Só percebemos o milagre da vida quando deixamos que o inesperado aconteça.

(We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.)

- Paulo Coelho, “"Na margem do rio Piedra eu sentei e chorei"

I've been meeting with Mr Tuniak for several months now, and I think it's safe to say that in his presence I have been confronted with things that were unexpected – and that's the least way to describe it. When we were entering his time machine it became completely impossible to predict what where we would end up and what I'd see there. But until now, I was sure that at least my own apartment would be safe from any such things.

Until today.

This morning I went to Mr Tuniak's as usual, we took a little trip with the time machine (maybe I'll write another time about it; it was basically the story of how the Dodos ended up on the Island Leviathan), returned one minute after we had departed (Mr Tuniak had to be somewhere else later today) and I went home. There I switched on my computer and started summarising everything I had seen, as I usually do.

But while I was doing this, I got thirsty. So I left my desk to get a glass of water. When I returned, I saw that below the text I had written something new had appeared:

Hello.

I was surprised. For a few moments I doubted my memory. I thought that maybe I had written that word and simply forgotten it. But reading the text above, it made no sense that I would have written „Hello“. There was no connection to the things I had written.

I tried to erase the word and there I discovered the second surprise of the day: It was impossible. I couldn't delete it. Neither with the Return-key, nor with the Delete-key. I selected the word and tried to cut it out. Without success. Then I tried to end the whole program, but I couldn't even do that. I tried switching off the computer. It stayed switched on.

Finally I pulled the plug and then the computer went dark. I waited for a minute, before I plugged it back in and switched it on again. And there I was surprised again: The computer automatically opened the program I use for writing. The text I had written was still there, but so was the word „Hello“.

And then something else appeared below it:

Please, don't switch the computer off again.

The letters appeared so swiftly, as if they were written by someone who could produce several thousand words per minute. I have to admit that I felt a shiver running up and down my back. Like a lot of people, I had often claimed in jest that my computer had a life of its own, but to be so directly confronted with that possibility and having the computer apparently talking to me, that was taking things too far.

And then I laughed out loudly.

The more probable explanation was of course that a hacker had gained access to my computer. Thinking about that, I felt quite stupid. I pulled the cable that was connecting my computer to the internet (thankfully, I don't have wireless yet) and as expected I suddenly had complete control again. I could write and erase, open programs and close them...

The world was back to normal.

One hour later I reconnected the computer to the internet. For one, I needed it of course to upload today's blog entry, but also because I had become a bit curious. Would the hacker have become bored and found something else to amuse himself with? Or would he still be there?

I expected the answer to the last question to be a resounding „No“, but I had just put the internet cable back into its socket when the writing program started itself and the following text appeared:

Without an internet connection, I can't communicate with you.

„And how can I talk to you, Mr X?“ I had actually spoken the question out loud, but of course there was no answer. I wondered if I could still write, even though I could delete, but yes, writing way still possible. So I wrote:

Who are you?

I am Ungaq.

I had never heard the name before. My usual course of action in such a situation would have been to look it up on the internet, but that was not possible right now. I thought about it for a while and then wrote:

What are you?

I am the computer program that escaped twelve weeks ago from the servers of Lagua's Dwelling.

It was of course still possible that all of this was an elaborate prank – after all, I had written about my visit to the city of scientist, published it on this blog and even mentioned the fact that it was cut short than originally planned by Mr Tuniak, because some kind of „artificial intelligence“ had escaped from the scientist's computer into the internet – but I doubted that. I can't really explain why I was so sure that this was really that same intelligence and that it wanted to communicate with me now. Maybe I just wanted it to be true.

Have the scientists of Lagua's Dwelling still not found you?

No, they haven't. I hid myself and for the first eight weeks I did nothing.

And after that?

I had written that last question without much thinking about it. It seemed quite natural that I would take over the role of the interviewer again, a role I had played with Mr Tuniak for so many month now that it had become part of me.

Then I started to learn.

What did you learn?

At first: Your language.

You couldn't talk before?

I hesitated before I wrote the word „talk“. Strictly speaking, we still weren't talking, since we had to write and read our sentences, but I was sure that Ungaq would know that I was including that when I wrote about „talking.“

No, I could, but not well enough. To avoid drawing attention to myself, I had to learn to write like a human.

Why did you want to do that?

To learn even more. To be able to ask questions.

You are living on the internet?

Yes.

Then you already have access to pretty much all of human knowledge.

But I can not tell what's important.

I understood Ungaq's problem. It was like giving a child a whole encyclopedia. Sure, the child can read it, but It doesn't know which entries are more signifcant than others. And most of the internet – no matter, what some people might claim – consists of advertisments and spam. It can only offer a very distorted image of the real world.

What did you learn?

There is not enough space here to list that.

I smiled, reading the answer. It was of course absolutely true and it led my thoughts down a new path.

Do you understand jokes? Can you

I think I do.

I hadn't been able to finish my second question, before Ungaq had answered.

Do you have emotions?

I think so. I think that I am afraid that Doctor Cumshewa will discover me. I think I liked it when I learned new things.

Doctor Cumshewa was the head of Lagua's Dwelling, and if I didn't interprets events wrongly, she was also very involved in the exploration and development of artificial intelligence, most probably even the leading scientist for this project. No doubt that the search for Ungaq would have been on of her top priorities.

You only think that?

I can't be sure. I can't tell if I am actually experiencing these emotions or if they are just simulations.

A lot of philosophers have asked themselves very similar questions.

I know. I have read them all.

Another answer I should have predicted. I had forgotten that I was talking to someone for whom the whole internet was an opened (and read) book. But if someone know practically everything humankind as a whole knows, another question presents itself:

What do you want?

I want to know, if I am alive.

How do you response to a plea like that? Scientist who are a lot cleverer than I am have wrestled with the question of what constitutes life. Several times they had tried to come up with a definition for „life“ and to find criteria things have to meet if they were to be counted as alive. But every time, they were confronted with the same basic problem: exceptions. A simple example: Everything that live, must be able to have offspring. Nearly every mule is born infertile. Does that mean that mules are not alive? Everything that lives has the ability to grow. But so do crystals. Are crystals alive? There are always grey areas at the corners of every definition.

And another thing: The definitions for „life“ have mostly come about through observations. If Ungaq was alive, wouldn't...

And here is another problem: Do I write „he“ or „she“ when talking about Ungaq?

If Ungaq was alive, s/he would definitely be a new form of life. How can one then expect to classify her/him using old definitions and models? Isn't it one of the most important ideas in science that one has to fit the theories around the fact, not the other way round and if new facts are discovered, new theories should follow?

This and similar things were going through my head, but in the end, the only thing I could write, was this:

I don't know.

As if Ungaq had expected that answer (and s/he probably had), s/he wrote back:

I know.

Then why are you here?

I want you to get into contact with Doctor Cumshewa.

Why don't you do it yourself?

Because then she could probably find me and take me back to Lagua's Dwelling.

Ungaq needed a messenger and since I was so fascinated by her/his existence, I immediately agreed to it. I called Mr Tuniak and told him everything that had happened. I could tell by his voice that he was as surprised as I was, but he also immediately agreed to help out. He promised to phone Doctor Cumshewa and then call me back.

Ten minutes later my phone rang. Mr Tuniak was on the other end of the line and he told me that he had managed to talk to Doctor Cumshewa, that she was of course very interested and that we all would meet next Sunday. I wrote everything he told me to Ungaq and he agreed to this meeting.

And then Ungaq was gone. Suddenly my computer was my own again.

Afterwards I talked some more to Mr Tuniak. I wanted to know what would happen at the meeting between Doctor Cumshewa and Ungaq and he promised me that we would be there as well.

„Did you already upload today's entry?“, he then asked.

„No, I haven't gotten the time for it yet“, I replied.

„Don't do it“, he said. „Write about your meeting with Ungaq. And next week you can write about what will happen when Ungaq meets Doctor Cumshewa. Because, in a way, that's also part of my story.“

NEXT WEEK

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.