44 replies to this topic

[Infernity]

Significance is not a property of the Universe. It's a property of your mind.

.... does it really matter?



welcome kandarian!

Right.



(There, take that!)

[lol]



Hank.
The universe in my opinion is endless, or so tells at least, the logics of a human lass that cannot get the terms of infinity or all numbers aspire to that.
However, it is all vain once you die, that is why I am here, because everything loses value once I die, wtf should I "care" what happens after that, perhaps I should but I won't be able to, I won't be at all, no "I".

"wrong", is your opinion. I see logics in my words.


-Infernity

[Kalepha]

Not that I think you're wrong, Hank, but perhaps you're still somewhat oversimplifying things. 'Significance' as an intentional mental item, we could agree, requires multiple configurations to be indexed as 'existing.' If this is the case, then an array of configurations may exist as one unit. For instance, whatever the configuration at 'e' (or its mental analog), it exists with the configuration at 's.' If not, I'm not sure how the item could exist at all – unless you enlighten me, of course!

[RighteousReason]

Not that I think you're wrong, Hank, but perhaps you're still somewhat oversimplifying things. 'Significance' as an intentional mental item, we could agree, requires multiple configurations to be indexed as 'existing.' If this is the case, then an array of configurations may exist as one unit. For instance, whatever the configuration at 'e' (or its mental analog), it exists with the configuration at 's.' If not, I'm not sure how the item could exist at all – unless you enlighten me, of course!

If I understand you correctly: some unit with an array of significance configurations exists as some instance in the universe (like, a mind maybe?)

I don't see what you are getting at, or what you intend to say I am oversimplifying. Although enlighten me! I'm making this up as I go along (The points I'm arguing are right, but maybe there is something I am oversimplifying)

[lol]

[Kalepha]

Hehe. I doubt if there's a significant degenerate implication. (Pun intended.) Thus, whether being like an interpreter or a compiler, the consequences are unclear, if it even makes sense to choose how you think of 'existence' in terms of the consequences. This is probably what it comes down to: clarifying the concept of 'existence' itself. That concept also "exists" as multiple configurations, I presume, each necessary and "simultaneously" relational for our concept of 'existence' to exist. I believe this means that associating it with a predispositionally strict function is probably more costly than beneficial for some of us. In other words, it's inherently not powerful enough to function yet in some preferable, ideal ways. At least not in ways that would compel dismissal of intentional "compilers" completely out of hand, I would presume, because then I, for one, would be compelled to analyze the assumption that "I exist" from indivisible instant to indivisible instant.

[RighteousReason]

everything loses value once I die

No.

You are a valueing function. Just because your value-assignment functionality has been removed from the system does not mean there aren't other value-assignment functions.

Obviously the value-assignment function that *is you* is gone, and it is in no position to be making value-assignments, and thus nothing in the Universe is of value to the value assignment function that *is you*, but that doesn't contradict the simple fact that there are other functions in the Universe that assign value.

Which is all I'm saying.

Things won't lose value. One of the functions that puts that value there will just be gone.

[RighteousReason]

Nate I think when humanity finally creates a complete description for the algorithm of intelligence, the vast majority of current human mysteries will be obliterated in an incredibly trivial amount of time.

When humans get a lot smarter I can imagine that we will find much greater mysteries that current humans can't even concieve of, but the mysteries of today will probably be posted on the future equivalent of some wikipedia page somewhere, and in the ruins with everything else in the "old net" (which will contain such a trivial amount of useful data that it will be virtually irrelevant, except maybe in the tail end of a really bad joke from the future equivalent of Slashdot).

After reading your post about 30 times, I'm still not 100% sure what you were trying to say.

But that's my response. [lol]

[Kalepha]

Oh, Hank. Basically, all I'm saying is that the hypothetical relation among 'existence,' 'significance,' and 'post-annihilation' should, I think, challenge your current intuitions more than you're allowing it to, for implicit and explicit reasons I probably already did my willful best to convey.

Again, I'm trying not to be too partial in this particular discussion. I just sometimes become stimulated when the "blatantly obvious" phrase gets thrown around too loosely. [tung]

[Clifford Greenblatt]

DonSpanton

The implicit assumption which all of the [Immortalist] participants of this thread have been making is that *the present* is all that exists.  This is the intuitive view of time, known as presentism.

The opposing view is that of Four dimensionalism, with a number of variants including eternalism, growing block and the shrinking tree theories

I do not think immortalists insist that they cannot be immortal unless they exist everywhere in space. Likewise, it should not be necessary to exist everywhere in time to be immortal. What matters is an infinite existence. However, many immortalists insist that a person is immortal only if the person’s existence has spatiotemporal continuity. I have not yet finished Max More’s Diachronic Self dissertation. I recall some mention in his paper about lucky, noncausal duplications of a person, but I do not know whether he considers them continuers.

DonSpanton

Eternalism is by far the most popular variant of four dimensionalism, and was fairly common in the time of the ancient Greeks.  Hence, their fascination with the concepts of *fate* and *destiny*.

Nietzsche, a forerunner to existentialist philosophy, 'rediscovered' the significance of eternalist thought with his concept of the Eternal Recurrence - which makes sense, as he was a classical philologist by training.

Eternal Recurrence seems to me like a naturalism of statistical predestination. This would be a natural consequence of an infinite multiverse. The qualia of a particular person would be present whenever certain physical conditions are satisfied. This would happen infinitely in an infinite multiverse. Each instance of the person would have its statistical variations and uncertainties, but the overall pattern of the person in the infinite multiverse would be predestined to conform to a formula set by the laws of nature. In this case, the significance of a person would be eternal and would be found in the personal pattern fixed by the laws of nature.

DonSpanton

But tell me Cliff, did you just finish reading Slaughterhouse 5 by any chance?  Your universal annihilation is what supposedly happened in Vonnegut's fictional world when the Tralfamadorians made a mistake building one of their new warp drives (or something like that).

The Tralfamadorians were these weird aliens shaped like toilet plungers that could 'see' the dimesion of time.  This was obviously a (somewhat preposterous) play on the concept of eternalism by Vonnegut.

The Tralfamador's reponse to your your universal annihilation scenario, "So it goes."

I did not read the Slaughterhouse 5, but I have been exposed to the idea of universal annihilation since an early age. I think the most popular statement of universal annihilation was written by T.S. Elliot.

This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.

Edited by Clifford Greenblatt, 15 June 2006 - 10:41 AM.

[Infernity]

After reading your post about 30 times, I'm still not 100% sure what you were trying to say.

Hahahaha, you see Nate, it isn't only me who has hard time understanding your posts' meaning.

-Infernity

[Kalepha]

אישור

[Infernity]

àéùåø

Nice *thumbs up*

-Infernity

[RighteousReason]

Don I think I know where you are coming from.

I don't think generalization of significance can be abstracted from it's source in intelligent people alive in the Universe right now. Even if that same pattern is duplicated 100 billion billion years in the future, or in some alternate dimension or something, it doesn't make up for the lost significance of a person dying as of now.


If that makes any sense.

[DJS]

NB

By my construal, I don't think Don disagrees that 'significance' is a mental property. The issue he seems to bring up is that if every configuration of reality exists together as a static array, then 'significance' exists as part of that, "simultaneously" with the post-annihilation element. Our own perspectives in this sense need only once to arise, perceive 'significance,' and imbue this array with significance.

Exactly.

Personally, I don't know if I'd want to mentally augment that high unless I was actually reality's array.

Or atleast until I was a vast array within reality's infinite array (I always love your terminology). Yet entertaining a perspective doesn't imply strong commitment by any means. This much now seems obvious to me, to the point where I feel perfectly at ease when endulging in fleeting acts of augmentation.

[DJS]

Hank

Don I think I know where you are coming from.

I still think you are missing my point, but this may be my fault for not communicating myself effectively.

I don't think generalization of significance can be abstracted from it's source in intelligent people alive in the Universe right now. Even if that same pattern is duplicated 100 billion billion years in the future, or in some alternate dimension or something, it doesn't make up for the lost significance of a person dying as of now.

Just to play devil's advocate. Why not? What makes you think this?

(Also note: I didn't really push the cosmology but it appears that Cliff and yourself are adamant about it.)

[Kalepha]

Don:

Or atleast until I was a vast array within reality's infinite array (I always love your terminology). Yet entertaining a perspective doesn't imply strong commitment by any means. This much now seems obvious to me, to the point where I feel perfectly at ease when endulging in fleeting acts of augmentation.

It makes me very glad that you say this, Don.