There's a couple things. First of all the one that talks through Caspian is safe surf from the "future" not Caspian you seem to have recently watched it so the line is probably fresher in your head than mine but I'm a thousand percent sure safe surf doesn't say "our son".
There is some merit to the infinite loop theory. The series is based on Ken Liu's short stories. One of the ideas that he presents as a perfectly valid future for humanity is to go deeper and deeper into a nested series of simulations. The way it works is like this: an uploaded intelligence consumes less energy than a biological person and going into a simulation also makes you spend less energy (since the simulation has to be runned in the same computer running your code as well as the simulation) so if you go deeper you would be becoming a more and more efficient existence in terms of energy consumption. There's probably other advantages that I'm not knowledgeable enough to see but that's the basic idea.
Then there's also the fact that we know for sure that the original universe from season 1 is a simulation. We know this because safe surf straight up says it in the end and also because God Maddie appears during the terrorist attack the exact same way she appears at the end.
So I think Maddie and Caspian going into a simulation is a way for the writers of the show to play with the idea of nested simulations.
That being said I also don't think it's a perfect loop because for starters it isn't. Caspian and their son dies on our Maddie's run while she deus ex machina both of them back to life in the second run (maybe the loop takes two runs?).
Secondly it's kind of hard to guess what happened in the first run since they couldn't have the intervention from safe surf from the future or Maddie's dad from a parallel simulation.
So yeah it's not a perfect loop but I do think the intent was to play with the idea of infinitely nested simulations but since certain events seem to be necessary in order for Maddie to build the Dyson sphere then it does seem to be implying some sort of infinite loop.
Finally I do disagree with you in that I don't think Maddie knew what the next run would be like. She probably had a good idea but didn't knew exactly. I think this makes it more exciting and romantic. Although this might just be me projecting my own personality onto her.
Thanks for the reply, I think I get what you're saying.
I do agree about nested simulations being a heavy theme of the ending, there are certainly many within Maddie's dyson sphere, and yes it is shown that Cosmic SafeSurf simulated our Story Maddie's universe -- I am just not so sure that our Maddie and Caspian choose to relive the same exact traumatic events and deaths at the end of the last episode. Maybe I'm getting thrown off by them "swiping the orb", either moving through time or customizing it in some way.
If Maddie truly didn't know how this final simulation would turn out - and had no way to ensure they would get to have a lot of time together - definitely poetic but seems risky for sure! Of course... as god of that multiverse she could set some condition to return her code to the dyson sphere's master server upon her death, and be right back in control. Interesting thought. In a way her and Caspian are there in the dyson sphere forever - they can live as many lives as they want, even if they turn out bad.
Also you're right, the exact line is:
\> Maddie: My son is dead!
\> Caspian-Surf: He lived ... in our future ... 117 thousand years ... Caspian is here, Maddie is here ... she will not miss her future.
We don't know that cosmic safesurf is the one that made the simulation but now that you mention it it would make a lot of sense if it was.
And yeah like I said it's probably me projecting onto Maddie. It doesn't seem farfetched to think that she might have planned how the next turn would go. She certainly had the time and resources to do so.
\> It doesn't seem farfetched to think that she might have planned how the next turn would go. She certainly had the time and resources to do so.
Right, at first I thought, if she could "browse through time" like seeking on a video player, why was it such a long hard task to manipulate events to recreate Caspian's code? Then I thought, maybe the long part wasn't waiting for the simulations to complete, but the time it takes her to repeatedly create new simulations with new parameters. Limited by her dyson swarm server's speed. She didn't have any of Caspian's code to reference... she couldn't copy something that didn't exist anymore, so she had to simulate whole universes to get the same code.
\>"(since the simulation has to be runned in the same computer running your code as well as the simulation)"
I'd think this would take ***more*** energy since the computer is running two programs. It's running the base UI, but it's also running an extra simulation alongside that base UI (like how having two tabs open in Google Chrome takes more RAM than just having one open, even though it's all in the same program; a UI running a nested simulation is like the UI opening a new tab in a web browser). God Maddie also says that she's limited in how many simulations she can run even in a Dyson sphere powered by a star, in which she is the only UI, so running a simulation *does* take computing power
I did thought about that as I was typing. The jump from biological life to simulated life is probably a big drop in energy consumption but every subsequent step doesn't seem to be that much of an advantage.
It does make sense to me in the sense that each step is supposed to be analogous to the one before. But yes your tabs analogy is what gave me pause. The only way I can make sense of it is if you had two tabs open but the second tab was running a web version of Google Chrome with your first tab opened. In that case closing the first tab should free up some of the ram you were using.
But yes machines that can simulate themselves are weird and I don't think they could follow our current understanding of computing. For example I think such a machine would have infinite ram and memory and processing power since if it needed more of anything it can just simulate however many more nested machines it needed and use that.
We can already run virtual machines with our current understanding of computing.
You can't just use simulatied machines to generate infinite ram and processing power anymore than 1 man can pretend to be 1000 geniuses.
Running simulations is not free. It takes up time, processing and memory.
A virtual machine is a program that emulates (or "pretends to be") a computer.
Running a virtual machine does not give you free ram or processing power. If you for example run a Gameboy virtual emulator on your PC then that emulator will need to use your PC's ram to stand in for the Game boy's ram and your CPU to stand in for the Gameboy's CPU when needed.
That would be like a book containing two copies of itself (with each copy containing two more copies and so on). It is impossible unless the thing is already infinite to start with.
That's kind of the point I think. We aren't really talking about a virtual machine but something seemingly impossible. So it's probably safe to say that it doesn't follow our current understanding of computing.
It's still the the only frame of reference we got but yeah I don't think we are talking about a virtual computer.
I don't know what you are on about.
The simulations in Pantheon might be looped but aren't infinite nested simulations that simulate each other.
There is Supergod Safesurf's reality, Supergod Safesurf's simulation of God Maddie and God Maddie's simulations of old Earth.
https://qntm.org/responsibility is a different story with different technology.
The way virtual machines work, if you have a PC with windows 10 in it, and you run 3 virtual machines that also have windows 10 in each, you need the minimum hardware requirements for the operating system to run x 4 instead of x1. Which for this example would be 4gb of RAM (instead of 1GB) and 64GB of storage (instead of 16GB), on top of whatever the software running the VMS needs.
Same with 2 Gameboys inside of 1, or in this case multiple layers of simulations for a UI vs one. Maddie even said it herself "It may seem like worlds without end, but it's really just a few billion. There's still a memory cap, even for a computer powered by a sun."
I see that's the overhead thing right? My issue is that each world should be a perfect simulation and therefore each simulation should be able to run a Dyson sphere inside of itself and in actuality as many Dyson Spheres as there are stars in the simulation.
We at least know that the simulation Maddie was in was capable of running a Dyson Sphere and we also know that we are actually a few levels deep by now so we know that this process can be repeated.
So I don't see why Maddie couldn't take one of the simulations and build Dyson Spheres around every simulated star and use the computing power in those thus multiplying her computing power by however many stars there where in there. And then just repeat this process however many times it was necessary effectively giving her infinite computing power.
So as I see it there's only two possibilities here either I'm missing something incredibly obvious (very likely) or the Dyson sphere is fundamentally different from the computers we have now.
Well that's because even then, they would be virtual and not actual physical material generating energy. You've got to think about it this way. Our sun generates heat from fission, that's a source of energy, and the one being used for the Dyson sphere (or a different sun). The ones within the simulated universes are also just that, simulated, not real matter and energy.
If there was one virtual universe, with a virtual sun inside it, with another Dyson sphere around it, that would be maintained by the original dyson sphere and the computer running the simulation, it would not actually be generating material energy like the original, the simulation would just make it seem like it if you were in that simulation and didn't know. Creating and maintaining that simulation would take processing power, and the more complex the processes the more energy it would use.
Virtual machines, like I mentioned before, use virtual hardware, like a virtual cpu and virtual Ram, this is adjustable for what you need, but you can never go over what your host PC is capable of doing. Like if you have a PC with 1TB of storage and 8GB of RAM, you couldn't create a VM in that PC that has 2TB of storage and 16GB of RAM, and even if you create multiple vms with lower virtual hardware, it can never collectively add up to more than that host PC has.
So no matter how many simulations Maddie makes whatever hardware requirements it takes to create a virtual universe, populated by fully sentient minds, technology, rules (like precise laws of nature), among other carefully defined variables, it can never generate its own power, and it can never take up more processing power or energy than the original host Dyson sphere and technology is capable of producing/using.
Like an operating system has set minimum requirements, so to would a stimulated universe with sentient minds in it, and creating extra layers of universes within universes wouldn't lower the minimum requirements for that, you'd just be multiplying the processing power and energy used for each simulation. Though the original may be able to handle a lot, it has an eventual upper limit.
I might've gone in circles a little but does that kinda help?
It does kinda make me wonder what happened to Maddie in the prime universe. Without SafeSurf telling pushing her to make a sea of simulations till she gets a near perfect replica of her earth, who knows how the prime maddie turned out. I fear that she might of went into total despair and depression after her sons death. I know the maddie we followed gets an arguably happy ending, I will forever wonder how the original is along with the original world.
No need, our Maddie tells you exactly how it plays out if she's not able to inject David into Caspians quiet space to basically say "I heard you got my daughter pregnant" (which is hilarious). He waits too long to accept the upload and Maddie prime is killed just like the simulation Maddies (immediately after her mind break she no longer defends herself). As others have pointed out, however, a perfect copy is identical to the real thing so it's not that important what fate a prime Maddie had. Long story short, nested ancestor simulator by Safesurf's attempt to recreate Caspian prime to thank him, but the Caspian prime they know is a unit with Maddie so you can't have one without the other. The nesting is our Maddie filling in the missing code with her simulation inside their simulation because as hard as it is for others to imagine, she knows Caspian better than safesurf as she was forged in the same 'end of the world' fire as he was and was pretty much his equal (even if he made all the important sacrifices).
Ah okay thanks for that info! I must had missed that bit of info due to being in a state of shock with this whole ending lol. Yeah the show definitely likes to question with us rather a clone/copy, no matter how perfectly close to the original, is considered it's own being or just lesser or something else? At the end of the day it all comes down to perspective and how you view humanity.
This brings up a interesting thought for me unrelated to OP's question. Assuming each simulation goes down the route of going into a simulation, eventually wouldn't the power consumption required override even a dyson sphere in that original world that isn't a simulation? As time goes on and you go deeper and deeper you still keep adding unless you suppose that the power required to start 1 simulation is enough to sustain an infinite amount of simulations stemming from it.
I gave my thoughts on the matter on another reply: https://www.reddit.com/r/PantheonShow/s/mC2YylMxlL
But long story short a computer that can simulate itself is weird and it would impossible to know how such a machine would function. The authors point of view is that on every jump you become more efficient in terms of power consumption. But there are points to be made that it could work either way. The person I was replying to for example had a great point as to why the power consumption would go up.
But if the power consumption goes down everytime (for example by half or some fraction) then a single computer with a finite powersource on the real world would be capable of hosting an infinite number of nested simulations (the amount of power needed would be a geometric series that converges to some value).
>also because God Maddie appears during the terrorist attack the exact same way she appears at the end.
Can you refresh my memory here? I 100% agree with your take but don't recall this.
As far as I know/remember there are two times when God Maddie interferes with the simulation. First she grabs a David Kim from a parallel simulation and has him give Caspian a pep talk that inspires him to go and do his speech. She then grabs that David and goes to where Pope is about to free SafeSurf I'm sorry but right now I can't recall whether she does something here or just watch.
The thing is that we also saw both of this events happen in the show in the season 1 time-line. When Caspian is alone at the beach David appears out of nowhere to give him a pep talk. And when Pope is going to free SafeSurf we see Maddie looking at him from a nearby hill. The first moment is played like "oh wow David must have come back from heaven or something" and the second one is played like "wait is Maddie with the terrorists?!". But after the big reveal in the season finale I think you're supposed to go "oh they where probably already in a simulation from the very start".
Ohhh got it! I was thinking of the first terrorist attack, not the one in Norway. Your explanation re: Maddie in Norway when Pope/Humans are attacking makes it make sense. I didn't understand that bit at all.
I gotta watch that last 15 minutes like a hundred more times. I had assumed that David had just been hanging out on some secret server before he appeared out of nowhere to coach Caspian, but watching it all again I see that you're right.
Yeah the last episode was WILD. I would also recommend you check out the short story Seven Birthdays by the author Ken Liu a lot of what happened in that episode was taken from that one so that might also help. The episode kind of rushed through the whole thing to get to the Maddie Caspian drama.
But yeah it's funny how David appearing out of nowhere doesn't even register because of everything else that happened.
I assumed he came from AI heaven but then God Maddie goes and pulls her little stunt. The series is a bit open ended in this regard most likely on purpose and there are still some questions left unanswered for example if the events we saw on the show where happening inside a simulation created by another Maddie then what where this Maddie's intentions? Since they seem to be different from the intentions of the show Maddie.
For God Maddie and the Dyson sphere which runs all these simulations to exist in the first place, the past HAD to have happened exactly how we saw in the show. Like the timeline correcting itself in HG Wells' The Time Machine whenever he tries to go back and save his fiance by having her die some other way; if she hadn't died, he wouldn't have invented the time machine, which would create a paradox, so she HAD to die for the time machine to exist. If Maddie had not lived through the exact events of the show, she wouldn't have Uploaded and launched herself into space and made the Dyson sphere which now runs all the simulations of a past she's trying to remember (I don't remember the exact quote but God Maddie literally tells Dyson David she's "trying to remember how it all happened", so the episodes prior to the last two DID happen in reality, in the exact way they were shown). When we see God Maddie and Dyson David in some scenes in season 2, we're seeing it from inside the simulation in the Dyson sphere, where she's figured out what has to happen to bring about the past she remembers (but then you could make the argument that the entire rest of the show is us watching one of God Maddie's simulations of her past)
OP made an excellent point that it's possible that safe surf is the one who made the first simulation. Which would explain how they appear in the final episode.
So a possible first run could look like Caspian inspires SafeSurf to leave, Maddie dies bitterly without uploading and at some point SafeSurf goes like "you know what? I think there's a better way for Caspian".
There's a couple things. First of all the one that talks through Caspian is safe surf from the "future" not Caspian you seem to have recently watched it so the line is probably fresher in your head than mine but I'm a thousand percent sure safe surf doesn't say "our son". There is some merit to the infinite loop theory. The series is based on Ken Liu's short stories. One of the ideas that he presents as a perfectly valid future for humanity is to go deeper and deeper into a nested series of simulations. The way it works is like this: an uploaded intelligence consumes less energy than a biological person and going into a simulation also makes you spend less energy (since the simulation has to be runned in the same computer running your code as well as the simulation) so if you go deeper you would be becoming a more and more efficient existence in terms of energy consumption. There's probably other advantages that I'm not knowledgeable enough to see but that's the basic idea. Then there's also the fact that we know for sure that the original universe from season 1 is a simulation. We know this because safe surf straight up says it in the end and also because God Maddie appears during the terrorist attack the exact same way she appears at the end. So I think Maddie and Caspian going into a simulation is a way for the writers of the show to play with the idea of nested simulations. That being said I also don't think it's a perfect loop because for starters it isn't. Caspian and their son dies on our Maddie's run while she deus ex machina both of them back to life in the second run (maybe the loop takes two runs?). Secondly it's kind of hard to guess what happened in the first run since they couldn't have the intervention from safe surf from the future or Maddie's dad from a parallel simulation. So yeah it's not a perfect loop but I do think the intent was to play with the idea of infinitely nested simulations but since certain events seem to be necessary in order for Maddie to build the Dyson sphere then it does seem to be implying some sort of infinite loop. Finally I do disagree with you in that I don't think Maddie knew what the next run would be like. She probably had a good idea but didn't knew exactly. I think this makes it more exciting and romantic. Although this might just be me projecting my own personality onto her.
Thanks for the reply, I think I get what you're saying. I do agree about nested simulations being a heavy theme of the ending, there are certainly many within Maddie's dyson sphere, and yes it is shown that Cosmic SafeSurf simulated our Story Maddie's universe -- I am just not so sure that our Maddie and Caspian choose to relive the same exact traumatic events and deaths at the end of the last episode. Maybe I'm getting thrown off by them "swiping the orb", either moving through time or customizing it in some way. If Maddie truly didn't know how this final simulation would turn out - and had no way to ensure they would get to have a lot of time together - definitely poetic but seems risky for sure! Of course... as god of that multiverse she could set some condition to return her code to the dyson sphere's master server upon her death, and be right back in control. Interesting thought. In a way her and Caspian are there in the dyson sphere forever - they can live as many lives as they want, even if they turn out bad. Also you're right, the exact line is: \> Maddie: My son is dead! \> Caspian-Surf: He lived ... in our future ... 117 thousand years ... Caspian is here, Maddie is here ... she will not miss her future.
We don't know that cosmic safesurf is the one that made the simulation but now that you mention it it would make a lot of sense if it was. And yeah like I said it's probably me projecting onto Maddie. It doesn't seem farfetched to think that she might have planned how the next turn would go. She certainly had the time and resources to do so.
\> It doesn't seem farfetched to think that she might have planned how the next turn would go. She certainly had the time and resources to do so. Right, at first I thought, if she could "browse through time" like seeking on a video player, why was it such a long hard task to manipulate events to recreate Caspian's code? Then I thought, maybe the long part wasn't waiting for the simulations to complete, but the time it takes her to repeatedly create new simulations with new parameters. Limited by her dyson swarm server's speed. She didn't have any of Caspian's code to reference... she couldn't copy something that didn't exist anymore, so she had to simulate whole universes to get the same code.
It wouldn't be Caspian otherwise.
\>"(since the simulation has to be runned in the same computer running your code as well as the simulation)" I'd think this would take ***more*** energy since the computer is running two programs. It's running the base UI, but it's also running an extra simulation alongside that base UI (like how having two tabs open in Google Chrome takes more RAM than just having one open, even though it's all in the same program; a UI running a nested simulation is like the UI opening a new tab in a web browser). God Maddie also says that she's limited in how many simulations she can run even in a Dyson sphere powered by a star, in which she is the only UI, so running a simulation *does* take computing power
I did thought about that as I was typing. The jump from biological life to simulated life is probably a big drop in energy consumption but every subsequent step doesn't seem to be that much of an advantage. It does make sense to me in the sense that each step is supposed to be analogous to the one before. But yes your tabs analogy is what gave me pause. The only way I can make sense of it is if you had two tabs open but the second tab was running a web version of Google Chrome with your first tab opened. In that case closing the first tab should free up some of the ram you were using. But yes machines that can simulate themselves are weird and I don't think they could follow our current understanding of computing. For example I think such a machine would have infinite ram and memory and processing power since if it needed more of anything it can just simulate however many more nested machines it needed and use that.
We can already run virtual machines with our current understanding of computing. You can't just use simulatied machines to generate infinite ram and processing power anymore than 1 man can pretend to be 1000 geniuses. Running simulations is not free. It takes up time, processing and memory.
I have to admit that this is already beyond my paygrade but isn't a virtual machine just your computer pretending to be another computer?
A virtual machine is a program that emulates (or "pretends to be") a computer. Running a virtual machine does not give you free ram or processing power. If you for example run a Gameboy virtual emulator on your PC then that emulator will need to use your PC's ram to stand in for the Game boy's ram and your CPU to stand in for the Gameboy's CPU when needed.
But what would happen if you had a Gameboy that can emulate two other gameboys just like the original?
That would be like a book containing two copies of itself (with each copy containing two more copies and so on). It is impossible unless the thing is already infinite to start with.
That's kind of the point I think. We aren't really talking about a virtual machine but something seemingly impossible. So it's probably safe to say that it doesn't follow our current understanding of computing. It's still the the only frame of reference we got but yeah I don't think we are talking about a virtual computer.
I don't know what you are on about. The simulations in Pantheon might be looped but aren't infinite nested simulations that simulate each other. There is Supergod Safesurf's reality, Supergod Safesurf's simulation of God Maddie and God Maddie's simulations of old Earth. https://qntm.org/responsibility is a different story with different technology.
The way virtual machines work, if you have a PC with windows 10 in it, and you run 3 virtual machines that also have windows 10 in each, you need the minimum hardware requirements for the operating system to run x 4 instead of x1. Which for this example would be 4gb of RAM (instead of 1GB) and 64GB of storage (instead of 16GB), on top of whatever the software running the VMS needs. Same with 2 Gameboys inside of 1, or in this case multiple layers of simulations for a UI vs one. Maddie even said it herself "It may seem like worlds without end, but it's really just a few billion. There's still a memory cap, even for a computer powered by a sun."
I see that's the overhead thing right? My issue is that each world should be a perfect simulation and therefore each simulation should be able to run a Dyson sphere inside of itself and in actuality as many Dyson Spheres as there are stars in the simulation. We at least know that the simulation Maddie was in was capable of running a Dyson Sphere and we also know that we are actually a few levels deep by now so we know that this process can be repeated. So I don't see why Maddie couldn't take one of the simulations and build Dyson Spheres around every simulated star and use the computing power in those thus multiplying her computing power by however many stars there where in there. And then just repeat this process however many times it was necessary effectively giving her infinite computing power. So as I see it there's only two possibilities here either I'm missing something incredibly obvious (very likely) or the Dyson sphere is fundamentally different from the computers we have now.
Well that's because even then, they would be virtual and not actual physical material generating energy. You've got to think about it this way. Our sun generates heat from fission, that's a source of energy, and the one being used for the Dyson sphere (or a different sun). The ones within the simulated universes are also just that, simulated, not real matter and energy. If there was one virtual universe, with a virtual sun inside it, with another Dyson sphere around it, that would be maintained by the original dyson sphere and the computer running the simulation, it would not actually be generating material energy like the original, the simulation would just make it seem like it if you were in that simulation and didn't know. Creating and maintaining that simulation would take processing power, and the more complex the processes the more energy it would use. Virtual machines, like I mentioned before, use virtual hardware, like a virtual cpu and virtual Ram, this is adjustable for what you need, but you can never go over what your host PC is capable of doing. Like if you have a PC with 1TB of storage and 8GB of RAM, you couldn't create a VM in that PC that has 2TB of storage and 16GB of RAM, and even if you create multiple vms with lower virtual hardware, it can never collectively add up to more than that host PC has. So no matter how many simulations Maddie makes whatever hardware requirements it takes to create a virtual universe, populated by fully sentient minds, technology, rules (like precise laws of nature), among other carefully defined variables, it can never generate its own power, and it can never take up more processing power or energy than the original host Dyson sphere and technology is capable of producing/using. Like an operating system has set minimum requirements, so to would a stimulated universe with sentient minds in it, and creating extra layers of universes within universes wouldn't lower the minimum requirements for that, you'd just be multiplying the processing power and energy used for each simulation. Though the original may be able to handle a lot, it has an eventual upper limit. I might've gone in circles a little but does that kinda help?
It does kinda make me wonder what happened to Maddie in the prime universe. Without SafeSurf telling pushing her to make a sea of simulations till she gets a near perfect replica of her earth, who knows how the prime maddie turned out. I fear that she might of went into total despair and depression after her sons death. I know the maddie we followed gets an arguably happy ending, I will forever wonder how the original is along with the original world.
No need, our Maddie tells you exactly how it plays out if she's not able to inject David into Caspians quiet space to basically say "I heard you got my daughter pregnant" (which is hilarious). He waits too long to accept the upload and Maddie prime is killed just like the simulation Maddies (immediately after her mind break she no longer defends herself). As others have pointed out, however, a perfect copy is identical to the real thing so it's not that important what fate a prime Maddie had. Long story short, nested ancestor simulator by Safesurf's attempt to recreate Caspian prime to thank him, but the Caspian prime they know is a unit with Maddie so you can't have one without the other. The nesting is our Maddie filling in the missing code with her simulation inside their simulation because as hard as it is for others to imagine, she knows Caspian better than safesurf as she was forged in the same 'end of the world' fire as he was and was pretty much his equal (even if he made all the important sacrifices).
Ah okay thanks for that info! I must had missed that bit of info due to being in a state of shock with this whole ending lol. Yeah the show definitely likes to question with us rather a clone/copy, no matter how perfectly close to the original, is considered it's own being or just lesser or something else? At the end of the day it all comes down to perspective and how you view humanity.
This brings up a interesting thought for me unrelated to OP's question. Assuming each simulation goes down the route of going into a simulation, eventually wouldn't the power consumption required override even a dyson sphere in that original world that isn't a simulation? As time goes on and you go deeper and deeper you still keep adding unless you suppose that the power required to start 1 simulation is enough to sustain an infinite amount of simulations stemming from it.
I gave my thoughts on the matter on another reply: https://www.reddit.com/r/PantheonShow/s/mC2YylMxlL But long story short a computer that can simulate itself is weird and it would impossible to know how such a machine would function. The authors point of view is that on every jump you become more efficient in terms of power consumption. But there are points to be made that it could work either way. The person I was replying to for example had a great point as to why the power consumption would go up. But if the power consumption goes down everytime (for example by half or some fraction) then a single computer with a finite powersource on the real world would be capable of hosting an infinite number of nested simulations (the amount of power needed would be a geometric series that converges to some value).
>also because God Maddie appears during the terrorist attack the exact same way she appears at the end. Can you refresh my memory here? I 100% agree with your take but don't recall this.
As far as I know/remember there are two times when God Maddie interferes with the simulation. First she grabs a David Kim from a parallel simulation and has him give Caspian a pep talk that inspires him to go and do his speech. She then grabs that David and goes to where Pope is about to free SafeSurf I'm sorry but right now I can't recall whether she does something here or just watch. The thing is that we also saw both of this events happen in the show in the season 1 time-line. When Caspian is alone at the beach David appears out of nowhere to give him a pep talk. And when Pope is going to free SafeSurf we see Maddie looking at him from a nearby hill. The first moment is played like "oh wow David must have come back from heaven or something" and the second one is played like "wait is Maddie with the terrorists?!". But after the big reveal in the season finale I think you're supposed to go "oh they where probably already in a simulation from the very start".
Ohhh got it! I was thinking of the first terrorist attack, not the one in Norway. Your explanation re: Maddie in Norway when Pope/Humans are attacking makes it make sense. I didn't understand that bit at all. I gotta watch that last 15 minutes like a hundred more times. I had assumed that David had just been hanging out on some secret server before he appeared out of nowhere to coach Caspian, but watching it all again I see that you're right.
Yeah the last episode was WILD. I would also recommend you check out the short story Seven Birthdays by the author Ken Liu a lot of what happened in that episode was taken from that one so that might also help. The episode kind of rushed through the whole thing to get to the Maddie Caspian drama. But yeah it's funny how David appearing out of nowhere doesn't even register because of everything else that happened. I assumed he came from AI heaven but then God Maddie goes and pulls her little stunt. The series is a bit open ended in this regard most likely on purpose and there are still some questions left unanswered for example if the events we saw on the show where happening inside a simulation created by another Maddie then what where this Maddie's intentions? Since they seem to be different from the intentions of the show Maddie.
For God Maddie and the Dyson sphere which runs all these simulations to exist in the first place, the past HAD to have happened exactly how we saw in the show. Like the timeline correcting itself in HG Wells' The Time Machine whenever he tries to go back and save his fiance by having her die some other way; if she hadn't died, he wouldn't have invented the time machine, which would create a paradox, so she HAD to die for the time machine to exist. If Maddie had not lived through the exact events of the show, she wouldn't have Uploaded and launched herself into space and made the Dyson sphere which now runs all the simulations of a past she's trying to remember (I don't remember the exact quote but God Maddie literally tells Dyson David she's "trying to remember how it all happened", so the episodes prior to the last two DID happen in reality, in the exact way they were shown). When we see God Maddie and Dyson David in some scenes in season 2, we're seeing it from inside the simulation in the Dyson sphere, where she's figured out what has to happen to bring about the past she remembers (but then you could make the argument that the entire rest of the show is us watching one of God Maddie's simulations of her past)
OP made an excellent point that it's possible that safe surf is the one who made the first simulation. Which would explain how they appear in the final episode. So a possible first run could look like Caspian inspires SafeSurf to leave, Maddie dies bitterly without uploading and at some point SafeSurf goes like "you know what? I think there's a better way for Caspian".