What Thin Partitions Read Free

given problems slightly beyond his capacity to handle them adequately.
    "I find myself frustrated,” he stated flatly.
    I still had a long way to go, for that's nothing new. Who isn't?
    Slowly and carefully, disposing of each point as it arose, we threaded our way into the snakepit. The essential facts were that he had been employed as a research chemist, placed under Dr. Boulton, head of the experimental department. This, I knew. Instead of being permitted to do the research chemistry for which he had been employed, he had been kept on routine problems which any high school boy could do.
    This I doubted, but recognized it as the stock complaint of every experimental research man in industry.
    Dr. Boulton was approaching the cybernetics problem on a purely mechanical basis which was all wrong. I began to get interested. Dr. Auerbach had discussed with Dr. Boulton the advisability of a chemical approach to cybernetics. I began to get excited. Dr. Boulton had refused to consider it. Apparently he had not been excited.
    I knew Dr. Boulton pretty well. As heads of our respective departments we sat in on the same management conferences. We were not particularly friendly. He regarded psychology and all applications of it with more than a little distrust. But more important, I had for a long time sensed a peculiar tension in him-that he was determined to keep human thought processes mysterious, determined not to see more than a narrow band of correlation between the human mind and a cybernetic machine.
    I had already determined that Dr. Boulton would outlive his usefulness to us.
    "And how would you approach the problem chemically?” I asked Dr. Auerbach.
    We had more discussion in which I proved to him that I was top security cleared, that my chemistry was sadly lacking and he would have to speak as though to a layman, that indeed he was not going over his superior's head in discussing it with me, that there was a possibility I might assist if I became convinced enough to convince general management a separate department should be set up. And finally he began to answer my question.
    "Let us take linseed oil as a crude example,” he said, and waved my offer of a cigarette aside. “Linseed oil, crudely, displays much of the same phenomena as the human mind. It learns, it remembers, it forgets, it relearns, it becomes inhibited, it becomes stimulated."
    I don't usually sit with my mouth hanging open, and became conscious of it when I tried to draw on my cigarette without closing my lips.
    "Place an open vessel of linseed oil in the light,” he instructed, and touched the tips of his two index fingers together, “and in about twenty-four hours it will begin to oxidize. It continues oxidization to a given point at an accelerated rate thereafter, as though finally having learned how, it can carry on the process more easily."
    I nodded, with reservations on how much of this could fairly be termed “mental,” and how much was a purely chemical process. Then, in fairness, I reversed the coin and made the same reservations as to how much of brain activity could be called a chemical response to stimuli, and how much must be classed as pure thought over and beyond a specialized chemistry. I gave up.
    "Put it in the dark,” he continued, “and it slows and ceases to oxidize. Bring it back into the light, within a short time, and it immediately begins to oxidize again, as if it had remembered how to do it.” He moved to his middle finger. “We have there, then, quite faithful replicas of learning and remembering."
    I nodded again to show my willingness to speculate, at least, even if I didn't agree.
    "But leave it in the dark for twenty-four hours,” he moved to his third finger, “then bring it back into the light and it takes it another twenty-four hours to begin oxidizing again. Now we have an equally faithful replica of forgetting and relearning.” He tapped each of his four fingers lightly for emphasis.
    "The inhibitions and