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Solar system Quote by Greg Egan

“Amidst all this organic plasticity and compromise, though, the infrastructure fields could still stake out territory for a few standardized subsystems, identical from citizen to citizen. Two of these were channels for incoming data—one for gestalt, and one for linear, the two primary modalities of…” quote by Greg Egan
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““Amidst all this organic plasticity and compromise, though, the infrastructure fields could still stake out territory for a few standardized subsystems, identical from citizen to citizen. Two of these were channels for incoming data—one for gestalt, and one for linear, the two primary modalities of all Konishi citizens, distant descendants of vision and hearing. By the orphan's two-hundredth iteration, the channels themselves were fully formed, but the inner structures to which they fed their data, the networks for classifying and making sense of it, were still undeveloped, still unrehearsed. Konishi polis itself was buried two hundred meters beneath the Siberian tundra, but via fiber and satellite links the input channels could bring in data from any forum in the Coalition of Polises, from probes orbiting every planet and moon in the solar system, from drones wandering the forests and oceans of Earth, from ten million kinds of scape or abstract sensorium. The first problem of perception was learning how to choose from this superabundance.””

Greg Egan

About This Quote

Source Novel: “Permutation City” (excerpt), 1994

In a hyper‑connected future, citizens must learn to filter overwhelming data streams to form coherent perception.

In simple terms: Too much information overwhelms perception.

Key Takeaway

Learn to filter data wisely.

Themes

technology information overload perception future societies

Mood

analytical curious

Type

technical speculative

When to use this quote

  • research
  • AI development
  • urban planning
  • education systems

Key Concepts

data filtering cognitive load

Questions to Reflect On

  • What criteria should guide data selection?
  • How can we balance breadth and depth of information?
A Different Perspective

Filtering may limit exposure to novel ideas.

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