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But it is worth asking why people want to believe that a narrative can be extended to space? Humans structure their experience using narratives, and this works

But it is worth asking why people want to believe that a narrative can be extended to space? Humans structure their experience using narratives, and this works okay on Earth. Though even on Earth, there are many known problems with the way humans use narratives: 1.) police will tell you that eye witnesses are highly inaccurate 2.) psychologists can tell you all about the way people hurt themselves with inaccurate narratives about themselves 3.) human rights activists work constantly against narratives that take a racial category as a first class character, with real and knowable attributes And those problems arise on Earth. At least since Einstein's Theory Of Relativity we've known that normal human narrative will not extend to space. And yet people want to this to be true. There is a kind of nostalgia that infects most writing about space, a belief that our exploration of space can be like the discovery of the frontier in centuries past. Even intelligent people sometimes talk this way, even though they know it is an inaccurate way to think about the universe. I suppose this is sort of in the category of "Why do 99% of sci-fi movies act as if there is a gravity on spaceships, or assume a technology that can easily assume that a 1 G warp of the space time continuum does not itself warp the ship into a ball?" Basically, people don't want their sci-fi stories to be too accurate. And I guess that's fine. Maybe it's all just entertainment. But then we shouldn't take that entertainment and act like any of it can ever be real.

stcredzero 8y ago
At least since Einstein's Theory Of Relativity we've known that normal human narrative will not extend to space. Meh. Human narratives have encompassed characters who live for hundreds of billions of years and who experience time warped in any number of ways. There are even successful mainstream movies that deal with such issues. Multiple ones going back decades. Basically, people don't want their sci-fi stories to be too accurate. And I guess that's fine. Maybe it's all just entertainment. You could totally re-tell the entire Star Wars and Star Trek canon in such a setting. It's not that people don't want it. Most people don't know enough to know they would want it. Heck, half of everyone seems to think "there's no gravity in space." (EDIT: By "such a setting," I mean in just several cubic light years around Sol and Alpha Centauri.)
- lkrubner 8y ago
  "People lament the light speed barrier, because it seems to preclude vast space empires of Sci-fi." Assume you are the Emperor of a vast interstellar empire. You order your best general to go and attack a star system 10 light years away. Your opponent possibly does the same. 20 years after you give the order, you are told that your general lost the battle (or won the battle). How would you verify that? It's not just that you have to wait another 20 years to verify it, it's that events will pile up in excess of what you can verify. The best way to understand the outcome of this battle is to read what Kyle Kingsbury has written about distributed databases: https://aphyr.com/tags/jepsen https://aphyr.com/tags/jepsen Because, for all practical purposes, the Universe is a distributed database with a serious network partition. It is not Eventually Consistent, but rather, it is Infinitely Inconsistent. The writes exceed the reads, and will continue to do so infinitely into the future. How do you build an interstellar empire around that reality? As an experiment, it might be fun to create a game that is deliberately inconsistent. That would appeal to a very small niche, because most people crave a consistent narrative experience. But a game designed around a database that is deliberately inconsistent would help people think correctly about the difficulty of building empires in space, or engaging in any other common sci-fi tropes.
  - ganzuul 8y ago
    An empire could be a culture. There would need to be a vast reward function to motivate agents to seek consistency. Juxtapose SETI.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    Assume you are the Emperor of a vast interstellar empire. Your next few sentences disprove the viability of the sentence above. If you want a vast interstellar space empire, then control a whole bunch of settlements that orbit in the space between Sol and Alpha Centauri. It's certainly vast on human scales. It's also technically interstellar. As an experiment, it might be fun to create a game that is deliberately inconsistent. A friend of mine created such a space combat themed game, including paradoxes and rules for resolving them. I 3D printed pieces for it. It was indeed fun, so the answer to your conjecture is yes.
lkrubner 8y ago
Why was this downvoted? It certainly is appropriate to ask why smart people want to believe that the kind of narratives we know here on Earth can be extended to space. Intelligent people know this isn't possible, so it worth asking why the desire to have these stories is so strong. A narrative is a sequence of events that happen in a definite order. Humans can not have that kind of experience as they spread to space -- everyone's narrative will be relative to themselves, but they won't reconcile with each others narratives. This is well know. The question is why even smart people prefer fiction that ignores this fact. It's worth asking that question.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Why was this downvoted? I didn't downvote you, but perhaps it's because the idea either lacks a good understanding of the scales involved, or has been effectively disproved by the Sci-fi corpus decades ago. (Just one example of many: Haldeman's Forever War.)
- ganzuul 8y ago
  Some users break HN's voting system. Often they either don't understand or disagree with what you are saying, and that in their value system means they should downvote. It's not a very good system, IMHO.
ganzuul 8y ago
The tools with which people construct narratives change. Exploration of space should bring with it new concepts such as for example might arise when an interstellar colony ship culture meets the culture of the earlier arrivals. Old concepts such as leaving for the New World will be relevant again. These are opportunities for intelligent life to create new meanings to its existence. Sci-Fi was not born out of a vacuum.

stcredzero 8y ago

At least since Einstein's Theory Of Relativity we've known that normal human narrative will not extend to space. Meh. Human narratives have encompassed characters who live for hundreds of billions of years and who experience time warped in any number of ways. There are even successful mainstream movies that deal with such issues. Multiple ones going back decades. Basically, people don't want their sci-fi stories to be too accurate. And I guess that's fine. Maybe it's all just entertainment. You could totally re-tell the entire Star Wars and Star Trek canon in such a setting. It's not that people don't want it. Most people don't know enough to know they would want it. Heck, half of everyone seems to think "there's no gravity in space." (EDIT: By "such a setting," I mean in just several cubic light years around Sol and Alpha Centauri.)

lkrubner 8y ago
"People lament the light speed barrier, because it seems to preclude vast space empires of Sci-fi." Assume you are the Emperor of a vast interstellar empire. You order your best general to go and attack a star system 10 light years away. Your opponent possibly does the same. 20 years after you give the order, you are told that your general lost the battle (or won the battle). How would you verify that? It's not just that you have to wait another 20 years to verify it, it's that events will pile up in excess of what you can verify. The best way to understand the outcome of this battle is to read what Kyle Kingsbury has written about distributed databases: https://aphyr.com/tags/jepsen https://aphyr.com/tags/jepsen Because, for all practical purposes, the Universe is a distributed database with a serious network partition. It is not Eventually Consistent, but rather, it is Infinitely Inconsistent. The writes exceed the reads, and will continue to do so infinitely into the future. How do you build an interstellar empire around that reality? As an experiment, it might be fun to create a game that is deliberately inconsistent. That would appeal to a very small niche, because most people crave a consistent narrative experience. But a game designed around a database that is deliberately inconsistent would help people think correctly about the difficulty of building empires in space, or engaging in any other common sci-fi tropes.
- ganzuul 8y ago
  An empire could be a culture. There would need to be a vast reward function to motivate agents to seek consistency. Juxtapose SETI.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Assume you are the Emperor of a vast interstellar empire. Your next few sentences disprove the viability of the sentence above. If you want a vast interstellar space empire, then control a whole bunch of settlements that orbit in the space between Sol and Alpha Centauri. It's certainly vast on human scales. It's also technically interstellar. As an experiment, it might be fun to create a game that is deliberately inconsistent. A friend of mine created such a space combat themed game, including paradoxes and rules for resolving them. I 3D printed pieces for it. It was indeed fun, so the answer to your conjecture is yes.

lkrubner 8y ago

Why was this downvoted? It certainly is appropriate to ask why smart people want to believe that the kind of narratives we know here on Earth can be extended to space. Intelligent people know this isn't possible, so it worth asking why the desire to have these stories is so strong. A narrative is a sequence of events that happen in a definite order. Humans can not have that kind of experience as they spread to space -- everyone's narrative will be relative to themselves, but they won't reconcile with each others narratives. This is well know. The question is why even smart people prefer fiction that ignores this fact. It's worth asking that question.

stcredzero 8y ago
Why was this downvoted? I didn't downvote you, but perhaps it's because the idea either lacks a good understanding of the scales involved, or has been effectively disproved by the Sci-fi corpus decades ago. (Just one example of many: Haldeman's Forever War.)
ganzuul 8y ago
Some users break HN's voting system. Often they either don't understand or disagree with what you are saying, and that in their value system means they should downvote. It's not a very good system, IMHO.

ganzuul 8y ago

The tools with which people construct narratives change. Exploration of space should bring with it new concepts such as for example might arise when an interstellar colony ship culture meets the culture of the earlier arrivals. Old concepts such as leaving for the New World will be relevant again. These are opportunities for intelligent life to create new meanings to its existence. Sci-Fi was not born out of a vacuum.