“No, your Majesty, it is but a curiosity of mine.”
”What is?”
“Look at this screen. Do you see the beautiful Jaxtian woman on it? The curves of her body? I had the AI match her curvature to the little fruit sculpture I made over there.”
”And?”
“Well, isn't it curious? You can look at her, and you feel arousal. You see a beautiful woman, and your brain feels desire. But you see an identical curve, and identical mathematical beauty, and yet you don't feel the same. What causes this? Our brain lets us interpret patterns...”
”What are you talking about? Those aren't the same thing.”
“I know they aren't! That's not what I mean! How do you know the difference? You can look at a beautiful Jaxtian woman under a red light, and never do you mistake her for an Esaal whore. If you take these fruits and cast them in blue light, and connect them together under a membrane, and give that membrane a skin like texture... and then it will look as the woman does. But at no point does your brain react to it as the woman does until it is indistinguishable or the image is so distorted you can't tell them apart- our minds cannot possibly hold every possible permutation of image possible we can see and react to. So how we can interpret it? Is it math? Is it the context? This curve is the same; they are both borne of organic molecules. But do you feel aroused by these fruits, your Majesty?”
”No, I can't say I am.” You slap your belly. ”Except arousing my hunger maybe, har har!”
“...This computer display can generate any image I want. It creates an image on the screen exactly as it would appear in the real world; the same thing my eyes see. Yet my senses and my nerves feed information into my brain that becomes abstract. To this screen, the image generated of a Jaxtian woman, or landscape, or complex machinery; all of it is merely pixels and light patterns displayed with electronic precision. Yet it creates meaning- how can something you see or something you touch transfer to meaning and emotion effortlessly, wired from raw imput. How can you know what beauty is? Or fear? Or peace? What equation regulates it, what color-scale accents it? Where in the brain can it hide? I must know.”
”...Usis, you are my spymaster. I need your help. If you were Supreme, you could sit here all day and fret about with these pointless philosophical questions. But the situation with the Urgi requires more immediate concern. Do you understand? I will have none of this prattle during such a pivotal moment. The firing of random neurons in the body concern me very little!”
“...Of course, your Majesty.” Usis sighed. Clearly, a frustration he can't express properly has been aired here. “And that is why you are the Supreme Ruler... and I am not.”
”Attaboy! Now let's go rig an election!”