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Fred Stiller: You have to imagine the inside of our simulation model - we call it Simulacron - as a reproduction in miniature of our society. At the moment, we have slightly over 9,000 so-called identity units, each of which has the faculties of perception, thought, memory, imagination, and so forth, of a real human being. With Simulacron, we have, in a word, a tiny universe identical to our own. Into this universe, we can introduce certain impulses which... impulses which lead to highly specific reactions. Reactions that precisely replicate human reactions 20 years in the future. This means we can use Simulacron to avoid the mistakes we'd make in that period. For example, we can, to be extremely concrete, use the Simulacron to learn consumer habits 20 years from now, how housing needs will evolve, which transportation modes will become obsolete and which ones will be in use.
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Fred Stiller: You're not Fritz Walfang. You're Einstein. My God, what is this?
Einstein: [Disguised as Fritz Walfang] Let me go, please! Don't send me back. It's my only chance. I want to be a human being. And I will. This is the first step. I'll make the next one, too. Into the real world.
Fred Stiller: What do you mean? This is the real world...
Einstein: That's what you think. But the truth is this world, which you take for reality, is only a simulation model of the real world. Fred Stiller, the big computer boss. You're nothing but a mass of electrical circuits. The identity unit Fred Stiller. You're a number, like everyone here. A number in a research laboratory. Admittedly, in a highly advanced one. Professor Vollmer knew it. That's why he had to die. And now you know.
[laughs hysterically]
Einstein: It can't be, Einstein. Tell me it's not true.
Christine Kaufmann
Extended Reading
