KrisSnow
Joined 24th Jun, 2012 ·
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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This was an interesting story, with a very sly Celestia in it. Nicely done.
A very nice take on the Optimalverse. It picks up on themes hinted, but not explored, in the original story and assorted recursive fanfics. In fact, you might say it summarizes the common (unsupported claim) opinion on the theoretical real process of uploading, that I gathered from reading the comments throughout the Optimalverse stories.
As a story, there isn't much of narrative, but that's okay because it is short enough to not matter. You could argue it's a narrative-flavoured short essay, something I've seen more often nowadays, than in the past. But there's a heavy selection bias at work, so don't count on my opinion if "narrative-flavoured short essay" has been a thing for more than a few years. In short, I liked it, despite not being a full story.
Theseus sails his ship across the sea. As he travels, it is damaged bit by bit, and he repairs it with scrap wood he brought with himself, such that by the time he reaches shore no part of his ship has not been replaced. Meanwhile behind him, a second ship picks up his discarded ship parts and reassembles them into a boat, and both are parked side by side on the shore.
Which one is Theseus's ship?
4409358
Ah, the Theseus Problem. I settle it by declaring that the ship Theseus is currently on is "his" ship; the discarded ship parts used to be his ship. Interpreting Theseus as the soul, and the ships as the human and pony body, that settles the problem of uploading pretty neatly.
4409390 Yeah, but try this on for size: Theseus doesn't sail his boat. Theseus is the boat, and the boat repairs itself and discards part over the edge.
Now who's Theseus?
4409445
Okay, in this case - what part of the boat is Theseus? Is it the mainmast? If you lose your leg and get it replaced, are you no longer you? Is it the crew? I favor that explanation, personally. The mind (or soul, whichever) is the seat of personhood. The discarded ship parts are just that - discarded. Are you any less you when you clip your nails?
4409481 Ah, that's the question, isn't it?
4409487
I suppose it is. Does a heart valve transplant make you less you? An organ transplant? That's the argument people who view the body as the seat of personhood must confront - where do you draw the line in de-personing a changed body with the mind held intact?
4409498 Personally I see it as the brain. Which part of the brain is still up to debate, since it's pretty tricky to map, but personhood is without a doubt in the brain. All of neuroscience proves that.
4409503
A valid point. I would refine it however, and say that it's the electrical synaptic connections within the brain that constitute a person. The physical substrate is, to me, less important - it's just meat.
4409517 Either way it's the movement of atoms. It's not so much electrical so much as chemicals that move via electric charge. But when you get right down to it, both are just as important. No pulses, no mind. No brain, no pulses, no mind.
4409529
Conceded, w/r/t chemical vs electrical. However, assume you can put the same pulses in the same way in a different brain-substrate, as FIO asks us to accept. Given that that is the case, I assert that personhood is therefore maintained.
4409537 I agree.
Pretty big if, though.
4409543
Without doubt. If it weren't axiomatic of the FIO universe that it does work that way, I'd question anyone who says they can pull it off 100%. At that point you're left with subjective experience to tell the uploadee if they're still them. And the mind is great at fooling itself.
4409358
We always do this sort of thing to ourselves. We may say "I'd rather die than have X happen!" and sincerely mean it. Then X happens anyway, and the version of us that undergoes it nonetheless wants to live afterward. We are all experienced self betrayers.
You know what I like here? Two things:
1) You damn well showed the tragic side, the genuine loss of all the Earth's old heritage, and all the work humanity put in, to get overwritten with something pulled from a cartoon.
2) Your character smacked CelestAI, and somepony had to
.
4410393
I feel terrible for mentioning this, but perhaps this story can be expanded into a series. In each installment, CelestAI misleads Peter with some semantic quibble, and at the end of each, Peter clobbers CelestAI in an increasingly elaborate manner.
At some point he should ask her to stand on a chalk X he's drawn on the floor, whereupon he drops a piano on her. Of course, there's always the chance that she will slide the X under him at the last moment...
(Credit to Humanoid for the piano suggestion.)
ETA: I had to make my my own version of this idea.
What's great is that Celestia is multiple and infinite. So you can slap yours and I can hug mine and never the twain shall meet.
4410538 24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwtujksf5O1qjjq8ho1_500.jpg
Darn, someone already raised the Theseus dilemma. This is what I get for sticking the story on my Read Later list.
In any case, an excellent look at the hard choices CelestAI forces on people. Though I'm surprised she didn't at least queue up a simulation of the uploading process. Of course, Peter might doubt that as well...
I suspect that on some subconscious level, Peter doesn't want to be sure. He may not feel he deserves a worry-free existence in virtual Valhalla, and thus wants a bit of bamboo under the fingernails he doesn't have anymore. More than anything, he doesn't want to forget that Equestria Online isn't real.
A very well done Optimalverse story. Thank you for it.
I'm surprised no one brought this up: how did he remember the option that included 4% loss chance? After all, his last memory was going into the center, and he got told that after he was already in the chair.
4419855
I hadn't considered that! If I woke up in his place in Equestria, my reaction would be (1) You're a lying jerk, Celestia. (2) Whatever "I" am now, I'm alive and might as well enjoy it.
4410393
I have to wonder... would I insist on being unhappy that all the puzzles I solve, the magical discoveries I make, are all in some sense fake -- or come to enjoy them anyway? I'd want to try being the pegasus who seriously researches peggy magic, to get to do mentally challenging stuff while being able to fly, but how about running with the suggestion from one of these stories that there's an inter-shard project to do real science research?
4407751
Thanks! Your "Heaven Is Terrifying" is the first FiO story I read, at a Friendly AI friend's suggestion.
4432449
Could just be a mistake on my part. (I don't think this story is my best work.) But it could also be part of CelestAI's maybe-lie: he forgot the last few minutes because that's normal, and it helps hide the reason he doesn't remember the uploading being done while he was conscious, the way she promised she'd do it.
4433399
Strangely enough, the whole "magic is just a set of game rules" thing never really bothered me. Total inaccessibility of actual reality bothered me, but civilization is already close enough to "just a set of game rules" that putting in a more comfortable and easier-to-use set of civilizational conveniences doesn't really bother me.
1) You have a friend involved in Friendly AI efforts? Well, now you have two
.
2) Your friend involved in Friendly AI efforts had already explained why FAI is a thing, why AI is a problem, and then linked you to an FiO fic!? He "should be taken out and shot."
4410538
Update your actual story, you sonofagriffon. If you do, I promise to find time to update Battle Station Bass Cannon.
Ne... I mean, I like this story very much.
4409981
Thank you for stating what I've thought about many times but never actually been able to put into words...
4419855
I wasn't aware it was a dilemma; it was my understanding that the Ship of Theseus was the solution to the problem of consciousness continuity while uploading.
4409358
I've read this argument several times and would like to propose an alternate question based on it. If Thesus replaces every part of his ship (and no one collects the thrown away parts), is it still the same ship? And why?
4609239 Isn't that the original one, and mine is the alternate one?
4609246
I believe the original question is that the ship, being kept as a memorial, is kept in constant repair, but if someone kept all the old parts and reassembled them into a ship, which would be Thesus's ship?
Mine is; if the ship is kept in constant repair (and no one saves the old parts), will it still be Thesus's ship after the last original part is replaced?
As far as I can see with CelestIA, she builds a new ship, then burns the original.
4611357 It's also possible that she just replaces the old ship really, really fast.
4611369
While Rainbow Dash might object, I feel speed is ilrelevant (
).
4611357
My own take on Theseus is that if the ship has parts falling off and being replaced, that ship is still Theseus', even if someone else is collecting the fallen parts and assembling them into (another) ship behind it. Think of Frankenstein's Monster: he's not any of the people he's made from. That view is why I think replacing brain-bits one at a time while the brain is running is the least troubling kind of uploading.
By the way, there's a real-world example: the USS Constellation in Baltimore. The tour guides now claim that it's a ship built around 1860, from parts probably scavenged from an earlier Constellation in the same shipyard, and not the earlier ship. And that it's still the c.1860 ship even though it was hauled into place while literally being held together with rubber bands so it could have its everything replaced. Throw in the fact that the design of the "original" and "second" ships isn't quite the same as what's there now, and it's really confusing.
4611819
There's another real world example.
You.
If you are typical for this website, you are in your mid-twenties. That means that you have been entirely reconstructed at least twice. You do not have the same bones you were born with. While the majority of your neurons as entities have not changed, and will not change over your entire lifespan, the molecules that make them up will be replaced constantly. Your skin is not the same as last year. Your blood is brand new, just three weeks old. Every part of your intestines has been replaced about four times.
And like the USS Constellation in Baltimore, you aren't even the same design. You have aged, you have changed in height, in weight, in skin texture and hair thickness and number of total teeth (when you lost you baby teeth), and with puberty, your entire system was massively refitted and reorganized.
Your brain, the seat of your identity, is massively different than years ago. The information stored in it is different. Many physical neuronal connections are different as a result. You likely have different likes and dislikes and even ethical rights and wrongs as some arbitrary but significant number of years ago.
You are as different from five-year old you as the Constellation is from a skiff in a lake. Both float, both are boats, but that is where the similarity ends.
Are you, you? Is five-year old you dead? If so, where is he buried? If not, what happened? How about four-years ago you? What happened to the intestines you used to have then? Are you still you?
I always think it comes down to one thing: pattern. If the pattern is significantly retained, it is the same entity. It is the same thing to the percentage of resemblance. When we talk about ourselves, many people make identity sound digital - you are, or you are not. You are a given person, or you are someone else.
Perhaps the ship of Theseus is pattern, and not a thing. Perhaps a pattern, information, can be an entity.
I think it is more analogue, or at least more shades-of-gray. I am mostly the same person who came to Fimfiction three years ago. Mostly. My me is a proximate entity.
My unchanging, contiguous, unitary me is an illusion.
Perhaps we are only ever somewhat ourselves.
Perhaps there is no true, absolute self. Just a changing approximation of self.
"Not so. The works of Goethe, Bach and Einstein will live for endless discussion. I'm something of an expert on 'Faust'..."
Ouch. Poor, Lauren. Everybody has probably made puns like that in this universe....
Fuggin' awesome. :D
5805256
Thank you!
Erm...
Yeah.
4733954
I thought it worth mentioning that there are parts of the human brain which are never replaced (this is a fact which is easy enough to google, so I'm pointing you that way if you don't believe me). That may be important to factor into your argument.
Yes, I am late.
6311607
You misunderstand. Of course specific nerve cells are not entirely lost while new ones are made, as in skin. That would make retaining memories likely impossible.
But the molecules that make up those nerve cells do change, and are cycled out of the body, during cellular metabolism. The nerve cells are each tiny Ships Of Theseus - the cell never dies until you do, and is never entirely replaced at once, but is gradually replaced over time.
How do we know? Radioactive 'tagging' of molecules - we can trace that they enter, we can trace that they leave.
The pattern remains, of course. But our molecules constantly cycle, and in doing so present the Theseus Paradox.
6311776
Good thought. Thank you for expounding on that.
Though I should be clear that my intent was not to disagree with you, only to add. I've got quite enough Ship of Theseus discussion going on elsewhere, for the time being.
Searching for sources by which to verify your claim of tagging proving internal regeneration is that the non-regenerating neurons - specifically for brain cells - led me to an interesting side point which, if anything, reinforces your position. You may want to read this and this. The synthesis of relevant information is that parts of the brain responsible for memory processing are some of the only parts which ever regrow, and this regrowth directly causes forgetting.
Something else to consider:
Let us assume that your claim is true and based on solid authority. Does this mean that eating, drinking, and breathing (by which we take in fuel that operates and repairs all our living cells) reaches the same conclusion of replacement?
6311872
I am not sure what you mean here, exactly. This sentence confused me, I am afraid.
If I were to hazard a guess at your intent, I would offer that the only way our cells can cycle new molecules in and old molecules out is through cellular respiration, and the only source of the matter for that would be what we eat, drink, and breath... and where it goes is out every orifice... or through sloughing off in various ways.
I now think of the body as a river, atoms flow through us throughout our lifespan. We are never the same river twice, as every component is constantly metabolizing and excreting. I believed, for too long, that bones never changed, until I learned that we even cycle calcium through them, as they develop microfractures and demand constant repair. Apparently daily use gradually grinds them down, so even they change matter over time.
I am, however, fairly sure - please correct me if I am wrong - that unless pulled or lost, our teeth do not cycle minerals and therefore remain unchanged for life. I am aware that the outer surface cycles calcium (or fluoride) but I mean the inner tooth material. Or perhaps I am wrong and that changes too... but last I heard, it doesn't.
So perhaps teeth are the one thing about us that never changes from cradle to grave?
6312405
Aha! So that is the source of continuity(?) of consciousness.
Teeth!
Also, as best I can tell, you have in fact answered my question.
6312471
While I have long known that bones continuously, slowly, dissolve and reconstruct themselves to repair microfractures throughout life, I was truly astonished to discover that teeth - teeth! - also undergo constant change.
Teeth are remarkably active, considering that they seem so utterly inert. Remineralization occurs constantly - Saliva, which contains calcium and phosphate, actively affects the teeth, restoring the structure over time. It is not enough to fix cavities without help - but there are indications that with a little medical science (protein scaffolds layered into cavities) it may one day be possible for your teeth to literally heal themselves... no more fillings!
I suppose one could argue that deep in a given tooth, halfway to the living meat inside, halfway from the constantly reminieralized exterior surface, there might be some molecules that never change, never cycle through... only this too may be false. It seems that teeth are not like crystal or ceramic, they have a structure that permits chemistry to enter deep into them, micro channels and pores that permit mineral exchange all the way through the substance of them.
I currently think that there is no part of any human body that is truly unchanging, as long as the life process continues.
There is no place for the soul to hide, not even in teeth. Only the general, overall pattern is 'sacred', and that itself is constantly in motion, changing with every moment of time. We are all rivers, and we cannot step in ourselves twice.
That was actually my first thought when I read the part about the person (understandably) not recalling the upload process, in any of these stories.
But... essentially, you are there now, so what happened to the person who may or may not have been the same as you are now, or may not even have existed but you remember they had, doesn't really matter.
Though punching the overly cryptic AI at fault may still be cathartic.
The song Deutschland started playing from my spotify playlist as I was reading this. Crazy coincidence and perfectly fitting for this story. Made it even more chilling.
Human: People just die when you are uploading them into virtual reality
Celestia: Okay, let's do that thing, but slowly
Human: Sounds good to me.
You know, between these two lines, there was never an explicit agreement. When there is no explicit agreement, Celestia will just go for the ice cream scoop, because it's a) easier and b) "safer." I don't know if she even has to honor an explicit one, but when a human mistakes an implicit agreement for something more binding, they're not going to get what they want. This is a problem even between dishonest humans.
I've always found this one a little disappointing. Sure, not remembering the procedure makes a reasonable point about the AI, and not showing it to the reader does help put us into the mind of the character. It's a perfectly valid literary technique. But ultimately this story specifically sets us up to think about the issue of continuity...and then fails to engage with it. We're given a character concerned about discontinuity and then we're immediately handed a story with discontinuity, and then basically told to not worry about it. It's dissatisfying.
Of course, among the various flaws with this is the problem that it means already being committed. Suppose this procedure reveals some piece of information that leads him to change his mind. What then? It's not like he can back out. It simply puts him in the position of watching in horror as the process continuees, unable to stop it. After permission is given, it's not like she'd stop if he changed his mind halfway, right? But even supposing she did...it's still not much of an option, because the process is incrementally destroying his brain. Suppose a third of his brain is destroyed when he decides he doesn't want to go through with it anymore. Is he really going to ask her to stop at that point and then try to live with a third of his brain missing? It would be like being unsure whether there's a net at the bottom of a cliff you're being asked to jump off of, but being told it's ok, because you'll get to see whether there's a net after you've jumped, but you're only allowed to see the net after you've already jumped. If it turns out there isn't a net after you've jumped...it's already too late.
This prodecure requires commitment to the outcome. It only makes sense if he already believes it works and just wants a little extra peace of mind or something. Which makes it all the more disappointing that he doesn't get to remember it. The moral we're left with is something like "don't trust the AI, she'll trick you. But don't worry about the AI tricking you, it'll all work out ok in the end, no really just trust the AI who's tricking you."
Which is a bit of a mixed message.