"You're not dead. You're as alive as I am."

Then words tumbled from him; more than in all the days since Relay. "True. The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I'll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you? From the outside, from Old One's view--" He looked away from her, dizzy with a doubled vision.

Ravna drifted closer till her face was just centimeters from his. She floated free, except for one foot tucked into the floor. "Dear Pham, you are wrong. You've been at the Bottom, and at the Top, but never in between.... 'The illusion of self-awareness'? That's a commonplace of any practical philosophy in the Beyond. It has some beautiful consequences, and some scary ones. All you know are the scary ones. Think: the illusion must apply just as surely to the Powers."

"No. He could make devices like you and I."

-- Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon The Deep (published in April 1992)