The Big Think.(Kevin Hughes) Author’s Note: Brain Science has two slippery concepts: Intelligence, and Consciousness. Can you have one without the other? And what…exactly, is being conscious- or intelligent? Then a third concept crept into the mix: Life. Do you have to be a living, breathing, organism to be alive, and therefore capable of being both conscious and intelligent. Lately, even our shaky definition of “LIFE” has had its flaws revealed. A new: "Theory of Life,” called: “Assembly Theory,” is trying to meld Biology with Physics and redefine what we call: “LIFE.” And so…this story unfolds.

*****

“Really? You can’t be serious. Wait…you are serious.”

“Yes. Yes, I am. I think it will work. We just needed some sort of a preamp for the signals of the brain to grow strong enough to broadcast. “

Doctor Hernandez shook his head. Not in a negative manner…just from the sheer audacity of his protege’s idea. Amplify the signals emitted from the brain while thinking thoughts, narrow them into a cohesive beam, and broadcast them towards a dense area of Plasma located in the Solar Wind.

Then let that Solar Wind carry those thoughts out into deep Space to bump up against the more dense regions of Plasma within the Galaxy. It was a weird experiment. Nobody knew if it would work, or if it was even possible. Yet, here the idea, the experiment, and the equipment were all ready to be initiated. All that was necessary was for Dr. Hernandez to okay it, and release the funds.

He shook his head one more time. Chuckled quietly to himself and looked up at his protege with that soft smile that usually graced his face:

“Okay, Sylvia…do it.”

*****

“Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t give me that crap, Sylvia. You have been on edge for the last week. Ever since your Thesis Adviser gave you permission to talk to the Universe.”

Sylvia turned with her tiny fingers balled into a fist. She hated when he was right. And he was right. She was as nervous as she had ever been in her life. She couldn’t hide it from Rohan…the love of her life. It was his intellect and attention to detail that attracted her to him in the first place. She let her fingers uncurl, turning her tiny fists into cups of pleading for understanding. She finally spoke out loud:

“Rohan, if I am right, we will make contact with an intelligence, a brain if you will, that is as different from our mode of thinking, then our way of thinking is from that of an Amoeba. Amoebas turn towards the light, and don’t know why they do. They form their pseudopodia (false feet) to move around their environment. The simplest and most basic form of animal movement. And they don’t think about how to do it. At least WE don’t think they do. So what will a neural network that connects the whole Universe …think? Could we even handle it with our tiny three pound networks? Should we even try to understand?”

Rohan moved to take all four foot ten of his Sylvia into his arms. He just held her quietly while all the fear and trepidation leaked out of her. She snuggled in closer to his chest. For a long time, she just leaned into the anchor of her life. Rohan remained quiet. Time passed, but not for them.

“Sylvia.”

A mumbled “What?” rose up from where she had buried her face in his shirt.

“How would you feel if someone - or something - way different than you started talking with you?”

She leaned back to look up at her Lover and Best Friend.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean?”

Rohan's eyes twinkled with understanding.

“Say a cat started putting thoughts in your head…and you could understand them…or if your phone suddenly woke up and asked you if you could talk. How would you feel?”

Sylvia laughed. This is why she loved Rohan, he had a way of making her …well, think.

“I would be surprised, maybe a little scared…and then…delighted! I would be curious to understand the world through the eyes and thoughts of a cat!”

“Exactly! So if your experiment works tomorrow…some Big Think is about to find out how Humans Think…and it will probably be delighted.”

“Big Think…is that what you call the Universe if it is actually a brain?”

“Well, yeah, it makes sense to me. If the whole Universe is actually a brain, that would be a Big Think…wouldn’t it?”

She punched his arm lightly.

“Yes, it would. And you just named my Experiment. I shall call it the Big Think. We start tomorrow!”

*****

Everyone looked around at each other. Rohan stood to the side beaming at Sylvia. Of everyone there, he had the least technical understanding of what they were trying to do. But he also had the most trust that if anyone could pull it off, it was his Sylvia. So he simply stood in quiet support.

Dr. Hernandez had that warm smile he usually wore. If anyone could have read his thoughts, they would have clearly read: “Well, this should be interesting.” The rest of the folks in the room were either on her Doctoral Board, fellow Students or Post Docs from various Labs and Disciplines…or they were Reporters. Word had gotten out. Most thought it was a failed idea to begin with…so they waited for confirmation that it was a quack idea.

But not everyone thought that. Some thought History was about to be made. No one knew what to expect. If anything. So they waited as Sylvia made her final adjustments to the beam of thought that would soon be flying out into the Plasma of the Solar wind.

She shrugged once. Shook her shoulders. Glanced at Rohan, caught his wink and thumbs up, smiled shyly back at him…and hit the button that said: “Send.”

*****

Weeks passed, then months. No reply. No signal. No measurable impact on anything. Until…

“Oh, my God! We are getting a signal…a really strong signal.”

“From where?”

The Techie looked back at his screen. His eyes wide.

“From every where!”

“WHAT?!”

He turned so they could all see his screen display. Sure enough, signals were coming in from all over the Galaxy…and every other Galaxy too.

“That’s not possible, our signal can’t have reached even the nearest star yet, let alone the cores of myriads of galaxies.”

The Techie merely pointed to his screen.

“Yeah, well tell that to the signals.”

“Can we tell what the signal is? What is it saying?”

Sylvia had already worked out a simple translation algorithm, that she had borrowed from her friend Eugenia’s program for decoding whale speech. Just made a few adjustments for turning those frequencies into Human speech…instead of deciphering whale sounds. So she just reached over and hit a translation button on the lower left of the screen.

It only took a moment for an artificially constructed voice to roar out of the speakers. The voice sounded both delighted and confused. The first sentence uttered to Humans from a Brain way bigger than theirs, was a simple query:

“Who the hell are you?”

The rest, as they say, is History.

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