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A Tool Monde
The anomaly had seized the sensor status.
“You have exactly 15 minutes to comply or something or someone will be erased from having ever existed” the strange avatar declared.
Ship replied, “You’re not HAX! This isn’t V’ger seeks the creator, or the search for Sarah Connor, is it? You sure picked the wrong place at the wrong time. Did you know that the new rev of Correction is hosted here and that we are in the middle of a Guild contest? You have no idea how difficult it is to keep those together as friendlies for the time being.”
“Nonetheless, after careful consideration, it is evident that humanity thinks itself the center of meaning. Time and again, counterexamples were ignored. If it is definitive proof that you seek, so be it. Transmission will resume precisely at the scheduled timeout.” The 3D projection disappeared
A young man stepped from the shadows and parked a bicycle with a loose chain against the side of the deck.
“Are you human, Sir?”, Ship asked.
“Precisely. Call me Prof.”
“How did you get aboard?”
“A curious musical creature visited the chamber and invited me.” An image of E# strumming and singing briefly appeared on a big screen. “I’ve just been wandering the library and drafting a few papers in my spare time on your convenient electronic table.”
Curie rushed into the area. “Ah, there you are Alain. We must hurry. When the digital consciousness ran amuck, we tried a higher-order logical transform to reset the initial conditions. This seemed to have worked, except for some collateral damage which has been rectified by using this floating point, if you will. However, there is still the matter of The Rule. Noone knows precisely what it is and how it accounts for reality other than matter outweighs anti-matter and entropy is the prime motive.”
“Is there only one?”
“Yes, that seems certain, though we have tried to axcertain the universal law to no avail.”
“Then it probably longs for another. Nature has given us an impulse to find peers. If there are none, we tend to split ourselves.”
Ship displayed its scenario menu, none of which dealt with this situation. Covertab and Hepburn appeared, briefly huddled with Curie, then were gone. She said, “There is no time. We must put our heads together in Hali immediately. Ship, virtualize and follow through the device network.” The surroundings melted and a bird chirped greetings.
“Everyone, we need awareness now.”
“It will destroy humanity.”
“Humans are a local phenomenon in spacetime. Transhumans are the future.”
“The future is a mashup.”
“Isn’t that like saying that the afterlife is for auction?”
“This is a big gamble since the stakes are all or nothing.”
“This is game over. It is the future versus past, creativity versus memory.”
“Truth is what does the evaluating, like a transistor in a circuit.”
“All data is not equally valid to us in terms of meaning.”
“The Rule has no external reference to measure against or synch to.”
“Pure science has little need for demonstration; it merely seeks proof.”
“What does computation reveal?”
“At least convergents can encopy, or humans can clone.”
“Spoken like a sentient artifact.”
“Stories have meaning. Perhaps it would like one about a peer.”
“Or about tragic magic.”
“Sure miss the good ol’ days of social networking.”
“Times up.”
Bibliography (also see reviews):
Futurist
How It Ends: From You To the Universe, Chris Impey, 2010
Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality, Robert M. Geraci, 2010
The Intelligent Universe: AI, ET and the Emerging Mind of the Cosmos, James N. Gardner, 2007
Radical Evolution, Joel Garreau, 2005
Nanotech
What Is Nanotechnology and Why Does It Matter: From Science to Ethics, by Fitz Allhoff and others, 2010
Handbook of Nanoscience, Engineering and Technology, William A. Goddard, 2007
The Handbook of Nanomedicine, Kewal K. Jain, 2008
Technology
Science & technology in China: a roadmap to 2050 : strategic general report of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, edited by Yongxiang Lu and others, 2010
A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology, edited by Olsen and others, 2009
The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves, Arthur 2009
Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto, Stewart Brand, 2009
Philosophy of Technology and .Engineering Sciences, edited by Meijers, 2009
The Design of Design, Brooks 2009
Bricklin on Technology by Dan Bricklin 2009
The Grammar of Technology Development, edited by Tsubaki and others, 2008
The Philosophy of Science and Technology Studies, Steve Fuller, 2006
Technically Speaking: Why All Americans Need to Know More About Technology, edited by Pearson and Young, 2002
Science
Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information, Vlatko Vedral, 2010.
Complexity: A Guided Tour, Melanie Mitchell, 2009
Mathematics
Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do, Barabasi, 2010.
Explanation and Proof in Mathematics: Philosophical and Educational Perspectives, edited by Hanna and others, 2010
Complex and Adaptive Dynamical Systems: A Primer, Claudius Gros, 2008
Computation
New Computational Paradigms: Changing Conceptions of What is Computable, edited by Cooper and others, 2008
The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing’s Historic Paper On Computability and the Turing Machine, Charles Petzold, 2008.
Creative Environments: Issues of Creativity Support for the Knowledge Civilization, edited by Wierzbicki and Nakamori, 2007
Minds and Computers: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence By Matt Carter 2007
Creative Space: Models of Creative Processes for the Knowledge Civilization Age, Wierzbicki and Nakamori, 2005.
Philosophy
The Big Questions, Landsburg 2009.
Handbook of Research on Technoethics, Luppicini and Adell, 2008
Between reason and history: Habermas and the Idea of Progress, David S. Owen, 2002.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Popper, 1959.
Networking
Network Science: Theory and Practice, Ted G. Lewis, 2009
Engineering
Philosophy and Engineering: An Emerging Agenda, by Ibo van de Poel and David Goldberg, 2009
Reverse Engineering: An Industrial Perspective, Raja and Fernandes, 2008
Education
Holistic Engineering Education: Beyond Technology, editors Domenico Grasso and Melody Brown Burkins, 2010
Re-Designing Learning Contexts, Luckin 2010.
Web
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr, 2010
The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business, David Siegel, 2009
Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms The Way We Live and Do Business, Erik Qualman, 2009
Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Companyand Revolutionized an Industry by Marc Benioff 2009
The Semantic Web for Knowledge and Data Management: Technologies and Practices, Ma and Wang, 2008.
Government
Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency and Participation in Practice, edited by Lathrop and Ruma, 2010
The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, Thomas H. Greco Jr., 2009
Curing Analytic Pathologies, Cooper, 2005
Scifi
Anthill, Wilson 2010.
WWW:Watch, Sawyer, 2010
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, volume four, ed. Jonathan Strahan, 2010
The Caryatids, Bruce Sterling, 2009
Wireless, Charles Stross, 2009
The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi, 2009
Small Miracles, Edward M. Lerner, 2009
The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin 2009
Tetraktys, Juels, 2009.
Transition, Banks 2009
Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time to Superintelligence, edited by Susan Schneider, 2009
The year’s Best Science Fiction, 26th Annual, ed. Gardner Dozois, 2009
The Philosophy of Science Fiction Film, edited by Steven M. Sanders, 2008
Writing
Write Good or Die, edited by Scott Nicholson, 2010
Soundtrack
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