Chapter 413: Ninth Merge to 160 Minds; in a Three-Way

Wednesday, May 7 (Continued) to Saturday, May 17, 2008

One Of MarkB (continuing to use the A, B, C pre-merge naming convention): <Proximity hasn't changed, so still 192 minds. Are you here?>

One Of Us: <Yes. Thank God.>

Meanwhile, in another part of the Universe, One Of MarkB: <Proximity hasn't changed, so still 192 minds. Are you here?>

One Of Us: <Yes. Thank God.>

[[In the dimensions that Mark B and Mark C were based, nothing had happened. Copies of A's minds had already been in both B's and C's heads - and B's and C's minds in each other's heads too - and both sets of three carried on talking among themselves. They thought they were talking across the W-Dimension but they were wrong. Somewhere else in the Universe, Mark A's body had died, and the A, B and C sets of minds in his brain had died along with it, but that had no noticeable effect on anything in B's and C's dimensions. The two conversations quoted above both refer to "One of MarkB": in B's dimension it was an original mind, in C's dimension it was a copy of a B mind. The cross-dimensional synchronization process between minds that now no longer existed had naturally stopped, but that was far too low level to be noticed. Several seconds from now there won't be the echo caused in the B and C dimensions when A's minds would otherwise have had a refreshing copy arrive, but the echoes caused by refreshing copies from the B and C dimensions will disguise A's absence, especially as we're not used to three-way déjà vu's.]]

One Of Us: <Bugger; it was the "Proportion" possibility then.>

One Of MarkC: <'Fraid so. At least it wasn't the "Mind-death" possibility, so that's good.>

One Of Us: <You can say that again!>

Meanwhile, in another part of the Universe, One Of Us: <Bugger; it was the "Proportion" possibility then.>

One Of MarkC: <'Fraid so. At least it wasn't the "Mind-death" possibility, so that's good.>

One Of Us: <You can say that again!>

As I'd listed the possibilities when I described my first three-way déjà vu, we - all the Marks I'd discussed it with - thought there were three possible outcomes:

1. A's minds would go to B and C in some proportion, e.g., 50/50, 0/100, 100/0, or a random allocation. We called this the "Proportion" possibility.

2. A would just die, with his minds extinguishing. Called "Mind-death".

3. A's minds go to BOTH B and C. Called "Duplication".

B and C were still in a déjà vu link and we were all still talking to each other [[in two local conversations rather than the one cross-dimensional conversation we thought we were having]]. Upon A's death, the proximity ranges that the two sets of B and C were experiencing didn't reduce, so we all instantly knew that A's minds must still be contributing to the total, so the Mind-death possibility hadn't occurred. The proximity's ranges hadn't increased as a result of more minds coming into existence either, so the Duplication possibility also hadn't happened. That meant it was immediately apparent that the Proportion possibility must have been what happened.

To put some numbers on it to make sure you understand this rather weird situation. As we understood the process, before A had killed himself, there'd been 128 minds in A's head, 32 in B's, 32 in C's, totaling 192 across the two links, which had given all three of us a proximity range of 144 feet. That range not changing now meant that A's minds were still active, otherwise 32-minded B and C would be déjà vu'ing as had happened countless times in déjà vu's between 32-minded Marks, always giving them a proximity range of 48 feet. We were VERY happy that the proximity range hadn't dropped from 144 feet to 48.

If all of A's minds had gone to both B and C (i.e., duplicated), then B and C would have 32 + 128 = 160 minds each. As they're in a déjà vu with each other, then proximity should've increased in range and resolution to be consistent with 320 minds being in the link. Proximity hadn't improved, so we knew duplication hadn't happened.

To be logically complete, there is a possibility that the Duplication might have happened but our abilities hadn't increased because repeats of the same mind don't increase abilities, but if that was the case then that might as well be considered as the Proportion possibility because it defeats my purpose for dying in a three-way as the "+32 Then Double Up" system wouldn't give me any extra abilities or probably any extra understanding of those abilities.

We were sad the proximity range hadn't jumped up, as that meant we'd have to continue our journey at +32 minds each Death-merge - we'd REALLY been hoping to avoid some "Goodbyes."

There were obviously still 192 minds apportioned between B and C somehow. We couldn't easily tell the allocation using mental communication because we can't easily distinguish communication across dimensions from local communication [[hardly surprising]]. With our having so many minds, the echo effect is so infrequent that counting off which minds experience it would take far too long [[and would be very confusing too, as it's based on incorrect assumptions]]. We could've gotten B and C to hold up different hands and had the A minds count off who could see the left hand being raised and who the right, but 128 minds to count through were too many to bother with, and we'd easily find out where A's minds had gone after the déjà vu finished. [[Had we done the hand raising experiment, we would've gotten some very confusing results in each dimension when the B or C minds were refreshed from the other dimension. That was the sort of experiment we should have tried years ago, but we'd never tried to falsify our previous assumption about how déjà vu linked our minds across dimensions. We liked to think of ourselves as having a scientific perspective, and we could parrot that books said that good scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable, but were too young and inexperienced to properly apply book-learning to our own life.]]

When I'd been A, at the start of the three-way, the time I'd allowed for my families' goodbye speeches had necessarily been reduced to leave a small safety margin because déjà vu durations are somewhat erratic. Now that I was dead as MarkA, the surviving B and C probably still had a small amount of time to keep talking. It wouldn't be long as B would disconnect from the link shortly, presuming that A's death and the arrival of his minds at wherever they'd arrived at didn't change the timing. We (I can write "we" because my minds are still in the link somewhere) spent the last few seconds discussing what to do next under a few obvious scenarios:

• If A's minds allocated 100/0, 50/50 or some other proportion.

• If we déjà vu'd with each other again or not.

For example, a 50/50 split would leave 96 minds in each body, which was a backward step from the 128 the Voyager had previously attained, but hopefully we'd déjà vu together as that'd permit our merging to 192 minds. That would also be the case if the allocation of A's minds had been something other than 50/50, but if too far to either extreme then B and C might not déjà vu together as the smaller-minded of them would be closer to the huge number of 32-minded Marks.

We decided that if we did déjà vu again quickly, we'd not merge immediately but would study how often we déjà vu'd first, before we flipped a coin to decide which way the merge went.

If we didn't déjà vu, then the one of us with the most minds would continue the Voyage. If we had the same number of minds then we'd generate a random number and use the inter-dimensional grapevine to find out which of us had the highest number, and he'd carry on with the journey.

There were more details and options, and the conversation kept us busy until the connection failed. It lasted longer than we expected, but we didn't have a theory about why. It was unlikely to be important, but we'd include that in our subsequent reports for the grapevine to spread, presuming we do manage to contact the grapevine again.

When the link ended, B and C both discovered that their proximity sense had a range consistent with their having 160 minds.

#20: <Bugger! The other Mark's a lucky bastard. He gets to stay right where he is.>

Meanwhile, in another part of the Universe,

#17: <Bugger! The other Mark's a lucky bastard. He doesn't have to say goodbye again.>

[[We all thought it, but which one said it and precisely how he worded it was a matter of random luck. We were no longer in a synchronizing link, so mental variation across the dimensions was more likely.]]

There are two 9As and 9Bs. This being my ninth merge, 9A refers to the minds that were already in the dimension, i.e., were merged into. 9B refers to the minds that came from another dimension. In B's dimension, his minds are 9A. In C's dimension, his minds are 9A. In both those dimensions, the Voyaging Mark's minds are 9B. It's a confusing situation, isn't it?

Both 9Bs did confirming counts, and all 128 of them were present, so their allocation had been an all-or-nothing deal, either 100/0 or 0/100.

The Mark that'd been MarkB in the link was interested to see that he'd gotten all the extra minds, as that confirmed that his role of wanting to suck all the minds to him had been more powerful than C's role of being neutral. That the receiver's attitude made a difference was another piece of information for the inter-dimensional grapevine.

The Mark that'd been MarkC in the link was surprised that he'd got all the extra minds considering he'd been neutral about getting them, while MarkB's role had been to try to suck all the minds to him. That the receiver's attitude made a difference in the opposite direction seemed unlikely, so perhaps it depended on the order in which the minds had entered the three-way link? Which of those two theories applied would be easily determined by reversing who was neutral and who 'sucked' in the next three-way merge.

(Both of) I got out of bed and wandered down to the kitchen to do my ability tests without disturbing my four (eight) bedmates: Carol, Julia, Ava, and Nevaeh. It's just as well I can fly out of bed, or I'd have to clamber over two of them these days; not that I'm really complaining.

As you can see, my autobiography has hit an unusual problem: there are now two identical versions of the mind that I'm attempting to follow right from the start of my ascendancy. He's now in two different bodies, neither of which is the one he started in so I can't use that to decide where to focus. You don't want to read two of everything, especially as the very occasional differences would add extra confusion and annoyance. I have to choose which Mark to follow - wait a second while I flip a coin. Okay, done. I won't even bother telling you whether it was B or C, because it doesn't matter.

9A was impressed by our new abilities. He'd gone from 32 minds to 160, which is a HUGE jump in ability. Total NP force goes up by the cube of the increase in number of minds. Usually by 2^3 (=8) times, but this time by 5^3 (=125) times. His NP force had risen from 9,000 to 1,125,000 kg!

I sat in the living room internally chatting. There was no need to talk about the past as 9A had heard about all my Voyage of Discovery results. For the last few weeks I hadn't discovered anything new and all my earlier discoveries had made it through the five-merged Marks' grapevine by now. Quite a few of the lower-minded Marks should have heard about me by now too. So we talked about 9A's life a little and my ideas about the future, while he got depressed about having to leave his future. I spent time telling him what worked well for saying goodbye to each of the girls and parents. He'd heard about that too, but it had much more meaning now.

One thing that surprised us quite a lot was that Mr. No One was alive and well. That was strange because this was a different brain, so presumably un-reorganized. We couldn't think of an explanation for that.

^

[[It wasn't by accident that I used a software metaphor to describe what had happened, as the reorganization wasn't of the hardware of the brain itself. It affected the workload of the brain, and was mostly motivated to reduce that workload, but wasn't actually a reorganization of it.

There are effectively three levels that minds operate in: The first level is the "Meat" level of the brain itself. If the brain gets drunk or dead, for example, the mind is affected, terminally in the latter case. The second level is the way the information in the brain interacts. That could be called "Software", but so could the third level, what I call the "Soul". I call it that not for any religious reason but because it's very insubstantial. "Vaporware" would be a good name except that it incorrectly implies that level isn't functioning yet. The "Soul" is the level of the mind that is running on the Universal Consciousness, in the sense that software runs "on" hardware.

Brains are mostly needed to perform specific tasks associated with running a physical body, such as receiving input from its senses and sending instructions down its nerves to its muscles, but most of what a mind does is pure software, the higher functions of which are in the soul. That's why I could hold so many minds "in my brain", because they mostly weren't in my brain, especially after the Mr. No One reorganization removed what brain-based, lower-level repetitions there were. That was why the Mr. No One reorganization had been needed: because my multiple minds were duplicating some of their functions in the single brain that I had, and it was getting overloaded. VERY fortunately for me, a part of the way all brains work is to have many supervisory functions that look for ways to improve the brain's and mind's efficiency. I'd created a MUCH bigger job for my mental supervisors than they'd ever had before, but they were man enough for the challenge.

When I déjà vu, the "soul" is included in the process because that's what déjà vu is. It is NOT brains being synchronized. Brains can be synchronized, as can rocks (matter contains information; Mr. Heisenberg would like you to know that the position of subatomic particles is information), but clearly rocks don't experience déjà vu. I'd like to write that brains don't either, but they're often within the volume of space that the minds are, so brain synchronizations occur at the same time as the minds are processed, but it's still correct to say that the brains themselves don't experience déjà vu. That's a consciousness effect that happens only with minds. When copies of my mind were created in Marks B and C, that necessarily included all non-Meat parts of my mind, including the already reorganized software, so Mr. No One came along for the ride. It would run in existing parts of my new brain just as easily as my newly arrived merged minds could, so it didn't matter that the brain had never met Mr. No One before. 9A's brain would get some biological changes, but not nearly as many as I thought, and not for the Mr. No One reorganization but for other improvement purposes. 9A's minds would need to be reorganized the Mr. No One way, but that would proceed quickly now that we didn't resist it. We probably wouldn't even notice it happening.]]

^

We'd been surprised by Mr. No One's appearance, but not as surprised as we were forty five minutes after the merge when we unexpectedly had another déjà vu. That was surprisingly early, but the real surprise was that it was with a Mark with a LOT of minds; the expanding range and resolution of our proximity sense making that instantly and glaringly obvious.

[[In the following conversation, many of the comments on both sides of it were from the two Mr. No Ones. I won't be so cruel as to confuse you as much as we were at times, so I'll use the "One Of Us: <text>" and "One Of Them: <text>" format as usual. I'll also remove all the <Did you say that or did we say that?> back and forths, and the several other types of confusion we had, as well as the very normal problems caused whenever a refreshing copy arrived, which I've been removing from all of the quoted déjà vu conversations ever since the first one several years ago.]]

One Of Us: <Wow. Look at proximity go. How many minds have you got?>

One Of Them: <160. You must have a lot too?>

One Of Us: <Also 160. So there must've been two of us poor bastards who rolled twelve 6s. That's a big surprise because I'd heard that there was only one. It's great to meet you because you're going to save us from having to make four goodbyes.>

One Of Them: <Ditto to all of that, but we're not ready to merge yet. We've only just gained 160 minds and our families don't know anything about our leaving. Are you guys ready to merge over to us?>

One Of Us: <No. We've just reached 160 minds too. Our families have no clue that we might be leaving.>

One Of Them: <One of us needs to tell his families that he's going to leave. I'm guessing we'll keep déjà vu'ing with each other fairly often, if not exclusively, because we're a long way above all the other Marks.>

One Of Us: <Agreed. There might be other 160-minded Marks, but we'll very quickly find out about that with the déjà vu frequency we'll have now. We have to wait no matter who we merge with, but I think there's an excellent chance it'll be you.>

One Of Them: <It averaged 255 minutes between a 128 mind and a 32 mind, so between two 160s will be 160/128 times 160/32 faster. That's 1.25 times 5, so 6.25 times faster, so something like every 40 minutes. The duration is going to be something like 6 or 7 minutes, so we should see a LOT of each other, or of others like us.>

One Of Us: <It'll be interesting to see how often we meet you versus 32-minders. It won't prove anything, but it'll be a good datapoint because I think there could be just the two of us with 160 minds and no one else with more than 32.>

One Of Them: <That's possible. Or there could be several of us but we never déjà vu'd with each other before because we weren't far enough above the 32-minded Marks to overcome how relatively rare we are. I think that's a real possibility because we were previously sure that we were the only guy who'd rolled twelve 6s. That you did too but no one in all the hundreds of déjà vu's I've had since then had heard about it means the dimensions groupings must be more distinct and separate than we'd previously thought.>

I'll explain that last comment to you: All the Marks have a strong tendency to déjà vu with Marks with similar lives, and that's especially true of the Marks with fewer minds. When we do link with an unusual Mark, he isn't VERY unusual. He reports that he nearly always links with Marks similar to him, but sometimes his peers link to someone unusual. That Mark reports that he links with his peers normally, but sometimes... , etc. It's extremely rare for a Mark to link to someone very different from him, but the stories we get from unusual Mark who've heard about Marks he thinks unusual, who've passed on stories about Marks they've considered unusual, etc., can result in our hearing stories about Marks with VERY different lives from our own. We were now assuming that two - or perhaps even more - of us had rolled twelve 6s, but we'd been sufficiently different from each other that our pools of déjà vu peers hadn't overlapped enough for word to get to each other about there being more than one Voyager. That was surprising because we'd both got word to roll twelve dice, but maybe that idea had been suggested by far more Marks than we'd previously thought, including Marks in very different circumstances. This new information also threw some doubt on our calculations of how many five-merge Marks there were, making the possible value much higher than the billion or so we'd previously thought. We'd pass that concern on through the grapevine, and leave it to the five-merge Marks to reexamine their experimental methodology.