TAP (novelette)

"TAP" is a 1995 novelette by Greg Egan. It is set in a near-future society in which brain implants allow immersive virtual reality. The implants also allow a new kind of language called TAP, Total Affective Protocol. TAP is essentially a way of making qualia into words.

“

A single TAP word could capture this moment — perfectly encoding my entire sensorium, and everything I'm thinking and feeling. A word I could speak, write, recall. Study at a distance — scan — or play, relive completely. Inflect and modify. Quote exactly (or not) to the closest friend or the most distant stranger.

”

TAP words can be read like English, or invoked to be experienced, like virtual reality.

Plot introduction

TAP is a murder mystery in which religious and cultural groups think that a poet has been killed by a word in an all-encompassing thought-language.

External links

• TAP