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How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

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Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#121

Post by jacquesm »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #105
jacquesm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me a single one then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

So, by giving that example you show that you have not understood anything of the discussion so far.

Let me spell it out: that's the defining moment of Tank Man's life, you have zero clue about what happened prior to that moment. And that's because really nobody seems to have a clue about who he really was, what his life was like up to that moment and so on. It's a singular act of bravery and one that I very much feel moved by. But I have zero illusion that Tank Man's life was nothing but an endless succession of moments like these where at every opportunity he did the right thing. And that's perfectly normal, doesn't make him any less, in fact it makes him more: because ordinary people making an actually stand when it matters is very powerful, no matter what their lives were like up to that point.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#122

Post by TeMPOraL »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #6

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Great quote. So great I even posted it to my twitter account (my other bookmarking service) But the paste dropped the end quote mark and added a comma to the front. HN did not and did the above paste just fine. It bothers me, and I don't know why.

> “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

Funny thing is that it seems to apply to intersubjective phenomena too. For example, a "limited liability corporation" is made entirely out of shared delusions of people, but is a real thing under this quote, in the sense that it remains even if you or I stop believing in it. However, if sufficiently many people stop believing at once, it will go away.

(And so will things like money, rule of law, or civilization.)

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#123

Post by acuozzo »

stareatgoats wrote: post #39
Ygg2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? It's still Philip K. Dick. It's absolutely bonkers. It starts normal, story about a dog biting the garbage man from PoV of the dog, story about surgeons discovering reality altering tape in a man, the question of what is reality, then descends into PKDs ramblings about being stuck in Satan's Tesseract Labyrinth, that it's actually AD 50 and people wearing pisces are real Jesus' followers, th…

In all fairness, it is a long article. Articles submitted to HN should ideally not be much longer than the title, because people don't have time nowadays - time has somehow shrunk to the point of near disappearance. It's not an accusation, it's just an observation, a fact of life. But once in a while a wormhole to another existence opens where there is still time to read a whole story, not sure how but some people se…

> time has somehow shrunk to the point of near disappearance

"The Magnificence of the Ambersons began in 1873. Their splendor lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midland town spread and darken into a city. In those days, the only public conveyance was the street car. A lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt and wait as she shut the window, went downstairs, put on her hat, found an umbrella and told the girl what to have for dinner. Too slow for us nowadays, for the faster we are carried, the less time we have to spare."

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#124

Post by ordu »

polishdude20 wrote: post #110
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to get too confrontational but why? The point of reading text by a talented author is to read his/her words in the way they wrote it. Otherwise it's all "14 year old girl wanted to test if her boyfriend would really get upset if she died, faked her death, it goes horribly wrong"

I thought about why I'd want an AI summary or even a human-made summary of a long text and realized there's a deep wrongness this need stems from.. I like a summary so I can know if I like the article and agree with it. If I would like and agree with the summary (thus reinforcing my worldview) I'll most likely read the whole article. If the summary is uninteresting or does not support my worldview, I'm more likely to…

I can add a use-case for that. I'm trying to read Joe Dispenza "Breaking a Habit of Being Yourself". The book starts with Joe Dispenza views on a quantum nature of our world, and I see that the author knows about quantum even less then me. Moreover he tries to make me to believe in something similar to Philip K. Dick, except everything unexplainable is explained not by references to Holy Spirit, but by slipping a word "quantum" somewhere in a sentence. He kinda believe in a magic world where you can change the world by thinking hard about the desired change, but instead of "magic" he says "quantum". Sometimes he uses word "quantum" twice in one sentence.

It was bad enough so I was fighting my desire to stop reading the book and to never try it again. I persisted because his bullshit was far outside of his supposed area of expertise and I thought he could become better when he gets to a point. But then Dispenza refers to a study showing that you can change past with a prayer: if you pray for a random sample of patients from a decade ago, then this random sample does better than a general population[1]. Then he refers to a study showing that people can unwound DNA by a force of mind[2]. Dispenza starts his book by asking a reader to keep an open mind, but there are limits of mind openness, and if you go beyond the limits then what is the point of having a mind? Am I ready to break a habit of being myself and start believing in bullshit?

After I'd found [1] and [2] with a search engine, I searched for Joe Dispenza. He is not a neuroscientist but a fraud[3]. I think I need to make my fraud detector more sensitive. But the point is: if I had an AI summary, I'd probably never wasted my time trying to read the book. Though I'd better get from an AI not a summary, but a chat, so I could ask questions about the book and get answers (was it a butler who did this? lol).

Btw, reading Philip K. Dick I noticed that I can read through such a concentrated bullshit without fighting an urge to stop wasting my time. I'm still thinking what is the key difference in my attitude to different authors. For now I think it is about my expectations: Philip K. Dick started with a question what is real, and so I'm happy to give him a license to talk some bullshit, while I expect from a scientist to have beliefs compatible with science.

[1] It is not the paper he refers to, but it is about it: https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-ethics-of-joke-sci...

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8686570/

[3] https://nesslabs.com/the-rise-of-fake-scientists

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#125

Post by nonrandomstring »

LastTrain wrote: post #116
TeMPOraL wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, Moloch loves the "authentic" humans, because they can be bullshitted into doing anything. Yes, they'll resist any direct attempts at telling them how to live their lives - but they'll do that as much to a tyrant, as to their democratic representatives, or their own community. Inertia is not a virtue - neither for an object, nor for a human. The way against "authentic" humans' resistance/reactance is something Mo…

I find the worst actors to be the ones that try and fill with you with so much cynicism and mistrust that the "authentic humans" feel debased and consequently second-guess themselves.

Absolutely this!

It's a fascinating and disturbing phenomenon. FWIW, here's a discussion/interview I had with a psychologist [0] about why, for exmaple, some people will say "Privacy is dead. Give up hope. There's nothing you can do..." yada yada...

And the less they know about the subject technically, the more insistent and outspoken they are on the matter. It's bugged me for ages what's behind this, because there's more than Dunning-Kruger going on.

She names a possible root as "conflict avoidance".

The most vocal denouncers are in fact the most frightened. What they don't want to face is that they might have to do something, because that could be dangerous in their minds.

[0] https://cybershow.uk/media/episodes/ogg/ownership-technology...

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#126

Post by luxuryballs »

“There must indeed be a mysterious Holy Spirit which has an exact and intimate relation to Christ, which can indwell in human minds, guide and inform them, and even express itself through those humans, even without their awareness.”

When I finally realized this for myself I was rather shocked, not in a bad way, but it surprised me that it hadn’t been talked about more before I came face to face with it… God and Christ are the most well known and “perceivable” when people think of church literature yet ironically the Holy Spirit is the most accessible and influential of the three in the present reality. It wasn’t until I experienced it that I looked back and understood, as if it’s something that can’t be taught in the slightest, to any degree comparable to when the actual manifestation of that indwelling reveals itself.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#127

Post by PhasmaFelis »

jacquesm wrote: post #121
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

So, by giving that example you show that you have not understood anything of the discussion so far. Let me spell it out: that's the defining moment of Tank Man's life, you have zero clue about what happened prior to that moment. And that's because really nobody seems to have a clue about who he really was, what his life was like up to that moment and so on. It's a singular act of bravery and one that I very much feel…

How exactly are you defining "authentic human"? It sounds like you're defining it as someone who always does the right thing without exception, who of course doesn't exist, QED.

What point are you trying to make, actually? Your argument seems to be that "authentic humans," however that's defined, are not just rare but nonexistent, even if other quietly heroic people who fill the same role do exist. I'm not sure what end you're trying to reach here.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#128

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

jacquesm wrote: post #121
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

So, by giving that example you show that you have not understood anything of the discussion so far. Let me spell it out: that's the defining moment of Tank Man's life, you have zero clue about what happened prior to that moment. And that's because really nobody seems to have a clue about who he really was, what his life was like up to that moment and so on. It's a singular act of bravery and one that I very much feel…

I gave an example of someone who stood up despite the consequences and did so in anonymity.

Your problem is that you stated such people don't exist despite the vast historical evidence to the contrary. Hitler's own officers wanted to kill him. Think about Harriet Tubman, or the underground railway. ad nauseum.

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#129

Post by nonrandomstring »

jacquesm wrote: post #121
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

So, by giving that example you show that you have not understood anything of the discussion so far. Let me spell it out: that's the defining moment of Tank Man's life, you have zero clue about what happened prior to that moment. And that's because really nobody seems to have a clue about who he really was, what his life was like up to that moment and so on. It's a singular act of bravery and one that I very much feel…

Let's be charitable and steelman your parent comment, and Tank Man too (quite literally).

Character is important.

As you say we don't know much about Tank Man. It was probably more than the defining moment of his life, it was the last day of it.

Isn't it fair to assume that whatever led up to that moment was a life lived in good character? He may not have lived as an exemplar of "authenticity", and if it was only a moment in an otherwise selfish and wasted life, like those "city businessmen" who spontaneously jump onto a subway track to save a child, we agree it doesn't that subtract from the authenticity of the act?

As we say around here "carefully pick your hill to die on". But there's more to the picking than a rash decision in a single moment. There's everything that built that character too, no?

Re: How to build a universe that doesn’t fall apart two days later (1978)

#130

Post by ohwellhere »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #122
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #6

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Great quote. So great I even posted it to my twitter account (my other bookmarking service) But the paste dropped the end quote mark and added a comma to the front. HN did not and did the above paste just fine. It bothers me, and I don't know why.

> “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Funny thing is that it seems to apply to intersubjective phenomena too. For example, a "limited liability corporation" is made entirely out of shared delusions of people, but is a real thing under this quote, in the sense that it remains even if you or I stop believing in it. However, if sufficiently many people stop believing at once, it will…

Aleister Crowley wrote that everyone shares in magical thinking, it's just that they want to make magick itself the exception.
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