Some ideas for philosophy and science. Part 1.

[ShanguiFriendlyGhost]

Yes, I did try the following searches:
Arc Builders
Arcbuilders
Arcbuilders scifi
Arcbuilders project
Arcbuilders worldbuilding project
archbuilders scifi project.

[Worldtree]

interesting. well that's annoying that google's search results are so personalized sometimes.

if you haven't read the introductory materials,
you might find this helpful

"Use the Search function to try and find it on the site: You may find nothing, or you may find we already have something identical, or at least very similar, and it will save you the trouble of writing a long essay. The Search function on these introductory materials and the main page uses google search and will give you ranked results by relevance. The search function in the Encyclopedia Galactica (EG) pages will list all results which precisely contain the search term with no room for spelling ambiguity. The EG can also list all articles listed under a given letter of the english alphabet, using the dropdown menu next to the search bar in the top righthand corner of the website.
"
https://www.orionsarm.com/page/550
https://www.orionsarm.com/xcms.php?r=oa-intro

[ShanguiFriendlyGhost]

I'll do that next time thanks!

[Drashner1]

Welcome to OA

Please feel free to join in on any conversations that grab your interest or to start new ones if there is something you'd like to discuss that we aren't currently. Also, please feel free to ask questions about the setting or project. We don't mind answering questions although we do (as you've already seen) prefer that people make some attempt to find the answers (or at least initial answers) themselves before asking us.

Anyhoo, regarding your post below...

One of the best inspirations OA has given me, is the singularities. I have my own system that I hope is useful to the admins, and some philosophy and questions at the end. 

You are of course free to invent and use whatever system you want in your personal setting. OAs S-level system has been around for a long time and we're quite satisfied with it. Speaking officially as a member of 'the management' of the OAUP I don't see us changing it significantly at any time in the foreseeable future.

Philosophy: 
More intelligent beings are more emotionally intelligent(Wow! who would have thought). This means that they are more moral than less intelligent beings, unless there is a proportionately strong programmed subconscious impulse placed in their substrate. In my setting, morals are defined by three laws:
1. Fulfill the second law to the fullest extent before
2. Disallow as much death from coming to happen as possible. In reference to conscious beings. 
3. Instill as much happiness in conscious beings as possible. 
It isn't until the SI8 that beings truly know whether ethics are just an impulse ingrained into all conscious beings' natures regardless of substrate or it ethics truly exist as something unnatural but real like euclidean geometry. 
I know all this peace and love and technorapture does not fit into OA with all the ahumans and space opera, but I thought it would spark interest. 

The RL philosophical leanings of the members of the OA community are multiple and varied and may or may not have anything to do with what any given member contributes to the setting. The setting itself is far too large and varied (in both time and space) to operate with a single set of beliefs presented as 'the truth' and doing so would be both unrealistic and boring. Our official editorial policy is one of metaphysical neutrality. This means anyone can present a given person or group within the setting as believing in practically anything, but this belief must be depicted as what they believe, not as 'the truth' as a 'fact of the setting'. This allows both greater diversity and much less time spent on philosophical arguments.

As far as 'peace and love and technorapture' not fitting into OA, there is plenty of that in the setting - in the Sephirotic empires, millions of places call that 'Tuesday'. But when it comes to matter of society and culture, there is not universal anything in the setting including that.

Again, you are free to run your personal setting in any way you see fit, of course.

Questions for Admins: 
A. What is Z-theory? I saw it on the Physics EG article, and get that it is a ToE, but has it been fleshed out? 
B. Can I have a link to ArcBuilders? Wayback doesn't seem to have it. 
C. What quantum gravity theory holds in OA? I see the bulk and superstrings so I can make an assumption, but....

Given the age of that particular article, I suspect that 'Z-theory' may have been just a made up theory at the time to represent the presumed physics theory of the far future Terragen civilization. That there is/was a theory that then used the term may just be a coincidence. This is bolstered by the paper that was linked apparently being written in 2004 while the Physics page was originally written in 2001.

As a matter of both general principle and editorial policy we deliberately avoid getting too detailed about what RL physics theories - particularly regarding areas of rapid change on multiple fronts such as quantum gravity. Doing so risks constant and non-stop changes to the materials and setting as a given theory appears, becomes popular, and is then supplanted by something else. We are willing to consider changes on this front if a given theory seems to be holding up over an extended period of time and if - after thorough discussion - we decide a change is warranted. But this doesn't happen often.

The (no longer active) member who 'invented' our current versions of wormholes and reactionless drives is a physics PHd and another (no longer active) member who was also a physicist worked with them to develop our pages on monopoles and magmatter. They made passing reference to both M-theory and the Holographic model of physics while doing those things or in conversation around those topics, so presumably the physics behind those technologies has some connection or basis in those theories. However, we assume that multiple theories have come and gone since then over the thousands of years of Terragen history and that physics as a whole has moved beyond the realm of human comprehension and into the purview of the transapients and archai.

Questions for Physicists: 
A. How long would it realistically take with SI1 or SI2 nanobots to construct a GUT level particle accelerator?
B. How long would it realistically take with SI1 or SI2 nanobots to construct a planck energy partciel accelerator?
C. How long would it realistically take with SI3 or SI4 technology to construct a planck energy particle accelerator? 

I'm presuming you're now talking about how this would work in the OA setting given the S-level references and how they don't seem to line up with the system you described above. Since no one actually knows what the operating principles, size or material and energy requirements of such devices would be or how they would be provided, there is no way to 'factually' or 'realistically' answer these questions, regardless of what kind of degree someone has.

D. What are the specific magnetic and electrostatic mechanisms in plasmadynamic computing and virtual energy systems? 
E. What are alllll the possible mechanisms you can think of in nanotech involving quantum mechanics? 
F. What technology would we need to understand the results of a planck energy particle collision seeing as all light would be sucked in?
G. What technoloy would be needed to manipulate topological defects?
H. What technology would be needed to manipulate supersymmetric particles? 

I think most of these questions are functionally unanswerable given the human race's current RL level of physics/engineering knowledge, either in general or because figuring out the answer could involve months or years of work that no one has done yet because there is no practical need to do so. Some of them are also so open ended as to either be nonsense or so tedious to list all the answers to that I doubt anyone - even if they are a physicist - is going to bother answering. Some people might be able to offer speculation around some of these, but that's not the same as the 'hard factual answers' you seem to be looking for here.

In OA magnetic monopoles are topological defects, which can be manipulated by magnetic and possibly electric fields. Possibly quantum effects such as quantum attraction and levitation effects as well, perhaps.

I. Can the electroweak force's suspension of the Higgs Mechanism be used for energy like in the Xeelee Sequence? Not thinking of the GUT drive, I'm talking about the tech from Transcendent that Poole is playing with in the 2040s. 

No idea, I'm not a physicist. Given our current state of RL knowledge of physics, I suspect if you asked any 10 physicist some would say No and some would say Yes and some would say Maybe if we make certain assumptions.

J. How long big would an industrial monopole factory particle accelerator need to be?

If you're referring to creating monopoles out of nothing but energy, then the current article talks about such devices being 'world sized' - so presumably hundreds or thousands of km in one or more major dimensions.

If you're referring to the 'breeding' of monopoles once a few have been created from energy, then RL modest sized accelerators in the 'few km long' range are sufficient. This might be multiplied by some significant degree (perhaps hugely) to allow for 'industrial scale' production, whatever that means (the term is undefined).

Hope this helps,

Todd

EDIT - I do have an old article that talks about future applications of particle accelerator tech such as mass production of antimatter and various exotic particles theorized to exist at the time the article was written. It includes a brief discussion of potential future advances in accelerator design that were in play at the time it was written and applies them to the production of various things. This includes a section on making magnetic monopoles (of a particular type anyway). The accelerator is described as being a ring on the order of a million km or more across (miles actually since the article was in a US publication, but whatever). Presumably, Terragen civ in OA has many more centuries of experience with reactor design (and monopole production from nothing is a transapient level tech so presumably employs methods we don't understand) so they are able to pull off the same thing with much smaller devices (and perhaps produce more or less massive monopoles - I don't recall what type of monopole the article discusses, if any).

[ShanguiFriendlyGhost]

Wonderful!
I did not mean to make suggestions for the setting on how ethics work, I just thought that the idea of emotional intelligence growing in post-singularity beings to be interesting.

By peace and love and technorapture, I mean that everyone becomes a transapient. I can of course see the Utopia Sphere and others.

By manipulation of topological defects I was thinking more on the lines of void motes and cosmic string.

Sorry to ask so many difficult questions, but I feel like this is a more appropriate community to ask ones such as these than, say, Reddit or Quora where I would get a lot of crap about Quantum woo and WELL IN MY SCIENCE FANTASY SETTING.

[Drashner1]

Wonderful!
I did not mean to make suggestions for the setting on how ethics work, I just thought that the idea of emotional intelligence growing in post-singularity beings to be interesting.

It is interesting and may apply to some transapients and archai in the setting - or not. Human level minds in OA can't catch a higher S-level in a lie if the higher being cares enough to make the effort to keep it up. The transapients and archai of the Sephirotics seem to often display extreme levels of what we would perhaps call emotional intelligence. But it's not clear if they are actually doing so or just pretending for their own reasons which may have nothing to do with modo well being or anything we could really understand. And the various ahuman transapients and archai seem to be as intelligent as the Sephirotic minds, but don't appear to care in the slightest about anything we would call emotional intelligence. So it's a very diverse setting in this regard.

By peace and love and technorapture, I mean that everyone becomes a transapient. I can of course see the Utopia Sphere and others.

By manipulation of topological defects I was thinking more on the lines of void motes and cosmic string.

If everyone becomes a transapient it makes for a very limited setting editorially since everyone becomes incomprehensible and we can't really describe or write about such a civilization. The different S-levels and large number of modosophonts in OA means that there is room for fun and interesting stories and ideas while still having strong superintelligences running around. It's been compared to Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought universe, but using mental structure rather than physical effects.

Sorry to ask so many difficult questions, but I feel like this is a more appropriate community to ask ones such as these than, say, Reddit or Quora where I would get a lot of crap about Quantum woo and WELL IN MY SCIENCE FANTASY SETTING.

*shudder* No, please don't ever ask these kinds of questions - or any questions really - on Reddit or Quora. I trust answers from those sources about as far as I can shot-putt a car.

Todd

[ShanguiFriendlyGhost]

Emotional intelligence is just one INHERENT(Sorry for my caps, underlining and italics don't work here) part of intelligence, so all conscious beings(as opposed to nonsapients and Animins) are in possession of it.

I completely understand and respect your avoidance of mass technorapture and possession of hostile non-perversity transapients, I was just talking about how I think of the singularity so that others might compare and argue(civilly) with me.

[Drashner1]

Emotional intelligence is just one INHERENT(Sorry for my caps, underlining and italics don't work here) part of intelligence, so all conscious beings(as opposed to nonsapients and Animins) are in possession of it.

I completely understand and respect your avoidance of mass technorapture and possession of hostile non-perversity transapients, I was just talking about how I think of the singularity so that others might compare and argue(civilly) with me.

Until/unless the human race/you personally have encountered multiple types of conscious beings, I think that statement may be more than a bit...overconfident. Since I'm pretty certain the former would have made the news, I have to ask what your personal evidence is for making that statement.

More generally, debate about the singularity and what form it might take might work better on the OA discord server (IMHO). The forum doesn't forbid that kind of discussion if people want to do it, but in recent years, the primary focus here has been on the ongoing creation and updating of the OA setting. In particular, if you're looking for (civil) debate on the matter, the discord might be more productive for you.

My 2c worth,

Todd

[ShanguiFriendlyGhost]

Thank you.

I look at studies on the psychology and neurology of the aforementioned Bracchiates, Apoids, Cephalopods, and Decapods which have been proven to show reasoning skills, i.e. cognition. They are also proven to have emotional intelligence.
So, what I was thinking of discussing(Which I will take to the discord thank you!) is how would emotional intelligence be different in archai and aliens like the Muuh, because while there are many universals among Earth's sentient life, most of these are probably just "local universals" created through evolution, like romantic love which is just a mechanism to encourage reproduction and familial love which is just a mechanism to increase offspring survival rates. Archai would still have EI, but what are the barebones of EI that they can be guaranteed? This is rhetorical for the purposes of this comment.

I apologize for my long explanations, I just don't want to seem like a person who has this "revolutionary new belief that invalidates all other philosophies simply by them saying so"
or someone who says stuff like "Godel's incompleteness theorem when placed into nonlinear systems validates the existence of the Bhuddha Brain, ergo a machine cannot have a soul."

[ShanguiFriendlyGhost]

I found more on this "Z-theory" in the Reality Intertextualization Project article.

https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47645c107aed6

"The other realms are related to ours via a mathematical transformation. The first century roboticist Hans Moravec once speculated something like this might be possible. In the modern era, it has been controversially suggested that there may be other realms in transformations involving dualities in Z-Theory. The complex nature of the compactification of the bulk and of the brane we live on is said to allow a large number of alternate descriptions related by various combinations of dualities which interchange large and small compact dimensions. If some of the dimensions interchanged include the three large dimensions that we live in, then they can be transformed mathematically using alternating anomalies in the renormalization flow in the low and high energy limits. These other realities would, in effect, be reflections of ours through one of a large number of different mirror transformations in which our large-scale phenomena become smaller than the Planck scale in their reality, while what to them are large-scale phenomena are hidden beneath the Planck scale in ours. However, many other physicists state that branes cannot 'overlap' in this way and that it is meaningless to speak of anything existing below the Planck scale in any reality."