Tears in rain

Let me start with a disclaimer: today's post is going to be, for no particular reason other than pure coincidence, a bit nihilistic, so if you are not in the mood for the ordeal you might want to come back another day to read it.

Now that you are all warned I can tell you that yesterday evening, while Trevor was practicing on the piano I had the impression that, as is common in him, he was all about expediency and being done with the practice as soon as he could, so I suggested that, instead (on top) of the study that he was due for his class today, he should play something that he enjoyed. My first idea was the "Imperial March" from Star Wars movie saga, which he learnt some months ago but has forgotten in the meantime, but he chose something else that kept him at the piano for a whole twenty minutes and not the usual ten.

Photo: Artur Pawlak on Pixabay

My suggestion led me to think about the songs that I would like to play myself. As a kid I learnt to play classical guitar first, then a couple of years of violin, which I did not enjoy very much, and in my university years I also played a lute in a kind of folk ensemble. But what I had really always wanted was to learn a wind instrument: I was a pretty competent player of block flute in primary school, but that always felt a bit like a "toy" instrument, so a few years ago I checked what instruments were available at the kids' music school. Unfortunately, precisely at that time the clarinet teacher had found a better job closer to his home and the school was yet to hire his replacement. However, the newly-appointed director of the school was also a saxophone teacher and still had some slots open, so I went to talk to him and he advised me to take up the alto sax. I have to admit that, at almost 1.90 m (6' 2'') of height, the instrument looked a bit small in my hands and I was more inclined for the bigger tenor sax, but he talked me out of it with the argument that there was essentially no difference between playing one or the other and that the alto would be lighter on my neck and easier on my pocket, so I went with his recommendation and never regretted it.

By the very nature of the instrument (probably by the taste of the teacher as well) we immediately focused on jazz and swing themes, and soon I was playing some pieces (the easy ones) by Thelonius Monk and Lester Young. But there were three that have always stuck with me. The first one is "The Pink Panther Theme", composed by Henry Mancini for the score of the 1963 movie, which is a fairly complex piece (it covers three octaves, so it requires special articulation tricks), but it reminded me very dearly of the Saturday afternoons at my grandparents' house, where I used to watch the cartoon show. The second one is "Beyond the Sea", composed originally by Charles Trenet, but popularized by Bobby Darin. It has a nice retro feeling, but I also associate it with the somewhat dramatic 2004 biopic of the same name, which I enjoyed very much in spite of all the hardships of the show business that the movie depicts.

The third piece is the "Love Theme", composed by Vangelis for the soundtrack of the 1982 movie "Blade Runner". Although I had already watched and loved the movie before, I got a new appreciation of the song when it became the title for a late-night radio show that I started to follow during my university years. My sax teacher never taught me that piece (or any of the other two in fact) but nowadays it is easy to find the notes on the internet if you are ready to spend a few minutes browsing.

So thinking of the Love Theme brought the movie to my mind and, with it, (here is where we get serious) one of the most iconic moments in the history of cinema: the C-beams monologue. The famous 42 (!?) words that Roy Batty utters as Deckard is about to complete his mission (killing Batty) reveal a humanity that might not be exclusive to humans anymore, or maybe not much longer. In these 42 words Batty laments that all the wonders he has seen, all the adventures he has lived will disappear once he dies and his electronic memory is wiped clean.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that nobody dies completely as long as someone else lives to remember their legacy, but it is equally true that, given the imperfections of our communication so far, nobody is likely to be able to retell our memories the way we would, so even those who remember us cannot be true to our legacy. The consequence of this inaccuracy is that death still means, as of today and in the best of cases, a loss of all the stories we have not told, all the wishes we have not expressed, all the ideas that we have never discussed. This loss can only be slightly mitigated by those who knew us, but as long as there are no means to transfer our memories to another mind (human or otherwise) our private self will always cease to exist and death will continue to be a loss.

Batty, in spite of being "just" an escaped robotic laborer, is aware of the uniqueness of his experiences and is fond of them. His lament about the loss is very human, and presents us once again with the question of what to do if (when) machines start to become self aware and to care for their memories. Does the hard drive in our laptop suffer when we wipe it clean to install a new operating system? It all likelihood no, its contents disappear like tears in rain and nobody gives it a second thought. But in a future not very fare this situation will change and machines will have to face death in the same way we humans do. Or maybe not. Have a nice weekend.