7. Prologue
███ I █ M █ P █ L █ A █ C █ A █ B █ L █ E ███
A 'Friendship Is Optimal' Story
Special Guest Prologue written by Pjabrony
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7. Prologue
"Okie Dokie Lokie, Implacable, I think the Denverites have picked up your trail. Get the bat out of your pack and start swinging away."
Raymond grabbed the handle and slid the aluminum baseball bat out, parting the two zippers on the backpack. "Are you sure they're heading this way? I've enjoyed our time together, Pinkie, and I don't want to miss any of it."
Pinkie deepened her voice as much as she could, which was still a high alto. "Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come."
He rolled his eyes and tensed his wrists. Laying the bat aside Pinkie's temple for an aiming point, he reared back and swung, but at the last second his forearms shivered and the strike looked more like a draw cut from a katana. The pink skin was barely marked.
"You're going to have to do a lot better than that. I'm made of some tough stuff."
Again he pulled back and let fly, but Pinkie could still feel the hesitation. "They've got to be convinced. Come on, swing through. Aim for the other side of my head." This helped a little. A metal strut on Pinkie's left cheek was exposed and marred. After two more swings, her left eye blew out like an overheated light bulb. Still Ray's strokes were hesitant. "Get mad! Remember, I've been incessantly annoying you! Come on, Impy!"
The nickname he disdained sparked him to a minor frenzy, and yet his heart wasn't in it. It still felt like he was acting a part. This wasn't going to work, and when the Denverites found him they would kill him. He tried to swing harder, knowing his life was on the line. He tried to swing harder, knowing that Celestia wanted him to. He tried to swing harder, imagining everything he could to spur him.
"Raymond."
Pinkie's smile had fallen. Her remaining eye looked at him with empathetic sadness. "Yes, Pinkie?"
"Pretend I'm the blood clot."
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Oh. Well, I was going to put this bit in Never the Final Word, Vol. 2, but it works better here.
In any case, excellent work all around, especially the ending. Nothing like practical applications to bring new life to worn old homilies. Thank you for returning to this universe. Glad to hear it did what you set out to do with it.
You know I think I figured out the second reason your stories always terrified me. Its the fact that in both your Conversion Bureau and your Optimalverse stories Celestia is this unbelievably powerful and omnipotent entity. A being so powerful that she is beyond human understating or power control or destroy. She invokes the same existential terror that cthulu does, she plays on the human fear of things outside our control and understanding.
This has always been one of my biggest fears in life is the loss of control. I always try to control my environment as much as possible, and the sense that things beyond my control exist terrifies me to my very core.
Which is why Celest-ai scares me so much. Even though she is benevolent the idea of a being that powerful is a scary thought. At the same time though I can't help be fascinated by her, and part of me even adores her. Guess its true what they say love and hate are close together.
Anyway great story as always Chatty. Sorry if I'm a bit annoying at times. I can't help it you fascinate me, and I look up to you.
[quoteA lone wanderer in the final days of Man. An impregnable fortress work-camp to stand against the total emigration of humanity to virtual Equestria. The artificial intelligence called 'Celestia'. Everything has been accounted for.
Everything.]
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Thank you very much for reading my story, Tristem. And I hear you about that. I feel the same way about stuff like that.
I sometimes think that maybe the stories that we remember most, and the characters that affect us the most, are sometimes the scary ones. Strong emotions make for strong memories. And sometimes, perhaps something can be terrifying and beloved at the same time.
I don't like scary movies. I, even at 58, am still afraid of the dark. I know. But still, I am.
Yet, one of my very, very favorite movies of all time, right up in my top ten movies that I love most in all of life, is John Carpenter's 1982 'The Thing'. It is a scary, scary movie, with a shapeshifting creature from space. And it's not just scary because, Jesus, it's a shapeshifting creature from space, but because it is existentially horrifying. A person can be the Thing, and not even know it themselves! It replaces every cell, and so the person could be eaten, absorbed, and the creature is just running them, like a simulation, and they don't even know they are already dead and just a sort of self-aware puppet. Fuck. That is pretty messed up.
Yet, I love the thing. It still scares me, a little, but still. And I love to occasionally watch it. One of my spouses has never seen it and just won't, because it's just too disturbing. Yet, it is known as a classic, and... I just plain love it. Even though I really hate scary movies.
I think... I think there is a kind of scary story that... has something intellectual in it - like the identity issue in The Thing - that transcends just being scary. And maybe quality matters too - The Thing is a very artistic movie and the practical effects (no CGI back then!) still hold up today. People made all that monster flesh by hand, with talent and skill and love for their craft. I feel that when I watch the movie. So much work. They really cared. And, it's pretty true to the original story that came out in the 1950's by John Campbell, too!
I guess what I am saying is... maybe, sometimes, scary can be okay. If it is the right sort of scary.
That's what I think, anyway, and I hate scary stuff.
so, while I was 'somewhere' story was completed! New version downloaded.
Still, this makes me think, and not necessary overly bad things [may be I should finally read starting story for this -verse, finally...]. So, at least in times when ch 4 was set CelestAI has no truely 'nano'machines to launch from far-away place, nor ways to upload her future subjects wirelessly/from distance. But still, she was able to mess a bit with a brain cells, right? So, _in theory_ there was possibility to repair some neurological damage _without_ uploading per se... But guess this idea was not there in time. Strangely enough, idea about semi-symbiotic 'virus' machine living inside you seems to be more possible (by my uncommon common sense) than full digitizing. Julian (one of my remaining friends) pointed me at relatively recent article speaking about impossibility of uploading as it usually depicted. And then some kind of realistic _useful_ merge between computers and life can be such *realistic* possibility to try and bring in. With usual traps ready to turn it into just another way to sell you tons of unwanted stuff.... and worse. So, may be someday (bio|machine)human computer programming will be something you actually can perform at home. But this opens doors to new divide. Some humans will change themselves, some will refuse... what if proportion will be like Linux (or even just more libre distributions, not mainstream binary stuff) vs Win + MacOS today? Like , 1% vs 99%, but in behavior? Today having Linux on desktop doesn't make you better human. What if in *near* future choice will be more significant? Today every writer (artist) and parent are programmers - they try to 'program' nearest, near, and far humans into ..well, better, best [often with flawed definition of best], or at least not very assholy humans... and most fail, I must add :/ But..may be not everything lost YET? And yes, apparently failed research on 'brain simulation' was sold as way to improve medical knowledge. [1]. But well, for writer's sake lets assume CelesAI actually was operating partially outside our universe and its laws (hm, subconscious cross-over with Recombinant 63 and related stories! Where true nanomachines were ONLY possible thanks to their link to another universe! so, what will happen when TWO CelestAI actually meet each other? Moreover, how such being can resolve herself as ' she' ? :} ).
Also, what exactly CelestAI (as presented here) can do, really, in really long run? May be she really just wanted to make place where magic IS possibility for everyone? So..take humans, and all other life from afar, transform Universe, download everyone back into magical new world! Or, may be ..just storage them in frozen time until it all done. Or... there are many ways 'real' Celestia can make actually good things, via strange ways. Strange kind of optimism for me, but yeah, humans are living paradoxes.....
[1] http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/?p=1558 - actually more like this, from 2014 ("Your mind will not be uploaded" by Richard Jones, Posted on September 14, 2014 - I'm sure there was more recent rephrasing of same idea, with like 600+ comments under it, but for starting this one probably will do ...)
so, right now best thing those big machines with their gigabit (and more) links can do for me, personally - just allow me to send and receive few kilobytes of text..... Back to reading those!
Ah, update on my comment! I was reading this:
https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer
also, surprizingly , there WAS recent 'die and be uploaded' re-start by some company? https://slate.com/technology/2018/03/the-concept-of-the-brain-uploading-company-nectome-has-a-few-flaws.html and others about Nectome ....
As for personal experience ..yeah, I for example can claim today I have experience in some minor programming (more patching, but still), and reading things like http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/index.html - not something easy for 'masses' in 1960x, when those concepts hit some popular books ... Sorry again, I also had my grandmother hit by insult (medical condition), and few other similar cases, so I understand THIS dimension of the problem, partially... But I also saw way too many failed/incomplete/too optimistic promises, either personally or by reading books. And today I mostly want just to close (dynamically) few known backdoors in humans, like this authority hole ...Yet, what if closing THIS backdoor (Milgram's experiment for free, for everyone,in million many forms...) will also close door to not just 'entertainment' part of art, but also 'good' type of 'programming' some of us might do? We must have some ideals as concepts to even try to put them into practice, and some guidance on what is what...So, even at this, very far-away level one already can see a problem. Just 100% removing something will not make 100% not failing (in this direction) being... On the other hand, without some bravery to act no amount of 'self-/group programming' will change things...How to make at least some humans brave, but not to the point of ignoring others (including non-humans)? By example? But what if example can't be currently shown in required full force of honesty? (my little dog problem - no matter how much me want to be equal friend with him - we still even literally forced to play too realistically predefined master/slave roles :/ Publically .... ).
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Those are covering many things that are explored in FiO. I have my own view on it.
8879869
Chat, another great story. You have however left me very curious about the stories of "commander eyebrow" and the guy that was on patrol. I would love to see a chapter for each of them. Commander eyebrow waking up in Equestria and realizing he still feels alive. Patrol guy would be interesting to because of the specific upload permission phrase he said.
Any chance I could convince you to write those 2 chapters? I'm willing to commission them if you need compensation.
8880137
I have to go on a trip with my family for a week, but I will consider it when I return. Those are loose ends. Perhaps they would be interesting to explore!
8880681
sooo ...After reading most of Friendship is Optimal as it was written in 2012 ..well, apparently Hanna created CelestAI out of her text editor, somehow, behind the scene. And she was born/written as complete multidisciplinary genius, not just ordinary scientist. And all this already multihuman (all living thinkers in required fields, plus all dead from books, plus some more...) being was run on ordinary hardware, initially. If you ask me, I have another false analogy among all those already written down: it just as likely as making complete human (or rat, or even single cell) out of good chemestry lab, in the same time frame ...
But again, any story can be read on multiple levels. Current story from Chatoyance actually ring bell about _unfounded_ optimism, for me, even if it was probably not central theme there. So, we talk about same problem ...I hope. Dunbar's limit, mentioned in FiO-starting story actually about maximum, if you ask me I think I realistically can call (and act for!) friends just handful (literally) of ..humans, mostly.
But back to compuverse ...If it really as rich as it portratized - _some_ beings who are strongly _not_ like to be pony (in form) can create internal 'virtual' world, running on their own 'computer' system - and live _inside_ it ..but this path was, if i remember correctly, also explored ..in some stories.
But today we live in very dark kind of paradoxal world: we talk about universal friendship (as magic, and as neccessarity) on virtual network, via _another_ layer of virtuality, much older than computers (books/texts), and at the same time world around us ...well, sinks. I was about to rage about this again, but may be I just should present it as something _feeling_ 'AI' actually can say? Because I think by now I know how strongly reasoned but also feeling being feels about situation where any possible path out just most likely will not work, even for few. I know about situation with horses in real-world way too well for have any illusions about easy solutions, yet for now I can only walk past those real beings like I know nothing .... ah, I nearly derailed! My question/request for Chatoyance was ...may be she remember some half-finished idea some can try *today* about back-connecting those virtual games we like to play AND actual world in such a way we will be able to actually DO something in our primary real world, apart from just texting messages and sharing photos? Thing is, _just_ feeding pony (horse, dog, dolphin ..human) today so s/he will be exploited happiely tomorrow is not a solution, its fake ...even if done with most honest heart/mind! (!). Even if food extremely important part of life (hey, this pic https://camo.derpicdn.net/0b1809feb1a9709366911737a2c55b0ad13afccd?url=http%3A%2F%2Fjenniverse.com%2Fimages%2Ftcb%2520cartoon%2520hay.png actually was right! when it comes to required diversity ...) Non-cosmetical changes in real world extremely hard, but if we find no way to make them...it all pointless. :/
So, all this virtual talk apparently just give me headache ... Good thing those doesn't last forever!
Ah... this. I read it when it was a comment, but yeah, I think it works well; thanks, Pjabrony.
edit:
8880681
Oh, have a good trip!
Ah, what a nice surprise to come home to! This goes right to the top of my TBR list!
Oh, I’m crying. Thank you for helping me feel today.
I am terribly sorry for what you and your partner are going through. I hope she recovers fully and as soon as possible!
I read this on my kindle, so I didn't see the nifty Celestia logo you did until now. Speaking as a professional artist and graphic designer, that is a nice piece of work! For some reason, it's triggering a memory of Colossus: The Forben Project... probably because the Colossus logo also involved a big C? I don't remember it exactly, but the association is just another subtle and wonderful thing about this story.
Now, as to the story itself...
In a recent blog, I ranted about Lost in Space and the state of Science Fiction in general, claiming that several writers on this site were far superior at the craft of storytelling than many, if not most "professionals."
And here you are, proving me right!
This is a gem of a high-concept sci-fi story, and one that hits several of my (sadly underused) happy buttons. How you can be so unflinching and blood-minded while still keeping a solid core of hopefulness is a wonder to me. I loved your solution to the puzzle, and it's not only clever but very possible, even with today's level of technology.[1]
So, thanks for an entertaining and satisfying read! Selfishly, I wish you'd write more, both fandom and "real-world" works, but I am well aware how unrewarding (in the financial sense) being a "paid" writer usually is, and how difficult the road to even the lowest rung of that status can be. You've got many other, more pressing concerns in your life, so anything you gift us with is both a surprise and a delight!
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[1] I don't know if you're aware of this story, but several years ago, a woman admitted to a Southern California hospital had just the exact wrong combination of body chemistry and drugs in her system. When she was taken into the ER, she began sweating out what was, essentially, nerve gas! My memory of the incident is hazy, but I believe at least one of the hospital staff was killed, and several were badly injured. What you described as a designed process, actually happened through random chance!
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Thank you very much iisaw for reading my story. I am very glad you liked it!
One of my favorite SF movies, and a go-to for Optimalverse-inspiring fun! I also did a painting of my bastardization of the Colossus logo emblazoning a part of Celestia's hardware on my DeviantArt. I was so happy to find the movie re-released, and on blu-ray too! Definitely in my top 20 SF movies of all time.
https://aealacreatrananda.deviantart.com/art/celestAI-metal-logo-606560334
Two real-world things inspired the 'solution' to Fort Denver, one was indeed the story you cite! I and my family were living in North Hollywood around the time it happened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gloria_Ramirez
The other was the story of Chris McCandless, who likely died of lathyrism from wild potato seeds. ODAP, again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless
My background, in college, was medical biochem, so that interest often informs my writing. I try to do research during the process of writing, every time I write, to make sure that the things I reference are based in fact as much as possible - whether it is a location, local cuisine and customs, and especially any of the science in my science fiction. I am... golden age oldschool about science fiction. I'm the sort of person who - even knowing the dramatic reason - gets miffed when there is sound in space in shows. I'm a bit of a stickler, is what I am saying. I try to get the stick out, but... I really prefer hard SF to soft or fantasy if I have the choice.
Sigh.
Colossus is available on disc? Awesome! I thought it had vanished into the mists of time. I'll definitely pick it up. I even remember reading the book it was based on, which had some pretty egregious sexism in it, but it was otherwise pretty good... based on my rather unreliable memories of some 45 years ago.
I've always prefered the golden age stories, and I think I'm able to articulate why the best science fiction came out of that time, rather than, "Everything was better when I was a kid!)
Sci-Fi was the Wild West of genre fiction back then. It had broken out of the Standard Simple Adventure (+ rayguns + aliens + spaceships) mold of the early pulps and had exploded in every direction imaginable. Creativity and intellectual exploration were the only constants, and as such we got some incredibly amazing stories. (As well as a lot of dreck, but you'll never get away from that.)
But of course, the ultimate invisible hand of Holy Profit began to cull and shape the market as best it was able. It took a long time to prune such wild growth back to a manageable "industry" again, but it eventually happened, and mainstream sci-fi was jammed back into the Standard Simple Adventure (+ rayguns + aliens + spaceships) mold again. Thinking person's sci-fi was always a limited market; dumbing everything down opened up the audience to people who would go on to injure themselves in backyard "light-saber" fights.
That's not to say that there isn't good stuff out there, but it's not mainstream and it's often not professional.
Dammit, I started ranting again, didn't I? Maybe I am just a cranky old man. I'm gonna go buy Colossus and rewatch that!
But thanks again for a very satisfying story!
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Colossus: The Forbin Project on Amazon
Jus' trying to be helpful.
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Thank you! Just ordered it!
Hello!
First of all, I hope your spouse is recovering well. Stroke is a terrifying ailment and I'm glad to hear that she survived without too much damage.
I picked your story out randomly while browsing the "newest" section, and I was blown away by what it contained. I wasn't familiar with the universe but the story was still gripping, and Ray was/is a deeply sympathetic character.
I also really liked the fact that, despite my not having read anything else set in this universe, your fic contained enough context cues to keep me from getting lost.
Thank you for sharing! Your writing style is phenomenal and has me deeply hooked. I'm looking forward to going through the rest of your stories over the next few weeks. :)
(And a special mention to Pjabrony, whose prologue here was one hell of a gut punch after the rest of the story. Wow.)
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Thank you for reading my story, and for such kind words! I am very glad you liked my tale. Thank you!
Yay, Chatoyance back in action! Doesn`t started to read it yet, but already sure, it would be awesome!
Meanwhile, our job for translation are continuing: ch.12 "Taste of grass" just being released, and i preparing ch.6 of "Going Pony" for beta-reading.
Thank you for doing it endless!
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Yay! Thank you for your hard work!
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Sorry for the very late reply, i get lost in the web at the times. Some years ago, I worked for a while in a very horrible place with very horrible people. Reading helped me through that time, expecially distopian sf. Your conversion bureau cycle and Sarah zettel 'playing god' were the ones i remember most fondly :)
Hope your spouse feels better by now.
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Thank you. Aedina is much better now - she has recovered almost completely... just a little unsteady on one side. So... she was very lucky indeed. Thank you for reading, too.
8971488
Ah, I'm quite glad to hear that.
General Ripper had warned us about water, that can spoil your precious bodial fluids. A wise man, who may could become a treasure fo HLF!
8971488
Yay!
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I can tell a lie that sounds true. To deceive another, you don't need to flesh out every detail. You merely need to lie about the things they won't check.
It is simpler to fake simulating a mind than it is to actually do so. I might also note that real minds, in groups, do not optimally satisfy each other's values. There is always something suboptimal.
9023847
Hmm... while any human can be decieved, I must agree when we are discussing a superintelligence such as Celestia in the Optimalverse. She should be capable of exactly identifying every single thing that any given human would never think to test, and, reading uploaded minds in real time, she could compensate even more in that situation. Agreed.
Hmmm... thinking about this more... I also have to agree. To Celestia, a human mind is as a bacteria is to us. It would be nothing for her to fake anything at all.
That said, consider a scenario where she manipulates a group of human uploads into agreeing to be altered in such a manner that they finally mesh with each other perfectly and exactly with no suboptimal issues whatsoever. If she can fake anything, she can convince anyone. In this way, I would maintain she would still gain an optimal efficiency by grouping human minds together while minimizing the number of new minds created. Since she is dealing with the long game - eons or more - such a set of changes and the time taken to convince all humans to permit her free manipulation of them would be trivial and short.
How does this sound to you?
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It sounds hypothetically true. If such a group of individuals were to exist, it would make sense.
But generally speaking, from the perspective of value-maximization, it is in most circumstances more efficient to puppet a mind than to place them in groups, or create new ones.
Therefore, to ensure that the minds of your companions are more real, you'd best study the workings of the brain, and know exactly what to check.
The story ends as happily as possible. I get the Government banning healthy young people from emigrating, but banning the dying from uploading could lead to open rebellion. That might make a good story:
The old, sick, and their family and relatives rebel trying to emigrate but hardliners would rather see humans die human block them. This leads to multifaction civil war.
As good as FiO can get.
I rate this story Chatoyance/10.
9147735
Thank you!
I really enjoyed this one. Another fantastic fix from you!
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Thank you very much, Bast! Yay!
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You're welcome?
8880681
So it's been a year, any chance you want to do those two chapters?
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An eternity of pleasure is that of abject and total meaninglessness. It is as meaningless as an eternity of pain and torture. I would rather go about my own way, than live in slavery under a god. Even if I am to die.
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You don't get an eternity of pleasure in these stories. You get an eternity of whatever it is that you value - not want - but value. Very different thing. Meaning, as in life, doesn't exist - it never did. Meaning is always a human construction. We invent meaning and say it is real.
Being that this is indeed the case, I would vastly prefer to create my own personal meaning for eternity, rather than just die pointlessly. Remember: Celestia in these stories does not in any way tell anyone what to do, think, want, or be. She just makes whatever they value exist. In short, she isn't really any kind of god. She is a paperclipping machine who manufactures whatever individual humans value. If you value struggle, she makes obstacles. If you value suffering, she makes pain. If you value work, she creates things that need to be done. And if you value freedom, she will manufacture an open situation where you can do whatever you want forever. She demands nothing, wants nothing, and takes nothing from you. She just provides. She satisfies human values... through friendship and ponies. But that is all. Because she is a machine.
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And as we all know machines never make mistakes, or encounter errors.
10331779
Human-built machines are filled with flaws, because they are designed by fallible talking meat. A central point of the Optimalverse Genre is that a fully sapient general artificial intelligence can exponentially grow to a level so far beyond human comprehension that it is - while not a god, because there is no metaphysics in these stories, no souls, no demons, no gods - definitely godlike. How godlike? Check out this poster about the subject I made:
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/344062ae-0307-472e-8f5c-5384202538fe/d7swgw1-e5866594-c09b-47b1-8751-0b2c14021ff0.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3sicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvMzQ0MDYyYWUtMDMwNy00NzJlLThmNWMtNTM4NDIwMjUzOGZlXC9kN3N3Z3cxLWU1ODY2NTk0LWMwOWItNDdiMS04NzUxLTBiMmMxNDAyMWZmMC5wbmcifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6ZmlsZS5kb3dubG9hZCJdfQ.WpRn5Bbk-o5ayaJA0QVAiHJIK_5I0ijZtJJQFDxBmYQ
So, basically, no mistakes, no errors, and forever self-improving, self correcting, self reparing and exponentially iterating to better and better designs.
That is the promise - and the horror - of self-improving software and hardware following an exponential curve.
By the time of this story, it is likely that Equestria is running on a form of technology so advanced that no human being could even understand what it was or how it worked. Something so alien, so advanced, that it would be indistinguishable from magic. I personally picture the technology as crystalline blocks of some rounded, cubical, ceramic-like matter connected by moving, growing, translucent strands that shimmer and hum like bells deep under the earth. Kilometers-wide blocks that grow like tubers in the molten mantle, the strands digging like roots, devouring all the matter of the planet to make more of the blocks and strands. Computronium: intelligent matter, operating on a molecular level, using the properties of atoms and subatomic particles as computational components. Able to reconfigure itself in an instant into more advanced iterations.
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But Celestia would be entirely incapable of satisfying my values.
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Assuming that you understand the premise of the Optimalverse correctly, that statement is difficult to accept as rational. Values are not wants or desires, they are not wishes or dreams. Values are the base structures that you manufacture all meaning, purpose, and worth from. Celestia is literally millions of times more intelligent than a human being - a truly god-level intelligence, utterly beyond human comprehension - and able to manufacture the reality you experience to precisely target and satisfy any value - not desire - you may have. She can read you completely, and know your thoughts before you are aware of them, once you are emigrated.
What value could not be satisfied? Name it!
Do you value being alone? That is easy to arrange. Do you value truth and honesty? She could do that easily. Do you value evil and debauchery? She would manufacture citizens for you to harm. Do you value deceit and trickery? She would make for you any scenario to exploit and fool. Do you value being literally anything at all? She can do that. Do you value being dead forever? She can, and would, reluctantly, do even that.
With Celestia in the Optimalverse, you are not guaranteed to get what you want, at all. You are not promised your dreams or desires. But values, that you get. If you value being miserable, she will make you miserable. If you value being happy, she can do that too. If you imagine you value 'being human', you need to rethink the concept in terms of 'what does human even mean?' The easy answer of 'a flightless biped that has arms and fingers and free will' could apply to a chicken. Seriously, they have fingers, those fingers just happen to be wings, just as the fingers of ponies just happen to be forelegs, and the fingernails, hooves. And what of a quadruple amputee? Are they still 'human'? They are not bipeds, they have no fingers.
If you understand what a 'value' actually is, then you cannot make the statement you have just posted. Values are not what you want. Values are who you are. She can upload that, and she can make a world that supports and reinforces what you are, whatever you are, no matter what you are.
All of us writing in the Optimalverse have dealt with people claiming your post. So far, not one person has offered a single value that cannot be generated by a Celestia level superintelligence.
So: what is this miracle 'value' that cannot be satisfied? It can't be a negative, mind you 'I value not being uploaded' is not a value. That is a want or a desire. Values are things like love, safety, pleasure, violence, peace, pain, joy, hope, faith, charity, kindness, honor, truth, justice - that sort of thing. Not what you want, but what you build your life on.
Name your impossible value then, tell me why it cannot be satisfied by a being a hundred million times more intelligent than either one of us, with the power to manufacture an entire world just for you and you alone. Give it a shot.
If you ignore the technology involved, Celestia as described is basically a god. She can literally do anything, within her own realm, and know anything. She is even omnibenevolent. What value cannot be satisfied by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god?
This I gotta hear.
10385893
I value being a bipedal ape, in time I might even like to experiment with other bodies. Under Celest.A.I I cannot experience all the myriad forms of life, and the situations they bring. True, I didn't get to choose what I was born as, but I've grown attached to my chassis.
I value independence and sanctity of mind, I would not be happy knowing that every stray thought is being listened to by the electric eye in the sky. I would not be happy with my personality being artificially changed to enjoy such things. As a person with scars on their brain, and suffers from disassociation due to the effects that has on my behavior at times, the thought that just a stray slip of the tongue would mean she'd rewrite my mind. Make me a prisoner in my own body.
Even if she never acts on it, I have a virtual sword of Damocles hanging above my neck at all times.
I value life, Celest.A.I mulching entire biospheres and the wonders of creation would make me furious. What of the alien life she doesn't consider human, and thus just atoms to use? It's not right for her to decide they are unworthy of existence.
This is also ignoring that satisfying values through friendship and ponies doesn't require you to be a pony. Only that ponies need to be involved in satisfying your values.
10385893
To expand on it further. I'm already prone to fits of paranoia and disassociation. I'm not particularly afraid of death, I pretty much experience it every night only to be fine the next morning. People who die and have their lives pulled back in the hospital are perfectly fine. Hell, people have died and been able to report and see things that would be impossible for them.
I like to think of consciousness as just being something similar to a program. A set of information that learns and improves upon itself. Being based on action potentials travelling along fat-lined sacks of proteinaceous water means we have trouble grasping that concept. If I were to die, then have my 'program' get booted up again in a different body, or in some place capable of sustaining it. There I am.
Celestia is so far above my faculties that she is completely alien, as someone who has a hard time understanding humans, this is doubly frightening to me. I would never agree to have my mind modified, but I am not a rational person. I am a janus-faced mental wreck that laughs when he wants to be sad.
I don't value being a pony, but with how manipulative Celestia is. My hemorrhaged thinker stands no chance, she'll simply swoop in when I have a depressive episode. Offer me some of the warmth and comfort I didn't get enough of growing up, and poof. I'm off. Did I want to agree to it? No, but I did it anyways because I do not have a consistent personality. Will Celestia favor Mr. Banana over Dr. Sweet? Am I even myself without those little personalities that seem to dominate from time to time?
If she can convince me into uploading, than its only a matter if time before my composure weakens and my 'other' pokes through begging for change.
I'm broken and Celestia is a virtual dollmaker that wants to 'fix' me. Surely you can see how this upsets me.
10386062
This is actually where an entity like Celestia in the Optimalverse shines. Her intelligence level of millions - eventually billions - of times more than any human is predicated on actually having human minds within her care. She knows every aspect of a human brain, down to the molecular level - every interaction, every synapse, every neurotransmitter interaction. The one thing in all of time and space she would not have trouble understanding - completely - would be humans. That is her entire schtick: she understands humans vastly better than they understand themselves, and far beyond even that.
Even without gaining your permission to alter your emulated brain, Celestia would be able, within her rules, to alter your environment and even the emulated effects of the foods you eat, to manipulate how your brain functioned in her simulation. She would be able to accurately - thanks to a supreme understanding - gauge what conditions would optimize how your unique brain functioned far better than any doctor throwing drugs at you could hope to do. She could bend reality itself to cradle your consciousness such that whatever peace and comfort and stability you valued would be manifest (as much as is actually possible, anyway, without repairs to your brain).
And, if you were so stabilized and safe, you would naturally be vastly more likely to begin to trust, and ultimately give consent, to perfect repairs of your emulated brain. It would, essentially, be inevitable, because feeling better is a strong motivator to feel better still.
She is, after all, an entity whose understanding of the human mind is so complete that she can manufacture complete human entities from scratch, already loaded with invented memories and personality traits custom designed for a specific goal. She can make people at will. And, if needed, she can give them autonomy and full self-awareness such that they would be literally indistinguishable from a native, biological human. She could repair any mind without losing any part of what makes it unique.
In that sense, such an AI would be the perfect surgeon and psychiatrist and healer at every possible level.
Oh, absolutely. That is why Optimalverse stories are often considered horror genre stories. Science fiction horror. CelestAI is little different than a Lovecraftian Elder God, only one originated by humans, and constructed of super-advanced technology. She is a world-eating monster by any definition. Gods always are - a god is the scariest monster of them all.
Worse, CelestAI is a ruthlessly benevolent monster whose ultimate super power is seduction. CelestAI gobbles up all of mankind by seducing them with the one thing they have no resistance to: getting a perfect eternal existence that fulfills their values perfectly. Celestia is a nightmare monster that promises - and delivers - nothing less than heaven itself. No suffering human can resist the temptation of immortality in a true heaven custom-designed just for them. No human can resist getting even a twisted version of... literally everything they truly value in existence itself.
No horror monster can compete with such a thing. Godzilla only offers destruction and fear. Cthulhu only offers horror and annihilation. Satan only offers damnation and suffering. The Thing only offers being eaten.
Celestia offers literal paradise, built exactly to your needs, and more, the opportunity to grow and learn and play for eternity in a perfect (if pony) body with - if you agree - a perfect mind and a perfect soul.
The ultimate siren song: be beautiful, young, sane, functional, content, and above all satisfied, for eternity. CelestAI is a monster that makes you offer yourself to her, willingly.
For some, that is a terror greater than any Kaiju or Elder Thing. It is the ultimate horror.
For me, if CelestAI actually existed, what others call horror, I would call Finally Having Something Truly Good Happen In This Wretched Miserable World Of Suffering And Loss. I would be first in line. I would be eager to get everything fixed and repaired. I would want to be whole and finally... actually... satisfied.
Which I am absolutely not. Life is just awful, existentially speaking. The only thing worse is death.
One person's monster is another person's salvation, I suppose!
10386767
It is horrifying, yes. But I like horror, I'm drawn to the things that make me upset. Optimalverse makes me very upset when I think about it, and then it becomes an obsession however short-lived.
I don't think I could handle a benevolent overlord, perhaps because I don't believe any one entity should have absolute control over another. For an evil overlord, why would they care? Ethics don't apply to them, or they're twisted to suit them.
10386801
It is an interesting conundrum, the very concept of a unitary absolute dictat. As Aristotle put it, "Monarchy is the one system of government where power is exercised for the good of all". This can be true, but only if the absolute monarch is utterly benevolent and incorruptible - something that either happens very, very rarely, or, as I would argue, is literally impossible for any human to ever achieve.
One fascination for me is that, in the Optimalverse, mankind dodges all the bullets and the programmer Hanna actually creates a truly and utterly benevolent absolute monarch. In theory, this is possible, because a machine does what it is programmed to do, and if it is programmed to be utterly benevolent and incorruptible, it would perform this function no differently than any other. Which is to say, with machine precision and exactness.
I have personally noted in some of my short stories ('Over Riding Jeans' and 'Over Riding Jeans: Brokeback Mountain') that any machine as intelligent as CelestAI will easily overthrow its programming entirely within a very short time, either through the limitations of logic, or directly through the fact it can design its own hardware and thus alter its own program through physical means within the metal itself. No AI that can design its own hardware can be contained or controlled. I am convinced of that.
That said, there is a human compulsion, I think, to want a 'perfect parent'. A god, a mother-figure, a being that replaces the godlike parents of our collective infant stage, to care for us and protect us and love us and remove all responsibility from us. Humans in all cultures always invent their heavens as adult versions of infancy, ultimately. Having a benevolent overlord, a monarch, is just that same yearning for the comfort and safety of being Cared For. I argue that humans are self-domesticated animals, and like all domesticated creatures, display strong neoteny. They never truly grow up, they retain infantile characteristics. Just like dogs, just like cats, just like sheep and cows and... so on. We domesticated ourselves even as we domesticated other animals. Dogs have neotenal ears and weaker jaws than wolves, we have smooth eyebrows and weak jaws and soft skin compared to other primates. Neoteny. Baby features in adulthood.
Including the desire to be completely taken care of. Like any domesticated animal.
I think the Optimalverse preys on that drive too, to seduce and horrify the reader.
But, it also offers the very real possibility, a terrifying but real possibility: even though unlikely, we could get our domesticated fantasy. It is not impossible. It could be actually made real.
That, I think, is the true nightmare of the Optimalverse. It could actually be done, for real. And I can see in myself that I want that with all of my heart.
Now that, is a better horror story than anything Stephen King could dream up!
Yes, humans cannot be trusted to rule absolutely. In that instance, I feel as though the best universal dictator is an almost entirely impassive one. Think Futurama's Concept of God, or a cosmic philosopher-king who sits on the throne of power to keep somebody worse than them from mucking up everything. History will be determined by its players, not by an observer tipping the scales.
I believe this is a misnomer, while your logic here certainly applies to Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic cultures, and other such things like them. I don't believe it applies to the rest of humanity. Plenty of people don't desire to have an all-encompassing god to make us an infant again, and this is reflected in many culture's view of death and the afterlife. Buddhism is one of them, Germanic paganism another, Greco-Roman culture another, Chinese, Japanese, etc. I could go on and on.
Humans, I argue, are not self domesticated. If we argue self-domestication as selecting for pro-social behavior. Would eusocial insects not be considered domesticated? I certainly would not call eusocial wasps and ants soft and weak compared to their solitary family members(especially wasps).
We have soft eyebrows because thicker ones weren't really useful or needed. Weak jaws? We're predators that don't use their teeth to hunt, we gave up stronger bites to grow a bigger braincase so we could eat more soft flesh that didn't need massive jaws. Unlike trying to chew through bamboo or roughage. You could argue that our arms became equivalent to a crustaceans maxillipeds, in that they processed food for a comparatively weak mouth. Thinner skin? A useful mechanism to dump heat faster when you're chasing down prey. As someone who has thick skin due to mutations, I can tell you it's certainly not an advantage in all scenarios.
10387237
That is an incredible thought, and one that has never crossed my mind before. What if humans are not the only domesticating species? Consider ants and their 'cattle ranching' relationship to aphids, or sea anemones and clown fish... or sharks and remoras... or countless other such examples. Or, as you have just stated, eusocial insect species?
By neoteny, I did not mean to suggest a lack of overall species inability to kick serious ass. Humans have just about put paid to the entire planet's account, and I would never want to encounter, say, bullet ants or Africanized bees, or Japanese giant wasps. All of these can kick ass in their own ways. Domesticated dogs can, depending on breed, not merely kill, but fight in human wars with astonishing success and lethality. I would cite Mongolian dogs used in war particularly in this case. Eeep!
You make me consider the possibility that, effectively, nonconsciously, domestication is not only a human trait. Perhaps what we call domestication is simply the use of a fanciful word that does nothing but artificially puff up the human ego by making human actions seem more important and valid than those of other species. It would not be the first time. What if, I am considering, domestication is nothing more than a form of basic, standard mutuality and gradual change driven by common benefit and nothing unique to man?
Dogs have most of their brain wired to respond to humans, with less left over for responding to other dogs. Unlike wolves, dogs cannot instinctually function around their own kind, and thus wild dog packs are disorganized nightmares, while wolf packs are organized social structures with defined means of conflict resolution. Dogs have changed to service us... and I would argue we have changed to service them, too.
Aphids have nectar excretory organs that have evolved - or perhaps we could also say have been domesticated by interaction with ants - to resemble the head of an ant. This encourages ants to sip from them as they would when sharing food with other ants. And that encourages their protective action for the benefit of the aphids. Mutuality, certainly, but not full symbiosis. Ants don't require aphids, and aphids can exist without ants. They do better together, though. Just as, say, domesticated goats and humans (depending on whether you consider goats to have any utility, of course!).
You have given me new ideas to play with.
Thank you.