The Back Room

[The_Mather1]

Icu, he said something around the lines of "Those are some very interesting arguements, maybe this can be of use to your blog [something] furniture."

[Nexaduro]

Then don't make a useless post. IF WE CAN SEE IT, WE WILL DELETE IT. It was deleted, but now a useless thread is at the front page because I don't like deleting a member's posts, however stupid they may be.

 

*Sigh*

 

Moving on.

[The_Mather1]

I don't think a topic would be de-bumped just because you delete the post that bumped it.

[Alg]

I don't think a topic would be de-bumped just because you delete the post that bumped it.

True. Blame the spambot, not Mather.

[Nexaduro]

Huh. The things you learn.

 

I'm in the wrong here I suppose, sorry Mather, I can't believe I didn't know something like that. :-#

 

Goes to show, mods make mistakes too.

 

However, I also haven't found any record of that bot. Did it post in the middle of the night for EST folks? :-k

[The_Mather1]

Yeah, some mod or admin took care of the first post somewhere after I posted and the second somewhere after I reported it.

[Nexaduro]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

I LOVE Soul Eater! It's absolutely hilarious!

 

Just watch this. :lol:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCa5_CUZgUY

[Grim_]

I have managed to get a hold of the 40k Vassal module. It is glorious. For those who don't know Vassal is a virtual table top (that may or may not be able to run pathfinder I'll have to look into that) that can be used to play a multitude of of war games, 40k included, it does this quite a bit better than maptool does as well. The only problem being that GW did their usual bricks [cabbage]ting and sent a cease and desist letter to Vassal so there's now no 40k modual on their website (if you are interested PM me about why this is the case).

[The_Mather1]

I wonder why Archi's suddenly so silent, I hope there's nothing wrong.

[Retech]

I wonder why Archi's suddenly so silent, I hope there's nothing wrong.

 

He's on vacation.

[The_Mather1]

Ok, in that case I hope he's having a good time... and I've been worrying for no reason. :wall:

[Retech]

Well, he said he was going to be suffering because it is basically like regular life, but he has no computer access. :P

[Jehosaphat]

So I came up with a character generator that uses what is essentially a d26, a d5, a couple Notepad documents, and some imagination. And I have generated enough characters to fill a story. Now I think I might write said story as a practice webcomic.

 

Problem is... I have no actual story, no place for it to happen, and no conflict for the characters to draw upon. So... any recommendations?

[Nexaduro]

Steampunk done well is always very good, but perhaps it's too art-reliant. Fantasy's kinda overly cliched, and done wrong can end up a monster-of-the-day affair with a static green mountains background. Scifi requires deeper insight and much more planning than most other fields, as well as some believable technobabble. Horror is something only a select few can accomplish. Supernatural allows a good deal of liberty, and easy transitions between art styles. Dystopian or Apocalyptic requires both passable scenery and strong characters to set the atmosphere.

 

I'd say Supernatural might be your best bet, especially given your familiarity with Parallel Dementia, which was a stellar example. You'll have to establish continuity, and be careful not to machine-gun in new characters, and if you choose to add actual magic make sure to make a single decision between Functional and Handwave.

 

It would be interesting to see what you could do with the world of The Hunted, as I'm still working out kinks in my spare time and trying to get everything to fit together nice and snug, a stand-alone story might help me see the gaps, and it's probably helpful to have someone with a world in their mind to make suggestions from.

[Jehosaphat]

Steampunk done well is always very good, but perhaps it's too art-reliant. Fantasy's kinda overly cliched, and done wrong can end up a monster-of-the-day affair with a static green mountains background. Scifi requires deeper insight and much more planning than most other fields, as well as some believable technobabble. Horror is something only a select few can accomplish. Supernatural allows a good deal of liberty, and easy transitions between art styles. Dystopian or Apocalyptic requires both passable scenery and strong characters to set the atmosphere.

 

I'd say Supernatural might be your best bet, especially given your familiarity with Parallel Dementia, which was a stellar example. You'll have to establish continuity, and be careful not to machine-gun in new characters, and if you choose to add actual magic make sure to make a single decision between Functional and Handwave.

 

It would be interesting to see what you could do with the world of The Hunted, as I'm still working out kinks in my spare time and trying to get everything to fit together nice and snug, a stand-alone story might help me see the gaps, and it's probably helpful to have someone with a world in their mind to make suggestions from.

I'm familiar with more than just Parallel Dementia... My main problem is that I have way to many possible ideas flying around in my head, and I can't seem to pick and use just one.

 

But I think I've got the location problem sorted out, sort of. Now to come up with a driving plot force that'll last long enough...

[Retech]

YAY ARCHI'S BACK

[The_Mather1]

I just realized something.

There are two possibilities for the existance of free will, multiverses and AIs: Either minds does work purely by the chemical and electrochemical reactions in our brain, meaning there is no free will, there are no alternative events (there goes the multiverse theory) and AIs will never exist. Or all minds are the result of "ghosts in the machine" bugs that should never have happened resulting in results that were never meant to be and as a result the mind is more than the brain, we do have free will, choises are made (hello, multiverse theory) and the only way to create a true AI is to wait or brute force a "ghost in the machine" on computers.

This was thought out when I realized that the neural signals have to either be the result of chemical reactions or they have to come into existance without cause (the meaning of the term ghost in the machine).

[archimage_a]

Hmmmmm.

 

Or you believe in the 10 dimentions theory.

 

Since the 4th dimention, time, is linear, or 2 dimentional...we are on a guidewire track and we cannot leave that track.

However, the 5th dimention time has 3 dimentions...we are in a shrinking box, with the edges representing death and the center is birth. We snake this way and that, on no real path until eventually death takes us.

 

It resolves all the 'If you do this, then the universe will explode' rubbish people come up with.

Like saying 'If you draw a line, and then another line that crosses it, the paper will spontanously combust!'

 

 

Now, before we proceed, let me say this on randomness:

It doesn't exist.

Anything that can exist, exists because it obeys the laws of existance(Physics, Thermodynamics, ect). Therefore, if you were to track down EVERY particle, ray, wave, whatever in existance today, you could construct a model. This model would then be able to predict everything that came after it, and everything that came before it.

Such a model would be impossible, it would be like having a 1:1 scale model of a scale model inside the scale model itself...Since every particle in existance would need to be represented...the machine included.

You may then think 'What if you broke up the data.' Or 'What if you ran it slower, then surely you could run the simulation and discover the past.'

This is, to some extent, true. However for it to be truely accurate all the datablocks would need to be run against each other, and then all the combined datablocks would need to be run against each other....and on and on until you had EVERYTHING calculated, at which point you would have all the information represented in all the various blocks. You would then advance another step and so on.

 

However, if you did this you would run into a problem...since storing ALL the data in the universe would require ALL the particles in the universe...so can't be done.

This is the same problem as with the 'run everything slowly' issue.

 

There would also be some difficulty at collecting all the information simultanously, but that is not really an issue since it is impossible anyway.

 

 

Now then, you are probably thinking 'Ok Archi, my head hurts and I am going to play minecraft/dwarf fortress/something else', however, if you are still reading then you are probably thinking 'Why the hell do you need to combine ALL the blocks, what if you just took some of the blocks and ran with that.'

Now this is, essentially, what the Organic Brain has evolved to do. We take all the data we can collect, in a set area, construct a model which conforms to units derived from previous times, and makes a prediction on what will happen next.

 

Simple example:

I see a bird in flight.

I have seen a bird before.

I know that the beak end usually goes forwards.

I therefore predict that the bird will fly forwards.

I am not suprised when it goes forwards.

 

Intermediate example:

I see a bird with its wings folded back against its chest.

I have seen a bird before.

I have seen someone in unexpected backwards motion before.

I therefore predict that the bird will go backwards.

I am not suprised if it goes backwards.

 

Expert example:

I see a bird.

I have seen a bird before.

I am suprised by hearing an explosion in my left ear, and a slightly lesser and later explosion in my right ear and the bird suddenly exploding.

I deduce the two are connected.

I have heard a gun before.

I realise that a gun has been fired.

I know guns are dangerous.

I look around for the gun.

I cannot see a gun.

I know that I can hear further than I can see.

I know that my left ear is on the left, and right ear is on the right.

I deduce that the gunshot was from the left.

I know the delay before the explosion in my left ear and the explosion in my right ear.

I deduce that the gunshot was approximately 100 meters away.

I therefore predict that there is a gun behind that rock approximately 100 meters to my up, up, left.

I am suprised by another explosion in my right ear, and a slightly lesser and later explosion in my left ear. Along with the rock suddenly fracturing and the peices being propelled away from the rock.

I know about gravity.

I know about kinetic force.

I know about air resistance.

I predict the shards with proceed in a rough arc to the ground.

I know about elasticity.

I know about the laws of motion.

I predict the shards will bounce slightly on landing.

I know that the sound did not come from the same place.

I know the delay before the explosion in my right ear and the explosion in my left ear.

I deduce that the new gun is approximately 50 meters away, down, right, right.

I can see a rock.

I deduce that the gun is behind the rock.

I predict that there will be another shot.

I predict that something unexpected will happen.

I predict the universe will not explode.

There is a conflict.

I know that two shots do not always result in a third shot.

I know that something unexpected might not happen.

I know that I might be shot, resulting in the universe exploding for me.

I therefore determine that there might be a shot, but there might not.

I therefore determine that something might happen or nothing might happen.

I therefore determine that I may be shot next.

I therefore determine that if there is another shot I may need to avoid it.

I know about the speed of bullets.

I know about my ability to move.

I know that I will probably not be able to move out of the way in time after the explosion.

I am unsure if I should move out of the way.

I analyse the circumstances resulting from inaction.

I determine that inaction has an unknown chance of death.

I analyse the circumstances resulting from action.

I determine that action has a unknown chance of death.

I know about aiming.

I know about cover.

I can see a rock nearby.

I determine that if I am moving there is less chance to see me.

I determine that if I am behind cover there is less chance to hit me.

I realise that if I am already in cover by the rock then the chance of hitting me increase.

I realise that moving draws attention and therefore I may be targetted later.

I determine that the risks of remaining stationary are higher than the risks of moving, even though both risks are unknown quantities.

I therefore dive behind a rock.

I wait for the explosion.

I cannot hear an explosion.

I do not know how long until I am shot.

I analyse the situation.

I realise that moving may have been the wrong move.

I determine that moving to have not moved is not possible.

I wait.

I do not hear an explosion,

I feel exposed.

I check the area that I can see.

I cannot see anyone.

I listen.

I cannot hear anyone.

I smell.

I cannot smell anyone.

I wait.

I anaylse the risks of looking over the rock.

I determine that it is risky.

I wait.

I wait.

I wait.

I feel exposed.

I cannot do anything.

I wait.

I realise that the gun may be coming towards me.

I wait.

I anaylse the risk of looking verses the risk of not looking.

I know about time.

I know that if I do not look they could be too close for me to react.

I wait.

I analyse my options.

I know that if I move again there are high risks.

I know that if I look I may be shot.

I know that if I do nothing I may be shot.

I know that the risk of being shot is increasing exponentially while the risk of looking and being shot remains static.

I realise doing nothing is, at present, the right thing to do.

I realise that, in a short time, doing nothing may result in my death.

I resolve to look.

I cannot see anything.

I keep looking.

ect.

 

 

In the last example I talked about risk. Risk is evolved. The creature that heard and gun and shouted 'HELLO' did not survive. The creature that stood still constantly, did not always survive, but sometimes did. The creature that pulled out a personal shield survived regardless of if there was a gunman aiming at them.

 

However.

If I could see behind all the rocks, and all the trees, and all of the area. Then I would know that there was no one there, and I would know about timed explosives and I would deduce that maybe that is what happened, since my analysis shows that there is no one around and therefore, although they might be invisible, it is more likely and more comforting to believe that they are not.

 

 

The end result of that whole thing is three fold.

 

First, unless you are entirely skeptical it shows you are willing to believe that you can randomly appear in the middle of a boulder strewn area on the premise that it is an example. Showing suspension of disbelief, the evolved responce to something unexpected...because, in the natural world, folding your arms and waiting for the bear to put you down results in you getting mauled, more often than not...

This ties into the third point.

 

Second, it shows how a subjective system works, relying on guesses, anaylsis and assumptions, it is not perfect, but it relies on true randomness NOT occuring. If birds randomly exploded, constantly, and their explosions were always far away from them, then we could not have evolved the way we had.

 

Third, it shows one of the ways that the Organic mind is different from an AI.

 

An Organic Brain has a vast number of backup features, automatic functions and preinstalled software. It doesn't need to be programmed with the laws of motion to respect them. It doesn't need to be programmed to know what UP is. It does not need to process information, formulate a responce and carry it out...Sometimes it doesn't even get a say, what with the Central Nervous System.

An AI, at present, is a pale comparison...It doesn't have millions of years of evolution. It doesn't have redundancy to the eyeballs...It doesn't even have the ability to suspend disbelief...and that, more than anything else, sets Organic and Artifical life apart.

 

It is not 'Ghosts in the Machine' it is survival instinct...It is natural selection...

You can argue 'Ah, but there are more computers around today than all the humans ever to have lived!' But what about microbs? Those tiny things which humankind spawned from. The countless number of those which have existed, survived and died...all those tiny shreds of data, passing on through the Geneline.

If you were to create a thousand million zillion computers, set them all up to run indefinately...then maybe, just maybe, on the Zillionth time you did it, one of those computers will have blown resistors in just the right order to create a new program.

And out of the Zillion programs created, one of those, just might, possibly, be useful for a given task.

And if that task is relevant, then that computer will be able to procreate(assuming they did) better, and that program would spread, and so on and so forth.

And Billions of years later...with an electrcity bill that is just silly, there is a very vague chance that you would have created a speices of computer capable of thinking in some vaguely similar way to us.

 

The issue with the experiment (aside from the incredible length) is that a computer is not made from one componant...its not like a Cell that can simply split its cell wall and volia, two computers...

So you would need to figure out some way of a computer procreating...

 

Ok...Start much more basic than that. Start with ooze. Wait billions of years, until the random chains combine and form something similar to DNA. Then, hope against hope that they somehow develop binary and become computers...

 

Alternatively, build a simple nanite, capable of replicating itself in a very simple way...like growing in size and splitting, covered in cilla.

It is unlikely to turn into the gray foam commonly protrayed in American B movies...for all the various reasons I have listed at various times before(and given the length of this have no inclination to repeat).

It would still take millions, if not billions, of years to make the transition from nanite to sentience/sapiance/whatever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ultimate point:

No, you are wrong.

AIs, Multiverse and Free Will are functions that are seperate from one and other...and your view of the universe is unrealistically simplistic if you assume that the only options for free will are 'Magic' or 'One type of Magic Chemical reactions'.

 

Also, trick I have learned...The belief in magic, and power of dispair are the two of the five qualities that make anyone seeking to understand the universe a bad choice.

The other three are:

Optimism

Death

...And a lack of curiosity.

 

 

(I found myself thinking about the ethical ramifications of mind control and deciding whether death was worse or better. Ultimately concluded against mind control, and decided it was to be abhored in every possible way, despite the incredibly high fun and benefits of using it.

However, to reach this conclusion took about three days of trying to get my head around why I abhored it, and how exactly it works...if it could at all work. Which I resolved as 'Maybe, it sort of depends if we are the sum of our memories, or if we are a compressed version of that. If we are a compressed version of that then replacing 6E with 2A is fairly easy and could make massive changes to a persons personality and such...and persistant manipulation of the code could bend the person entirely to your will. HOWEVER if a person is, instead, the sum of their memories, in an uncompressed form, then mind control is a blunt tool, requiring so much effort to wield effectively that, unless the person was already entirely at your mercy, it would be wholy ineffective.

It also depends on how compatitable human minds are...I mean, if we have...8 major blood groups, with ABO, or 30 with Rh...

If you transplant something then that person has to constantly take immunosupressants to avoid rejection or Graft Verses Host disease...

Surely memory formats are somewhat different from each other, and therefore would be incompatiable with each other...For example the belief in the Kinesthetic Learners or Audio Learners (or whatever the system is, personally I believe it is hogswash, though there are some sensible points to it)...if people process information in different ways then surely trying to force feed someone binary(for example) if they only understand alphanumerical...won't work.

 

But I am constantly revising that, I have revised it six times while writing it...for me there is no 'answer' there is only a represenation of a possible answer, based on the information availible and my ability to process that information.

...The unfortunate upshot of this is that I ramble forever.

Though, on the plus side, it does mean I can say this:

 

Reports of my silence have been greatly exaggurated. :thumbsup:

[The_Mather1]

Not the 10 dimentions, the multiverse theory, which states that there are infinite parallel universes in which one or more decisions were made differently.

 

And our brains functions exactly like computers, we need sensors (our senses) to detect everything, we have our inner ear to detect which way is up, similiar to a gyroscope. And to respect any aspects of physics, we have to experience or learn about it from one or more of our senses, as does a computer.

 

To create a ghost in the machine, a computer is not enough, the seed needed to spawn the ghost would have to be a program that constantly rewrites itself, with hundreds of tiny functions. Heck, it might even have to be capable of adapting to the computer, spreading via worms and comunicating (to share upgrades) with itself in order to trigger a sufficient bug to trigger the change that leads to its evolution.

[Alg]

This all seems theoretical to the point where it would be impossible to test. It's not really the place of sciences but philosophy.

[Earth]

My system for Tavern Reading. Ignore Mathers posts if theres a post by Archi immediately after, because the point is stated in the long ass explanation. And I get several meals for thought.. Seriously, thats some heavy struff, but interesting as well.

[The_Mather1]

Mask, all it would take to test it out would be a really good programmer who knows how to make worms.

[Jehosaphat]

Archi, I got about halfway through that post before I got hit by the WTHmobile and stopped reading. Too much deep, not enough sarcasm. :P

[Nexaduro]

That was really cool, Archi. I managed to get most of it, but I'm a bit tired and spaced out through bits and pieces.

 

I feel sad.

I analyze the merit of remaining sad, or attempting to override the emotion.

I know I have homework.

I know that sadness makes homework difficult.

I decide to override the emotion.

I wait.

I wait.

I wait.

My homework is not done.

I shrug.

 

:thumbsup:

[Icuownage]

Let me continue that for you.

 

>Teacher is mad

>You become apathetic to school

>Refuse to learn

>Grades plumet

>Parents called in

>They mad, teacher mad, errybody mad

>You resent not doing homework, but feel you could not change

>Grades are unrecoverable

>Drop out of high school

>Parents disown you

>Kicked out of house

>Sadness you felt that made you unable to do homework is now miniscule in comparison

>Life in ruins

>I really should of done that homework