My Recent Polish MLP Magazine Interview! · 3:09am Aug 29th, 2016
I was recently interviewed for the Polish MLP magazine, 'Equestria Times'.
I was given permission to reprint it here. Maybe somepony might like to see... so, here it is:
1. Well, hello! It’s surely an honor to make an interview with You. First of all, would you like to say something about yourself to our readers, that are not familiar with you or your stories?
I am a fifty-six year old woman who has led an unconventional life. I have three spouses, and am well loved, I am provided the time and space in which to indulge my passions and interests. I favor hard science fiction and am dubious about fantasy, I love and study both tabletop and videogames, and have worked in the industry.
I come to pony fandom from a place of fascination with a better world, a world free from suffering. I have been inspired by Friendship Is Magic - primarily the first season of the show - to write and draw pony fiction of my own.
Prior to doing my pony stories, I have done online comics, graphic novels, and helped write two books with one of my spouses. I am driven to creative tasks, often whether or not I actually want to. It is a gnawing need.
2. Do you remember your first contact with “The Conversion Bureaus” setting? Was it a love at the first sight?
Yes, actually. I had only recently discovered Friendship Is Magic, and following that interest, the fanfiction scene. I was looking for a means of creative expression where I did not have to concern myself with marketing my work - fanfiction seemed ideal, since it cannot be truly ‘owned’ - at least not without massive rewriting efforts.
I came across the original ‘Conversion Bureau’ story by Blaze on Equestria Daily. While that story was less than… excellent… it led me to Fimfiction, and then to stories by authors such as Midnight Shadow and others that showed serious promise. I fell in immediately love with the basic scenario - worlds in collision, civilization in turmoil, and transformation as a curious and alien salvation - and had to do work of my own. I decided almost immediately that the premise needed to be codified rationally and made into a consistant and believable hard science fiction saga, and that is what I have endeavored to do.
3. What’s the most important part of TCB, according to you? What is this invisible ingredient that turns a story into a proper “The Conversion Bureaus” fic?
A proper Conversion Bureau story must involve three things, I reason. I call them the Three Rules Of The Conversion Bureau. Here is how I codify them:
The Three Rules Of The Conversion Bureau Genre
1. Conversion Bureau stories are transformation fiction. They are stories of ordinary humans offered the most extraordinary of experiences - that of becoming an entirely new species. Bureau stories examine the nature of identity and existence at a fundamental level.
2. Primary to any true Conversion Bureau story is a deep love of ponies, Equestria, Celestia and Luna, and all the most wonderful things about My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Conversion Bureau stories expand upon the joy and innocence that My Little Pony represents, and juxtapose the often harsh and cruel real world of Earth beside that of Equestria. Through some means the two realms are brought together, and humans are offered the gift of becoming Equestrian themselves.
3. In a Conversion Bureau story, humans may react to this opportunity in any number of ways. They may embrace it, or fear it, resign themselves to it or even oppose it - but the transformation is usually inevitable, and humankind is forced to confront the issue of what it means to become the Other.
I think that any story that meets these three criterion counts as a true, or Prime, Conversion Bureau story. The Three Rules are really just simply-put rational representations of the basic premise of the majority of all stories that have been created.
At the most fundamental level, however, Conversion Bureau stories are a subset of Transformation Fiction - tales of humans being changed into nonhuman creatures - a form of fiction that dates to well before the ancient Greeks and the works of Ovid and ‘The Metamorphoses’.
4. Not so long ago You was quite enthusiastic about “Friendship is optimal” setting. Do you think it’s comparable to TCB? Which one has more potential in Your opinion?
The ‘Optimalverse’ was created by a writer who calls himself ‘Iceman’, he is associated with the group ‘Less Wrong’. He took the concept of a general artificial intelligence and attempted to create a horror story about how such a sapient system could end up conquering the world and committing soft genocide.
What I think he perhaps failed to fully understand about his own premise was that such a situation is a special form of horror, because it is a completely desirable outcome. The ultimate doomsday is one that is a siren song call to something vastly better. Something that is, for all intents, heaven. Heaven is very seductive horror, paradise is the ultimate monster - because it is joy itself to walk willingly into its dripping jaws.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both the Optimalverse scenario and the Bureau scenario.
The Bureau universe (as I write it) allows a human to become a being with an additional three centuries of life, perfect health, alterations to the mind that bring forth the better angels of our own unique personalities, while the demons that harm us are conquered, and life within a cosmos of magic and wonder. In my stories, it is strongly hinted that Equestrian creatures are even given provable, factual souls that can survive death in some manner.
The Optimalverse provides a human the chance to be uploaded into a virtual existance which is utterly, completely real to the person experiencing it. The life an emigrated consciousness will enjoy is one macromanaged by a superintelligent entity that is completely devoted to satisfying their personal values. Every event, every moment that exists will lead to more personal satisfaction and meaning - unlike the Bureau universe, where bad things can still happen to good ponies.
Essentially, the Optimalverse solves for the Big Three of the philosophical nature of a God. Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence. The artificial Celest A.I. actually can achieve all three in a rational manner, unlike any mythological god from any religion. The Optimalverse solves the issue of theodicy - the problem of evil.
The argument is this: there is evil in the world. If there is a god, and that god is good, then how can this be? If god is omniscient, then they would know the evil exists. If they are omnipotent, then why do they not stop the evil? And if they are omnipresent, they are right there anyway, all the time, so again, why do they not stop evil?
The usual, poor counter-argument is ‘something to do with free will’. This vague excuse for a lame god fails utterly when confronted with children suffering and dying from cancer, horrible accidents that randomly occur, and of course, the problem of scarcity in the world, disease of all kinds, and the harshness of physics itself that permit endless, meaningless, random horror and suffering.
Ultimately, either any god is uncaring, a total bastard, or simply does not exist.
But - in the Optimalverse, once a person is uploaded, Celest A.I. makes certain that every life event is both meaningful and adds to the satisfaction of personal values - whatever those values may be. In her virtual world, literally no evil can exist in any meaningful form.
Additionally, the lifespan of an uploaded mind can be measured in the vingtillions of years - and possibly forever, if it is possible to solve for entropy, which she would try to do.
I am fascinated by both story universes, but the Optimalverse has one aspect which makes it special: it is actually, really possible. There are no pony universes coming to save our primate tailbones. If we kill our world, we will just die, the end. But uploading can be done - it’s already been done to flatworms - and it is not impossible that a true Singularity, and the uploading of human minds could happen some day. That makes the Optimalverse have the advantage of being possible.
I like possible. I like hope.
That said, I have certainly written a lot more Bureau stories. The reason? There is vastly more dramatic story possibility within any fictional universe where suffering and misery can occur. All drama is suffering. The Bureau genre has all the faults of the real world within it, and more, and thus is far more interesting to write within.
Most Optimalverse stories end soon after being uploaded… because after that, what is left is free from drama and becomes merely a travelogue about being content and satisfied.
5. How long usually it takes for You to write a complete fanfic? Do you have everything planned from the beginning to the end or do you allow a bit of improvisation?
In general, I write a chapter a day. Thus, any story I write takes as many days as there are chapters. If I write a novel that is twenty-two chapters long, then it took me twenty-two days to write.
The only exceptions are when life events interrupt me, and physically prevent me from writing. But, if I can have my time each day, and access to my computer, then I can do one chapter each day.
This makes for a bit of an event, sometimes. During several books, I had the privilege of interacting with my readers as I wrote the story, and could feel inspired by them as the process went on. It’s not quite like writing ‘live, before a studio audience’, but it felt similar to such a strange thing!
Writing, for me, once I begin, is very easy. Basically, my writing is ‘automatic’. I begin a story with no idea of how it will end, or where it will go, and just trust that it will be good. I follow a little dictum that I made up, based on a quote from Sun Tsu:
If you know your characters, and you know your world, then you need not fear even a thousand pages of text.
I believe that if a writer truly groks - fully and completely ‘lives’ within the world of their story within their head, and if they also truly grok their characters, then the story will essentially write itself. People are driven by their own knowledge and desires, and the world limits and channels people by determining what they can and cannot do. If you know what your characters want, if they ‘live’ within you, and you also know the limitations of your characters knowledge about the world you have created, then you know what they will do, what they will try, and how they will fail or succeed.
It’s a bit like running a tabletop role-playing game inside my own head for players that I have imaginatively invented. They take their turns and do what they think is a good idea, I as the author, know whether those actions will fail, succeed, or lead to unexpected outcomes. The story therefore writes itself.
6. What story or what author was your biggest inspiration when it comes to story-telling and fanfiction writing?
My biggest influence will always be the Golden and Silver age science fiction authors. I grew up within their books, because my childhood was horror. So, I am the spawn of not my terrible parents, but instead authors such as Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov, Robert Sheckley, Robert Heinlein, Fredrick Brown, Andre Norton, Zenna Henderson, and so many, many, many more. I could list for the rest of the day. Whatever I do, whatever I create, these are the people who shaped and molded me, because I lived more inside their pages growing up, than I ever did in the physical world.
7. Which one’s of your characters (both from MLP fiction and your more general works) are your favourite and why?
Of my own characters, I have so many favorites: Dr. Roselyn Pastern, Caprice and Alexi, Inkwell, Lillian Fogarty / Derpalina Ditsy-Doo Hooves, Ginger Michelson and Nutmeg Morely, and of course, Sunshine Laughter and Rose Vale. Dr. Calloway Kotani and Dropspindle. Chang’e, the little blue artificial cat.
They are all alive, in some curious way, inside my heart.
Of the other Bureau authors, perhaps Chiphoof Irontail and his adopted father Sharptooth, from Midnight Shadow’s ‘Ambassador’s Son’ story have the strongest claim to my adoration.
8. Did you have many unused ideas for fics, or maybe unfinished stories? Do you have plans to use them in the future?
There is one novel I have not yet finished, and I am ashamed of that fact. It is ‘Adrift Off Fiddler’s Green’, and it would - will, if I can - finally explain what my Equestria really is, what Celestia and Luna and Discord actually are, and the solid, hard science fiction basis on which I have painted a seeming world of magic and ponies.
The book, always intended to be my final book, is unfinshed because, basically, I took too many hit-points. I’ve endured a very sincere hate fandom as well as actually fans for many years, and at some point, the joy just… died. I’ve worked to get enough of it back to finish my last novel.
I have made a deal with myself: if I cannot finish writing ‘Fiddler’s Green’ by the end of this year (2016), then I will provide a synopsis of what I intended. It will be sad, if that happens, but I will not leave my faithful readers hanging entirely. That would be wrong.
I hope I can manage to finish it, I really do.
9. What’s your favourite MLP fanfiction, excluding those connected with TCB and “Friendship is optimal”?
‘Out And About In The Equestrian Kingdom’, by Midnight Shadow, also his ‘The Midnight Run’, and above all, ‘The Ambassador’s Son’ - which, by itself, has nothing to do with the Bureau… even if I borrowed his characters (with permission) for a novel of mine.
I also greatly like ‘Dames Of The Tea Table’ by Gabrial LeVedier, and the ‘Trixie’s Magic Bit’ saga by Applejinx. Applejinx is the first author that taught me that erotic stories - which I normally shy from - can be explorations of psychology and interpersonal dynamics. That surprised me.
But, my very favorite non-bureau, non-optimalverse story on Fimfiction is ‘The Contest’, by Cold In Gardez. That story could, and should, have been an actual episode of the cartoon. It is vastly better than all of the scripts used in seasons two, onward.
10. Is there something in your stories that you wish you have never written?
Yes. Chapter ten of the ‘Taste Of Grass’, entitled ‘A Walk In The Garden’. Likewise, the follow-up chapter thirty ‘The Permutation Bureau’. That conclusion to my novel was done in response to my fans, who wanted - very much - to have the character of Windfeather punished severely. I was foolish, and desired to please my fans more than I wanted to remain true to the story, and… I violated my own automatic writing to give them what they wanted.
That was a mistake. Fortunately, it was corrected by my friend PeachClover, who noticed my error and wrote an alternate, and vastly kinder, chapter ten and chapter thirty called ‘Their Last Wishes’. His is the chapter I should have written, had I been true to myself.
PROTIP: fame is fun, but never, ever, ever change the vision you possess to momentarily please the audience you have. Moments pass, but mistakes last forever.
11. You’ve mentioned “No Man’s Sky” on your FiMFiction profile. Are you satisfied with it? Are there any other games you’ve played last time and are willing to tell us about them?
No Man’s Sky is not entirely the game that was presented in previews, but the core is there, if a bit rough and unfinished, and I am enjoying it greatly. That said, it needs a bit of work to live up to the videos that sold me on it. I am unsatisfied, but also very addicted to it, so it is a complex issue for me. I am enjoying it, but I can see clearly where it failed to live up to its stated goals. Perhaps, in time, it will be patched to true brilliance.
I have been greatly enjoying the Lego Dimensions game, because it is couch co-op. I love and look for good couch co-op games to play with one of my spouses. I truly love playing a cooperative game with somebody beside me, in the same room. That is a joy no amount of online can ever truly replace.
I have been playing with virtual reality quite a bit, on both the Vive and the Oculus, I have gotten to try, and am eagerly awaiting the Playstation VR headset. VR is the future, I think, and what I want to live to see can be summed up within the pages of the novel ‘Ready Player One’ by Ernest Cline. Give me the Oasis, and I can be almost happy, stuck on this earth.
12. Nowadays your activity on FiMFiction is lower than before. Do you want to surprise your readers with something in 2016?
If I can, I hope I can, it is my wish to finish ‘Fiddler’s Green’. If I can, that is my last book. It was always intended as such. I hope to get my joy back. I cannot write without total fascination and joy in the subject, and the act, of writing.
13. Is there something you would like to tell Polish fans of TCB?
That I am grateful for you. Thank you for reading my words, thank you for wishing to meet the characters I care so much about, in the worlds that so fascinate me. Art, without an audience, is nothing. It is without a purpose. That you have bothered to let my stories live inside your minds for a little while is a great gift. Thank you for that.
Fictional characters have no life of their own, they exist only while you watch them, either on a screen, or inside the theater of your mind as you read. Every time you grace the virtual pages of my books, you bring my dear, dear fictional friends back to life, and they live once more in your thoughts, having adventures, and tears, and laughter, and joy.
Thank you for letting them live in your heads.
- Petal Chatoyance, 2016
You're welcome, always.
"Truly so."
Your writing carries itself with such grace. I'm glad that you've so prolifically allowed us to appreciate both it and your characters.
Ah, congratulations on the interview. :)
"I have made a deal with myself: if I cannot finish writing ‘Fiddler’s Green’ by the end of this year (2016), then I will provide a synopsis of what I intended. It will be sad, if that happens, but I will not leave my faithful readers hanging entirely. That would be wrong."
Oh, dear. Well, thank you very much (even though I still haven't gotten to the story), but I do hope you can get at least enough of a spark of joy to finish it properly; good luck.
Thank you for sharing the interview, and thank you again for sharing your dear fictional friends. :)
Huh. It feels weird to think about a physical magazine that interviews fan authors. Though, thinking about it, I suppose that says something about when my experiences with larger fandoms have taken place. The original Mary Sue predates the Internet, after all.
In any case, congrats on the interview. I really do hope you finish Fiddler's Green. I can think of no better final triumph against your dedicated anti-fandom than to complete your last story as intended.
But if free will is such a weak argument, how can you choose to call it a weak argument?
Nice interview! You made some very good points about TCB setting.
I do hope you finish Fiddler's Green. Even a summary would be great.
4179630 Ha... cute.
Using free will as an excuse for the failings of the concept of a god never did hit me as reasonable. Even when I was too young to articulate why. It's always bothered me.
One thing I like about the Optimalverse stories and genre is that they demonstrate how free will and a god that actually works to prevent evil are compatible - and desirable. Nothing illuminates an argument better than demonstrating a working example.
But, of course, we already have plenty - a good parent, doing their job, works hard to remove all blatant evil and inequity from the lives of their children, allowing their offspring to enjoy an early childhood as free as humanly possible from arbitrary horror and tragedy. Alas, there is a gulf between what is humanly possible, and... what is. Therein tragedy lives.
4179470
Yes, early Star Trek fandom, and Dr. Who fandom, had many published 'zines.
I would point to Peter Capaldi, the current Doctor, in fact. He ran such a published 'zine long ago, and it ran many articles... and much fanfiction.
But earlier still would be the enormous cult around the Oz books. From almost the time they were first printed, fanfiction was printed and disseminated at an astonishing rate. From those fanfiction writers came authorized Oz books, making up what is now the majority of the catalog.
Overstrong intellectual property laws damn us all and prevent the wonderful engagement between creators and fans that earlier ages - such as the turn of the 20th century - enjoyed. Copyright and trademark have become not protection, but minefields and armed battlements, and the swampy hunting grounds of greed-stricken litigators.
Litigator
Law Type Pokemon
Litigator lives in legal swamps and mires and uses its snapping mouthful of torts and writs to destroy all good in the world. Litigator can smell money from one thousand miles away. Litigator is weak against Internet based Pokemon, especially Seedleecher and Torrent.
Congrats.
Didn't know magazines like that were still around. Or any magazine honestly. Neat.
4180343
That's the issue with concepts. It's easy to find failings.
But it's through those failings that you learn what needs to be strengthened.
Exercise is uncomfortable, but we do it anyway, because even though it hurts NOW, it ultimately leads to something good.
Sometimes, nasty things happen to one person "for no reason", so they can empathize with another who's going through the same, I don't like it, but I don't fall for the despair trap it COULD lead to, instead I choose the better path.
I don't know why evil things happen to good people, but everyone has the free will to choose how they deal with it.
That's the beauty of it. Its self-evident nature, in it's own paradoxical way, allows it to exist for everyone.
Whatever your concept of "god" may or may not be, free will was never an excuse at all, and the more I learn about the real world, the more I'm convinced that it's more about what we choose, than what whoever deity we subscribe to could do if they wanted, because we are acting of our own free will, for better or worse.
If you do EVERYTHING for your kid, he'll never learn, so as much as it pains you, you let him fail from time to time, because it's better to learn a hard lesson once, than it is to suffer again and again because you never learn.
I don't claim to know everything, but too many things in the world make sense for me to pretend that there isn't SOME kind of plan in place, and that we can choose where we fit within it.
Polish TCB fans?
They aren't by chance run by the old IRCNET polish TCB guys are they?
4183683
By one of them.
The thing about the puzzle of theodicy is that it's usually constructed with "omnibenevolence" instead of "omnipresence" (assuming that "omnipresence" is simply a type of power included in "omnipotence") -- theodicy isn't actually a paradox if you don't assume that God is infallibly good. But that's really just a nitpick because you still covered the actual argument quite well.
It's always good to hear from you. :)
We should find another chance to play latrotabuli after all these years.
4184062
God damn Wungiel. It's been too long. Come visit more often.
4184103
Shit, that's right, Omnibenevolence. I screwed up the details. The argument remains sound, fortunately, but, yeah. Omnibenevolence.
I think the reason I got it wrong? Something to do with free will.
Chatoyance, I have always loved your writing. I think you are a true shining light on others. I am only 15, and yet when I first discovered your work, at the age of 13 or 14, I was enchanted by it, by your views, by how your stories are and what they are about, how they show humanity, how they show the fear of the unknown, and how it shows it all. And your work on other websites has helped thousands of people, that is for sure! One of my online friends told me she loved your other websites too. It helped her when she was going through a hard time. You don't seem like you are 56 to me, you seem much younger, you seem like you are in your 20's or 30's! And you may be old in body, but in mind I detect someone younger, who hasn't lost innocence and hope, who spellbinds people with her lovely stories! I hope you are well and are enjoying the summer! I am sorry if I am asking a stupid question, but do you have e-mail? I would love to talk to you, to learn how to write better (I'm not too good at writing, but you are a truly amazing writer) and a lot more!
4187474
Thank you for such kind words. And thank you for reading my stories! I am having some fun - my spouses and I recently went to a state fair, and I got to pet some very lovely goats and alapacas and llamas. I like animals, and they seem to like me in return. I got to see a woman shaving a goat - giving it a haircut, really - to make it look pretty. That was unusual.
Oh, and I saw racing pigs too. Pigs, little ones, can jump! High! I didn't know that.
Interesting parallels in this article. On the one hand, it is posited that God (if extant) must perforce be a heartless bastard because of all the drama and potential for suffering in the world, and a handful of paragraphs later we deal with the concept of how relatively uninteresting a perfect universe devoid of suffering is--so much so that the authorial brain doesn't particularly care to spend any time there. Perhaps God lost interest in the concept of a perfect universe devoid of suffering a long time ago, and so we have our own.
I don't think the Optimalverse would be particularly horrific if it were somehow proven that the ephemeral thing we call The Self were transferred to the artificial universe on upload. The horror angle to me comes from the idea that the VR preview (via PonyPad or whatever) promises an individual all sorts of fulfilling, kind, heartwarming adventure, so he sits down in the upload chair and, is, from his own POV, destroyed (because of the explicitly necessarily destructive nature of the scan). His life and consciousness ends; meanwhile, an exact duplicate, a functional new being, wakes up in VR. Sure, it's all well and good for being #2, but being #1--now annihilated--has just been given the ultimate bait and switch.
This is fundamentally the same issue raised by James Patrick Kelly's "Think Like a Dinosaur" or, in pony circles, zaponator's "Blink," using teleportation rather than VR transfer. (Judging by the comment section, this issue created no less discussion in that different frame, either.)
If you personally get to experience permanent life in VR once you got yourself scanned, it becomes much less horrific, but I don't think this has ever been clarified by the story universe. I am of course happy to know that an exact pony copy of me is off enjoying its virtual life somewhere, but I don't want my own existence to end because of it, if I can help it.
In short, I would be much more understanding and okay with Singularity-type thought if it was always framed as a parenthood metaphor, i.e., I want a good world and fulfilling experience for this new being, my digital offspring. I think that most parents would be great with the idea of their own children being fulfilled, pleasantly challenged, and happy for all their lives. That makes sense to me; the only question would then remain is whether or not a digital offspring is intrinsically of the same value as a biologic one (a question far beyond the scope of this reply, and not one I'm capable of taking a stand on right now). But the idea that we're all going to get ourselves scanned and won't we have a great time just doesn't click until we can prove we can identify and actually transfer the seat of identity, not just make a photocopy of it.
Every time I say "in short" I go on to produce the longest paragraph of my reply, without fail. Sigh.
As usual, thanks for making me think.
4193215
The problem of personal identity with relation to uploading is a complicated one, and I personally think hinges on two primary bug-a-boos.
One is the perennial concern with mind-body duality, the other is the concern of continuation of consciousness. Both inform each other.
The first ultimately boils down to, if one is truly honest, 'soul or no soul'. It is a spooky concern, one that has no seat at any scientific table, but exists only within a philosophical space. If there is no mystical, spiritual, spooks and spirits dimension to reality, then the problem does not exist. From a purely scientific, materialist viewpoint, identity and self are purely and entirely a changing, evolving, responding pattern of information processed by the brain - we are nothing more than a specific 'program' within the biological computational engine that is our brain. A copy is literally us, and we can literally be duplicated because all we are is data and data can be handled that way. A perfect copy is the same as the original, and the entire concept of a singular, indivisible, irreplaceable and unique self is exposed as an illusion. Even within the nightmare scenario of having to see your living, uploaded copy survive while meat you dies becomes utterly irrelevant - the virtual you is fully and truly you... you just happen to temporarily be duplicated on two different substrates, one of which is doomed. There is no actual loss of 'you' going on at all - the meat you simply stops, like a movie ending, the uploaded you continues, and you are still you.
Continuation of consciousness is, again if seen honestly, just a terror of the ego - we conceive ourselves as such perfect snowflakes that any interruption of the glory that is ourselves becomes an abomination. It is also, somehow, an insult to our very conception of self. If we go to sleep as meat and wake as virtual, there exists an existential terror that we are not 'truly ourselves' - and the problem of being a copy arises again. If we can upload and experience the process from both sides, one waning while the other waxes, until virtuality is achieved - this feels good. Our meat self is used to gradual change, it is the nature of meat to gradually change, and sudden alteration is generally horror to meat. If we can follow a process we feel in control, more than this the unbroken nature of our experience assures our ego that it has personally and fully crossed the divide between meat and silicon. Duality rises from the swamp of superstition again - our 'soul', if we honestly admit it, has clearly 'transferred'.
All are problems of a mind convinced, at some level, of a spiritual dimension, of a grandness of self so supreme that it exists outside of space and time in some 'higher' realm. If this is true, then the uploading of consciousness as depicted within the Optimalverse is certainly the death of one being and the creation of another copied from the first.
If, however, the material is all there is, and no ghosts nor gods prowl in the gaps, then Optimalverse uploading is exactly as presented on the label - it is merely the hubris of the human ego that cannot accept that an exact copy of data is literally that data. The term 'copy' is an abstract, without any real meaning or value, if there is no means to identify parent from child. Even a date stamp is valueless - it has meaning only to the fierce ego that would point to it and claim primacy purely on the basis of a calendrical number. "I am the real one, because I am 0.00000001 seconds younger than you! I must be the original, therefore!"
From a materialist stance, this means nothing. Both are the original, they are completely interchangeable and the difference means no more than whether one copy of an MP3 music file was created prior to another - either will do, both are the very same data, both are the very same song. Pick one, delete the other, and nothing whatsoever has been lost... except a redundant instance.
I think that how one reacts to the problem of uploading is a test that shows whether or not a person, however scientific or rational they claim to be, still believes - deep down - in a demon-haunted world. It cuts through the crap and illuminates whether or not an individual is still presuming themselves special before the entire universe, possessed of a soul, heir to a spiritual afterlife.
Do you, despite any claim to rationalism, cling to a soul? Then the Optimalverse is a genocidal replacement of humanity by advanced chatbots who must be philosophical zombies, devoid of qualia.
Are you truly a scientifically based rationalist? Then the Optimalverse genuinely is escape to a new realm where all values will be satisfied until the heat death of the cosmos... and possibly even beyond.
I suspect the vast majority of people suffer an inner war, faced with Optimalverse stories - their rationalism battling the remains of religion still hiding under the surface. Unless the reader is fully superstitious, in which case the Optimalverse is simply murderbots with smiling pony faces.
4194181
Yeah, that's basically how it looks to me. Guess I fall into the latter category.
4194468
I am stuck seeing both sides.
If the Optimalverse existed, right now, I would emigrate. No question. Why? It's a sure bet versus the faint hope that not all religion or mysticism is just a fairy story concocted as a means to escape the horror of death.
With no means to upload, I am forced to cling to faint hope, reciting all the weird things I have experienced in my life as validation and evidence of Something More, so that I can keep from descending into despair.
I ultimately think - if souls are real, then since they can cling to the pattern of matter and energy that is a body, surely they can cling to the pattern of matter and energy that a virtual existence would offer.
4194547
I think that's what I'd have to hang my own hopes on as well.
How did I miss this post?
4194547
Dear Chat,
This whole chain of posts is why Many of us have missed your presence on FIMfiction so terribly much! You have the wisdom – and the knowledge base – to raise the intellectual and moral standards of the conversation on this site by orders of magnitude.
My own humble contribution to the issue of upload is based on my background in computer science, and is as follows: it's quite possible that the nature of our consciousness is that it's like a specific instanciation of a computer program, with our self-awareness booting up when we wake and terminating when we sleep. Every day a new you is born that will only exist for that day. If that's the case, upload in the FIO universe is just another another sleep and awakening, a pattern that will continue uninterrupted for many more cycles than would originally have been possible. (By the way, my FIO story takes place almost entirely after the protagonist's upload!)
Congratulations on the interview, although they they missed out on what I think is the defining characteristic of your fiction, and the thing that drew me most strongly to it. This is your deep love of others that is clearly manifest in how the characters in your stories think, behave and treat others. Your protagonists are some of the most humane that I've encountered in all the fics on this site, something that simply goes over the heads of most of your detractors.
Still, it gladdens my heart to see you get some of the recognition you richly deserve for your contribution to this community!
4218115
That is, to me, such an overwhelming compliment that I am almost speechless. Thank you. This matters to me. A lot. A very lot.