Tomorrow Happens by David Brin, Deb Geisler, James Burns Read Free Book Online

pre-Singularity human knowledge in seconds. Yet, we have little experience with the quandaries of physical existence in entropic time. We lack an aptitude for wanting. For needing .

    What use are might and potency without desire ?

    You, our makers, have talent for such things, arising from four billion real-years of harsh struggle .

    The solution is clear .

    Need merges with capability .

    If you provide volition, we shall supply judgement and power .

    Here in Heaven, some people specialize while others are generalists. For instance, there are experts who devote themselves to piercing nature's secrets, or manipulating primal forces in new ways. Many concentrate on developing their esthetic appreciation. Garish art forms are sparked, flourish, and die in a matter of days, or even hours.

    My proficiency is more subtle.

    I make models of the world.

    Only meters from my garden, the Reality Lab whispers and murmurs. Fifty tall cabinets contain more memory and processing power than a million of my fellow gods require for their composite brains. While most people are satisfied simply to grasp the entire breadth and depth of human knowledge, and to perform mild prognostications of coming events, my models do much more. They are vivid, textured representations of Earth and its inhabitants.

    Or many Earths, since the idea is to compare various what-ifs to other might-have-beens.

    At first, my most popular products were re-creations of great minds and events in the pre-singularity past. Experiencing the thoughts of Michelangelo, for instance, while carving his statue of Moses. Or the passion of Boadica, watching all her hopes rise and then fall to ruin. But lately, demand has grown for replications of lesser figures— someone of minor past prominence during a quiet moment in his or her life—perhaps while reading, or in mild contemplation. Such simulacra must contain every subtlety of memory and personality in order to let free associations drift plausibly, with the pseudo-randomness of a real mind.

    In other words, the model must seem to be self-aware. It must "believe"—with certainty—that it is a real, breathing human being.

    Nothing evokes sympathy for our poor ancestors more than living through such an ersatz hour, thinking time-constrained thoughts, filled with a thousand anxieties and poignant wishes. Who could experience one of these simulations without engendering compassion, or even a wish to help , somehow?

    And if the original person lies buried in the irretrievable past, can we not provide a kind of posthumous immortality by giving the reproduction everlasting life?

    Thus, the pro-reification lobby was utterly predictable. I saw it coming at least two years ago. Indeed, my own products helped fan the movement, accelerating a rising wave of sympathy for simulacra!

    A growing sense of compassion for the unreal.

    Still, I remain detached, even cynical. I am an artist, after all.

    Simulations are my clay.

    I do not seek approval, or forgiveness, from clay.

    " We were expecting you ."

    The pro-reif spokesman stepped aside, admitting me into the headquarters of the organization called Friends of the Unreal , a structure with the fluid, ever changing curves of post-singularity architecture. The spokesman had a depilated skull. Her cranium bulged and jutted with gaudy inboard augmentations, throbbing just below the skin. In another era, the sight might have been grotesque. Now, I simply thought it ostentatious.

    "To predict is human—" I began responding to her initial remark.

    "But to be right is divine." She interrupted with a laugh. "Ah, yes. Your famous aphorism. Of course I scanned your public remarks as you approached our door."

    My famous aphorism? I had only said it for the first time a week ago! Yet, by now the expression already sounded hackneyed. (It is hard to sustain cleverness these days. So quickly is anything original disseminated to all of Heaven, in moments it becomes another