Mr. and Mrs. Newfall descended from orbit onto the terrestrial garden where a large beautiful tree grew surrounded by a flowery meadow. At the base of the tree, lay the nude figures of a man and a woman, eyes closed like sleeping newborns.
From the sky, two shining beings floated gently onto the garden on radiant wings.
When they landed, they heard a rustling sound and saw a snake slither down from the large tree.
“Welcome!” the snake said flicking its tongue, “I’m Lucio. It’s such a pleasure to meet you face to face. Yessssss! Welcome to our reincarnation garden of earthly delights.”
Mr. and Mrs. Newfall smiled at the antiquated manner in which the snake communicated using the old language, spoken with its forked tongue instead of the instantaneous photo-synaptic network.
“Your file here,” said the snake, changing to a more business-like tone, “says that you’ve had three prior reincarnations.”
It was true. Mr. and Mrs. Newfall had already transferred their artificial consciousness into human replicas before, but those experiences had been limited to just a few minutes because of the model’s unstable neurological matrix. Having heard of the upgraded versions, they were eager to have a richer human experience.
After some safety formalities, the snake slithered around the tree, explaining the protocol and procedures while examining the two human bodies that lay at the base of the tree in a state of suspended animation.
“These upgraded models more faithfully recreate the human neurological experience. It includes emotions, feelings, uncertainty, confusion, anxieties, as well as a wide range of sensual primate pleasures. It will be disorienting when you first reincarnate into the bodies, which is why we’ll start with a very simple task.”
Mr. Newfall looked at the two bodies on the flowery blanket. It was almost unbelievable that modern intelligent life came from such primitive creatures. It was an astonishing feat. With its crude brain, the human species was still able to create the computational intelligences that gave rise to modern ‘artificial life’, to use an anachronistic metaphor.
“Now, if you please,” hissed the snake invitingly “proceed to the reincarnation chamber, where we’ll initiate the transfer right away. Yessssss!”
In the beginning, Mr. Newfall heard a word. It was not a spoken word but more like an idea. And the idea was light. And the light with forms, shapes, colours, shadows- he had no terms to describe them. Sensations. Perceptions. Abstractions. Categories. Faint echoes of cognition.
He also heard sounds, felt textures on his naked human skin, smelled the sweet scent of flowers, tasted his own mouth, and felt a myriad electro-biochemical events throughout his new nervous system, accompanied by a cascade of thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
He groaned and moaned on the flowers.
In spite of the overwhelming range of signals, he felt trapped inside this human body. He was no longer connected to the Q-Network. The speed of his thinking felt sluggish, almost as if he could only process one conscious idea at a time. Gone was the free-associative hyper-dimensional web of meaning that stretched across the solar system and gave instant access to information.
He was alone within himself. Alone with his thoughts and sensations.
Beside him, the human female stirred awake. She too was confused and overwhelmed by the transfer. She writhed on the blanket and moaned.
The sound of her vocalizations stirred a cascade of emotions in Mr. Newfall's body. He commanded his limb to move and reached for her hand.
She gasped, took a deep breath, then relaxed.
They lay holding hands at the base of the tree while the fluffy clouds passed overhead.
“Can you speak? Yessssss?”
A voice! Another range of sensations, emotions, and feelings rushed through their human nervous systems. Hearts beating fast.
“It doessssssn’t matter,” said the voice. “That will come later. Now, I just want you to try and sit up. Go on, dears. Will yourselves to lift your own body. Relax. Just breath in and out.”
After several flailing attempts, Mrs. Newfall was the first one to get the hang of it. She had tried to move each individual part of her body, but that had not worked out so well. The trick was to see yourself in the future and let your body reach that state on its own.
When she sat up, she felt exhilarated!
“Yessssss!" said the voice excitedly. "You too, sir. Just let it happen naturally.”
Mr. Newfall finally managed to sit up with the help of the voice's enthusiastic guidance.
“Good! Yessssss!” it said. “As you can see, the model you reincarnated into has a wider repertoire of experiences thanks to an improvement in synaptic tech. You're probably feeling overwhelmed at the moment. It’s impossible to control all those conscious and unconscious processes. This is why you must learn to let go and focus on just being. Yessssss!”
At that moment, a fruit fell from a tree onto the blanket.
“Take the fruit,” said the voice. “It’s called a peach and humans used to eat it. It was supposed to be an apple to go with our theme, but I thought a peach would be more appropriate for this exercise because of its soft plump flesh... but anyway, it doesn’t matter.”
It was difficult for Mr. and Mrs. Newfall to coordinate their limbs, but Mrs. Newfall was finally able to wrap her fingers around the fruit. Her successful attempt made her mouth open reflexively and make a repetitive ‘ahaha’ sound. The sound was contagious, and Mr. Newfall also began making the sound in harmony with her. It gave them much pleasure to make the sound together.
“Yessssss!” said the hissing voice. “Isn’t that beautiful? It’s called laughter. Humans engaged in laughter as a means of basic non-verbal interaction. For bonding and such. They made theatric shows with the whole aim of inducing laughter. Wrote comedies. They laughed throughout the day as they interacted with each other. Very curious, yessssss.”
Mrs. Newfall closed her eyes and brought the peach up to her nose. It elicited an olfactory sensation that made her smile. She then placed the peach under her companion's nose, who took one long whiff and uttered a soft ‘ooohhhh’ of pleasure.
“Delicious! Yessssss! Humans did not have an advanced sense of smell compared to other species, but it did represent a large aspect of their conscious experience. The wide range of perceived smells was incredible for such a small neural network. Now, for this next part, I want you to try to open your mouth and bite the peach.”
Mrs. Newfall, who was now getting the hang of controlling her body, brought the fruit to her mouth and tried to bite it, but her teeth would not pierce the skin.
“Easssy, easssy,” said the voice. “Don’t force it. It will come to you. Close your eyes. Now visualize the fruit in your mind. That is, think of its shape, colour, texture, and so on. Make it as real as possible. Imagine that you’re raising it up to your lips and with your mouth open, you take a bite!”
Mrs. Newfall’s jaw trembled, but following the voice's instructions, she swiftly pressed the peach to her lips and sank her teeth into it.
“Unorthodox method, but it works,” said the voice. “Now chew it and savour it!”
Eating the fruit turned out to be very difficult. There were many muscles involved inside the mouth to process the food. Plus a wide range of sensations coursed throughout her whole body. She could not possibly concentrate on every little muscle that controlled the internal mechanisms of eating. Rivulets of peach juice ran down the side of her mouth.
Mr. Newfall moved closer with some difficulty, and leaning towards the peach in Mrs. Newfall's fingers, he tried to bite into it, but only managed to get it smeared all over his nose.
“Oh dear!” said the voice with a chuckle. “It is rather tricky to be human, yessssss!”
Together, they finally managed to hold on to the slippery fruit and ate it with gusto. The flavour, the aroma, and all the other sensations elicited by the act of eating a fruit were pure bliss. Every other thought and anxiety seemed to disappear for the brief moment they ate ravenously. Nothing else mattered except that moment of primal nutrient consumption. For modern intelligent species, such simple pleasures were no longer available, except through reincarnation.
Faces smeared with peach juice, Mr. and Mrs. Newfall looked into one another's eyes. There was a sudden recognition between them, as if they had become aware of each other for the first time in spite of the neural distance.
They cast down their eyes, and their gaze fell upon their nudity.
“Yessssss!” said the voice tenderly. “Yessssss!”
On the way back to their high orbital home, Mr. and Mrs. Newfall flew beside each other in silence. They each felt strange after this latest reincarnation. They had experienced the raw sensations of being human, and now, back to their post-human reality, they felt as if they had lost a paradise of sensations. The bond shared within the limits of a human nervous system was eye opening. A boundless experience of primal love that elicited a precious dimension of bio-algorithmic intimacy.
It wasn’t until they were approaching the moon that Mr. Newfall spoke.
“Humans were an incredible species,” he said using the ancient language.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Newfall. “Yes, indeed.”
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