Does the Universe Exist?

Here's a thought that boggles my brain from time to time - what if the universe didn't exist. I'm not talking about stuff, like chairs and people and planets. That's a little unusual, but it's not so hard to imagine a universe that's got nothing in it, an infinite void. But that's not what I'm talking about. What if the void didn't exist either? Not only was there nothing, there was nowhere for it to be.

This hurts my head for a while, but then it starts to seem plausible. Unperturbed nothingness seems pretty elegant. Why should there be physical laws at all, let alone arbitrary arrangements of matter and energy? Why does the universe exist at all?

Does it?

Let's assume that physicists eventually come up with a complete description of the universe, a theory of everything. (Not a theory of "everything", including waltzes and parakeets, but a complete description of the root level of reality, the 'building blocks' as it were.)

What's the difference between this set of rules and the actual universe? What gives life to the rules and makes the world they describe real, or is the mere possibility of a universe just as real?

To quote Stephen Hawking:

Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?

What if it's nothing?

Okay, I admit this sounds totally bonkers, but consider the following thought experiment:

Let's assume for the moment that (1) you're a materialist, and you believe that cognition, self-awareness, intelligence, etc. are the output of computations (say) of the human brain.

Let's further assume that (2) we eventually develop artificial intelligence, maybe in a giant Game of Life, maybe some other way.

Unlike a robot brain, the AI we create isn't wired up to perceive the outside world, only events in its own simulated world - in essence, we've created a simulated universe (which may follow different laws than our own). So there's a society of simulated beings all chatting away with one another, or whatever they're doing. These aren't video game characters, mere sprites, these are rich, thinking beings that - when wired up to our world - behave just as richly as humans (though their thought processes and mental architecture might be very different), that just happen to be experiencing a completely virtual world.

Are these beings having a real experience, like we do? It would seem so, following from (1).

If you're still with me, here's where it gets weird. Is their experience somehow reliant on us running the simulation? Does it matter?

At first, it seems so. After all, if we never run the simulation, no experience for them, right?

Consider: if we pause the simulation, wait five minutes, and restart it, they'd never know. All their brains would freeze, along with everything in their little simulated universe, and be restarted, and they'd be none the wiser. In fact, if it's deterministic (like Conway's Game of Life) we could even rewind it a little and replay it. They're still motoring on like nothing had happened. These disturbances don't affect them at all.

In fact, run it backwards for a few years, turn it off, and when we get to the year 2076, start it over from the beginning. They still have no idea.

So it seems to me that the experience of these simulated beings is only loosely connected - if at all - to how and when we run the simulator.

Does it matter if we run it at all? If so, how?

If it doesn't matter if we ever run it, does it matter if we even invent it?

If not, it seems that a whole realm of existence and experience is 'out there', without us lending any energy to it whatsoever.

Back to us. If indeed we can find a simple theory of everything, maybe it's utterly unnecessary for anything to breathe fire into them. Perhaps all of experience is just the interaction between ephemeral possibilities of actuality. The universe doesn't really exist at all!

Fiasco with Adults

Had my first game of Fiasco with adults - my relatives. None of them are role-players, but they're all actors (I'm the odd one out there) and they're quite spontaneous.

The characterizations were hilarious, especially from my sister-in-law (a professional actress), and for family at least, unexpected risque: webcams hidden in tanning beds and the resulting porn was a central element.

The setup was a little confusing to them, mechanically, and there was a lot of uncertainty about what it all meant, but it was neat to see people starting to get inspired and leaning forward as the details started to click together.

In hindsight, we could have gone over some conventions of the genre, as we shied away from the outrageous and produced a sort of soap opera. Both in terms of pacing and general content, it felt a bit like Twin Peaks without the surrealism. Our characters were far too sensible!

A number of scenes focused on trying to get others to agree to do something, rather than plunging forward with screwball schemes (getting promises for goods rather than breaking in and taking them ourselves). As a result, 'bad result' resolutions didn't move the story enough ("he says no") rather than snowball the fiasco ("he catches you in the act"). A couple of scenes were spent essentially revisiting conflicts ("Hey, why haven't you done that thing you said you'd do yet?"). This really put the brakes on the central Need, as even modest plot advances were undone.

By the time I twigged to this we were well into act two, and it was revealed to all when we got the aftermath results which were way more brutal than the tone we'd set. (The worst that had happened to a character in play was being charged with a crime.)

We were exhausted and out of ideas by the very end, but the aftermath montage was really fun, perhaps because it was so clear just how much license we all had to set scenes (decades later). We went die by die and I found it once again unexpectedly poignant. My character's last die was a white one, where I got to move back to the town decades later to find that nobody remembered me (some victory!)

Can't wait to play again!

Fiasco with Kids

As I hadn't managed to get my relatives together to play Fiasco yet, I figured I'd give it a whirl with my kids, and it was surprisingly fun and accessible to them, despite their young ages (5 and 8).

Creating the character relationships went very smoothly - rather than having them browse the playset lists, we just took turns rolling and took what we got. (Although I did edit out the untoward objects and the needs about getting laid!)

By the time we were done, Leah (5) was a veterinary surgeon (Dr. Daisy), locked in a rivalry with Morgan's character, Dr. Eggnog. (A certain gonzo element creeps in with kids!) My character, Burt Cummings was a vet school wash-out, having left when bowel problems made it impossible for him to afford tuition. Now, he's getting illegal surgeries done via Dr. Daisy (professional/client relationship). Our location was (of course) the Animal Care Clinic on Center Road.

We kept the scenes super short and punchy, so the whole game was done in less than an hour.

My girls play 'pretend' all the time, and what's neat about it is the constant out of character negotiation they do about their roles and the upcoming events. As a result, Fiasco's scene framing seemed very natural for them, and they rolled easily with whatever Resolves were handed to them.

After the end of Act One, we rolled two Twists, "Dangerous Animal (Perhaps Metaphorical) Gets Loose" and "Ugly Struggle Ends in Death". The former we played literally; Dr. Eggnog accidentally releases a rabid dog while hunting through the vet clinic for some dirt on Dr. Daisy; later Burt runs into it and gets hurt. I then showed up at Dr. Eggnog's place with a shotgun, looking for revenge (long story) and Eggnog ends up biting it, which Morgan was totally into.

We still had a few scenes left, so we followed the game's advice and played Eggnog's last scene as a flashback - Burt and Eggnog back in vet school, just chatting. There was no real conflict, but I found the juxtaposition between their mortal struggle and their earlier friendship surprisingly poignant.

Fiasco is a very lean game, and the mechanics are a lot simpler than the rules make them out to be, somehow - there's so much advice about how to apply them that the learning curve looks steeper than it is, partly because the rules are spread out through the fairly long text. The summaries are handy, but only as memory-joggers - "do some dice math". The whole game (playsets aside) could probably be printed on three pages, with all the advice following.

All in all, it was slightly too involved for Leah, whose interest waned when there were about three scenes left but Morgan said she'd play again without hesitation. Fun!

NPC Dysfunction Table

1 Martyr

The NPC will help the players too much, helping or giving to the point of self-sacrifice. He secretly hopes to be recognized - even pampered - for this effort, but will never say so or let on in any way. Unless this happens, the NPC will feel resentful, and eventually come to feel utterly betrayed and neglected by the PCs.

2 Authority Issues

Though he doesn't realize this, the NPC is deeply mistrustful of authority figures. She will feel that attempt to suggest a course of action, however gentle, is an attempt to impinge on her freedom.

3 Passive Resistance

The NPC is resentful of any attempt of the players to push their own agenda, but won't speak up for himself. He will agree to anything, but whatever he's said, he'll privately do it his own way - or not do it at all. No issue is too small, or too important (e.g. ensuring the rations are packed) for him to take a stand.

4 Fully Entitled

It never occurs to the NPC that other people might have wishes other than her own. She blithely assumes everyone sees things her way, even when meddling in others' affairs. The NPC is quite comfortable with the resulting conflict, and sees others as oversensitive.

5 Unheard

The NPC is secretly furious that nobody asks his opinion. He will never offer it unsolicited. He will hold his tongue, even to the point that the group fails. Only if pressed will he reveal that he had foreseen this disaster and that somebody should have asked him.

6 Insecure

The NPC is desperately insecure. He perceives any contrary opinion as an attack on him personally, a deliberate move to either undermine him, make him look stupid, damage his reputation, or pave the way to pushing him out the group.

7 Blaming

The moment he is inconvenienced, or anything whatsoever goes wrong, the NPC will immediately blame anyone plausible - preferably someone nearby. Their fault could have been something done wrong, something not done, something they didn't anticipate needing to do.

8 Controlling

This NPC must be in control, and views this as the only possible route to success and failure is not an option. Independent action is at best an annoyance, one more thing for her to keep track of, and at worst, a first step to disaster. She will resist this with great determination. No detail is too small for her to have an opinion; plans too complicated for her to track in her mind are a non-starter.

9 Indirect

No matter how urgent the information, this NPC will always try to communicate through an intermediary. "Can you talk to him? It'll sound better coming from you." If he doesn't like someone in the group or their behavior, he will speak to the others one on one, trying to turning the others against his target. If confronted directly, he'll deny that he has any gripe.

10 Explosive

The NPC holds a grudge and keeps score. Any annoyance, perceived slight, failure to recognize her contribution, or infringement of her rights will be endured silently - but every last one is stored up in a mental logbook. Then, at the least convenient moment, she snaps. Maybe it's one slight too many; maybe a player needs a favor.

Plastic walkers beach party

This morning, still lying in bed, Danielle said to me. "If you have a big Hallowe'en project this year, now would be a good time to get started."

Then my boss shows me this!

Centaur Goes to School

Here's a video of the centaur in motion!

Centaur Nears Completion

Here's a new set of pictures of the completion of the centaur body!

As I posted last time, I'd resolved to make a new body out of foam. The first time around I didn't have quite enough foam, so I thickened it with alternating slices of a thinner sheet of foam I used to pad the harness.

The problem was that the surface along the torso was all irregular, and carving wasn't very easy with the different foam densities. I'd made a whole new skeleton, so why not make a whole new foam torso?

As before, I stacked the foam segments on the spine, but this time I glue-gunned them into place.

Next I carved the out the legs. I used the skeleton as a template to make sure they were the right size, then started rounding them out from there using a carving knife. The carving knife was a great tool, although the foam blunts it after a couple of minutes' cutting, so I kept a sharpener handy.

The next step was to insert the skeleton. Following some advice on a puppetry blog, I made slits, then plucked out a tube-like chamber, wide enough to house the plastic leg bones.

Then, reattaching the hip bolts, we get the assembled rear legs.

A few more screws to reattach the hips to the aluminum spine.

To carve the torso, I kept a small plastic toy horse at hand (maybe you can spot him in the background). Nevertheless, I made two errors - one, not starting out with enough foam to make the round stomach, and secondly, I made the whole thing too long. I hadn't accounted for the length of the ass - the haunches protrude well beyond the foam skeleton.

Overall the net effect, particularly striking once Morgan was suited up it it, was a ridiculously long horse body, making Morgan look minuscule compared to the school bus sized body she was dragging around. At this point, though, I had no objectivity and couldn't really see it, but my wife Danielle was pretty insistent it looked silly.

A couple of inches off the spine, and it looked much better. The next thing to do was to turn it upside-down, and hot-glue on a thick slab to be carved into the stomach. This was really tricky as it was hard to plane the undersurface into something flat enough to glue onto - hot melt isn't very strong, so the final form involves two duct-tape 'belts' for strength.

Then I carved out two channels in which to mount the leg-string guides.

A quick test with Morgan. You can see in this picture that I've carved away the fronts of the thighs. I had planned to do this all along and mount them with bead-filled bags. After getting a shape I was happy with, I was very reluctant to do this step, but it was necessary as the foam was far too rigid for Morgan to be able to bend it - all the leg action was constrained to the lower joint. In the end, though, exhaustion set in and I never did fill the missing space with anything.

Next step, the skin. I haven't sewn in 23 years, not since grade 8 home economics. I was a little scared, then more gravely worried when the sewing machine started spewing out little spider-like knots of thread. But with some expert guidance (I had threaded the machine incorrectly, throwing the thread tension way off), I was on my way.

First step, some pants for Morgan. I was sewing heavy spandex, so my pattern could be dead simple; I didn't even bring the leg segments to a point to come together in the crotch, but fortunately the material is stretchy enough to accommodate despite this.

I had experimented to see how stretchy it was - about 180% stretch on one axis, maybe 130% on the other, and left what I thought would be enough room for the pelvis padding I'd carved (not shown) to make Morgan's hips look more like the chest and shoulders of a horse. But I underestimated how tight that would feel - much bunching and itching and butt crack sticking out, and so the fake muscles are on the shelf for now, seeing if I have time to make some brown, looser overshorts to hold them.

Errrrrmum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum.

Next step, remedial drapery. I wanted the skin on the horse to be tight, so following some advice from mum I just draped the fabric over it, and cut out likely-looking pieces, pinned them, then did some more.

This worked out very well, although I'd choose completely different seam placement were I to do this again. Morgan's dress will drape over the torso; the key area to make smooth is the rump. One seam up the middle, and darts wherever else necessary.

The inner thighs were the hardest part. A washable marker was my friend here (chalk pencils barely work on spandex) to label which pieces need to be sewn together. When it's off the foam body, the skin is just a floppy confusing mass of shiny fabric, it can be surprisingly hard to keep straight what needs to be sewn to what.

A marathon stretch at the sewing machine (about 6 hours) and the legs and body was finally done.

This step made me laugh - trying to 'dress' something this large was like trying to dress a sleeping person. It felt like it needed a name at this point! Some sports socks were very helpful in smoothing the passage over the very grippy foam, but the hips were a major pain.

Ta da! This is the horse with a temporary tail - we've got some blonde wigs we're going to use instead. Sorry for the visual clutter in this shot, my living/dining room was buried in bits of foam and tools, there was hardly anywhere to move.