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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • Did you start with the arithmetic that putting one apple in the bag followed by another would leas there being so many, or did you consistently observe that doing so led to there being two apples until your mind learned the math of 1+1=2?

    I think this really comes down to your opinion on whether math was created or discovered. Based on your statements so far I’m guessing you believe math was discovered, as there is some mathematical model completely representative of reality. Through observation we can discover mathematic principles to get closer and closer to that model, not that it would necessarily be 100% achieved. I realize that may be putting words in your mouth, but it’s the best argument I can think of to reach your perspective. Is that about right?


  • I think the difference here is between your conception that reality follows a mathematical model while their conception is that mathematical models follow and try to be reflective of reality.

    I think their concern is that, if one believes reality follows math, when the model fails to accurately predict something, the person with the model may wonder what’s wrong with reality. If that person believed the model follows reality they would wonder what’s wrong with the model. The latter perspective will yield better results.

    It’s the difference between saying “this is how it works” vs “to the best of my knowledge this is how it works.”







  • It’s silly to gripe about someone watching a movie for so long, but not because the person watching needs something to fill their life. If that was the only justification needed you could justify owning a yacht because it’s the only place you could get away.

    The real argument is that running a television is not very energy intensive, and being on the grid means the energy it does use is produced at a scale where the environmental impact is drastically reduced.

    I’ve had to reread your second to last paragraph multiple times because it just feels bonkers to go from saying that people enjoy television to saying people might kill themselves without it. What basis does that have in reality? I tried looking into it a little and the only search results regarding suicide and lack of tv discussed suicide coverage on tv and whether it increased suicides. Searching for whether people are happier without tv had a lot of anecdotal “yes” articles and articles relating to a study about teens being happier with less screen time. That seems fairly inconclusive and may just mean there’s a gap in the research that could be filled, but I think you’re really underestimating the average person’s ability to live without television.



  • There can be some interesting things. In my campaign setting there is an age requirement of 450 to be on the ruling council of the largest nation, so it’s almost entirely elves with the odd gnome or other long lived race. It’s been interesting thinking of how society would be shaped around such an institution.

    Even in most adventures I’ve been in or heard of they usually doesn’t last even a tenth of the 50 years in the meme so the differing life spans don’t really factor in.

    To each their own, but I think removing the differing life spans makes the races more flat and indistinct.



  • There is a chapter or two from a book by philosopher Derek Parfit that tackles the transporter issue pretty head-on. It draws what I feel to be a pretty compelling distinction between the continuity of your conscious mind, referred to as Relation R, and the personal identity that is lost when using the transporter. He then asks which is more important. Worth a read if this stuff interests you.


  • There's a book series based on using cloning and memory storage to accomplish very similar things called Undying Mercenaries. The main difference is instead of copying someone and keeping the copy on ice they have cybernetic implants that send engrams of their mind to remote storage, and if they die a clone can be rapidly grown and those stored memories saved to it. It gets pretty schlocky as time goes on, but it's a fun premise to play around with.