![]() ![]() The device of using a virtual reality ‘Copy’ within a virtual reality world - “urine and feces production optional” - is something Abulafia would have grasped immediately as obvious and necessary given the availability of the technology. The key to Egan’s intention, I think, is in his protagonist’s muttering of a secret password, “Abulafia.” This is a reference to a medieval Kabbalist who, as Kabbalists are wont to do, turned everything into language in order to disorient those who use it -people in other words - and, paradoxically, thereby to free language-users from the insidious power of the language which is actually using them (See. You aren’t what you eat but what can be said about you, and programmed, in Permutation City. Instead of language taking on an alternative meaning from its literal referents, he has people taking on the literal qualities of language - vocabulary, grammar, and effects. It’s a bit like finding out your girlfriend is really a transgender biker - a mixture of fearful awe and fascinated interest.įrom a literary point of view, Egan has done something both awesome and interesting: he’s created a sort of reverse allegory. ![]() ![]() “People reacted badly to waking up as Copies.” Well, yeah of course. What happens when your virtual clone hates your guts? Well apparently “Panic. ![]()
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