Building Mirror worlds
we’ve laid the foundations. Now we’ll build the building. But first, let’s take stock. A large bunch of software ideas have paraded gamely past the reviewing stand one-by-one, trumpets blaring; and by this point, it may no longer be easy to keep them all straight. So here is a quick summary. Garden-variety infomachines are (of course) a fact of life. Ensembles are also a fact: Programmers build and run them every day. Linda is a fact; its presence continues (at least for now) to expand, as a research topic and as a practical tool. The roping together of networked computers into a single “hypercomputer” is a new fact— esoteric stuff; but it’s such an obvious and compelling idea, and it’s working so well in practice, that it continues to come on strong. The world Tuplesphere is of course a non-fact. It’s a mere forecast. But—some sort of integrated worldwide communication scheme, based on persistent information objects, will eventually exist. That’s a forecast that is almost inevitable. The Trellis as a working ensemble is a fact. Substantial prototypes are up and running; they perform as advertised. The Trellis as a daily tool is a mere forecast. The Trellis is still a creature of the research lab; but it’s packed and ready to leave home. The FGP infomachine is a fact, too: Real prototypes are up and running. Like the Trellis, it’s still a laboratory creature. Like the Trellis, it will be ready to leave home soon. But the FGP infomachine that leaves home first will be a simple, in some ways primitive version of the system that further research will eventually produce. An FGP machine that can cope with “emotion,” with full-fledged pseudomemories or with human language is a mere forecast. Of course, we don’t need all this fancy stuff for a Mirror world. The FGP software that exists today isn’t far from meeting all of our immediate Mirror world needs. These are the Mirror world’s ingredients—Trellises and FGP machines; above all, ensembles, and the software technology to build them cleanly and support them efficiently. The raw materials are in place.