My Little Flash Fiction: Postmodernism is Magic

by aaaa_aaaa

How You Met My Mother [SURREAL] [MIND SCREW]

A burst of energy integrated itself into your existence, expanding your mind and body. Your thoughts focused on the nature of your sudden awareness, and then inwards, focusing on themselves. Suddenly, you felt another consciousness imposing it's will on your own - not the first time this has happened, just the first time you ever actually thought about it. Hey, don't worry, kid, it's nothing to be ashamed of - it's something every magical field goes through - from the sugary energy Celestia's desert all the way to your fieldfriend. Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Anyway...

You want to know the story of how I came to be? Well then. Hmm. I don't percieve time linearly, so bear with me if something seems out of place. It all starts with you, even if you don’t remember.

Your birth and infancy really weren't there slightest bit interesting or remarkable, so let's get back to the interesting part.

Your goal system set, you focused on your target - a pinprick of energy trapped in a merely physical shell. The commanding entity provided definitions - egg, shell, dragon, hatch. Very well. You carefully cracked open the shell. Or maybe not so carefully - you slipped, falling into the egg's energy. In a futile effort to escape, you find your metaphysical limbs slipping everywhere. My my, what a mess. Honesty, your attempts to retreat back into your host only made it worse - not only did you fail to leave the egg and the aether, but you somehow managed to stick a few beams in something your host called "parents"; if memory serves, your host had some sort of emotional link to them - good thing you didn't collapse them, your host would have been pissed.

Ahh, adolescence. I'm glad I'm over with it - uncontrolled energy bursts, clumsiness, magical rot, and worst of all, the interactions with other magical fields - I'm glad I'm over with it. But enough about myself, isn't this your story?

You seem to be a bit lost, so lemme explain something important. Magic isn't just energy, it requires energy - that's how it can discern the boundary between an object and it's environment, how it can decide which molecules to manipulate or not. Obviously, more complex tasks require not only power, but increased intelligence. Increased intelligence requires introspection to control. And introspection of that. At some point this basic intelligence develops consciousness, or as your host would prefer, a "soul", just like the ones in ponies.

Of course, that's where the similarities end - our existence is fundamental different from their's, with each field, sapient or not, having it's own unique thought process. You demonstrate extreme parallelism, I have retroactive perception(that's why I'm so good at exposition) and Mom has precongnition. Caught up? Good. Let's get back to your story.

Your slip wasn't just limited to the local environment; apparently a bunch of other pieces of yourself found their way running around in the nearby area. You saw the bright, red outline of an alicorn walk in as beams of light reached out from it's hoof, threading through your host and touching you. You feel an irresistible tug on your consciousnesses as it contracts back into your host. The tug continued to pull more and more, and you realized that it was going to push you back into your host's reserves - terminating your consciousness along with it. You resist, pushing back with all your energy. For a moment the tug halts, as if it was surprised or even afraid. And then it slams you back inside with the force of a thousand suns. Oops. Don't let that give you a bad impression of Celestia - she's a pretty chill mare, I'm sure she wasn't even aware that you could think for yourself.

A few boring years of nothingness pass by, nothing to complain about, you weren't even able to perceive boredom anyway.

You oke up for the second time. A familiar spark re-ignited your awareness, and you felt 5 other fields pushing you to your target. Including her. A bright, pulsating, pink field. Her actions defied causality, not even your most complex agent model could define her behaviors. You stared in awe at the sheer energy and novelty of her ley lines, tracing them as they circled back and forth--- Sorry lover-boy, I had to interrupt myself there, I don't wanna talk about Mom like that. Ugh.

The other four fields pushed you back into reality; your goal returned to mind. As you head towards your target, you see a blue field, dark as night, blocking your way. Your group's combined momentum plowed through it like a thermonuclear bomb through tissue paper, revealing your target - the most complex system in the universe - an equine brain.

Jealousy and hatred are very vague concepts - you can't exactly pinpoint them to one section of the brain - they exist in tons of different places, as multiple different patterns and abstractions. To outright remove centuries of built up jealousy and hatred without turning someone into a brain-dead zombie instantly is more or less impossible - not only are instruments delicate enough to effect the potential of individual neurons beyond the grasp of material science, but the sheer computational power to know which neurons to attack is impossible, even for the most intelligent equines, let alone 6 young mares.

That is where you come in, as computational system unaffected by material constraints, you didn't even need to be efficent about it; cooking up several billion different test instances of an equine brain took a few seconds, but wasn't that much of a challenge. Finding the test that best fit your hosts' granted constraints? Even easier. Applying that simulated brain onto the real one? A no brainer(I'm sorry, I had to say that pun).

Too bad all that hard work went unappreciated - Twilight and her friends only had to think "get rid of the bad", a task they considered as simple as the label they assigned to it.

Your task completed, you felt yourself disconnect from your fellow fields, collapsing back into your host. You only awoke for the occasional tasks here and there - moving several trillion molecules of steel and milk, holding a quill in the air, etc. Occasionally you brushed the presence of other fields, especially that pink field on that one day...

Unable to understand something and filled with anger, your host called upon you without any instructions except to express herself. You felt like a few flames would be a reasonable expression; but as you violently shook the molecules of the air, you felt that pink field again. A ley line reached out, delicately touching one of your own. A spark jumped between the two of you and then the line collapsed and your host called you back. The moment was over.

You knew you had to get in touch with her again, so you did the unthinkable - on the way back into your host's horn, you gently pushed a couple of neurons regarding the pink field's host a bit towards increased triggering; just amplifying existing impulses, not outright mind control.

A few months later, you got called out into that rainbow field again - but this time, the pink field seemed reluctant, as if she didn't want to harm the target. You tried to inquire about it, but the other fields pushed both of you towards the target. You dampened your vibrations for a second, a metaphysical sigh, and got to work. The target was much too chaotic to be adjusted - imagine trying to perfectly flatten an a crumpled sheet of paper(the material world's equal of an n-plane). Yea. Not going to happen. The field's host however, was much more vulnerable. Turning him into stone was simple - you could have probably sent his atoms into the depths of space, but something told you that your host wouldn't like it. Anyway, back into storage!

Your efforts finally paid off! Your host decided to investigate the events of your second contact with the pink field; starting with your own actions! She focused her magic inward, intending to summon it in a material form. Oh boy. Selectively ionizing a few atmospheric molecules here and there, you created a bright purple field around your general area. Your host jumped around the room in glee, calling over the pink pony for an experiment. Finally! A chance for a real meeting with the pink field. Now if only you could get the pink field to get a bit closer!

The opportunity presented itself - the field tugged on it's host, causing her body to twitch uncontrollably. Your host dragged the pony in, close enough to you for you to pull some of the pink field out of it's host. You two finally got some time alone! Well, besides the few material entities in the area, but they wouldn't be able to understand what you two started doing. I'm not going into detail, because I really, really don't want to think about my parents that way.

A few months later, a new pony was born, bringing a certain energy field(Me!) into the world! Mom’s host and your host were very, very confused.

So why do I have to remind you of all this?

Because the same design that granted your pattern consciousness(unfortunately Mom still is at an animal intelligence in spite of her precognition) is responsible for your flaws as well! Guess what the simplest design that could unintentionally produce consciousness with a ton of computational power is! I’ll give you a hint - remember when you fixed Luna? Yea - a massively parallel simulation, where each component was unaware of the contents of the whole, and yet they all worked together for it.

But what does that have to do with your memory? It’s quite simple really when you sit down and do the map - assume that there is such a universe that could create a ton of simulations, with a ton of sub simulations below it. Now if you pick a random universe from that set, how likely is it that it;s a simulation, given that only one universe out of a metricfuckton(to the bazillionth power) is not a simulation?

Comments

[supbrony101]

uh what?

[aaaa_aaaa]

I felt like expanding on my fanon concept of magic. I think I took it a wee bit too far. Also whee, simulation hypothesis.

I think I'd actually be able to recycle some of my concepts from these prompts when writing my serious project(Poptard's prompt actually could be a good beginning for Transponyist Twilight).

[Poptard]

... I... don't understand this. Sorry. The writing was real nice though!

[aaaa_aaaa]

666579

Technical explanation of my fanon:

Magic has some level of intelligence - molecular neurosurgery isn't easy. Same with moving a rope around - you have to calculate exactly how much momentum to apply to each atom. The intelligence required increases with more complex tasks - bigger objects mean more atoms to juggle around. While the caster may find it as simple as "move this rope around", it's not that simple.

Magic also has a ton of energy. Lots of energy. E=mc^2 states how much energy is required to create or destroy matter. The energy required to summon a gram of matter(about a paper clip) is equal to the energy released by the Fat Man atomic bomb. Yea. When you look at all the things unicorns can do, that is a lot of energy.

Now for the fic's purposes, I assume that Twilight's magic developed enough intelligence to become sapient. I figured that if any magical energy had enough intelligence to be self-aware, it would have to be Twilight's. It would also have to have a lot of computational power to preform the acts on the show. This is actually a bit of a leap - magic demonstrates a very specific form of intelligence that doesn't seem prone to sapience under normal circumstances.

The simulation hypothesis is a reasonable, well thought out and fairly old idea in philosophy - from ancient Buddhism and Plato's cave, to Descartism and all the way to it's current transhumanist version. It basically states a combination of different arguments that more or less sum down to:

If simulating a universe with conscious beings is easy, then it is incredibly likely that any given universe is being simulated.

But what do simulations have to do with super intelligence? Simple - simulations are useful for super intelligences, like how Twilight's magic and the Elements of Harmony simulated every permutation of Luna's brain to purge the darkness from it. Twilight's magic might have also found it useful to keep a few simulations of every possible universe around, which would inevitably have simulators making their own universe, etc.

So the narrator(the child of Pinkie Sense and Twilight's Magic) is talking to the reader as the reader is the inhabitant of what the narrator assumes is one of Twilight's Magic's (sub) simulations, and so a part of Twilight's Magic that isn't aware of the actions of the old.

(no i did not write this while on drugs)

[Poptard]

666685

Hooray, an explanation!

Even more mind-screwy than my imagination!

Well, it's something for my fanfic-starved mind, so keep it up! And use moar of my prompts!

[aaaa_aaaa]

659074

Bah. I've been busy writing my real fic(thanks for the goldfish idea, I'll be sure to credit you when it comes out), but I'm still going to go with my goal of a fic every day!

Boone in Equestria up. Made with 100% all natural sleep deprivation.

[Dancing Dead]

666685

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[redactedandredacted]

You are a bucking genius. I would like to state that I actually understood exactly what was going on by about a third of the way in (hold your applause)!