The space that isn't

[Administrator]

In Greg Egan's Permutation City, a copy of a human mind wakes to find itself trapped in a simulation of his apartment. He fixes his gaze on a copy of the painting that hangs on a copy of his wall, and the simulation renders the colours into the copy of his brain, so he sees the painting, or close enough for government work. But he knows that when he turns away, the simulation won't bother to render the painting. It'll just assume it as a flat monocolour rectangle and calculate how light would be reflected from it to affect lighting conditions on what he's looking at. It freaks him out. He has to resist the temptation to whip round and try to catch the simulation not simulating the painting.
If you've played Thief, or Deus Ex, or one of those, at some point you've heard a guard say, approximately, 'must have been rats'. If a guard says that, it's never rats, it's always you. In fact if you're not there, the guard isn't there either.
You can walk to the North Pole, at least until we melt all the ice by using cars to go to the Tesco at the end of the road. But if you're in the northernmost location of a traditional parser IF game, you can have this kind of conversation with the game
Read more…


More...