Probability of THS scenario - in light of the last 10 years

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Eidolons and shadows are both digital intelligences that behave a lot like human minds in various crucial ways. The game templates are similar because both can behave much the same way for game purposes. But one is a fairly meticulous model of a "real" (in the game world) person, and the other is basically a work of fiction (even in the game world). Heck, some eidolons are explicitly based on fictional characters, or historical figures for whom the hard evidence for psychological modelling is basically non-existent.

"The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy."

(William Blake)

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That seems curiously like the position you were arguing against over on the other thread. Perhaps we should go back there.

Not really ready. I'm lately spending all of long-post inspiration on Æthereal Sun wiki.

Anyway, not sure what you mean. I'm arguing against 'I=token' in favour of 'I=type'.

Originally Posted by whswhs

On the other hand, if the conscious mind has information from sensory and subconscious sources, or from any sources, that information necessarily is stored in the physical state of the brain. If you copy the brain exactly, you have copied the information; if you simulate the brain, you have simulated the information. So a ghost at least would seem to have a copy of the internal self-awareness of its original, by hypothesis.

Bill Stoddard

Ghosts don't normally suffer from Amnesia (Shallow).

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I didn't mean in the way like templates, I meant in practice, it would seem logical that if you don't want to Ghost yourself, but want an Eidolon, you'll Shadow-scan and use the other people's info on you combined with the Shadow-derived info to produce the closest Eidolon.

That is a shadow, with some tweaks to the construction process. Talking about it as an eidolon is just confusing the issue pointlessly. Please don't do that.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Do Eidolons have Amnesia like Shadows?

Yes. (Deep Beyond, p.120.) In both cases, this represents the fact that the pesonality lacks some of the memories that it should really need to underpin its persona, and so is programmed to disregard the fact.

Originally Posted by whswhs

"The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy."

Possibly sometimes literally so in 2100, it appears. (Deep Beyond, p.120.)

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

That is a shadow, with some tweaks to the construction process. Talking about it as an eidolon is just confusing the issue pointlessly. Please don't do that.

I thought that the big difference was that Eidolon is fundamentally a SAI which is programmed to think as a person, while a Ghost is a human mind (with all of its analogue legacy architecture) running on a virtual brain (i.e. an emulation of how the whole mind works, not just the conscious thinking part).

Sorry, I'm not familiar with Deep Beyond. It seems like it and Under Pressure show some hidden sides of THS.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I thought that the big difference was that Eidolon is fundamentally a SAI which is programmed to think as a person.

So is a Shadow. The difference is that a shadow is based on low-res imaging and intended to be a pretty good copy of the actual personality. An Eidolon is based on fiction, or historical accounts, or a celebrity's marketing people's version of her public persona.

EDIT: And an Eidolon isn't necessarily an SAI anyway, they mostly probably aren't, I imagine.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

So is a Shadow. The difference is that a shadow is based on low-res imaging and intended to be a pretty good copy of the actual personality. An Eidolon is based on fiction, or historical accounts, or a celebrity's marketing people's version of her public persona.

Wait, shadows aren't just low-quality/low-res-scan-based emulations? I missed that somewhere. (OTOH, I never intended to play a Shadow, so it's not like I had much incentive to pay attention; to me they were something sad and not talked about.)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Wait, shadows aren't just low-quality/low-res-scan-based emulations?

It's a low-res scan compared to a ghost because it's non-destructive. It's "high-res" compared to most Eidelons because it's based on a real person's actual brain scan, and not a writer's imagination, historian's reconstruction, or ad-man's copy.

(OTOH, I never intended to play a Shadow, so it's not like I had much incentive to pay attention; to me they were something sad and not talked about.)

I think your are confusing Shadows and Fragments here. Fragments are basically flawed ghosts if the brain was damaged or something. Shadows are made from non-destructive scans of living brains. People use Shadows to be in two places at once. You can send a Shadow to say, attend a meeting on Titan for you and thereby travel at the speed of light, avoid the lag of telepresence, and have a pretty good assurance that your Shadow will act as you would.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It's a low-res scan compared to a ghost because it's non-destructive. It's "high-res" compared to most Eidelons because it's based on a real person's actual brain scan, and not a writer's imagination, historian's reconstruction, or ad-man's copy.
I think your are confusing Shadows and Fragments here. Fragments are basically flawed ghosts if the brain was damaged or something. Shadows are made from non-destructive scans of living brains. People use Shadows to be in two places at once. You can send a Shadow to say, attend a meeting on Titan for you and thereby travel at the speed of light, avoid the lag of telepresence, and have a pretty good assurance that your Shadow will act as you would.

Those two (Shadows and Fragments) still sound like flawed emulations, not SAIs with specific personality programming.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Those two (Shadows and Fragments) still sound like flawed emulations, not SAIs with specific personality programming.

You can use an SAI for a Shadow, just as you can for an Eidolon. Besides if a shadow is a "flawed emulation" than an Eidolon is worse. Shadows are based on the person's actual brain scan and therefore their real nuanced self; Eidolons are based on hearsay. Are you saying that my SAI-7 Shadow that I had done based on a scan just yesterday so that I can attend a xenobiology conference on Mars "in person" while I'm also teaching classes on Earth is "flawed" but the LAI-5 Eidolon some grad students put together to tutor undergrads based on recordings of my lectures, my corpus of work, and a email interview with my ex-wives isn't?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You can use an SAI for a Shadow, just as you can for an Eidolon. Besides if a shadow is a "flawed emulation" than an Eidolon is worse. Shadows are based on the person's actual brain scan and therefore their real nuanced self; Eidolons are based on hearsay. Are you saying that my SAI-7 Shadow that I had done based on a scan just yesterday so that I can attend a xenobiology conference on Mars "in person" while I'm also teaching classes on Earth is "flawed" but the LAI-5 Eidolon some grad students put together to tutor undergrads based on recordings of my lectures, my corpus of work, and a email interview with my ex-wives isn't?

I don't have Deep Beyond. I have no idea how accurate

• an Eidolon built with or without a reference low-res scan, but with the lifetime record of ubiquitous surveillance and the assistance of the best psychologist/analyst/memeticist SAIs

is compared to

• a Shadow.

I suppose that if it is indeed based on hearsay, then it's just somewhat better than Shepard VI. (IOW, if Eidolons-making uses just hearsay or vague second-hand reports, I agree with you. Especially if your Shadow is indeed a SAI-7 and the Eidolon is LAI-5.)

But based on the older post, I [am interested whether Fragments and Shadows are emulations (trying to emulate the whole process) or SAIs (emulating the outputs only). I thought the former, but now the answer doesn't seem clear.