On 17 Feb 2013, at 21:36, John Mikes wrote:
Bruno - we, at least, having learned the English language, should
'dig' into the meaning of the words. "Chosen" is the result of a
selection from more than one alternates.
Who are the others, from which WE may be "CHOSEN"?
Perhaps those who don't handle so well the english language. (I am
joking).
Look, I am not the one saying that we have been chosen. On the
contrary, I defended the Copernician idea, that we are not chosen at
all. Like I said below, comp explain why we *might* feel like having
been chosen.
the devils in hell, or the angels in heaven? or the other animals?
This is why I like to clarify the WORDS before submerging into
verbose treatises on debatable concepts.
Then again: "chosen" is ambiguous, e.g. in a certain decimation
(war? revolution?) the 'chosen' get executed, so it is not such a
joy to be CHOSEN.
You are right.
Anyone surviving a crash plane, among many passengers who died,
develops a kind of guilt and a feeling of having been chosen, but this
is an "illusion" easily explained by comp (and accepted by those
surviving passengers most of the time, but this might not change their
direct feeling).
If you are duplicated into Washington and Moscow, in the usual manner,
both the copies will feel like having be chosen for that city, but
there is only memories, personal diaries and direct access to them.
Now comp is not developed so much that we can be sure that we are NOT
chosen, independently of the fact that we might find this not really
reasonable to think.
That might indeed remain forever undecided, except locally, when,
after dying you wake up in a matrix build by our descendant 10^4 after
JC, and remembering things like "Oh, I will try to relive that John's
Mike life which looks interesting". Then, you will know, locally, who
made the choice of being "John Mike", for awhile. Perhaps a descendent
of you.
Bruno
John Mikes
On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 9:12 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 27 Jan 2013, at 23:35, freqflyer07281972 wrote:
Hey everyone,
I've been following this group a lot. I read it everyday and enjoy
all of the wonderful stuff that comes up, even if some of it tends
towards ad hominem, argument from authority, and petitio principi.
Hey, we're humans, right? That means we get to make these
fallacies, in good conscience or bad.
Anyway, I wondered about what anyone/everyone thought about the
notion of 'chosenness' as a way to understand where we are here in
the world. It seems to me that concepts like MWI, Bruno's comp/mech
hypothesis and the 'dreams of numbers' ideas of subjectivity, and
even Leibniz's 'best of all possible worlds' don't actually do
something like flee away from our everyday responsibility to accept
the basic fact that we have been CHOSEN -- and when I say this,
please don't immediately put a bunch of theological baggage on it.
I'm not saying God chose this reality as opposed to another,
although this might be a convenient shorthand. But what I am saying
is that, out of all the staggering possibilities that we know exist
with regards to our universe, our galaxy, our solar system, our
planet, our society, and even our individual selves, things could
have very easily turned out to be different than they were. The
fact that they have turned out in just this way and not another
indicates this kind of chosenness, and along with it, comes a
certain degree of responsibility, I guess?
It seems to me that all the various 'everything' hypotheses (MWI,
comp, Leibniz, and others) try to apply the Copernican principle to
its breaking point. True enough, there is from a purely 3p point of
view nothing special about our cosmic situation re: our planet and
our sun. BUT, from an existential 1p point of view there is a huge
privilege that we have, i.e. we are sentient observers, who love,
feel pain, feel desire, and long for transcendence.
Moreover, the 3p point of view is a pure abstraction, kind of like
eating the picture of a meal rather than the actual meal. How do we
know what any kind of 3p account of truth would be? What would it
even look like? A universe with no observers. A falling tree
without a hearer/listener. This, to me, is nonsense.
Aren't things like MWI of quantum physics and comp hypothesis of
universal dovetailer trying to, at a fundamental and existential
level, an attempt to try to run away from the concreteness and
absolute 'givenness' (gift) of the world as we find it?
Those things are not necessarily in opposition, once we find a way
to attribute first-person-ness to some entities.
We only try to figure out what is happening.
And isn't our role, in creation, as freely choosing beings (sorry,
John Clark, free will is more than just a noise) to choose what
will make other people with us now and in the future feel more love
and less pain? And isn't this why we were chosen?
I don't think we are chosen, at least no more than insects and
plants. We have the tools for explaining whay we feel unique, and
chosen, but that can be a sort of illusion, like with personal
identity. But *we* can make choice, indeed. This makes intuitive
sense, and is explainable in mechanical terms.
Bruno
I'll go back to lurking now, but I'd appreciate any thoughts you
might have on this reflection of mine.
Cheers,
Dan
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