Thanks for the clarification. I know you wouldn't use metaphysical or religious language yourself, but I didn't have room to put "brackets" in my message ;-)

So a conscious software, whose identity/essence/soul can be viewed as a combination of letters/a sequence of phrases, would not perceive alterations in time or space should these building blocks be reordered differently. It would live in an eternal present, everywhere (or always in the same place?)

Understood. Yet you play with the very phrase "permutation city," recombining its letters to create new phrases--that is, new realities or new worlds if I understand correctly. Is this part of your thought process as a computer scientist?

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my questions. In case you are interested, this is the conference I will discuss Abulafia's letter permutation in SF at.

Thank you very much! So the whole idea of world-building through letter permutation (which is somewhat similar to coding) was just inspired by Eco? No readings in Kabbalah?

Mr. Egan greetings! I am too dumb to figure out your email from your website, but would like to ask you a question about Permutation City and its inspiration. I am an academic preparing a conference presentation on Abulafia in speculative fiction. You can easily find me as Vadim Putzu. Thanks!