II: The Most Dangerous Technology

The following afternoon found the Senior Common Room unusually quiet.

Mr Blottisham had discovered a list entitled The Twenty Most Important Technologies in Human History and was reading it aloud with mounting satisfaction.

"The wheel."

Professor Quillibrace nodded.

"Predictable."

"The printing press."

"Reasonable."

"The steam engine."

"Entirely defensible."

"The computer."

"Expected."

"The internet."

"Mm."

Blottisham looked up.

"A very sensible list."

"I dare say."

"What would you add?"

Quillibrace reached for his teacup.

"Conversation."

Blottisham laughed.

"No, no. Technologies."

"Yes."

"I mean actual technologies."

"So do I."

Miss Stray glanced over the rim of her cup.

"I think Professor Quillibrace means it."

"Conversation isn't technology."

"Why not?"

"It isn't a machine."

Quillibrace looked faintly puzzled.

"Must technologies be made of metal?"

"Well..."

"Or wood?"

"No..."

"Or silicon?"

"I suppose not."

Miss Stray leaned forward.

"What does a technology actually do?"

"It helps us accomplish something."

"Excellent."

"And conversation accomplishes..."

Blottisham hesitated.

"...talking."

"Does it?"

He frowned.

"What else would it accomplish?"

Miss Stray smiled.

"I've lost arguments I wasn't trying to lose."

"So have I," said Quillibrace.

"I've changed my mind halfway through explaining why I was right."

"A valuable experience."

"I've also discovered ideas I didn't know I had until someone asked an awkward question."

Blottisham considered this.

"That happens occasionally."

"Does it?"

"Yes."

"So where," Quillibrace asked, "did those ideas come from?"

"My head."

"They were already there?"

"I imagine so."

"Hidden?"

"Apparently."

Miss Stray looked unconvinced.

"Were they?"

"What else could they be?"

She stirred her tea thoughtfully.

"I've often had the opposite experience."

"The opposite?"

"I've said something, someone has replied, and suddenly I realised neither of us was merely unpacking thoughts we already possessed."

"What were you doing?"

"It felt..."

She searched for the right word.

"...as though the conversation itself was discovering something."

Blottisham smiled indulgently.

"Conversations don't discover things."

"No?"

"They're just people talking."

Professor Quillibrace rose and wandered towards the bookshelves.

"Mr Blottisham, have you ever solved a crossword with someone else?"

"Frequently."

"Were you simply dividing the clues?"

"Not exactly."

"What happened?"

"We bounced ideas around."

"And?"

"One suggestion reminded us of another."

"And then?"

"Eventually the answer appeared."

Quillibrace turned.

"Whose answer was it?"

"Ours."

"But which of you possessed it beforehand?"

Blottisham opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

"I suppose..."

"...yes?"

"...neither."

"Curious."

Miss Stray laughed softly.

"It's rather embarrassing how ordinary that is."

"Quite."

Quillibrace resumed his chair.

"We seem strangely reluctant to acknowledge that conversations produce ideas."

"They exchange ideas."

"They do both."

"I don't see the difference."

"The difference," said Miss Stray, "is between transport and creation."

Blottisham frowned.

"I'm listening."

"If I tell you tomorrow's weather..."

"...yes?"

"...I've transferred information."

"Obviously."

"But if we spend an hour discussing why universities continually mistake administration for education..."

Blottisham sighed.

"They don't."

Quillibrace ignored him.

"...we may both leave with a thought neither of us possessed beforehand."

"Perhaps."

"So something has been created."

Blottisham looked doubtful.

"By whom?"

Professor Quillibrace smiled.

"An excellent question."

The room became briefly quiet.

Outside, a bell announced the hour.

Miss Stray broke the silence.

"I sometimes think philosophy began by accident."

"In what sense?"

"Someone asked an awkward question."

"Certainly."

"Instead of ending the conversation..."

"...yes?"

"...it made the conversation more interesting."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Socrates understood this."

"He asked questions."

"He manufactured uncertainty."

Blottisham looked suspicious.

"That hardly seems helpful."

"It depends what one is manufacturing."

"He didn't provide answers."

"No."

"So why does everyone remember him?"

Quillibrace smiled.

"Because good questions occasionally produce better thinking than confident answers."

Miss Stray added quietly,

"Science works rather like that."

"It does?"

"We tell stories about lone geniuses."

"Newton."

"Einstein."

"Darwin."

"Exactly."

"But none of them worked alone."

"They corresponded."

"They argued."

"They criticised one another."

"They borrowed."

"They corrected."

"They persuaded."

"They were persuaded."

Blottisham frowned.

"So disagreement is useful?"

"Often indispensable."

"I've always regarded disagreement as rather unfortunate."

Quillibrace looked amused.

"Only if one's objective is comfort."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then disagreement becomes an instrument."

"Like a microscope?"

"In some respects."

"It reveals things."

"Precisely."

"Though unlike a microscope..."

Miss Stray smiled,

"...it occasionally reveals that one is mistaken."

"A feature microscopes have mercifully lacked."

Blottisham laughed despite himself.

"I dislike conversations that prove me wrong."

Quillibrace nodded sympathetically.

"Most worthwhile conversations eventually do."

Silence settled again.

It was one of those comfortable academic silences in which everyone appeared to be considering slightly different versions of the same idea.

Finally Blottisham spoke.

"If conversation really is a technology..."

"I believe it is."

"...then we've been using it for thousands of years."

"Indeed."

"And it doesn't merely communicate thought."

"No."

"It helps create it."

"So it appears."

Blottisham stared into the fire.

"Then perhaps..."

Neither of the others interrupted.

"...perhaps we've always done our thinking together."

Miss Stray smiled but said nothing.

Professor Quillibrace waited.

After another moment Blottisham continued.

"If that's true..."

"...yes?"

"...then all this excitement about machines may not really be about machines at all."

Quillibrace's expression brightened almost imperceptibly.

"No?"

"It may be about..."

Blottisham searched for the phrase.

"...who—or what—is now joining the conversation."

Nobody spoke for several moments.

Outside, the college bells drifted across the quadrangle.

Inside, three scholars sat quietly together, each privately aware that the final observation had not belonged entirely to any one of them.