Ib & Ob: IOP Paradox Part 7

Human Interlude #3

J: Mr President we think the incident in Turkey involved a NTI.

Mr President: What is that some form of trading instrument I have never heard of before or perhaps a currency from one of those really small countries like England.

J: Mr President please do not talk like that the walls have ears.

Mr President: I do not see any ears looks flat to me.

J: Well technically the walls in here are curved which is why everything is bent to hell.

Mr President: Language!

J: What hell?

Mr President: No 'bent' we do not want people knowing what I really...

J: But they already..err..Yes Mr President.  Mr Berg your science adviser can best explain it.

Mr Berg: NTI Mr President stands for Non-Terrestrial Intelligence.

Mr President's hair: is there any other kind. 

Mr Berg: What did you say I couldn't hear what you said. Mr President have you been putting that oil I gave you on your hair?

Mr President: I did not say anything. Lets nuke them get rid of two stones with one errr.

Mr Berg: Mr President I think nuking a member of NATO would be a bad idea.

Mr President: How about a tweet, it is amazing how much money you can make with a single tweet.

J: Mr President I think a tweet might be worse than nuking them, remember Bob sir.

Mr President: Bob that bobs around, that's pretty funny.

J: Yes Mr President very droll your wit astounds me at times. Can we get back to the matter at hand Mr President what do you want to do in Turkey.

Mr President: Let them handle it, I'm the President of the United...

J: States sir.

Mr President: Yes I know, have they delivered my new quilt yet with the stars on the inside?

Mr Berg: But Mr President I think we should address the problem in Turkey, this could be a prelude to war by the NTIs.

Mr President's  hair: Only if they are stupid. 

Mr President: I think we should play golf this afternoon if I'm not allowed to blow stuff up or send a tweet it has to be golf.

Mr Berg & J: Yes Mr President.

Ib & Ob: Dividing by Zero

Ob: Well it appears that...

Ib: What is that flashing light on your console?

Ob: Probably nothing as I was about to...

Ib: Flashing lights are rarely nothing let me see. 

Ob: Fine, fine okay all yours and why do not you take over my reason for being here as well.

Ib: Cool your ions my friend, I knew it!  When exactly did you last use the teleport?

Ob: Not sure, probably when we picked up supplies on Ketr 3.

Ib: Really, well we just teleported my lunch 1160 units from the original position I found it in.

Ob: Well we can easily trace it to where it currently is.  There you go, it is inside that White building.

Ib: Is it still alive?

Ob: Yes and there are lots of its species surrounding it.

Ib: Okay for once you were right about the flashing light.

Ob: Fortunately for us the liquid the natives of Hij 3 eject gives most organic species short term memory loss.

Human Interlude #1

Science Adviser: What have you learned about the man that suddenly appeared in the office?

Agent #1: Sir, are you sure he appeared out of thin air and not perhaps jumped out from behind a piece of furniture?

Science Adviser: Yes he appeared out of thin air, our leader was so scared he hid in the nearest corner.

Agent #1: But Sir, there are no corners in the...

Science Adviser: This is what happens when you let politicians divide by zero.  What have you learned?

Agent #1: Well he's a white trapper from the south west.

Science Adviser: Really, what does he trap?

Agent #1: Rabbits, sir.

Science Adviser: What does he remember last?

Agent #1: He said he had shot a coyote and there was white light.

Science Adviser: I thought you said he hunts rabbits?

Agent #1: Yes sir, the coyotes have been eating the rabbits.

Science Adviser: Fine, anything else no matter how small.

Agent #1: He said he remembers having pins and needles in his err...

Science Adviser: Out with it, I'm scientist first and an adviser second.

Agent #1: He said "In all his holes" sir.  Might I ask where our leader is now?

Science Adviser: I sedated him.

Agent #1: You gave him drugs?!?

Science Adviser: Of course not, I sat him down in front daytime TV.  Should keep him happy for hours.  Now what else do we know about the Great White Hunter?

Agent #1: Well sir, he believes in God.

Science Adviser: Not another one! Does he has any terrorist affiliations aside from his out of date beliefs?

Agent #1: No sir! Can I ask is this perhaps related to the asteroid currently...

Science Adviser: That's classified, you should know better that.  What has the forensic team come up with?

Agent #1: Just an unknown blue substance found on his clothes and near all his err...holes sir.

Science Adviser: Very interesting indeed, well ship him off to Area 47 for now.

Agent #1: Yes sir!

End of Human Interlude #1

Last Laugh...

When you look at the theory of evolution you have to understand the timescales involved most people do no get to grips with how big they really are.  You are looking at millions of years, mankind has been knocking around for about ten thousand years which is a nth of the time that organic species on the planet have been evolving.

People also look at evolution as purely the survival of the fittest which is a considerable simplification, a better one would be:

...is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits.

Mankind's reign upon the planet has been a very short one compared to the age of the planet (4.5 billion years).  We think because we are the dominant species (currently), that somehow that makes us above evolution or nature for that matter.  Anybody that has been at the mercy of extreme weather or an earthquake will I think beg to differ.

Medical science, morals and ethics have progressed to point that babies that were considered to be unhealthy, premature or just undesirable are no longer killed at birth.  Survival is not necessarily about the fittest anymore although to apply evolution to man will take longer than just a mere ten thousand years.  The question is does our science allow us to side step evolution or will mother nature have the last laugh.

Disease is Mother nature's scythe and whilst we have stamped out many diseases/viruses there are many more out there that becoming resistance to man's medicine.  Some viruses are jumping from animal to man for instance the avian bird flu or mad cow disease.  Mother nature does not have a plan it is just a blind watchmaker to paraphrase Richard Dawkins.  At the cellular level viruses can and do evolve faster, you are not looking at millions of years they can make billions of copies of themselves in day.  Each copy could have a error/mutation which may make it stronger/resistant to attack or not as the case may be.

Who will have the last laugh, I will probably never know in my lifetime unless the Universe decides to use the Earth as target practice with an asteroid or two.

Personally I am betting on the blind watchmaker.

Smoke and Mirrors is Stranger than Fiction

I have recently read an article on Scott Adam's blog (creator of the Dilbert cartoon) about how science is an illusion using quantum mechanics as its base along with a cognitive scientist called Donald Hoffman who explains it (The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality) so much better than Mr Adams but not simpler.

I decided to post a comment on the article based upon both articles as I saw it, a more simplistic view:

Basically this is quantum theory taken to the nth degree. Atomic particles pop in and out of existence when we "observe" them or not as the case maybe. The cat is either dead or alive or most probably scratched its way out of the box having a night on the tiles leaving the radium wishing it had decayed sooner then at least it would have a dead cat as company.

Thinking this through does stuff at a quantum level fail to meet up to classical physics because it is for most part unobserved by conscious organisms whereas in the macro-verse that we live matter is under constant eyes whether they be human or otherwise.

Donald Hoffman suggests that there is consciousnesses all the way down that they create the reality we see and feel. Taking this theory to its logical conclusion (I could be wrong) if all of reality does not exist then these consciousnesses must exist outside of this reality otherwise the consciousnesses could not exist either.

Have I taken a complex idea and simplified it too much probably. I'm not a scientist just a part time unpaid out of the box thinker.

I post also second additional comment:

 ...however if you allow for Brane-World Scenarios then these consciousnesses could exist in a different Brane and if the consciousness were made up of particles (Idtrons perhaps) that were without mass with a spin of 2 like the hypothetical particle Graviton then they could pass between Branes or affect them. 

A whole Brane (Idverse) reality consisting of consciousnesses that create our physical world by observation alone.  Each of consciousness connects to a living organism whether it be human or not.

This reminds me of Philip Jose Farmer's series Riverworld (1971-83) whereby artificial souls (wathans) were created by an ancient alien race.

Logic is not a illusion if the consciousnesses are connected to us.

Then the whole of Donald Hoffman's ideas was refuted in this article by one of the world's best theoretical physicists Lubos Motl (never heard of him myself but I don't travel those circles).  I realised however this would potentially make an interesting baseline for new Alternate Reality Game so I set about writing the basics down.

The title for my game was Apex Ids:

Consciousnesses made up of Idtrons inhabiting a Brane world (Idverse), they grow by connections to living organisms in other brane worlds, starting from the microbe to intelligent life and beyond.  What is evolutionary best route for the Ids?

The basic idea is that at the beginning of the multiverse Idverses only contained one consciousness (Id), this first one grew so large that it no longer could interact with living organisms of our type of reality but it could still influence our reality through nature and whispering into the minds of the rich and powerful.  The first Id spawned other Ids as per Donald Hoffman's theory, now the question is how would these Ids grow (well used plot devices):

• Love/Peace/Harmony - speed growth in a Id
• Chaos - slows growth in a Id

The Apex Ids would have grown slow large that their best route for staying alive would be to control the growth of the Ids below them therefore I decided to go for a revolution of lower Ids against the Apex Ids, revolutions are all about taking control from the ones in power.

My revolutionaries were called The Church of Eon that on surface were all about peace and harmony but at the deepest levels intended to topple all the major governments of the world using people given super powers by use of drug therapies to enhance their physic abilities.  The basic goal of the Church was to stop all wars and get everyone to live in peace thereby starving out the Apex Ids.

Youtube is always an excellent resource for writing and ideas, my intent was to point the players at links to do with creating super powers which was fine until I came across this one:

Mind Science Kept Hidden - Documentary

This sounds fine until 4:50 minutes in at which point we are in conspiracy theory territory, I suppose it not be surprising that my fiction should mirror this "documentary" since I had recycled the usual suspects of any revolution.

Original thought doh!

Upon reflection I decided to drop the game and post it here instead, I still like its concept from a fictional perspective but it has lost its appeal for me.