Thread for mundane ironists

I have faith.

Elmore Leonard

Fate was working its ass off when it got us all together.

Not literally, he suspected.

Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit.

What shit might that be?

You never know what somebody might tell you, Chris said, when they think you’re somebody else.

Let’s try to explain this…philosophically?

Avoid Prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword.

Words to the wise, let’s say.

…all over the world the past was being wiped out by condominiums.

Noted.

You know what people who go to nude beaches look like?
Tell me.
People who shouldn’t go to nude beaches.

And the equivalent of that here, of course.
If you get my drift.

Well, in a philosophy forum, there’s really only ‘talk’. But there are many processes one can engage in that those might demonstrate things that are very hard to prove on a screen.

in what do you have faith?

In that sort of general sense.

It means fear is bad, faith is good. Typical putting fear outside of the good, a trait of many religions, most, but many secular belief systems also see fear as a problem, period. If that belief affects your parenting, well, then the kids will growing up fearing fear and judging themselves.

You probably mean new age hippies. “God fearing” used to be as common a term as “decent.”

Well, it certainly includes the New Age hippies and don’t forget the yuppies. Sure, God fearing, but in general if you are afraid it is a sign of a problem. A lack of faith, even in that segment of Christians who talk about being God fearing. This goes in Hinduism, Buddhism (though all emotions are included there), certain paganisms, Islam is mixed.

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The main irony being.. Iam starting this thread in order to out-post me, as a competition of sorts.. and a competition I never agreed to, so never partook in, so a case of bring on the treadmill of ‘I must continue, regardless’ ever-since.
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Samsara..?

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By the fifth time Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning, he started carrying a can of water to put his hair and eyebrows out when he gets struck again. Indeed, two more times, he was struck.

Suicide

“I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.” Suzanne Finnamore

So did I. A couple of times.

“The New York Daily News suggested that my biggest war crime was not killing myself like a gentleman. Presumably Hitler was a gentleman.” Kurt Vonnegut

Does anyone recall what the New York Times suggested?

“In my room, in the dark, I understood what I never had before, what no one else seemed to. I understood how a boy could go into the woods with a bullet and a gun and not come out. That there was no conspiracy, no evil influences or secret rituals; that sometimes there was only pain and the need to make it stop.” Robin Wasserman

You either actually grasp this or you don’t.

“The smiles of the unhappiest are often the widest.” Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I’ve never been disappointed myself. So far.

“Your suicide makes the lives of those who outlive you more intense. Should they be threatened by boredom, or should the absurdity of their lives leap out at them from the curve of some cruel mirror, let them remember you, and the pain of existence will seem preferable to the disquietude of no longer being.” Édouard Levé

Does anyone here actually believe this?

“…a man who has decided upon self-destruction is far removed from mundane affairs, and to sit down and write his will would be, at that moment, an act just as absurd as winding up one’s watch, since together with the man, the whole world is destroyed; the last letter is instantly reduced to dust and, with it, all the postmen; and like smoke, vanishes the estate bequeathed to a nonexistent progeny.” Vladimir Nabokov

I’d like to understand this better, of course.

Ex Machina

Caleb: What was the real test?
Nathan: You. Ava was a rat in a maze. And I gave her one way out. To escape, she’d have to use self-awareness, imagination, manipulation, sexuality, empathy, and she did. Now, if that isn’t true AI, what the fuck is?

Next up: the real test here.
There is one right?

Nathan: Over the next few days you’re going to be the human component in a Turing test.
Caleb: Holy shit!
Nathan: Yeah, that’s right, Caleb. You got it. Because if the test is passed, you are dead center of the greatest scientific event in the history of man.

Next up: you are dead center of the greatest philosophical event in the history of man.

Caleb: You hacked the world’s cell phones?
Nathan: Yeah. And all the manufacturers knew I was doing it, too. But they couldn’t accuse me without admitting they were doing it themselves.

Pick one:
1] wink, wink
2] hint, hint

Caleb: If you’ve created a conscious machine, it’s not the history of man. That’s the history of Gods.

A divine click, let’s call it.

Caleb: It’s just in the Turing test, the machine should be hidden from the examiner.
Nathan: No, no. We’re way past that. If I hid Ava from you so you could just hear her voice, she would pass for human. The real test is to show you that she’s a robot and then see if you still feel she has consciousness.
Caleb: Yeah, I think you’re probably right.

Whatever that means going this far out on the metaphysical limb.

Caleb: It’s just in the Turing test, the machine should be hidden from the examiner.
[Nathan: No, no. We’re way past that. If I hid Ava from you so you could just hear her voice, she would pass for human. The real test is to show you that she’s a robot and then see if you still feel she has consciousness.
Caleb: Yeah, I think you’re probably right.

Again, whatever that means going this far out on the metaphysical limb.

It means that he thinks it is too easy to just have an AI guiding what a voice says and see if test subjects get fooled. They think they are talking to a human and nothing gives away they are not. It’s a kind of Turing Test, but he wanted his invention to pass a harder one. The guy knows it is not a human, and yet, over time, he decides that this artificial object has consciousness, is sentient.

There is only one(s) original.

What is the harm in treating as person the presentation-of-personhood? None of us has private access to each other, only the original personhood.

I don’t know what that means. Original what?

I was describing what the AI maker’s character meant in the movie. I’m not sure he weighed in on this issue, I’m not sure what this question means - for example ‘presentation of personhood’? How does this related to what I wrote?

I don’t think the first part is true, but, that said, what does that have to do with what I wrote? I am also not sure what ‘original personhood’ means.

What I wrote doesn’t indicate the character quoted thinks we have private access to other minds.

Would a man who willingly joined the military, found himself in a world of shit all of a sudden, and then asked for special praise, honor and respect for his ‘sacrifice’, are we to take him siriusly?

Likewise, what of the man who is drafted and doesn’t dodge it? Do we say he should have dodged it, and now he got what he deserves if he finds himself locked in a bamboo prison camp for a year?

Discuss.

Intelligence(s).

Turing test. Seriously???

Prove it. The only way to access semi-privately is via what the brain registers—which ain’t necessarily the whole story.

I see Project Hail Mary provoked the exact same questions in you.

Ironic.