Author Topic: EP280: Endosymbiont  (Read 30154 times)

Gamercow

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Reply #50 on: March 03, 2011, 07:29:34 PM
I guess you're right, the bigger fight would be to get the consciousnesses uploaded in the first place.  Which I alluded to in my original post.

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SF.Fangirl

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Reply #51 on: March 05, 2011, 08:22:20 PM
 :) Another winner.  This was a bit wordy and/or a tad overly long.  Lots of exposition, but well done with lots to think about.  I'm not normally a fan of "singularity" and post-human stories - I think because the characters are so in-human- but I liked this because the post-human was still very human and faced a difficult human choice.  Once the need for an ethical Eve was laid out I knew she would do it.  There wouldn't have been much point to the story if it was one of her earlier escapes where she decided to return to the virtual hospital.  Despite the memory wipes, I think she was growing up a little more each cycle  and this was finally ready to make the choice to sacrefice herself.  The other possibility mentioned by other commenters is probably also true that she lost a little more of her personality each time as well.



jonro

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Reply #52 on: March 05, 2011, 08:41:49 PM
I really enjoyed this story. It had all of the elements of interesting Sci Fi and the interesting post-singularity issues were developed and presented nicely. What bothered me about this story and stories with similar endings is that I don't understand why a choice was necessary. She was digital. There's no reason why one digital stream couldn't be sent to that underground repository while an identical digital stream was sent off to create morality for a new generation of digital consciousnesses. When you're digital, you can have your cake and eat it, too, although you may not be able to taste it.



eytanz

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Reply #53 on: March 06, 2011, 12:12:19 AM
I really enjoyed this story. It had all of the elements of interesting Sci Fi and the interesting post-singularity issues were developed and presented nicely. What bothered me about this story and stories with similar endings is that I don't understand why a choice was necessary. She was digital. There's no reason why one digital stream couldn't be sent to that underground repository while an identical digital stream was sent off to create morality for a new generation of digital consciousnesses. When you're digital, you can have your cake and eat it, too, although you may not be able to taste it.

Therein lies the rub, really. The story made ostensibly about a post-human conciousness running on a server, but it really treated her mind more like a soul; not only could she not have multiple copies existing at the same time, there was a strong sense of continuity between her different iterations. In reality, if the government controlled her servers they don't need to delete anything from her memories - why not just reset her to a backup state?

Not that any of that detracted from my enjoyment of the story, mind you. Taken as a story, it was really, really great. It's just that I think that in addition to the philosophical implications it was intended to raise, it has a whole set of unintended ones that probably nullify a serious discussion of the first.



Wilson Fowlie

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Reply #54 on: March 07, 2011, 08:02:40 PM
Re: the point raised jointly by jonro/eytanz:

Wow.  Why didn't I see that before?

I think it's a testament to the writing that it so handily distracted from that particular issue, although perhaps the author intended that the amount of memory required to run the full uploaded consciousness be much of the answer to that.

Realizing this issue doesn't detract from my having enjoyed the story, of course, but now I wouldn't be able to listen to it the same way again.  (Not that I really could have, but this enhances the effect.)

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Reply #55 on: March 07, 2011, 08:09:56 PM
That's a fair point, one that's often ignored by stories involving consciousnesses stored in a computer.  It certainly makes sense to make backups of consciousnesses, but it rathe takes away from the tension if you know this is possible.



Bdoomed

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Reply #56 on: March 08, 2011, 02:52:28 AM
Could be a RAM problem :P
Not enough working memory to copy something that large?  :D  Just a thought.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Max e^{i pi}

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Reply #57 on: March 08, 2011, 07:34:52 AM
Could be a RAM problem :P
Not enough working memory to copy something that large?  :D  Just a thought.
Even today it is possible to copy huge files (several hundred gigs large) to and from file systems that support such files with only a single gig of RAM. That's not the issue.
I think it may be that whenever digital data is transmitted in any form or fashion errors can creep into it from stray EM fields, or even the EM field generated by the very wire it's traveling on. True that there exist error detection and elimination protocols, but would you want to risk that with someone's mind?
« Last Edit: March 08, 2011, 07:36:40 AM by Max e^{i pi} »

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eytanz

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Reply #58 on: March 08, 2011, 07:54:47 AM
Could be a RAM problem :P
Not enough working memory to copy something that large?  :D  Just a thought.

At the end of the story, she's on server A and has the choice of being transferred over to server B or server C (one of those involves only a partial copy). Thus, we know server A can contain her and do the transfer. Even if RAM considerations would prevent her from being copied to both at the same time, I don't think RAM can explain why she cannot be transferred to server B while keeping her on server A as well, ready to be trasnferred to server C afterwards.

Again, as I said above and as Wilson said, this nitpick didn't diminish my enjoyment of the story while listening to it; but in a deeper analysis of the story, it's possible to see that while it talked a lot (in vague terms) about differences between an embodied human conciousness and an uploaded one, it didn't really acknowledge some of the basic properties of what being on a digital medium would mean.



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Reply #59 on: March 08, 2011, 02:36:04 PM
Could be a RAM problem :P
Not enough working memory to copy something that large?  :D  Just a thought.

At the end of the story, she's on server A and has the choice of being transferred over to server B or server C (one of those involves only a partial copy). Thus, we know server A can contain her and do the transfer. Even if RAM considerations would prevent her from being copied to both at the same time, I don't think RAM can explain why she cannot be transferred to server B while keeping her on server A as well, ready to be trasnferred to server C afterwards.

Again, as I said above and as Wilson said, this nitpick didn't diminish my enjoyment of the story while listening to it; but in a deeper analysis of the story, it's possible to see that while it talked a lot (in vague terms) about differences between an embodied human conciousness and an uploaded one, it didn't really acknowledge some of the basic properties of what being on a digital medium would mean.

I agree that it doesn't really seem to have any technical reasoning behind it. I think it's just handwaved away for literary reasons because acknowledging this could reduce the tension.



Faraway Ray

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Reply #60 on: March 14, 2011, 05:25:29 AM
Wife and I listened to this one tonight on our way home from visiting relatives. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I didn't like it, but it felt more like an effort to explain a concept to the reader (well, listener) than it did a fully realized story. I guess it'd be hard to make this one without spending so much time on the fiddly bits, but there's really not a whole lot going on in it.

Someone else mentioned that they weren't sure what was different about the last time where she did not choose to go back to the hospital. I would've liked a better explanation for that too. You can make an argument that no matter the door, she was just choosing a different way to die. I didn't see what the great appeal was of her choice in the end.

Edit: One last nitpick. Can we stop comparing Asian peoples' eyes to almonds? Why isn't there an opposite to this? "Doctor O'Malley narrowed his hazelnut eyes."
« Last Edit: March 14, 2011, 05:36:35 PM by Faraway Ray »


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washer

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Reply #61 on: March 16, 2011, 05:54:54 PM
Hey, got around to hearing this one late, as it seems I've been doing too often of late.

I liked this story a lot.  I wasn't 100% on-board for the first five or ten minutes and then the unpronouncable doctor uttered "Lullaby" and BOOM!  I was laser-focused til the end.  I liked this one a lot, and the implications it had for a technology singularity were ones I'd never considered.  Very original, and very well written.



kibitzer

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Reply #62 on: March 17, 2011, 01:38:33 AM
I wasn't 100% on-board for the first five or ten minutes and then the unpronounceable doctor uttered "Lullaby" and BOOM!  I was laser-focused til the end.

So you're saying "Lullaby" is your trigger-word, too?


eytanz

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Reply #63 on: March 21, 2011, 11:38:49 PM
I decided that the discussion of almonds, eyes, and science has grown to the point where it deserves its own thread, so I gave it one. You can find that discussion here if you wish to read or contribute to it.



LaShawn

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Reply #64 on: March 22, 2011, 03:58:14 PM
Wow. It's not often that I care for stories that have two people talking about scientific stuff that go over my head, but this story pulled it off very well. Still got a little lost, but I found myself caring for what the MC was going through. I also liked how the story tied emotions to the science, as well as her relationship with her parents, particularly her mother. Very touching.

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