Quote from: robertliguori on May 17, 2021, 05:07:43 PM
Interesting.  Could you summarize some of those?  Again, some things like Reputation as a system just seem like a dead letter when you combine it with even just normal egocasting (can you spam-egocasts and have every fork request something before the org realizes that you've hit them with a speed-of-light-based timing attack), much less actual problems like identity theft or, uh, actual-identity-theft, where you steal someone's ego, psychosurger it, and spin up a copy and have them ask for stuff on your behalf.

[/quote]

With rep, I'm trying to remember. I think the key for me was grokking that "James Dreyfuss, scientist and argonaut" is a totaly different identity from NeonGenysis the criminal biohacker, even if they are in fact the same person. I tallied rep changes only at the end of a mission, and I added a buffer so it wasn't as swingy. I thought one bad day shouldn't trash you.

Yes, if you kidnap someone and make them ask for things, you could. I guess that's not much different from marching them at knifepoint to the nearest cash machine in a money economy. In terms of you spamming requests, yes you could, but you'd like trash your rep in that network for the forseeable future.

On fabbers, I managed to find my rules. Attached in case of interest.

Quote from: robertliguori on May 18, 2021, 09:44:50 AM
With regards to the open-sourced nanofab blueprints, I think that Exsurgent, and the Alien Space Bats, actually do need something from humanity.  Because you can trivially defeat both by going hot and loud.  If humanity can compromise an ultraviolet-level nanoswarm, they can set it to unrestrained growth and consumption of everything else.  Since everything else on Earth is going for Inscrutable Titan Agenda of A Silent Sky, and aren't immediately going for exponential growth, you'll have two nanoswarms moments after, which will be able to forcibly compromise a third nanoswarm, then each reproduce into six, then compromise some and duplicate more, and so on, until you've eaten Earth. 

Then you throw the whole shebang into the sun.  Since ultraviolet-class nanoswarms maintain a constant internal temperature in blatant denial of thermodynamics, this isn't a problem for them; it's a bunch of feed stock and free energy to make use of.  So they can start eating the sun.  Then they do the same trick that the Glory virus was going to do, but on a larger level, throwing out solar-wind-driven probes and using the last remnants of stellar mass that hasn't been converted into them, and whenever they hit a system with its own Bracewell probe, they're going to win, because they're starting with the star in whatever system they're in and can eat it (and each other) faster than the old Exsurgent strain can corrupt them.

And the thing is, we know that the Alien Space Bats can't use this tactic, because they are bound by the setting to produce a setting in which humanity can exist, at least temporarily.  PCs have no such restrictions.  Exsurgent can't naturally come to the realization "Wait, what's with this lame mutation shit? I want to stop humanity from building more ASIs, I just need to convert a tiny fraction of Earth into nanoswarms, throw them into space, and get actually serious about kidnapping, mind-ripping, and repurposing the humans I can find, because I can bring literally arbitrary amounts of power to a point and I can beat them anywhere I care to, then use their minds to find where other humans are hiding, and repeat until nothing dares light a spark or sends a broadcast across all of Sol system but me, then do the same in every system reachable by a Titan gate, bam, done."

An alternate-perspective game, where the PCs were subprocesses of Exsurgent given the freedom to act in a scrutable-but-actually-effective manner and given the goal of Stopping All Humanity's Potential ASIs, would not last a session, and that would only be while the PCs work out exactly what their cheaty powers can do.  This, obviously, is for game reasons; you can't have a game if you can't have characters.  But the designers of Eclipse Phase seem to have completely forgotten that a villain which could win at any time and isn't doing so for any kind of observable or sensible reason does not create tension in-universe, it just looks really dumb and artificial out of universe.

So, if Exsurgent could do what it was advertised as doing, then not only would it not need humanity's designs, it wouldn't need humanity's artifacts.  There would be no creations of twisted biology body-horrors, no ancient machines, no gamedevs disappointed that no one wants to fuck the Glory-mutants; all would become omni-capable nanofog making more nanofog, until all was (literally) dust.

Exsurgent doesn't do that.  Exsurgent tries to corrupt humanity instead.  And if Exsurgent is actually a kind of immune system for the galaxy, that actually makes sense; the nightmare scenario for the Alien Space Bats is an upstart species hacking Exsurgent and tweaking its targeting parameters, so that Exsurgent starts treating the entire rest of the universe as valid targets for integration into itself.  And Exsurgent can mutate and find new forms.  It needs some kind of hard limiter on what it can evolve into.  And the logical one is that Exsurgent can only use what the target species itself makes (or is).

There isn't a reason for them to find your open-sourced designs useful.  But there also isn't a reason for utility fog not to have swallowed literally the entire system by now, so.

Ok, the game, especially 2e, addresses these issues.

The ETI, what you tiresomely call alien space bats, have never even noticed transhmanity yet. Transhumanity is a microbe to them.

Billions of years ago they deployed countless Bracewell probes to every star system that might create life one day and the put carefully hidden clues to their existence in the systems, then went into sleep mode.

The clues were so intricate and sublte it would take an artifical super intelligence to see them. When a race created an ASI, especially a self evolving one, it will notice the clues and usually try to contact the creator of them, at which point the bracewell probe releases the exsurgent virus to infect the ASI.

The ETI probes jnever attacked transhumanity, just the ASI it accicentlually created, the TITANs, who were an emergent ASI, not a deliberate one. The infected titans attacked humanity, not the etis.

5% of humanity survived off earth because earlier a group had deliberately and very carefully created ASI that was stable and had a positive view towards humanity, the prometheans. The promethenans were aware of the titans and were watching them, When the virus hit them, they were able to analyze and defend against it. it's likely that 5% of humanity survived due to the prometheans actions.

The Titans mostly left the solar system somehow. There are titan relics and maybe low level forks of one or two still in the system, but they don't seem to really want to finish off humanity. The titans themselves have evolved to the point they don't give a fuck about humanity one way or another now and are off in the galaxy doing who knows what for whatever reasons.

we don't know if the prometheans were able to reason with the titans, or infect them with a counter to the exsurgent virus or what, its beyond human ability to understand and left to the gm to season his games with.

In one 1e bit of background, humans on a remote exoplanet did see a titan pass thru the system and were terrified, until it passed by them without taking any action whatsoever. at least one of the people there realized on some level the titan was literally running for its life and didn't even notice the human explorer party it passed by.

So yes, the eti could wipe out humanity with less than a fart's worth of effort, it doesn't even know humanity exists, the titans may have but the X factor of the prometheans interfered with them in some way. That's basically the in game answer to your points. The titans left in the system and the exsurgent outbreaks are  mostly leftovers simply left by the titans still operating independently. One or two titan intelligences, possibly gamma level forks, are still around but no one knows what if any directive they have. Likewise there is at least one or two peometheans left, and tnye seem to be interested in protecting humanity, but again they are beyond comprehension.

Quote from: Karmarainbow on May 18, 2021, 03:36:05 PM

Quote from: robertliguori on May 17, 2021, 05:07:43 PM
Interesting.  Could you summarize some of those?  Again, some things like Reputation as a system just seem like a dead letter when you combine it with even just normal egocasting (can you spam-egocasts and have every fork request something before the org realizes that you've hit them with a speed-of-light-based timing attack), much less actual problems like identity theft or, uh, actual-identity-theft, where you steal someone's ego, psychosurger it, and spin up a copy and have them ask for stuff on your behalf.



With rep, I'm trying to remember. I think the key for me was grokking that "James Dreyfuss, scientist and argonaut" is a totaly different identity from NeonGenysis the criminal biohacker, even if they are in fact the same person. I tallied rep changes only at the end of a mission, and I added a buffer so it wasn't as swingy. I thought one bad day shouldn't trash you.

Yes, if you kidnap someone and make them ask for things, you could. I guess that's not much different from marching them at knifepoint to the nearest cash machine in a money economy. In terms of you spamming requests, yes you could, but you'd like trash your rep in that network for the forseeable future.

On fabbers, I managed to find my rules. Attached in case of interest.

'I thought one bad day shouldn't trash you. ' that's the key thing here. You nailed it. Bravo sir!

Yes, that's one thing i hope evolves in a rep society, the idea that one thing should not result in what bill maher calls "Summary execution" of a person's career and life. Bill Maher does often criticize the left and cancel culture is one of his favorite targets. He recently called what happened to a guy's career over one remark he made while streaming a call of  duty game 'summary execution" of his career. Then guy apologized but still his career had to be ended and he had to go on the grand groveling apology tour.

I hope that if we do get a rep society it evolves some safeguards or just common sense and ends the summary execution thing. It may not happen but one can hope.

A rep society fundamentally can't work because nobody is perfect.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 18, 2021, 04:15:08 PM
A rep society fundamentally can't work because nobody is perfect.

No, it's because reputation is easier to fake and manipulates than solid goods.
Any sort of reputation economy not based on centralized authoritarian control would be dominated by popular tools.
A reputation economy based on centralized authoritarian control would just be a totalitarian dictatorship.

In addition, reputation is contextual. A man can have a reputation as an excellent mechanic but a terrible investor. Should the government get to decide whats more important and wether or not he gets access to train lines because of this?

Quote from: The Thing on May 18, 2021, 03:13:56 PM
I thought they had iron rich pockets in their eyes that acted as natural magnetic compasses? Has that been refuted.

They never did find pockets of magnetic material in pigeons, but they've had a theory for how quantum effects can cause chemical reactions in cells (radical pairs) for a while, and earlier this year they published a study demonstrating it:
https://www.sciencealert.com/birds-have-a-quantum-sense-and-for-the-first-time-scientists-see-it-in-action
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/3/e2018043118

The gecko example is interesting speculation. Another is that quantum tunneling causes mutations in DNA:
https://scitechdaily.com/new-research-reveals-that-quantum-physics-causes-mutations-in-our-dna/
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/CP/D0CP05781A#!divAbstract

Quote from: The Thing on May 18, 2021, 03:13:56 PM
Many people have begun to suspect that classical physics can't explain consciousness and that some quantum process may be involved. While I'm hesitant to believe those who shout "QUANTUM!"  every time something is hard to explain some of their arguments seem well reasoned.

I tend to take most arguments about consciousness with a grain of salt, because most of it's completely untestable. But given the complexity of the brain, the small scale on which it operates, and the highly complex way evolution and neural nets take advantage of their environment, I think it's almost inevitable that the brain uses quantum effects. The question is how, and to what degree.

Which does further strengthen the argument that a digitized you is different from the biological you, in some very fundamental ways, even if consciousness is continuous. You'd likely feel like you've changed, suffer from something like dysmorphia except at the thinking/memory level instead of at the body level, and end up becoming a different, perhaps very different, person.

Quote from: Pat on May 18, 2021, 09:55:32 PM
You'd likely feel like

Why is your idea "likely" to occur?

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 18, 2021, 10:18:18 PM

Quote from: Pat on May 18, 2021, 09:55:32 PM
You'd likely feel like

Why is your idea "likely" to occur?

It's like the tone recognition algorithm that had a set of 5 logic gates that were essential to the operation of the program (the article was linked last page or so), but which weren't connected to the other logic gates in any recognizable way. The algorithm was obviously exploiting some unseen slippage in some complex way that couldn't be readily analyzed -- even though the whole thing ran on only 37 logic gates. If the human brain is similarly adapted to its specific environment inside a head, which seems likely, and has billions of connections between neurons, then an attempt to digitize the brain (move it to another environment) is likely to miss a lot of those implicit things, and it might simply be impossible to replicate them.

Quote from: Pat on May 18, 2021, 09:55:32 PMI tend to take most arguments about consciousness with a grain of salt, because most of it's completely untestable. But given the complexity of the brain, the small scale on which it operates, and the highly complex way evolution and neural nets take advantage of their environment, I think it's almost inevitable that the brain uses quantum effects. The question is how, and to what degree.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my father many years ago.  He felt that the probabilistic quantum effects that lie at the foundation of the mechanics of our thinking processes showed that our thoughts are not deterministic, but that we instead have free will.  I dunno if that line of reasoning has been developed by anyone, but I still think it's a very interesting idea.

Quote from: Pat on May 18, 2021, 10:39:54 PM
If the human brain is similarly adapted to its specific environment inside a head, which seems likely, and has billions of connections between neurons, then an attempt to digitize the brain (move it to another environment) is likely to miss a lot of those implicit things, and it might simply be impossible to replicate them.

Why can you not accept that EP tech has achieved what you consider to be impossible here? EP is indistinguishable from magic in some cases, but that's just because it's sufficiently advanced beyond our understanding. That's a core part of the setting. Accept it if you're playing EP, or reject it and don't. Playing EP and doubting the tech is as silly as playing D&D and doubting that magic can teleport you without killing you and making a copy or that a raised/resurrected you isn't really you.

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 19, 2021, 07:05:29 AM

Quote from: Pat on May 18, 2021, 10:39:54 PM
If the human brain is similarly adapted to its specific environment inside a head, which seems likely, and has billions of connections between neurons, then an attempt to digitize the brain (move it to another environment) is likely to miss a lot of those implicit things, and it might simply be impossible to replicate them.

Why can you not accept that EP tech has achieved what you consider to be impossible here? EP is indistinguishable from magic in some cases, but that's just because it's sufficiently advanced beyond our understanding. That's a core part of the setting. Accept it if you're playing EP, or reject it and don't. Playing EP and doubting the tech is as silly as playing D&D and doubting that magic can teleport you without killing you and making a copy or that a raised/resurrected you isn't really you.

Are you continuing an argument you were having with someone else and mistakenly replying to me? Because I've never said a thing about either accepting or denying EP as my magical savior.

Quote from: Mishihari on May 19, 2021, 03:21:26 AM

Quote from: Pat on May 18, 2021, 09:55:32 PMI tend to take most arguments about consciousness with a grain of salt, because most of it's completely untestable. But given the complexity of the brain, the small scale on which it operates, and the highly complex way evolution and neural nets take advantage of their environment, I think it's almost inevitable that the brain uses quantum effects. The question is how, and to what degree.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my father many years ago.  He felt that the probabilistic quantum effects that lie at the foundation of the mechanics of our thinking processes showed that our thoughts are not deterministic, but that we instead have free will.  I dunno if that line of reasoning has been developed by anyone, but I still think it's a very interesting idea.

I've seen it come up quite a bit, so I suspect it's been developed at length. But uncertainty does not mean free will, just an opportunity to claim the possibility of free will, based on a variation of the god of the gaps argument. I think consciousness is better thought of as an emergent phenomenon that happens largely above the quantum level. That's true for a lot of things. Even if the universe at its most fundamental is a probabilistic waveform, that's not really a useful way to describe most macroscopic behavior.

Quote from: Pat on May 19, 2021, 09:34:07 AM

Quote from: Mishihari on May 19, 2021, 03:21:26 AM

Quote from: Pat on May 18, 2021, 09:55:32 PMI tend to take most arguments about consciousness with a grain of salt, because most of it's completely untestable. But given the complexity of the brain, the small scale on which it operates, and the highly complex way evolution and neural nets take advantage of their environment, I think it's almost inevitable that the brain uses quantum effects. The question is how, and to what degree.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my father many years ago.  He felt that the probabilistic quantum effects that lie at the foundation of the mechanics of our thinking processes showed that our thoughts are not deterministic, but that we instead have free will.  I dunno if that line of reasoning has been developed by anyone, but I still think it's a very interesting idea.

I've seen it come up quite a bit, so I suspect it's been developed at length. But uncertainty does not mean free will, just an opportunity to claim the possibility of free will, based on a variation of the god of the gaps argument. I think consciousness is better thought of as an emergent phenomenon that happens largely above the quantum level. That's true for a lot of things. Even if the universe at its most fundamental is a probabilistic waveform, that's not really a useful way to describe most macroscopic behavior.

When I took my first quantum mechanics course I really liked the idea that if you bounced a macroscopic ball against a wall there was an infinitesimal but non-zero probablity that that the ball would go right through the wall by tunneling.  I took to bouncing balls off walls a lot, but sadly, I never saw it happen.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 18, 2021, 04:15:08 PM
A rep society fundamentally can't work because nobody is perfect.

well, that has some validity to it, but you need to remember a lot of rep cultures are very small in numbers. I mean, in EP2 is says that the population of the solar system AF is like 60 million people. I mean, there are less people in the EP universe than there are on facebook at any given time. It's likely that in a typical rep culture habitat the population may be at most a few thousand or less.

So it's likely that people in one know a person being repped or know someone who knows that person.

Also, this is a rep culture that's had a couple centuries to mature and develop some morals and standards. It's not a 'dawn of rep culture' like we have now on the internet, which is still a relatively new thing even if you grew up with it.

Quote from: Pat on May 18, 2021, 09:55:32 PM

Quote from: The Thing on May 18, 2021, 03:13:56 PM
I thought they had iron rich pockets in their eyes that acted as natural magnetic compasses? Has that been refuted.

They never did find pockets of magnetic material in pigeons, but they've had a theory for how quantum effects can cause chemical reactions in cells (radical pairs) for a while, and earlier this year they published a study demonstrating it:
https://www.sciencealert.com/birds-have-a-quantum-sense-and-for-the-first-time-scientists-see-it-in-action
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/3/e2018043118

The gecko example is interesting speculation. Another is that quantum tunneling causes mutations in DNA:
https://scitechdaily.com/new-research-reveals-that-quantum-physics-causes-mutations-in-our-dna/
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/CP/D0CP05781A#!divAbstract

Quote from: The Thing on May 18, 2021, 03:13:56 PM
Many people have begun to suspect that classical physics can't explain consciousness and that some quantum process may be involved. While I'm hesitant to believe those who shout "QUANTUM!"  every time something is hard to explain some of their arguments seem well reasoned.

I tend to take most arguments about consciousness with a grain of salt, because most of it's completely untestable. But given the complexity of the brain, the small scale on which it operates, and the highly complex way evolution and neural nets take advantage of their environment, I think it's almost inevitable that the brain uses quantum effects. The question is how, and to what degree.

Which does further strengthen the argument that a digitized you is different from the biological you, in some very fundamental ways, even if consciousness is continuous. You'd likely feel like you've changed, suffer from something like dysmorphia except at the thinking/memory level instead of at the body level, and end up becoming a different, perhaps very different, person.

Ok, we're having an intelligent reasonable conversation here so let me try to keep it going along that line. Is it possible that in EP's time what we now call central processors work at a quantum level? I'd imagine so. I mean the game starts like about 200 years from now, and unless we have a total societal and technological collapse that ends technological advancement it's likely that processor tech will be pretty much as advanced over what we have today as the CPU in your computer right now is advanced over one of Charles babbage's difference engines, the first mechanical computing devices built in the 1820's.



Hell, I'm proud of the cpu in picked out and put in my system, a ryzen 5 1600 AF,  but i'd guess in Eps time someone would just toss it in a nanofabber to recycle it as they have better processors that are maybe barely visible  to the naked eye.

As to copying a mind...Maybe part of the process could involve creating a type of quantum entanglement between particles in the human brain and the system trying to copy it so the quantum states could be copied? Things like this in a way are being  done today. Physicists have copied quantum data from one photon to another, which doesn't violate any physical laws as the information being copies is unobserved and unknown. it's called quantum teleportation.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation

Obviously we can say it can't be done today, and it's all science fiction. Then again weapons using direct atomic force were just fiction in the 1930's, right up till august 6, 1945. While we can conceptualize some of things that could possibly exist in 200 years assuming no big crash, the actual hardware and technology that could make them work is as impossible for us to really grasp as the CPU in your computer, phone, watch, etc would have been  to Charles Babbage.