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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
Tom Sewell

Story, Friday November 24, 2017

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6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
20 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Not entirely. Dan shown multiple times it is possible to establish unidirectional communication link between universes to earlier moment (it's called flashback). But obviously, it is impossible for bidirectional links and there must be some rule for combinations of unidirectional links ...

First of all, "flashbacks" are a storytelling device, they have nothing to do with information transfer between universes (unless you count our universe as part of the equation, which is a little silly).

Why do you think it's silly?

You do remember that guy who was translating old books into English ... what was his name ... oh, Tolkien. And the book was Red Book of Westmarch.

7 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

It might have simply copied SL Ellen and Kaoli's memories from their brains, but then why were the early memories so vivid? The only options I can think of are if the spell connected to the SL universe (and probably SL Kaoli & Ellen's minds) when SL Kaoli was a child then followed the universe forward in time at an accelerated rate, or if the spell can read the past of a selected individual. The first option would violate the "universes must travel at the same speed while connected" part of the Don Edwards suggested, though I think that so long as the rest of the rules were adhered to it could still work. The second is rather close to being a form of time travel, but as the information transfer is only forwards in time there still wouldn't be a risk of history alteration (which is Dan's reason for not allowing time travel in EGS).

Reading past is NOT time travel.

7 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Incidentally, I really wish SL had been an interactive simulation, not a set of memories. It would have made a lot more sense that way, both for the purpose of "aging" Ellen's soul and regarding the question of how the memories got from SL Ellen to main-universe Ellen.

It would make more sense, but note that you would need the "connecting universes" and also it would be sort of evil because what about the "original" SL Ellen when our universe Ellen would be directing?

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

Also, considering when Ellen told everyone about the dreams, she said Nioi appeared at the end but she felt it wasn't actually Nioi but a prerecorded message from her, so my guess is the whole thing was copied somehow from Second Life Ellen and Kaoli and gradually inserted into our Ellen and Nioi's dewitchery twin. It'd probably be like being hooked up to the Matrix and having kung fu lessons uploaded to your brain, it'd take a couple minutes but if it's implanting memories of actually training for years, it'll feel like you trained for years.

Minutes? There is high chance Nioi made whole transfer DURING that nosebeep.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

That sounds like heavy foreshadowing to me that Kaoli will find her way to the main universe and needing to find Ellen to ask for help, which would probably mean the General Shade Tail situation would probably have gotten worse.

We already knew Lord Tedd will return.

3 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Finally, I really hope Nioi got SL Ellen & Kaoli's permission before copying their memories/lives, as if not that was a huge invasion of privacy. Of course given that Nioi didn't think it was necessary to get Ellen's informed consent before dumping over a decade of someone else's memories into Ellen's head (Nioi sort of asked for permission, but was so vague Ellen had no idea what she was agreeing to, which does not count as informed consent) I'm not all that confident Nioi got proper permission before copying the memories either...

Weeelll ... Nioi is the person who though Lord Tedd is not evil. Her moral compass might not be entirely in order. Maybe she sort of asked for permission those two as well ...

Still, as I said, making it interactive would be even more evil.

2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I must confess that I personally have been suspicious of Nioi. Not of her motivations -- I believe that she means well -- but rather of her actions, which strike me as in many cases impulsive and perhaps not that well thought out. She was unsure of the 'soul' problem that she brought up and the problem is that just because certain events seem to correspond, it does not follow that there is also correlation. Then there's the problems that you yourself have pointed out and we end up with a well-intended meddler who may be causing more trouble than she prevents or is trying to solve. :/

Yes. Well, maybe she won't actually cause more trouble (she didn't yet, and she saved Grace's life) but it does seem it's mostly because she's lucky.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Minutes? There is high chance Nioi made whole transfer DURING that nosebeep.

Possible, and it was "programmed" to integrate into Ellen's memory over the course of a week.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Why do you think it's silly?

You do remember that guy who was translating old books into English ... what was his name ... oh, Tolkien. And the book was Red Book of Westmarch.

Some stories are written with the conceit that they are non-fiction. (TVtropes calls it "Direct Line to Author".) This can be pretty fun in the hands of a skilled enough author (like Tolkein), though if not well thought out it can lead to plotholes (clearly no Yeerks ever read the Animorphs series, or they would have known they were dealing with human kids not Andalites, and probably could have figured out enough to track them down without their last names).

The thing is, Dan does not seem to be employing Direct Line to Author; there's never been any talk of how the Dan of our universe received this information from another universe or anything along those lines.* Pretending that Dan did receive messages from another universe would thus be engaging in the "Literary Agent Hypothesis" (warning: another TVTropes link). There's nothing wrong with that, I just think modifying our theories on how universe travel works to take the Literary Agent Hypothesis into account would be a little on the silly side.

(By the way, I should point out that I never said there was anything wrong with being silly.)

* Well, unless you count the 4th wall breaking non-canon comics. Squirrel Dan and Minion apparently have devices which allow them to monitor and even alter universes, and Dan has occasionally implied that Squirrel Dan and Real World Dan are one and the same. Still as said comics are non-canon I don't think they count for "Direct Line to Author".

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Reading past is NOT time travel.

In the real world, the only way we know to learn about the past is to study the world as it is now. Books, fossils, and the light from distant stars all exist in the present even if they contain information from the past. However, human memory is imperfect, and it's unlikely Nioi could have recorded the sort of vivid childhood memories Ellen experienced by simply copying adult SL-Ellen's memories. If Nioi didn't cast the spell to gather the information until SL-Ellen was an adult, then the spell would have had to reach into the past to gather the required information.

So even if no physical objects traveled through time, the spell and the information it gathered did.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

It would make more sense, but note that you would need the "connecting universes" and also it would be sort of evil because what about the "original" SL Ellen when our universe Ellen would be directing?

In my scenario of it all being a magical simulation, the only connection between universes that would be required would be between the main universe and the Alpha Universe, to allow Ellen and Kaoli to share the same illusionary "world". No one in that world would be real; SL-Ellen and SL-Kaoli would just be our Ellen's and Alpha Kaoli's avatars in that world, and everyone else would be soul-less magical AIs. It would be just like playing a video game, except that while "playing" it Ellen and Kaoli wouldn't remember that it wasn't real.

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1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

No one in that world would be real; SL-Ellen and SL-Kaoli would just be our Ellen's and Alpha Kaoli's avatars in that world, and everyone else would be soul-less magical AIs.

I think you just described our "reality".

Almost everyone is soulless and artificial.

With one exception.  We have a lack of the I in AI.

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5 hours ago, Scotty said:
8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Minutes? There is high chance Nioi made whole transfer DURING that nosebeep.

Possible, and it was "programmed" to integrate into Ellen's memory over the course of a week.

.... damn that was really just a week ...

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

The thing is, Dan does not seem to be employing Direct Line to Author; there's never been any talk of how the Dan of our universe received this information from another universe or anything along those lines.* Pretending that Dan did receive messages from another universe would thus be engaging in the "Literary Agent Hypothesis" (warning: another TVTropes link). There's nothing wrong with that, I just think modifying our theories on how universe travel works to take the Literary Agent Hypothesis into account would be a little on the silly side.

(By the way, I should point out that I never said there was anything wrong with being silly.)

* Well, unless you count the 4th wall breaking non-canon comics. Squirrel Dan and Minion apparently have devices which allow them to monitor and even alter universes, and Dan has occasionally implied that Squirrel Dan and Real World Dan are one and the same. Still as said comics are non-canon I don't think they count for "Direct Line to Author".

Those comics being non-canon is just plausible deniability.

grace_at_the_booth_by_danshive.jpg

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
9 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Reading past is NOT time travel.

In the real world, the only way we know to learn about the past is to study the world as it is now. Books, fossils, and the light from distant stars all exist in the present even if they contain information from the past. However, human memory is imperfect, and it's unlikely Nioi could have recorded the sort of vivid childhood memories Ellen experienced by simply copying adult SL-Ellen's memories. If Nioi didn't cast the spell to gather the information until SL-Ellen was an adult, then the spell would have had to reach into the past to gather the required information.

So even if no physical objects traveled through time, the spell and the information it gathered did.

Human memory is imperfect, but if you want to see how Earth looked 200 years ago, you only need to jump 200 light years in any direction and make photo. Of course, there would be practical problems with getting exact informations from past, but those problems would NOT be related to time travel and/or time paradoxes at all, as no matter travels through time and information only travels in "allowed" direction.

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

No one in that world would be real; SL-Ellen and SL-Kaoli would just be our Ellen's and Alpha Kaoli's avatars in that world, and everyone else would be soul-less magical AIs. It would be just like playing a video game, except that while "playing" it Ellen and Kaoli wouldn't remember that it wasn't real.

I'm sure they would totally noticed very quickly, especially in case of Archie.

 

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7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Those comics being non-canon is just plausible deniability.

grace_at_the_booth_by_danshive.jpg

I've always wondered if Dan brought Grace to our world for that picture, or if that's Dan in his Grace form.

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Human memory is imperfect, but if you want to see how Earth looked 200 years ago, you only need to jump 200 light years in any direction and make photo. Of course, there would be practical problems with getting exact informations from past, but those problems would NOT be related to time travel and/or time paradoxes at all, as no matter travels through time and information only travels in "allowed" direction.

Taking a photo of the Earth from 200 light years away would only tell you what it looked like 200 years ago (and even then it might be distorted by things as interstellar dust and the gravity of any planets or stars it passed close to), it wouldn't tell you what people were saying back then - or what they were thinking. To use a similar technique to copy memories would require that the mind gave off some sort of signal which will remain readable for years (a constant telepathic broadcast, perhaps?).

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm sure they would totally noticed very quickly, especially in case of Archie.

That depends on how convincing the AIs were. Also, while Ellen might put two and two together in the real world, within the Second Life simulation she and Kaoli wouldn't have anything to compare the AIs to, so I think it would be pretty unlikely they'd figure it out inside the simulation .

7 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Nonsense. Everything is real except me. I am just made up.

Hey, not everything else is real! I'm made up too!

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6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
14 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Human memory is imperfect, but if you want to see how Earth looked 200 years ago, you only need to jump 200 light years in any direction and make photo. Of course, there would be practical problems with getting exact informations from past, but those problems would NOT be related to time travel and/or time paradoxes at all, as no matter travels through time and information only travels in "allowed" direction.

Taking a photo of the Earth from 200 light years away would only tell you what it looked like 200 years ago (and even then it might be distorted by things as interstellar dust and the gravity of any planets or stars it passed close to), it wouldn't tell you what people were saying back then - or what they were thinking. To use a similar technique to copy memories would require that the mind gave off some sort of signal which will remain readable for years (a constant telepathic broadcast, perhaps?).

Yes, I did mentioned few practical problems. Although technically mind DOES give off even electromagnetic signal, you only need to filter it out. (So far, we can't decode the signal completely even with electrodes directly on head.)

6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
14 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm sure they would totally noticed very quickly, especially in case of Archie.

That depends on how convincing the AIs were. Also, while Ellen might put two and two together in the real world, within the Second Life simulation she and Kaoli wouldn't have anything to compare the AIs to, so I think it would be pretty unlikely they'd figure it out inside the simulation .

They would. Themselves and each other. They might not figure out specifically that it's simulation, but they would notice something is weird.

And if the AI is convincing enough, how can you say it doesn't have soul? I mean, except looking directly of course, there is certainly spell for that.

 

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8 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Yes, but unlike me, you are made up for real.

Actually I was exaggerating. I'm not completely made up, I'm just highly fictionalized.

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

They would. Themselves and each other. They might not figure out specifically that it's simulation, but they would notice something is weird.

And if the AI is convincing enough, how can you say it doesn't have soul? I mean, except looking directly of course, there is certainly spell for that.

Hmm...I have to admit, I've never thought about this aspect of my idea in this much detail before.

You have a point about Ellen and Kaoli being able to compare the AIs to themselves and each other.

As for the question of souls, that depends on where souls come from, and how one acquires one. If anything with a certain level of sentience automatically receives a soul, the spell would have to thread a very thin line to produce convincing AIs that don't have souls - if it's even possible at all.

Of course, the reason for having the other people in the simulation "soulless" was to avoid the moral issues involved in ending the simulation if the only difference between the NPCs and normal people is the level of "reality" of their world. I suspect there might be other ways around this problem; I'll have to think about it.

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2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

As for the question of souls, that depends on where souls come from, and how one acquires one. If anything with a certain level of sentience automatically receives a soul, the spell would have to thread a very thin line to produce convincing AIs that don't have souls - if it's even possible at all.

Of course, the reason for having the other people in the simulation "soulless" was to avoid the moral issues involved in ending the simulation if the only difference between the NPCs and normal people is the level of "reality" of their world. I suspect there might be other ways around this problem; I'll have to think about it.

Generally, considering someone not "human" enough to count for purpose of moral dilemmas has long history of decision we currently consider extremely immoral. Which means that on one hand, any decision we do now can be later declared immoral ... on the other hand, it's completely plausible Nioi cares about Ellen's soul not having correct age and still be ok with plan like this because SHE considers the "natives" of the universe she used not "human" enough.

Being able to perceive souls, either directly or using some spell or technology, can easily convince you that everyone without soul doesn't count. But is that true? What if there is some bug in method you are using?

However, I'm not surprised if Dan decided to use just recording instead of interactive simulation to avoid these hard questions.

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9 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Of course, the reason for having the other people in the simulation "soulless" was to avoid the moral issues involved in ending the simulation if the only difference between the NPCs and normal people is the level of "reality" of their world. I suspect there might be other ways around this problem; I'll have to think about it.

This is an issue that has been discussed in Star Trek: TNG, DS9 and Voyager specifically in connection with holograms. The Doctor would be a good example; so is Moriarty from TNG and Vic Fontaine from DS9. These are holograms so sophisticated that they have actual sentience and the ability to make decisions not merely prompted by scenario programming. The thing is, the issue of artificial sentience is so complex that I do not think that there can be any simple answer. In the above cases, the decision usually made was the stopgap measure of leaving their simulations running and thus allowing the sentient holograms to continue their existences. I use the word 'stopgap' deliberately as it does not actually answer any of the involved questions to leave the simulations running, it merely postpones having to make that answer.

There was a small but heartbreaking moment in one of the first hologram episodes of TNG where Picard is about to leave a detective-noir scenario where one of the characters has become aware it exists in a simulation. This character asks Picard, "What happens when you leave? Will I go home and find my wife and children waiting for me? Or will I just cease?" And Picard answers, "I don't know." This is not quite the moral conundrum of above as the character was not advanced enough to truly be sentient but still merely simulating it within its parameters. But it holds echoes of the problem and is worth considering.

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So I've come up with a few possible solutions; this is the one I like the best:

The simulation could be run by a sentient "Game Master" (it could be an actual person or a magical construct, though I prefer the magical construct idea) who is a really good actor and is controlling all of the important NPCs like puppets. (The background NPCs could still by run by simple non-sentient AIs until & unless Ellen or Kaoli interacted with them.) When the simulation ends, the GM continues to exist, and can even later perform their role again in other simulations.

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There is another possibility.

These really could be the recorded memories of cross dimensional individuals with characteristics similar to (or edited to resemble) Ellen and Kaoli.  People who had their lives cut short because of some sort of accident, disaster, or tragedy about the time the recordings came to an end (from Ellen's point of view).

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4 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

There is another possibility.

These really could be the recorded memories of cross dimensional individuals with characteristics similar to (or edited to resemble) Ellen and Kaoli.  People who had their lives cut short because of some sort of accident, disaster, or tragedy about the time the recordings came to an end (from Ellen's point of view).

Well, if we're going to have them be recorded memories, they might as we have been from alternates of Elliot and Nioi like Nioi and Dan said. I'm just trying to come up with an alternate scenario Dan could have gone with instead where the dreams were interactive.

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4 hours ago, animalia said:

Here is the SF debis video I mentioned. Of Hologram And Ethics. It is the second one on the linked page. It has the title on the link. Let me know what you all think of his video.

I have seen it and I highly recommend it. It only scratches the surface of the huge lurking iceberg that is AI ethics but it makes a good start.

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8 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

This character asks Picard, "What happens when you leave? Will I go home and find my wife and children waiting for me? Or will I just cease?" And Picard answers, "I don't know." This is not quite the moral conundrum of above as the character was not advanced enough to truly be sentient but still merely simulating it within its parameters. But it holds echoes of the problem and is worth considering.

I'm pretty sure Picard lied.

7 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

So I've come up with a few possible solutions; this is the one I like the best:

The simulation could be run by a sentient "Game Master" (it could be an actual person or a magical construct, though I prefer the magical construct idea) who is a really good actor and is controlling all of the important NPCs like puppets. (The background NPCs could still by run by simple non-sentient AIs until & unless Ellen or Kaoli interacted with them.) When the simulation ends, the GM continues to exist, and can even later perform their role again in other simulations.

Could work, until the Game Master's mind doesn't start to fragment into his roles. Which would be a real risk for good actor ...

7 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

There is another possibility.

These really could be the recorded memories of cross dimensional individuals with characteristics similar to (or edited to resemble) Ellen and Kaoli.  People who had their lives cut short because of some sort of accident, disaster, or tragedy about the time the recordings came to an end (from Ellen's point of view).

Not sure how THAT would help.

 

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I'm pretty sure Picard lied.

As is your right, of course. But to me Picard sounded genuinely uncertain. Also, if he wanted to lie, why not tell the poor hologram a reassuring lie? "Yes, they will be there."

I don't know. It was just the impression I got from the acting. Patrick Stewart is a really good actor and I believe he purposefully went for seeming uncertain.

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:
2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm pretty sure Picard lied.

As is your right, of course. But to me Picard sounded genuinely uncertain. Also, if he wanted to lie, why not tell the poor hologram a reassuring lie? "Yes, they will be there."

I don't know. It was just the impression I got from the acting. Patrick Stewart is a really good actor and I believe he purposefully went for seeming uncertain.

Hmmmm ... well it's possible that while Patrick Stewart is good actor, Picard isn't and though he can't say "Yes, they will be there" convincingly enough. Also, it's possible Picard, as captain and not scientists or technician, really doesn't know.

In any case, based on what we know about holograms, his wife might not even exists (is not part of program) and the simulation will stop processing the moment Picard closes door.

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13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmmm ... well it's possible that while Patrick Stewart is good actor, Picard isn't and though he can't say "Yes, they will be there" convincingly enough. Also, it's possible Picard, as captain and not scientists or technician, really doesn't know.

In any case, based on what we know about holograms, his wife might not even exists (is not part of program) and the simulation will stop processing the moment Picard closes door.

I thought the standard procedure was to halt the simulation and store the instance so it could be resumed from the exact point. At least I think they implemented that as the standard after the Moriarty incident. The problem there being that the simulation wasn't halted when the users left the holo deck allowing Moriarty to observe them leave and by experimentation deduce that he existed in a simulation, and that once the simulation ended he would either be reset to the default state or just frozen in time until someone "real" decided to open that simulation again. Don't remember the details though, so it might have been a malfunction caused by some external source that caused the simulation to keep running. It's been ages since I saw that episode.

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23 hours ago, hkmaly said:
On 11/29/2017 at 9:41 AM, The Old Hack said:

This character asks Picard, "What happens when you leave? Will I go home and find my wife and children waiting for me? Or will I just cease?" And Picard answers, "I don't know." This is not quite the moral conundrum of above as the character was not advanced enough to truly be sentient but still merely simulating it within its parameters. But it holds echoes of the problem and is worth considering.

I'm pretty sure Picard lied.

According to Moriarty, there's still some awareness after the program ends, although his description made it seem like a bleak existence.

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7 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

I thought the standard procedure was to halt the simulation and store the instance so it could be resumed from the exact point.

Possibly, but the storage space is not infinite and even if it would, in most cases it will never be resumed.

51 minutes ago, Scotty said:

According to Moriarty, there's still some awareness after the program ends, although his description made it seem like a bleak existence.

That MIGHT be caused by some Moriarty-specific bug. As mentioned in the SF debis video, Moriarty was likely generated to be more complicated than normal holograms, which caused him to became self-aware.

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

 

That MIGHT be caused by some Moriarty-specific bug. As mentioned in the SF debis video, Moriarty was likely generated to be more complicated than normal holograms, which caused him to became self-aware.

Yes, the instructions leading to Moriarty's unusual degree of sentience was for the computer to create "an adversary capable of defeating Data."  Yet another case of "Be careful what you wish for...."

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