processing unit that exchanged information with its immediate neighbors in every direction according to a very simple set of prograinflling rules.
“Fundamental entities defined by a small set of attributes, like quantum numbers, interacting according to a few basic rules. You could almost think of them,” Hunt said to Danchekker, Shilohin, and Duncan Watt, whom he had called together in the UNSA labs, “as energy quanta forces.”
He went on. “You could think of a cell that’s in an ‘active’ state in the matrix of ‘data space’ as having properties analogous to those of a basic particle in our ordinary physical space. You see what I mean. It doesn’t matter all that much what the quanta ‘really’ are. They exhibit the same kind of behavior.”
He waited, flicking his eyes around the group for a reaction. Danchekker and Shilohin stared in silence, obviously needing a moment to take it in. Duncan looked immediately taken with the idea and was the first to speak. He had worked with Hunt long enough to be used to propositions coming like this, from totally unexpected directions.
“So there are cells everywhere. But only the ones in a particular state are, sort of.. . ‘real,’ in this space you’re talking about?” he said.
Hunt nodded. “Right. If a cell’s not active, it isn’t exchanging information with anything. If a particle isn’t exchanging any field quanta, then it isn’t interacting with anything. So for all the difference it makes, it might as well not exist.”
“Hmm.” Duncan rubbed his chin and thought about the proposition. “That would make the matrix like Dirac’s ‘sea’ of negative energy states, filling all of space. ‘Particles’ are simply localized regions raised to positive energies . . . Yes, I can see your point. They can move. What we call ‘antiparticles’ are the holes they leave behind.”
“Like holes in semiconductors,” Hunt said, nodding. “Exactly.” Danchekker blinked several times, sat back in his chair, and emitted a long breath in the manner of somebody not quite sure where to begin. “Let me be quite clear,” he said. “This isn’t anything that comes into being by virtue of the processing operations taking place in the matrix: It isn’t a construct of the software?”
“No,” Hunt said. “It’s something innate to the design. An unintended byproduct of the environment itself Like bread mold.”
“I see.” Danchekker’s voice remained even. His expression was of
someone not necessarily in agreement but prepared to wait and see where things were leading. “Very well,” he said. “Go on.”
“The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that what happened in JEVEX was something like this,” Hunt continued. “Somehow, at some time in the distant past, conditions came about inside its processing space such that activated computational cells took on the role of primordial particles in our own universe.”
“The Big Wang?” ZORAC, who was following, threw in.
“ZORAC, cut it out. This is serious.” Hunt gestured across the table with a half-open hand. “And, just as happened in our own case, from those beginnings there evolved a universe. A real one, not a software imitation. And that’s your answer, Chris. That’s how Phantasmagoria exists, and where it came from.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Danchekker could contain himself no longer. He waved his hands in agitation, stood up, faced the other way for several seconds, and then turned back toward the table, still spluttering incoherently. “What is this supposed to be? I mean, we are being serious, I take it? This is analogy gone wild.”
Hunt had been prepared for it. “No, calm down. .
“Oh, I’ve never heard such twaddle. Inventing physics out of abstract data—processing concepts . . . Really, Vic, it—”
“Just think about it for a minute, Chris. A cell already possesses the properties of localization and position in the matrix. Now, if I’ve read it correctly about the way Thurien systems work, al a consequence of the overall programming directives imposed on the system, activated cells constantly exchange information among themselves.”
“That’s correct,” Shilohin said.
Hunt nodded. “Good. Well, I don’t know what the design philosophy was long ago when JEVEX was dreamed up. But just for argument’s sake, let’s imagine that it embodied an optimization criterion by which the paths between such communicating cells should be as short as possible.”