Pain

While treating patient complaints about pain, doctors typically inquire about the type, sharp or dull, and the intensity on a scale from one to ten. Most pain addressed by doctors is imposed from external sources such as an illness, an accident or an attack by another creature. Such pain can be temporary, sporadic or permanent, but is often regarded as separate from the sufferer, suggests Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Another source of pain is internal, the agony associated with deep shame, guilt and other emotions linked with regret linked to situations over which an individual had some measure of control. The encyclopedia touches on this category only briefly: “Like other experiences as conscious episodes, pains are thought to be private, subjective, self-intimating, and the source of incorrigible knowledge."  The internal pain is based on individuals' experiences, memories and agency and can be soul-crushing.  

The Rest Is Memory by Lily Tuck eloquently captures the tension between the two categories. The novel weaves historical facts with an imagined description of the final months for a young Catholic girl from a rural village of Southeast Poland during World War II. The cover is a photograph of the child, revealing her as simultaneously earnest and afraid. Despite her parents' unhappy marriage and poverty, the adolescent appreciates her life and the animals, including a mean guard dog kept on a chain. 

Germans conquer Poland in September 1939, an event unknown for the rural family until schools are closed and soldiers confiscate the family farm in summer of 1942 and shoot the father dead.  

Czeslawa and her mother arrive at Auschwitz on December 13, 1942, assigned identification numbers and endless work with sub-optimal tools. Conditions are horrific and the work is grueling, nonstop to the point that prisoners lose all strength and motivation. Perhaps the only comfort is mother and daughter share a cramped bed and hushed conversations at night. 

Thoughtful despite her lack of education, Czeslawa often frets about leaving behind the dog known as Pies, meaning “dog” in Polish. “Although she did not like the dog – she was afraid of him – she often dreams about him. In one of the dreams, she is walking through a field of wheat and the dog is following her. The dog is friendly and when she speaks to him, the dog wags his tail. Another thing that she remarks about the dog is that his eyes are different colors…. In the dream, Czeslawa thinks that this a sign of good luck and she wishes she had had time to free Pies.”  

In another dream, the dog has pups and when Czeslawa tries to retrieve one, the dog bites. And on another night, the girl wonders if the dog dreams of her. 

The mother tells stories, increasingly revealing more secrets from her own youth while reticent about talking about the farm or abusive husband. Eventually, the woman admits that the dog surely is dead. Yet the daughter persists, continuing to worry about the dog’s fate. “For some reason she cannot explain Czeslawa keeps thinking about the dog – the dog with no name.” 

And at another point, Czeslawa slips while working and a guard sets his dog loose. The dog bites and infection begins. The prisoners fear the camp's doctors and like other prisoners unable to work, weakened by dysentery, disease, malnutrition, injuries and more, Czeslawa is sent to the gas chambers.  

The mother died on February 18, 1943, at age 47. Czeslawa, 14, died the following month on March 12. 

The novel's title is based on the final words of the poem "Nostos" by Louise Glück, “We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.” The poem's title refers to the long journeys undertaken by the heroes of Greek literature and is tied to the Greek words for pain, travel and the longing for home and the past. 

Ripping the most vulnerable from their homes, separating families and disrupting lives, denying individuals due process, is pure evil. A child is mistreated, tortured, yet retains the compassion to worry about an unloved pet left behind. All humans are equally worthy of dignity and basic rights - and those capable of imposing physical and mental anguish on the most vulnerable in society are lacking in conscience and basic humanity. 

"At times, greed, revenge, selfishness, and dishonesty are being celebrated and even accepted as the norm, which creates an imbalance in our understanding of basic human morality," explains Diane Whitehead of Childhood Education International. "Our basic humanity and lifelong capacity to live successful and cooperative lives within societies begins in childhood. If we care about children and care about the continuation of our humanity, then we must do our part. Our children need examples of moral behavior as they grow and learn. How do we all – including teachers, parents, grandparents, caregivers, neighbors, business leaders, and government officials – model through our everyday actions that we value compassion, generosity, acceptance of others, honesty, and kindness?"

Children observe the actions of the adults surrounding them, judging and acting accordingly. Some will go along with the bullying and brutality while others have an inner strength to resist.  

Choice

 

Machines built by humans reflect human values. In the Lives of Puppets, by T.J. Klune, some machines love and nurture, and others are corrupt and controlling. The robot characters possess super-intelligence, the ability to communicate with one another, and others even yearn for free will.

The story begins long after robots have vanquished the human race. But some advanced machines preserve and collect human artifacts, curious about the creatures and pondering their downfall. “Humanity was lost…. And lonely….Even surrounded by so many of their kind, they still searched for a connection,” sending their machines “away beyond the stars in search of that connection they so desperately wished for.” And the more creative machines loved humans. “Because for all their faults, they created us,” said Gio. “They gave us names. They loved us.” Yet humans “hated as much as they loved. They feared what they didn’t understand… And the further they went, the less control they had…. They poisoned the earth. They had time to change their ways but they didn’t.”

Gio, an advanced inventor robot known as General Innovation Operative, has set up camp in Oregon, far from the machines with fascist tendencies, along with Vic, a human; Nurse Ratched, a healing robot; and Rambo, a cleaning robot. Vic regards the robot as his friends and Gio as father, sharing an interest in inventing. After finding another ruined robot in the trash, Vic secretly makes repairs. Rambo questions why. “If we can fix what’s broken, we should always try,” explains Vic. “Because all things deserve a chance to find out what life could be when they don’t have to serve others.” 

Vic calls the repaired robot Hap, based on the remaining letters stamped on its chest. Gio, learning about the newcomer, is alarmed because he had created that type of robot long ago – a Human Annihilation Response Protocol.  A killer robot is in their midst and the other robots, conditioned to protect their human, are wary. 

But Hap’s memory has been wiped and he must gather new information. The newcomer denies having feelings. Gio explains how robots learn: “We watch. We learn. We process. It wasn’t always this way. But the more complex our minds became, the more choice we are given. Evolution by way of mimicry.” Nurse Ratched, anticipating the worst outcome, is less optimistic. “He is learning,” confirms Nurse Ratched, always anticipating the worst outcome. “Retaining information. He will use it against us.”

A trace of Vic's blood left the trash dump prompts Authority robots to invade and destroy the treehouse encampment. Gio leads the group to a hidden bunker before voluntarily leaving with the invaders for decommissioning or reprogramming. His goal is to save Vic, presumably the only human on the planet. The group watches a video message left by Gio, relaying his history with humans and his assessment of why human civilization failed. “They judged others for not looking like they did. Selfish, cruel, and worse – indifferent. No civilization can survive indifference. It spreads like a poison, turning fire into apathy, a dire infection whose cure requires mor than most are willing to give. But for all their faults, there is beauty in their dissonant design…. In a way they were God, creating us in their own image.”

Humans taught the robots to learn, but did not expect them to evolve, making their own choices and asking why. And humans thought they knew better, refusing to listen to robot warnings. “No matter what we told them – our data showing them they were on the brink with options to course correct before it was too late – they thought themselves immortal.” Every test, every simulation, robots ran “ended with the same result: for the world to survive, humans could not.”

Gio evolved from an emotionless inventor to thoughtful, caring being who lived for enjoyment and experiences, no longer interested in serving his robot master. Gio urges Hap to do the same, doing all he can to protect Vic.

Vic refuses to accept Gio's demise and leads the other robots in a quest to rescue the inventor. Along the way, they meet the Coachman, a corrupt showman who admires humans yet attempts to enslave them. “Your flaws are what make you superior, in all ways. No matter what machines can do, no matter how powerful we become, it is the absence of flaws that will be our undoing…. Our only flaw is that we’ve condemned ourselves to spend eternity mimicking that which we deemed unfit to exit.”

The Coachman is fascinated by the notion of death and abbreviated time. “There must be no greater feeling in the world than to know that this isn’t forever.” 

The group reaches the Electric City and the laboratory where Gio once again toils as a newly reprogrammed machine. To secure assistance in reaching Gio, Hap must endure a session that restores his memories. Vic protests putting Hap through such a session, and the powerful fairy machine retorts: “Let? Let? Do you own him? ….You say he was given a choice. And yet here you are, doing everything in your power to take that from him. How positively human of you.”

Hap complies, enduring memory restoration without killing Vic, and then declines a procedure that would allow him to forget his unpleasant past. 

Turns out, the most advanced machines are conflicted about humans, dismissing their weakness, selfishness and volatility while appreciating the traits of loyalty, love, hope and more. The would-be rescuer hopes to study the concept of friendship and, in particular, why Hap refuses to follow his normal protocol to kill humans. More importantly, the rescue robot seeks to thwart the Authority’s goal of eradicating free will. “Choice. The power to make our own decisions. The Authority wants it removed from all of us.”

Vic comes to realize that machines, like humans, continuously live by trial and error and that existence, even for machines, is marked by death. “Humanity – that nebulous concept he didn’t always understand – had lived and died by its creations.” The provocative book concludes that creation, good or bad, is the essence of existence. Choice is inextricably linked with morality, and mortality comes with the creations and world we choose to leave behind.