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Why does he have to keep jumping into shot from below the camera? I couldn't concentrate or really take him seriously.
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Feb 14, 2015 11:21
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Male Man posted:I've made it halfway through that video, and I'm wondering if this guy knows that other cadences... exist. If you look at more of his videos you will learn that it is the only way he does.. it
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Feb 14, 2015 15:52
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Male Man posted:I've made it halfway through that video, and I'm wondering if this guy knows that other cadences... exist. I also like to think he keeps falling over, so that's why he pops back up after cuts constantly.
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Feb 15, 2015 16:16
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Discussion was a bit light over the weekend, and understandably so. I'll try to push on to the next temple fairly soon as we're in need of a change in scenery. Regarding the points from last time, I did look up some experiments based on opting-out, and while I was hoping for a neat anecdote instead they all have twenty times as many variables as I was expecting and it's all quite scientific, go figure. As for this episode, might be fun to poke holes in or expand my tower theory. And are you for or against living for eternity? Answers on a QR code please.*  Part 8 (Floor 1): Arbitrary confinement TRUTH.html; athena_chapters.txt; human_reproduction.txt    athena9.txt; singularity_discussion104.html; AMA.html    *don't do this, I've got enough to decipher. CannibalK9 fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Feb 20, 2015 |
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Feb 16, 2015 18:45
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That is... not how you're supposed to do Tower 1. Kudos on finding the complicated way. Proper solution: have both connectors point at the door, on the left and right sides of the window. When the blocker blocks one beam it won't be blocking the other, so the connection doesn't get interrupted. Well, at least that's the way *I* did it, and it seems more straightforward.
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Feb 16, 2015 19:17
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CannibalK9 posted:And are you for or against living for eternity? I agree with Bruceski in that your solution was way more complex than needed. Which is good, because I didn't thought this game had alternate solutions, and you seem bent on breaking it. That will be fun.
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Feb 16, 2015 19:55
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Yes, your solution was a little bit convoluted. But I like that such a solution is possible. About eternal life: I think I wouldn't really want to live excessively long. The brain can only store so much and keeps track of time in a certain way. If you are six, a year feels way longer than if you are 106. That's partly because it is a way bigger percentage of your live up to that point. I guess if you where to live a thousand years, you would reach a point where every day feels unimportant and the only time spans, which actually contain anything worth remebering, are years. You just become jaded. Our bodies are intended to last vaguely a century, because our minds couldn't work otherwise. It's sort of similiar to the idea of human shrinking. If you would shrink your whole body to a percentece of our height, it would simply not work anymore. Due to the square-cube-law our boddies are build especially so that they work under the usual parameters. For example you would be constanly starving, because your stomach could barely contain any calories. I figure the brain works the same way on other levels. We just have brains with short shelf lives. The topic becomes a bit different, if we are talking about a macroscopic developing process. You said that your loved ones wouldn't pass away. In other words, the whole society would need to be long lasting. If that was the case, the whole civilisation would probably be quite different. For once, what would this imply for the demographics? Could you get children untill 500, or would you still get infertile around the same age as now? Would the pregancies last longer or would they stay constant? In either case, that world has to have a totally different view on the concept of parenthood. "Living longer" is just a really vague concept. And all I can think about it is, that I, along with my brain, wouldn't fit into such a world. I am quite contend to be a human in the sense society has established. Dead is an important (perhaps the most important) part of life.
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Feb 16, 2015 20:32
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Bruceski posted:That is... not how you're supposed to do Tower 1. Kudos on finding the complicated way. That's the intended solution, definitely. They might have considered Cannibal's method, but I'm not sure. I didn't figure this puzzle out until I solved a different one really late in the game. Like really late. I didn't make it past level one until I only had 3 sigils left to get. As for the auxiliary staircase, I have no clue what that refers to, despite having completed the game 100%. "He tried that a long time ago. I don't think he'll try again." Holy poo poo, I never saw this. Is this why the archive is corrupted, maybe? ViggyNash fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 16, 2015 20:45
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I would want to live long enough to go through all the TV shows, movies, books, video games (and LPs) and everything else I want to experience. And considering how much material there is right now and will be made, it's going to take a while.
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Feb 16, 2015 20:47
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I think the proper question to ask when being offered immortality is what Camus would call the only serious philosophical question: suicide. Would this particular method of immortality allow me to end my own life if the strain of living became too great?
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Feb 16, 2015 21:20
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 At the very least I'm thinking really long term here. Stars will burn out, civilizations will end or change into something you can't recognize or connect with, and at some point you're going to want out. A hundred years and a billion are same thing when compared to infinity. So what happens if you lock yourself out of floor 0 and jump off from floor 1 or 2? I wouldn't care how stupid I'd feel afterward, it's something I'd have to try.
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Feb 16, 2015 21:46
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Magnetic North posted:I think the proper question to ask when being offered immortality is what Camus would call the only serious philosophical question: suicide. Would this particular method of immortality allow me to end my own life if the strain of living became too great? I for one would prefer immortality that I could eventually end if I wanted to. I freely admit that right now, at this moment in time, I would rather live for 10000+ years rather than the current human lifespans we have right now. That being said, I have seen the negative sides of immortality explored in a number of different works and philosophical discussions, and I'm certain that if I lived to 1000, I would have a very different viewpoint on being immortal than I would now and I would like the option to be able to end my life if the psychological strain became too great. And of course, there are the inevitable caveats that come with discussing immortality. Would it be bodily immortality, where the body is held in a "stasis" of sorts, never allowed to age? Or would it only preserve the mind, transferring it between bodies as the previous one dies? Furthermore, assuming humans reach the point where they are able to preserve the mind even as the body dies, how would we define "death" at that point? It could be as simple as destruction of the mind, or it could even be the equivalent of reformatting a computer and starting from scratch with no memories of the life before. But anyway, the point of this rambling is that while we throw around the word "immortality" like it's a simplistic concept, there's a lot more questions that get brought up when discussing it than one might think. If that makes any sense.
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Feb 17, 2015 00:19
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Magnetic North posted:I think the proper question to ask when being offered immortality is what Camus would call the only serious philosophical question: suicide. Would this particular method of immortality allow me to end my own life if the strain of living became too great? Agreed. I would not agree to immortality without that option to end it.
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Feb 17, 2015 01:00
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What a ridiculous notion, "Immortality." What does it even mean? The me of yesterday has passed into a me of now and is, in a weird way, dead. I heard that every 5 years or so, every atom in your body is replaced with another atom of equal or lesser value for free! Does that mean that I kind of died and was replaced very slowly? Am I the flame of a candle, shifting from moment to moment, made basically of the same stuff and someone can point to me and say "That is one bit of fire at the end of wax." but I'm not! Not really. I'm something new from what I was two seconds ago. I'm a wave of particles shifting over time, sucking the wick underneath me and turning it into a new, fresh fire. So... Does immortality mean I'll just stop changing? The candle freezes in place? I don't want that. I like growing and replacing my old ideas with newer novel ones, correct or not. I genuinely love the new problems I face. The challenge of my knee failing me. Reading the Republic for the first time. Meeting new enemies. Finding a new strategy for beating myself at procrastination. Not to mention the awesome stuff kids these days come up with! Dub-step! I never saw it coming! And I would get none of that if I just stopped shifting. If, however, immortality means there's always going to be another candle for me to jump to, metaphorically speaking, then sure. Let the flame of life burn on until the stars in the sky flicker out. I would love to watch time unwind and ride the wave of new information while forgetting the old. Replacing old movies on my limited hard drive with new ones. I may even stop noticing that they're all just remixes of the movies from 10 years ago. But only if I'm aloud to change and die with the universe.
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Feb 17, 2015 05:36
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GuavaMoment posted:So what happens if you lock yourself out of floor 0 and jump off from floor 1 or 2? I wouldn't care how stupid I'd feel afterward, it's something I'd have to try. There's a call button on the elevator.
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Feb 17, 2015 05:56
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Grimwit posted:What a ridiculous notion, "Immortality." What does it even mean? Rather long winded way of saying you'd love being immortal. My problem with indefinite immortality is that, most likely, I'd be living on for the gimmick of watching the times change. How long would that remain interesting beyond the span of a lifetime? 100 years? 500? 50? When will life turn into an endless hell of boredom as, like you said, the cultural patterns repeat and force you to live through the same media with a new coat of paint? Without a solid goal, and the will to pursue it indefinitely, there will come a time when I decide there's no reason to keep going on. If I no longer have the option to die... well, I'd be metaphysically hosed, indefinitely.
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Feb 17, 2015 07:26
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ViggyNash posted:My problem with indefinite immortality is that, most likely, I'd be living on for the gimmick of watching the times change. How long would that remain interesting beyond the span of a lifetime? 100 years? 500? 50? When will life turn into an endless hell of boredom as, like you said, the cultural patterns repeat and force you to live through the same media with a new coat of paint? Without a solid goal, and the will to pursue it indefinitely, there will come a time when I decide there's no reason to keep going on. If I no longer have the option to die... well, I'd be metaphysically hosed, indefinitely. Why would you only watch? You suddenly have all of eternity to build anything, do anything. You could actually go to other solar systems and study them, you could watch new species evolve, answer every question you ever had, the universe would keep you occupied for eons. Hell, figure out a way to beat heat death, you have forever.
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Feb 17, 2015 08:11
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Bruceski posted:There's a call button on the elevator. Yes, but if you lock floor 1 and 2 you can't get back up to a terminal. I actually´don't know what happens in that case.
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Feb 17, 2015 09:13
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Air is lava! posted:Yes, but if you lock floor 1 and 2 you can't get back up to a terminal. I actually´don't know what happens in that case. I went back and checked, the outcome was underwhelming, I'll show it off next time I'm up. I'm fairly fond of the notion that by doing something blatantly ludicrous you could permanently close a section of the game (in-game back-ups aside). Like those few Sierra adventure game scenarios which gave prior warning before walling up your progress.
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Feb 17, 2015 10:16
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Why express my own opinion when I can let a videogame do it for me? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCB9yE9Hcc
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Feb 17, 2015 11:42
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MagicBoots posted:Why would you only watch? You suddenly have all of eternity to build anything, do anything. You could actually go to other solar systems and study them, you could watch new species evolve, answer every question you ever had, the universe would keep you occupied for eons. Hell, figure out a way to beat heat death, you have forever. Could you? It's not like you suddenly became the hero of the universe, with no boundaries or limits. You are still bound by the rules of society and the limits of the physical world, but now you're stuck within those boundaries indefinitely. Even if you had all the time in the world to accomplish your dreams, what then? You beat the game, but there's no option to exit. You're stuck playing a constantly morphing end game indefinitely, no matter how boring or torturous it could be. All the good memories you cherish will eventually disappear, as the physical limits of your brain are reached and it begins to forget your earliest years. It makes me wonder what it would be like to not know your childhood, let alone the first century of your life. The beginning of your story will have disappeared in a life where the end may never come; what, then, is your life story? Just a series of events - some good, some bad - somewhere on an indefinite time line. There's no sense of where you came or where you're going. Without any sense of an end, I don't think there's any meaning to life. It's just a self-indulgent desire the experience the future while forgetting the past.
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Feb 17, 2015 21:45
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ViggyNash posted:It makes me wonder what it would be like to not know your childhood, let alone the first century of your life. What, like you remember most of your childhood. Or better yet, like you remember your first year. Or even your first three years. I would take eternal life in a heartbeat. If you think there is ever an 'end' to the things you could do with infinite time, you're not really grasping the concept properly. You'll get jaded for a few millennia occasionally, sure. You'll get over it, like humans tend to do. You'll get bored, sure. Until you find one more thing to do, just like you're doing right now. The years will go past like days are going past now, sure. As if years aren't going past now like weeks used to when you were a kid. You can be pessimistic and say 'humans aren't meant to live forever', and you'd be completely right. They were never meant to, but what they were meant to was to adapt. So you could be cautiously optimistic and say we'd adapt fairly quickly, and while some people might just lose it and basically go catatonic for eternity at some stage (much like some people take their own lives even now), the majority will go on, even if only stuck in some sort of routine for millennia at a time. e: Also, the majority of people have no sense of an end. The only 'end' ever in their minds is their next short term goal. People who live under the constant thoughts of their own mortality don't tend to live very happy lives, from what I've heard.
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Feb 17, 2015 22:11
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Actual eternity is the scariest concept imaginable. If your existence lasts a literal infinite amount of time, after a finite time you'd literally have done everything that's possible, seen everything that's possible, and then you would be utterly, completely, unimaginably bored forever and ever. Like a Groundhog Day, except it never ever ends. That's why the Christian concept of heaven scares the gently caress out of me. I think people thought this up before they were actually able to understand what 'eternity' means. If you ask modern Christians about it, some will actually say that in heaven, God somehow changes the way your mind works so you feel happy forever. That sounds like brainwashing to me. It's also scary, and it's a false solution. Like getting your 'happiness' from a drug addiction. Brrr. But if we speak about things feasible in our physical universe, my opinion changes dramatically. I expect death to be the complete end of my existence. And that's not something I want to happen right now. Or in 100 years. I'd love to see what the future is like. I do agree with other posters that having the ability to end your life is important, to prevent the eternity-like scenario. I've been thinking about how we could make this happen. First of all, someone said that the reason we don't get much older than a century is because our brains can't handle it. This is not true for several reasons. First of all, by simply counting the number of synapses, it is believed that we could store at least 200 years of memories. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that the brain ages just like other body parts, and that is why it becomes less and less efficient. If we could somehow stop that ageing process, we'd at least win some time. We've already come far doing that, going from an average age of death of ~35 in medieval times to ~80 in first world countries now. Medical science came a long way. But each new challenge is harder than the one that came before. Currently we're noticing the true 'reason' of ageing, the second reason why 'our brains can't handle it' isn't the full story: there's no evolutionary advantage at all to putting energy in keeping a person healthy, after they created offspring and helped them grow up. Evolution works as long as it has to to continue the species, but has zero selection pressure afterwards. That's why our bodies' own repair mechanisms are far from perfect. And if they fail they can cause a disease that's mostly seen in older people: cancer. So our next challenge is not curing a disease caused by invading germs, but to improve our bodies' cellular repair mechanisms. That is very, very complicated but also theoretically quite possible. I expect many more improvements to happen in the next century or so. The big challenge after that would indeed be about circumventing the brain's actual limit, wherever it might lie. This is a hard one to solve. A logical solution would be to augment our brain with new parts, either completely artificial, or organically grown. Or to move all our memories into an artificial brain and live like that. One practical problem is that each brain is different and it would be hard to make a compatible artificial brain. I recently read an interesting short story about these matters, namely "Learning to be me" by Greg Egan. It features a device that mimics your brain from the moment you're born, learning about you every second of your life, until it can take over. You can find the story online but it might be copyrighted so I won't link to it. In any case, I wouldn't mind "living in a computer", as long as I still feel like me. And I've been changing every second of my life so far, I still feel like myself, so that shouldn't be too hard. It would even be quite interesting. A robot body to walk around in the real world, but also unlimited access to any virtual world you can imagine, each one feeling as real as the original one. There is a reason I call these issues 'challenges'. I consider death to be an unfortunate side effect of the way we came into existence, and as long as there's energy to spare, as long as there are stars, we can theoretically reverse entropy on a local scale and, as a consequence, reverse ageing. I believe it's something worth striving for. Postponing death - or making it completely optional, should be one of humanity's major goals. I have found this opinion to be a very controversial one. People believe death to be 'natural' and 'it is supposed to be this way'. I truly don't see why. Most people don't think awful diseases are 'supposed to be this way', they accept any cure without question. Why would death be any different? Others will worry about societal effects on an already overcrowded earth, if people don't die any more. That is a valid concern. But I do think it's of secondary importance when we think of the real problem: the fact that every human being's existence is forced to end, with no way to get that person back. Ethically speaking, we shouldn't let that happen to anyone. Nobody deserves to die against their will. I think humanity will somehow find a new balance if death is cured, although the way getting there might not be pretty. There are some hopeful people who believe we can 'upload brains into computers' within 30 years or so. I think they are severely underestimating how complicated brains are. If we find a way at all, it'll still take a century or two - i.e. long after I'm dead. It's still worth working for, as a way to give our great grandchildren better, longer lives. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 22:42
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I was never really one for grand existential hypotheticals but this seems an appropriate juncture at which to link A Thousand Years of Dreams, an excellent series of short stories about a guy who happens to be immortal. It was by far the best thing about Lost Odyssey besides the Uematsu soundtrack.
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Feb 17, 2015 23:24
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ViggyNash posted:Rather long winded way of saying you'd love being immortal. Okay, yeah, long winded, but you miss the point. I'm no longer alive. I died 5 years ago over the course of 5 years when my body replaced all its atoms. How can I ask for immortality when there's nothing to go on forever? It's weird! I mean, Yeah, I'd like to change forever, but I'm not entirely sure immortality would allow that. Something has to stop changing. And If it means I stop moving from idea to idea, I would certainly stop dying over and over, but what else stops with me? Seems like there's some fine print that need examining in the contract. Question: What is it that immortality allows to continuing forever?
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Feb 18, 2015 01:53
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Grimwit posted:I died 5 years ago over the course of 5 years when my body replaced all its atoms. You've said this a bunch, but I have a very hard time believing it. You don't replace your bones like that. People don't need to replace tattoos every 5 years. Do you have a reference other than "I heard from some guy"?
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Feb 18, 2015 01:59
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I think he's confusing atoms with all your cells replacing themselves every so often?
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Feb 18, 2015 02:20
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GuavaMoment posted:You've said this a bunch, but I have a very hard time believing it. You don't replace your bones like that. People don't need to replace tattoos every 5 years. Do you have a reference other than "I heard from some guy"? paragon1 posted:I think he's confusing atoms with all your cells replacing themselves every so often? It's wrong in either case, because we know that there are parts of the body that are not replaced or replenished. For example, radiocarbon dating of human cerebral cortexes from people born before, during, and after the period between the 50's and 60's when lots of above ground nuclear testing shows elevated amounts of carbon-14 only in people whose cortex formed during the time when the radioactive carbon was present in elevated amounts in the atmosphere. People who were born after, and people who were born before but lived through it, did not have elevated amounts of radioactive carbon in the dna of the cells that made up their cerebral cortex. This is pretty convincing evidence that the cortex cells are generated once and then never replaced. source, journal reference Also, I personally don't find the Ship of Theseus paradox terribly pertinent to discussions of consciousness. Your mind is contained in the structure of your brain. There's no reason to think that replacing cells that make up the structure but serve the same function has any significant impact on cognition at all. Crigit fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 02:26
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ViggyNash posted:Could you? It's not like you suddenly became the hero of the universe, with no boundaries or limits. You are still bound by the rules of society and the limits of the physical world, but now you're stuck within those boundaries indefinitely. Even if you had all the time in the world to accomplish your dreams, what then? You beat the game... You don't start as the hero of the universe but you now have all the time you would ever need to become it. If you're thinking in terms of human society and the physical boundaries of a human body you aren't thinking nearly big enough. Accomplished you dreams? Find new ones! There are trillions of stars in the universe contained in billions of galaxies! There are mysteries to be solved left and right in every field of study imaginable. I wasn't joking when I said "beat heat death", you might actually pull it off with trillions of years at your disposal. We will almost all certainly die never knowing for certain if we are alone in the universe, or get to see mankind push beyond even our own solar system. Think of every advancement, every event, that has taken place over even the last millennium and then imagine everything we will miss because our lives barely last a century (and that's if you're lucky). The entirety of our existence is one unimaginably insignificant spec hanging in the void and even it holds enough to keep one person occupied for thousands of years.
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Feb 18, 2015 03:48
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Grimwit posted:Okay, yeah, long winded, but you miss the point. My answer to that would be consciousness, whatever the gently caress it is. Our bodies are not the ones we had 5 years ago, but you still believe you are you and I still believe I am me. Whatever the nature of consciousness is, it is the core and the soul of our being, and so immortality could be defined as the perpetuity of our consciousness. Consider the world of Ghost in the Shell, or other stories with similar concepts, where engineers have created cybernetic brains that a person can transfer their consciousness into. In Ghost in the Shell specifically, the protagonist, Makoto Kusanagi, can relatively feasibly swap bodies - these are 100% cybernetic bodies btw - if one gets damaged. We could also consider this a form of immortality as well since you no longer have a body that will degrade your mind, or at the very least your body is disposable. MagicBoots posted:You don't start as the hero of the universe but you now have all the time you would ever need to become it. If you're thinking in terms of human society and the physical boundaries of a human body you aren't thinking nearly big enough. Accomplished you dreams? Find new ones! There are trillions of stars in the universe contained in billions of galaxies! There are mysteries to be solved left and right in every field of study imaginable. I wasn't joking when I said "beat heat death", you might actually pull it off with trillions of years at your disposal. I supposed it would mark me a pessimist for asking what would happen if reality didn't live up to that fantasy. I don't believe there can be an answer to everything, because if there were, and if humanity could solve all the questions it could possibly ask, we would be gods. And then what? Or, more pressingly, what kind of world would exist if we had solved every question? It feels like we would have reached a similar conclusion to the heat death, where all progress has stagnated because there is nowhere left to go. Call me biased, but I cannot conceive of a world in which humanity can surpass every limit. I just don't think it's possible. We will continue to strive, blindly stretching out our arms as far as we can reach, but at some point the rungs of the ladder will be too far to reach, whether we realize it or not. Having said all that, I'd totally be down for living for a few more centuries, but as I've already said, I'd want the option to end it. Unconditional immortality sounds goddamn terrifying.
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Feb 18, 2015 04:14
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ViggyNash posted:Consider the world of Ghost in the Shell, or other stories with similar concepts, where engineers have created cybernetic brains that a person can transfer their consciousness into. In Ghost in the Shell specifically, the protagonist, Makoto Kusanagi, can relatively feasibly swap bodies - these are 100% cybernetic bodies btw - if one gets damaged. We could also consider this a form of immortality as well since you no longer have a body that will degrade your mind, or at the very least your body is disposable. If you can transfer consciousness then I assume it can be digitized. What happens if you copy your "consciousness information" and "upload" it to multiple bodies/brains at the same time? Which of them is "you"? Do "you" die if one of them dies? What happens if you build a replica of your brain/body accurate down to molecular level? (Well, this scenario is not really feasible due to uncertainty principle, but still)
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Feb 18, 2015 05:07
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omeg posted:If you can transfer consciousness then I assume it can be digitized. What happens if you copy your "consciousness information" and "upload" it to multiple bodies/brains at the same time? Which of them is "you"? Do "you" die if one of them dies? Well if we're talking Ghost in the shell... you can't.. not really. I mean, you can, but they're literally soulless copies. and you also kill the original in the copying process. The titular "ghost" requires a conscious mind and only really transfers well from one to another. Only one person has survived as a formless consciousness out on the web and that's Motoko because she's Motoko. if we're talking real world then 
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Feb 18, 2015 05:12
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omeg posted:If you can transfer consciousness then I assume it can be digitized. What happens if you copy your "consciousness information" and "upload" it to multiple bodies/brains at the same time? Which of them is "you"? Do "you" die if one of them dies? Now, I really want to talk about a particular game, but by mentioning the game in this context, I give away the core of the story - which may or may not ruin the game for people. I could talk about it under spoiler tags if you want. e: Wait, wasn't there that one episode in SAC where some drug dealer had a warehouse full of cybernetic bodies that he'd swap out whenever he felt like, and he had a bunch of clones of himself guarding the place? ViggyNash fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 05:19
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ViggyNash posted:I supposed it would mark me a pessimist for asking what would happen if reality didn't live up to that fantasy. I don't believe there can be an answer to everything... ViggyNash posted:Call me biased, but I cannot conceive of a world in which humanity can surpass every limit. I just don't think it's possible. We will continue to strive, blindly stretching out our arms as far as we can reach, but at some point the rungs of the ladder will be too far to reach, whether we realize it or not. This get's back to what I was saying about considering human limitations as thinking too small. I don't believe a being that has lived for thousands of years would bear any resemblance to humanity, in form, thought or limitations. The moment you start throwing around the word "forever" you are in effect creating a god. MagicBoots fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 05:27
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ViggyNash posted:e: Wait, wasn't there that one episode in SAC where some drug dealer had a warehouse full of cybernetic bodies that he'd swap out whenever he felt like, and he had a bunch of clones of himself guarding the place? That's what I was talking about It was a ghost dubbing device, he wasn't swapping out into any of them, they were *all* pseudo-ghostless clones of his original body which had died years before in the dubbing incident that created them. They had information degraded 'pseudo ghosts' but they were basically lossy VHS copies of the blu-ray original soul, to torture the analogy Kurieg fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 05:34
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GitS:Stand Alone Complex. The anime where a bunch of robots spending 20 minutes discussing philosophy and the nature of self ISN'T the strangest thing to happen.
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Feb 18, 2015 05:45
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I have an argument against immortality, and it is old people. Think about all the old people you know. Now think about all the old people you know of but aren't necessarily personally acquainted with. Now, the important question: How many of those old people are ridiculously racist or homophobic or otherwise just out of touch in some really open, obvious way? Probably most of them. That's your dumb rear end in a few decades. Remember on the Simpsons, when Abe is telling a young Homer "I used to be with it. But then they changed what 'it' was, and what I was with wasn't it anymore"? That's the march of progress, broham. I will guarantee you a bunch of those out-of-touch old people used to be the soppiest of liberals in their day, but unless you constantly check yourself you're going to get stuck someday and you're going to start taking the way the world keeps changing as a personal affront. That's not a function of the human body's faculties failing as it ages, that's the human mind deciding it's going to take the easy road and decide nothing should change ever again. That takes less than a single human lifetime to happen. Now, multiply that by any loving amount you want. That's what being an immortal is going to be like. Unless you make a constant effort to keep your ethics centered one day you're going to be that crotchety old guy railing on about how zarmixian-entlbrundish mixed marriages are immoral and in your day they didn't let perverts and deviants like that show their faces in public. It'll happen to you! Crigit posted:Also, I personally don't find the Ship of Theseus paradox terribly pertinent to discussions of consciousness. Your mind is contained in the structure of your brain. There's no reason to think that replacing cells that make up the structure but serve the same function has any significant impact on cognition at all. Yeah, if you're going to try to Ship of Theseus a conversation about immortality you better be fuckin' ready to prove that you've replaced your consciousness bit by bit same as your body. If there's no "you" to keep going forever then who's sitting here asking where's the "you" to go on forever?
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Feb 18, 2015 06:12
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Nah people becoming more conservative as they get older is a myth. What actually will change your opinions is your social and economic class, which is very likely to improve with a few centuries to save. Not very many people want to spend an eternity being poor.
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Feb 18, 2015 06:27
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No no. You don't get more conservative. You stay the same and the world gets more liberal around you.
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Feb 18, 2015 07:22
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 08:34 |
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I sort of enjoyed the short novel The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect growing up, considering it took on the question of immortality, as well as AI things, discussions of what it means to be human. Like, if you figured out that all you had to do to feel happy was continuously pump dopamine into your brain and had all your bodily functions taken care of, and decided you didn't care to do anything else, effectively voluntarily becoming a vegetable, are you still human? It also does some fun stuff with Asimov's Three Laws. Warning though, the first couple of chapters are super graphic, due to there being a simulated reality and people doing stupid things in it. Personally, immortality would be pretty sweet. I agree that it would take a load off, I could do things like just sit and slowly read books rather than considering what else I am cutting myself off from by spending too much time reading. Though, if I end up doing something I regret, keeping it with you forever might be painful if I couldn't figure out some way of dealing with guilt. MatchaZed fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Feb 18, 2015 |
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Feb 18, 2015 07:34
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