Where were you born?

Denver.

Where did you grow up?

Rock. Boulder.

What were you like as a child?

I don’t know.

Give me your impressions.

I wanted to know why.

You were curious?

Very curious.

Did you play with science kits?

All of them.

And your friends?

I don’t remember.

Try for anything.

I don’t think I had many friends.

Were you ambidextrous as a child?

I don’t remember.

Think about your science experiments. Did you use both hands when you did them?

I believe it was often necessary.

You wrote with your right hand?

I do now. I did then as well. Yes. As a child.

And did you do anything with your left hand? Brush your teeth, comb your hair, eat, point at things, throw balls?

I did all those things with my right hand. Would it matter ifl hadn’t?

Well, you see, in cases of aphasia, the strong right-handers all conform pretty well to a certain profile. Activities are located, or it is better to say coordinated, at certain places in the brain. When we determine precisely the problems the aphasic is experiencing, we can tell pretty well where the lesions in the brain are located. And vice versa. But with left-handers and ambidextrous people there is no such pattern. One might say that every left-handed and ambidextrous brain is organized differently.

You know most of Hiroko’s ectogene children are left-handed.

Yes, I know. I’ve spoken with her about it, but she claims she doesn’t know why. She says it may be a result of being born on Mars.

Do you find this plausible?

Well, handedness is still poorly understood in any case, and the effects of the lighter gravity … we’ll be sorting those out for centuries, won’t we.

I suppose so.

You don’t like the idea of that, do you?

I would rather get answers.

What if all your questions were answered? Would you be happy then?

I find it hard to imagine such a — state. A fairly small percentage of my questions have answers.

But that’s rather wonderful, don’t you agree?

No. It wouldn’t be scientific to agree.

You conceive of science as nothing more than answers to questions?

As a system for generating answers.

And what is the purpose of that?

… To know.

And what will you do with your knowledge?

… Find out more.

But why?

I don’t know. It’s the way I am.

Shouldn’t some of your questions be directed that way — to finding out why you are the way you are?

I don’t think you can get good answers to questions about — human nature. Better to think of it as a black box. You can’t apply the scientific method. Not well enough to be sure of your answers.

In psychology we believe we have scientifically identified a certain pathology in which a person needs to know everything because he is afraid of not knowing. It’s a pathology of monocausotaxophilia, as Poppel called it, the love of single causes that explain everything. This can become fear of a lack of causes. Because the lack might be dangerous. The knowledge-seeking becomes primarily defensive, in that it is a way of denying fear when one really is afraid. At its worst it isn’t even knowledge-seeking, because when the answers arrive they cease to be of interest, as they are no longer dangerous. So that reality itself doesn’t matter to such a person.

Everyone tries to avoid danger. But motivations are always multiple. And different from action to action. Time to time. Any patterns are a matter of — observer’s speculation.

Psychology is a science in which the observer becomes intimately involved with the subject of observation.

That’s one of the reasons I don’t think it’s a science.

It is certainly a science. One of its tenets is, if you want to know more, care more. Every astronomer loves the stars. Otherwise why study them so?

Because they are mysteries.

What do you care about?

I care about truth.

The truth is not a very good lover.

It isn’t love I’m looking for.

Are you sure?

No surer than anyone else who thinks about — motivations.

You agree we have motivations?

Yes. But science cannot explain them.

So they are part of your great unexplainable.

Yes.

And so you focus your attention on other things.

Yes.

But the motivations are still there.

Oh yes.

What did you read when you were young?

All kinds of things.

What were some of your favorite books?

Sherlock Holmes. Other detective stories. The Thinking Machine. Dr. Thorndyke.

Did your parents punish you if you got upset?

I don’t think so. They didn’t like me making a fuss. But I think they were just ordinary in that respect.

Did you ever see them get upset?

I don’t remember.

Did you ever see them shout, or cry?

I never heard them shout. Sometimes.my mom cried, I think.

Did you know why?

No.

Did you wonder why?

I don’t remember. WouU it matter if I had?

What do you mean?

I mean, if I had had one kind of past. I could still have turned into any kind of person. Depending on my reaction to the — events. And if I had had another kind of past. The same variations would have followed. So that your line of questioning is useless. In that it has no explanatory rigor. It’s an imitation of the scientific method.

I consider your conception of science to be as parsimonious and reductive as your scientific activities. Essentially you are saying we should not study the human mind in a scientific manner because it is too complex to make the study easy. That’s not very bold of you. The universe outside us is complex too, but you don’t advise avoiding that. Why so with the universe inside?

You can’t isolate factors, you can’t repeat conditions, you can’t set up experiments with controls, you can’t makefalsifiable hypotheses. The whole apparatus of science is unavailable to you.

Think about the first scientists for a while.

The Greeks?

Before that. Prehistory was not just a formless timeless round of the seasons, you know. We tend to think of those people as if they resembled our own unconscious minds, but they were not like that. For a hundred thousand years at least we have been as intellectual as we are now. Probably more like half a million years. And every age has its great scientists, and they all had to work in the context of their times, like we_ do. For the early ones, there were hardly explanations for anything — nature was as whole and complex and mysterious as our own minds are to us now, but what could they do? They had to begin somewhere, eh? This is what you must remember. And it took thousands of years to learn the plants, the animals, the use of fire, rocks, axes, bows and arrows, shelter, clothing. Then pottery, crops, metallurgy. All so slow!}’, with such effort. And all passed along by word of mouth, from one scientist to the next. And all the while there were no doubt people saying, it’s too complex to be sure of anything. Why should we try at all? Galileo said, “The ancients had good reason to think the first scientists among the gods, seeing that common minds have so little curiosity. The small . hints that began the great inventions were part of not a trivial but a superhuman spirit.” Superhuman! Or merely the best parts of ourselves, the bold minds of each generation. The scientists. And over the millennia we have pieced together a model of the world, a paradigm that is quite precise and powerful, yes?

But haven’t we tried just as hard all these years — with little success — to understand ourselves?

Say we have. Maybe it takes longer. But look, we have made quite a bit of progress there too. And not just recently. By observation alone the Greeks discovered the four temperaments, and only recently have we learned enough about the brain to say what the neurological basis of this phenomenon is.