tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post1081816954498347426..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Robot Cultists Polled on Preferred Techno-Immortalist "Options"Dale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-34381231689658377252012-08-18T20:31:30.769-07:002012-08-18T20:31:30.769-07:00"You look unwell," Mr. Million said.
&q..."You look unwell," Mr. Million said.<br /><br />"I was hoping to go to the park."<br /><br />"I know." He rolled across the room toward me, and I<br />recalled that Dr. Marsch had called him an unbound simulator.<br />For the first time since I had satisfied myself about them<br />when I was quite small, I bent over (at some cost to my<br />head) and read the almost obliterated stampings on his<br />main cabinet. There was only the name of a cybernetics<br />company on Earth and, in French as I had always supposed,<br />his name: M. Million -- "Monsieur" or "Mister" Million.<br />Then, as startling as a blow from behind to a man musing<br />in a comfortable chair, I remembered that a dot was employed<br />in some algebras for multiplication. He saw my change<br />of expression at once. "A thousand-million-word core<br />capacity," he said. "An English billion or a French milliard,<br />the 'M' being the Roman numeral for one thousand, of course.<br />I thought you understood that some time ago."<br /><br />"You are an unbound simulator. What is a bound simulator,<br />and whom are you simulating -- my father?"<br /><br />"No." The face in the screen, Mr. Million's face as I had<br />always thought of it, shook its head. "Call me, call the<br />person simulated, at least, your great-grandfather.<br />He -- I -- am dead. In order to achieve simulation, it is<br />necessary to examine the cells of the brain, layer by<br />layer, with a beam of accelerated particles so that the<br />neural patterns can be reproduced, we say 'core imaged,'<br />in the computer. The process is fatal."<br /><br />I asked after a moment, "And a bound simulator?"<br /><br />"If the simulation is to have a body that looks human the<br />mechanical body must be linked -- 'bound' -- to a remote<br />core, since the smallest billion-word core cannot be made<br />even approximately as small as a human brain." He<br />paused again, and for an instant his face dissolved into<br />a myriad sparkling dots, swirling like dust motes in a<br />sunbeam. "I am sorry. For once you wish to listen, but<br />I do not wish to lecture. I was told, a very long time ago,<br />just before the operation, that my simulation -- this --<br />would be capable of emotion in certain circumstances.<br />Until today I had always thought they had lied." I would<br />have stopped him if I could, but he rolled out of the room<br />before I could recover from my surprise.<br /><br />-- Gene Wolfe, _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ (1972)<br /><br />Wolfe is so poetic. But elegiac, not celebratory.<br />Technology is old hat in Wolfe's stories, and did not bring<br />about paradise in them.<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com