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: Anyway, I am not saying that nationalized healthcare is a bad idea, just that it does *not* magically mean nobody actually pays for it.
gollark: 20% apparently, which is lower than I thought.
gollark: It probably isn't 0.5%. I think the UK's national health service runs to about a third of government expenditure? Not certain, I can check.
gollark: Cult of Trump/Cult of Invisible Teslas?
gollark: > income tax is not the same as charging $50 for an aspirin pillYes, the US's system is very broken, but it's not like nationalized healthcare magically means *nobody* pays.

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