Implied Consent: Act I, Scene VI

This is a part of Mr. Stolyarov's play, Implied Consent. To navigate through the various parts of the play, go here.

(Enter EVERETT WALTONFORD and EDWARD MARK into one of the main hallways of the laboratory complex. The walls could contain pictures and blueprints of inventions, rather than the inventions themselves, and it is presumed that all the actual development proceeds behind closed doors.)

WALTONFORD: Progress, Mr. Mark, cannot be held as a contingency. It cannot be forced to rely on somebody else's approval, to jump over barriers and duck under obstacles. Progress is like a concentrated laser beam; either it is thwarted altogether by the impediment, or it burns a hole through it and continues on as it was meant to continue.

MARK: Yet what is progress, precisely, as you define it? There is much confusion in our society about using such general terms as this one.

WALTONFORD: Progress is the sum of the actions undertaken by individuals to rearrange the elements of their environment in an unprecedented and purposeful manner. It would be folly to presume that natural evolution, in all its randomness and sluggish slowness, could ever engineer the most optimal use of resources, the most functional organisms, the most efficient structures. No, there is much waste in nature, but also much untapped potential. Both of these qualities extend not only to the natural world we see outside, but to our own minds and organisms as well. We men, as we evolved, are not perfect. Yet progress has shown us that we are perfectible. Our genes, as we inherited them, may destine us for torture and oblivion through perilous diseases, but we men can destine ourselves for health, happiness, and vitality by altering our genes. Tell me, how long do you think most men are designed to live?

MARK: Hmmm... Judging by just my general observations, about a hundred and ten years.

WALTONFORD: I must admit that was a bit of a trick question. If we asked this of a man in 1700, he would have put his guess at about forty. If we asked someone in 1900, the ceiling might be at sixty, seventy at most. Even a hundred years ago, the estimates of most would not exceed ninety. Perhaps this shows us that there is no inherent ceiling, that the length of our lives is just as great as our ability to sustain them through our own devices. Perhaps we die not because of the designs of some higher force, but because of the lack of our own designs.

MARK: Does that mean... that your next adversary is not just some particular disease or genetic defect, but... death itself?

WALTONFORD: Ambitious, is it not? Of course, most people would consider it lunacy, and offensive lunacy at that, to view senescence as yet another disease. It is "natural, dignified, respectable, inevitable," they would say, ignorant of the fact that all it involves is the accumulation of maleficent defects in the organism over time. Junk inside and outside cells begins to pile up, DNA strands start to wither away at the ends, deleterious mutations accumulate, and cells begin to self-destruct far more than is healthy. There is nothing in the outside environment to cause it, nothing that says it has to happen. Merely, the organism increasingly malfunctions and inflicts suffering upon the individual-why does that need to be inevitable?

MARK: Hmmm... would the elder Mr. Grummond have agreed with this view?

WALTONFORD: He not only agreed with it, he sponsored it and taught me about it.

MARK: And how long has he been putting it to practice?

WALTONFORD: Longer than anyone suspects. I first entered this firm eight years ago, at the age of seventeen, and the project was already well underway by then.

MARK: How have you been able to conceal its existence for such a long time?

WALTONFORD: Give the media access to the majority of your institutions and broadcast loudly your intention to combat the next disease whose elimination the public is ready to accept, and you give the impression that your company is as open as can be. The public will have had so much coverage of your works and such a trust for your firm's transparency, that it will not hunger for knowledge of more clandestine things. Moreover, dual-use facilities are quite helpful. Remember, this is also a center for botanical studies. The same people who seem to have no quarrel with investigating plants for some reason has an aversion to analyzing something far closer and more relevant to themselves.

MARK: But what precisely does your project consist of?

WALTONFORD: That I can tell you only if we make a gentlemen's agreement recognizing the right of people, and companies, to keep to themselves what information they please. We all have private aspects to our lives, realms that we would not wish just any individual to have full access to, knowledge and endeavors that nobody has an inherent right to find out about without our consent. Respect a company's right to privacy as you would an individual's, and I will reward you with what you want to know.

MARK: I have no interest in disclosing what I learn here. What I ask is at my own leisure and for my own curiosity. I am accountable to no other party, nor shall I ever be, for I need no more outside favors to sustain myself. My life from this point on is entirely self-contained and self-sufficient, and I shall be the terminal point of all my knowledge and actions.

WALTONFORD: If all men shared your mindset, Mr. Mark, we would have no dishonest backstabbing in the world, for most people violate their integrity not to elevate themselves in some manner, but to discharge what they see as an obligation to someone or something else, a desire to please, if you will. Very well, I shall ask you a question: Why would a biotechnology firm suddenly wish to buy out an electronic parts business such as yours?

MARK: Are you suggesting that my recent transaction with the Estate of Grummond was brought about by the requirements of this... project?

WALTONFORD: Think about this, Mr. Mark: How does the brain communicate its signals to the remainder of the body through the nervous system, as well as among its own cells?

MARK: Electrical impulses, if I may recall.

WALTONFORD: And who better to know how these impulses can be created and to have the machinery to bring them about on the microscopic level desired than the people who had worked on making the intricate electronic equipment that facilitates them? The brain in much like a computer in many respects, since its entire function, including its memory and very consciousness, is made possible by distinct and knowable physical pathways. It is an immensely advanced computer, one that can control all of its functions in a self-contained manner, without an outside trigger, but, like a computer, its parts wear out from lengthy use. Like a computer, its functions can be restored to an optimal level, if we know how to repair or replace its worn-out parts. There is nothing that says that we cannot have a mechanical electronic device replicate precisely the functions of an organic one, or even upload the data of memory from it. There is also nothing that inherently prevents us from combining the functions of the mechanical and the organic, our knowledge of electronics and bioengineering, so that they may work harmoniously within the same brain and produce the human consciousness we are all familiar with.

MARK: So this intervention would not alter the essential nature of the human mind?

WALTONFORD: No more than replacing the wheels or engine of a car would alter its essence. What it would, however, accomplish is render the state of "brain death" reversible. The way of progress has been, throughout the ages, to overcome the seeming incapacity of ever more components of the human organism to be replaced and regenerated. It was once thought that cells of the liver, kidneys, and heart were fixed in quantity and impossible to replenish once they atrophied. Cell cloning disproved that notion. Now, it seems, the same idea is all too widespread regarding the cells and mechanisms of the brain. But why have such pessimism if they are as material, knowable, and real as anything else? Let us say that some inborn component of the brain suffers a severe defect. With this project's success, we would be able to correct a problem of any magnitude by artificially restoring the brain and rebuilding the connections that constituted its memory and cognitive functions.

MARK (awed): And you would be able to make Quintus Grummond live again...

WALTONFORD: You are a smart man, Mr. Mark. I would expect no less of someone who had created much of the infrastructure to make this accomplishment possible. This is why the lawsuit against us comes at the most inopportune moment. With it, the plaintiffs seek not only to shut down a beating heart, but also to disable what will, with time, become a reasoning mind and an animate body, younger and healthier than they.

MARK: How much time do you have to complete your research and implement it on Mr. Grummond?

WALTONFORD: The project should be fully actualized in six months, no more. The question is, do we have six months? Trent Roberts is known for injecting much empty sentiment into his arguments in court, and, the amount of sentiment presented is directly proportional to the likelihood of a quick victory for the plaintiff. Roberts has swayed many a jury with his sob stories...

MARK: Yet this is a civil case, is it not? This would mean that he would not be going before a jury, but before a district judge.

WALTONFORD: Judges are not all paragons of rationality, either. Most of them are themselves former lawyers, quite used to argument for the sake of argument, and having no argument of their own against such a tactic. All we can do is hope that our own presentation will be impenetrable and the judge sufficiently amenable to reason to find it impossible to rule against us. But this hope is not a scientific one... It is not, as of yet, empirically warranted.

MARK: I wish you well, if honest argument and productive research are the tactics you will employ. I am very much intrigued as to the motives that would cause someone to file suit against you, though.

WALTONFORD: There are people whose purposes and tactics perplex us, indeed, but everything has an explanation. You will find that those people's basic premises differ from ours, and, analyzing the nature of their deepest values and ideas, you will be able to understand why they act the way they do.

MARK: Would you advise me to probe into these ideas, to meet with the other side, and learn what they think and why?

WALTONFORD: You are free to do so, by all means, so long as you remember our gentlemen's agreement. I warn you, though, to take caution and approach them with a dose of critical thinking. What they say might not be what they think, and what appears on the surface might not be what is truly significant. Some people have fundamental ideas that they have good reason to hide, and, to understand them, you must undo the disguise.

MARK: I thank you for your time. I shall be on my way.

WALTONFORD: May clever sophistries not carry you astray. (They exit in opposite directions.)

(Curtain.)

To read other parts of Implied Consent, go here.