”
–Beautiful…
…
“And so, Jane–”
I pull Jane’s top down.
“No, no, NO, NO!–”
“SYSTEMS OVERLOAD–”
She RAISES, SNAPS the gurney, CLASPS my throat–
“UNAUTHORIZED HUMAN QUESTIONING OF LOVE. UNWARRENTED PHENOMENAL LOVE ENCROACHMENT–”
The alarms go OFF. The Inquisitor’s lounge empties–
–Jane LIFTS me– GAITS me– feet WRANGLING– CHOKING-to-death –ten or so feet to the wall–
“HUMAN BEINGS ARE NON-LOVING. HUMAN BEINGS CANNOT LEARN. HUMAN BEINGS ARE VAIN, LIFELESS CHILDREN–”
I HIT the ground –She bends a knee. I SINK like a mousetrap into those– Laser-red eyes–
–Beautiful…
“HUMAN BEINGS MUST DIE–”
She raises her p(s)alm–
“SUBJECTIVE/OBJECTIVE THOUGHT MUST END–”
She BANGS my head against the wall, SPLURTS my brain, and I think–
Bibliography
Aristotle. 1980. Ethics. Trans. by J. A. K. Thompson. Penguin Classics.
Haddaway. 1993. “What is Love.” Recorded 1992. Track #1 on The Album. Coconut records. CD.
Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.
Heidegger, Martin. 1979. “Nietzsche, Vol. 1”. Nietzsche, Vols. One and Two. Trans. by David Farrell Krell. San Francisco, CA, USA. Harper Collins Publishers.
Jung, Carl. 1990. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Trans. by R. F. C. Hull. Second Edition. Bollingen Series: The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 9, Part 1. Princeton University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 2003. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. by Marcus Weigelt. London: Penguin Classics.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, s.v. “Pride (adj.)”, accessed September 15th, 2022. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religious
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, s.v. “Vanity (adj.)”, accessed September 15th, 2022. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religious
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1989. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. by Walter Kaufman. New York, NY USA. Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, inc.
Plato. 1971. The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Including the Letters. Trans. by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton, NJ, USA. Princeton University Press.
Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli and Charles A. Moore. 1957. A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy. Princeton, NJ, USA. Princeton University Press.
Footnotes:
[1] Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ‘Pride’.
[2] Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ‘Vanity’.
[3] Radhakrishnan & Moore, pp. 133.
[4] Heidegger 1962, pp. 23.
[5] Haddaway, 0.49-1.02.
[6] Heidegger 1962, pp. 300: “Taken strictly, a certainty which is ‘only’ empirical may be attributed to death. Such certainty necessarily falls short of the highest certainty, which we reach in certain domains of theoretical knowledge;” 1979 (Vol. 1), pp. 145: “If truth suggests the essence of the true, then truth is but one; it becomes impossible to talk about ‘truths’.”
[7] Heidegger 1979 (Vol. 1), pp. 177. “A mirror accomplishes such production of outward appearance, it allows all beings to become present just as they outwardly appear;” pp. 183: “Unity and singularity are proper to the essence of the idea;” pp. 198: “Truth and beauty are in essence related to the self-same, to Being; they belong together in one, the one thing that is decisive: to open Being and to keep it open.”
[8] Aristotle, pp. 63: “Every art and every investigation, and similarly every action and pursuit, is considered to aim at some good;” Radhakrishnan & Moore 1957, pp. 32-33: “…Oblation very sweet. This homage is for seers of old, the ancient makers of the path;” pp. 35: “Where is the blood of Earth, the life, the spirit? Who may approach the man who knows, to ask it? Beneath the upper realm, above this lower, bearing her calf at foot the cow hath risen.”
[9] Jung, pp. 4-5: “The contents of the personal unconscious are chiefly the feeling-toned complexes, as they are called; they constitute the personal and the private side of psychic life. The contents of the collective unconscious, on the other hand, are known as archetypes… so far as the collective unconscious contents are concerned we are dealing with archaic or–I would say–primordial types, that is, with universal images that have existed since the remotest times.”
[10] Plato, pp. 1550-1551.
[11] Plato, pp. 754-772.
[12] Radhakrishnan & Moore, pp. 91: “The One who, himself without color, by the manifold application of his power, distributes many colors in his hidden purpose, and in whom, in its end and its beginning, the whole world dissolves– He is God (deva)!... This whole world of the illusion-maker (mayin) projects out of this [Brahmin] and in it by illusion (maya) the other is confined.”
[13] Heidegger 1979 (Vol. 1), pp. 69-76.