City: Permutation

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

The novel's main intellectual driver is the "Dust Hypothesis." Egan challenges the notion that consciousness requires a continuous, physical, hardware-based simulation. Permutation City

Written in 1994, it portrays a highly realistic, terrifyingly plausible 2050. Egan suggests that the mathematical data constituting a