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Understanding Everything

shimmeringvoid.substack.com

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Re: Understanding Everything

#11

Post by falcor84 »

Scarblac wrote: post #6

> Well, one of the core measures of a well-designed game (for a given player) is the felt experience of immersion, or flow. Specifically, an immersive game should hold the player in the flow channel at all times. In life, that's not the case. We sometimes choose to do things that are frustrating or boring, because they must be done. Because they're worth doing. Not everything needs to be entertainment. > Instead, I w…

>exist (with no possible way to communicate between lives) ...what I do in this life may influence my next one.

Could you please clarify what you mean by this? If there is no communication in either direction, in what way does one life affect the next?

Re: Understanding Everything

#13

Post by patcon »

a_c wrote: post #7

After being a father, now I see life as a recursion, a recursion to pass on life. On micro-scale, it means being good parents, to pass on accumulated wisdom, or the lack of, to children. Then scale the recursion to extended family, community and maybe whole humanity. I've internalised the feeling that things that help the recursion are things worth doing, and the smaller the scale, the stronger the feeling is.

I'm also a strong believer in recursion being a key feature of living processes and intelligence..! A book you might like: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691145471/th...

Re: Understanding Everything

#14

Post by mrleinad »

bjornsing wrote: post #9

> I want to understand everything (…and how it all fits together.) I have this personality trait too. I suspect it was very beneficial in evolutionary times, when it was possible to learn everything that was known and then start using that knowledge. But in the modern world it becomes a bit of a personality flaw: you just learn and learn and learn, and then you die. :)

I have the feeling that AI is going to help us get better at connecting different ideas AND be able to implement the connection without having to be a master in every field

Re: Understanding Everything

#15

Post by rocketbop »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #4

Understanding is a purely artificial/subjective concept. "Understanding" only exists if there is a conscious observer, and "understanding" means whatever that observer wants it to mean. A lot of people have found full understanding in religion. It takes off a lot of the stress from not understanding. You may call this understanding of understanding meta-understanding.

I think you can understand how for example an engine works, in a way which couldn’t be described as subjective or artificial. You might have a shallow or deep understanding of this depending on your profession. People who are religious tend to talk about belief rather than understanding. I don’t suppose many Christians claim to understand God’s mind or his will, quite the opposite. Also, claiming to know God’s will as zealots do is not the same as understanding it.

Re: Understanding Everything

#16

Post by dghughes »

a_c wrote: post #7

After being a father, now I see life as a recursion, a recursion to pass on life. On micro-scale, it means being good parents, to pass on accumulated wisdom, or the lack of, to children. Then scale the recursion to extended family, community and maybe whole humanity. I've internalised the feeling that things that help the recursion are things worth doing, and the smaller the scale, the stronger the feeling is.

You have to wonder if that is how reincarnation concept came about. People seeing themselves in children or anyone knowing you see the same.

I don't have any children I wish I did both to pass on the family line and to see myself (and wife if I had one) in my children.

Re: Understanding Everything

#17

Post by shanebellone »

quonn wrote: post #8
a_c wrote: post #7

After being a father, now I see life as a recursion, a recursion to pass on life. On micro-scale, it means being good parents, to pass on accumulated wisdom, or the lack of, to children. Then scale the recursion to extended family, community and maybe whole humanity. I've internalised the feeling that things that help the recursion are things worth doing, and the smaller the scale, the stronger the feeling is.

The reproduction of life can never be meaningful by itself, in part because a single life is already countless moments and the problem is the same. I think what you perhaps want to point at is the opposite: the fact that _a_ life is finite and therefore things worth doing/things that are meaningful look beyond that - and the wider they look the more meaningful they can be.

"therefore things worth doing/things that are meaningful look beyond that - and the wider they look the more meaningful they can be."

Are "meaningful things" qualified by the persistence of their consequence?

Re: Understanding Everything

#19

Post by IIAOPSW »

a_c wrote: post #7

After being a father, now I see life as a recursion, a recursion to pass on life. On micro-scale, it means being good parents, to pass on accumulated wisdom, or the lack of, to children. Then scale the recursion to extended family, community and maybe whole humanity. I've internalised the feeling that things that help the recursion are things worth doing, and the smaller the scale, the stronger the feeling is.

I exist because I want to exist. I want to exist because I exist.

Re: Understanding Everything

#20

Post by quonn »

shanebellone wrote: post #17
quonn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reproduction of life can never be meaningful by itself, in part because a single life is already countless moments and the problem is the same. I think what you perhaps want to point at is the opposite: the fact that _a_ life is finite and therefore things worth doing/things that are meaningful look beyond that - and the wider they look the more meaningful they can be.

"therefore things worth doing/things that are meaningful look beyond that - and the wider they look the more meaningful they can be." Are "meaningful things" qualified by the persistence of their consequence?

Not necessarily, so I wrote „wide“. By wide I mean wide in space and conceptually this also extends to wide in time. So there is are multiple positions in space at the current time and likewise there are multiple positions in the future and they all equivalently can be touched or not.
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