On 12 Jun 2014, at 00:30, LizR wrote:
On 12 June 2014 04:53, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
On 11 Jun 2014, at 02:22, Russell Standish wrote:
As for mechanism? There won't be one, certainly not sharable
scientifically, anyway. Any number of arcane rituals or spells might
work, or might not. For me, I don't think this stuff gets much beyond
bar talk - but maybe Liz can weave this into one of her novels :).
Hmm... you have still to convince her that it makes sense :)
Please do, but otherwise I think I just have to assume p-zombies in
some branches.
Which is a form of solipsism. If you visit those branches, you would
be the only one conscious.
So a person would be a "garden of forking paths" laid out by
deterministic physics, within which their conscious mind could move
around (within limits). So the p-zombies are, so to speak, the
materialist / eliminativist versions of people, while consciousness
is something that can flow through the "network" provided by the p-
zombies.
Well, it is simpler to admit the p-zombies are conscious.
Whether this can be made to work in a dramatic sense is more of a
challenge! George RR Martin (of "Game of Thrones" fame) wrote a
short story in which someone invented a way to go back in time along
their own world-tube to an earlier point, where they could make a
different decision from the one they made originally, and thereby
create a new personal history (and appear to die in their "previous"
history). This would be kind of similar, but without the time travel
aspect.
(I think I can make sense of it ... for a fraction of the resulting
people, but that is a priori self-selection, or wishful thinking).
Philip Dick wrote a novel where people use the Yi-King. It can help
to take a difficult decision.
I think that may have been "A Maze of Death".
I read it in french, a long time ago: "Le maître du haut-chateau" (the
master of the high-castle, literally).
The first PKD novel I read, which is always an important experience
in anyone's life.
OK, I can understand. It depends of course of the order or the books
you read.
I love Michel Jeury book (french SF), where when the guy do
chronolysis (chemical driven time travel), you find yourself rereading
preceding part of the book lol :)
But my favorite is Daniel Galouye. escpecially simulacron III. I like
simple romance, where the guy is trapped and will be saved by a nice
lady, so I like it more when mixed with metaphysical or comp
questionning, and I like when the romance finish well, and the heroes
met in the right reality (or believe so, as the hero does and the
heroine does not in simulacron III.
Robert Schekley is not bad either and more humoristic, with a guy
bought a low price matrian brain transplant, and made a big trip in
the reality space, and has an hard time to come back, but eventually
came back in a completely different reality, but he does not see any
difference. Most troubling but really funny.
Borges and Carroll are admirable too, in that "deep" respect.
Bruno
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