SCP-055 is an "antimeme" – it erases itself from memory when observed

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-055

by rcpt • 1 year ago

101 90 1 year ago

scp-wiki.wikidot.com

tuatoru2• 1 year ago

All of these facts are periodically rediscovered, usually by chance readers of this file, causing a great deal of alarm. This state of concern lasts minutes at most, before the matter is simply forgotten about.

So, not much different to most activist causes, then.

tuatoru2• 1 year ago

Lots of downvotes ... clearly some people feel seen.

nicbou• 1 year ago

The book "There is no antimemetics division" is about the team fighting an SCP antimeme. It's a really fun read and a bit of a mindf*. I strongly recommend it.

Aaargh203182• 1 year ago

Unfortunately it's no longer for sale. IIRC the writer has gotten a book deal for it, and the existing self-published version was removed from sale while the new version is being edited. According to Amazon the new revision is up for pre-order and will be available on November 11th.

idbehold• 1 year ago

You can still read it for free according to the author: https://qntm.org/scp

haiku20773• 1 year ago

The original version is still within the SCP website.

jasonephraim• 1 year ago

This sounds like an action by the antimemetics division IRL

tetris112• 1 year ago

Eh it starts off good, but then it delves too much into the love story between some scientist and her partner and then goes on a wild tangent related to forgotten members still existing as ghosts in the system.

It makes the same mistake Steven King did when writing the Dark Tower; it over-explains the mystery and intrigue that made the initial story (The Gunslinger) so compelling, and leans too much on its characters to carry the story.

I say the same thing about the SCP antimeme, as I say to Dark Tower readers: Read the first story, skip the rest or treat them as unrelated fanfics.

iyn• 1 year ago

I'd say (agree?) that the 2nd half (roughly) of the book is much worse but IMO still worth reading the whole thing. The concept is really novel (at least it was for me) and so engaging with it can still be fun.

haiku20773• 1 year ago

The new version is removing the SCP universe integration, so I assume the subplot with the ghosts (a crossover with another SCP story during serialization) will be changed.

astrange3• 1 year ago

I thought the ghosts were the strongest part because it showed the story had the confidence to continue introducing new crazier ideas, and that one was particularly crazy but still fit into the SCP world. Sort of like why people liked Three Body Problem.

The weakest parts are when it focuses too much on the antagonist, where it tends to forget the actual definition of 3125 and just makes it something/someone that causes the world to end in random wacky crazy ways.

When it gets post-apocalyptic the writing also tends to forget how travel times and geography work. (Pretty common problem with old SF, where you'd go to a "planet" and there are like, 3 people who live on the planet. In this case the remaining living protagonist somehow manages to walk between very far places on his own without needing food and such.)

Sharlin3• 1 year ago

For those who didn't notice or didn't scroll far enough, there's a link at the bottom of SCP-55 that leads to several pages worth of extra fiction by qntm, constituting a prelude or introduction of sorts to "There is no antimemetics division".

dunefox• 1 year ago

It drops off quite quickly after the first half. I almost didn't finish it.

gitpusher2• 1 year ago

That's because the book itself is an anti-meme

lr4444lr• 1 year ago

Agreed. It got lost in plot holes and its own abstractions after a certain point, but I did overall enjoy it conceptually.

pantalaimon3• 1 year ago

IMHO it reads a bit too much like a Rick & Morty episode, the characters lack depth and it keeps pushing ever extremer events without taking the time to establish a baseline of normalcy.

The 'anti-memetic antagonist' idea is interesting, but that seems to be the only idea that's in there - the constant amnesia get's old quick and it tears reality apart way too quickly to still care.

alt187• 1 year ago

A really solid concept and a strong start, that leaves you wondering "How can you defeat an antagonist that kills you when you learn about it?".

Sadly, the answer is that you can't.

Qntm's other works are criminally underrated.

par19702• 1 year ago

Sadly, the answer is that you can't.

Suppose there are two distinct entities, each such that if it is learned about, then it kills the learner, call them Geigh and Ritaar. What happens when Geigh learns about Ritaar?

Cheyana• 1 year ago

Reminds me of this… https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Somebody_Else%27s_Proble...

dylan604• 1 year ago

An SEP is one of my favorite takeaways from the series. It's one of those that's not as well known like the babel fish or a towel, but as a teen it just really stuck with me when I first read it.

GuinansEyebrows• 1 year ago

same! i think about SEP fields more than almost anything else from the trilogy. of all the clever human observations Adams made, i think that one might be one of the most damning, relevant and enduring.

xg152• 1 year ago

This reminds me of the strange way that memories of dreams behave:

Sometimes you still remember bits from a dream right after you've woken up - but this memory somehow vanishes rapidly and is gone a few minutes later. This despite you already being awake at that time and consciously having a memory of having had that memory. Only the memory itself is gone.

(Unless one had training and could capture the memory, e.g. in a dream journal)

Makes me wonder if this hints at some interesting neurological processes: It seems there is either some process in the brain that actively erases dream memories, or that dream memories are somehow stored differently in the brain than regular memories and only appear as the same thing to the consciousness. (Sort of like some part of the directory tree being mounted on a different file system)

wpm• 1 year ago

I experience that but then I also experience the somewhat opposite effect, where randomly, spurred on by almost nothing at all, a memory of a dream that I knew that I had but had forgotten about, bubbles up out of nowhere. It's like some pathway to that other filesystem exists, but only gets activated due to some random glitch that is then fixed immediately, as I still won't be able to recall the dreams later on, like something is forcing it to get cleared from my normal long-term memory. Not that I can't remember dreams, I can if they are vivid enough, journals help too, but most of them get locked away in the "you'll watch the memory of this dream evaporate before your very eyes in the morning, and then years later while you're washing dishes you'll remember it vividly" box.

praptak• 1 year ago

I remember having woken up from a dream where I recognised that a) I'm dreaming and b) It's the same dream I had years ago (a sequel maybe). I can't keep dreaming while being aware that I'm dreaming (supposedly you can train this skill but I haven't) so I woke up.

Obviously I don't remember what the actual dream was, just that I suddenly realised it's a dream from the distant past.

Sharlin3• 1 year ago

It's difficult to know whether these memories are real, though. I sometimes have déjà vu-like sensations of having experienced something before, but in a dream rather than in a real life (probably something similar happens to people who think they've had a precognitive dream). The feeling quickly subsides like in a regular déjà vu.

josh-sematic• 1 year ago

Deleted from your file system but the bits weren’t zeroed on disk. Occasionally your brain reads a random sector.

pixl97• 1 year ago

Most of the time you have these dreams and are not woken up, so you never remember they exist at all...

Occasionally my brain likes screwing with me and in the dream it goes "You're remembering this dream, you're about to be woken up" and then a loud noise or something external will happen an wake me up and leave me with a great sense of unease.

Now, I don't believe my mind can actually predict the future. I can only assume my brain is doing this crap quite often and just happens to get it right every once in a while. Still a creepy feeling.

bee_rider2• 1 year ago

I’ve heard the theory somewhere that all dreams are more-or-less invented by the brain at the moment you wake up. So, your brain could just invent a narrative that ends with the loud thud that wakes you up.

Not sure if this is actually the truth, or just some random speculation, so heap of salt and all that. Also, I have no idea how to test it.

Sometimes I my significant other sleep-talks, and sometimes it is clear enough that I’ll answer (misunderstanding it to be regular talk). It is quite rare (although not unheard of) for them to remember what lead to a sleep conversation, which leads me to believe that whatever their brain is doing at night, it doesn’t have much to do with the dreams they remember. But that’s pretty dang anecdotal!

Edit: the sleep-talks they do remember could just explained by waking up in the middle of the night to find the memory of the sleep-talk in their short term memory, and then the brain retroactively spins up a dream to fit it, of course.

Sesse__• 1 year ago

It seems there is either some process in the brain that actively erases dream memories, or that dream memories are somehow stored differently in the brain than regular memories and only appear as the same thing to the consciousness.

There's a fairly simple model that is consistent with this: Nothing is committed to long-term memory while you are dreaming, so when you wake up from a dream, everything is in short-term memory only. Unless you make an active effort to commit it (which you're used to happening automatically), like writing it down or otherwise thinking hard about it, it will simply vanish once you use your short-term memory for something else, like moving around.

munificent• 1 year ago

I had a similar but more intense experience. Last week, I had a minor medical procedure and they used twilight sedation with Versed (Midazolam). It causes anterograde amnesia.

With previous anaesthesia experiences I've had, it's like a slice of time is cut out. I'm going into the procedure room and the next thing I know I'm in recovery.

This time was different. When they wheeled me out to my wife, I was completely lucid (confirmed by her). I told my wife I remembered essentially the whole procedure. I can remember telling her this. But later, throughout the rest of the day, the memories faded out a piece at a time.

Now, though I just barely remember telling my wife that I remembered the procedure, I don't remember the procedure at all. In fact, I can't even remember where I was when I was talking to my wife. I don't remember the recovery room or even leaving the hospital at all. I have a very faint memory of being in the car. Even my memories of the rest of the afternoon are vague.

It is so weird. It's like the tape slowly degraded over time. I wonder if this is what dementia feels like.

anuramat• 1 year ago

stored differently

maybe it could be the extreme case of state-dependent memory?

<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-dependent_memory>

pndy• 1 year ago

Sounds like something influenced by Doctor Who's the Silence

Night_Thastus• 1 year ago

I believe antimimetic SCPs predate that episode, but I could be wrong.

zamadatix• 1 year ago

Seems so, this article started pretty strong in 2008, The Silence didn't appear until 2011 (2010 by reference alone).

awaymazdacx5• 1 year ago

memetics were dawkins pre-biologic introductions from the selfish gene

JesseTG• 1 year ago

The link is a 404...

xg152• 1 year ago

...and HN has forgotten that this thread was already posted a week ago, due to the second-chance logic. That's fitting, somehow.

nhinck2• 1 year ago

Wouldn't an antimeme be something that was non-communicable?

It'd be the idea of something being perfectly memorable but when you attempt to describe it or begin in anyway to record or communicate about it your mind just goes blank, only for the memory to re-emerge some time later like a shower nightmare. Forever in your head but unable to pass onto anyone else.

TheAceOfHearts• 1 year ago

The closest thing I've seen to an antimeme in real life is the explanation of a monad. Many people seem to lose the ability to explain what it is as soon as they understand it. Maybe tensors are a close second.

pantalaimon3• 1 year ago

FloatHeadPhysics has a pretty good explanation as to what tensors are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2FP-T6S1x0

ashleyn• 1 year ago

The best I can do for monads is "it's like Option and Result in rust"

southernplaces72• 1 year ago

But if you're able to tell me that a thing called a monad exists, then it's nothing like a pure antimeme, which to my mind would be self-removing from all perception in all normal contexts.

astrange3• 1 year ago

The word for this is "esoteric". An "esoteric ritual" is one that's easily kept secret because it's hard to learn even if you try to explain it.

Like, you can't learn to drive a car or play a violin by reading a book about it.

jjmarr2• 1 year ago

An antimeme is something you forget. You can communicate about it fine.

There are SCPs that affect communication:

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/taboo

southernplaces72• 1 year ago

Yes but if it were to be a pure antimeme, wouldn't being able to communicate about it be irrelevant, since it would remove itself from both your memory and that of whoever described it to you, as if nobody had ever described anything? I at least see it this way, and believe that if we were ever confronted with such a thing in the real world, all references to it would be imperceptible in any normal non-momentary context.

rcxdude2• 1 year ago

The basic idea of an antimeme is an idea that doesn't want to be spread or perpetuated. A secret is an example of an antimeme that actually exists, so I would say communication of the idea would also in principle be resisted. But creepy, wild sci-fi needs to go with 'what if that, but even more so?'. (though, I would also say a pure antimeme would be completely self-extinguishing. Actually the way these sci-fi antimemes work is closer to how e.g. real-life secret societies operate(d). There's a secret, and it is perpetuated within the group, but it's carefully guarded from widespread knowledge. The sci-fi idea is that the knowledge itself basically does this, somehow, to any entity not in the in-group, where the in-group is frequently non-human, maybe non-organic/non-sentient)

aftbit2• 1 year ago

Some real life anti-memes include embarrassing stories and complex passwords.

kg• 1 year ago

Some more assorted interesting stuff by one of the authors of SCP-055:

https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

https://qntm.org/structure

https://qntm.org/hatetris

qntm is a fantastic writer & programmer I had the pleasure of working with on a project in the past. If you're looking for stuff to read that gets your neurons firing, there's a lot to find on their website.

mattigames• 1 year ago

Slightly related: Given the lack of resources to prevent art from being absorbed by LLMs I suspect we will soon see art galleries where you cannot take photos or record anything, art strictly made to be viewed by humans only.

sneak• 1 year ago

Art that can’t be disseminated over the internet for consumption and discussion will be destined for obscurity.

haiku20773• 1 year ago

This already exists: https://youtu.be/6oqO3FXSecM

zuminator• 1 year ago

For those like me who aren't familiar with this topic, SCP stands for Special Containment Procedures. The SCP Foundation is an online fictional shared universe hosted on https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com with various works of genre fiction in the urban paranormal/sf area, accompanied by various fake documents and bureaucratic procedures involving weird anomalies, artifacts, and creatures. SCP-055 is one such anomaly. More info on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCP_Foundation

ppqqrr• 1 year ago

small correction, SCP stands for “Secure, Contain, Protect”: the foundation’s 3 priorities (in that order) for anomalous objects and locations.

Sharlin3• 1 year ago

Both are correct. The former is what the containment instructions are called, the latter is what the foundation's name stands for (perhaps derived backronymically?)

aftbit2• 1 year ago

Welcome to the wacky and wonderful world of SCP. There are some amazing tales hidden in these pages and in the narratives that sometimes accompany them. If you've ever enjoyed wasting an evening clicking around links on TV Tropes, you'll love SCP.

cheald• 1 year ago

If you like the genre, the 2019 game "Control" treads in SCP space. It's great fun.

Dilettante_• 1 year ago

Vaguely related concept, and my personal all-time favourite: "SCP-____-J" https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-j

gitpusher2• 1 year ago

This is the 452nd time this has been posted on HackerNews. If you look for the older posts, you won't find them – and their authors have been erased from this dimension.

par19702• 1 year ago

How did you make a blank comment? I thought hn prevented it

foxyv2• 1 year ago

How did you reply to a comment that doesn't exist? Is HN glitching?

waffletower• 1 year ago

While the acronym 'SCP' is in the spirit of the imagined organization and its tools of obfuscation, its presence dilutes and homogenizes the prose significantly, much like small beer. The mantra "secure. contain. protect." is much more effective when revealed and repeated instead.

Salgat• 1 year ago

I'm curious how distantly related the information has to be before it is eligible for this effect. For example, if someone sees a WARNING sign on the container (with no specific information about the SCP on the warning itself), do people remember that warning sign?

x______________• 1 year ago

I'm sorry but maybe it's me just waking up after a rough day, but what unworldly rabbit hole did I just read and might continue to read? (serious question)

...a story about Epstein's prison cell? (/s again sorry)

I'm going to wake up now, thanks in advance folks!

ayaros• 1 year ago

Qntm is a great author and deserves the support of everyone here. The antimemetics division series is the primary reason I kept following the SCP wiki for years after it had long since peaked my interest (because I was waiting for him to finish 55555, which took forever). Fine Structure is also wonderful, as was Ed.

antifa• 1 year ago

I forgot what SCP-055 was, but I do remember it was the one that really hooked me into the SCP world.

romperstomper• 1 year ago

can robots with AI investigate this thing and draw any conclusions on its nature? :)

SCP-055 is an "antimeme" – it erases itself from memory when observed

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