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Author Topic: Twin dilemma  (Read 13266 times)

Cthulhu

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #45 on: August 01, 2008, 03:52:42 pm »

Quote
It's more or less proven that some people can sense other people, including dead people.[Citation Needed]
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Kagus

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #46 on: August 01, 2008, 03:53:40 pm »

I see dead people. 

They don't do very much.

Sean Mirrsen

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #47 on: August 01, 2008, 03:55:10 pm »

I suddenly imagine the Devil's garage sale, with a sign saying "Used souls cheap!". :)

No, new souls have to be created all the time, because of population growth and whatnot. It's not unheard of, however, that a spirit may inhabit (or co-inhabit) a body used by another soul. I suppose it happens because of said "compatibility", if a person's mental projection is at any point in time similar to a certain spirit's own, that spirit may enter the body. I suppose it's impossible for a spirit, it being an energy form to a certain extent, to completely die, so even if the carrier body is violently ripped into individual molecules, the spirit will probably remain, and if the process of the creation of the new body is of any likeness to birth (in relation to the spirits and souls), it may re-inhabit the body at once. However, there may be another explanation, a very confusing one for special people. Spirits won't die, but new, identical (initially) ones will be created, clones at the spiritual level. I think if there will ever be a first live human test of teleportation, then qualified psychics with proven records will have to be present, to monitor the situation in this regard.
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Kagus

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #48 on: August 01, 2008, 04:18:43 pm »

Oh, that was the other thing I thought of with the soul talk (haven't you ever forgotten something between hitting the "reply" button and starting to write a post?)...  Thetans.

I'm reminded of another book (I won't mention it, for fear of being ridiculed for my tastes) that brings up another question...


In the event that a soul imprinted to a certain body is left behind after teleportation, and that it immediately seeks out the newly created clone...  What happens if there is another, possibly "unbound" soul that is closer to the body?  What happens when an imprinted soul is left without an anchor?

Also, do we have any psychics with proven records?

Cthulhu

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #49 on: August 01, 2008, 04:21:58 pm »

I thought Thetans too, but the temptation to make a Citation Needed joke was too strong.
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Nonanonymous

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #50 on: August 01, 2008, 07:11:41 pm »

Heh...  All this talk of soulless bodies makes me think of gingers...

Hey!  Scots have got more spirit in their liver than you do in your whole body!

...  Is that the worst pun ever posted on this board?
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Kagus

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #51 on: August 01, 2008, 08:56:40 pm »

No, it isn't.


Okay, I tried reading the Biological Naturalism paper...  And I am completely befuddled.  I'm going to need some sort of summary, I can't understand this guy's writing.  I don't know if it's just that he's using multisyllabic words I'm not familiar with (ooh, big words), or if it's because he writes in a very hard to understand manner.  Or maybe I just don't know how to read it...

The only thing I can get from it is that he seems slightly caught up with himself.

umiman

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #52 on: August 01, 2008, 11:09:47 pm »

Yeah, John Searle is an arrogant kind of fellow but all philosophy papers are like that and that's actually one of the easier ones. The worst part about learning standardized philosophy is that you have to first learn to how to understand it. Takes awhile and it can really grate your nerves on how they repeat everything and confirm everything. You might have noticed I tend to do that nowadays as well.

There's no real need for me to summarize it though. That initial statement you said about nonexistence of the soul based on it being part of mental functions is the summary.

Hehehe, you should read those older philosophy papers by Hume and Descartes. Blows your mind.

There's online version's of Searle's audio lectures. Let me link you to one of the best ones. He's much more interesting to listen to than to read and it's a very good lecture: http://nifflheim.arts.ualberta.ca/~wcooper/Searle01.mp3

Cthulhu

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #53 on: August 02, 2008, 06:05:50 am »

Try reading past the paper, not at the paper, move your face slowly away from the page, and the sailboat will come into view.
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Pnx

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #54 on: August 02, 2008, 11:39:41 am »

I see dead people... all the time, I live down the street from a mortuary... So yeah, see em all the time.

But I should point out that we never actually proved that time is relative, we've proved that the decay rate of an atom over "time" (as a universal thing is) relative, but that may not be "time" as it relates to a region of space.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2008, 11:42:00 am by Pnx »
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LeoLeonardoIII

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #55 on: August 02, 2008, 10:41:43 pm »

Also, do we have any psychics with proven records?

If there are, they don't seem to like money. I guess this is why we typically see TV psychics winning lottery jackpots.

I like Bullshit.
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Sean Mirrsen

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #56 on: August 03, 2008, 12:08:28 pm »

Well, there are no psychics with records per se, let alone proven records, but last I heard, at least some people with what seem to be psychic abilities were able to help the police locate people. So, unless anything of the sort is instituted at the time, any people who were successful in such activities could be classified as "proven".
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"Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems, but the world's problems are not Europe's problems."
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MMad

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #57 on: August 07, 2008, 05:07:45 pm »

Hey, this is a nice big thread of random fun stuff. :)

Well, there are no psychics with records per se, let alone proven records, but last I heard, at least some people with what seem to be psychic abilities were able to help the police locate people. So, unless anything of the sort is instituted at the time, any people who were successful in such activities could be classified as "proven".

Considering the enormous amount of so-called psychics who were disproven in the past, and the total lack of even a single proven psychic, I'd consider it overwhelmingly likely that the few that did seem to get something right were probably just lucky and wouldn't hold up to a more in-depth examination.

That said though, a true scientist should acknowledge the possibility of hitherto unknown psychic abilities, so I wouldn't totally dismiss them, just consider them on about the same level as the Tooth Fairy until someone shows up with some proof. The "Psychic Staring Effect" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Psychic_Staring_Effect ) is one that has been experimentally tested quite a bit and has actually gotten some positive results. Which still isn't enough for me to consider it "proven", by any means, but it should be tested further. Would be kinda cool if it was shown to exist.

Try reading past the paper, not at the paper, move your face slowly away from the page, and the sailboat will come into view.

Heh. That's kinda zen.

Just did Battleground God.  I took one direct hit and bit two bullets.

Never heard of that before, thanks for mentioning it. :)
Bit a bullet, but I'm ok.

Doesn't this stuff depend on having faster than light travel, which we aren't capable of anyway?

(I don't know a damn thing about this stuff)

Not really, you just have to go damn fast.

Here's a question: If the soul exists, would it and your consciousness be transported along with the meat-machine? If teleportation does work, is it really *you* at the other end, or do *you* die in the process?

Seems to me like if you have a soul you'd probably be alright, but if you don't you're gone. In either case, what appeared in the other end wouldn't know the difference. And I'm not stepping into it. :p

When I was little I often imagined that the same thing happened when we went to bed: our existing consciousness was extinguished during deep sleep, and my body woke up exactly the same but with another consciousness in the steering wheel. Which meant that falling asleep was exactly the same as dying. I used to have some frightfull anxiety attacks around bedtime. :P I still do occasionally.

The problem is really that my childhood fear is impossible to disprove, and not really irrational given the existing evidence. Just like any existential anxiety, the curse of any animal digging too deep into its own thoughts.
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Cyx

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #58 on: August 07, 2008, 09:07:54 pm »

Well, it's impossible to know if your present self is the same as the one from one second ago. Maybe a consciousness is vanishing for another one to appear at every single instant. Maybe you're just here for this tiny little while and everything you think you've been is an illusion. Maybe you're disappearing, right now, never to exist again.
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Cthulhu

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Re: Twin dilemma
« Reply #59 on: August 08, 2008, 11:30:08 am »

I used to wonder, what if everyone perceives the world differently?  Like, I'm the only person in the world who sees people as humans, with two arms, two legs, and the like, and for other people everything is completely different, maybe buildings are big bubbles and people are some kind of horrible tentacled thing, and all of our sensory output is changed so it makes sense for nearby people's own perception of the world.
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