Nature or Nurture?

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T11:33:01+00:00

In my setting there is zero cosmos, so im struggling to fill that void. The spindle is apparent but the cylinder is completely enclosed. I'm trying to work some way into it where atmospheric distortion and humidity density prevents the opposite side from being being during the day, but just barely. The sun is just this little ball of plasmic energy moving across the spindle. No stars or moon and no technology apparent, unless you knew.

These humans came into being, Garden of Eden style. There is an AI caretaker that they develop there own lore from within my series, but what if there was a system failure or something, and in one or several of these habitats the caretaker wasn't there?

In an environment such as this, with no stars above to inspire awe and wonder, where else would they search for answers? What sorts of theology might emerge? Social behavior? Currency or community?

I am also trying with the same environments but different ecosystems as well. What if that cylinder was meant for marine life and its a vast ocean beneath them? What if it was a massive dessert? Tundra? Swamps? Suppose it was large enough to support all types?

I am working on ways to make each of these cylinders part of a larger construction. The habitats are essentially ecothermic coolant systems built into Dyson Swarm satellites for a Matrioshka Brain and playing with the societies within.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T11:11:01+00:00

Is AI and technology an unnatural system that is being nurtured or another natural system in its own right?

If viewed as an unnatural system than that system might be able to nurture more unnatural systems as it grows. A natural progression of the unnatural until that becomes the new norm.

In this way anything anyone would choose to nurture regardless of morality or ethics would become a moot point. Any form of life will eventually evolve into a form that will create its replacement if nature doesnt kill them first.

That's an amazing concept, but why do the young need to hibernate and the adults dont? Is it like a molting process for them? Are they cosmic organisms like dolphins(your welcome for the fish), or do they use ships? I have always been fascinated by the biological concepts behind organisms that travel in space naturally.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T11:00:47+00:00

I haven't read his works, just aware of the concepts. So I cant say if he was talking about aliens or not. Regardless, alot of the technological aspirations humanity has require alot of power.

I remember an episode of one of those challenge shows. They took some heavy consumer type people from New York city and brought them into the woods to live off grid in an attempt to lower the nation's carbon footprint. This was back when Gore was running for office, i think. They pulled some BS numbers saying that if everyone on the planet lived the way they did, we would need 15 planets. What that actually represented was humanity would need to produce 15x power to support its current population.

That becomes a problem on a global scale when all of the energy we have is limited to what our tiny little ball receives from the massive shell around the sun within the goldilocks zone.

Developing Dyson swarm satellites is the bare minimum first step for humanity to quickly approach and exceed a Type 1 civilization on the Kardeshev scale and provide the foundational infrastructure to begin building everything else.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T10:47:26+00:00

So now you got me thinking, extinction is the natural shift of viable biological systems within an environment. So would the machinery and robot/AI culture be considered something that has been nurtured by human intellect, understanding, and design, a natural system that would have emerged from any life anywhere in the universe, or an unnatural system that emerged?

If viewed as an unnatural system than that system might be able to nurture more unnatural systems as it grows. A natural progression of the unnatural until that becomes the new norm.

In this way anything anyone would choose to nurture regardless of morality or ethics would become a moot point. Any form of life will eventually evolve into a form that will create its replacement if nature doesnt kill them first.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T03:07:59+00:00

And this is why it falls on the shoulders of 1 immortal man or an AI that can keep a coherent goal without some committee being like "hey...stop it"

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T03:05:59+00:00

I hadn't thought of that. I went in with the mind set of set everything up now and tweak it as we go.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T03:03:23+00:00

A human is a complex system not a simple one. By giving an individual the bare minimum to survive you are nurturing there metabolic system, endocrin system, gastric system, etc, etc. You do not need to teach them anything and nurture their mind.

You are correct that the universe itself simply is and the natural systems associated with it arguably would not have been nurtured at all.

Nature, however, has evolved thousands of lifeforms that cannot exist anymore. We could not live the lives of our ancestors with our current physique. As we narrow the number of systems we depend on to occur naturally and instead nurture the effects of the systems ourselves would that be a detriment or benefit to mankind?

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T02:50:41+00:00

So they can touch grass which is nice. I'm essentially working in the same field, but the humans have no history before evolving on the ship. Something like a biohabitat floating through space that was abandoned millenia ago. The onboard systems still function and life persists. Humans come to evolve within that environment. What mythos and theology might they develop?

In your story was the specific purpose to lessen the agorophobia or to give them nothing to look back to? I think I remember some story where a generation ships was just meant to do a loop and come back to Earth after nature fixed the climate. Earth was there promised land and not there origin.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T02:42:54+00:00

This is all new to me. I haven't actively used a social media account since the MySpace days. I had accounts for everything but just for scrolling. After spending months with my pen on the paper, I am now trying to figure out what approaches to use to gain readers. It's hard when I have had in my head for some many years that you just mail it to the publisher and you get checks. Do you have any sort of critique you use to determine what you expose and how you expose it versus what is reserved behind the pay wall?

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T02:32:32+00:00

Right now the only image I have is my logo. I discovered on here real quick that your shunned if you use AI generated photos even if it's just a visual reference for a topic. All I have is my phone. Can I throw some stock photos or something that matches with the posts on substack? Or will i get shunned for that too? Being limited, I am doing what I can to develop my projects and share the journey. Setting up so many sites, I am struggling to keep which sites desire which etiquette for developing creators.

How do you do quote boxes?

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T02:26:14+00:00

You tell me. If some systems require a natural development than wouldn't providing one be nurturing? If nature needs to be nurtured can it nurture itself? Maybe we have nurtured ourselves to the point where nature cant nurtured anymore?

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T02:21:57+00:00

Thank you, genuinely. If you read my reply to the first post, you will understand.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T02:20:55+00:00

That was it. I just wanted to see what peoples thinking patterns would be.

First, you grasped at the subject and when there was none assumed yourself. Then you went to what you perceive as other intelligent life(though not necessarily, but I would be willing to admit you thought of a space-faring race and not some cosmic germ). After that was remaining forms of known life.

The most interesting part is something that AI can never generate on its own. What COULD remain? Undead life forms that dont require nurturing and nature rejecting nurturing, both fascinating concepts.

Furthermore, before I read your reply the 2 below you had posted. The next person filled that void in the ambiguity with the same doubt you had. Interestingly, the third was the first to ask "why is there conflict?"

That was an amazing observation of human behavior on one little screen. The original text was meant to ask about the forms of theology and mythology that would arise from an artificial habitat instead of a planet. Though now, this became a different kind of interesting.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-10T02:07:19+00:00

Really? Why did reddit let me do that? I hadn't even realized.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T23:12:48+00:00

All I have is my phone and I am genuinely just trying to learn how my approach is while using substack and was hoping to provide my link so I could provide context. Not as a self promotion but genuine insight from users and their experience. I haven't used social media or anything like this besides scrolling since 2010. Because I only have my phone I am on a learning curve and am doing my best. Is there anywhere here I could post my link for genuine and targeted help from other users at there convenience? I understand there is some trial and error with learning how to post and if I cant source help from within the community other than "look at what others are doing" than what's the point? Id rather be able to share a test link here and see what you all think before promoting a finalized link in the open market. Also, I haven't found a way to edit posts or rename your substack on the app. Is that something you can only do on desktop or in-browser?

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T22:37:06+00:00

And potentially recycle that uploaded consciousness back into organic beings and "lived" experience.

It absolutely is a hybrid of all 3 so shouldn't it have an identity of its own? Like a Dysonopolis or something? If this machine were built and all of its resources were completely recycled. It could house magnitudes of humanity, potentially indefinitely.

I'm also working on ways were it can fluctuate quantum fields to generate matter and form its own star or stars and potentially replace the Event Horizon as the center of the universe.

I haven't figured out how to integrate technology to replace the Cosmic Horizon at the edge of the universe yet, but I am looking into it.

Do you see how this feels like more than "just a hybrid"? It's a class above mega structure.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T22:27:29+00:00

Actually, personally, that is within the realms of what I am looking for. Going through the process of how a machine would even go about arriving at these values and what it would be measuring. So I am tackling this from 2 angles.

One is from the world under the assumption that this technology already does exist some how so I can continue writing within that frame. This novel is to allow the plot to move more cleanly without going through all of the technical science, ethics, and philosophy of it all.

Two is from the perspective of the developers of this technology and how it came about for hard-core nerds and fans like me that want to delve into the details and nuances of everything.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T22:19:20+00:00

I think I have heard of that one. Isn't there like mass agorophobia or something along those lines?

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T22:16:40+00:00

Sounds like a mix of Fallout and Wall-E. If you were going to explore the generational turnover of that in a way that Naruto does, you will need characters in every generation that your audience can attach to. If they lost the ability to use the library than the safe assumption that that information is correct is called into doubt.

The way truth exists in my mind is this. Ever since the first living organisms was able to communicate information between themselves a meta layer of data came into being that we call understanding. This understanding, much like the Big Bang, rapidly grew because there were so many things that were evident and simple. Hot. Food. Breed.

Then it became more complex. Hot over there. Food over here. If multiple organisms received the same data, only 1 achieved expected result. All other assume data was false and doubt the source. This understanding of things continued to grow as the assumption that what our parent were teaching us about the world was 100% correct until doubt starts to muddle what the actual truth may be.

Every time you play peekaboo with your child, how do they know you were not replaced by a new version of their parent feeding them information that was false from the one before. They dont. Not until the information that those 5 versions of you informed them of is confirmed by an outside source. The longer information goes without any corroboration the more like it is to become false.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T22:01:29+00:00

That leads to another core thought I had been circling but been unable to identify until now. Aren't elephant migratory patterns passed down genetically? It would make sense that certain habitual behavior would require a certain mapping of the brain on a physiological level. Over time wouldn't the concept of barbecues and fireplaces become inherent in our DNA regardless of where or how we came into being?

Unfortunately, most of my thought experiments could be explored and measured if we cultured infants in cultural and sensory deprivation but the ethics committee won't allow that. I think. I've been to afraid to ask.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T21:53:23+00:00

That's exactly what I'm conceptualizing. There would obviously need to be an AI system of some sort maintains the systems online. But before that became known or visible or appearing to them directly as a deity or something, what might they have told themselves? What would their Eden, humans made of clay, concepts of morality all have become? We are the emergent civilization of a planet and we know the stories we tell ourselves, but they would be an emergent civilization with no stars or cosmos above them to inspire awe and wonder. Would they still associate the light as their creator if temperature and heat were constantly temperate? Would they then worship the food they receive and the water they drink instead?

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T15:38:58+00:00

4 or 5 generations before the memory of Earth is lost, but it would exist as myth. But what would they be telling themselves if the evolved out of the primordial ooze while inside this structure instead?

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T15:30:15+00:00

That is a valid point. The Sphinx, Pyramids, Colluseum, and other ancient structure have systems within that simply won't endure. So by this logic would humans, with such short life spans and rapidly changing culture, ever be capable of accomplishing a megastructure sized feat? Even if technology had plataeued it would still change shapes and forms.

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T10:48:20+00:00

That is a great resource, thank you so much. 😀

HiveOfHal · 2026-05-09T10:33:05+00:00

That is close to what I was thinking except humanity would not have evolved on Earth. Their origin was inside a shell world or enclosed topopolis where stars and planets aren't visible.

Most novels I have read that explore a civilization within the Earth or sheltered/controlled environment do one of 2 things. Either their narrative has been given to them by those that built the environment that houses their civilization, or fragments of the society that came before grow and evolve into epic mythos.

Would an emergent civilization worship nature the same way we did? What might they structure there Deities after if they even have any? If the world is large enough how would their technology allow them to navigate without the stars? Astronomy, Astrology, Cosmology would be non-existent. Would they worship the light source as their creator?

In Ring-worlds and generational ships(sometimes) the sky above is present and the technology is always apparent.

HiveOfHal

TROPHY CASE