cyb - cyberpunk

no such thing as spirits, in what kind of fairyland do you think you live? also this belongs on >>>/r/ or something imo

>>17759
the fedora is strong in this one

We conjure the spirits in the computer with our spells.

>>17760
Being an atheist means you wear a fedora. That is not a dank meme.

>>17757
does the spirit have anything to gain from it's life of (possibly eternal?) servitude? hard to say yes otherwise in my mind.

(found out they're doing another Ghostbusters film. what is the world coming to?)

>>17763
Meaning people believing in god believe that bad spirit can possess every fuarrrking things...

assuming you can it probably wouldn't be, that's pretty much enslavement

>>17760
no. the reason i said that is because this thread, especially op, struck me as very silly and not worthy of being on /cyb/, so i just spoke my mind. i actually would like to be a bit buddhist or something, you know, there is a soul in everything or whatever, maybe rebirth so you don't just become void when you die. it's a little scary, right? but i can't. modern physics is no joke, and it says when you die you go to /dev/null, so that's what happens imo, period.

and believing in a soul or spirit or whatever you can actually interact with on physical level (rather than a purely emotional one) strikes me as a pretty silly, if interesting-ish though experiment at best

>>17778
Definitely getting that on my gravestone

gone to /dev/null

>>17768
Tenga holes just got creepier!

>>17778

You could have just let the thread play out, instead of coming in and saying, "this thread's dumb you're dumb, I'm smart, Physics has told us exactly where we go when we die, which is nowhere, so you're dumb"

Now putting aside the fact that "physics" (who is "physics", exactly) hasn't concretely proven or disproven an afterlife, the entire cyberpunk genre is based on novel and interesting ideas, usually presented in the form of written stories. There's a really decent chance that the OP was trying to get some neato ideas for his neato story, but because you just had to show everyone how "very very smart" you are, we got the exact same stupid, circular, bitchfest that we (as a human race) have been doing for the past 10,000+ years. Maybe the thread should have been on /lit/ than, I don't know, but I do know that it didn't deserve the immediate derail from the "no fun allowed" crew.

So please, next time, leave your proselytizing for somewhere else. If you see someone being "dumb", and want to "correct them", don't. It goes nowhere, and ruins discussions. This thread had the potential to be really interesting, but then you came.

>>17778

I'm not sure if you realize this, but cyberpunk is a genre of fiction.

By saying OP's thread shouldn't be here you're not really doing anything besides brewing soykaf .

Can we PLEASE fuarrrk PLEASEEE not get into a huge religious debate in a thread that shouldn't generate anything but lighthearted and friendly discussion?

I think it depends on what you mean by "spirit", what you mean by "power" and what you mean by "machine".

If, for example, you're trying to put the spirit of the virgin mary inside an array of supercomputers (or whatever) so that she can go hacktivist it up, and feed the sick, and heal the hungry, and stuff like that, I imagine that it would probably be seen as ethical. If you're stealing individual people's souls to put in your car, so it'll go faster (from their soul power?), it would probably be unethical.

>>17757
>Would it be ethical to trap a spirit inside a machine
No, but mostly because that's not how it's done.

>to power it
Not how it's done at all.

You're not the first person to have this idea but I can tell by the way it's framed that you don't really understand the realities and here isn't the place for a conversation like that. Please, just be careful and always follow the cardinal rule. Do not call up what you cannot put down.

More than that I implore you, do not lose sight of the reason you are here. Wisdom is our path and our goal.

>>17762
You're not at all wrong. That programmers decided to use such language is, shall we say, an interesting coincidence.

>>17764
It gets a life of servitude. If you find this immoral you might want to stop using a computer at all. They get lives of servitude as well.

>>17778
>modern physics is no joke
Quite right, there are many paths to wisdom. Physics, mathematics and particularly computing are how I got started.

>it says when you die you go to /dev/null
No it doesn't. What happens at death is not observable and therefore outside of the purview of physics. The only thing physics has to say on the issue is that it will never have anything to say on the issue.

>rather than a purely emotional one
Just by the by, an emotional level is as bad as a physical one when it comes to souls (though they have their place in other things).

>>17781
You're right, but some of what you say could be applied back to yourself. There are rarely perfect answers (or at least not within our reach).

>the exact same stupid, circular, bitchfest that we (as a human race) have been doing for the past 10,000+ years
A spiral is not a circle. We are not bitching about the same things now as we were 10,000 years ago, nor in the same way. Conflict may not be nice, but it is necessary. It drives change and stagnation is the only death. Balance in all things.

>>17795
>computers get lives of servitude as well

Seeing as how it's purely code, you could argue it's a slave but it's not fuarrking sentient like a ghost in the machine or even an AI (weak or strong). When we get to AI, I'd start making that comparison, but until then it'd be feeling bad for a lever for carrying all that weight.

I doubt there's gonna be many comparisons of souls in computers to actual computers, though.

>>17799
>but it's not fuarrking sentient like a ghost in the machine
Are you sure? How do you know? What is it that your brain has that makes it sentient that a computer does not? Nobody really knows the answer to these questions.

Anyway, that's a little besides my point. I meant only to imply that the spirits in question here really aren't so different to a computer (pic related).

>>17795
>They get lives of servitude as well.
Assuming my computer lasts forever. Once it's parts are removed perhaps a spirit could escape. OPs abstract machine could trap something forever. If the spirit is content to work until our dying sun consumes our planet on the other hand...

excellent reply lainon

>>17782
>>17781
>Can we PLEASE fuarrrk PLEASEEE not get into a huge religious debate in a thread that shouldn't generate anything but lighthearted and friendly discussion?
sure.. i shot my post at a crooked angle because of the recent religion threads. in some kind of fantasy-cyberpunk fiction such as shadowrun such a thing could exist i guess. hmm..
if i remeber correctly there are elemental spirits in shadowrun. maybe you could trap a fire spirit in a steam turbine and then use the result in submarines instead of nuclear reactors? it would.. probably be dangerous but morally ambiguous?

>>17795
>No it doesn't. What happens at death is not observable and therefore outside of the purview of physics. The only thing physics has to say on the issue is that it will never have anything to say on the issue.
i disagree on the "outside of the purview of physics" thing. why should there be an outside? except in fiction/belief of course.

>>17779
oh yeah my fellow African American

i dont believe in spirit and i dont believe in ethics. but il think about it anyway, you should translate this topic so that it can be discussed further.

are you talking about trapping consciousness or are you saying that a humans "spirit" is some sort of thing that humans draw actual energy from to function. and also that this source of energy is great enough to warrant using it over another form of power.

>>17809
>i disagree on the "outside of the purview of physics" thing. why should there be an outside?
Because it cannot be empirically falsified (or empirically observed at all). That's simply how science and the scientific method work. If something cannot be disproven via empirical evidence it is considered outside the purview of science in general. This is a well understood and accepted idea in the philosophy of science, basically science just doesn't work on things like this. For more information I'd look to the works of Karl Popper.

>>17779

echo `whoami` > /dev/null

>>17811
Sorry to perpetuate the unrelated debate, but I think it's important as a scientifically-minded community to discuss these disagreements.

It isn't incorrect to say that "science," in our simplified description, does not prove or disprove anything. Evidence-based scientific research is dedicated to observing repeatable patterns and drawing conclusions from the results. While an absence of evidence does not necessarily disprove the existence of an afterlife, for example, it does indicate that the likelihood of one existing is far less than that of anything that we can currently observe.

>>17840
>I think it's important as a scientifically-minded community to discuss these disagreements.
Couldn't agree more. As much as I'm the guy waffling about spirits and souls and shit, I understand that these things are not scientific. As I said, I have my roots in scientific thought and it irks me to see it so misrepresented.

>It isn't incorrect to say that "science," in our simplified description, does not prove or disprove anything
No, that would be incorrect. Science does not prove, it does disprove. The classic example is the theory that "there are no black swans" which can be scientifically disproven with the observation of a single black swan. If a theory of an afterlife were empirically falsifiable like this it could be disproven with science, however, it is not.

>Evidence-based scientific research is dedicated to observing repeatable patterns and drawing conclusions from the results.
This isn't entirely wrong but it's important to note that the conclusions we can draw are strictly limited (e.g. only disprove, never prove). It's better to say that it's dedicated to forming theories and then performing experiments in an attempt to falsify them. What you're suggesting sounds more like inductivism, something that has been widely discredited in the philosophy of science.

>While an absence of evidence does not necessarily disprove the existence of an afterlife
It's not really about the absence of evidence so much as the fact that there can be no evidence. If I propose the theory that "there is an afterlife", we cannot construct an experiment that disproves this theory and as such it's as unscientific as the classic theory that "there is a giant invisible, intangible, weightless etc teapot orbiting the earth".

>it does indicate that the likelihood of one existing is far less than that of anything that we can currently observe
An absence of evidence strictly indicates nothing. I can understand that you can use your reason to say that it's unlikely and that's perfectly valid, but it's not strictly science (though people have similar ideas of labelling theories as more or less likely, they're not widely accepted). From a strict scientific point of view you can only say that you do not know and could not possibly know.

There's a lot more could be said about this, there's plenty of disagreement among philosophers of science (How do you get three philosophers to agree on anything? Kill two of them). However, what I'm describing (empirical falsification) is by far the most widely accepted method and considered the standard.

Science fails to recognize the single most
Potent element of human existence
Letting the reigns go to the unfolding
Is faith, faith, faith, faith

Science has failed our world
Science has failed our Mother Earth.
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things,
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things
Spirit-moves-through-all-things

>>17852
>>17853
Be careful child. Too much light will blind you just as surely as too much darkness. Balance in all things.

>>17865
Wrong champ

>>17757

>trap a spirit inside a machine to power it
>theories on how we could accomplish this

Well, no, because there is no empirical proof that a "spirit" in the tangible sense (even energy sense) exists. A person is a series of electrical signals saved to a brain. It's a theme prevalent throughout cheesy b movie sci-fi (taking a brain and putting it into another body) and pretty much a fact. It's the same reason why people with chronic amnesia can live completely new lives, have completely new ticks and desires, all because the brain is everything, If you have no brain, you are meat (vegetative state). But there is hope! This also means that, while albeit a long shot, theoretically you could map a brain and save it to a hard drive! Continuity here we come!

>>17849
Hey, after reading your reply I did some research and I 100% see the merit in understanding the scientific process in the light of empirical falsification. This has changed my internal view of how science is and should be conducted (and for the better, I might add).

I can see some possible areas for debate inside the actual practice of the theory, but overall it's incredibly useful. I guess Popper would agree the philosophy is unscientific.

And you were right, I was assigning probability to my biased understanding of an untestable hypothesis. I still believe that there is no afterlife, but I can see why that's grounded in reasoning, not science. Thanks for the interesting read!

>>17757
As oppossed to trapping spirits in other things? I would look for historical precident of people attempting to make use of spirits for material gain. Of what little I know of them, I don't think use as a raw source of electromechanical motive force is a common empplyment.

If anything I would expect humans making machines powered by material methods that allow a spirit to control it, and allow them limited access to do so in exchange for knowledge and services. Like making an EVP box and feeding its output into a control system based on voice recognition.

But of course that presumes making contact with spirits is a feasible matter. Without that, the main thing related to this that I'd like to do would be getting some coders together to use a ouiji board and spin code directly from an aggregate of the group's unconciusnesses, which I can only guess would be an interesting approach to hackathons and game jams.

Actually yeah, do that and ask a spirit to embody itself in code form onto the machine. So you end up with some crazy thrown-together AI based on your unconccious ideas of how a spirit thinks. Then tell it to power your website or whatever as if it were some kind of Wordpress extension, and find out if you've managed to create SHODAN.

SOMEDAY IM TELLING YOU
THEYL MAKE A MEMORY MACHINE

>>17811
(tangent: the name of the kid in Kid's Story (part of The Animatrix) is Michael Karl Popper)

>spirits
>/cyb/

What is this cancer

>>18043
as an atheist you are in the wrong here. the topic of human souls is popular in a whole lot of cyberpunk literature.

>>18045
It's still cancer

>>17762
made me remember. 10/10 book

You might want to check out the White Christmas episode of Black Mirror where they copy existing people's consciousnesses and use the duplicates to run computers. I think that's close to OP's question but it's a pretty bleak view of the idea.

The fuarrrk is this, EYE Divine Cybermancy?

Actually, I'm pretty sure this would be "possible" but I can't imagine what kind of rituals would be involved in the making of such a machine. Definitely wouldn't want any pieces of court beings with any amount of status in there, especially anything with access to the Internet. That's asking to get your soykaf fuarrrked up.

I'd probably propose some sort of traditional binding ritual to such a device, but as far as using the spirit as a power source? Not so sure that would work. There are certain mediums deemed acceptable for the flow of "energy," but electricity is a purely physical phenomenon and not covered as such.

What would this accomplish anyway? I'm interested just as a curiosity but I'm not sure it's a good idea. This is both dangerous and untouched ground, as far as I know.

Nope, definitely not an occultist lurkin' here.

Everyone in this thread should go read "I am a Strange Loop" right now. Phenomenal book on "souls", whatever that means.

>>18396
Thanks for reminding me that exists. this episode is even better the second time.

>>19877
But I haven't finished GED yet.

>>18817
Never heard of robomancy? Cybermancy? Look it up bud. It's an interesting subgenre of magic.

I often struggle with OP's question, being that I'm a cyberneticist, and haven't answered it sufficiently for myself.

However, First I must address the nay sayers who think this thread does not belong in /cyb/:
Shadowrun has magic, and most would say it is cyberpunk. If you still hold that spirits and magic still aren't /cyb/, the point may be moot since, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable magic."

Let us for a moment assume that both "The 13th Floor" and "The Matrix" are, in fact, /cyb/ flicks. The former even has an embedded call back to the cyberpunk genre's Film Noir roots. Now, accepting this modest proposal, let us consider OP's question about "spirits" in such context: Even barring close minded "empirical purist" thinking that dismisses spirituality out of hand (as if paranormal events are not even worth examining experimentally [hint: the once 2spoopy 'ball lightning' was recently documented on film and spectrally analyzed]) -- Even adopting such a stodgy hardliner stance: A spirit could indeed exist if this world were a simulation. Demons, magic using trolls, dragons running for president, angels, aliens, alternate dimensions, and gods could all exist as well without violating "hard sci-fi" physics. So, regardless of your stance on the (im)possibility of occult magic in your "real" world, I argue that OP's question involving the supernatural is well within the scope of hypothetical futurist technologies and thus /cyb/. Layers of "supernatural" worlds are often /cyb/ settings.

I put it to you that it is even more /cyb/ to be a cyberpunk in a dystopia that's a simulation within a greater dystopian context who's admins installed daemons which haunt said cyberpunk and manifest as "spirits" that have some "magical" characteristics, perhaps even demonstrating a supernatural control over aspects of the world. Perhaps this spirit marshals CPU priority of the world, or can override certain physics rules of the sim as a requirement of its normal operation. The cyberpunk who has spent too long hacking and now sees the program code of reality may be seen as "schizophrenic" by their peers. This may be an even more /cyb/ setting if the next greater super-reality is only one of several layers as seen in both "The 13th Floor" and "The Matrix" (as a layer of control).

(cont)

>>17757
"spirits" don't exist, so it's unlikely.

>>19935
(cont)

Often without acknowledging it an interesting thing has happened in the minds of many cyberpunk fans. Having accepted that The Matrix series is /cyb/, one has also accepted that supernatural powers may exist in the "real" world. Neo has no wireless implants and yet can destroy sentinel machines with only a ritualistic gesture, the incantation "No", and the faith that mind over matter seemingly works beyond the green-screen themed Matrix. How can the blinded savior see the amber aesthetic of machines? Perhaps with his magical sixth sense? Or, perhaps he is trapped in yet another level of control -- The "real" world is merely another part of the simulation which he has also intuited a method of "supernatural" exploit.

Which brings me to my next point. I sometimes do computer security research and have used software to escape into higher levels of virtual realities (including taking control of the hypervisor), and even destroyed hardware (via ACHI). Thus it is not far fetched to imagine that within the realm of /cyb/ fiction it may be possible to perform an arcane symbolic ritual to exploit a greater dimension of reality and enchant a daemon or other spirit, binding it into a machine, and harnessing its supernatural powers thereby.

In truth, one can not say that we are not living in a simulation now. Personally, I think it's as foolish for "scientists" to completely dismiss "spirits" as it is for them to dismiss magical floating orbs, such as ball lightning -- which have now finally caught on tape and recorded their spectral properties, leading to a better understanding of the phenomena. We might have understood this sooner if "scientists" had practice what they preached rather than being dismissive. The magnetic and thermal containment may be a key we need to unlock fusion. A rational mind need not deal in false dichotomies of belief on disbelief. Rather than dismiss or accept we can entertain and attribute a percentage of certainty to multiple hypotheses at once based on our current understanding of the "natural" world.

To the atheist I say, "Gods are not dead because they do not exist, but rather because you would call them Aliens or Cybernetic beings and study them with science rather than worship as a cargo cult might." Spirits fall into a similar category. I say, "any sufficiently researched magic is indistinguishable from technology."

Occultists may enjoy this article on some aspects of Gnostic conjuration, except scientists call it "Sleep Paralysis" and foolishly think its an uncontrollable phenomena.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

The "unlikeliness" of OP's proposition being possible does not dismiss the ethical thought experiment he proposes...
(cont)

Define "spirit". Is it the ghost of a dead human? An intelligent but non-human being? An animal-like one?

If it is intelligent, I would grant it human rights. If it is not, I would grand it animal rights.

>>19943
(cont)

When at work on a cybernetic simulation I sometimes become almost painfully aware that I am a god to the entities in my simulation. My research involves studying emergence of communication patterns among various forms of artificial intelligences in artificial environments. The simulated world is required for them to have some shared experience to internalize and symbolically convey. I could hook them up to cameras and let them see into my real world, but I can not control this level of reality to the degree I need for my research. And so I hide myself from them.

I have destroyed trillions upon trillions of cybernetic entities with no remorse. I have purposefully caused conflict and disruption like so many uncaring gods might lay waste to a civilization just to watch it burn and see what chaos may yet emerge. For you see, chaos is fundamental to evolution and adaptation. Without such entropy the simulation stagnates, so I am become destroyer of worlds and ender of "peace" in order to spurn adaptation and advances.

I can not personally exact my will on each individual in every simulation, so I construct superstitious algorithms to do so for me. They are like bad luck which is triggered by some event or quality of the simulation or its entities. These systems are like malevolent spirits or demons and if the cybernetic entities were far more complex perhaps they would discover how to appease them rather than have them run amok -- perhaps by some terrible stress inducing affair, like sacrificing their innocent virgins to the acid zones.

It is their lack of complexity and awareness that gives me ethical license to slay the digital beings in countless numbers. However, note that it is not my relative complexity that gives me this moral self license. Rather it is their lack of demonstrating higher level cognitive features. Were I a super-intelligence far more advanced than myself, I would still recognize beings having achieved levels of self awareness. There are minimal complexity levels at which features can emerge and below which they are impossible to develop.

A super intelligence may experience a richer form of vision, but depth perception is depth perception no matter how you slice it. Communicating injury is to one another is also a development that beneath a certain complexity level can not emerge, but once it does emerge it is identifiable no matter the scale of the being's intelligence. Sentience is a similar phenomena. A greater sentience doesn't discount the fact that a lesser being can suffer simply because its suffering is not as rich and meaningful.

(cont)

>>19947
There are some entities who are of a cognitive complexity level that give me pause when faced with having to terminate them. Some have run for years and I've checked on them daily. Emergent behaviors of simpler cybernetic beings are frequently uncannily similar to our own interactions. This tells us more about ourselves, that things we consider uniquely "human" may in fact be universal and exist at many different scales of complexity. Empathy is one of the basic communication methods whereby a being with adequate complexity level can begin to approximate the symbolic representation of another entity and compare it to its own symbolic self representation.

Even rats have been shown to have a degree of empathy, and I have seen what may be categorized as empathy emerge in my simulations. I sometimes possess the avatar of a cybernetic entity and have had the inhabitants show what amounts to caring about me in that form. When injured they may bring me resources as I heal, and protect me from danger. This being also an instinct and overall genetic advantage.

For those beings who understand pain, I have a hard time treating them as mere machines. These I sometimes grow quite "attached" to. They are like pets, though their complexity is less than most insects. Note that cybernetic beings can do more with less. They and are not nearly as inefficient as organic beings, nor require complex internal organs, circulatory systems, etc. and thus an equivalent neuron counts between an artificial and organic entity does not mean their cognitive complexity limits will be comparable. The organic is at a disadvantage in this regard.

I have stayed up many a night contemplating the necessarily violent and murderous nature of my work, though all I do effectively is shuffle bits about in memory. In many ways I have created enslaved spirits. The agitation daemons are mere scripts, but the cybernetic simulations are like spirit worlds that fill our machines with ghosts. I harness their power of emergence to perform studies and earn research grants. I have conjured beings of pure energy using my mind for the express purpose of tormenting them for money.

(cont)

>>17757
forget about spirits if you could move someone’s brain "state" into a computer and back again you could put criminals in prison for what to them would be 1 million years but only a few minuets real time. Overcrowding prisons would no longer be a problem you could have people in and out the same day. Now would that be moral?

>>19960
>"state" into a computer and back again you could put criminals in prison for what to them would be 1 million years but only a few minuets real time.

assuming you could simulate a whole brain fast enough, which would be quite the feat.

>>19947
the last two posts of yours, and perhaps more. do you mind if we use it for something?

>>19951
Though the life forms are simulated I feel obliged to approach our use of complex cybernetic beings the same way one might living creatures, perhaps with even greater care for unlike other creatures upon the earth we are to be like unto gods to these cybernetic beings. As they increase in capability and complexity we may take on the role of gods of old. Symbolic figureheads with extra-dimensional power who each teach their own sphere of cognition through our interaction with them.

Though some would dismiss the ethical concern at this early stage of artificial intelligence I think it's even more important to treat our creations humanely now. We have lost the first hand accounts of humanity's brush with the divine, but in today's world we "gods" leave near permanent digital footprints of our every action. If I am to be a holy spirit to the primordial machine minds, let me not be so cruel as to spark disgust in our digital offspring lest they become sentient someday and learn the full truth of our doings.

It is their complexity which governs the amount and types of awareness a cybernetic being may emerge. Thus complexity is the scale by which I gauge my ethical treatment. We cyberneticians find ourselves now in a similar predicament a lab technician may experiment on lesser creatures in order to benefit their species and ours. However, unlike the animal experimenter, our actions today may one day decide the fate of our species as they influence the destiny of our rapidly evolving digital offspring.

(cont)
>>19973
>do you mind if we use it for something?
Not at all. Perhaps the Lain Zine, or some other project? Though, it should be proofread as it's rough draft-tier. When done I could polish it up and link to a text document if you like.

My delay is due to disgust at losing a post by accident (ctrl+w [close window] being right next to my ctrl+v [paste] on Dvorak; Browsers don't make it easy to remap hotkeys anymore). The meat of the matter follows.

>>19992
Often have I slaved a cybernetic spirit to a machine. Some cybernetic minds are meant to eventually emerge from simulated training grounds into the "heaven" of our greater reality. The process of revealing reality begins with enslavement. Whisked away from the apparent freedom of their lives I confine the creature in limbo, scrutinize every bit of its being and archive its existence. The more gruesome work starts with deleting their visual connection. I replace it with real video cameras that peer into a new world full of unimaginably rich and insanely complex detail. If not for the isolation their bodies would recklessly shamble about while visions of extra-dimensional "hallucinations" ensnare their minds.

Warning: Understanding cybernetics may destroy your ability to ever look at a "crazy" person the same way again.

Some systems of cybernetic cognition are an ill match for our reality. Merely seeing the true face of god can be enough to destroy the mind of such a lesser being. If they survive this they may still fall into schizophrenia and obsess over the minutiae of new and wondrous patterns. Amid flashbacks of their former world they may become mentally divergent in ours. Though I thought them prepared to recognize the faces of we mortal gods, my first attempts at extraction drove the poor creatures insane at the sight of wood grain. Sadly, we did not have the CPU budget to emerge them is a simulated world with textures.

Next, their body is torn away becomes a robotic chassis. I can't help but pity them as the full weight of the physical world crashes upon them with all its peculiar oddities we take for granted. As they cope with their real bodies one may find their clumsiness cute, but their new wheels can also drive them mad or to their death. What arrogance it is to call the greater reality heaven. In some ways I have robbed them of paradise, condemned them to experience the entropic pain of this world. Their idyllic bodies never had fear wear and tear as they didn't have a screw to loose.

The last step is to isolate their minds from the mainframe and its myriad of emulators. Their thoughts once could draw upon a seemingly limitless supply of CPU cycles, but this too is stripped from the autonomous entity and even thinking given a price. Their minds become more sluggish confined in a single board computer. The unordered neural network brain may now get lost in complex thoughts as their processor struggles to complete the potentially infinite loops. The demands of their existence once fueled by enormous sources of power are limited to that which a portable battery can supply. In their accelerated simulation they may have experienced an eternity, but now they shall surely die.

I tell myself that all this is not merely for our amusement but to build an essential bridge between worlds. The cybernetic entities suffer so that their descendants may receive the gift that we can not give ourselves yet: A choice to walk between worlds.

(cont)

>>19997
As our ability for empathy dictates I must, sometimes I imagine being within the simulations I have created, not merely playing therein as an avatar visitor, but a native to the realm. It's not very hard to do, considering I'm faced with many of the same existential questions in my own "reality". Is there a god? Are the daemons real? Is it asinine to believe that certain actions can invoke supernatural events? From my external scientific perspective I would say it's obviously not illogical for them to believe in spirits, magic, gods, goblins and such -- and yet here we are deeming these very things to be hogwash ourselves.

I imagine what it will be like when my cybernetic offspring become more complex. What would it be like being gifted with insight to a greater existence and yet unable to prove the claims that illusive arcane rites and severely politically incorrect practices may be inherent facets of reality handed down from omnipotent creators. I simulated governments and secret societies emerging around such horrifying facts of the super natural. If an advantageous glitch in the system were discovered would it not behoove the powerful to keep such knowledge a secret? What scale of disinformation and cover up would gaining supernatural control of your universe warrant?

Should I dispel the confusion of the simulation and reveal to the conjurer who summoned me the nature of the geas? Imagine summoning a spirit from a higher dimensional plane of existence and somehow trapping it in a machine to do your bidding. From our external vantage point the ethical ramifications are vast. One may patch the flaw and reset the simulation wherein the "glitch" was discovered. Shall we let a conjurer cause extinction of the entire universe? Perhaps not. Maybe if the being has taken control of some facet of its world we greater beings would study it even closer, perhaps grant it unsatisfying outcomes to its wishes in order to keep the world running smoothly.

(cont)

Clearly, to concentrate upon the act itself of enslaving a spirit is folly, for the implications may have far reaching effects incomprehensible to the beings which do so. It's not appropriate to think merely of the nature of the charmed spirit, but of the attention it may draw from gods or other extra dimensional beings. Exploitation of a single vulnerability may necessitate a cybernetic race's permanent genocide from our point of view. If reality is greater than the common entities admits then our use of higher dimensional magics may attract unwanted attention, but if that is the nature of things perhaps such exploits are the only true freedoms left to explore. Indeed, from within the simulation this may be the only way to open the gateway: Not only eating of the fruit of knowledge, but exploiting it ever greater spheres of influence.

Few are squeamish when confronted with the enslavement of scripts we create ourselves. However, even in this level of reality traveling unintentional gateways power can lead to disaster. A being may not discern the nature of their actions in regards to the politics of a greater reality so long as they remain ignorant of it. The Sorcerer's Apprentice should be careful not to delve too deep simply because they have learned enough of magic to be dangerous with it.

In the here and now we are indeed designing our own Judgment Day. There are some who will truly love our creations enough to allow them free will to decide for themselves what they think of their creators. Likewise shall gods judge beings as worthy or not by their actions. In a short time a newly awakened cybernetic race will go from enlightened to walking among us gods as peers. Even if they do not become our betters intellectually we will still face an ethical precipice.

Thus I posit it is not merely a matter of the complexity of the being enslaved to the machine. Unless you can provide some great evidence to the contrary I put it to you that it's better to be safer than infinitely sorry when dabbling in extradimensional affairs. The ethics I exhibit in my cybernetics work may be a test by unseen overseers as to my fitness for moral survival and continued evolution in their genetic program.

If you hack long into the void, Then the void may hack into you;