I'm hoping no one will be quite that stupid," Sparver said. "Then again, this is baseline humans we're dealing with. - Alastair Reynolds

Is he dead?" Irravel asked.
"Depends what you mean by dead.

She would worry, just as you worry. It’s the people who don’t worry—those who never have any doubts that what they’re doing is good and right—they’re the ones that cause the problems.

I will say this, though—it's a very odd thing not to be conscious. To be—to all intents and purposes—dead. Neither gathering nor generating information, as cold and changeless as eternity. How do you humans live with the thought of that hanging over every moment of your pitifully short existences?" "We don't," Kanu said. "We just get on with it.