Permutation City

Opponents replied that when you modeled a hurricane, nobody got wet. When you modeled a fusion power plant, no energy was produced. When you modeled digestion and metabolism, no nutrients were consumed -- no real digestion took place. So, when you modeled the human brain, why should you expect real thought to occur? A computer running a Copy might be able to generate plausible descriptions of human behavior in hypothetical scenarios -- and even appear to carry on a conversation, by correctly predicting what a human would have done in the same situation -- but that hardly made the machine itself conscious.

Paul had rapidly decided that this whole debate was a distraction. For any human, absolute proof of a Copy's sentience was impossible. For any Copy, the truth was self-evident: cogito ergo sum. End of discussion.

But for any human willing to grant Copies the same reasonable presumption of consciousness that they granted their fellow humans -- and any Copy willing to reciprocate -- the real point was this:

There were questions about the nature of this shared condition which the existence of Copies illuminated more starkly than anything which had come before them. Questions which needed to be explored, before the human race could confidently begin to bequeath its culture, its memories, its purpose and identity, to its successors.

Questions which only a Copy could answer.

+ + +

Paul sat in his study, in his favorite armchair (unconvinced that the texture of the surface had been accurately reproduced), taking what comfort he could from the undeniable absurdity of being afraid to experiment on himself further. He'd already "survived" the "transition" from flesh-and-blood human to computerized physiological model -- the most radical stage of the project, by far. In comparison, tinkering with a few of the model's parameters should have seemed trivial.

Durham appeared on the terminal -- which was otherwise still dysfunctional. Paul was already beginning to think of him as a bossy little djinn trapped inside the screen -- rather than a vast, omnipotent deity striding the halls of Reality, pulling all the strings. The pitch of his voice was enough to deflate any aura of power and grandeur.

Squeak. "Experiment one, trial zero. Baseline data. Time resolution one millisecond -- system standard. Just count to ten, at one-second intervals, as near as you can judge it. Okay?"

"I think I can manage that." He'd planned all this himself, he didn't need step-by-step instructions. Durham's image vanished; during the experiments, there could be no cues from real time.

Paul counted to ten. The djinn returned. Staring at the face on the screen, Paul realized that he had no inclination to think of it as "his own." Perhaps that was a legacy of distancing himself from the earlier Copies. Or perhaps his mental image of himself had never been much like his true appearance -- and now, in defense of sanity, was moving even further away.

Squeak. "Okay. Experiment one, trial number one. Time resolution five milliseconds. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

The djinn vanished. Paul counted: "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten."

Squeak. "Anything to report?"

"No. I mean, I can't help feeling slightly apprehensive, just knowing that you're screwing around with my . . . infrastructure. But apart from that, nothing."

Durham's eyes no longer glazed over while he was waiting for the speeded-up reply; either he'd gained a degree of self-discipline, or -- more likely -- he'd interposed some smart editing software to conceal his boredom.

Squeak. "Don't worry about apprehension. We're running a control, remember?"

Paul would have preferred not to have been reminded. He'd known that Durham must have cloned him, and would be feeding exactly the same sensorium to both Copies -- while only making changes in the model's time resolution for one of them. It was an essential part of the experiment -- but he didn't want to dwell on it. A third self, shadowing his thoughts, was too much to acknowledge on top of everything else.

Squeak. "Trial number two. Time resolution ten milliseconds."