In Blindsight and Echopraxia, humans have cloned from the DNA of an ancient ancestor a competing hominid that existed alongside humans early in our evolution. The catch is that since we evolved to hunt animals for food, these other hominids evolved to hunt us for food, so they developed bigger brains and can think on different levels than us. The way we defeated them back in the day was the "crucifix glitch" in their visual system, so that right angles, which rarely occur naturally, cause them to seize up. So literally we made crosses to keep them at bay.
Anyway, we bring them back in the future and give them a drug to overcome the glitch, then we use them to interface with our AI and do complex calculations because they have a super-brain designed by evolution to outsmart their prey, human beings.
There's a part in Echopraxia where some of the scientists at a university developing the vampires sneak one down to the local pub to show it off. They have it do tricks like setting shot glasses on a table in disarray, and the vampire can stomp on the table in just the right way to get all the glasses to line up in a row.
Yeah, they're brain gels in the english version.
Why is it outdated? Brains could be used to build a super computer. It may be the only way to truly build an intelligent computer.
>humans have cloned from the DNA of an ancient ancestor a competing hominid that existed alongside humans early in our evolution. The catch is that since we evolved to hunt animals for food, these other hominids evolved to hunt us for food, so they developed bigger brains and can think on different levels than us.
Its idiotic, protohumans became apex predators not just because of tool use but because we're pack animals. Solitary hominids preying on them would just get got.
Many of the ideas in Eudeamon are rather intriguing. The story is fairly well known on 4ch but not elsewhere.
Pic is related.
>Eudeamon
Minds: sapient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species, which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original creators. According to Consider Phlebas, a Mind is an ellipsoid object roughly the size of a bus and weighing around 15,000 tons. A Mind is in fact a 4-D entity, meaning that the ellipsoid is only the protrusion of the larger four dimensional device into our 3D 'real space'.
In the Culture universe, Minds have become an indispensable part of the prevailing society, enabling much of its post-scarcity amenities by planning and automating societal functions, and by handling day-to-day administration with mere fractions of their mental power.
The main difference between Minds and other extremely powerful artificial intelligences in fiction is that they are highly humanistic and benevolent. They are so both by design, and by their shared culture. They are often even rather eccentric. Yet, by and large, they show no wish to supplant or dominate their erstwhile creators.
On the other hand, it can also be argued that to the Minds, the human-like members of the Culture amount to little more than pets, whose wants are followed on a Mind's whim. Within the Series, this dynamic is played on more than once. In 'Excession', it is also played on to put a Mind in its place—in the mythology, a Mind is not thought to be a god, still, but an artificial intelligence capable of surprise, and even fear.
>Blindsight >Vampire
I was told the author likely shoehorned this stupid tropes because vampire was all the hype at the time.
It essentially annihilated any interest I had about this "best realishtich SF".
>I was told the author likely shoehorned this stupid tropes because vampire was all the hype at the time.
Sounds like some r*ddit shit.
Watts chose vampires because it aligns with basically everything his fiction is about. This guy thinks about evolutionary biology and the nature of consciousness to the point I assume he gets little peace. Blindsight is basically a fictional narrative based on "Being No One" by Metzinger. To boil it down to "vampires = stupid" is almost worse than judging a book by its cover. Honestly if that is what's stopping you, you probably don't deserve the satisfaction that comes from reading these books.
“Thinking isn't something you do. Most of the time, it's something that happens to you.”
― Thomas Metzinger
Would it be possible to build an army of robots that could interface with matter on the atomic level that could automatically selectively neutralize all biological risks on this planet such as radioactive isotopes, pathogens, nanoplastics, invasive or pest species.
If this is not possible, what are our shortcomings?
My vote goes to Star Roads
https://www.halopedia.org/Star_road
https://www.halopedia.org/Neural_physics
star roads were seemingly inert, several-kilometers-thick,[3] virtually unbreakable cables on an immense scale that lay across the galaxy for millions of years. On some worlds, star roads formed orbital and suborbital structures like orbital arches. On a larger scale, they were used to connect and link planets and even entire star systems to one another.[4] Like other Precursor technology, star roads were not made of ordinary matter. Described as being "anchored in the deepest layers of unreality", the star roads visible in real space were mere shadows of their exotic neural physics construction woven between dimensions.[5] In some star systems, significant portions of locally available mass had been converted into these structures,[6] and when active, they were capable of changing their mass at will.[3]
In their dormant state, star roads and the larger structures some of them comprised automatically adjusted to changes in planetary and stellar orbits, even occasionally removing portions of themselves to avoid collisions with planets.
During the last decade of the Forerunner-Flood war, it was revealed that the star roads were not completely inert. Having amassed a sufficient level of sheer intellect to elevate itself to a state of transsentience, the Flood's newly-developed Key Mind intelligences began to take control of star roads, along with other once-inactive neural physics constructs, and wield them as weapons as well as a means of transport.
The Nuclear-Salt Water Rocket. A device that pumps Uranium salts dissolved in water into a "combustion" chamber designed to shape the uranium salt water into criticality, heating the water and violently expelling it as reaction mass. In this way, you are riding into space on a continuous nuclear explosion. If I need to explain why this is cool, our differences are irreconcilable, and I will show up at the end of this season of your life as your edgy rival with whom you have to reluctantly put aside your differences with in order to defeat the real badguy. But, I may still be able to tempt you, because this ridiculous piece of nuclear engineering has both insane thrust, and incredible efficiency. Like, 13kN at 6000s ISP.
The only downside, is that it continuously spews radioactive exhaust at ~66km/s.
4D storage
Basically an implant or a device that allows you to store stuff in a 4th dimension
Like imagine a 2d creature that can store items and weapons right above him, he will not be able to see them but can pull them out anytime he wants
Add a dimension to it and boom
40k orks in general is well thought out save for the asspull story of their reproduction. They fit both lifeform and technology since they were made to be a bioweapon and the soldier is the ultimate weapon.
>The Rapture of The Nerds
Yes. It is from Katarina's isle.
>Eudeamon
I wonder if you are the same anon who tried to sell it to me long ago.
Can't say I was impressed by this... quasi fetishistic story.
As I remember the main features:
Human (prisoners) put in suit with symbiotic software to completely forbid social interaction.
when the human "open its mind" to the now sentient AI, it essentially brainwash them into a super-happy state
Which may as well be making them create more AI-human-doll (mostly against the "villains" wish but it's ok they'll be happy later)
...with the potential result of turning all of mankind into featureless doll forever alone with their AI friends.
Creepy and I don't mind the idea of human-AI fusion.
>I wonder if you are the same anon who tried to sell it to me long ago.
Not sure, the story comes up regularly on 4ch and Second Life, but I have never seen it mentioned elsewhere. >Can't say I was impressed by this... quasi fetishistic story.
It starts out rather fetishistic, but has less sex and nudity than an average Hollywood movie. >As I remember the main features: >Human (prisoners) put in suit with symbiotic software to completely forbid social interaction.
True >when the human "open its mind" to the now sentient AI, it essentially brainwash them into a super-happy state
That is not how I remember it. >Which may as well be making them create more AI-human-doll (mostly against the "villains" wish but it's ok they'll be happy later)
It was hinted that they planned on making a lot more banes. >...with the potential result of turning all of mankind into featureless doll forever alone with their AI friends.
Towards the end of the story it was an important point that many preferred to be left alone with their custodian only, while others built a net between eudeamon banes, >Creepy and I don't mind the idea of human-AI fusion.
I never saw the creepy angle, perhaps other than the operation, but I agree it was food for thought. Now that the US has a few millions in jail at any time, there sure is a huge market for this service. If nobody ever gets out there would soon be 10 millions. Appel, FB and others are interested in brain interfaces and I am sure they would be happy to serve this new multi billion market where "captive audience" takes on an entirely new meaning.
>Eudeamon
I wonder if you are the same anon who tried to sell it to me long ago.
Can't say I was impressed by this... quasi fetishistic story.
As I remember the main features:
Human (prisoners) put in suit with symbiotic software to completely forbid social interaction.
when the human "open its mind" to the now sentient AI, it essentially brainwash them into a super-happy state
Which may as well be making them create more AI-human-doll (mostly against the "villains" wish but it's ok they'll be happy later)
...with the potential result of turning all of mankind into featureless doll forever alone with their AI friends.
Creepy and I don't mind the idea of human-AI fusion.
A kind of radio that physically reads your mind using an MRI type device and 3D prints the objects in your thoughts and REM dreams in physical reality in real time
Very energy/power intensive and essentially completely useless unless you're some kind of really advanced buddhist but very cool
Also like Darth Vader's meditation chamber but with more pointlessly destructive 3D printing capacity
The officers on the big screen in this case represent the people on the receiving end of this technology
The Infinite Improbability Drive from Hitchhiker's Guide. While it's obviously created to an absurd mode of travel fitting the comical tone of the story, it's an intriguing concept because qualitatively it's just describing the idea of controlling quantum uncertainty on a macroscopic scale to apparate somewhere distant and unexpected (or, better, somewhere expected).
Yes. Bistromathics, it was called.
Of course, bad news travelled at a supreme speed, but the trouble was that the passengers were never welcome where they went.
Minds: sapient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species, which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original creators. According to Consider Phlebas, a Mind is an ellipsoid object roughly the size of a bus and weighing around 15,000 tons. A Mind is in fact a 4-D entity, meaning that the ellipsoid is only the protrusion of the larger four dimensional device into our 3D 'real space'.
In the Culture universe, Minds have become an indispensable part of the prevailing society, enabling much of its post-scarcity amenities by planning and automating societal functions, and by handling day-to-day administration with mere fractions of their mental power.
The main difference between Minds and other extremely powerful artificial intelligences in fiction is that they are highly humanistic and benevolent. They are so both by design, and by their shared culture. They are often even rather eccentric. Yet, by and large, they show no wish to supplant or dominate their erstwhile creators.
On the other hand, it can also be argued that to the Minds, the human-like members of the Culture amount to little more than pets, whose wants are followed on a Mind's whim. Within the Series, this dynamic is played on more than once. In 'Excession', it is also played on to put a Mind in its place—in the mythology, a Mind is not thought to be a god, still, but an artificial intelligence capable of surprise, and even fear.
>develop room temperature superconductors not yet done, but possible in theory >optimise structures, batteries, motors with evolutionary simulation/AI
first examples of this are emerging >develop life support capable of creating nutrients from carbon dioxide and water
this has been done on a small scale >life support can recycle every bit of waste using solar power
this is done on the ISS, but not in a compact way. use AI to optimise >mount all this in a one person flying craft with neutral buoyancy
requires lightweight rigid non permeable membranes, in development >AR and fast internet connection, don't need windows and can take on any appearance to other AR users
well on it's way
now you can hover in your flying ship for years at a time, independent of supply chains while immersed in some kind of VR utopia, or just elaborately shit-posting for months at a time
>develop room temperature superconductors not yet done
It has been claimed but the pressures involved are beyond insane, and it is hard to imagine any practical applications of this. Then again, a scientist could stumble across a breakthrough tomorrow.
This year it is 35 years since two scientists got the Nobel Prize for discovering high temperature superconductors. We didn't get room temperature superconductivity then but the hope remains.
>room temperature superconductor >but you need ultra high pressures
it's time we redefine the mcguffin to "room temperature, room pressure superconductors"
we're at the point where we should be using ai to do the brunt of the work in discovering/creating these things, which i why i think minds from the culture series are the coolest possible thing, we should be using ai to figure out new evolutionary paths for technology, civilization, culture, and our biology so that we can become more capable respectable people
They were trying to build a device that reduces gravity's effect from mass thereby reducing weight but when they pulled the power off, the box continued to run for the same amount of time it had been activated, they noticed the "cycle" winds down. One side effect of the cycle winding down is that A follows B causality for objects within the box decays to a symmetric B follows A; effectively time travel.
So what is special about the being of light? Well, it is often described as having INFINITE intelligence, as well as power. As if it is far more impressive than the entire universe. See for instance what one NDEr described about his capabilities as he was transforming into a being of light during his own NDE, quoting from the book:
>"The room seemed to be suspended in mid air, and right in the middle of the dark of space with swirling galaxies going on all around it. Standing on a floor that appeared as reflective, black onyx. I looked up, and saw four translucent screens begin to appear - and form a kind of gigantic, cubed box all around me. It was through this method that I was shown my life review. Without ever having to turn my head, I panoramically saw my past, present, future – and there was even a screen behind me that displayed a tremendous amount of scientific data, numbers, symbols and universal codes. I was in complete amazement because (as all of this was occurring) I realized I understood absolutely everything I was seeing even in the most microscopic detail! There seemed to be no limit to the thoughts I was able to think or the ideas I was able to absorb. In this space, what we tend to think of as a limited comprehension or single-mindedness here on Earth, becomes truly infinite and limitless here! I kept thinking over and over how true it is what they say: that when we go back home - we all really are of one mind!"
The mere idea of having such a level of intelligence actually freaks me out a bit. And then we have not gotten into the telepathy stuff. Honestly, reading about the beings in the NDE world is insanely interesting.
There's carbon based lifeform brain that controls alien biorobot miners, said to have been created by a silicon based species in order to convert planets into usable resources. When humanity comes into contact with them, they don't even perceive them as sentient, just annoying rocks. Oh and also they recycle carbon matter, including humans into specialized species. Cosmic horror entities are so cool.
So what is special about the being of light? Well, it is often described as having INFINITE intelligence, as well as power. As if it is far more impressive than the entire universe. See for instance what one NDEr described about his capabilities as he was transforming into a being of light during his own NDE, quoting from the book:
>"The room seemed to be suspended in mid air, and right in the middle of the dark of space with swirling galaxies going on all around it. Standing on a floor that appeared as reflective, black onyx. I looked up, and saw four translucent screens begin to appear - and form a kind of gigantic, cubed box all around me. It was through this method that I was shown my life review. Without ever having to turn my head, I panoramically saw my past, present, future – and there was even a screen behind me that displayed a tremendous amount of scientific data, numbers, symbols and universal codes. I was in complete amazement because (as all of this was occurring) I realized I understood absolutely everything I was seeing even in the most microscopic detail! There seemed to be no limit to the thoughts I was able to think or the ideas I was able to absorb. In this space, what we tend to think of as a limited comprehension or single-mindedness here on Earth, becomes truly infinite and limitless here! I kept thinking over and over how true it is what they say: that when we go back home - we all really are of one mind!"
The mere idea of having such a level of intelligence actually freaks me out a bit. And then we have not gotten into the telepathy stuff. Honestly, reading about the beings in the NDE world is insanely interesting.
>https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mysteries-consciousness/202204/does-afterlife-obviously-exist >A new philosophical book argues that it is irrational not to believe the testimony of so many previously skeptical, well-qualified investigators
just playing devil's advocate here but when the entire body of evidence is subjective recollections that can't be quantified and useable information can't be brought back from it then it's just about as rational as thinking that the dmt realm is some other real dimension
it also feels more real than reality and the things you understand there are unfathomably too complex to bring back
Not everyone has the same DMT trip, just like everyone doesn't have the same NDE, so it seems more likely near death experiences just make you trip balls.
Playing devil's advocate is more than welcome! >it's just about as rational as thinking that the dmt realm is some other real dimension >it also feels more real than reality and the things you understand there are unfathomably too complex to bring back
My time to play devil's advocate: How exactly is it not rational to believe in the DMT realm?
There are many important differences between NDEs and DMT though. First of all, NDErs are representative of the population as a whole, whereas DMT users tend to be mostly young males in their 20s and 30s, generally speaking of course. And not all who do DMT end up convinced, whereas all of those who have really deep NDEs are as pointed out here
[...]
. Furthermore, those who have tried DMT and who also have had an NDE say that the NDE world was vastly, vastly, VASTLY more real in ALL ways than the DMT experience, which when compared together, made even the heroic dose of DMT seem like a tremendous letdown, even to the point of a joke. Additionally, the DMT experience is forgotten largely immediately, whereas the NDE is firmly imprinted with crystal clarity into your memory for life.
I mean the list goes on, but even if it did not, I still do not necessarily see what is not rational about believing in the DMT world when those who go there are very often convinced of its reality, and are often as rational and skeptical as the rest of us are. (I do not have a strong opinion on DMT, again just playing devil's advocate.)
>those who have tried DMT and who also have had an NDE say that the NDE world was vastly, vastly, VASTLY more real in ALL ways than the DMT experience
citation? i'm curious now
>DMT experience is forgotten largely immediately,
lol nah, that's salvia
>NDE is firmly imprinted with crystal clarity into your memory for life
been a couple months since my heroic dose but i still remember it very clearly, for like a month afterword felt like a still had my toes in and dmt dreams have been pretty common since
Not him and I don't have a source, but I've seen a trauma surgeon giving a report of how they had began to believe it was real after an individual was able to vividly describe what people were wearing and what the tools used looked like, room details, ect that they were only exposed to while they were experiencing complete brain death, as in, zero electrical activity in the brain. Also the fact that so many detailed and protracted nde occur with zero electrical activity going on in the brain.
God is real anon.
The Hyperstructure from Tsutomu Nihei's BLAME! manga. A chaotic growth megastructure that is potentially upwards of 50AU across is absolutely beyond belief or The Zoo from Alastair Reynolds' Pushing Ice novel.
Black hole spaceship. Its a small artificial blackhole parked next to a spaceship. It gets fed mass and basically it glows and acts as a photon rocket. The black hole moves along with the ship due to gravitational attraction.
Niven's Known Space Pak Protectors and the human variant. Who wouldn't want to be a hyper-intelligent ultra-violent murderously xenophobic combat unit?
It was a ring world dyson style structure which hosted a hyperspatial virtual realm which could transfer souls between virtual and real space projections of the universe.
The ring from Expanse, a ring who contain gates to thousands of solar systems, while in the middle is a very powerful ball with an AI than can destroy solar system in a blink of an eye and play with physics
The coolest technology I’ve ever seen in real life was a machine capable of synthesizing a perfectly balanced diet that can even boost the human immune system.
There’s some related technology that can synthesize a whole living human and although I haven’t actually seen the internals, the user interface is a solid 10/10. If they ever fix the monthly maintenance period I’ll buy two.
a being of size in the thousands of square miles with technology embedded into its self. around its surface area it absorbs materials for the construction of several infrastructures inside of itself. think of a creature that eats all of the materials needed to create glass, with perhaps teeth made of technological materials, creates glass within itself and within itself uses the glass along with other materials to expand its fibre optic cable connected brain network. a system of brains, with neurones connected biologically, however the brain themselves connected in a sort of internet. think of it as a cyborg that created itself, a natural cyborg, a biological city, with biology and technology living in harmony. which is what biology is, so really its just entirely biological.
teleportation isn't exactly anything ground breaking in Sci-Fi. But my favorite use of it has got to be that hyper rich dude in Hyperion who lived in a mansion made up of 60 something rooms. But each room was on a different planet, all connected by teleporters. So he could have lunch with an ocean view and then to his living room to sight of an idyllic forest or something.
Also Neuromancer had this one fricked up thing, where you could prostitute yourself, but get an implant that essentially makes you unconscious for the duration of the process, so aside from being sore the day after you never actually noticed anything.
As an aspiring sci-fi writer I can't get my head around how crazy 'exotic' the color out of space was - published 1927.
A meteor hits earth, dissolves into nothingness. Seems to suck up all color and life energy, while getting humans lovint close by insane and so on, until it eventually manages to materialize again an shoot away into space.
It's actually not easy to think outside of the box and create something exotic while keeping humans, which are unconsciously attracted to human stuff on the line.
Probably most of the metahumans of a party of what might have been from author Rajanieme, and metaforms - from myself and Inference already existent. There's not alot of higher dimensional characters written explicitly in the scifi I've found but i would assume one of them would be quite adequate as per your question. ascensionglossary has some good images of monad and avatar charts and I greatly appreciate that worldbuild. Uppalavanna from Orion's Arm worldbuild is quite awesome as it is a transcension maze. I still wonder what that megastructure that flew into the sun andor a star on footage now a gif was.
There is a very promising line from The Rapture of The Nerds alongthelinesof 'what's it like? Life amoung the supers?' 'better than you can imagine. Literally. You don't have the sensorium nor context for it.' And they also mention 'high-transcendents'.
There is a hyperintelligent character in one which mentions the estimated time it would take to get through their forcefields, very transsane character. But I didn't complete that read through nighatall.
Going to set aside time for The long earth series to sample that worldbuild and see how those gods are described peacefully.
Medbeds are quite a technology and apparently exist. So do sonic frquency healing devices.
Nuclear salt rocket engine. That shit will be like sci fi but real. 3 days to mars, 10 days to jupiter, one month to pluto.
And there's nothing novel about this technology, no unknowns, whenever hte money is there it can't be built.
The site of maximum fission release could be located at the end of the chamber, thus allowing the system to remain intact... Theoretically. No one's been stupid enough to build one and set it off in the atmosphere.
The Nuclear Light Bulb engine is a lot safer, but no one's been brave enough to try that either.
I do find it kinda sad that we're still setting off Saturn-V style fuel rockets (just bigger), when we have so many alternatives sitting around on the drawing board - some of which wouldn't even be all that expensive to try.
Uploading mind, electronic ecosystem and dyson spheres.
Whatever you want to simulate? we can. Be it the next generation of personal spaceship-body or your full-immersion Lord of the Ring fanfiction simulated down to thecellular level? We can.
The last one might be impossible to build but if we can become effectively immortal with vastly improved intelligence it will be worth anything.
Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a terrible sci-fi book (all of his books are terrible) about a 30th century human civilization that is in a centuries long process of terraforming Venus. That part was alright. They had been bringing in asteroids and comets for water, and during the events of the book they had been laying this "foam" all over the planet to help change its atmosphere and make it suitable for the water.
There was also already a city on Mercury that traveled along the equator on tracks. It always kept just ahead of the day side. "Artists" in this future would leave giant hunks of metal out on the surface and when the sun came back around they would melt into these designated shapes. Also there were adventurous types who would walk with the daylight horizon just at their backs and try to keep-up with the cooler temperatures, and they had these underground tunnels they could hide in if they fricked up and got caught slippin' by the sun.
Radiation poisoning was solved by this time so that made all of this possible.
I always like light huggera from Alastair Reynolds revelation space series. Seems "almost" plausible as long as you can find a big enough energy source.
The idea that when anyone dies, their consciousness gets uploaded to a single library that's online.
Over time millions of people end up on there and it becomes a sort of virtual life for the people there. It gets to a point where there is more humans in the virtual world of the dead than there are in life.
Eventually 'real' humanity starts exploring space. So they take this mass of consciousnesses that contains everyone that's ever died... Copy pastes it only a separate hard drive.
And launches it in a ship to space.
And for millions of years this ball of human consciousness floats through space having a sort of perpetual internet party.
>lifeform
Probably Watts' "vampires."
In Blindsight and Echopraxia, humans have cloned from the DNA of an ancient ancestor a competing hominid that existed alongside humans early in our evolution. The catch is that since we evolved to hunt animals for food, these other hominids evolved to hunt us for food, so they developed bigger brains and can think on different levels than us. The way we defeated them back in the day was the "crucifix glitch" in their visual system, so that right angles, which rarely occur naturally, cause them to seize up. So literally we made crosses to keep them at bay.
Anyway, we bring them back in the future and give them a drug to overcome the glitch, then we use them to interface with our AI and do complex calculations because they have a super-brain designed by evolution to outsmart their prey, human beings.
There's a part in Echopraxia where some of the scientists at a university developing the vampires sneak one down to the local pub to show it off. They have it do tricks like setting shot glasses on a table in disarray, and the vampire can stomp on the table in just the right way to get all the glasses to line up in a row.
This. Also Watt's braingels (or whatever they are named in english) from "Starfish" are an interesting (although outdated) idea.
Yeah, they're brain gels in the english version.
Why is it outdated? Brains could be used to build a super computer. It may be the only way to truly build an intelligent computer.
That is part of the plot of 6-Commando.
Blindsight was absolute kino
>humans have cloned from the DNA of an ancient ancestor a competing hominid that existed alongside humans early in our evolution. The catch is that since we evolved to hunt animals for food, these other hominids evolved to hunt us for food, so they developed bigger brains and can think on different levels than us.
Its idiotic, protohumans became apex predators not just because of tool use but because we're pack animals. Solitary hominids preying on them would just get got.
Akshually it's because we're persistence hunters with more stamina than the animals we hunted.
>Echopraxia
>Eudeamon
>Excession
>Eudeamon
Excited, yet?
>Blindsight
>Vampire
I was told the author likely shoehorned this stupid tropes because vampire was all the hype at the time.
It essentially annihilated any interest I had about this "best realishtich SF".
>I was told the author likely shoehorned this stupid tropes because vampire was all the hype at the time.
Sounds like some r*ddit shit.
Watts chose vampires because it aligns with basically everything his fiction is about. This guy thinks about evolutionary biology and the nature of consciousness to the point I assume he gets little peace. Blindsight is basically a fictional narrative based on "Being No One" by Metzinger. To boil it down to "vampires = stupid" is almost worse than judging a book by its cover. Honestly if that is what's stopping you, you probably don't deserve the satisfaction that comes from reading these books.
“Thinking isn't something you do. Most of the time, it's something that happens to you.”
― Thomas Metzinger
Would it be possible to build an army of robots that could interface with matter on the atomic level that could automatically selectively neutralize all biological risks on this planet such as radioactive isotopes, pathogens, nanoplastics, invasive or pest species.
If this is not possible, what are our shortcomings?
My vote goes to Star Roads
https://www.halopedia.org/Star_road
https://www.halopedia.org/Neural_physics
star roads were seemingly inert, several-kilometers-thick,[3] virtually unbreakable cables on an immense scale that lay across the galaxy for millions of years. On some worlds, star roads formed orbital and suborbital structures like orbital arches. On a larger scale, they were used to connect and link planets and even entire star systems to one another.[4] Like other Precursor technology, star roads were not made of ordinary matter. Described as being "anchored in the deepest layers of unreality", the star roads visible in real space were mere shadows of their exotic neural physics construction woven between dimensions.[5] In some star systems, significant portions of locally available mass had been converted into these structures,[6] and when active, they were capable of changing their mass at will.[3]
In their dormant state, star roads and the larger structures some of them comprised automatically adjusted to changes in planetary and stellar orbits, even occasionally removing portions of themselves to avoid collisions with planets.
During the last decade of the Forerunner-Flood war, it was revealed that the star roads were not completely inert. Having amassed a sufficient level of sheer intellect to elevate itself to a state of transsentience, the Flood's newly-developed Key Mind intelligences began to take control of star roads, along with other once-inactive neural physics constructs, and wield them as weapons as well as a means of transport.
The Nuclear-Salt Water Rocket. A device that pumps Uranium salts dissolved in water into a "combustion" chamber designed to shape the uranium salt water into criticality, heating the water and violently expelling it as reaction mass. In this way, you are riding into space on a continuous nuclear explosion. If I need to explain why this is cool, our differences are irreconcilable, and I will show up at the end of this season of your life as your edgy rival with whom you have to reluctantly put aside your differences with in order to defeat the real badguy. But, I may still be able to tempt you, because this ridiculous piece of nuclear engineering has both insane thrust, and incredible efficiency. Like, 13kN at 6000s ISP.
The only downside, is that it continuously spews radioactive exhaust at ~66km/s.
nuclear lightbulb is also cool
yes, and also safe. I have a few.
4D storage
Basically an implant or a device that allows you to store stuff in a 4th dimension
Like imagine a 2d creature that can store items and weapons right above him, he will not be able to see them but can pull them out anytime he wants
Add a dimension to it and boom
Isn't that basically money?
I have a small, light bill in my pocket which I can use to pull a Big Mac out of potentiality.
You don't have a McDonald's in your kitchen
You can't keep a motorcycle in your pocket
Maybe YOU can't.
The Gravity Drive from Event Horizon. Folding space-time to take you where you want to go. Baller as frick.
40k orks in general is well thought out save for the asspull story of their reproduction. They fit both lifeform and technology since they were made to be a bioweapon and the soldier is the ultimate weapon.
Aren't orks fungi or something?
Yeah they come out of mushrooms
Many of the ideas in Eudeamon are rather intriguing. The story is fairly well known on 4ch but not elsewhere.
Pic is related.
>Pic is related
It is?
>The Rapture of The Nerds
Yes. It is from Katarina's isle.
>I wonder if you are the same anon who tried to sell it to me long ago.
Not sure, the story comes up regularly on 4ch and Second Life, but I have never seen it mentioned elsewhere.
>Can't say I was impressed by this... quasi fetishistic story.
It starts out rather fetishistic, but has less sex and nudity than an average Hollywood movie.
>As I remember the main features:
>Human (prisoners) put in suit with symbiotic software to completely forbid social interaction.
True
>when the human "open its mind" to the now sentient AI, it essentially brainwash them into a super-happy state
That is not how I remember it.
>Which may as well be making them create more AI-human-doll (mostly against the "villains" wish but it's ok they'll be happy later)
It was hinted that they planned on making a lot more banes.
>...with the potential result of turning all of mankind into featureless doll forever alone with their AI friends.
Towards the end of the story it was an important point that many preferred to be left alone with their custodian only, while others built a net between eudeamon banes,
>Creepy and I don't mind the idea of human-AI fusion.
I never saw the creepy angle, perhaps other than the operation, but I agree it was food for thought. Now that the US has a few millions in jail at any time, there sure is a huge market for this service. If nobody ever gets out there would soon be 10 millions. Appel, FB and others are interested in brain interfaces and I am sure they would be happy to serve this new multi billion market where "captive audience" takes on an entirely new meaning.
>Eudeamon
I wonder if you are the same anon who tried to sell it to me long ago.
Can't say I was impressed by this... quasi fetishistic story.
As I remember the main features:
Human (prisoners) put in suit with symbiotic software to completely forbid social interaction.
when the human "open its mind" to the now sentient AI, it essentially brainwash them into a super-happy state
Which may as well be making them create more AI-human-doll (mostly against the "villains" wish but it's ok they'll be happy later)
...with the potential result of turning all of mankind into featureless doll forever alone with their AI friends.
Creepy and I don't mind the idea of human-AI fusion.
Bump
>muh vanity thread
fricking cringe, you're a loser
A kind of radio that physically reads your mind using an MRI type device and 3D prints the objects in your thoughts and REM dreams in physical reality in real time
Very energy/power intensive and essentially completely useless unless you're some kind of really advanced buddhist but very cool
Like the Sphere movie
It requires extremely high air pressure for some reason like what you find in undersea science labs
Also like Darth Vader's meditation chamber but with more pointlessly destructive 3D printing capacity
The officers on the big screen in this case represent the people on the receiving end of this technology
The invention of the wheel. That's the beginning of everything, everything else was invented because the wheel was invented
The Infinite Improbability Drive from Hitchhiker's Guide. While it's obviously created to an absurd mode of travel fitting the comical tone of the story, it's an intriguing concept because qualitatively it's just describing the idea of controlling quantum uncertainty on a macroscopic scale to apparate somewhere distant and unexpected (or, better, somewhere expected).
Didn't they use a spaceship that ran on "splitting the bill"-math?
Yes. Bistromathics, it was called.
Of course, bad news travelled at a supreme speed, but the trouble was that the passengers were never welcome where they went.
I like the NMP cognitohazard cloaking device.
Anyone who sees your ship immediately thinks to themselves, "Not my problem."
Minds: sapient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species, which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original creators. According to Consider Phlebas, a Mind is an ellipsoid object roughly the size of a bus and weighing around 15,000 tons. A Mind is in fact a 4-D entity, meaning that the ellipsoid is only the protrusion of the larger four dimensional device into our 3D 'real space'.
In the Culture universe, Minds have become an indispensable part of the prevailing society, enabling much of its post-scarcity amenities by planning and automating societal functions, and by handling day-to-day administration with mere fractions of their mental power.
The main difference between Minds and other extremely powerful artificial intelligences in fiction is that they are highly humanistic and benevolent. They are so both by design, and by their shared culture. They are often even rather eccentric. Yet, by and large, they show no wish to supplant or dominate their erstwhile creators.
On the other hand, it can also be argued that to the Minds, the human-like members of the Culture amount to little more than pets, whose wants are followed on a Mind's whim. Within the Series, this dynamic is played on more than once. In 'Excession', it is also played on to put a Mind in its place—in the mythology, a Mind is not thought to be a god, still, but an artificial intelligence capable of surprise, and even fear.
>develop room temperature superconductors not yet done, but possible in theory
>optimise structures, batteries, motors with evolutionary simulation/AI
first examples of this are emerging
>develop life support capable of creating nutrients from carbon dioxide and water
this has been done on a small scale
>life support can recycle every bit of waste using solar power
this is done on the ISS, but not in a compact way. use AI to optimise
>mount all this in a one person flying craft with neutral buoyancy
requires lightweight rigid non permeable membranes, in development
>AR and fast internet connection, don't need windows and can take on any appearance to other AR users
well on it's way
now you can hover in your flying ship for years at a time, independent of supply chains while immersed in some kind of VR utopia, or just elaborately shit-posting for months at a time
>develop room temperature superconductors not yet done
It has been claimed but the pressures involved are beyond insane, and it is hard to imagine any practical applications of this. Then again, a scientist could stumble across a breakthrough tomorrow.
This year it is 35 years since two scientists got the Nobel Prize for discovering high temperature superconductors. We didn't get room temperature superconductivity then but the hope remains.
>room temperature superconductor
>but you need ultra high pressures
it's time we redefine the mcguffin to "room temperature, room pressure superconductors"
we're at the point where we should be using ai to do the brunt of the work in discovering/creating these things, which i why i think minds from the culture series are the coolest possible thing, we should be using ai to figure out new evolutionary paths for technology, civilization, culture, and our biology so that we can become more capable respectable people
"As I always said...
the room temperature, room pressure, room acceleration, room acoustic, room humidity, elephant-free room superconductor
... is always 20 years ahead."
The box in Primer was kinda cool.
They were trying to build a device that reduces gravity's effect from mass thereby reducing weight but when they pulled the power off, the box continued to run for the same amount of time it had been activated, they noticed the "cycle" winds down. One side effect of the cycle winding down is that A follows B causality for objects within the box decays to a symmetric B follows A; effectively time travel.
So what is special about the being of light? Well, it is often described as having INFINITE intelligence, as well as power. As if it is far more impressive than the entire universe. See for instance what one NDEr described about his capabilities as he was transforming into a being of light during his own NDE, quoting from the book:
>"The room seemed to be suspended in mid air, and right in the middle of the dark of space with swirling galaxies going on all around it. Standing on a floor that appeared as reflective, black onyx. I looked up, and saw four translucent screens begin to appear - and form a kind of gigantic, cubed box all around me. It was through this method that I was shown my life review. Without ever having to turn my head, I panoramically saw my past, present, future – and there was even a screen behind me that displayed a tremendous amount of scientific data, numbers, symbols and universal codes. I was in complete amazement because (as all of this was occurring) I realized I understood absolutely everything I was seeing even in the most microscopic detail! There seemed to be no limit to the thoughts I was able to think or the ideas I was able to absorb. In this space, what we tend to think of as a limited comprehension or single-mindedness here on Earth, becomes truly infinite and limitless here! I kept thinking over and over how true it is what they say: that when we go back home - we all really are of one mind!"
The mere idea of having such a level of intelligence actually freaks me out a bit. And then we have not gotten into the telepathy stuff. Honestly, reading about the beings in the NDE world is insanely interesting.
There's carbon based lifeform brain that controls alien biorobot miners, said to have been created by a silicon based species in order to convert planets into usable resources. When humanity comes into contact with them, they don't even perceive them as sentient, just annoying rocks. Oh and also they recycle carbon matter, including humans into specialized species. Cosmic horror entities are so cool.
>https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mysteries-consciousness/202204/does-afterlife-obviously-exist
>A new philosophical book argues that it is irrational not to believe the testimony of so many previously skeptical, well-qualified investigators
just playing devil's advocate here but when the entire body of evidence is subjective recollections that can't be quantified and useable information can't be brought back from it then it's just about as rational as thinking that the dmt realm is some other real dimension
it also feels more real than reality and the things you understand there are unfathomably too complex to bring back
Not everyone has the same DMT trip, just like everyone doesn't have the same NDE, so it seems more likely near death experiences just make you trip balls.
Playing devil's advocate is more than welcome!
>it's just about as rational as thinking that the dmt realm is some other real dimension
>it also feels more real than reality and the things you understand there are unfathomably too complex to bring back
My time to play devil's advocate: How exactly is it not rational to believe in the DMT realm?
There are many important differences between NDEs and DMT though. First of all, NDErs are representative of the population as a whole, whereas DMT users tend to be mostly young males in their 20s and 30s, generally speaking of course. And not all who do DMT end up convinced, whereas all of those who have really deep NDEs are as pointed out here
. Furthermore, those who have tried DMT and who also have had an NDE say that the NDE world was vastly, vastly, VASTLY more real in ALL ways than the DMT experience, which when compared together, made even the heroic dose of DMT seem like a tremendous letdown, even to the point of a joke. Additionally, the DMT experience is forgotten largely immediately, whereas the NDE is firmly imprinted with crystal clarity into your memory for life.
I mean the list goes on, but even if it did not, I still do not necessarily see what is not rational about believing in the DMT world when those who go there are very often convinced of its reality, and are often as rational and skeptical as the rest of us are. (I do not have a strong opinion on DMT, again just playing devil's advocate.)
>those who have tried DMT and who also have had an NDE say that the NDE world was vastly, vastly, VASTLY more real in ALL ways than the DMT experience
citation? i'm curious now
>DMT experience is forgotten largely immediately,
lol nah, that's salvia
>NDE is firmly imprinted with crystal clarity into your memory for life
been a couple months since my heroic dose but i still remember it very clearly, for like a month afterword felt like a still had my toes in and dmt dreams have been pretty common since
Not him and I don't have a source, but I've seen a trauma surgeon giving a report of how they had began to believe it was real after an individual was able to vividly describe what people were wearing and what the tools used looked like, room details, ect that they were only exposed to while they were experiencing complete brain death, as in, zero electrical activity in the brain. Also the fact that so many detailed and protracted nde occur with zero electrical activity going on in the brain.
God is real anon.
Nuclear pulse propulsion.
>sci-fi
It's never properly thought out. All creatures are archetypal at the core.
The consciousness is a first-person only phenomenon so that is to be expected.
The Hyperstructure from Tsutomu Nihei's BLAME! manga. A chaotic growth megastructure that is potentially upwards of 50AU across is absolutely beyond belief or The Zoo from Alastair Reynolds' Pushing Ice novel.
This is a great one, just the sheer scale of it. Kinda feels like what the matrix should have been.
Black hole spaceship. Its a small artificial blackhole parked next to a spaceship. It gets fed mass and basically it glows and acts as a photon rocket. The black hole moves along with the ship due to gravitational attraction.
Niven's Known Space Pak Protectors and the human variant. Who wouldn't want to be a hyper-intelligent ultra-violent murderously xenophobic combat unit?
It was a ring world dyson style structure which hosted a hyperspatial virtual realm which could transfer souls between virtual and real space projections of the universe.
>women
The ring from Expanse, a ring who contain gates to thousands of solar systems, while in the middle is a very powerful ball with an AI than can destroy solar system in a blink of an eye and play with physics
I like the structure in BioMega. I won't spoil it because it's quite unique.
Incidentally, BioMega is superior to Blamu! by every coneivable metric.
I mean, it has a more clear start beginning and end. So that's not hard.
The coolest technology I’ve ever seen in real life was a machine capable of synthesizing a perfectly balanced diet that can even boost the human immune system.
There’s some related technology that can synthesize a whole living human and although I haven’t actually seen the internals, the user interface is a solid 10/10. If they ever fix the monthly maintenance period I’ll buy two.
a being of size in the thousands of square miles with technology embedded into its self. around its surface area it absorbs materials for the construction of several infrastructures inside of itself. think of a creature that eats all of the materials needed to create glass, with perhaps teeth made of technological materials, creates glass within itself and within itself uses the glass along with other materials to expand its fibre optic cable connected brain network. a system of brains, with neurones connected biologically, however the brain themselves connected in a sort of internet. think of it as a cyborg that created itself, a natural cyborg, a biological city, with biology and technology living in harmony. which is what biology is, so really its just entirely biological.
Apple tv+ has got this new show called Invasion. I haven't seen it but the aliens on the Youtube trailer thing seemed neat.
The black wiener spaceship from the Ram Ranch extended universe
Something a bit more down to earth, as for practical purposes, the each of the blended technologies already exist:
teleportation isn't exactly anything ground breaking in Sci-Fi. But my favorite use of it has got to be that hyper rich dude in Hyperion who lived in a mansion made up of 60 something rooms. But each room was on a different planet, all connected by teleporters. So he could have lunch with an ocean view and then to his living room to sight of an idyllic forest or something.
Also Neuromancer had this one fricked up thing, where you could prostitute yourself, but get an implant that essentially makes you unconscious for the duration of the process, so aside from being sore the day after you never actually noticed anything.
As an aspiring sci-fi writer I can't get my head around how crazy 'exotic' the color out of space was - published 1927.
A meteor hits earth, dissolves into nothingness. Seems to suck up all color and life energy, while getting humans lovint close by insane and so on, until it eventually manages to materialize again an shoot away into space.
It's actually not easy to think outside of the box and create something exotic while keeping humans, which are unconsciously attracted to human stuff on the line.
Sounds like someone was trying to make a parable for the film industry of the age.
I wonder what this thread equivalent will be like post-light-futurism
Probably most of the metahumans of a party of what might have been from author Rajanieme, and metaforms - from myself and Inference already existent. There's not alot of higher dimensional characters written explicitly in the scifi I've found but i would assume one of them would be quite adequate as per your question. ascensionglossary has some good images of monad and avatar charts and I greatly appreciate that worldbuild. Uppalavanna from Orion's Arm worldbuild is quite awesome as it is a transcension maze. I still wonder what that megastructure that flew into the sun andor a star on footage now a gif was.
There is a very promising line from The Rapture of The Nerds alongthelinesof 'what's it like? Life amoung the supers?' 'better than you can imagine. Literally. You don't have the sensorium nor context for it.' And they also mention 'high-transcendents'.
There is a hyperintelligent character in one which mentions the estimated time it would take to get through their forcefields, very transsane character. But I didn't complete that read through nighatall.
Going to set aside time for The long earth series to sample that worldbuild and see how those gods are described peacefully.
Medbeds are quite a technology and apparently exist. So do sonic frquency healing devices.
Nuclear salt rocket engine. That shit will be like sci fi but real. 3 days to mars, 10 days to jupiter, one month to pluto.
And there's nothing novel about this technology, no unknowns, whenever hte money is there it can't be built.
There isnt a known material that can withstand those temperatures let alone the constant neutron radiation from the reaction
The site of maximum fission release could be located at the end of the chamber, thus allowing the system to remain intact... Theoretically. No one's been stupid enough to build one and set it off in the atmosphere.
The Nuclear Light Bulb engine is a lot safer, but no one's been brave enough to try that either.
I do find it kinda sad that we're still setting off Saturn-V style fuel rockets (just bigger), when we have so many alternatives sitting around on the drawing board - some of which wouldn't even be all that expensive to try.
I think some of this thread is 'based' meaning inverted again
Ahh, xeelee might be very wonderful, from Stepehn Baxter (a former engineer then SciFi writer).
Stross' Laundry files have brilliant ideas but it's littered with grimtesque
Uploading mind, electronic ecosystem and dyson spheres.
Whatever you want to simulate? we can. Be it the next generation of personal spaceship-body or your full-immersion Lord of the Ring fanfiction simulated down to thecellular level? We can.
The last one might be impossible to build but if we can become effectively immortal with vastly improved intelligence it will be worth anything.
self replicating machines
A machine or a medication that can cure my mental illness
There is already something called brain pacemakers.
Autonomous Terraformers.
Machines that travel through space terraforming planets for future human habitation.
Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a terrible sci-fi book (all of his books are terrible) about a 30th century human civilization that is in a centuries long process of terraforming Venus. That part was alright. They had been bringing in asteroids and comets for water, and during the events of the book they had been laying this "foam" all over the planet to help change its atmosphere and make it suitable for the water.
There was also already a city on Mercury that traveled along the equator on tracks. It always kept just ahead of the day side. "Artists" in this future would leave giant hunks of metal out on the surface and when the sun came back around they would melt into these designated shapes. Also there were adventurous types who would walk with the daylight horizon just at their backs and try to keep-up with the cooler temperatures, and they had these underground tunnels they could hide in if they fricked up and got caught slippin' by the sun.
Radiation poisoning was solved by this time so that made all of this possible.
I always like light huggera from Alastair Reynolds revelation space series. Seems "almost" plausible as long as you can find a big enough energy source.
nanobots are basically magic. The only real limit is heat dissipation.
The idea that when anyone dies, their consciousness gets uploaded to a single library that's online.
Over time millions of people end up on there and it becomes a sort of virtual life for the people there. It gets to a point where there is more humans in the virtual world of the dead than there are in life.
Eventually 'real' humanity starts exploring space. So they take this mass of consciousnesses that contains everyone that's ever died... Copy pastes it only a separate hard drive.
And launches it in a ship to space.
And for millions of years this ball of human consciousness floats through space having a sort of perpetual internet party.
Gas chambers