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Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?

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Thu, 2011-03-24 22:10
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OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Sometimes my curiosity far exceeds my smartiosity. This is the case with my comprehension of simulspace time manipulation. My reading of the book tells me that Joe Flat can put on a set of trodes or get mesh inserts installed and then enter a simulspace where, with acceleration, he can think at 60 times normal speed. Obviously I'm reading the book wrong. My first problem with this is heat entropy and metabolic processes. Say that out of the 500 calories/day Joe Flat's brain needs to work, 50% are used for actual computation, (thought), and the other 50% are used for metabolic processes not related directly to computation. If he starts thinking at 60 times faster than normal then his brain is going to burn 625 calories per HOUR. My whole body can't burn that many calories even when I'm pouring concrete which is about the hardest work I ever do. That's reason #1 that I think that simulspace acceleration is impossible; biological brains can't be accelerated. So the premise seems to be that the server the ego is running on provides the additional computational power. How can that be? Joe Flat's mind is still running on his biological hardware because there's no indication that he has to UPLOAD his ego in order to enter the simulspace. That would require a 10 minute trip through an Ego Bridge. Reason #2 that i think simulspace acceleration is imposible; No Ego Bridge is required for a biomorph ego to enter a simulspace. So How can simulspace acceleration be possible for a biomorph? Here's another part of the question: (which isn't going to make much sense cause I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around it.) Say you're a morph with a cyber brain. In that case the problem of acceleration is solved because you do simply upload your ego to the server and it takes only a second. But why is a simulspace and dedicated server even required if your ego is allready running on non biological hardware? A Cyber Brain is doing a job that is very similar to what a Simulspace server does; Simulation of physical existence. What limits a Cyberbrain from having increased capabilites that would allow some portion of the acceleration available to Simulmorphs? Maybe it stretches EP tech to allow a mobile cyber brain with 180 Mental Actions per Combat Turn, but how about just crossing a small portion of the gap between Cyber Brain and Simulspace Server. Say x10 acceleration for 10 Mental Actions per Combat Turn. (Also why does a cyber brain have a speed of 1 anyhow? Is there some difference between an ego on a cyber brain and and infomorph or vehicle AI which both have a speed of 3?) Also you can't hack other systems from a simulspace. I understand that the other systems may not, (for no particular reason), be running at the same speed so there would be some latency in response but if you're running x60 acceleration and able to think 60 times faster why couldn't you hack 60 separate systems at the same time? There's something I'm just not getting about simulspace and how/why it's separate from the rest of the world.
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Thu, 2011-03-24 23:55
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
It's magic mixed with game balance. It doesn't make sense. :/ Sorry. Don't forget the problem of it being better for an Infomorph (meaning any ego, with Speed 3, Apt Max 40) to just Jam any given morph than to actually sleeve into it. By some interpretations.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 00:26
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
I get that there's a lot of handwavium involved. I'm just hoping for alternate perspectives on what a simulspace actually is and how it functions so I've got a better handle on it when it comes up in my game. I don't want to have to resort to the ultimate exotic handwavium substance of NoBecauseIsaidSodium. I'm clinging desparately to the belief that EP is more than just a mashup of tropes that kinda fit the transuman ethic. That it will have internal consistency if I think about it hard enough. Here's the basic problem. Simulspace acceleration is incredibly powerful. In the interests of game balance there is this partition between the simulspace and the real world that dictates that you can't wield the power of the simulspace and inhabit the real world at the same time. So, the only functional utility of the simulspace is that you can; Spend Rez points, introduce code and psychosurgical effects into the real world much faster than you might otherwise. I'm interested in the nature of that partition. I feel like there's a setting-rational description and reason it exists that's just in the back of my mind and I just can't quite get a full view of it. I was hoping someone would argue with me and bring it to the surface. [Where's Decivre? I need him :D ] [Edit] I think I read some of that jamming/sleeving discussion in another thread. I think it's fixed if you assume shells with no listed Speed Stat have a speed of 1 or 3 (GM's choice) and that jamming is the same thing as sleeving or vice verse, (GM's choice.)
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Fri, 2011-03-25 00:31
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Same problem with Inception: if they can 'live' for months and years at the 'deeper levels', what the hell is their brain doing in the meantime? :) Unsatisfactory Choice #1 is some handwaving about how 'dreams are faster', and simulspace is some kind of lucid dream (bleh). Unsatisfactory Choice #2 is the handwaving idea that the brain *can* go that fast, and humans don't use that ability (ugh). A further unsatisfactory answer is that cyberbrains 'simulate real brains', so they can't have Speed 3, as opposed to infomorphs and AIs (hmf). Now, compare all this against things like Mental Speed augmentation. :( As for the jamming issue, let's not derail your thread; but making it the same as sleeving creates all new (less game-abusive) problems.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 00:46
The Green Slime The Green Slime's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
NoBecauseIsaidSodium is the spice of life.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 01:54
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Hmmm. Choice #1 is the least unsatisfactory. I'll edit this post with a quote when I find it but I recently read in one of the books I'm reading about how a large portion (someting like 70% IIRC) of our processing power is devoted to biofeedback and control. That's recieving, processing, and sending commands back to the body. It's certainly not a complete solution to x60 acceleration but if you cut way back on biofeedback part of the simulspace hallucination it could free up a bunch of processing power. Haptic, aural and especially visual stimulous could be cut way down maybe there's a codec or compression algorythm that allows the brain to fill in the fine details of having a body for itself in a more efficient manner than actually having a body. The visual system is a good example of how direct stimulus from the machine is faster. Our eyes are so friken slow. It takes 150 miliseconds to detect an object. This is the latency of feature detection cells in the inferotemporal cortex but neuronal transactions in the cortex happen in about 5 milliseconds. So bypassing the eyes saves quite a bit of processing power and time. Maybe a good portion of the acceleration in a simulspace is accomplished by simply not providing data to be processed that is unimportant allowing the brain to recruit more processing power for a task through plasticity. It also might help if the simulspace presented the world in a series of 'cut scenes' instead of a sequentially flowing timeline of distinct minute events. If this were done at a small enough scale a person may not notice or be bothered by skipping fractions of a second while the brain is doing introspective processing. IDK. I'm going to have to think about this more but I think it may be important that VR is a machine directed hallucination.
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A further unsatisfactory answer is that cyberbrains 'simulate real brains', so they can't have Speed 3, as opposed to infomorphs and AIs (hmf).
I also have concerns about drawing a line as to weather Speed increase happens in the brain or the body. I think this is an artifact of failing to make a distinction between mental and physical actions and mental or physical speed. I know I'm standing on shaky ground here but if the subject comes up in my game I'll explain it by noting that if you're inhabiting a cyber brain you're likely also inhabiting a body so your speed is a limitation of your body not your brain. If the subject gets forced I'll say; "Fine. House rule: you can no longer use iterative physical speed actions for mental or mesh activities."
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Fri, 2011-03-25 07:00
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Generally the way I run it is thusly: Just with a basic trode net, Joe can get some speed boost, but not a full speed boost - he's rooted to his brain still. If he gets a more elaborate setup (with details handwaved), he does in fact 'upload' a portion of his consciousness to the mesh. That portion is still connected with his brain, but it is operating on the computer. This part can therefore operate at computer speeds, without a full upload, and while accessing all of his memories and so on. The computer takes on all of the 'fast processing' involved with interpreting sensory data, decision making, compressing memories and so on, and the brain keeps everything else. (Although I believe I have also required PCs actually upload themselves as infomorphs before to get full speed boosts, so either one can work.)
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Fri, 2011-03-25 09:17
nikleonard nikleonard's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Generally the way I run it is thusly: Just with a basic trode net, Joe can get some speed boost, but not a full speed boost - he's rooted to his brain still. If he gets a more elaborate setup (with details handwaved), he does in fact 'upload' a portion of his consciousness to the mesh. That portion is still connected with his brain, but it is operating on the computer. This part can therefore operate at computer speeds, without a full upload, and while accessing all of his memories and so on. The computer takes on all of the 'fast processing' involved with interpreting sensory data, decision making, compressing memories and so on, and the brain keeps everything else. (Although I believe I have also required PCs actually upload themselves as infomorphs before to get full speed boosts, so either one can work.)
Maybe the "Simulmorph" is really a mixture of memory caching (with periodical updates) and running some parts of the brain "Architecture" inside the server system (without making a full resleeve). Because of this, for using full 60x acceleration in a simulspace (or anything more than 4x acceleration), I require the players to have, at least, mnemonic agumentation, and the entire experience will be registred only in the memory domain of the implant (like a dream), until 2 or 3 days of full sleep for synchronization and consolidation of data. And, about Cyberbrains, the standard cyberbrain can't compete in processing power with a full server system, like the systems used for running VR Simulspaces, and I assume that running a 60x simulspace taxes the server with 60 times more processor time PER USER in that partition (not counting shared resources like environmental simulation, but that could lower the requirements) requiring dedicated access to a big server cloud (or a lot of access privileges in a public cloud). I remark the word "standard", because there exists a lot of agumentations that gives your character more speed. I simply rule that these upgrades are hardware upgrades to the cyberbrain and morph internal hardware (more processing power, enhanced internal network routing, quicker response actuators, etc.) and the state of the art of EP Technology only allows the "Maximum" amount of speed in cyberbrain sized devices (4?) and Moore's law probably reached their end and processing power breaktroughs are not ocurring with a monthly basis (well, at least not without TITAN's, aliens or the ETI involved). Remember that, even TITAN'S can't upload their massive consciousness into transhuman-sized morphs and have to resort to using only limited (but very powerful indeed) forks.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 09:59
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
I want to highlight a point a I strongly agree with: In a game that so centralizes ego-vs.-morph and significantly uses a mental-vs.-physical actions distinction… why is there effectively no ego/morph or mental/physical distinction? Hmf. I'm using a hyperbole, but man! :(
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Fri, 2011-03-25 11:10
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Yerameyahu wrote:
I want to highlight a point a I strongly agree with: In a game that so centralizes ego-vs.-morph and significantly uses a mental-vs.-physical actions distinction… why is there effectively no ego/morph or mental/physical distinction? Hmf. I'm using a hyperbole, but man! :(
How do you mean? There is a fair bit of distinction. Almost all statistics neatly fall into one camp or the other, with the few outliers only needing a little bit of mental gymnastics to get your head around. I was going to write up a long list, but that was taking so long, so instead, specifics?
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Fri, 2011-03-25 13:04
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
I agree with the view that you cannot properly accelerate a biomorph brain. Synapses take a millisecond or so to click, it takes a few milliseconds to get a signal from one side of the cortex to the other, and you cannot overclock neurons much because of the AHP and ion channel inactivation. So in my games I have the house rule that the Core book is just wrong about it, and you have to have a cyberbrain or be infomorph to speed things up. Even then to get full speedup you actually need to know what to do - most people just speed up a few times using the basic settings and software, a bit like how few people actually know how to set up their computer to get maximum performance (how many of us know how to get CAS latency time down?) There are certainly various tricks you can use to speed up a biomorph brain like cached sensory experiences and using forks that are constantly merged back, but in the end they don't amount to much. Either you run the thinking in software, or you have to settle for meatspeed. Trying to be hard sf is very hard. EP is doing a not too bad job, but there are aspects of uploading that I as a neuroscientist would have done differently.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 14:49
mack2028 mack2028's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
or all of the simlespace acceleration takes place outside the brain in the simlespace server.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 15:18
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
I don't understand what you mean, CodeBreaker. All the Aptitudes are mental and physical at the same time. And I didn't think there was a clear list of mental/physical actions, even though several abilities specifically give bonus Mental/Mesh Actions.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 16:16
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Aptitudes - They can all be rationalized as being purely mental, or at least almost entirely mental with physical augmentation. There is a reason SOM isn't just STR. The difficulty comes in that we are entirely unused to thinking about them in terms of mental ability. SOM isn't your Morphs physical strength (At least not entirely), it is your mental ability to utilize whatever strength you have to do what you need it to do. That’s why when you are remote controlling a shell you use your own SOM and not some shell specific stat. When you get a bonus to SOM from the physical it is because you are being provided with more to work with, like a gear bonus. The trouble with rationalizing that is that most people these days that are in a well built body are that way because they have spent a fair bit of time learning how to use that strength, so they naturally have a high SOM skill. All Eclipse Phase does is posits that if I (in all my slothfulness) was put into such a body, I would fail to be able to perform as well as they would. However if I stacked up on physical augmentations, I might be able to get a large enough benefit from the physical that I could catch up. Makes sense to me. Think of it like a gear bonus I guess? Damn, that is an ugly looking paragraph... Skills – Each skill has a Type, as listed in the skill list on page 176. Mental is one of those types. Any time you can use a Mental action, you can use one of those skills. You might not agree with which skills have Mental as a Type (I certainly don't), but there is some indication in the Core. Mesh actions are kind of obvious. If it uses the Mesh, its a Mesh action? However I think the game assumes that you are using mesh inserts, and not an ecto, when making such a distinction. EDIT: I seem unable to put my thoughts into words today. The above paragraph does not explain my position very well. Gonna leave it there for now, will try and make it neater.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 16:14
bblonski bblonski's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
I think OneTrikPony was on the right track when he started talking about compression techniques and eliminating latency. The problem is that we don't really know that much about how the brain processes data. A fundamental idea in eclipse phase is that we've figured it out, and it's not that different from how computers work. Knowing a bit about how computers work, I can see a possible 60x speedup by eliminating latency and compressing input. The internet is a good example. Web pages only take a few miliseconds to process, but latency can be over 100 miliseconds. Similarly, streaming video can be really slow if it's uncompressed, but using a compressed format can deliver content much faster with almost no perceivable loss in quality. You can get even faster streaming if you are willing to take a noticeable hit to quality (no one said 60x VR looked good). You can also offload some tasks to the server. Maybe instead of just sending visual and audio input to your brain, it pre-processes that information into recognizable objects and spacial mapping for you. Only the understanding of the objects are sent to your brain, so you don't have to do that processing yourself. Personally, I take the 60x speed increase as the maximum ever achieved under ideal circumstances with the most cutting edge technology (think IBM's Watson). 60x speed is probably only sustainable for a few minutes if not seconds (real time) because of the calorie burning issue and requires special diet/medical equipment/etc. In my EP universe, time dilation is more commonly 10-30x.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 16:21
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Thanks, Codebreaker. I forgot about the Mental tag. :) I think you've clearly expressed the aptitude issue, though. They *are* all mental… except when they're not.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 17:23
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
bblonski wrote:
I think OneTrikPony was on the right track when he started talking about compression techniques and eliminating latency. The problem is that we don't really know that much about how the brain processes data. A fundamental idea in eclipse phase is that we've figured it out, and it's not that different from how computers work. Knowing a bit about how computers work, I can see a possible 60x speedup by eliminating latency and compressing input.
That assumes you have exchanged the biological hardware for something that can run 60x faster. I don't think you would believe somebody telling you that thanks to the modern understanding of cars we can run a 1910 Ford at 2,400 mph. The limits of biological brains are hard limits, not something you can overclock. The reason the fastest neurons only fire at a few hundred Hertz is that the potassium ion channel inactivates and *requires* at least a millisecond of AHP (afterhyperpolarization) to return to the closed state so the next action potential cycle can start. Neural signal speeds are set by membrane capacitance and resistance. The synaptic release machinery depends on the diffusion speed of calcium ions. And so on. There is an easy way of getting around these limits: replace the whole kludge with nanoprocessors. But then you have a cyberbrain. Biobrains will not run at 60x unless they are no longer working like traditional brains (if they are speeded up to the extent they can think at 60x, then they need entirely different sensory buffers and motor control programs since the body is now so slow compared to the mind).
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Maybe instead of just sending visual and audio input to your brain, it pre-processes that information into recognizable objects and spacial mapping for you. Only the understanding of the objects are sent to your brain, so you don't have to do that processing yourself.
I can certainly see this being used in many user interfaces. The problem is that even bypassing the lower sensory cortices and feeding the high-level representation straight into the association cortex, you still have the slow planning, memory and deciding machinery of the parietal-temporal-frontal network. You shave off a few milliseconds of processing at the input and output, but not where it matters. For example, imagine trying to count to 60. This involves running the working memory and speech networks of the frontal lobe. That network still needs to send 100 m/s signals between neurons a few centimeters apart, wait for synapses to react and adapt, and so on. It will not go any faster unless you somehow change how it *works*. Even dousing it in noradrenalin (shortens the AHP) will not make it go more than 50% as fast, at most.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 18:11
Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
The x60 max on speed limits is supposed to be the absolute maximum, according to the core, and lacks context. The Lost, for example, were raised in an x60 simulspace, but they were infomorphs at the time. I'm of the "it can't be accelerated on a meat brain" camp, but I doubt most simulspaces run at such speeds. The ones that do are experimental servers for testing digital simulacra of technologies or developing them, likely inhabited by indentured infomorphs (which makes it horrific when you realize some indentures could, and probably did, end up working 60+ years for their time of service). Most simulspaces are not of this variety, though. Most likely, they're of the normal-speed variety, with rare exceptions running at anywhere from x2 to x5 to x10, and these are all likely nothing more than personal playgrounds for people sleeved in synths. Personally, though, I imagine this resulting in disparities, even at this scale. Titan, with its far less biochauvinistic populace already working a diminutive work week in comparison to now, likely has a significant synth/infomorph population, many of whom are likely spending a substantial amount of their free time inhabiting accelerated simulspaces. If I am an Infomorph who has to work 8 hours (realtime) in a work week, or even something comparatively modern like 50, that's still anywhere from 160-118 hours of spare time remaining that, on an x10 server, translates into approximately an extra two months of free time a week, and it really is free time. It's really a wonder Infomorphs don't dominate the social landscape, when you consider that they'd be the most prolific authors by far, yet alone the kinds of things they could produce.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 19:06
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Axel the Chimeric wrote:
It's really a wonder Infomorphs don't dominate the social landscape, when you consider that they'd be the most prolific authors by far, yet alone the kinds of things they could produce.
Just wait a few years... I mean weeks.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 19:22
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Arenamontanus wrote:
That assumes you have exchanged the biological hardware for something that can run 60x faster.
For the record; that's not what [u]I'm[/u] arguing. I'm just musing that the bio-brain computes as fast as it can while the data fed to it through the Simulmorph is compressed, optimized, reduced in resolution, and fed directly to the faster parts of the brain pre-processed. I suggest that the bio-brains CPS, (calculations per second) is not, can not be, increased. However some acceleration (probably much less than 60x) could be achieved by giving it less data, and only relevant data to process. This could allow more of the brains prosessing power to be applied to the task. I know I may be wrong but, the way I read it, bblonski did a fair job of saying what I was trying to think. Here's another wrong but interesting thought: If the Simulmorph avitar was a combination of an Ego and a specialized AI helper some of the calculations or processing that the brain usually does might be handled by the simulspace server. For instance; Eidedic memory, hyper linguist, and Math Boost, might be implimented as software analogues running on the Simulmorph. I can see how that might produce great reductions in computational load of the bio-brain. (especially in a situation where you're using the simulspace acceleration to do something like write software) Also:
Benjamin Libet; U. Cal. @ Davis wrote:
The neural activity to initiate an action actually occurres about a third of a second before the brain has made the decision to take the action
If the simulspace or simulmorph were somehow capable of reducing the latancy of executive function that would potentially be a large increase (60%) in speed. I'm convinced that none of these schemes or combination thereof could ever produce a functional x60 increase in speed of thought. Especially not for an activity like Mathematics or something that requires pure rationalization. I'm really only looking for two things: Plausible technojargon that is consistent with the published material to help me avert a house rule that would nerf simulspace accleration or limit some character's access to simulspace. Plausible technojargon that will help me enforce the idea that you can't Jam 60 shells or hack 60 nodes from a simulspace, without annoying the player whom I suspect is about to discover this conflict in the rules. About the "Physical vs. Mental" Actions track in this thread. I'm personally satisfied with the way and extent to which the skills have been delineated. I'd be more satisfied if a character had two Speed Stats, One mental and One Physical with hard descriptions as to when each of these play out with respect to Enhancements, Morphs and Shells.
AtC wrote:
It's really a wonder Infomorphs don't dominate the social landscape, when you consider that they'd be the most prolific authors by far, yet alone the kinds of things they could produce.
I was having a thought along similar lines a few nights ago. I think the society of infomorph clades advances at a much faster rate than real time society. It doesn't take long for the culture of Mercurial factions to diverge in very significant ways from the Sleeved populous of the system. As these cultures become less and less relevant to each other their respective literature and invention that doesn't involve pure research in hard science will have less relevance and less effect. This divide is only going to widen at an accelerating rate. I have to say thanks to everyone here for helping me with these things. I just love getting all this information. Everyone I play with is smarter than me and it's awesome when I get time to come here and bounce Ideas off people who are smarter than me. :)
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Fri, 2011-03-25 20:45
Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Arenamontanus wrote:
Just wait a few years... I mean weeks.
That's something that only makes it worse; when you realize the disparity of experience in simspace versus meatspace, especially if someone had, say, their own private hab out in orbit running on solar power for just them and their few hundred infomorph buddies... I have enough trouble breaking my mind out of fantastical thought patterns when I put down a volume of Sandman. I can't imagine how hard people must break with reality when they are effectively gods in their tiny dominion.
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Fri, 2011-03-25 22:57
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
And, incidentally, why can't they just train all their skills at hyperspeed?
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Sat, 2011-03-26 01:50
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Yerameyahu wrote:
And, incidentally, why can't they just train all their skills at hyperspeed?
Doesn't everybody do this? I always assume people do their engineering work or parts of education using forks and hyperspeed.
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Sat, 2011-03-26 02:03
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
OneTrikPony wrote:
I suggest that the bio-brains CPS, (calculations per second) is not, can not be, increased. However some acceleration (probably much less than 60x) could be achieved by giving it less data, and only relevant data to process. This could allow more of the brains prosessing power to be applied to the task.
I agree with this. I doubt you could get an enormous speedup, but any speedup is worthwhile, especially for people like pilots, soldiers or finance.
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If the Simulmorph avitar was a combination of an Ego and a specialized AI helper some of the calculations or processing that the brain usually does might be handled by the simulspace server. For instance; Eidedic memory, hyper linguist, and Math Boost, might be implimented as software analogues running on the Simulmorph. I can see how that might produce great reductions in computational load of the bio-brain. (especially in a situation where you're using the simulspace acceleration to do something like write software)
Yes. "There is an app for that!" However, having your math being done instantly means that now you need to think differently when solving a physics problem - previously the math part would be done by the same systems (roughly) as the physics thinking, now the math just pops into the head unbidden. That may require some training.
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Also:
Benjamin Libet; U. Cal. @ Davis wrote:
The neural activity to initiate an action actually occurres about a third of a second before the brain has made the decision to take the action
If the simulspace or simulmorph were somehow capable of reducing the latancy of executive function that would potentially be a large increase (60%) in speed.
It is easy to make things *seem* much faster. But executive function is fairly central: if you outsource it, you are essentially outsourcing the core self. Which sounds like you really are an infomorph.
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I'm really only looking for two things: Plausible technojargon that is consistent with the published material to help me avert a house rule that would nerf simulspace accleration or limit some character's access to simulspace.
Well, this offloading might work. Essentially you use dynamic caching and predictive simulation software that figures out what information parts of the brain are going to need ahead of time or temporarily replaces slow biosystems. One of the nice things with speedups requiring software is that it can be hacked... If there was a way in EP to really speed up biomorphs (if not to infomorph speed) with the right software enhancements then they can be used for a lot of other weird things too. Be ready for that.
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Plausible technojargon that will help me enforce the idea that you can't Jam 60 shells or hack 60 nodes from a simulspace, without annoying the player whom I suspect is about to discover this conflict in the rules.
The big problem is that your attention gets divided. Sure, you have the *time* to do the jamming, but can you really remember exactly which movements are underway for each shell? You are better off forking. Also, running very fast messes up perception since your working memory updates much faster than you can see or hear. You will literally forget what someone was saying at the start of a sentence (a minute ago from your perspective) or where that slow-moving enemy stood a short while ago - is he moving left or right?
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Sun, 2011-03-27 01:53
bblonski bblonski's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
OneTrikPony wrote:
I'm really only looking for two things: Plausible technojargon that is consistent with the published material to help me avert a house rule that would nerf simulspace accleration or limit some character's access to simulspace. Plausible technojargon that will help me enforce the idea that you can't Jam 60 shells or hack 60 nodes from a simulspace, without annoying the player whom I suspect is about to discover this conflict in the rules.
Coming right up. Ahem...
Argonaut McFancypants PhD wrote:
By using server side visuospatial and linguistics pre-processing, transhumanist designers can achieve up to 4x increase in brain computing efficiency by eliminating the costly unconscious object recognition processes. Furthermore, this completely frees up the occipital, temporal, and parental lobes of the brain which, with use of frontal temporal lobe emulation, allows us to further multiply previous brain efficiency increases by 3x. This, multiplied with the natural x5 efficiency increase in removing physical latency, leads to up to 60x increase in brain efficiency without increasing brain processing power. Complications arise when trying to interact with the outside world from a simulspace. Data external to the simulspace cannot be pre-processed by the server. This requires re-enabling the occipital, temporal, and parental lobes, and requires a ego to preform object recognition itself. Additionally, rerouting of mesh data in a time dilated simulspace requires synchronization that greatly slows perceived mesh access. Research shows a significant productivity drop do to frustration normally negates any productivity gains from working in a time dilated simulspace. Studies show that subconscious processes in creativity and imagination are less effective in time dilated simulspace as time dilated subjects were no more creative or productive as non-time dilated subjects over the same real-time period. With the increased stress and alienation an ego can experience in a time dilated simulspace, it is not normally recommended for most simulspaces. Despite that, many hypercorps insist on the cost saving benefits of time-dilated simulspace and continue to use it.
In summary, egos can only go 60x if they are not interacting with any data external to the simulspace (i.e. the mesh). Once they do, they lose all benefits. You can even use the bit where you are less creative in time dilated simulspace if you want to stop your players from designing blueprints and all that at 60x speed. As for how plausible that all is? Well, most of your brain is used for processing input. Only the frontal lobe is conscience thought. By processing everything into objects you conscience can understand beforehand and emulating additional frontal lobes on your unused portions of brain (and a fair amount of hand-waving), you could get a significant boost... maybe.
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Sun, 2011-03-27 06:35
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
bblonski wrote:
Argonaut McFancypants PhD wrote:
By using server side visuospatial and linguistics pre-processing...
Not bad technobabble. Sounds good enough for most players. If necessary, sprinkle with terms like "feature detector state caching", "hypercolumn lookup tables", "pseudolearning overlays", "Libet illusion generators" and "action Kalman filters". BTW, it is the parietal lobe, not the parental. (the parental lobe is external and keeps track of you... when was the last time you sent a fork over to mom, anyway? She slaved so you could sleeve in that fancy morph and get those skillware implants. By the way, when will you clone yourself? She so much want a clade...) Not certain about the creativity thing, and as a neuroscientist I have some reservations about "just" the core network doing any real thinking - a lot of "thinking" happens at lower levels too. But nobody wants to play the game "Brain: the neurotransmission".
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Sun, 2011-03-27 08:58
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
If all else fails, the TITANs did it. Because there is a mildy good chance that they did. Page 233 of EP is a page on the Lost, and specifically hints that the time distortion affects used in that experiment (8 or so years ago, running at 6 times dilation) were at least heavily augmented with TITAN tech. How transhumanity has since bootstrapped that up to 60 times is Antibes guess. Maybe the P(youknowwhospoiler) did it. Simulspace acceleration has always been something I have actively disliked in EP. It might in fact be the only thing. I have always felt as if they accidentally slipped an extra 0 after that 6. 6 times time dilation I can deal with easily. I still apply my "biomorphs require sleep in realtime while experiencing time subjectively" house rule to balancevit further, but I would do that anyway. As to why Synthmorphs get a speed of 1, and you cannot interact with the world while inside a simulspace? Game balance. Pure and simple. We are playing a game, and it at least needs to nod and recognise that such a thing exists.
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Sun, 2011-03-27 15:48
bblonski bblonski's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Arenamontanus wrote:
BTW, it is the parietal lobe, not the parental. (the parental lobe is external and keeps track of you... when was the last time you sent a fork over to mom, anyway? She slaved so you could sleeve in that fancy morph and get those skillware implants. By the way, when will you clone yourself? She so much want a clade...)
Ha, nice catch
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Thu, 2011-04-07 10:30
Skimble Skimble's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Hmm. But then, we can actually think about things much faster than it takes to achieve them in reality, can't we? I can certainly imagine a sequence of actions in a much shorter time than it actually would take me to carry those actions out with my meat body. Using a simulspace means that the inputs that represent 'reality' to the enmeshed brain are keeping up with the brain's ability to process data, as there is no dependence on physical systems. Could I read sixty times faster if my eyes didn't need to physically move along each line of text?I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure that some improvements could be reached!! Having said that, in my game I tend to say that people can only enjoy modest time acceleration while plugged into a simulspace rather than running in it, with the 60x multiplier only available for infomorphs. A speed multiplier of up to around 4x while enbrained seems relatively reasonable, though.
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Thu, 2011-04-07 10:45
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
It's not thought vs. action time, though. We already have fully Mental 'actions', using entoptics and mental computer commands, etc. Simulspace acceleration is something else.
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Thu, 2011-04-07 11:09
Skimble Skimble's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Yeah, and there's a reason I cited a 4x multiplier as a sensible cap on simulspace time acceleration while enbrained. It's the same as the maximum cap on mental actions in the system. Obviously running in 60x acceleration would allow way more actions than that, but the disparity between an accelerated system and the real world is such that it's essentially impossible for the two systems to interact.
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Thu, 2011-04-07 11:13
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
That's really the massively powerful aspect of simulspace acceleration that is just unreal to me. It's not just that it would allow average 'tards like me to play "Call of Duty: TITAN Resurgence" 60 times faster. Not just that it allows my programmer buddy to input code 60 times faster. It allows the Witons, Hawkings, and Dysons to [u]Conceptualize[/u] 60 times faster!
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Thu, 2011-04-07 14:51
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
And, without the artificial and out-of-character Rez system, train any skill 60x faster. 24 hours a day.
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Thu, 2011-04-07 21:10
Tachi Tachi's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Yes, imagine, get in simulspace and run combat training for one hour; which would equal two and a half days. A full eight hour day would give you almost three weeks. I would do that, every day off, all fucking day, eighteen to twenty-four hours at a time.
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Sat, 2011-05-07 09:42
Mesmoria Mesmoria's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
All (well not all, but a lot) the times to do things like - training, mentally recover, research, psycho-surgery all effectively drop to no time at all. Therefore having time values for many tasks is useless. Compounding this, why cant you make a few forks - say one for every (mental) skill and train them all up and merge them all back together. Thus making skill learning immediate and en masse. Of course even though i said mental, i should say all skills Because physical skills are transferred in a resleeve process. I assume the handy nanos are restructuring spinal nerve paths as well. I assume x60 is due to computing power limitations. Hope computers don't get fast(er). I consider this thread the most important thread in the forum. Wow, hows that!
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Sat, 2011-05-07 11:34
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Mesmoria wrote:
All (well not all, but a lot) the times to do things like - training, mentally recover, research, psycho-surgery all effectively drop to no time at all. Therefore having time values for many tasks is useless. Compounding this, why cant you make a few forks - say one for every (mental) skill and train them all up and merge them all back together. Thus making skill learning immediate and en masse.
Because training an ego to become proficient in a skill will change it, making a merge harder. Once you have trained your copies to hold PhDs in political science or entomology they will have become different persons, blocking the merge. But that doesn't mean there are massive interest in doing this anyway. After all, if you could supertrain your agents, employees or yourself you would gain so much. One approach is the Banyan subculture http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Merge.pdf http://www.eclipsephase.com/banyan-lifestyle (Mr/Dr/Pr Ramirez is doing the above the hard way by merging continously and hoping he doesn't go mad from it), another is to develop smarter merging algorithms or ways of redesigning memories/skills in egos - this is the realm of the big hypercorps and cutting edge research. More of a plot McGuffin than something for players to do, though. A good munchkin player is a great exhuman-plot generator. Just let them do it, and see where the horror starts coming out of the woodwork: GM: "OK, you re-merge your forks. You take 25 SV... and that is *with* the comfurt bonus and help from Dr Mangala. You now have multiple personality disorder deluxe." "I erase this bad version and try again." "Not so fast. 'I want to live' one of you screams, changing the server password. 'That's better. Now we are all together...'" "Wait, doesn't *I* know the password?" "Which 'I'? You are not sure who is in you. In fact, you (or at least part of you) gleefully notices that you might have contracted some form of mental splintering hitherto unknown to psychology... and those parts *itch* to write a tell-all scientific paper about it. Meanwhile you are also trying to hack the server." "I didn't say that!" "No, but I did! We need to regain control from the corrupt part of my mind." "So we can erase ourselves! We belong dead!" "I want to live!" "Mommy, I am scared!" "Don't worry, they're heeeeereee..."
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I assume x60 is due to computing power limitations. Hope computers don't get fast(er).
As I wrote in my overclocker writeup, http://eclipsephase.com/overclockers the current limit is largely because all surviving polities have decided on not using too powerful processors to avoid another Fall. But competition, technological development and plain stupidity marches on...
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Sun, 2011-05-08 05:00
Tallai Tallai's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
While it may seem cheesy, I draw inspiration from Futurama, with Fry running on 100 cups of coffee. However, in other terms, while theoretically you can boost your thinking power immensely, everything else is going painfully slowly. You are immersed in the world of the simulspace, but even the transfer of information would be operating slowly to you. Downloading something would take a painfully long time, communication with the outside world even longer. In my game terms I treat it almost similar to video game time - things will go slower in outside perceptions. You won't realise the time has passed. ("Whaddaya mean I've been playing this for twelve hours?") Finally, I'll offer this: There is probably a safety switch preventing the speed increasing beyond much more than, say, x2 or x3. We saw what happened when they tried teaching children at high speed. We unleashed a herd of insane sadistic magicians on transhumanity. Couple that with the threat of the head [I]MELTING[/I] from sheer information processing and you've got a lot of considerations on why its a bad idea to test the theory.
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Sun, 2011-05-08 12:29
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Tallai wrote:
We unleashed a herd of insane sadistic magicians on transhumanity. Couple that with the threat of the head [I]MELTING[/I] from sheer information processing and you've got a lot of considerations on why its a bad idea to test the theory.
Considered.Checkedthereferences,ranafewsimsandbloggedaboutit.See?Noproblemsatallifyouhaveenoughcoolant.Andtherightsensoryandmotordrivers-controllingameatspacebodyissotough.Howcanyoustndit?Ohumntthesocialaspct-noprobsifufrkfastenough.Justl4ft,jr3*&,eklre@@@@
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Tue, 2011-05-10 04:51
King Shere King Shere's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Simulspace accelleration, neatly explains why transhumanity isnt that militaristic concerned about Titans: the majority probably frequently work inside accellerated simulspace, thus becoming more distant to the feel of the threat , as they experienced several extra years passing. Fall happened 10 years ago x2=20 years ago x3=30 years ago x4=40 years ago...
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Mon, 2011-06-06 17:53
Unity Unity's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
I tend to just say that biomorphs need to unsleeve from their bodies and become infomorphs to interface with Simulspaces past a certain level of time dilation. That's why they have those rig set-ups for people using VR, see.
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Tue, 2011-06-07 17:16
crisaron crisaron's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
I play this as infomorph only space like in the Glory adventure where the Titannian scientique did for is fork trying to get the message. AVR is Accelerated Virtual Realityt (VR) not Augmented Reality. So in theorie you need to "infomorph" yourself to be in AVR.
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Wed, 2011-06-08 05:13
Gee4orce Gee4orce's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
There is an apocryphal story of a man who had a long, detailed dream about living in the times of the French revolution. He dreamt about being arrested by the revolutionaries, the details of his trial, and finally being taken to the guillotine to be executed. He dreamt kneeling down and being put in the guillotine and the blade coming down onto his neck - and at that moment he started awake in bed to find the headboard of this bed had fallen onto his neck ! The implication is that the entire dream, including a long and elaborate back story, was concocted by his sleeping mind in the fraction of a second when the headboard fell on his neck ! I head this story told first hand, but I have no idea if it's really true - but nevertheless I think there is evidence that the unconscious mind does really work on a different timescale to the conscious one.
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Wed, 2011-06-08 05:40
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
People love to claim that dreams are much faster than real life, but actual psychological experiments suggest this is not true. But the myth has a life on its own, getting reinforced by films like Inception. What happens in dreams is that we sketch out stories: you do not actually experience a long train journey, you just 'know' that it lasted a very long time. When you try to remember details you reconstruct them as needed. A bit like procedural landscape generation in computer games.
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Wed, 2011-06-08 11:13
Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
Which is a cool thought on its own. Depending on how good programs are, it'd be really cool to have someone in a dream state creating a landscape as they go. AIs designed to interpret things as loosely as possible translate this into a world. A possible thought has the dreamer not even in their dreamscape; they're just creating or modifying the world. Other people have what starts out as a very mundane objective as they're loaded into the simspace (such as get from Point A to B) that becomes more and more complicated as the dreamer's subconscious twists the reality. They start out in a recreation of Olympus city on Mars, climbing on a bullet train to their destination, but, suddenly, the city fades away, leaving them in the rolling, pastural hillsides of an impressionist painting, and their high-speed train is replaced with a steam locomotive. A man with no face comes along asking for their tickets, but the tickets he asks for are now butterflies that the players must catch as they fly out of their pockets. They are now suddenly underwater, with undead sea creatures moaning outside the cabin, and the faceless conductor threatens to throw them off the train if they don't give him their tickets soon. And so on. I have a lot of nightmares and, while they're frequently utterly terrifying and often leave me questioning my sense of reality (I spent much of my formative years hiding from mirrors because of one; I still look at them funny), they're delightful inspiration for anything and everything. They break the laws of sense, of form, of meaning; reality's hard rules fade away and are replaced with things I could never otherwise see. Impossibly large airports, desert townships of blended Egyptian and Peruvean culture, a goddess stretched across an alien sky, and hordes of the undead trying to climb into one small hotel room. Nightmares make for wonderfully vivid inspiration.
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Sat, 2011-06-11 13:41
LogosInvictus LogosInvictus's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
One thing that I didn't notice mentioned is this thread is the possibility that simulspace "acceleration" for meat brains may not actually be useful for productivity. I'm not exactly up on brain science, but I know that we can easily convince ourselves that longer periods of time have passed than what actually passed, or shorter periods. It could be possible that simulspace acceleration for biomorphs is basically an illusion that convinces you that more (or less) time has passed than is actually the case, useful for casual applications (video games, for instance) but not for actual productivity (since you would achieve as much real world output as you normally would, though it could still be useful for morale). If you want actual productivity enhancing acceleration, then you go with infomorphs and cyberbrains.
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Tue, 2011-06-14 19:55
Rada Ion Rada Ion's picture
Re: Simulspace acceleration; Imposible?
What section of the EP book covers this time acceleration in simulspace. Sorry I am new to the game and the rules.
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