Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

WHAT THIN Again I nodded, and this time slowly closed my eyes to indicate assent. “T am unacquainted with how much an employee tells you may remain off the record, and how much your posi- tion as company representative re- quires you place on the record.” He was scouting the essential area to determine precisely where he stood. “The company is liberal,” I stated in the hesitant, pedantic tones so approved by technical men. “Every- thing is off the record until we have the problem with its ramifications. Then... ah... by mutual agree- ment, we determine what must be placed on the record.” Apparently it won his confidence. Well, there was no difference between the learned and the unlearned. Each approaches an unknown with extreme caution. Each takes about the same length of time under skilled handling to get to the point. Each throws up a lot of false dummies and loses con- fidence if you concern yourself with them. Learned or illiterate, anger is anger; frustration is frustration. A problem is a problem, with the com- plexity of it purely a relative thing. To each is given problems slightly beyond his capacity to handle them adequately. “‘] find myself frustrated,’’ he stated flatly. 7 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 em- ployed, he had been kept on routine problems which any high school boy could do. This I doubted, but recognised it as PARTITIONS 7 the stock complaint of every experi- mental research man in industry. Dr. Boulton was approaching the cybernetics problem on a purely me- chanical 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 con- sider 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 deter- mined to keep human thought pro- cesses mysterious, determined not to see more than a narrow band of cor- relation 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 re- Comichdooksnco im