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The Egg (2009)

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Re: The Egg (2009)

#11

Post by wrinkl3 »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #8

Hah, it's literally Schopenhauer's hell: Humans as both the tormenting demons and as those doing the suffering. In this case, one human -- which further frames suffering as an inescapable, masochistic cycle. "You were victimizing yourself" says the demiurge. That everything is predetermined and that time is nonlinear is also something that should trouble every contemplative person. It's basically a devil's brew of ni…

Another (very) short story that plays with this idea is Neil Gaiman's Other People: https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/other-people/

Re: The Egg (2009)

#12

Post by pavlov »

I really wish browsers would default to Reader mode for documents like this.

It would make "web 1.0" content much more usable, and would encourage people to create simple HTML because the default styling wouldn't look like crap.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#13

Post by xutopia »

I can't recommend this author enough. Project Hail Mary and The Martian are amazing works of science fiction. Project Hail Mary is actually amazing as an audiobook.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#14

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

_def wrote: post #10
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #8

Hah, it's literally Schopenhauer's hell: Humans as both the tormenting demons and as those doing the suffering. In this case, one human -- which further frames suffering as an inescapable, masochistic cycle. "You were victimizing yourself" says the demiurge. That everything is predetermined and that time is nonlinear is also something that should trouble every contemplative person. It's basically a devil's brew of ni…

Well if you only focus on the bad stuff that happens during a human life, sure.

As old Schop said: "Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other."

People look to religion and metaphysics for justice and salvation. This poor "Egg" guy is trapped in a trillion-year cycle of pain and injustice. I guess it's Buddhist hell, too...

Re: The Egg (2009)

#15

Post by Tenoke »

I've always liked the story but if I was presented with that revelation I'd be questioning to what extent these other me's are really me and how really everything else (genetics, environment) is shaping behaviour and I'm what? A vessel that gets all the memories at the end?

>“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

I mean, not really, since I wouldn't do quite all those things as I am now. In this framework I'm just forced into doing those things by the factors going into those particular lives.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#16

Post by nthingtohide »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #8

Hah, it's literally Schopenhauer's hell: Humans as both the tormenting demons and as those doing the suffering. In this case, one human -- which further frames suffering as an inescapable, masochistic cycle. "You were victimizing yourself" says the demiurge. That everything is predetermined and that time is nonlinear is also something that should trouble every contemplative person. It's basically a devil's brew of ni…

Eternal afterlife is a incoherent concept.

The Horror of Eternal Life | Isaac Asimov’s The Last Answer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9R16NV9Imo

Re: The Egg (2009)

#17

Post by bccdee »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #8

Hah, it's literally Schopenhauer's hell: Humans as both the tormenting demons and as those doing the suffering. In this case, one human -- which further frames suffering as an inescapable, masochistic cycle. "You were victimizing yourself" says the demiurge. That everything is predetermined and that time is nonlinear is also something that should trouble every contemplative person. It's basically a devil's brew of ni…

> And it plays out over a trillion or so years. Horrifying.

Horrifying to whom? The character isn't suffering. They aren't aware of the passage of those trillions of years. There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation.

And so what if you're the only one? That's not really true in a functional sense. Every human you interact with is indeed a truly conscious individual with a discrete personality and life. You only become integrated as a single organism when the egg "hatches" and you join the broader society of adults.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#18

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

bccdee wrote: post #17
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #8

Hah, it's literally Schopenhauer's hell: Humans as both the tormenting demons and as those doing the suffering. In this case, one human -- which further frames suffering as an inescapable, masochistic cycle. "You were victimizing yourself" says the demiurge. That everything is predetermined and that time is nonlinear is also something that should trouble every contemplative person. It's basically a devil's brew of ni…

> And it plays out over a trillion or so years. Horrifying. Horrifying to whom? The character isn't suffering. They aren't aware of the passage of those trillions of years. There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation. And so what if you're the only one? That's not really true in a functional sense. Every human you interact with is indeed a truly conscious individual with a dis…

> There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation.

Reincarnation tends to assume at least some degree of continuity and free will.

This thing assumes that you're eventually going to be, e.g., The Elephant Man, or that poor Japanese guy who got cooked by a megadose of radiation and the doctors wouldn't let him die. That, if there's a torture that you've heard of, or any cautionary tale you've seen reported, you are going to experience it or have already -- and without learning anything at all.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#19

Post by maxhille »

xutopia wrote: post #13

I can't recommend this author enough. Project Hail Mary and The Martian are amazing works of science fiction. Project Hail Mary is actually amazing as an audiobook.

Funny coincidence - I just finished the Project Hail Mary audiobook this morning and loved it.

Any recommendations for the next audiobook?

Re: The Egg (2009)

#20

Post by bccdee »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #14
_def wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you only focus on the bad stuff that happens during a human life, sure.

As old Schop said: "Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other." People look to religion and metaphysics for justice and salvation. This poor "Egg" guy is trapped in a trillion-year cycle of pain and injustice. I gues…

That's not true at all though. This is how a baby thinks about a needle. Often pain is less painful than we expect, and pleasure is pleasantly surprising.

> The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.

Getting eaten is the last 5 minutes of a prey animal's life. If you asked that antelope whether those few clumsy minutes of bleeding out outweighed a lifetime of frolicking through fields, all the children they sired, all the berries they ate, I think they'd be a bit offended.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with the story. This is a worldview committed to pessimism, where bad must always outweigh good because it is easier to upset ourselves by contemplating bad things than to soothe ourselves by contemplating good things, and therefore the bad must clearly predominate. There are very few things I'm willing to dismiss as a mindset problem, but this is one of them. Schopenhauer should have gone to therapy.

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