From: the_jason@fatefullightning.fen
To: allcall@nation.fen
Subj: Re: Theories
Thought I might as well toss my own two cents worth into the hat. My own view is that the stuff might actually be a technomagical construct - something that
blurs the line between Clarke's Law and Niven's reply to it. No real way to test this, of course, unless somebody out there has created a mana detector
and not told any of us, but some of the stuff that it does is so bizarre that I'm not sure even Sufficiently Advanced Technology can explain all of it.
Even in my own work...while I can accept SAT might be able to enable the LEGO genetics that I tend to use in my creations, the fact that handwavium can
incorporate even non-living, non-DNA based items into a living organism, complete with the genes needed to make it work...that's what actually got me to
wondering about that blurry line. That, and the fact that ritual magic works EXTREMELY well as a method for getting good results from handwavium. Some of my
best creations were created using rituals: the memory boxes that I created for my girls and the Mnemosyne's Honey strain of handwavium created during the
same ritual being two examples. Even my everyday creations are half-ritual; while I use scientific methods in a lot of my work, the LEGO genetics that I use
could also be viewed as following the laws of magic. Using a cell from an organism that grows rapidly to evoke that trait in a biomod can easily be viewed as
following the laws of Sympathy and Contagion. I'm not saying that this is how the stuff works...just that it's an extremely useful way of viewing
it/working with it.
As for whether or not handwavium is sentient - my view is yes, at least for the exact meaning of sentience. Given the way that it apparently responds to
environmental cues, it does seem to be at least aware. In fact, most - if not all - handwaved objects appear to be sentient to some degree or another, since
so many of the quirks react to environmental stimuli. If they were non-sentient, that shouldn't be the case. Now...sapience is a different matter. True
intelligence seems to depend more on what is handwaved, rather than the handwavium itself - usually computer systems or androids and so on. If sapience were to
arise from handwavium itself, I would bet on it being in larger handwaved objects where you have more of the stuff to work with: the larger ships, various
pieces of unreal estate...that's where I would look for possible examples. Anybody seen anything that they'd consider sapience outside of various
computer-based systems?
The Jason
To: allcall@nation.fen
Subj: Re: Theories
Thought I might as well toss my own two cents worth into the hat. My own view is that the stuff might actually be a technomagical construct - something that
blurs the line between Clarke's Law and Niven's reply to it. No real way to test this, of course, unless somebody out there has created a mana detector
and not told any of us, but some of the stuff that it does is so bizarre that I'm not sure even Sufficiently Advanced Technology can explain all of it.
Even in my own work...while I can accept SAT might be able to enable the LEGO genetics that I tend to use in my creations, the fact that handwavium can
incorporate even non-living, non-DNA based items into a living organism, complete with the genes needed to make it work...that's what actually got me to
wondering about that blurry line. That, and the fact that ritual magic works EXTREMELY well as a method for getting good results from handwavium. Some of my
best creations were created using rituals: the memory boxes that I created for my girls and the Mnemosyne's Honey strain of handwavium created during the
same ritual being two examples. Even my everyday creations are half-ritual; while I use scientific methods in a lot of my work, the LEGO genetics that I use
could also be viewed as following the laws of magic. Using a cell from an organism that grows rapidly to evoke that trait in a biomod can easily be viewed as
following the laws of Sympathy and Contagion. I'm not saying that this is how the stuff works...just that it's an extremely useful way of viewing
it/working with it.
As for whether or not handwavium is sentient - my view is yes, at least for the exact meaning of sentience. Given the way that it apparently responds to
environmental cues, it does seem to be at least aware. In fact, most - if not all - handwaved objects appear to be sentient to some degree or another, since
so many of the quirks react to environmental stimuli. If they were non-sentient, that shouldn't be the case. Now...sapience is a different matter. True
intelligence seems to depend more on what is handwaved, rather than the handwavium itself - usually computer systems or androids and so on. If sapience were to
arise from handwavium itself, I would bet on it being in larger handwaved objects where you have more of the stuff to work with: the larger ships, various
pieces of unreal estate...that's where I would look for possible examples. Anybody seen anything that they'd consider sapience outside of various
computer-based systems?
The Jason