[DGD] just out of curiosity

[Shentino]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 4:45 AM, RobF <squaretriangle at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> On 11/09/2012 22:29, Shentino wrote:
>>
>> One other thing I was hoping to do with Kotaka was allow megascalediff.
>>
>> Able to have a town simulated/emulated down to the meter, at least
>>
>> ...but still be able to have moons orbiting planets, planets orbiting
>> suns, and suns orbiting black holes.
>>
>> Probably have a dedicated server to handle a planet...possibly with
>> "lieutenant" servers to handle continents.
>>
>> This goes back to my ealier thread about r-trees.
>>
>> Basically a server running "earth" would handle the entire earth...and
>> possibly also supervise sub-servers below it that handle
>> continents...plus pay attention to its superior server "sol" which is
>> itself busy supervising the solar system.
>>
>> Meanwhile, the earth server would be supervising the lunar server, and
>> also handling trnasit between the planet and the moon.
>>
>> If anything interesting happened on a continent, such as a rocket
>> launch, the continetn server would pass the rocket objecdt up to the
>> earth server.
>>
>> Meanwhile, the sol server would notify the earth server if something,
>> say, like an asteroid, got close enough to earth that earth would care
>> about it.
>>
>
> I'm going to take an abstract turn on this.  We've already got one perfectly
> functioning instance of the cosmos, so unless this is for the sake of
> scientific models, I'm wondering what the point of what you're discussing
> is?

I just like to think big.

Main reason I'd consider splitting the cosmos up into a hierarchy of
servers is ostensibly because no single machine, virtual or otherwise,
is likely to be able to run the entire
cosmos/universe/multiverse/whatever on its own.

It's something I want to be possible.

On a planet with, say, 9 billion people, one machine probably isn't
going to do the job.

On the other hand, you could almost certainly split that planet up by
continents that probably don't care about each other's internal
affairs, and run each continent in parallel, and let the supervisor
node representing the entire planet handle intercontinental affairs,
plus also keep an eye on its own supervisor for news of meteorites on
the way, which could be relayed to the continent they were going to
impact.

...and if a continent itself grows too large, subdivide it further
into nations...and so on

The basic idea here is to hierchially subdivide the cosmos as needed
so that a dgd instance can digest it.  My hypothesis is that anything
in a subsection that would affect a neighbor would come to the
attention of the next "node" up in the food chain.

The end result, in theory, would be a game universe where the sky is
the limit...and beyond.  A knight riding a dragon, and naturally,
casting a vaccuum resistance +4 spell, that manages to somehow escape
the atmosphere of Oerth...and finds himself floating through outer
space...would actually have something to explore, instead of getting
eaten alive by short circuit logic that rules that going into orbit is
an automatic death from going out of bounds.

Practically I might be on the wrong track but...I have a hunch that
actually pulling something like this off would peg a solid 8 on the
cool-o-meter.

> If we are speaking of games, then I think we should embrace the distilled,
> representational versions of reality that they use rather than try to copy
> reality exactly.  To emulate reality would be boring and pointless; a game
> is about offering the mind new problem(s) to solve that are man-made and not
> preexistent.  To that end it needs to strip out all the boring or frustating
> elements that reality has, and then invent new ones.  Sincerely attempted
> imitations of reality, on the other hand, will always be swiftly obseleted
> by the real thing.

I hardly intend to go down to molecules in my simulation. :P

The cut-off point would probably be the level at which sentient
observers/intelligent entities could pretty much arbitrarily rearrange
things as they please.  Those moves have to happen fast and that's
probably the point where strict laws of physics would give way to game
rules involving dexterity, strength, wisdom, and whatnot checks to
decide matters that would have been simulated.

However, a quick note is that physics only rules what happens, and
where things are.  It does not decide *why* things happen.

Abstract logic for things like factions, dispositions, moods,
emotions, standing, social factors, and whatnot have their own code
for that.

All my "physics tree" does is keep track of where things are.  How
sentient entities react to this is up to them.

One interesting idea might be to allow the solar system to feed data
on its status to the planet...which is sliced up and relayed to the
continnet...to the nation...to the state, to the county, and to the
humble observatory run by a gnome werewolf that has a fascination for
astronomy...and have that information calculated and presented.

The sky would become a window, and not just a canvas.

Going through the "earth" node or higher layers first, though, would
allow a storm to interrupt the data feed on the off chance that it's
bad skygazing weather.

> If the 'problem' of productivity eveer becomes 'solved' ala Star Trek: The
> Next Generation--humans will lose their sense of purpose and will seek to
> recreate productivity itself in order to remain active; if such a future is
> possible and in store for us, then I think that is the destiny of such
> efforts to realistically simulate the world like what you are discussing
> here.  We will create fake problems with life-long range in the most
> realistic manner possible.
>
> Right now, though, the 'problem' of production _isn't_ solved, and so
> pursuing a more convincing reality simulator may have a dark side, causing a
> brain and labour drain in society if it gets more effective at creating
> addicts out of people.  I'm not sure if this is psychologically plausable or
> if only those with an addictive personality need be worried, but I do think
> it's something to be wary of.



>
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