They embrace the process. They pleasure in it.
Evolution programs them to.
But such strategies designed for living on planetary surfaces do not work in the long run. They will outstrip their resources.
Nature compensates. This tilt-walker vertebrate has a very short life span.
So that is why they struggle so!
True, they have little to lose. They will be dead soon anyway.
Now I see why you wanted to study these. What a fate they face!
See their dilemma?
If they cannot read themselves, to themselves . . .
They cannot copy themselves.
This creature is trapped forever within a single brain.
No copying, if this unit runs down.
So if this one—oh!
Irksome, no? Here, I constrain it further.
Eiii.
Pesky—
Lock-web it!
Did it pain you?
Momentarily. I have blocked that area now. What a vicious little thing.
They gain their fervor from their mortality.
Because they cannot self-copy?
It is the way of all flesh.
Death makes them hurt others?
You miss a point. To avoid death they do what they must.
They cannot fabricate backups. I wonder what it is to live that way. To . . . die that way.
Since they cannot read their internal states, to save themselves they must therefore save their structure.
All of it? All these messy chemicals held together by carbon and calcium?
At least the head. They may be fond of the rest as well.
They salvage it all because they know only “This is Jocelyn”?
“Jocelyn”?
The name of this mite. Since they cannot directly read each other, either, they need tags.
One word to describe a self?
Incredible, yes.
How do they converse, then?
Watch it—the creature has fashioned a fresh weapon.
Ah! It burned my receptors down one whole side. Get it!
So fast, it is.
Even its acoustic cries injure. So loud, it is.
Augh!
Evolution has much to answer for.
