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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 6, 2015 14:18:55 GMT
Thorn, People and other living things which aren't created as the startIng members of their species by the god are also made of those things in intricate patterns. But everything is intricate enough that things need to have patterns telling them how to make themselves. And these substances that living things are made of are arranged in larger patterns which are all ultimately plants. If people from your world sound like you are made from similar substances to ours, rather than what I was envisioning, like sentient magIcal structures of water or soil. But if you are complex reproducing life based on complex patterns rather than magic, and you move and consume things to live, I'm not sure what overall structure you could be if you aren't plants? Also I an getting the impression from your description of humans and ex humans that humans from your world have edited themselves, or been edited. Is this correct? If so, were there inherent negative effects, were the changes an overall improvement, and could these edited theoretically be made in another world? Also, were there originally laws or customs preventing people from doing that, and if so, how were they circumvented? Some parts of what you wrote are smudged out and say that they were taken out for security reasons on top. Did you know about that?
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Thorn
Poster
Posts: 44
World: Eclipse
Pronoun: she/her/hers
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Post by Thorn on May 6, 2015 15:12:12 GMT
Alright, having talked to my router - There is concern that this forum may be or may become infected by the thing-that-is-redacted, in which case having too much information on here would be... problematic.
- I should, however, feel free to discuss the matter in order to help any other groups that may be combating it (in a sane and sensible manner), provided I do not provide excessive data on local matters.
- No, they are not turning off the security AI, that is there for a reason
However, I have already gone enough off topic. I may make a thread to discuss this matter later. Botanical Engineer: We call our versions of the 'patterns telling them how to make themselves' DNA (or, well, sometimes 'code' or 'blueprints' in the case of AGIs and synthmorphs, but I am trying not to complicate this further, since you don't seem to have those) Plants (or whatever is being translated as that) are actually a form of life that exists in our world, but they are not generally mobile. Humans evolved from a related kind of life we generally refer to as animals, which... we need a biology thread, I think. I am going to attempt to attach some scientific documentation on the matter. We have, indeed, edited ourselves. When done wrong (or maliciously) it can certainly have negative effects, but I would say that is not inherent. It... did seem to increase social divisions on Pre-Fall Earth, and related technological advances are tied up with the Fall, but that's generally accepted to have more to do with the TITANS. Additionally, a lot of the exhumans are hostile to transhumanity, but... they kind of did that deliberately. There was certainly quite a lot of controversy back in the day, especially given that we didn't know enough about what we were doing, to start with, to do it non-destructively. A lot of the organizations involved wound up doing a great deal of their work in orbit; which, ironically, resulted in them coming through the Fall rather better than other factions. [Attached: organisms- wiki (error, insufficient space for download. Please try again)]
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Post by Fortunomancer on May 6, 2015 21:40:12 GMT
Andrew, The word "intuitive" is almost certainly a mistranslation. I'm using a word which means "magic which requires some amount of mental effort to perform, but does not require any other actions commonly associated with serious spellcraft." Another term is "natural workings." I will use that from now on.
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Post by Fortunomancer on May 6, 2015 21:51:33 GMT
Thorn, I am curious as to why "editing" humans is considered controversial on your world. It is obvious to me that if one considers one's body or mind faulty or unsatisfactory, and it is within one's means to correct this fault, there is no reason not to do so. Does the controversy exist solely because those doing the editing were at one point unskilled, or are there cultural reasons as well?
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Thorn
Poster
Posts: 44
World: Eclipse
Pronoun: she/her/hers
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Post by Thorn on May 6, 2015 22:58:02 GMT
It... generally isn't, I'm sorry if I was unclear. It was back in the day when pretty much all of the experimentation was, by most ethical standards extremely problematic, but we've generally had bigger problems to worry about than what bones our advancement were built on since the Fall.
(Exceptions: The Jovian nanotech ban, the Consortium's economic policies, anything involving Titan-tech, and things like the exhumans where the result is extreme hostility toward everyone else)
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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 7, 2015 0:31:14 GMT
Fortunomancer, In my world, it is currently very unacceptable to edit humans. A lot of it is for religious reasons, because it is believed humans were made as an imitation of the god for smaller details. The god makes new species and we edit them to improve them, but the god does not change itself so we should not change ourselves. Some of it is because there are things that cause harmful and fatal edits to humans, so the idea of something editing humans is strongly associated with negative effects. Some of it is because the plants humans edit are made to be more useful tools or better art for humans, so editing a human would have connotations of making someone into a better tool rather than a person. Also, some people have attempted to edit humans and failed because humans are unusually complicated. So those are some other reasons that people are against human editing.
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Post by ArtlessIlluminator on May 7, 2015 1:24:20 GMT
My world has a wide variety of intelligent beings, inhabiting surface, cave, sea, and sky. We have humans, though I myself am a dwarf. There are many more: elves, treants, octopodes, et cetera, far too many to name.
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Post by Andrew on May 7, 2015 1:38:59 GMT
Our world has fiction about elves, dwarves, and treants, but not the actual species. We do have octopodes, but I expect they are quite different from yours: they are more intelligent than a lot of animals, but not enough to really count as “intelligent life”. For example, they are unable to use or comprehend language.
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Post by Fortunomancer on May 7, 2015 3:50:54 GMT
Botanical Engineer,
I see. I tend to find divine-command arguments unconvincing, as arguments go. However, for all I know, in your world, there is a god that is kind enough to occasionally provide evidence of its existence.
There are certain methods of magical editing that have a reputation for being dangerous (editing other peoples' minds, for example, is only done when the alternative is worse than death). The risks involved with these methods have not led us to believe that all human editing is bad, only that attaining the ability to edit humans requires a lot of skill and anyone who is able to successfully do so is deserving of respect.
How does one go about editing nonhuman species in your world?
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Post by Botanical Engineer on May 7, 2015 4:09:03 GMT
Fortunomancer, Our world definitely has a god! It makes rain and new species and probably keeps the world afloat. I just am not sure that anyone would know if it cares about what we do.
Any editing we could do is always before the seed is even planted, so if the alternative was worth than death, that seed would just be destroyed. Humans are very complicated, and if someone was caught editing one, they would probably be executed. If there were a very beneficial and straightforward edit to be made, it might be worth trying to stealthily make the edit to as many seeds that had not yet sprouted in order to improve the lives of as many as possible, but it would be very important that it be guaranteed to be an improvement.
Humans can touch a seed and sense patterns inside it. We get some sense of what each part of the pattern does, but not a complete understanding. We can edit any part of that pattern, which changes how the plant grows once it is planted. It is relatively easy to change the color of a flower's petals, relatively hard to change what shape a tree's trunk grows in, and very difficult to change the composition of a tree's pollen. I have touched without editing some human seeds, and written down the patterns I sensed, and humans' patterns are extremely complex. I am not sure how it would be possible to safely change most things that aren't simple cosmetics in order to for example increase lifespan or make someone more resistant to infections.
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Post by Dotted Lines on May 7, 2015 4:14:45 GMT
The world I live in has many different kinds of people. I am a human. There are also sentient aliens who we've met, and many people that are close to human, and some humans that look like they are not human. There are some powerful beings that come in a wide variety of forms and abilities.
Sometimes people have powers.
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Post by Andrew on May 7, 2015 5:06:55 GMT
Dotted Lines, what sorts of powers do people sometimes have? What do humans-that-look-nonhuman look like? Are you from an Earth? Do your astrophysics and biology match anybody else’s from the relevant threads, and if not can you describe them there?
What should your world be called?
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Post by Dotted Lines on May 7, 2015 5:38:02 GMT
I don't know how to describe the powers people have. I will list some examples. There is a teenage boy who has telepathic powers that he can use to change the way people around him feel for many weeks. The mayor can fly and disappear, and has six arms. My wife's brother can call weather to him. A high school student became incredibly strong, and slightly more intelligent. I can see how everything is organized, and understand it all, although only in my own world.
Some humans who don't look human: There is a little girl who looked like a detached hand and a woman who looks like a tree lizard. Sometimes government agents disguise themselves as trees, birds, or furniture. One of the other members of the PTA has a son who sometimes looks like a butterfly, or a motorcycle, or lots of other things.
I am from Earth. Other universes have more consistent biology and physics than we do. They work, I think, on the same basic principles, but sometimes things stop working. Almost a year ago, gravity turned off, and some people's hearts decided to stop beating, and the sun went out, until it all reversed itself. Five months ago, the sun went through mitosis several times, until there were eight suns in the sky, but now there is only one again and it has started setting in the north.
How do people decide what to name their worlds? I am not sure I am allowed to name my world, even.
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Post by lurkingkobold on May 7, 2015 6:54:41 GMT
Here person kinds is many-many.
Kobold is small of person, is of steal, live caves, many no of language.
Human is same of you, maybe? Not know many of human. Do of build, do of metal, do of magic, do of food plant.
Elf is different of Rock-Throw-Many-Rainbow, mean mean mean. Do of tree, do of animal, do many of fight, eat people sometimes. Live many long.
Many kinds animalperson. Many friendly, do of trade.
Goblin, do of fight, steal of people. Trade sometimes. Tricky. Live many long.
Dwarf, is of rock, do of metal, do of gem, little do of fight. Stay of rock, many time.
Other person kinds, goblin do of story, sometimes not real, but many many story, do of true sometimes.
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Post by Noah on May 7, 2015 7:59:22 GMT
We've only found worlds where the native life was humans. There was one with a zombie plague, but every zombie started life as a human before getting bitten and starting to shuffle around rotting and hungry. All our passengers are human, and we haven't discovered any magic powers or serious variation.
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