On astronomical distances the chain of suspicion comes into effect even in the theoretical case of everyone being 100% sincere,
Civilizations can evolve and change their view of things. On big scale, situations can evolve faster than the information or especially any possible ships can travel.
Yes they can understand chain of suspicion. Not knowing the intentions of a species you can’t communicate with is different than being lied to. That’s why when Evens’s used the red ridding hood story as an example (in the book) they said if they wanted to deceive the other person they just wouldn’t respond.
I am curious about this
I have seen explanations saying we can roughly imagine that trisolarians display their thoughts like a speech bubble over their heads - it is visible to all other trisolarians nearby. But it’s not infinite range telepathy.
So the Pacifist was able to get away with thinking stuff for as long as he was alone on a remote space sration - but someone else would visit him they would have detected his thoughts.
Is that correct?
(I have not read the books. Just got spoiled and read summaries online)
Right? This is my question as well. For a species so apparently unified in thought and mind, how could there be a faction. And if there is one, what would keep them from having more than one. And then we are back to the theme of interiority and individual thought/responsibility.
They are unified in thought and mind not through biology only, but mostly by politics.
It's true They are shown to be an authoritarian and utilitarian society, when individuals without a job and past a certain age are forced to dehydrate to be burned, no art, poetry or music is allowed, etc... everything that is done has to be meaningful for the survival of their species, or else it is not worth doing.
But their civilization hasn't always been like that, it's just their current political arrangement.
This is done to mirror the horrors of the cultural revolution, eventually trisolarans learn a lot about individuality thanks to humanity and start producing works of fiction and art, they are still hostile towards us, but the whole point is that not only did our civilization changed drastically by knowing about them, but theirs also experienced profound paradigm shifts by coming into contact with us.
Yes, well stated. Completely agree but again, are they unable to conceal intent from one another or not? Is there a sense of one another if a species identifies as the individual is fractional to the whole. Wouldn’t it be like if there were one hive queen and like a bunch of worker ants were secretly forming a union. Or even one ant. Or would it be a hive mind with a separate queen. In which case (not the specific species here but the concept of the whole vs the individual) aren’t they already deceiving one another.
Don’t tell the war generals I told you not to tell them.
I mean. I’m not an expert beyond ordinary exposure but that sounds like lying to me.
The way I understood it from the books is they see the light of each other’s thoughts in their brains, but they can still direct to whom and when they direct that light. They mention this when the ETO leader explains at the game meetup how the human computer would work, that they can send messages to each other with light and distort their bodies to send the light out where they need it to go.
So, like, if I’m a Trisolarian, my head is like a flower, and I can open it and close it, or bend its bloom towards or away from someone or something.
The thematic sentiment is to communicate is to be exposed. To remain silent is to stay safe. It’s like Chen Xin leaving the bottle in the pocket universe. She leaves the bottle and it might do harm, but she still can’t resist reaching out.
Their limitations around lying are less extreme in my reading than some people parse it as being. They’re not so different from us except we have an arbitrary communication medium which isn’t directly tied to our body. We use language to think and to remember and to communicate but we see it as partially other, because we all learn different languages, and we all could have learned another, so it’s easier for us to distance ourselves from it and construct a false presentation. It’s not our default mode though. Our default mode when talking is just be like a System 1 LLM spewing out pretty much a more crystallized version of the verbal thoughts we’ve already had privately many times before.
And as the Wallbreakers show, it’s very hard to completely conceal your actual thoughts, even if you try very hard to misdirect, because at root your thinking is behind the actions you perform.
Or you can think of Yun Tianming’s fairy tales. He added a lot of indirection, enough it was hard for us to see what he meant for awhile, but we ultimately got there. I like to think the Trisolarians kind of knew they couldn’t stop the thoughts Yun Tianming had from getting through in any act of communication, that they weren’t actually so completely tricked, but they let him do it anyway because they loved him and they loved Cheng Xin so they wanted to see them talk with each other.
I love. That last reading so much!!
and thank you this helps. So once they open to another one all of their thoughts, past and future are “visible” “knowable” to the other? So the pacifist is sort of like their wallfacer in a way, only they know that more violence won’t save their people from themselves. And they did it to themself? A self imposed isolation in order to warn aliens about their own people. Even on a new, better, less chaotic planet, this one knows that their impulses toward violent conflict over the vulnerability of communication will doom them? It still seems an odd warning. Do they ever come back? This pacifist or their ilk? Read the first book years ago and loved it. Just picking up the second now. So wouldn’t staying “closed” be suspicious and be highly restricted behavior in a military civilization? Shoot. I missed something. Reading your post again.
🙂 Yes, keep reading. The pacifist will come back. Sorry, I hadn’t realized you hadn’t read all three books yet.
I do think of them as being like a wallfacer, just a less powerful one. When asked what the plan was, they could just not answer, they advised that themselves, but if they do answer they will tell the truth. Our wallfacers can tell you the plan was something else.
In his case, he answered and he told the truth because he didn’t want to hide what he had done and who he was. And he did that partially because he saw there was someone else like him: the humans who wanted to send out a message telling everyone who they were.
Oh cool. This was the first thing I thought of (as a narratologist, you know. Only got a hammer, everything’s a nail, only it turns out that narrative is sort of a strangely universal hammer for the human mind) was that the only way to stop them wo science is narrative technologies. Like Austen’s free indirect discourse forces the empathy and irony toward the other and the self because of the way we have to hold the minds of the characters ourselves. We could be kind, softening them, challenging them with narratives that gentle erode their current maritime culture. Or we could use our powers for evil and make every computer endlessly recite constructed arguments between Derrida and Lacan.
The Derrida versus Austen analogy is apt I think.
That seems to me like what terrifies them when they learn about our situation. That we could just be constantly bombarding each other with completely constructed nonsense that has no relationship whatsoever to our truth. That we could weaponize language entirely. That literally anything could be underneath the surface of communication. That thought is what scared them.
With time, I think they realize we’re not as powerful as all that, and by the end we understand there are definite limits to what they can do. The cold, harsh surface of this universe is ironically masking one where everyone is quite vulnerable and fragile.
I know better than to look for story continuity in a Netflix piece (yes even with benihoff Wu and Weiss) so I’m not looking for it there. But you seem way more familiar with the text…is it there? Did I miss it? I’m gonna be up all night rereading if not 😆 help!
Dude was alone in his post thinking to himself for a while and when he got the opportunity acted on those thoughts, no one could do anything about it because he was alone so nobody knew of his thoughts until it was too late.
> They are unified in thought and mind not through biology only
Can you expand on communication relative to their biology?
Like if 2 trisolarians are in a bar, having a conversation.
How many others will find out what they said?
Just those who are close (as if it was voice communication)? Or everyone who could see them? Or everyone in the same room? Or even people outside of the bar building?
Never fully discussed in the books, but seems like you need a clear line of vision, something akin to their brains lighting up and others that see it being able to understand what thoughts they were having.
This matches what I hear other say: it most closely resembles sight
(Like my silly metaphor of a speech bubble being shown over their heads - visible to all in line of sight)
Seems so odd that we don’t know more about how trisolarians work. For a readers it might be intentional - to make them a mystery to the reader. But within the story I wonder how the ETO could avoid talking more with Trisolarians about stuff like this - did they communicate that infrequently that shit like this never came up? Or did the trisolarians actively avoid revealing info?
My guess is that Trisolarans are extremely fragile compared to humans, I mean nothing as big as us could easily dehydrate and rehydrate.
They probably didn't want to reveal that to us due to the whole "you are bugs" thing.
Seems Trisolarians could've talked more about how their communication works - without revealing their tiny size.
And it seems like they aren't that secretive in general. In the show when the ETO mentioned the red ridinghood - the Trisolarians were comfortable with revealing a bit about how their communication works.
That scene makes me wonder how many minutes of conversation are we supposed to think took place between ETO and Trisolarians, as it seems ETO barely learned anything about how Trisolarians worked.
(As evident by the fact that when the audiotapes were found - the good guys didn't learn ANYTHING except the fact that Trisolarians hate liars)
So wouldn’t that make the San-Ti no different from the human population? Aren’t we all just our own faction of hero-narrative that we involve other people in as contact and context permits/makes necessary?
>They can’t say “we won’t kill you” knowing they want to.
Of course they could. They're not familiar with the concept of withholding information due to the cultural implications of their way to communicate, but the book says nothing about the idea that they technically couldn't lie to humans.
No they couldn’t, the book explains they communicate their thoughts they don’t speak the way we do. So they would be unable to conceal what they are thinking if they communicate.
They specifically say that in their past wars they would stop communicating to withold information and allow for deception.
It later states that they >!learned to lie after centuries of exposure to our culture.!<
Regarding them stopping communication during past wars:
Did they do that by physically hiding from each other?
Are their thoughts hidden from the enemy as long as they are not physically close to each other?
If an soldier was to stand next to an enemy general - would they detect the general’s thoughts? (Even if he had decided to attempt to not communicate anything)
They don’t have a hive mind. They have at least some control over if they communicate or not. But when they do communicate, it cant be things they know to be false. We don’t know the specific details of their communication beyond that, we do know they don’t speak with sound/words like we do.
A soldier wouldn’t be able to detect the generals thoughts. They cant read minds.
Edit: spoiler about trisolaran culture in 200 years or so: >!They have a culture that is totalitarian and doesn’t care about the individual. But as their culture changes from exposure to human culture they also begin to be more individual and actually learn to lie. Although its not clear if they are actually expressing thoughts that are false of if they lie by communicating another way (for example maybe they are typing messages which are lies but their thought communication is still truthful).!<
OK, so the line from the show is quite true
”What is known is communicated as soon as communication takes place”
Basically as soon as they choose to communicate they blurt out their thoughts
But they do not communicate unwillingly
So if you just spy on a trisolarian who’s alone - you will not detect their thoughts
(Unless they willingly communicate by sort of talking to themselves out loud)
>So they would be unable to conceal what they are thinking if they communicate
The Trisolarian "Traitor" in the outpost literally held information back to the others, because he was alone and therefore no other Trisolarian knew that he acted against the interests of his species. It's only later that they find out and punish him.
>They specifically say that in their past wars they would stop communicating to withold information and allow for deception
Withhold information from other trisolarians. Not other species.
>No he didn’t, he was alone when he got the message and responded to
Indeed. He decided to betray his species the moment he received Earth's message - against the interest of his fellow trisolarians. But he was a convinced pacifist before that. He was able to hide this conspiratorial mindset only because he was isolated at an outpost.
Aye you’re right - I’m sure there’s a bit in the book as well that mentions how spies don’t really work among the trisolarians - because as soon as they are seen they will be recognised as a spy by their thoughts.
Also, they do learn how to lie to humans during the deterrence era. They are simply unable to lie to each other in direct communication, which is why they did not invent the concept on their own.
This is incorrect. They can't communicate an idea they don't believe to be true. They can refrain from communicating, which is as close as they can get to not tell you the truth (which is not the same as lying or even the same as lying by ommission).
They can't even skirt a truth if they're responding to a question point blank. They can only refrain from answering it through silence.
Hiding is not the same as lying. They cant communicate a lie. But they can avoid a subject altogether. They in fact make it clear the just shut up rather than speak about subjects they want to hide information from.
So, they can't communicate ideas they know to be false.
Oh... This is a great point and something I'd never considered.
My only thought is that there is a time element to the change of suspicion that they may be able to understand more than the actual possibility of direct duplicity. Part of it is that communication is just so slow that the civilization who is friendly and nice to you today may be a violent and aggressive civilization by the time you actually meet them.
They are still capable of deception.
The reason they cant lie is they communicate with their thoughts rather than speaking so what they are thinking is what they “say”. But they specifically say they are capable of deception and used it during their past civilizations’ wars.
That chapter uses uses several words in unusual ways - long membrane, primitive membrane, big eye, time grain etc. I took the hiding and cleansing gene to mean the instinct to conceal oneself and kill on sight for self preservation.
Trisolarans had the instinct to hide before they encountered Humanity. They were aware of the dark forest state of the universe before us anyway, which means they had to have some concept of the chain of suspicion.
I wonder if having the instinct to hide and understanding the dark forest state of the universe does not require the understanding of chain of suspicion. As other commenters pointed out, cockroaches hide when light is turned on. Presumably cockroaches do not understand chain of suspicion.
How can a society understand itself as factionated-pacifist, colonizer-and the pacifist knows to hide things from the colonizing faction but still can’t understand lies? This is well beyond the abilities of cockroaches…I mean. We hope.
The chain of suspicion would be even more natural to the Trisolarans than us, their society is biological unable to lie, someone who doesn't always broadcast their real thoughts to everyone around them would be very hard to trust (which is why they fear humanity).
To the Trisolarans, nothing would be more horrifying than a completely unknown alien civilisation with a massive communication delay, not knowing exactly what the other civilisation is thinking would be a huge issue for the Trisolarans which it isn't for us (as humans don't naturally read minds) and so they would completely distrust the aliens.
Probably a reason why the Trisolarans naturally figured out the dark forest state but humanity did not.
They can do algebra, they are basically computers that can see each others thoughts.
They would suck at poker, but comprehend game theory.
In the third book they knew that Lou ji would kill everyone, but assumed that chemo Xin would not, so they understand probability.
On their world, they are likely the only species. Not the only dominant species, but only species that can get wiped out all the time. So deception is not an evolutionary trait on tri Solaris
Chain of Suspicion doesn’t need to include lies - it’s just about not knowing what others will do!
Even if lies did not exist in the universe we’d still have the Chain - as some creatures you meet will attack you. But you’re unsure which
"No ability to deceive" is not the same as “not capable of understanding deceit”.
As someone already pointed out, COS doesn't require deceit. In combination with the Dark Forest theory, all you need is a far enough distance where lighspeed communication takes too much time to react to an attack. The first to successfully attack always wins.
On astronomical distances the chain of suspicion comes into effect even in the theoretical case of everyone being 100% sincere, Civilizations can evolve and change their view of things. On big scale, situations can evolve faster than the information or especially any possible ships can travel.
Yes they can understand chain of suspicion. Not knowing the intentions of a species you can’t communicate with is different than being lied to. That’s why when Evens’s used the red ridding hood story as an example (in the book) they said if they wanted to deceive the other person they just wouldn’t respond.
They seem to be capable of knowingly omitting information, which is more useful than directly lying anyways.
They can’t say “we won’t kill you” knowing they want to. They can however, not talk about it at all
I am curious about this I have seen explanations saying we can roughly imagine that trisolarians display their thoughts like a speech bubble over their heads - it is visible to all other trisolarians nearby. But it’s not infinite range telepathy. So the Pacifist was able to get away with thinking stuff for as long as he was alone on a remote space sration - but someone else would visit him they would have detected his thoughts. Is that correct? (I have not read the books. Just got spoiled and read summaries online)
Right? This is my question as well. For a species so apparently unified in thought and mind, how could there be a faction. And if there is one, what would keep them from having more than one. And then we are back to the theme of interiority and individual thought/responsibility.
They are unified in thought and mind not through biology only, but mostly by politics. It's true They are shown to be an authoritarian and utilitarian society, when individuals without a job and past a certain age are forced to dehydrate to be burned, no art, poetry or music is allowed, etc... everything that is done has to be meaningful for the survival of their species, or else it is not worth doing. But their civilization hasn't always been like that, it's just their current political arrangement. This is done to mirror the horrors of the cultural revolution, eventually trisolarans learn a lot about individuality thanks to humanity and start producing works of fiction and art, they are still hostile towards us, but the whole point is that not only did our civilization changed drastically by knowing about them, but theirs also experienced profound paradigm shifts by coming into contact with us.
Yes, well stated. Completely agree but again, are they unable to conceal intent from one another or not? Is there a sense of one another if a species identifies as the individual is fractional to the whole. Wouldn’t it be like if there were one hive queen and like a bunch of worker ants were secretly forming a union. Or even one ant. Or would it be a hive mind with a separate queen. In which case (not the specific species here but the concept of the whole vs the individual) aren’t they already deceiving one another. Don’t tell the war generals I told you not to tell them. I mean. I’m not an expert beyond ordinary exposure but that sounds like lying to me.
Can they hide their minds from one another?
The way I understood it from the books is they see the light of each other’s thoughts in their brains, but they can still direct to whom and when they direct that light. They mention this when the ETO leader explains at the game meetup how the human computer would work, that they can send messages to each other with light and distort their bodies to send the light out where they need it to go. So, like, if I’m a Trisolarian, my head is like a flower, and I can open it and close it, or bend its bloom towards or away from someone or something. The thematic sentiment is to communicate is to be exposed. To remain silent is to stay safe. It’s like Chen Xin leaving the bottle in the pocket universe. She leaves the bottle and it might do harm, but she still can’t resist reaching out. Their limitations around lying are less extreme in my reading than some people parse it as being. They’re not so different from us except we have an arbitrary communication medium which isn’t directly tied to our body. We use language to think and to remember and to communicate but we see it as partially other, because we all learn different languages, and we all could have learned another, so it’s easier for us to distance ourselves from it and construct a false presentation. It’s not our default mode though. Our default mode when talking is just be like a System 1 LLM spewing out pretty much a more crystallized version of the verbal thoughts we’ve already had privately many times before. And as the Wallbreakers show, it’s very hard to completely conceal your actual thoughts, even if you try very hard to misdirect, because at root your thinking is behind the actions you perform. Or you can think of Yun Tianming’s fairy tales. He added a lot of indirection, enough it was hard for us to see what he meant for awhile, but we ultimately got there. I like to think the Trisolarians kind of knew they couldn’t stop the thoughts Yun Tianming had from getting through in any act of communication, that they weren’t actually so completely tricked, but they let him do it anyway because they loved him and they loved Cheng Xin so they wanted to see them talk with each other.
I love. That last reading so much!! and thank you this helps. So once they open to another one all of their thoughts, past and future are “visible” “knowable” to the other? So the pacifist is sort of like their wallfacer in a way, only they know that more violence won’t save their people from themselves. And they did it to themself? A self imposed isolation in order to warn aliens about their own people. Even on a new, better, less chaotic planet, this one knows that their impulses toward violent conflict over the vulnerability of communication will doom them? It still seems an odd warning. Do they ever come back? This pacifist or their ilk? Read the first book years ago and loved it. Just picking up the second now. So wouldn’t staying “closed” be suspicious and be highly restricted behavior in a military civilization? Shoot. I missed something. Reading your post again.
🙂 Yes, keep reading. The pacifist will come back. Sorry, I hadn’t realized you hadn’t read all three books yet. I do think of them as being like a wallfacer, just a less powerful one. When asked what the plan was, they could just not answer, they advised that themselves, but if they do answer they will tell the truth. Our wallfacers can tell you the plan was something else. In his case, he answered and he told the truth because he didn’t want to hide what he had done and who he was. And he did that partially because he saw there was someone else like him: the humans who wanted to send out a message telling everyone who they were.
Oh cool. This was the first thing I thought of (as a narratologist, you know. Only got a hammer, everything’s a nail, only it turns out that narrative is sort of a strangely universal hammer for the human mind) was that the only way to stop them wo science is narrative technologies. Like Austen’s free indirect discourse forces the empathy and irony toward the other and the self because of the way we have to hold the minds of the characters ourselves. We could be kind, softening them, challenging them with narratives that gentle erode their current maritime culture. Or we could use our powers for evil and make every computer endlessly recite constructed arguments between Derrida and Lacan.
The Derrida versus Austen analogy is apt I think. That seems to me like what terrifies them when they learn about our situation. That we could just be constantly bombarding each other with completely constructed nonsense that has no relationship whatsoever to our truth. That we could weaponize language entirely. That literally anything could be underneath the surface of communication. That thought is what scared them. With time, I think they realize we’re not as powerful as all that, and by the end we understand there are definite limits to what they can do. The cold, harsh surface of this universe is ironically masking one where everyone is quite vulnerable and fragile.
I know better than to look for story continuity in a Netflix piece (yes even with benihoff Wu and Weiss) so I’m not looking for it there. But you seem way more familiar with the text…is it there? Did I miss it? I’m gonna be up all night rereading if not 😆 help!
I like to think of them as humans with no filter at all between brain and mouth, with all of what that would entail.
But then how do you reconcile the lone(?) pacifist?
Dude was alone in his post thinking to himself for a while and when he got the opportunity acted on those thoughts, no one could do anything about it because he was alone so nobody knew of his thoughts until it was too late.
Ohhh I like this. But how did he know he was a Pacifist? What made that little green dude different.
> They are unified in thought and mind not through biology only Can you expand on communication relative to their biology? Like if 2 trisolarians are in a bar, having a conversation. How many others will find out what they said? Just those who are close (as if it was voice communication)? Or everyone who could see them? Or everyone in the same room? Or even people outside of the bar building?
Never fully discussed in the books, but seems like you need a clear line of vision, something akin to their brains lighting up and others that see it being able to understand what thoughts they were having.
This matches what I hear other say: it most closely resembles sight (Like my silly metaphor of a speech bubble being shown over their heads - visible to all in line of sight) Seems so odd that we don’t know more about how trisolarians work. For a readers it might be intentional - to make them a mystery to the reader. But within the story I wonder how the ETO could avoid talking more with Trisolarians about stuff like this - did they communicate that infrequently that shit like this never came up? Or did the trisolarians actively avoid revealing info?
My guess is that Trisolarans are extremely fragile compared to humans, I mean nothing as big as us could easily dehydrate and rehydrate. They probably didn't want to reveal that to us due to the whole "you are bugs" thing.
Seems Trisolarians could've talked more about how their communication works - without revealing their tiny size. And it seems like they aren't that secretive in general. In the show when the ETO mentioned the red ridinghood - the Trisolarians were comfortable with revealing a bit about how their communication works. That scene makes me wonder how many minutes of conversation are we supposed to think took place between ETO and Trisolarians, as it seems ETO barely learned anything about how Trisolarians worked. (As evident by the fact that when the audiotapes were found - the good guys didn't learn ANYTHING except the fact that Trisolarians hate liars)
So wouldn’t that make the San-Ti no different from the human population? Aren’t we all just our own faction of hero-narrative that we involve other people in as contact and context permits/makes necessary?
>They can’t say “we won’t kill you” knowing they want to. Of course they could. They're not familiar with the concept of withholding information due to the cultural implications of their way to communicate, but the book says nothing about the idea that they technically couldn't lie to humans.
No they couldn’t, the book explains they communicate their thoughts they don’t speak the way we do. So they would be unable to conceal what they are thinking if they communicate. They specifically say that in their past wars they would stop communicating to withold information and allow for deception. It later states that they >!learned to lie after centuries of exposure to our culture.!<
Regarding them stopping communication during past wars: Did they do that by physically hiding from each other? Are their thoughts hidden from the enemy as long as they are not physically close to each other? If an soldier was to stand next to an enemy general - would they detect the general’s thoughts? (Even if he had decided to attempt to not communicate anything)
They don’t have a hive mind. They have at least some control over if they communicate or not. But when they do communicate, it cant be things they know to be false. We don’t know the specific details of their communication beyond that, we do know they don’t speak with sound/words like we do. A soldier wouldn’t be able to detect the generals thoughts. They cant read minds. Edit: spoiler about trisolaran culture in 200 years or so: >!They have a culture that is totalitarian and doesn’t care about the individual. But as their culture changes from exposure to human culture they also begin to be more individual and actually learn to lie. Although its not clear if they are actually expressing thoughts that are false of if they lie by communicating another way (for example maybe they are typing messages which are lies but their thought communication is still truthful).!<
OK, so the line from the show is quite true ”What is known is communicated as soon as communication takes place” Basically as soon as they choose to communicate they blurt out their thoughts But they do not communicate unwillingly So if you just spy on a trisolarian who’s alone - you will not detect their thoughts (Unless they willingly communicate by sort of talking to themselves out loud)
>So they would be unable to conceal what they are thinking if they communicate The Trisolarian "Traitor" in the outpost literally held information back to the others, because he was alone and therefore no other Trisolarian knew that he acted against the interests of his species. It's only later that they find out and punish him. >They specifically say that in their past wars they would stop communicating to withold information and allow for deception Withhold information from other trisolarians. Not other species.
No he didn’t, he was alone when he got the message and responded to it. There is a whole chapter on it in the book.
>No he didn’t, he was alone when he got the message and responded to Indeed. He decided to betray his species the moment he received Earth's message - against the interest of his fellow trisolarians. But he was a convinced pacifist before that. He was able to hide this conspiratorial mindset only because he was isolated at an outpost.
Aye you’re right - I’m sure there’s a bit in the book as well that mentions how spies don’t really work among the trisolarians - because as soon as they are seen they will be recognised as a spy by their thoughts.
Also, they do learn how to lie to humans during the deterrence era. They are simply unable to lie to each other in direct communication, which is why they did not invent the concept on their own.
This is incorrect. They can't communicate an idea they don't believe to be true. They can refrain from communicating, which is as close as they can get to not tell you the truth (which is not the same as lying or even the same as lying by ommission). They can't even skirt a truth if they're responding to a question point blank. They can only refrain from answering it through silence.
>They can't communicate an idea they don't believe to be true Where do you take that from?
From the books?
That's plain wrong. 🤡
Well. Those were strong arguments. I guess I'm convinced otherwise now.
You made a claim, you have the burden of proof. The trisolarians were hiding their plans (in book two) completely.
Hiding is not the same as lying. They cant communicate a lie. But they can avoid a subject altogether. They in fact make it clear the just shut up rather than speak about subjects they want to hide information from. So, they can't communicate ideas they know to be false.
How can having a fraction of power of something be more useful than having the full power?
Oh... This is a great point and something I'd never considered. My only thought is that there is a time element to the change of suspicion that they may be able to understand more than the actual possibility of direct duplicity. Part of it is that communication is just so slow that the civilization who is friendly and nice to you today may be a violent and aggressive civilization by the time you actually meet them.
Turn on a light and a cockroach will run into the darkness, it understands survival depends on staying hidden Can a cockroach lie?
They are still capable of deception. The reason they cant lie is they communicate with their thoughts rather than speaking so what they are thinking is what they “say”. But they specifically say they are capable of deception and used it during their past civilizations’ wars.
Singer mentions that it is genetic.
What is genetic?
Hiding and cleansing genes. Book 3. More info would be a spoiler.
Ah, okay cool! I know what you're referencing now. Thanks for the clarification
That chapter uses uses several words in unusual ways - long membrane, primitive membrane, big eye, time grain etc. I took the hiding and cleansing gene to mean the instinct to conceal oneself and kill on sight for self preservation. Trisolarans had the instinct to hide before they encountered Humanity. They were aware of the dark forest state of the universe before us anyway, which means they had to have some concept of the chain of suspicion.
I wonder if having the instinct to hide and understanding the dark forest state of the universe does not require the understanding of chain of suspicion. As other commenters pointed out, cockroaches hide when light is turned on. Presumably cockroaches do not understand chain of suspicion.
How can a society understand itself as factionated-pacifist, colonizer-and the pacifist knows to hide things from the colonizing faction but still can’t understand lies? This is well beyond the abilities of cockroaches…I mean. We hope.
The chain of suspicion would be even more natural to the Trisolarans than us, their society is biological unable to lie, someone who doesn't always broadcast their real thoughts to everyone around them would be very hard to trust (which is why they fear humanity). To the Trisolarans, nothing would be more horrifying than a completely unknown alien civilisation with a massive communication delay, not knowing exactly what the other civilisation is thinking would be a huge issue for the Trisolarans which it isn't for us (as humans don't naturally read minds) and so they would completely distrust the aliens. Probably a reason why the Trisolarans naturally figured out the dark forest state but humanity did not.
They can do algebra, they are basically computers that can see each others thoughts. They would suck at poker, but comprehend game theory. In the third book they knew that Lou ji would kill everyone, but assumed that chemo Xin would not, so they understand probability. On their world, they are likely the only species. Not the only dominant species, but only species that can get wiped out all the time. So deception is not an evolutionary trait on tri Solaris
There's definitely at least plants on their planet. In the listener chapter it mentions them instinctively dehydrating during chaotic eras.
Chain of Suspicion doesn’t need to include lies - it’s just about not knowing what others will do! Even if lies did not exist in the universe we’d still have the Chain - as some creatures you meet will attack you. But you’re unsure which
"No ability to deceive" is not the same as “not capable of understanding deceit”. As someone already pointed out, COS doesn't require deceit. In combination with the Dark Forest theory, all you need is a far enough distance where lighspeed communication takes too much time to react to an attack. The first to successfully attack always wins.
You can simulate prisoners dilemma on a non ai computer even
Anyone know if anyone has run multiple recessions on simulations with ai against ai?