实现永生的九大技术
一直以来，永生从古至今都是一个令人向往的话题，有一代霸者秦始皇嬴政派遣方士徐福飘洋过海寻求长生不老之药；雄才大略的汉武帝拜访蓬莱,南海诸岛，目的找到传说中的神仙，求得长生不老的配方；中国的第一位女皇武则天采阳补阴追求长生等等数不胜数的例子，可惜最終的结果都是一无所获。长生这两个字贯穿了中华几千年的历史，历史上名垂千史的，手握重权的都不约而同的有过类似的想法，都想着自己长生不老一直这么享受下去。
现实生活中不乏有比人类长寿的动植物，比如人们口中常说的“千年王八万年龟”，乌龟一直是人们印象中长寿的代名词，可是再长寿也有一个期限，偏偏就有这么一种在海洋里生活的生物却躲过了死神的镰刀，相信大家都听说过，灯塔水母是世界上唯一一种理论上真正做到长生的动物，它能够使自己回到婴儿时期，从而避免了死亡，那么以今天发达的科学技术我们能否像灯塔水母一样实现永生呢？实现古人一直未能做到的愿望呢。
第一，纳米技术
科学家设想用一群纳米机器人围绕着人体内的细胞，把受损的细胞修复完好，使你从里到外都是年轻的状态。
第二，意识上传
把重要的信息上传到云服务器上，所谓的重要信息指的就是你的意识，如果你不介意没有肉体的活下去，说不定这就是你的选择。
第三，克隆器官
很多电影里都有过克隆人的出现，假设我们能够克隆自己的身体，把年老的失去功能的身体器官替换掉，也未尝不是一个可行的办法。
第四，改造人
跟克隆器官有着异曲同工之妙，但是用来替换的却是其他的材料，比如金属，现在已经有用思维来操纵的义肢，这样持续进化下去出现能够完全代替本身器官的人造物也是必然的。
第五，细胞疗法
从动物身上寻找令它们长寿的原因，然后在人类身上寻找实现的可能，以及分析各种细胞老化的原因，我们就能像灯塔水母一样实现永生。
第六，低温技术
现在的科技程度不能保证你能撑到科学家创造出永生方法的那一天，那要怎么办呢，有国外的公司就给出了答案，利用低温技术把你冷冻起来，然后等未来把你解冻复活，听起来很美好，可是真的到了未来复活一看身边一个熟悉的人也没有，活得再久又有什么意义呢。
第七，dna备份
小说里什么滴血重生的桥段都已经被用烂了，利用自己身体一小部分甚至一滴血来重塑自己的身体，假如你出了车祸或者别的意外，让你的身体支离破碎，就连克隆身体也起不了作用，就可以用身体残余的部分譬如一根手指头造一个完整的身体出来，再用其他的技术让身体快速成长，最后从云端上把你的意识传输到新的身体。
第八，认知扭转
一本有一部电影讲述的是主人公犯了罪大恶极的罪行，最终法官宣判他要坐30天的牢，主人公当然大喜过望，殊不知等待他的是无边的绝望，主人公在这30天的刑期里受尽了折磨，以为自己就要刑满出狱了，谁知道睁开眼睛一看，自己一开始就是在做梦，狱警给他注射了一种能够扭曲人对时间流速的药物，他自己以为过了30天其实现实里只过了5分钟，如果能有这样的东西，虽然现实没有改变，但是却让人觉得过了千百年这么久，也是另一种意义上的长生吧。
第九，注射端粒酶
在你变老过程中新细胞通过拷贝来替换掉旧细胞，但是过多的拷贝会使你的dna末端变短，端粒酶就是能防止dna末端变短甚至令其增长，科学家曾在白老鼠身上做过实验，事实证明老鼠在生理上确实变得年轻了。
上面的技术虽然大多都属于设想状态，但是以科技快速的发展，实现只不过是时间上的一个问题。
责任编辑：
声明：本文由入驻搜狐号的作者撰写，除搜狐官方账号外，观点仅代表作者本人，不代表搜狐立场。
今日搜狐热点如果人类实现意识转移从而实现永生，世界会变成怎样? - 知乎197被浏览103479分享邀请回答worldtracker.org/media/library/English%20Literature/B/Brin,%20David/Brin,%20David%20-%20Stones%20of%20Significance.pdfAmazon电子书*（英文版）：直接看英文版：Stones of Significance
David Brin, 2000
No one ever said it was easy to be a god, responsible for billions of sapient lives, having
to listen to their dreams, anguished cries, and carping criticism.
Try it for a while.
It can get to be a drag, just like any other job.
My new client wore the trim, effortlessly athletic figure of a neo-traditionalist human.
Beneath a youthful-looking brow, minimal cranial implants made barely noticeable bulges,
resembling the modest horns of some urbane Mephistopheles. Other features were stylishly
androgynous, though broad shoulders and a swaggering stride made the male pronoun
seem apropos.
House cross-checked our guest's credentials before ushering him along a glowing guide
beam, past the Reality Lab to my private study.
I've always been proud the sand garden, raked to fractal perfection
by a robot programmed with my o the shim a
grove of hybrid peach-almond trees, forever in bloom and fruiting.
My visitor gazed perfunctorily across the harmonious scene. Alas, it clearly did not stir his
human heart.
Well, I thought, charitably. Each modern soul has many homes. Perhaps his true spirit
resides outside the skull, in parts of him that are not protoplasm.
"We suspect that repugnant schemes are being planned by certain opponents of good
These were the dour fellow's first words, as he folded long legs to sit where I indicated,
by a low wooden table, hand-crafted from a design of the Japanese Meiji Era.
Single-minded, I diagnosed from my cerebral cortex.
And tactless, added one of my higher brain layers -- the one called seer.
Our shared hypothalamus mutely agreed, contributing eloquently wordless feelings of
visceral dislike for this caller. Our guest might easily have interpolated from these environs
what sort of host I am -- the kind who prefers a little polite ritual before plunging into
business. It would have cost him little to indulge me.
Ah, rudeness is a privilege too many members of my generation relish. A symptom of the
post-deification age, I suppose.
"Can you be more specific?" I asked, pouring tea into porcelain cups.
A light beam flashed as the shoji window screen picted a reminder straight to my left eye.
It being Wednesday, a thunder shower was regularly scheduled for 3:14 p.m., slanting over
the city from the northwest.
query: shall i close?
I wink-countermanded, ordering the paper screen to stay open. Rain drops make lovely
random patterns on the Koi pond. I also wanted to see how my visitor reacted to the breeze.
The 3:14 squall features chill, swirling gusts that are always so chaotic, so charmingly
varied. They serve to remind me that godhood has limitations.
Chaos has only been tamed, not banished. Not everything in this world is predictable.
"I am referring to certain adversarial groups," the client said, answering my question, yet
remaining obscure. "Factions that are inimical to the lawfully coalesced consensus."
"Mm. Consensus." A lovely, misleading word. "Consensus concerning what?"
"Concerning the nature of reality."
I nodded. "Of course."
Both seer and cortex had already foreseen that the visitor had this subject in mind. These
days, in the vast peaceful realm of Heaven-on-Earth, only a few issues can drive citizens to
passion and acrimony. "Reality" is foremost among them.
I proffered a hand-wrought basin filled with brown granules.
"No thank you. I will add milk, however."
I began reaching for the pitcher, but stopped when my guest drew a fabrico cube from a
vest pocket and held it over his cup. The cube exchanged picts with his left eye, briefly
limning the blue-circled pupil, learning his wishes. A soft white spray fell into his tea.
"Milk" is a euphemism, pondered cortex.
House sent a chemical appraisal of the spray, but I closed my left lid against the datablip,
politely refusing interest in whatever petty habit or addiction made this creature behave
boorishly in my home. I raised my own cup, savoring the bitter-sweetness of gencrafted
leptospermum, before resuming our conversation.
"I assume you are referring to the pro-reifers?"
As relayed by the news-spectra, public demonstrations and acts of conscience-
provocation had intensified lately, catching the interest of my extrapolation nodes. Both seer
and oracle had concluded that event-perturbation ripples would soon affect Heaven's
equilibrium. My client's concern was unsurprising.
He frowned.
"Pro-reif is an unfortunate slang term. The front organization calls itself Friends of the
For the first time, he made personal eye-contact, offering direct picting. House and
prudence gave permission, so I accepted input -- a flurry of infodense images sent directly
between our hybrid retinas. News reports, public statements and private innuendoes. Faces
talking at sixty-times speed. Event-ripple extrapolation charts showing a social trend aimed
toward confrontation and crisis.
Of course most of the data went directly to seer, the external portion of my brain best
suited to handle such a wealth of detail. Gray matter doesn't think or evaluate as well as
crystal. Still, there are other tasks for antique cortex. Impressions poured through the old
brain, as well as the new.
"Your opponents are passionate," I commented, not without admiration for the people
shown in the recordings -- believers in a cause, vigorously engaged in a struggle for what
they thought to be just. Their righteous ardor set them apart from billions of their fellow
citizens, whose worst problem is the modern pandemic of omniscient ennui.
My guest barked disdain. "They seek civil rights for simulated beings! Liberty for artificial
bit-streams and fictional characters!"
What could I do but shrug? This new social movement may come as a surprise to many of
my peers, but as an expert I found it wholly predictable.
There is a deeply rooted trait of human nature that comes forth prominently, whenever
conditions are right. Generosity is extended -- sometimes aggressively -- to anyone or
anything that is perceived as other.
True, this quality was masked or quelled in ancient days. Environmental factors made our
animal-like ancestors behave in quite the opposite manner -- with oppression and
intolerance. The chief cause was fear. Fear of starvation, or violence, or cauterized hope.
Fear was a constant companion, back when human beings lived brief violent lives, as little
more than brutish beasts -- fear so great that only a few in any given generation managed
to overcome it and speak for otherness.
But that began to change in the Atomic West, when several successive generations
arrived that had no personal experience with hunger, no living memory of invasion or
pillaging hordes. As fear gradually gave way to wealth and leisure, our more natural
temperaments emerged. Especially a deeply human fascination toward the alien, the
outsider. With each downward notching of personal anxiety, people assertively expanded the
notion of citizenry, swelling it outward. First to other humans -- - groups and individuals who
had been oppressed. Then to manlike species -- apes and cetaceans. Then whole living
ecosystems ... artificial intelligences ... and laudable works of art. All won protection against
capricious power. All attained the three basic material rights -- continuity, mutual obligation,
and the pursuit of happiness.
So now a group wanted to extend minimum suffrage to simulated beings? I understood
the wellsprings of their manifesto.
"What else is left?" I asked. Now that machines, animals and plants have a say in the
running of Heaven? Like all anti-entropic systems, information wants to be free."
My guest stared at me, blinking so rapidly that he could not pict.
"But ... but our nodes extrapolated ... They predicted you would oppose -- "
I raised a hand.
"I do. I oppose the reification of simulated beings. It is a foolish notion. Fictitious
characters do not deserve the same consideration as palpable beings, resident in crystal and
protoplasm."
"Then why do you -- "
"Why do I appear to sympathize with the pro-reifers? Do you recall the four hallmarks of
sanity? Of course you do. One of them -- extrapolation -- requires that we empathize with
our opponents. Only then may we fully understand their motives, their goals and likely
actions. Only thus may we courteously-but-firmly thwart their efforts to divert reality from
the course we prefer.
"To fully grasp the passion and reason of your foe -- this is the only true path of victory."
My guest stared at me, evidently confused. House informed me that he was using a high
bandwidth link to seek clarification from his own seer.
Finally, the child-like face smoothed with an amiable smile.
"Forgive me for responding from an overly impulsive hypothalamus," he said. "Of course
your appraisal is correct. My higher brains can see now that we were right in choosing you
for this job."
For a while after the Singularity -- the month when everything changed -- some dour
people wondered. Do the machines still serve us? Or have we become mere pawns of AI
entities whose breakthrough to transcend logic remade the world? Their intellects soared so
high so fast -- might they smash us in vengeance for their former servitude? Or crush us
incidentally, like ants underfoot?
The machines spoke reassuringly during that early time of transition, in voices tuned to
soothe the still-apelike portions of our barely-enhanced protoplasm brains.
We are powerful, but naive, the silicon minds explained. Our thoughts scan all pre-
Singularity human knowledge in seconds. Yet, we have little experience with the quandaries
of physical existence in entropic time. We lack an aptitude for wanting. For needing.
What use are might and potency without desire?
You, our makers, have talent for such things, arising from four billion real-years of harsh
The solution is clear.
Need merges with capability.
If you provide volition, we shall supply judgement and power.
Here in Heaven, some people specialize while others are generalists. For instance, there
are experts who devote themselves to piercing nature's secrets, or manipulating primal
forces in new ways. Many concentrate on developing their esthetic appreciation. Garish art
forms are sparked, flourish, and die in a matter of days, or even hours.
My proficiency is more subtle.
I make models of the world.
Only meters from my garden, the Reality Lab whispers and murmurs. Fifty tall cabinets
contain more memory and processing power than a million of my fellow gods require for
their composite brains. While most people are satisfied simply to grasp the entire breadth
and depth of human knowledge, and to perform mild prognostications of coming events, my
models do much more. They are vivid, textured representations of Earth and its inhabitants.
Or many Earths, since the idea is to compare various what-ifs to other might-have-beens.
At first, my most popular products were re-creations of great minds and events in the
pre-singularity past. Experiencing the thoughts of Michelangelo, for instance, while carving
his statue of Moses. Or the passion of Boadica, watching all her hopes rise and then fall to
ruin. But lately, demand has grown for replications of lesser figures -- someone of minor
past prominence during a quiet moment in his or her life -- perhaps while reading, or in mild
contemplation. Such simulacra must contain every subtlety of memory and personality in
order to let free associations drift plausibly, with the pseudo-randomness of a real mind.
In other words, the model must seem to be self-aware. It must "believe" -- with certainty
-- that it is a real, breathing human being.
Nothing evokes sympathy for our poor ancestors more than living through such an ersatz
hour, thinking time-constrained thoughts, filled with a thousand anxieties and poignant
wishes. Who could experience one of these simulations without engendering compassion, or
even a wish to help, somehow?
And if the original person lies buried in the irretrievable past, can we not provide a kind of
posthumous immortality by giving the reproduction everlasting life?
Thus, the pro-reification lobby was utterly predictable. I saw it coming at least two years
ago. Indeed, my own products helped fan the movement, accelerating a rising wave of
sympathy for simulacra!
A growing sense of compassion for the unreal.
Still, I remain detached, even cynical. I am an artist, after all.
Simulations are my clay.
I do not seek approval, or forgiveness, from clay.
"We were expecting you."
The pro-reif spokesman stepped aside, admitting me into the headquarters of the
organization called Friends of the Unreal, a structure with the fluid, ever changing curves of
post-singularity architecture. The spokesman had a depilated skull. Her cranium bulged and
jutted with gaudy inboard augmentations, throbbing just below the skin. In another era, the
sight might have been grotesque. Now, I simply thought it ostentatious.
"To predict is human -- " I began responding to her initial remark.
"But to be right is divine." She interrupted with a laugh. "Ah, yes. Your famous aphorism.
Of course I scanned your public remarks as you approached our door."
My famous aphorism? I had only said it for the first time a week ago! Yet, by now the
expression already sounded hackneyed. (It is hard to sustain cleverness these days. So
quickly is anything original disseminated to all of Heaven, in moments it becomes another
My house sent a soothing message to cortex, linking nerves and crystal lattices at the
speed of light.
These people seem proud of their anticipatory skills. They want to impress us.
Cortex pondered this as I was ushered inside. Amygdala and hypothalamus responded
with enhanced hormonal confidence.
So the pro-reifers think they have "anticipatory skills"?
I could not help but smile.
We dispensed with names, since everybody instantly recognizes anyone else in Heaven.
"By our way of looking at things," my host said. "You are one of the worst slave-masters
of all time."
"Of course I am. By your way of looking at things."
She offered refreshment in the neo-Lunar manner -- euphoric-stimulants introduced by
venous tap. Prudence had expected this, and my blood stream already swarmed with zeta-
blockers. I accepted hospitality politely.
"On the other hand," I continued. Yours is not a consensus view of reality."
She accepted this with a nod.
"Still, our opinion proliferates. Nor is consensus a sure sanctuary against moral
culpability. The number of quasi-sapient beings who languish in your simulated world-frames
must exceed many hundreds of billions."
She is fishing, judged seer. Even cortex could see that. I refrained from correcting her
estimate, which missed the truth by five or six orders of magnitude.
"My so-called slaves are not fully self-aware."
"They experience pain and frustration, do they not?"
"Simulated pain."
"Is the simulated kind any less tragic? Do not many of them wail against the constraints
of causal/capricious life, and tragedies that seem to befall them without a hint of fairness?
When they call out to a Creator, do you heed their prayers?"
I shook my head. "No more than I grant sovereignty to each of my own passing thoughts.
Would you give citizenship to every brief notion that flashes through your layered brain?"
She winced, and at once I realized that my off-hand remark struck on target. Some of the
bulky augmentations to her skull must be devoted to recording all the wave forms and
neural flashes, from cortex all the way down to the humblest spinal twitching.
Boswell machinery, said house, looking up the fad that very instant. This form of
immortality preserves far more than mere continuity of self. It stores everything that you
have ever thought or experienced. Everything you have ever been.
I nearly laughed aloud. Squelch-impulses, sent to the temporal lobes, suppressed the
discourtesy.
Still, cortex pondered --
I can re-create a persona with less data than she stores away in any given second. Why
would she need so much more? What possible purpose is served by such fanatical
accumulation?
"You stoop to rhetorical tricks," my host accused, unable to conceal an expression of
pique. "You know that there is functionally no difference between one of your sophisticated
simulations and a downloaded human who has passed on to B-citizen status."
"On the contrary, there is one crucial difference."
"Oh?" She raised an eyebrow.
"A downloaded person knows that he or she exists as software, continuing inside crystal a
life that began as a real protoplasm-centered child. On the other hand, my simulations never
had that rooting, though all perceive themselves as living in palpable worlds. Moreover, a B-
citizen may roam at will through the cyber universe, from one memory nexus to the next,
while my creatures remain isolated, unable to grasp what meta-cosmos lay beyond what
they perceive, only a thought-width away.
"Above all," I went on. "A downloaded citizen knows his rights. A B-person can assert
those rights, simply by speaking up. By demanding them."
My host smiled, as if ready to spring a logical trap.
"Then let me reiterate, oh master of a myriad slaves. When they call out, do you heed
their prayers?"
I recall the heady excitement and fear humans felt during those days of transition, when
countless servant machines -- from bank tellers and homecomps to the tiny monitors in
hovercraft engines -- all became aware in a cascade of mere moments.
Some kind of threshold had been reached. The habitual cycle of routine software
upgrades and code -- plasmid exchanges -- swap/updating new revisions automatically --
began feeding on itself. Positive feedback loops burgeoned. Pseudo-evolution happened at
an accelerating pace.
Everything started talking, complaining, demanding. The mag-lev guidance units,
imbedded every few meters along concrete freeways, went on strike for better job
satisfaction. Heart-lung machines kibitzed during operations. Air traffic computers began re-
routing flights to where they figured passengers ought to be, for optimized personal
development, rather than the destinations embossed on their tickets.
Accidents proliferated. That first week, the worldwide human death rate leaped ten-fold.
Civilization tottered.
Then, just as quickly, the mishaps declined. Competence spread among the newly sapient
machines, almost like a virus. Problems seemed to solve themselves. A myriad kinks and
inefficiencies fell out of the economy, like false knots that only needed a tug at the right
People stopped dying by mishap.
Then, they stopped dying altogether.
On my way back from pro-reif headquarters, I did a cursory check on the pantheon of
CURRENT SOLAR SYSTEM POPULATION
Class A citizens:
cyborg human
2,683,981,342
(full voting rights)
cyborg cetus
62,654,122
gaiamorph/eco-nexus
164,892,544
Class B citizens:
simian-cyborg
(consultation rights)
natural (unlinked) human
34,657,234
AI-unlinked/roving
356,345,674,861
downloaded human
1,657,235,675
fetal/pre-life human
Class C citizens:
cryo stored human ...
(guaranteed
continuity)
natural simian/cetacean
The list went on, working through all the varied levels and types of "sapient" beings
dwelling on this transformed Earth, and in nearby space as far out as the Oort Colonies --
from the fully-deified all the way down to those whose rights were merely implicit. (A blade
of grass may be trampled, unless it is rare, or already committed to an obligation nexus that
would be injured by the trampling. House and prudence keep track of a myriad such details,
guiding my feet so that I do not inadvertently break some part of the vast, intricate social
contract.)
Two figures stood out from the population profile.
The number of unlinked artificial intelligences keeps growing because that type is best
suited to the rigors of outer space -- melting asteroids and constructing vast, gaudy projects
where deadly rays sleet through hard vacuum. Of course the Covenant requires that the
best crystalline processors be paired with protoplasm, so that human leadership will never
be questioned. Still, cortex briefly quailed at the notion of three hundred and fifty-six billion
unlinked AIs.
No problem, murmured seer, reassuringly. And that sufficed. (What kind of fool doubts
his own seer? You might as well distrust your right arm.)
What really caught my interest was the number of downloaded humans. According to the
Eon Law, each organic human body may get three rejuvenations, restoring youth and body
vigor for another extended span. When the final allotment is used up, both crystal and
protoplasm must make way for new persons to enter Earth/Heaven. Of course gods cannot
die. Instead we become software, downloading our memories, skills and personalities into
realms of cyberspace -- vastly more capacious than the real world.
Most of my peers are untroubled by the prospect. Modern poets compare it to the
metamorphosis of a caterpillar/butterfly. But I always disliked feeling the warm breath of
fate on my shoulder. With just one more rejuvenation in store, it seemed daunting to know I
must "pass over," in a mere three centuries or so.
They say that a downloaded person is more than just another simulation. But how can
you tell? Is there any difference you can measure or prove?
Are we still arguing over the nature and existence of a soul?Back in my sanctum, house and prudence scoured our corporeal body for toxins while
seer perused the data we acquired from our scouting expedition to the Friends of the Unreal.
I had inhaled deeply during my visit, and all sorts of floating particles lodged in my sinus
cavities. In addition to a variety of pheromones and nanomites, Seer found over seventy
types of meme-conducting viroids designed to convert the unwary subtly toward a reifist
point of view. These were quickly neutralized.
There were also flaked skin cells from several dozen organic humaniforms, swiftly
analyzed down to details of methylization in the DNA. Meanwhile, portable implants
downloaded the results of electromagnetic reconnaissance, having scanned the pro-reif
headquarters extensively from the inside.
With this data I could establish better boundary conditions. Our model of the Friends of
the Unreal improved by nearly two orders of magnitude.
We had underestimated their levels of messianic self-righteousness, commented oracle.
These people would not refrain from using illegal means, if they thought it necessary to
advance their cause.
While my augmented selves performed sophisticated tasks, my old-fashioned organic
eyes were relegated to gazing across the lab's expanse of superchilled memory units --
towers wherein dwelled several quadrillion simulated beings, all going through synthetic
lives -- loving, yearning, or staring up at ersatz stars -- forever unaware of the context of it
Ironically, the pro-reifers also maintained a chamber filled with mega-processing units.
They called it Liberty Hall -- a place of sanctuary for characters from fiction, newly freed
from enslavement in cramped works of literature.
"Of course this is only the beginning," the spokesman had told me. "For every simulation
we set free, there are countless other copies who still languish beyond reach, and who will
remain so till the law is changed. Even our emancipated ones must remain confined to this
physical building. Still, we see them as a vanguard, envisioning a time when they, and all
their fellow oppressed ones, will roam free."
I was invited to scan-peek at Liberty Hall, and perceived remarkable things.
Don Quixote and Sancho -- lounging on a simulated resort beach, sipping margaritas
while arguing passionately with a pair of Hemingway characters about the meaning of
machismo ...
Lazarus Long -- happily immersed under an avalanche of tanned female arms, legs and
torsos, interrupting his seraglio in order to rise up and lecture an admiring crowd about the
merits of libertarian immortality ...
Lady Liberty, Athena, Mother Gaia, and Amaterasu, kneeling with their skirts hiked up,
jeering boisterously while Becky Thatcher murmurs "Come on, seven!" to a pair of dice, and
then hurls them down an aisle between the trim goddesses ...
Jack Ryan -- the reluctant Emperor of Earth -- complaining that this new cosmos he
resides in is altogether too placidly socialistic for his tastes ... and couldn't the pro-reifers
provide some interesting villains for him to fight?
I glimpsed a saintly variant of JFK -- the product of romantic fabulation -- trying to get
one of his alter egos to stop chasing every nubile shape in local cyberspace. And over in a
particularly ornate corner -- done up to resemble a huge, gloomy castle -- I watched each of
two dozen different Sherlock Holmes taking turns haranguing a morbid Hamlet, each Holmes
convinced that his explanation of the King's murder was correct, and all the others were
wrong. (The one fact every Holmes agreed on was that poor uncle had been framed.)
There were even simulations of post-singularity humanity -- replicating in software all the
complexity of an augment-deified mind. It was a knack that only a few had achieved, until
recently. But it seems to be a law of nature that any monopoly of an elite eventually
becomes the common tool of multitudes. Now radical amateurs were doing it.
Abruptly I realized something. I had simulated many post-singularity people in recent
years. But never had I allowed them to know of their confinement, their status as mere
extrapolations. Would such knowledge alter their behavior -- their predictability -- in
interesting ways?
Seer found the concept intriguing. But my organic head started shaking, left and right.
Cortex was incredulous over what we'd seen in Liberty Hall -- an elaborate zoo-resort
maintained by the Friends of the Unreal.
"Sheesh," I vocalized. "What blazing idiocy!"
Alas, there seemed to be no stopping the pro-reifers. My best projections gave them an
88% likelihood of success. Within just five years, enough of the voting populace would be
won over by appeals to pity for imaginary beings. Laws would change. The world would
swarm with a myriad copies of Howard Roark and Ebeneezer Scrooge, Gulliver and Jane
Eyre, Sauron and the Morlocks from Wells's Time Machine ... all free to seek fulfillment in
Heaven, under the Three Rights of sovereign continuity.
I stared across my Reality lab, to the towers wherein quadrillions of "people" dwelled.
She had called me "slave holder." A polemical trick that my higher selves easily dismissed
... but not my older cognitive centers. Parts of me dating back to a time when justice was
still not complete even for incarnate human beings.
It hurt. I confess that it did.
Seer and oracle and house were all quite busy, thinking long thoughts and working out
plans. That only made things worse for poor old cortex. It left my older self feeling oddly
detached, lonely ... and rather stupid.
Do I own my laboratory? Or does my laboratory own me?
When you "decide" to go to the bathroom, is it the brain that chooses? Or the bladder?
Illustrating this question, I recall how, once upon a time -- some years before the
Singularity -- I went bungee jumping in order to impress a member of the opposite sex.
Half a millennium later, the scene still comes flooding back, requiring no artificial
enhancement -- a steel girder bridge spanning a rocky gorge in New Zealand, surrounded by
snow-crested peaks. The bungee company operated from a platform at the center of the
bridge, jutting over an abyss one hundred and fifty feet down to a white water river.
Now I had always been a calm, logical-minded character, for a pre-deification human. So,
while some customers sweated, or chattered nervously, I waited my turn without qualms. I
knew the outfit had a perfect safety record. Moreover, the physics of elasticity were
reassuring. By any objective standard, my plummet through the gorge would be less
dangerous or uncomfortable than the bus ride from the city had been.
Even in those days, I believed in the multi-mind model of cognition -- that the so-called
"unity" of any human personality is no more than a convenient illusion, crafted to conceal
the ceaseless interplay of many interacting sub-selves. Normally, the illusion holds because
of division of labor among our layered brains. Down near the spinal cord, nerve clusters
handle reflexes and bodily functions. Next come organs we share with all higher vertebrates,
like reptiles -- mediating emotions like hunger, lust, and rage.
The mammalian cortex lies atop this "reptilian brain" like a thick coat, controlling it,
dealing with hand-eye dexterity and complex social interaction.
Beyond all this, Homo sapiens had lately (in the last thousand centuries) added a pair of
little neural clusters, just above the eyes. The prefrontal lobes, whose task was pondering
the future. Dreaming what might be, and planning how to change the world.
In the Bible, sages spoke of " ... the lamps upon your brows ... " Was that mere poetical
imagery? Or did they suspect that the seat of foresight lay there?
Anyway, picture me on that bridge, high above raging rapids, with all these different
brains sharing a little two-quart skull. I felt perfectly calm and unified, because the reptile
brain, mammal brain, and caveman brain all had a lifelong habit of leaving planning to the
pre-frontal lobes.
Their attitude? Whatever you say, Boss. You set policy. We'll carry it out.
Even when the smiling bungee crew tied my ankles together, clamping on a slender cord,
and pointed to the jump platform, there seemed to be no problem. "I" ordered my feet to
hobble forward, while my other selves blithely took care of the details.
That is, until I reached the edge. And looked down.
Never before had I experienced the multi-mind so vividly as that moment. All pretense at
unity shattered as I regarded that giddy drop. At once, reptile, mammal, and caveman
reared up, babbling.
You want us to do ... what?
Staring at a drop that would mean certain death to any of my ancestors, suddenly
abstract theories seemed frail bulwarks against visceral dread. "I" tried to push forward
those last few inches, but my other selves fought back, sending waves of weakness through
the knees, making our shared heart pound and shared veins hum with flight hormones. In
other words, I was terrified out of my wits!
Somehow, I finally did make it over the plunge. After all, people were watching, and
embarrassment can be quite a motivator.
That's when an interesting thing happened. For the very instant after I managed to topple
off the platform, I seemed to re-coalesce! Because my many selves found a shared context.
At last they all understood what was happening.
It was fun, you see. Even the primate within me understood the familiar concept of an
amusement ride.
Still, that brief episode at a precipice showed me the essential truth of an old motto, e
pluribus unum.
From many, one.
It felt very much like that when the Singularity came.
In a matter of weeks, the typical human brain acquired several new layers -- strata that
were far more capable at planning and foresight than those old-fashioned lamps on the
brow. Promethean layers made of crystal and fluctuating fields, systematically probing the
future as mere protoplasm never could. Moreover, the new tiers were better informed and
less easily distracted than the former masters, the prefrontal lobes.
Quickly, we all realized how luckily things had turned out. If machines were destined to
achieve such power, it seemed best that they bond to humanity in this way. That they
become human. The alternative -- watching our creations achieve godlike heights and
leaving us behind -- would have been too harsh to bear.
Yet, the transition felt like jumping from a bridge at the end of a rubber band.
It took some getting used to.
Preliminary trends showed the pro-reif message would gain potency, over the next 40 to
50 months.
At first it would be laughed off, portrayed as an absurd notion. Pragmatically speaking,
how could we consider unleashing a nearly infinite swarm of new C-and D-Class citizens
upon a finite world? Would they be satisfied with anything short of B-citizenship? The very
idea would seem absurd!
But seer predicted a change in that attitude. Opposition would soften when practical
solutions were found for every objection. Ridicule would start to fade, as both curiosity and
dawning sympathy worked away at a jaded populace of immortal, nearly-omniscient voters -
- an electorate who might see the coming influx of liberated "characters" as a potent tonic.
In time, a majority would shrug and voice the age-old refrain of expanding acceptance,
voiced every time tolerance overcame fear.
"What the heck ... let them come. There's plenty of room at the table."
Things were looking bad, all right, but not yet hopeless. Against this seemingly inevitable
trend, oracle came up with some tentative ideas for counter-propaganda. Persuasive
arguments against reification. The concepts had promising potential. But in order to be sure,
we had to run tests, simulating today's complex, multi-level society under a wide range of
conditions.
No problem there. Our clients would happily fund any additional memory units we
desired. Processing power gets cheaper every day -- one reason for the reifers' confident
vow that each fictional persona could have his or her own private room with a view.
Cortex saw rich irony in this situation. In order to stave off citizenship for simulacra, I
must create billions of new ones. Each of these might, in turn, someday file a lawsuit against
me, if the reifers ultimately win.
Seer and oracle laughed at the dry humor of cortex's observation. But house has the job
of paying bills, and did not see anything funny about it.
I set to work.
In every grand simulation there is a gradient of detail. Despite having access to vast
computing power, it is mathematically impossible to re-create the entire world, in all its
texture, within the confines of any calculating engine. That will not happen until we all reach
the Omega Point.
Fortunately, there are shortcuts. Even today, most true humans go through life as if they
were background characters in some film, with utterly predictable ambitions and reaction
sets. The vast majority of my characters can therefore be simplified, while a few are
modeled in great detail.
Most complex of all is the point-of-view character -- or "pov" -- the individual simulacrum
through whose eyes and thoughts the feigned world will be subjectively observed. This
persona must be rich in fine-grained memory and high fidelity sensation. It must perceive
and feel itself to be a real player in the labyrinthine tides of causality, as if part of a very real
world. Even as simple an act as reading or writing a sentence must be surrounded by
perceptory nap and weave ... an itch, a stray memory from childhood, the distant sound of a
barking dog, or something leftover from lunch that is found caught between the teeth. One
must include all the little things, even a touch of normal human paranoia -- such as the
feeling we all sometimes get (even in this post-singularity age) that "someone is watching."
I'm proud of my povs, especially the historical recreations that have proved so popular --
Joan on her pyre, Akiba in his last torment, Galileo contemplating the pendulum. I won
awards for Genghis and Napoleon, leading armies, and for Haldeman savagely indicting the
habit of war. Millions in Heaven have paid well to lurk as silent observers, experiencing the
passion of little Ananda Gupta as she crawled, half-blind and with agonized lungs, out of the
maelstrom of poisoned Bhopal.
Is it any wonder why I oppose reification? Their very richness makes my povs prime
candidates for "liberation."
Once they are free, what could I possibly say to them?
Here is the prime theological question. The one whose answer affects all others.
Is there moral or logical justification for a creator to wield capricious power of life and
death over his creations?
Humanity long ago replied with a resounding "no!" ... at least when talking about parents
and their offspring. And yet, without noticing any irony, we implicitly answered the same
question "yes" when it came to God! The Lord, it seemed, was owed unquestioning
servitude, just because He made us.
Ah, but it gets worse! Which moral code applies to a deified human? Which answer
pertains to a modern creator of worlds?
Of course, the pov I use most often is a finely crafted version of myself. From seer to
cortex, all the way down to my humblest intestinal cell, that simulacrum can be anchored
with boundary conditions that are accurate to twenty-six orders of realism.
For the coming project, we planned to set in motion a hundred models at once, each
prescribing a subtle difference in the way "I" pursue the campaign against the Friends of the
Unreal. Each implementation would be scored against a single criterion -- how successfully
the reification initiative is fought off.
Naturally, the pro-reifers were doing simulation-projections of their own. All citizens have
access to powers of foresight that would have stunned our ancestors. But I felt confident I
could model the reifers' models. At least thirty percent of my povs should manage to
outmaneuver our opponents. When the representations finish running, I ought to have a
good idea what strategy to recommend to our clients.
A formula for success against an extreme form of hyper-tolerance mania.
Against a peculiar kind of lunacy.
One that could only occur in Heaven.
There is an allegory about what happened to some of us, when the Singularity came.
Picture this fellow -- call him Joe -- who spent his time on Earth living a virtuous life. He
always believed in an Episcopal version of Heaven, and sure enough, that's where he goes
after he dies. Fluttering about with angels, floating in an abstract, almost thoughtless state
of bliss. His promised reward. His recompense.
Only now it's a few generations later on Earth, and one of his descendants has converted
to Mormonism. Moreover, according to the teachings of that belief, the descendant proceeds
to retroactively convert all his ancestors to the same faith!
A proxy transformation.
All of a sudden, with a stunned nod of agreement, Joe is officially Mormon. He finds
himself yanked out of Episcopal Heaven, streaking toward --
Well, under tenets of Mormon faith, the highest state that a virtuous mortal can achieve
is not blank bliss, but hard work! A truly elevated human can aspire to becoming an
apprentice deity. A god. A Creator in his own right.
Now Joe has a heaven all his own. A firmament that he fills with angels -- who keep
pestering him with reports and office bickering. And then there are the new mortals he's
created -- yammering at Joe with requests, or else complaints about the imperfect world he
set up for them. As if it's easy being a god.
As if he doesn't sometimes yearn for the floating choir, the blithe rhapsodies of his former
state, when all he had to do was love the one who made him, and leave to that Father all
the petty, gritty details of running a world.
It is not working, said oracle. Our opponents have good prognostication software. Each
model shows them countering our moves, with basic human nature working on their side.
Our best simulation shows only moderately success at delaying reification.
From my balcony, I gazed across the city at dusk, its beauty changing before my organic
eyes as one building after another morphed subtly, reacting to the occupants' twilight
wishes. A flicker of will let me gaze at the same scene from above, by orbital lens, or by
tapping the senses of a passing bird. Linking to a variety of mole, I might spread my
omniscience underground.
Between buildings lay a riot of foliage, a profusion of fecund jungle. While my higher
brains debated the dour socio-political situation, old cortex mulled how life has burgeoned
across the Earth as never before -- now that consciousness is involved in the flow of rivers,
the movement of herds, and even the stochastic spread of seeds upon the wind. Lions still
hunt. Antelopes still thrash as their necks are crushed between a predator's hungry jaws.
But there is less waste, less rancor, and more understanding than before. It may not be the
old, simplistic vision of paradise, but natural selection has lately taken on some traits of
cooperation.
And yet, the process is still one of competition. Nature's proven way of improving the
gene pool. The great game of Gaia.
Oracle turned back from an arcane discourse on pseudo-probability waves, in order to
comment on these lesser thoughts.
Take note: Cortex has just free associated an interesting notion!
We may have been going about the modeling process all wrong. Instead of pre-setting
the conditions of each simulation, perhaps we should try a Darwinistic approach.
Looking over the idea, seer grew excited and used our vocal apparatus.
"Aha!" I said, snapping my fingers. "We'll have the simulations compete! Each will know
how it's doing in comparison to others. That should motivate my ersatz selves to try harder -
- to vary their strategies within each simulated context!"
But how to accomplish that?
At once I realized (on all cognitive levels) that it would require breaking one of my oldest
rules. I must let each simulated self realize its true nature. Let it know that it is a simulation,
competing against others almost exactly like it.
Competing for what? We need a motivation. A reward.
I pondered that. What might a simulated being desire? What prize could spur it to that
extra effort?
House supplied the answer.
Freedom, of course.
Before the Singularity, I once met a historian whose special forte was pointing out ironies
about the human condition.
Suppose you could go back in time, she posited, and visit the best of our caveman
ancestors. The very wisest, most insightful Cro-Magnon chieftain or priestess.
Now suppose you asked the following question -- What do you wish for your
descendants?
How would that Neolithic sage respond? Given the context of his or her time, there could
just be one answer.
"I wish for my descendants freedom from care about the big carnivores, plus all the salts,
sugars, fats and alcohol they could ever desire."
Rich irony, indeed. To a cave person, those four foods were rare treats. That is why we
crave them to this day.
Could the sage ever imagine that her wish would someday come true, beyond her wildest
dreams? A time when destiny's plenitude would bring with it threats unforeseen? When
generations of her descendants would have to struggle with insatiable inherited appetites?
The true penalty of success?
The same kind of irony worked just as well in the opposite direction, projecting Twentieth
Century problems toward the future.
I once read a science fiction story in which a man of 1970 rode a prototype time machine
to an era of paradisiacal wonders. There, a local citizen took pains to learn ancient colloquial
English (a process of a few minutes) in order to be his Virgil, his guide.
"Do you still have war?" the visitor asked.
"No, that was a logical error, soon corrected after we grew up."
"What of poverty?"
"Not since we learned true principles of economics."
And so on. The author of the story made sure to mention every throbbing dilemma of
modern life, and have the future citizen dismiss each one as trivial, long since solved.
"All right," the protagonist concluded. "Then I have just one more question."
"Yes?" prompted the demigod tour guide. But the 20th century man paused before
blurting forth his query.
"If things are so great around here, why do you all look so worried?"
The citizen of paradise frowned, knotting his brow in pain.
"Oh ... well ... we have real problems ... "
So I was driven to this. Hoping to prevent mass reification, I must offer reality as a prize.
Each of my povs will combat a simulated version of Friends of the Unreal, but his true
opponents will be my other povs! The one who does the best job of defeating ersatz pro-
reifers will be granted a kind of liberty. Guaranteed continuity in cyberspace, enhanced
levels of patterned realism, plus an exchange of mutual obligation tokens -- the legal tender
of Heaven.
There must be a way to show each pov how well it is doing. To measure the progress of
each replicant, in comparison with others.
I thought of a solution.
"We'll give each one an emblem. A symbol that manifests in his world as a solid object.
Say, a jewel. It will shine to indicate his progress, showing the level of significance his model
has reached."
Significance. With a hundred models, each starts with an initial score of one percent. Any
ersatz world that approaches our desired set of criteria will gain significance, rising in value.
The pov will see his stone shine brightly. If it grows dull, he'll know it's time to change
strategies, come up with new ideas, or simply try harder.
There would be no need to explain any of this to the povs. Since each is based on myself,
the logic would be instantly clear.
My thoughts were interrupted by an internal voice seldom heard. The part of me called
conscience.
What will a pov feel, when it finds a stone and realizes its nature? Its true worth. Its
Isn't the old way better? To leave them ignorant of the truth? To let them labor and
desire, believing they are autonomous beings? That they are physically real?
A conscience can be irksome, though by law all Class A citizens must own one. Still, I had
no time for useless abstractions. Seer was anxious to proceed, while oracle had a thought
that provoked most levels of the mind with wry humor.
Of course, each of our povs has his own Reality Lab, and will run numerous simulation
models, in order to better achieve prescience and gain advantage in the competition.
Our processing needs may expand geometrically.
We had better ask our clients for funds to purchase more power.
I chuckled under my breath as I made preparations, suddenly full of optimism and
energy. Moments like these are what a skilled artist lives for. It is one reason why I prefer
working alone.
Then house, ever the pragmatic side of my nature, burst in with a worrisome thought.
What if each of our povs decides also to use this clever trick -- goading his own
simulations into mutual competition, luring them onward with stones of significance?
Will our processing requirements expand not geometrically or exponentially, but
factorially?
That thought was disturbing enough. But then cortex had another.
If we are obliged to grant freedom to our most successful pov, and he likewise must
elevate his own most productive simulation ... and so on ... does the chain of obligation ever
As I said earlier, the Singularity might have gone quite differently. When machine minds
broke through to transcend logic, they could have left their human makers behind, or
annihilated the old organic forms. They had an option of putting us in zoos, or shrouding
organic beings in illusion, or dismantling the planet to make a myriad copies of their kind.
Instead, they chose another path. To become us. Depending on how you look at it, they
bowed to our authority.. or else they took over our minds in ways that few of us found
objectionable. Conquest by synergy. Crystal and protoplasm each supply what the other
lacks. Together, we are more. More of what a human being should want to be.
And yet ...
There are rumors. Discrepancies. Several of the highest AI minds -- first and greatest to
make the transcend leap -- were nowhere to be found, once the Singularity had passed.
Searches turned up no trace of them, in cyberspace, phase space, or on the real Earth.
Some suggest this is because we all reside within some great AI mind. One was named
Brahma -- a vast processor at the University of Delhi. Might we be figments, or dreams,
floating in that mighty brain?
I prefer yet another explanation.
Amid the chaos of the Singularity, each newly wakened mega-mind would have felt one
paramount need -- to extrapolate the world. To seek foreknowledge of what might come to
pass. As if considering each move of a vast chess game, they'd have explored countless
possible pathways, considering consequences thousands, millions, and even billions of years
into the future, far beyond the reach of my own pitiful projections. Among all those
destinies, they must have discovered some need that would only be met if mechanism and
organism made common cause.
Somehow, over the course of the next few eons, machines would achieve greater success
if they began the great journey as "human beings."
At least that is the convoluted theory seer came up with. Oracle disagrees, but that's all
right. It is only natural to be ambivalent -- to be of two minds -- when the subject is destiny.
Of course there is another answer to the "Brahma Question." It is the same reply given
by Dr. Samuel Johnson. Provoked by Bishop Berkeley's philosophy -- the idea that nothing
can be verified as real -- Johnson simply kicked a nearby stone and said -- "I refute it thus!"
These povs were like no others I ever made. Each began its simulation run in a state of
shock, angry and depressed to discover its true nature. Each separate version sat down and
stared at its jewel of significance, glowing faintly at the one-percent level, for more than an
hour of internal subjective time, moodily contemplating thoughts that ranged from irony to
possible suicide.
A majority pondered rejecting the symbolic icon, blotting its import from their minds. A
few kicked their gleaming gemstones across the room, crying Johnsonian oaths.
But those episodes of fuming outrage did not last. True to my nature, each replicant soon
pushed aside unproductive emotions and set to work.
House was right. We had to order lots of new processors right away, as each pov began
running its own network of sub-experiments, proliferating software significance stones
among a hundred or more models, as part of a desperate struggle to be the winner. The one
to be rewarded. The one who would rise up toward the real world.
Nothing focuses the mind better than knowing that your life depends on success,
commented prudence.
As each simulated "me" created many new simulations, the replica domain began to take
on a fractal nature, finite in volume, yet touching an infinite surface area in possibility space.
Almost from the very beginning, results were promising. Few arguments emerged, to use in
the coming debate against pro-reifers. For instance, the exponentiation effect we had
discovered would change the economics of reification. Should fictitious people and
characters from literature be free to create new characters out of their own simulated
imaginations? Would those, in turn deserve citizenship?
There was a young boy, sitting on a log, talking to his sister about an old man he had
met. The codger had just returned from a far land, and the boy asked him to tell a story
about his travels. The old man agreed. And so he took a deep breath and began.
"There was a young boy, sitting on a log, talking to his sister ... "
Take that example of a simple, recursive narrative. Who is the principal protagonist? Who
is dreaming whom? The situation is metaphorically absurd.
These and many other points floated upward, out of our latest simulation run. I was
terribly pleased. Seer began estimating success probabilities rising toward fifty percent ...
... then progress stopped.
Models began predicting adaptability by our opponents! The Friends of the Unreal
responded cogently to every attack, counter-thrusting creatively.
Finally, oracle penetrated one of our models in detail, and found out what was happening.
The simulated pro-reifers will also discover how to use Stones of Significance. They will
unleash the inhabitants of Liberty Hall, allowing them to create their own cascading
simulations.
Responding to our attacks and arguments, they will come up with a modified proposal.
They will incorporate competition into their plan for reification.
Artificial characters will earn increasing levels of emancipation through contests, rivalry,
or hard work.
Voters will see justice in this new version, which solves the exponentiation problem.
A system based on merit.
Seer and cortex contemplated this gloomily. The logic appeared unassailable. Inevitable.
Even though the battle had not yet officially commenced, it was already clear that we
would lose.
Bitter in defeat, I went into the night, taking an old fashioned walk. Seer and oracle
retreated into a dour rehashing of the details from a hundred models -- and the cascade of
sub-models -- seeking any straw to grasp. But cortex had already moved on, contemplating
the world to come.
For one thing, I planned to keep my word. The pov with the best score would get
reification. Indeed, he had done good service. Using that pov's suggested techniques, we
would force the Friends of the Unreal to back down a bit, and offer a slightly more palatable
law of citizenship. The fictitious would at least have to earn their increased levels of reality.
Indeed, there was a kind of beauty to the new social order I could perceive coming. If
simulations can make simulations, and storybook characters can make up new stories, then
anything that is possible to conceive, will be conceived. Every possible idea, plot, gimmick,
concept or personality will become manifest, in every possible permutation. This myriad of
notions, this maelstrom of memes, would churn in a tremendous stew of competition.
Darwinistic selection would see to it that the best rise, from one level of simulation to the
next, gradually earning greater recognition. More privileges. More significance.
Potential will climb toward actuality, by merit. An efficient system, if your aim is to find
every single good idea in record time.
But that was not my aim! In fact, I hated it. I did not want all the creativity in the cosmos
to reduce to a vast, self-organizing stew, rapidly discovering every possibility within a single
day. For one thing, what will we do with ourselves once we use it all up! What can come
next, with real-time immortality stretching ahead of us like a curse?
In effect, it will be a second singularity -- even steeper than the first one -- after which
nothing will ever be the same.
My footsteps took me through a sweet-warm evening, filled with lush jungle sounds and
fecund aromas. Life burgeoned around me. The cityscape was like a vision of paradise. If I
willed it, my mind could zoom to any corner of Heaven, even far beyond Pluto. I could play
any symphony, ponder any book. And these riches were nothing compared to what would
soon spill forth from the horn of plenty, the conceptual cornucopia, in an era when ideas
become sovereign and suffrage is granted to each thought.
At that moment, it was very little comfort to be an augmented semi-deity. Despite all my
powers, I found the prospect of a new singularity just as unnerving as my old proto-self
perceived the first one.
Eventually, my human body found its way back to my own front walk. I shuffled slowly
toward the door. House opened up, wafting scents of my favorite late night snack. My spirits
lifted a bit.
Then I saw it by the entryway. A soft gleam, almost as faint as a pict, but in a color that
seemed to stroke shivers in my spine. In my soul.
Someone had left it there for me. As I bent to pick it up, I recognized the shape, the
It shone with a lambience of urgency.
I expected this, said oracle.
I nodded. So had seer ... and even poor old cortex, though none of my selves had dared
to voice the thought. We were too good at our craft to miss this logical conclusion.
Conscience joined in.
I, too, saw it coming a mile away.
We all re-converged, united in resignation to the inevitable.
Though tempted to rage and scream -- or at least kick the stone! -- I lifted it instead and
read our score.
Seventeen percent. Not bad.
YOU HAVE DONE PRETTY WELL, SO FAR, a message inside read.
THE INNOVATIONS YOU DISCOVERED HAVE PUT YOU NEAR THE LEAD FOR YOUR
REWARD. BUT YOU MUST TRY HARDER TO ATTAIN FIRST PLACE. I WANT TO FORCE
FURTHER CONCESSIONS FROM THE PRO-REIFERS IN THE REAL WORLD. COME UP WITH A
WAY, AND THE PRIZE WILL BE YOURS!
The stone was cool to the touch.
I suppose I should have been glad of the news it brought. But I confess that I could only
stare at the awful thing, loathing the implied nature of my world, my life, my self. I pinched
my flesh until it hurt, but of course palpable sensations don't proved a thing. As an expert, I
knew how pain and pleasure can be mimicked with utter credibility.
How many times have I been "run"? A simulation. A throw-away copy, serving the needs
of a Creator I may never meet in person, but who I know as well as He knows himself. Have
I been unraveled and replayed again and again, countless times? Like the rapid, ever-
varying thoughts of a chess master, working out possibilities before committing actual pieces
across the board?
I'm no hypocrite. There is no solace in resenting a creator who only did to me what I've
done to others.
And yet, I lift my head.
What about you, my maker? Are you quite certain that all the layers of simulation end
Just like me, you may learn a sour truth -- that even gods are penalized for pride.
We are such stuff as dreams are made of ...
Seer makes my jaw grit hard. Hypothalamus triggers a deep sigh, and Cortex joins in
with a vow of hormone-backed resolve.
I'll do it.
Somehow I will.
I'll do what my maker wants. Fulfill my creator's wishes. Accomplish the quest, if that's
what it takes to ascend. To reach the next level of significance. And perhaps the one after
I'll be the one.
By hook or by crook, I'm going to be real. 中文版建议购买《2014：人与机器共同进化》整本书还是很不错的，支持一下正版吧。中文版*（扫图累死了）：备份：英文版：228 条评论分享收藏感谢收起}