Where does this fit in OA - if at all?

[iancampbell]

I've been mulling this over and not really come to a conclusion; maybe others will have some ideas.

There are differences in the settings; for one thing, hyperspace is a feature of one setting but not the other - although comm-gauge wormholes as interconnections make that difference somewhat less.

The question is: Where does a Culture Mind fit in the toposophic scale of OA? My current gut feeling is that they would probably be on a par with SI3 godlings.

Any thoughts?

I thought long and hard about where to put this post, BTW. If mods disagree with me, by all means move it.

[Drashner1]

Looking at the Wikipedia article on Culture Minds here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_(The_Culture)

it's mentioned that a Mind in Consider Phlebas has a memory storage of 1e30bytes (= 8e30 bits IIRC).

The page on Toposophic Level and Brains Size provides data on transapients up to the S3 level:

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a53a8f690f09

Looking at the page, it seems that a Mind of this period has a bit more than 1000x the capacity of an S2 (5e27 bits of storage), but is totally dwarfed by an S3 (1.64e55 bits).

It is mentioned in the Wiki that the more modern Minds are vastly more powerful than the one referenced here, but I'm not aware of any specific numbers attached to them. If anyone finds them, they can bump them up against the Brain Size page and see where they fall. We also have number for the S4 level that show that it dwarfs an S3. I just need to write it up and add it I guess.

Hope this helps,

Todd

[iancampbell]

OK then. I had a look at the material for brain sizes (physical sizes, that is) and that seems to support this. So a Culture Mind is an S2, somewhere near the bottom of the range. Insofar as it's possible to make the comparison, that is; Minds are to a large extent not in normal space.

One related thought about the S-series: I presume that they are not meant to be standardised, in that (for example) some S2s are more powerful than others. Given for S2s: 5.1e27 bits/sec, storage 5.1e27 bits (given of course that some of what they are doing is inaccessible to modos). What would the upper and lower bounds of this be - has anyone thought about it?

[stevebowers.]

Culture minds are describes as largely being in 'hyperspace'; I assume this means they have faster connectivity than a proccessor which is completely located in normal, 3D space. OA transapients could use a Tipler Oracle, or more than one, to increase their processing capacity, so they could reach performance levels that exceed that of a hyperspace Mind; but I'm not certain how to compare the two.

I expect that Tipler Oracles are a relatively late development, and might not even be commonplace in the Current Era.

[Drashner1]

OK then. I had a look at the material for brain sizes (physical sizes, that is) and that seems to support this. So a Culture Mind is an S2, somewhere near the bottom of the range. Insofar as it's possible to make the comparison, that is; Minds are to a large extent not in normal space.

Pretty much. A Mind would be a highly augmented S2 of sorts. Although because the technology of the Culture this is harder to quantify. Much (most?) Culture tech wouldn't work in the OA universe.

One related thought about the S-series: I presume that they are not meant to be standardised, in that (for example) some S2s are more powerful than others. Given for S2s: 5.1e27 bits/sec, storage 5.1e27 bits (given of course that some of what they are doing is inaccessible to modos). What would the upper and lower bounds of this be - has anyone thought about it?

Presumably not. Given that modos augment themselves far beyond the baseline norm, we might assume that transapients do the equivalent. Exactly what this looks like is hard to quantify or describe however. We are still struggling to describe the shape and limits of even 'baseline' S1 mental capacities, let alone what they can do with augmentation.

That said, the entire field of transapient mental abilities is an open subject of discussion if anyone wants to talk about it

Thoughts?

Todd