Grace
There is one way that Grace knows to summon a Jo, rather infallibly. It doesn't involve invocations to any deity, or drawing strange sigils in ink made of sky -- no. It involves sending a text like this:
Come to the office? I'm making waffles. Kalen bought these chocolate pomegranate cookie things too? I thought you'd like.
Jo would probably travel across oceans for the promise of food and sugar. It shouldn't take long. Should it?
Jo Hamilton
Jo would travel across galaxies for the promise of sugar. She was halfway there when she responded with an OMW.
She rode her bike there, as she always did, and she didn't bother to knock when she arrived. To Jo, the office felt like home now, and she might have even spent far more time than she ought to. Though recently, she had been spending more time in front of her computer. Mostly, she was playing games (and punishing griefers), but now and then....
Honestly she hadn't slept overly much in the last day or so, and it showed just under her eyes. But Jo? Jo was never really 'tired' after those first 24 hours. Something always kicked in...some need... and she'd be lost for awhile. She'd been having those moments.
Now she was at the office, her bike placed where it always was, and her laptop on her back in her backpack (Jo went nowhere without it). "Yoooooooo! Gracie! I heard ya'll had like foods and stuff!"
Grace
Jo's voice echoes down the hall, and that is when Grace appears down the stairs, a half-eaten chocolate-covered cookie shoved in her mouth, with a small box of more of the same cookies inside.
"Mmmmf," Grace grunts, and pushes the box at Jo.
This, followed by a little dance with her head held back and her hand over her mouth to ensure that no cookie crumb escapes eating.
Good cookies are good, you understand? Kalen has excellent taste in weird food.
Jo Hamilton
Her lips curl up into a grin, the box grabbed rather greedily. "Duuuuuuude!" She did a little jump-dance in place, opening the box to peer inside. "Dude you like, totally know how to like eat and stuff. So like, is he like crazy into the like unconventional? Cause I have totes never seen these before." She stuffed a cookie in her mouth, crunching into it, and lacking the good grace to keep her mouth shut when she spoke.
Grace
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Alike, these two, neither care much for manners. Grace is only silent for a bit because she's incapable of speech at all with her mouth that full.
The cookies are indeed pomegranate-flavored, with a chocolate coating on top. It's tart and bright and sweetly dark with chocolate all at once. And it's all in a cookie. They're also insanely expensive, and somewhere in the deepest recesses of Grace's consciousness, she knows this and chooses to ignore it. Kalen will do what he wants with his money.
"He just likes getting random food items and encouraging me to eat them. This required little encouragement, let me tell you."
Jo Hamilton
Jo comes to a slow stop with her munching and then looks at the cookies, skeptically. She swallows. "Did he like...poison them?" Who buys food like this for the sole purpose of encouraging someone else to eat it? Ok..maybe some people do but still..
Jo seems to shrug it off and grab another. "Well dude is like totes welcome to like bring like a whole buncha stuff to the dorms cause like...I need gamin foods and all. Can't like game on nuthin ya know?" Jo bounced with the box towards the kitchen to set them on the counter.
Grace
"He wouldn't want to poison me. I make neat toys. I think he thinks I forget to eat sometimes, which is kind of true, if I go into a coding trance or whatever."
Or, when she barricades herself after almost dying, too....
Grace follows after Jo to the kitchen, which contains the promised Belgian waffles and (scattered around the countertops) various waffle toppings. Of course there are waffles. It's about the only thing Grace can legitimately cook by herself, so whenever she gets that specific wild hair -- it's waffle time.
"So I was thinking. You faced down a horrible beast lately, didn't you? I heard about that. I also heard you threw your bicycle at it," Grace says, frowns a bit. "I'm not saying that was bad, but maybe I can help you form a better response tactic. You know, for next time?"
Jo Hamilton
She dropped her bag on the edge of the kitchen and had already begun the process of making a waffle, which was pretty much putting a bit of everything on top of the bread. The waffle was really just an excuse for everything else; she didn't need it in the end.
"The dog? Was like some weirdo Mastiff or something. Like woah, what peeps be feedin their hounds anymore? Like crazy mutant Mastiff chow made from like the left over radiation at Fukushima?"
"Well see, I didn't like, ya know, have much else, and I figure... ya know... might as well do somethin. Can't let Latvia ya know, kick the bucket and al. Least not until like we totes get a few good dates or somethin. Missed opportunities and all. Cause see, I'm not like ya know she-hulk."
"Course it busted up my wheels. I'd give it a good like kick in the head for it again."
Jo Hamilton
[*Lavinia. OMG player sucks]
Grace
My but Jo is a fearless one. A little fighter. And Grace knows just what she'd like to explain how to do, too...
"What if you could have shot electricity at it? Or thrown that bike at it with a lot more force, or made it trip over itself with the direct application of friction... Does that sound enticing to you?"
How's about learning the fine arts of becoming Thorina, Goddess of Lightningbolts sound, oh little fearless warrior?
Jo Hamilton
"Dude I don't like have a taser. I mean like sure, what eff, but I mean it was a burly dog. Like what voltage do ya gotta get to like shock a dog? Like a big greyhound or whatever? " Jo is still unwilling to accept that it was something other than some rabid animal. She probably just ate too many donuts that day; hallucinations can come from some weird places.
"I mean like really, it like...makes sorta sense now why you were all like wantin ta learn how to like shoot and stuff. I mean, coulda like wounded it or something so we could like find out who owned it ya know? Get a vet or whateff people do."
Grace
"If we could have found out who owned it, that could have been good. Though, the question would then become, 'Why did you take a dog and twist it into that?' From what Lavinia tells me, that was no dog you found. That was a thing that was once a dog."
Grace shifts her weight onto the doorframe of the kitchen, leaning like somebody trying for 'cool' and only halfway making it there.
"You could get a taser. Let it start the electricity generation, and then feed it more power -- throw the lightning that way. Would be easier than trying to make electricity by scratch..."
Jo Hamilton
She stuffed large bites in her mouth, chewing as she thought. "Nah probably had like rabies or somethin. Ya know? Got bit by like a raccoon or like a possum or something. Or like had mange like those like chupacabra wannabes or whatever. Get like some weird parasite and suddenly ya look like bite-size godzilla. Not my thing, ya know, Bio."
"Well I mean you could probably like amp up the like taser cause like..see they put caps on those things for like safety or like something. "
Grace
Ohh, Jo. Still so stuck in small ideas, isn't she? Grace smiles a bit in remembrance of a time when she had trouble thinking beyond the mundane. In some ways, better, in most ways -- worse.
"If you hack into the universe, the safety cap on your taser means exactly jack and shit. You could potentially use that taser to plasma-cut your way out of a steel box if necessary..."
Jo Hamilton
"Well, I mean if we're gunna go that way like, in the words of Morpheus...'If you could hack the universe, you wouldn't have to.' Cause like, if you can hack the main code? Like then you don't need to like cut things. You just like..delete. Cause why make it like more trouble than it is?
She shrugged, pleased with the amount of sugar in her system. "But see I dun got all that yet. Like I got pieces of it. I mean a piece of code here and there but not like, enough to go on."
Grace
"Hmm... probably because deleting the steel box is more trouble than cutting through it. People cut steel all the time, but deleting atoms usually results in a nuclear explosion...
"You'll learn all the hows and whys of that, in time. If you'd like to. I could show you how."
Jo Hamilton
"That's cause you're thinking of atoms as atoms instead of just like numbers. I mean like, the code is everything so like, atoms are a form of the code. And deleting the code isn't like splitting an atom, it's making it like not there, ever. It's like telling the system that box wasn't there to like begin with. So just ignore that part. Not hard, I think. I mean. Just seems more trouble to edit when you can delete."
She reached her hand sup and then back, curling her fingers behind her head. "Sometimes I figure I just gotta wait. I mean keep learnin and all that stuff but if I wait, maybe I'll pick it up. Cause like, when I was a kid, one of my friends died ya know? Like.. died. But she like didn't. I mean she told me like a part of the secret. I figure maybe she got part of it and was like 'Hey Jo! This is super cool!' and maybe she'll like figure out some more and give it back or..something. I dunno. Hey maybe she's Clippy!"
Grace
Jo's speech starts going lopsided, and Grace is having trouble keeping up. Her head tilts to the side. But enough of that, let's stick to what made sense...
"In order to convince the system that the box was never there to begin with, you'd have to affect the entire system at once. Every particle, every piece, is intrinsically connected to every other. You can delete the box, but the universe would likely remember the box had been there at some point, unless you were somehow able to worm your way through and recode the entire universe. It would recoil. The ragged edges left behind from where the box used to be would snap back. It could hurt you, or the things around you and the box a great deal. Take this little bit of wisdom from somebody who has studied the concept of deleting and inserting new objects into the universe a great deal... That shit can be painful."
Jo Hamilton
She scratched her head a little. "You like.. well you talk like the code is a living thing but like it's not. It's just numbers and letters and stuff. And I mean.. I mean think about the Architect right? From the matrix? Like ok.. or The keymaker or the guard dude for the oracle. Like.. I mean they rewrite things like all the time. Or like infect things if you're agent smith. And the world just kinda goes on and 'corrects' it sort of.. I mean the manager just sort of makes it like something else or whatever. " She twitched her nose a little. "I know ...you're talkin about the consensus gettin like all upset and stuff and gettin back at ya for it. I get that, buuuut... I mean if you an override consensus..that'd be super cool."
Grace
"You'd be surprised what things are living and what aren't... I've had a conversation with a universe before. Not this one, but you know, in a way, I suppose..."
She leans up again, looking a bit less slacker, more like something sharp and sleek.
"Come on," she says, starts walking out the door. "I'll show you you. The code is partly living, because we are contained within, and we are alive. Who was your friend? The one who didn't die?"
Jo Hamilton
"Eh?" She blinked, rolling from heel to toe and back again. "Show me me? Like.. wha? Whatcha mean by that?" But Jo shrugged and moved after Grace. "But I mean like, hey, haven't steered me wrong yet or somethin. I think that's like what people say."
Jo blinked, pursed her lips and furrowed her brows. "You know..can't remember her name. Like.. she was ma best friend, probably like my first real crush too..and can't remember." Jo twisted her face a little more. "Man... that sucks."
Grace
"Really? But you remember what she was like?" Grace asks, on her way to the door that marks her office.
She slides her middle finger into the fingerprint scanner when she gets there, and the lock pops open with a click. Then, she swings the door open to the inside.
Jo will find the place pretty much the same as she has found it before, only this time -- there is the addition of a turtle-shaped robot on the work station.
Gamera-Bot in progress.
Jo Hamilton
"Ashley? That sounds familiar. Like... real familiar. I mean I don't remember much. I was like..9 or something.. we're talkin like middle school ya know? Like awhile ago. Like.. 10 years ago. I mean. I think she had blonde hair. I think. I mean would kinda explain my preference or something." She grinned widely. "Mmmm Blondes."
"A turtle?" She gave Grace an odd look. "It like as slow as a turtle? I mean like..turtles aren't like know for their like battle prowess and stuff."
Grace
"Hey. Don't insult the robot that's going to kick your robot's butt," Grace says, and gives Jo a grin. "You know, Gamera vs. Godzilla? Don't tell me you forgot!"
She slides into her office chair and spins around in it a couple times, because this is a woman who has not yet learned the meaning of 'grown up'. And then, she goes after her laptop, opening it and booting it up.
"Okay, so... The code as a living thing. I want to show you something. It might help you understand more what I mean. And then we can cover electricity too..."
Jo Hamilton
"Tcht. Course it will. I dun have one yet. Like.. totes gotta get workin on that. Gettin side tracked and all. Rabid dogs, codes and summer work and stuff. Gamin.. man... you believe some dude totally griefed my dinos? Like totes took down my dino hut and like killed my raptor mount. Dude is like.. ugh. Gunna kick him."
Jo steps over, sliding her hands back behind her head as she watched. "Right..so code as a living...thing.. or..something. right. Well I'm open right?"
Grace
"Here, give me your hand," Grace says, and reaches out for Jo without looking at her. No, she's looking at her computer, scrolling, clicking... Looking at the Code.
Her interface to that Code is currently a mess of disjointed static bursts and jumbled stuff that doesn't seem to make much sense of anything. There's symbols, lines, colors, but it's all a wash.
"I want you to look at this. I'm going to whittle away at the Code until all we can see is your own Data. It'll be fun."
Jo
She squints an eye. "Look Grace. Like you're my homie and all but like, I don't look at ya like that. I mean.. don't get me wrong and all.. you're kinda hot but ya know, not my type. I mean... not girly enough. So I mean.." But her lips curl up into a wide grin and she holds out her hand for Grace. "Just don't like, do nuthin to it. I'm like..attached to my data. I like it. It's me ya know? Don't be like, puttin in Agent Smith or nuthin."
Samir
Grace's phone rings or vibrates or whatever it does to indicate she has a new message.
Samir
Hey G - It's Samir. I didn't want to just show up unannounced, since I kicked your ass at laser tag last time. You at the place?
Grace
[Life 1, Prime 1 = Looking at the Code of Jo.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 5, 10) ( success x 4 ) [WP]
Grace
She rolls her eyes at Jo's pronouncement that she is 'hot' and takes the hand provided anyway. Grace's hands are cold, bony things anyway -- it's not too comfortable.
Her phone makes the text-message-received bleep, and she ignores it. For right now, everything else except for the code on her screen is getting ignored. Slowly, as though being sliced away from the core, the symbols on her screen slide off as she ignores the pieces she wants to ignore, and keeps those she wants to.
In the end, we're still left with what looks like a staticky mess. But, what is on her screen now was always there, was waiting to have the rest of the universe pared away so you could see it.
"Okay, so -- that is your hand. Your hand, separated out from the rest of the universe. It took a good amount of doing, because you're connected to everything else so much. You send data to the universe, it sends data to you. There's not a whole lot of real separation. Here, let me pass it through a viewing filter..."
And then, Jo's hand flickers into view on the screen, floating in blank nothingness. Make an obscene gesture, and it will be duplicated...
Something catches at the back of her mind, something important.. Oh yeah! She goes to her phone and looks at the message and starts typing away at it.
Grace
Jo's here. Just a warning. Teaching her some stuff.
Grace
And yeah, at the place.
Jo
[brb real quick! keep going]
Samir
Texting is not instantaneous but even by modern communications standards nearly a minute passes between Grace's message and Samir's response. That's a long time.
I can stop by another time. I don't want to interrupt.
Grace
Is the that scary? Really?
Grace
*she
Samir
Scary like "BOO!" scary or scary like "I'm concerned by how much caffeine she had to have ingested to talk that much" scary?
Jo
Her brows lift and Jo leans in to look at the code. "Noooo. So like, what would it look like for the whole thing? Cause I mean, I'm like.. more than a hand. I got a head and stuff too ya know." When Grace moves, Jo takes her place, trying to actually understand how she's doing that.
"So....totes not seeing how this means code is a living thing so much as I'm like made of data."
Grace
It's a shit-ton of of caffeine, and I know this because I feed it to her. I am a terrible person.
Samir
Such an enabler...
Grace
"The code is alive because you are alive, and you are code," Grace says, succinct. "People have a tendency to think of themselves as separate from everything else, and they like putting a wall between the human and the natural, like they're an outside observer to the machine. You are not on the outside. The universe thinks and breathes and speaks because you think and breathe and speak, and there is no real barrier there."
She drops the phone and heads back to the keyboard so she can do some more explaining... Takka takka tak.
Then, the screen adjusts so that Jo can see herself in full. The image is not that of a naked body, however, but of a living being made of connections between data points, and most of those disappearing outside of the bounds of the screen -- her connections to the universe at large.
Jo
"Uh... yeah I'm like totes not with that. I mean.. even if we like talk about being 'alive..' There's really like no way to like know we're alive. I mean we're all program right? But see we could really just be like some stupid simulation like all the like video games and stuff we play. Ya know, simulations within simulations sort of thing. Which means we're not really like alive, we'd be following a script. Well I mean it's more like a series of logical algorithms, but yeah like... the same really. But like see, even if we say we're 'alive' it's sort of subjective cause like, the only thing we have to compare 'alive' to is like..well this planet. I mean.. what if being alive is like..something else? Follows some sort of like different set of rules and we've like, just barely touched the basic ones?"
"So to say we're code, andalive, thus code must be alive, is sort of like resting on a like shaky premise. So.. yeah I dunno. And the universe itself? Nah it's not alive. It's just a puter, running math really. I mean like, to say it's alive is like really pressin into the whole spiritual thing. I mean, there's like nuthin wrong with like people wantin to like do that, buuuut not ma boat really. I mean like, I don't really like buy into the whole universe breathes dealio. It exists, sure, in some sort of like manner, but being alive? Nah. No more than like.. the house is alive, or like.. a spoon is alive. It's just matter and particles all running on a code that like none of us really know yet but are trying like desperately to like get to."
She leaned against the wall closest to Grace, squinting an eye at her phone activity rather temporarily. "Nah now yer just gettin all fancy and stuff. I mean, it's cool and all, but like...If we're talkin about people as made up of like numbers and letters and stuff, it's not gunna conform to the physical form we perceive. That's just like...how we're coded to see each other. It's not that like..rigidly defined or whateff. "
Grace
"What is alive then, if we aren't it?" Grace asks, before heading back to her phone. "I mean, if you accept as a given -- which I do -- that we are in a simulation of a world, does that mean there is a 'real' world with actual living people in it that we are a simulation of?"
Grace
It's like putting a harness on a cat with this one. I can't drag her to enlightenment, bah. You coming?
Samir
Twist my arm. Be there in like two minutes. You think getting her stoned would help? 80/20 serious/joking.
Grace
Probably. HAhaha.
Jo
Jo holds up her hands in a shrug. "Don't know. I mean it's not logical to like ask that question as if like the answer is evident. I mean.. just because we aren't alive doesn't mean anything else is like either or like, just because we don't know what is alive, doesn't like mean we're alive. Just a bunch of logical errors really."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "See, I don't really see things as evident. I mean like, yeah I think like we're all just a bunch of digital representations of something. Are we people? Like I don't even know if we are. Is there a universe outside of ours? Like....it seems it's likely that there are like a bazillion universes other than our own. If it is a simulation than it seems obvious that like, yeah, there would be others. But we don't like know whether there is or not. So... it's really just based on what like..have at our disposal to like get. "
"And like..maybe there are like real people, or maybe that's just like, what we think because we can't like, see ourselves as like living in a place that is pure digital without like something living controlling it."
"So like here's the thing. Descartes was pretty wicked in his original assumption that we gotta assume that like everything we like know is a lie right? And like work our way up from there. Problem is we get like all mixed up and we get hung up like he did when he asserted that like, God has to exist because like, he couldn't make it up himself." Jo scratched her head. "He had it for a second ya know? Like he really had it, then he messed it all up. But I think I'd like ta, ya know, start there. Drop all the assumptions and just like, start at the beginning."
Samir
Three minutes pass and then:
Let me in?
Grace
"You may not know of other simulations, maybe," Grace says, gets up stretches her arms (and phone) above her head. "Samir's here. I need to go get the door, bee-arr-bee."
She goes and skips off, leaving Jo with her laptop (and its representation of Jo upon its screen).
Soon enough, she's at the door for Samir, swinging it open. "Hey. You know, you want me to set the door up so that it will open for you? I can do that."
Samir
"Oh, shit. Hi."
Like she startled him by opening the door and cutting right to the chase. It's hotter than Hell today so he's ditched the leather jacket he tends to sport but he's still wearing an unbuttoned flannel shirt overtop his t-shirt.
As he answers Sam starts stepping inside. He remembers the warning about the cat from the first time he showed up unannounced.
"Uh... if that'd be easier for you, sure."
Jo
"Eh?" She quirks her face up at the mention of Samir, even lightly pushing at her cheek in thought. When Grace vanished, Jo dropped in her chair and rolled up to the screen to look it over. She put her chin in her hand. "Ah!"
Does she bother to ask Grace if she can use the computer? Strangely no. "We could totes just set a parameter to our definition of like 'alive.' I mean it's gunna be arbitrary but we can totes come up with a series of traits..." Is she talking to herself? Yes. Sometimes she does that. "Can't like say it has a pulse, cause that would be like, trees aren't alive.. though like.. I mean I suppose one could cause then you're defining it but then trees and plants aren't technically like living and like stuff.. but ..ok so if we say it has electrical current that..." Jo leaned back in the chair, kicking off her shoes and pulling her legs up and in, getting herself comfortable while they did..well ya know..people things.
Grace
"If you don't mind our servers knowing your prints. Needs a palm-scan, right? We can do it later. Come on in," she says, and starts making her way upstairs again, oblivious to whether he's following her or not.
"We're in my office talking about the difference between living and non-living, and whether the universe is alive."
Because Mages, right? Right.
Samir
Today is not one of those days where he is intending to capitalize on the lack of imprint his presence tends to leave on other people's minds. He doesn't know if their server will even hold onto his prints. They'll cross that bridge when they get to it.
In the meantime: yes. Yes he does follow her upstairs. Maybe Jo can hear his voice out in the hall before they return to the office.
"Well... are you using a binary definition of 'alive', or...?"
Grace
"We haven't really gotten that far yet. I mean, viruses, right? And artificial life? Where is the line, I know. She seems to think that nothing in this universe is alive, because it is a simulation? And therefore we can say nothing about its aliveness. I think."
She talks her way up the stairs, down the hall, down to 'her' door and busts it open again, this time with a Samir in tow.
"You want a definition? Things which are alive are changeable, they reproduce, they grow and they produce. They take free energy and use it to sustain a level of negative entropy. To look for life, then, is to look for a place in the system where the code is recursively turning back entropy and making copies of itself, using that entropy it just destroyed in order to change. Complicated, perhaps, but if viewed like a fractal, you can come up with some rather simple equations."
Jo
She squinted her eyes over at the door, then widened them and leaned back in the chair, arms up. "YO! But like why? I mean let's be real here. Like, why that definition. I mean if yer gunna be like makin a definition for somethin, there has to be a logical reason to why you chose it AND there has to be a consensus. I mean the system is made up of like people's perceptions. I think you called it like.. 'reality' or something. Anyway, so if the system doesn't agree it's gunna be difficult to like logical explain why the definition is chosen. Don't mean they're right course cause that's ad popularum, but ya get it. "
"Still!" She slaps the desk. "Why? Why is change the thing that like defines life? Is time alive then? I mean it moves. Time changes, so like is time alive? Eh not sure I'd buy into that."
Samir
Samir looks between Grace and Jo with trace amounts of wideness in his eyes. Like what the fuck did he just walk into. Sounds more like an argument than a student-teacher moment. The two things aren't mutually exclusive.
"I told you I was only twenty-percent joking, right?" he asks Grace in a stage whisper.
Grace
"Time isn't a thing that changes, though, time is a measurement of change. And there are machines that locally decrease entropy, like refrigerators. But they don't reproduce, or else we'd be in a lot of trouble. Baby fridges everywhere.."
Now, Grace's brain has been invaded with baby kitchen appliances, and she frowns.
"You did tell me that, yes..." she whispers back to Samir.
"And the logical reason why I chose it is because I can prove it mathematically. Like, I have the code, Jo. Want to see how I just did all that on your screen there?"
Jo
She grinned widely. "But all that means is like, things change. It doesn't mean it's alive. I mean you're like creating a definition but no real reason as to why that definition works except that you can show the math is right. You're tryin ta like say that it's alive because of the math works out, but the like definition of alive is just like something you chose. Why change exactly? Why not like say.. a specific ratio of compounds as a means of making something 'alive' versus something that isn't. Or like, you could even say that like, only things require consumption of energy in order to continue existing or something. I mean you could choose like a whole bunch of definitions that you could use math or whatever to like 'show to be true' except that you're not showing that they're living. You're just like, showing your definition is plausible."
She curled her hands behind her head, shifiting her attention to Samir as she stretched her legs out and set her feet on the desk. "Yo homie."
Samir
His eyebrows are at half-mast and he's chewing his lower lip as he listens to the two young women talk. Though he could interject it's clear he's choosing not to. Either that or he's too nervous to say anything. Giving into anxiety is as much a choice as holding one's silence but they're different breeds of beast.
Jo puts her feet up on the desk and greets him. His eyes snap from Grace's face to the Orphan whose resonance is like a soft hum.
"Hey," he says. A hint of nervous laughter in his voice. His back is to the wall right now and he doesn't appear to have any interest in getting comfortable or finding a place to sit.
Grace
"Well, now we're just talking about definitions of things. And yes, it's true -- I am showing my definition is plausible. Can you come up with a better definition of what life is? Change, reproduction, energy consumption to support entropy reversal -- all those things are filters. When applied to the universe, I can slice away at the code that is and isn't that.
"But you're right, I could say I want to find something else, like... the color blue. But then we have to define blue, right? It can't just be a matter of 'I know it when I see it'. There are grey areas. Purples and greens. How do you classify viruses, for example? Are refrigerators partly alive, because they take energy and use it to support entropy reversal?"
She goes to sit at the chair opposite her student. Jo's sitting where Grace usually does, at Grace's own laptop, but it doesn't seem as though Grace minds this at all.
Jo
"Seeee and that's why ya can't just say somethin is alive and expect it to like make sense or stick. I mean definitions get weird. So sayin that the universe alive is really just like a matter of how you're defining it. So if my definition is different than yours, then well, the universe isn't alive to me. So it's subjective not objective so.. really like, alive is just a bad term. Alive has this like weird sort of biased organic feel to it. I think I'd prefer like to use the term sentient because then we can define it as having the like ability to make choices or like realize its own existence. But then like, do we? Can we really make choices if we're just like..a series of logical rules? I mean like...do we make choices or are we just like following some protocol? How do we like, test whether something is really a choice or not? Like how do we define free will then?" If only her grin could get wider it would have. Jo is enjoying this. "It's why I usually stick with like..inorganic stuff. Less complication I think. Easier to define. More fun to like mess with. And! You can like actually watch computers and how they do things. Like see the guts ya know? Figure out if like, it's followin a protocol or movin outside of its expectations."
She dropped her feet on the floor and leaned forward in her seat. "Soooooooooooo you gunna like hang out there like a mouse, Sammy or... sit down or whatever? I mean...I don't bite. Not guys anyway. So you dun gotta worry about me up in your bizz or whateff. Yer not my type."
Samir
Samir breaks eye contact to look over at Grace and give her a pointed what the fuck shrug without taking his hands out of the pockets of his jeans.
"You told me there were gonna be girls here who like to bite guys, Evans," he says. "Now I'm not gonna trust you, next time. Once not-bitten, twice... shame on...?" He looks back at Jo. "Shit. I mixed up my clichéd expressions. Sorry. Why are we..." He clears his throat. "Why are we arguing about...?"
Okay. She's right. He should sit down. Samir looks around the room to find something that doesn't look like it might be swarming with germs. A cushy sleeping couch. Excellent. Time to sit on the couch and not think about what it might be harbouring.
Anyway he figures it out.
"Oh are you teaching her about life data arrays?"
Grace
Grace smiles over at Samir -- guy actually knows how to make a joke on occasion. "Yup. Life. Well, we were talking about applications of forces, but then it got a bit sidetracked..."
Wonder how that happened.
"I can show you your guts if you like. It's very machine-like when you get down to that level."
Jo
"She did it to me too." Jo says with a mock serious look. "Told me there'd be strippers and cake..or maybe it was like a stripper IN a cake.. ya know, like hard to remember which. But ya know what? No strippers. No cake. Broke ma heart ya know? I woulda even taken a brunette." Jo pouted over at Grace. "Or a red head. I mean I'm all about the blondes and stuff but I can like, lower ma standards if I gotta."
"Nah I know organic life is like a computer or like well the other way around. But see when you keep your head in the inorganic, you dun gotta worry about life questions that are hard to like quantify. You can ya know, start at the basics and work up instead of tryin to classify at the higher level. I mean ya shouldn't be tryin calculus if you don't get basic algebra...know what I'm sayin? Same with inorganics and stuff. If ya wanna really define life? Ya gotta start with somethin like a machine and see if ya can replicate the things we call 'living' and then you can find out what those like..traits are that are simulated."
"Course you can do the Turing test too, but that's not like, the best method. It's got its issues and deals like ..mostly with perception. Eeeeeehhhh... so yeah. See I figure if we're going all organic, that organics are programs in a bigger system.Like cells are to our bodies ya know? We're a bunch of smaller programs built into a system of..something. Probably more like the Matrix but with less body battery pods or whatever and less recreating a space to keep people happy, and more like.. well I guess it ain't like that at all."
Jo scrunched her face in thought. "Hrm."
Samir
Once he's seated Samir still doesn't appear relaxed. He sits with both feet flat on the floor and keeps his back straight and his elbows anchored on his thighs. Rubs his hands on the denim of his jeans and then links them together between his knees. The young man doesn't wear jewelry. No rings or bracelets or anything that could serve as cultural or religious markers. Aside from the long hair and the punk-bohemian fashion sense he's a blank slate.
So he's not relaxed. But he's trying to be present and participate and blah blah blah so he doesn't just sit there silent while the other two talk. Being a wiseass seems to be working for him. Let's keep running that protocol.
"So... are you not gonna let her show us your guts, then, or..."
Grace
"Hey, if she doesn't want me to teach her that, it's no problem. Not doing a thing is lazy-easy," Grace says and smiles.
"We could always just go back and talk about forces again, but if we get stuck on deciding what electricity is, it'll be difficult."
She swivels around in her chair, leans back and looks up at the ceiling as it circles up above her head.
Jo
Jo put her arms around her middle dramatically and protectively. "Yo, you let someone like show you your insides. I like mine. Ya know.. all secretive. I mean like, I dun wanna see how close to mummification my intestines are and stuff. I'm alike super happy in ignorance. Then I dun gotta feel bad for all the food I eat."
"But! Electricity? Nah. I mean then you're talkin about physics and stuff and physics.. I mean it's got its ambiguities but it ain't liek super subjective like definition so life and like communication and stuff. When ya look at the like fundamentals, it's super easy compared to like.. bio and stuff. I mean we can quantify energy and stuff. "
Samir
Samir lifts his eyebrows. Turns to address Grace.
"Is she serious?" He turns back to Jo. "I'm..." Again with the throat-clearing. "I'm just curious, how... how is it easier to define light, or radiation, or... or any other physical force than it is to define... cells, or biochemical processes, or..." He worries his lower lip again and glances back over at Grace. "The last time I heard anybody say physics isn't a subjective field, I was stoned out of my skull."
Grace
She glances over at Samir, and whispers: "Harness. On a cat."
"Quantum mechanics is, essentially, the quantification of energy and stuff. Quanta, or 'packets' of energy, yes? However, subjectivity is also built into the theory. I mean, it's mind-bendingly so. You almost have to be able to view a quantum of electricity -- or an electron -- as a particle and a wave at the same time, that only ends up existing in a particular place because it was detected there. Otherwise, it can't be said to exist anywhere, but as a spectrum of probabilities?
"And that's just regular-old physics you could go out and teach yourself in college. They can only guess at what we can touch and taste and smell directly. None of this is exactly easy, Jo. Not anything worth doing is easy. But I can show you the equations for electricity just as I could for those of life... They aren't that dissimilar."
Jo
"See but it makes more sense than like trying to define the universe as a living thing. It's the difference between like..hocus pocus and like ya know, actual science and stuff. One makes sense and the other like.. not really." She pulled her legs in and swirled in the chair slowly. "Cause like one assumes a sort of.. uh... organic importance.. a sort of thought ability.. ya know.. a sort of capability that we like..tend to associate with ourselves. Like thinkin in some kind of like all-knowing entity. Doesn't make much sense. Totes old timey way of thinkin. But when you break it down and ya think about it outside of that, then you can make assumptions, so long as like, those assumptions make sense to make. No reason to assume the universe is livin."
"Now ya wanna talk about like, what makes up the universe... that's just math. Math is the universe. Everything relies on it. I mean that's just duh. You can't do nuthin in science without it. Can't run a computer or like, think about multiverses or whatever. Everything needs it. "
"Thing is, when people start talkin about life, they get all like touchy feely and stuff. I ain't like against that, but it's all humanities you know? So ya can say that other fields have subjectivity, but it's not like, nearly on par with like the more organic areas like.. ya know.... psych and stuff. And besides, like I said, you wanna talk about what life, I think ya should start with what life isn't, and start with the basics. I mean if you can make a machine replicate a human, you can start defining life cause you got the complete opposite of what we know as 'life.' But if ya can't? Maybe that tells ya somethin too."
"Meh. Guess what I mean is, I can accept assumptions if the assumptions make sense. But the assumptions you like provided for life, don't make sense ta me. So if you wanna start at the basics, like physics, mathematics, chemistry.. then that's just a better idea if ya ask me."
Samir
All Samir has to say about that he says with a flick of his eyebrows. Like Oh yeah the basics is a great idea she's got a point there without having to actually open his mouth. Hard to contribute to the discussion when he walked in halfway through. That's like trying to understand what the hell is going on in some stupid Marvel movie after missing the first hour.
Grace
Grace starts walking her chair over, around the little L arm of the desk, scooching the wheeled thing along the floor until she gets around to where she can take over from Jo.
Well, the spell stuck, didn't it? Jo's still there on the screen being all life-like. And so, Grace elbows her way in and banishes that program.
"Okay, so let's look at... just the electricity in this computer, eh? That should be fun."
[Forces 1, Prime 1: Let's look at the electricity code!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Jo
She moved, rolling out of the way to let Grace take over. Which really was Jo pushing away and spinning at the same time. "Ha! Knew you'd see it my way. I'm like, the master of stuff. STUFF." Jo curled her legs back up in the chair and grinned over at Samir. "So what're you? Grace mentioned like some of the clubs or whatever you guys join and stuff."
But ah, there was grace, pullin out her mojo, and Jo used her arms to grab at things and pull herself closer to Grace. "Ooooh?"
Samir
Well that's interesting.
"'Clubs'?" he asks in a bemused tone. A tone pointed enough that it's obvious he's addressing Grace.
Grace
"Heh. Yeah, we're in the same club," Grace says, smile on her face. "The cool kids club."
"Virtual Adepts, that's Samir and me. And us Adepts run with the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions, which sounds a lot more backward than it is, really. Most everybody you've met in Denver who knows how to hack the universe is a member of the Traditions, or are unaffiliated with any group."
She's speaking to her screen, which again shows the static fuzz of the entire general area. Again, it gets pared and sliced, as Grace applies filters, making sense of the almost random data feed of existence piping its way through her computer. What ends up on her screen, well... perhaps it's a little more regular and orderly than what she showed before, but not by much. Again, there are connections between what's shown and the 'outside' that have been pared away and cut off.
It looks almost like blue, glowing water, only flowing too fast to see. Liquid, though, in how it takes up space and gets shut out from others as logic gates flicker ceaselessly. A dance, it is, much like the processes of cells -- taking energy and making order from it.
Jo
Jo rolls up to Grace and pushes her shoulder against Grace's as she watches the screen. "Ah that's pretty sweet lookin. Not how I would expected it to look or whatever.
"Mystic? See...totally all spiritual. I mean like... totally don't strike me as the occult types or whatever. But can't knock all the peeps I met. And have you seen the legs on Lavinia?" Jo let out a low whistle. "Magical. Def magical."
"So like, who isn't affiliated? And who is what and all that? Like, you and Sammy are Adepts or whatever, what's the others?" She lifted an arm and set her elbow on Grace's shoulder. "Somehow feel like ya told me and I'm just not rememberin. Lotsa magic and rabid dogs and stuff.. hard to keep track of all your lingo."
Samir
[Ack! Sorry, post around me for a bit I'm on the phone :( ]
Grace
"Well, you aren't affiliated. I mean, you haven't joined any of the clubs? But there are some who haven't joined up with anybody because they're fine with that, and some who haven't joined up because they just haven't done so yet. Alex isn't in a club. Ian isn't. I don't know if you've met them yet? Oh you've met Ian, I remember...
"Lavinia's with the Celestial Chorus, they're... uh... alright. I mean, I haven't met any yet who want to try converting me. I guess they feel like that's a lost cause, and they'd be right," she says, laughs a little at that.
"They're like, they really do believe in a God, you know. Think they get their abilities through the divine.
"Then, there's Kalen. He's a member of the Historied and Vastly Self-Important Order of Hermes, Legendary and Awesomesauce -- or whateverthefuck it is they are calling themselves these days. Hermetic. Think... uh... Harry Potter?" she shrugs, because like she's going to cover Enochian right now...
"There's like, 6 more. Traditions. And lots of others too..."
Jo
"Ah yeah. Ian is super cool. Alexander? Cool dude too. Can't remember which one doesn't like play video games. "
"Celestial chorus?" She lifts a brow. "Aw well, I mean Lavinia can like, convert me any day. Long as it involves ya know, some 'hands on' conversion." She gave Grace a wide grin. "Eh? Eh?"
"See I ain't spent much time with Kalen. Seems a bit ya know, stuffy..course Ian is kinda stuffy too but not like as stuffy ya know? Do they like..get wands? Like ya know...at a wand shop? OH OH what house is he in? Totes can see him as Slytherin. He gives off the Slytherin vibe."
Grace
Grace rolls her eyes at that 'hands on' conversion thing. After this day's trial of learning Jo a thing about the subjectivity of the universe? Yeah, Lavinia -- good luck with that.
"Kalen? Stuffy? He's like... well okay. He can be stuffy maybe on a bad day. And he's in one of their houses which is all about going out and killing monsters? So I'd put him in Griffindor. Definitely Griffindor."
The sorting hat has spoken. Or at least, Grace has.
Jo
"Gryffindor eh? Huh. I mean I only like, saw him like once or somethin, so.. maybe he's more like Harry or whatever when he's havin a good day? Still, he's got a Slytherin look bout him...though you know there is this theory about like, the hat not actually puttin people in houses but people puttin themselves in houses and the hat really just conveying that sort of desire. So like when Harry and Hermione and all them get into gryffindor it's more cause they wanted to be in it, not cause they actually like.. ya know.. were brave or whatever."
"Weird, I know. But you gotta admit, it makes like way more sense than like, the hat knowin where people fit. I mean how did they like, gauge personality there? Eh? So... Ian and Alexander are like... rebels or whatever. Kalen is a wizard. Lavinia is a catholic, and uh.. lessee.. Kiara? The red headish one? And Sera? What are those peeps?"
Grace
"Kiara is a Verbena, I think? They're like, plant Mages? I... confess to not knowing much there. Sera is a Cultist of Ecstasy. She works with... mind-altering experiences. Yes. In her case, it's a lot of pot and shrooms and music and sex. Not in that order."
Grace shrugs. "There's other Traditions though. The Society of Ether, for example? Mostly use science and technology, like we do. It's not all mystical-spiritual stuff."
But, then again, the Traditions rub off on you, don't they? They start to turn you around to the mystical, if you hang out with them enough, if you experience enough. It's what makes Grace turn into somebody who thinks the universe is a living thing...
Grace
[Pause! And maybe return?]
[And I don't think we ever return, sadly...]
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