Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Marshall Brain has died

wral.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 176 posts

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#141

Post by vacuity »

lores wrote: post #135
vacuity wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we want the highest level of rigor, claims such as "the unconscious is/isn't influenced by a higher power" aren't falsifiable. Anything that you aren't aware of can't be explained by you. Others can examine your mental state, but your perception of others is itself a part of your mental state. It's solipsism, in a sense. By definition, a higher power that transcends our ability to comprehend can't be verified or d…

But considering a higher power as even a plausible hypothesis is purely due to historical reasons. Alien mind control, Illuminati mind control, living in a simulation, or humans being the fruiting body of Gaia would be impatiently dismissed despite requiring fewer assumptions than an all-powerful entity. Why should that idea even be entertained, rigorously speaking?

It's difficult to speak of rigor for any of these hypotheses, but anyways. If we take "higher power" to roughly mean that there is some driving force, whether personal or impersonal, that inherently defines and imposes order and fate, I can see how it is compelling. It's simpler than introducing a third party like aliens or the Illuminati, and early humans had much less reason to feel they weren't just another part of the natural ecosystem. They were struggling against natural forces, and when interesting and terrifying things happened, they thought of these as supernatural forces, not having developed theories of, say, lightning or disease.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#142

Post by red-iron-pine »

norir wrote: post #72
nyc_data_geek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No higher power ever wrote anything though. That's all human writing, human promises, human propaganda.

I'm genuinely curious how you explain your own unconsciousness which comes out all the time when speaking or writing.

all life is merely an orderly decay of energy states; I am simply a "strange loop" within that set chemical reactions.

god doesn't make my brain work, biochemistry does, and imbibing certain chemicals impacts that in obvious ways, e.g. alcohol, lithium, or diazepam

just because I cannot see or understand my unconsciousness does not mean it isn't just another chemical process, in the same way that I do not have conscious control of how my body produces white blood cells or bile.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#143

Post by evilDagmar »

In other news, yet another website fails at understanding that a hard redirect prior to a 404--instead of just issuing a 404 in the first place--is an idiotic practice that breaks browser history.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#144

Post by nashashmi »

skulk wrote: post #128
nashashmi wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you overlook that holy book says “only” God answers prayers. And pray to God for he will answer. The answer doesn’t necessarily have to be the answer you think is correct. A leg amputated is a leg lost and the journey of a test and struggle that begins next. That’s an answer. Not a lie. Once again, the writer doesn’t understand God, prayer, religion, and the purpose of man. And he cannot make sense out of thi…

Then I don't really see how God's answer to losing a leg (or any such calamity) doesn't boil down to "literally just deal with it bro." Which is, no doubt, solid advice to someone who needs it.

That goes back to God’s definition. God gives strength to deal with situations. God doesn’t burden any soul with more than he can bear.

In other words despite you not believing in prayer and not believing god answers your prayers, you are still only burdened with what you can bear.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#145

Post by mst »

ben_w wrote: post #140
mst wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very surprised if the oligarchs didn't still employ humans. If nothing else, it's a way of demonstrating status - "sure, I could have an AI do it more cheaply, but instead I have an actual sentient being doing my bidding, because I can." To give a parallel that I think is reasonably illustrative, it would not at all surprise me if in the future everybody else uses fully automated self driving vehicles, but the…

In real life sure, and I've made similar suggestions myself[0], but within the story that was not something I remember. Would break continuity if done as a sequel, I think. [0] From https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2024/11/18-13.16.17.html """AI could disrupt the economics of our current world more dramatically than industrialisation, whether under capitalism or communism, disrupted feudalism; but that is a very di…

I think I got what you were saying about the story exactly backwards, sorry.

Reading Comprehension roll: Nat 1.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#146

Post by nerdponx »

nashashmi wrote: post #106
nyc_data_geek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No higher power ever wrote anything though. That's all human writing, human promises, human propaganda.

Has any book itself claimed to be written or orated by a higher power?

There are sections of the Hebrew Bible that are supposed to be the directly quoted word of God.

And there are various religious traditions that claim various holy texts as being the direct product of a deity.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#147

Post by robertlagrant »

benreesman wrote: post #79
robertlagrant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only clear distinction between the utopia and the dystopia is on wealth distribution. A utopia where everyone is starving vs a dystopia where some people are fabulously wealthy but almost everyone has basic healthcare and education and opportunity to succeed? Inequality isn't anywhere near as important as the baseline of what most people have available to them.

Inequality is destructive because it creates upwards pressure on real asset prices, with housing probably being the best example, which creates downward pressure on the real standard of living at the median. Most of the developed world is going through one version or another of this right now . Housing cost crises everywhere from Vancouver to NYC to Tampa to London are far too sharp, far too recent, and far to correl…

> Housing cost crises everywhere from Vancouver to NYC to Tampa to London are far too sharp, far too recent, and far to correlated with the concentration of assets at the top of the wealth distribution to be “because we need to build more housing”.

This isn't recent at all. London workers have got paid more than non-London workers for at least the last 20 years due to housing costs. That, of course, only sends housing prices upward, but then many other factors do to.

London population's gone up by 1.7m people since the year 2010[0], and housing has gone up by 280000 dwellings in that same period[1].

To cope, rent and prices have gone way up, and large homes have been divided into several smaller ones, and there are HMOs as well, as the market reacts to that massive pressure.

> The idea that the person at the median is doing as well as they were ten years ago is a weird religion, the idea that they’re doing as well as their parents is a cult.

It's true for almost everything except housing, which can be explained by the above.

[0] https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/22860/lond...

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/788390/number-of-dwellin...

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#148

Post by snapcaster »

norir wrote: post #73
robertlagrant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only clear distinction between the utopia and the dystopia is on wealth distribution. A utopia where everyone is starving vs a dystopia where some people are fabulously wealthy but almost everyone has basic healthcare and education and opportunity to succeed? Inequality isn't anywhere near as important as the baseline of what most people have available to them.

In that hypothetical world, I am quite sure that people would adapt to their improved material conditions and still become resentful at wealth inequality. A lesser version of this already exists in the US. Go to a relatively poor US community and it is almost unimaginably wealthy compared to past generations and other places in the world.

But relative inequality matters in the social realm. It limits poor people's access to mates and allies. Also it could be that relative wealth is more important than absolute in terms of people's well being

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#149

Post by PrismCrystal »

mst wrote: post #137
ben_w wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact I would love to read a sequel where the dystopia wins and AI-empowered oligarchs and human wage slaves create generation ships to nearby stars and eventually setup fast food restaurants in every corner of the galaxy. The dystopian part was only enabled (within the story) by the fact that humans were utterly unnecessary to the rich. None had any jobs, because the AI could do all for less… so why would the ol…

I'd be very surprised if the oligarchs didn't still employ humans. If nothing else, it's a way of demonstrating status - "sure, I could have an AI do it more cheaply, but instead I have an actual sentient being doing my bidding, because I can." To give a parallel that I think is reasonably illustrative, it would not at all surprise me if in the future everybody else uses fully automated self driving vehicles, but the…

Among the classes rich enough to employ servants, complaining about those same servants is a perennial thing. Even a valet or chauffeur who comes out of an elite training school and knows to stay at the margins of his or her employer’s consciousness, might still have small human quirks that irk that employer. So, machines may well prove preferable servants over humans.

Re: Marshall Brain has died

#150

Post by ben_w »

mst wrote: post #145
ben_w wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In real life sure, and I've made similar suggestions myself[0], but within the story that was not something I remember. Would break continuity if done as a sequel, I think. [0] From https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2024/11/18-13.16.17.html """AI could disrupt the economics of our current world more dramatically than industrialisation, whether under capitalism or communism, disrupted feudalism; but that is a very di…

I think I got what you were saying about the story exactly backwards, sorry. Reading Comprehension roll: Nat 1.

Ah, no problem, everyone does that sometimes ^_^
Post reply on HN