Permutation City

by Greg Egan

Civilization wouldn’t have deserted reality – just transcended biology.”

the only way to ‘fix things’ is to have less impact on the planet, not more. Instead of thinking up these grandiose schemes to bludgeon everything into shape, we have to back off, leave it alone, give it a chance to heal.”

“She was a child of the nineties. Her kindergarten teachers probably told her that the pinnacle of her existence would be fertilizing a rainforest when she died.”

I’ve regressed far enough to start wondering if every childish superstition I ever held might yet turn out to be true – but not far enough to embrace the possibility of repentance.

The whole idea of a creator tears itself apart. A universe with conscious beings either finds itself in the dust … or it doesn’t. It either makes sense of itself on its own terms, as a self-contained whole … or not at all. There never can, and never will be, Gods.”