"Тед Чан. Seventy-Two Letters (72 буквы, Рассказ) (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

professor. "Do you recall why it was that all attempts to make automata
out of wood were abandoned?"
Stratton was caught off guard by the question. "It was believed that
the natural grain of wood implies a form in conflict with whatever we try
to carve upon it. Currently there are efforts to use rubber as a casting
material, but none have met with success."
"Indeed. But if the native form of wood were the only obstacle,
shouldnТt it be possible to animate an animalТs corpse with a name?
There the form of the body should be ideal."
"ItТs a macabre notion; I couldnТt guess at such an experimentТs
likelihood of success. Has it ever been attempted?"
"In fact it has: also unsuccessfully. So these two entirely different
avenues of research proved fruitless. Does that mean there is no way to
animate organic matter using names? This was the question I left Trinity
in order to pursue."
"And what did you discover?"
Ashbourne deflected the question with a wave of his hand. "First let us
discuss thermodynamics. Have you kept up with recent developments? Then
you know the dissipation of heat reflects an increase in disorder at the
thermal level. Conversely, when an automaton condenses heat from its
environment to perform work, it increases order. This confirms a long-held
belief of mine that lexical order induces thermodynamic order. The lexical
order of an amulet reinforces the order a body already possesses, thus
providing protection against damage. The lexical order of an animating
name increases the order of a body, thus providing motive power for an
automaton.
"The next question was, how would an increase in order be reflected in
organic matter? Since names donТt animate dead tissue, obviously organic
matter doesnТt respond at the thermal level; but perhaps it can be ordered
at another level. Consider: a steer can be reduced to a vat of gelatinous
broth. The broth comprises the same material as the steer, but which
embodies a higher amount of order?"
"The steer, obviously," said Stratton, bewildered.
"Obviously. An organism, by virtue of its physical structure, embodies
order; the more complex the organism, the greater the amount of order. It
was my hypothesis that increasing the order in organic matter would be
evidenced by imparting form to it. However, most living matter has already
assumed its ideal form. The question is, what has life but not form?"
The elder nomenclator did not wait for a response. "The answer is, an
unfertilized ovum. The ovum contains the vital principle that animates the
creature it ultimately gives rise to, but it has no form itself.
Ordinarily, the ovum incorporates the form of the foetus compressed within
the spermatozoon that fertilizes it. The next step was obvious." Here
Ashbourne waited, looking at Stratton expectantly.
Stratton was at a loss. Ashbourne seemed disappointed, and continued.
"The next step was to artificially induce the growth of an embryo from an
ovum, by application of a name."
"But if the ovum is unfertilized," objected Stratton, "there is no
preexisting structure to enlarge."
"Precisely."