Climbing "Schild's Ladder" - a book review from base camp

"I once read a glorious tract which asserted that as soon as there was intelligence without bodies, its 'unstoppable lust for processing power' would drive it to convert the whole Earth, and then the whole universe, into a perfectly efficient Planck-scale computer. Self-restraint? Nah, we'd never show that. Morality? What, without livers and gonads? Needing some actual reason to want to do this? Well ... who could ever have too much computing power?

To which I can only reply: why haven't you indolent fleshers transformed the whole galaxy into chocolate?"
- Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan (2002)

This is not an easy book to get through. Think of a sometimes divergent blend of Kubrick's 20o1 and Stephen Hawkins "Brief History of Time. The opening paragraph, a description of fictional geometry, "in the beginning was a graph" are words of myth, the mathematics contemplated having to do with the genesis of space time itself. Yes, it's difficult, but stick with it, for in that comes its own reward, a new look at the more interesting aspects of the last decade of physics and cosmology, and the anomalous implications of the effects of physics on the seemingly small things that can render the shape of a universe.

Physics drives the plot and provides the two most powerful elements in the book (for this reader anyway). Firstly there is the concept of decoherence (which I'm still wrapping my brain around) which implies the universe we live in, the one Newton described, is the way it is only because of our limited viewpoint. If we as humans had more information, a more complete truth, the universe would not only be infinitely stronger and richer, it would hold more promise.

But that raises another question, how does one then live in this richer, stranger future - Can man live in it without being engulfed and annihilated by it? Or does man run and hide, creating an illusion to live in, or simply embrace it, changing enough to be enhanced by its uncounted potential?

As the story begins, the (fictional) physics that has ruled the universe for thousands of years goes awry when a researcher staging a test of some of the basic elements of this theory inadvertently creates a new universe from scratch (insert alarmist speculation about particle accelerators destabilising spacetime here). And this universe begins to expand, at half the speed of light, destroying the old universe as it goes, creating a neophyte universe that expands at a rate slightly greater than out own, devouring itself from which, with no crossing the barrier between the two universes.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," wrote Arthur C. Clarke. This story is no exception, taking place so far in the future that some characters live entirely in computer storage, some with new bodies grown for them in case of harm or death. For in this future, death has been relegated to the level of a small inconvenience. Everyone in the 220th Century keeps a safe backup of themselves somewhere handy, so any lethal misfortune means merely restoring your consciousness from the last available backup. (Apparently operating systems improving considerably since Windows Me 2000.).

The characters, some not recognizable as human, argue passionately in technical language as to the physics that hold the key to their realities and as such, may save them. Or not. For the key outpost to study the phenomenon is occupied by two opposing factions: the Yielders, who want to study and even protect the new universe, and the Preservationists, who want to stop or destroy it.

Then of course, you add in those "backward" souls, the Anachronauts, who refuse to make the great leap and instead crawl across the universe in archaic, stammering craft. They see themselves as the last true measure of humanity and endure, if only to make quixotic jousts at that which they can no longer protect or defend.

Critics call the characters, most not human as we define the term, "simplistic" or "wooden". They are not us, they do not act like us, recording personalities in computers, assigning them to new bodies, some dying two or three times in the course of the book, skewing the whole dynamic of life and death. Yet, even the dismbodied hope, they dream, they fall in love. A body doesn't create them, gender does not define them. When one character dies, their lover reflects. "He was not an acorporeal. He had never found a way to love her that entirely surrendered the notion that her body was the thing to cherish and protect."

Other critics call the book "too intellectual, with stilted unemotional prose, and weak characters. Egan is not a "wordsmith" as one would typically define it, and the book may only initially appeal to those with the most serious interest in science. Yet for those willing to get through the technical propensity of the language, you see a strange new world, in the poetry of brilliant ideas.

There are bits that simply made me smile. There were parts where I had to put the book down for a bit, while I worked my mind around things, taking in the wonder, yet frustrated by my lack of being to understand it in the way I thought I should. Still I embraced this book, like the best of love, awesome, confusing, enlightening, frustrating, brilliant.

"What kind of gifts?"
"Art. Music. Theorems."

"Original theorems?"

"If you're serious." Yann laughed at Tchicaya's expression of astonishment and added, "It's not always that serious"

"So you start with something easier?"

Yann nodded. "When I was ten years old, all I gave my sweetheart was a pair of projections that turned the group of rotations in four dimensions into principle bundles over the three-sphere. Ancient constructions, although I did rediscover them myself."

"How were they received?"

"She liked them so much, she extended them to larger spaces and gave me back the result." "So what about you?

"I've generally had more success with flowers."