Thought-Experimental Results, and More Questions
In the story Forking, Elliot Otley is accidentally duplicated. During part of the story, each Elliot regards his counterpart as another man. Later, he comes to regard the other Elliot as himself. The difference between those two attitudes is dramatic.
When he thinks of the other Elliot as a different person, it is as a rival for his property, career and family, everything that he holds dear. The relationship is one of competition and animosity. When he starts to think of the other Elliot as himself, the animosity vanishes, replaced by sympathy and understanding. The relationship becomes cooperative.
When Elliot first learns of the other Elliot’s existence, he responds with hatred and fear, as to a dangerous competitor. Later, the two Elliots stop competing, and are fully cooperative. Yet their beliefs about the relevant facts of the case have not changed. Throughout the story, Elliot knows how travel-by-information works, and what went wrong that led to his duplication. What changed Elliot’s mind about his relationship to the other was not new factual information. Continue reading “Evolution of the Self”
Roger Beethey shows up late, with a blonde. Elliot gives him a pleading look. “Relax,” says Beethey.
Getting into the Institute turned out to be easy. Arriving in a crowd from the bus, he found the iid-controlled gate held open for him by a smiling girl. Security at that boundary is given low priority. The ‘free-campus’ tradition. Half-hidden in a big armchair in a departmental Reading Room – not his own department’s – he checks the messages on his phone. Nothing new that matters. He re-reads Elliot’s reply to EB, agreeing to meet before class. Elliot must be in his car by now, probably in slow traffic on the Expressway.
Instead of the motel on Bridgeport, as the other Elliot wanted, he checks into the Verdmont for what remains of the night. He owes himself that much. He is a bit surprised that his iid still opens doors. The other Elliot could have changed his code, which would have made his own implant useless. But the surprise vanishes when he thinks of what he would have done in the other’s place. Without a valid iid, he could hardly last a day in Waterloo without coming to the attention of the police. He has to eat, to sleep somewhere, and although he knows that resourceful denizens of the city’s underbelly do so without an iid, he cannot. He might, of course, approach the authorities for assistance, were it not that he fears publicity just as much as the other does. As the other Elliot said last night, the stikists could ‘get mileage’ out of this. That could set the itravel industry back ten years.