Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

urbigenous.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 148 posts

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

#71

Post by TeMPOraL »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #65
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…

Ah, but the Authentic Human knows that the Moloch knows that.... all the way down....

Unfortunately, most humans don't seem to have a good idea of how feedback loops work, they get stuck focusing on a single leg of them "they hurt me, I must get my revenge" instead of noticing the other leg and self-reinforcing nature of the phenomenon "I get my revenge, they feel hurt and now hurt me to get their revenge, ad infinitum".

And Moloch is a personification of a large system of feedback loops.

That's to say - most humans - and therefore, most "authentic" humans - have trouble recognizing Moloch is a thing in the first place.

(FWIW, I don't think it's an issue of capabilities, but rather, of education. Some basics of feedback control should be covered in elementary education, instead of specialized university degrees.)

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

#72

Post by mhaberl »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #69
nonrandomstring wrote: post #43

For me, the most powerful passage in this one is; """ The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of t…

> instinctively Humans don't have instincts. That's what separates us from the other, lower animals. P.S. Urges, drives and desires aren't instincts. P.P.S. Technically not true, the human being has a couple instincts related to breastfeeding, but they are supposed to disappear after a couple months in a healthy human baby.

Wikipedia states that you are not correct:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct#In_humans

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

#73

Post by robertlagrant »

moffkalast wrote: post #68
robertlagrant wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this preclude love from being part of reality?

Love can be completely real under the definition that it's a chemically induced attraction between two biological beings.

But not under all definitions? If you love your child, do you think that's a chemically induced attraction?

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

#74

Post by moffkalast »

robertlagrant wrote: post #73
moffkalast wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love can be completely real under the definition that it's a chemically induced attraction between two biological beings.

But not under all definitions? If you love your child, do you think that's a chemically induced attraction?

That is probably one of the most heavily chemically driven attractions I would say, even. There is a very high evolutionary demand for stopping people from abandoning their screaming, smelling, sleep depriving child.

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

#75

Post by robertlagrant »

moffkalast wrote: post #74
robertlagrant wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not under all definitions? If you love your child, do you think that's a chemically induced attraction?

That is probably one of the most heavily chemically driven attractions I would say, even. There is a very high evolutionary demand for stopping people from abandoning their screaming, smelling, sleep depriving child.

If you're including neurochemistry, then doesn't that mean everything is reality according to the OP'd definition?

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

#77

Post by jacquesm »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #64
jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the mirror image to "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.". Unfortunately history has taught us that P.K. Dick's view is rarely the prevailing one and that even if plenty of people are exactly like that too many of them are not and they will happily do that which they instinctively know they should not do. Especially if there is money or authority involved.

> Unfortunately history has taught us... the prevailing plenty of people will happily do that which they instinctively know they should not do ... if there is money or authority involved. The authentic human escapes this, for s/he does not care one jot what the "plenty" think, feel or do. Not out of callousness, indifference or individual narcissism/solipsism, or even because authenticity exists despite and outside o…

My point is: 'authentic humans' are in short supply, we have the real ones instead and that's what we should deal with. How theoretically authentic humans behave in books of SF authors isn't going to make a huge difference if in the real world such role models are few and far between especially if we count on their numbers to make up the difference between their individual powers and those wielded by your average ruler.

That's why you can keep a society of millions under control with only a few tens of thousands of dedicated assholes.

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

#78

Post by [deleted] »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #43

For me, the most powerful passage in this one is; """ The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of t…

[deleted]

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

#79

Post by vintermann »

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.

It's funny that this has become a sort of slogan for tough-nosed agnosticism, when you look at the rest of the context of the essay. The consequences of his wild experiences didn't go away, despite his attempts at "not believing in them" (give more prosaic, less cosmic explanations for them, something he definitively tried).

You could of course say that he failed to disbelieve in them, and that if he'd succeeded it would have gone away, but I suspect PKD could no more choose to disbelieve in the famous "pink space laser" than he could disbelieve in having a nose in the middle of his face.

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

#80

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

mhaberl wrote: post #72
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instinctively Humans don't have instincts. That's what separates us from the other, lower animals. P.S. Urges, drives and desires aren't instincts. P.P.S. Technically not true, the human being has a couple instincts related to breastfeeding, but they are supposed to disappear after a couple months in a healthy human baby.

Wikipedia states that you are not correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct#In_humans

Wikipedia is wrong.

Feelings aren't instinct. (Feeling disgusted or sexually aroused or aggressive isn't an instinct.)

Instincts, by definition, are complex behavior. (Think birds building nests; nobody teaches them to do that, they are born with that knowledge.)

Post reply on HN