Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk (Oliver Sparrow)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!swrinde!pipex!bt!btnet!peernews.demon.co.uk!chatham.demon.co.uk!ohgs
Subject: New book
Organization: Royal Institute of International Affairs
Reply-To: ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk
X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.27
Lines: 18
X-Posting-Host: chatham.demon.co.uk
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 1995 08:34:49 +0000
Message-ID: <798885289snz@chatham.demon.co.uk>
Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk

Readers of this usegroup might enjoy Permutation City by Greg Egan (Millenium)

Set in 2050, the story line is a peg on which to hang many of the concerns
that are frequently raised: as to what constitutes identity, consciousness,
awareness; and what happens when these qualities can be diluted, copied and
altered to taste. About half of the book is set in a created universe supported
on a "physics" based on rules given to cellular automataand populated by  
organisms which have evolved to fill the environment so created. The observers 
of this universe attend on meeting in free guises: several come as Baggage 
engines (albeit rather large ones) and one comes as a cluster of Chinese Rooms,
with tiny humanoids frantically semaphoring at each other. The quality of 
consciousness so generated is indistinguishable from that created on other
processor substrates.
 
_________________________________________________

  Oliver Sparrow
  ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk
