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The Egg (2009)

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Re: The Egg (2009)

#111

Post by fit2rule »

chroma wrote: post #46

I guess I'm in the minority that doesn't find this story uplifting. The memory reset is the biggest problem, since it doesn't allow the main character to learn from his mistakes. At the end of time, the main character will have his memories and personalities merged. Then he'll look back on countless lifetimes of the same mistakes and regrets. It would be like if someone slipped you some Ambien (to prevent memory form…

Wouldn't it be interesting if there were some way to undo the reset of memory, and you gained control over the continual reset to the point where, in fact at the end of this life, you no longer get the memory reset, but can remember everything, understand everything, and know who you are in the great cosmos.

Many religions have tried. Maybe one day one of them will make it through that barrier. Perhaps the nature of the game is that we play it until we learn not to play it any more - by making another game, perhaps ..

Re: The Egg (2009)

#112

Post by lutusp »

admnor wrote: post #109
yc-kjh wrote: post #62

Incompatible with Free Will The story is incompatible with free will. The only way the universe could be the way it is, with the one person living all those lives, yet always choosing such that the other people (him in another re-incarnation) also always choose as they (he) did, it would be necessary for free will not to exist. But this would also mean that the "god" in this story also didn't have free will, because…

If you believe in free will, I'd be very interested to know your beliefs as to whence it derives. If the universe is bound by a set of consistent physical laws governing the behaviour of all energy/matter, then every interaction is predetermined by the combination of those laws and whatever the initial state was. Free will therefore requires a supernatural component that is not subject to those laws and processes. Ev…

> If the universe is bound by a set of consistent physical laws governing the behaviour of all energy/matter, then every interaction is predetermined by the combination of those laws and whatever the initial state was.

Quantum theory disproves this thesis, and quantum theory is the best-confirmed of any current scientific theories, i.e. it's very likely to reflect a basic truth about reality. Quantum theory shows that, even though physical laws, and cause/effect relationships, still exist, outcomes aren't predetermined -- there is more than enough indeterminacy in outcomes to justify an argument for free will.

Someone might argue that, if quantum probability only allows a certain number of possible outcomes and one of those outcomes will be selected randomly, therefore free will is disproven by that essentially mathematical process. But if there are enough such outcomes in a timeline, the real difference between many stochastic quantum picks and what most people think of as free will, may seem academic.

> What we like to call free will is just the deterministic result of processes to complex to be understood, modelled or predicted.

That may be true, but it cuts both ways. It can be used to argue for a purely mechanistic unpredictability with no involvement for conscious agents, but it can be used to argue for the opposite case (conscious choices, "free will") with equal justice. And we might never know which is true.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#113

Post by wfn »

ngpio wrote: post #37
dhughes wrote: post #18

Another good short story similar to this is Asimov's "The Last Question." http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm

And "The Last Answer", which ironically ends with a question while "The Last Question" ends with an answer. And a bunch of others that aren't quite similar except that they're short, provocative scifi. Here's my list of favorites: * Ted Chiang - Understand - http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm * Ted Chiang - Exhalation - http://www.nightshadebooks.com/Downloads/Exhalation%20-%20Te... * Ted Chiang - Hell I…

* Greg Egan - Wang's Carpets - http://bookre.org/reader?file=222997 (not exactly in the same vein, but would very much recommend nonetheless)

* if you like this, then two of his novels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(novel) ("Wang's Carpets" later became a chapter in this book) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City

Re: The Egg (2009)

#114

Post by wfn »

afriend4lyfe wrote: post #41
ngpio wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And "The Last Answer", which ironically ends with a question while "The Last Question" ends with an answer. And a bunch of others that aren't quite similar except that they're short, provocative scifi. Here's my list of favorites: * Ted Chiang - Understand - http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm * Ted Chiang - Exhalation - http://www.nightshadebooks.com/Downloads/Exhalation%20-%20Te... * Ted Chiang - Hell I…

wow ngpio, this list is great. you've probably come across this one before as well but it's definitely a good one: "I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility" http://qntm.org/responsibility

Recursive simulation layers! it's good stuff. :)

Perhaps also check out his "Fine Structure" http://qntm.org/structure (different kind of thing, but it's good scifi..) and perhaps the ongoing series / work in progress "Ra" http://qntm.org/ra

Re: The Egg (2009)

#115

Post by shiven »

cousin_it wrote: post #105
rosser wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're welcome. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm Buddhist, but I've found a lot of wisdom in and no small amount of inner peace through the Buddha's teachings. Play with words enough, and you can claim the world is a beautiful place. Except, it isn't. It's worse than you can possibly imagine. The beauty of the world and the morality of what happens in it are utterly orthogonal. You're conflating those things in a w…

> The beauty of the world and the morality of what happens in it are utterly orthogonal. You're conflating those things He's right to conflate these things. Suffering is not beautiful.

Suffering is not beautiful.

Suffering is.

Accept.

Beauty is.

Accept.

not Beauty also is.

Accept.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#118

Post by wellboy »

whyme wrote: post #44

That model seems ineffective. While it operates in parallel, spawns a plethora of threads and does, I imagine, aim to end in eventual consistency, it also seems to lack any form of shared state. If I was me I would make sure I overlap myself on each new instance and not deal with that restart time. I'd also suggest picking a different tool rather than the current one... I think I might be using LISP (Lost In Self Pro…

I think the problem of a shared state is that you're starting the new life with many preassumptions, which is not good.

To get the most learnings, you need to be completely open, unbiased.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#119

Post by stuaxo »

Ah, interesting - I've been thinking that if time isn't linear + there is reincarnation then only needing one soul is an obvious side effect, and then this story goes on to answer the next question that comes up.

Of course, it's just a thought experiment - though it is interesting.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#120

Post by exodust »

Xcelerate wrote: post #49

This would be horrifying if it was true. Think of how many billions of painful, terrible lives you would have to experience. Edit: I suppose it's just as horrible regardless of whether or not you experience them...

Don't forget this is all make believe. You won't need to re-live the lives of everyone there ever was, as implied in this creative writing.

"Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born".

There's no magic number of humans that represents "all of them". It's odd to suggest that people (even aborted foetuses?) are only part of a giant equation, that permits one into heaven, or whatever is suggested here.

Please, this is not a lot different than believing that the large round boulders on the hill were laid by crocodile spirits a long time ago. Lovely story and belief of a particular native people. But those boulders have quite a different origin - nothing to do with crocodiles, and their fate has nothing to do with crocodiles either.

A conversation isn't waiting on the other side. Death is the end of conversation, not the beginning. We only hope it will mean beginnings and re-incarnations, but the chances are that when you die, you're done being human and you'll be onto something else.

LOL, progressing up through the ranks of humanity to reach God-status. That is some messed up mass-ego injection.

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