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.

Reception

"TAP" was a finalist for the 1996 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.[1]

gollark: I'll just keep my chicken named `Omega Theory` then.
gollark: _is tempted to steal name_
gollark: Given that that's a chicken and a Z-code it's probably quite valuable.
gollark: (charset of 62 characters - 0-9 a-z A-Z - and two of those are z and Z - so 2/62 simplifying to 1 / 31)
gollark: As in "has z/Z at start of code".

References
  1. 1996 Hugo Awards, at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved August 21, 2018
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