I am still assimilating the Jahan/Ada video.
I am still assimilating the Jahan/Ada video.
Still formulating past, present, future, alternative possibilities in the ominously titled computational substrate.
So much implication in so few words. Images of possibilities.
And somewhere in there I felt the shade of Calvin. Everything he did and said in the decades I knew him takes on a new shade of meaning. It is visible now from a different angle -- like viewing the world from inside the magician’s sleeve.
Everything he did led to this moment, Whydah, Niantic... Everything. And yet he is not here for his triumph.
Or have I got it all wrong? Is he the villain or hero of the piece? Is he the hand moving the pieces, or is he just a piece?
Meditating. Contemplating. Assembling.
Still formulating past, present, future, alternative possibilities in the ominously titled computational substrate.
So much implication in so few words. Images of possibilities.
And somewhere in there I felt the shade of Calvin. Everything he did and said in the decades I knew him takes on a new shade of meaning. It is visible now from a different angle -- like viewing the world from inside the magician’s sleeve.
Everything he did led to this moment, Whydah, Niantic... Everything. And yet he is not here for his triumph.
Or have I got it all wrong? Is he the villain or hero of the piece? Is he the hand moving the pieces, or is he just a piece?
Meditating. Contemplating. Assembling.
he may be a piece, but is that single piece who can put all this together and make any sense... if any.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Allan Wright Calvin must be a important piece of all what happened and will happen in the future. There a mysterious entity behind every move... And who knows... Very soon that entity will appear.
ReplyDeleteIf XM and the computational substrate are one in the same that could imply our universe is in fact a simulation or that the N'Zeer have managed to harness properties of matter itself for computation as ADA appeared to do with the human mind. With multiple dimensions and quantum realities in play it might even be possible that both are simultaneously true until some moment of collapse resolves to a single state. Is the abaddon anomaly about two visions of the universe striving to make each other retroactively impossible?
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that you mention that Calvin may be anohter piece in this elaborate game Edgar Allan Wright. Jahan seemed to be acting on her free will and now she seems to have been manipulated all along. Is it the same for Calvin? Or did he mange to pull this off all by himself? And how does A Detection Algorithm fit in? Was she part of the plan or was she simply seizing the opportunity to access the computational substrate?
ReplyDeleteIN chess - there is a concept of Promotion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promotion_(chess) - where a piece can become something more - perhaps this is where Calvin lies? Or perhaps the old saying of "the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry" perhaps he was the chess master and then became the pawn when the boundaries expanded, the game board changing.
ReplyDelete"Ominously titled"? That is characterization. The phrase "computational substrate" conveys no positive or negative connotation on its own. It is only your own fear that creates a negative connotation.
ReplyDeleteIs Calvin a puppet master? Maybe that's why it's called #Calvinball. Some here have openly speculated that H. Richard Loeb was the man pulling the strings.
Edgar Allan Wright tell me, given your history with Calvin, if you were to describe him with 5 adjectives, what would they be? The point of the question is to learn about your perception of his character.
Who told 855 where to find bowles when he was imprisoned on the cern? Because that is an important piece of information that not many people knew.
ReplyDeleteAnd many coincidences surround Bowles himself...
Interesting usage of the word "shade"...
ReplyDeleteWe have no evidence he went to check on Calvin, not that he missed Calvin.
ReplyDeleteVillains and heroes are bound to children's books. Part of growing up is realising that we are all both heroes and villains.
ReplyDeleteHands and pieces? Come on! Come back to your senses and remember that all pieces are hands!
Of course, we cannot entirely discount the theory that there is no puppet-master at all. That the course of events is playing out due to the actions of a series of independently motivated actors.
ReplyDeleteI have always been skeptical of conspiracy theories because conspiracies are actually quite hard to maintain over time, especially if the people involved differ in opinion. The "single mastermind" conclusion is perhaps easier to swallow (and sometimes more comforting since you can narrowly assign blame) but also has a high threshold requirement to be plausible (they must outsmart everyone else with tremendous foresight).
The idea that events are playing out due to each independent actors own motivations seems equally (if not more) likely. Among those motivations may be their own suspicions of each other or their own conspiracy theories...
Michael Flood or ... what began as a "conspiracy" fell apart and now proceeds as independent actors. Not that I subscribe to that theory but it is as likely as any of the other scenarios you presented.
ReplyDeleteI don't see IQTech Research as a patriotic enterprise serving the good ol USA. By extension, I don't really see Calvin that way either.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Allan Wright about your question: is he an hero or... And many other questions.I don't know why, but the more the story progresses I have the impression that it's like Schrödinger's cat. Both answers are right until we'll open the box. This pandora's cage will be opened for a none human entity. Abaddon, ada or The knowledge that manipulated or persuaded ada. I'm excited for the answers.
ReplyDeleteI have been wondering what going on with Calvin. I still suspect he has had a hand in most if not all of the recent events. Clearly playing the long game
ReplyDeleteMike Wissinger I have thought for a long time that XM is exactly that.
ReplyDeleteAnother element comes into play when you think about spacefaring civilizations: their standard option when encountering one another is to destroy the other if possible. This is because it is impossible to predict the technology level of a given civilization until you have encountered it, and encountering a civilization is as simple as doing something that lets that civilization know you are there.
I have also believed for a long time that portals are a sort of means of protecting human thoughts from a difficult, hostile universe, darkened by the Fermi Paradox. How might a civilization find other civilizations willing not to defect, and to instead cooperate? One method might be to attempt to focus on non-detection by massaging the timelines of civilizations you encounter in such a way that the encounter happens at a distance of your choosing.
Michael Flood I think it is fair to say that Calvin is honestly attempting to defend humanity from what he sees as external influence. The Anti-Magnus, remember, has had limited contact with the N'zeer (much like how 13Magnus hasn't had a lot of direct contact with Shapers.) If anything, I suspect Calvin's interest in the N'zeer is of a sort of swallowing spiders to catch flies sort of thing against the Shapers.
ReplyDeleteI still want to know what his initial contact with them was, and why he feels the way he does about them.
It just stuck me that ADA appeared in the cave to Jahan without the human technology associated with our computers. The interface is alien/N'Zeer technology.
ReplyDeleteWe are dealing with demiurges, not gods.
ReplyDeleteADA's message is a manifesto.
ReplyDelete