qntm is getting a lot of love on hackernews today. They deserve it though, really interesting stuff and a perfect source for procrastination since I have so much else I should be doing...
I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
131–140 of 164 posts
Re: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
#132The author is Sam Hughes [0] and he has many other stories (especially Ra). Some basic info is also included in the about page [1] and there is also a subreddit [2] :-)
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8352985.Sam_Hughes [1] https://qntm.org/self [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/qntm/
Re: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
#133You could give this somewhat of a horror ending by having the characters realise, after figuring out the implication of turning the simulation off, that the top level would not have had the black sphere appear and as such would have no reason to keep their simulation running and were about to turn it off.
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Re: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to make the pretty big assumption that it’s even possible to simulate a universe within the universe. Such an assumption is basically like assuming we could move faster than light, or reverse entropy. It seems unlikely to me.
You wouldn't need to simulate the entire universe in perfect detail - just the parts users are interacting with, and just to sufficient detail that they didn't notice anything amiss. This is exactly how we render games.
If that's the case then it's not an infinite chain - each successive universe would have lower and lower resolution or a smaller and smaller universe.
Re: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Culture novels are fairly unique (although I'd probably say that about most excellent things). There's some decent fanfic out there (You Just Need Opponents With Gravitas, alas it's stalled out for the second time). "Iron Sunrise" and "Singularity Sky" come to mind. Maybe also "Quantum Thief". What of the style / vibe / etc are you looking for more of?
As far as sci-fi goes, the entire Culture series is about the sum of my experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed it all. I read Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem a few years back, but didn't like the writing style (I know of course it was a translation), and much of the story seemed implausible even in the world that was created. IIRC, I couldn't bring myself to complete the series. If it helps, some fantasy authors I like…
Well, you've got your epic fantasy, and your personable...
Dan Simmons (Hyperion saga, Olympus), Rameez Naam's "Nexus". Nick Harkaway's "Gnomon" is ridiculously good, and I basically buy anyone who wants one a copy of Cory Doctorow's "Walkway". Theodore Sturgeon is probably the closest SF I can think of to Pratchett, although he's Golden Era so suuuuper soft SF and doesn't have the humor. Bujold's "Vorkosigan" saga is one of the funnier SF books (while still being amazing and serious), and I hear good things about Scalzi's "Redshirts"
PS - Also checkout out what Hannu and Rameez get up to outside of writing, it's super cool.
Re: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ra sounds similar to "Mother of Learning", another rationalist-adjacent work of fiction about a universe with logical, well structured magic, and a student who gets trapped in a groundhog day scenario: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21220/mother-of-learning Its an excellent story, but very long. I'm not sure if it's longer than Homestuck, but the length is comparable.
I didn't consider Mother of Learning to have logical, well-structured magic. Curious what gave you that feeling
The idea of mages as essentially just transforming an energy. The fact that there are raw unstructured skills like shaping that influence your ability to perform structured magic, and can be used to build out new forms (in the same way that fundamentals play into real-life disciplines like music and artisanal work).
The structure of living beings having mind/soul/body and how these are formed to protect against certain kinds of magic (soul-killing for example). The way the major branches of magic essentially map to specific transforms on mana.
It's not axiomatic or anything, but the way magic is structured in the MoL universe feels like it would lend itself nicely to axiomisation in something like a systemic game.
Re: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
#137I do not quite understand how the guys in the simulation can determine which level they are at. If L1 universe interferes with L2, will the guys in L2 see the divergence in L3? How do they determine their own level? Fantastic story. Will read more from this author!
It's like a recursive function, where you resolve to stop interfering with the lower universe once the upper universe stops interfering with you. You run it N times until nothing happens in your universe. That means you're N universes deep in the stack. If you run the program once and not observe anything happening, that means you know you're top level. Then you resolve to not rerun the program. If you run the progra…
But nothing says the function is ran only only once...
There could be someone in the next room also emulating an universe, and not intervening. Or they could emulate the universe 5 minutes later and say "this time we dont intervene"
Re: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could treat simulations of other people worse, and the simulation of you better. (Assuming you are the guy who controls the computer at all levels.)
Simulate yourself twice and conduct a little A/B testing.
That would be a fun idea, some sort of intervention that stops the universe it manifests in from doing the intervention to the universe below. That would split the universes into odd-numbered and even-numbered universes.
Re: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
#139I really badly need tl;dr - How can each simulated universe be the same as the one above an below? Why can't they diverge? If they turn off their universe (killing all those below) why would that turn off the one above? Or is it just hope that if you don't the one above won't ? Because while all decisions are possible we make thrones in our self interest because we hope everyone else is playing the same game.
It's because the story is about super-determinism; the simulated universes below are simulated identically to the one they are in, and statistically they are just one in the middle in that "pillar". So if they decide to destructively interfere with the universe below, all the others in the pillar will have the same idea including the ones above.
But if they intervene, it is no longer the same universe.
Even if they are in the middle of many levels of simulation, it might not be just one line, but more like an infinite tree.
There could be someone in the next room also simulating the universe, or they could simulate the universe again 5 minutes later, this time without intervening. (Like I wrote in another comment)
Re: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility (2007)
#140I do not quite understand how the guys in the simulation can determine which level they are at. If L1 universe interferes with L2, will the guys in L2 see the divergence in L3? How do they determine their own level? Fantastic story. Will read more from this author!
I think it'd work like this:
Imagine you decide to show a "1" instead of the black sphere. You then look behind you. Most likely you see a 1.
Whatever number you see, increment that number by one in the next simulation. If you see nothing, congrats, you're at the top and leave the number as-is.
So initially what each level sees is behind them is: x-1-1-1-1-1
Then after everyone increments by one: x-1-2-2-2-2
Now repeat the step. Everyone looks behind them and increments the number they see by one.
x-1-2-3-3-3
Eventually you'll look behind you and the number won't have changed. You're at one level higher than that.
If there are millions of levels that'd take ages of course. But I think you could use the same idea do it instantly on the computer instead. Just have your simulation computer modify a number on the simulation computer in the next level down.