Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 05 Feb 2014, at 00:55, ghib...@gmail.com wrote: OK. My fault. I was alluding to the self of the universal person, described by the arithmetical hypostases. usually I use higher self more in the context of the some entheogenic experience. The higher self is, basically, you, when you forget completeley who you are, or when you dissociate completely from yourself, like in OBE, some lucid or non lucid dreams, etc. Yeah I see what you're saying and it's debatable whether it really is a problem using 'higher'. I just happened to have been thinking about all this just as I saw Brent and your discussion here. I had been reading a thread between you and some other chap in which these matters came up. OK. Actually, I just read David Nyman? post, the last one on a different thread where he overviews your theory, which I found very helpful. Yes, David made a quite good job, but I might be biased in my appreciation. Bruno 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 03 Feb 2014, at 22:40, ghib...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday, January 17, 2014 9:59:36 PM UTC, Brent wrote: On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote: On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking. I agree. But your choice of words gives the opposite impression. Why higher? Why not lower. Yes, why not. The standard term is higher. Exactly - it is very subjective. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point. My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications of comp because it implies we really have a higher self that we've merely forgotten and that we are deluded in having a little ego. Just consider how different it sounds to say we have forgotten our real lower self and we deluded in thinking our ego is significant. Brent This is very true. I find it strange how much bias of various kinds gets built into this comp business. It surely can't be possible that a learned scholar like Bruno doesn't stop to consider whether he's loading terms in distortive ways. There's no way this is a language issue, the issue is far too basic. I hope Bruno takes your advice and tests his choice next time, by considering its negative. Can you be more specific, and may be quote my answer to Brent. I don't want the comp implications to make me happy. On the contrary I make the hypotheses precise, and then I derive everything by logic and arithmetic. If I distorted anything, I would be please you could make a specific remark. I don't even see what negative position you are mentioning. Another bias is the way comp is presented as a hierarchy of acceptance of comp with words like 'courage' associated toward the higher end of acceptance, and very much the opposite associations going down the stack. We could talk forever about how individualistic people are, but the fact is there's a lot of evidence people can be very vulnerable to this sort of social/ reputation type pressure. That said there's no sign it's purposeful or devious or anything like that, but even so. I have no problem with critics, except when they are so fuzzy it is not even clear they are related to anything I could have said. Comp needs courage, but then getting an heart operation too. I don't see what is the problem for you. I have manage all points in a deduction, so do you understand the definition of comp, and at which step do you have any problem? Something else is that some people don't appear to stick to published work and consequences when someone less experienced is undecided. The issue there is that there's a good chance that less experienced person may not be able to distinguish this for himself, and may be assuming published work is being stuck to - a reasonable assumption in my view. A simple remedy would be to label non published...stuff that are still at insight stage or whatever, as personal opinion. ? I explain on this list only published and peer reviewed materials, or I say explicitly when that is not the case, with all the warnings (but that is rare). Let us focus on what you seem to not understand. What is it? I have really no clue, but you do seem a bit negative, without making any explicit points. That's a recurent problem that I have with some type of philosophers. Bruno 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:43:39 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Feb 2014, at 22:40, ghi...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: On Friday, January 17, 2014 9:59:36 PM UTC, Brent wrote: On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote: On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking. I agree. But your choice of words gives the opposite impression. Why higher? Why not lower. Yes, why not. The standard term is higher. Exactly - it is very subjective. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point. My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications of comp because it implies we really have a higher self that we've merely forgotten and that we are deluded in having a little ego. Just consider how different it sounds to say we have forgotten our real lower self and we deluded in thinking our ego is significant. Brent This is very true. I find it strange how much bias of various kinds gets built into this comp business. It surely can't be possible that a learned scholar like Bruno doesn't stop to consider whether he's loading terms in distortive ways. There's no way this is a language issue, the issue is far too basic. I hope Bruno takes your advice and tests his choice next time, by considering its negative. Can you be more specific, and may be quote my answer to Brent. I don't want the comp implications to make me happy. On the contrary I make the hypotheses precise, and then I derive everything by logic and arithmetic. If I distorted anything, I would be please you could make a specific remark. I don't even see what negative position you are mentioning. Hi Bruno - I don't think I was being negative in the negative sense. If that's the impression perhaps I should keep an eye on my style and see if I can avoid such impressions. Bruno I'm commenting directly on what Brent just said in the line above. You used the term higher self. So, the suggestion is that you're building in a bias that your theory doesn't reach to. Brent was illustrating this by suggesting that if you didn't agree, you should try inserting the opposite of 'higher'. Another bias is the way comp is presented as a hierarchy of acceptance of comp with words like 'courage' associated toward the higher end of acceptance, and very much the opposite associations going down the stack. We could talk forever about how individualistic people are, but the fact is there's a lot of evidence people can be very vulnerable to this sort of social/reputation type pressure. That said there's no sign it's purposeful or devious or anything like that, but even so. I have no problem with critics, except when they are so fuzzy it is not even clear they are related to anything I could have said. Comp needs courage, but then getting an heart operation too. I don't see what is the problem for you. Well look, all you had to do to see the point above was the usual read, read what I was replying to, and figure. There is only one reference to you in Brent's comment. What I'm referring to here, is that part of your theory, or your reading of comp, appears to grade people by the extent they accept your theory. That's alright. But as I was saying, there's a risk that arguments like that in an environment where other people are making up their mind about your theory, can bias the process due to them experiencing a kind of social/peer pressure to accept the theory. After all, who wants to be at the bottom rung of the hierarchy. This is pretty well understood stuff. I meancults, and pressure-scams, use the same kind of thing - obviously in their case malign and purposeful - to induce a pressured environment to push people through to whatever they have in store. I think I'm making really vanilla observations here. I'm not suggesting there's anything deliberate. I might not be right. Maybe you don't want to talk about it. Maybe you don't think it matters. I don't mind. I wasn't planning to launch a campaign. It was just something I'd been thinking about and I saw Brent's comment and decided to pass comment. I have manage all points in a deduction, so do you understand the definition of comp, and at which step do you have any problem? This is really nothing to do with the definition of comp. I'm not suggesting you are using an illegitimate argument in terms of comp. I'm just pointing to
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
hi Bruno - perhaps ignore this line in my second response. Well look, all you had to do to see the point above was the usual read, read what I was replying to, and figure. There is only one reference to you in Brent's comment. It's referring to the first response. I don't know how it ended up where it is. On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 1:32:51 PM UTC, ghi...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:43:39 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Feb 2014, at 22:40, ghi...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday, January 17, 2014 9:59:36 PM UTC, Brent wrote: On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote: On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking. I agree. But your choice of words gives the opposite impression. Why higher? Why not lower. Yes, why not. The standard term is higher. Exactly - it is very subjective. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point. My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications of comp because it implies we really have a higher self that we've merely forgotten and that we are deluded in having a little ego. Just consider how different it sounds to say we have forgotten our real lower self and we deluded in thinking our ego is significant. Brent This is very true. I find it strange how much bias of various kinds gets built into this comp business. It surely can't be possible that a learned scholar like Bruno doesn't stop to consider whether he's loading terms in distortive ways. There's no way this is a language issue, the issue is far too basic. I hope Bruno takes your advice and tests his choice next time, by considering its negative. Can you be more specific, and may be quote my answer to Brent. I don't want the comp implications to make me happy. On the contrary I make the hypotheses precise, and then I derive everything by logic and arithmetic. If I distorted anything, I would be please you could make a specific remark. I don't even see what negative position you are mentioning. Hi Bruno - I don't think I was being negative in the negative sense. If that's the impression perhaps I should keep an eye on my style and see if I can avoid such impressions. Bruno I'm commenting directly on what Brent just said in the line above. You used the term higher self. So, the suggestion is that you're building in a bias that your theory doesn't reach to. Brent was illustrating this by suggesting that if you didn't agree, you should try inserting the opposite of 'higher'. Another bias is the way comp is presented as a hierarchy of acceptance of comp with words like 'courage' associated toward the higher end of acceptance, and very much the opposite associations going down the stack. We could talk forever about how individualistic people are, but the fact is there's a lot of evidence people can be very vulnerable to this sort of social/reputation type pressure. That said there's no sign it's purposeful or devious or anything like that, but even so. I have no problem with critics, except when they are so fuzzy it is not even clear they are related to anything I could have said. Comp needs courage, but then getting an heart operation too. I don't see what is the problem for you. Well look, all you had to do to see the point above was the usual read, read what I was replying to, and figure. There is only one reference to you in Brent's comment. What I'm referring to here, is that part of your theory, or your reading of comp, appears to grade people by the extent they accept your theory. That's alright. But as I was saying, there's a risk that arguments like that in an environment where other people are making up their mind about your theory, can bias the process due to them experiencing a kind of social/peer pressure to accept the theory. After all, who wants to be at the bottom rung of the hierarchy. This is pretty well understood stuff. I meancults, and pressure-scams, use the same kind of thing - obviously in their case malign and purposeful - to induce a pressured environment to push people through to whatever they have in store. I think I'm making really vanilla observations here. I'm not suggesting there's anything deliberate. I might not be right. Maybe you don't want to talk about it. Maybe you don't think it matters. I don't mind. I wasn't planning to launch a
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 04 Feb 2014, at 14:32, ghib...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:43:39 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Feb 2014, at 22:40, ghi...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday, January 17, 2014 9:59:36 PM UTC, Brent wrote: On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote: On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking. I agree. But your choice of words gives the opposite impression. Why higher? Why not lower. Yes, why not. The standard term is higher. Exactly - it is very subjective. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point. My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications of comp because it implies we really have a higher self that we've merely forgotten and that we are deluded in having a little ego. Just consider how different it sounds to say we have forgotten our real lower self and we deluded in thinking our ego is significant. Brent This is very true. I find it strange how much bias of various kinds gets built into this comp business. It surely can't be possible that a learned scholar like Bruno doesn't stop to consider whether he's loading terms in distortive ways. There's no way this is a language issue, the issue is far too basic. I hope Bruno takes your advice and tests his choice next time, by considering its negative. Can you be more specific, and may be quote my answer to Brent. I don't want the comp implications to make me happy. On the contrary I make the hypotheses precise, and then I derive everything by logic and arithmetic. If I distorted anything, I would be please you could make a specific remark. I don't even see what negative position you are mentioning. Hi Bruno - I don't think I was being negative in the negative sense. If that's the impression perhaps I should keep an eye on my style and see if I can avoid such impressions. Bruno I'm commenting directly on what Brent just said in the line above. You used the term higher self. So, the suggestion is that you're building in a bias that your theory doesn't reach to. OK. My fault. I was alluding to the self of the universal person, described by the arithmetical hypostases. usually I use higher self more in the context of the some entheogenic experience. The higher self is, basically, you, when you forget completeley who you are, or when you dissociate completely from yourself, like in OBE, some lucid or non lucid dreams, etc. Brent was illustrating this by suggesting that if you didn't agree, you should try inserting the opposite of 'higher'. Yes, the terrestrial self. The one who pays the bills, and answers mails, and collects the shortcut to heaven ... Another bias is the way comp is presented as a hierarchy of acceptance of comp with words like 'courage' associated toward the higher end of acceptance, and very much the opposite associations going down the stack. We could talk forever about how individualistic people are, but the fact is there's a lot of evidence people can be very vulnerable to this sort of social/ reputation type pressure. That said there's no sign it's purposeful or devious or anything like that, but even so. I have no problem with critics, except when they are so fuzzy it is not even clear they are related to anything I could have said. Comp needs courage, but then getting an heart operation too. I don't see what is the problem for you. Well look, all you had to do to see the point above was the usual read, read what I was replying to, and figure. There is only one reference to you in Brent's comment. What I'm referring to here, is that part of your theory, or your reading of comp, appears to grade people by the extent they accept your theory. Only the understanding is graded. That's what we do in math and science. That's alright. But as I was saying, there's a risk that arguments like that in an environment where other people are making up their mind about your theory, can bias the process due to them experiencing a kind of social/peer pressure to accept the theory. Not at all. That is why I insist so much that I am not selling a theory. I am not sure at all that comp is true. All the contrary. I am a mathematician, and I just prove a theorem, which is that IF comp is true, then Plato is mandatory, and Aristotle is refuted, and this in a testable way. The miracle is that with comp, some philosophical or theological question can be
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 6:54:38 PM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 04 Feb 2014, at 14:32, ghi...@gmail.com javascript: wrote: On Tuesday, February 4, 2014 9:43:39 AM UTC, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 03 Feb 2014, at 22:40, ghi...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday, January 17, 2014 9:59:36 PM UTC, Brent wrote: On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote: On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking. I agree. But your choice of words gives the opposite impression. Why higher? Why not lower. Yes, why not. The standard term is higher. Exactly - it is very subjective. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point. My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications of comp because it implies we really have a higher self that we've merely forgotten and that we are deluded in having a little ego. Just consider how different it sounds to say we have forgotten our real lower self and we deluded in thinking our ego is significant. Brent This is very true. I find it strange how much bias of various kinds gets built into this comp business. It surely can't be possible that a learned scholar like Bruno doesn't stop to consider whether he's loading terms in distortive ways. There's no way this is a language issue, the issue is far too basic. I hope Bruno takes your advice and tests his choice next time, by considering its negative. Can you be more specific, and may be quote my answer to Brent. I don't want the comp implications to make me happy. On the contrary I make the hypotheses precise, and then I derive everything by logic and arithmetic. If I distorted anything, I would be please you could make a specific remark. I don't even see what negative position you are mentioning. Hi Bruno - I don't think I was being negative in the negative sense. If that's the impression perhaps I should keep an eye on my style and see if I can avoid such impressions. Bruno I'm commenting directly on what Brent just said in the line above. You used the term higher self. So, the suggestion is that you're building in a bias that your theory doesn't reach to. OK. My fault. I was alluding to the self of the universal person, described by the arithmetical hypostases. usually I use higher self more in the context of the some entheogenic experience. The higher self is, basically, you, when you forget completeley who you are, or when you dissociate completely from yourself, like in OBE, some lucid or non lucid dreams, etc. Yeah I see what you're saying and it's debatable whether it really is a problem using 'higher'. I just happened to have been thinking about all this just as I saw Brent and your discussion here. I had been reading a thread between you and some other chap in which these matters came up. Actually, I just read David Nyman? post, the last one on a different thread where he overviews your theory, which I found very helpful. Brent was illustrating this by suggesting that if you didn't agree, you should try inserting the opposite of 'higher'. Yes, the terrestrial self. The one who pays the bills, and answers mails, and collects the shortcut to heaven ... Another bias is the way comp is presented as a hierarchy of acceptance of comp with words like 'courage' associated toward the higher end of acceptance, and very much the opposite associations going down the stack. We could talk forever about how individualistic people are, but the fact is there's a lot of evidence people can be very vulnerable to this sort of social/reputation type pressure. That said there's no sign it's purposeful or devious or anything like that, but even so. I have no problem with critics, except when they are so fuzzy it is not even clear they are related to anything I could have said. Comp needs courage, but then getting an heart operation too. I don't see what is the problem for you. Well look, all you had to do to see the point above was the usual read, read what I was replying to, and figure. There is only one reference to you in Brent's comment. What I'm referring to here, is that part of your theory, or your reading of comp, appears to grade people by the extent they accept your theory. Only the understanding is graded. That's what we do in math and science. I'll take that on board. It seemed more than that when I read the
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On Thursday, January 16, 2014 3:19:40 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 15 Jan 2014, at 20:14, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. In your theory perhaps. But then my body is not Turing emulable. Comp must be false. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. That is true. But if the body do the human part of that consciousness, consciousness itself is not the result of the computations, but of all computations, if not all arithmetic (which is not Turing emulable). The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. I agree. I would not say that the body makes it possible to forget the higher self, I would say that the body is a history of the higher self, but seen from an exteriorized perspective. It's not a delusion to be embedded in an ego history, it's just a throttling of the bandwidth of sensitivity. Craig Bruno Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:03:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On Friday, January 17, 2014 9:59:36 PM UTC, Brent wrote: On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote: On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking. I agree. But your choice of words gives the opposite impression. Why higher? Why not lower. Yes, why not. The standard term is higher. Exactly - it is very subjective. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point. My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications of comp because it implies we really have a higher self that we've merely forgotten and that we are deluded in having a little ego. Just consider how different it sounds to say we have forgotten our real lower self and we deluded in thinking our ego is significant. Brent This is very true. I find it strange how much bias of various kinds gets built into this comp business. It surely can't be possible that a learned scholar like Bruno doesn't stop to consider whether he's loading terms in distortive ways. There's no way this is a language issue, the issue is far too basic. I hope Bruno takes your advice and tests his choice next time, by considering its negative. Another bias is the way comp is presented as a hierarchy of acceptance of comp with words like 'courage' associated toward the higher end of acceptance, and very much the opposite associations going down the stack. We could talk forever about how individualistic people are, but the fact is there's a lot of evidence people can be very vulnerable to this sort of social/reputation type pressure. That said there's no sign it's purposeful or devious or anything like that, but even so. Something else is that some people don't appear to stick to published work and consequences when someone less experienced is undecided. The issue there is that there's a good chance that less experienced person may not be able to distinguish this for himself, and may be assuming published work is being stuck to - a reasonable assumption in my view. A simple remedy would be to label non published...stuff that are still at insight stage or whatever, as personal opinion. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 17 Jan 2014, at 22:59, meekerdb wrote: On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote: On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking. I agree. But your choice of words gives the opposite impression. Why higher? Why not lower. Yes, why not. The standard term is higher. Exactly - it is very subjective. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point. My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications of comp because it implies we really have a higher self that we've merely forgotten and that we are deluded in having a little ego. Just consider how different it sounds to say we have forgotten our real lower self and we deluded in thinking our ego is significant. No, but in some context, I try to explain using such wording, but I have no clue if we should be happy with it. The happiness is in the search, not in anything found. Bruno Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote: On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking. Why higher? Why not lower. Yes, why not. The standard term is higher. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point. Bruno Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 1/17/2014 2:30 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 16 Jan 2014, at 19:04, meekerdb wrote: On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. That is very subjective. It sounds to me, and to some other people, (apparently many), that it looks more like some terrifying thinking. I agree. But your choice of words gives the opposite impression. Why higher? Why not lower. Yes, why not. The standard term is higher. Exactly - it is very subjective. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Why not indeed? Is that a problem? Not sure to see your point. My point is that you imply we should be happy with the implications of comp because it implies we really have a higher self that we've merely forgotten and that we are deluded in having a little ego. Just consider how different it sounds to say we have forgotten our real lower self and we deluded in thinking our ego is significant. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 15 Jan 2014, at 20:12, Terren Suydam wrote: Right, and QTI isn't even much of a comfort in terms of avoiding your own death, as there are no guarantees about the quality of the surviving continuations. I remember Bruno saying once (paraphrasing) consciousness is a prison. Otto Rössler is responsible for that assertion, which he used to sum up Descartes, after one of my talk, years ago. The one comfort I do enjoy from it - to the extent that I place any faith in it - is not fearing dying in a plane crash. That is weird, as I tend to feel that comp makes more frightening any violent death. Surviving a violent death might not be so much fun. But science should not be consolating a priori. Then we can have some faith that Truth is related to the Good, not in the sense that Truth is Good, but in the sense that avoiding Truth makes things worse. But that kind of faith is more private and personal. Bruno On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 2:03 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 15 Jan 2014, at 20:14, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. In your theory perhaps. But then my body is not Turing emulable. Comp must be false. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. That is true. But if the body do the human part of that consciousness, consciousness itself is not the result of the computations, but of all computations, if not all arithmetic (which is not Turing emulable). The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Bruno Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:03:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 15 Jan 2014, at 20:28, freqflyer07281972 wrote: Wow, Liz, very sorry to hear about your friend. If you don't mind me asking (and if you do mind, simply ignore my question), if you magically just knew that the universe was in fact a large computation engine where all possibilities are eventually played out, and also entailing some form of QTI, would this provide any comfort to you at all? As far as I understand Bruno's UD, (and I'm really still not sure I understand it, despite lurking here for years and reading old posts) a consequence of being embedding in the universal computational structure as a machine is the fact that we cannot ever prove the correctness of our beliefs because our consistency is only relative to the part of the universal function we inhabit, and there could be other domains of computation where our beliefs would turn out to be false. It is slightly more complex than that, but OK. Let us keep the technical details for later. Of course, what I just said could also be a load of gobbledygook because, as I admitted, I don't fully understand the entire argument, nor do I really grasp what the conclusion of the argument is supposed to be, nor do I really even understand what kind of ethical import any TOE could have on our behaviors here in the local domain. The consequence is simple to state: the TOE is just arithmetic, or any Turing complete system. Everything can be derived from addition and multiplication. If you want, the consequence is that physics is not the fundamental science and is retrievable from machine theology, itself part of computer science, itself part of arithmetical truth. e have to come back to a Pythagorean neoplatonist theology: NUMBER === THEOLOGY === PHYSICS (this makes comp testable, as the proof is constructive). You can follow the 8 steps arguments, and ask any question. People are different. Not the same people find this or that easy, obvious, or insuperably difficult. Bruno On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:03:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 15 Jan 2014, at 23:30, LizR wrote: On 16 January 2014 10:27, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com wrote: I have a funny comic I think all of you will appreciate to one extent or another. I'm also curious as to your reaction regarding the status of questions versus answers: http://comicsthatsaysomething.quora.com/A-Day-at-the-Park Very nice. FWIW I think questions are the driving force of most of human existence, not to mention novel writing, while answers are dangerous and should be treated with caution, because many are usatisfying and a lot of them are just ways to stop people thinking. However, a good answer is very nice to have, just now and then, and can be easily recognised because they invariably create more questions. It is well drawn, also. Ah, yes, question are better than answer. Look at the eyes of a child before opening a gift, (what is it? what is it?) and after (where is the newt gift?) ! All questions are good. Answer are boring, unless they drive new questions. Bruno -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 18:07, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: Liz, I came across that page of yours a few months ago through random searching. (I forgot what I was searching for), but only later did I realize it was your blog! Out of curiosity, do you recall what the 2 other responses were to your poll? I would have to go back to my sources, but I might be able to find out. Actually I only made a couple of entries in that blog. I update my crossword one a lot more often..should you be interested :) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 19:44, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.comwrote: I totally agree with you that science, when you really start getting into the implications of things like QM (and relativity for that matter), provides some rather unsettling (and yet very exciting!) conclusions. And yet... they always rest on the tip of uncertainty. Either that, or else the conclusions are so terrible that I can't bear to think of them. Like, for example, you mention the idea of universalism, the idea that all minds are fundamentally connected. This has always been a very strong intuition with me ever since I had a religious conversion type experience in my teens. Finding this list was a wonderful moment, because it appeared that the implications of comp reinforced this intuition. BUT... on the other hand, ethically, I hate the idea that my mind and the mind of, say, Josef Stalin, are linked in any way, and the more I learn about the enormity of various acts of evil and violence, the more I feel OK with the idea that maybe death qua oblivion really isn't such a bad thing after all, but is instead a kind of mercy that is bestowed upon us. I guess I just have some trouble squaring my metaphysical curiosities (that tend to pull me way out into the stratosphere) with my ethical demands and expectations (that tend to reign in my speculations). Do I make any sense? You do to me, I've had those same thoughts. To be every starving child, every rapist and victim, every torturer and victim, every genius and every person who feels they've wasted their life, to be every rugby fan and every monstrous psychopath ... I just quail at the thought I feel the Beatles may have had a point or two. As I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together... And, All you need is love. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 Jan 2014, at 02:19, freqflyer07281972 wrote: Unless I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together, of course. Well, that's just it, isn't it? :-) Or indeed, if all of this self stuff is really a very sophisticated mental model we run... I've tried making that claim here before, but the response if I recall was a repetition of the Cartesian dictum, and I didn't pursue it. If the self does not and/or never has existed in the first place, then there is no point in mourning its loss, because it quite literally doesn't go anywhere. Still, without having that deep conviction, not sure how it offers succor. The 3p-self exists. that can be proved in arithmetic (by the diagonal lemma). Much more difficult is to prove the existence of the 1p-self. But then, by a sort of epistemological miracle, incompleteness makes valid the oldest definition of the knower (Theaetetus) in arithmetic, which provides a good candidate for the first person self, and this explains completely why the first person exists in arithmetic, but also why it cannot be defined in arithmetic (like arithmetical truth, for similar reason). Bruno -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 1/15/2014 11:25 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 12:44 AM, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com mailto:thismindisbud...@gmail.com wrote: I totally agree with you that science, when you really start getting into the implications of things like QM (and relativity for that matter), provides some rather unsettling (and yet very exciting!) conclusions. And yet... they always rest on the tip of uncertainty. Either that, or else the conclusions are so terrible that I can't bear to think of them. I have come to think few things could be more certain than universalism. If you take a few moments to consider why you were born as you, and not someone else, the only possible answer that fits that answer is for me to be born, an exact arrangement of matter or genes had to come into being. If the exact matter was necessary, then that means if your mom at something else, or took a sip of water at the wrong time, then you would never have been born. If the exact genes are required, then that means you had a 1 in 100 million chance that the right sperm met the right egg for you to be born, otherwise you would not exist at all. The odds become that much more staggering when you consider not only your begetting, but all other begettings of all your ancestors would have to be EXACTLY right, otherwise you would not be born and would never have existed. So what? Someone wins the lottery no matter how many tickets there are. On the other hand, if you believe even if one gene or two were different, you would still have been born, this means there really was no specific requirement for you to be born as you, and if a completely different sperm or egg were fertilized, then maybe you would instead be one of your brothers or sisters. If this is true, then shouldn't that mean you are in fact, also your brothers and sisters. So my Volkswagen is actually the same as my neighbors Volkswagen because there was no specific requirement for them to differ except for one on two bumps in the ignition lock. I think I'll suggest that to him; his has a lot fewer miles on it than mine. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 1/16/2014 12:19 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: The body does not produces consciousness, it only make it possible for consciousness to forget the higher self, and deludes us (in some sense) in having a little ego embedded in some history. Sounds like wishful thinking. Why higher? Why not lower. Why not diffused into the infinite threads of the UD? Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Brent, No, that's incorrect. No winning number needs to be drawn in the lottery. In fact there are no winners fairly often. That's why the jackpot keeps increasing Lotteries are not won by choosing among player submitted numbers, they are drawn at random from all possible numbers within the range of the number of digits. Now if you could be wrong about lotteries, how about Edgar's theories? :-) Edgar On Thursday, January 16, 2014 12:44:06 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: On 1/15/2014 11:25 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 12:44 AM, freqflyer07281972 thismind...@gmail.comjavascript: wrote: I totally agree with you that science, when you really start getting into the implications of things like QM (and relativity for that matter), provides some rather unsettling (and yet very exciting!) conclusions. And yet... they always rest on the tip of uncertainty. Either that, or else the conclusions are so terrible that I can't bear to think of them. I have come to think few things could be more certain than universalism. If you take a few moments to consider why you were born as you, and not someone else, the only possible answer that fits that answer is for me to be born, an exact arrangement of matter or genes had to come into being. If the exact matter was necessary, then that means if your mom at something else, or took a sip of water at the wrong time, then you would never have been born. If the exact genes are required, then that means you had a 1 in 100 million chance that the right sperm met the right egg for you to be born, otherwise you would not exist at all. The odds become that much more staggering when you consider not only your begetting, but all other begettings of all your ancestors would have to be EXACTLY right, otherwise you would not be born and would never have existed. So what? Someone wins the lottery no matter how many tickets there are. On the other hand, if you believe even if one gene or two were different, you would still have been born, this means there really was no specific requirement for you to be born as you, and if a completely different sperm or egg were fertilized, then maybe you would instead be one of your brothers or sisters. If this is true, then shouldn't that mean you are in fact, also your brothers and sisters. So my Volkswagen is actually the same as my neighbors Volkswagen because there was no specific requirement for them to differ except for one on two bumps in the ignition lock. I think I'll suggest that to him; his has a lot fewer miles on it than mine. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 11:44 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/15/2014 11:25 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 12:44 AM, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com wrote: I totally agree with you that science, when you really start getting into the implications of things like QM (and relativity for that matter), provides some rather unsettling (and yet very exciting!) conclusions. And yet... they always rest on the tip of uncertainty. Either that, or else the conclusions are so terrible that I can't bear to think of them. I have come to think few things could be more certain than universalism. If you take a few moments to consider why you were born as you, and not someone else, the only possible answer that fits that answer is for me to be born, an exact arrangement of matter or genes had to come into being. If the exact matter was necessary, then that means if your mom at something else, or took a sip of water at the wrong time, then you would never have been born. If the exact genes are required, then that means you had a 1 in 100 million chance that the right sperm met the right egg for you to be born, otherwise you would not exist at all. The odds become that much more staggering when you consider not only your begetting, but all other begettings of all your ancestors would have to be EXACTLY right, otherwise you would not be born and would never have existed. So what? Someone wins the lottery no matter how many tickets there are. But can you a priori expect to be one of the winners? Should you not have some level of surprise when you find out you are a winner, and possibly seek some more probable explanations (my kids are pranking me, I am dreaming, etc.)? On the other hand, if you believe even if one gene or two were different, you would still have been born, this means there really was no specific requirement for you to be born as you, and if a completely different sperm or egg were fertilized, then maybe you would instead be one of your brothers or sisters. If this is true, then shouldn't that mean you are in fact, also your brothers and sisters. So my Volkswagen is actually the same as my neighbors Volkswagen because there was no specific requirement for them to differ except for one on two bumps in the ignition lock. I think I'll suggest that to him; his has a lot fewer miles on it than mine. No, you are missing the point. It is not that they are similar enough to be you, it is that they share everything that was necessary for *you *to be present in them. Your current perspective does not rule out that you are seeing from their eyes, just as seeing only one branch does not mean the wave function collapsed, and nor does seeing only one time prove presentism. The simpler hypothesis by far is that you are born as all of them, rather than believing there is some special or privileged person which is the only person in the whole universe whose entire life *you *will experience. Jason Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 1/16/2014 10:14 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 11:44 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/15/2014 11:25 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 12:44 AM, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com mailto:thismindisbud...@gmail.com wrote: I totally agree with you that science, when you really start getting into the implications of things like QM (and relativity for that matter), provides some rather unsettling (and yet very exciting!) conclusions. And yet... they always rest on the tip of uncertainty. Either that, or else the conclusions are so terrible that I can't bear to think of them. I have come to think few things could be more certain than universalism. If you take a few moments to consider why you were born as you, and not someone else, the only possible answer that fits that answer is for me to be born, an exact arrangement of matter or genes had to come into being. If the exact matter was necessary, then that means if your mom at something else, or took a sip of water at the wrong time, then you would never have been born. If the exact genes are required, then that means you had a 1 in 100 million chance that the right sperm met the right egg for you to be born, otherwise you would not exist at all. The odds become that much more staggering when you consider not only your begetting, but all other begettings of all your ancestors would have to be EXACTLY right, otherwise you would not be born and would never have existed. So what? Someone wins the lottery no matter how many tickets there are. But can you a priori expect to be one of the winners? Should you not have some level of surprise when you find out you are a winner, and possibly seek some more probable explanations (my kids are pranking me, I am dreaming, etc.)? On the other hand, if you believe even if one gene or two were different, you would still have been born, this means there really was no specific requirement for you to be born as you, and if a completely different sperm or egg were fertilized, then maybe you would instead be one of your brothers or sisters. If this is true, then shouldn't that mean you are in fact, also your brothers and sisters. So my Volkswagen is actually the same as my neighbors Volkswagen because there was no specific requirement for them to differ except for one on two bumps in the ignition lock. I think I'll suggest that to him; his has a lot fewer miles on it than mine. No, you are missing the point. It is not that they are similar enough to be you, it is that they share everything that was necessary for /you /to be present in them. Your current perspective does not rule out that you are seeing from their eyes, Then why don't I always win at poker? just as seeing only one branch does not mean the wave function collapsed, and nor does seeing only one time prove presentism. The simpler hypothesis by far is that you are born as all of them, Simpler, but contradicted by observation. God did it. is even simpler. rather than believing there is some special or privileged person which is the only person in the whole universe whose entire life /you /will experience. Except that is the definition of you: the life you experience Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 4:00 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/16/2014 10:14 AM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 11:44 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/15/2014 11:25 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 12:44 AM, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com wrote: I totally agree with you that science, when you really start getting into the implications of things like QM (and relativity for that matter), provides some rather unsettling (and yet very exciting!) conclusions. And yet... they always rest on the tip of uncertainty. Either that, or else the conclusions are so terrible that I can't bear to think of them. I have come to think few things could be more certain than universalism. If you take a few moments to consider why you were born as you, and not someone else, the only possible answer that fits that answer is for me to be born, an exact arrangement of matter or genes had to come into being. If the exact matter was necessary, then that means if your mom at something else, or took a sip of water at the wrong time, then you would never have been born. If the exact genes are required, then that means you had a 1 in 100 million chance that the right sperm met the right egg for you to be born, otherwise you would not exist at all. The odds become that much more staggering when you consider not only your begetting, but all other begettings of all your ancestors would have to be EXACTLY right, otherwise you would not be born and would never have existed. So what? Someone wins the lottery no matter how many tickets there are. But can you a priori expect to be one of the winners? Should you not have some level of surprise when you find out you are a winner, and possibly seek some more probable explanations (my kids are pranking me, I am dreaming, etc.)? On the other hand, if you believe even if one gene or two were different, you would still have been born, this means there really was no specific requirement for you to be born as you, and if a completely different sperm or egg were fertilized, then maybe you would instead be one of your brothers or sisters. If this is true, then shouldn't that mean you are in fact, also your brothers and sisters. So my Volkswagen is actually the same as my neighbors Volkswagen because there was no specific requirement for them to differ except for one on two bumps in the ignition lock. I think I'll suggest that to him; his has a lot fewer miles on it than mine. No, you are missing the point. It is not that they are similar enough to be you, it is that they share everything that was necessary for *you *to be present in them. Your current perspective does not rule out that you are seeing from their eyes, Then why don't I always win at poker? You don't, you only think you don't always win because view of yourself is too limited. just as seeing only one branch does not mean the wave function collapsed, and nor does seeing only one time prove presentism. The simpler hypothesis by far is that you are born as all of them, Simpler, but contradicted by observation. God did it. is even simpler. Thinking universalism is contradicted by observation is the same error in thinking block time is contradicted because I'm only aware of one point in time. Taking into account indexicals you can overcome many of the illusions our brain plays on us: making us falsely believe our point in time, branch in the many-worlds, or ego is somehow special. rather than believing there is some special or privileged person which is the only person in the whole universe whose entire life *you *will experience. Except that is the definition of you: the life you experience Right, and that experience isn't limited to the of some singular physical continuation of some biological organism. Jason -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 1/16/2014 2:07 PM, Jason Resch wrote: No, you are missing the point. It is not that they are similar enough to be you, it is that they share everything that was necessary for /you /to be present in them. Your current perspective does not rule out that you are seeing from their eyes, Then why don't I always win at poker? You don't, you only think you don't always win because view of yourself is too limited. I should get a good view of myself looking out of everyone else's eyes. But my present perspective doesn't rule out that it's not my present perspective. Hmm, why don't we just change the meaning of ALL the words. just as seeing only one branch does not mean the wave function collapsed, and nor does seeing only one time prove presentism. The simpler hypothesis by far is that you are born as all of them, Simpler, but contradicted by observation. God did it. is even simpler. Thinking universalism is contradicted by observation is the same error in thinking block time is contradicted because I'm only aware of one point in time. But I'm not aware of just one point in time. I'm aware of memories and of duration. Taking into account indexicals you can overcome many of the illusions our brain plays on us: making us falsely believe our point in time, branch in the many-worlds, or ego is somehow special. Exactly my point. If your ego isn't special, then YOU don't exist. rather than believing there is some special or privileged person which is the only person in the whole universe whose entire life /you /will experience. Except that is the definition of you: the life you experience Right, and that experience isn't limited to the of some singular physical continuation of some biological organism. But it's limited to what I experience. Remember the common slogan on this list: everything=nothing. I think it applies to experience too. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Hey everyone, I'm starting a new topic here so as not to derail any conversations on other threads -- the original thread I am commenting on seems to have some interesting stuff about computer simulations etc. and I don't want to bother others about it. Edgar has repeatedly posted links to both his business and personal website, and his life companion request is there right on the front page, so I'm not sure how that constitutes snooping. For Edgar, if it is true that you did lose your wife to cancer recently, I am very sorry for your loss. My father died of cancer when I was young, and I lost a close friend last Christmas to cancer as well, so I know how that feels. Just digging down to nuts and bolts for a second, though, for those members on the list that subscribe to some version of Everything Theory, (Bruno's UD, various forms of computer simulation universe, Craig's multisense realism), I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: what is the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where Everything exists and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal substrate and where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole humanistic, existentialist point of these theories to offer us a bit of succor in the face of inevitable death? That is why I am interested in this stuff -- not simply for the intellectual fun and games of it all, but because I am truly terrified of oblivion and of losing everything I love to that oblivion, and yet everything in my observed world tells me that when we die, we are basically broken machines and our world completely and permanently disappears for us. That is why I desperately want to be convinced of any of the Everything theories that are discussed here, although I admit that the degree to which any of them offer any comfort at all is relative to how one is able to interpret the consequences of such theories to find a place for your personality in the Everything. I didn't think pasting quite publicly available text from Edgar's website constitutes a personal attack. Edgar seems quite happy to keep that information up on the web for anyone to see, so I hardly think it constitutes snooping to cite it in a different forum. And my original observation that I could understand why he was alone was motivated by his continued truculence and seeming inability to incorporate and respond to the many pieces of feedback he had been given about his theory... I wouldn't want to be around somebody in real life who demonstrated such regular and fatuous disregard for what I was saying. So, just to sum up, I apologize, Edgar, for any pain that my copying and pasting of the text on your website caused you, and I apologize for suggesting that the reason you are alone is because you are probably a difficult person to live with in real life. I don't know anything about you in real life (aside from what you've put on your website, assuming it is all true), and I realize that this forum is not the place to engage in personal attacks. I'll be more thoughtful in the future. Best regards, Dan Menon -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Dan, First, thanks for the apology which I gratefully accept. However you have your facts completely wrong. It was NOT ME that posted a link to my personal blog, not a single one. It was Terren that did that as I recall, but it most certainly was NOT ME. I did post a SINGLE link to my company site later in response to questions why I was late in responding to some posts what I was busy doing...(Liz and others criticized my lack of immediate response on several occasions but I at least do have a real life apart from this group!) So your claim that Edgar REPEATEDLY posted links to both his business and personal website is simply FALSE. I posted only one link period. Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 1:20:29 PM UTC-5, freqflyer07281972 wrote: Hey everyone, I'm starting a new topic here so as not to derail any conversations on other threads -- the original thread I am commenting on seems to have some interesting stuff about computer simulations etc. and I don't want to bother others about it. Edgar has repeatedly posted links to both his business and personal website, and his life companion request is there right on the front page, so I'm not sure how that constitutes snooping. For Edgar, if it is true that you did lose your wife to cancer recently, I am very sorry for your loss. My father died of cancer when I was young, and I lost a close friend last Christmas to cancer as well, so I know how that feels. Just digging down to nuts and bolts for a second, though, for those members on the list that subscribe to some version of Everything Theory, (Bruno's UD, various forms of computer simulation universe, Craig's multisense realism), I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: what is the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where Everything exists and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal substrate and where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole humanistic, existentialist point of these theories to offer us a bit of succor in the face of inevitable death? That is why I am interested in this stuff -- not simply for the intellectual fun and games of it all, but because I am truly terrified of oblivion and of losing everything I love to that oblivion, and yet everything in my observed world tells me that when we die, we are basically broken machines and our world completely and permanently disappears for us. That is why I desperately want to be convinced of any of the Everything theories that are discussed here, although I admit that the degree to which any of them offer any comfort at all is relative to how one is able to interpret the consequences of such theories to find a place for your personality in the Everything. I didn't think pasting quite publicly available text from Edgar's website constitutes a personal attack. Edgar seems quite happy to keep that information up on the web for anyone to see, so I hardly think it constitutes snooping to cite it in a different forum. And my original observation that I could understand why he was alone was motivated by his continued truculence and seeming inability to incorporate and respond to the many pieces of feedback he had been given about his theory... I wouldn't want to be around somebody in real life who demonstrated such regular and fatuous disregard for what I was saying. So, just to sum up, I apologize, Edgar, for any pain that my copying and pasting of the text on your website caused you, and I apologize for suggesting that the reason you are alone is because you are probably a difficult person to live with in real life. I don't know anything about you in real life (aside from what you've put on your website, assuming it is all true), and I realize that this forum is not the place to engage in personal attacks. I'll be more thoughtful in the future. Best regards, Dan Menon -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Fair enough, I retract repeatedly posted links to his personal website... I guess, in my mind, it just seemed like you repeatedly posted links to your website, because it always seems like you end up talking about yourself and your book, and not about the ideas you have, and when you do talk about the ideas you have, you provide such flimsy justifications for them and they are repeatedly and decisively refuted by people on this list, but you don't ever seem to acknowledge this or engage debate honestly or in good faith. So, ya, it only seemed like you posted to your personal blog repeatedly because you do very frequently talk about yourself and how your ideas are so very important, all the while failing to engage the many (very justified) criticisms of them on their own terms, and also frequently resorting to calling people dumb or stupid for not getting what you are saying, all the while receiving what appears to me to be very compassionate and patient explanations of why your ideas are either a) irrelevant (i.e. they don't solve any problems or anomalies that GR and SR can't already handle or b) provably wrong (i.e. the assumption of absolute simultaneity). On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 1:48:09 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Dan, First, thanks for the apology which I gratefully accept. However you have your facts completely wrong. It was NOT ME that posted a link to my personal blog, not a single one. It was Terren that did that as I recall, but it most certainly was NOT ME. I did post a SINGLE link to my company site later in response to questions why I was late in responding to some posts what I was busy doing...(Liz and others criticized my lack of immediate response on several occasions but I at least do have a real life apart from this group!) So your claim that Edgar REPEATEDLY posted links to both his business and personal website is simply FALSE. I posted only one link period. Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 1:20:29 PM UTC-5, freqflyer07281972 wrote: Hey everyone, I'm starting a new topic here so as not to derail any conversations on other threads -- the original thread I am commenting on seems to have some interesting stuff about computer simulations etc. and I don't want to bother others about it. Edgar has repeatedly posted links to both his business and personal website, and his life companion request is there right on the front page, so I'm not sure how that constitutes snooping. For Edgar, if it is true that you did lose your wife to cancer recently, I am very sorry for your loss. My father died of cancer when I was young, and I lost a close friend last Christmas to cancer as well, so I know how that feels. Just digging down to nuts and bolts for a second, though, for those members on the list that subscribe to some version of Everything Theory, (Bruno's UD, various forms of computer simulation universe, Craig's multisense realism), I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: what is the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where Everything exists and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal substrate and where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole humanistic, existentialist point of these theories to offer us a bit of succor in the face of inevitable death? That is why I am interested in this stuff -- not simply for the intellectual fun and games of it all, but because I am truly terrified of oblivion and of losing everything I love to that oblivion, and yet everything in my observed world tells me that when we die, we are basically broken machines and our world completely and permanently disappears for us. That is why I desperately want to be convinced of any of the Everything theories that are discussed here, although I admit that the degree to which any of them offer any comfort at all is relative to how one is able to interpret the consequences of such theories to find a place for your personality in the Everything. I didn't think pasting quite publicly available text from Edgar's website constitutes a personal attack. Edgar seems quite happy to keep that information up on the web for anyone to see, so I hardly think it constitutes snooping to cite it in a different forum. And my original observation that I could understand why he was alone was motivated by his continued truculence and seeming inability to incorporate and respond to the many pieces of feedback he had been given about his theory... I wouldn't want to be around somebody in real life who demonstrated such regular and fatuous disregard for what I was saying. So, just to sum up, I apologize, Edgar, for any pain that my copying and pasting of the text on your website caused you, and I apologize for suggesting that the reason you are alone is because you are
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Right, and QTI isn't even much of a comfort in terms of avoiding your own death, as there are no guarantees about the quality of the surviving continuations. I remember Bruno saying once (paraphrasing) consciousness is a prison. The one comfort I do enjoy from it - to the extent that I place any faith in it - is not fearing dying in a plane crash. On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 2:03 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:03:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Wow, Liz, very sorry to hear about your friend. If you don't mind me asking (and if you do mind, simply ignore my question), if you magically just knew that the universe was in fact a large computation engine where all possibilities are eventually played out, and also entailing some form of QTI, would this provide any comfort to you at all? As far as I understand Bruno's UD, (and I'm really still not sure I understand it, despite lurking here for years and reading old posts) a consequence of being embedding in the universal computational structure as a machine is the fact that we cannot ever prove the correctness of our beliefs because our consistency is only relative to the part of the universal function we inhabit, and there could be other domains of computation where our beliefs would turn out to be false. Of course, what I just said could also be a load of gobbledygook because, as I admitted, I don't fully understand the entire argument, nor do I really grasp what the conclusion of the argument is supposed to be, nor do I really even understand what kind of ethical import any TOE could have on our behaviors here in the local domain. On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:03:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On what authority do you make such claims? On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:14:54 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:03:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
2014/1/15 freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com On what authority do you make such claims? Isn't it obvious ? His own, it is so obviously obvious, it's a shame^Wjoke you didn't obviously register so obvious. Quentin On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:14:54 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:03:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
So, just to run with this for a few moments (which will be lost in time, like tears in rain... ;-) ... if it is obvious to Edgar that everything he says is true, for example the claim that: When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. ... but many other (highly educated, scientific, philosophical) human beings disagree that it is obvious and/or can't see what is plainly apparent to only one of them, what should that single person who has (by some miracle of the universe) been given privileged access to the unvarnished truth of the universe do about it? Should they: a) call people who disagree with them too stupid to get it b) revise their beliefs concerning the obvious nature of the truth they think they possess c) suspect on the basis of the responses they are getting from otherwise intelligent people that perhaps their unique insight is in error d) ignore all claims to the contrary and persist in their beliefs e) patiently re-explain, in a different way, using different analogies, the substance of their claim and f) be willing to revise their beliefs on the basis of what others tell them, assuming they do not have an overexaggerated confidence in their own ability to discern the truth These are not mutually exclusive options. It seems to me Edgar has done a lot of option a and option d -- e has not been used because no analogies, thought experiments, or formal apparatus has been offered for honest inspection- merely a series of re-assertions that it is quite obvious that X, and I don't understand why no one else gets it -- the rest of the options are also not evident. I'd be interested to get some feedback on this question, as I think self-delusion and self-deception are germane to any discussion of Everything theories, and this is also why it is the domain of so many cranks. On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:32:28 PM UTC-5, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014/1/15 freqflyer07281972 thismind...@gmail.com javascript: On what authority do you make such claims? Isn't it obvious ? His own, it is so obviously obvious, it's a shame^Wjoke you didn't obviously register so obvious. Quentin On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:14:54 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:03:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 1/15/2014 11:12 AM, Terren Suydam wrote: Right, and QTI isn't even much of a comfort in terms of avoiding your own death, as there are no guarantees about the quality of the surviving continuations. I remember Bruno saying once (paraphrasing) consciousness is a prison. The one comfort I do enjoy from it - to the extent that I place any faith in it - is not fearing dying in a plane crash. For anyone comforted by QTI I recommend reading Divided by Infinity. It's a short story you can read online. Brent I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying. --- Woody Allen -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 08:14, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. Can't you make *any *argument using logic, rather than just having a go at the other person's perceived motivations? To believe otherwise may be comforting and may be superstition, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. You should study logical forms sometime. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. If I thought for a moment you could back that up with any reasoned argument, I would ask you to provide it. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 09:54, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/15/2014 11:12 AM, Terren Suydam wrote: Right, and QTI isn't even much of a comfort in terms of avoiding your own death, as there are no guarantees about the quality of the surviving continuations. I remember Bruno saying once (paraphrasing) consciousness is a prison. The one comfort I do enjoy from it - to the extent that I place any faith in it - is not fearing dying in a plane crash. For anyone comforted by QTI I recommend reading Divided by Infinity. It's a short story you can read online. True. But I've accepted worse. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
This, after he has already agreed that he would say yes to the doctor. On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 4:14 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 16 January 2014 08:14, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. Can't you make *any *argument using logic, rather than just having a go at the other person's perceived motivations? To believe otherwise may be comforting and may be superstition, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. You should study logical forms sometime. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. If I thought for a moment you could back that up with any reasoned argument, I would ask you to provide it. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 08:28, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.comwrote: Wow, Liz, very sorry to hear about your friend. If you don't mind me asking (and if you do mind, simply ignore my question), if you magically just knew that the universe was in fact a large computation engine where all possibilities are eventually played out, and also entailing some form of QTI, would this provide any comfort to you at all? Thank you, but it was very a long time ago (it did indirectly precipitate me realising that I had end my first marriage, and started me writing after a gap of many years strange thing, life) To answer your question it would provide some comfort, after a fashion. I agree that QTI is a terrifying prospect in many ways, but my guess is that eventually it would mean that everyone ended up in an advanced civilisation capable of uploading them (as per Frank Tipler's Omega point idea) - although maybe only after thousands (or millions) of years of being the living dead... As far as I understand Bruno's UD, (and I'm really still not sure I understand it, despite lurking here for years and reading old posts) a consequence of being embedding in the universal computational structure as a machine is the fact that we cannot ever prove the correctness of our beliefs because our consistency is only relative to the part of the universal function we inhabit, and there could be other domains of computation where our beliefs would turn out to be false. Of course, what I just said could also be a load of gobbledygook because, as I admitted, I don't fully understand the entire argument, nor do I really grasp what the conclusion of the argument is supposed to be, nor do I really even understand what kind of ethical import any TOE could have on our behaviors here in the local domain. I agree with all the above! All I can add is that it's still interesting to think about these matters. (Maybe I'm just trying to keep senility at bay...) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 08:52, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.comwrote: So, just to run with this for a few moments (which will be lost in time, like tears in rain... ;-) ... if it is obvious to Edgar that everything he says is true, for example the claim that: When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. ... but many other (highly educated, scientific, philosophical) human beings disagree that it is obvious and/or can't see what is plainly apparent to only one of them, what should that single person who has (by some miracle of the universe) been given privileged access to the unvarnished truth of the universe do about it? Should they: a) call people who disagree with them too stupid to get it b) revise their beliefs concerning the obvious nature of the truth they think they possess c) suspect on the basis of the responses they are getting from otherwise intelligent people that perhaps their unique insight is in error d) ignore all claims to the contrary and persist in their beliefs e) patiently re-explain, in a different way, using different analogies, the substance of their claim and f) be willing to revise their beliefs on the basis of what others tell them, assuming they do not have an overexaggerated confidence in their own ability to discern the truth These are not mutually exclusive options. It seems to me Edgar has done a lot of option a and option d -- e has not been used because no analogies, thought experiments, or formal apparatus has been offered for honest inspection- merely a series of re-assertions that it is quite obvious that X, and I don't understand why no one else gets it -- the rest of the options are also not evident. I agree. I've repeatedly asked for some sort of (e) or (f), but got exactly zilch. And I may be too stupid to get it, but I'm not so stupid that I intend to keep asking him honest questions in good faith and get knocked back forever. Plus, he doesn't even get the nuances of satirical replies, nor does he come out with anything that's actually witty, rather than clumsy and obvious attempts at humour. I always thought you lived in the 19th century, ho ho! isn't exactly sparkling, witty, barbed, to the point, or even based on anything whatsoever that I've said apart from me gently pointing out that some sci-fi nonsense has come to pass during the last 100 years. So even the entertainment value drops off after a while. I'd be interested to get some feedback on this question, as I think self-delusion and self-deception are germane to any discussion of Everything theories, and this is also why it is the domain of so many cranks. It's lucky Edgar isn't open to revising his opinion, because he might come to believe Terry Pratchett's suggestion that everyone gets what they expect to get when they die. I imagine it would rile him that he'd cease to exist while pious Christians go to Heaven, buddhists are reincarnated, Vikings go to Valhalla, and most of the people on the everything list are confronted with a multiple choice menu... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
I have a funny comic I think all of you will appreciate to one extent or another. I'm also curious as to your reaction regarding the status of questions versus answers: http://comicsthatsaysomething.quora.com/A-Day-at-the-Park On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 4:19:39 PM UTC-5, Terren Suydam wrote: This, after he has already agreed that he would say yes to the doctor. On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 4:14 PM, LizR liz...@gmail.com javascript:wrote: On 16 January 2014 08:14, Edgar L. Owen edga...@att.net javascript:wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. Can't you make *any *argument using logic, rather than just having a go at the other person's perceived motivations? To believe otherwise may be comforting and may be superstition, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. You should study logical forms sometime. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. If I thought for a moment you could back that up with any reasoned argument, I would ask you to provide it. -- 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 everything-li...@googlegroups.com javascript:. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.comjavascript: . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
A good answer is one that doesn't spoil the question. --- P. T. Barnum On 1/15/2014 1:27 PM, freqflyer07281972 wrote: I have a funny comic I think all of you will appreciate to one extent or another. I'm also curious as to your reaction regarding the status of questions versus answers: http://comicsthatsaysomething.quora.com/A-Day-at-the-Park -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Yeah, the human craving for transcendence. -Original Message- From: freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jan 15, 2014 1:20 pm Subject: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp Hey everyone, I'm starting a new topic here so as not to derail any conversations on other threads -- the original thread I am commenting on seems to have some interesting stuff about computer simulations etc. and I don't want to bother others about it. Edgar has repeatedly posted links to both his business and personal website, and his life companion request is there right on the front page, so I'm not sure how that constitutes snooping. For Edgar, if it is true that you did lose your wife to cancer recently, I am very sorry for your loss. My father died of cancer when I was young, and I lost a close friend last Christmas to cancer as well, so I know how that feels. Just digging down to nuts and bolts for a second, though, for those members on the list that subscribe to some version of Everything Theory, (Bruno's UD, various forms of computer simulation universe, Craig's multisense realism), I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: what is the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where Everything exists and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal substrate and where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole humanistic, existentialist point of these theories to offer us a bit of succor in the face of inevitable death? That is why I am interested in this stuff -- not simply for the intellectual fun and games of it all, but because I am truly terrified of oblivion and of losing everything I love to that oblivion, and yet everything in my observed world tells me that when we die, we are basically broken machines and our world completely and permanently disappears for us. That is why I desperately want to be convinced of any of the Everything theories that are discussed here, although I admit that the degree to which any of them offer any comfort at all is relative to how one is able to interpret the consequences of such theories to find a place for your personality in the Everything. I didn't think pasting quite publicly available text from Edgar's website constitutes a personal attack. Edgar seems quite happy to keep that information up on the web for anyone to see, so I hardly think it constitutes snooping to cite it in a different forum. And my original observation that I could understand why he was alone was motivated by his continued truculence and seeming inability to incorporate and respond to the many pieces of feedback he had been given about his theory... I wouldn't want to be around somebody in real life who demonstrated such regular and fatuous disregard for what I was saying. So, just to sum up, I apologize, Edgar, for any pain that my copying and pasting of the text on your website caused you, and I apologize for suggesting that the reason you are alone is because you are probably a difficult person to live with in real life. I don't know anything about you in real life (aside from what you've put on your website, assuming it is all true), and I realize that this forum is not the place to engage in personal attacks. I'll be more thoughtful in the future. Best regards, Dan Menon -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Snarkiness is also popular amongst the physicists in the world, for its how they intimidate each other into submission. If you can't prove a point, use ridicule (Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals #4). -Original Message- From: freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jan 15, 2014 2:52 pm Subject: Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp So, just to run with this for a few moments (which will be lost in time, like tears in rain... ;-) ... if it is obvious to Edgar that everything he says is true, for example the claim that: When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. ... but many other (highly educated, scientific, philosophical) human beings disagree that it is obvious and/or can't see what is plainly apparent to only one of them, what should that single person who has (by some miracle of the universe) been given privileged access to the unvarnished truth of the universe do about it? Should they: a) call people who disagree with them too stupid to get it b) revise their beliefs concerning the obvious nature of the truth they think they possess c) suspect on the basis of the responses they are getting from otherwise intelligent people that perhaps their unique insight is in error d) ignore all claims to the contrary and persist in their beliefs e) patiently re-explain, in a different way, using different analogies, the substance of their claim and f) be willing to revise their beliefs on the basis of what others tell them, assuming they do not have an overexaggerated confidence in their own ability to discern the truth These are not mutually exclusive options. It seems to me Edgar has done a lot of option a and option d -- e has not been used because no analogies, thought experiments, or formal apparatus has been offered for honest inspection- merely a series of re-assertions that it is quite obvious that X, and I don't understand why no one else gets it -- the rest of the options are also not evident. I'd be interested to get some feedback on this question, as I think self-delusion and self-deception are germane to any discussion of Everything theories, and this is also why it is the domain of so many cranks. On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:32:28 PM UTC-5, Quentin Anciaux wrote: 2014/1/15 freqflyer07281972 thismind...@gmail.com On what authority do you make such claims? Isn't it obvious ? His own, it is so obviously obvious, it's a shame^Wjoke you didn't obviously register so obvious. Quentin On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:14:54 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 2:03:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I have to agree I don't think Edgar posted any links to his business or blog. Indeed if he had posted links to a blog on his theory I would certainly have looked because the explanations here have been less than clear. I haven't criticise Edgar for a lack of immediate response once, never mind on several occasions. I have criticised his lack of any response to my questions when he's replied to other things but obviously can't or won't answer me. (I am still thinking of starting a thread on outstanding questions to Edgar, but tbh I can't be bothered because I know it won't get me or any of us anywhere.) On the subject of grief, I have wondered about that too. One reason is that I don't know that, say, QTI is correct. But I think the main one is that I personally have lost that person forever. My best friend was murdered in 1995, for example, and that is someone I will never see again. Likewise my father, who died over 10 years ago now. If they're still alive and well somewhere in the multiverse that's a bit of a comfort but I don't know that. Maybe I will realise it eventually, when I'm 150 say... -- 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 everything-li...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy Batty/Rutger Hauer) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 10:27, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.comwrote: I have a funny comic I think all of you will appreciate to one extent or another. I'm also curious as to your reaction regarding the status of questions versus answers: http://comicsthatsaysomething.quora.com/A-Day-at-the-Park Very nice. FWIW I think questions are the driving force of most of human existence, not to mention novel writing, while answers are dangerous and should be treated with caution, because many are usatisfying and a lot of them are just ways to stop people thinking. However, a good answer is very nice to have, just now and then, and can be easily recognised because they invariably create more questions. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Liz, Wow, do we have some really superstitious members here! I wouldn't have expected that on a science list. Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 4:14:24 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: On 16 January 2014 08:14, Edgar L. Owen edga...@att.net javascript:wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. Can't you make *any *argument using logic, rather than just having a go at the other person's perceived motivations? To believe otherwise may be comforting and may be superstition, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. You should study logical forms sometime. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. If I thought for a moment you could back that up with any reasoned argument, I would ask you to provide it. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 11:39, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Liz, Wow, do we have some really superstitious members here! I wouldn't have expected that on a science list. What are you talking about? -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Liz, Apparently you lost context. I'm talking about you believing in a soul or consciousness separate from a physical body... Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 6:00:34 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: On 16 January 2014 11:39, Edgar L. Owen edga...@att.net javascript:wrote: Liz, Wow, do we have some really superstitious members here! I wouldn't have expected that on a science list. What are you talking about? -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 12:05, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Liz, Apparently you lost context. Yes of course, that must be what happened. Fortunately you haven't lost the ability to make dorkish insults. I'm talking about you believing in a soul or consciousness separate from a physical body... What makes you think that? (Also, your initial comment was about superstitious members, plural, so when you use you above are you referring to everyone on the list, or just me?) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Liz, Because you just criticized my stating that there wasn't such a soul or consciousness independent of a biological body. Or is it the case you just criticize everything whether or not you believe it, especially if I say it? Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 6:09:56 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: On 16 January 2014 12:05, Edgar L. Owen edga...@att.net javascript:wrote: Liz, Apparently you lost context. Yes of course, that must be what happened. Fortunately you haven't lost the ability to make dorkish insults. I'm talking about you believing in a soul or consciousness separate from a physical body... What makes you think that? (Also, your initial comment was about superstitious members, plural, so when you use you above are you referring to everyone on the list, or just me?) -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 12:19, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Liz, Because you just criticized my stating that there wasn't such a soul or consciousness independent of a biological body. I criticised you for not backing up that claim with any supporting evidence or argument. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
What on god's green earth are you talking about, man? Jeez, ya hold out an olive branch, and ya just get more of the same. Sheesh. Edgar, you are now officially on my pay no mind list... On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 5:39:43 PM UTC-5, Edgar L. Owen wrote: Liz, Wow, do we have some really superstitious members here! I wouldn't have expected that on a science list. Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 4:14:24 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: On 16 January 2014 08:14, Edgar L. Owen edga...@att.net wrote: Liz, (and Dan) When people die they vanish from existence. To believe otherwise may be comforting, but it's just superstition.. Can't you make *any *argument using logic, rather than just having a go at the other person's perceived motivations? To believe otherwise may be comforting and may be superstition, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. You should study logical forms sometime. There must be a living human body to produce a human consciousness. If I thought for a moment you could back that up with any reasoned argument, I would ask you to provide it. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: what is the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where Everything exists and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal substrate and where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole humanistic, existentialist point of these theories to offer us a bit of succor in the face of inevitable death? These theories offer no relief except a vague and adolescent sense of superiority, typical of any cult where there are people who know and people who don't. But once you reject this adolescent smug and grow your conscience of ignorance and despise the false comfort of being in a elite of connaiseurs, then these theories become depressing. Moreover they are probably wrong, guesses from extrapolations of some local principles that may not work out of our of our inmediate reality. like less principles are better than more, or less complex is better than more complex. I`m talking about the Multiverse theories or comp. Or the thermodynamic end of the Universe. I personally have nightmares thinking about other me that die in accident in another paralell universe. Or thinking about my daughter suffering the same fate in some metaworld far far away. I know that this is crazy, but your mind and mine extract lessons from what you accept as theoretically possible. There is a theory that says that dreams are training scenes that the mind produce to make you accustomed to what may happen the next day. That is unavoidable. Your assumptions influence all your life in very important ways. I mean all your life. The comic part is that in twenty of fifty years, like has happened before with the theories of the past, these theories will be looked at as outdated speculations driven by old ideas that will be no longer in fashion, like the exagerated worship to computers or to a certain metaphisical assumptions. So my advice to myself is: Play with this crap, but don't take it seriously. Since you CAN NOT know and will not know first causes never ever. Therefore all is a matter and belief.. So damn you, believe in something that offer a good teleology, at least compatible with the human psychology, or else, if you and your people take these suicide ad depressing theories you will have a bad life and your people will be driven to irrelevance (and, believe me, we are in this personal and social path to oblivion as individuals and as a civilization). 2014/1/15, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com: Hey everyone, I'm starting a new topic here so as not to derail any conversations on other threads -- the original thread I am commenting on seems to have some interesting stuff about computer simulations etc. and I don't want to bother others about it. Edgar has repeatedly posted links to both his business and personal website, and his life companion request is there right on the front page, so I'm not sure how that constitutes snooping. For Edgar, if it is true that you did lose your wife to cancer recently, I am very sorry for your loss. My father died of cancer when I was young, and I lost a close friend last Christmas to cancer as well, so I know how that feels. Just digging down to nuts and bolts for a second, though, for those members on the list that subscribe to some version of Everything Theory, (Bruno's UD, various forms of computer simulation universe, Craig's multisense realism), I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: what is the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where Everything exists and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal substrate and where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole humanistic, existentialist point of these theories to offer us a bit of succor in the face of inevitable death? That is why I am interested in this stuff -- not simply for the intellectual fun and games of it all, but because I am truly terrified of oblivion and of losing everything I love to that oblivion, and yet everything in my observed world tells me that when we die, we are basically broken machines and our world completely and permanently disappears for us. That is why I desperately want to be convinced of any of the Everything theories that are discussed here, although I admit that the degree to which any of them offer any comfort at all is relative to how one is able to interpret the consequences of such theories to find a place for your personality in the Everything. I didn't think pasting quite publicly available text from Edgar's website constitutes a personal attack. Edgar seems quite happy to keep that information up on the web for anyone to see, so I hardly think it constitutes snooping to cite it in a different forum. And my original observation that I could understand why he was alone was
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Liz, So you admit you criticized me for stating something you believe in? You insist I have to back it up when you already believe it? What's your back up for your belief then? May I suggest that most people would have responded by simply politely agreeing and then perhaps suggesting a reason why they agreed instead of demanding I produce reasons for a belief you apparently already share? I think most people would consider that fairly strange Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 6:24:42 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: On 16 January 2014 12:19, Edgar L. Owen edga...@att.net javascript:wrote: Liz, Because you just criticized my stating that there wasn't such a soul or consciousness independent of a biological body. I criticised you for not backing up that claim with any supporting evidence or argument. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 13:14, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Liz, So you admit you criticized me for stating something you believe in? No. I have no idea what you are talking about. Every time I or anyone says anything to you, you go off into some never-never land. Like you are doing here. You insist I have to back it up when you already believe it? What's your back up for your belief then? What are you talking about? May I suggest that most people would have responded by simply politely agreeing and then perhaps suggesting a reason why they agreed instead of demanding I produce reasons for a belief you apparently already share? What are you talking about? -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Alberto, Thanks for your thoughts on this issue. They make a lot of sense and I agree for the most part. For example, the adolescent sense of superiority that comes with thinking you've got it all figured out is something that I myself have experienced (at times in my life when I thought I had it all worked out)... trouble is, that superiority can never be maintained for long if you are truly honest with yourself and you examine your own personal assumptions and prejudices repeatedly in a cold and objective light. This is where former certainty motivated by fresh experience becomes ossified dogma motivated out of fear. I also really appreciate your apparent awareness of the historical contingency of a lot of TOE's and the limits of our vision. Thanks for your response! On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 7:05:07 PM UTC-5, Alberto G.Corona wrote: I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: what is the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where Everything exists and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal substrate and where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole humanistic, existentialist point of these theories to offer us a bit of succor in the face of inevitable death? These theories offer no relief except a vague and adolescent sense of superiority, typical of any cult where there are people who know and people who don't. But once you reject this adolescent smug and grow your conscience of ignorance and despise the false comfort of being in a elite of connaiseurs, then these theories become depressing. Moreover they are probably wrong, guesses from extrapolations of some local principles that may not work out of our of our inmediate reality. like less principles are better than more, or less complex is better than more complex. I`m talking about the Multiverse theories or comp. Or the thermodynamic end of the Universe. I personally have nightmares thinking about other me that die in accident in another paralell universe. Or thinking about my daughter suffering the same fate in some metaworld far far away. I know that this is crazy, but your mind and mine extract lessons from what you accept as theoretically possible. There is a theory that says that dreams are training scenes that the mind produce to make you accustomed to what may happen the next day. That is unavoidable. Your assumptions influence all your life in very important ways. I mean all your life. The comic part is that in twenty of fifty years, like has happened before with the theories of the past, these theories will be looked at as outdated speculations driven by old ideas that will be no longer in fashion, like the exagerated worship to computers or to a certain metaphisical assumptions. So my advice to myself is: Play with this crap, but don't take it seriously. Since you CAN NOT know and will not know first causes never ever. Therefore all is a matter and belief.. So damn you, believe in something that offer a good teleology, at least compatible with the human psychology, or else, if you and your people take these suicide ad depressing theories you will have a bad life and your people will be driven to irrelevance (and, believe me, we are in this personal and social path to oblivion as individuals and as a civilization). -- Alberto. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Liz, Boy, talk about alternate realities! You are making a good case for one! :-) Edgar On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 7:31:38 PM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: On 16 January 2014 13:14, Edgar L. Owen edga...@att.net javascript:wrote: Liz, So you admit you criticized me for stating something you believe in? No. I have no idea what you are talking about. Every time I or anyone says anything to you, you go off into some never-never land. Like you are doing here. You insist I have to back it up when you already believe it? What's your back up for your belief then? What are you talking about? May I suggest that most people would have responded by simply politely agreeing and then perhaps suggesting a reason why they agreed instead of demanding I produce reasons for a belief you apparently already share? What are you talking about? -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 13:40, Edgar L. Owen edgaro...@att.net wrote: Liz, Boy, talk about alternate realities! You are making a good case for one! So rather than make a serious attempt to explain what you were talking about, you prefer to make adolescent attempts at humour. And you wonder why no one takes your ideas seriously... -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 1/15/2014 4:05 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: So my advice to myself is: Play with this crap, but don't take it seriously. Since you CAN NOT know and will not know first causes never ever. Therefore all is a matter and belief.. So damn you, believe in something that offer a good teleology, at least compatible with the human psychology, or else, if you and your people take these suicide ad depressing theories you will have a bad life and your people will be driven to irrelevance (and, believe me, we are in this personal and social path to oblivion as individuals and as a civilization). Good advice. I've assumed I was on a personal path to oblivion since I was about 18. But if you want to believe in a good teleology, one suggested I believe by Stathis seems nicest. If your consciousness is just a sequence of most probable computational continuations then dying leads to a kind of common state of oblivion and from there you may continue as a fetus or a snail or anything else which has very little consciousness and hence is near oblivious. So everythingism is a little support for the Hindu mythology of reincarnation. Of course one may object that without my memories it isn't really *me* who is reincarnated. But if there is a certain character or set of properties making up *you* it's pretty certain to be realized somewhere in the multiverse. Brent -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On 16 January 2014 14:06, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 1/15/2014 4:05 PM, Alberto G. Corona wrote: So my advice to myself is: Play with this crap, but don't take it seriously. Since you CAN NOT know and will not know first causes never ever. Therefore all is a matter and belief.. So damn you, believe in something that offer a good teleology, at least compatible with the human psychology, or else, if you and your people take these suicide ad depressing theories you will have a bad life and your people will be driven to irrelevance (and, believe me, we are in this personal and social path to oblivion as individuals and as a civilization). Good advice. I've assumed I was on a personal path to oblivion since I was about 18. But if you want to believe in a good teleology, one suggested I believe by Stathis seems nicest. If your consciousness is just a sequence of most probable computational continuations then dying leads to a kind of common state of oblivion and from there you may continue as a fetus or a snail or anything else which has very little consciousness and hence is near oblivious. So everythingism is a little support for the Hindu mythology of reincarnation. Of course one may object that without my memories it isn't really *me* who is reincarnated. But if there is a certain character or set of properties making up *you* it's pretty certain to be realized somewhere in the multiverse. Unless I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together, of course. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Unless I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together, of course. Well, that's just it, isn't it? :-) Or indeed, if all of this self stuff is really a very sophisticated mental model we run... I've tried making that claim here before, but the response if I recall was a repetition of the Cartesian dictum, and I didn't pursue it. If the self does not and/or never has existed in the first place, then there is no point in mourning its loss, because it quite literally doesn't go anywhere. Still, without having that deep conviction, not sure how it offers succor. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 6:05 PM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.comwrote: I'd like to ask a serious and honest question in good faith: what is the place of grief and mourning given belief in one of these theories? Is it even appropriate to grieve in a universe where Everything exists and the self is simply a computation on a deeper eternal substrate and where time is an illusion? Indeed, isn't the whole humanistic, existentialist point of these theories to offer us a bit of succor in the face of inevitable death? These theories offer no relief except a vague and adolescent sense of superiority, typical of any cult where there are people who know and people who don't. But once you reject this adolescent smug and grow your conscience of ignorance and despise the false comfort of being in a elite of connaiseurs, then these theories become depressing. Moreover they are probably wrong, guesses from extrapolations of some local principles that may not work out of our of our inmediate reality. like less principles are better than more, or less complex is better than more complex. I`m talking about the Multiverse theories or comp. Or the thermodynamic end of the Universe. I personally have nightmares thinking about other me that die in accident in another paralell universe. Or thinking about my daughter suffering the same fate in some metaworld far far away. I know that this is crazy, but your mind and mine extract lessons from what you accept as theoretically possible. There is a theory that says that dreams are training scenes that the mind produce to make you accustomed to what may happen the next day. There is a glass half empty and glass half full way of looking at it. It may be that every time you get on a plane, you are certain in some fraction of resulting future states, to experience it crashing. But you are also guaranteed (and in a much larger fraction) to make it safely. When someone dies, especially a young person dies, what makes it so tragic is the unrealized potential, the experiences they never got to have or make. But under many-worlds, that potential is realized, and those experience are had, only in other branches. Consider that in many branches, each of us has died at times where we were younger than we are now, and certainly our family in other branches would have mourned what they perceived as your death. But you are alive, here and now, despite their opinion. I think science seems depressing only on the surface, when one doesn't try to explore the implications of all the theories to their logical ends. Quantum immortality may seem to imply the horrible fate of aging forever, but this ignores the implications of the computational theory of mind, the simulation argument, universalism, etc. Though the odds that we exist in a computer simulation might be high or might be low, certainly it seems the odds are higher than living to 200 years without some form of intervention. So in many of the possible continuations where your physical life ends, at say a normal age, your life continues in the virtual world in which some being chose to live as you, in a game world. This implies a type of after life not unlike those in various religions, where you can take your memories with you and you can reunite with others with whom you crossed paths in the previous life. Just from arithmetical realism, there exist ultra-intelligent, god-like minds with access to unlimited computational power. For all intents and purposes they are Gods, with the power to explore the rest of reality, and even copy and paste beings from other physical universes into its own realm. Perhaps out of good-will, for introducing suffering as a process of simulating physical worlds with conscious life in them, it extends an after-life of its choice to the beings instantiated in the course of that simulation. This may be an outlandish speculation, but it follows directly from arithmetical realism, programs that do exactly this exist already. Finally, with universalism (the only theory of personal identity that does not fail in the face of the overwhelming probability against you ever being born in the first place), we can realize that all conscious moments equally belong to us all. There will never be a moment that you are not alive so long as there is life, somewhere, anywhere. In that sense, we are each of the universal soul, though most of us have forgotten our true nature. But since our consciousness continues forever, we are all on a path that will eventually lead home again. Until we decide to jump back in and do it all over again. (Not unlike Lila https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_%28Hinduism%29 ) I think our current theories lead us back to various ideas most would say belong exclusively to religion, such as: eternal life, immortality, reincarnation, resurrection and afterlives, a self existent ground of all being, a universal soul, and divine union. Perhaps all of these ideas is
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
I hesitate to post a link to this http://thecrazystuff.wordpress.com/, which I wrote when young and foolish back in 2011... I have just had the experience we are talking about. I just this minute learned that one of my heroeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucaria_%28compiler%29has died. Damn. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Liz, I came across that page of yours a few months ago through random searching. (I forgot what I was searching for), but only later did I realize it was your blog! Out of curiosity, do you recall what the 2 other responses were to your poll? Jason On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 11:04 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: I hesitate to post a link to this http://thecrazystuff.wordpress.com/, which I wrote when young and foolish back in 2011... I have just had the experience we are talking about. I just this minute learned that one of my heroeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucaria_%28compiler%29has died. Damn. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
Thank you for posting that link... I really enjoyed reading your blog post! It captured well many of the thoughts I have had about the whole shebang. And sorry to hear that your hero died... I've never heard of John Galbraith Graham before, but learning about him has inspired me to try to do a crossword or two... even though I suck pretty bad at difficult ones, and am hopeless with the cryptic variety. Peace, On Thursday, January 16, 2014 12:04:21 AM UTC-5, Liz R wrote: I hesitate to post a link to this http://thecrazystuff.wordpress.com/, which I wrote when young and foolish back in 2011... I have just had the experience we are talking about. I just this minute learned that one of my heroeshttp://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAraucaria_%2528compiler%2529sa=Dsntz=1usg=AFQjCNGKExhZb-KDGYWP7WpgVja3xg_Lkwhas died. Damn. -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
I totally agree with you that science, when you really start getting into the implications of things like QM (and relativity for that matter), provides some rather unsettling (and yet very exciting!) conclusions. And yet... they always rest on the tip of uncertainty. Either that, or else the conclusions are so terrible that I can't bear to think of them. Like, for example, you mention the idea of universalism, the idea that all minds are fundamentally connected. This has always been a very strong intuition with me ever since I had a religious conversion type experience in my teens. Finding this list was a wonderful moment, because it appeared that the implications of comp reinforced this intuition. BUT... on the other hand, ethically, I hate the idea that my mind and the mind of, say, Josef Stalin, are linked in any way, and the more I learn about the enormity of various acts of evil and violence, the more I feel OK with the idea that maybe death qua oblivion really isn't such a bad thing after all, but is instead a kind of mercy that is bestowed upon us. I guess I just have some trouble squaring my metaphysical curiosities (that tend to pull me way out into the stratosphere) with my ethical demands and expectations (that tend to reign in my speculations). Do I make any sense? On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 11:55:27 PM UTC-5, Jason wrote: There is a glass half empty and glass half full way of looking at it. It may be that every time you get on a plane, you are certain in some fraction of resulting future states, to experience it crashing. But you are also guaranteed (and in a much larger fraction) to make it safely. When someone dies, especially a young person dies, what makes it so tragic is the unrealized potential, the experiences they never got to have or make. But under many-worlds, that potential is realized, and those experience are had, only in other branches. Consider that in many branches, each of us has died at times where we were younger than we are now, and certainly our family in other branches would have mourned what they perceived as your death. But you are alive, here and now, despite their opinion. I think science seems depressing only on the surface, when one doesn't try to explore the implications of all the theories to their logical ends. Quantum immortality may seem to imply the horrible fate of aging forever, but this ignores the implications of the computational theory of mind, the simulation argument, universalism, etc. Though the odds that we exist in a computer simulation might be high or might be low, certainly it seems the odds are higher than living to 200 years without some form of intervention. So in many of the possible continuations where your physical life ends, at say a normal age, your life continues in the virtual world in which some being chose to live as you, in a game world. This implies a type of after life not unlike those in various religions, where you can take your memories with you and you can reunite with others with whom you crossed paths in the previous life. Just from arithmetical realism, there exist ultra-intelligent, god-like minds with access to unlimited computational power. For all intents and purposes they are Gods, with the power to explore the rest of reality, and even copy and paste beings from other physical universes into its own realm. Perhaps out of good-will, for introducing suffering as a process of simulating physical worlds with conscious life in them, it extends an after-life of its choice to the beings instantiated in the course of that simulation. This may be an outlandish speculation, but it follows directly from arithmetical realism, programs that do exactly this exist already. Finally, with universalism (the only theory of personal identity that does not fail in the face of the overwhelming probability against you ever being born in the first place), we can realize that all conscious moments equally belong to us all. There will never be a moment that you are not alive so long as there is life, somewhere, anywhere. In that sense, we are each of the universal soul, though most of us have forgotten our true nature. But since our consciousness continues forever, we are all on a path that will eventually lead home again. Until we decide to jump back in and do it all over again. (Not unlike Lila https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_%28Hinduism%29 ) I think our current theories lead us back to various ideas most would say belong exclusively to religion, such as: eternal life, immortality, reincarnation, resurrection and afterlives, a self existent ground of all being, a universal soul, and divine union. Perhaps all of these ideas is wrong, but each one is supported by one or more separate scientific theories, many of them being well-established. Special relativity - block time - eternal life: we each exist forever
Re: Edgar, Personal Attacks, and the Real Consequences of Comp
On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 12:44 AM, freqflyer07281972 thismindisbud...@gmail.com wrote: I totally agree with you that science, when you really start getting into the implications of things like QM (and relativity for that matter), provides some rather unsettling (and yet very exciting!) conclusions. And yet... they always rest on the tip of uncertainty. Either that, or else the conclusions are so terrible that I can't bear to think of them. I have come to think few things could be more certain than universalism. If you take a few moments to consider why you were born as you, and not someone else, the only possible answer that fits that answer is for me to be born, an exact arrangement of matter or genes had to come into being. If the exact matter was necessary, then that means if your mom at something else, or took a sip of water at the wrong time, then you would never have been born. If the exact genes are required, then that means you had a 1 in 100 million chance that the right sperm met the right egg for you to be born, otherwise you would not exist at all. The odds become that much more staggering when you consider not only your begetting, but all other begettings of all your ancestors would have to be EXACTLY right, otherwise you would not be born and would never have existed. On the other hand, if you believe even if one gene or two were different, you would still have been born, this means there really was no specific requirement for you to be born as you, and if a completely different sperm or egg were fertilized, then maybe you would instead be one of your brothers or sisters. If this is true, then shouldn't that mean you are in fact, also your brothers and sisters. For that matter, all of the children born to any other parent, or any being hatched anywhere that is conscious. We are forced to choose between universalism is false and we won the cosmic lottery (with odds less than 1:10^24 just going back 3 generations) or universalism is true. Like, for example, you mention the idea of universalism, the idea that all minds are fundamentally connected. This has always been a very strong intuition with me ever since I had a religious conversion type experience in my teens. Finding this list was a wonderful moment, because it appeared that the implications of comp reinforced this intuition. BUT... on the other hand, ethically, I hate the idea that my mind and the mind of, say, Josef Stalin, are linked in any way, I remember telling someone about these ideas a few years ago, and the person exclaimed That's horrible, you mean I'm Bush? But it is natural I suppose to focus on the worst. By and large you experience normal lives of average people. All the buildings you see on all the skylines of the world, you were the architect, the mason, the stone cutter, construction worker who helped build it, you're the people who grow, prepare, cook and serve every meal you ever eat, and so on. You are everyone in ancient history, and everyone in the future, throughout the whole saga of humanity. We shouldn't focus on the worst and worry about that. Rather, this lesson, if it becomes widely known and accepted, should deter future Stalin's: they know they are also all the people that suffer because of the things they do. In a society where so many in power are selfish if not psychopathic, being compelled to extend their self-interest to others could transform how those in power decide to wield it. and the more I learn about the enormity of various acts of evil and violence, the more I feel OK with the idea that maybe death qua oblivion really isn't such a bad thing after all, but is instead a kind of mercy that is bestowed upon us. Maybe there is a certain sense of that. For example, if you were an uploaded transhuman, would you *want *to experience the life of Stalin and carry around all the guilt and shame of his experiences knowing what he did? If not, that deterrence means he has a lower measure, his life and being him is experienced less than other people with better lives. Who knows... I think we are still only beginning to scratch the surface in our understanding of reality. Intelligent processes may have much more control over the direction of long-running computations in the UD than we might initially assume. I guess I just have some trouble squaring my metaphysical curiosities (that tend to pull me way out into the stratosphere) with my ethical demands and expectations (that tend to reign in my speculations). Do I make any sense? Plenty. These are difficult questions I don't have answers for, just some ideas.. Jason On Wednesday, January 15, 2014 11:55:27 PM UTC-5, Jason wrote: There is a glass half empty and glass half full way of looking at it. It may be that every time you get on a plane, you are certain in some fraction of resulting future states, to experience it crashing. But you are also guaranteed (and in a much larger fraction) to make it
