Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

The Seventh Sally 290Excelsius was sensible enough, however, to see that thiswas out of the question, owing to a very fundamentaldisproportion, for fleas could sooner take their host intocaptivity than the king's army seize Trurl. So with another coldnod, he stuck his orb and scepter under his arm, lifted the boxkingdom with a grunt, and took it to his humble but of exile.And as blazing day alternated with murky night outside,according to the rhythm of the asteroid's rotation, the king,who was acknowledged by his subjects as the greatest in theworld, diligently reigned, bidding this, forbidding that,beheading, rewarding-in all these ways incessantly spurring hislittle ones on to perfect fealty and worship of the throne.As for Trurl, he returned home and related to his friendKlapaucius, not without pride, how he had employed hisconstructor's genius to indulge the autocratic aspirations ofExcelsius and, at the same time, safeguard the democraticaspirations of his former subjects. But Klapaucius, surprisinglyenough, had no words of praise for Trurl; in fact, there seemedto be rebuke in his expression."Have I understood you correctly?" he said at last. "Yougave that brutal despot, that born slave master, that slaveringsadist of a painmonger, you gave him a whole civilization torule and have dominion over forever? And you tell me, moreover,of the cries of joy brought on by the repeal of a fraction ofhis cruel decrees! Trurl, how could you have done such a thing?""You must be joking!" Trurl exclaimed. "Really, the wholekingdom fits into a box three feet by two by two and a half ...it's only a model. . . ."A model of what?""What do you mean, of what? Of a civilization, obviously,except that it's a hundred million times smaller.""And how do you know there aren't civilizations a hundredmillion times larger than our own? And if there were, would oursthen be a model? And what importance do dimensions have anyway?In that box kingdom, doesn't a journey from the capital to oneof the corners take months-for those inhabitants? And don't theysuffer, don't they know the burden of labor, don't they die?""Now just a minute, you know yourself that all theseprocesses take place only because I programmed them, and so theyaren't genuine. . . ."Aren't genuine? You mean to say the box is empty, and theparades, tortures, and beheadings are merely an illusion?""Not an illusion, no, since they have reality, thoughpurely as certain microscopic phenomena, which I produced bymanipulating atoms," said