The Last Answer

45 points by ari_elle 13 years ago | 11 comments

gamegoblin 13 years ago |

This genre is my favorite. For anyone who wants to read more similar to it:

Three Worlds Collide (Metaethics, moral relativism, etc)

http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pd...

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (Thinking machines, brains-in-vats experience machine, a world without death) This one is my favorite of the three

http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiall.html

The Last Question (Thinking machines, the end state of a universe full of technologically powerful beings)

http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm

Not as relevant as the previous three, but still brain tickling (and not as long):

Relevant scene from Star Trek: The Next Generation (Episode: The Measure of a Man) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PMlDidyG_I

Let's Help Germinate This Seed http://www.thrivenotes.com/lets-help-germinate-this-seed/

The Egg http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

jamesrcole 13 years ago | |

IMO "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" is awful.

My main criticism is that it simply assumes the point it sets out to make (SPOILERS: basically that if you can't die and anything is possible, life would have no meaning). It really doesn't do anything to show why that'd be the case.

It also really fetishises extreme violence and, to a certain extent, incest. (My beef is not with the fact that it involves those things, but with the way that it handles them).

If you're looking for something with similar machine-intelligence, fairly limitless possibilities, and the like, I think Greg Egan's Diaspora is a far superior treatment. http://www.amazon.com/Diaspora-Greg-Egan/dp/0575082097

new299 13 years ago | |

Thanks for these recommendations, "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" made great reading.

gamegoblin 13 years ago | | |

I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's pretty weird but very good food for thought.

minopret 13 years ago |

Really, Mr. Asimov? If our mortality did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it? And is existing throughout time such a grand and limitless condition? Georg Cantor proved that there are always much greater infinities that we could not begin to approach, even if we would never die. So I am not convinced that it's a compelling puzzle to find our own limitations, even if we were unlimited in the dimension of time. That's still only one dimension.

Anyway, the story appears to be reproduced without permission in violation of copyright.

gamegoblin 13 years ago | |

I think that you are taking this a bit too seriously.

I believe it's better read merely as food for thought, not as a philosophical treatise.

minopret 13 years ago | | |

    At code review one hacker guy
    Was asked to relax, or to try.
    "I'm not naming names,
    But all's fun and games
    Until someone loses an i!"

(I felt like responding this way just because Asimov wrote limericks.)

rationalthink2 13 years ago | |

Yes, Mr. Asimov browses HN...

eridius 13 years ago | | |

Right, it's only a crime if you get caught perpetrating it. </sarcasm>

Tycho 13 years ago |

A very short but superb story in a similar vein: The Egg by Andy Weir

http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

mikecane 13 years ago |

Heh. All variables cannot be factored in until all variables have ended.