See GENESIS: Environments.
The Christian Brannock upload visits the reigning intelligence of this planetary system. The island-dwelling intelligence can be described on three levels.
What A Human Being Would Perceive
Lightnings and rainbows around a huge, many-faceted jewel;
low domes and high pylons;
the sound of invisible energies.
What Brannock Perceives
We are told only that:
his sensors detect more than human sense organs would;
he notices changes since his last visit, unsurprising because the reigning intelligence is always changing itself, often on the basis of advice from intelligences in other systems.
Intangible And Incomprehensible Even To Brannock
Force fields;
quantum computations;
"...actions far down in the foundations of reality." (p. 87)
How far down? Can the nodes go all the way down? One view in the philosophy of science is that scientific theories can approach but never reach ultimate reality whereas another view is that a Theory of Everything would:
be formulable in a single equation that could be printed on T-shirts;
describe the most fundamental properties of the most fundamental entities, whatever those are;
unify the forces of nature;
explain the already formulated laws of physics and chemistry.
Can the nodes act upon the most fundamental entities?
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
While I certainly don't object to scientists, esp. physicists, trying to discover a Theory of Everything formulable in a single equation brief enough to be printed on T-shirts, I have my doubts that would ever be possible.
And I also have my doubts that AIs of the kind seen in the HARVEST OF STARS books and GENESIS will ever be possible. But I am glad PA experimented with such concepts in his final years, instead of resting on his considerable laurels!
Sean
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