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Learning To Be Me
"Learning to Be Me" is a Science fiction, science-fiction short story by Australia, Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Interzone (magazine), ''Interzone'' 37 in July of 1990. The short story was included in the collections ''Axiomatic (book), Axiomatic'' in 1995 and ''The Best of Greg Egan'' in 2019. Plot In the future, every human gets the Ndoli Device (commonly also called "jewel") implanted into their brain. It maps every single one of their thoughts and actions to fully copy their consciousness, hence learning to be them. At a freely chosen time, most humans chose their twenties, when their brain is at its height, it is removed (a process called "swap") and replaced by a sponge-like object without any function. The jewel and hence the copied consciousness then take over the body. While many people view the swap as being totally unproblematic and claim to still be themselves afterwards, some fear the swap resulting in their death and the jewel only being able to ...
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Greg Egan
Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) is an Australian science fiction writer and amateur mathematician, best known for his works of hard science fiction. Egan has won multiple awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award. Life and work Egan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from the University of Western Australia. He published his first work in 1983. He specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness. Other themes include genetics, simulated reality, posthumanism, mind uploading, sexuality, artificial intelligence, and the superiority of rational naturalism to religion. He often deals with complex technical material, like new physics and epistemology. He is a Hugo Award winner (with eight other works shortlisted for the Hugos) and has also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. His early stories featur ...
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Psychologist
A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how individuals relate to each other and to their environments. Psychologists usually acquire a bachelor's degree in psychology, followed by a master's degree or doctorate in psychology. Unlike psychiatric physicians and psychiatric nurse-practitioners, psychologists usually cannot prescribe medication, but depending on the jurisdiction, some psychologists with additional training can be licensed to prescribe medications; qualification requirements may be different from a bachelor's degree and master's degree. Psychologists receive extensive training in psychological testing, scoring, interpretation, and reporting, while psychiatrists are not usually trained in psychological testing. Psychologists are also trained in, and often specialise i ...
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Australian Science Fiction Short Stories
Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Australians, indigenous peoples of Australia as identified and defined within Australian law * Australia (continent) ** Indigenous Australians * Australian English, the dialect of the English language spoken in Australia * Australian Aboriginal languages * ''The Australian'', a newspaper * Australiana, things of Australian origins Other uses * Australian (horse), a racehorse * Australian, British Columbia, an unincorporated community in Canada See also * The Australian (other) * Australia (other) * * * Austrian (other) Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Someth ...
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Reactor Magazine
''Reactor'', formerly ''Tor.com'', is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on speculative fiction. Unlike traditional print magazines like ''Asimov's'' or ''Analog'', it releases online fiction that can be read free of charge. ''Reactor'' was founded (as ''Tor.com'') in July 2008 and renamed ''Reactor'' on January 23, 2024. Reception Gardner Dozois called ''Tor.com'' "one of the coolest and most eclectic genre-oriented sites on the Internet". He felt in 2011 that its short fiction output that year was weaker than usual, but said it was still a fascinating place to visit. In 2014, ''The Guardian'' Damien Walter remarked on a "digital renaissance" in short SF, and cited a new generation of online magazines, including ''Lightspeed'', ''Strange Horizons'', ''Tor.com'' and ''Escape Pod'', as having transformed the genre. Of ...
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Salik Shah
Salik Shah is an entrepreneur, poet, writer, editor and publisher based out of New Delhi, India. He is the founding editor and publisher of ''Mithila Review'', a journal of international science fiction and fantasy established in 2015. His poetry, fiction, and non-fiction has appeared in '' Asimov’s Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Juggernaut Books,'' ''Star*Line'', ''Coldnoon'', ''Eye to the Telescope'', ''Locus Magazine'', among other publications. One of his short stories "Lakhen & Dragonflies" appears in a course syllabus at SOAS University of London. His debut poetry collection "Khas Pidgin" won the Elgin Award nomination from Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association in 2018. His poetry and fiction has also been nominated for Kumaon Literary Festival’s Fellows of Nature and Toto Awards. His interviews have appeared in a number of publications including ''Hindustan Times'', ''The Juggernaut,'' and ''Samovar.'' He has also interviewed several Hugo-winning authors ...
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New York Review Of Science Fiction
''The New York Review of Science Fiction'' is a monthly literary magazine of science fiction that was established in 1988. It includes works of science fiction criticism, essays, and in-depth critical reviews of new works of fiction and scholarship. For the first 24 years, it was published by David G. Hartwell's Dragon Press, but with the start of volume 25, it has shifted to publisher Kevin J. Maroney's Burrowing Wombat Press. The journal is indexed in the MLA International Bibliography and other subject-specific literature and cultural studies indexes. A complete and up-to-date index in Microsoft Excel format is available online. Although international in coverage, the journal also sponsors SF events in the New York City area, principally including a series of readings from prominent writers that are generally broadcast on WBAI. History ''The New York Review of Science Fiction'' was established in 1988 by Hartwell, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Susan P ...
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Border Guards (novelette)
"Border Guards" is a science-fiction novelette by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in ''Interzone'' 148 in October 1999. The novelette was included in the anthologies '' The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection'' edited by Gardner Dozois in 2000, '' Year's Best SF 5'' edited by David G. Hartwell in 2000 and ''Beyond Singularity'' edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. It was also published in the collection '' Oceanic'' in 2009. Plot In the city of Noether in a 3-toroidal universe, Jamal and Margit play a game of quantum soccer, where the field is replaced by a potential well with infinitely high walls, the ball is replaced by a wave function and the players have to exchange energies between the modes with different frequencies to increase the wave function in the goal of the opposite team. Jamal's team loses the game to Margit's team and they talk afterwards. Jamal, who studies the category of complex representations of Lie groups since ...
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Closer (short Story)
Closer or Closers may refer to: Film and television * ''Closer'' (2000 film), a documentary by Tina Gharavi * ''Closer'' (2004 film), a 2004 adaptation of Patrick Marber's play (see below), directed by Mike Nichols * ''The Closer'', a 1990 movie, starring Danny Aiello, based on the play ''Wheelbarrow Closers'' * ''Closer'' (TV series), a Canadian music program * ''The Closer'' (1998 TV series), an American sitcom * ''The Closer'', a 2000s American drama series * "The Closer" (''CSI: NY''), an episode of ''CSI: NY'' * ''The Closer'' (2021 film), a 2021 television stand-up comedy special by Dave Chappelle Literature * ''Closer'' (novel), a novel by Roderick Gordon * ''The Closers'', a novel by Michael Connelly * ''Closer'', a novel by Dennis Cooper * ''Closer'', a graphic novel by Antony Johnston and Mike Norton * ''Closer'' (play), a 1997 play by Patrick Marber * "Closer", a short story by Greg Egan * "Closer", a short story by David Malouf from his collection ''Dream ...
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Consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scientists. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not. The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked. Examples of the range of descriptions, definitions or explanations are: simple wakefulness, one's sense of selfhood or soul ...
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Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'. The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ... country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approx ...
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The Best Of Greg Egan
''The Best of Greg Egan'' is a collection of science fiction stories by Australian writer Greg Egan, published by Subterranean Press in 2019. The collection contains 20 stories which were published in a variety of original publications. It is also accompanied by an Afterword from the author. Contents * "Learning to Be Me" * "Axiomatic" * " Appropriate Love" * " Into Darkness" * " Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies" * "Closer" * " Chaff" * "Luminous" * "Silver Fire" * " Reasons to be Cheerful" * "Oceanic" * "Oracle" * "Singleton" * "Dark Integers" * "Crystal Nights" * "Zero for Conduct" * "Bit Players" * "Uncanny Valley" * "3-adica" * "Instantiation" * "Afterword" Critical reception Writing in ''Locus Magazine'' reviewer Russell Letson noted Egan's statement in his Afterword that the stories here concern "the struggle to come to terms with what it will mean when our growing ability to scrutinize and manipulate the physical world reaches the point where it encompasses the ...
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Axiomatic (book)
''Axiomatic'' () is a 1995 collection of short science fiction stories by Greg Egan. The stories all delve into different aspects of self and identity. ''The Guardian'' described it as "Wonderful mind-expanding stuff, and well-written too." Neural Mods Several ''Axiomatic'' stories involve "neural mods", usually presented as small tubes containing powder inhaled through the nose, which alter the brains of their users in highly specific ways with advanced nanotechnology. In the collection's eponymous story "Axiomatic", the protagonist enters a store selling mods not only for every variety of psychedelic experiences, but for altering one's personality traits, sexual orientation, and even religion. The protagonist seeks a custom-made mod that will suspend his moral convictions long enough for him to murder his wife's killer. In "The Walk", an executioner offers his victim a mod that will cause him to accept the executioner's personal philosophy, and thus help him cope with his de ...
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