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Theo's uninitiation mission
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Khaos
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: Update
Shad0 wrote:
My point: I am not so certain that it is a good idea for us to continue helping TheO, even if our motives are pure and we are only doing it "temporarily" to gain needed information. The harm we do to the multiverse is not so easily undone.


Er... you can also join TheO because you really think they're right. There is no "harm" in creating new universes, there may be (not sure, but are you willing the take the risk) harm in performing what's described in the codex.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 1:29 am
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Shad0
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: Update
Khaos wrote:
Er... you can also join TheO because you really think they're right. There is no "harm" in creating new universes, there may be (not sure, but are you willing the take the risk) harm in performing what's described in the codex.

Certainly a valid position. I happen to think that TheO is wrong. Previously I had entertained at least the possibility of doubt -- that is, the possibility that the writers of the Codex were wrong, or were intentionally misleading us, or something along those lines -- but it seems clear now that TheO agrees with everything in the Codex, and simply has a different interpretation of the facts. Here's what I think is going on:

TheO believes that, if we succeed in saving this world, it will necessary destroy another Gaia world. That is TheO's view of the yes-no splits in the multiverse: every time something happens one way in one world, it happens the other way in another world. Thus, if we save our world, we condemn another to death. TheO's primary goal is to ensure that we do not save ourselves at the expense of another world. Ideally, TheO would like to find a way to ensure that the "decision" is never made, so that neither world is destroyed; failing that, TheO believes that it is morally superior for us to sacrifice our world to save the other.

It gets more complicated. TheO also believes that whatever happens to our world will also happen to any alternate worlds to which we are synchronized. Thus, if we are synchronized to a great number of worlds, and then we fail and are subject to the Rapid Continental Change that creates Neopangaea and kills billions of us, numerous parallel worlds will suffer the same fate. If, in contrast, we desynchronize this world from the others, then our world and only our world will be condemned. Thus, TheO reasons, we are morally bound to desynchronize our world as much as possible, to save all of the others that would otherwise fall when ours did.

Now, I think that TheO is wrong, and that TheO's view represents a major misunderstanding of the way the multiverse works. TheO may have had hundreds of years to think about this, but we know that until this year TheO had never seen the Omphaputer (including it's RUN GRAPH function), and had never seen any part of the Codex. So despite the fact that, as James said, TheO has a lot of philosophers, they have no better understanding of the multiverse than we do. And, frankly, I think that TheO could use a serious dose of Sophrosune -- someone who can see the whole picture.

As I understand the Codex, when two previously divergent worlds synchronize, they merge into one. (The example is the swimming fish: when it swims to the right, that decision creates a parallel world in which it decided to swim to the left. However, if the fish ultimately ends up at the same destination, minor deviations in its route are unimportant, and the parallel worlds collapse back into one.) Thus, synchronization does not create a group of several similar worlds, as TheO believes; it merges those worlds into a single world. No world is destroyed, and no one dies.

TheO's second misunderstanding involves the nature of the multiverse. We know, from the Codex and from the Omphaputer's graph, that the multiverse can only tolerate a certain number of divergent worlds. If too many worlds exist, the multiverse will force a convergence through an RCC. Universes that once were different will have their differences wiped out, synchronize, and combine into a single universe, thus relieving pressure on the multiverse -- at the cost of billions of lives lost in the RCC.

The other way to relieve pressure on the multiverse is for the worlds to synchronize without an RCC. That's why we're trying to do. Synchronization will reduce the number of worlds -- without killing anyone -- and thereby prevent any universes from suffering an RCC. That is
our goal. That was the original purpose of the Lost Sport. That is what TheO is (wrongly) trying to prevent.

TheO believes that saving our world will result in the destruction of another Gaia world. In reality, the only way to save our world is to save the multiverse, by creating enough synchronization to avoid an RCC. If we succeed, no worlds will be destroyed; if we fail, any number of Gaia worlds will fall. Ours may or may not be among them -- the only thing that matters to the multiverse is relieving the pressure by reducing the number of worlds.

TheO also believes that we can save other Gaia worlds by desynchronizing from them. That's not how it works. Each act of desynchronization creates a new universe, and consequently puts more pressure on the multiverse and contributes to the likelihood of eventual disastrous RCCs. TheO's motives may be good, but their reasoning stinks. It seems to me that the best way to save lives -- in our world and the others -- is (1) to keep synchronizing as much as possible, thereby reducing the number of worlds and relieving pressure on the multiverse, and (2) to succeed in August, thereby saving not only this world but the entire multiverse through a drastic reduction in the number of worlds without an RCC.

So, that's what I think is going on here. Unfortunately, at present I do not see any way to get my opininon to TheO, let alone to try to convince TheO to change their tactics. I tried to persuade James in San Francisco, but he essentially said that he was following the lead of the TheO philosophers who had thought about this for hundreds of years, and apparently he is inclined to accept their reasoning without question based on that vast experience.

Perhaps TheO will be more inclined to listen to those who are (supposedly) joining TheO's cause.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:37 am
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ariock
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: Update
Shad0 wrote:
[TheO also believes that we can save other Gaia worlds by desynchronizing from them. That's not how it works. Each act of desynchronization creates a new universe, and consequently puts more pressure on the multiverse and contributes to the likelihood of eventual disastrous RCCs. TheO's motives may be good, but their reasoning stinks. It seems to me that the best way to save lives -- in our world and the others -- is (1) to keep synchronizing as much as possible, thereby reducing the number of worlds and relieving pressure on the multiverse, and (2) to succeed in August, thereby saving not only this world but the entire multiverse through a drastic reduction in the number of worlds without an RCC.

So, that's what I think is going on here. Unfortunately, at present I do not see any way to get my opininon to TheO, let alone to try to convince TheO to change their tactics. I tried to persuade James in San Francisco, but he essentially said that he was following the lead of the TheO philosophers who had thought about this for hundreds of years, and apparently he is inclined to accept their reasoning without question based on that vast experience.

Perhaps TheO will be more inclined to listen to those who are (supposedly) joining TheO's cause.


I'd like to point out my speculation. No solid proof yet, but I like it. Wink

There is a Gaea world that is supposedly the original one. It is supposedly the one the six are sent out to protect. It is the one they promise to protect in their oath. If that one world moves to Pangaea, it may cause ALL the other worlds to do the same.

If this world is that world, we have to do everything we can to protect it.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 3:15 am
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DavFlamerock
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 		I agree with Shad0 here on every point--he just beat me to the punch of typing it all out Very Happy

EDIT: Oh yeah, somehow I almost forgot. All you folks who said the Oath with James: Your Oath isn't really valid until you perform a desynchronization... and what do you know, there's a bunch of Argentinians from Diego's board that need partners Very Happy (and they're just as unsure of it as Shad0, so you're among friends)

PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 3:27 am
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Khaos
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: Update
Shad0 wrote:
TheO believes that, if we succeed in saving this world, it will necessary destroy another Gaia world. That is TheO's view of the yes-no splits in the multiverse: every time something happens one way in one world, it happens the other way in another world.


Not sure i'll agree here, saving this world will destroy the others but not because of a yes-no rules.

I'm not the voice of Theo here, but as a Theo member i think they're thinking about something else :

What really happens when you synchronize worlds ? Do we really know if that doesn't involve destruction actualy ? Not even the codex talk about that and having no real truth on that, synchronizing could just as well mean destruction.

Now, a more tricky one. Even if synchronization is nice and shiny with absolutly no destruction involved, what happens if you synchronize this world with another one which is the exact same on every level except the fact that your brother/father/mother/dog/whatever is dead.

Which world wins ? are you family going to die ? rebirth ? And what if there are lots of worlds out there with part of the humanity dead ? Will synchronization kill us all ?
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 3:42 am
Last edited by Khaos on Fri Jun 13, 2008 8:42 am; edited 1 time in total
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jasper
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: Update
Shad0 wrote:
Now, I think that TheO is wrong, and that TheO's view represents a major misunderstanding of the way the multiverse works. TheO may have had hundreds of years to think about this, but we know that until this year TheO had never seen the Omphaputer (including it's RUN GRAPH function), and had never seen any part of the Codex. So despite the fact that, as James said, TheO has a lot of philosophers, they have no better understanding of the multiverse than we do. And, frankly, I think that TheO could use a serious dose of Sophrosune -- someone who can see the whole picture.


Thermanita said she had been a student of the Codex for years. Each member of the team who wrote the Codex had a copy to take with them to their home world, but they didn't all go home, did they? They didn't succeed (whatever success means) The TheO members like James at lower levels may have never seen it, but I think the big wigs have, and that they may have copies carried by the Codex writers themselves.

PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:56 am
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dreamerblue
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 		So, Khaos, are you still in this to help Lucie?

PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:09 am
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Khaos
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dreamerblue wrote:
So, Khaos, are you still in this to help Lucie?


Lucie wants to go home, and i see no problem with that. It's about multiversal travel not synchronization.

The codex says it's somehow linked, that you can't have multiversal travel without synchronization. But there are lots of gap in this theory (After all, the original six traveled through many worlds, what don't we see the effect of the multiple synchronization supposedly required for those travels)

So either the codex is lying, either there are other ways to travel in the multivers (building a much bigger and powerful earth-omphalos could be one way)

So here i am helping Lucie without destroying any other worlds.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 11:37 am
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Shad0
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: Update
jasper wrote:
Thermanita said she had been a student of the Codex for years. Each member of the team who wrote the Codex had a copy to take with them to their home world

Ahhh! I've never had any communication with Thermantia, so I either did not know or had forgotten that. James confirmed that TheO did not know about the omphaputer before 2008, which meant that TheO did not previously have access to this world's copy of the Codex. From that, I made an apparently unwarranted assumption. Theoretically, some members of TheO could have come from other worlds and learned of the Codex that way. For some reason it feels unlikely to me, but it's just a feeling; I cannot yet articulate any particular reasoning for it.

(This makes me wonder once again about the mysterious third party that's been maintaining the omphaputer and hiding -- and moving around -- the pieces of the Codex around for years.)

(Also, I suspect that ariock's theory is entirely correct, and that this world is in fact the original Gaia world that everyone needs to protect, but so far we have no proof of that so good luck convincing anyone.)
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These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 1:12 pm
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AUZ505
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 		my two cents:

Shad0: you mixed up two effects: The eleastic reaction when the upper limit is reached and RCC which ALWAYS happen (but more often near the upper limit).

Regarding your example with the 4 worlds that turn into 5, I guess there is also a misunderstanding.

I would assume the following:
2 worlds (A1 and A2) synchronize and will be merged without RCC.
2 worlds (B1 and B2) will therefore not synchronize. this does not mean that there will be automatically new worlds. Instead there is a risk that those worlds will be RCC'd so that they can be synchronized this (destructive) way. So after all events there will be one A world (without destruction) and one B world (with destruction)

If we are A than B will be destroyed. Theo wants us to be B so that the other world will be A and not destroyed.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:56 pm
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Shad0
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: multiverse
AUZ505 wrote:
Shad0: you mixed up two effects: The eleastic reaction when the upper limit is reached and RCC which ALWAYS happen (but more often near the upper limit).

Actually, I was referring only to RCC, which (so far) the multiverse has used consistently to avoid reaching the Upper Limit at all. I disagree that RCC "ALWAYS happen[s]" even in the absence of the number of worlds growing too large. From chapter 13 of the Codex (emphasis added):

Quote:
They theorized that the normalization of continental structure served as a natural method of synchronization for the many worlds when the multiverse approached the Upper Limit.

It seems clear that the multiverse uses RCC to prevent the number of worlds from reaching the Upper Limit in the first place -- which it never has, which is why no one knows exactly what will happen, but we all figure that it won't be pleasant.

AUZ505 wrote:
Regarding your example with the 4 worlds that turn into 5, I guess there is also a misunderstanding.

I would assume the following:
2 worlds (A1 and A2) synchronize and will be merged without RCC.
2 worlds (B1 and B2) will therefore not synchronize. this does not mean that there will be automatically new worlds. Instead there is a risk that those worlds will be RCC'd so that they can be synchronized this (destructive) way. So after all events there will be one A world (without destruction) and one B world (with destruction)

If we are A than B will be destroyed. Theo wants us to be B so that the other world will be A and not destroyed.

I disagree again. Your example refers only to what happens the point at which the multiverse is too close to the Upper Limit. Mine was more general, referring to what happens every time someone performs a desynchronizing event (which is what TheO's followers have been doing). From chapter 11 of the Codex:

Quote:
When any decision is made in one world, a new couple of branches grow out of the tree representing that which would occur in each possible result. And as more decisions are made by people in those worlds, reality rebranches, and again, and again.

Thus, B1 and B2 will branch into B1, B1a, B2, and B2a, leaving five worlds in place of four, bringing the multiverse slightly closer to the Upper Limit, and increasing the chances of an RCC somewhere.
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These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 6:20 pm
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AUZ505
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: multiverse
Shad0 wrote:
AUZ505 wrote:
Shad0: you mixed up two effects: The eleastic reaction when the upper limit is reached and RCC which ALWAYS happen (but more often near the upper limit).

Actually, I was referring only to RCC, which (so far) the multiverse has used consistently to avoid reaching the Upper Limit at all. I disagree that RCC "ALWAYS happen[s]" even in the absence of the number of worlds growing too large. From chapter 13 of the Codex (emphasis added):

Quote:
They theorized that the normalization of continental structure served as a natural method of synchronization for the many worlds when the multiverse approached the Upper Limit.

It seems clear that the multiverse uses RCC to prevent the number of worlds from reaching the Upper Limit in the first place -- which it never has, which is why no one knows exactly what will happen, but we all figure that it won't be pleasant.

I refer to the same chapter:
Quote:

Rapid continental change therefore most likely happens when reality approaches the maximum number of contemporaneous worlds.

with "most likely" interpreted as not only for this reason.

"Shad0 wrote:

AUZ505 wrote:
Regarding your example with the 4 worlds that turn into 5, I guess there is also a misunderstanding.

I would assume the following:
2 worlds (A1 and A2) synchronize and will be merged without RCC.
2 worlds (B1 and B2) will therefore not synchronize. this does not mean that there will be automatically new worlds. Instead there is a risk that those worlds will be RCC'd so that they can be synchronized this (destructive) way. So after all events there will be one A world (without destruction) and one B world (with destruction)

If we are A than B will be destroyed. Theo wants us to be B so that the other world will be A and not destroyed.

I disagree again. Your example refers only to what happens the point at which the multiverse is too close to the Upper Limit. Mine was more general, referring to what happens every time someone performs a desynchronizing event (which is what TheO's followers have been doing).


First, I think we are very close to the upper limit so actually RCC is happening all the time (see Run Graph and Artiadne's visions)

Second, from my point of view the desynch events are not meant to "just" create new worlds. That is done with each decision you make during the whole day. Even the decision to not join Theo will create a world where you joined Theo.
The motivation of the desynch events is to make so unusual things, that our world will be an outer world and probably will be a perfect candidate for the next RCC round.

And exactly that is the point of Theo's motivation. They want this world to be the one where people join Theo and desynch and they want this world to be RCC'd and not the world that "appeared" as the opposite because we decided to not join and to not desync.

And last but not least:
Don't get me wrong. I do not want to attack you/your opinion or anybody else. I even do not want to say I am "right" (even if it sound often like this Wink). I just want to bring new ideas and want to hear arguments why I am probably wrong. It is just my way of finding the "truth" and I just enjoy discussing about such thinks. Smile
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:32 pm
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Shad0
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: multiverse
AUZ505 wrote:
First, I think we are very close to the upper limit so actually RCC is happening all the time (see Run Graph and Artiadne's visions)

I agree that we're very close to the Upper Limit, per the omphaputer's RUN GRAPH command. I disagree that this means RCC is necessarily happening all the time. The fact that I chose to respond to this post created an alternate universe in which I did not. Did I thereby also destroy a world somewhere?

I think that each RCC has the potential to synchronize (violently) a large number of worlds. Thus, it takes many decision branches to create enough worlds to necessitate an RCC.

AUZ505 wrote:
Second, from my point of view the desynch events are not meant to "just" create new worlds. That is done with each decision you make during the whole day. Even the decision to not join Theo will create a world where you joined Theo.

The motivation of the desynch events is to make so unusual things, that our world will be an outer world and probably will be a perfect candidate for the next RCC round.

I agree. (James said something very similar, in fact.) I still think TheO is wrong, but that is definitely what TheO is trying to do: make sure that ours is an "external world" when the next RCC comes.

AUZ505 wrote:
Don't get me wrong. I do not want to attack you/your opinion or anybody else. I even do not want to say I am "right" (even if it sound often like this Wink). I just want to bring new ideas and want to hear arguments why I am probably wrong. It is just my way of finding the "truth" and I just enjoy discussing about such thinks. Smile

I concur completely, and I certainly hope you don't think that "I disagree" means I'm insisting that my interpretations were right and yours were wrong. (Heck, there's a whole group of professional philosophers who've been studying this stuff for about 1600 years that thinks I'm wrong!)
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These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 9:52 pm
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DavFlamerock
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 		Actually technically they've only been around since 1920 Razz

But I like reading the argument! It's really interesting. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to contribute right now.

PostPosted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:10 am
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Shad0
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 		Re: Theo's uninitiation mission
Re: age
DavFlamerock wrote:
Actually technically they've only been around since 1920 Razz

Well, TheO's original threatening note to Ariadne in Cardiff did say, "we have a 1600-year advantage." Presumably not the same members of TheO, and without the benefit of the Codex, but it appears that TheO traces its roots all the way back to Theodosius I -- or at least claims to do so.
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These were the puzzles that would take a day, these were puzzles that would take a week, and these puzzles they'd probably never figure out until we broke down and gave them the answers. ... The Cloudmakers solved all of these puzzles on the first day.

PostPosted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 3:41 am
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