Saturday, January 25, 2014

A Chain of Personal Bubbles in Space

a chain of personal bubbles in space:

"to common sense, or what assumptions everyone has to make, solipsism seems almost absurd, those afflicted grotesquely delusional. what's worse, if not true, if there were many minds, not just one, in reality, it's extremely embarrassing. i mean, it's like, too bad she's crazy, she's thinks she's the only one and doesn't believe i'm real, i'm supposed to be like a figment of her imagination or something. or he's a solipsist, he thinks he's God, only less powerful."

"well, it's not that hard. that's why you have to consider all the possibilities. either it's one mind only or at least two, right? though, on the balance of probability and all that, and what it seems, if it's more than one, it's got to be many, surely? but let's not get into what exactly is a mind by definition, what they have in common and if each mind is unique could you really consider there to be more than one? that's a mind boggler in itself."

"yeah, someone who can think independently, ok, to an extent, i mean, is there any real independence if everything is connected?"

"that's a whole other question. but yes, a mind can think. but how to visualize space? how connected is everything or everyone? i mean, it's like, i think things like other person at 80 degrees mark 7, four light years away, that is, again assuming that everyone is fixed in position in space, that nobody really moves."

"yeah, if space were densely packed, like thick vegetable soup or something, there would be like billions of ways people are connected, right? but what if it weren't? what if everyone was, like, in their own personal bubble space and there were chains of bubbles, different people, connecting people together?"

"so you could be the bubble next to mine or you could be 20 bubbles down the chain. it's like six degrees of separation, sort of."

"only the completely real, nothing could be more real, version. i mean it could look like a diagram of the world wide web or something more complicated, there could be clusters, there could be sections only connected by one link, there could be multiple ways two personal bubble spaces were connected. and so on."

"great. but i'm imagining it now and i'm thinking what if you could move your personal bubble to another personal bubble?"

"that's just the illusion created by light and time. my theory is that nobody moves. you'd think, in the end, you'd have a fair idea who your neighbours were, at least, you've got to know them better than someone 1000 degrees of real separation away."

"well communication is a wonderful thing, the internet, the press. but i guess you're right. where does this image of bubbles come from? i guess it's from blowing soap bubbles as a kid."

CLEARCHARGE

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Earth and the Sceptic

earth and the sceptic:

it may be that everyone, at least once in their lifetime on earth, experiences something that makes them question the regular view of the world that is naive realism, that of an external world that exists with material objects independent of our sense perception, that we can move about in this world, etc. sometimes it is apparent and sometimes only subtle, an incident that jars our assumptions.

"well, i mean, first of all, like is physical motion real? when i walk to the door, is my body really moving to the door or do i just see the door moving towards me? and this can get very strange. last night i walked across a building floor, firmly set in my mind the thought that i wasn't really moving at all but that the walls were moving towards me, and there was just some feeling in my legs, i.e. the walking part, that was making this happen."

"but you said you teleported before. what came first? the suspicion that physical motion wasn't real or the teleporting that led you to this conclusion and then all this?"

"OK it's true. the teleporting came first. it certainly set in motion all this thought. i mean it's probably true to say if i hadn't i might still be completely delusional about motion or at any rate uncertain. but it's like, you teleport, so then you know, right?"

"tell me about the teleporting. i mean, like, how many times did you teleport? and how far?"

"twice the full teleport, what everyone would think teleporting is. across town in Durham, in the north of England, in 1993 and 1994. first i teleported from outside Barclays Bank in Market Place to the railway station and the second time from the Market Place area to Elvet Bridge but then there are what i call unapparent teleports. you really have moved suddenly to another location but it's not obvious because there's no sudden change in what you see. it's like what happened to me outside Cannon Street railway station in London. i walked eastwards but then, some time afterwards, i realized i had teleported somewhere to the west of the station and onto the road towards Bank, i guess Queen Victoria Street looking at the map, but the scenery, the shops and buildings, seamlessly flowed from one location to the other, so it wasn't obvious. of course, that's what i think happened but because it was "unapparent" i still have my doubts. and it happened in Paris, down one street and a left and then another left so should have been walking back on a parallel street but ended up back on the same street. at least that's what i really suspect happened."

"there's no control? it just happens?"

"yes."

"but if physical or mechanical motion is not real, we're all wherever we are, is everything an illusion?"

"well that's the problem. when you whack that part of your assumptions about reality away, you start to question everything. i mean, next, are other people real? and it's compounded, because my first memories of this lifetime on earth are those of a dream. am i dreaming? of course it's not what usual dreams are made of, but that's the source. and then you have computers. you see what's possible. and the first time i used a calculator when i was little, i was amazed! you have all this computing power, it's proof positive on earth that this exists. so is earth a dream or a simulated reality run by a sometimes faulty supercomputer?"

"right, when you teleported, it was like a bug in the system or you had a corrupted download of the location visuals."

"yeah. and even if science were real who said it was constant and worked perfectly? nothing else does. but to go back to whether other people are real, my natural assumption is that they are. or at least some of them. i found solipsism extremely frightening personally speaking. and i always thought maybe people shared a dream sometimes."

"but of course it's theoretically possible that everyone is in their own simulation? but though it seems probable there is overlap."

"right you can look at it all ways, i guess, the extremes being that either everyone is in the same world or everyone is in their own and everything greater and lesser in between. what you conclude is that reality is like a star map, with each star representing a person with vast distances in between perhaps, but that everyone is fixed in place."

"yes, but when you doubt some people are real, how can you tell? i mean how do i know if this other person is real or just a character in a simulation? it's been bugging me a long time."

"well i don't know if this qualifies as a proof, but sometimes you know what other people are going to say. they're completely predictable. i always thought real people must be a little more shocking but that's just a suspicion."

"but how did we come up with all this, the history, the language, everything?"

"the truth about language is there is an emotional impact to words and therein lies the real history. i believe there is a common reaction to many words. obviously, that's why we share languages. for example, the word "god", it instantly conjures up an impression of immense agency and power. that is the common emotional impact of the word itself."

"so it's like when the word was first discovered, first said, everyone thought the same thing and all religion must follow?"

"exactly. other pressure words are "kill" and "die". they really push people's buttons, so to speak. these things can't be ignored. just as in the beginning, they still have the same impact today."

"so imagine a little group, say, a family of girls, in the beginning. they gather round, come up with words, but they're not in isolation. other people come up with the same words and they mean the same thing and so some kind of connection is made. i suppose it's the words with the strongest emotional impact that last."

"or are the oldest. the problem with words, the powerful ones, is that they give rise to meanings that stir the imagination to think of things that are not quite real. it's like they have a hallucinatory effect sometimes."

"but of course there are other languages."

"yes, if you assume people can be categorized by what language they naturally speak, it's a real identifier."

"so there's a French zone of reality perhaps, a Chinese zone, etc. but everyone thinks about the same things in the end."

"right. that's assuming a language zone is spread like a brush stroke across space and in isolation."

"somehow, i doubt if we'll ever have a complete map of reality, showing exactly where everyone is. but these things that everyone thinks about, i mean, i imagine that what everyone thought about the first day at the start of time was what is time, right? imagine time zero. a few seconds on, what happened? am i alone? and so on."

"yes. it's the ancient tension in life."

"i guess it never goes away. and the need to know the truth."

CLEARCHARGE

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Consider Simulation Earth

consider simulation earth:

"it's called naive realism but it's completely what everyone has to go by in life here on earth. you have to accept the external world as a model in principle at least, you know, you have to learn to navigate from A to B on the planet, and assume everyone you see is a person you could interact with."

"what i always had a problem with, even when i was a kid when i more or less accepted everything, is this, i see things in front of me, you know, really at a distance, well, are they really things in front of me or is that just like a physical part of my eyesight, my field of vision, in front of me, and could it really be both? and then when i teleported, i knew physical motion was not real, so the world had to have some kind of virtual aspect to it."

"yeah, there's a kind of duality between naive realism and science against what's thought of as magic, don't you think? it's like, you teleport, well honey, mechanical motion and the external world were never real, so hey, why not? it's like you're watching a 3D YouTube video that just jumped to another scene, right? you're walking along and you suddenly teleport to another part of town. clairvoyance and telepathy? well, you just pick up what the people actually right next to you like forever because nobody really moves in real space think. objects not behaving scientifically? well, nobody said the laws of motion work perfectly, especially when people are emotional. telekinesis and mind over matter? well, as idealism has it, the world is mostly a mental construct. shapeshifting? well, i've had different bodies in my dreams. no big deal."

"yeah but still, what i'm saying, when you realize that earth is not what it seems, that it must have some virtual aspect at the bare minimum, i mean, you go a bit wild in what you think. right, if you dismiss solipsism to start with, the concept that you're the only one in existence, as too depressing for one, and two, it doesn't seem likely that my own unconscious could produce this much on its own, there must be other people, and then on the other end of the scale, you dismiss naive realism, that everyone you see is a real person, that there are billions of people on earth, i mean, even if one person you saw on the street were not real, was a fault in the system, that would deny naive realism, wouldn't it? so then you try to strike a median view, so let's say just under half the people are real, you still need a lot of people to produce all this media, right? but then you think, is there really just one simulation earth running? maybe it's like most people are still in alpha version, i'm running beta version, and there are details that are different in different versions, though fundamentally the simulations are the same, like, i think Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States but in alpha version, Abraham Lincoln doesn't even exist, or something like that. and then you think, well, maybe some other countries are completely virtual, you know, maybe you shouldn't go there, it would strain the simulation. and you think, maybe all the Russians are in like the Russian sector of real space, maybe the English speakers are spread out. how are real people connected and what data flows through, anyway?"

"yeah, but doesn't it make you paranoid about the virtual people, the NPC's, the non player characters? is there any control over them? i mean, it's like someone a long time ago imagined someone, someone who never exists really, and then eventually when simulation earth is up and running, they've manifested as a character in it. how else could they have got there?"

"well no, in the end, they're not real, they're like some kind of electronic configuration. i mean, it's not like they're external demons trying to enter this reality!"

"in a paranoid fit one night, that's exactly what i thought. it's scary, people that are not real, like, taking over reality."

"i mean the unconscious produces details, the imagination constructs personal like data or something, it's probably harmless. just think of them as robots."

"well that just leads to the question, is it programmable in some way? can we somehow break into the system and change the outcome? code the Matrix? you know, if it's like an electronic arcade game, can we cheat?"

"yeah, there's lots of stuff on that, you know, the law of attraction, consciously concentrating on outcomes, writing stuff down, and so on. and there's a quote from Star Wars: Episode I, Qui-Gon Jinn says to Anakin Skywalker, "your focus determines your reality." but what you said about an arcade game, i was thinking, if in an advanced amusement arcade you had the most convincing virtual 3D reality game, wouldn't there be a moment you think to yourself when you took the headset or whatever off, this is just what the regular world is?"

"and would people take life so seriously if they thought of it as just an arcade game, a virtual experience? but i guess for now, there's nothing else. i mean, it's not like there ever is an external world that's real, that there's a room there where my brain is and there are plugs leading into the computer, no, it's completely cleanly invisibly wired, you know? i haven't got the best memory. i would say i have impressions and ideas of what life was before earth but nothing i can definitively say is a memory. it's not convincing to me the theory that time is a linear chain of progressive change, that the future will keep being different from the past. i don't think that's the case. i think it's most likely that when i die, game over on earth, i just go back to what it was before, you know?"

CLEARCHARGE