Very Brunoish! besides: you may invest in an "s" at the end of my (last) name, my son even puts "sh" as an ending. I don't care if John Mike is duplicated anywhere. John Mikes (active on THIs list since ~1998?)
On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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 >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> >> >> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ >> >> >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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