raw: 私たちはお互いのことを,どうがんばってもそんな風にしか知ることができないんだフィミテーションとして,コピーとしてしか<祈りの海 / グレッグ・イーガン> rōmaji: ( Watashitachiha otagai no koto o, dō ganbatte mo son'nafūni shika shiru koto ga dekinai nda fimitēshon to shite, kopī to shite shika < inorinoumi/ gureggu īgan > ) DeepL: We can only know each other like that, no matter how hard we try, as a fimitation, as a copy <The Sea of Prayer / Greg Egan>.
I'm not sure if I found the right story he's quoting, here's an excerpt from it:
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I don’t know how I’ll begin to explain everything to the imitation Loraine — or what she’ll do when she learns her true nature. Resurrection in the Island may be her idea of Hell — but what choice did I have?
Leaving her to rot, for as long as the kidnappers believed her suffering might still move me? Or buying her freedom — and then never running her again?
When we’re together in the Island, she can come to her own conclusions, make her own decisions. For now, all I can do is gaze up at the sky and hope that she really is safe in her unthinking stasis.
For now, I have a life to live with the flesh-and-blood Loraine. I have to tell her the truth, of course —
and I run through the whole conversation, beside her in the dark, night after night.
DAVID: How could I not care about her? How could I let her suffer? How could I abandon someone who was — literally — built out of all my reasons for loving you?
LORAINE: An imitation of an imitation? There was no one suffering, no one waiting to be saved. No one to be rescued, or abandoned.
DAVID: Am I no one? Are you no one? Because that’s all we can ever have of each other: an imitation, a Copy. All we can ever know about are the portraits of each other inside our own skulls.
LORAINE: Is that all you think I am? An idea in your head?
DAVID: No! But if it’s all I have, then it’s all I can honestly love. Don’t you see that?
And, miraculously, she does. She finally understands.
Night after night.
I close my eyes and fall asleep, relieved.
---------- Greg Egan - Axiomatic / A Kidnapping (short story)
And a link to the whole novel: https://books.feedvu.com/fullbook/axiomatic-pdf-greg-egan.html?page=3&part=45 (starts at the bottom) Seeing stuff like this makes me astonished on how well read a person 'Gran' is.