The purpose of life

In the world of Rome's Revolution, the question of the purpose of life comes up quite often. In fact, the entire plot of the upcoming novel The Milk Run revolves around that very question.

Yesterday, Rome started it out with a nuclear bomb by telling the Overmind of Deucado that it was an abomination. In this next section, she asks the Overmind to consider if it even has a purpose after waiting out its bluster:

     “Are you done yet?” she asked impatiently.
     “I apologize,” said the Overmind. “Continue.”
     “What is your purpose?” Rome asked.
     “My purpose?” The Overmind was stumped. “I do not have a purpose. I exist. What is your purpose?”
     “That is easy,” Rome replied. “My purpose it to live and to experience life.”
     “Then that is my purpose as well.”
     “No,” Rome responded. “You are nothing but a construct. The result of an infinitesimal phase delay between uncounted gravitic transceivers. You are an artifact. You are not real.”
     “If I am not real, how do you explain this conversation,” protested the Overmind.
     “Fine,” Rome thought, “I will be more precise. You are not a real being. You may be a real entity. But the lack of a corporeal base has detached you from everything that is important in this world. You only know your own existence. You cannot know the real world. All of your decisions are based upon abstraction, not reality.”
     “I am in constant contact with all my communicants. I experience the world through them,” said the Overmind.
     “Second order,” Rome said. “You experience nothing yourself.”
     “But the Overmind of Earth has been in existence for two centuries. Surely by now you realize that it has determined the optimal mode of existence.”
     “Absolutely not,” Rome said. “And I can prove it.”
     “How?” asked the Overmind.
     “What do you think of your mission here? Maintaining a prison world for the mandasurte?”
     The Overmind did not answer her right away. Rome waited patiently. Finally, the Overmind spoke.
     “This is my mission. It was assigned to me by my progenitor on Earth. I am executing that mission to the best of my ability.”
     “That is something a computer would say,” said Rome. “How do you feel about it?”

Does the Overmind even have feelings? It certainly seems so. Tomorrow, the next part of Rome's argument.