The last to know: The Simulationist Argument

Important technological and cultural paradigm shifts usually come out of nowhere: some tiny subculture that suddenly grabs an important mindshare of the population, then the media, and finally the legislature.

For a long time, The Simulationist Argument has been floating around the transhumanist community. It goes something like this: in the near future, our ability to simulate reality for a single individual will be complete. Touch, taste, sight, smell, and sound-- the inputs of reality-- will be replicable to a sufficient degree that the average person wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Once we acheive the capacity to do that once, we acheive the capacity to do it over and over again: all you need then is the infrastructure and energy to pull it off.

Nick Bostrom then posited the idea that once we've got that capacity, the creatives will go all-out and create simulations of all kinds of strange things: World of Warcraft and Second Life are just the beginning of simulation worlds. But one genre of simulation will be ancestral: we'll want to visit the world as best as we recall it from, oh, let's say the Nixon era through until the Singularity.

Over time, and given the amount of resources a properly matrioshka'd solar system can produce, it's reasonable to believe that there would be far more simulations of reality than there would be one, uh, "real reality," the substrate on which all of these simulations run. They don't even have to be comprehensive: they don't have to run a complete simulation of the universe, just enough to fill in the perceptual needs of the individuals.

So here's the kicker: if at some time it will be possible to run a signficant number of Matrix-like simulations of reality within the context of an ordinary universe, then the likelihood that we are already running within such a simulation is extremely high.

The Simulationist Argument hit the New York Times this morning. I wonder what the literati will make of it.

On outlines and imagination

While doing some research about writing robust story outlines, I came across this quote from philosopher and writer Arnold Schopenhaur once advised: "Write the way an architect builds, who first drafts his plan and designs every detail."

I had to smile when I read that. It made me feel a whole lot better about writing the way I write. Why? Because Schopenhaur is so utterly wrong about the way a building is put together that my helter-skelter method of writing looks positively disciplined.

First of all, architects do not build buildings. They design them. Tom Poppendieck once went to a construction site and had this conversation:

"In software development, we are told we should manage our projects like construction projects, where a building is designed at the start, cost and schedule are predictable, and customers get what they expect."

Silence. "You're kidding, right?"

"No, honest, that's what we're told."

Incredulity turns to laughter. The idea that programmers would want to manage projects like the construction industry strikes my classmates as ludicrous.

They struggle every day with a master schedule which bears little relationship to reality, with materials that should be on site but are not, or materials that need to be stored because they arrived before they were needed. The never know when the crew that precedes them will be ready to turn an area over to them, so they never know how to staff their crews. They are plagued constantly by the two biggest forms of construction waste -- people waiting for materials and work waiting for people.

Writing, too, is a lot like that. Writing may be a solitary activity, but writers suffer from both problems: time wasted struggling to bring an idea to fruition, and brilliant ideas left on the wayside while the writer struggles with the ones he or she already has. You might have a plan-- you might have an outline, even-- but if you're not sure what compels the character to head to Mars or what clearances he has to go there, you're wasting your time writing scenes set on Mars. It might not be a total waste if you trust your subconscious enough to cough up the answer "How does he get to Mars?" But that's a decision you have to make, and you have to have written enough to know how reliable your process is, to make that decision.

Photojournal

( Image: Die of the Gods )

For some bizarre reason, this lovely 12-sided die has shown up on the streets of Seattle, right outside the Seattle Art Museum. It must weigh a ton because nobody's tried to steal it. I suspect it's a paean to one artists's lost past of D&D and similar games.

( Image: Jammin in the Streets )

This picture does not do justice to the energy or volume this guy was putting out. I was two blocks away when I started to hear him, and he was just wailing away at this little toy kit. The other guy was noddin' his head, havin' a good time listening to this ongoing cacophonic rhythm. It was impressive stuff.

( Image: Hopeless in Seattle )

This picture was one of those things that's become very common even in Seattle: a drunk passed out in an alleyway in broad daylight. Over lunch this afternoon I had a conversation with a co-worker about some writer's new book about how much better off the Earth would be without us, or even if we fell back to 19th Century population levels, and I pointed out that 19th Century population levels have 19th Century economies: you just don't have enough people to power the upper end of the power curve, and you need those people to have any innovation at all. Then I see guys like this at the bottom of the curve and I wonder if there wasn't a way to drag people up, so that the minimum standard of human dignity freed people to something of intellectual value. I doubt we could do it without genetic engineering.

( Image: Northwest Assphalt )

While the family was driving over to coven this evening, we ended up behind this truck, owned by the Northwest Asphalt company, and this lovely sticker on the back of their truck. It's hard to tell how new the sticker is; it may have been just put on, or it may have been there at least a few days, but it's relatively free of signs of aging, so it's not too old. Even so, it's the responsibility of the truck's operators to remove or obscure it. It's in bad taste and lacks propriety. Kouryou-chan thought it was dumb: good for her. I can't help but wonder if these guys are due a traffic ticket of some kind.