SCENE EIGHT

SCENE EIGHT

Hilary’s office.

Bo stands by (sits) while Hilary reads what she scrolls up on her desk computer.

Hilary is impressed, excited, astonished, and half disbelieving.

Bo has just received a holiday gift, a necklace, and is in the act of unwrapping the box.

Bo It’s lovely. Thank you!

She puts the necklace on. Hilary ignores her, her attention captured by the scrolling screen. After a few more moments, she sits back. Pause. Bo watches her expectantly, shyly.

Hilary Has Leo seen this?

Bo I wanted you to see it first.

Hilary Quite right. I’ll want to go through the raw data, all of it, and to be taken through the maths.

Bo It checks out. The mathematics is basic.

Hilary This is bloody sensational. But I wish you’d waited for me, Bo. No offence, but we’re going to have to be bulletproof, immaculate.

Bo I was ready. The kids were ready.

Hilary Well, it’s great. Eighty-eight kids is damned good.

Bo And I wanted it for you when you came back.

Hilary You...?

Leo enters, holding pages of email.

Leo. Beautiful day.

Leo (cold) Fuck the beautiful day. What do you call this, and why has it got our name on it?

An awkward pause. Bo leaves.

Hilary You mean my Venice discussion paper?

Leo Yes, I mean your Venice discussion paper, which is the subject of several emails from the comedians among my friends and colleagues. We do science here, Hilary!

Hilary This is about science, the psychology of the scientific mind-set.

Leo Psychology of bullshit. It’s about God.

Hilary It’s about the Hard Problem. It says every theory proposed for the problem of consciousness has the same degree of demonstrability as divine intervention. So – psychologically – they’re equivalent.

Leo What it says is that if you’re an atheist, you’re in denial.

Hilary (patiently) No, it says we may be in denial about mind–body dualism.

Leo Oh, well, that takes care of the Hard Problem! The reason it’s hard, you pig’s arse, is that mind–body is the problem!

His emotion spent, he sits down heavily.

I could have done without this at the minute. Welcome back, I think. Sorry about my language.

Pause.

Also me in Venice. I apologise.

Hilary I took it as a compliment, Leo.

Has something happened?

Leo I think so. The Krohl is taking on another behavioural psychologist, starting September.

Hilary Well... that’s good, isn’t it?

Leo He’s not coming to my department. He’ll have an office in Biochem.

Hilary Who’s paying for him? Is he on our budget?

Leo No.

Hilary That’s... not so good.

Leo I’m impressed you understand. If you hadn’t outed yourself as a Cartesian dualist you could have ended up as a head of department. Psychology as an enterprise is on its way out, is what they’re telling us. We’re on a countdown to the embedded brain answering all the questions about the disembodied mind.

Hilary What’s his angle, this...?

Leo Hormone-related performance in human subjects.

Hilary Hormone-related performance? Like what?

Leo Like working on the trading desk at KCM. Am I going too fast for you?

Hilary (after a beat) No.

Leo Jerry is smitten.

Hilary I can see. Where did all this...?

Leo On his boat.

Hilary His boat?

Leo Jerry read this man’s paper in Venice. The paper was nothing to do with the financial market, it was poker players –

Hilary takes this in without a flicker.

– but Jerry got it in one: it was about risk-taking and risk-aversion. So he invited Spencer to the Krohl party.

Hilary Spencer?

Leo His name is Spencer something.

A reflexive laugh from Hilary.

It was a love match, Jerry in a yachting cap, and Spencer. A trading desk is next up.

Hilary I’m trying to follow the money. Where’s the money?

Leo Stress releases a cocktail of hormones. By getting your traders to spit into a paper cup, you can predict who’ll get risk-happy and lose his gains; or, contrariwise, who will be paralysed by risk-aversion in a roller-coaster market where there’s money to be made. Do we like this? We adore it. It monetises the hormonal state of your trading desk!

Hilary Gosh.

Leo So it’s behavioural but I’ll be damned if it’s psychology. There are people here who wonder why we’re in the building. Jerry isn’t one of them, so far, but it’s a long time since the department published anything that went viral. For Jerry that’s like trading at a loss.

Hilary returns to her computer.

Hilary Do you want to see something sexy?

⇐ Предыдущая 4 5 6 7 8910 11 12 13 Следующая ⇒