21 KiB
Thought experiment for the bored rationalists: Is it, or is it not possible, to make Rational!Gurren Lagann?
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Author: u/shulme45 *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2s6uf1/thought_experiment_for_the_bored_rationalists_is/
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Score: 7
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Created: 2015-01-12T18:37:40
Post:
Or any other such media based on THE POWER OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT and so on. I feel an inkling of a though trailing towards "magic A is magic A", but not enough to extrapolate upon.
For example, Gurren Lagann's giant robots are tied to FIGHTING SPIRIT, but equally tied to the body of the pilot- If they forgot their waffles at breakfast, and they go into battle hungry, they'll be severely impaired, if able to fight at all.
Would a chemical cocktail be able to force certain emotions to height with brain chemistry? Could, in a particularly advanced world, this cause even people who wouldn't be able to pilot to do so?
I don't know. I'm not really in a thinking mood (And somewhat annoyed I had to type this all up again as my internet connection is proving unstable), but maybe someone can give points for "human spirit can be quantified and exploited" and "well, maybe it can't for reasons" and all that.
Comments:
u/Drazelic [+9] Dai-Gurren Brigade (3 days later)
I had a fic idea where Lordgenome and Nia switched places with Kamina and Simon.
All know and fear the name of Lord Kamina, ruler of the Dai-Gurren Empire, a war-mongering despot who suppresses scientific development in favor of building his ideal world of conflict and manliness. Under his rule, the Dai-Gurren Empire has become a society that exalts only martial prowess and embodies the most toxic attributes of masculinity at their worst (think the spartans or mongolian hordes at their worst, combined with an unhealthy dose of misogyny), which only barely stays stable because Kamina, in a dictator's best practice, has managed to make the Beastmen his scapegoats, and is now shipping them off to underground concentration camps. Though tensions rise, the humans manage to keep society controlled by ensuring that Spiral Power is limited only to their species, denying the Beastmen the right to fight back in any way. This is the Dai-Gurren Empire's way.
But Geno, a brilliant man banished to an underground concentration camp for daring to speak aloud his dream of an scientific, peaceful society, has other plans. Armed with his forbidden research into the true nature of Spiral Power, Geno plans to unite the oppressed beastmen and overthrowing their Spiral-powered oppressors with a secret weapon of their own- a machine that he and his daughter Nia built together in secret, utilizing forbidden methods of manipulating Spiral Power with steel and wire rather than flesh and sinew- a weapon called the Lazengann!
Armed with the Lazengann, Geno eliminates the defenses of his prison camp easily, and recruits four young beastmen, forming the terrorist group TEPPELIN. Soon, TEPPELIN has become Lord Kamina's personal nightmare; led by the mysterious masked figure known only as the Spiral King, TEPPELIN begins liberating prison camps left and right.
But just as TEPPELIN's momentum seems unstoppable, Nia meets Simon, the personal ward of Lord Kamina, a kid whose test scores revealed unparalleled potential for Spiral Power. And Simon won't let TEPPELIN get their way, not when his bro is counting on him to stop the terrorists and protect the Dai-Gurren Empire...
(Yes, Geno still dies at episode 8, blasted through the chest with a spiral laser by Kittan, causing Nia to go all depressed until she manages to convince Simon to defect fully and join their side.)
So, tl;dr: it's basically Code Geass for the first season. Anyways, things after that go pretty much the same. The Anti-Spirals, this time, kept humanity confined to earth because they were afraid that mankind's drive for warfare would consume the universe in eternal war if they got the chance.
(Also, in this fic, beastmen would just be the descendants of pre-apocalypse humans who got gene-mods to look like catgirls and stuff; they're entirely capable of unlocking spiral potential, it's just that the Dai-Gurren Empire has been doing eugenics to 'keep the race pure'.)
u/None [+5] (4 days later)
This is super cool and awesome. Reminds me kind of Parallel Works 4, in which Beastmen are oppressed by Kamina.
u/None [+2] (15 days later)
You need to actually write that story.
u/mhd-hbd [+2] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (15 days later)
*standing ovation*
u/FalcotheFalcon [+1] (a month later)
..wow I would watch/read the shit out of that. Excellent work my friend , don't give up on this idea its a good one. believe in yourself!
u/_ShadowElemental [+2] Sufficiently Analyzed Magic (11 hours later)
Also note: there's a [BST] -- brainstorming tag and a [RST] -- rational tag. While being really strict about the tags isn't required here at all, in this case those two would be quite useful to make it at-a-glance scanable what this thread is about from the title: "[BST][RST] ... Rational!Gurren Lagann" makes it really clear when you're scanning a bunch of titles in a row, as comp. to just "... Rational!Gurren Lagann".
u/Rouninscholar [+1] (45 minutes later)
Well, lets take our world ("earth"). Now add a number of extra planes, that are overly power rich. Planes 1-10, each of which has a power base 1 order of magnitude more than the last. We are on plane 0
People are largely powered by "spiral energy" to keep with the theme there is a portion of our mitochondrial DNA that reaches into this first plane. Food is still neccesary to keep the portal open, but not as much as it used to.
Each plane also carries a certain mutability of the rules that goes up with the planar base power. Our brains are structured so that they broadcast out belief just a little, but far enough for it to reach our other cells. This, for any normal human, creates a small aura around them where the rules work a little more to their understanding. If an optimist and a pessimist both jump off of a 10ft wall the optimist believes he will land on his feet, the pessimist expects to sprain an ankle. Both are usually right.
The first level of this is only enough to bend rules subtly in your favor. Over time the more rational people learned that the more you know about the system, the harder it is to affect change. When handed an iron pipe and told it was a new metal that was incredibly heat resistant, it failed to heat up over an open flame compared to a control.
As the average Intelligence went up the particularly dense people were faster, stronger and more durable. The intelligent learned that larger machines could channel these effects far easier. Anyone can tell that a stick, or a sword, or a rock is simply what it is. But a hovercraft? A spaceship? These things took study to understand how it works. Time passed, and the human race became divided: those who built, and those who used.
Users were given more and more advanced technology, and put to work. Their ignorance field kept them the same. They never evolved, they never mutate, because from the womb they are molded by belief. The only thing that evolved was the ability to affect reality to a greater extent. Through their confidence, and their willingness to push limits the greater members broke to the second plane, then the third, fourth...
The buildmen evolved over a few thousand years. They changed, modded themselves. And lived a good life off the work of the usemen.
Until the humans attacked, they used their fantastic weapons and tools to fight a war. And they lost, just barely. The beastmen, with their great tools, and advanced AI locked them away. Most of their tech was large and a little unwieldy due to being built to accommodate an ever larger ignorance field. But they worked. So they kept it.
u/_ShadowElemental [+1] Sufficiently Analyzed Magic (10 hours later)
"Aniki, we should just run away!" Simon cried out. "That enemy mecha is massive, and we only have one little mecha that we just figured out how to power on a minute ago! That thing probably has a skilled pilot, and it's huge, and it's got an even huger club!
"And we've got what, fists? Little tiny head-sized fists? We don't even know how to close the cockpit! If we're insanely lucky, we might last five minutes by dodging the whole time, but it's useless if we can't even dent the enemy's armor. That might give some of the other villagers time to escape, but then we'll -- then we'll d-- Aniki I don't want to die!
"I don't want to die -- I don't want to -- and -- and -- and Lagann shouldn't even be able to move! Whatever happened to energy conservation, this thing violates basic physics!
"We can't fight a battle after just falling into the cockpit, that's crazy!"
"Hoy hoy hoy hoy hoy hoy hoy!!
"You're procrastinating Simon! So what if this thing violates basic thermodynamics? It can clearly move! Empirical data trumps theory.
"So throw thermodynamics to the curb and go beyond the impossible! That's how the Gurren-dan rolls!
"So what if we can't find any weapons on Lagann. That doesn't mean there aren't any! Realistically speaking, how much of Lagann's capabilities do you think we've figured out yet?"
"Ah, well we've managed to turn it on.--" Answered Simon. "And this important-looking spiral-shaped gauge is reading nearly empty."
"See?" Kamina patted Simon on the back. "We've only just scratched the surface of what the mighty Lagann is capable of! A blank map does not correspond to a blank territory Simon.
"Have you forgotten? Your empiricism shall pierce the heavens!
"So come on blood brother, let's get out there! We're gonna show that big moron the power of the Gurren-Dan!!"
(Note here how neither Simon nor Kamina are fully 'correct', but rather their two approaches form two sides of a whole that is. This is intentional, don't worry I'm not going beyond what's rational in-universe just because SpiralPowerDidIt.)
So, major rationality skills could be taught in the way of rational judgment superseding whatever nonsense your ancestral brain is throwing out in non-ancestrally-adapted situations, and at the same time not going overboard in one direction -- because a nonstop stream of generic mooks constantly blowing up for an hour straight isn't awesome, it's boring, so it's ineffective given Spiral Power. Which is why you have lots of attack types! And you throw your moon-sized mecha's continent-sized sunglasses at them like boomerangs! And -- yeah a rational reimagining of TTGL is definitely possible.
So rationality is definitely still important when basic physics and logic are overridden by the Power of Awesome.
Speaking of, let's not forget about Nia, pretty much the sole voice of reason in canon (not that I minded, TTGL is about crazy awesome after all): "Halt, Adine-sama! Nia Teppelin commands you!
"These people have done nothing wrong! They merely seek to live peacefully on the surface, like we do. Why won't you let them?
"Is it because they are humans, and you are Beastmen? But the Spiral King is human! I am human!
"Because the surface cannot support that high a population? Whyever not? Why must there be only one city on the whole surface of the planet?
"These people are just like we are. And yet you're repressing them -- driving them back underground -- turning just government into authoritarianism! Don't you think there's something wrong with that paradigm?"
And of course, once the Dai-Gurren-Dan really gets going "Kardashev-level civilization" is a bit of an understatement. I mean, we've got the Spiral King casually handing out immortality (eg Viral), and humanity casually relifing the who-knows-how-long-dead Spiral King after the latter had his entire core torso drilled through. And FLT, and the Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann -- I mean Kardashev-Level-Three Free Energy Generator... hell, who am I kidding, let's not forget about the universe-sized mecha whose idea of a special attack involves throwing galaxies around.
Lots of awesome transhuman-y tech to play around with,-- all based off the Power of AWESOME.
edit: I just realized, I wrote Kamina as saying "realistically speaking". That should cause some sort of paradox, culminating in a universe-breaking EXPLOSION OF AWESOME because -- Kamina saying "realistically speaking" goes beyond the impossible and throws reason to the curb.
And that's how the Dai-Gurren-dan rolls.
u/None [+2] (13 hours later)
Thank you, based /u/_ShadowElemental. So... awesome...
u/RolandsVaria [+2] (5 minutes later)
Team Dai Gurren seems to pull through by repeatedly doing some of the stupidest things. The Gurren Lagann universe doesn't work on critical thought, often flat out discourages it. There would need to be a serious overhaul of the series before that could work.
u/None [+30] (37 minutes later)
eh-hem. Real-world heuristics for instrumental rationality are not actually instrumental rationality. If you find yourself in a universe with Spiral Power, going beyond the impossible and kicking logic to the curb is the strictly rational move. You cannot rationalfic Gurren Lagann because there are no errors in reasoning to fix, whatsoever: they're doing the right things the whole time because their universe really does run on awesomesauce.
u/AmeteurOpinions [+9] Finally, everyone was working together. (42 minutes later)
THANK YOU.
I am beginning to wonder if I should make a large meta-post/essay on this or something, because it keeps coming up and I don't want it to.
u/None [+6] (51 minutes later)
Make the meta-post. It'll be fun!
u/alexanderwales [+2] Time flies like an arrow (43 minutes later)
I'd appreciate that meta-post.
u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (an hour later)
I'd be interested
u/RolandsVaria [+3] (an hour later)
Yes, I'm aware that their actions are well and good since they're in a universe that greatly rewards such action. All the same, I'm pretty sure the agreed upon definition for a Rational! Fic is that it actually teaches rationality in some way. And seeing as Gurren Lagann is utterly divorced from reality and rather simplistic on the face of it, you couldn't really get very far with that. All you need to do is grab a giant robot and charge straight ahead.
(Not that I'm calling the show bad by any means, I quite like it).
u/None [+4] (an hour later)
No, it's not just grab a giant robot and charge straight ahead. It's stay determined in the face of an apparently adversarial reality, an enemy who appears to be God, alterations to the nature of probability itself, and just generally overwhelming enemy forces.
u/RolandsVaria [+3] (2 hours later)
Right, I gave too little credit. Gurren Lagann can be quite inspiring.
u/None [+3] (13 hours later)
It's not that it's merely inspiring. It's that determinatorism is a well-warranted trait to have when being buggy software on corrupted hardware.
u/nerdguy1138 [+1] GNU Terry Pratchett (a day later)
It is explicitly stated that Spiral Energy flips the bird to physics.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+10] Godric Gryffindor (a day later)
Whatever is, is physics.
u/nerdguy1138 [+3] GNU Terry Pratchett (3 days later)
Yes, but finding out that flatly impossible things will happen if you believe hard enough, should probably make some physicists want a case of beer and some aspirin.
u/None [+4] (4 days later)
If something happens, it's not impossible. Just because new evidence disproves your model of reality doesn't mean reality somehow doesn't have a model- you just need to go back to the drawing board and figure it out.
u/Chronophilia [+5] sci-fi ≠ futurology (4 days later)
Fine, let's put it another way: Spiral Energy suggests that physics has rules about complex and large-scale objects like human brains, in a way that does not obviously reduce to rules about the component parts of a brain. This, even though all the scientific knowledge we've gained since the 18th century suggests that we live in a reductionist universe. If it were confirmed, everything I thought I knew be either wrong or extremely incomplete. Better yet (or worse, depending on your perspective), the scientific method itself would be thrown into question.
u/OffColorCommentary [+3] (15 days later)
True though that is, the Gurren Lagann universe has physics that contains ontologically basic mental things, and some of those are flipping each other the bird.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
So what? Just who the hell do you think we are!?
u/MaxDougwell [+1] (8 hours later)
I believe the entire show is a metaphor for the development of humanity and the ratchet of science. With that in mind, I don't see why you couldn't make a rationalist Gurren Lagann by replacing Spiral Power with actual science and rationality. Perhaps a rationalist!Kamina and a developingscientist!Simone. A Rational Gurren Lagann, as others have said, would just be Gurren Lagann since everyone is rational for their universe (from memory).
u/None [+3] (20 hours later)
With that in mind, I don't see why you couldn't make a rationalist Gurren Lagann by replacing Spiral Power with actual science and rationality.
Since Spiral Energy is literally the embodied force of recursive self-improvement, there are levels at which this metaphor would work really incredibly well.
Related: I once tried to describe TTGL to an LW-y friend who hasn't seen it as, "Recursively self-improving super robots fight God in a humanity-fuck-yeah anime."
ALL YOU WATCH TTGL NOW.
u/None [+1] (19 hours later)
u/None [+2] (20 hours later)
Excuse me, I have to go to board-games night now, but in fact it should be, "Kick your preexisting models to the curb and dissolve the impossible!" Because there's a vast difference between:
- I don't have a model that allows for this to be possible. ("It's impossible to win the AI Box game.")
- My existing models give this event such an absurdly low probability that pigs might as well fly out of my ears. ("It's impossible to make a party hostess's undergarments jump a meter to the left when a switch is pulled.")
- My existing models allow me to construct a logical contradiction when this event happens. ("It's impossible to exceed the speed of light.")
Only the last one is an actual impossibility, as opposed to the first being mere ignorance and the second being a very strong but finitely low improbability to which counter-evidence could someday be provided.
u/None [+7] (20 hours later)
Don't confuse your map:
My existing models allow me to
with the territory:
exceed the speed of light.
Your third and second are special cases of the first.
u/TimTravel [+2] (2 days later)
("It's impossible to exceed the speed of light.")
That's physically impossible not logically impossible.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
It's physically impossible in the sense that our best models of physics derive logical contradictions, infinities in place of real numbers.
u/TimTravel [+2] (2 days later)
It is only logically impossible conditioned on it being physically impossible and physically happening. If the laws of physics were different and light acted differently it wouldn't be physically or logically impossible.
u/DCarrier [+1] (a month later)
I want to see a continuation fic. Overthrowing the anti-spirals was the easy part. Now he has to figure out how to keep the universe from collapsing into a black hole without getting rid of spiral power. A problem difficult enough for the anti-spirals to consider taking over the galaxy and then lobotomizing themselves the less scary option.
I'm not sure how you'd write that, though. It's not the sort of thing were people can understand the problem and how the solution works. Also, you as a writer would have to figure something out that the entire race of anti-spirals could not.