Hello. Long-ish time wiki reader here.

[alexanderhamiltonalaska]

Hi, I've been a fan of OA for a while and joined recently mainly because I had some worldbuilding ideas I was interested in writing about. While the ideas themselves are probably better discussed in another forum, one question I would like to ask is whether there is anywhere I can go for a detailed breakdown about the abilities and processing requirements of higher-level transapiants.

[Worldtree]

Welcome!


To start answering your question :

Archailects (plus the linked articles for the 4th, 5th, 6th singularities)
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-topic/492d76d2f173e

Toposophic Levels and Mental Abilities
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4b9f2a844034a

Limits of transapient power
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47fae575daf11

Toposophic Level and Brain Size
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a53a8f690f09

Archailect Architecture (and linked articles)
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48eb4e4ee73d4

[alexanderhamiltonalaska]

I was more asking if there was somewhere I could look for more detailed information about s>3 transapient /archai beyond what is covered in Encyclopedia Galactica, since my idea mainly involved a tribemind forming clade that effectively ended up turning into an archai. The EG articles don't really have much information about the higher toposophic levels for in-universe reasons, so I was wondering if there was anywhere in the forum I could get more information about them.

[Drashner1]

Hi - Welcome to OA!

Regarding the information you're trying to find out - if what you're trying to find out isn't in the EG, you're welcome to ask your questions here on the forums and we can try to answer them for you.

Todd

[alexanderhamiltonalaska]

Hi - Welcome to OA!

Regarding the information you're trying to find out - if what you're trying to find out isn't in the EG, you're welcome to ask your questions here on the forums and we can try to answer them for you.

Todd

Okay then. My main questions would be:
What amount of resources (EG computronium, support) would a S4 intelligence need, and what would that translate to in terms of the amount of modosphonts that could be supported by the resources used separately?
What sort of truly new mental capabilities (beyond being able to design and use new technologies) would emerge at the S4 level?
What about S3 or S5 intelligences?

[Drashner1]

Okay then. My main questions would be:
What amount of resources (EG computronium, support) would a S4 intelligence need, and what would that translate to in terms of the amount of modosphonts that could be supported by the resources used separately?

Assuming the S4 is 'self-ascended' rather than being the creation of another being of an even higher S-level, the mass required to support an S4 mind translates into about 300x the mass of the Earth. This can take various forms:

a) A Jupiter Brain - a concentrated intelligence, a sphere of computronium, about the size of Jupiter. About 3 Earth masses of that is a 'CPU' made up of plasma processors - processors that use a mix of magmatter and high temperature plasma to perform computations at such high speed and temperatures that it's rather like a stable nuclear explosion or the inside of a small star.

b) A Dyson Brain - the mass of a Jupiter Brain, but distributed in the form of a swarm of networked processors surrounding a star, usually at about same distance that Earth orbits the Sun.

c) A Matrioshka Brain - Much the same as a Jupiter Brain, but the processors are individually smaller and occupy a much larger volume extending beyond something the size of our solar system.

A single kg of plasma processor can basically run an entire S3 - and and S3 can be discussed in terms of having the processing power of 2.97e20 modosophont minds. Since the CPU of an S4 is some 3 Earth masses, that works out to:

2.97e20 modos/kg of S4 processor x 1.7916e25kg = approx 5.32e45 modos equivalent. By way of comparison, the entire non-transapient population of the setting maxes out at roughly 3e21 modos.

What sort of truly new mental capabilities (beyond being able to design and use new technologies) would emerge at the S4 level?
What about S3 or S5 intelligences?

We don't honestly know if what you mean by 'truly new' is some form of mental capability that has no equivalent in human minds. Rather by definition, it is literally beyond our ability as humans to conceive of what transapient minds can do. It's sort of like asking a creature that lacks self-awareness to conceive of and describe it. Or creatures that are blind to imagine and describe sight.

That said, it is something of an ongoing occasional hobby among the membership to try to imagine truly qualitatively different mental abilities for transapients (as opposed to quantitative differences, which are much easier to imagine). So far we haven't has a lot of luck in this area, but it's fun to keep trying. Most of what we've come up with is down at the S1 and S2 level however.

In terms of mental capabilities for S3 and above beings - whether they are truly new or qualitative or quantitative, some ideas that we've come up with include:

1) Creating new AIs/new minds - An S3 can do this as easily as a human would speak a single sentence. An S4 can imagine a new human level mind into existence as easily as a human would speak a one syllable word. At the S5 level it is not uncommon for individual thoughts to achieve self-awareness/sophonce and form complex societies before being reabsorbed or fading out of existence as the S5 thinks of other things. At the S6 level, it has been suggested that all of Terragen civilization is just a figment of an S6's imagination.

In a related area, it has been suggested that if an S5 or higher pays sufficient attention to a modo it may - without really trying and as a side effect of creating a mental model of the modo in order to predict its behavior - create anything up to trillions of copies of the modo, each copy being fully self-aware and sophont, and subject to a huge number of simulated life scenarios - some of them painful or deadly.

2) Rewriting - It is possible for S3 and above to rewrite the minds of modosophonts entirely and en masse. Changing their memories, personality, most deeply held beliefs, etc. and replacing them with a perfectly synthesized set of artificial memories, personality, most deeply held beliefs etc that are more to the transapient's liking. Modos and lower transapients can do this to individuals and groups - but S3 and above can do this to entire civilizations if they are so inclined.

3) An S5 or higher thinking about a concept even slightly - for example, if it hears the word 'dinosaur' - may imagine entire planetary biosphere's into existence, simulated down to the level of individual cells and micro-organisms and up to the level of planetary weather and climate - and encompassing the entire evolutionary history of dinosaurs - and then either unmake them again as it thinks about something else - or cause the figment of its imagination to be constructed via nanotech in the real world.

There's probably others, but those are what come to mind most immediately.

Hope this helps,

Todd

[Rynn]

I was more asking if there was somewhere I could look for more detailed information about s>3 transapient /archai beyond what is covered in Encyclopedia Galactica, since my idea mainly involved a tribemind forming clade that effectively ended up turning into an archai. The EG articles don't really have much information about the higher toposophic levels for in-universe reasons, so I was wondering if there was anywhere in the forum I could get more information about them.

Welcome to the forums! I wrote an article like this once.

https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/55955128ec815

In working out the details for it I stuck to the tribe mind being capable of reaching S2. Reason being that S3 require about a moon’s worth of material as a processor. If the idea is to have modosophont (I.e human level) sophonts combining to form the mind, a moon’s worth is too prohibited. An M-Brain masses about 1e21kg. Given that a typical brain weighs a little over a kg, that means we’d need to connect at least 1e21kg of modos together. Likely more because modo brains aren’t as efficient as processing per unit mass than technology.

That’s more modos than exist in the setting. The idea could work still but you’d have to have to tribe mind merge, go virtual, or otherwise radically alter itself to cross to S3. Archai begins at S4.

[Drashner1]

That’s more modos than exist in the setting. The idea could work still but you’d have to have to tribe mind merge, go virtual, or otherwise radically alter itself to cross to S3. Archai begins at S3.

Yes, good point. I should have raised it myself since looking at what I posted in the light of a new day I can see how it could potentially make the OP think that eir idea couldn't work in OA.

IIRC we were recently discussing tribemind/group mind based transapients in the Discord a bit and this fits in with that nicely.

A group of modos could form a tribemind, which eventually ascends to S1 and then S2. At that point any S2 will need to get its hands on a lot more processing power to ascend to S3 (among other things). At that point it could move into pre-existing computronium that is large enough to accommodate an S3 (Jupiter brain or above class processors that are operating as habitats for some number of virtual beings rather than hosting a single S4 or higher) or build a moon-brain or equivalent. Eventually, it might ascend to S4, again either first moving into a large enough virtual habitat or building a J-brain or equivalent.

S5 or above would pretty much need to build eir own processor core since virtual environments don't seem to run that large in the setting at this point.

Hope this helps,

Todd

[alexanderhamiltonalaska]

That’s more modos than exist in the setting. The idea could work still but you’d have to have to tribe mind merge, go virtual, or otherwise radically alter itself to cross to S3. Archai begins at S3.

Yes, good point. I should have raised it myself since looking at what I posted in the light of a new day I can see how it could potentially make the OP think that eir idea couldn't work in OA.

IIRC we were recently discussing tribemind/group mind based transapients in the Discord a bit and this fits in with that nicely.

A group of modos could form a tribemind, which eventually ascends to S1 and then S2. At that point any S2 will need to get its hands on a lot more processing power to ascend to S3 (among other things). At that point it could move into pre-existing computronium that is large enough to accommodate an S3 (Jupiter brain or above class processors that are operating as habitats for some number of virtual beings rather than hosting a single S4 or higher) or build a moon-brain or equivalent. Eventually, it might ascend to S4, again either first moving into a large enough virtual habitat or building a J-brain or equivalent.

S5 or above would pretty much need to build eir own processor core since virtual environments don't seem to run that large in the setting at this point.

Hope this helps,

Todd

What about if it was almost entirely composed of aiods in the first place? In addition, the polity might actually take an overall stance somewhat closer to Solipsism than what is generally found in standard sephirotic empires (likely being derived from the Dry Empire something similar), which combined with the fact that outside observers aren't necessarily going to be given a lot of access to the brains of minor archai for obvious reasons would mean that they wouldn't necessarily be being included in estimates of terragan population. While there might be a relatively 'small' minority of, say, 1.5e13 individuals that are willing to directly interact with the rest of terragan civilization, their claims of being part of a much larger tribemind-based metaempire could very easily be dismissed as being memetic engineering from the ruling archai.

[Worldtree]

Dry empire
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/464f25d76bab7

this article is basically a stub that hasn't been updated in 21 years, so you're welcome to expand on it

there's *plenty* of ways for your idea to work though, however you end up fleshing it out.

if I'm understanding correctly, whether this polity is composed of biologically-based sophonts or AIoids (which would make the transition easier) if they're starting with a tribe-mind, they'll still need to add quite a bit of additional infrastructure+ processing power before they 'merge' and reach the third sephirotic... but it's definitely possible.