Stories of Your Life and Others

Presented in the form of a scientific journal editorial, this story deals with the obsolete role of human scientists in a future where metahumans perform research that is beyond human comprehension.

The metahumans allow access to their research only through digital neural transfer, or DNT. This necessitates translation into human language, so new discoveries are available to humans only secondhand: “Journals for human audiences were reduced to vehicles of popularization, and poor ones at that, as even the most brilliant humans found themselves puzzled by translations of the latest findings” (195). Metahuman science obviates the need for human research, which renders scientists’ careers obsolete, except as interpreters of metahuman findings.

Devices made as a result of metahuman research become starting points for “reverse engineering,” whereby humans attempt not to produce similar devices but understand how the existing ones work. The article posits that such activities might be meaningless, comparing them to paleography, the study of ancient writing systems. Furthermore, the article notes that, unlike in earlier times, humans are in no danger of extinction from metahumans. No adults can become metahumans—the only way is to manipulate genes in utero—so parents of metahumans have a difficult choice ahead of them: if they allow their children’s DNT to develop naturally, the children will “grow incomprehensible to them” (195); if not, children will suffer catastrophic deprivation.