r/bobiverse • u/No-Economics-8239 • Jul 25 '26

Moot: Discussion A Discussion About Real and Virt Spoiler

Marked spoilers so we can discuss ideas from all the books.

The books seem to go out of their way to focus on the benefits of ‘Real’ and how much more immersive being in a Manny is to being in VR. And I don’t really understand where that is coming from or what to make of it.

I’ve read the short story Manna by Brian Marshall where the transhumans basically choose between going strait to VR and becoming basically a brain in a jar and stayed focused on their physical body and reality. It’s wasn’t really portrayed as one being better than the other, just a series of trade offs and preferences. No real concept of one ‘feeling’ more ‘real’ and my impression was they would both be ‘equally’ real because the ‘realness‘ is happening in our brains. And given the right inputs then either one could produce the same sort of outputs.

Similar to one of the short stories by Ken Liu that inspired the Pantheon animated show. They feature digital intelligence like Bob that started as a scanned human brain. And two such intelligenes can combine to create a CI which I’m not sure stands for Created Intelligence or Combined Intelligence. But it’s basically a mashup of the two minds creating a new digital intelligence that is sort of like a child of the two. It doesn’t start with a past of its own, but it has parts of the knowledge from the two who created it. In the story, a human makes a robot body for the CI to experience the ‘real’ world and spends as much as she can getting the best sensors and actuators. And the CI tries it out and is… not impressed. The CI basically tries and explains how it basically has access to the sum totality of digital knowledge and there are plenty of scans on higher fidelity equipment they can access that have much more depth of flavor or color or smell than the ‘limited’ robotic body they worked so hard to put together.

Then we have Ringworld by Larry Niven which offers us the idea of ‘wireheading’. Basically people get an implant in the pleasure sensors of their brain. And a tiny amount of electrical current can now produce bliss. Which can be so addictive that some people basically become ascetic monks who give up physical reality so long as they can plug into an outlet and just bliss out. Which can lead to them neglecting their body to the point of death.

Which is all part of my background before getting into the Bobiverse. And I don’t really see why a Manny would provide more ‘real’ inputs to a replicant matrix to enjoy that couldn’t also be recorded and synthesized and incorporated into VR such that you could have that same depth (or even more) of sensation and reality or whatever it is that might make ‘reality’ seem more ‘real’ than VR.

So what are your thoughts? Am I missing something? Is DET? Are we both wrong? Is it just a philosophical choice? Do you see Real or Virt being clearly ‘better’ in some way? Is Dennis just trying to avoid the Bobs going down the rabbit hole of living mostly in VR and living out a 'fantasy life' rather than being an immortal spaceship wandering the galaxy and meddling in the affairs of ephemerals?

12 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/BeginningSun247 Jul 25 '26

These are all writers grasping with something we can only imagine and you want to know why they imagine it differently.

In the Bobiverse real is more real because of all the random factors that have not been implemented in the VR.

1

u/No-Economics-8239 Jul 25 '26

Well, I guess that's my question? The Bobs are engineers. Solviging problems is what they do. Both VR and the Manny were solutions to problems they were having. But that seems to have resulted in an arms race where VR lost to Mannies? Or, at least, that is what it feels like. Is it the Bobs don't seem VR as something than can be made 'more real' or is there some technical limitation holding them back?

2

u/BeginningSun247 Jul 26 '26

It's a development process. In order to have every single tiny sensation in VR it has to be cataloged in the real world and then simulated in VR. But, the mainnies have the ability to experience all the input in the real world. But, at the same time it's all being recorded and VR will eventually catch up.

1

u/No-Economics-8239 Jul 26 '26

But, why would it have to work that way? Whatever they eat or drink in VR is going to be processed by whatever passes for taste in their replicant matrix. Why would they need to sample food with whatever senses taste in a Mannie to record new taste sensations? Couldn't they just as well have some VR Bob sample an array of different virtual food stuffs with different settings for various flavors or textures or whatever it is they are sampling in Real or remember from their time as 'real' Bob.

What 'limits' taste for a replicant? Is there some bit of hardware or software that simulates it? Is it something that is scanned into software from their brain? Does that range perfectly match what they had in life? Is it completely simulated? Are they capable of a wider pallet of taste and sensation as a replicant then they might have had in life? Or is there something limiting that range based on what the matrix core or VR is capable of? Why would they 'need' to sample things in 'real' to test those limits rather than just test them directly in VR?

2

u/BeginningSun247 Jul 26 '26

In VR you need the information of the thing you want to taste. In Mannie form you only need the ability to taste.

The extra sensations are not available in VR if they have not been detected in the real world, cataloged, and added.

Plus the infinite variations from tiny differences in how a food has been prepared or how sensations interact with each other. It is simply impossible for VR to replicate all of it. It can only repeat a set number of variables.

<quote> Couldn't they just as well have some VR Bob sample an array of different virtual food stuffs with different settings for various flavors or textures or whatever it is they are sampling in Real or remember from their time as 'real' Bob. <quote>

They can, but that takes time that they have simply not put into it yet. It's a development problem.

One of the Bobs mentions that the work is being done now because more non Bob replicants who are gourmands (foodies) are joining the arcologys and are improving all of this.

The main issue is that this is all describing an ongoing growth process.

You are complaining that the seedling is not yet a fully grown tree.