Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

Software 261This was worse than Ralph had expected. He stopped moving and fell silent incalculation."You have your own will," Ralph said finally. "And it is right that we struggleagainst each other. Struggle, and struggle alone, has driven the boppers forward. Youchoose to fight the big hoppers. I do not. Perhaps I will even let them tape me and absorbme, like Doctor Anderson. And I tell you this: Anderson is coming. Mr. Frostee's newremote has already contacted him."Wagstaff lurched toward Ralph, but then stopped. He couldn't bring himself toattack so great a hopper at close range. He suppressed hi,, flickering, bleeped a cursorySAVED signal, and wriggled off across the gray moondust. He left a broad, sinuous trail.Ralph Numbers stood motionless for a minute, just monitoring his inputs.Turning up the gain, he could pick up signals from boppers all ove the Moon.Underfoot, the diggers searched and smelted ceaselessly Twelve kilometers off, themyriad boppers of Disky led their busy lives And high, high overhead came the faintsignal of BEX, the big bopper who was the spaceship linking Earth and Moon. BEXwould be landing in fifteen hours.Ralph let all the inputs merge together and savored the collective) purposefulactivity of the hopper race. Each of the machines lived on] ten months-ten months ofstruggling to build a scion, a copy of itself If you had a scion there was a sense in whichyou survived your ten-month disassembly. Ralph had managed it thirty-six times.Standing there, listening to everyone at once, he could feel how thei individuallives added up to a single huge being ... a rudimentary sot of creature, feeling about like avine groping for light, for higher thing:He always felt this way after a metaprogramming session. The On had a way ofwiping out your short-term memories and giving you th space to think big thoughts. Timeto think. Once again Ralph wondere if he should take MEX up on his offer to absorbRalph. He could live i perfect security then ... provided, of course, that those crazy diggerdidn't pull off their revolution.Ralph set his treads to rolling at top speed, 10 kph. He had thing to do beforeBEX landed. Especially now that Wagstaff had set his p, thetic microchip of a brain ontrying to prevent TEX from extractin Anderson's software.What was Wagstaff so upset about anyway? Everything would h preserved-CobbAnderson's personality, his memories, his style c thought. What else was there? Wouldn'tAnderson himself agree, eve if he knew? Preserving your software ... that was all thatreally counterBits of pumice crunched beneath Ralph's treads. The wall of the