Sunday 25 January 2015

Genesis: Some Miscellaneous Points

(i) It is a big coincidence that Wayfarer and Kalava arrive at Arctica simultaneously.

(ii) We are not shown anything of the southern hemisphere.

(iii) I have been referring to the Christian Brannock upload as Brannock. However, while that upload is exploring Gaia's emulations, the machine exploring the physical environment has an artificial brain bearing a sketch of Wayfarer's self-pattern dominated by the Christian Brannock aspect. For this reason, the narrator now refers to the upload in the emulations as Christian and to the machine as Brannock.

(iv) The narrator tries to "...make clear that what took place in the system was not a mere simulation. It was emulation." (Genesis, p. 144) However, what he goes on to describe is mere simulation. To represent variables by numbers is not to reproduce the effects of the variables.

(v) Gaia argues that, when Wayfarer, Alpha and the galactic brain view the history of Earth, they will see it as a drama or symphony that must be carried to its conclusion.

(vi) Brannock could survey Earth by discharging molecular assemblers that would build small robots to fly around and transmit data to him. However, Gaia persuades him to travel in an aircraft remotely controlled by a small part of her attention. She has invented and installed a force field to damp, then take over, his brain processes. Her other instrumentalities on Earth can ensure that he does not survive and that Wayfarer is informed of an accident.

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