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The Egg (2009)

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Re: The Egg (2009)

#51
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…

Interesting. I'd always made the assumption that something, at least, transferred from one life to the next. I figured that the worst and most selfish lives happened 'first', and the absurdly selfless lives happened 'last'.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#52

    The rate of information increases.
This is true of humans, gods, and all things. Some initial configuration is irrelevant to this fact of existence — that information describes it, so too, is part of the configuration that you play into.

Many gods, one god, whatever — it is part of a being to know what is relevant at any point in time. If there are gods, your death is something that becomes information to them.

The implication here is that even in their case, their ends become information to something else.

The first to be surprised — to introduce new information — doesn't "win" or "sin". What's to be felt about the falsity that

        The rate of information increases.

?

Re: The Egg (2009)

#53

Of all the religious, non religious, philosophical, etc. texts I've ever read. This is the one I most hope is true.

Me too (us too?) but I guiltily admit it's partly because I'd like to experience being Genghis Khan.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#55
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…

It's just a beautiful piece of fiction, not a computer program. No need to draw parallels with how software works, it's kind of pointless.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#57
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…

Years ago, there was a PBS documentary about the Buddha. [1] In it, one of the guests was addressing a question about the Buddhist belief in reincarnation. He dismissed the popular notion of reincarnation, where one was Napoleon or Cleopatra or the like in a previous life, instead likening it to repeating puberty over and over and over again.

It's not a question of being forced to make the mistakes. I think you're making a bit of a "forest for the trees" kind of mistake in the way you're looking at it. Accepting, for sake of argument, the story's premise of a one-soul universe, in each successive life, I'm choosing my mistakes. Ideally, I'm choosing new and better mistakes each time — much like the oft-cited entrepreneurial advice to keep making new and better mistakes.

[1] http://www.pbs.org/thebuddha/

Re: The Egg (2009)

#58
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same reason american shows have the "still to come" segments? (but in this case, times 10 worst) I won't read because of op bad title choice :(

That's alright... you wrote it anyway.

You win the internet, forever, for that one :)

Re: The Egg (2009)

#59
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…

It's just a beautiful piece of fiction, not a computer program. No need to draw parallels with how software works, it's kind of pointless.

Wow, I guess I'll try not to have a little fun along the way... Sheesh.

Re: The Egg (2009)

#60

Completely off topic, however I read this originally right around when Lost went off the air. I always wished this is how Lost ended: with Jack being told by Jacob that he was actually everyone on the plane (which is why they all had a weird connection), and all these lives were him waiting to be "born" into running the island.

Yes! That would be such a better ending... I would buy that in a second.
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