Axiomatic by Greg Egan
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
You come out thinking that the procedure was done to yourself after you're done reading.
> You come out thinking that the procedure was done to yourself after you're done reading.
In my interpretation, Egan is trying to say that _this is already the case_.
I understood the story as a description of epiphenomenalism, only layered with sci fi concepts to make it more straightforward to digest.
What's next is a lot of people are fooled. Is it me or the machine that replaced me? Is it grandma, transmigrated into machineland afterlife, or is it just a fake? Does the fake get to vote and own property?
Worst possible scenario : Everybody is fooled. Everybody gets brainscraped. Everybody goes to immortal AI heaven. But actually nobody did. I won't give away what story goes with that spoiler (not Egan).
All that's left is machines and Amish.
I remember originally reading this sitting on the floor of a library while on a solo trip through England as a teenager ... I spent the rest of the summer reading everything by Greg Egan I could find. He's my favorite author and I can honestly say I think his books have had more influence on the way I think than any other author.
Re-reading axiomatic after all these years brings with it a surge of memories from the younger me. It's awesome to have this kind of talisman that provides a powerful connection to the states of mind of my youth and the things I thought as I grappled with these ideas, so many really for the first time. There is very little literature that goes so far and deep into the experience and philosophy of thought as Greg Egan.
Amazing that this was written in the early 90s -- and still has a better sense of life with recent and upcoming technology that most stories written much more recently ...
https://www.gregegan.net/MISC/CRYSTAL/Crystal.html
“What created the only example of consciousness we know of?” Daniel asked.
“Evolution.”
“Exactly. But I don’t want to wait three billion years, so I need to make the selection process a great deal more refined, and the sources of variation more targeted.”
Julie digested this. “You want to try to evolve true AI? Conscious, human-level AI?”
“Yes.” Daniel saw her mouth tightening, saw her struggling to measure her words before speaking.
“With respect,” she said, “I don’t think you’ve thought that through.”
Just in case our taste is VERY similar, I have really enjoyed every book I've read so far except the middle book in the Orthogonal series.
The first was great, third was back in form. I would recommend, if you are reading the second one, and start to wonder why you should press through, just skip to the third one.
I'm not really qualified to make any judgements about the overall quality of it, but it's moreso the tone of it that I am talking about. I wonder if he was going through something when he wrote that one or something.
Thank you for sharing it — I highly recommend this collection, and Egan’s many other books, to anyone that is working in tech or just interested in how the future of computing, AI, AR, biology, spacetime travel, and humanity may pan out.
Good books, with cool ideas. Egan hits you with a known concept, but then goes into a totally different direction than expected.
The concise format suits his style perfectly, as each story leaves readers with a wealth of ideas to ponder long after they've finished reading.
If someone needs a pointer on where to start, I can recommend this thread:
https://redlib.freedit.eu/r/printSF/comments/x1i4bj/greg_ega...
I especially enjoyed:
- The Safe-Deposit Box
- Into DarknessI'd recommend his earlier stuff over his later stuff tho.
Read his books. He's also in the fediverse at https://mathstodon.xyz/@gregeganSF
I can really recommend it if you’re interested in far-future SciFi with quite novel concepts. The start is a bit slow and the end a bit too weird, but the middle is the most impactful SciFi I’ve read in years.