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More On Pattern Bufffers(Very, very complex)
Posted By: ScifitekiDate: 12/21/01 8:44 p.m.

Hmmm.....

I just finished reading 'Quarantine', by Greg Egan (If you haven't read it, go read it. It's a very confusing book at first, but still good)
Ahem.

Anyway, the hole book is basically about quantum mechanics, specifically, the wave function. (If that doesn't ring a bell, then perhaps Schrödinger's Cat will)
It postulates all this stuff about humans collapsing the wave function through their brains, and turning millions of simulataneous possiblities into a random one.

In the book, people discover a way to *suppress* the collapse of the wave function, and therefore giving them the power to choose possibilties, no matter how remote (By selective collapsing of the possiblities, or eiginstates)

Anyway, here's my theory. It's full of holes, I know, but maybe someone else can come and patch them up. What I think happens, normally, is that the pattern buffer, when used, 'smears'(stops the collapse of the wave function by) the person. Then, it strengthens the possiblity of the person suriving for a certain amount of time. In proabablity, it's very crude, normally, but when combined with the player's 'Jjaro underwear'(Sorry, I had to steal that), it effectively allows them to smear forever, or until the next pattern buffer. The times when you die make you come back because.....
THEY NEVER EXISTED.
The Pattern Buffer And The Jjaro Underpants make it so that you always end up winning in the end.

Perhaps the end screen should have been 'a trillion deaths'. :)

I know, I know, there's holes even I can see. I'd explain them away, but I don't have the time. Think about it. "No collapse, no time assymetry"

Or whatever.
Have A Good Christmas,
Scifiteki

Addendum: Woops! OK, even I didn't quite get that. Here's a some help:
Every couple of seconds, or nanoseconds, or whatever,
(it doesn't matter, the memories you have after the collapse remember only what it was like from the collapse, effectively, experience is constructed after this collapse),
according to the book, your brain collapses everything that it is part of (i.e everthing that it saw before the collapse).
Before the collapse, millions of possiblities existed. When the collapse occurs, one of these possiblities(eiginstates) is chosen at random, with the likelyhood of each einginstate taken into account.
The PB and the JU allow you to selectively increase the possibility of any einginstate.
See it now?

Wow. That was really, really complicated. Maybe someone can rewrite that in a way that makes more sense, if they understand it.

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Replies:

More On Pattern Bufffers(Very, very complex)Scifiteki 12/21/01 8:44 p.m.
     Re: More On Pattern Bufffers(Very, very complex)SiliconDream =PN= 12/21/01 11:50 p.m.
           Re: More On Pattern Bufffers(Very, very complex)SiliconDream =PN= 12/22/01 1:04 a.m.
                 Re: More On Pattern Bufffers(Very, very complex)Yossarian 12/22/01 5:49 a.m.
                       Re: More On Pattern Bufffers(Very, very complex)Mark Levin 12/22/01 6:02 a.m.
                 Re: More On Pattern Bufffers(Very, very complex)Scifiteki 12/23/01 8:20 p.m.
     Re: More On Pattern Bufffers(Very, very complex)Arsonperbuilding 12/22/01 7:22 p.m.
           Re: More On Pattern Bufffers(Very, very complex)SiliconDream =PN= 12/22/01 7:46 p.m.
                 Dink!Djof 12/22/01 8:09 p.m.
                       Re: Dink!Max 12/28/01 6:45 p.m.
                             True.Djof 12/28/01 7:39 p.m.



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