could you "roll back" the simulacrum to an earlier point in the original's life? Those old activation patterns are still in there, somewhere. Could we run them back to early childhood, then simulate different experiences to find out what the original would have done if their life had been different?
theoretically, yes, and this is a trick I play with in the sequels.
]]>I just wanted to say, I wish I had you folks to bounce ideas off of when I was tweaking my nefshon ideas back in the day. I'm not saying it would have resulted in something that made you any happier, but I'd have at least been better educated.
I hope that when I get to working on Book 2, that some of you will be open to chatting with me, preferably very slowly and with small words. Thanks!
]]>As a CP [no, chans, not that], do you apply hierarchy to said states?
Which "states" are you referring to here? And what system of hierarchy are you looking for?
I'll take a stab at an answer (though it's only a stab because I'm not clear on your responses to these points), but my thinking is more about the patterns of activation that describe the currently popular models of memory. One of the tricky (and to me, very interesting) aspects of this is that in addition to these patterns encoding memory, they by default have to reference once another (i.e., you have memories of your memories), making the whole thing more than a little recursive. Given this, hierarchies don't seem particularly necessary because you can spin off whatever organizing principle you choose on the fly.
'ej ghItlh:
What's your model of organizational priorities here?
If I'm understanding you correctly (and really, why would I assume that?), I think you're just asking the previous question in a fresh way. Which I appreciate, because it makes me a bit more confident that we're talking about the same thing. And because I've already answered it. Next question. :)
'ej ghItlh
Taking it at face value means that 90% of Homo Sapiens Sapiens within a Cultural Space are functionally identical, barring the minutiae of their everyday random scatter emotional relations.
We're going to have to disagree on this. However, your point does create a good opportunity to invoke schema theory. For those in the cheap seats, cognitive psychology uses the term "schema" to refer to a packet of information appropriate to a particular situation or setting. Thus you have schemata for what goes on in a restaurant, how to ride a public bus, what to do when you walk into a shoe store, etc. I'm thinking that these cover much (if not all) of the data you're invoking by your 90%, which is to say, generic information that is common to members of the same cultural reference points. And while those things are certainly included in an individual's episodic memory, they lack the unique bits of top-down processes that move it from an memory that's identical with your neighbor's memory of the event to something that is truly personal.
'ej ghItlh:
And this hasn't gone unnoticed:
Propaganda Games: Sesame Credit - The True Danger of Gamification - Extra Credits [YouTube: Discussion: 7:38] Dec 16 2015
No doubt you'll see this as a cheap cop-out, but I'm going to plead lack of time (hey, just released a book, okay?) and not follow through on that link. But I do thank you for it, and I look forward to taking a peek when I can spare the cycles.
'ej ghItlh:
Is there a reason, as a CP, that you've chosen interactions with simulacrums?
Only to the extent that my background in psych led me to the idea that memory, defined as a highly organized collection of patterns of activation, didn't necessarily expire when its host did.
It's been frustrating to me that some people think I'm talking about "souls" or "ghosts" here, because none of that was my intention. Rather, I view nefshon constructs as a kind of interactive recording. Though I'm a bit concerned that telling you that will only engender even more questions. Then again, you took the time to pose your questions so I owe you the best answer I have the time to share.
]]>All the author really had to say was four words: "I see dead people". The readers who are willing to follow the conceit are on board, and the others know enough to stop reading. I don't really see the point of trying to reconcile ghosts with particle physics.
Actually, Jay, I've repeatedly said (though not here, because it never came up) that the elevator pitch for Barsk was "Dune meets The Sixth Sense, with Elephants."
Though in response to an implication in the second part above, I never use terms like "ghost" or "soul" in describing nefshon constructs. And that was deliberate.
]]>When the nefshons are collected, how is the set from one mind kept separated from anothers, so that only one mind is interacted with, not some sort of composite or multiple mind construct? If the idea of nefshon discreteness is correct, this makes nefshons non-fungible, which is rather different from known particles isn't it?
Yes, I think it's fair to say that nefshons (once encoded) are non-fungible. As to how a Speaker sorts through them, presumably this is occurring through some system of salient features which allows the individual to retrieve a specific person in the first place.
Some of this is touched on in the book, and other bits and pieces I've deliberately left out so I have something to mine in the sequels. I could elaborate here, but... spoilers!
]]>So, I'm going to pick and choose two questions.
Do species run around sampling the local nefshon backgrounds as a scientist would analyze soil?
Brilliant question! Though, I admit, I'm biased. That very point is a major subplot of the first of two sequel proposals sitting on my editor's desk right now. We get a small glimpse of this in the book when a character engages in a related behavior (I'll say no more now because... spoilers.
Do you only get to access the nefshons that were formed when that Mind/Nefshon interface happened?
There's too much here that requires agreed upon operational definitions, and the medium of comments and replies (particularly on launch day) is too inefficient a use of my cycles. If I'm understanding the question (and I don't know that I am), then the answer is "no" but that's also affected by what you mean by "access."
Short answer: read the book and see how and what the characters do with this idea. Then come back and beat on my head with chapter and verse as ammunition. Fair?
]]>In Barsk it's made clear that because nefshons diffuse after a person's death, a Speakers have a very limited range of years that they can draw on. We see some Speakers who have an easier time of summoning a conversant because 1) the target had been previously summoned and so the nefshon dispersal has started all over again, and 2) they're in closer proximity to where the diffusion began (e.g., a Speaker attempting to summon a recently deceased commenter here would likely find it a simpler task to perform the summoning here on Earth, than at the other end of the galaxy).
The point being, the Speaker puts energy into the system to gather a sufficient number of the conversant's nefshons together. Once they've arrived, their pre-existing relationships to one another make it possible retrieve the information they contain. An imperfect analogy might be made to the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, randomly distributed at first but coming together to reveal an image.
Finally, I'll remind you that my academic training is in cognitive psychology and not physics, so I'm much more comfortable with the stuff about memory and not so much the particulars of particles. And too, all of this is in service to a work of fiction, so I'm more than willing to ask for a bit of suspended disbelief about an idea that cannot currently be proved using the tools we currently have at hand. In my fiction I've always taken the position that a character traveling as a passenger on a spaceship (e.g., the Amazing Conroy when he's working his way across space entertaining the guests) is no more expected to know how the ship gets from place to place than I am to have a deep insight to how example my car uses gasoline to permit me to drive around town.
]]>I agree. But then, that's what the network of nefshons is providing, albeit at a much smaller level. Two points to consider (over and above the fictional and theoretical premise): 1) without getting caught up in the math, I would expect the number of nefshons to be several orders of magnitude greater than the number of neurons, and 2) the nefshons, being subatomic particles, aren't responsible for any other functions or dependent on any other systems, as opposed to the living cells that make up the brain.
]]>Hey, Agent 0090, I need to correct you slightly.
The line "a stage hypnotist performing for aliens" refers to a different series of short stories and novels that I've previously written, and NOT to the shiny new book that launched today.
A lot of the stories are available in a collection entitled Buffalito Buffet (here's the Kindle link). Three novellas in the series have been nominated for Nebula Awards. You can also find quite a few of the stories on my page over at Moozvine where they've been released under individual creative commons licenses.
]]>You're absolutely right, Elderly Cynic, the one does not lead to the other.
Which is why I had to come up with the idea of the nefshon particles. And as an SF author (as opposed to a physicist) I get to do so without any sense of shame whatsoever.
Side note: There's a fun scene in the book where two nefhson constructs are arguing. One is the discoverer of the drug that makes active perception and manipulation of nefshons possible, and the other is a pharmer who has developed a new, more powerful strain of the drug. Eight hundred years have passed, and the latter lectures the former on developments in theory that have occurred since the original discovery.
]]>Keep in mind that I started writing Barsk back in 1989. That's when I invented nefshons. Hebrew was fresher in my mind and while I was getting some interference from more recently studied languages (like Comanche the year before), I hadn't yet discovered Klingon.
I did indeed go to Hebrew for nefshons. Me memory of it is hazy, but I think I looked up the word for "personality" and found Nephesh Adam (pardon the mangled romanization), literally, the face of man.
I liked it!
]]>But all sensory input (including your bodily sensations) get processed by the brain.
Here's the example I used to use back in my professoring days: Think about some dream you've had. You're walking around in what ever dreamscape you've conjured up. You can see things, hear things, maybe you have some mac & cheese and to no one's surprise you can taste it. And so on. But your sensory receptors (your eyes, your ears, your tongue) are not actively receiving the stimuli from these things. You're drawing on sensory data that you have stored in your cortex.
The point is, we don't see with our eyes, but rather with our brain. And it's the same with any sensory information (like feeling hungry or thirsty or in pain). The brain takes that sensory information and gives it meaning, utilizing both bottom-up processes (those stimuli) and top-down processes (previous memories and reconstructions, such as the flu shot you had yesterday was nowhere near as painful as the spinal tap you endured last year).
]]>Well, yes and no. Everything we know of the external world is bottom-up processing comes to our via our sensorium, which in turn is processed by the brain. Combine that with everything we already know and might choose to apply to a given event or stimulus, and you've accounted for the top-down processing, which also occur in the brain.
But you raise an intriguing question, which if I may paraphrase you is just how much of the situation in a conversation with the dead a function of the Speaker and how much of the conversant? And by extension, does the Speaker even know?
One of the pragmatic aspects of manipulating nefshons is that you have to possess unique information about the person you're summoning or you won't be able to do it. This is a minor plot point early on in Barsk where a failure to appreciate this (by nonpractitioners)provides an unusual opportunity.
But back to the question, is the Speaker unconsciously filling in bits and mistakenly believing they come from the conversant (which would make the entire exercise more like talking to yourself) or is actual cognition going on in what one could argue is the reassembled mind of the simulacrum?
Personally, I go with the latter, because underpinning the entirety of nefhson theory is the idea that the mind is an emergent property of the brain, and can continue to exist without it.
]]>But to be fair, it's one I wrestled with for quite some time, before I had an answer which then shaped events in the book.
And thank you. :)
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