Permutation City by Greg Egan
"Permutation City" is a science fiction novel that explores complex themes of identity, consciousness, and the nature of reality through the experiences of Copies—digital simulations of individuals who exist in a computer-generated environment. The protagonist, Paul Durham, discovers he is a Copy, grappling with the implications of his existence and the philosophical debate surrounding the consciousness of Copies. The story unfolds as Paul hires an unsuccessful programmer, Maria Deluca, to develop a new simulation called the Autoverse, which is based on simplified laws of nature.
As the narrative advances, Maria learns of Paul's controversial experiments and his belief that different arrangements of reality can exist. He persuades her to become a Copy to join a new universe he has created, but ultimately, he takes his own life. The subsequent section, "Permutation City," follows Maria's awakening as a Copy within this new Autoverse, where she and other Copies confront the challenges of their existence and the implications of their identity. The narrative explores the relationship between Copies and the sentient beings they inadvertently create, raising questions about creation, belief, and the quest for meaning in a digital landscape. As the story concludes, it reflects on the emotional impact of these experiences on the original physical beings as well, particularly through Maria's mourning for Paul.
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Permutation City
First published: 1994 (based on the short story “Dust,” Asimov’s Science Fiction, 1992)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—artificial intelligence
Time of work: 2045-2052
Locale: Australia and Permutation City
The Plot
Paul Durham awakes and realizes that he is a Copy, a software simulation recorded from his previous physical self, living in a computer-generated world. Such Copies and their environments are vastly simplified models. There is philosophical argument as to whether Copies are “really” conscious, but they believe themselves to be. Copies can interact with the physical world but are slowed relative to it. Many rich people have Copied themselves, then let their original bodies die. The Copies remain in control of their originals’ property, though they fear political changes that will force them to be shut down. Most of the newly created Copies elect to have themselves turned off, and Paul wishes to do so, but he finds that his still-living original has illegally disabled that function to be able to experiment on him.
Five years later, in the physical world, Maria Deluca is an unsuccessful programmer whose avocation is the Autoverse, a computer-simulated biochemical environment based on laws simpler than those of the physical world. A breakthrough in Autoverse technology brings her to the attention of the physical Paul Durham, who hires her to design an Autoverse-like system for apparently philosophical purposes.
Maria designs the new Autoverse and learns that the police are investigating Paul because he has been getting large sums of money from Copies, including Thomas Riemann, a Copy haunted by a fatal assault committed by his physical self. Maria confronts Paul, and he tells her his real plan. His experiments have convinced him that physical space-time is merely one arrangement of the “dust” of discrete events and that there are others equally valid. The Copy who performed the experiments was the physical Paul, who had drugged himself and set up a background in which he thought he was a Copy.
He now believes that he has been through twenty-three alternative existences and that he can create another pattern in which Copies can live as they live in the physical universe, but connected instead to a new Autoverse, designed in accord with Maria’s rules. He persuades Maria to have herself Copied to join the other Copies to be activated in the new universe, promising that he will not activate her Copy unless necessary. After the launch, he commits suicide.
The second section, “Permutation City,” begins with Maria’s Copy being awakened by Paul’s Copy. Permutation City is the area of the new Autoverse inhabited by the Copies, Copies of their Copies, and so on. The rest of the Autoverse has evolved a sentient species, insectlike creatures known as the Lambertians, and the Copies are discussing whether to reveal themselves to those living in the Autoverse. Malfunctions occur in Permutation City that may be caused by its relation to the Autoverse. Paul, Maria, and two other Copies enter the physical Autoverse to reveal themselves as the gods who created the Lambertians. The Lambertians, however, refuse to believe them; they have perfectly satisfactory explanations that do not require such Creators. The Autoverse has no need for the Copies and there is no place for them, so Permutation City is doomed.
Paul sets up equations for a new universe for the Copies, and they all escape except Thomas Riemann, who has found his way to an alternate universe in which he saved the life of the woman he had attacked. Paul, tired of all the alternate worlds he has lived through, wishes to shut himself down but agrees to Maria’s request that he come back to help her explore the new universe they are creating. An epilogue shows the original physical Maria, back in her own time line, mourning Paul.