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Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

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Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#121

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gowld wrote: post #116
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "if God undeniably existed, then faith would no longer be applicable." I kind of see both sides of that. On the "agree" side, I saw a quote somewhere that said, "that's why it's called 'faith' instead of 'reading comprehension'." If it were that cut and dried, then it would just be a matter of objectively evaluating the evidence, without even any "probably". On the "disagree" side, the point of faith isn't really t…

Nicene Christian faith is "You have, I need, You gave ". "he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified"

True, He already gave, once and for all. But it's still "please give me" - please impute to me Christ's righteousness that I in no way deserve, that is received by faith.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#122

Post by tennysont »

> The ability to send bits across parallel universes is just insane in terms of economic and experimentation value. For example, pharmaceutical companies can do $100 billion trials for all sorts of novel drugs, and trade the results of this information with their clones in other universes.

I remember reading this short story and being obsessed with the consequences. It immediately solves P = NP, and makes guarding secrets way way way harder. This is the first time I've heard someone else mention it.

HPMOR had a similar technology (the time turners) and threw up defensive cannon early:

> If this worked, Harry could use it to recover any sort of answer that was easy to check but hard to find. He wouldn't have just shown that P=NP once you had a Time-Turner, this trick was more general than that. Harry could use it to find the combinations on combination locks, or passwords of every sort. Maybe even find the entrance to Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, if Harry could figure out some systematic way of describing all the locations in Hogwarts. It would be an awesome cheat even by Harry's standards of cheating.

> Harry took Paper-2 in his trembling hand, and unfolded it.

> Paper-2 said in slightly shaky handwriting:

> DO NOT MESS WITH TIME

I'm a huge SciFi fan, especially Ted Chiang. I perceive his styles to be quite varied and creative. I think that he does a good job of portraying the "awe" of "awe-inspiring discovery".

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#123

Post by auxbuss »

the_af wrote: post #104
LinchZhang wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the nitpicks! Re #1 It's been several years since I read up on that area of philosophy. I'll need to reread some stuff to decide whether I think the definition I used is a fine enough simplification for sci-fi readers (and, well, myself) vs whether it missed enough nuances that it's essentially misleading. (Some academic philosophers follow me on substack so maybe they'll also end up correcting me at som…

For the record, I also found #2 jarring. I understand you cannot write as if walking on egg shells; you have your position and maybe your readers do as well. But this is far from a settled matter, and Chiang's position (which was describing earlier rather than current LLMs, but I still think it arguably holds today) is arguably correct, or valid. I probably agree with Chiang more than I agree with you, which is why I…

I agree. And this together with the obvious misunderstanding of Exhalation re: thermodynamics led me to put down the article.

I don't think the article was written by an LLM, but I'm convinced it was LLM-enabled. Which is a pity, because the author seems to have some interesting things to say. But that's the problem with leaning on an LLM: you lose your own voice, and good writing is centred around voice.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#124

Post by alexey-salmin »

breuleux wrote: post #113
alexey-salmin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not impossible from a scientific perspective for a planet to be terraformed and seeded with intelligent life by some overly advanced spices (you can say "god-like"). Or to create a simulation with intelligent life in it and to save some resources by starting 6000 years ago from a complex seed state rather than simulating 16 billion years of physics to see the intelligent life emerge or not. That would be rather…

> It's not impossible from a scientific perspective ... to create a simulation with intelligent life in it and to save some resources by starting 6000 years ago from a complex seed state rather than simulating 16 billion years of physics to see the intelligent life emerge or not. I'm fairly certain simulating 16 billion years of physics (or 6000) in a shorter timeframe than 16 billion years (or 6000) is, in fact, sci…

In our own universe — sure. In some "bigger" universe it could be entirely possible, ours would fit nicely.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#125

Post by SigmundA »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #92
graemep wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Showing that flat earth beliefs or YEC are false is hardly a devastating critique of religion per se. His own explanation of Hell is The Absence of God seems to suggest otherwise too. "He also said that the novelette examines the role of faith in religion, and suggests that if God undeniably existed, then faith would no longer be applicable." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Is_the_Absence_of_God#Bac...

> "if God undeniably existed, then faith would no longer be applicable." I kind of see both sides of that. On the "agree" side, I saw a quote somewhere that said, "that's why it's called 'faith' instead of 'reading comprehension'." If it were that cut and dried, then it would just be a matter of objectively evaluating the evidence, without even any "probably". On the "disagree" side, the point of faith isn't really t…

>But much further than that, the point is that we need God's forgiveness - a forgiveness that is completely unreasonable.

Why would one need forgiveness from their creator? He created us and the universe we exist in. There is nothing we do or think that is not a result of his design, so why should we ask forgiveness for doing exactly what we were designed to do?

It would be like expecting an AI I created to ask forgiveness from me for something bad it did, this is ridiculous, it's the creators fault not the creations.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#126

Post by moefh »

graemep wrote: post #99
veidr wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CITATION NEEDED — except not really, that's utter bollocks that doesn't warrant a counter. But, you triggered me lol: 1.) The Chinese meaning of "atheist" may not mean what you think it means: a.) it means not following a major established religion, and b.) they have an Orwellian surveillance-state dictatorship government which very much opposes major established religions 2.) For many people, including in China, ast…

You quote American numbers as a counter to a claim about global beliefs? You even cite the powresearch link to to make a claim about China! Even in the US the group most likely to believe in astrology as the "nothing in particular" - non religious but not strongly identifying as atheist or agnostic. Most Chinese people say they are "convinced atheists"[1] so I find your first claim unconvincing. Yes, they live in a d…

I don't see anything in your links that remotely supports your original claim that "The majority of atheists globally believe in astrology".

Even if you expand your claim to add fengshui, it's entirely plausible that only about 10% of the Chinese population are atheists who believe in fengshui. That would mean only 17% of Chinese atheists believe in fengshui.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#127

Post by Terr_ »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #92
graemep wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Showing that flat earth beliefs or YEC are false is hardly a devastating critique of religion per se. His own explanation of Hell is The Absence of God seems to suggest otherwise too. "He also said that the novelette examines the role of faith in religion, and suggests that if God undeniably existed, then faith would no longer be applicable." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Is_the_Absence_of_God#Bac...

> "if God undeniably existed, then faith would no longer be applicable." I kind of see both sides of that. On the "agree" side, I saw a quote somewhere that said, "that's why it's called 'faith' instead of 'reading comprehension'." If it were that cut and dried, then it would just be a matter of objectively evaluating the evidence, without even any "probably". On the "disagree" side, the point of faith isn't really t…

The various ambiguities of the word "belief" reminds me of a Terry Pratchett quote, from Reaper Man:

> Wizards don't believe in gods in the same way that most people don't find it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know they're there, they know they're there for a purpose, they'd probably agree that they have a place in a well-organised universe, but they wouldn't see the point of believing, of going around saying "O great table, without whom we are as naught." Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe in them or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#128

Post by BenjiWiebe »

breuleux wrote: post #113
alexey-salmin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not impossible from a scientific perspective for a planet to be terraformed and seeded with intelligent life by some overly advanced spices (you can say "god-like"). Or to create a simulation with intelligent life in it and to save some resources by starting 6000 years ago from a complex seed state rather than simulating 16 billion years of physics to see the intelligent life emerge or not. That would be rather…

> It's not impossible from a scientific perspective ... to create a simulation with intelligent life in it and to save some resources by starting 6000 years ago from a complex seed state rather than simulating 16 billion years of physics to see the intelligent life emerge or not. I'm fairly certain simulating 16 billion years of physics (or 6000) in a shorter timeframe than 16 billion years (or 6000) is, in fact, sci…

You wouldn't need to simulate much. If you were a simulation, you could exist right now only, and merely have false memories about everything else.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#129

Post by NeutralCrane »

simpaticoder wrote: post #2

Ted Chiang does love to explore the counter-factual with empathy and openness where he somehow manages to take himself out of the story in the admirable Virginia Wolfe sense. The OP misses the biting critique hidden in these tales. For example Omphalos, Hell Is the Absence of God, and Tower of Babylon, can all be read as a devastating critique of religion. They all clearly articulate what the world would be like if c…

I didn’t really take Tower of Babylon as a “devastating critique of religion”, (or the other stories for that matter).

SPOILERS

In the story they successfully build a tower to the base of heaven and breakthrough, only to find themselves to have looped back to Earth. The implication I took from this is that heaven and earth are one and the same. This isn’t necessarily a refutation of religion or God, and in fact aligns with many religious beliefs. I wouldn’t even see it as “cosmic horror” or something that implies “we are quite fortunate that our religions do not accurately describe nature”.

Then again, the nuance in Chiang’s stories that allows for very different, but reasonable interpretations is one of the things that makes him enjoyable.

Re: Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing

#130

Post by 7thaccount »

overfeed wrote: post #101

I love Ted Chiang and re-read his stories every few years. Most of author's criticisms arise from their refusal to accept that Chiang's stories are mostly science fantasy[1][2], and not some third option. Most/all of the stories primarily focus on characters and relationships on the macro and micro. In each story, the gimmick(tm) is thoroughly examined and extrapolated in an internally-consistant way, but that is exc…

Understand was really good IMO.
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