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In the beginning was the idea: what if historical personalities could be electronically "resuscitated" in the depths of a supercomputer's creche? At first, the suggestion went, they could provide useful data on personality patterns in previous centuries, becoming literal case histories for curious psycho-historians to probe and study. Then, of course, the speculations grew bolder. Perhaps the personalities could be matrixed, encoded into cloned bodies, providing a simulacrum of the great man or woman for further study, perhaps even consultation. Imagine discussing statecraft with Thomas Jefferson, trading economic theory with John Kenneth Galbraith, or discussing philosophy with Kant. Yes, in the beginning, the concept was pure, the theory sound. In the beginning. . . .





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Framed