Is Transhuman Space a "silly" genre?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by walkir

...
Earth's carrying capacity isn't indefinite. It's already getting overpopulated by now. Dying is what life does - why should someone want to become immortal? (That is a point I seriously don't understand. Even the Afterlife I believe in imho isn't really a selling point.)


Creating Übermenschen is a way of escapism. It has nothing to do with divine plans: If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen and don't cheat.
Accepting your weaknesses and dealing with them is strength, cheating isn't. If humanity can't manage to survive in microgravity without serious sports, do the sports or settle on a world massive enough to not create problems.
....

I'm an atheist. The idea that I will someday cease to exist is more enraging than depressing. I, and most animals will fight to the literal death to avoid dying. I can't understand anyone that won't. If you really believe that, then get out of the way for those of us that will. That's evolution for you.
(Obviously I'm not advocating suicide for anyone.)
Human nature is defined by cheating nature. If you can't stand to stand naked in the arctic, then don't live there? NO! Humanity will forever strive to make life easier through direct action like moving to the semi-tropics, and forethought like creating life that is stronger, tougher, and more intelligent.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm an atheist. The idea that I will someday cease to exist is more enraging than depressing. I, and most animals will fight to the literal death to avoid dying. I can't understand anyone that won't. If you really believe that, then get out of the way for those of us that will. That's evolution for you.
(Obviously I'm not advocating suicide for anyone.)
Human nature is defined by cheating nature. If you can't stand to stand naked in the arctic, then don't live there? NO! Humanity will forever strive to make life easier through direct action like moving to the semi-tropics, and forethought like creating life that is stronger, tougher, and more intelligent.

That's a very accurate description, IMO. Also, I suspect that the philosophical definition of 'nature' (as opposed to 'man-made', at least according to my university), is not the same as the definition of 'natural', especially as applied to humans.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Molokh

And as I pointed out before, this seems to be a result of insufficient development of language as a natural result of not having the tech which requires such a development. Back when human minds were unique and, more importantly, incopyable, they got with this 'not a noun' tag (or Proper Noun, IIRC is another acceptable term, but that doesn't change much). It also goes hand-in-hand with the assumption that identifying who is or isn't Person A is easy and self-evident - which is not the case in THS.

That comment shows a complete failure to grasp the issues. Proper nouns and indexicals are not the same thing and do not exist for the same reason.

In fact, in any existing language, a person can refer to another person by a common noun ("human being" or "man" or "gamer"), or by a proper noun ("William H. Stoddard" or "Molokh"), or by an indexical ("I" or "you" or "that"). The three linguistic forms serve different functions. Common nouns serve to identify what kind of thing something is. Proper nouns serve to identify a particular individual. Indexicals serve to identify a space-time location by linking it to the source or the receiver of a particular message (or to neither).

Even if we could make an identical copy of you, the original and the copy might have reason to use indexicals with each other. For example, if one were in Kiev and one were in Honolulu, Molokh-in-Kiev could ask Molokh-in-Honolulu "What's the weather like where you are?" or "What did you eat for lunch?"

The change needed to make proper nouns pointless would be instant costfree copying of all entities; but it would do so by making proper nouns functionally into common nouns. "Molokhs have a persistent habit of posting hypothetical questions about GURPS." If we then wanted to know which particular Molokh had posted a particular question, we would have to use either indexicals ("Did you, the Molokh I am now questioning, post that inquiry about the use of GURPS rules to emulate weather on Mars?") or actual indices ("Did Molokh-3,194 post that inquiry"). In effect, we would be devising improvised proper nouns as needed, just as I can now say "Is that my copy of GURPS Supers or your copy?"

The change needed to make indexicals pointless, on the other hand, would be to have space/time location become meaningless, perhaps because instantaneous unlimited-bandwidth communication did away with all separate nodes of information processing and thus all questions of "which node did this message originate from? which node was it directed to?" Instead you would have a single omniscient node that saw the entirety of reality from every point at once. Or as the theologians put it, "God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose surface is nowhere."

Transhuman Space has not done the latter. It does not have a technomystical union of all minds. The rapture of the nerds has not yet arrived.

And let me offer you a fictional situation. Suppose that Imre in Budapest has himself copied, and his copy lives in Amsterdam. And suppose that a small child in Amsterdam is raped and murdered, and the evidence points at an Imre. Then the use of indexicals might be relevant to the Imre in Budapest for such questions as "Where were you at 10 PM European time on January 3 2100?" and "Did you kill Magda van Eyck?" and "When you decided to copy yourself, did you intend to commit rape and murder in the person of your copy?" It would matter to the legal authorities because they would want to make sure that they were dealing with the Imre who had actually committed the crime (if you're going to repair, replace, or destroy a component, you want to get the one that failed!); and it would matter to Imre in Budapest because he might face erasure or brainscrubbing or massive psychotherapy or perpetual isolation in response to something he didn't do . . . and the viewpoint of the Imre who is facing any of those treatments is different from the viewpoint of the Imre who is not: Its utility function has a different value.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm an atheist. The idea that I will someday cease to exist is more enraging than depressing. I, and most animals will fight to the literal death to avoid dying. I can't understand anyone that won't. If you really believe that, then get out of the way for those of us that will. That's evolution for you.

Well, actually, no, it's not. If no one dies, then evolution will more or less stop.

Or to be less flippant about it, we are neither indestructible nor omnicompetent. So every one of us will eventually cease to exist. If we make copies of ourselves, then those copies can potentially outlive us. And at least under certain circumstances, it makes sense for us to care more about the survival of our copies than about our own survival. If you do not, then under those circumstances, you will fail to leave copies and will therefore be left behind by evolution, and your place will be taken by entities that put their copies' welfare higher than their own.

From that standpoint, I'm an evolutionary failure, of course, mitigated by whatever success I have in getting my ideas copied in other minds (because for humans, ideational reproduction is an alternative to biological reproduction, though not an exact substitute).

Bill Stoddard

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by whswhs

And let me offer you a fictional situation. Suppose that Imre in Budapest has himself copied, and his copy lives in Amsterdam. And suppose that a small child in Amsterdam is raped and murdered, and the evidence points at an Imre. Then the use of indexicals might be relevant to the Imre in Budapest for such questions as "Where were you at 10 PM European time on January 3 2100?" and "Did you kill Magda van Eyck?" and "When you decided to copy yourself, did you intend to commit rape and murder in the person of your copy?" It would matter to the legal authorities because they would want to make sure that they were dealing with the Imre who had actually committed the crime (if you're going to repair, replace, or destroy a component, you want to get the one that failed!); and it would matter to Imre in Budapest because he might face erasure or brainscrubbing or massive psychotherapy or perpetual isolation in response to something he didn't do . . . and the viewpoint of the Imre who is facing any of those treatments is different from the viewpoint of the Imre who is not: Its utility function has a different value.

Which ties in nicely with my comments elsewhere that matters of identity within the setting are first and foremost legal fictions, while the "truth" of the matter is far more ambiguous and has not been answered conclusively by either people living within the game setting or the game rules themselves.

The people living in the year 2100 have far more possibilities at their fingertips than anyone else who lived throughout human history. But that also means that the consequences of entirley new human activities (or the activities of sapient non-humans, for that matter) are largely without legal precedent.

And each nation and power block has come up with its own answers for these issues.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Which ties in nicely with my comments elsewhere that matters of identity within the setting are first and foremost legal fictions, while the "truth" of the matter is far more ambiguous and has not been answered conclusively by either people living within the game setting or the game rules themselves.

In most of the world, the laws against xoxing serve, among other functions, to avoid some of these legal perplexities.

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That comment shows a complete failure to grasp the issues. Proper nouns and indexicals are not the same thing and do not exist for the same reason.

In fact, in any existing language, a person can refer to another person by a common noun ("human being" or "man" or "gamer"), or by a proper noun ("William H. Stoddard" or "Molokh"), or by an indexical ("I" or "you" or "that"). The three linguistic forms serve different functions. Common nouns serve to identify what kind of thing something is. Proper nouns serve to identify a particular individual. Indexicals serve to identify a space-time location by linking it to the source or the receiver of a particular message (or to neither).

Even if we could make an identical copy of you, the original and the copy might have reason to use indexicals with each other. For example, if one were in Kiev and one were in Honolulu, Molokh-in-Kiev could ask Molokh-in-Honolulu "What's the weather like where you are?" or "What did you eat for lunch?"

The change needed to make proper nouns pointless would be instant costfree copying of all entities; but it would do so by making proper nouns functionally into common nouns. "Molokhs have a persistent habit of posting hypothetical questions about GURPS." If we then wanted to know which particular Molokh had posted a particular question, we would have to use either indexicals ("Did you, the Molokh I am now questioning, post that inquiry about the use of GURPS rules to emulate weather on Mars?") or actual indices ("Did Molokh-3,194 post that inquiry"). In effect, we would be devising improvised proper nouns as needed, just as I can now say "Is that my copy of GURPS Supers or your copy?"

The change needed to make indexicals pointless, on the other hand, would be to have space/time location become meaningless, perhaps because instantaneous unlimited-bandwidth communication did away with all separate nodes of information processing and thus all questions of "which node did this message originate from? which node was it directed to?" Instead you would have a single omniscient node that saw the entirety of reality from every point at once. Or as the theologians put it, "God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose surface is nowhere."

Transhuman Space has not done the latter. It does not have a technomystical union of all minds. The rapture of the nerds has not yet arrived.

And let me offer you a fictional situation. Suppose that Imre in Budapest has himself copied, and his copy lives in Amsterdam. And suppose that a small child in Amsterdam is raped and murdered, and the evidence points at an Imre. Then the use of indexicals might be relevant to the Imre in Budapest for such questions as "Where were you at 10 PM European time on January 3 2100?" and "Did you kill Magda van Eyck?" and "When you decided to copy yourself, did you intend to commit rape and murder in the person of your copy?" It would matter to the legal authorities because they would want to make sure that they were dealing with the Imre who had actually committed the crime (if you're going to repair, replace, or destroy a component, you want to get the one that failed!); and it would matter to Imre in Budapest because he might face erasure or brainscrubbing or massive psychotherapy or perpetual isolation in response to something he didn't do . . . and the viewpoint of the Imre who is facing any of those treatments is different from the viewpoint of the Imre who is not: Its utility function has a different value.

Bill Stoddard

Time and location is not very good ways to support the 'specialness' of each different Molokh (or whatever). Example:

Three Molokh copies are spawned onto three identical computers (numbered #0-#2) from a single backup, but each computer uses an independent random number generator which cannot be observed from the outside for purposes of any random functions in the infomorphs' code. They're isolated from the world of other sentients until a certain point. Now, at this point, a hypothetical energy being, undetectable by humans, within the timespan of one Planck, swaps any two of them. And then you start communicating with the copies again (notice: you did *not* communicate with them in any way past the point of making the backup). Would you swap the indexes between them? No. Because indexes are not based on reality of multiple copies, they're based on how you perceive the multiple copies and what you know about them.

As to Imre, not a good case of indexicals either, since the government would be interested in punishing minds who commited the crime, regardless of them being Imre. (BTW, if Imre got xoxed after the crime, this would be more obvious.)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Three Molokh copies are spawned onto three identical computers (numbered #0-#2) from a single backup, but each computer uses an independent random number generator which cannot be observed from the outside for purposes of any random functions in the infomorphs' code. They're isolated from the world of other sentients until a certain point. Now, at this point, a hypothetical energy being, undetectable by humans, within the timespan of one Planck, swaps any two of them. And then you start communicating with the copies again (notice: you did *not* communicate with them in any way past the point of making the backup). Would you swap the indexes between them? No. Because indexes are not based on reality of multiple copies, they're based on how you perceive the multiple copies and what you know about them.

The fact that you can come up with an arbitrary hypothetical scenario in which indexicality would break down, involving an assumption that is both false to fact in the real world and false to fact in the fictional world of THS, has no worth in establishing any point about anything.

If I was communicating with the copies identically before the swap, then obviously it would not matter to me. But if I was communicating with one of the copies, and not the others, and that one was one of the pair that was swapped, and I then said to the copy at that location after the swap, "Remember when I told you about my mother's death?" and the copy that was now in that location said, "You never told me about your mother's death," I would have reason to ask, "Are you the Molokh I talked with before, at such and such a time?"

And if you were one of the three Molokhs, and I selected the isolated computer you were on for total physical destruction, your viewpoint would cease and you would no longer be an index point. Whereas if the alien entity could swap you with a Molokh on a different computer while maintaining your continuity of point of view, the destruction of the computer in question would not cause your viewpoint to cease; you would still be an index point.

To me, it seems that if my viewpoint ceases to be present, then I will not know or experience anything. And that is what I call death. The fact that a copy of me, which had its own viewpoint distinct from mine, would continue to know and experience things does not compensate fully. It might have value, but it would not be me.

Bill Stoddard

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The fact that you can come up with an arbitrary hypothetical scenario in which indexicality would break down, involving an assumption that is both false to fact in the real world and false to fact in the fictional world of THS, has no worth in establishing any point about anything.

If I was communicating with the copies identically before the swap, then obviously it would not matter to me. But if I was communicating with one of the copies, and not the others, and that one was one of the pair that was swapped, and I then said to the copy at that location after the swap, "Remember when I told you about my mother's death?" and the copy that was now in that location said, "You never told me about your mother's death," I would have reason to ask, "Are you the Molokh I talked with before, at such and such a time?"

And if you were one of the three Molokhs, and I selected the isolated computer you were on for total physical destruction, your viewpoint would cease and you would no longer be an index point. Whereas if the alien entity could swap you with a Molokh on a different computer while maintaining your continuity of point of view, the destruction of the computer in question would not cause your viewpoint to cease; you would still be an index point.

To me, it seems that if my viewpoint ceases to be present, then I will not know or experience anything. And that is what I call death. The fact that a copy of me, which had its own viewpoint distinct from mine, would continue to know and experience things does not compensate fully. It might have value, but it would not be me.

Bill Stoddard

The problem with viewpoints is they're completely subjective.

[walkir]

Originally Posted by Molokh

1) Overpopulation is a non-issue with infomorphs and other modern [by THS terms] lifeforms.

Of course it's a solution. But no good one for the Biochauvinist in me.

2) Uh, how is that not a method of dealing with weaknesses?

3) What's pessimistic about ghosts and void-dancers?

Humanity created new life and/or cheated death. In public, and no one cares.

(I don't remember who the 'christian freaks' are.)

It took me a while to find them again: seventh heaven L5 colony, high frontier p.134. As I don't play THS I had only memorized that there was that freak group.

@Flyndaran: Of course I fight for my life, but (speaking as a 27-year old) I'm pretty sure I don't want to live a hundred years or more. What's the point?
I'm pretty much guaranteed to have no children and even if that were the case and I would be relatively healthy, the world of 2109 is their world. It's not like old age wisdom is as useful as it was in ancient days, and the world isn't moving in a very good direction.
If, at age 80 or whatever, it's time, it is time. No need to fight the unavoidable, making it harder for younger people while doing it.

And, speaking as a roman catholic, my life on earth isn't everything. It's about what we leave behind and how we spent our time, not about gaining some extra years.


All in all, when I read THS for the first time, I was sure I wouldn't want to live in that world. But I see humanity going that general way. The tech geek/gearhead in me likes parts of it and I can agree it's an "utopia" as the 21st century could have been written much worse, but all in all it's a dystopia for me.
It's more or less a feeling, so I have problems to express my problems with it coherently... But (back to the OP^^) one thing is sure: it isn't munchkin-silly.