4 ms·

Seriously, this article brings to mind the classic short story about a simulated universe: https://qntm.org/responsibility https://qntm.org/responsibility And

Seriously, this article brings to mind the classic short story about a simulated universe: https://qntm.org/responsibility https://qntm.org/responsibility And also the wildly speculative conjecture that our universe will be retroactively created by a super intelligent AI in the precise manner necessary to facilitate its own existence, from which it follows that we exist for the express purpose of creating it. (If anybody knows the source I might have stolen this one from please let me know.)

pnut 2y ago
Maybe "the last question"? https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html
collingreen 2y ago
There is a dark version of this (with some pascal's wager thrown in) called Roko's basilisk. Maybe that's what you're thinking of? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  There's also a Stephen Baxter novel, where a splinter group of humanity called "Wigner's Friends", believes something like this to be the case. I forget which one it is, but it's part of the Xeelee Sequence.
- Vecr 2y ago
  Roko's basilisk isn't retrocausal, maybe you're thinking of some Nick Land thing? But even there it's hard to tell how literal he is being with the Terminator analogies (if you haven't seen the movie it has time travel in it), the sanewashed version of his thesis revolves around thermodynamics, chaos theory, and strange attractors.
  - gom_jabbar 2y ago
    For a detailed discussion of retrocausality in Nick Land's work, check out the https://retrochronic.com/ https://retrochronic.com/ introduction. There's even a dedicated Terminator section. Nick Land interprets Roko's Basilisk as "retrochronic AI infiltration".
    - Vecr 2y ago
      Yes, well. At this point I'm mostly convinced by multiple high quality arguments that Roko's Basilisk is non-functional against any reasonable theory of rationality.
andraz 2y ago
Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries, where Tichy at the same time apologizes and brags about how he retroactively tried to create/fix the world and how he failed.
jrussino 2y ago
Funny, one of my first thoughts upon seeing this article was that the protagonist of the story "There Is No Antimimetics Division" (by the same author) is named "Marion Wheeler" and I wondered if there was an intentional connection. https://qntm.org/scp https://qntm.org/scp
Vecr 2y ago
Maybe you're thinking of some strange version of the Omega Point idea? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point
Vermeulen 2y ago
There is zero chance this is what you meant, but I wrote a short story with that concept in 2013: https://www.3delement.com/?p=309 https://www.3delement.com/?p=309 Did you end up finding what you were referring to? None of the other comments actually match that

pnut 2y ago

Maybe "the last question"? https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html

collingreen 2y ago

There is a dark version of this (with some pascal's wager thrown in) called Roko's basilisk. Maybe that's what you're thinking of? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk

pavel_lishin 2y ago
There's also a Stephen Baxter novel, where a splinter group of humanity called "Wigner's Friends", believes something like this to be the case. I forget which one it is, but it's part of the Xeelee Sequence.
Vecr 2y ago
Roko's basilisk isn't retrocausal, maybe you're thinking of some Nick Land thing? But even there it's hard to tell how literal he is being with the Terminator analogies (if you haven't seen the movie it has time travel in it), the sanewashed version of his thesis revolves around thermodynamics, chaos theory, and strange attractors.
- gom_jabbar 2y ago
  For a detailed discussion of retrocausality in Nick Land's work, check out the https://retrochronic.com/ https://retrochronic.com/ introduction. There's even a dedicated Terminator section. Nick Land interprets Roko's Basilisk as "retrochronic AI infiltration".
  - Vecr 2y ago
    Yes, well. At this point I'm mostly convinced by multiple high quality arguments that Roko's Basilisk is non-functional against any reasonable theory of rationality.

andraz 2y ago

Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries, where Tichy at the same time apologizes and brags about how he retroactively tried to create/fix the world and how he failed.

jrussino 2y ago

Funny, one of my first thoughts upon seeing this article was that the protagonist of the story "There Is No Antimimetics Division" (by the same author) is named "Marion Wheeler" and I wondered if there was an intentional connection. https://qntm.org/scp https://qntm.org/scp

Vecr 2y ago

Maybe you're thinking of some strange version of the Omega Point idea? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point

Vermeulen 2y ago

There is zero chance this is what you meant, but I wrote a short story with that concept in 2013: https://www.3delement.com/?p=309 https://www.3delement.com/?p=309 Did you end up finding what you were referring to? None of the other comments actually match that