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Author Topic: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game  (Read 6737 times)

Armok

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Re: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game
« Reply #30 on: June 12, 2012, 06:25:42 pm »

Create:

Vast creatures of ethereal beauty to swim the cromosphere of stars,  immensely powerful (each have a significant portion of the omnitools functionality) they can by their own bodies alone survive supernovas, travel faster than light, reactor their own minds and shape, and create lesser life. They should also be extremely wise, compassionate, and creative, prone to glorious hedonism, dedicating centuries to making breathtaking works of art, the creation and shepherding of lesser species, and in general being total space space god whale hippies.

Then lock yourself away somewhere and cryonically sleep for a few centuries until they fill the universe with art for you to look at.
Logged
So says Armok, God of blood.
Sszsszssoo...
Sszsszssaaayysss...
III...

IronyOwl

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Re: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game
« Reply #31 on: June 12, 2012, 07:35:56 pm »

Create some harmless fluffy animal things and some not-so-harmless fluffy animal things that like to eat the harmless fluffy animal things.
What, like, some pets?



You could probably do that. I mean, you could definitely do that, but it would be kind of a project. Creating life, or modifying it so much you might as well be creating it, doesn't happen in one step. You're not sure what the point would be or what exactly you'd make, but you could do it.

Pfft! Normal is an inertial time-space continuum void of meaning. The only rational course of action is to deviate from normalcy to the greatest possible degree!

Right, considering that every planet has a normal sun and speherical planets, we must create a world, shaped like a disk, standing on five elephants on a gigantic turtle, having it's own sun and moon sixty feet across.


So...

Wait. "Normal" just means whatever usually happens or is. You're not sure calling it "devoid of meaning" is exactly appropriate, but even if it was, wouldn't deviating as far from normalcy as possible not do anything? An equation fed nonsense spits out nonsense, after all.

That said... it's true that "normal" does tend to mean "devoid of meaning," and that's certainly something you take issue with. You're not sure simply being strange is the key to solving that, however- at least, not if you're strange in equally meaningless ways.



That said... maybe being strange is the key somehow? I mean, if you knew how to deviate from the normalcy you don't like you'd have just done it- could being strange in other ways lead you there?

You're not sure.

Ok, here is something you can do:
You crate a being smarter than yourself. Then you get it to think up something interesting to do.



You'd... actually never thought of that before. You're not entirely sure you could make something smarter than you, but, if you could...



You'd have to be very careful about it, however. Your ship's computer is arguably smarter than you- it can do certain equations faster, at least- and it certainly doesn't have an answer for you. You wonder if being "smarter" is even the key here, or if there's something else.

Create:

Vast creatures of ethereal beauty to swim the cromosphere of stars,  immensely powerful (each have a significant portion of the omnitools functionality) they can by their own bodies alone survive supernovas, travel faster than light, reactor their own minds and shape, and create lesser life. They should also be extremely wise, compassionate, and creative, prone to glorious hedonism, dedicating centuries to making breathtaking works of art, the creation and shepherding of lesser species, and in general being total space space god whale hippies.

Then lock yourself away somewhere and cryonically sleep for a few centuries until they fill the universe with art for you to look at.



Well, that's... that'd certainly be a project. You're not sure if just creating a bunch of "art," or whatever your pet whale-things thought was art, would fix things, though.

Plus, space is very, very large, and left to roam on their own it's difficult to say what they'd make and where. You probably don't want to go hunting around just to find where they put the damn things.

...do you? It'd be somewhat more interesting, you suppose... but you're not sure a scavenger hunt is really what you need. There's plenty of, well, what some would consider beautiful things in the universe already, they're just... old, after a while. Pointless. A collection of interestingly jagged rocks made by rain or climate shifts or something. You're not sure hunting down whale-art would be any different.

Also, that whole freezing yourself for several centuries to give them time to work thing could use some work. You don't think you really want to try to fix your problems by waiting them out.



Still, at least you're coming up with ideas now! Ideas that don't involve sack-beating yourself, that is.
Logged
Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

Armok

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Re: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game
« Reply #32 on: June 12, 2012, 08:12:42 pm »

> well creating art was just one of the things. "art" can be used pretty loosely to describe pretty much anything made just because it's interesting. As for finding them, presumably they'd keep track of at least most of them so you could just ask them. And throw in the smarter than you and sharing your drive to find meaning into the same package as well. And you could just *talk* with them, even if they fail to come up with something interested being bored together and trying to come up with stuff is slightly less boring then doing the same alone.

> maybe you could start out creating a body like that, but instead of a brain put in a small pod with life support for you to be in (and which could also act as an escape capsule), then hook yourself up to the body and tune out your own using some kind of brain machine interface and live as a huge star swimming thing for a while enjoying new bodily sensations of swimming through stars? And for when you inevitably get bored you'll have gotten some testing work done in case you decide to go back and give it a mind and reproductive abilities as well.
Logged
So says Armok, God of blood.
Sszsszssoo...
Sszsszssaaayysss...
III...

EveryZig

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Re: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game
« Reply #33 on: June 12, 2012, 08:27:29 pm »

You'd have to be very careful about it, however. Your ship's computer is arguably smarter than you- it can do certain equations faster, at least- and it certainly doesn't have an answer for you. You wonder if being "smarter" is even the key here, or if there's something else.
Smarter in some ways, but specialized. What you want is a mind specialized for entirely different purposes, such as not-boring-idea-thinking.
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Hubris Incalculable

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Re: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game
« Reply #34 on: June 12, 2012, 10:53:37 pm »

What we need in this smarter being is a greater amount of creativity than we have. God, we're so unimaginative, it's boring.

((Not saying the game's boring. No offence?  ;D))
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Ibid Straydrink

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Re: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game
« Reply #35 on: June 13, 2012, 01:14:53 am »

What we need in this smarter being is a greater amount of creativity than we have. God, we're so unimaginative, it's boring.

Maybe, but this undermines our genius!


You'd... actually never thought of that before. You're not entirely sure you could make something smarter than you, but, if you could...

You probably don't want to go hunting around just to find where they put the damn things.

...do you? It'd be somewhat more interesting, you suppose...

The fact that we can conceive of things which we have not conceived of before, implies that there may be further things of which we have not conceived, any number of which could be relatively interesting- even fascinating.


There's plenty of, well, what some would consider beautiful things in the universe already, they're just... old, after a while. Pointless."

From this observation, we may understand that monotony begets boredom, and boredom begets meaninglessness. Considering, it would seem that we are grappling with two "forms" of monotony:

1.) That of occurrence, referring to the types things which might otherwise pique certain interests, and 2.) that of paradigm, the "mode of thought" that defines what occurrences interest us.

If we correctly understand this to be the problem, what we must do alter our conditions in a way that causes them to continually alter themselves beyond our present sum of experience, thus creating a succession of unexplored possibilities...
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“I am the spirit that negates. And rightly so, for all that comes to be. Deserves to perish wretchedly; 'Twere better nothing would begin."

Ibid Straydrink

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Re: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game
« Reply #36 on: June 14, 2012, 05:32:21 pm »

You can't just walk away...
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IronyOwl

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Re: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game
« Reply #37 on: June 14, 2012, 05:35:17 pm »

> well creating art was just one of the things. "art" can be used pretty loosely to describe pretty much anything made just because it's interesting. As for finding them, presumably they'd keep track of at least most of them so you could just ask them. And throw in the smarter than you and sharing your drive to find meaning into the same package as well. And you could just *talk* with them, even if they fail to come up with something interested being bored together and trying to come up with stuff is slightly less boring then doing the same alone.


Maybe... you're a bit concerned about ending up creating things that are "interesting" rather than meaningful, though.

You're really not sure about getting together and trying to come up with something alongside them, though. That sounds like the makings of a bad comedy about who was supposed to bring the snacks.

> maybe you could start out creating a body like that, but instead of a brain put in a small pod with life support for you to be in (and which could also act as an escape capsule), then hook yourself up to the body and tune out your own using some kind of brain machine interface and live as a huge star swimming thing for a while enjoying new bodily sensations of swimming through stars? And for when you inevitably get bored you'll have gotten some testing work done in case you decide to go back and give it a mind and reproductive abilities as well.



And that just sounds like a really weird psychedelic trip.

Smarter in some ways, but specialized. What you want is a mind specialized for entirely different purposes, such as not-boring-idea-thinking.
What we need in this smarter being is a greater amount of creativity than we have. God, we're so unimaginative, it's boring.

Maybe, but this undermines our genius!
This does pose an interesting conundrum.



On the one hand, it would be nice to have something to help you out. On the other... might that mean that you're not the one doing things anymore? Might you end up just being a tool of your own creation, dependent on it for any inkling of what you should actually do next?

You're not sure where precisely the line is, but you want some help, maybe, not for something else to call all the shots.

The fact that we can conceive of things which we have not conceived of before, implies that there may be further things of which we have not conceived, any number of which could be relatively interesting- even fascinating.
Well... you suppose, but...

From this observation, we may understand that monotony begets boredom, and boredom begets meaninglessness. Considering, it would seem that we are grappling with two "forms" of monotony:

1.) That of occurrence, referring to the types things which might otherwise pique certain interests, and 2.) that of paradigm, the "mode of thought" that defines what occurrences interest us.

If we correctly understand this to be the problem, what we must do alter our conditions in a way that causes them to continually alter themselves beyond our present sum of experience, thus creating a succession of unexplored possibilities...


...woaaaaaah. You're not so sure about that monotony-meaninglessness chain, but that "altering themselves to create infinite new possibilities" stuff sounds pretty cool. You're not sure if that'll really give meaning to the universe or not, but at the very least it might inspire you or something, right?



This is so cool though. You can almost taste the enlightenment!


You can't just walk away...
((Ninja'd. xD))
Logged
Quote from: Radio Controlled (Discord)
A hand, a hand, my kingdom for a hot hand!
The kitchenette mold free, you move on to the pantry. it's nasty in there. The bacon is grazing on the lettuce. The ham is having an illicit affair with the prime rib, The potatoes see all, know all. A rat in boxer shorts smoking a foul smelling cigar is banging on a cabinet shouting about rent money.

fergus

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Re: Precursor - A poorly illustrated suggestion game
« Reply #38 on: July 05, 2012, 06:18:23 am »

PTW
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BY THE GODS! THIS QUOTE MADE MY SIG BOX HAVE A SCROLL BAR! HAPPY DAYS INDEED!
BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE TOO MANY SIGS!
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