This is Episode 3 of Forking, a short story in the ‘philosophy fiction’ genre. If you haven’t yet read Episode 1, start here.
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.
Elliot forwards another copy of Elliot’s message to EB, adding a note at the top. “BTW, I hope it goes without saying that I take issue with Dalton. I notified the board that he he’s a lightweight, unsuitable for that job. Between us, he’s a dick-head!” Elliot pictures EB’s reaction when he reads it. He feels strangely exhilarated, and almost giggles.
With a few minutes to kill, Elliot wanders out of the Reading Room. He notices the libertarian, Wade, coming down the corridor. Wade nods to Elliot in passing. Only since Elliot gained tenure – over Wade’s opposition, he is sure – does the old anarchist grant him even that much recognition.
A suitable target. Elliot saunters after him. Continue reading “Forking – episode 3”
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.
Finally an email from Dalton, on the last possible day. With misgivings, Elliot opens it. Nothing at all in the body, just Dalton’s signature and the animated IGo logo scrolling endlessly across the page.
All that’s needed to make a case for radical reform of the idea of self is a thought-experiment with a clear and compelling outcome. However, the world is full of people who pay no attention to thought-experiments, however revealing they may be in exposing inconsistencies in everyday ideas, because thought-experiments aren’t ‘real’. These are people from Missouri, as the saying goes, who demand to be shown. And I have nothing to show, yet.