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Nothing reaches into the depth of a person's soul, scrapes together personal contemplation and brings it to the surface for ignoramus trolls to belittle quite like a thread where the object is to write a spoiler-filled, summarized description of a book that doesn't exist. ![[image loading]](http://media.jamesrskemp.com/graphics/wakingLife/WakingLife_09_1_t.jpg) Whether one is determined to write it and uses this occasion as a stepping stone to solidify or to get feedback for one's general direction + Show Spoiler [disregarding the risk of idea-theft] +since the post gets dated you can always point towards
its link to prove you're the story's legitimate creator ; or one wishes to come across an existing book with that particular custom "about" in order to enjoy reading it, one should mention whether they wish their summary to be scrutinized or nay. Therefore at the end of your summary always signal the degree
of receptivity for criticism by means of one of these 4 feedback modes: SCRUTINIZE AWEIGH! (SA): unrestricted criticism.
Scrutinize but be gentle (SG): tactful, constructive criticism
Scrutiny restricted to positive (PS): if you have nothing nice to say stfu pl0x
No need for feedback (NN): look but don't scrutinize
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Some guy logs-in to an online forum (NOT just any forum. TEAM nr1 gaming site on the freaking planet baby LIQUID.NET) and opens a thread about conceiving spoiler-filled, summarized descriptions of books they'd love to wish into existence. He checks it the next day to find that people don't get the gist of it, so he sets out on a journey to make them get it by traveling all across the world, meeting people and recording what they have to say about it and posting it in the thread. By doing so without securing an income nor compromising his moral standards or dignity he winds up broke, neglecting his need for healthy food, sleep and ultimately his personal hygiene and sanity.
Somewhere northeast of Paris in a town called Ham he succumbs to hallucinations and plunges into a psychosis, or as he believes a divine dimension whereby what he calls the Hydra God, a niche of existence that is always most awesome, is guiding him to become the key to open heaven's gate. He exercises his clairvoyance, bending his mind to empathize with the fictitious bible-character Jesus to adopt what could be seen as his model of gratification for selfless investment. Thus he finds himself able to make out exactly the circumstances, actions and events that need to happen in order to transform even the sucky aspects of reality into wonder.
The thread becomes the chronology of his decent into madness, but more than that it amounts to nothing less than the holy scripture of the prominent religion of the next couple of millennia.
(SA)
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The colconscious meanders through the mind of the eerie.
Masterhood prevails.
What is it that cannot be undone?
Tell me!
Was all this craft-manship for nothing?
Is it you that cannot understand? Or is it the world?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZdX2OVw.jpg)
Specialties evoke feelings of uncertainty.
Not only in us but also throughout us.
Can it be revoked?!
Make the gleeful spritleyeyed, as if they were to pick it from below.
So asks who?
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A person learns mind control somehow. Slowly expanding in power. Learning new tricks and ways of making it stick. Helping people and generally being a modern day hero, slowly falling to the grey side due to rationalising things as being good.
After a while the lack of real interaction with people makes the person lose track and decide to grab power to help more people.
Somewhere in there a hedonistic life style is created, the main character is still a caring person, just not respectful of others will.
Not sure where the conflict would be or if it is even needed. The book could just serve as a journey into unlimited debauchery. I would love seeing that psychological journey and how the morals of society slowly stops applying due to skewed interactions.
(SG)
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To whom it may concern I'm going to fill some plot holes of my story.
How does the thread go from a collection of fictitious book-summaries gathered from strangers our guy encounters to becoming the holy scripture of a future religious movement?
Well, as it turns out despite loosing his shit completely later on our guy had the right idea to train himself to discard his personal ambitions and immerse himself in empathy towards that which is purely awesome*, thus becoming an empath, not for humans but for God.
Furthermore our guy comes to realize that momentary awesomeness by means of physical display of vitality, as explained in *, pales in insignificance when compared to actions that initiate events that lead to exponential growth of awesomeness in synergy with ongoing awesomeness. So the dogma of the future religion, which strives to seek out and identify and preserve awesomeness, actively initiate it and harvest its benefits in an organized fashion, is that our guy at one point stopped transmitting the summaries of the physical people he encountered and began to channel God's unadulterated dimension, the ideal for our world, manifesting it through himself (his eloquence) in the form of internet-forum thread-posts, based on the fact that several of the stories didn't check out in the sense that the people he supposedly got them from couldn't be identified and their existence verified even after the massive digital data-evaluation to come later this century. In fact the camera-feed, phone data, satellite imagery etc., will suggest that he isolated himself rather completely for a considerable amount of time prior to and during the appearance of the posts in question.
The content of these posts, the influences that generated their roots and the state of mind which modulated them into their final draft should be the main focus of the book, as it opens up a great deal of possibilities for high-level intellectual meditation for the author. I believe scattering them in a post-modern style across chapters in an intertwined fashion would yield maximum reading-enjoyment for me. .
I'd go so far as to bring ghosts into the picture, and defining them as entities of unfinished or blocked awesomeness-energy. They will manifest as such only in our guy's increasingly unstable mind until a computer of the future is able to pick up on them like fields of suboptimality-spikes in the continuum of awesomeness-level measurement-computation.
Almost equally exciting would be to experience the way the transformation picks up and people start to contribute, themselves picking up on various degrees of awesomeness they can augment, carrying the torch further until its effect on reality is undeniable.
Then an exercise in creativity would be to contemplate who or what would stand in the way of such a transformation, driven by what motivation, level of awareness and philosophy. But that would be the most uninspiring part of the book because there's little to no mystery in individuals that make up forces that stall or annihilate sparks of potential and most of the time they don't know what they're doing.
Maybe it is best to guest-narrate aspects of the book from the perspective of a potential follower of that religion and add the individual dimension inside the vision of a utopic future into the mix. I also want there to be a lot of stuff about people, gestures, moments, bits of rapture, fleeting emotions; so that has to come from somewhere.
***
*This concept is in need of further explanation, so here's what is meant. Take any moment in time when people or any creature for that matter does something obviously awesome (watch a people are awesome compilation on youtube or something), like when you try to land a trick on your skateboard and you nail it just right that one time out of 10000, to name a banal example. Basically what happened using this reasoning is God took your form, or you made God-level.
Because God wouldn't be sitting somewhere in some cloudy castle on a mountain on his ass not giving a fuck just watching everyone all the time and judging once the world is over, no. Instead you can define God as the niche of existence (so you don't have to deal with the issue of him being real or not) that you can be part of if you tap into this awesomeness zone, because that's what you or everyone else would do with omnipotence.. be as awesome as it gets, to show the people how it's done, i.e. what the maximum yield of one's limited capacity in a particular moment in time is.
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This is a "dystopian" future where determinism is thought to be the most important part of the multiverse.
The goal of the civilization on planet Earth(?) + Show Spoiler +reader will have to make that out for himself
We follow, next to grand descriptions of the world and how it functions, a codex (how to properly function in this society) and a history of how they evolved as a civilization, 3 men. Two are living together. One is a purely rational human, a psychiatrist, yet very empathic. The other is a burnt out artist who can't find inspiration because of this determinism.
The last one is a mental patient of the doctor. He makes no sense, at first, rants alot about random things, tells about his bizarre dreams, but you will slowly realize that he's from another universe to stop this universe from collapsing the others because in doing so, they will destroy everything.
This man also has the capability to feel more than himself, he's more conscious in a sense.
The book will explore political ideologies, societal structures and interactions, all in deterministc setting. Determinism does not equal no freedom however, the society will be made quite "free", but it will all seem void.
Also, this will be written in two languages. Which parts will be dutch and english, however, I don't know yet.
(SA)
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@Yurie I'd be interested in finding out exactly how the mind controlling supposedly works and how it feels from the protagonists and the "victim's" perspective. But I think I'd like your protagonist to be more of a mind reader because then you've got this augmented vantage point into reality thing going on with hidden constellations of needs, desires and dependencies, and it also explains how he is able to help people solve their issues.
@Uldridge when I hear determinism I doze off. There's nothing as overrated and impractical to even think about than determinism. Which is why I can sympathize whole-heartedly with your characters if you make them cool enough, because they obviously loath the shit out of it, considering they have to live it. So this would be something for me if the focus was on the characters. You can write the rest in dutch, that way I don't have to read it.
@helpman 0.o not sure what to make of that
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On May 17 2015 08:29 AllHailHydraGod wrote:
@Yurie I'd be interested in finding out exactly how the mind controlling supposedly works and how it feels from the protagonists and the "victim's" perspective. But I think I'd like your protagonist to be more of a mind reader because then you've got this augmented vantage point into reality thing going on with hidden constellations of needs, desires and dependencies, and it also explains how he is able to help people solve their issues.
Mind reading would preclude the second half of the story due to knowing what people are thinking. Thus would need to be a very psychotic person instead of the normal dictator syndrome.
An easy example of helping somebody would be if a person had a compulsion to steal things. You add a command forbidding stealing to them. They still want to do it but can no longer physically do it. Or you run into a mugging and use your powers to stop them. Will introduce interesting mental conditions on the people used on, do they adjust their mind or live split from physical actions?
A person not daring to ask out the guy/girl they like. Force them to do it. Simple commands with huge repercussions.
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A man is bored with life, stuck in a job he hates, estranged from his parents, divorced, and spends most of his time in bars. One day, a mysterious black cube appears to him and gives him the following information: "I will grant any wish your heart desires. There is no limit to how many wishes I will grant to you. Every time you make one wish, one person will be struck by lightning and die."
The man assumes he's just really drunk or tripping on drugs, and ignores the cube, and begins to question if it is real or not. It appears to him in various places and in different sizes. Sometimes it is tiny, sometimes it is huge, but only he can see it and hear it. He begins to speak to the cube, and it responds with bizarre nonsensical language. As he searches for an answer, he begins to wonder about what kind of wish he could make, and who might die if he made a wish.
The man attempts to tell a councilor about the cube and explains it as a vision, and is recommended to take medication, and he refuses and storms out. He attempts to tell a friend of his, who assumes it is some kind of prank. Distraught over the situation, he finds himself becoming the topic of gossip in his workplace when his co-workers overhear him talking to the cube and telling it to leave him alone. Angered by the gossip, he confronts one of his co-workers and tells her off in a manner she takes to be threatening. The boss calls the man in and initially intends to fire the man, but the man begs to keep his job, so the boss agrees to relocate him.
We then learn something about the man: he hates his job, but has to keep it in order to see his two children once a month during a supervised visit. During his visit with his son and daughter in the park, the cube appears on a park bench, and unexpectedly, the daughter sees it and picks it up, thinking it is like a magic 8-ball. She asks if she will ever become a princess when she grows up. The cube responds that it is not likely to happen, so she wishes to become a princess, which causes lightning to strike her brother, killing him instantly. The man takes the cube into his hands and wishes that his son will be brought back to life, and he is resurrected. In the distance, another lightning strike takes place and they hear thunder in the distance.
Later, the cube tells the man to turn on the television and switch to a particular channel, and he sees a news report which mentions that a mother of three died when she was hit by lightning. At this point, he knows the cube is real, but the questions begin to swirl: why did the cube appear to him? What is it? Where did it come from? Can it really grant any wish? The cube and the man engage in a conversation where he learns the cube will grant any wish with 10 exceptions. The cube says it will not reveal the exceptions unless the man made a wish, but that if the man made an exception wish, the wish would not be granted AND someone would still die. The man declares the cube to be evil and tries repeatedly to dispose of it, throwing it out of his window, flushing it down the toilet, and even trying to set it on fire. It just continues to appear in various places.
The man makes a vow to never use the cube's powers again, but falls into a depression, angry with fate for giving him such a horrible curse, and drinks to excess and falls asleep and takes drugs, causing him to collapse. He wakes up later in an emergency room, where he is informed that he was unconscious, and after several people failed to contact him, they called the police to do a welfare check on him. They found him on the floor, and he was rushed to the hospital. He tries to check out of the hospital, but he learns he's missed work and his co-worker friend was his emergency contact, and word reaches the boss that there was a drug binge. The boss calls the man into the office and fires him.
Maybe I'll add more later, but it's late.
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I have some harsh things to say about that so choose wisely: SA, SG, PS or NN
@Yurie maybe but it's not unthinkable that a dictator is fully aware of what people around him think of him and what he's doing, after a time he desensitizes that aspect and concentrates on what he wants regardless. And when it comes to psychotic I for one want it to reach as far as it gets, like total bat-shit insane, but that's just me.
When you say he's adding restrictive or galvanizing commands you're taking the easy, computer programmer's/hacker's way out. Mind control should be more of an art rather than the continuous process of running simple if-then commands through backdoor viruses. I'm thinking inception-style suggestion that grows in the psyche and transforms it from within, and in order to get an idea what the medium is he needs to be able to read it and then skillfully transcode the agents of transformation into words or events and make them happen. Simply injecting stuff is too easy.
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United States15275 Posts
On May 16 2015 08:27 Uldridge wrote:This is a "dystopian" future where determinism is thought to be the most important part of the multiverse. The goal of the civilization on planet Earth(?) + Show Spoiler +reader will have to make that out for himself is to eliminate all other universes and store them into a singularity so they, as the last universe, can make time stop and reach complete determinism. Once nothing moves, nothing can change, therefore it is perfect is one of their motto's. We follow, next to grand descriptions of the world and how it functions, a codex (how to properly function in this society) and a history of how they evolved as a civilization, 3 men. Two are living together. One is a purely rational human, a psychiatrist, yet very empathic. The other is a burnt out artist who can't find inspiration because of this determinism. The last one is a mental patient of the doctor. He makes no sense, at first, rants alot about random things, tells about his bizarre dreams, but you will slowly realize that he's from another universe to stop this universe from collapsing the others because in doing so, they will destroy everything. This man also has the capability to feel more than himself, he's more conscious in a sense. The book will explore political ideologies, societal structures and interactions, all in deterministc setting. Determinism does not equal no freedom however, the society will be made quite "free", but it will all seem void. Also, this will be written in two languages. Which parts will be dutch and english, however, I don't know yet. (SA)
I feel like you're going to run into a thematic rut. Your focus is way too scatter-shot and frankly, the conceits make no sense if you think about them for 10 seconds.
1) How can a civilization restricted to one planet marshal the resources to eliminate alternate universes?
2) Determinism is not moored to whether actions happen or not. If the universe continued to progress or "crystallized" into a timeless form, the concept of determinism would be unaffected.
3) Why would everyone believe that immutability = perfection and such a thing should be pursued? It is frankly insane and demands an untenable explanation.
4) A "perfectly rational human being" can't be depicted in literature. He would have no motivation to do anything.
5) I find it hard to believe that psychiatry exists in a civilization advanced enough to verify WMI and change it.
6) I find it hard to believe that artists exist in a civilization that has no desire of them.
7) How exactly is inspiration muted by determinism? They are completely independent concepts.
8) How exactly is freedom muted by determinism? They are tangentially related concepts.
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On May 18 2015 00:58 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2015 08:27 Uldridge wrote:This is a "dystopian" future where determinism is thought to be the most important part of the multiverse. The goal of the civilization on planet Earth(?) + Show Spoiler +reader will have to make that out for himself is to eliminate all other universes and store them into a singularity so they, as the last universe, can make time stop and reach complete determinism. Once nothing moves, nothing can change, therefore it is perfect is one of their motto's. We follow, next to grand descriptions of the world and how it functions, a codex (how to properly function in this society) and a history of how they evolved as a civilization, 3 men. Two are living together. One is a purely rational human, a psychiatrist, yet very empathic. The other is a burnt out artist who can't find inspiration because of this determinism. The last one is a mental patient of the doctor. He makes no sense, at first, rants alot about random things, tells about his bizarre dreams, but you will slowly realize that he's from another universe to stop this universe from collapsing the others because in doing so, they will destroy everything. This man also has the capability to feel more than himself, he's more conscious in a sense. The book will explore political ideologies, societal structures and interactions, all in deterministc setting. Determinism does not equal no freedom however, the society will be made quite "free", but it will all seem void. Also, this will be written in two languages. Which parts will be dutch and english, however, I don't know yet. (SA) I feel like you're going to run into a thematic rut. Your focus is way too scatter-shot and frankly, the conceits make no sense if you think about them for 10 seconds. 1) How can a civilization restricted to one planet marshal the resources to eliminate alternate universes? 2) Determinism is not moored to whether actions happen or not. If the universe continued to progress or "crystallized" into a timeless form, the concept of determinism would be unaffected. 3) Why would everyone believe that immutability = perfection and such a thing should be pursued? It is frankly insane and demands an untenable explanation. 4) A "perfectly rational human being" can't be depicted in literature. He would have no motivation to do anything. 5) I find it hard to believe that psychiatry exists in a civilization advanced enough to verify WMI and change it. 6) I find it hard to believe that artists exist in a civilization that has no desire of them. 7) How exactly is inspiration muted by determinism? They are completely independent concepts. 8) How exactly is freedom muted by determinism? They are tangentially related concepts.
Imo the issues you've raised can be alleviated with more elaboration on top of what Uldridge brought to the table without compromising its integrity.
1) Multiverse as in parallel dimensions which they figured out how to transit. It wouldn't take much to eliminate such a parallel universe (earth), a little sabotage here and there replacing the elite and the whole planet gets sucked into a black hole during a quantum experiment "accident". Most of the worlds don't reach that technology level anyway and pose no threat/resistance.
2) He's talking about the application of the concept spearheaded by a doctrine who's imposers supposedly know what ought to happen and that it'll happen no matter what because it's predestined for a universe to subjugate the others and achieve this state, just not which one so they have to work hard to be it.
3) I can think of a couple: Conservation, Reproduction. If time is a resource and they're running out of it it makes sense to crysalize, not crystalize, similar to how the bacteria that cause antrax generate spores that have increased durability, or the sporogenesis of plants, algae, fungi which serves reproduction. In this case the existence of multidimensionality wastes additional time so they're wrapping them up.
5) What's WMI, and at the telescopic rate technology evolved during the last couple of centuries the action of the book is plausible to take place anywhere between 50 to 200 years from now, not too distant for psychiatry to hold on to its legitimacy.
6) As I invision it it's in the establishment's best interest to uphold the illusion of art, in order to ease the transition from artistic abundance to concentric rigidity in order to keep people from rebelling and leak resources.
7), 8) Again, the establishment's philosophy that they impose upon the individual is that everything is predestined and that they know what that destiny is which leaves less and less room for deviation the closer they get to the goal. Therefore art will serve the purpose of that goal and finding inspiration to do so is something the burned-out artist has a problem with, because he'd rather rock and roll than add to the propaganda machine.
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Somehow turn a protagonist's compulsive forum browsing and gaming into a compelling narrative that speaks to the rest of humanity.
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I made the same thread somewhere else and check out what someone wrote:
In the near future, a huge breakthrough in stem cell research and nano-technology happens simultaneously resulting in medical nanobots that can take raw material ingested by humans and 'cure' any disease by digesting and rebuilding, from scratch, the affected systems. While it doesn't prevent the body from aging, the effects of aging on the body can also be constantly repaired as well.
Several radical groups, worried about overpopulation or the 'wrong' type of people living for long periods of time create programs that can be introduced to the nanobots that will ultimately kill their hosts. Since the criteria for termination is based on ideology rather than scientific principles, programs that have basic intents like "kill all <insert ethnic group> or sterilize all subjects with an IQ lower than <X>" end up killing virtually every person on the planet.
The story is told through ancient documents found by the descendants of the survivors roughly 26,000 years from now. Descendants who have no clue this event took place and their scientific understanding of human life and why it functions the way it does is based on the nanobots (which are still present within them) being completely natural.
(SA)
I think it's pretty awesome.
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United States15275 Posts
On May 18 2015 06:37 AllHailHydraGod wrote:
Imo the issues you've raised can be alleviated with more elaboration on top of what Uldridge brought to the table without compromising its integrity.
1) Multiverse as in parallel dimensions which they figured out how to transit. It wouldn't take much to eliminate such a parallel universe (earth), a little sabotage here and there replacing the elite and the whole planet gets sucked into a black hole during a quantum experiment "accident". Most of the worlds don't reach that technology level anyway and pose no threat/resistance.
Then they are not eliminating the universe, just a planet. And unless he's implying that said planets are integral to the stability of their respective universes (which turns it into a ripoff of Crisis of Infinite Earths anyway), then the conceit is meaningless. It makes no difference whether they are destroyed or not.
A quantum experiment "accident" would hardly stand the test of any inquiry. Considering a star needs mass surpassing the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit to collapse into a black hole, what magical technology on a single habitable planet could replicate those conditions?
On May 18 2015 06:37 AllHailHydraGod wrote:
2) He's talking about the application of the concept spearheaded by a doctrine who's imposers supposedly know what ought to happen and that it'll happen no matter what because it's predestined for a universe to subjugate the others and achieve this state, just not which one so they have to work hard to be it.
Why would the proselytizes advocate a belief system that results in their own termination? Determinism is not a religion. There is no reward for something that supposedly exists as an irreducible fact, regardless of the actual state of the universe. At face value, it wouldn't effect anything considering the responsibilities of citizenship.
On May 18 2015 06:37 AllHailHydraGod wrote:
3) I can think of a couple: Conservation, Reproduction. If time is a resource and they're running out of it it makes sense to crysalize, not crystalize, similar to how the bacteria that cause antrax generate spores that have increased durability, or the sporogenesis of plants, algae, fungi which serves reproduction. In this case the existence of multidimensionality wastes additional time so they're wrapping them up.
Conservation and reproduction are irrelevant when the main goal is to stop time. Once the goal is achieved, nothing can actually happen anymore. It would preferable (in the pragmatic sense) to murder everyone who is not instrumental to achieving the goal, just so it's easier to pull off without interference.
Time is not a static resource. One would have to invent a whole new explanation of physics to explain that.
On May 18 2015 06:37 AllHailHydraGod wrote:
5) What's WMI, and at the telescopic rate technology evolved during the last couple of centuries the action of the book is plausible to take place anywhere between 50 to 200 years from now, not too distant for psychiatry to hold on to its legitimacy.
50 years? 200 years? Unless we discovered a major breakthrough in quantum physics, this scenario couldn't happen in 10,000 years.
On May 18 2015 06:37 AllHailHydraGod wrote:
6) As I invision it it's in the establishment's best interest to uphold the illusion of art, in order to ease the transition from artistic abundance to concentric rigidity in order to keep people from rebelling and leak resources.
Why would that matter? If people rebel, it was already determined. If they don't rebel, it was already determined. There's no reason for the elite to prefer one or the other unless they have ulterior motives.
On May 18 2015 06:37 AllHailHydraGod wrote:
7), 8) Again, the establishment's philosophy that they impose upon the individual is that everything is predestined and that they know what that destiny is which leaves less and less room for deviation the closer they get to the goal. Therefore art will serve the purpose of that goal and finding inspiration to do so is something the burned-out artist has a problem with, because he'd rather rock and roll than add to the propaganda machine.
That doesn't matter because hard determinism is a recursive concept anyway. Nothing that happens can be considered wrong because it was always going to happen.
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On May 18 2015 00:58 CosmicSpiral wrote:
I feel like you're going to run into a thematic rut. Your focus is way too scatter-shot and frankly, the conceits make no sense if you think about them for 10 seconds.
1) How can a civilization restricted to one planet marshal the resources to eliminate alternate universes?
2) Determinism is not moored to whether actions happen or not. If the universe continued to progress or "crystallized" into a timeless form, the concept of determinism would be unaffected.
3) Why would everyone believe that immutability = perfection and such a thing should be pursued? It is frankly insane and demands an untenable explanation.
4) A "perfectly rational human being" can't be depicted in literature. He would have no motivation to do anything.
5) I find it hard to believe that psychiatry exists in a civilization advanced enough to verify WMI and change it.
6) I find it hard to believe that artists exist in a civilization that has no desire of them.
7) How exactly is inspiration muted by determinism? They are completely independent concepts.
8) How exactly is freedom muted by determinism? They are tangentially related concepts.
I would elaborate in the book why determinism doesn't mean that inspiration and mental illness don't exist. Nor did I say that because of the multiverse, we're dealing with our iteration of Earth. Technology will have evolved very differently, hence the historical aspect I mentioned earlier.
I never said that I agreed with the way this society works myself, it's the way this society works however, and it will also be explained why it doesn't work.
Since he's human, and by definition is determined by his biology, he can have motivation without losing his sense of rationality. Maybe I've overstated that he has to be perfectly rational, though, I might make it to highly rational haha
Because they are still human, and therefor, defined by their biology (implying genetics), what makes you so sure mental illness will not occur once certain technological tresholds have been met?
I feel like you've countered yourself on 6 with 7, but I'll try to elaborate, because the world is simply so set on determinism and trying to counter every form of stochastic processes occurring in nature. This society hold predictibility over anything else.
I guess I've had some experiences handling the concept of determinism and how people are stuck in their life, not being able to do whatever they want because there are so many factors working against them. I will explore this concept as well.
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United States15275 Posts
On May 18 2015 09:18 Uldridge wrote:
I would elaborate in the book why determinism doesn't mean that inspiration and mental illness don't exist. Nor did I say that because of the multiverse, we're dealing with our iteration of Earth. Technology will have evolved very differently, hence the historical aspect I mentioned earlier.
Determinism has nothing to do with those.
It doesn't matter which version of Earth this takes place on. The problem is one of physics.
On May 18 2015 09:18 Uldridge wrote:
I never said that I agreed with the way this society works myself, it's the way this society works however, and it will also be explained why it doesn't work.
You would have to explain how the society originated to embrace such a worldview. Then you'd have to explain indirectly why the population (which I assume to roughly analogous to ours) would ever take it seriously. Then you'd have to explain why the elite of that society would advocate such a wasteful, inefficient system.
On May 18 2015 09:18 Uldridge wrote:
Since he's human, and by definition is determined by his biology, he can have motivation without losing his sense of rationality. Maybe I've overstated that he has to be perfectly rational, though, I might make it to highly rational haha
Well if he was perfectly rational, he would realize that all his actions can be traced to a hierarchy of values unjustifiable by logic. So he would be forced to concede that any possible action would be rooted in irrational motivations; furthermore, he would understand that any preferences are inevitably prejudiced. He would be paralyzed and unable to take any action in good conscience.
On May 18 2015 09:18 Uldridge wrote:
Because they are still human, and therefor, defined by their biology (implying genetics), what makes you so sure mental illness will not occur once certain technological tresholds have been met?
A civilization with access to reliable inter-dimensional travel will be the type of civilization with access to technology that can identify and diagnose human illnesses without human assistance. Mental illnesses would exist based on probability alone, but humans would be redundant to address the problem. Psychiatry would be a dead discipline.
On May 18 2015 09:18 Uldridge wrote:
I feel like you've countered yourself on 6 with 7, but I'll try to elaborate, because the world is simply so set on determinism and trying to counter every form of stochastic processes occurring in nature. This society hold predictability over anything else.
Stochastic processes and determinism are not opposites. Stochastic processes exist in accordance within a deterministic physical system, so I don't see how the technological/intellectually advanced vanguard of a future civilization could fail to understand that. Nor do I see why said vanguard would want to enforce such a mindset unless the entire story is purely an allegory.
On May 18 2015 09:18 Uldridge wrote:
I guess I've had some experiences handling the concept of determinism and how people are stuck in their life, not being able to do whatever they want because there are so many factors working against them. I will explore this concept as well.
...that has nothing to do with determinism.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
The Annals of TeamLiquid.net. Vol I-XIII.
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On May 16 2015 08:27 Uldridge wrote:
Also, this will be written in two languages. Which parts will be dutch and english, however, I don't know yet.
(SA)
I tried the two-languages-approach one time, I think it does not work. At least not in the way I thought of it, doing descriptions in one language but speech in another ... It just looked like shit.
Anyways, I had a concept:
An 14th century european world, just like ours. Extremely low fantasy, meaning there is only one "magic" thing in this world: The eyes of a girl. Everyone who stares into them instantly becomes depressed or in another way insane. The girl just travels through the world, and events practically happen around her, because people believe different things, mostly lose all of their faith (most people are incredibly religious in the world), if they look into her eyes. Well, and she obviously has to cover her eyes most of the time if she doesn't want to create chaos.
Also, every "church" has a backroom. It is only for the priest to enter, and it is told that there is the most direct connection to god. Kind of inspired by the old temple in Jerusalem. Anyways, the backroom is empty, and only the priests themselves know they have to "create" their own and the faith of others,
Another concept:
An utopian society, which still has some flaws. A young student decides the society is bad and starts a revolution, which leds to the fall of this society. Was somehow to look at what the best intentions could do.
(SA)
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On May 18 2015 09:39 CosmicSpiral wrote:
...that has nothing to do with determinism.
Maybe I should have referred to it as Naturalism, because one of the defining factors of Naturalism is:
Quoted from wikipedia:
... Another characteristic of naturalism is determinism - the opposite of free will, essentially. Often, a naturalist author will lead the reader to believe a character's fate has been predetermined, usually by environmental factors, and that he/she can do nothing about it..
You know, like being born in a slum and nothing you can do will make you get out of your situation, aka, having a determined fate.
Maybe I'm going to say it like this: I'm using the Multivers theory as a crutch to let unobserved, maybe even surreal technologies come into a world.
But like I said, all will be explained in the story. From how the world began to find these different universes, to how they eliminate them, to how they want to eliminate them to why they are deterministic and want eventually time to stop.
I guess I'll elaborate a bit more though. What it boils down to is this: The world believes that the way of unpredictability coming from the tiniest scale will make sure the universe will one day end. One way of preventing that is by stopping time. However, time cannot be stopped if there is quantum mechanics going on. The views believe that every single universe in the multiverse is an iteration of one possible universe, so in trapping all of the other universes, you will nullify the stochastic processes and therefor achieve true determinism, stopping time, and "saving the universe". It's a battle of life against the multiverse trying to preserve at least one, but ultimately giving up everything for it.
It's like you're so set in your own ways of what physics can and can't do and how worlds work and have to evolve, that you're entirely missing the point or can't understand that it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. It's not per se a scientificly perfectly correct story, as in, I need freedom to get my ideas accross and I take a leap of faith with my technologies so I can justify this destructive world.
Well if he was perfectly rational, he would realize that all his actions can be traced to a hierarchy of values unjustifiable by logic. So he would be forced to concede that any possible action would be rooted in irrational motivations; furthermore, he would understand that any preferences are inevitably prejudiced. He would be paralyzed and unable to take any action in good conscience.
I can refute that point by saying that, being rational, you identify that you have hormones in your body, making you prone to prejudice and preferences, so you embrace them and act on them if they suit you. I also said, in the part where you quoted, that I reduced him to highly rational, but maybe I should downgrade it to: a person living in a highly logical manner.
A civilization with access to reliable inter-dimensional travel will be the type of civilization with access to technology that can identify and diagnose human illnesses without human assistance. Mental illnesses would exist based on probability alone, but humans would be redundant to address the problem. Psychiatry would be a dead discipline.
How do you know that for sure, though?
On May 18 2015 09:51 Clegane wrote:
I tried the two-languages-approach one time, I think it does not work. At least not in the way I thought of it, doing descriptions in one language but speech in another ... It just looked like shit.
Yeah well, the more I think about it, the harder I find it justifiable to use two languages. At first I was like, this can be a good idea for artistic value, but other than it being artsy, I don't really find a reason. I have played with the idea that the mental patient, coming from another universe, speaks solely English, a language long forgotten by this world, and that he because he is such an extraordinary being, slowly changes the language of the narrative, as some form of symbolism for influence or something.
PS Wait. The last thing I wrote is acutally a decent reason though.. and I just thought of it, thank you discussion haha.
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EPT
