Story as Architecture

Minh-Tam Le post reminded me of something I wrote some time ago, while thinking of issues that have very much to do with the concepts of "interactive Storytelling" that we are grappling with.

We have mentioned that the new authors of interactive fiction must relinquish control of the fate of their story to the agency of the players, that all they can hope to do, is to build an environment that in and of itself enables the seeds of the story to germinate.

From "Roboethics and Performance":

"The composite below, shows God the Geometer, building the world. The painting, which appears in the Codex Vindobonensis 255483, dates back to mid-13th Century. The detail of the world as depicted by the artist has an uncanny resemblance to another seed of creation; the Mandelbrot Set."

God as Architect/Builder/Geometer (13th Century) alongside a Mandelbrot Set (1).

"It is significant that God uses geometric, reiterative and harmonic principles to create the world.

700 hundred years later we use the same principles albeit different tools to seek and create our own reality. This time we hold the compass. And as we already know, unlike a seed that when planted needs to be tendered and watered or else it dies, the type of reality we are creating resembles more a stone thrown down the mountain towards the infinite abyss.

There is no way to stop the avalanche. In fact, we are already in it. We might not be aware sometimes, like passengers on a plane, which forget about the incredible speed that they are traveling at. Only when we are about to touch down (a frame of reference) do we become fully aware of our frailty and for a moment hope that everyone that had anything to do with the contraption that carries us, has been truly responsible, and ethical. But we doubt it. And some times our doubts reveal the tragic truth."

In his article ”The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era” mathematician Vernor Vinge writes:

“I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans' natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology.

And yet ... we are the initiators. Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things. We have the freedom to establish initial conditions, make things happen in ways that are less inimical than others. Of course (as with starting avalanches), it may not be clear what the right guiding nudge really is.”

(1) The Frontispiece of Bible Moralisee. Codex Vindobonensis 2554 (French, ca. 1250), in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.

The Mandelbrot set is the set of all c for which the iteration z -> z2 + c, starting from z = 0, does not diverge to infinity: zn -> zn+1 = zn2 + c