Afterword

[alschroeder]

Some details about the "Just Your Imagination" storyline, now that I've wrapped it up....
The basic idea was a vision, of MM versus the Spectre. There was one scene in the Spectre's first modern appearance where he just casually plucked a supernova from the heavens, in his gargantuan hand. That's a pretty awe-filled moment. The idea of the Spectre as a bad guy---or someone as powerful as the Spectre---versus someone whose power is just her intelligence....
But I wanted a more logical reason for that power than a ghostly force. So I had him borne in a supernova.
Or at least MM's conception of a supernova...
Another thread was the idea that super-intelligence would have a super-imagination. And that in turn, suggested something else...Tolkien once wrote that the creations and fictions of men are as real to God as anything else---the same way Kilgore Trout's fictional stories are just as real as Kilgore Trout to Vonnegut.
Whether you agree with it or not, I found it amusing to play all through this with the conception of reality, real or imagined, real or perceived. That's why MM tricked Hatrid towards the end. That's why Vicki was the narrator---because as a programmed entity created by MM's mind but given form by her technology, she was uniquely between both---real and unreal; a fantasy and a truth.
I liked the concept of Athea; at one point I was going to make her imagined lover someone else. Just as MM is a modern Athena, I was going to make her the head of an advisory council, a think tank for neohumans, all based on other gods of wisdom---there was going to be a Father Wanderer, based on Odin, a Dr. Moonlight, who would have been a modern Thoth, a modern Ganesha, etc. But the story was large and sprawling enough, and it seemed, overindulgent.
So, instead of Father Wanderer being her lover, I made Therthes, a modern Hermes (but with some Thoth-like traits) as her lover, and the father of her child. Many of you might have noticed that many of her fellow neohumans on Athea were a combination of Greek and Egyptian dieties. Zeus and Ra-Ammon became Zeammon. Thoth and Hermes became Therthes. Apollo and Horus became Horollo. Hera and Isis became Isera.
Now I just gave a huge hint there; because like my other storylines, this storyline is based on a myth about Athena. Actually, in this myth she plays more of a passing role, it's mainly about other gods, but I still adapted for my own purposes.
I'll let you guess which myth though. Don't disappoint me.
The split-level approach I've been wanting to do for some time, and was inspiredby a comment by Scott McCloud in his second COMICS book, where he was talking about clicking on a panel and it taking you further in...which he now has made into his latest web creation, the one you pay through BITPASS for. This is a more modest approach, using straight html...but I enjoyed it, but after a while even I got tired of those eyes.
This one I had been planning to do almost since I started MM...it was originally planned to be the eleventh or twelth storyline, but I got impatient. I wanted to DO it.
I liked the end effect---when Hatrid became "real". I hope he didn't seem too one-dimensional, but a living id I wouldn't expect to have any nobility or good points. It was fun to see an "evil Vicki", in effect, flex their digital muscles.
Thought you might be interested.--Al
_________________
Al Schroeder.
comic: http://mindmistress.keenspace.com
The greatest super power of all.
Also check out Flickerflame :
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/alschroeder/flickerflame/series.php

[sun tzu]

I already said it, and I'll say it again: I think this story was great. You did a great job with Athea, Vicky was at her best, and even the interaction with the role-players at the beginning and end was interesting. As for the ideas...Well, it was interesting, but I nevertheless see one big difference between Vicky and the imaginary neo-humans: Even if they're both the product of MM's imagination, Vicky is real - she can think. She can go "cogito, ergo sum". The imaginary neohumans can't (okay, Vicky can't go "cogito, ergo sum", because she's fictional - you imagined her. But you know what I mean).
Keep up the good work...I'm eagerly looking forward to "Siege Mentality"!

[alschroeder]

I'm not so sure the others can't say "Cogito Ergo Sum"----certainly Hatrid can. Whether the others could is a matter of philosophical hair-splitting---which is part of the fun.
Thanks for the compliments! I'm glad it was as fun to read as it was to do!
I'll give it a few more days, and if no one guesses the myth I'm basing this on, I'll announce it here.---Al
_________________
Al Schroeder.
comic: http://mindmistress.keenspace.com
The greatest super power of all.
Also check out Flickerflame :
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/alschroeder/flickerflame/series.php

[alschroeder]

The myth, BTW, is Typhon. The gods becoming animals, and later worshipped as the animal-gods of Egypt...Athena taunting Zeus for cowardice against him...it seemed like a good myth to adopt. Hatrid is Typhon, the toughest opponent the Olympians ever had.---Al
_________________
Al Schroeder.
comic: http://mindmistress.keenspace.com
The greatest super power of all.
Also check out Flickerflame :
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/alschroeder/flickerflame/series.php

[sun tzu]

[alschroeder]

[sun tzu]

You're assuming that the character HAS a frame of reference here. But the fictional character isn't really some human (or whatever) with thoughts. It's just ink on paper (or electrons on a computer in a WORD file, or something else) that We interpret in a certain way. Out of habit, our mind gives it the same significance as the one it gives to the real stuff.
And this creator thing doesn't really matter. If I created an artificial intelligence (and sentience), then it would be as real as me - and it could go "cogito, ergo sum". If I wrote a story about a sentient being, it wouldn't work - that being would only be an abstraction in my head. There's creation and creation.

[alschroeder]

Well, I'm assuming the character sees a frame of reference, yes. And the question is---why am I right about my frame of reference and he or she wrong about his/hers?
Certainly parts of MM's fantasy world reflect real facets in her personality---an exagerrated father figure, a remote if caring mother, Nephlas the perfect child, Therthes a near-ideal lover. I think you'd concede that a split personality certainly can say cogito ergo sum and mean it. Shouldn't fragments of her personality, given voice in her own imagination, working through her own mind, be granted as much?
It's just a concept to play around with, but a fascinating one...---Al
_________________
Al Schroeder.
comic: http://mindmistress.keenspace.com
The greatest super power of all.
Also check out Flickerflame :
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/alschroeder/flickerflame/series.php

[itlandm]

Al, I have to agree with "sun tzu" that the word "create" does not always mean the same. For instance, some scientists believe that universes naturally give birth to new universes through supermassive black holes. If so, a sentient race may eventually be able to create a new universe by bringing together enough mass in the right manner. The starting conditions of the new universe would then depend on the parameters of the supermassive black hole, such as mass, rotation and possibly electric charge.

But even if our universe was created that way, the aliens would no longer be putting their hand into the glass bowl. They would probably not even be able to watch. Our history would unfold independently from theirs.

In contrast to this, the characters in a book don't move once the book is finished. Like puppets on a string, they move only when prodded to do so by their creator. Well, in my case they certainly seem to have their own will and surprise me from time to time, but that is because they are associated with complexes within my own psyche. The moment I stop writing, they are frozen in time. When I conclude my book, they have no more thoughts or opinions.

If I download your comic to my computer and find that it has changed when I come back next week, then I might rightly conclude that their existence is not just a subset of your own. But I think technology will have to advance a lot before that happens.

It is possible that our existence is also contingent, that we have free will only as a subset of God's psyche. But this is a line of thinking that makes most people very uncomfortable, and it is not at all obvious that God likes it either, as He would basically be exposed as playing with Himself, unless there are several Gods involved - which is way beyond the scope of this discussion, I believe!

[alschroeder]

Ahhh, but is time for the creation the same as time for the created? For instance, Tolkien stopped writing for a full year on the LORD OF THE RINGS when he got to Balin's tomb. To Frodo and company (just taking their existence in some sense of the word as a possibility) no time at all elapsed. It's Christian doctrine that God sees everything---just like, say, nothing happened to Tarzan that Burroughs didn't envision---but that doesn't mean there isn't some "time" when the Creator's attention is on other things, and we are "frozen" during it. How would we know?
Again, it's philosophical mind games (now verging on the theological) and although fascinating, I don't necessarily believe it. But it's the sort of thing that's running through Mindmistress' head when she contemplates the reality she's in---like someone waking up from a dream of being in Elizabethan England or Periclean Greece, only to find herself really on an island of baboons.
But it is a fun concept to kick around. Besides, would that make Conan Doyle responsible for the "crimes" of Professor Moriarity, or Sax Rohmer responsible for Fu Manchu's murders, or Hannibal Lector's author responsible for his grisly games...or me responsible for Bloodlust's murders or Anansi's?
Being a creator isn't all it's cracked up to be.---Al
_________________
Al Schroeder.
comic: http://mindmistress.keenspace.com
The greatest super power of all.
Also check out Flickerflame :
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/alschroeder/flickerflame/series.php

[itlandm]

What it boils down to is this: An artificial intelligence is seen as dynamic by an independent observer. A literary construct may be seen as dynamic by its creator (I certainly see them that way) but is static to an outside observer. You may say they live on in the minds of the reader, but there is no objective reality that the readers can agree on where the characters manifest independent action. So on this plane of reality, there is a strong difference between AI and literary character.

[alschroeder]

The problem is that the very same argument could have been made to Vicki, by the Spokeswoman of the Temporal Triad---in MM's imaginings of Athea. Or by Hatrid to "Lady Sophia, daughter of Zeammon" when she confronted HIM....again, while still inside the imaginings. There is no independent frame of reference to indicate that OUR frame of reference is the "correct" one, either....and not just someone's imagination at work.
I don't want to belabor the point or turn this forum into a philosophical debating society---but let me say how delighted I am that it's this sort of thing we talk about in THIS forum. Which is somehow fitting, considering who the strip is about.---Al
_________________
Al Schroeder.
comic: http://mindmistress.keenspace.com
The greatest super power of all.
Also check out Flickerflame :
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/alschroeder/flickerflame/series.php

[itlandm]

This reminds me a bit of the characters in 1/0 debating with Tailsteak about whether spatially sequential was really inferior to temporally sequential ...

One of my all time favorite comics, despite the simple drawing style.