Community > Posts By > SkyHook5652

 
SkyHook5652's photo
Thu 11/19/09 02:51 PM

Sky,

Yes I agree with all of that but the fact is to work out all of these little differences does take almost a lifetime of getting used to each other and learning to live with each other.

After 10, 20 30 or 40 years they might get it all worked out to the satisfaction of both of them, but this takes time.

Later in life, older people just don't have that much time left.

So the ideal thing would be a more extensive "interview" about habits and how a person expects to live and discussions as to whether they thought they could live with each other.

I am not a neat nick and I have known of men who were almost obsessive compulsive about neatness, (like Monk) so those kinds of things are not gender related.
Well yes, that is true when talking specifics. I was only using a generalization that appeared to me to be similar to other generalizations being use here.

Not even “differences in libido” is a universal, although it might be the closest thing there is outside of the actual physiological differences and their accompanying different needs and perspectives.

One example that is based on an inherently universal physiological difference is the toilet seat cliché.

Men stand. Women sit.

And so they work out some sort of arrangement they can both live with. Or they don’t and a “battle” ensues.

SkyHook5652's photo
Thu 11/19/09 02:13 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Thu 11/19/09 02:17 PM
So let me put it this way.

Where does the “character” go when it dies? Well, since it’s an integral part of the game (i.e. the game is really just bits in the computer and the character is a subset of that) the character doesn’t really “go” anywhere. Those memory locations just get reused. Just like the components of our bodies are a subset of the components of the universe and get reused.

I'm an organ donor so I don't think the pieces that make me or memory positions that store me are me. I'm a combination or a pattern- wipe that away and I'm gone; take the pieces apart and they're just generic pieces.
This is the key point to the whole philosophy: it starts with the postulate that "self" is a single, indivisible, independent unit, not "a pattern" or a "combination" or an "emergent property". I has no "pieces" to "take apart".

Now unless you are able to comprehend that single, most fundamental concept of the whole philosophy, then all the extrapolations and corollaries and conclusions based on that concept will be equally incomprehensible.
Are you saying that I understand it or that I don't?
Neither. I’m saying that it is necessary to understand it in order to understand the rest of my philosophy.

I'm obviously made of pieces because if you take just a few of them away you can change who I am but as that's the change I'd not longer be me but rather someone else. There's a fuzzy line between how I grow into being someone else all the time and how just switching who I am would be something drastically different but I don't think that's a line anyone doesn't intuitively understand well enough.
That’s fine. I understand that opinion and recognize that it is shared by many. I just have a different opinion.
Different in what ways?
I know myself to be a single, independent, indivisible unit, separate from "the body" or "the mind". Take it from there.
If I gave you a lobotomy would that be an act of replacing you with a dumber yet similar being or would I have just taken something away from the indivisible unit?
Neither.

Referring back to ...
This is the key point to the whole philosophy: it starts with the postulate that "self" is a single, indivisible, independent unit, not "a pattern" or a "combination" or an "emergent property". I has no "pieces" to "take apart".


You can't give a lobotomy to a single, independent, indivisble unit.
So after have damaged the brain of your body what words would you use to describe what happens to that unit? Is it still connected? Did it leave? Is it like the plug is all loosely connected and giving a crappy signal?
That “loose connection” analogy is pretty good, although I think the car/driver analogy makes it a little clearer...

It would be like removing a couple spark plugs from the engine. The car no longer functions as well as it did before the sparkplugs were removed. But nothing has affected the driver. He still “sends signals” to the engine by pressing on the gas pedal. It’s just that the car now has some missing parts so it doesn’t work as well as it did before.

SkyHook5652's photo
Thu 11/19/09 01:24 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Thu 11/19/09 01:27 PM
I think the idea of "equality" between the sexes is a great idea as long as it doesn't ignore the inherent inequalities.

In other words, I think the battle of the sexes is a result of inherent inequalities. Those inherent inequalities are what make men different from women. And it is those differences that give rise to the perception of a battle. But the battle itself is not really a matter of “opposing” desires/purposes, it is a matter of different desires/purposes.

For example, if I were to make a generalization, I'd say that women tend to like things to be "tidier" than men do. (e.g. the "sloppy bachelor pad" cliche.) So in this "generalized" relationship, the man leaves his socks on the floor and the woman complains about it. But the man is perfectly ok with socks being on the floor. It doesn't bother him. The man’s purpose/desire is “to watch football.” But the woman’s purpose/desire is “to clean the house.” The purposes/desires are not really in opposition. They’re just different.

The “battle” comes into play when one side thinks their desires are more important than the other side and tries to impose their will on the other side.

That is, the woman tries to get the man to pick up his socks and the man tries to get the woman to watch football.

But if they both did what they wanted, and didn’t try to force the other to abide by their own “personal sense of ought”, then there would be no problem.

So in this generalized relationship, “the desire to watch football” and “the desire to clean house” are inherent differences – a fact which one ignores at their own peril.

Now that’s not to say that an agreement cannot be reached through negotiation. (e.g. man helps woman clean house and woman helps man watch football.) But unless it is recognized that “equality” must include the idea that the differences themselves are equal (i.e. neither side’s desire/purpose is any more or less valid than the other’s). Then there will be a battle. And the batle is simply: "My desires/purpose are more valid than yours."

SkyHook5652's photo
Thu 11/19/09 01:30 AM
So let me put it this way.

Where does the “character” go when it dies? Well, since it’s an integral part of the game (i.e. the game is really just bits in the computer and the character is a subset of that) the character doesn’t really “go” anywhere. Those memory locations just get reused. Just like the components of our bodies are a subset of the components of the universe and get reused.

I'm an organ donor so I don't think the pieces that make me or memory positions that store me are me. I'm a combination or a pattern- wipe that away and I'm gone; take the pieces apart and they're just generic pieces.
This is the key point to the whole philosophy: it starts with the postulate that "self" is a single, indivisible, independent unit, not "a pattern" or a "combination" or an "emergent property". I has no "pieces" to "take apart".

Now unless you are able to comprehend that single, most fundamental concept of the whole philosophy, then all the extrapolations and corollaries and conclusions based on that concept will be equally incomprehensible.
Are you saying that I understand it or that I don't?
Neither. I’m saying that it is necessary to understand it in order to understand the rest of my philosophy.

I'm obviously made of pieces because if you take just a few of them away you can change who I am but as that's the change I'd not longer be me but rather someone else. There's a fuzzy line between how I grow into being someone else all the time and how just switching who I am would be something drastically different but I don't think that's a line anyone doesn't intuitively understand well enough.
That’s fine. I understand that opinion and recognize that it is shared by many. I just have a different opinion.
Different in what ways?
I know myself to be a single, independent, indivisible unit, separate from "the body" or "the mind". Take it from there.
If I gave you a lobotomy would that be an act of replacing you with a dumber yet similar being or would I have just taken something away from the indivisible unit?
Neither.

Referring back to ...
This is the key point to the whole philosophy: it starts with the postulate that "self" is a single, indivisible, independent unit, not "a pattern" or a "combination" or an "emergent property". I has no "pieces" to "take apart".


You can't give a lobotomy to a single, independent, indivisble unit.

SkyHook5652's photo
Wed 11/18/09 09:35 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Wed 11/18/09 09:47 PM
There's a certain kind of absudity that exists in thinking about a bunch of non-physical beings running around in a physical form trying to find out the nature of a physical universe that's not really physical either.
Di, I don't know that I could ever explain the irony, but suffice it to say that that is a profoundly concise statement of truth from my philosophical viewpoint as well.

I'm not trying to make any point here. It's just that rang so poignantly true to me that I had to "let it out".

Thanks for what is probably the most profound doubly-ironic double entendre I've ever seen in my entire life.

You're wonderful! :heart: flowers drinker

SkyHook5652's photo
Wed 11/18/09 09:10 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Wed 11/18/09 09:11 PM
yet it is a moral problem that involves politics and finances.
Yes, it "involves" politics and finances. But politics and finances do not cause anything. They are the effect of causes. The cause is individual immorality.

The biggest international banks that represent corporations lend money to poor countries at such high interest rates that these countries can never pay it back allowing them to be raped from their resources and used for slave labor work.
Well the only other options are to not lend them the money at all, or "Robinhoodism" in the form of forcibly limiting the interest rate the banks can charge and thus reducing the individual wealth of the banks owners.

I am also against a government seizing a person's hard earned money, yet there has to be a way that wealth in such great magnitude shouldn't be rewarded if it creates poverty and misery. Do you get where I am going with this?
Yes, I get where you're going. I just personally think it's a direction that will create more problems than it solves.

So yes "Robinhoodism" sounds very appealing to me right now as I have seen too much poverty around the world first hand in the years I did work at my profession. The majority of people in the richer countries simply turn their heads and say "oh well" too bad for them, but I am enjoying my goods anyway. Not only are the corporations responsible, but also the people who buy the goods responsible in ensuring such poverty in the world.

Inhumanity is practiced by huge corporations and even has a huge effect in our politics today as they use persuasive lobbyist to do their biddings. If not all of it.

I do not have a solution, yet the problems will continue regardless.
I do not have a solution either, but I don't think the is problem is caused by "corporations". A corporation is essentially nothing but a legally binding agreement. But without people to enter into an agreement, and carry out the terms of the agreement, corporations cannot exist. I just think that targeting "corporations" is shooting at the wrong target. It is the people who run the corporations that is the true source of the problem.

SkyHook5652's photo
Wed 11/18/09 08:06 PM
How about “Taxism”: Any entity whose income is too high, gets taxed 100% on the excess.

Or “Robinhoodism”: Whenever an entity owns too much, we just walk in, take whatever we think they don’t deserve to have, and redistribute it whomever we think deserves to have it.

Seriously though, I don’t think the “problem” with capitalism and/or monopolies has anything at all to do with either money or politics. It has to do with man’s inhumanity to man. Money and power (same thing really) are only a measure of how much inhumanity man can inflict on man.

I’m all for helping other people out. But I’m against being either forced to do it, or being forcibly prevented from doing it. – regardless of what the reasoning is of the entity who would do the forcing.

The main reason I favor Capitalism over other forms of “financial governing” is that it aligns with what I feel are basic human rights. I.e. the right of a person to determine the course of his own life without being interfebadgered by busybodies who think they have a monopoly on knowing what is best for everyone.


In other words, the “problem” is not a political or financial one, it is a moral one.

drinker

SkyHook5652's photo
Wed 11/18/09 02:06 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Wed 11/18/09 02:09 PM
So let me put it this way.

Where does the “character” go when it dies? Well, since it’s an integral part of the game (i.e. the game is really just bits in the computer and the character is a subset of that) the character doesn’t really “go” anywhere. Those memory locations just get reused. Just like the components of our bodies are a subset of the components of the universe and get reused.

I'm an organ donor so I don't think the pieces that make me or memory positions that store me are me. I'm a combination or a pattern- wipe that away and I'm gone; take the pieces apart and they're just generic pieces.
This is the key point to the whole philosophy: it starts with the postulate that "self" is a single, indivisible, independent unit, not "a pattern" or a "combination" or an "emergent property". I has no "pieces" to "take apart".

Now unless you are able to comprehend that single, most fundamental concept of the whole philosophy, then all the extrapolations and corollaries and conclusions based on that concept will be equally incomprehensible.
Are you saying that I understand it or that I don't?
Neither. I’m saying that it is necessary to understand it in order to understand the rest of my philosophy.

I'm obviously made of pieces because if you take just a few of them away you can change who I am but as that's the change I'd not longer be me but rather someone else. There's a fuzzy line between how I grow into being someone else all the time and how just switching who I am would be something drastically different but I don't think that's a line anyone doesn't intuitively understand well enough.
That’s fine. I understand that opinion and recognize that it is shared by many. I just have a different opinion.
Different in what ways?
I know myself to be a single, independent, indivisible unit, separate from "the body" or "the mind". Takeit from there.

SkyHook5652's photo
Wed 11/18/09 12:45 PM
"Be willing to experience anything and cause only those things which others are able to experience easily."

SkyHook5652's photo
Wed 11/18/09 12:39 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Wed 11/18/09 12:42 PM
Shoku wrote:

I'm thinking I'm finding another similarity between you three- but before I go blabbing what I think it is, do you believe in demons of the hell variety?
Assuming I'm one of "you three"...

No, I don't believe in demons of the hell variety.


SkyHook5652's photo
Wed 11/18/09 12:33 PM
So let me put it this way.

Where does the “character” go when it dies? Well, since it’s an integral part of the game (i.e. the game is really just bits in the computer and the character is a subset of that) the character doesn’t really “go” anywhere. Those memory locations just get reused. Just like the components of our bodies are a subset of the components of the universe and get reused.

I'm an organ donor so I don't think the pieces that make me or memory positions that store me are me. I'm a combination or a pattern- wipe that away and I'm gone; take the pieces apart and they're just generic pieces.
This is the key point to the whole philosophy: it starts with the postulate that "self" is a single, indivisible, independent unit, not "a pattern" or a "combination" or an "emergent property". I has no "pieces" to "take apart".

Now unless you are able to comprehend that single, most fundamental concept of the whole philosophy, then all the extrapolations and corollaries and conclusions based on that concept will be equally incomprehensible.
Are you saying that I understand it or that I don't?
Neither. I’m saying that it is necessary to understand it in order to understand the rest of my philosophy.

I'm obviously made of pieces because if you take just a few of them away you can change who I am but as that's the change I'd not longer be me but rather someone else. There's a fuzzy line between how I grow into being someone else all the time and how just switching who I am would be something drastically different but I don't think that's a line anyone doesn't intuitively understand well enough.
That’s fine. I understand that opinion and recognize that it is shared by many. I just have a different opinion.

SkyHook5652's photo
Wed 11/18/09 03:31 AM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Wed 11/18/09 03:36 AM
Sky,

You guys are both hung up on the labels...
:laughing:
I have to laugh at the sheer irony of that.

You're no less hung up on labels than we are. :wink:

What is there to work with here but labels and our own subjective interpretation of them?

What other option is there?

Ignore all the labels and depend entirely on our own subjective? (Solipsism anyone?)

Or maybe Telepathy? Or Astrology?

"Labels? Labels? We don' need no stinking labels!"

rofl rofl rofl rofl

SkyHook5652's photo
Wed 11/18/09 12:29 AM
So let me put it this way.

Where does the “character” go when it dies? Well, since it’s an integral part of the game (i.e. the game is really just bits in the computer and the character is a subset of that) the character doesn’t really “go” anywhere. Those memory locations just get reused. Just like the components of our bodies are a subset of the components of the universe and get reused.

I'm an organ donor so I don't think the pieces that make me or memory positions that store me are me. I'm a combination or a pattern- wipe that away and I'm gone; take the pieces apart and they're just generic pieces.
This is the key point to the whole philosophy: it starts with the postulate that "self" is a single, indivisible, independent unit, not "a pattern" or a "combination" or an "emergent property". I has no "pieces" to "take apart".

Now unless you are able to comprehend that single, most fundamental concept of the whole philosophy, then all the extrapolations and corollaries and conclusions based on that concept will be equally incomprehensible.

SkyHook5652's photo
Tue 11/17/09 11:54 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Tue 11/17/09 11:55 PM

Sky wrote:

Creative,

I messed up the quote tags again so here's my reply. Refer to top of this page for context.


No sweat, I knew which words were mine, and therefore could reasonably conclude which ones must have been yours. :wink:

Ok, I think I get what you mean now.

When you say “intrinsic meaning” you’re talking about a cause-and-effect association where when we see the effect(behavior), we know what the cause(meaning) is.


Not quite, actually, but very close. Meaning is not the cause. Although the displayed behavior is an effect and has a cause, the intrinsic meaning is not that. This gets a little 'hairy'... like I said earlier, I may be wrong. :wink:

Displayed behaviour = dog growling and upraised hair on back

Cause = an unfamiliar sound at night

Intrinsic meaning = the dog is uneasy, defensive, and alert

“I smile{effect} because{indicating cause-and-effect!} I am happy{cause}”


I smile{effect} because I am happy. I am happy because I just heard something funny{cause}. Being 'happy' did not cause the smile, the joke did. The smile is an objective property of displayed behaviour which has an intrinsic meaning. The smile means I am 'happy'.

“A cat hold it's tail up straight{effect} because{indicating cause-and-effect!} it is happy{cause}.”


A cat holds it's tail up straight{effect} because it is happy. It is happy because it just woke up from a long nap and smells fresh food while walking back inside{cause}. Being 'happy' did not cause the tail posture, being relaxed and smelling food did. The tail posture is an objective property of behavior which has an intrinsic meaning. It means the cat is 'happy'.

So I will agree with “intrinsic meaning” being defined as a cause-and-effect association, as differentiated from “subjective meaning” being defined as a comparative association.


Not quite in the same paragraph yet, on the same page though...

drinker
Jeannie’s post points to exactly what I was thinking as I read your post.

Instead of just cause=>effect, you’ve got: primary cause=>primary effect/secondary cause=>final effect.

That is…

“ ‘Smell of food’ causes ‘happiness’”, followed by “ ‘happiness’ causes ‘tail up’”

“ ‘Joke’ causes ‘happiness’ ”, followed by “ ‘happiness’ causes ‘smile’”

“ ‘an unfamiliar sound at night’ causes ‘uneasy, defensive, and alert’”, followed by “ ‘uneasy, defensive, and alert’ causes ‘growling and upraised hair on back’”


In other words, in between “primary cause” and “final effect”, there is an intermediate thing that is both cause and effect, which practically guarantees equivocation.

And here’s why:

In all the examples, the primary cause and the final effect are objective, but the intermediate “cause/effect”, is subjective.

“Smell of food” and “tail up” are objective, but “happiness” is subjective.

“an unfamiliar sound at night” and “growling and upraised hair on back” are both objective but “uneasy, defensive, and alert” are all subjective.

“Joke” and “smile” are objective, but “happiness” is subjective.

And in all three case, the thing you are labeling “intrinsic meaning” is the subjective component, and the things you are labeling “cause” and “displayed behavior” are the objective components.

So, unless you can provide an example of “intrinsic meaning”, which cannot be deconstructed into the same components and relationships…or a different way of explaining it, which circumvents those issues, I don’t see anything that contradicts my original position that “meaning is subjective”.

Now to be fair I can see some rationale behind arbitrarily assigning the label of “intrinisic meaning” to that “intermediate cause-cum-effect”, simply for the sake of brevity. But there are some significant problems in that as well – stemming from both the subjective nature of the referent, and the inherent dualism of the definition.

drinker

SkyHook5652's photo
Tue 11/17/09 09:49 PM
I support the right of a person to the fruits of his own labor and to determine how those fruits are disposed.

That’s pretty much the basis of my philosophy on wealth and it’s distribution.

Now politically speaking, I don’t support any particular “ism”, per se, but the financial concepts inherent in Capitalism align with my philosophy on wealth moreso than any other “ism” I am aware of.

SkyHook5652's photo
Tue 11/17/09 04:42 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Tue 11/17/09 04:46 PM
I’m not interested in discussing personal moral views in this thread. It’s way too far off topic.
Personal moral views are of paramount importance if we're discussing the subjective.
Depending on what you mean by “discussing the subjective” I may or may not agree. But in any case I don’t consider I have been “discussing the subjective” here , any more than I would if I were discussing a computer game.

As I've said the universe is expanding out to heat death. Eventually any new "players" would start with nothing to work with unless they were lucky in which case they might get a single particle.
If/when that happens, then I guess you and everyone else, as co-creators/co-players will have to start a new game – if you still want to play.
-_-;
As I've been saying the game turns into a bland purgatory. Isn't there any way to not just sign out of the game but turn ourselves off as well?
I think I see the problem here. You’re identifying “character” with “player” (a common mistake).

So let me put it this way.

Where does the “character” go when it dies? Well, since it’s an integral part of the game (i.e. the game is really just bits in the computer and the character is a subset of that) the character doesn’t really “go” anywhere. Those memory locations just get reused. Just like the components of our bodies are a subset of the components of the universe and get reused.

But the player/creator does not “die”. He is eternal as far as the game is concerned.

So I don’t even know what it would mean for an eternal being to “turn himself off”.

“How could an eternal being ‘turn itself off’?” Answer that question and you’ll have the answer to yours.

I can't find where they tell me how they made their "Psyleron true random event generator." For patent purposes I could understand them not giving a schematic of the thing but you can say well enough how a nuclear power plant generates electricity without telling someone everything they need to build one.

I want to know if these things are "random" in that they're measuring radioactive decay. Showing that human thought could alter the rate of radioactive decay would be pretty huge news.

I did hear "quantum electric field" in there somewhere but they've only used it as a technobabble diversion as far as I've seen. I'd like for that to not be the case but I can't find what I need to make it anything more.
The PEAR site (http://www.princeton.edu/~pear) has a lot of papers online at http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs

This one http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/2007-JSE-Runlength.pdf goes into fair detail about how there device is calibrated and the math used in the statistical properties of it’s output.

I recall running across a more detailed physical description of the REG, but I don’t remember where. All I can remember off the top of my head were some references to thermal noise. And I’m almost positive they were not measuring radioactive decay. Although I seem to recall something about quantum randomity.

Note that the REG is not the only device used in the experiments. One of them was a “balls dropping through a pegboard into buckets” type, to produce a probability curve. I also read some references to fluid motions and even some investigations in to crude “robot control”. But I don’t recall the details. If you’re interested you can scan through all their stuff at the PEAR website through the above links.

That’s the best I can do for now.

But you're saying it's one that we "get to" play forever?
Like any other game, you play it for as long as you want or not at if you don’t want.
So what does it mean when you say the game is perfect? Is any game not perfect?
I didn’t say it was perfect. I said it was about as close to perfect as I could imagine and I gave the reasons why. That’s the meaning.

And from that perspective, I don’t know of any human-created game that comes anywhere near that perfection – by many, many orders of magnitude.

After reading your reply about “respawn points”, I think that would be a perfect analogy for reincarnation. You “die” and then “come back to life”. So you can go through as many lives/respawns as you want.
Naw, you respawn with the general equipment you were wearing and at least basic guns, though with a relatively small amount of ammo.

What's really important though is that it's on the same map and you go right back to the task you were working on before dieing until the end of the match. If you start up a whole new match that's "just spawning."
Ok, so the analogy gets a little fuzzy in that area, as all analogies eventually do in some area.


SkyHook5652's photo
Tue 11/17/09 01:44 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Tue 11/17/09 01:44 PM
Creative,

I messed up the quote tags again so here's my reply. Refer to top of this page for context.

-------------------------------------------

Ok, I think I get what you mean now.

When you say “intrinsic meaning” you’re talking about a cause-and-effect association where when we see the effect(behavior), we know what the cause(meaning) is.

As indictated by these statements with my labels added in {braces}:

“. . .intrinsic meaning{cause} - which is displayed by properties of behavior {effect} . . .”

“Intrinsic meaning{cause} is displayed by properties belonging to objective behavior(s) {effects}. . .”

“Those behaviors{effects} have intrinsic meaning{cause}.”

“I smile{effect} because{indicating cause-and-effect!} I am happy{cause}”

“(I cannot fake it{indicating cause-and-effect!}).”

“A cat hold it's tail up straight{effect} because{indicating cause-and-effect!} it is happy{cause}.”

“A cat's tail which is being held{effect} straight up means the same thing{cause}.”

“The behavior{effect} displays the meaning{cause} - in and of itself. {exclusive of any other factors}”

So I will agree with “intrinsic meaning” being defined as a cause-and-effect association, as differentiated from “subjective meaning” being defined as a comparative association.

SkyHook5652's photo
Tue 11/17/09 01:39 PM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Tue 11/17/09 01:49 PM
Sky:
From my perspective, this universe looks like a good design by almost any standard I can think of – especially if one looks at it like a game.
Unimaginable cruelty is a good aspect of a game?
:laughing:The most fundamental aspects of a game are “winning” and “losing”. Which are defined as succeeding or failing to overcome obstacles. And all games have degrees of difficulty – i.e. “How hard is it to overcome the obstacles.” And the difficulty of the obstacles are different throughout the game. So “unimaginable cruelty” is nothing more than a personal assessment of the relationship between an obstacle and a player’s abilities – just like any other game.
Awfully cold of you. I don't think I could so heartlessly look such a person in te face and tell them they were just not succeeding at the game.
If you want to start getting personal, I'm done.
So you're not alright with looking at someone in the late stages of starving to death and saying this is just a game? Showing some empathy is a good thing. I'd say it's part of being a decent human being n_n
So it's alright for you to do but not anyone else. I get it.
Well no, I was praising you for having some compassion there, though that's on the assumption that you can't dismiss people's agony. Am I assuming correctly?
I’m not interested in discussing personal moral views in this thread. It’s way too far off topic.

So do you want to go back to your “unimaginable cruelty” issue regarding the game?

Sky:
Fix that phrase if you want me to accept that you meant what you just said.
That’s easy enough. I’ll just put it back the way it was before you altered it…“unlimited supply of raw materials for individuals to shape new forms and plots to serve their own personal, functional and esthetic needs and desires”
There aren't unlimited raw materials for individuals to do those things.
If you say so.
As I've said the universe is expanding out to heat death. Eventually any new "players" would start with nothing to work with unless they were lucky in which case they might get a single particle.
If/when that happens, then I guess you and everyone else, as co-creators/co-players will have to start a new game – if you still want to play.

Not only that, but (according to some beliefs) reincarnation itself is a personal mystery to be solved and when one does finally solve it, all the experiences of, and abilities gained in, past lives are unlocked and available in future lives. And it even allows one to change the very rules of the game itself.
Who's ever changed action and reaction or that objects with mass exert an attractive force on each other?
I don’t know. But I do know that people have changed the output of Random Number Generators. So how would you classify that?
In what sense were they random in the first place?
Go to IRCL.org and see for yourself.
Says that's not a valid link.
http://www.icrl.org
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

Seriously though, I don’t agree with your assessment of what makes games fun. As I see it, what makes games (or anything else) “fun” is the personal satisfaction of overcoming barriers in the pursuit of a goal.
The barriers in a sandbox are understanding the rules. After that you exhaust your ideas quickly by either doing them or seeing that they can't work in that sandbox. Play Scribblenauts and tell me how many words you use throughout the course of the game.
I just have one question. Can you conceive of anyone every having a sandbox related goal, which would fit within the context of our discussion?
A lot of people do sandbox type things, that's why it's a flourishing genre at all. What I'm saying that an infinite game is not an infinitely enjoyable game.
I never said it was.
But you're saying it's one that we "get to" play forever?
Like any other game, you play it for as long as you want or not at if you don’t want.

Or do we only go through like four or five lives and that's it?
After reading your reply about “respawn points”, I think that would be a perfect analogy for reincarnation. You “die” and then “come back to life”. So you can go through as many lives/respawns as you want.

SkyHook5652's photo
Tue 11/17/09 12:22 PM
Sky wrote:
I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re a little off the mark regarding “meaning”.

In my view, meanings are fundamentally comparative associations. A single thing by itself (i.e. an object, action or a property), has no intrinsic meaning. It must be compared/associated with something else for there to be meaning.


A single thing does not exist, does it?

I fail to see the relevance to what I wrote. Given your expressed thoughts added to my partial description, I can see why you would think that about my understanding of meaning. I think your equivocating between things which are manmade, and thus have manmade – subjective - meaning, and that which is not and does not.

Now, I very well may be wrong here... :wink: ... but, I think that there are both intrinsic meaning - which is displayed by properties of behavior - and subjective meaning - which is dependant upon a person's point of view. Those things are not necessarily the same.

My last post only made the distinction between objective properties and subjective meaning in order to demonstrate exactly why only the objective, intrinsic properties can be used to identify a thing - in and of itself. I showed how and why subjective meaning does not necessarily correspond to an object's intrinsic properties, and therefore must not be considered a reliable means to assess an objective existence.

That post should have driven a wedge establishing the possible difference(s) between what an object actually is - in and of itself - and what the subjective meaning may be. I meant to demonstrate that difference, because that must be kept in mind while assessing what a thing actually is, rather than what it's name may mean to someone. This is especially true for a conversation concerning the inherent properties which we use to identify things in this universe. Subjective meaning is irrelevant to the identification of what something actually is(or means) - in and of itself.

I did not take enough time to hash out the differences between intrinsic and subjective meaning, and that alone is a formidable task. I believe there is an important distinction between the two, and yet those differences are often not taken into consideration when discussing the meaning of certain behavior(s). It does not always apply, because all properties of behavior do not always indicate nor reflect one intrinsic meaning. Only when examining cases like that(one possible meaning) can we even attempt to establish any intrinsic meaning behind exhibited actions/behaviors. It is only possible when such an objective display always represents but one thing.

Properties, on the other hand, are just as you say. They exist regardless of whether they are observed, thought about, or compared/associated with anything else.


That is what must be used to objectively assess the physical universe, because only the intrinsic properties identify it - in and of itself. Intrinsic meaning is displayed by properties belonging to objective behavior(s) as well. The properties of behavior that have an intrinsic meaning also fit the above description and exist regardless of whether or not they are observed, thought about, or compared with anything else.

Your smile and a cat’s tail straight up are not meanings, nor do they “have” intrinsic meanings. Neither does the state of “happiness” have any intrinsic meaning. It is only when the smile/cat’s tail is compared/associated with the state of “happiness” that meaning comes into being.


Neither one - property or behavior - is a meaning, it exhibits the intrinsic meaning, because it displays that which is had - in and of itself.My smile and a cat's tail held straight up are objective properties of behavior which indicate an intrinsic meaning, that of which we call 'happiness'. The label 'happiness' does not cause the meaning to exist. The meaning is intrinsic to such behavior because my cat feels that way with or without having a name for the meaning which is responsible for causing that behavior. The cat knows what it means without thinking nor uttering a word about it, because it is intrinsic. The behavior displays the meaning - in and of itself. Therefore, in a case like this, we do not determine the meaning by naming it, rather we label that which already exists. We identify the intrinsic meaning. Those behaviors have intrinsic meaning. I smile because I am happy(I cannot fake it). A cat hold it's tail up straight because it is happy.

That is intrinsic meaning, and just like objective properties, it does not depend upon our recognition, assessment, comparison, nor label to exist.

Subjective meaning comes into play when we label things. As soon as we label it 'happiness', the intrinsic meaning displayed obtains a subjective description. The name 'happiness' begins to mesh with all of our other associations existing for the word which may or may not equate to the original intrinsic meaning being identified.

A good example is a word such as “better”. Its meaning is explicitly dependent on a comparison. Without a comparison of at least three things (two objects and a “rule” of some sort) , the word “better” cannot have any definite meaning.


I agree that the notion of 'better' is dependent upon comparison and therefore the meaning of the term(label) is also subject to one's idea of 'worse', and those ideas vary from person to person. That is also a value assessment, and I am not claiming that those have intrinsic meaning.

And since the only thing that can do the comparing/associating is an observer, “meaning” is entirely dependent on an observer performing that action. Thus, we do “give meaning” by comparing/associating.


A cat's tail which is being held straight up means the same thing, whether or not that particular cat ever sees a person. A cat's howling while in heat also has intrinsic meaning. A rooster's crow. A dog's growl. Etc.

While the our acknowledgement of these meaningful displays does require associative measure, the intrinsic meaning behind them does not. Acknowledging intrinsic meaning does not establish it, it recognizes and identifies that which was already established. The display is full of meaning because it is intrinsic, not because another thing has given it a label by which to reference it. A consequence of self-awareness and the need to understand the world around us can skew our perspective in such a way that we unconsciously project ourselves onto the rest of the world. In doing so, we can fail to realize that we are not the only creatures with a sense of meaning naturally intact.

flowerforyou


Ok, I think I get what you mean now.

When you say “intrinsic meaning” you’re talking about a cause-and-effect association where when we see the effect(behavior), we know what the cause(meaning) is.

As indictated by these statements with my labels added in {braces}:

“. . .intrinsic meaning{cause} - which is displayed by properties of behavior {effect} . . .”

“Intrinsic meaning{cause} is displayed by properties belonging to objective behavior(s) {effects}. . .”

“Those behaviors{effects} have intrinsic meaning{cause}.”

“I smile{effect} because{indicating cause-and-effect!} I am happy{cause}”

“(I cannot fake it{indicating cause-and-effect!}).”

“A cat hold it's tail up straight{effect} because{indicating cause-and-effect!} it is happy{cause}.”

“A cat's tail which is being held{effect} straight up means the same thing{cause}.”

“The behavior{effect} displays the meaning{cause} - in and of itself. {exclusive of any other factors}”

So I will agree with “intrinsic meaning” being defined as a cause-and-effect association, as differentiated from “subjective meaning” being defined as a comparative association.

biggrin

SkyHook5652's photo
Tue 11/17/09 07:24 AM
Edited by SkyHook5652 on Tue 11/17/09 07:28 AM

JB

Fix that phrase if you want me to accept that you meant what you just said.
That’s easy enough. I’ll just put it back the was it was before you altered it…

“unlimited supply of raw materials for individuals to shape new forms and plots to serve their own personal, functional and esthetic needs and desires”
There aren't unlimited raw materials for individuals to do those things.
If you say so.

Not only that, but (according to some beliefs) reincarnation itself is a personal mystery to be solved and when one does finally solve it, all the experiences of, and abilities gained in, past lives are unlocked and available in future lives.

And it even allows one to change the very rules of the game itself.
Who's ever changed action and reaction or that objects with mass exert an attractive force on each other?
I don’t know. But I do know that people have changed the output of Random Number Generators. So how would you classify that?
In what sense were they random in the first place?
Go to IRCL.org and see for yourself.

Seriously though, I don’t agree with your assessment of what makes games fun. As I see it, what makes games (or anything else) “fun” is the personal satisfaction of overcoming barriers in the pursuit of a goal.
The barriers in a sandbox are understanding the rules. After that you exhaust your ideas quickly by either doing them or seeing that they can't work in that sandbox. Play Scribblenauts and tell me how many words you use throughout the course of the game.
I just have one question. Can you conceive of anyone every having a sandbox related goal, which would fit within the context of our discussion?
A lot of people do sandbox type things, that's why it's a flourishing genre at all. What I'm saying that an infinite game is not an infinitely enjoyable game.
I never said it was.

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