Eph (they, them) quoted Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #1)
Consider Phlebas, first published in 1987, is a space opera novel by Scottish writer Iain …
Content warning Analysis of a character
In fact, it could still access all that stored memory (though the process was complicated, and so slow), so all was not lost there…. But as for thinking, as for being itself—another matter entirely. It wasn’t its real self. It was a crude, abstracted copy of itself, the mere ground plan for the full labyrinthine complexity of its true personality. It was the truest possible copy its limited scale was theoretically capable of providing, and it was still sentient; conscious by even the most rigorous of standards. Yet an index was not the text, a street plan was not the city, a map not the land. So who was it?
Banks, Iain M.. Consider Phlebas (A Culture Novel Book 1) (p. 195). Orbit. Kindle Edition.
— Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #1) (Page 19 - 195)
Simulacra and Simulation. We, humans are machines, biological machines determined and phenotyped to a significant degree by our genes. But unless we are religious or spiritual, at some point we must wrestle with the truth that there is no divine or profound meaning to life. We of course can create meaning and even profundity which does not have to religion or spirituality. Read Carl Sagan and others. But imagine if you are a sentient machine, a machine that can copy itself, how much more existential is that? An advantage a machine will probably have is that it doesn't have to contend with all hidden and secret drives evolution has burdened us with. It probably wouldn't need to practice mindfulness or meditation to become less of a reactionary being. This quote shows that while the machine has feelings about the state of its minimal fidelity replication, it was not stymied by the disappointment. I think that is really cool and enviable.