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Virtual Dominion Theory
« on: 2011-03-13 16:44:24 » |
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Chatlog from today's Scheduled Chat re: Virtual Dominion Theory
http://www.churchofvirus.org/bbs/index.php?board=;action=chatlog2;channel=%23virus;date=2011-03-13;time=11:;start=0;max=300
11:00:41 Lucifer Welcome to the Virus weekly chat!
11:00:46 Lucifer first one in almost 4 years
11:00:57 Sat * Sat appluads politely
11:00:57 Lucifer today's topic was suggested by Sat
11:01:04 Lucifer Dominion Theory
11:01:29 Sat the 4 year isn't completely accurate. we used to chat in SL
11:02:12 Lucifer ok, 4 years since the last archived chat
11:02:54 Lucifer which also took place in SL
11:02:58 Sat So, ya. Anyhow. Back in the day Lucifer and I were speculating about virtual worlds post-singularity, and we came up with dominion theory.
11:03:16 Lucifer so what is the basic idea?
11:03:34 Lucifer I envision a future that contains a multitude of virtual worlds
11:04:00 Lucifer Everyone that is online will have the ability to create their own world with their own rules
11:04:02 MoEnzyme * MoEnzyme has returned
11:04:12 Sat I seem to remember the essence being that one could create worlds which for all purposes are real, and each world would have it's own rules.
11:04:23 Lucifer * Lucifer nods
11:04:26 Lucifer wb Mo
11:04:32 Sat Within those worlds one would be bound by the rules, etc.
11:04:52 Sat I also remember thinking of a dominion as an extension of one's own psyche, in a sense
11:05:28 Lucifer Dominions will compete for people to visit
11:05:34 MoEnzyme Perhaps then we should call it "virtural cominion theory", to distinguish it from dominionism.
11:05:39 Sat For me the idea is inspired by the LaVeyan idea of total environments and Localroger's PI novel.
11:05:43 Lucifer but visitors will have to play be rules or be banished
11:06:17 Lucifer You can call it what you like, Mo
11:06:18 MoEnzyme "virtual dominion theory" even.
11:06:21 Sat and rules could include things like once you enter you cannot leave "alive."
11:06:36 Lucifer There are dozens of uses of "dominion"
11:06:39 MoEnzyme * MoEnzyme likes "virtual dominion theory"
11:07:06 Sat The interesting thing about dominion theory is how it could be used to illustrate relativity in ethics
11:07:16 Lucifer * Lucifer nods
11:07:32 Sat well that and being the god of a reality.
11:07:33 Lucifer Dominions allow like-minded people to associate
11:07:39 MoEnzyme The Church of Virus BBS is a kind of dominion then, right?
11:07:44 Sat * Sat nods
11:07:45 MoEnzyme Lucifer's dominion even.
11:07:49 Sat a low res dominion
11:08:00 Lucifer yes, it could be considered a proto-dominion
11:08:01 MoEnzyme Because he can banish people who spam his BBS.
11:08:07 Lucifer like almost any online community
11:08:35 Lucifer so one way to think about it is what is the future of online communities given current trends
11:08:48 Sat One way to think of Dominions as we envisioned them is online communities with such advanced tech that they become alternate realities.
11:08:55 MoEnzyme I mean of course Lucifer is just one of many Archons whom he may consult with, but unltimately he is the administrator so it's his dominion.
11:09:11 Lucifer and I think current trends point to VRs like SecondLife and MMORPGs
11:09:43 MoEnzyme Well, is there any reason that it has to be limited to VRs like these?
11:09:55 Sat No actually not.
11:10:12 MoEnzyme Couldn't any online social networking site be a dominion?
11:10:19 MoEnzyme Like Facebook for example.
11:10:21 Sat Fetishistic role play could be another type of primative dominion manifestation
11:10:41 Lucifer MoEnzyme, I think that would dilute the concept
11:11:04 Sat The analogy is apt. Participants agree on rules beforehand, and push the envelope within them.
11:11:14 MoEnzyme hmmm, okay so that's a bit different from what Sat said.
11:11:30 Sat The rules may or may not match very well with "normal" ethics and behaviour.
11:11:49 MoEnzyme So Church of Virus is a dominion and Facebook isn't. Is that the line?
11:11:49 Lucifer right, you could dilute it further to include football games
11:11:59 Sat But within the Dominion it is consistent.
11:12:12 Lucifer I would not include CoV as it is today
11:12:21 Sat The CoV could be considered a proto-dominion like a biological virus is an organism.
11:12:22 MoEnzyme Why not the CoV?
11:12:28 Lucifer CoV is not a VR
11:12:46 MoEnzyme Ah, so it DOES have to be a Virtual Reality.
11:13:05 MoEnzyme off line football games, and BDSM are not Virtual.
11:13:05 Sat I'd say the tech is irrelevant.
11:13:33 Sat It has to be a reality, whether it's virtual, advanced tech, or a ritual, or roleplay.
11:13:34 Lucifer I'm willing to consider other definitions
11:14:16 Sat Obviously the extension of the idea is to when tech is so advanced that virtual worlds and real worlds aren't different in a meaningful way
11:14:19 MoEnzyme what about a text based VR . . . like the old MUUDs?
11:14:31 Lucifer but I'm reluctant to expand the definition so much it becomes meaningless
11:14:41 Sat well all those things are like analogies MO.
11:14:56 Sat Imagine for a moment that what we think of as reality is in fact a sim.
11:15:07 Sat We are in the Universe Dominion
11:15:19 Lucifer using my current definition there are no dominions yet
11:15:28 Sat Within this Dominion there are natural laws we must obey.
11:15:45 MoEnzyme Oh OK. So a Second Life sim wouldn't count either.
11:16:10 Sat Lucifer and I posit a time in the future where anyone could create a sim that would be for all intents and purposes an alternate reality
11:16:20 Lucifer * Lucifer nods
11:16:23 Sat that would be a Dominion
11:16:24 MoEnzyme So perhaps we can view the CoV BBS and Facebook as proto-dominions since there are no dominions yet.
11:16:39 MoEnzyme * MoEnzyme nods
11:17:01 Sat Well perhaps not-proto Dominions, but maybe having elements of dominion.
11:17:48 Sat Imagine what world you would create if you were God.
11:17:59 MoEnzyme Okay, so still we can use social networking sites, the CoV BBS, and Second Life as proto-dominions in order to theorize about how future dominions will work since there aren't any real dominions yet.
11:18:00 Sat That world would be your dominion.
11:18:08 Sat * Sat nods
11:18:12 MoEnzyme or at least no real virtual dominions yet.
11:18:52 MoEnzyme Okay that makes some since.
11:18:55 Sat Yes and to that I would also add examples of sexual roleplay and satanic ritual.
11:19:03 Lucifer Would you want to create a dominion that attracted a large number of visitors?
11:19:33 Sat Personally no.
11:19:36 MoEnzyme I guess it depend on what you wanted to do with your dominion. What counts as a large number of visitors?
11:19:49 Lucifer I'm guessing we will see large variation in accessibility as well
11:20:00 Sat My dominion would act more like a strange attractor for like minded entities.
11:20:10 Lucifer lots of mainstream dominions, but many more niche ones
11:20:32 Sat and a lot of downright scary ones depending on one's own mind
11:20:54 Sat There will be pedo play dominions, etc.
11:21:03 Lucifer * Lucifer nods
11:21:21 Lucifer So will some types of dominions be illegal?
11:21:36 Sat By today's primative standards yes.
11:21:51 Lucifer I suggest that no dominions should be illegal because visiting is always voluntary
11:21:55 MoEnzyme well, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number sets a typical person's community of influence at about 150 individuals.
11:21:56 Sat But I think when dominions are possible legality will be moot.
11:22:06 Sat exactly Lucifer
11:22:21 MoEnzyme So perhaps that might have some bearing on what social size you will want your dominion to hold.
11:22:39 Sat That number Mo, is for primative meatspace.
11:22:54 Sat In todays online communities one has far greater influence
11:23:14 Lucifer agreed, there are already online communities with far greater numbers
11:23:26 MoEnzyme Sat, true, but it relates to the capacity of the human neocortex to handle social relations whether they are IRL or virtual.
11:23:27 Sat But I think the numbers are irrelevant, unless one is into competing in that manner.
11:23:49 Sat By the time we have dominion we will have shed our meat.
11:23:50 MoEnzyme Not so much about meatspace as it is about cognitive capacity.
11:24:05 MoEnzyme Sat, including our brains?
11:24:07 Lucifer So I've been assuming that visiting a dominion is always voluntary, it that a safe assumption?
11:24:14 Sat We will be cyber-organisms.
11:24:25 Sat That's how I envision it Lucifer.
11:24:50 Sat I also envision that you won't be able to get into just any dominion based on desire to be there.
11:25:01 Sat Your very mind would have to match the dominion.
11:25:05 MoEnzyme Well, if we have to wait until we are completely uploaded into computers and no longer even have brains anymore, that could be a bit too far out to even theorize about.
11:25:32 Lucifer I agree with Sat about matching
11:25:41 Lucifer I disagree with Sat about needing to shed our meat first
11:26:14 MoEnzyme Okay so Lucifer and I are in agreement that it should at least be based on our current neural capacity somehow.
11:26:26 MoEnzyme at least in terms of social network sizes.
11:26:39 Lucifer I think we will have very convincing VR before mind-uploading
11:26:41 Sat I guess my idea of Dominions is taken to an extreme. I envision them as choosing realities and being bound by that choice.
11:27:09 MoEnzyme I agree with that last comment, Lucifer.
11:27:27 Sat Like assuming our current reality is a Dominion we chose to play in and we are bound to do so until we 'die.'
11:28:03 Lucifer if we do get mind-uploading tech, then dominions will maybe be inevitable
11:28:20 MoEnzyme Certainly convincing VR may allow for some very large communities, however just like IRL communities they will have to work withing the cognitive capacities of the human brain.
11:28:25 Sat Assume for a moment you are actually a being of immense god-like power. Perhaps it would be fun to play at being mortal.
11:28:35 MoEnzyme Hence my invoking Dunbars number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
11:28:46 Sat So you sin off a thread to live the life you live now. fully bound by the rules of this game.
11:29:03 Sat That's an example of one Dominion.
11:29:37 MoEnzyme Certainly the "God" of the dominion may have a dominion with thousands or even millions of people within the dominion, but there is no way for that God to have a personal relationship with everyone in that dominion.
11:29:52 Lucifer I think the idea of God choosing to live a mortal life is a common trope in fiction and mythology
11:29:53 Sat Well Mo. Our reality has 6 billion or so players
11:30:00 MoEnzyme Perhaps he/she will delegate some, of course, but there are social limits.
11:30:10 Sat we don't have to know all the players in a dominion to play within it.
11:30:24 MoEnzyme Sat, yes, true, but there is no one dominion master god thingy over all 6 billion people.
11:30:29 MoEnzyme actually 7 billion now.
11:30:43 Sat well what if the universe itself is the dominion master
11:30:50 Sat the reality enforces the rules
11:30:57 MoEnzyme Right, Sat. It's just a question of the social tastes of the dominion players.
11:32:20 Lucifer I think we can assume there will be wide variances in preferences that are accomodated by equally wide variances in dominions
11:32:30 Sat * Sat nods
11:32:41 Lucifer Can we make any generalizations that are more specific?
11:32:57 Sat In fact Dominions could be self organizing realities based on mind's affinities.
11:33:04 Sat Shared tastes or beliefs
11:33:08 Lucifer What will all dominions have in common? I suggested that all will have voluntary membership.
11:33:53 MoEnzyme Right, that would be different from the dominion of the entire world (7billion) since we don't have any choice of a different world.
11:33:57 Sat My Dominion might be like the Hotel California... you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.
11:33:59 Sat * Sat grins
11:34:00 Lucifer * Lucifer nods
11:34:33 Lucifer No dominions will allow visitors to break the rules
11:34:34 MoEnzyme Sat, could you try it out before deciding to join?
11:34:55 MoEnzyme Lucifers question is similar to my mine.
11:35:00 Sat Probably not Mo.
11:35:19 Lucifer Or maybe rule-breaking will have automatic consequences
11:35:22 MoEnzyme Okay, so Sat will probably have a smaller dominion than many.
11:35:28 Sat * Sat grins
11:35:41 Sat I'd have many dominions as I had selves
11:36:08 Sat some dominions would be shared with others, like a LuciSat dominion based on the shared intersection of our minds
11:36:19 Lucifer Some rules will be enforced like physics (no choice in the matter), some by convention and/or consequences
11:37:02 MoEnzyme How many players does Sat envision in his dominion?
11:37:15 Sat I think it's interesting to use the Universe as a Dominion example. If I assume it is I don't have to assume all humans are real.
11:37:39 Sat This could in fact be my Dominion, and maybe 150 players are real
11:37:41 Lucifer I would expect it to be impossible to harm others in many if not most dominions
11:37:46 Sat the rest could be NPCs.
11:37:51 MoEnzyme * MoEnzyme predicts Sat's dominion size at less than 200
11:38:16 MoEnzyme Ah okay. That sounds like a workable Sat universe.
11:39:13 Lucifer Let's use "friend" to mean someone you have a friendly relationship with
11:39:15 MoEnzyme Could people take a vacation from your dominion? Like check out for a week only?
11:39:19 Sat Lucifer. I'm thinking we will naturally gravitate to and participate in the Dominions most suited to our minds.
11:39:30 Lucifer How many friends do you really want given that you have finite attention?
11:39:38 Sat Explicit contractual agreements would be uneeded in such a case
11:40:16 Sat the dominions would only have to allow those in who have mind signatures suited to the dominion.
11:40:54 Lucifer I'll have to think about "mind signatures"
11:41:03 Sat your mind print?
11:41:14 Sat your OS!
11:41:16 Sat heh
11:41:30 MoEnzyme Well I would think that if you wanted to attract people to your dominion especially if they can't check out, you might want to have some contractual understandings ahead of time before they join. Like a pre-nuptial agreement for a metaphorical example.
11:41:49 Lucifer I don't think you can predict future behavior by examining the code
11:41:57 Sat Lucifer as software only capable of running on platorms which are designed to work for him.
11:42:06 Lucifer google: Turing halting problem
11:42:07 googlebot googling for Turing halting problem
11:42:07 googlebothttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem
11:43:03 Sat Well behaviourly it would work like life now. You aren't very likely to go to a christian church and want to stay there are you?
11:43:18 Sat But there are a lot of christian minds that do.
11:43:18 Lucifer true
11:43:59 Lucifer So is the "mind signature" just a distillation of previous choices?
11:44:07 Sat if you went to the church out of curiosity and there was a full disclosure before you entered...
11:44:29 Sat stating that you could be forced to stay until the dominion master chose to release you...
11:44:34 Sat would you eneter?
11:44:42 MoEnzyme probably not.
11:45:00 MoEnzyme but some people might.
11:45:03 Lucifer Well I don't think I could ever be forced to stay
11:45:36 Sat I posit dominions where you can be forced to stay, once you agree to the rules
11:45:51 Sat because the dominion is in effect it's own ethical universe
11:46:00 Sat once you enter you are bound by the rules
11:46:17 Lucifer But you can always disconnect
11:46:18 MoEnzyme What if the the cominion master is an Artificial Intelligence instead of a person in an embodied brain, would that make a difference?
11:46:29 Sat Not if you've shed your meat.
11:46:35 MoEnzyme or at least commit suicide, Lucifer.
11:46:37 Sat That's why I took it to that stage
11:47:00 Sat Mo perhaps the dominion could stimpulate reincarnation into the dominion
11:47:18 Lucifer I think an AI would likely create a different sort of dominion, Mo
11:47:22 Sat You would not be forced to play, but once you chose to, you'd be bound to.
11:47:59 Lucifer I think the worst they can do is to prevent you from re-entering if you disconnect before they say you can
11:48:19 Sat * Sat explored dominion theory while intensely chemically altered last Summer, actually.
11:48:22 MoEnzyme Perhaps we could have special dominions for people found guilty of heinous crimes IRL. That could be involuntary.
11:48:56 MoEnzyme Like OZ! 
11:48:57 Sat Well leave the meat behind for a moment and assume a stage of being where you are no longer meat.
11:49:12 Sat If you can unplug, the rules of the world override those of dominion
11:49:25 Sat and yes. there would be illegal dominions
11:49:33 Sat and they would be shut down, etc
11:49:53 Sat To me the idea of Dominions only makes sense when one is no longer corporal.
11:50:06 Lucifer OK, in a world where a dominion can trap you, they can also trick you into entering
11:50:15 Sat * Sat nods
11:50:22 Lucifer that is a scary thought
11:50:26 Sat Satan want your soul, Lucifer.
11:50:30 Lucifer ieeee
11:50:46 Lucifer alrightly I have to scoot
11:50:51 Sat maybe some intelligences would want to collect other intelligences
11:50:53 Lucifer excellent chat!
11:50:58 Lucifer feel free to continue without me
11:50:59 MoEnzyme okay good chat Lucifer.
11:51:01 MoEnzyme Thanks.
11:51:07 Sat to add processing power.
11:51:13 Lucifer bbl
11:51:14 Lucifer Lucifer is now known as LuciferAFK
11:51:49 MoEnzyme * MoEnzyme is thinking even more strongly that this should be called "Virtual Dominion Theory".
11:52:06 MoEnzyme Especially with Sat's desire to leave his meat behind 
11:52:29 Sat In the trip I had last Summer, I had this enlightenment: This is a dominion. The reality I am in is one I trapped myself within.
11:52:59 Sat Sure you could frame it all tech like, but the tech is just a part of the dominion I am trapped within.
11:53:01 MoEnzyme Well it's different in that once the trip was over, the dominion disolves.
11:53:05 Sat It was a very strange trip.
11:53:32 Sat Well assume what you think is real is real... but it is a dominion.
11:53:38 Sat That this is a sim.
11:53:40 MoEnzyme It still makes some sense even when not chemically altered. I haven't smoked anything today myself.
11:53:57 Sat That the meat isn't actually meat.
11:54:05 Sat it is information.
11:54:29 Sat Are you are a thread of a much vaster intelligence that is engaged in this reality.
11:54:33 MoEnzyme right, it's information, but it's still limited by the hardware to some extent.
11:54:43 Sat right. the rules of the dominion
11:55:26 MoEnzyme So even if you were tripping (on LSD psylosibin or whatever) it was still going on in the meat-space of your brain.
11:55:44 Sat See each dominion would in effect be a complete reality with rules it is impossible to break.
11:56:15 Sat Or maybe one might be able to hack it a tad.
11:56:34 MoEnzyme Well, we have just a few more minutes until the end of the hour. Any final thoughts?
11:56:41 Sat Perhaps the pyschdelic trip was a 'program' to hack the sim.
11:57:00 MoEnzyme * MoEnzyme nods
11:57:27 Sat Well the main thought I have is that we tend to not extend the idea of dominion far enough to use it as a tool for philosophical exploration.
11:57:29 Sat * Sat shrugs
11:57:54 MoEnzyme Well, I think we made some progress at least from my point of view.
11:58:02 Sat * Sat nods
11:58:16 Sat I think it'd be stimulating to continue next week
11:58:23 MoEnzyme I didn't know WTF you and Lucifer were talking about an hour ago, and now I feel like I at least have a starting point.
11:58:29 Sat or outside official caht
11:58:54 Sat well once we lay the foundation of dominion then we lay the foundatation of Q
11:58:55 MoEnzyme My clock shows two more minutes
11:59:00 Sat then see how they interact
11:59:23 MoEnzyme Ah yes, that could be a good idea to incorporate into virtual dominion theory . . . Q
11:59:27 Sat * Sat needs new porn
12:00:11 MoEnzyme Perhaps we can have a scheduled chat about Q within Virtual Dominion Theory.
12:00:26 Sat * Sat nods
12:00:35 Sat well I'm going to get back to organizing the lair.
12:00:40 MoEnzyme cool.
12:00:44 Sat It was excellent having a 'real' chat
12:00:51 MoEnzyme It was.
12:01:01 Sat screw the politics
12:01:03 Sat * Sat winks
12:01:27 MoEnzyme * MoEnzyme , Sat and googlebot call Time for the end of the scheduled chat about "Virtual Dominion theory"
12:01:29 googlebot I guess I kinda lost control, because in the middle of the play I ran up and lit the evil puppet villain on fire. No, I didn't. Just kidding. I just said that to help illustrate one of the human emotions, which is freaking out. Another emotion is greed, as when you kill someone for money, or something like that. Another emotion is generosity, as when you pay someone double what he paid for his stupid puppet.
12:02:06 MoEnzyme alrighty . . . I'll be around off and on for a while.
12:02:07 Sat feel free to post on the BBS so the outer circles of virus can get infected.
12:02:14 MoEnzyme * MoEnzyme nods
12:02:18 MoEnzyme I shall
Also see the permanent link to this chat log which includes some of Sat's afterthoughts on the scheduled chat.
http://www.churchofvirus.org/bbs/index.php?board=;action=chatlog2;channel=%23virus;date=2011-03-13;time=11:;start=0;max=300
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