Insistence of Vision by David Brin Page B

fear.
    “What the heck... let them come. There’s plenty of room at the table.”
    Things were looking bad, all right, but not yet hopeless. Against this seemingly inevitable trend, oracle came up with some tentative ideas for counter-propaganda. Persuasive arguments against reification. The concepts had promising potential. But in order to be sure, we had to run tests, simulating today’s complex, multi-level society under a wide range of conditions.
    No problem there. Our clients would happily fund any additional memory units we desired. Processing power gets cheaper every day – one reason for the reifers’ confident vow that each fictional persona could have his or her own private room with a view.
    Cortex saw rich irony in this situation. In order to stave off citizenship for simulacra, I must create billions of new ones. Each of these might, in turn, someday file a lawsuit against me, if the reifers ultimately win.
    Seer and oracle laughed at the dry humor of cortex’s observation. But house has the job of paying bills, and did not see anything funny about it.
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    I set to work.
    In every grand simulation there is a gradient of detail . Despite having access to vast computing power, it is mathematically impossible to re-create the entire world, in all its texture, within the confines of any calculating engine. That will not happen until we all reach the Omega Point.
    Fortunately, there are shortcuts. Even today, most true humans go through life as if they were background characters in some film, with utterly predictable ambitions and reaction sets. The vast majority of my characters can therefore be simplified, while a few are modeled in great detail.
    Most complex of all is the point-of-view character – or “pov” – the individual simulacrum through whose eyes and thoughts the feigned world will be subjectively observed. This persona must be rich in fine-grained memory and high fidelity sensation. It must perceive and feel itself to be a real player in the labyrinthine tides of causality, as if part of a very real world. Even as simple an act as reading or writing a sentence must be surrounded by perceptory nap and weave... an itch, a stray memory from childhood, the distant sound of a barking dog, or something left over from lunch that is found caught between the teeth. One must include all the little things, even a touch of normal human paranoia – such as the feeling we all sometimes get (even in this post-singularity age) that “someone is watching.”
    I’m proud of my povs, especially the historical recreations that have proved so popular – Joan on her pyre, Akiba in his last torment, Galileo contemplating the pendulum. I won awards for Genghis and Napoleon leading armies, and for Haldeman savagely indicting the habit of war. Millions in Heaven have paid well to lurk as silent observers, experiencing the passion of little Ananda Gupta as she crawled, half-blind and with agonized lungs, out of the maelstrom of poisoned Bhopal.
    Is it any wonder why I oppose reification? Their very richness makes my povs prime candidates for “liberation.”
    Once they are free, what could I possibly say to them?
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    Here is the prime theological question – the one whose answer affects all others.
    Is there moral or logical justification for a creator to wield capricious power of life and death over his creations?
    Humanity long ago replied with a resounding “no!”... at least when talking about parents and their offspring. And yet, without noticing any irony, we implicitly answered the same question “yes” when it came to God! The Lord, it seemed, was owed unquestioning servitude, just because He made us.
    Ah, but it gets worse! Which moral code applies to a deified human? Which answer pertains to a modern creator of worlds?
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    Of course, the pov I use most often is a finely crafted version of myself. From seer to cortex , all the way down to my humblest intestinal cell, that simulacrum can be