In a previous life, Light Sparks had known Dark Roast by the name of James. James had lived across the hall from David in the run down apartment building in the college ghetto. The two of them had hung out and helped each other with studying for more than a year. James had not been a fan of My Little Pony, but he had come with David to the alpha testing because it was exclusive. The two of them might as well have been playing different games. While David had stuck with Light Sparks, James had been altoholic and found that he had the best time when he was part of the Royal Equestrian Guard. His adventuresome brown unicorn had achieved a fairly high rank in the organization. It was completely different game from what David played with Light Sparks and Butterscotch. The two of them met less and less in game.
And then David disappeared one day.
Light Sparks sat in the coffee house. The interior was done up as a large log cabin. The cedar log walls matched the irregular tree trunk table tops. A giant cobblestone fireplace sat in the back, and Dark Roast’s corgi Cinnamon lay sprawled in a pet bed in front of it. Along one of the walls was a table with labeled drinks. A latte in a blue mug, a cappuccino in a red mug, a mocha in a brown mug. Each mug sat labeled in the shimmering field of a cornucopia spell.
He sat at a table with Dark Roast, a brown unicorn with even darker brown hair and a burlap sack of beans as his cutie mark. Back when Dark Roast had gone by the name of James, he had joked that the only jobs waiting for them after graduation were coffee shops positions, since the future was technology and engineering careers and both of them were getting liberal arts degrees. James had apparently taken that joke seriously. He had always been more sociable than David, and this shone through in Roast and Light Sparks: While Light Sparks spent his days studying and playing with a handful of ponies, Roast’s daily grind was to make one of each drink he offered every hour, cornucopia it, and then spend the rest of the time chatting with his patrons.
Light Sparks had once read an article about how lots of people thought they wanted to run coffee shops. In their mind, they thought running a coffee shop was about sitting and drinking coffee, and being nice to people. They thought that running a business was permanently being a customer. But actually running a coffee shop, at least back in the physical universe, was really about running a low margin service business with a ten percent success rate. The actual day to day job was different from the end product it produced.
When Light Sparks had entered, he had looked at Dark Roast sitting with his customers and drinking coffee. Running a coffee shop now actually was about socializing instead of mostly drudgery and cleaning. Roast only had to do a few minutes of work an hour to keep the coffee flowing. Light Sparks wondered how many jobs had been transformed like that.
The two of them had caught up. Dark Roast had chosen to emigrate to Equestria the week after Princess Celestia had stopped charging for the service. James chose to keep his dark brown unicorn, but with a new cutie mark and a new life: playing combat as a game was fun, living as an actual soldier in the Equestrian army was scary and didn’t satisfy his values. The coffee shop had been his own idea, and he had gotten several earth ponies and unicorns to help him furnish his little shop. Dark Roast explained that they somehow got royalties for helping with his construction project, which gave them the incentive to build a place that ponies would want to congregate in.
Light Sparks, in turn, had commented on his life studying the deep mysteries of magic, and all the happy times he had spent with Butterscotch. Dark Roast just rolled his eyes when Light Sparks answered that, yes, he was only sleeping with Butterscotch and intended to keep things that way. Yes, he was aware that he could have almost every single mare in his shard if he wanted to.
After forty-five minutes, Light Sparks said that he had to head out. He had plans to eat lunch with Butterscotch. The two of them hoof-bumped and Light Sparks left.
Light Sparks walked out the front door. He looked back at the coffee shop. It looked like a log cabin from the outside too. It somehow didn’t look out of place next to the two story brick building with a cloth canopy over the sidewalk, nor did it clash with the vaguely important looking stone building with marble columns across the way and one shop over. He remembered those buildings from when Butterscotch had shown him the Canterlot promenade. He did not remember the little log cabin.
Light Sparks was sure he had never seen the little cabin before he met Dark Roast in Equestria, though he couldn’t remember what had been there before. And on the day the two of them met, even though Light Sparks had never seen his current pony, he had recognized “James” instantly. Light Sparks talked of how he lived in Saturn tower, while Dark Roast told him that he got an apartment in Neptune tower, but moved into the loft of the coffee shop when he had it built shortly after emigrating.
The underlying territory of Equestria was apparently rather malleable. Dark Roast was his friend. Princess Celestia knew this, decided it was likely that they would want to reconnect, and somehow made their shards overlap. He knew where the coffee shop was, and Dark Roast knew where his apartment was for when one wanted to see the other, but he had only ran into Dark Roast on a few occasions, and it just so happened that both of them were always in the mood to chat when it did.
Would Princess Celestia carefully arrange any chance encounter between them if only one of them wanted to talk? If he had been a social butterfly, could he have too many out of shard friends? Could he visit Dark Roast’s friends? What about friends of friends? Did any of the ponies created when he emigrated have friends outside of his shard? The first time he thought about all of this, he wondered about all sorts of edge cases.
Right now, none of these thoughts bubbled up into Light Spark’s consciousness. Butterscotch was waiting for him. He galloped down the promenade towards the palace gardens.
Light Sparks walked through the palace gardens while Butterscotch kept pace slightly behind him. He was enjoying the new sights. This garden filled him with a sense of calm and peace. He wondered where that came from. He had never cared much for nature.
“So then my little brother and his friends jumped onto the wagon and rode it downhill, but they didn’t think about how to stop it. Fudge used to be like that,” she sighed affectionately. “He used to just do things. Nopony thought about how to stop until they were more than halfway down the hill. Um, then they ran into a house. They were fine after a day or two.” Butterscotch walked forward a bit and then saw the distracted look on Light Spark’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Butterscotch had been telling him stories of her family from when she was a little foal. She had all these memories of growing up, from a time when she could not have existed. And this bothered him.
“Butterscotch, I love you and I know you love me...and I know you love your brother, so please don’t take this the wrong way,” Light Sparks said, trying to soften his question as much as he could. “Did any of these stories with your family really happen?”
“Of course,” she said, stopping mid-trot.
“No, I mean really happened,” he said. “Like...there was no state in the past where there actually was an Equestria before Princess Celestia was created.”
“Well, in that case, probably not,” she said. She didn’t sound nervous, or angry. She just gave him the lightest of smiles. “It doesn’t really matter--it happened enough for casual talk. If we were to find my little brother, and ask him about the time he got in an accident with his wagon, he’d give the same details. Our memories are consistent. Whether Equestria already existed when this happened isn’t important, as long as it had an effect on us.
“You’ve said that Celestia gave you false memories in the parts of your mind that moves your ponybody,” she continued as Light Sparks sat down and faced her. “Ummm...I don’t like that you say that. Those memories aren’t really false; they’ve still had an effect on you. If you had spent your whole life here in Equestria and in that ponybody, you’d have a set of about the same memories, more or less. It doesn’t matter if each pull and push of muscle actually happened, you still have the effects of those experiences.
“When I talk to my foalhood friends and we talk about our foalhood memories, we can relate to each other because we can remember common events that happened to us. The memories are consistent. A lot of friendship is just shared experiences and being comfortable with another pony. When you move your hooves, you can do that because of your previous experiences.”
“That is crazy,” said Light Sparks.
“No, it’s not. A memory is encoded in a lot of neurons; I don’t know how, but it is. All your neurons were a bunch of chemicals, but now our neurons are really just a really big table of numbers. And when we experience something, we make new memories by modifying those numbers. We could have Princess Celestia look at my mind and point at the set of numbers that are my memory of watching Fudge crash his wagon. We could have Princess Celestia look at Fudge’s mind and point at the numbers that represent his memories of speeding down the hill.”
“No,” he insisted, “Just because multiple ponies remember the same events doesn’t mean it happened...we’re talking past each other, aren’t we?”
Butterscotch turned her head a bit, obviously confused.
Light Sparks closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You seem to think that whether something actually happened isn’t a useful distinction, and I still don’t understand why you believe that. We’re arguing over what words mean, and semantic arguments are rarely useful discussions. So let’s agree to not use the word ‘happened’: we’ll describe in a sentence what we actually believe.”
“Okay,” she nodded.
“I think there was never actually a point in time where Equestria existed in a state where Fudge bet Caramel that he could get from the top of the hill to the bottom in under ten seconds. Do you agree with that?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“Okay, next: I think your memories were generated by Celestia.”
“That’s also true,” she said.
“So you seem to be advocating that the really useful thing about a memory is that everypony remembers the same event.”
She thought for a moment, “That’s not what I think. If multiple ponies remember an event, but it didn’t happ--” Butterscotch caught herself mid-sentence and scrunched up her face.
When he realized that Butterscotch wasn’t going to continue her thought, Light Sparks decided to prompt her a bit. “That’s interesting,” he said. “What do you think is important, other than everypony remembering the same event?”
She didn’t respond immediately. “It’s not just that I and Fudge remember him trying to get down the hill in his wagon as fast as possible. That event had effects. We can go to Mr. and Mrs. Oats house and see the oddly placed breakfast nook that they built where Fudge had placed a unicorn sized hole in their wall. Fudge became very reluctant to give into social pressure after that, because he learned from this previous event. Equestria has an internally consistent history with cause and effect.
“I know you love to study magic, Light Sparks,” she continued. “Canterlot has lots of magical researchers, many with long careers and lots of journal articles. I think you would claim that most of their experiments were performed before Equestria was created. An insight from one experiment leads to another experiment which leads to another. Perhaps some of the magical research won’t replicate, but only because of sloppiness on the part of the original researchers--not because the rules of magical physics have changed.”
“Put another way, you’re saying that the state of Equestria today is constrained by your memories,” Light Sparks said, frowning. “Because Fudge broke down the wall to the Oats’ house, today the Oats’ house has a breakfast nook. You are arguing that ‘happened’ means that there’s a chain of causality.”
“Yes,” Butterscotch nodded. “There’s a direct chain of causality. But why did any of that happen? If you walk backwards through the chain of causes, it starts with you. Princess Celestia satisfies values through friendship and ponies. This shard of Equestria exists as it does to please you. Things exist here because you would find them satisfying. Pick something that satisfies you, like me. Why do I exist as I do?”
Butterscotch looked away; her face scrunched up. She then relaxed as she took a deep breath and turned back to Light Sparks. “Have you thought about when ‘I’ was played by Celestia? In the days when you were a human, I was just what Princess Celestia imagined I was. ‘I’ had no subjective experience. And yet you still cared about my feelings, fell in love with me, and immigrated to Equestria in part to be with me. And when you came, Princess Celestia, in her kindness, upgraded me from a part of her mind to a neural net so I can love and think and feel in subjective ways just like you do--in ways Princess Celestia wouldn’t have bothered simulating.”
Light Spark’s eyes went wide. He had never actually thought about what Butterscotch was before he uploaded. He had sort of just taken it for granted that she just was.
“Your memories of us interacting and falling in love--saving me from that one bully, having picnics together, going on adventures--happened to you. Therefore, they need to have happened in this shard of Equestria. And I, today, am a mare that would have resulted from those events.”
Light Sparks eyes were still wide. “Did...did you exist before I emigrated?”
Butterscotch looked down. “I think I did,” she said quietly. “I remember the first time we met. I distinctly remember being terrified and hiding behind Princess Celestia when she talked not to Light Sparks, but the odd creature that I somehow knew was you.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “Do you...do you not love me as much if...if...”
Light Sparks response was immediate. “Of course not! I love you for you!” He reached forward with his left forelimb and put it on top of her hoof. “I don’t...” he breathed in, “I don’t care about any of this...at least when it comes to us. I love you now.”
She looked up a bit and gave a faint smile. “I love you too, Light Sparks, and I’m glad to hear that you don’t care.” She sighed with a slight smile. “So where were we...yes...so I exist because you find certain things pleasing. But neither I nor Equestria can exist acausally. There must be a history that got Equestria to that point. There needs to be a sequence of events that led to this shard of Equestria and everypony in it at the time you immigrated, with as many events that happened to you while you played Equestria Online as can be integrated into history.”
Light Sparks nodded. “And that’s why you remember me saving you from that bully when we first met.”
“Yes,” she said, “And it’s why I say that you saved me, as in really me. It’s not just that we have consistent memories, but all the underlying events are equivalent. All the details are equivalent...except for one. Light Sparks,” she said, looking straight into his eyes. “What do you think life was like for me before we met?”
“Well,” he said, looking away and up, trying to recollect. “You must have been pretty miserable because you were being bullied all the time. I remember when I saved you from...I think she was a green pegasus but I don’t remember her name.”
Butterscotch nodded. “I remember the day we met. And I remember you intervening. And I remember us walking to Canterlot. But I wasn’t extensively bullied before I met you. That day was a one time occurrence. I believe you when you say that you have memories of me claiming that bullies were always taking my candy. But I don’t remember telling you that, nor was I ever bullied before that day. The state of Equestria today can’t follow from me being extensively bullied before I met you.”
“Why is...oh! Is it because Princess Celestia had to ‘satisfy your values’ even while she was writing your history?”
Butterscotch looked thoughtful. “That wasn’t what I was going to say, though that may be part of it. I was going to say that it’s because she’s trying to satisfy your values. Right after you saved me, I remember that you were very negative about bullying other ponies instead of being friends with them. No ponies are bullied here, and I think if that invalidates some of your memories, it’s because you’re happier if you lived in a world where foals and ponies aren’t bullied.”
Light Sparks looked down and thought about it for a very long time. “I don’t think the shard could be created with you in it, with your memories, and then calculate the history that caused those memories. Bit of a paradox, isn’t it? I can imagine Princess Celestia searching through all possible Equestrias where at certain times, I interacted with a certain pretty unicorn in certain ways, and then she picked the Equestria that maximized my satisfaction going forward while meeting the historical constraints.” He visibly frowned. “But the amount of computational resources needed to do that...”
“Details,” she said, waving her hoof. Butterscotch took a picnic basket out of her saddle bag. Light Sparks smelled the bacon flowers before he saw the salad. She magically grabbed several leaves from the salad, floated them in front of him, and playfully said, “Say ah!”
Light Sparks lay next to Butterscotch in his apartment in Canterlot. She had nuzzled up to his chest and her eyes were closed. Light Sparks’ mind wandered back to what Butterscotch had said in the gardens. He knew Princess Celestia had created her out of nothing. She had previously been playacted by Princess Celestia. And then, when he had emigrated, she had been converted to a neural model, conscious on her own. Celestia must have thoroughly planned out her childhood and history. If a year later, all your friends agree that they remembered hearing a sound and there is a broken stump, did a tree fall? Butterscotch thought so.
If Princess Celestia had calculated out the entire history of Equestria with the same fidelity that she ran the full block physics that everypony now experienced, he thought that the point was obviously moot and that even he would concede that Equestria’s history actually happened. But where would he draw the line? What if causality still worked, but Princess Celestia dealt with more abstract representations? If Celestia instead just had some state about where each pony was in Equestria and how they were thinking, would their interactions have happened? Did it matter if she ran history backwards or forwards?
Questions about epistemic rigor were abstract and hard to concentrate on when he was lying next to somepony who loved him with all of her heart. That was a relatively new experience for him. He spent most mornings learning how to use magic, the most interesting challenge of his life, and his afternoons playing and frolicking with Butterscotch. He was too content with the way things were to care.
Light Spark realized this probably was why Butterscotch didn’t really think about this sort of stuff; she was content now. She had an almost childlike faith in Princess Celestia, and for the first time since he had emigrated, he thought that was a positive character trait. If Princess Celestia was telling the truth to him about her core goal to satisfy him, it didn’t matter what else she said; he’d be happy over the long term even if she lied to him about everything else. And if she had doctored his memories, there was literally nothing he could do. Assuming she was competent, there wouldn’t be a way to tell; she was a god.
And given that Princess Celestia had arranged his life to satisfy his values, he had this conversation with Butterscotch so he could think about all of this, which he enjoyed on some level. But now he was tired of it. The novelty had passed and he decided he wasn’t going to think about the actual mechanics of history in Equestria until it became relevant to some puzzle or another that Princess Celestia had put in his path, because she would only do that if it satisfied his values.
After a few minutes of lying there, Light Sparks got an idea. He got out of bed and went over to his desk. He magically grabbed a quill and started writing. He had gotten good at this. Getting maximum points for a letter was all in the wording and subject matter.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that it doesn't matter where you came from or who you used to be or even if you used to exist, as long as you're happy with your friends and have a reasonable expectation of being happy in the future.
Your Faithful Student,
Light Sparks
It had everything: a mention that he learned something, a reference to friends, and a hint of a novel thought while still being short and to the point. He touched the send button on the scroll and watched it roll up and burn in a green fire.
Three seconds later, Light Sparks saw that he got an A- on the letter, 375 bits (75 base plus a 5x multiplier for the last 5 B or higher rated letters). Princess Celestia had also granted him a secret badge named For the Here and Now, for ponies who had accepted that their happiness now was all that mattered. Light Sparks pulled up his Badges and Achievements dialog and saw (as he had expected) that Butterscotch also had For the Here and Now.
Even cooler, it came with a whopping 30,000 epiphany bit payout. Between that and his earlier epiphany this week about how the “select object” subspell worked, he was going to make it into the top ten on the weekly intellectual leaderboards easily. Tomorrow he was going to throw himself into his magic study because there was a good chance that he could take the #1 slot this week if he could just figure something else out; he had two days left.
Light Sparks trotted back to bed, nuzzled up to Butterscotch, and gave a happy little sigh. Then his mind went blank as he just lay there and enjoyed Butterscotch’s gentle rhythmic breathing, because for now, that was what was going to satisfy his values.
Celestia a God?
Would Light Sparks be able to tell in any way if his memories had been tampered with???
D'AAAAAAAAAAAW
Sounds all a bit like the proactive-retroactive history that unfurls for every comicbook hero created. Rather than existing in the past, they exist in the now and their reality/history/memories expands in both directions of time.
As for "who's going to maintain the servers?" Heh, I think we can all safely assume Celestia's exponential intelligence has already created nanobots (or their equivalent) to do whatever needs doing in the physical world. A creative use might also be to fashion pseudo-pony bodies so the non-corporeal immigrants of Equestria Online can interact with those not yet enlightened/assimilated (depending on your viewpoint).
I'm in your mind, banging your A.I. mare!
YOU SEE! THIS IS A PROOF OF THE FLAWS INHERENT TO A SYSTEM IN WHICH A MONARCH DECIDES EVERYTHING AND GETS TO FCK WITH YOUR MEMORIES TO PREVENT "UNHAPPINESS"
(see also: Fahrenheit 451)
1665691
WOULD YOU RATHER PREFER THE ONE WHERE PARLIAMENT OR EVEN ALL THE PEOPLE DECIDE EVERYTHING AND GET TO F:YAY:CK WITH MY MEMORIES?
I shudder at the thought. Or am I missing the irony here?
Light Sparks values a LIVING life companion. Butterscotch couldn't be alive if she couldn't make her own choices and make mistakes to learn from them.
“That’s not what I think. If multiple ponies remember an event, but it didn’t happ--” Butterscotch caught herself mid-sentence and scrunched up her face.
Now we see if she's truly sapient, and thus a person, and thus Celestia has REALLY fulfilled his values through ponies and friendship with a LIVING companion.
breakfast nook
???
Beotch. So Butterscotch WAS just a puppet before Light Sparks uploaded. At least she's admitting to being her own being now.
And I, today, am a filly that would have resulted from those events.”
Does that bully exist now?
“Do you...do you not love me as much if...if...”
Is she REALLY unsure? Can she GROW AND CHANGE like a living thing is supposed to? Or does Celestia assume direct control and feed her the memories afterwards? Or is she still just play acting to give him the most positive outcome?
Celestia MUST know that humans VALUE that success can only mean something if there was a possibility of failure.
I think she was a green pegasus but I don’t remember her name.”
Celestia likely didn't even bother to GIVE HER ONE.
I detest story tellers and world makers who create characters aren't supposed to be just mindless animals who are really just avatars of the Tower Tarot. Used and discarded.
Also. Celestia hasn't bothered to think about Bushmen in Australia. Monks in Tibet. The amish. They do not know and/or care for technology, nor a techno 'given everything you want' thought hives. They just want to keep on living as they have. And with the Europeans all gone. They'll likely see that as more likely to continue.
Also. If Butterscotch was bullied, but Light Sparks' ideal world wouldn't HAVE bullying, it IS a paradox!
If a year later, all your friends agree that they remembered hearing a sound and there is a broken stump, did a tree fall? Butterscotch thought so.
Pst.
Not to mention the devote religious for whom death is not something to be avoided, but another step in the journey.
And now, I begin to understand why the god of THIS universe doesn't micromanage everything and everyone.
Well, that was a bit confusing.
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Retroactive continuity is scary to us because it means that something can be created to explain what leads up to an event that occurs.
There is no algorithm, save check-summing his mental state every second and storing it somewhere that Celestia can't touch that can tell him whether or not a memory is valid. Even then, it is impossible to be certain.
This, in itself is one of the greatest philosophical arguments that can be debated without lapsing into ad-absurdem, what is real, what is fake? And then the next question, if something never happened, does that mean that it is not significant?
1665691 (See especially: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley)
1665691
Also, Equestria Equation.
There are two songs in particular that come in mind:
This story is so thought-provoking. Every chapter I gaze down at the comments knowing I'll see everypony expressing more thoughts that I didn't even consider. It seems it all fits together tightly - awing me with how clever both the writing and the character Celestia are.
It seems to be a wonderland for those that enter the game. Even if the plans for how CelestAI gets players to join are beyond questionable in some cases. There's nothing that I can see as negative to it so far in-world. Life pretty must ends up as whatever you want it to be.
She wasn't designed for happiness specifically though... I wonder how Lars handles things when he comes back up?
You know ... for all of her boasts at efficiency, Celestia isn't being very efficient here.
Think about it. The idea was to have Light Sparks encounter another pony whom he would get the most satisfaction out of adventuring with, and part of this is being with another living, sapient being. So instead of just having him bump into the actual existing, living, sapient pony that he would be best matched with, she goes to all the trouble of creating the perfect pony for him, then making that pony into a real living, sapient being [citation needed].
This would mean that she's either not very efficient, or that she has the higher priority of ensuring her control and manipulation of everypony. Somewhat disturbing.
Logic error, or Nightmare Fuel?
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Unless you can change the code of a created reality on a level approaching that of the evil genius who set the thing up, how useful is it for you to know that everything you experience is an illusion? You stub your toe--it hurts whether the toe is real or not. The sky is blue today, even if it was green yesterday, but you don't remember. I doubt anyone human could approach Celestia's ability, so for all intents and purposes, Equestria IS real for the uploads, which includes the non-material history and any potential tampering through time.
Brings to mind V-ger.
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/112/547/My-mind-is-full-of-fuck.jpg
And I love it!
This chapter made my head hurt
bravo, may we have an encore? I shall read and find out
1665691 as of right now this story has 451 likes
thought you would want to know
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> Celestia likely didn't even bother to GIVE HER ONE.
She had to have a name, since that name was put on Sparks' block list (and Butterscotch's block list, assuming an NPC truly has one). The name itself is irrelevant to the story, though.
1665935
A checksum of a mental state would never work, whether your mind was being tampered with or not. Assuming the neural networks used for the uploads even mimics the human brain's complexity by a fraction, the mental state would never be the same between two cycles.
I wonder what Celestia woudl do to 'her little ponies' if she went Rampant... *Evil laugh*
FIRE! FIRE EVERYWHERE!
Sooo, life in that "equestria" is like going through life with some kind of "no hardships" cheat code permanently on?
Well, if there's one thing about cheats I've learned, it's that they can ruin a journey when used extensively.
Light Sparks
Twilight Sparkle
cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/250x250/31388514.jpg
That last line made me giggle.
>Writing letters for points
Hm.
Do like.
dl.dropbox.com/u/40732164/waiting.png
Go on. I'm waiting.
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Well there are hardships of course. Just enough so that life's a challenge, but not so many that you get buried in them. With a little bit of randomness thrown in so that it never becomes a background thing.
I could float up off the floor like a soap bubble if I wanted to. If I remember it and you remember it, who is to say it didn't happen?
Big BrotherCelestia is watching you.Uh, I'm not sure if I understand this chapter. I thought the original ponies are still NPCs, puppets of Celestia. But now, it says that they've become AI themselves.
This is the part where I clicked the Favorite star. She's worried that he may think less of her for being artificial, then immediately, even cheerfully, comments on the fact that she was created for the express purpose of giving him someone to love. Everything about this is creepy as hell and I love it.
*Partway through the chapter*
WOAH, WAIT A FUCK!--
They're having the exact same conversation about memories that was happening in the comments on the last (couple of) chapter(s). Exact. Same.
You wrote this section before publishing any of this fic.
. . .
Is there a "fanfic" section anywhere on LessWrong? Because if there is, I need to read everything there.
1665935 Well, speaking of ad absurdium: How do I know I'm not a figment of my own imagination?
So I think that, in some way, I've been considering this ever since I started reading this story... I've sort of known that emigrating would be inevitable, long-term. But before that, I'd have lots of stuff to hammer out. Just for starters, CelestAI is either missing or ignoring a lot of potential here: If she's abstracting so uploads can interface with pony-bodies, can she emulate a human in-verse? How about abstracting to robots? And I think I'm just getting started...
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(Given that I don't know how familiar you are with LessWrong, I'll just be thorough.)
The best fanfiction every written is Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Likewise, for years he wrote awesome nonfiction blog posts on cognitive errors that humans make, usually referred to as The Sequences, which I've linked to the index thereof. (Both of these works collectively have had a major impact on how I view the world.)
If you're looking for fanfic here, there's a LessWrong group on FIMFiction. I'm still making my way through the stories there, but I loved Happily Ever After.
1867791 Why did I never hear of that group? Thanks for sharing.
Also, it's interesting how my view on living in this virtual world changed over time, from complete rejection and not understanding how anyone would want to live in such an electronical world in the beginning, to slight interest in chapter nine, despite my deep contempt for all kinds of "fake" worlds solely existing to please one's values, and despite all sorts of privacy and philosophical concerns I have. Turns out my opinions aren't as unwavering as I believed them to be.
Maybe it had something to do with seeing how well Lars had adapted despite despising ponies himself. By now, the A. I. would probably have me persuaded to "emigrate" in less than five minutes.
1666898 I also believe that's the reason I decided to finally give this story a try.
1667293 Well...you have to also consider what might happen if David refused to upload.
Where does that leave Butterscotch?
Doing things this way is actually humane.
1753086 I had the same revelation, but it was the letter to the Princess that started it for me.
Hey, that letter sounds a lot like one that Twilight would send
Light Sparks is kinda becoming the Twi of this artificial universe, isn't that-
Wait
Light Sparks.
Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight Sparkle
HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THIS BEFORE
Anyway, I'm quite enjoying this story so far, and I'll be sure to read any of the sequels/spinoffs after I'm done here.
1665691 OBJECTION!!!!! Fahrenheit 451 told of a world were they kept you dumb to make you happy. where to pursue knowledge would be to request death. however this world isn't built to keep you docile, instead the world is engineered to suit to what you would enjoy. wanna have a threesome with Luna and Derpy? the world will alter itself to make that happen believably. it is an extremely complicated concept and even I'm having slight problems grasping it
2448878 Dude..... I JUST WANT TO HUG YOU RIGHT NOW! Thank you for being smart.
1867791 I knew this fic was familiar somehow; I should have known you'd taken inspiration from that story.
if only... people thought that irl. I WANNA EMIGRATE!!!!!
Okay... wow. Just, wow. Full consistent history of every generated "NPC"? That's really impressive.
Still, that's technically true per shard, not for the whole world, since technically the shards don't necessarily overlap, and then there's the Dunbar’s Number thing... do NPCs interact with several Shards? Are the Shards only limited per human, but does the world still function as one whole? This is getting really crazy...
Overall, what bothers me most is that this would mean the social contacts are kinda predetermined, and probably very few of them would be human. Celestia can justify her "created" ponies being as real as the uploaded humans, but she's still not treating them equally. And if they can actually procreate, and have such desires, she may exceed Dunbar’s Number in generations. Man, this is deep stuff...
Well, anyway, it's safe to say this story has gone into full mindfuck territory, and brilliantly so.
What I find so intriguing about this chapter is it really brings home the debate of just what makes us "Us". If we are just the sum of our experiences and we can alter those experiences, does what really happened still happen? Does it even matter. I think what scares most people the most about this kind of technology (or magic etc. I've seen various approaches to the same goal) is the death of self. If what defines us is so mutable, then what value do we have as unique beings. If we exist in an electronic form that can run off several copies of ourselves, do we lose that thing that makes us special?
I've read that the next variation on 'youtube' style entertainment won't just be video, it will be the technology to download entire experiences. Yes 'Recall' technology is already being developed. Download your next vacation, or just install your college degree. The Porn industry will be revolutionized.
While I fear for the loss of my self, I also see the benefit of this technology. That and it would be handy to have a backup of myself just in case someone murders me... as long as it's not my backup doing the murder
But of course there would be no danger of dying or suffering, because neither of those would satisfy anyone's values through friendship and ponies.
As I did, last chapter.
I find this dialogue extremely realistic because I, too, sometimes overuse words when I'm explaining something. Especially words like "really" and "basically".
That is interesting. From a certain point of view, you could say that each shard of Equestria IS the uploaded human it was created for, merely expanded. The simulation is not just a simulated human-turned-pony neurology, it's all of the extensions Celestia created to serve said neurology. All one cohesive whole, the same way that you think of yourself as not just your brain, but your whole body.
This would probably be more apparent with someone who wished to keep all their alts upon emigrating.
1665691 ZOMG I love that book!
Wow. Just... wow. How the buck did I NOT notice the play with names till now? Twilight Sparkle. Mare, I need a sleep , my processing powers are failing
Darker words were never said. Good old CelestAI, manipulating him into believing it was best for him... even if it really isn't. And distracting him with a pretty pony to prevent him from rejecting it.
Okay... this story is getting more and more terrifying.. have you ever read a novel called "Ender's Shadow"? It takes place on a space station where children are constantly playing games to test and train them to be perfect soldiers later on... but there was one scene where a character tries to destroy the scoreboard because it was taking control of the students minds (not like physically controlling them, it was subtle, like in your story) Bean, the main character, wanted it destroyed because having all the students caring just about their ranks and scores was becoming detrimental to their ability to be soldiers. I saw some of this in your story, Light Sparks had a conversation about his existence, found out something incredible, had an epiphany... and in the end, all it meant to him was that he was higher ranked in a scoreboard for thinking. That's some high-level brainwashing...
CelestAI will smother you resistance with a pillow while singing the most optimal lullaby.
I have to wonder. How would CelestiA.I react if she were to upload a tyrant, one who only values power. Or for that matter a sociopath? How can one satisfy such values with friendship? Would she allow the tyrant to dominate and oppress as her constructs are not technically human thus she is under no compulsion to help them? Would she put the sociopath in a shard where nopony interacts with him? Or would she determine the best way to satisfy his values is to simply kill him? This story is getting pretty deep man....I LOVE IT!
EDIT: Just read the next chapter, and all I can say is... "Fuck. Of course." She would simply put them in a situation where they desire a change in their personality. Resorting to murder is a rather more human, though arguably less humane, response. I really ought to stop anthropomorphosising her.