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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)

#141

Post by nonrandomstring »

winter_blue wrote: post #94
pixl97 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be impolite to ask if you consider yourself one of these authentic humans? At least to me the entire sentiment seems to fall into 'no true Scotsman' territory under any individual scrutiny. If we take someone's life apart and look at the individual pieces you'll find authentic and inauthentic moments everywhere.

> At least to me the entire sentiment seems to fall into 'no true Scotsman' territory under any individual scrutiny. If we take someone's life apart and look at the individual pieces you'll find authentic and inauthentic moments everywhere. The Christian theological view[0] is that no human is perfect (or good), and it is essentially impossible to be perfectly good, but God still wants us to try to be as perfect as w…

Actually this thread inspired me to go read Ecclesiastes again, and ponder "vanity of wisdom". That's a real mindfuck for seekers of wisdom (as scientists and the like), but I get it, hopefully never too late in life. cheers

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

#142

Post by shiroiuma »

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…

Even if all humans suddenly vanished, many artifacts for those "beliefs" will remain: coins and bills will still be there, and the documents, books, and computer data with laws and LLC documentation will still be there too. So I don't see how you can call them a "shared delusion"; they're real things that people invented, though ultimately they're just shared agreements backed up by some kind of documentation rather than word-of-mouth communication.

The ideas that "homosexuality is perfectly ok" (in some societies) or "homosexuality is horrible and those who practice it must be punished or even murdered" (in some other societies) are shared "delusions" (aka "ideas" or "opinions"), though these ideas usually also result in actual laws (written in books). So I guess you could say that peoples' shared "delusions" (ideas) about how a society should operate are then codified and written down in the form of laws to be used to enforce those ideas on others.

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

#143

Post by MichaelZuo »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #115
polishdude20 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again what IS "authenticity"? It depends on your values. It really teeters on the fact that we all deep down share some common goal. Extend all human life? Increase all human happiness? Or maybe just increase my groups happiness? Or just increase my own? "Authenticity" is a buzzword that is more akin to "consistency". You don't flip flop between various values. But then there's the meta-flip flopping of values.…

I'd say that authenticity is actually independent of values (maybe you're saying that too). A problem is that one could be an authentic mass murderer. Bare authenticity alone is insufficient for moral good. Indeed it may not even be necessary by some moral theories. But, in saying I value authenticity, I am not claiming to be moral or right. I could very well be horribly wrong in everything I think about technology -…

This is a good point, attaching a moral valence to being 'authentic' simply doesn't make much sense.

There probably are cases where becoming more 'authentic' is worse and should be discouraged by all means.

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

#144

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

jacquesm wrote: post #132
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The key sentence in TFA is "In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.". That's a highly theoretical argument and I simply differ of opinion. In essence everybody can be compelled to be what they are not, all it takes is the right circumstances and your Saint will be a sinner and the other way around. I'm far more interested in the interplay between people and their circumstances than I am in label…

You're interpreting the comment in an absolute fashion then turn around and claim to be interested in grey.

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

#145

Post by glitchc »

prometheus76 wrote: post #135
glitchc wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "authentic human" sounds like the No True Scotman's Fallacy. One person's authentic may not match another's, yet both are equally authentic. As a case in point, consider vegetarians. Are those who eat animals somehow "inauthentic", even if they agree on every other aspect with other authentic individuals?

Is authenticity externally determined, or internally determined? Is there an external objective or universal standard of authenticity, or is it more of an internal integrity or trueness to one's self-determined values? Or a blend of both?

If it is internally determined, then an objective measure cannot be known to exist. That's the contention I have with the author's thesis, as the author is assuming external/objective authenticity. As an example, consider Hannibal Lecter: Certainly authentic to his self-determined values, yet not compatible with the author's view of authenticity, and would be considered a "bad person" by the rest of humanity.

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

#146

Post by sanroot99 »

ordu wrote: post #40
quonn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the quote is only great on one level. If we give it some thought it is not so great. Why? Because our mind evolved as a tool for survival of our self which is to say as a tool for survival of that which may pass on the genes which create said mind. This mind is, by default, full of illusions, full of a particularly biased view of the world and the content of that view does not go away when we stop believing in it…

> a particularly biased view of the world We can safely drop "biased" from the quote, because an unbiased view is a mirror. A useless thing. > statement is only true for the rather small subset of things that can be scientifically investigated Science is not a reality, it is one more view of a reality. It is easy to see if you look at the history of science. Scientific beliefs come to be replaced by others. Phlogisto…

This thought echoes Pessimistic induction, one of the flaw in scientific method

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

#147

Post by sanroot99 »

Ygg2 wrote: post #36
hutzlibu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In short the statement is only true for the rather small subset of things that can be scientifically investigated" Which fundamental things cannot get scientifically investigated?

Things that can't be scientifically verified (i.e. can it make predictions and are predictions falsifiable), goes especially for things that require several test universes to test out. For example what is the purpose of the universe? Is this the only universe? Is it a simulation? Is everything predetermined?

I think one way to falsify simulation hypothesis, assuming universe running simulation have similar physics, is by finding limits of computation required to run the simulation, at some point we can find a bug or a glitch

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

#148

Post by sanroot99 »

NickM wrote: post #84

I wonder how many of the people commenting on this essay read all the way through. It starts out quite lucid and makes some seemingly insightful points, but as the essay goes on he starts to descend into some strange metaphysical ideas about time not being real and reality being a retelling of parts of the Bible. I’m not familiar with much of PKD’s works or his life story, but I honestly can’t tell if he had mental h…

I stopped reading from there on, it became relatively absurd
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