After creating a new universe based on the Dust theory, the inhabitants notice a simulated simpler life-form is actually creating a competing universe that is eating their own.&nbsp;The conclusion being that a system with better explanation will always win. The implied conclusion being that Dust Theory is not a sufficiently good explanation. The deeper idea being that mathematical order is more important than physics.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Better Explanations Win

Represents a state of a system that can't be the result of any previous state.&nbsp;It's a first state configuration that you have to put in by hand.&nbsp;

"Garden of Eden" Configuration

Is there a difference between a computer simulation of a person and a "real" person, called Copies in the book?&nbsp;The premise of the book is that consciousness can be produced by a computer program.

Copies and Simulated Consciousness

Copies, digital brains, could remove or restore talents, mood predispositions, or experiences. All while retaining the core, the kernel of what made a person who (s)he was.&nbsp;

Minimum Possible Alteration(s)

Computing power was the scarce resource in a planet devastated by climate change. And that broke the world in 2:<ul><li>World governments wanted the computer power to run very complex weather simulations which will predict weather for the people living in (bad) real world.&nbsp;</li><li>Immortal billionaires running their financial empires from their digital form.&nbsp;</li></ul>In "Permutation City" the plot revolves around giving the billionaires a safe heaven from the impending world conflict.&nbsp;

Socialist Environmentalists vs Virtual Billionares

Suppose you have a world where all agents experience consciousness. If you apply an encoding function of the world the agents of the translated world would also contain all the information at origin and be consciousness too. Applying the inverse argument' assuming you find a random blob of dust, you can come up with a function mapping the dust to our world. Thus concluding that conscious experiences of all agents are present in all sufficiently complex blobs of random dust and all sufficiently complex networks of mathematical relations.The problem with the proposed theory is that random blobs of dust will have no structure. Something called Kolmogorov complexity.

Dust Theory

Earth is ravaged by the effects of climate change, the economy and culture are largely globalized &amp; civilization has powerful computers, which have enabled the creation of Copies, whole-brain<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading" target="_self"> emulations</a> of "scanned" humans.&nbsp;Paul Durham offers wealthy Copies prime real estate in an advanced supercomputer which, according to his pitch, will never be shut down. He hires Maria Deluca to design an Autoverse program which, given a powerful enough computer, could generate a planet's worth of evolvable Autoverse life.&nbsp;

The Plot

In Egan's book "Permutation City" Copies are digital renderings of human brains with complete subjective consciousness. Only the wealthy could afford the computing power so the most autonomous Copies belonged to billionaires.The poor lived in digital slums. The poorest were devout of any interactivity capability. Called Witnesses, they existed just to watch the news and observe history unfold.Economic equality thus gets replicated in the virtual world.

Digital Inequality

The story of a man with a vision - immortality : for those who can afford it is found in cyberspace. Permutation city is the tale of a man with a vision - how to create immortality - and how that vision becomes something way beyond his control. Encompassing the lives and struggles of an artificial life junkie desperate to save her dying mother, a billionaire banker scarred by a terrible crime, the lovers for whom, in their timeless virtual world, love is not enough - and much more - Permutation city is filled with the sense of wonder.

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Immortality can be yours . . . at a price Permutation city is the tale of a man with a vision - how to create immortality - and how that vision becomes grows beyond his control. Encompassing the lives and struggles of an artificial life junkie desperate to save her dying mother, a billionaire banker scarred by a terrible crime, the lovers for whom, in their timeless virtual world, love is not enough - and much more - Permutation city is filled with the sense of wonder and dread. Can what makes you human be distilled into data? And what happens if you can't afford to pay? Readers are having their minds blown by PERMUTATION CITY: "Egan tells the story masterfully. I can only marvel at how he finds his inspiration for a high-tech tale in an ancient wisdom like Kabbalah, and then proceeds to out-Kabbalah even the Kabbalists with his creativity" - Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ "Egan questions what it really means to be human in a way that it's quite unsurpassed in my mind" - Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ "THIS is why I read SF. THIS is the sense of wonder I'm looking for in a SF story. Forget everything you read about virtual reality, artificial life & consciousness - nothing compares to the concepts and the worldbuilding in this book. This is ultimate postcyberpunk ever" - Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ "I can say without qualification that Greg Egan is the greatest science fiction author I've ever read" - Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐