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juggalo baby coffin posted:oh so if its a completely different situation where a replica is constructed of you out of information and put into a new body, it's totally the same as flatlining. I mean semantically, from my position and tons of others in EP? Yes, unironically. "I was dead, and got better" isn't that scary or troublesome concept.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:01
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Well, maybe...
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Aug 25, 2019 23:03
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juggalo baby coffin posted:no it means you are literally dead. there's just a copy of you walking around, you have ceased to be. Brain copying is roughly sub-FTL level plausibility, so it's angels on pins as far as I'm concerned. Edit: This is one of the biggest loving issues I have with transhumanist fiction, that it constantly wastes time with bullshit questions like that and finding some bullshit answer to them.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:04
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I mean, it's really not that complicated a thing, you know? When you make a copy of someone, that copy is a separate existence than the original. Even if it's a perfect copy, it just means there are two of that person now, each of them an individual experiencing the Universe separately. If one of them is alive and the other is dead, the one that's alive is not the one that is dead, and the one that is dead will not become alive if a copy is given life, it just means a new person with the memories of the dead person is now alive and experiencing their own life. I'm not typing any of this with some assumption of a "soul" being a thing that exists, mind you. This doesn't make any of the copies inferior to the original. It doesn't make them lesser. It doesn't make them an imposter. It just also doesn't make them literally the original person. I mean, if you don't give a poo poo about these facts, that's fine! I mean, it genuinely doesn't matter to any of the copies on a practical level (which is the only one I'm putting any value on in this post), because they're absolutely real people just as "genuine" and awesome as the originals, beyond some possible existential issuesl. It does matter on a very practical level to the originals, though, because if they die (in a total brain death fashion) and get re-created from some manner of backup data (even one virtually simultaneous to the moment of death), or get "transmitted" in some manner that involves making a copy elsewhere, they're dead, no more experiences for them, even if another copy of them might open their eyes and keep going in their place. Humans can rationalize almost anything, so any of this ultimately won't matter to a lot of people, but it doesn't make it not true.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:09
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Ronwayne posted:I would hope that "Violation and assault on others is bad" was an unspoken part of this debate. If someone/thing is going about doing such things without getting full, informed, uncoerced, enthusiastic consent from all participants, yes, bring on the flamethrowers.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:11
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The transported person with an exact duplicate mind or memory would be indistinguishable from the old, and would experience no break in continuity or consciousness. It's only a "new" person to an outside observer, and who's to say that the outside observer's perspective has more weight than the transported person's experience of continuity?
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Aug 25, 2019 23:15
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I don't know if this is exactly what the Transporter Problem is, but I know that they addressed it in a pragmatic way in Star Trek by having an episode where a character had an anomalously extended period of consciousness inside of the transporter beam, with the implicit statement that from the perspective of the user being in the transporter is like you take a seltzer water shower and then you're at the other end of the beam. They do not explain the physics of this at all... wisely. I can certainly understand from the perspective of "me" why I would be leery to get my brain scanned and uploaded, if it meant that "I" might go to sleep and "Nessus-2" wakes up, happy as a clam in his invincible killbot body, while "I" just do not wake up. I am sure it would be painless, but would "I" get the pleasure of being in an invincible killbot body? This is less of an issue with brain transplants and so forth, of course. Ronwayne posted:I mean semantically, from my position and tons of others in EP? Yes, unironically. "I was dead, and got better" isn't that scary or troublesome concept.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:18
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Like I said, the Transporter Problem is an open debate in philosophy of mind. There is not a simple answer. Neither side is 'obviously' correct. So it's perfectly fair to assume that given the cultural emphasis of the EP setting, and the Fall, nearly everybody subscribes to the 'continuity doesn't matter, just identity' position. If you find this utterly horrifying and it makes you imagine the world as a terrifying corpse landscape of the ghosts of ghosts of ghosts pretending to be alive and well... congrats, you found the horror in the horror setting.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:19
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Ronwayne posted:I mean semantically, from my position and tons of others in EP? Yes, unironically. "I was dead, and got better" isn't that scary or troublesome concept. but you don't get better. a copy of you is made. if scientists created a perfect double of you, then blew your brains out with a shotgun and left you on the floor to rot, would you consider yourself to have died and gotten better? dwarf74 posted:The transported person with an exact duplicate mind or memory would be indistinguishable from the old, and would experience no break in continuity or consciousness. no, what happens is the person who steps into the teleporter's consciousness stops completely, then a duplicate is created who has the memories of stepping into the teleporter. The duplicate believes it has experienced no break in continuity, but there has been one.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:20
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I mean, I would hope "got better" implicitly meant "In a healthy body equal or superior to the one I left with the same agency" and not "brain in a jar being tortured for science". The horror of the PC digimind slave farms is they're enslaving people through economic coercion and denying them their agency, not that dead people are alive again. EimiYoshikawa posted:Humans can rationalize almost anything, so any of this ultimately won't matter to a lot of people, but it doesn't make it not true. Joe Slowboat posted:Like I said, the Transporter Problem is an open debate in philosophy of mind. There is not a simple answer. Neither side is 'obviously' correct. Nessus posted:I don't know if this is exactly what the Transporter Problem is, but I know that they addressed it in a pragmatic way in Star Trek by having an episode where a character had an anomalously extended period of consciousness inside of the transporter beam, with the implicit statement that from the perspective of the user being in the transporter is like you take a seltzer water shower and then you're at the other end of the beam. Yeah, from my POV, its literally distinction without difference. Yeah, they're copies, but also, so what? You gonna tell the copy they're a ghost thinking they're a real person? They are almost certainly people that do that in EP, and outside of Jovian areas, they're probably universally considered assholes. The other issue is that people like Koch no longer die, but that's a  issue.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:22
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The Jovians are consistently correct about everything, it's true.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:24
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Ronwayne posted:Yeah, from my POV, its literally distinction without difference. Yeah, they're copies, but also, so what? You gonna tell the copy they're a ghost thinking they're a real person? They are almost certainly people that do that in EP, and outside of Jovian areas, they're probably universally considered assholes. The other issue is that people like Koch no longer die, but that's a  As a side note for folks at home: If you need a transporter device in your sci fi system, use a point induced wormhole gate! You completely avoid this problem and most of what is left can be dealt with by doubletalk!
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Aug 25, 2019 23:25
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you're misunderstanding the actual situation. The issue isn't whether the copies are real people, they are, and they are just as sentient as you and etc etc. the issue is literally only for the original you. If you enjoy thinking and experiencing things, you probably do not want to resleeve via farcaster. The you that goes into the farcaster dies, that's the end of you experiencing anything at all.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:26
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juggalo baby coffin posted:you're misunderstanding the actual situation. The issue isn't whether the copies are real people, they are, and they are just as sentient as you and etc etc. the issue is literally only for the original you. If you enjoy thinking and experiencing things, you probably do not want to resleeve via farcaster. The you that goes into the farcaster dies, that's the end of you experiencing anything at all. If the duplicates are made but do not destroy or shut down the original then you have a very different situation, that being "Thunderdome for the checking account."
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Aug 25, 2019 23:30
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dwarf74 posted:The transported person with an exact duplicate mind or memory would be indistinguishable from the old, and would experience no break in continuity or consciousness. Ronwayne posted:Yeah, from my POV, its literally distinction without difference. Yeah, they're copies, but also, so what? You gonna tell the copy they're a ghost thinking they're a real person? They are almost certainly people that do that in EP, and outside of Jovian areas, they're probably universally considered assholes. The other issue is that people like Koch no longer die, but that's a
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Aug 25, 2019 23:30
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The point about sleep and continuity of consciousness really isn't a minor one btw. How do you know your consciousness is continuous when you wake up? We take it on faith because we're used to it. It might not be! Which would be existentially terrifying, in a sense, but... we assume that the light which goes out is the one that comes on again because to do otherwise is not very good for us. Now apply that to resleeving.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:35
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Joe Slowboat posted:The point about sleep and continuity of consciousness really isn't a minor one btw. How do you know your consciousness is continuous when you wake up? We take it on faith because we're used to it. It might not be! Which would be existentially terrifying, in a sense, but... we assume that the light which goes out is the one that comes on again because to do otherwise is not very good for us. 1. Brain scanned 2. Data transferred to new point 2a. Brain at original point deactivated 3. Brain re-upped at destination point 4. Owner of said brain walks out of the brain factory and is institutionally recognized as being the same unique individual who entered the process at step 1. It is not unreasonable to say that even if the duplication is perfect down to the last electrode, an individual dies at step 2a. even if the outcome of the process is one (1) individual with all the same interior qualities and information. This is particularly true if step 2a is not functionally necessary for the entire rigmarole to work and occurs in order to avoid the original brain and the copy brain fighting over the checking account and Bitcoin wallets. By contrast even if I have no guarantee "I" will wake up from going to sleep, there is the persistence of location, there is no new duplication entering the process here. None of this invalidates the hypothetical personhood of the duplicate, but if you kill the original in the process, that's pretty lousy and would be a major disincentive towards starting the entire process in the first place!
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Aug 25, 2019 23:39
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Joe Slowboat posted:The point about sleep and continuity of consciousness really isn't a minor one btw. How do you know your consciousness is continuous when you wake up? We take it on faith because we're used to it. It might not be! Which would be existentially terrifying, in a sense, but... we assume that the light which goes out is the one that comes on again because to do otherwise is not very good for us.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:45
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Ronwayne posted:I mean, I would hope "got better" implicitly meant "In a healthy body equal or superior to the one I left with the same agency" and not "brain in a jar being tortured for science". The horror of the PC digimind slave farms is they're enslaving people through economic coercion and denying them their agency, not that dead people are alive again. Oh, yeah, I was just linking that in reference to the post saying nobody comes back from brain death. It just turns out even brain death is probably way, way fuzzier than the assumption we were previously operating on. Ormi fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Aug 25, 2019 |
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Aug 25, 2019 23:46
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It may help illustrate the issue to think of it thusly: Let us take it as given that yes, you and perfect copy of you are the same person. We accept this. This is taken to be true for this post. So let's posit Steve-A and Steve-B. They are perfectly identical in all respects, except location. Steve-A gets shot, is presumed dead, and Steve-B is activated with all Steve-A's memories. Turns out Steve-A didn't die, he got better, so now they're both around, but we're accepting that they're both the same person still. Steve-B goes on to murder Doug. Steve-A is arrested and tried for the murder. Everyone agrees, it was done by Steve-B, not Steve-A. However, Steve-A is the easier one to arrest in this instance, and they're the same person, so reasonably convicting and punishing Steve-A for Steve-B's crime is fine. If this seems absurd, why is it absurd? If we accept the premise that Steve-A and Steve-B are the same person if one is killed and the the other is activated, why should this particular one not also be acceptable? If we deny that premise, then while they share all memories and characteristics, they must be different people, and Steve-B's existence has no bearing on whether or not Steve-A is dead or alive.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:47
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Eclipse Phase 3: Turns out the Titans just put an illusion screen using Marcabian technology over the planet. Most people are fine. A cross-license with Phoenix Wright will allow your PCs to engage in litigation over assets.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:48
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Joe Slowboat posted:The point about sleep and continuity of consciousness really isn't a minor one btw. How do you know your consciousness is continuous when you wake up? We take it on faith because we're used to it. It might not be! Which would be existentially terrifying, in a sense, but... we assume that the light which goes out is the one that comes on again because to do otherwise is not very good for us. the same brain is continually active during the entire time with sleep. there is a distinction between being asleep and being braindead.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:49
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To be clear I'm not arguing for the lack of continuity - I'm arguing that it is a point of reasonable disagreement. Entire schools of thought on the mind don't care about the point of perspective or awareness, seeing it as an emergent quality that has no reason to believe in itself as a continuous and coherent thing. Those aren't transparently incorrect; Hume and Buddhism can't be dismissed out of hand. I actually lean more towards caring about continuity than not, but that's entirely because I want to believe my ego has been continuous and will continue to be so, but I can't prove it is and there are decent arguments as to why it might not be. If it's not, the self is an illusion in any case. Why should we believe the same brain maintains continuity of consciousness, rather than generating a new perspective when you wake up? Consciousness is a really slippery customer. We can't identify 'ah yes, this part of the mind has experience and qualia' from the outside, so we can't say if it turns off and on. ...and the case of 'Person B commits murder' is irrelevant; the two forks diverge and only become more and more different people under any schema the longer they remain diverged.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:59
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juggalo baby coffin posted:the same brain is continually active during the entire time with sleep. there is a distinction between being asleep and being braindead. I wrote out a huge post saying pretty much just this in response to that post, but it was kind of embarrassingly long, so I deleted it, instead.
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Aug 25, 2019 23:59
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What's important is that you don't think about the issue of the self. If religious/spiritual issues are ignored, the "self" is nothing but a convenient identity recreated second-by-second. I die every milisecond and I recreated. The past versions of my "self" are very similar to my short-lived present, but we are ultimately distinct and they no longer exist. There is no horror in this beyond what we choose to make of it. If I assume that stepping into a teleporter simply transports me elsewhere and the person who steps out of the other end will also be me, and everyone can effectively treat them as "me". Then it's all good. In the present (the only thing that actually exists) I still exist. The horror only comes from questioning it, which leads to the issues of unconsciousness and the ship of theseus. It's a slippery slope of unanswerable questions when its far better to simply accept that if I think I am me and everyone else agrees, then there is no problem. So, before inventing the teleporter, make sure to shoot all the philosophers.
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Aug 26, 2019 00:04
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oriongates posted:What's important is that you don't think about the issue of the self.
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Aug 26, 2019 00:06
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No, they would never admit that they're taking a philosophical stance and they would double-never take a position that says that immortality is impossible and identity unreal. They want good old-fashioned immortality of the soul, not existentially worrying nullity of identity. The actual interesting arguments around uploading and continuity are ones that deal with that rather than declaring 'actually there's definitely continuity because so there.'
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Aug 26, 2019 00:08
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Terrible Opinions posted:This is what LessWrong posters tell themselves to justify why thinking they can upload their brains to computers isn't a religion.
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Aug 26, 2019 00:10
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Could Purple please post something new? Transporter chat is reminding me of why I hate transporter chat. Edit: Nessus posted:The teleporting thing isn't even the issue! The issue is that they can make a copy and the original is still around. (One begins to suspect the real reason for icing Earth in the story is to avoid this issue, or at least shove it in a back closet.) Hell there's even a bunch of stuff about making smaller duplicates of your brain and later reunifying with them, like Multiple Man. My thoughts as well; it also let them get rid of anyone inconvenient to their tract, such as the large number of nonwhite leftists who would want basically goddamn zero to do with their nerd eugenics bullshit. StratGoatCom fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Aug 26, 2019 |
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Aug 26, 2019 00:11
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Nessus posted:Eclipse Phase 3: Turns out the Titans just put an illusion screen using Marcabian technology over the planet. Most people are fine. A cross-license with Phoenix Wright will allow your PCs to engage in litigation over assets.
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Aug 26, 2019 00:21
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Yes, I'd like to formally and personally apologize to the thread for starting the derail. In a bit, I'll put up the EP chargen process I went through for the game Purp's running.
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Aug 26, 2019 00:22
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you can literally dismiss hume and buddhism out of hand in this context because both are totally unverifiable. it's the equivalent of jumping off a cliff on the chance that god will save you. continuity of consciousness in this case is the only real way you can be sure you aren't just elaborately dying. whether there is a moment-to-moment true self doesn't really matter, what matters is ensuring, for you, you continue to experience life. there is a big difference between splitting hairs about the philosophical idea of self and killing yourself because someone can make a perfect copy. there just seems to be a failure to understand what the actual concept is here due to all the technobabble, so let me strip it back a bit. through whatever means you like, a perfect double is created of you. you are then shot in the head and cremated. are you still alive? other people might not be able to tell the difference, although they'd probably be horrified if they found out what happened, but the thing currently looking out of your eyes is gone. there is just a separate person with your memories running around. you can reasonably argue that even with continuity of consciousness converting your brain into computronium or we/, you are still in a sense killing yourself. but there's no reasonable argument that when you die your, idk, camera angle into the world just snaps to whatever thing is most similar to you nearby.
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Aug 26, 2019 00:26
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So, what about more fun and different forms of consciousness? That's one of the really irritating things about a lot of transhumanist stuff, as opposed to neat xenobiology sci-fi - the human part. We're obsessed with I, me, the thing behind the eyes. What sort of mind could form in the dances of a beehive? Would it have a complex enough moral framework or perspective to torture bassilisk cultists in the simulation spaces of the Great Comb for eternity (For only those who left out sugar water for the bees will be spared)
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Aug 26, 2019 00:52
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The bees are critically important to protecting Spire from the energies of madness and for that we should all be grateful. Thank you, gentle cosmic bees.
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Aug 26, 2019 00:58
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Theres a scifi novel where an investigation team gets sent to figure out what killed everyone on a research base studying worms that burrow through the ice to find out it was inter-human conflict because it turns out while the worms arent sentient the iceflow is with the worms burrowing acting as its very slow neurons and the research base essentially lobotomized it.
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Aug 26, 2019 01:30
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Deniable Assets 1/x Deniable Assets is a PbtA semi-sandbox RPG of corporate executives climbing the ladder in cutthroat competition. It's 2089 and everyone has rivals, goals, assets, and Clarence Bodicker's cell number. “What mistake would my character make right now?” Unlike, I believe, every other PbtA game out there, the GM is not supposed to be a fan of the characters. Neither are the players supposed to identify with, or at least like, their characters. The aim of the game is to create an enjoyable spectacle of terrible people doing terrible things and meeting terrible ends. As I hinted above, think of the PCs as OCP executives (from Robocop) with fewer inhibitions and even greater rewards on offer: the Board receive literal immortality drugs, so no one ever retires from the top or dies of natural causes. There's only one way to the top, and that's taking a dead person's seat on the board. I'll quote the book, quote:Players enjoying Deniable Assets do not want the same things their characters want. If your character meets their end handcuffed to a glass table covered with cocaine, while scrambling for the pin to the grenade then you laugh and make a new character. That's Deniable Assets. If that doesn't sound like an RPG for everyone, you're right, and the designer knows it and is up front about it. There's also support for the X-card, so specific horrible things that characters do or suffer can be managed without triggering anyone. So, assuming you're OK with this kind of a game, what really is the player's role ? Well, "spectator and enabler" is the book's answer. Like most PbtA games, there a section on how to do that: Ask Questions to better understand the fictional positioning. Breaking Things because nothing is delicate and everything is expendable, just don't kill another PC unless their player is on board with losing their character now. Taking Outrageous Risks because, again, your character is expendable, so "drive them like a stolen car." Asking, “What mistake would my character make right now?” The book has no comment on this one and doesn't need one. Asking your fellow players what they’re up to. This is your reminder that while the characters are enemies, the players are collaborating on creating amusing mayhem. That's a pretty good set of advice for what's effectively a Lawful Evil Campaign with a side order of Paranoia. Now about running the thing, how to play as the GM. The GM represents The Board, an indifferent observer concerned solely with the stockholders (the players). The Board is all-powerful, confident, and ruthless in pursuit of their goals (everyone having fun). How to succeed at being The Board: Asking Questions. Like any PbtA game, you engage the players, find out what they're interested in, details you can use, and schemes you can manipulate. Breaking Things. The GM should be ready to destroy any NPC, location, or storyline in any scene. "Break things to advance the story. Break things to inspire players to act. Break things because of player action. Nothing in your toybox is sacred." There's absolutely no reason why a team of characters assigned to come up with a marketing slogan for a new soda flavor shouldn't be responsible for burning down corporate HQ halfway through the first session. Creating Outrageous Risks. Like "normal" PbtA games, but it's OK to tempt characters into doing something monumentally dangerous for a chance at something valuable. Asking, “What mistakes would my characters make right now?” This again. Making Moves. Deniable Assets relies more on mechanical support than a lot of PbtA games for both players and GM. Fortunately, there a good set of tools for both players and the GM The Board. Asking your players what they’re up to. Find out what they're trying to do and see if you can help further their schemes. Playing some awesome music. The usual "run a fun table stuff" Serving up snacks. Making sure everyone’s having fun. Let's call that part one. We'll get into the mechanics next time, and a sample Resume. We have to choose from: The Fastlane The Keymaster The Shark The Frankenstein The Butcher The Messiah The Smile The Gremlin The Wildcard The Albatross The Innocent
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Aug 26, 2019 01:31
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Tibalt fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Aug 26, 2019 |
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Aug 26, 2019 01:43
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I get a very Fiasco mood from Deniable Assets, and I wonder if that's one of the inspirations.
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Aug 26, 2019 01:49
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Torn between asking for a sample Wildcard or Albatross.
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Aug 26, 2019 01:51
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juggalo baby coffin posted:you can literally dismiss hume and buddhism out of hand in this context because both are totally unverifiable. it's the equivalent of jumping off a cliff on the chance that god will save you. continuity of consciousness in this case is the only real way you can be sure you aren't just elaborately dying. whether there is a moment-to-moment true self doesn't really matter, what matters is ensuring, for you, you continue to experience life. You seem really unreasonably angry that EP has taken a stance on an open philosophical debate that isn't your stance on the open philosophical debate. (Even moreso, it's particularly perplexing that you thought Altered Carbon did it better, because it rushes just as quickly through the debate and presents a setting where, basically, either you believe that resleeving and backups are a continuation of the same life, or you're a Catholic bioconservative who doesn't. I wouldn't even call this a neutral presentation, since the novel and series both present decisions made on the assumption that resleeved backups are the same person as their origin as meaningful.)
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Aug 26, 2019 02:00
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