Permutation City Site

Permutation City (1994) Author: Greg Egan Genre: Hard SF / Post-Cyberpunk The Premise: Life as a Copy

It is considered one of the ultimate explorations of digital consciousness, merging complex physics and computer science. Permutation City

Permutation City is a deep dive into existential, post-humanist questions, ultimately questioning whether a copy is truly "alive" or merely a functional, haunted simulation. Permutation City (1994) Author: Greg Egan Genre: Hard

Egan suggests that the mathematical data constituting a consciousness exists regardless of the order in which the calculations are performed. Even if a simulation is broken into pieces, scattered across time, and computed in a chaotic, non-continuous way ("dust"), the experience of that conscious self still occurs. Key Narrative Features Even if a simulation is broken into pieces,

Durham launches a virtual world built on the "Autoverse," a system allowing for infinite, self-replicating computational nodes, promising infinite life to its inhabitants.

A meticulously simulated universe with different physical laws, seeded with life to evolve for billions of years.