Too Much Information

[pozorvlak]

There's a new Fine Structure story out, called Too Much Information. In addition, the Crash stories have been incorporated into their own subdirectory, called 1970-. Some analysis of TMI and its implications has already started in the comments threads of my previous FS posts, and I'll have to revise my own thoughts in light of it, but for now:

Comments

[pozorvlak]

I'm not convinced that they're decoding the A-layer. Or did you mean that they're generating it, and will send it back in time when it's done? Humanity creating the A-layer, then populating it with a message backwards in time so they can read it, would fit in well with Sam's general interest in time travel and causal loops.

[pozorvlak]

I think the machinery's just a backup - the actual calculation is being done by the blinking server farm, which is presumably electronic, and hence gets wiped by the Crashes.

[anonymous]

Pointing out that in the E2 version, http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Too%20Much%20Information ,
"We can't stop them learning" links to "Crushed Underground"

[anonymous]

Also, "superlight" in E2's 2048 links to The Four-Dimensional Man

[anonymous]

Also, http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Unbelievable%20scenes (Unbelievable scenes) links to Fine Structure, so is that the missing story? (Actually, I found out about it after googling qntm.org for "Fine Structure" and Unbelievable Scenes came up. I didn't know if it was a coincidence or not, but is the E2 link a coincidence?)

[anonymous]

*just realizes he was elaborating on an already-made guess, with some possible additional evidence*

[necaris]

How, precisely, do the Crashes work, and where did they obtain the technology from?
Decoding the A-Layer, as kochier speculates? Since they have a fair idea, now, of its extent, they know how much longer it'll take to grok everything -- so they know how many more Crashes there'll be?

What kind of calculation takes 20,000 years to complete?
A Theory Of Everything which would allow them to transcend into the same state as the Super-Meta-Human Beings From The Future (who I still think are behind the Line, the Powers, etc)? This could be why they're worried specifically about nuclear or infowar weapons, too -- they need to keep humanity as a species alive and well until then?

I have a vague thought that this might tie into The Astronomer's Loss, where Calrus or Poole was the astronomer and the Super-Meta-Humans From The Future were the Voices -- so they know that humans are all the sentient life in the universe.

As before, though, this is just random thoughts off the top of my head...

[pozorvlak]

That's a thought... the only astronomical reference I can remember from 1970- is Poole's claim to have walked on the Moon barefoot. The Moon's gone too in TAL, suggesting that if TAL were before TMI then there wouldn't be a word for it in the language that Yuen/Poole is using to talk to Aks... but maybe not.

Decoding the A-layer seems a strange use of computing power. One would have thought that a Primer would be written in as simple and self-describing a code as possible. Of course, maybe only the Eka section (the first 1%) is self-describing, and the rest is an absurdly hard code. Here's another question: if the SMHftFs want some form of money for transmit-access to the A-layer, how is that money to be earned? Maybe Poole and Calrus have constructed some sort of calculation server to earn money with...

[pozorvlak]

Aks doesn't recognise the star chart. That's major evidence in favour of your theory, I think. OK, in 10,000 years the stars would probably shift position a fair bit, and the assignment of stars to constellations would be culturally determined, but he should at least recognise it as a star chart.

[necaris]

I just checked "Too Much Information". I had completely missed the star chart. I guess the events in "The Astronomer's Loss" were literal, I didn't know what to make of that story's addition before

[anonymous]

I think the remaining story has to be Some Particles Just Shouldn't Be Accelerated. It's the only story I could find that had any relation to Fine Structure, but it's shaky at best. Perhaps the unnamed narrator of SPJSBA is Anne/Yuen. It is during this incident that she realizes the horrors of science going too far. She also resolves to make sure nothing of this magnitude ever happens again ("We're not going to do it again, regardless of how improbable the results were last time we tried it. Nor is anybody else.").

That's as far as I can go with it. Does anybody have something to add?

[anonymous]

Forget that I said that. The remaining story is Being God Is A Big Responsibility. Diane and Tim+1 (that is, Diane and Tim from the layer above Earth) find a way to alter the simulation (Earth at the time of Amber) instead of just passively observing it. They're afraid of the teleportation experiments for some unknown reason (maybe it will hurt the simulation or something), so they send lightning strikes to the machine at precisely the right time. This could also mean they are in charge of The Powers, and Chang is just a man who works for the same lab as Diane/Tim (who theoretically make the same decisions as DT+1) and thus has advanced knowledge of who they will choose next.

[boter]

That could make some sense. The easiest way to get a program to run on the quantum computer that's already fairly tied up with a world simulation is to make the people inside of the simulation figure it out with sub-quantum machinery. You just have to give them enough time - so, you pick a select few to run the program, and give them the means to keep humanity from wiping itself out while the decoding or whatever is being figured out

[anonymous]

I don't know, I love that story but it just doesn't really fit with fine structure. Also according to the rules of the simulation lightning needs to strike their machines as well, as whatever happens in one reality happens in all others. Also I fail to see how the computer can go on running 10000 years or so, especially after the infobug hits, shouldn't that cause the computer to fail, thus all the computers fail? So if they are part of that quantum world they would have to be the first world, and you couldn't really predict what would happen to it anyway.

[anonymous]

something just popped into my head: in Zanjero, its saying year 16, and in TMI, it becomes obvious that there have been 8 crashes, and that there are 8 more to come. you guys think this is a coincidence or not?

[pozorvlak]

Coincidence, I reckon. But maybe not...