28 KiB
List of completed rational/rationalist works?
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Author: u/None *
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URL:
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Score: 52
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Created: 2017-12-12T04:22:54
Post:
[deleted]
Comments:
u/gbear605 [+33] history’s greatest story (20 minutes later)
A large majority of the stories on the list on the wiki are finished:
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
- Luminosity
- The Metropolitan Man
- A Bluer Shade of White
- Branches on the Tree of Time
- The Waves Arisen
- Three Worlds Collide
- Shadows of the Limelight
- The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant
- The Last Christmas
- Friendship Is Optimal
- Worm
- Ra
- Time Braid
- The Two Year Emperor
- Ted Chiang's stories
u/benthor [+19] Concent of Saunt Edhar (11 hours later)
In addition, there is traditional literature that I would at least describe as rational if not rationalistic. I.e., depicting smart people dealing with complicated situations intelligently and plots that aren't driven by stupidity or recklessness.
- The Martian by Andy Weir. Also damn good movie but the book is even better.
- Anathem by Neal Stephenson. His most underrated book IMHO.
- Blindsight by Peter Watts. First alien contact novel written by a guy who has a PhD in biology. Highly intellectual hard SciFi that is genuinely creepy.
- Echopraxia by Peter Watts. Followup to Blindsight and intellectually one of the most terrifying things I've ever read. Here are a bunch of blurbs to give you an idea. I'll quote my favourite:
As for science fiction, well, traditionalists in the field now face some hard choices: either lobotomize themselves to dumb down enough to continue to approach SF without seeing the implications of what Watts is doing; or get serious about the science part of science fiction; or throw up their hands in helpless despair and go away and try some other genre instead. Horror, maybe — because Echopraxia also manages to be more truly frightening than much self-styled horror fiction. ... I snarfed down this book as soon as it downloaded, and am writing this review at 6am after waking early to finish it. Recommended doesn't even begin to.
u/wren42 [+4] (15 hours later)
woah, didn't know about echopraxia. I liked Blindsight but felt there were some inconsistencies in it's conception of consciousness. I'll check out the follow up.
u/benthor [+2] Concent of Saunt Edhar (a day later)
Echopraxia does expand further on the topic. Which parts were you dubious about?
u/wren42 [+3] (a day later)
lots of little things.
for instance, I was at first sort of buying the idea that the aliens were non-conscious and transmitting to them based on pattern matching, up to the point that they reacted offended to the idea that the crew thought they were a chinese room.
First, that concept is unlikely to be included in random ship transmissions. it's also a specific cultural reference not just an abstract concept. the meaning behind "chinese room" can't be inferred from pattern matching the words themselves, it's like Star Trek's "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" - you have to grasp the underlying metaphor.
I'm also just skeptical of the idea of Philosophical Zombies in general. the idea that they are capable of fully simulating conscious behavior but aren't actually conscious is shaky to me.
u/Nadaesque [+3] (a day later)
The "hard" p-zed formulation bothers me, too. It's indistinguishable from an actual human and that sort of thing bores me a bit.
The soft p-zed formulation is what Watts is talking about. Whatever data structures are being used, they've been trained on decades of human broadcasts, augmented by the Fireflies taking a "picture" of the planet, and are the result of many, many cycles of reproduction and survival. Markov Chain doesn't begin to cover it.
I've seen some deeply clever chatbots before. Imagine if they reproduced and got "fit."
u/wren42 [+3] (a day later)
but the chatbots in this case had a PURPOSE, namely tricking the visitors into leaving the ship alone.
If you have an entity that has intent, complex language, and reacts dynamically to changes in context/environment, the line between sentient and not sentient is getting real thin.
u/Nadaesque [+2] (a day later)
Well, "sentient" is a fairly particular word.
The model of intelligence Watts is supposing is still sentient, still intelligent, but it lacked self-awareness. It isn't narrating to itself "I am in a bad mood. I like going into new solar systems but the buildout part is a grind. I want a salad, and more lanthanides." It's reactive, but not entirely passive. It reflects, but doesn't self-reflect. It doesn't get bored.
Watts is proposing that the "self," the narrator who tries to explain why its arm just moved, uses up a lot of CPU/glucose/resources and has done so as kind of an evolutionary quirk. It might be a disadvantage, and gives us the vampires (who are a little ways towards ridding themselves of "I" and these alien invaders, who might never have had it to begin with.
u/wren42 [+3] (a day later)
yeah I follow. obviously the thoughts "I blah blah blah" correspond to neurons firing in a human mind, and you could have a mind that behaved the same outwardly without those thoughts occurring. This is distinct from hard pzombies, as you say. I'm not 100% sure this is the entirety of consciousness, though; it seems a bit bigger and squishier than that. I don't have to think about the fact that I am seeing, I just see, and that is part of my conscious experience. Do these non-conscious minds have memory or imagination? do they call up these memories and reflect on them, even if they don't refer to the "self" in a deliberate way? Do they plan things by imagining possible outcomes?
At some point the horror the linguist shows starts to seem a little false -- it's not that these are not minds capable of communication, even if they aren't self-narrating. Does it matter if you can communicate and understand their intent?
I like the ideas he's exploring, but I think at moments he falls into the trap of treating consciousness broadly, after having defined it narrowly.
u/Nadaesque [+2] (a day later)
Imagination might be more like ... evaluation of scenarios, ones they've seen before.
Memory is even fuzzier. It might be not unlike a bloom filter's "memory." It's learned, in a sense, from the past, but recollecting it might not happen.
u/Makin- [+26] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (8 hours later)
I hope no one minds if I give my opinion on these, since completed doesn't always means good and I'd hate for someone to start one of these (mostly) massive works without being fully informed.
HPMOR, Metropolitan Man, A Bluer Shade of White, Three Worlds Collide, The Last Christmas, The Waves Arisen: these works are pretty good, no real glaring flaws, funny coincidence that only two people wrote all of these.
Ra and Fine Structure: the writer has a very long-winded, very confusing writing style and he's not very good at pacing or writing endings. It says enough about the quality of his ideas that I recommend you give it a try regardless. Just don't stick around if you are very confused and don't like it, because it stays that way.
Time Braid: This story has the main character tortured into mindrape into another person's servitude in a very edgy way. If that seems like the kind of thing you can give a chance, feel free to read it, but it made me stop reading.
Luminosity: I think this is a rationalist story, but it misses all the fun parts of rational writing. It's just very very dry, even if it's excellently written.
Worm: absolutely worth reading, but there are at least two long segments of the story that will make you want to stop reading (E and TS arcs). Don't stop, force yourself to skim if you have to, it's very much worth it to finish it.
u/None [+6] (10 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Action_Bronzong [+7] (19 hours later)
Oh boy, i just started last week...
The purity of a blind first read of Worm is priceless, but after finishing you should totally check out /r/Parahumans (Massive spoiler warning for the entire sub) and We've Got Worm, where two literary critics perform in-depth analysis of the writing-style and craft of Worm arc by arc.
u/Makin- [+5] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (10 hours later)
Fair enough about the sequel, I barely gave it a fair try so I'll remove the mention.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
Honestly i prefer the sequel much more, because it's from a different point of view, the girl kinda puts more heart into it.
Radiance starts off extremely strong but gets into a rut about 60% of the way through and never quite recovers. I'd say before the rut Radiance is stronger than Luminosity, and afterwards it's weaker.
u/Kishoto [+6] (11 hours later)
funny coincidence
That's more than coincidence at that point isn't it? :P
u/Mowtom_ [+5] (12 hours later)
(E and TS arcs)
I get that TS stands for TS, but what's E? TS is the only part of the story I remember a bunch of people complaining about.
u/tonytwostep [+4] (13 hours later)
Maybe E ?
u/Makin- [+5] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (17 hours later)
Yeah, sorry, I was too lazy to use spoilers. Endgameish spoilers
u/JagItUp [+4] (17 hours later)
It wasn't a bad arc per se, it just came right after an action heavy sequence and I think most readers were fatigued
u/Zephyr1011 [+3] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (17 hours later)
Is that an unpopular part? I loved that arc, and was under the impression that was a general consensus
u/himself_v [+2] (2 days later)
Is there anything like HPMOR only not a fanfic? Something like Three Worlds Collide, a standalone but truly rational fiction?
u/Makin- [+5] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (2 days later)
Blindsight, though I didn't find it particularly enjoyable (way too dark for my taste). Of the ones I mentioned, Ra, Fine Structure and Worm (the "true rationality status" of the latter is called into question by many) are original settings.
If you don't mind if they are complete or not, just check the /r/rational backlog, there are a lot of original stories being posted. I'd recommend Worth The Candle (definitely rational) and Mother of Learning (kind of rational) out of them.
u/mojojo46 [+2] (2 days later)
Was it ever actually confirmed that Yudkowsky actualy wrote the Waves Arisen? It certainly seemed pretty clear from the writing style that he wrote at least some of it, but I thought he was still playing the 'cannot confirm or deny' line?
u/Makin- [+2] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (3 days later)
Wasn't confirmed but he ain't fooling anybody.
u/Green0Photon [+2] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (4 days later)
Alexander Wales did not write The Waves Arisen. Neither did Eliezer Yudkowsky. Some random guy named Wertifloke did.
u/Makin- [+2] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (4 days later)
Wertifloke is not a real person, and EY is the most likely user for that pseudonym, considering the content of TWA.
u/Green0Photon [+4] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (4 days later)
There are many reasons for thinking that Wertifloke is EY, but also many for Wertifloke not being EY. I wouldn't just assume that EY is Wertifloke though; HPMOR was better than TWA, in that TWA felt like a knockoff HPMOR.
Personally, I don't think that EY is Wertifloke, though many think he is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
u/mojojo46 [+2] (8 days later)
TWA was finished before HPMOR. The parts that feel like most like a knockoff were published first, and were likely trying out certain narrative styles for public feedback.
I haven't seen any reasons to think that Wertifloke isn't EY. Do you have any specifically?
u/wren42 [+2] (12 hours later)
I've started and stopped reading worm so many times. I think it's the pacing - it just feels too episodic, like a penny serial. Each arc has a big baddie and she gets into a sticky situation where she should absolutely die given any shred of realism, but somehow makes it out through being scrappy. while the (SPOILERS!!) alternate timeline selection working in her favor early on sort of accounts for some of this, it's not always present and is still hard to swallow a lot of the time.
u/himself_v [+4] (16 hours later)
Yeah, Worm is by no means rationalist, it's just a good web fiction.
And yeah, after that time with that guy (everyone who read surely understands) nothing in the story is scary anymore because it's clear author will kill his characters when he wants to, and not earlier, no matter what the circumstances dictate.
And since circumstances don't matter, you quickly learn to not be scared of them. Half the body missing? Oh surely she'll heal somehow. Unless the author specifically wants to be a dick and kill her. Anyway, nothing I can change.
On the other hand, I had much less problems with pacing. TS? Whatever. It felt out of pace, but whatever.
It's still a nice book though.
u/wren42 [+5] (17 hours later)
yeah I think that was the root of it, there wasn't any tension after a while. she'd face someone indisputably stronger and more deadly who was absolutely trying to kill her, and get out of it through a fluke. The pattern to the action became so noticeable that I found the buildup chapters boring as I waited for the action to start, then once the action came i was just waiting for it to be over and for her to win somehow.
I'll probably go back and finish it here over the holiday when I have some time, I was almost through and I sort of want to read his follow up. I like the world building, just wish it held me more.
u/Subrosian_Smithy [+2] Nudist Beach (22 hours later)
Which time with which guy? I seem to recall a lot of times with a lot of overpowered enemies...
u/himself_v [+2] (a day later)
With spoiler. There was no realistic way out of the situation, some characters should have been pretty much done.
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+1] Father of Learning (a day later)
Time Braid: This story has the main character tortured into mindrape into another person's servitude in a very edgy way. If that seems like the kind of thing you can give a chance, feel free to read it, but it made me stop reading.
Not to mention the truly horrific amount of pedophilia
u/Kishoto [+3] (a day later)
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+3] Father of Learning (a day later)
No they weren't! The protagonist starts off at, like, 13-14 tops, as they're about the same age and Naruto doesn't turn sixteen until after the time skip in canon. So while she eventually does grow up, she keeps sleeping with her perpetually underage friends, using knowledge gained in previous loops to groom/seduce her underage colleagues to fuck her. That's seriously messed up. Just because her body is younger than her mind the fact that she keeps sleeping with people who used to be her age but are now much younger than her creeps me the fuck out.
u/Kishoto [+2] (a day later)
Hmm. I may be completely misremembering this then; that's very possible. (Been a few years since I last read TB)
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+1] Father of Learning (a day later)
Yeah, Ino I remember most explicitly, how she mentioned that she could only persuade her after learning everything about her in a myriad of resets, which is just the most grooming/pedophilia-esque thing possible
u/the_terran [+7] (15 hours later)
Time Braid
I see this one being recommended all the time. Can someone who finished it give a quick rundown? How is it a rational fiction exactly? I tried reading it but quit a few chapters in (10 maybe?) because of the smutty content.
u/gbear605 [+7] history’s greatest story (15 hours later)
Honestly I wouldn't count it as rational fiction, just fiction that lots of rational-fiction-likers like.
u/None [+5] (16 hours later)
It's not. Its got a decent premise and charachters that arent idiotic but calling it more than vaguely rational is a stretch.
u/torac [+5] (a day later)
Sort-of. As I remember, the four main characters are
edit: changed the last two lines.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
u/TheIssac [+3] (3 days later)
A far as rational stories there is a lot of normal literature around as well that a lot of people here in rational would enjoy , like :
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
Basically about a man being reborn again and again, but always same place and year, and he is not the only one, now giving backwards in time comes a message that the end of the world is ist moving backward in time and coming closer ... As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. 'I nearly missed you, Doctor August,' she says. 'I need to send a message.' ... its like a rational historical thing playing in our real world... nice writing style and absolut enjoyable! Highly recommend it!
u/TempAccountIgnorePls [+1] (4 days later)
Seconding this recommendation. It has an interesting, unique time travel system which the author does a lot with (although it doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny), and there's some fun cat-and-mouse thriller elements to it that I really enjoyed
I will warn though that it seems to have some vaguely anti-science (or at least anti-munchkiny) themes.
u/austeane [+5] (4 hours later)
Now I dare you to do an ordered ranking ;) (And choose your preference function)
u/CouteauBleu [+20] We are the Empire. (27 minutes later)
In addition to gbear605's list:
The Dark Wizard of Donkerk (original)
The World as it Appears to Be (Overwatch)
Pact and Twig, sort of? (original)
A Voice Across the Void (Star Wars, set in the Old Republic era)
u/tonytwostep [+11] (14 hours later)
I would argue that Pact is definitely not rational, in that it breaks the rules of
The fictional world has consistent rules, and sticks to them.
and
The characters solve problems through the intelligent application of their knowledge and resources.
which I believe was actually Wildbow's intention when writing that story (to create a world with nebulous rules, and an "act first, think later/never" protagonist).
Not a judgement on the story's quality, just saying it doesn't belong on the list.
u/Croktopus [+5] (20 hours later)
i do feel like pact kinda is a world where the rules are totally consistent in how stupidly inconsistent they are, though, so idk if that rule is quite broken. but i dont consider it rational fiction, more just non-stupid fiction
u/CouteauBleu [+4] We are the Empire. (21 hours later)
I think it's close enough for the interests of people reading this, just like Worm which isn't rational, but point taken.
u/Dent7777 [+4] House Atreides (10 hours later)
Do you by any chance have a epub of A Voice Across the Void?
u/MichaelG92 [+7] (22 hours later)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/9438935?view_full_work=true
click download on the top right and select epub
u/elevul [+1] Cyoria Observer (2 days later)
Thank you!
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (21 hours later)
Sorry, no.
u/xamueljones [+13] My arch-enemy is entropy (an hour later)
RationalReads is a website with a massive number of rational works cataloged and you can filter out incomplete works.
First click on 'Browse' at the top, then click 'Filter by Tag/Order Works', and finally click on the Complete Tag.
You can also look at the Rational Fiction page on TV Tropes. Most of the works are complete.
u/thrawnca [+15] Carbon-based biped (4 hours later)
Mother of Learning is definitely not finished, but keep an eye out in about six months' time.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+10] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (4 hours later)
Don't want it to finish but Spoiler - fluffy kittens and yellow ducks.
u/InfernoVulpix [+12] (10 hours later)
Just a reminder that, from the perspective of someone who hasn't read MoL, spoiler. Given that that knowledge actually comes in rather late, would you mind putting in a small spoiler tag?
u/ArgentStonecutter [+4] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (10 hours later)
Doh, Roger Wilco.
u/Croktopus [+2] (19 hours later)
u/None [+4] (a day later)
u/Croktopus [+1] (a day later)
u/Green0Photon [+1] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (4 days later)
u/melmonella [+7] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (10 hours later)
Six months? Rather soon, don't you think?
u/Makin- [+7] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (11 hours later)
Yeah, last time I thought the story was about to finish the author managed to find some plot devices for the MC to spend another whole book finding before the story could end.
u/thrawnca [+5] Carbon-based biped (15 hours later)
Three arcs, first was 26 chapters, second was 28, third stands at 24. Chapter every three weeks usually, sometimes 4, so let's call it 3.5. Six months = 26 weeks, approximately 7 chapters, which brings arc 3 to 31.
Might be slightly less or more, but seems a good estimate.
u/melmonella [+4] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (18 hours later)
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (20 hours later)
u/melmonella [+3] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (20 hours later)
u/therealflinchy [+2] (a day later)
pretty sure it'll be under 6 months, chapter release rate is under 3 weeks a pop currently.
u/cthulhuraejepsen [+12] Fruit flies like a banana (14 hours later)
I'd like to point out that there's also a ton of short fiction out there, including two and a half years of weekly challenges, with most of the winners being quite good (though I will admit to some bias there).