Review: Permutation City

Permutation City by Greg Egan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was an excellent recommendation from my son. Written in 1992, it is prescient of the modern day, and the crevasse we are attempting to cross in the world of AI.

The book covers many philosophical points of consciousness and embodiment. People can make digital ‘copies’ of themselves and allow their alter egos to live on in a digital world that has all the depth and colour of our world, yet is a captive to physical constraints of computing power.

Copies can think, and exhibit all that one might ascribe to a conscious being. They can also work and manipulate virtual worlds, and those become sophisticated universes of their own.

At times the book’s chronology is confusing, and intentionally blurs the lines between the present, the parallel present, and the far future.

It is an engaging read, and a worthy addition to the sci-fi canon. I gave it five stars.

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