46 KiB
[META] Is Unsong rational fic?
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Author: u/Ninmesara *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4sv6te/meta_is_unsong_rational_fic/
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Score: 34
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Created: 2016-07-14T19:41:11
Post:
I've been pointed to Unsong by Scott's blog (SlateStarCodex, AKA SCC). While on the first few chapters you might have thought it was rational fic, I think that from a certain point (can't be too precise), I think you can't acurately call it rational fic anymore. According to the sidebar of this subreddit, the story fares pretty badly as rational fic, namely:
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Nothing happens solely because 'the plot requires it'. If characters do (or don't do) something, there must be a plausible reason. Just like Discworld, Unsong seems to run on plot and incredible coincidences. Some of them might be explained eventually, but well, but many things seem to have few good reasons for it.
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Any factions are defined and driven into conflict by their beliefs and values, not just by being "good" or "evil". Thamiel seems to be evil for little reason besides increasing the global total of evulz. Angels seem to fight for the Greater Good of Pure Goodness. Maybe we'll get deeper reasons for this, but again, maybe not.
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The characters solve problems through the intelligent application of their knowledge and resources. Well, I give you this one.
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The rules of the fictional world are sane and consistent. They are mostly insane and inconsistent. At one point, number EIGHT has been taken for maintenance. Kabbalah works in Hebrew, English, and probably more languages, as long as you have good enough puns. Uriel wrote the universe's database layer in Ruby on Rails, angels alternate between Iambic pentameter and speaking like the author when discussing morality and utility functions. Birds can fly but Airplanes can't. TV broadcasts have stopped working. LSD allows you to communicate with the divine presence of Neil Armstrong. The decay in technology is non-uniform and random, which has been lampshaded by the characters.
None of the above points is a criticism of the story, of course. The story is very good, one of the best things I've read on the internet. Clearly better than most rational fics I've read or tried to read (not many, admittedly), but I think that discussing the story in this subreddit dilutes the brand somehow. I know that Scott is an important person in the rationalist movement, but this doesn't mean that everything he's written is rational fiction. If this can be counted as rational fiction, then why not Harry Potter (the original, of course, not the fanfictions)?
As an example, I've read the discussion of The Broadcast in this subreddit, and people were mostly discussing the chapter according to the tropes of rational fiction, which does it a disservice, as it doesn't seem to fit.
There might be other subreddits in which discussion of this story would be more appropriate, and in which the readers' expectations wouldn't clash with the story so often.
What do you think? Am I misunderstanding the point of rational fiction and the purpose of this subreddit? If the users of this subreddit want to discuss the story here, I'm obviously in favor.This is mostly a way of starting a discussion around what rational fiction means.
Comments:
u/blazinghand [+73] Chaos Undivided (2 minutes later)
I'm pretty sure the author has explicitly stated more than once he does not consider it Rational or Rationalist fiction. It gets posted and discussed because even if it's not rational fiction, it's certainly rational-adjacent fiction. Our traffic isn't very high, so it's not like it's bumping content off the front page or anything. I don't consider it a problem.
u/TK17Studios [+62] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (2 hours later)
It's not a rational story. Its presence on this board is correct.
There used to be huge debates in the parkour/freerunning community about whether parkour and freerunning were the same thing, and whether flips were parkour. Those debates were interesting, and worth having, but they overlooked the key point, which was that people who enjoy one almost always enjoy the other, too.
Unsong is an irrational story, but its one that consumers of rationalist fiction are extremely likely to enjoy. If we look at it as a slippery slope, then it's out of place here. But I prefer to see it as that one high-quality video full of flips that gets consistently upvoted even though the subreddit is dedicated to parkour.
u/CouteauBleu [+17] We are the Empire. (3 hours later)
Right.
The subreddit had some guidelines about what qualifies as rational fic, but what really gets posted here is content made by a community that more or less gravitates around LessWrong and to a lesser extent Worm.
u/ratanon [+5] Holy, holy is the lord of /etc/hosts (3 days later)
In other words, this subreddit has fallen victim to The Ideology Is Not The Movement.
u/Chronophilia [+3] sci-fi ≠ futurology (3 days later)
You say that like it's a bad thing.
u/None [+4] (16 hours later)
[deleted]
u/TK17Studios [+9] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (22 hours later)
I think that would be a mistake, though. I think there is, and should be, quite a high barrier-to-entry for nonrational fic, and even though there's a bit of doublethink and doubletalk around Unsong-vs-other-stuff, I believe it's the optimal way forward.
If we put the statement you suggested into the sidebar, then nonrational stuff becomes (part of) the rule, rather than the exception. In a sense, I think Scott "earned" the right to have people on the subreddit give his story a first look, and I wouldn't want a bunch of other fiction being given that same privilege. Like, I'd rather not have to decide whether or not to click on a bunch of nonrational stories when I'm on this subreddit; I'd rather that choice come up like once a year or whatever than once a week.
Me, personally. Note that I've got nothing to do with the maintenance of r/rational; I'm just a board member and not even a particularly active one at that.
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (3 days later)
FWIW, I agree with you. I expect (and hope) that the majority of works posted here fall somewhere on the spectrum of rational works, but the occasional deviation from that is alright, so long as it's both high quality and in the set of things I might like if I like rational fiction.
It's not really something that I think we want to police, because there are debates to be had about what is and is not rational fiction (as seen in this post and numerous conversations on this subreddit). We do occasionally police it though, because if we just didn't police it at all then the subreddit would start to shift in such a way that the label and focus would become muddied.
u/Fredlage [+8] (an hour later)
The only aspect of the story I've found irrational to the point of interfering with my enjoyment of it was Aaron's behavior. Granted, a stupid protagonist is a pretty bad offense, but the fact that there are so many different plot threads dampens that a lot. Aside from some stupid characters, I think Unsong qualifies as rational, regardless of what Scott says. Having absurd things happening like the number eight being down doesn't make it less so, it only underlines the fact that this is not a world running on mathematical laws of physics (those were just part of Uriel's VM). Of course birds can fly, God created them to fly. Airplanes, on the other hand, depended on physics and those are going out of commission. That is consistent, it just relies on a twisted sort of logic which is hard to grasp.
Thamiel and the Angels are a simply a matter of artificial beings created with very specific values. Thamiel's utility function is fulfilled by punishing people and he does so with horrible efficiency. That's what he values, and his actions are directed by that.
u/Ninmesara [+5] (2 hours later)
The only aspect of the story I've found irrational to the point of interfering with my enjoyment of it was Aaron's behavior. Granted, a stupid protagonist is a pretty bad offense
I can think of 4 major mistakes:
Using Llull in a densely populated area, potentially in range of Unsong's tattooed goons
Trying to get inside Ithaca without thinking first. He might be acting in the heat of the moment, but I consider this one inexcusable.
Not thinking about the deeper implications of ensouling a computer (namely that Sarah might be acting on her own)
Not being suspicious of the fact that the ensouling name was discovered accidentally by someone who is probably the only one sweatshop worker that is able to memorize it after saying it only once. Strangely, he does not remark that "This is not a coincidence"...
I don't consider major mistakes the following:
Not giving a random seed to Llull - Unsong's attack is really clever, and a whole level of paranoia. Note that for this to work, Unsong must keep a high populational density men with the Moon Finding named tatooed on their foreheads, while keeping the whole project a secret (amnesic name, maybe?) and while keeping the name iteself secret, lest it would become useless. I like to think that I'd have thought of the possibility were I Aaron, but it's a comprehensible mistake.
Hiding the purple dragon - We have reasons to trust Jane (she has a flying kayak, so we know she's probably related to the Comet King, etc.). Aaron doesn't. Jane's been threatening before. I disagree with his course of action but I don't think it is that stupid.
On the other hand, he does some pretty amazing things:
He's a good mnemonist
He is a klipot expert
He figures out Unsong's attack very quickly
He escapes Malia Ngo
He finds his way around the Angel library pretty quickly
And all of this in about two days! So, while the obvious mistakes are certainly annoying, I'd call him smart but impulsive and naïve, not stupid. YMMV, though ;)
u/Chronophilia [+5] sci-fi ≠ futurology (18 hours later)
Using Llull in a densely populated area, potentially in range of Unsong's tattooed goons
This falls into the more general mistake of "not realising that UNSONG booby trapped the Moon-Finding Name"; there's no reason for Aaron to hide from the Sentinel Name if he doesn't think they can track the Names he's using.
Not thinking about the deeper implications of ensouling a computer (namely that Sarah might be acting on her own)
We have access to evidence that Aaron doesn't. Until Sarah showed up on Ana's desk, few of the readers were seriously considering that possibility either. The Vital Name that gives a soul isn't the same as the Names that create golems; we didn't think Sarah was going to start walking around of her own volition.
u/Ninmesara [+4] (20 hours later)
This falls into the more general mistake of "not realising that UNSONG booby trapped the Moon-Finding Name"; there's no reason for Aaron to hide from the Sentinel Name if he doesn't think they can track the Names he's using.
I'm going to assume that you can program a blacklist of known names into Llull, which Aaron is not said to be doing but which is commons sense. You don't need to suspect a booby trap. You just need to suspect that Unsong might be sitting on some secret names, and that some of those names might be important enough to have dedicated sentinels actively looking for them. While I'm sure invoking the "Wakening Name" or the "Paint My House Blue Name" won't attract their attention, invoking something like the "Spectral Name" will (if Unsong knows about it, of course). The safest defense against this attack seems to be to start Llull away from major population centers, where Unsong won't probably be able to afford sentinels. And Aaron isn't only in a major population center, he is in a city with a high concentration of Theonomic companies Unsong might be listening to.
Not thinking about the deeper implications of ensouling a computer
This is something Aaron and Ana don't even discuss prior to ensouling the computer. In fact, this is so out of character that I have trouble imagining that they are acting on their own free will. Come on, Ana is studying theodicy and doesn't even comment on giving a soul to a machine? Would that allow the machine to go to Hell? There are some reasonable anti-natalist arguments in Unsong... They must apply when ensouling a machine, right?
few of the readers were seriously considering that possibility either
It's in the beginning of the story, which by the way starts in media res, so we are naturally quite confused in the beginning. I, for example, was expecting a corporate story about disrupting the monopoly of the Theonomic companies, which happened to cause the apocalypse.
And of course, by now Aaron knows that Sarah showed up on Ana's desk and disappeared afterwards. the possibility should have occurred to him during the telepathic conversation. He hasn't had a lot of time to think about it yet, but if by next chapter he hasn't considered the possibility, then he is either being stupid or mind-controlled
Of course, we might still be wrong about Sarah, but it is a possibility I think Aaron should have thought of.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (19 hours later)
But Aaron knows that Sarah showed up on Ana's desk, doesn't he? He and Ana shared all their information via psychic link.
u/Ninmesara [+4] (2 hours later)
You make some of the same points as /u/ishaan123 regarding consistency, and my response is the same. I think that extreme weirdness and arbitrary rules, even if you can invoke some vague meta-principles, are indistinguishable from inconsistency, but I can certainly understand your point of view.
I agree with your point on Thamiel and the Angels - they are artificial beings and can have artificial values without breaking suspension of belief.
u/alexanderwales [+16] Time flies like an arrow (26 minutes later)
No, I don't think it is. I don't have a problem with that, except to the extent that irrational elements detract from my enjoyment of any work of fiction. I would also prefer that people not read Unsong as though it were trying to be rational fiction, because that almost certainly gets you a less enjoyable reading of the text.
u/elevul [+2] Cyoria Observer (a day later)
Agreed, and that's why I dropped it at chapter 10.
u/Dwood15 [+1] (3 days later)
Thanks for warning me. I come to this subreddit for rational fiction and discussion of it in literature. I was going to start reading it soon, but thanks to this discussion I understand it's not now.
Personally, as someone recently (last 6 mos) introduced to the rational subreddit, and I know we don't have much going on here, I think the sub would benefit more by not having it. That's because its very presence on the front page here so often indicates its 'rationality' if you will.
u/ishaan123 [+16] Sidebar Contestant (27 minutes later)
It's rational (despite the author saying it's not) because, in every instance where it departs from rationality it does so in a self-aware manner.
Nothing happens solely because 'the plot requires it'
We are explained that this is a sentient universe which favors plots. It therefore falls under the category of "self aware/deconstruction/subversion".
Any factions are defined and driven into conflict by their beliefs and values, not just by being "good" or "evil"
Excused as self aware subversive deconstruction and also excused because it makes sense. We understand that these are angels and demons so there is a very clear reason and backstory for why they are "good' and evil - there are absolutely no unstated assumption about good/evil as natural divides. Besides, angelic "good" is clearly either distinct from human good or similar but somehow severely stunted, so orange and blue morality applies. And we see all this cosmology taken to fairly logical conclusions (Would you want to end up like Neil Armstrong? Of course not...)
The rules of the fictional world are sane and consistent. They are mostly insane and inconsistent.
I wouldn't say that actually. It proports, in a self aware manner, to be insane and inconsistent (the tone of the narration and the human characters betray clear awareness that it's all insane) but that's because the universe respects plot-thinking. There is still meta-consistency - there are reasons for the apparent inconsistencies and those reasons remain constant and consistent.
Or are you saying hpmor's universe rules made sense? They didn't, at all! There is even that scene with the bats where Harry tries to do experiments and none of the results neatly collapse into any sort of reductionist model. Yet for both stories, we can at least say stuff like "the spell does the same thing each time it is spoken".
You might consider this a rational fanfiction of Judaic mythology (the same way hpmor is a rational fanficiton of harry potter). The universe is irrational because it is a borrowed universe. Also, I understand why you do but I feel like you shouldn't have to borrow the universe for the reader to excuse the universe for being insane. If HPMOR is allowed insane rules so is Unsong.
See also: the tales of mu reply to hpmor: http://www.talesofmu.com/other/mumoo (ToMU is actually not rational, but this chapter is)
I think if a story is obviously, acutely aware of every single point on which it departs, deconstructs, or subverts the usual rational worldview and makes a point of telling the reader so, it's definitely rational. At no point in Unsong are violations of the rational genre just quietly part of the background, each so-called violation is loud and intentional and explained by meta principles which aren't actually in violation.
u/Chronophilia [+17] sci-fi ≠ futurology (an hour later)
Being aware of your own irrationality isn't rationality. One of the themes of UNSONG is that the world has gone mad, so deliberate and lampshaded irrationality helps convey that theme. Which is good writing. Very good writing, even. But it does not make the story rational.
Nor is it exactly rational fanfic. If HPMoR is our gold standard for rational fanfic, then it's about taking the arbitrary and irrational features of the original story and inventing the consistent and simple rules that led to them. (E.g. in Harry Potter, the Philosopher's Stone creates gold and immortality. In HPMoR, those two apparently unrelated uses stem from a single power.) A rational fanfic of Judaic myth might look at the Bible and describe how God chooses when to perform a miracle and what form that miracle should take. UNSONG has a few elements of rat-fic, but mostly it's its own thing.
u/Arancaytar [+9] (2 hours later)
in every instance where it departs from rationality it does so in a self-aware manner.
Interestingly, while Discworld doesn't completely fit this, if we apply this self-awareness rule then it looks more rational than eg. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, even though its setting is sillier. Many of the main characters - eg. Vimes, Vetinari, Granny - are basically rationalists.
u/waylandertheslayer [+10] (4 hours later)
The characters of the witches are definitely rationalist in some of the stories. Their powers are described in one of the books that follow a new witch-in-training called Tiffany Aching as:
First sight, i.e. seeing what is really there as opposed to what you expect or want to see. You could argue that all knowledge depends on accurate observation.
Second thoughts, i.e. self-reflection and analysis of why you think what you think. This maps nicely onto knowledge of biases and how to overcome them.
They also have a lot more scientific knowledge than most people (the example I can think of off the top of my head is knowledge of germs).
However, this isn't consistently followed. Compare A Hat Full of Sky's witches with those from Equal Rites, and those in Lords and Ladies. Early Diskworld characters are very different to those from later on, as the world matures and roles and niches become more developed, so at best parts of some of the stories are rational.
Vetinari is also fairly rational, but more in a calculating and efficient way where he avoids a lot of inefficiencies rather than any deep self-analysis or overcoming of his personal flaws.
u/None [+1] (19 hours later)
[deleted]
u/waylandertheslayer [+3] (19 hours later)
The witches are also well aware that their world runs (to some extent) on narrativium, so they deliberately set up people to be traditional heroes/villains.
iirc that's only in 'Witches Abroad', and it's the villain (who uses the 'fairy godmother' archetype) who starts it - they break the stories instead of using them.
u/Roxolan [+1] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (19 hours later)
(I deleted my post before you finished writing yours because I realized I'd made mistakes in it.)
u/fubo [+12] (2 hours later)
There is even that scene with the bats where Harry tries to do experiments and none of the results neatly collapse into any sort of reductionist model.
No, they just don't fit a reductionist model discovered by Harry in the first day of experimenting.
One of Harry's character flaws is that he expects the world's problems to be easily solved by the first rationalist wizard to come along ... and that he expects this first rationalist wizard is himself.
He persists in this delusion even after being given the diary of Roger Bacon, which is first-class evidence that a rationalist wizard lived in the 13th century. He exhibits no subsequent curiosity about Bacon and makes no effort to learn Latin in order to read the diary.
Basically, Harry systematically fails to notice confusions that would lead to the conclusion of his own non-uniqueness, particularly the existence of other rationalist or scientifically-minded wizards prior to himself.
(For instance, he expects that economic strategies that would be available to the first rationalist wizard to come along — such as arbitrage between the Muggle and wizarding economies — will be available to him. If he were reasoning clearly about wizard/Muggle history, he would recognize that the fact that this exploit isn't being used is pretty good evidence that it doesn't work.)
(On the other hand, he is eleven years old.)
u/Jiro_T [+5] (20 hours later)
One of Harry's character flaws is that he expects the world's problems to be easily solved by the first rationalist wizard to come along ... and that he expects this first rationalist wizard is himself.
You need to distinguish "the character is supposed to be arrogant within the context of the story" and "the character is supposed to be justified within the context of the story, but he actually isn't, so when you look at the character realistically, he's arrogant".
This is especially a problem when the character is an author mouthpiece.
u/None [+4] (22 hours later)
It's double especially a problem when the Author Mouthpiece Ball is thrown between characters. Sometimes Harry was the mouthpiece, but word of god was that Godric Gryffindor was the actual mouthpiece the author really intended us to listen to, and sometimes also Dumbledore.
And then of course, Harry was sometimes possessed by a Dark Lord.
u/Ninmesara [+4] (2 hours later)
If it is true that Harry doesn't make any more experiments after the ones I've read about, then it only makes my point stronger. Even the fact that Roger Bacon has been struggling with explaining the magical laws does not mean that rational explanations don't exist, as the real world has taught us that the physical laws of reality take a long time to be discovered.
u/None [+6] (22 hours later)
Admittedly, in real life physical laws take a long time to be discovered because precise experiments are hard to do, consistent mathematics to process the data is hard to develop, and approximate intuitive theories for getting around in the world are very easy to learn.
I imagine that if you could change stuff into other stuff by willpower, science might get easier in some ways.
u/ishaan123 [+2] Sidebar Contestant (a day later)
No, they just don't fit a reductionist model discovered by Harry in the first day of experimenting.
That's what I meant by "neatly". The reader never gets the satisfaction of a tidy model, and that's okay because that matches real life.
(Also, your criticisms stand but I don't think the author of HPMOR necessarily intended that reading: because 13th century was pre-isolation-and-stagnation, also because there were prophecies fortelling Harry's uniqueness, also because Harry continuously did find exploits that worked, also he would have spent that money to save her even if he wasn't certain so that's not evidence of overconfidence.
As an aside, and this is a lesson I've learned from personal experience: always remember to at least check to make sure the clever exploit you thought of doesn't in fact work before concluding that it doesn't for that reason.)
u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (19 days later)
There are like a few thousand wizards, seems reasonable to believe there are plenty of thin markets rife with opportunity.
u/alexanderwales [+8] Time flies like an arrow (38 minutes later)
I don't think being cheeky about the points where your story is story-like instead of reality-like is enough, nor is saying "the world runs on story logic".
If I put a chapter at the beginning of the Harry Potter series (or any series) which explained that characters were all affected by brain parasites that caused them to behave in irrational, story-based ways, then proceeded to tell the story exactly as Rowling (or whoever) told it, would you call that rational fiction? I certainly wouldn't.
u/ishaan123 [+8] Sidebar Contestant (58 minutes later)
You don't need brain parasites, humans come like that out of the box >_<
Well, the universe is story based - there is a stipulation that your action is more likely to succeed if the outcome is aesthetically pleasing, and convincing the universe is a worthwhile thing to do.
But do you think the characters of unsong are infected by story-logic? In fact the humans are insufficiently influenced by story logic...no way actual humans would put DRM on the Names of God or ally with Hell for pragmatic reasons, our species is far too superstitious to do something like that.
On the other hand I guess you could argue that it's story logic that they didn't seriously consider that if they ally with hell they're probably the baddies.
I'm mostly defending why my "I know it when I see it" intuition activates here. There are definitions under which this falls outside.
It's like if a Film Noir detective had a pink fluffy bunny on his head, and all the characters were constantly pointing out the fluffy bunny as seeming out of place. You're still referencing the aesthetic of Film Noir in some important way. Maybe it's not Film Noir because the fluffy bunny breaks the rules but it's still pattern matching to Film Noir in a non superficial way.
u/alexanderwales [+10] Time flies like an arrow (an hour later)
I think that there are certain scenes which match the pattern very well, like Aaron's escape from the library, but that this is not true of the majority of the book thus far.
As an example, the most current chapter features demons, whose characteristics are virtually unknown to the reader, being beaten back by a rabbi wielding spells which the reader has also had no exposure to. Yes, you could say "but surely there's some governing consistent logic that the reader just doesn't know", but in my opinion that's not enough for rational fiction, and there's been no indication that Unsong is going to start delving into those areas or properly explaining the abilities or thought processes behind scenes like this.
It's always iffy to analyze a book that's in the process of being released/written, so I reserve the right to say that I was wrong, but so far it doesn't seem like Unsong is rational (nor does it seem like it's commenting on rationality). I would definitely call it postmodern, which it shares with a lot of rational works, but postmodernism is its own thing.
u/Nepene [+2] (10 hours later)
The idea that there are spellcasters who can cast spells based on their beliefs and a more consistent ability to use magical names of god to hurt people is a fairly common thing in the story. There's already a consistent governing logic behind what the Rabbi did. I'd assume she did one of those. Based on the names, I'd assume she had some names of god stored up to use as weapons.
Just as in Harry Potter if you say wingardium leviosa you make something fly in this world if you say certain words you kill things and if you're sufficiently elaborate you can do other stuff with belief.
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (10 hours later)
Right, I get how the magic systems work.
What I'm saying is that in this particular case (and other places in Unsong), it's a black box. If you stopped reading the chapter right at "Then a miracle occurred" you wouldn't have near enough information to work out what that miracle is, beyond perhaps "animate the Statue of Liberty" (though the rabbi says that this is a specific Name which animates copper, and we haven't seen that one before). If the best guess that could be offered beyond that is "then the rabbi used Names and beat the demons" ... I feel like we would get into a big, pointless discussion about how and whether Names could accomplish that, which the text (up till now) hadn't given us enough information to actually say one way or another (though this in part stems from the equally sparse physical descriptions of the demons).
We know that there are Names that are useful in battle, but for most of them we don't know what they actually do, so we can't use them to anticipate solutions to problems. The reader isn't meant to engage in any thinking or analysis, and isn't given the tools to do so, they're just along for the ride.
(For large parts of Unsong, anyway. And I still think it's good, just not rational. RIGBY.)
u/Nepene [+3] (11 hours later)
I feel there's a difference between interludes, cutscenes essentially, and main chapters. You can show flashbacks to past eras where you blackbox the spells, and that's fine, but it'd be more of an issue if you did it in the main chapters. If there were unknown spells that determined the character's fates and they had no real way to untangle them then the story would be less rational but flashbacks don't need the same depth.
We know from the wrathful name that some names have the power of hydrogen bombs. That seems like more than enough firepower to kill a bunch of demons.
Plus, it depends on how you intend to have the main character solve their issues. Are they just going to bumble from one issue to another till Uriel fixes everything? Are they going to accomplish their goals via use of their magic? Is some random circumstance going to resolve the plot? Are the difficulties between the protagonists and Unsong going to all turn out to be communication issues that could be resolved with a good long chat?
We know enough about names and logic to anticipate the story somewhat. It could be rational- that's up to you.
u/ishaan123 [+1] Sidebar Contestant (a day later)
RIGBY?
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
Sorry, it's from Silicon Valley.
u/LiteralHeadCannon [+1] (2 hours later)
The existence of golems in UNSONG is fairly well-established.
u/alexanderwales [+4] Time flies like an arrow (3 hours later)
I meant specifically this passage:
The Liberty Golem lifted her lance, formerly the spire of the Empire State Building. She loosed the imprisoned lightning of her terrible swift torch. From her crown the Rebbe flung warlike Names that sputtered and sparkled and crashed into the hellish hosts and disintegrated them like fire melts ice. They shrieked and began a retreat.
u/ishaan123 [+1] Sidebar Contestant (a day later)
Heh, I wonder what Scott would think of his work being called post modern.
I don't really find myself strongly disagreeing with anything you wrote. I think we're just doing word-concept mappings differently or zeroing in on different aspects of the category as what we take to be defining feature. (Is it a blegg or a rube?)
I think you're focusing more on "are there solvable puzzles, is there conservation of detail" and I'd agree that there aren't, whereas I'm focusing more on "what sort of epistemic stance is implicit in the writing".
u/None [+1] (22 hours later)
I really wish our species understood enough about the concept of Hell not to ally with it. As it is, there's always an edgy fuckwad who thinks evil is cool, evil is sexy, and morals don't reals.
And the real world doesn't even have the decency to screw that asshole over Screwtape-style.
u/ishaan123 [+2] Sidebar Contestant (a day later)
To be charitable, the concept of and belief in hell is a product of an often unfortunate human tendency to see the world as black white and fair. The edgy fuckward is a, in many respects justified, reaction to the flaws inherent in that human tendency.
u/Iconochasm [+3] (4 hours later)
See also: the tales of mu reply to hpmor: http://www.talesofmu.com/other/mumoo (ToMU is actually not rational, but this chapter is)
That chapter was decent, but AE has made other comments that made me believe she completely and utterly failed to grasp the concept of Less Wrong style rationality. She responded to some unfavorable comparisons of her own work with MoR by seeming to think MoR was a positive claim to be refuted (which she demurred to undertake).
As to that linked chapter, going by my recollection from when it was posted, an aware universe that actively interfered with attempts to experiment scientifically is still not immune to the experimental method. You just have to go up one level, and start testing for what sorts of efforts will provoke sabotage.
u/Ninmesara [+5] (2 hours later)
You make some good points, but ultimately I disagree with all of them except for one.
It's rational (despite the author saying it's not) because, in every instance where it departs from rationality it does so in a self-aware manner.
I'm not sure I understand this... Imagine that in a world based on reality sudden, a character has an incurable disease, and is healed by the power of love, and this is confirmed by the narrator ("Yes, guys, he really as started to walk again because of the power of love; this is not a mystery for you to figure out; it just is"). If the narrator then remarks on how unlikely and this is and it breaks the laws of physics as we know them, does this make the story rational fiction? I think it doesn't.
We are explained that this is a sentient universe which favors plots. It therefore falls under the category of "self aware/deconstruction/subversion".
Again, I have a hard time agreeing with you on this point... It's again a bit like saying that the laws of internal consistency can be broken, as long as the narrator remarks on it.
Excused as self aware subversive deconstruction and also excused because it makes sense.
Here I agree with you. I admit that was my weakest objection. It's plausible that non-human characters might have non-human motivations.
Or are you saying hpmor's universe rules made sense? They didn't, at all! There is even that scene with the bats where Harry tries to do experiments and none of the results neatly collapse into any sort of reductionist model.
I didn't read the whole story (got bored), but I remember the scene with the bats. The idea I got from that scene was that consistent rules existed, but the protagonist was simply unable to find them. Do they ever revisit this experiment and find them? I don't know. But the idea I get from Unsong is that there are no strong consistent rules, and the characters don't expect them to exist, and the universe is just trolling you at every step. This is a matter of feeling rather than an objective assessment, and you're free to disagree.
You might consider this a rational fanfiction of Judaic mythology (the same way hpmor is a rational fanficiton of harry potter)
I would agree if the text was faithful to the Torah, the Bible, the Book of Revelations or something else. Actually, you have a comet impregnate a girl with a fast developing baby that becomes some kind of Kabballah master who builds a crazy ship and besieges Hell, placebomancy that seems to work (it powers one of the sails of said ship), and an ascended astronaut that communicates with people through LSD. These things are revealed gradually, approximately one per chapter, and without apparent rhyme or reason, so you can't even argue that a consistent universe is established from the start. This is a guided tour through an original imaginary universe, and it is not consistent.
At no point in Unsong are violations of the rational genre just quietly part of the background, each so-called violation is loud and intentional and explained by meta principles which aren't actually in violation.
If you invoke enough meta principles to explain each inconsistency, you get something that is indistinguishable from inconsistency.
I didn't have time to read your link, but it looks good and I'll look into it.
Again, you raise some good points, but I still stand by my original assessment. Thanks for your detailed response.
u/Nepene [+3] (10 hours later)
I'm not sure I understand this... Imagine that in a world based on reality sudden, a character has an incurable disease, and is healed by the power of love, and this is confirmed by the narrator ("Yes, guys, he really as started to walk again because of the power of love; this is not a mystery for you to figure out; it just is"). If the narrator then remarks on how unlikely and this is and it breaks the laws of physics as we know them, does this make the story rational fiction? I think it doesn't.
I'd have no issues reading a story where love was a consistent magical force. For example, attractive women would get paid a lot to go into hospitals to heal people with the power of love. Warlords would have harems of devoted lovers to make them immortal. People would experiment with drugs to enhance love and make healing easier.
I didn't read the whole story (got bored), but I remember the scene with the bats. The idea I got from that scene was that consistent rules existed, but the protagonist was simply unable to find them. Do they ever revisit this experiment and find them? I don't know. But the idea I get from Unsong is that there are no strong consistent rules, and the characters don't expect them to exist, and the universe is just trolling you at every step. This is a matter of feeling rather than an objective assessment, and you're free to disagree.
Names of god clearly have a consistent and powerful effect. Angels and demons have consistent powers. Knowledge of connections between things grants power. If you can convince the universe to help it can offer some minor aid. Physics and maths are not reliable forces.
Actually, you have a comet impregnate a girl with a fast developing baby that becomes some kind of Kabballah master who builds a crazy ship and besieges Hell,
For some reason or other he knows lots of magic. In universe, age increasing is something that can be done. He uses lots of different sorts of magic together to power the ship.
placebomancy that seems to work (it powers one of the sails of said ship),
If enough people believe in a magic, it works somewhat. Not as much power as a name of god.
and an ascended astronaut that communicates with people through LSD.
Drugging people up so you can use mind magic on them more easily isn't that unusual. We're not yet sure why he's magic of course, since the mystery of what heaven is and what god is is one of the central mysteries of the story.
u/ishaan123 [+3] Sidebar Contestant (a day later)
Okay, so I see several people in this thread saying this but: a universe cannot be rational / irrational / arational. Rationality is a feature of agents, not universes. According to a rationalist worldview, if you think the universe is weird, inelegant, inconsistent, or not intuitive, that's a problem with you, not the universe. (See: people's initial reaction to quantum mechanics for a real world example of people making this mistake).
The rationalist worldview assumes axiomatically that at least one consistent explanation of everything must exist. If the answer really is "God believes in the power of love and he seems to be watching and micromanaging stuff" you can still, in principle, explain God's internal workings using math. If the power of love heals things, that's totally fine - but, you can still explain it using math. The universe can be as crazy as it wants to be - you can still put a rational agent in it that says "fine, I can still try to find the simplest possible mathematical model to describe this". And UNSONG's universe is math, because Uriel, simulations / emulations, etc etc.
That's why I think the attitude of the narrator and characters, and not the setup of the universe itself, is what really matters for the genre. Of course, you can choose a different defining criteria if you like, that's just semantics. But saying that universes can be "irrational" even in principle - that's more than semantics.
u/Chronophilia [+3] sci-fi ≠ futurology (3 days later)
The real universe has laws that can be investigated. But I don't think that holds with the settings that stories can be set in. The author can just say whatever they want and it doesn't have to contribute to the wider universe. It's perfectly possible to write a story that doesn't make sense.
Edit: For example, I would describe the setting of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy as an irrational universe. There is no physical theory of the universe that explains all the events of the series, let alone the background details occasionally brought up.
u/alexanderwales [+2] Time flies like an arrow (3 days later)
And UNSONG's universe is math, because Uriel, simulations / emulations, etc etc.
Unless I'm misreading you, I don't think this is a correct reading of what Uriel did. He converted the world from a substrate of divine light to a substrate of mathematics, but this conversion was imperfect and then broken by the impact against the sphere. Unsong's universe is not math and logic, it just has a broken, imperfect, math and logic layer to it. Uriel even remarks that incoming divine light had to be channeled away from the clockwork he'd made in order to keep the clockwork running.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 hours later)
Unsong is irrational fic with rational characters.
u/None [+3] (7 hours later)
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u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (13 hours later)
And everyone in HPMoR is acting rationally?
Plus, Unsong angels and god(s) are more part of the world than individuals with real agency.
The HP universe is itself anti-rational. It's the interaction of the usually-rational HJPEV with the wacky world of Hogwarts that makes it work.
u/None [+2] (19 hours later)
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u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a day later)
My claim wasn't "all characters in Unsong are rational", and I brought up HPMoR to illustrate my poiny with an example of a rational fic that contained non-rational characters.
u/None [+3] (2 hours later)
Maybe it's just me, but I think having a Judaistic background or having studied it is a pre-requisite to understanding the religous stuff and Hewbrew phrases - I say that as someone with neither.
u/Green0Photon [+3] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (4 hours later)
Taking Eliezer's Fun Theory sequence into account, I think Good and Bad are both bad. I actually haven't read it yet, but being forced to pray or be tortured is still bad.
Thamiel is the duality of god, and both sides seem evil to me. Therefore, god is evil.
Think about it: Uriel's Science is the Goodest thing that happened. People's lives are worse off with Science broken.
Also, Scott has definitely read that sequence, and likewise is taking it into account.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
(there are no coincidences)
u/edwardkmett [+0] (4 days later)