establishing a frame for everything that follows: alterity is inviolable. this doesn't have to be lonely. :) I think I'm building an open-source toolkit for intersubjectivity that approaches safety over time?
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theory: the destiny of every world is to become a portal to all the others
see also (and I'm so sorry for this but it can't be helped): Zawinski's Law
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in an information-theoretic construction of universe predicated on the observer, information *about* the thing *is the thing for the observer*
(this necessarily and mechanically corresponds to the freely-unfolding abstraction source that is experience itself: you can have the thing, or the experience of the thing, or the experience of the experience of the thing, and so forth, and they are all equivalent *to the observer*. if you're in the reality platform business, this free abstraction series is where you get to play with refactoring without destabilizing userland.)
if you're building something, as long as it contains a working interface to the unknown *it'll be a portal from the get-go*, and won't need to chase a weird evolutionary path to achieve that status later
the unknown can only be interfaced indirectly: a knower must access novel information via information it already has. I've been thinking of this as known/knowable/unknown, but tripartite navigation systems abound, take your pick
a system with three terms can represent *anything* over time - think three-body dynamics, think morse code
in an information-theoretic construction of universe, representation *is the thing*
a three-term system *is already* a portal to everything else
or: a system with a functional interface to the unknown is *already* a portal to everything else. not because you can step directly into the unknown (you can't, not while maintaining continuity of "you" - "you can't" is a statement where both terms are meaningful), but because you can achieve a model of anything using that system. if the observer can rotate through ontological frames like they're dimensions, signaling == portalling, yeah?
all of this to say, a two-player rock-paper-scissors platform will never *of its own accord* list towards developing email, because it is already a complete signaling system.
but no platform based solely on binary reflection can afford to stay that way over time while remaining itself - "you can't", so to speak, not without guaranteeing that people will move on, and it takes a particular kind of investor to see *that* model through
and - epistemic foveation being what it is - a platform based on *more than* three terms is a good place to discover unlimited evolutionary paths, because everybody's gonna see something different ahead. :) best not to demand consensus
rock-paper-scissors is not the universe, but you can tell the story of the universe with those tools, and for the observer I don't think it gets better than that
I mentioned "the unknown" earlier: in rock-paper-scissors, the observer *is* the unknown. that's not adding a fourth term; it's the arrival of a second dimension.
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tacking this bit on just because I'm reading Discworld right now (for the first time!!): christianity is tight (that trinity!) but is a great way to take the fun out of ~~multidimensional consciousness~~ the pantheon. (but if you need a clean/uncomplicated escape hatch *I get it* - take one salvation to forget the whole thing. christ-as-complexity-drain? oh, maybe if you land christianity you can safely begin again in the wider playing field? why is my 49th-floor condo surrounded by crows