That's Not How It Works

[dr_tectonic]

So I have a literary dilemma.

When I walked to the grocery story yesterday, the dregs of my cold had me feeling kinda wiped by the time I got there, so after I got my produce, I wandered over to the thrift store and looked for a shirt (no luck) and then sat in a chair and read the prologue and first chapter of a sci-fi book I found on the shelf while I recuperated for a few minutes. It was enticing, so I bought it.

The book is Permutation City, by Greg Egan. I'm currently about halfway through, and I can't decide whether I should finish it or not.

The problem is this: the writing is good, and I'm enjoying the various side-plots, and the setting explores a number of interesting ideas. But the main premise of the book is stupid. Beyond stupid, it's effing stupid.

Why is it fucking stupid?

Okay. So: the book revolves around the fact that people can have their brains scanned and then run software Copies of their minds on computer. Hardware limitations mean they can only run at 1/17th normal speed, but still, it works.

The protagonist wakes up as a Copy and discovers that he's stuck, his real self has disabled his ability to bail out of his simulated existence, so after some angst, he agrees to go through with various experiments he/they had planned before the scan. (Aside: it's also really bugging me that he (or his editor, maybe) consistently misspells "bail out" as "bale out".)

And this is where it gets fucking stupid. They run the simulation non-sequentially and discover that, lo and behold, even though it was out of order, the Copy's consciousness threads things through properly and the subjective experience is perfectly normal.

Wait, what? My complaint isn't even with the consciousness thing. They ran the simulation non-sequentially? HOW? Math doesn't work like that! You can't calculate the fifth timestep first, then the third one, then 2, 4, and 1. You have to have the results of step 4 in order to be able to calculate step 5. You can't just skip ahead.

Maybe this is specialist knowledge, but I don't think it ought to be. I mean, it comes up at least implicitly if you read anything, anything at all about computer modeling and simulation. And the author gives an example of addition being commutative (1+(2+3) = (1+2)+3) in discussing it, but surely he knows that that only works if all you're doing is adding; 2*(3+4) != (2*3)+4. I can't imagine that a simulation of the human brain would involve only addition.

Worse, they also discover -- in the lead-up to that experiment -- that they don't have to simulate all the steps: if they skip steps, and just simulate every other millisecond, or every tenth millisecond, or even every thousandth, the subjective experience for the Copy is unchanged. Okay, if you can skip 99 out of a hundred steps in your simulation without loss of fidelity? You just solved the hardware limitation problem that was introduced for the sake of the plot! HELLO!

So I ask you, my friends:

[Poll #1056937]

Comments

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

I've read other Greg Egan, and I've avoided Permutation City because people have said it just doesn't work. I liked his short story collection, "Luminous," even if some of it was merely high-quality technobabble. I do like his writing style.

He has a FAQ for this book, which probably won't satisfy you on content, since those seem to be yawning plot holes. But at least he points out that the "sequential" problem is the one which has dogged him over the decade-plus since it's been written, since that's the one question readers keep bugging him with. :)

[detailbear.livejournal.com]

Other: A combination - finish reading it, then throw it across the room, then burn it. Pissing on it is optional. You'd be antsy if you don't finish it, but even more antsy if you don't do something to purge it out of your system.

[srotu27.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to vote because my actual answer doesn't appear on the list. They almost refuse to claim me as an English major, not to mention an editor for this one.

My solution, when an author is pissing me off and I'm not sure that it's worth my time to finish the book, is to turn to the last two pages and figure out if I buy the ending. If it ends obviously or idiotically, I put the book down, convinced that I've saved myself pain, suffering, and wasted time. If the ending surprises me or intrigues me, I keep going.

You say "but that's cheating!!!"

Well, you asked what I'd do, and I don't think the point is to read every word of a book--- I think the point is not to read books you don't enjoy or that are poorly written (unless, like me, that's your job :)---I think the only good reason to read books that annoy you is if someone is paying you to do it). If the ending doesn't pay off, why would I read more annoying stuff? I think it's cheating not to pay proofreaders and editors who catch things like "bail out."

"But I already bought the book!" you say. Okay, so let's say you've wasted $7.50 on the book and two hours of your time. Will you redeem the $7.50 by spending more time being annoyed by the failings of this author? Read something that enlightens, amuses, or intrigues you--- there are too many books that will to waste your time with the others.

The next best thing, in my opinion, is whinging and snarking on LJ, but if you've read my journal, that won't surprise you.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

That's... a really clever idea. I'll have to see if I can bring myself to do it.

[srotu27.livejournal.com]

The other benefit is that if you bale on the book at that point (:)), you'll know how it ended.

[arcticturtle.livejournal.com]

And it's especially appropriate, given this book.

Possibly you should read a small fraction of the pages in a random order, and see if the subjective experience turns out the same.

Anyway, there are too many books in the world to waste life on mediocre ones.

[bryree.livejournal.com]

Ha!

Thanks, I needed that.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

If it were mediocre all the way through, it would be easy. The problem is, it would be a pretty good book except for the one big flaw...

[srotu27.livejournal.com]

But the one big flaw is the central premise on which it all rests. I think you're being generous with the statement that it's good. In my technical, literary opinion, what you describe is a failure to enable you to suspend your disbelief, which means he loses--- bad book, no sequel. The only thing a novel really has to do is to enable you to suspend your disbelief. It's like saying that the building's great and all---beautifully decorated, interestingly designed, except for that falling down thing. If you're consistently being pulled out of the story thinking "but, NO!" it's not a good book.

Since you appear to like the author's style, if not his mechanics in this instance, I'd suggest quitting this book and reading something else he's written.

Snooty Author

[baronet.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the author has his theory and trying to point out its flaws only serves to make him believe that he has some great that the unwashed masses aren't brillent enough to comprehend.

[dpolicar]

Maybe he's positing a mystical property of "conscious" iterative algorythms where they spontaneously form into "the correct arrangement" for the Nth timeslice without having to run the intervening steps, because, um, consciousness exists outside of time, you see, and, um... nah, I got nothing.

* pulls Penrose out from behind a fern alongside Searle and McDowell*

(shrug) What you've described is no stupider than the idea of prescience, from my POV... both seem like cases where we posit an implementation of consciousness that somehow gets into states it doesn't have the input to sensibly get to. And prescience is a staple of certain kinds of F&SF.

But, yeah, if you have characters who believe in causality generally but talk as if this were an entirely reasonable state of affairs because of the commutative property of certain mathematical operations, that's just stupid.

Though the idea of building an AI using nothing but addition as an operation is amusing.

Anyway... if you're enjoying the book, I'd say just go with it. If it's distracting you, then stop. Don't keep reading in the hopes that it will redeem itself.

[navrins]

Cats!

Great for distracting you from ba

[drdeleto.livejournal.com]

You seem to have no problem swallowing the premise that brains can be scanned, simulated, and actually host consciousness. Has he done anything to prove that whopper is possible?

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. There's plenty of text devoted to "description of real world thing, description of real world thing, description of fictional extension, discussion of some consequences". It might or might not be real-world plausible, but he's playing by the rules in that area.

If he were actually writing about "what if computation worked differently", that would be fine. The problem is that it's real-world incorrect, is not tagged and dealt with as a contrafactual assumption of the story, AND not internally consistent with the rest of the setting.

It's like the whole batteries thing in the Matrix movies.

Batteries Thing

[baronet.livejournal.com]

I have a theory about the batteries thing in the Matrix. Actually I have 2 theories.
1: the human brain is the best computer in the Matrix universe for some kinds of operations. The Matrix uses the humans as a computer farm. (Most of that computer power is taken up running the simulation, so it unclear that it is a net win for the Matrix, but perhaps it is, or perhaps the Matrix has Greedy-algorithm'd itself into a bad state.) The game of telephone of conveying that information from one generation of Matrix survivors to the next has resulted in "specialized subprocessors" getting translated into "provide the juice to run the computer" and that in turn got telephoned into "batteries". Under this theory, every time someone escapes from their pod, the Matrix sumulation gets more buggy and less able to simulate everything for everyone.

2: the computer was long-ago programmed to protect humans, and so it does so (albeit in a way they wouldn't like if they were fully informed). The reason *why* it keeps its humans in a vast array of pods has gotten completely muddled. Perhaps the Matrix itself made up the "batteries" explanation so that its actions would make sense. Do you know any real life people who convince themselves of the strangest things so that their actions would seem reasonable?

Re: Batteries Thing

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of both of these theories.

I think one could also fix it by postulating that the laws of physics are different outside the Matrix. The simulation leaves out the physics that allows for antigravity and bioelectricity, and the 'real' history of the world has little or nothing in common with the history of the world inside the Matrix.

But on the whole, the "Morpheus is just wrong about batteries" theories are simpler. =)

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

I'm betting it doesn't actually mean non-sequentially by 'non-sequentially', but rather non-continuously. I think i'll need to read this now, despited the annoying frustrstaitions you mention.

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

No, it really means non-sequentially. As in, the discrete timesteps are computed in the wrong order, with step 4 being computed before step 3 is computed. WTF?

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Huh. WTF is putting it mildly in that case.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

I will continue to not read Permutation City :)