Part 147 - The Only Escape - Schizophrenia

John went into action and propelled his android to the front of the audience and proclaimed that he was one who had returned.  He explained to the people that their loved ones, who were now encased in platinum boxes and installed in factories around the world, were alive, but consigned to an incomprehensible hell, for which there was no end.  The end result of John’s speech was that the crowd turned into a mob and completely obliterated the android – the messenger.

The one thing that John and his friends had not counted on, indeed had not even contemplated, was the centuries-old emotion of insecurity that is present in every generation, but more highly exacerbated in the last four centuries of the Welfare State.  The gnawing feeling of desperation one feels at being incapable of providing for oneself without the help of the state was such an overpowering emotion that it eclipsed even the knowledge, if true, that their unseen loved ones, though still alive, were forever locked inside a tiny metal box and doomed to a life of immeasurable suffering and misery. 

In a final effort to destroy the system, John and Martha tried to reach out to other brains, but after multiple unsuccessful attempts, they concluded that the conscience part of the human spirit, in the face of such overwhelming misery and suffering, had retreated to the farthest recesses of the brain, to live forever in an imaginary state of paradise, a place of incredible peace. It was the perfect escape – the only escape – schizophrenia, total detachment from reality, total withdrawal into the self.

The story of the Cybernetic Brains concludes with a machine that Al is able to construct that transmits a broadcast wave that severs their minds from the controlling tapes that fed cybernetic commands into their brains.  This was a worldwide phenomenon.  Without feedback information to regulate their functions, plants and factories ceased producing, distribution centers shut down, and chaos was instantaneous.  Plants that produced chemicals ran amok; fires and explosions consumed everything for miles around.  The Welfare State was destroyed; the two million cybernetic brains gained everlasting peace, and mankind went back to the Stone Age.   (Jones)