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.

External links

• TAP