Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

The Seventh Sally 291Trurl. "The point is, these births, loves, acts of heroism, anddenunciations are nothing but the minuscule capering ofelectrons in space, precisely arranged by the skill of mynonlinear craft, which-""Enough of your boasting, not another word!" Klapauciussnapped. "Are these processes self-organizing or not?"'"Of course they are!""And they occur among infinitesimal clouds of electricalcharge?""You know they do.""And the phenomenological events of dawns, sunsets, andbloody battles are generated by the concatenation of realvariables?""Certainly."`And are not we as well, if you examine us physically,mechanistically, statistically, and meticulously, nothing butthe minuscule. capering of electron clouds? Positive andnegative charges arranged in space? And is our existence not theresult of subatomic collisions and the interplay of particles,though we ourselves perceive those molecular cartwheels as fear,longing, or meditation? And when you daydream, what transpireswithin your brain but the binary algebra of connecting anddisconnecting circuits, the continual meandering of electrons?""What, Klapaucius, would you equate our existence with thatof an imitation kingdom locked up in some glass box?!" criedTrurl. "No, really, that's going too far! My purpose was simplyto fashion a simulator of statehood, a model cyberneticallyperfect, nothing more!""Trurl! Our perfection is our curse, for it draws down uponour every endeavor no end of unforeseeable consequences!"Klapaucius said in a stentorian voice. "If an imperfectimitator, wishing to inflict pain, were to build himself a crudeidol of wood or wax, and further give it some makeshiftsemblance of a sentient being, his torture of the thing would bea paltry mockery indeed! But consider a succession ofimprovements on this practice! Consider the next sculptor, whobuilds a doll with a recording in its belly, that it may groanbeneath his blows; consider a doll which, when beaten, begs formercy, no longer a crude idol, but a homeostat; consider a dollthat sheds tears, a doll that bleeds, a doll that fears death,though it also longs for the peace that only death can bring!Don't you see, when the imitator is perfect, so must be theimitation, and the semblance becomes the truth, the pretense areality! Trurl, you took an untold number of creatures capableof suffering and abandoned them forever to the rule of a wickedtyrant.... Trurl, you have committed a terrible crime!""Sheer sophistry!" shouted Trurl, all the louder because hefelt the force of his friend's argument. "Electrons meander notonly in our