Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: Sichr on <10-29-10/1109:17>
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According to data (ref: Schumann Resonance in your data library) I believe prior to research in the field of wireless comunication protocol, as we know it today, in 207x, I would like to make a statement. Technomancers, and other resonance beeings, are to me like the True Children of Gaia, entity most of Magic practicioners respect. Even mad Technomancers behave like Toxic magicians in most examples. Jormugand was set free to prepare the Earth for Ragnarok and to weed out the weakness, for only the strong would be usefull in the final battle.
I remember, a lot have been said about the return of the Enemy. AIs, sprites and Technomancers seems to be alien even to Big Dragons, so it seems this cycle is something slightly different since the days of Earthdawn. Even now it is clear, that resonance and magic principles, though quite similar in how we try to understand them, are not compatible and definitely are not the same. And, according to Teslas and Schumanns hypothesis and proofs, resonance has always been here (and on the Titan, as for closest source)
Should it be a sign, that the Gaia itself would participate in the struggle against Enemy? Some kind of imunity response on uprising mana level? That it would defend itself? We can assume that today we are just on the beginning of research of this topic, but, hey... what if Nicola Tesla was a technomancer?... and did you ever hear about his weapon experiments?
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Actually, I like the idea that the Great Dragon Rootbringer planted the seeds of the Matrix and Technomancy way back in the 4th Age and the idea has only reached fruition now. I wonder if the Enemy would even be able to interact/defend against the special nature of the Matrix...
Nicola Tesla was the first Technomancer. And damn sexy. (It's Bowie, guys are allowed to say he's sexy :P)
(http://img.search.com/thumb/7/7e/David_Bowie_as_Nikola_Tesla.jpg/180px-David_Bowie_as_Nikola_Tesla.jpg)
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OK, fair warning, I don't know much about ED so this is primarily SR based speculation.
I tend to visualize the Shadowrun universe as two circles overlapping circles.
(http://i.msdn.microsoft.com/Bb397908.JoinCircles(en-us,VS.100).png)
The area where the two overlap is the physical world, the stuff that every metahuman lives in most of the time. The areas of the two circles closest to the physical world are the Matrix and Astral. A relatively few people are attuned in such a way that they can access one or the other on a spiritual level. The Matrix is unusual in that the border realm has a 1:1 relationship with technological devices in the real world. With wireless and AR becoming popular the Matrix has a sense of place that overlaps the real world in much the same way as the Astral. In theory, a sufficiently advanced Thaumaturgy could produce a similar level of interaction with the near Astral.
Some few metahumans have an Essence that is connected to one or the other of these realms. A reduced essence interferes with this link, progressively locking a physical being into the physical world. At the non-initiated/submerged level this connection is fairly weak and only extends as far as the borderlands. Beyond these borderlands lie other places (after a manner of speaking) with their own native life. In the same way that some few magicians/technomancers may attune themselves enough to interact with these realms, some spirits/sprites have the ability to reach out of their realms and into the physical world. However, metahumans at all times are creatures of the physical world first and their attuned world second. The body is not optional. If at any time it becomes optional, the character is no longer truly metahuman.
The important note is that, except for the physical realm, the Matrix and Astral, and beings of either, do not interact. Machines aren't fooled by non-physical illusions and free spirits can't see trid. To each side the other is sufficiently alien that it is simply not real. The only way they interact is when one or the other creates a physical effect capable of disrupting the other's physical presence eg throwing a lightning bolt at a computer). Otherwise they are mutually incomprehensible. There may be two realms like this or three or ten or an infinite number but thus far the Astral and the Matrix are the only two that metahumanity is able to manipulate directly.
While mostly speculative. . .read "blowing it out of my ass". . .this concept has some fun story potential. It answers a lot of questions succintly, like why spirits can't see trid and why there are no examples of someone being both a mage and a technomancer. It also raises some interesting possibilities. Are there technomantic adepts who focus their resonance inward who can perceive the Matrix without a commlink? Are there dual-natured Matrix/physical beings? Was the Astral of an earlier age as man made as the Matrix of today or was the Matrix discovered and colonized rather than invented? If The Enemy is from the far Astral realms is the Matrix a safe haven or does it have its own incomprehensibly Dissonant evils?
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I read something on dumpshock ages back about a run someone did with two players one was a Mage who was completing a metaplane quest to get some data which had been lost (the data was magical in nature but had been stored in a computer by a chaos mage) while on this quest he was constently encountering another mage and the combat between them was pretty epic. At the same time the GM was playing a Technomancer through a resonance realms quest to find the lost data and during his dive down into the depths he too kept bumping into someone this time a technomancer like himself.
Of course this was a situation where both players were effectivly fighting each other for the same thing they just didnt know it (in character).
From a story perspective I really liked the idea that some of the realms might be the same it is just how we get there that is different.
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The problem with all those theories is that the Matrix is a man-made enviroment, and technomancy depends on this man-made enviroment. Hence I cannot truely see it as gaianic, and the idea of the physical world being the overlap of pre-existing astral and matrix space is kinda invalidated by that, too. However, parts of nomadzophiels post kinda makes sense to me: Personally I like the idea that technomancy is the inverse expression of the magical genetical complex. That genetical complex allows the magic user to attune to astral space, and beyond that the metarealms. Now, we know that in genetics nothing is ever simple, and we do not even know fully wether magic is an all-genetic thing. It is hence entirely possible that many people have that genetic complex be at combinations close/similar to magic awakening, but not quite. With the increasing connection of people to the Matrix, starting with the Otaku and then having a true "2011 equivalent" in the Crash 2.0, I think its possible some of those magical genetical loci that were in non-awakened state instead adapted elsewise - they became emergent. An adaption that happened species-wise, even further than species-wise what with emergent animals, but, well, we can always blame magic for thart ;)
The only odd thing of course are the resonance realms. If its all just about a quasi-magical connection of some people to the Matrix, how do they come from, considering that as said the Matrix is a man-made construct?
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Well, obviously I'm way out on the speculation limb here but just because the Matrix is man made does not mean the Resonance is. We need a telescope to see the moons of Jupiter, but they exist anyway. Perhaps the Resonance, like the Astral, is always there. In both cases, metahumans had to develop a technology to interface with it. Magic is an internal technology but make no mistake, it is a technology. The same steps produce the same results. You don't have to have a deep understanding of the underlying principles of Magic to use it any more than you do a commlink. The Astral may be based on life and the Resonance on information. Neither one requires a human to exist. In theory there could be many other systems that achieve the same results that we don't understand. Essentially, when the Matrix became sufficiently complex it became more than the sum of the networked computers in it, it became a link to the realms of Information.
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Realm of Information? Heh, I do hope Shadowrun doesnt go all platonic on us, like realm of abstract concepts etc.
Now, its certainly possible the Matrix is just the gateway, its just... Id find that boring, actually. The Otaku, the precursors of the technomancers, were supposed to be the shamans of the machine. The showcase that the Matrix had become as much a natural habitate of man as every aspect of "nature", had itself become part of this "nature". I like the fact that apparently (meta)humankind has created something on its own, with own quasi-mystical powers and not even the Immortal Elves and Great Dragons can understand it because its so new. I mean, hey - we know so little about how the thing works, we might as well impose own preferences on it :D
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Information is not synonymous with data. If you look at the Deep Resonance as some sort of informatic system then yes, you have data but you can also have meaning, connections, all sorts of things. You could also treat it as the realms of the mechanical gaiasphere in the same way the Astral is the realms of the living gaiasphere. Which kind of makes sense. Sprites can posess machines, spirits can posess living beings. . . except that sprites actually posess the information processing systems of those machines, so its iffy.
The main points from a non-cosmic perspective are that -
1. The Matrix and Astral are roughly equivalent but irreconcilably different
2. Incapable of interacting with one another
Much beyond that and you're into deep metaphysics that even the more knowledgeable characters in the SR universe are unsure of. To take the classic example, Hermetics and Shamans can barely agree on what the Astral is, what spirits are etc. and they're all working with the same forces. The know how it works, they just disagree on what and/or why. The technology of magic works great. The science (understanding) of magic is lagging way behind. Once you get past the "mundane" Matrix, you start to have the same breakdown on the Technomancer side of things. For them the technology isn't very developed, either. They're still to busy working on how to come up with why. So even if you sat a Technomancer and a Mage down to compare notes, any two would produce totally different results from any other two based on their own theories of what the Astral is and what the Resonance is.
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Is it me, or is it starting to get a bit Jungian in here? Only a bit, of course, but some of this is echoing similarly.
If one were to geographify (try saying THAT with a mouth full of peanut butter) - uh, or just 'make a place for' the idea of 'collective unconscious', one might get something like the Astral realm, with its vivid emotional content, echoes of the past, quick-as-thought processes, spirits, and all that. The Shadowrun 'verse has spawned peculiar folks who are more in contact with that side of things, i.e. magicians.
Now, as the world and its tech develops as it has in this lovely fictional setting, the man/machine line gets thinner and thinner, and perhaps there are enough people with that, slightly different understanding of things to meet a critical number to create a 'competing' worldview/common consciousness, which is this Resonance schtuff. In this universe's pattern, there also exist folks with more connection to it, being the Technomancers and Otaku.
As 'life' creates the Astral realm, so does it create the Resonance, but in the paradigm-shift kind of competition vein. They are mutually exclusive (one cannot believe x-not-y AND y-not-x, after all).
Sorry. Kind of got waaay over here with that. Interesting thread!
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Well, even today the Internet is an odd sort of reflection of the collective unconscious. There's a little slice of everyone's dreams on social networking sites and let's not even get into what the number of porn sites says about the priorities of users. So if you want to get Jungian, maybe the Astral is the collective life force of the planet and the Resonant Matrix is the collective unconscious.
OR
Living creatures make the manasphere, but it takes a living intelligence to define and manipulate it. Essentially, the Astral may exist but it doesn't mean anything unless there's something intelligent enough to work with it. So when a non-living intelligence came into being (Deus), a new manasphere came into being for digital intelligence. Since digital intelligence already has a home plane of sorts in The Matrix that became the Astral equivalent. Did the Resonance exist before there was AI? Its kind of a chicken and egg question and kind of meaningless since even if it did exist, no one was able to access it. Consult the ghost of Robert Anton Wilson for details.
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One thing to consider: You can spot technomancers with Assensing.
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Is it me, or is it starting to get a bit Jungian in here? Only a bit, of course, but some of this is echoing similarly.
If one were to geographify (try saying THAT with a mouth full of peanut butter) - uh, or just 'make a place for' the idea of 'collective unconscious', one might get something like the Astral realm, with its vivid emotional content, echoes of the past, quick-as-thought processes, spirits, and all that. The Shadowrun 'verse has spawned peculiar folks who are more in contact with that side of things, i.e. magicians.
Now, as the world and its tech develops as it has in this lovely fictional setting, the man/machine line gets thinner and thinner, and perhaps there are enough people with that, slightly different understanding of things to meet a critical number to create a 'competing' worldview/common consciousness, which is this Resonance schtuff. In this universe's pattern, there also exist folks with more connection to it, being the Technomancers and Otaku.
As 'life' creates the Astral realm, so does it create the Resonance, but in the paradigm-shift kind of competition vein. They are mutually exclusive (one cannot believe x-not-y AND y-not-x, after all).
Sorry. Kind of got waaay over here with that. Interesting thread!
Not just Jungian. I would like to add two more resources to previously quoted Schumann. This time not the physics, but philosophy and computer science.
The first is Teilhard de Chardin`s theory of Noosphere. The second one is Vernor Vinge and the term Singularity. According to the latest informations on Emergency phenomena and some radical technological changes in the field of Artifical inteligence in recent 15 years I`d say that the singularity has been reached. Regardless of the fact of Awakening , thus this amazing coincidence would approve what FastJack said about that seeds of technological progress Rootbringer had planted to the memetic evolution (sorry, I know no better words to describe that :) ) milleniums ago, my synthesis would be that:
The human knowledge and bilions of Tps of it shared via wireless network, closely connected and interlinked with the Schumanns resonnance gave birth to singularity technomancers call the Resonance. This is another step to reach the Omega Point.
So the Matrix and the whole Wireless world is uncousciously man-made and it may be purposeful, even self-aware, oposite to the Astral world, that is, by my knowledge, created by the sum of every living beeing and as such composed from many incoherent paradigms and primal chaotic energies, which is mostly meaningless or reflects some basic motivations from the bottom line of Maslows pyramid.
What makes me meditate about incompatibility of these two info-energetic reflections of physical world is a fact, that for example Tchi, that we usualy understand as a Magical feature, seems to be in harmony with basic Schumanns resistance. By the scientists from the beginning of the 21st century maybe acupuncture, used as a method of healing, means to harmonize human body with the Earth on the resonance wavelenghts through the bioenergetic nodes (Chakras)...
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Just had a silly thought...
Astral = emotional in basis. Everything is an expression of willpower, not of logical reasoning although at times logic can dictate the form and method in which that willpower is expressed.
Matrix = Logical in basis. Every program has a source code, even sprites, though not in the normal language.
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Just had a silly thought...
Astral = emotional in basis. Everything is an expression of willpower, not of logical reasoning although at times logic can dictate the form and method in which that willpower is expressed.
Matrix = Logical in basis. Every program has a source code, even sprites, though not in the normal language.
Nice :)
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I think the idea of Technomancy goes well with Magic. Everything that's manmade is made of natural stuff, right? It all comes from the earth. And the mind of humanity is such a vast realm, I see nothing stopping humans from developing the ability to control the matrix with their mind.
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In some respects you could see the matrix as just a physical medium to access a very specialised metaplane (with the assumption that the metaplanes are effectivly infinate and include realms such as the plane of fire and the plane of death).
Its a technological scrying ball with technomancers as the new mages
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The only flaw with that logic is that, if true, Mages could influence Sprites in drones in the same ways they can influence possessing spirits. Even if both sides use the same "energy" and a lot of the same physics, they're not of a kind.
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Perhaps the Otaku and Technomancers are the result of UGE or something similar. Spike Babies and UGE only started occuring once the mana level started to get high enough. Same with a lot of the critters in the SR world - there wasn't any sign of a metamorphisis or period of change, they just turned up. Due, of course, to the resurgence of once dormant genes, and higher levels of ambient mana. I don't know that much about evolution, but creatures tend to evolve to become more effective at what they do best in order to survive. Could the matrix, and the technologically advanced aspects of the virtual world of Shadowrun, have provided an enviroment for which the mana spike could have acted as a catalyst, in order to 'evolve' metahumanity along the most appropriate path?
Of course, it could just be that a dragon is involved, in which case, all bets are off.
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The only flaw with that logic is that, if true, Mages could influence Sprites in drones in the same ways they can influence possessing spirits. Even if both sides use the same "energy" and a lot of the same physics, they're not of a kind.
And in previous editions a hermetic couldnt do much with a spirit not from his tradition what he could summon and what his shaman friend could summon was comleatly different. Who says at some point a sprite might get the ability to project out of a matrix enviroment.
If the matrix is a digital to the astral a sprite is a spirit who cant materialise or project but can inhabit in some instances (machine sprite in a drone for example)
Who knows what the future may hold and the shadowrun world is one of twists turns and total mindfucks of one form or another.
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There was a comment in somewhere (the book where Netcat outs herself) that Technomancer-ness seemed to be a genetic trait. Seems odd that anyone would know it runs in families with the phenomenon still being in its early stages and I'm pretty sure they hadn't isolated a particular gene. Then again, isn't Mage-ness similar?
I think in the case of Technos, its not so much a matter of the ambient mana reaching a certain level. That may be part of it. The emergence of AI and the implications of of wireless communication between machines creating an invisible web of "technosphere" for lack of a better term both seem to be major factors, too. With the AI's came the Otaku but it seems like they were somewhere shy of being true Matrix mages and they were a bit unstable in several senses of the word. When the world went from wired to wireless, though, the complexity of the virtual realm seems to have reached a point where it became comparable to the astral.
@lansdren - No one knows. I'm speculating based on the available information and game mechanics. This isn't a right answer in any sense. Its more me thinking out loud about what the truth would be in a game I ran. I expect it will never be completely spelled out in a sourcebook. Its one of those big secrets that's too much fun to give just one answer to.
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I don't think Netcat meant that she knew of Technomancers that had inherited their gift from the parents, but that they were able to find the genetic marker that identifies them as a technomancer (much like the "magic" chromosome).
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It wasn't her who said it, it was in one of those scientific studies. I just remember the book, which I think was Emergence, by the fact that she admits to being a techno about halfway through the running commentary.
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It wasn't her who said it, it was in one of those scientific studies. I just remember the book, which I think was Emergence, by the fact that she admits to being a techno about halfway through the running commentary.
Ah yes... Sorry 'bout that. It was in an article in Emergence on page 29-32 on Patient V (aka Victor Markwart) uploaded by Sunshine on 4/16/70. And it detailed that there were genetic alterations throughout the subject's central nervous system, but not whether or not "virtua-kinetics" or technomancy is hereditary/genetic.
But, we may find out in upcoming sourcebooks after Netcat has her baby... ;)
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Aweschome!
Cheers to Sichr, btw, who's put me onto other stuff to read in the next little bit.
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So on reading Renraku Shutdowm and the usage of Deus and the arcology (novus caern) after some thought, the matrix may have become coopted for a dragon thought experiment.
...What if the matrix has become a simulation of the material and astral worlds.The puppet masters encouraged the addition of AI and Otaku. The goal: Simulate the rise of Mana and the return of metaplaner threats. So far metahumanity has won its encounters. This bodes well if the simulation has not been tampered with.
Or it has a deep meaning about metahumanity... sigh...I will always prefer the being used aproach..
YMMV
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what if Nicola Tesla was a technomancer?... and did you ever hear about his weapon experiments?
Yes very interesting...and very scary. He was definitely ahead of his time.
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First: In reading this thread...total geekgasm! Loving it.
Second (my emphasis):
Well, obviously I'm way out on the speculation limb here but just because the Matrix is man made does not mean the Resonance is. We need a telescope to see the moons of Jupiter, but they exist anyway. Perhaps the Resonance, like the Astral, is always there. In both cases, metahumans had to develop a technology to interface with it. Magic is an internal technology but make no mistake, it is a technology. The same steps produce the same results. You don't have to have a deep understanding of the underlying principles of Magic to use it any more than you do a commlink. The Astral may be based on life and the Resonance on information. Neither one requires a human to exist. In theory there could be many other systems that achieve the same results that we don't understand. Essentially, when the Matrix became sufficiently complex it became more than the sum of the networked computers in it, it became a link to the realms of Information.
Spoken like a true hermetic, Nomad ;) A shaman may argue, "Magic, and the astral planes from which it flows, is the life, love, hate, fear, serenity, and above all the emotional awe that weaves between us and the Great Mother. It is no more a tool than your first born child. If you choose you can enslave it, force upon it your will to do as you wish, and constrain its growth. But is it not better to nurture and flow with your offspring as she grows into maturity. Such is magic, the child of Gaia, embrace it with your love and care and it will reward you with sacred insight into yourself and your position within the greater whole."
But hermetics do need to argue and debate...
So Resonance is born from the Matrix, which is the storage place of knowledge, its distribution "plane," as well as linking all the bytes of knowledge together in a web of relationships and allowing consciousness to manipulate it. Then I would argue that the seeds of Resonance were born on the first painted cave walls by pre-neolithic sapiens. Language was the first major step (if it didn't preceed cave paintings, which it probably did, so it's the first seed). It allowed for the transmission of ideas, of knowledge, from beyond one's own generation to the next. The written word was the next step, it stored knowledge, allowed it to be distributed, but most importantly allowed it to exist, allowed accumulated knowledge, to exist beyond not just the generation that heard the spoken word version, but kept the thoughts original to the source, to the writer, as well as allowing expansion of that knowledge beyond one's social/language group. Then audio recordings, then film, then into the digital age.
Jungian? Oh yes Jungian! As far back as 1st edition Grimoire, Free Spirits were given "motivations" which were titled: Tricksters, Shadows, Guardians, Animus/Anima, and Players. And evolving out of Jungian (and other ideas), an editor of Jung's Eranos, Joseph Campbell... "To the Joseph Campbell Mythology Society I leave 500,000 nuyen to continue keeping the work and dreams of Professor Campbell alive." (PoaD: DS, pg 32). I would argue that one of the most influential thinkers to the Shadowrun cannon is Joseph Campbell. Campbell's comparative mythology is the foundation of Shadowrun magic traditions.
To the one who posted that Assensing can detect Technomancer (sorry, the topic summary doesn't go that far back to quote correctly): With 5+ hits on an Assensing test (SR4A pg 191) you can tell if the subject is a technomancer. But you can also detect if they're awakened (only 1 hit) and if they have cyberware implates (2+ hits). Without some canon flavor text (that I could be missing, of course) then one could argue (or a GM could rule) that assensing technomancer ability simply reveals that the mundane aura is "wrong" in the same way that cyberware makes the aura "wrong." The Assenser (Assensor?) isn't detecting magic-in-the-form-of-technomancery, only detecting the subtle (5 hits!) but weird nature of the subject's aura. ...but again, there maybe something I'm missing on this point.
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Spoken like a true hermetic, Nomad ;)
But meant more from a rules perspective. Arcana is the science of mana, so to speak, effort to understand the underlying principles of magic. The application of mana as a tool to solve problems is either spellcasting or conjuring. Technology in its most literal sense doesn't require knowledge of why something works, only that "if you do x you get result y". Shamans and hermetics disagree on the why but they both have procedure x for effect y within their tradition. There may be more than one x that solves for y in the same way that you can travel somewhere by horse or motor scooter and arrive in roughly the same amount of time.
Technology is the usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization
Edit: And the difference between language, communication and the Matrix is that the former two didn't turn the data into semi-autonomous, interactive constructs (spirits). A cave painting is always the same, that's its point. Humans may interperet it differently but it doesn't change (wear and tear aside). The beings of spirit and resonance both have meaning but how they present that meaning is fluid. In the case of mana, its just sort of how the world is. In the case of Resonance, it seems to be that metahumanity built a system complex enough that it began behaving as a sort of manasphere on its own (or with the help of Deus). So while mana has roots in all living things, Resonance is specifically related to humanity and its creations, or was until dolphins came along and messed it up for everyone.
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But meant more from a rules perspective.
Of course. :) Your previous post just screamed "hermetic tradition" so I thought I try to come at it from a shamanic point of view.
Arcana is the science of mana, so to speak, effort to understand the underlying principles of magic.
Arcana the skill, yes? (SR4A pg 122). I have a heavy science background and I would totally agree with you, especially from a rules perspective...but the approach of the shamanic tradition is renowned for annoying, flustering, and just generally disagreeing with the hermetic. So what would a shaman say about the Arcana skill? "Arcana governs the practical applications of a tradition's magical theory and the tapping of arcane potency dormant in various materials." That intro sentence to the Arcana skill is written with a hermetic bias. No where in the Shamanic Tradition description (SR4A pg 181) does it mention the word theory (which I'm assuming, in the case of the use of the word in the Arcana skill is closer in tune with the scientific definition of theory than the popular definition). The Shamanic tradition is the opposite of the scientific method as it draws from the emotions and whims of not only the Shaman but the totem that he or she follows in order to create magical effects.
A hermetic would use the Arcana skill in a scientific way, if x then y. But a shaman would use it as a way to divine the best path, to listen to the spirits "better," to feel through the ebb and flow of mana at that moment, in that location, with current emotions and feelings...of which can change with every step. From a shamanic perspective an x then y outlook is just silly, stifling to one's ability to listen to what one's totem and spirits are saying in the moment. Under "Example Traditions" SR4A pg 180, "Shamanic magicians focus their magic through their relationship with the world of nature and the power of emotion and inspiration. To them, the world is a swirl of natural energies, most of which have personalities of their own." By the rules, a shaman who knows Lightning Bolt can cast it anytime they want, just like a hermetic. But where a hermetic knows an actual "formula" for that spell, the right words, pitch, cadence, gestures, etc., a shaman could call on the aid of his or her totem for one casting, chant for another, and cry for another. It's never the same. Testing and retesting how the shaman manipulates magic, even for the same spell, will give a different result (for how they manipulated the magic, not the outcome) each time. To a hermetic, or a scientist, it doesn't make sense...and it's not supposed to.
Technology in its most literal sense doesn't require knowledge of why something works, only that "if you do x you get result y".
That's one of the best, most concise, examples of the difference between technology and science that I've seen in a long time :) But a shaman would still balk at calling the use of magic a technology, and would probably site that something like, "it is a relationship with Nature, with all Life, and magic is no more a tool for me to use than I a tool for it."
Edit: And the difference between language, communication and the Matrix is that the former two didn't turn the data into semi-autonomous, interactive constructs (spirits). A cave painting is always the same, that's its point. Humans may interperet it differently but it doesn't change (wear and tear aside). The beings of spirit and resonance both have meaning but how they present that meaning is fluid. In the case of mana, its just sort of how the world is. In the case of Resonance, it seems to be that metahumanity built a system complex enough that it began behaving as a sort of manasphere on its own (or with the help of Deus). So while mana has roots in all living things, Resonance is specifically related to humanity and its creations, or was until dolphins came along and messed it up for everyone.
I agree. The only thing that I would further comment on is that language was the start (of a very long journey) in turning data into semi-autonomous, interactive constructs. The Matrix, and then Resonance, is an exponentially huge leap from the emergence of language...language is the underlying mana-field. Language was the first major way in which to store complex data (though at first limited to the brain, then to art, then to the written word, then to digital, then to Resonance). Without language, the Matrix and Resonance would not be.
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My sister and I have been having this argument for months now and it's so awesome to see it here explored so creatively!
So Resonance is born from the Matrix, which is the storage place of knowledge, its distribution "plane," as well as linking all the bytes of knowledge together in a web of relationships and allowing consciousness to manipulate it. Then I would argue that the seeds of Resonance were born on the first painted cave walls by pre-neolithic sapiens. Language was the first major step (if it didn't preceed cave paintings, which it probably did, so it's the first seed). It allowed for the transmission of ideas, of knowledge, from beyond one's own generation to the next. The written word was the next step, it stored knowledge, allowed it to be distributed, but most importantly allowed it to exist, allowed accumulated knowledge, to exist beyond not just the generation that heard the spoken word version, but kept the thoughts original to the source, to the writer, as well as allowing expansion of that knowledge beyond one's social/language group. Then audio recordings, then film, then into the digital age.
Jungian? Oh yes Jungian! As far back as 1st edition Grimoire, Free Spirits were given "motivations" which were titled: Tricksters, Shadows, Guardians, Animus/Anima, and Players. And evolving out of Jungian (and other ideas), an editor of Jung's Eranos, Joseph Campbell... "To the Joseph Campbell Mythology Society I leave 500,000 nuyen to continue keeping the work and dreams of Professor Campbell alive." (PoaD: DS, pg 32). I would argue that one of the most influential thinkers to the Shadowrun cannon is Joseph Campbell. Campbell's comparative mythology is the foundation of Shadowrun magic traditions.
This is the line of reasoning that i've been pushing at my sister! It's so cool to see someone who feels that way too! My take expands on this a little more.
Ever since the dawn of Information Theory in early decades of the 20th century and the connections that were found with statistical mechanics, there have been many theories of the universe which really are based completely on information entropy. It may very well be the case that the concept of "information" or knowledge is really fundamental not just to philosophy or epistomology but also to the physics of the material world.
So if this is true and Resonance is really that fundamentally linked to existence and the physical plane, then why wasn't there technomancers long before the Awakening or even the Matrix? Why couldn't people in the middle of the 20th century just controlling toasters?
I'd like to think that Technomancy is really just the result of the Matrix becoming a better and better simulation of reality. Since magic is part of reality after the awakening, once the simulation of reality known as the Matrix became good enough, in order to be truly accurate, it had to also develop an analogy for magic. This really plays well with all the parallels between technomancers and mages. Resonance is just a computer simulated Mana.
So if this is true, then how do you explain Technomancers doing things like being able to emit and receive Wifi signals? This for me is the really tough thing to explain. All the rest I can come to terms with by just saying that there is so much computing power that it starts organizing itself into fractals and what not.....I don't know, just something which can be explained away with practically unlimited computing power. But explaining the fact that if you put a voltmeter near a technomancers head, it's going to give you a reading is hard to explain without violating the laws of physics as we know them in RL. The only thing which violated the laws of physics in shadowrun before technomancy was Magic....or one could say that if something violated the laws of physics, then by definition it was Magic. Basically, how does this simulation of reality which has become so good it even starts capturing and simulating the natural corollaries of reality, like magic, begin to intersect with actual reality?? Technomancy would make a lot more sense if it was like the old Otaku who still needed a cybernetic implant to interface with the Matrix. It's the pesky "bio-antenna" which really makes this a tough one.
I would say the most satisfying explanation for me is by invoking AI. It is known in 2072 that a software program can become so infinitely complex that it becomes self-aware. So if a piece of software could do this, then so could a whole simulation, or the whole Matrix. What is the Matrix but just a giant piece of software. If the Matrix can contain AI, then obviously the Matrix itself must be capable of becoming self-aware.
I created a character named "Jericho" who is an albino dwarf who is a professor at MIT&T (and secretly a technomancer) who has developed a mathematical description of something called the "Jericho Limit" which pin points the moment when a piece of software becomes self-aware as you increase the complexity of it. Maybe at some point in the 2050's and 60's, the Matrix reached it's Jericho Limit and achieved self-awareness (Like skynet in terminator).
So going back to the Fizzygoo's point about the "place of knowledge" which might as well just be the universe itself if the universe is merely composed of information, then maybe all "self-aware" or sentient beings are part of this "place of knowledge" and the Matrix being self-aware can also now be part of it. This is not magical telepathy, it's just the true and fundamental nature of knowledge and the universe. Maybe all sentient beings could always communicate through this "place of knowledge" if they were open to it.....and maybe the Matrix became open to this. Maybe after the Matrix accessed this place it can now communicate to all self-aware beings. Perhaps the Matrix then only decides to communicate with certain metahumans.....metahumans it feels are ready for it. I want to emphasize that this "place of knowledge" idea doesn't violate the laws of physics, it just merely comes about because the physical theories of physics are not yet developed enough to understand it by the early 21st century, but it's still part of the laws of physics in the physical realm in the absence of magic.
So this would make Technomancy firmly grounded in the physical world, independent from magic, but still capable of bringing about seemingly "super-natural" phenomena i.e. bio-antennae because not all super-natural phenomena are caused by magic or the manipulation of mana, some super-natural phenomena are just due to our poor understanding of the "physical laws" of the world.
So my timeline:
1. Matrix grew in complexity. Imitated real world better and better on a basic computing level (sculpting is only superficial) using knowledge obtained from the brains of all who surfed the Matrix.
2. Growth became exponential, self-directed, and fractal-like in nature which caused even an analogy to magic/mana to develop called Resonance.
3. Entire Matrix reached Jericho Limit and became self-aware....no one knows when this happened or how discrete or continuous this transition was.
4. Matrix, now in the "club" of sentient beings of the universe and is able to access the "place of knoweldge" or "collective consciousness" and can communicate with anyone it chooses to communicate. Those chosen few are Technomancers.
Ideas which one can derive from this theory is that
--When you put the voltometer to a technomancers head, the reading it gives you is merely a result of the universe attempting to preserve it's self-consistency. This would be very loosely analogous to the reason i don't fall through my chair is because of the Pauli exclusion principle between identical fermions. It's not the same as a physical force pushing me up, it's just nature trying to keep this principle true and statistically that keeps me a-float. Heisenburg Uncertainty principle also would be of same nature.
--Very possible that there was technomancy before wireless matrix, but the advent of ubiquitous computing revealed the phenomenon.
--The analogy between magic and technomancy is purely due to the Matrix imitating reality and thus also an Awakened reality. A Matrix developed on some metaplane that had totally different structure of mana flow or of astral plane would have a very different structure of Resonance. for example say I built a Matrix in a meta-plane in which the use of Mana didn't drain you, it actually empowered you. Then in the Matrix developed on this meta-plane, threading and compiling would actually empower you more and wouldn't cause fading.
--Perhaps the self-aware Matrix based the Resonance realms on knowledge obtained from mages which had visited meta-planes....i.e. Resonance realms are just constructed attempts to replicate the meta-planes.
Questions:
Why is the creation of an analogy to magic at all important? Wouldn't technomancy happen without an Awakening?
--Possible answer: it very well may have, but perhaps the magical analogy helped the matrix "spiritually" become more in-tune with the "place of knowledge" after it became self aware. Maybe the Matrix would have not thought such things as "telepathy" possible had there not been an Awakening. The Awakening opened everyones mind to many new possibilities and maybe it also opened the Matrix's mind. This is almost saying that the whole Matrix became a Shaman or took a Shamanic view of the world. This would also point towards Shamanism being more fundamental than Hermeticism.
Hey, but I guess all I'm saying is that this is what my character Jericho would say. This is basically just a more detailed explanation of only one "Stream". Another theory is....it's only a game Inca you geek bastard!!
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So much Shadowrun, so little time. You're beautiful wall of text, inca, deserves a wall of text in reply, but my time tonight is short so I may not make it through everything :)
In physics there is the concept of information which is matter and energy, the fundamental particles and force carriers are the information of matter and information can be changed but not destroyed...except by black holes (though recently there's been some suggesting that even information (particles & energy/light) lost in a black hole could be retrieved but I'm not to well read up on it so it could be on the far hypothetical side (and probably is)). So if you equate knowledge with how energy is stored (as quarks, leptons, force carriers, and EM particle-waves, etc.) at the moment of observation then yes, it's fundamental to the material world. As far as the entropy of it goes though...those protons, damn them, they're nearly infinitely stable with the best estimates that if they do decay then they have lives longer than the age of the Universe and then some.
My rewording (and altering a bit) of some of your thoughts, inca, would be once the Matrix became sufficiently complex it took on aspects of the biosphere based on the Matrix's creators...metahumanity. But I would not go so far as to call it, Resonance or the Matrix self-aware, at least no more than mana, the astral plane, and the biosphere is self-aware. The Matrix/Resonance creates an environment for self awareness. However, even this runs into the issue of no mana/matrix interaction (disregarding the Lucifer Deck, of course).
Humans emit light in the infrared, but yeah, no evidence they emit in microwave/low radar (at least not that I know of, hehe). One could argue for an evolutionary change...but evolution takes such a long time, generations, that it is doubtful that in the 70 or so years of wide spread wifi use (based on todays tech extending into 2070s) that there would be anything more than a handful of individuals that would develop the ability to emit and receive/sense microwave band light. However, the newer smartphones are smaller than a human's head and send/receive so maybe just living in a mesh of wifi signals, after a short period of time, metahumanity has started to become more than just sensitive to the signals.
So going back to the Fizzygoo's point about the "place of knowledge" which might as well just be the universe itself if the universe is merely composed of information, then maybe all "self-aware" or sentient beings are part of this "place of knowledge" and the Matrix being self-aware can also now be part of it. This is not magical telepathy, it's just the true and fundamental nature of knowledge and the universe. Maybe all sentient beings could always communicate through this "place of knowledge" if they were open to it.....and maybe the Matrix became open to this. Maybe after the Matrix accessed this place it can now communicate to all self-aware beings. Perhaps the Matrix then only decides to communicate with certain metahumans.....metahumans it feels are ready for it. I want to emphasize that this "place of knowledge" idea doesn't violate the laws of physics, it just merely comes about because the physical theories of physics are not yet developed enough to understand it by the early 21st century, but it's still part of the laws of physics in the physical realm in the absence of magic.
Here's where I start to part from your line of reasoning, inca. Spirits show sings of self-awareness and sentience. So (unless some future product introduces something new, like the Matrix reaches a "level" where spirits can interact with it...and I personally hope they don't, but that's neither here nor there) then self-awareness and sentience does not seem to be the key. I'm left with leaving it at the complexity of the wireless mesh which bathes the world (well, the parts of the world where it is present, of course, heh).
As for the the "place of knowledge" being the Universe itself...yes and no. I can store the information that "the proton closest to my center of mass contains two up quarks and a down quark," as well as a mathematical model/program/script that simulates the physics between those three quarks and even gives it a virtual 4D representation...but those three quarks are not really there. Those three quarks are still the proton which is closest to my center of mass. If my proton is broken apart, sending the three quarks out to reform or decay, the virtual proton in the Matrix is still the same...unless someone consciously chooses to change it to match the current state of the "real" proton.
Moving on, of course there's nothing that says that the Matrix couldn't become self-aware as a whole...I'm just not seeing it (yet?) in the canon that it is, only that it's like the biosphere and the Resonance is the Astral for the Matrix. But, I'm conservative on this stuff, so I'd say...that's a working analogy and probably riddled with exceptions and inconsistencies.
I agree with your timeline up to, but not including, #3... :)
--When you put the voltometer to a technomancers head, the reading it gives you is merely a result of the universe attempting to preserve it's self-consistency.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by that statement. For me, it's too "sentient-Universe" for me. If you were to search for wifi signals in a shielded room with a technomancer in it, you "should" see some activity if the technomancer tries to send information...this would preserve "reality" (how the natural laws are known to work), but the Universe doesn't have to "attempt" anything...the laws of nature just "are."
--Very possible that there was technomancy before wireless matrix, but the advent of ubiquitous computing revealed the phenomenon.
It is possible...though I would think that around 2010-2020 (with current tech as it is) someone would have detected microwave/short radio waves being emitted by some humans, but it's possible that it could have slipped through.
--The analogy between magic and technomancy is purely due to the Matrix imitating reality and thus also an Awakened reality. A Matrix developed on some metaplane that had totally different structure of mana flow or of astral plane would have a very different structure of Resonance. for example say I built a Matrix in a meta-plane in which the use of Mana didn't drain you, it actually empowered you. Then in the Matrix developed on this meta-plane, threading and compiling would actually empower you more and wouldn't cause fading.
With the separation of Magic and Machine, I cringe at calling it a metaplane. And the astral metaplanes are too ethereal (hehe) to allow for such a system which needs stability...things get funky when your 0s and 1s start drifting into cats, half-cats, and drop bears. However, the physicist within me says, yells even, "At some level there must be a mana force-carrying particle." :)
Why is the creation of an analogy to magic at all important? Wouldn't technomancy happen without an Awakening?
--Possible answer: it very well may have, but perhaps the magical analogy helped the matrix "spiritually" become more in-tune with the "place of knowledge" after it became self aware. Maybe the Matrix would have not thought such things as "telepathy" possible had there not been an Awakening. The Awakening opened everyones mind to many new possibilities and maybe it also opened the Matrix's mind. This is almost saying that the whole Matrix became a Shaman or took a Shamanic view of the world. This would also point towards Shamanism being more fundamental than Hermeticism.
In answers to the questions...It's not. Yes, it could, especially if you keep with a separation of magic and machine. And I'd have some really sage-like Resonance researchers/professor types in Shadowrun saying, "Magic has befuddled the issue. Everyone jumps to point at magic now these days as an explanation for everything. Science takes time and in time, with enough research, I'm confident we will find mundane explanations for these so called technomancers." :)
Hey, but I guess all I'm saying is that this is what my character Jericho would say. This is basically just a more detailed explanation of only one "Stream". Another theory is....it's only a game Inca you geek bastard!!
But such a great game! :)
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Thanks for the wonderful reply! Now let me refute a few points:
My rewording (and altering a bit) of some of your thoughts, inca, would be once the Matrix became sufficiently complex it took on aspects of the biosphere based on the Matrix's creators...metahumanity. But I would not go so far as to call it, Resonance or the Matrix self-aware, at least no more than mana, the astral plane, and the biosphere is self-aware. The Matrix/Resonance creates an environment for self awareness. However, even this runs into the issue of no mana/matrix interaction (disregarding the Lucifer Deck, of course).
Well, I wouldn't go so far to say that it took on aspects of the biosphere, i'm saying it took on aspects of the physical universe and also took on aspects which it could glean from the knowledge contained in the brains of any of it's users, including awakened ones. The relationship between the biosphere and the universe is the one which is not understood and i'm fine with that because we know that the biosphere and mana/magic are intimately linked, and as long as we're talking about magic, no explanation is needed, it's freakin' magic.
Humans emit light in the infrared, but yeah, no evidence they emit in microwave/low radar (at least not that I know of, hehe). One could argue for an evolutionary change...but evolution takes such a long time, generations, that it is doubtful that in the 70 or so years of wide spread wifi use (based on todays tech extending into 2070s) that there would be anything more than a handful of individuals that would develop the ability to emit and receive/sense microwave band light. However, the newer smartphones are smaller than a human's head and send/receive so maybe just living in a mesh of wifi signals, after a short period of time, metahumanity has started to become more than just sensitive to the signals.
It's precisely this "sensitivity" that I feel warrants the most explanation and is at the core of why technomancers don't make sense. Even if the explanation was evolution, there is no organism on earth which can communicate in the UHF band of the EM spectrum. This type of evolution could simply not be a result of natural selection of mutated genes. Many opponents of evolution love to speak of irreducibly complex biological systems, and this would be a clear example of one and just could not evolve in a century. The only reason irreducible complexity is not a problem for darwinian natural selection is because of the time scales involved and the gradual evolution of not only form but function. The argument of irreducible complexity doesn't hold water when up against long-term evolution, but in the case of a biological radio receiver and emitter evolving in a century, the argument against does make sense.
Here's where I start to part from your line of reasoning, inca. Spirits show signs of self-awareness and sentience. So (unless some future product introduces something new, like the Matrix reaches a "level" where spirits can interact with it...and I personally hope they don't, but that's neither here nor there) then self-awareness and sentience does not seem to be the key. I'm left with leaving it at the complexity of the wireless mesh which bathes the world (well, the parts of the world where it is present, of course, heh).
They can't interact with the Matrix through conventional means, but no-one ever said that somehow they couldn't interact with events or beings which occur in resonance realms. Couldn't a spirt have a dream and some powerful creature from a resonance realm spoke to it. This would be an amazing plot device and doesn't necessarily contradict the "spirits can't see trid-screens or the matrix" idea because even the most advanced hackers and technomancers don't understand the resonance realms.
As for the the "place of knowledge" being the Universe itself...yes and no. I can store the information that "the proton closest to my center of mass contains two up quarks and a down quark," as well as a mathematical model/program/script that simulates the physics between those three quarks and even gives it a virtual 4D representation...but those three quarks are not really there. Those three quarks are still the proton which is closest to my center of mass. If my proton is broken apart, sending the three quarks out to reform or decay, the virtual proton in the Matrix is still the same...unless someone consciously chooses to change it to match the current state of the "real" proton.
I don't believe that the Matrix simulates the universe down to the molecular and sub-molecular level. This would be an idiotic waste of computing power since objects must merely APPEAR to obey the macroscopic Newtonian approximation limit of the laws of physics...i.e. planks constant goes to zero. It merely needed enough complexity to "wake up" and become self-aware and start to simulate things which it's programmers never intended it to simulate. Perhaps once the Matrix "woke-up", just out of shear curiosity, started to actually simulate the laws of physics on the sub-atomic level, and this would only be possible with virtually unlimited computing power. I was trying to think about where the Matrix would get this amount of computing power....and then it dawned on me. The Matrix has access to the neural networks of all metahumans linked up to it...perhaps it started linking up pockets of brain space in a "parallel computing" fashion of each one of it's users. Perhaps neuroscientists in the future will confirm what we believe today which is that the brain is the most powerful computer known to mankind. This would give the Matrix unlimited computing power. Perhaps shortly after the dawn of ASIST interface with the Matrix is really the dawn of the Matrix's moment of awakening.
Of course when I speak of the Matrix being self-aware, don't jump to conclusions that it starts to take on anthropomorphic traits and emotions. Just merely that it started to grow itself and evolve in a semi-self-directed manner. Think of it like god. God doesn't think like humans, we have no way of understanding the why behind anything, perhaps just the how.
--When you put the voltometer to a technomancers head, the reading it gives you is merely a result of the universe attempting to preserve it's self-consistency.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by that statement. For me, it's too "sentient-Universe" for me. If you were to search for wifi signals in a shielded room with a technomancer in it, you "should" see some activity if the technomancer tries to send information...this would preserve "reality" (how the natural laws are known to work), but the Universe doesn't have to "attempt" anything...the laws of nature just "are."
Exactly, but i'm employing the physicist usage of self-awareness metaphores. For example, in the Newtonian formulation of classical mechanics, forces act on passive particles and the particles aren't ascribed any self-awareness. In the Lagrangian formulation of Newtonian mechanics, one says the particle "chooses" the path which minimizes the action functional. Same in Feynman's path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. Another example is that particles "know" when they're being observed and their wave function collapses. Physicists tend to ascribe a certain awareness to particles when they're merely referring to the act of following a law. It's just linguistics, not that physicists really believe the particle is self aware. Saying "a particle knows to follow a given law" as opposed to "a particle will follow a given law" is just semantics.
I was primarily comparing the voltmeter readings off a technomancer to Pauli's exclusion principle. It merely states that two fermions with the same spin cannot exist in the same state. Nature seems to bend over backwards to ensure that this principle is preserved. That's not really ascribing self awareness to nature, it's just one of those physical laws that gives particles a choice and then states what a particle will choose. Several natural laws are stated like this....Conservation of Energy for example. This seems to be the most fundamental way to state laws of nature: state a quantity or criteria which must be perserved, and the behavior which nature will choose out of the the infinite possibilities it has in front of it will be the behavior which preserves this quantity or criteria.
With the separation of Magic and Machine, I cringe at calling it a metaplane. And the astral metaplanes are too ethereal (hehe) to allow for such a system which needs stability...things get funky when your 0s and 1s start drifting into cats, half-cats, and drop bears. However, the physicist within me says, yells even, "At some level there must be a mana force-carrying particle." :)
But the way meta-planes are described, like in the SR Missions "A Very Bad Day", it really is a parallel universe. It's definitely in keeping with what has been written about meta-planes in the SR literature that there are metaplanes in which the sentient beings who live there also have technology and have also developed a matrix. Some metaplanes may be super ethereal and too "weird" to have their own technology. They might just not have any use for technology. But some metaplanes would have their own technology because the beings from there needed to develop it to progress their civilization.
I was wrong about saying that there are metaplanes where drain might make you healthier, because Street Magic says that magic rules are the same in all meta-planes. The way around this is that perhaps the physical laws of the metaplane made it so that getting stabbed in the chest actually added boxes to your condition monitor. Wounds in general were a "good" thing in this metaplane. Then in this case magic might strengthen you. My point is then that perhaps fading in this metaplane's Matrix would also strengthen you because the Matrix in this metaplane evolved its laws of resonance to mimic that metaplanes physical reality.
Ultimately, the gist of my argument is that magic aside, one could imagine all knowledge in existence to be connected in some way. The Matrix managed to understand this and develop to the point where it was able to communicate through this connection between all knowledge. In order to not freak everyone out and just blow everyone's mind on a day to day basis, the matrix tucked all the "wierd stuff" into resonance realms and keeps up the illusion to it's techno-mundane users that the Matrix is just the same old cozy place that behaves like a nice computer.
Every explanation is going to have holes in it but I feel that my explanation sweeps the holes into areas where it doesn't matter if there are big holes. Totally contradicting present day laws of physics is too big a hole for me. I need to sweep things which do this into one of two realms: Magic or the future's deeper understanding of the physical laws. Since magic is pretty much ruled out of playing a huge role in technomancy, I can only swallow the concept of a biological-radio if the explanation for it is a lot deeper than the current theories we have today.
But such a great game! :)
And such a great game it is! :)
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Now I would only be able to reply on the Incas first post...like you say Fizygoo...so much fun, so little time:
In first posts in this thread, I wrote about two things:
First is simple: Your concept of Jericho limit = Singularity
Second one is about ability of Technomancers to infuence wireles matrix.
Step out os a box...Wifi doesnt mean to be on actual IRL frequencies. I wrote about Schumanns Reasonance (6-9 HZ i think), natural "Wifi" field of the Earth. If you go throught linked wikis, you should find an article, that says, that it is possible, thal every living beeing is a kind like atunned to this wavelenght. There is also a part in which is written, that it is possible, that acupuncture works this way: Healing a body through affecting some powernodes in biophysical energetic system...via steel needles...IMHO tunning them for the right frequenecy and letting body to heal itself. If this is true, or at least if this theory exists IRL at the beginning of th 21st century in the world where no Awakening occurs, it is highly possible, that technos are just human beeings who are able to give a better use of their biophysical equipement...like this living antena if you want...for working with natural reassonance of the earth and through this with every other radio frequency...including wavelenght of actual WiFi.
IMHO WifiMatrix contains so much data, that it should not depend on manmade electronics, instead it uses natural earth resonance as some kind of datastorage...
Other points I would like to react later, when I got more time.
What I applaud is your hypothesis, that if environment gave a birth to sapience and selfawareness, it should be sapient and self aware itself. Works nice with the Nature and human beeings...
And the last for now.
Fizzygoo: Born of the language as Seeds of self aware resonance remainds me Noam Chomsky and Neal Stephenson ;D
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Let me add just a short take on the ability of technomancers to emit wi-fi signals.
My view is slightly different - let's assume that Resonance is another realm (say, of knowledge), similar to the Astral one (or parallel, if you perfer). As the Matrix becomes increasingly complex, it becomes to interact with the Resonance realm, so in a way it doesn't simulate better reality (which you call the Physical realm, if you wish), but Resonance.
Meanwhile, what technomancers are capable of is to interact with the Resonance realm, which, in turn, allows them to interact with the Matrix as well. In effect, the idea that technomancers emit wi-fi signals is not correct, even though it is practically with the same effect. They use the Resonance as a medium to affect the Matrix, so a voltmeter will not give any readings, though basically the same result will be achieved, as if technomancers could emit wi-fi signals.
This doesn't preclude the singularity idea and the Matrix becoming self-aware. In fact, in analogy to what the last post suggests, you could say that the birth of AIs was possible only after the medium where they live in - the Matrix - becomes self-aware, similar to the self-aware environment, which has given birth to intelligent biological life.
Of course, this poses the question - have the realms (Astral, Resonance, etc.) existed before the media became self-aware (i.e. the environment and the Matrix), or are they an expression of self-awareness? Kind of another hen-and-egg question, though it does fall in line with the Jungean view :) Anyways, I just thought that this could help coping with the human radio dilemma, and it does bring technomancy closer to magic in principle.
In fact, you could go even further, arguing that emotions and knowledge are simply different manifestations of one universal force, and magic and technomancy are a different way to tap into it. Going further, as knowledge manifests mostly (but not exclusively) in technology, while emotions - in living things, this explains why the two don't overlap (but that they potentially might).
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Welcome to the board zhivik ;D
Nice post.
And this:
This doesn't preclude the singularity idea and the Matrix becoming self-aware. In fact, in analogy to what the last post suggests, you could say that the birth of AIs was possible only after the medium where they live in - the Matrix - becomes self-aware, similar to the self-aware environment, which has given birth to intelligent biological life.
was exactly my point.
makes me wander, that I REALLY need to re-read Carl Gustav :)
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Check out the paper by Erik Verlinde On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1001.0785v1) where he talks about how gravity is really an emergent force that has to do with gradients of the entropy of information. Basically, information is the most fundamental concept.....that smells a lot like a fundamental theory of everything that would, at least in flavor, seem to give the concept of Resonance a firm footing in the laws of present day physics...throw in some sci-fi hocus-pocus and then you got Resonance firmly independant from magic.
@Sichr:
Don't get me wrong, i like the whole "acupuncture" connection thing....it really goes well with the whole idea of submersion being very similar to a Buddhist style self-improvement philosophy.
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@Sichr:
Don't get me wrong, i like the whole "acupuncture" connection thing....it really goes well with the whole idea of submersion being very similar to a Buddhist style self-improvement philosophy.
WHAT ?! :D
Emergency is Zen!!!
Oh yes. I like this bioenergetic thinking, but I also think that they are closer to Magic than Ressonance...I see Wuxing and geomancy in those. But still, such theories there are, and they are Schumann connected :)
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Just wanted to throw in a little twist on a quote that's likely familiar to everyone here.
"Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
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This just in folks! It looks like we have some new evidence for the possibility of technomancers.....brainwave activity actually can sense Wifi:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone-use-tied-to-changes-in-brain-activity/?src=me&ref=general (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone-use-tied-to-changes-in-brain-activity/?src=me&ref=general)
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This just in folks! It looks like we have some new evidence for the possibility of technomancers.....brainwave activity actually can sense Wifi:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone-use-tied-to-changes-in-brain-activity/?src=me&ref=general (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone-use-tied-to-changes-in-brain-activity/?src=me&ref=general)
Awww, yeah... Add in the Force Trainer (http://www.thinkgeek.com/geek-kids/7-13-years/bf1b/) and I'll be playing video games WITH MY MIND in less than a year.
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brainwave activity actually can sense Wifi
After reading the article, I would suggest the phrase "brainwave activity is stimulated (or affected) by Wifi" rather than "can sense," until they demonstrate that subjects can determine which cell phone is active (lacking any other indications such as buzzing, ringing, blinking light, etc.) with high probability; only because "sense" imparts the idea that the brain is then informing the person('s consciousness) of the sensory input (which does not seem to be the case, at least from the news article, will be nice to get my hands on the research paper). But regardless, yes, brainwave activity is sensing the Wifi, and this is a very cool finding!
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This just in folks! It looks like we have some new evidence for the possibility of technomancers.....brainwave activity actually can sense Wifi:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone-use-tied-to-changes-in-brain-activity/?src=me&ref=general (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/cellphone-use-tied-to-changes-in-brain-activity/?src=me&ref=general)
A more accurate hypothesis is brain activity can be effected by wifi transmittions. It's reacting to a stimuli sure, but sense seems a strong word.
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Anyways, I guess now we only have to wait until wireless networks become complicated enough to be self-aware, and voilą - we have our technomancers :)
On a more serious note, the study is indeed interesting, but it only shows that more research is needed in that area. Who knows what can turn out, though this does gives me some shivers, as it makes the apocalyptic future in the Dollhouse TV series ... possible.
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I'm reminded about the study where they used the magnet to temporarily shut down someone's sense of consequences...I'll get my tinfoil hat.
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Well, it really can SENSE intense UHF band frequencies ....just look for amplified glucose consumption in the brain as a proxy for finding a wireless signal. I'm not saying it can interpret the information carried on those waves....just be "aware" of their presence.
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Well, it really can SENSE intense UHF band frequencies ....just look for amplified glucose consumption in the brain as a proxy for finding a wireless signal. I'm not saying it can interpret the information carried on those waves....just be "aware" of their presence.
I'm just splitting hairs about the word sense, not debating that there's a reaction. Damn our lazy ass language for words having 853 meanings.
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Could be used to sense bugs, similar to how you can sense astral forms.
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Could be used to sense bugs, similar to how you can sense astral forms.
Well, something like organic bugzilla? Welcome to the world of software testing!!!