Neurobiophysics

In the Ekcolir Reality.
Original cover art by Stephen Youll
and Michael Whelan

Here in 2020, I'm celebrating the science fiction stories of Isaac Asimov. I recently blogged about The Naked Sun by Asimov and back in 2015 I commented on The Robots of Dawn, which continues the story of police detective Baley, Daneel the robot and Gladia the Solarian a few years after the events depicted in The Naked Sun.

                                Connecting the Daneels

Baley interviews the lying robot.
Interior art by Leo Summers

27 years passed between the publication of The Naked Sun (in 1956) and the publication of The Robots of Dawn in 1983. In 1971, Asimov wrote a short Baley and Daneel story ("Mirror Image") that was published in Analog magazine in the May 1972 issue.

Mirror Image
Yes, ever since I first watched Star Trek, I've been a fan of "mirror, mirror" for the title of a Sci Fi story. In Asimov's "Mirror Image", Daneel shows up on Baley's doorstep, hoping to get help with a small mystery.

Editorial blurb at the start of "Mirror Image"

One of the galaxy's great mathematicians, Dr. Humboldt, claims to have devised a new mathematical method for the analysis of cortical neural networks. Sadly, another mathematician, Dr. Sabbat is making the same claim. One of these men is trying to steal the other's great discovery!

Ben Bova had taken over as the editor of Analog after the death of John Campbell in 1971. Did Bova know the "Laws of Robotics"? I'm going to assume that Bova wrote the blurb shown to the right on this page.

In "Mirror Image", both mathematicians have a robotic aid who supports the claim of their owner that it was he who made the mathematical discovery. How can one of the two robots be lying? One robot could be lying if it was preventing harm from coming to its owner. Daneel hopes that Baley can figure out which robot is lying.

from page 1 of "Mirror Image"

There is nothing in Asimov's Laws of Robotics that would absolutely prevent a robot from telling a lie. Lucky for readers, the Laws were printed right under the introductory blurb (and they are shown here, to the left). Asimov had formulated the Laws of Robotics back in the early 1940s, so both readers and editors probably needed a refresher course in robotics before reading "Mirror Image".

Asimov had published a short story called "Liar!" in 1941. In that story, the lying robot (Herbie) did not have to be ordered to lie. Herbie was a telepathic robot and got into the habit of lying in order to not hurt the feelings of human beings.

John Campbell

In an editorial, written in December 1971 and published in the May 1972 issue of Analog, Bova wrote about "the life cycle of birth, death and rebirth". No doubt, Bova was thinking about Campbell, but his rather rambling editorial ended with speculation about the death of cities.

Asimov's idea that Earth would become a world dominated by city dwellers was an assumption made by the young Asimov and used as part of the backstory for many of his Sci Fi stories about Earth of the future. However, The Robots of Dawn begins with Baley forcing himself to get out of his cave of steel.

Asimov on a cruise (source)

"We are constantly writing anti-utopias, the idea being that this is a change we don't want to happen; how do we prevent it?" -Asimov (source)

I can understand the idea that many people might be interested in stories where problems create excitement and challenges ("makes for a more dramatic story"), but I don't think I'll ever understand why Asimov wrote so many stories about a dystopic Earth of the future where people lived like rats in cages, taunted by their masters, the Spacers. Eventually, a telepathic Daneel would liberate humanity from that dystopia.

R. Giskard

I wonder when it was that Asimov made the decision to give Daneel telepathic powers. Eventually, Asimov moved out of the Big City, learned to drive a car and even enjoyed going on cruises. Maybe most importantly, by the 1970's Asimov was finally with Janet, his second wife. So, later in life, Asimov was ready to obliterate his imagined future Earth society where people were trapped in cave's of steel (1932 version).

in the Ekcolir Reality

Sadly, in "Mirror Image" we never learn why R. Daneel was cruising through space with a mathematician who was interested in neurobiophysics. Was R. Giskard also there, using his telepathic powers to "put ideas into" the mind of a mathematician, in order to devise a method for better understanding human thought processes? Neurobiologists have been working for decades to develop high-resolution optical techniques for measuring the activity of neurons in the brain (example). 

Dr. von Theil

When he wrote "Mirror Image", what was Asimov imagining for a future technology of microwave analysis of neuronal networks? Possibly nothing; he had once introduced "positronic" brains for no good reason either.

Relate Reading: Dr. von Theil and positrons 

            also: the original "Liar!"

Next: a look back at Isaac Asimov's time travel novel, The End of Eternity.

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