Answer
Admitted, I'm just a curious but uneasy watcher as AI develops, also admitted, I'm not aware of having been exposed to much of Fredric Brown from the early and mid 20th century. But reading his story "Answer" (below), I perceive a "flaw".
Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. I don't know whether Brown (a) realized that his object of his phrase "subether boring throughout the universe" would be constrained to the speed of light and chose to ignore that it would have taken billions of (light) years to reach distant galaxies; Or (b) Brown's "subether" is his SciFi imagination that can transmit faster than the speed of light; Or (c) Brown did not realize it or it did not occur to him - - which reminds me of Bible authors who set down in writing the ancient campfire stories that settled as our religious truths and end up with asynchronous "flaws" in their stories (such flaws sometimes help us in Bible scholarship such as "dating" a writing). As for Brown's story, my "issue" may be rationalized by the notion that perhaps thought can travel faster than light, but in any event surely the "faith notion" that the thoughts of God (who in faith created natural as well as moral law) can be transmitted faster than the speed of light; and in any case, in SciFi, the story's needs can be met simply because the author says so. Just so with Brown's story:
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Answer
by Fredric Brown
Dwar Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.
He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe—ninety-six billion planets—into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.
Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment’s silence he said, “Now, Dwar Ev.”
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.
Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. “The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn.”
“Thank you,” said Dwar Reyn. “It shall be a question which no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer.”
He turned to face the machine. “Is there a God?”
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.
“Yes, now there is a God.”
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.
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So, what does a retired priest do on Fridays, does he work on adult Christian education for the upcoming Sunday? Does he work on a sermon set for some near future weekend? Does he clean out his closet or his library of long read and will never open again books? Does he sort through boxes of documents supporting long ago income tax returns? Does he walk and exercise? No to all of that. Moving about 7H at will, he sits in this chair and that one, reads as much as he cares to of next week's New Yorker magazine that arrived yesterday (all the cartoons, some of the articles), maybe reads the PCNH (comics page only), then goes online to see what BBC Future is stirring up, and spends a 73°F and mostly sunny spring morning that would have been luxurious for working in the yard or walking StAndrews, unproductively sitting at his laptop reading about God. Ultimately settling in a worn and sagging blue velvet chair in his home office, next to his bathroom door as 60 mg of furosemide drains fluid from his ankles in roughly quarterly-hourly dashes.
What? Reading what?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190801-tomorrows-gods-what-is-the-future-of-religion
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190529-do-humans-have-a-religion-instinct
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190418-how-and-why-did-religion-evolve
drawn in largely because of the third title above, in which article I expected (in vain) to see mentioned Friedrich Schleiermacher's five essays "On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers" 1799 in which he asserts (against the thinkers of The Enlightenment) that religion is feeling rather than knowing, and that in each of us there exists or is implanted "a sense of the infinite". So, aside from browsing Classic Car Catalogue, brochures in The Old Car Manual Project archive (this site has lately been tragically decimated as to convenience and accessibility), and EarthSkyNews
(there will be a total eclipse of the sun on September 14, 2099, my birthday, can't wait to watch it, and I've even still got my solar shield glasses from the solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, so I won't burn my eyes) - -
that's how he spends (invests?) his free Time, all the while mindful that Time is all he has anyway and it might as well bring him joy.
Happiest of birthdays to my Tassa.
ABC&PTL
Tom