Page 133 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire
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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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