The Davey Dialogues - An Exploration of the Scientific Foundations of Human Culture. John C. Madden
voice paused and then continued, quiet but firm.
– It is likely impossible for you to understand, but our universe has suffered an unimaginable tragedy. A whole species has vanished. Quite gone. This was a species I loved. Its disappearance has caused me great sorrow and great difficulty. I cannot describe to you just how serious this situation is. It never ever occurred to me that such a catastrophe could happen.
Although you humans are not really at all like my vanished, once-noble friends, there are some resemblances. I am hoping that by understanding you better I may come upon some strategy for bringing my friends back from nothingness.
Incredible, I thought, a part of me profoundly moved, and another part just as profoundly suspicious.
– I already know how difficult it is for you humans to believe what I say. That is why I really did not want to mention my friends. Even if you don’t entirely believe me, I hope you will find it worthwhile from your own point of view to engage in a prolonged conversation with me. I flatter myself that you will be rewarded with some important insights into your own condition.
I beg you therefore to tell me about the way your species has gained the understanding it now has of itself and its surroundings. I need to understand how the gradually increasing knowledge about your surroundings and yourselves has affected your behaviour and your beliefs. Frankly, I fear that you humans will suffer a fate similar to that of my friends. I don’t know why I should care, but for some reason that I don’t understand, I do. My loss in my universe is beyond measure. I despair more than a little that you might also disappear from your universe.
So, please agree to continue our dialogue in a meaningful way. You will not regret it! I will come back to learn your decision next week.
Silence again . . . this time I somehow knew I was alone with my thoughts.
The voice had gone even before I could correct one of its very rare mistakes in the use of English. “Make me a break” touched my funny bone. Could the disembodied voice have been mistranslating from another language? It is after all only human to make such an error. But the voice was decidedly not human. Perhaps, I thought, it made the error deliberately to help spare any embarrassment I might feel over its dismissal of my proposal. I shall likely never know for certain.
After a lot of soul searching, I eventually decided to continue with my dialogue with the disembodied voice. In hindsight I shudder to think that I might easily have chosen not to proceed.
So it was that our ten month series of dialogues began.
My immediate problem was to decide how best to begin the real task. The voice wanted to know about creation myths! How could I sensibly convey the long march of humanity through a bewildering variety of gods, goddesses, demons, devils and prophets?
After several, long, solitary walks, I finally put together a starting strategy.
DIALOGUE 2
A Speculative Tale
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part I, Act III, Scene 1
I had already decided in principle that I would like to continue my conversations with the voice. Even though it would involve a lot of work on my part, the opportunity was just too fascinating to miss, and, being retired, I certainly had the time to do the work.
What, I wondered, would I want to know about human beings if I were in the voice’s position? Why was the voice so interested in understanding our beliefs about our origins? Was there a clue there? Perhaps the voice had something to do with our origins? But that seemed unlikely. Perhaps it was in search of its own origins? I would have to try and find out.
It seemed to me that it would want to understand a bit about the history of our accretion of knowledge, especially since progress in one field can strongly influence developments in another. So, I listed what I thought were the key discoveries that had affected the ways in which mankind viewed itself, and I sorted them into a rough order. What was not very clear to me at the time was the length of time I would need to prepare myself in each of these subject areas, but I decided that if I needed more time along the way, I would simply ask for it. The voice did not seem particularly hurried, though it was clearly worried.
A week after our last encounter the voice returned as it had promised. I was at work in my study when it announced its arrival with a sound remarkably like the clearing of a human throat.
– Well, I hope I am correct in concluding that you have agreed to continue our discussions.
– Almost. This idea of yours will take up a lot of my time. I want your assurance that you will be open with me, and tell me about your universe.
– You have my word. But I do need to listen to you first. That way I can better judge how what I say can help you. As you know, what I have learned from other humans does not leave me optimistic about your species. My vanished friends were a much better species than you are, and look what happened to them!
I was doubtful about the voice’s promise, but I decided to proceed.
– I suppose I can take your word of honour, assuming that your universe has such a thing as honour. And somewhere along the way, you will have to convince me that your vanished friends really were superior to us.
By the way, you may have noticed that it is our custom to adopt names by which we can refer to each other. I don’t know if you have a name that you use?
There was silence. So, I prompted.
– Surely many, if not most, of the other humans you are talking to have given you a name? Why don’t you just pick one you like?
– If you don’t mind, I would rather you chose a name for me.
I was more than a little taken aback by this, thinking to myself that this was a rather unhuman thing to request. Nonetheless, I searched my mind for a suitable name.
– In that case, would you mind if I called you Davey? You see, from my point of view, you are a Disembodied Alien Voice. I thought of Dav for short, but to my ears at least, Davey sounds better, especially since your voice is quite low, and definitely not feminine.
– That is satisfactory with me, though I can change my voice to sound like a woman if you would prefer it. Then you could call me Davina.
I balked at Davina. Perhaps he was just joking! It was hard to tell. Anyway, I was a long way from thinking of Davey as even close to divine. So, Davey it was for the duration of our dialogues.
Davey jumped in straight away.
– Let’s proceed immediately. All week I have been trying to guess how you will start.
– Do you really want me to start out with a discussion of creation myths?
– Please yourself. How you choose to start our conversation is of great interest to me.
I decided to interpret his response as a “Yes” and started in. At least I knew I would have his attention at the start of our long discourse.
– Imagine yourself to have been born as a human (Homo sapiens) about 150,000 years ago, which is to say very soon after Homo sapiens became a distinct species. Current scientific thinking is that you almost certainly were born in Africa, perhaps somewhere near the Olduvai Gorge in the eastern Serengeti Plains, just south of the equator. It is probable that you lived and died as part of a group of perhaps twenty people, all or almost all of whom were family members. You had intermittent contact with other similar groups. Sometimes these contacts were friendly (perhaps friendly enough for new spouses to be introduced to the group), and some decidedly hostile (which could result in reproduction through rape and slavery).
Your