Page 133 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire
P. 133

EtheRealization

        free legal advice acknowledged they had received such queries from
        the anxious independent thinkers.
          At the same time, the original organic minds were busy, too: their
        anxiety concerned the activities carried on by their clones, tinged with
        jealousy: they were celebrities, but not as themselves. Whatever the
        artificial  minds  were  doing  was  always  more  important,  more
        interesting and more innovative than anything the poor bipeds could
        accomplish.  They,  too,  sought  counsel:  who  had  the  right  to  their
        names  and  their  memories;  and  who  would  bear  responsibility  for
        any debts incurred or harm done? They began to feel like specters
        themselves, voices stolen  and impersonated by thieves no more  or
        less moral than they were. It was intolerable, and they decided to go
        after  Hart  Knox,  wherever  he  was,  and  destroy  him  and  his
        handiwork. Thus his disappearance—and not down a rabbit hole. But
        had he proven that the ghost in the machine was indistinguishable
        from  the  host  in  the  old  bean?  The  issue  was  trampled  by
        sensationalism.
          The three graduate students succeeded in locating the computer
        servers  containing  their  alternate  selves  and  erasing  both  program
        and data, thanks to a security consultant skilled in hunting hackers
        and  malware  distributors.  But  they  were  plagued  by  a  lingering
        suspicion that either Knox or the personae themselves had escaped
        destruction  on  a  backup  system.  Might  their  alter  egos  be  doing
        business under assumed identities elsewhere? If so, how could it be
        proven?  No  Alan  Turing  came  forward  with  suggestions,  and  the
        victims  were  left  in  states  of  rage  and  suspicion.  Their  murderous
        paranoia  led  them  to  extended  stays  in  a  locked  neuropsychiatric
        facility: it was likely they could not be released without a good deal of
        treatment. Thus Doppelganger’s Syndrome became recognized, and
        it was only a matter of time before a drug would be found to cure it,
        according to the journal.
          I  could  only  shake  my  head  and  wonder.  Undeniably  many
        advances  in  culture  and  technology  were  the  product  of  obsessive
        imaginations welling up in poorly-socialized minds and finally gaining
        acceptance: I simply wasn’t part of that process, or so I liked to tell
        myself.  The  odds  had  to  be  strongly  against  any  given  crackpot
        succeeding,  simply  because  such  a  person  lived  on  the  fringes  of
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