A Mind Forever Voyaging irony
DJohn37050
I guess the author was locked into the 20th century "liberal" mentality.
Don Johnson
Matthew Murray
[Spoiler space removed.]
> I just completed A Mind Forever Voyaging. Does anyone other than me
> find it intensely ironic that the "happy ending" includes PRISM
> essentially locking itself up in a joybooth for the rest of its life
> (i.e. committing "joybooth suicide")? What else but a joybooth would
> you call the absurdly utopian ending?
I don't agree with your assessment in any way.
First joybooth suicide, if I recall correctly, was one becoming so
addicted to the pleasurable activities and benefits dervied from time
spent in joybooths that they never ate, slept, took care of themselves, or
anything like that. In other words, they died because they forgot to live
in the real world where these things--as well as putting up with some pain
and less--are requirements.
But that is, in no way, what PRISM is doing at the end of the end
of A Mind Forever Voyaging. He is not escaping from reality--he is
returning to it. It's been a while since I played the game, and even
longer since I read the story in the book and the package, but Perry
Simm's reality bubble was burst when he was in his early 20s. In other
words, PRISM spent twenty of his years in a world that was, for him, every
bit as real as the one in which Perelman lived. He was built and utilized
primarily for the purpose of testing the Plan (and that's what his
simulated "growing up" was for), and as soon as that requirement was gone,
he was no longer needed. (Yes, he helped test the Project, but that can
be seen as an outgrowth of the Plan.) So, when Perelman asked him what
sort of reward he wanted, PRISM requested to be returned to the life from
which he had been ripped.
So, I see it as quite the opposite of the way you do. He's not
trying to avoid reality--he's trying to find it.
----------------------------
Matthew A. Murray
matthe...@mindspring.com
http://www.matthewmurray.net
----------------------------
Tom Kenyon
>
>
> I don't agree with your assessment in any way.
>
I agree the assement only to the point that it was a oppertunity missed
to make an ending that truly shocked the player...then again I suppose
you could claim that the ending is a shock as it breaks the kind of
ending that we've come to expect from this genre. I feel the ending does
work however because a) There are too many miserable pieces of Uptopian
literature as it is and b) an ending of dispair would only work
effectivly if perhaps there were more a strong moral point to the game.
Both 1984 and Brave New World are written in the contexts of certain
growing climates (Huxley's dispair at dictatorships, for example) but
AMFV dosen't carry the specifics to help carry a message.
Joe Mason
> ENDGAME SPOILER FOR A MIND FOREVER VOYAGING
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> I just completed A Mind Forever Voyaging. Does anyone other than me
> find it intensely ironic that the "happy ending" includes PRISM
> essentially locking itself up in a joybooth for the rest of its life
> (i.e. committing "joybooth suicide")? What else but a joybooth would
I do.... now...
I was always a little disturbed by the "happy ending", but it never
occurred to me until you mentioned it that it dovetailed so nicely with
the joybooth problem. Pretty subversive - if intentional.
(If not intentional, it means AMFV is too black-and-white and partisan
in its politics - what's good for the left-wing is evil if done by the
right wing. But we knew that.)
Joe
L. Ross Raszewski
>On Mon, 1 Jul 2002 09:19:39 -0500, Matthew Murray <hl...@plover.net>
>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 1 Jul 2002, Akilesh Ayyar wrote:
>>
>>[Spoiler space removed.]
>>
>>> I just completed A Mind Forever Voyaging. Does anyone other than me
>>> find it intensely ironic that the "happy ending" includes PRISM
>>> essentially locking itself up in a joybooth for the rest of its life
>>> (i.e. committing "joybooth suicide")? What else but a joybooth would
>>> you call the absurdly utopian ending?
>>
>> I don't agree with your assessment in any way.
>> First joybooth suicide, if I recall correctly, was one becoming so
>>addicted to the pleasurable activities and benefits dervied from time
>>spent in joybooths that they never ate, slept, took care of themselves, or
>>anything like that. In other words, they died because they forgot to live
>>in the real world where these things--as well as putting up with some pain
>>and less--are requirements.
>
>wonderful world of the simulation, PRISM is relying on other people to
>maintain its body and life while it lives in a dream world. It will
>stay in the magical dreamworld until its corporeal presence is finally
>broken or whatever.
PRISM is incapable of maintianing his own life and body; he is,
roughly speaking, nothing more than a ghost in a machine. He isn't
escaping from reality in retreating to the simulation because the
world external to his simulation isn't *his* reality. The world he
knew, the world he grew up in, the world that every memory, that every
iota of his being belongs to *is* the simulation -- for him, the world
outside the simulation isn't real: it's a different plane of existance
into which he was pulled against his will. His world is the computer
simulation.
>
>Are you saying that just because PRISM once thought a videogame was
>reality makes it reality? It seems clear to me that PRISM is
>abandoning the challenge and the vigor of the flesh-and-blood world in
>favor of the plastic artificiality of software. Isn't it convenient
>that that software just happens to be exceptionally pleasant software?
>That doesn't sound very real to me.
The flesh-and-blood world isn't his to be a part of. Perry Simm is a
man. He thinks like a man, he acts like a man. What you call "reality"
is to him some nightmare where he is nothing but a computer
program. There is no "out" for him. There is no "flesh and blood
world" for him. The simulation is his reality. You have this idea that
the simulation is "false" and that he should "escape" to the "real"
world -- of course, from our perspective, that "real" world is equally
artificial, and that's probably just how it seems to Perry Simm. No,
the fact that he thought it was reality doesn't "make" it real. But
Perry Simm isn't "real" either, and no amount of "living in the real
world" will change that.
And I notice in your argument a recurring idea: part of your complaint
seems to be that the simulation Perry Simm ends up in (By the way, you
may notice that I say 'Perry Simm' a lot, while you seem to always use
'PRISM'. I suspect that this is related; to you, Perry Simm isn't
"real", PRISM is, and should "own up to" the fact that Perry Simm is
justr a delusion and live in PRISM's world) is pleasant. I wonder how
relevant thias is: if the final simulation had been "less pleasant"
would you have the same arguments? I've noticed a recent trend in
many people to dismiss any view of the future that isn't dystopian as
"silly".
Matthew Murray
> > First joybooth suicide, if I recall correctly, was one becoming so
> >addicted to the pleasurable activities and benefits dervied from time
> >spent in joybooths that they never ate, slept, took care of themselves, or
> >anything like that. In other words, they died because they forgot to live
> >in the real world where these things--as well as putting up with some pain
> >and less--are requirements.
>
> But that's exactly what PRISM is doing. By retreating into the
> wonderful world of the simulation, PRISM is relying on other people to
> maintain its body and life while it lives in a dream world. It will
> stay in the magical dreamworld until its corporeal presence is finally
> broken or whatever.
You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but the more you
attempt to argue your side, the more I think you really don't understand
at all what happened during the game.
PRISM is NOT retreating into a fantasy world. That's the primary
difference between the simulation and the joybooth. The world of the
joybooth is specifically designed to be as perfect and happy as possible.
That is not, and never was, Perry Simm's world. Perry Simm grew up in a
normal world. A world of happiness, yes, but also of pain and loss--in
other words, a world much like the one in which we live. He was born and
lived the first twenty or so years of his life in this world and then, one
day, while going on what he thought was a job interview, learned that his
entire conception of life was merely a simulation running inside a giant
computer. But that was, nonetheless, HIS reality. No, it wasn't ours,
but it was his. Something doesn't automatically become real and true
after twenty years establishing the opposite merely because someone says
it is. Perry Simm didn't belong in our world, and PRISM knew it. PRISM
wanted to return to the life he had been living, and once the Plan was
debunked and the Project firmly in place, why the heck not?
> Are you saying that just because PRISM once thought a videogame was
> reality makes it reality?
For Perry Simm, it sure was a reality.
> It seems clear to me that PRISM is
> abandoning the challenge and the vigor of the flesh-and-blood world in
> favor of the plastic artificiality of software. Isn't it convenient
> that that software just happens to be exceptionally pleasant software?
> That doesn't sound very real to me.
Because you're choosing to interpret things in a different way
than what the text presents. Perry Simm is NOT choosing to abandon a
flesh and blood reality. The world of the simulation IS his flesh and
blood reality, it just doesn't happen to be yours or Perelman's. But it's
very real to him, to Jill, to Mitchell, and to all of the other people in
Perry Simm's life that he cares about.
But the real problem with your attempted argument is your claiming
that "that software just happens to be exceptionally pleasant software."
I guess you consider Rav's death in the simulation to be pleasant? Or the
four year old Perry being separated from his mother in a department store?
Or, for that matter, the simulations of 2051-2081 under the Plan? Perry
Simm being roasted for food by people after he crosses the railroad
tracks--yup, nothing but smiles there.
It's not that the world under the Project is "exceptionally
pleasant," merely that it is the continuation of HIS life, the life he had
spent twenty-some years living. It's implied, I feel, that in testing the
project, Perry is living his life from 2031 forward, exactly as he would
have done had he never been awakened in the first place. By the time 2091
rolls around, and the Project is deemed a success in all the ways the Plan
wasn't, Perry is, what... 80 years old? The better part of 80 years of
Perry's life is wrapped up in a simulation. He has a wife, children,
grandchildren, and is part of creating his own destiny, rather than having
it determined for him by someone else? And you are chastizing him for
choosing this life, which is HIS life, and which will someday end?
The text does make it clear, I feel, that Perry Simm will not live
forever--he can't. He is human, after all. In the Habitat, his life will
be prolonged, but Perry must, eventually, die. PRISM is choosing the
finite life of Perry Simm over the possibly considerably prolonged life of
PRISM. To me, that's not at all a safe or Utopian choice to make--it's
human. He has people he loves and he wants to be with them for as long as
he can. And if he isn't needed for the Plan anymore, why not allow him
the reward of being part of the world he can never convince himself he
really left?
Again, you can think whatever you want about the game. You don't
have to like it, but comparing PRISM's choices to joybooth suicide is
really missing the point as I see it.
Matthew Murray
> Well AMFV didn't have to merely swing between the dual extremes of
> heaven and hell. It could have had a milder and more thoughtful
> ending, perhaps one which reflected a gradual progress in the world
> and hope for the future, but still kept in mind the practicalities of
> human nature.
It DID have these, they just weren't described in the narrative
the same way the Plan was. The Project achieved what the Plan intended
but couldn't; 2041-2090 under the Project did contain the gradual
progress you were asking for. A lot can happen in fifty years. The
groundwork was already laid, but the future itself isn't as Utopian as
you're making it out to be--Perry Simm's life was the way he wanted it,
and for him, nothing else mattered. You can't make many more judgments
about the world than that--everything is always seen through Perry's eyes.
And why a happier, in-tune world is automatically less valid is a
concept that's beyond me, as well--I think the Epilogue does follow from
what's in the game.
David Thornley
Matthew Murray <hl...@plover.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 2 Jul 2002, Akilesh Ayyar wrote:
>
>> Well AMFV didn't have to merely swing between the dual extremes of
>> heaven and hell. It could have had a milder and more thoughtful
>> ending, perhaps one which reflected a gradual progress in the world
>> and hope for the future, but still kept in mind the practicalities of
>> human nature.
>
> It DID have these, they just weren't described in the narrative
>the same way the Plan was.
And *this* is what really, really annoyed me.
After figuring out how to do things, and going into this horrifying
dystopia to record everything, suddenly we go through all the good
stuff in a quick paragraph or so. I would have loved to see a
functioning future society in similar detail.
> And why a happier, in-tune world is automatically less valid is a
>concept that's beyond me, as well--I think the Epilogue does follow from
>what's in the game.
>
Why less valid? It isn't, it's perfectly as valid, it just wasn't
shown. This makes it look to me like the author thought dystopias
were more valid, or at least more interesting, and that attitude
really bugs me.
Not to mention I completely agree with what has been said earlier
about Perry's actions in the Epilogue; that was annoying also.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
David Thornley
This is inaccurate in the context of the game. I hope that by this
point it won't be too much of a spoiler to point out that PRISM
has to take action in the real world to stay "alive". Certainly
PRISM has different needs from those of normal human beings,
but other people have still different needs.
He isn't
>escaping from reality in retreating to the simulation because the
>world external to his simulation isn't *his* reality.
However, it is reality. Reality is where we can all talk together,
and even if you and I were in the simulation it wouldn't be you
and me talking.
The world he
>knew, the world he grew up in, the world that every memory, that every
>iota of his being belongs to *is* the simulation -- for him, the world
>outside the simulation isn't real: it's a different plane of existance
>into which he was pulled against his will. His world is the computer
>simulation.
>
His world is a complicated fantasy, and he wants to go back? I can
understand that, but it's still tantamount to joybooth suicide.
>>Are you saying that just because PRISM once thought a videogame was
>>reality makes it reality? It seems clear to me that PRISM is
>>abandoning the challenge and the vigor of the flesh-and-blood world in
>>favor of the plastic artificiality of software. Isn't it convenient
>>that that software just happens to be exceptionally pleasant software?
>>That doesn't sound very real to me.
>
>The flesh-and-blood world isn't his to be a part of. Perry Simm is a
>man. He thinks like a man, he acts like a man. What you call "reality"
>is to him some nightmare where he is nothing but a computer
>program.
On the other hand, it's where he can interact with others.
There is no "out" for him. There is no "flesh and blood
>world" for him.
There is, however, a real world, even if he is not flesh and blood
there.
The simulation is his reality. You have this idea that
>the simulation is "false" and that he should "escape" to the "real"
>world -- of course, from our perspective, that "real" world is equally
>artificial, and that's probably just how it seems to Perry Simm.
I have this idea that the simulation is a simulation, and that the
real world is real. No quotation marks around real here.
Perry Simm deliberately retreated into a fictional world in the Epilogue.
In the context of the game, he had been working in the real world.
No,
>the fact that he thought it was reality doesn't "make" it real. But
>Perry Simm isn't "real" either, and no amount of "living in the real
>world" will change that.
>
PRISM does operate in the real world, and has a great deal of influence
on reality. Most people don't do pivotal actions in saving the society
they're in.
>And I notice in your argument a recurring idea: part of your complaint
>seems to be that the simulation Perry Simm ends up in (By the way, you
>may notice that I say 'Perry Simm' a lot, while you seem to always use
>'PRISM'. I suspect that this is related; to you, Perry Simm isn't
>"real", PRISM is, and should "own up to" the fact that Perry Simm is
>justr a delusion and live in PRISM's world) is pleasant. I wonder how
>relevant thias is: if the final simulation had been "less pleasant"
>would you have the same arguments? I've noticed a recent trend in
>many people to dismiss any view of the future that isn't dystopian as
>"silly".
Pleasant, unpleasant, who cares? Reality appears to be pretty pleasant
also at the time of the epilogue. PRISM/Perry Simm deliberately left
reality and decided to enter into a fantasy world specially programmed
for him, never to return. This is effectively joybooth suicide.
DJohn37050
really red, it is just in your head how you interpret that wavelength. Get
with it. Same with all senses.
Don Johnson
L. Ross Raszewski
>
>This is inaccurate in the context of the game. I hope that by this
>point it won't be too much of a spoiler to point out that PRISM
>has to take action in the real world to stay "alive". Certainly
>PRISM has different needs from those of normal human beings,
>but other people have still different needs.
Yhay you say is correct, but what I said is also correct. The fact
that there are cases in which PRISM must act to save himself is not
the same thing as saying that PRISM is capable of taking care of
himself. He is inherently constrained in what actions he can take in
the physical world to those allowed by his interface.
>However, it is reality. Reality is where we can all talk together,
>and even if you and I were in the simulation it wouldn't be you
>and me talking.
>
Wouldn't it be? This implies that you and I aren't talking right now.
>His world is a complicated fantasy, and he wants to go back? I can
>understand that, but it's still tantamount to joybooth suicide.
No; staying in PRISM's world is tantamount to joybooth suicide --
abandoning *his* world and its concerns in favor of a simpler life (as
a computer, life is indeed fairly simple, especially as he has no real
responsibilities or needs to attend to) without the experiences of
living as a man among humanity. PRISM is inherently a computer
simulation of a man. His world is a computer simulation -- He is not a
part of the "real world"; he's a part of that simulation.
You say that Perry Simm should give up, say, his wife, his child, his
world, because they aren't "real" in the sense that, say, Perleman
is. But Perry Simm is *also* not "real" in the sense that Perleman is
-- not only is the simulation real to him, it is real *in the same way
that he is*.
>On the other hand, it's where he can interact with others.
>
So, his wife and son in the simulation are not "others"? I can
anticipate one response: that they aren't "real people" just computer
simulations. But again, I say, Perry Simm is also not a "real
person". And to Perry Simm, Perleman isn't a "real person" either, by
your own standard above -- there is no "face to face" contact with
him, no real interaction -- Perleman is just an image on a video
circuit to PRISM.
>
>There is, however, a real world, even if he is not flesh and blood
>there.
Prove it. WHen it comes right down to it, what in Perry Simm's
experience shows that the world he occupies when not in Simulation
Mode is "real" and the world he occupies in the simulation "isn't" --
from his perspective, the simulation is *and must be* more real.
ANd here I will anticipate some arguments:
1. PRISM has been told that the one is reality and the other isn't.
- THis proves little. Even if PRISM believes it, it doesn't change
the fact that the simulation is more real to him.
2. THe "real world" operates under a consistent set of laws which the
simulation does not
- The "real world' did not exist for Perry Simm for most of his
life. Is that consistant? His mind tells him he is human, he has a
sense of personal identity that says he should have hands, fingers,
toes, and other limbs, but he has no physical presence Is that
consistent? THe only inconsistency in his simulated world is that he
is able to enter several time periods out of sequence.
>
>I have this idea that the simulation is a simulation, and that the
>real world is real. No quotation marks around real here.
Of course, in a meta-gamey sort of way, neither world is real -- and
perhaps this is important in a literary perspective, that the real
world you insist Perry Simm should be living in is, from our
perspective, no more real (in fact, a good deal less real) than the
simulation
(Hey wow. I never thoguht of that before. In AMFV, you're a human
entering a computer simulation in which you play a computer program
who has been yanked *out* of a computer simulation. He thought his
simulation was the real world, but the reality into which he's
expelled is most assuredly a computer simulation)
>
>Perry Simm deliberately retreated into a fictional world in the Epilogue.
>In the context of the game, he had been working in the real world.
He had been working in the real world . THere is nothing left for him
to do in the real world -- that's the general gist of the ending. So
he can go on living there, impotent, or be given a real world in which
to live.
I can certainly respect your atitude that "real is real and simulation
is false and real is better than false and that's that", but since
it's based entirely on a nebulous sort of belief system (If you
disagree, feel free to prove by logic alone that it is "better" to
live in the real world than in a simulation, regardless of the real
world and the simulation)
>PRISM does operate in the real world, and has a great deal of influence
>on reality. Most people don't do pivotal actions in saving the society
>they're in.
Um... No, he doesn't. He operates in a simulation and brings back the
answers. And that's done with now; he was designed to test the Plan,
and that's over. WHat life is there for him in this "real world"? He
does not exist for himself there -- he can do tasks which are given to
him, but he can't leave, can't find a place for himself: he is and
always will be a machine in that reality.
>
>Pleasant, unpleasant, who cares? Reality appears to be pretty pleasant
>also at the time of the epilogue. PRISM/Perry Simm deliberately left
>reality and decided to enter into a fantasy world specially programmed
>for him, never to return. This is effectively joybooth suicide.
YOu can say it as many times as you like. it doesn't make it true.
Perry Simm deliberately returned to his own world, a world which is,
from our perspective, a simulation, *just like perry simm himself*,
bvut which is, from his perspective, reality. He does not abandon the
world he knows to be his own, his family, friends, and
committments. Joybooth suicide would be to forever leave his world to
live in Perleman's reality.
Adam Thornton
>YOu can say it as many times as you like. it doesn't make it true.
>Perry Simm deliberately returned to his own world, a world which is,
>from our perspective, a simulation, *just like perry simm himself*,
>bvut which is, from his perspective, reality. He does not abandon the
>world he knows to be his own, his family, friends, and
>committments. Joybooth suicide would be to forever leave his world to
>live in Perleman's reality.
No one has actually anticipated the Perry Simm Unhappy Ending that *I*
expect.
He's been packed off to his Happy Utopian Space Simulation.
In a couple years, the IT budget comes up for review. One of the
beancounters asks "what's that box over there, which is costing us,
ummmm, $6 million per annum for its service contract, doing?"
IT management explains that it's running a simulation so their
forecasting prophet can live out his days in peace.
The beancounter points at the six million dollars and reminds them that
the computer program has no legal rights, and that powering down the
machine is not murder, it's simply turning off a computer.
The plug is pulled. Good-bye Perry Simm.
Adam
Sean T Barrett
>>In the context of the game, he had been working in the real world.
>
>He had been working in the real world . THere is nothing left for him
>to do in the real world -- that's the general gist of the ending. So
>he can go on living there, impotent, or be given a real world in which
>to live.
Or be given a *fictional* world in which to live.
I think part of this "debate" is simply because people are using
"real" in different ways. This conflation confuses arguments about
the value judgement on PRISM returning to being Perry Simm.
When I debate philosophically the notion of "an external, independent
reality", there's something pretty solidly defined that I'm referring
to, even if I can't prove it exists and its existence implies the
impossibility of that proof and thus of a certain sort of
"knowledge of the world".
If Bob is stuck in The Matrix for the first twenty years of his life,
and then pulled out of the Matrix and shown "the real world", and if
we have a god's eye view (because we're in the movie theater or the
computer desk's chair) and know which really is real, then we may
sympathize with Bob's dissatisfaction with the real world and may
understand his desire to be plugged back in and spend the rest of his
days eating juicy virtual steaks--but none of this will change that we
know that that one world is virtual, fake, fictional, *not* real; and
the other is real--and this is true whether Bob is corporeal or an AI
designed to inhabit the simulation.
SeanB
Matthew Murray
> sympathize with Bob's dissatisfaction with the real world and may
> understand his desire to be plugged back in and spend the rest of his
> days eating juicy virtual steaks--but none of this will change that we
> know that that one world is virtual, fake, fictional, *not* real; and
> the other is real--and this is true whether Bob is corporeal or an AI
> designed to inhabit the simulation.
Likewise, nothing will change the fact that the "real world" being
"real" will seem less real to Bob, because it isn't his world.
David Thornley
That is, to put it lightly, not universally accepted.
There is, at the very least, some sort of consensus reality. I see an
apple and notice that it appears to me to be the color I believe to be
red. I ask my wife and child, and they make noises that I automatically
interpret to mean they think the apple is red. Since I have reason
to believe that my wife and son are in fact people, and since they
react to me and other things in certain ways, I conclude that they
are part of reality.
Some people would go so far as to think there is some actual reality,
and that we perceive certain facets of it. Some of these people think
that doing things that affect reality (which certainly happened in the
game) is somehow more significant than affecting something in a
simulation.
Do you have any actual arguments against that point of view? If this
view is valid, it does mean that PRISM deliberately forsake reality
in favor of a pleasant illusion, and hence did the equivalent of
DJohn37050
persistence of vision or optical illusions. Your mind creates a virtual
reality with the illusion of consistency. You really only see where you are
focused, but your mind plays a tape that says the other reality nearby stays
the same, else you would see just a tiny spot. Theories of mind say we have a
ringmaster to "appear to have" consistency, else things would appear too
random. Have you never contradicted yourself in under 5 mins?
The way you hear yourself is (essentially always) not the way others hear you,
due to you hearing yourself thru your head, while others hear thru the air.
We are everyone one of us in a virtual reality. In fact, VR is a sign of
intelligence, in order to make SOME sense out the chaos out there.
Don Johnson
L. Ross Raszewski
>
>There is, at the very least, some sort of consensus reality. I see an
>apple and notice that it appears to me to be the color I believe to be
>red. I ask my wife and child, and they make noises that I automatically
>interpret to mean they think the apple is red. Since I have reason
>to believe that my wife and son are in fact people, and since they
>react to me and other things in certain ways, I conclude that they
>are part of reality.
>
Perry Simm sees his wife Jill. She reacts to him and other things in
certain ways, therefore he concludes that she is in fact a person and
is part of reality. Dr. Perleman, on the other hand, reacts to Perry
Simm in a completely different way. Perry Simm experiences Perleman in
a way totally inconsistant with the way he's percieved other people
all his life. Why should Perry Simm believe that Perleman, or anything
else in that world is real in the same way -- in a superior way -- to
his wife and son?
On the one hand, Perry Simm has the evidence of his senses, of his
memories, and of his psychology tellign him that he is a human being,
that Jill is his wife, and that the simulation is the real world. On
the other hand, he has Perleman telling him that he's a computer and
this outside reality is the "real world". That's pretty flimsy
evidence even going by reason alone. When you add in the fact that no
matter *what* Perry Simm believes to be reality, Perleman's relaity is
inherently less real to him. Throwing away the reality that is real
to him in favor of one which *he is told, but cannot deduce on his
own* is "objectively more real" doesn't make any sense, and is the
sort of escapism from reality you call joybooth suicide.
>Some people would go so far as to think there is some actual reality,
>and that we perceive certain facets of it. Some of these people think
>that doing things that affect reality (which certainly happened in the
>game) is somehow more significant than affecting something in a
>simulation.
Now you're changing from a logical argument to a moral one. You think
that making a difference in the real world is more important than
making a difference in a simulation. This is maybe true. But, of
course, Perry Simm can only make a difference in the "real world"
insofar as he is ordered to by his keepers.
Furthermore, it's easy for us as the "third party" to say that Perry
Simm's world is unreal and Perleman's is real, because we consider
ourselves to be an outside agent who exists in the "real"
world. But. You consider this world (ours) real because you're in
it. Perry Simm considers his (simulated) world real *for exactly the
same reason*
>
>Do you have any actual arguments against that point of view? If this
>view is valid, it does mean that PRISM deliberately forsake reality
>in favor of a pleasant illusion, and hence did the equivalent of
>joybooth suicide.
I've noticed that in this thread, there's a lot of very vague
arguments that don't prove anything which end in "And therefore he
committed joybooth suicide".
Furthermore, I notice that word 'pleasant' again. I can't shake the
feeling that your argument is motivated, at least in part, by a
distaste for a 'happy ending'
Christiane Schwind
On Mon, 08 Jul 2002 03:11:39 GMT, L. Ross Raszewski wrote:
> Now you're changing from a logical argument to a moral one. You think
> that making a difference in the real world is more important than
> making a difference in a simulation. This is maybe true. But, of
> course, Perry Simm can only make a difference in the "real world"
> insofar as he is ordered to by his keepers.
No. PRISM gets hints but no orders in the crucial situation. And the
story does get a moral turn here. PRISM takes over responsibility in
the "real world", a meta-world for Perry Simm.
Which takes me to this question: PRISM and Perry Simm are more or less
set equal in a couple of posts; but isn't Perry Simm only part of
PRISM (his interface in sim mode)? When PRISM enters the final
simulation, he's abandoning most of his former identity/abilities,
including access to the "real world" (no attempt at well-defined
terminology here...) It seems pretty clear to me that this decision
means death, parallel to the popular belief in the soul - Perry Simm -
leaving the body and living on in heaven after death. Perelman says,
rather pathetically, "His body may be silicon and steel, but in his
heart he's as human as anyone I've ever met", and the context is
PRISM's epitaph. In fact, a lot of context is along that line:
(Almost?) all the box quotations are taken from famous epitaphs, as is
the game's title itself. Perelman's speech is an epitaph quoting yet
another famous epitaph. The fact *that* most of the quotations appear
in boxes (that is, on a direct author-player channel) tells me that
PRISM's death is not just a fact for Perelman but "real" on a larger
scale (in a highly ironical way, though).
I'm not at all sure about what's really happening in the end apart
from this. How valid is the final simulation? David Thornley took it
as "a fantasy world specially programmed for [PRISM]", and that's what
it feels like for me, too. But the game doesn't explicitly say so -
there's only Perelman telling PRISM that "the parameters of the New
Plan" have been entered, whatever that is. Seeing the rest of the
game, I can hardly imagine what kind of "New Plan" could bring this
perfect world about, one reason to assume that the final sim's a fake.
But even then, I'm not so sure whether PRISM's aware of it, which
would be prerequisite to his committing joybooth suicide. Adam
Thornton said he'd like to see an end where Perelman's crew pull the
plug on Perry Simm - is it possible that this kind of thing is what
actually happens, in a less obvious form? I guess I'm considering the
possibility of "joybooth euthanasia".
Does anyone know what "Silver Dove" alludes to?
Christiane
L. Ross Raszewski
>So what? Merely because one has lived an illusion for 20 years doesn't
>mean that one can't realize that it IS an illusion and choose to
>escape. But, you may ask, what makes a videogame less real than the
>physical world? Well, how about the fact that the former depends on
>the latter, but the opposite is not true? You can unplug the
>videogame, but you cannot unplug (to our knowledge) the physical
>world.
There are many schools of philsophy and religion that teach that what
we call reality is itself an illusion.
Further, *you* can unplug the video game, because you belong to the
physical world. PRISM *can't* unplug the video game, because he
belongs to that world.
In reality, we make the determination that this world is real
precisely because we are in it and belong to it. There isn't some
"magic quality" about reality that makes us know that it's real -- not
one that actually objectively exists. We know it's real because of our
relationship to it.
>
>Or how about the fact that the simulation is limited in its capacity
>for creativity? Has PRISM explored the real world sufficiently to make
>an informed decision about whether to stay or go back?
>
I don't see any basis in the story for your assertion that the
simulated world Perry Simm ends up in is more limited than the real
one (I can already hear your complaint, that you canrun into the
boundaries of the simulation. But presumably, this is only true of the
simulation used to test the Plan; Perry Simm never noticed these walls
before. Further, the 'real world' similarly has impenetrable walls, at
least for PRISM), other than a vague tautological "well it can't be
because it's not real".
As for PRISM 'not having explored the real world sufficiently' -- Do
you need to explore, say, a dream, to tell that it's not reality? Not
generally; you exist in a different relationship to the dreamscape
than you do to reality. "Thus", I imagine you saying, "PRISM should
know intuitively that reality is 'more real' than the simulation (and
therefore 'better')" -- but Perry Simm exists in the same kind of
relationship with the simulation that we do with reality. He doesn't
*need* to explore the real world to know that it's not where he
belongs -- he exists in the real world in the same sort of
relationship to it that we exist with a dream, while he exists in the
same kind of relationship with the simulation that we do with reality.
>Here's the key question: if the Plan had passed, would PRISM have gone
>back to the simulation?
>
>I seriously doubt it.
>
>Why? I can think of several reasons, but the strongest is that a
>simulation does not allow for a true exercise of free will. Imagine
See, I see this as a sort of meaningless platitude; you assert that it
does not allow for free will because it is a simulation, and that the
real world allows for free will because it's a real world, but there's
nothing to support either of these claims.
>that you can either choose to live in a nightmarish dream, or else
>live in the real world, which is going to have some very bad things
>happen to it. I would certainly choose the latter, because at least
>there is SOME chance for that disaster to be averted. I would feel
>stifled by the dream. On the other hand, if I were weighing a dream
>nirvana of fame, adulation, wealth, prosperity, and happiness against
>a real world that probably (but might not) have these things -- I
>think the choice would be a tad tougher.
I don't see how this is at all relevant. You seem to suppose that one
can change the real world thoguh actions, but one cannot change the
simulated world through actions. I don't see any evidence for this,
aor any justification for this. This has nothing to do with
pleasantness or unpleasantness or the ability to "change things". It
has to do with the fact that what makes you see the real world as real
is the way in which you are in it. We cannot look at Perry Simm and
expect him to have the same experience of reality as we do, because he
exists in a radically different relationship to this world than we do.
DJohn37050
wires that feed your senses. I do not see how one could prove that or disprove
it. Your senses are just electric blips in nerves. Stick a probe in your
brain and fire it and you get sensations.
Don Johnson
L. Ross Raszewski
>
>That shows just how arbitrary and programmed the simulation is. Perry
>chose to go back because the simulation had the "future" variable set
>to "project" and not "plan." There is no real uncertainty in the
>simulation world.
What does 'real uncertainty' mean? Perry Simm doesn't know what the
future holds in his simulated world. Apparantly, neither do the
people outside in the 'real world', or they wouldn't need tohave sent
him into it to get recordings.
>
>What gets me is that PRISM did not display any curiosity -- even after
>tweaking the simulation -- about which world was real and which was
>not.
>
Of course not. After your average dream, do you have any curiosity
about whether the world you've woken into is reality?
>
>It was. But when one wakes up from a dream, one realizes that it was
>just a dream. For Perry, the simulation was a reality. For PRISM, it
>needn't have been any longer.
That what? The scales should have fallen from his eyes and he would
say "Aha! How I've been duped!"?
>
>One proof that the simulation is the wrong world might be the fact
>that PRISM can escape death and go back again and again to an
>unchanging scene. Did that not put any doubt into PRISM at all?
>
No one is suggesting that PRISM didn't intellect that his world was a
simulation and the outside world had some prior and independant
existance. But that doesn't change the fact that it was *his
world*. If I showed you incontravertable proof that *this* world was
simply a computer siulation, would it *really* make you seek to escape
and stop treating thins here like they were real?
>
>The people who are just bits of code are real to him? Just because
>they are familiar does not give them the real depth of human beings.
Now you're making some tautological statement: "The simulated people
aren't as deep as real people because they're simulated". You have no
idea how deeply simulated the people in his life are. You try to brush
them off by calling them 'bits of code'. Your family and friends are
just a few dollars worth of chemicals in suspension. WHat makes you
think of them as human beings?
>
>
>No, definitely not. The simulation can never be truly creative; it can
>only be algorhythmic. Therefore it is not truly a world unto itself.
>Therefore it is akin to a dream.
Then Perry Simm himself can never be anything but algorythmic, and is
incapable of committing suicide because he has no free will, he was
simpyl doing as he was programmed to do.
>
>No, he is not choosing his destiny. He is choosing his destiny to a
>much lesser extent than if he were living in the real world. At least
>in the real world there may be real uncertainty about where things may
>go and thus PRISM might have exerted some degree of free will. In the
>simulation, there is only limited processing capability to accomodate
>any choices, and thus there are very serious boundaries on anything
>that PRISM can do.
SO you claim ion the basis of nothng at all. There are two claims
here:
1. Ones ability to exert control over the real world is unlimited
2. There are great limitiations on one's ability to exert control over
the simulation.
The first of these seems plainly false to me. The second is totally
unsubastantiated. For all we know (and this seem likely, given that
Perry Simm managed to grow up in the simulation without ever noticing
that it was a simulation) is that the processing capacity of the
simulation is great enough to accommodate a sufficient range of action
that one would never notice.
You may, of course, consider an unnoticed boundary to be no less
pressing, but I submit that by virtue of this boundary being
unnoticable, it must be in a place such that *there could be such a
boundary on the real world for all we know*.
>
>It's like choosing to live in the ultimate interactive fiction game
>instead of the real world. No matter how elegant the IF game is, you
>always know that it never has the unlimited choices the real world
>presents. At least, the real world's choices are far more unlimited
>than the IF game.
The real world does not present unlimited choices. It simply presents
more than one person could possibly experience. There is a finite
upper bound on the number of choices one person could possibly
experience, therefore a simulation could exist which presents that
many. Such a simulation might be more bounded than reality, but this
is irrelevant to a person inside it.
>
>Except that they aren't human -- they're little bits of code.
>
And so is he. You've decided that, because they are mere code, these
people could not possibly be as, what, interesting? convincing?
realistic? as real people. If so, you're making this claim totally
against the evidence of the story.
>
>Because that's living in a delusion, and it denies him the possibility
>of exercising his true and full potential in the true and fully
>responsive world.
G'head, say it: 'ANd therefore is committing joybooth suicide'.
Billy Harris
the whole purpose of the center was completed. Everyone packed up and
went home; PRISM is now obsolete.
So I see the choice as between entering a permanent dream state or
suicide.
L. Ross Raszewski
>>I don't see any basis in the story for your assertion that the
>>simulated world Perry Simm ends up in is more limited than the real
>>one (I can already hear your complaint, that you canrun into the
>>boundaries of the simulation. But presumably, this is only true of the
>>simulation used to test the Plan; Perry Simm never noticed these walls
>>before. Further, the 'real world' similarly has impenetrable walls, at
>>least for PRISM), other than a vague tautological "well it can't be
>>because it's not real".
>
>enclosed WITHIN the real world, and moreover it has static physical
>boundaries (something which cannot be said with certainty about the
>physical universe). It cannot help but be more limited. It is a
>subset.
But is this relevant? WHat is the difference to Perry Simm between
"probably, but unprovably infinite" and "far larger than I'll ever
exhaust"?
>
>I disagree again. There may be an initial shock upon coming into the
>real world from a dream. PRISM may initially have had (justifiable)
>doubts. But through repeated entry into the simulation, repeated
>viewing of people reacting dumbly in the same way over and over again,
>and repeated observation of the way the simulation future changes
>radically so instantly, I think a normal person could and would slowly
>come to accept the robotic and artificial nature of the simulation.
One might certainly accept that the simulations in the main section of
the game are degenerate simulations. But what does perry simm see of
the real world? The real world to him is full of people who act just
as dumbly (I suspected you'd use infocom's weak implementation of NPCs
as 'proof' that the digital characters aren't "real enough" -- I think
it's a low blow to do this without acknowledging that the "real world"
characters in the game are *just as weakly implemented*), it's
discontinuous (that is, he only experiences location as one of a set
of discreet spaces), and effects he has on the world outside are not
immediately obvious.
>
>OK, perhaps I should clarify. If free will exists, then the simulation
>lacks it. Why? Because it has limited memory, limited processing power
>and thus intelligence. Part of free will is being able to bring
>totally unexpected results about. That is just not possible within a
>finite machine.
Unexpected to whom? A finite machine can often bring about a totally
unexpected result. I certainly don't expect a lot of the things that
happen on my computer. Likewise, Perry Simm doesn't expect a lot of
what happens in the simulation. THe existance of someone in an
external world who might be able ot anticipate these things doesn't
seem relevant.
And again, you seem to place a lot of weight behind infinity. The
degree of freedom does not need to be infinite for it to be
indistinguishable from a "real" world -- it simply needs be Very Large
Indeed.
>
>Really? I see plenty of evidence. Nothing Perry does in any of the
>Plan years affects anything in the future. There is no "rebellion" he
>can join. There are no protests to the Plan at all, in fact. Isn't
>that odd...
>
There is certainly indication that those in power in the middle years
of the simulation are being militant in response to something.
>But even had Perry been able to influence events to some extent, there
>is good reason to believe he would not have the same spectrum of
>abilities in the simulation world as in the real world (see the above
>argument on limited computing capacity).
Again, you're basing this totally on "We can't build a convincing
simulation of the real world so his simulation cannot be convincing."
However, it is a given fact of the backstory that the simulation *is*
convincing, therefore it must be sufficiently broad, in terms of
computer capacity, that its limits are not encountered.
L. Ross Raszewski
>
>Real uncertainty means no boundaries that we can observe. Any
>programming is going to have limitations, which means they can only
>produce a limited set of results. Perhaps--and the story never shows
>this for sure--these results might be close enough to reality to
>predict what will happen in the human world for the next 50 years.
>
You said the key word for me. 'that we can observe'. Any program is
going to have limitations. It is not necessary that it is going to
have limitations that we can observe (or, more relevantly, that
Perry Simm can observe).
>But how about aliens? Does the simulation account for them? How about
>forces about which humans know nothing, and thus cannot account for in
>their programming? Are those forces given any possibility for
>manifestation in the simulation?
>
I don't know that they are. I know that they could be. Dragons don't
exist, but every year someone cranks out Yet ANother Simulation of one.
>
>If I could switch back and forth between the dream, and there were
>some disturbing inconsistencies in what I thought was my reality, I
>would be very curious.
>
What if that was true for a while, and then it stopped. That is, what
if for a while, you noticed distirubing inconsistancies in reality and
could switch back and forth between dream and reallity at will, but
then that stopped and everything was as it had been. Would you spend
the rest of your life thinkign that you were trapped in a dream, or
would you *know* -- not intellect, not conclude, but *know* that you
were in some degenerate state then, and were all right now.
(Leaving out the repeated discussion of how "reality" as prism
experiences it isn't consistent either)
>
>It might have been a gradual process, but yes, that's the eventual
>idea.
This is only true if the simulation was meaningfully limited. You keep
falling back to infinity: "It's not infinite, so it must be some
degenerate artificial reality". A human can't percieve infinity. A
human can percieve much-larger-than-me-ness. If both the simulation
(this seems likely) and the real world (this seems certain) are both
sufficiently much-larger-than-me, then there isn't any "unreality" to
be percieved about the simulation. Just unreality about the fact that
in one world, he's a man who thinks like a man, has a sense of
physical identiy belonging to a man and memories belong to a man,
whereas in the other world, he's a computer who thinks like a man, has
a sense of physical identity belong to a man and memories belonging to
a man.
>
>With enough time, I would hope so. If I knew myself to be incapable of
>making the transition, I would feel sorry.
I have soem very bad news...
>
>How about the fact that they don't go around repeating themselves
>blandly every time I visit them? If they did I might indeed doubt
>their legitimacy.
How does this differ from the 'real world' in communications mode?
Doesn't perleman say the same thing to you every time you bring him
back an empty recording?
>
>1. First of all, Perry himself is more than algorhythmic, because
>Perry came to life over 20 years. The scientists *simulated* the other
>characters; they didn't grow them like they did Perry.
Nonetheless. It does not matter to me whether you are indeed a human
being or are an anthropomorphic robot. As long as you look and act in
a way undistinguishable from a human being, that is how I react toward
you.
>
>2. Second, Perry definitely does not have unlimited free will, but I
>think that because he is conscious and rational and grew human
>functions he has the same free will as everyone else. He can be
>creative in his own way.
I'm not sure what to make of this comment.
>
>3. But the others, because they were simulated and not grown, do not
>have the identical capabilities. That was the point of the PRISM
>project, after all -- PRISM is special, unique, "the FIRST of a new
>breed--the thinking machine." (from the manual, emphasis is mine)
>
Or this. Well, I know what *you* make of it. You think that it matters
that at some existential level, they are not like Perry Simm. It
doesn't. They *act* like real humans. They act *100% like real
humans*. Otherwise, Perry Simm would never have grown up sane.
>4. Even if Perry didn't have any free will, he would still be able to
>commit suicide, although we might not blame him for it.
Actually, I don't *think* it's properly termed suicide in that case.
>
>5. So if the scientists "grew" everyone in the world like they did
>Perry, including the plants and animals, and the societies and
>cultures themselves, and perhaps all of them growing inside the mind
>of some kind of conscious computer the size of a universe, that,
>perhaps that, I might accept as an equal of our universe. Maybe :)
Equal don't enter into it. Especially not "equal as judged by
you". I'm not submitting that Perry Simm's reality is 'objectively
more real'. But perry simm has no access to that objective truth,
whatever it is; he can only attempt to deduce it based on who he is
and what he's exeperienced. Who he is and what he's experienced do not
allow him to deduce that the 'real' world is "superior" (or "more
real") to the simulation.
>>1. Ones ability to exert control over the real world is unlimited
>
>Not quite. I am saying that the real world's ability to respond to you
>is unlimited, which is clearly not the case in Perry's world.
>
>>2. There are great limitiations on one's ability to exert control over
>>the simulation.
>
>Nope. I am saying that the simulation has very bounded response
>capabilities.
All right. So change a couple of words.
>
>True, but once Perry is out of the simulation, he immediately notices
>the necessity of the boundary. The real world MAY have such a
>boundary. But there is no reason to believe it does. There is plenty
>of reason to believe in the limitations of the simulation.
>
PRISM's real world does have a boundary, a very pressing one. He can
only "go" where he is conneted to a camera, etc.
And I think that the obviousness of the boundless nature of the real
universe is something which you take for granted -- it's only as a
result thousdands of years of philosophy that we think the universe is
boundless in its response capabilities.
>>
>>The real world does not present unlimited choices. It simply presents
>>more than one person could possibly experience. There is a finite
>>upper bound on the number of choices one person could possibly
>>experience, therefore a simulation could exist which presents that
>>many. Such a simulation might be more bounded than reality, but this
>>is irrelevant to a person inside it.
>
>How do you know? Maybe there is some fascinating response the real
>world would present to an action that a simulation couldn't. The real
>world is full of surprises. Simulations can't be, not really.
>
The real world is full of things *you* can't anticipate. THe simulated
world is full of thigns *he* can't anticipate. WHat you really mean is
that we can't create a simulation in which there is a thing that *no
one* could anticipate. But that's not as relevant a claim. A thing is
no less surprising and wonderful to me because there exists some
buddhist monk on a mountain in tibet who forsaw it, because *I* can't
forsee it.
>
>As full of surprises. Actually the story supports this very well.
>History in the simulation moved in a very predictable fashion, which
>history is not wont to do.
Hegel thought otherwise.
Marx thought otherwise.
Christiane Schwind
I agree. I think I found the "Silver Dove" reference now - hope no one
runs away screaming, but it's another epitaph:
As from the darkening gloom a silver dove
Upsoars, and darts into the eastern light,
On pinions that nought moves but pure delight,
So fled thy soul into the realms above,
Regions of peace and everlasting love;
Where happy spirits, crown’d with circlets bright
Of starry beam, and gloriously bedight,
Taste the high joy none but the blest can prove.
There thou or joinest the immortal quire
In melodies that even heaven fair
Fill with superior bliss, or, at desire
O’ the omnipotent Father, cleav’st the air
On holy message sent.—What pleasure’s higher?
Wherefore does any grief our joy impair?
(J. Keats)
Can't see how in view of the plot the game could plausibly end in a
idyll. If this isn't irony, I don't know what.
Christiane
L. Ross Raszewski
>
>The difference between your best friend and a robot simulation who
>seems to act just like him (though you would never know in what ways
>they might diverge in the future). Is it the same to you?
>
>If it were my best friend, I would certainly be dissatisfied with the
>robot simulation if I suspected it was the simulation:
>
If you suspected? Or if you Knew In Your Heart of Hearts.
>1) The robot is not really feeling or hearing me. It just seems to be
>doing so. That seems to be a rather empty, lonely, solipsistic fact.
>If I discovered my entire world were like this, I might well be driven
>to despair.
>
>2) The robot has much more bounded creativity than a human has. Maybe
>my friend would have been mediocre, in which case the difference in
>creativity may not be large. But what if my friend was a Beethoven, a
>Shakespeare, or even a great religious figure? Can the simulation
>produce a new such giant? Can it have as much depth and selection in
>this production as the real world? No, no.
>
You're almost on the verge of making a religious argument.
There's plenty of precident in science fiction that you're totally
wrong (Suppose that it's revealed to you that your best friend *always
was* a robot designed to appear like a human. Would this eventually
cause you to stop caring about him? You insist thatm,yes, it would,
because you'd see how limited and not real he was. Thisi s utter
balderdash based on your assumptions of how good a simulation can be
built. SInce such things exist only in the realm of fiction anyway,
let us consider: Star Trek's Commander Data. The factthat he was
artificial did not render others incapable of having fielings toward
him identical to those between human friends. The characters in the
film AI, though artificial, display what we are thematically led to
consider the real range of human capability, Michael Knight and KITT
were friends and partners. I could go on). Yes, it's fiction, but so
is Perry Simm and his conundrum. We must accept for the sake of the
story that he and his simulated world
are sufficently real that the bounds on his creativity are not
precievable.
And, again, tyou're maing an argument that assumes that Perry Simm
himself is incapable of these things. If the robotic simulation of
your friend couldn't possibly be as creativer as a human being
*neither can Perry Simm*. End of story. You cannot simultaneously
claim that Perry SImm can be as creative, as capable of emotion, and
capable of Free Will as a human, and that it's impossible for a
simulation to capture a sufficient level of... shall I say
"responsiveness"? to exceed what a human could experience. Your claims
don't make sense.
>
>What do you mean by saying that effects he has on the world outsiede
>are not immediately obvious? Do you mean that if he adjusts his
>traffic controller, he can't see the results? That's not really an
>argument against the implementation of the real world, since Perry
>just doesn't have a physical presence outside the facility.
I mean that the effects he has on the world fall into two classes:
they are either the results of well-defined channels (That is, his
experience of the real-world does not allow him the unlimited
creativity you claim it does; he can only affect the traffic because
someone built a traffic interface into him), or are the abstract
results of, say, his work on the plan.
>
>Anyway, I will grant that the implementation of the real world is not
>great, but you still did not address the point about the rapid
>recreation and redrawing of the world simply by changing a few
>variables. Why did PRISM have no problem with the idea that the entire
>world changes with a few lines of code?
>
Because that was clearly a third realtiy, a degenerate version of his own.
>In fact, if PRISM regards his world as the truer world, why doesn't he
>hesitate when manipulating their lives? Doesn't he feel bad when he
>implements the Plan in simulation and kills them? And then just
>randomly changes back to another set of variables, without fully
>knowing the consequences? Didn't all those people really die?
>Shouldn't he be wracked with guilt?
>
*he* doesn't implement the plan.
>Why did PRISM not perform any kind of logical tests to examine the
>shallowness of his world? Did he have no curiousity as to how people's
>personalities, outlooks, and experiences changed with a few
>keystrokes?
>
If I came up to you on the street and tried experimenting tyo see how
deeply implemented *you* were, wouldn't you think me mad?
>
>Of course it's indistinguishable -- Perry by definition cannot know,
>except by inference, what he does not even know might be out there to
>experience! But he OUGHT to be upset that he is missing the most
>wondrous, strange, and special things that nature may be able to
>present, and that a computer cannot simulate. The computer cannot be
>programmed with the relevant details to simulate such things, since
>those details would be unknown even to humans.
I'm gettign tired of this argument. You've stopped relying on logic
and are trying to make religious claims. What has perry simm
experienced of the 'real world' that suggests that wonderous and
strange things can happen there, which can't happen in his world?
What have *you* experienced of the simulation that tells you that
nothing equally strange and wonderous can happen there? You keep
saying "The real world must have thigns even *more* strange and
wonderous because it's real!" But the simulation could have things
*equally strange and wonderous in human perception*. Certainly, there
are logical reasons why the simulated universe could not be as --
let's say 'big', as an example -- as the real one. But once it's
Bigger Than You'll Ever See In Your Lifetime, how much bigger it is
than that it TOTALLY IRRELEVANT. Likewise, the real universe can
contain an infinite amoutn of 'mystery and wonder' (again, it almsot
soudns like you're really skirting aroung saying "THere's no God in
the simulated world", but I don't wantto go there, and you prolly
don't either.), but human perception is only capable of experiencing
so much of this, so if the simulation can produce that much, it
doesn't matter how much *more* there is.
>
>Right. They are being manipulated by the elements of the Plan. What I
>said was that there seemed to be no organized resistance to the Plan
>in the simulation which Perry might have been able to join to
>influence the outcome.
In the simulation, the circumstances were such that Perry could not
find and join a resistance. WHat I meant by my comment was that I took
there to be an implication that such a resistance *did exist*, but
that in the space of -- how long is Perry Simm in this simulation? A
few days, at most -- him, a random middle aged man with no prior
invovlement in such things couldn't join it.
>
>Of course its limits are encountered; they are simply not recognized.
>Your position is that ignorance is bliss, while I disagree.
No. Your position is that... um... I don't know what your position
is. It's totally incompatable with the story of the game, though. You
think that the truth is the same for everyone, which is a valid thing
to believe, but a pretty outdated philosophy.
L. Ross Raszewski
>
>Unseen limitations are still extremely important. Just because one
>does not see precisely how they limit one's creativity and experiences
>doesn't mean that they don't. A deaf man doesn't know what he is
>missing. If he had a choice, would you counsel him to stay deaf simply
>because that is where he is comfortable? What if he could switch
>between being deaf and not being deaf, and found not being deaf to be
>disconcerting and strange? Might be think sound to be some sort of
>strange insanity, a delusion? Might he want to retreat permanently
>back into the world of his disability -- never even attempting to
>understand the gift of hearing?
I'm sure you'd think he'd be better off hearing, because the Real
World Has Sound and He's Missing The Beauty And Wonder.
A lot of Psychology disagrees with you. Read 'Molly Sweeney' or the
works of Oliver Sacks. Or Edward Hoagland.
This is actually a good metaphor. Most of the things I've referred to
come to the same point: When one lives one's life without some sense,
one fundamentally inhabits a different kind of world. Trying to move
into the "normal" world isn't just difficult, it's dangerous. ANd not
the kind of "true test of character" I'm sure you think it is. It's
the same kind of Test Of Character as tryign to move into a world with
a methane atmosphere. It only works if you can fundamentally change
who you are -- if you can fundamenatally *deny* what you *really* are
and become something else.
>
>Dragons are obviously in the imagination of humans. How about forces
>about which humans know nothing -- forces that are perhaps beyond the
>conception of humans ENTIRELY? How about spiritual or religious or
>supernatural forces? Can the simulation simulate those? I don't see
>how, except by imagining various possibilities randomly. If there are
>experiences that give direct knowledge of God or enlightenment or
>something like that, I think Perry would be denied those since the
>simulation wouldn't know how to represent them. There would also be no
>true holy men in the simulation to give accurate descriptions of those
>beyond-the-finite experiences and to prod seekers onward.
I knew God would come in here at some point. And again, the
simulation doesn't have to give him God. It just has to give him what
any human gets in gettign close to God. It can simulate a divinely
inspired Holy Man, it casn simulate scripture. That's all a human is
given by the real world. If a human actualyl finds God, it's not
because the Real World Gave Him to him.
>The ridiculous ease with which worlds and people are created and
>destroyed in the simulation along with the intellectual understanding
>of the simulation's basis in code should have spurred PRISM's
>curiousity. He eventually would have realized the artificiality of his
>simulated world. In fact, he probably did. But I think he went back
>deliberately, out of fear.
In one paragraphm, you talk of existential experiences and God, in the
next, you suppose the intellect to be supreme, claiming that Perry
Simm's "knowing" that his world is a simulation is the same as his
"feeling" that his world is a simulation (or that if it isnt, his
feeling should be enslaved to his intelllect, on the assumtpiton that
poor inferior emotion will come around eventually).
You want to believe that he hid in the simulation out of fear of the
Glory And Majesty of the Real World. Fine. But you can only think that
if (a) you've ignored the story in order to hold the belief you've
decided to hold or (b) You're an idiot. I don't think you're an idiot.
>
>The point is not whether the human can perceive infinity. It's not
>about simply being satisfied, but whether or not the limits that you
>cannot perceive can influence events. Clearly, they can. The real
>world may respond to an action in a way that you could not possibly
>anticipate and therefore could not POSSIBLY miss were it not to
>happen. But that enormous variety of extra possibilities (infinitely
>more possibilities) is what gives the real world its malleability, its
>greater sense of adventure, discovery, and power.
>
No. The fact that there is more there than you can see is what gives
the world those things. You cannot percieve the infinite. You don't
know that the universe can really offer you infinite
possibilities. You don't have any *evidence* that it can, beyond "I've
never run out". You'd have *the same* evidence in the simulation if
the simulation was big enough.
>In other words, even limitations that a human may not know are there
>may be meaningful limitations.
No again. Your argument hinges on the third party opinion. The
limitations are meaningful to *you* because *you* can percieve
them. He *can't*, so they're *not*. You seem to have this idea that
"deep down, I'd know." If you did (in Perry SImm's position), then
the simulation would have been inadequate to foster his development as
a Human, and the arugment collapses because he's ultimately just a
simulation himself.
>Point taken, but there are other reasons to suspect the simulation
>world to be as shallow and plastic as it in fact is.
'As it in fact is'. Of course, you assume what you're trying to prove
(well, actually, in allfairness, you've never tried to prove that the
simulation is shallow. You just assume it.) The simulation is as deep
as the real world of the game. Deeper. If we assume that the
shallowness of the real world as presented in the game is (as they
call it in Star Trek Fandom) a 'translation convention' (that is, an
artefact of converting a fictional world to the presentation medium),
then we must also assume that the simulation is similarly
translated. The simulated world *seems more real to me* than the real
world of the game. Therefore, I conclude that if the real world of the
game is meant to be as real as the real world in which I live, the
simulation is not perceptably less realistic.
>
>That's very nice of you, and I'm not even suggesting that that's a bad
>idea. But given the choice between dealing with a simulated robot who
>couldn't really perceive anything or be truly creative and interacting
>with a human or grown robot who could, I think the choice is clear.
I don't know that you're being truely creative. All I know is that
what you're doing looks like creativity to me. You could be seekritly
reading off the back of a cornflakes box. I'd never know, and my
experience of it would be no different.
>
>I mean that because he is a thinking computer (that's a leap we have
>to make without knowing the technological details, since they're
>unavailable), he is an equivalent of a true human. He is really
>conscious, and truly creative. But he's special, and the only one in
>his simulated world with those attributes.
I got that part. I just don't get why it matters.
>
>How does Perry know what 100% real humans act like? He has no
>reference standard of comparison. Even if we accept that they act like
>certain humans might, they lack the flexibility and spontaneity that
>real humans can manifest. They are far more limited than real humans.
>Perry, not having explored the real world, could not appreciate the
>difference.
>
Another baseless claim.
>
>No, that's PRISM's boundary, not the boundary of the real world. Any
>anyway, if PRISM had stayed in the real world, I think he would very
>likely have been a superstar. He probably could have gotten corporeal
>extensions all over the place... though he never considers that
>possibility.
A very nice gilded cage then. But still, he only goes where he is taken.
>
>Whatever the real world is, the simulation is less. PRISM could
>certainly have done with a LOT more investigation. His decision simply
>to timidly shrink back into his shell is the main problem.
>
Again, once I'm back in reality, I don't need to explore my dream to
tell that it isn't reality. Once Perry is back in the simulation, he
doesn't need to explore reality to knwo that he doesn't belong to it.
Besides, if you actually read the epilogue, I think it's fair tyo say
that PRISM had plenty of time to explore the real world before his
final decision to return to the simulation. He didn't "shrink back in
fear" from the real world. He had a look around, saw that he didn't
belong there, and was true to himself.
>
>When the whole capitalist system collapses in violent proletarian
>revolution, give me a call :)
Please, feel free to ignore the point. You're getting quite good at
it.
And I'm stating to get a little less polite than I'd like to be, so
I'd better end this post.
Heiko Nock
> On holy message sent. What pleasure s higher?
> Wherefore does any grief our joy impair?
> (J. Keats)
> Can't see how in view of the plot the game could plausibly end in a
> idyll. If this isn't irony, I don't know what.
Actually it's a similar ending as in Brazil.
--
Demokratie: Die öffentliche Meinung schlägt sich in Gesetzen nieder.
Diktatur: Die öffentliche Meinung wird in Gesetzen niedergeschlagen.
-- Lothar Schmidt
Christiane Schwind
> Christiane Schwind wrote:
>
> > On holy message sent.—What pleasure’s higher?
> > Wherefore does any grief our joy impair?
> > (J. Keats)
> > Can't see how in view of the plot the game could plausibly end in a
> > idyll. If this isn't irony, I don't know what.
>
> Actually it's a similar ending as in Brazil.
Yepp. (And just as controversial.)
Heiko Nock
>> > Can't see how in view of the plot the game could plausibly end in a
>> > idyll. If this isn't irony, I don't know what.
>> Actually it's a similar ending as in Brazil.
> Yepp. (And just as controversial.)
When I first saw Brazil's ending I became depressed for three days.
Meanwhile I've come to the conclusion, that it's actually a happy ending.
--
Will auch keiner etwas wissen von meinen geistigen Ergüssen
Ich halte dennoch nicht die Klappe, das ist der Fluch der Narrenkappe
Tut sie erst das Haupt bedecken, läßt sich gar nichts mehr verstecken
daß der Welt ich deutlich sage, was ich sonst tief im Herzen trage
-- Knorkator "Die Narrenkappe"
L. Ross Raszewski
I'll omit your summary of your own point of view because, obviously,
I can't argue that it's not your point of view.
>
>Now your counteragument comes to this: PRISM couldn't know which world
>was real. Even if he did know, he is perfectly justified in preferring
>his simulation world, because it is adequate to his needs, and moving
>out into the real world would be the true betrayal of himself.
>
I would say 'betrayal of his true self' rather than 'true betrayal of
himself', but otherwise, roughly.
I will point out that you use the word 'know' here, and further
down. I think that's a little misleading; it's fair to assume that
PRISM intellects which world has primacy, but what he 'knows' is not
relevant. The matter at hand (for me) is the relationship in which
Perry Simm exists with respect to the world. The fact that PRISM knows
that an outside observer (specifically, an outside observer who is not
a part of either world -- ie us) would consider one world to be 'real'
and the other to be 'not real' has no bearing on his own relationship
to the world.
Being is inherently 'being in a world' (see also 'Sein und Zeit',
Martin Heidegger). That is, Perry Simm's being is intrinsically wound
up in the world in which he exists -- the world of the
simulation. Abandoning that world is not simply a matter of altering
himself -- it's a fundamental destruction of his very being in favor
of a new being. To use your repeated suicide imagery, PRISM would
have to kill Perry Simm to give up the simulation.
>Why couldn't PRISM know which world was real? Because, you say, the
>real world appeared like a dream would appear to you or I. He had
>lived his whole life in the simulation world. How could he abandon it
>at a moment's notice? Wouldn't it be a normal human reaction to want
>to return to the familiar realm of a physical body and abandon the
>dark nightmare of being a cold, limbless computer?
>
>It might be a normal human reaction, but the question again is whether
>or not PRISM had enough reason to at least give the real world more
>consideration than he did. If he had such reason, but declined to give
>that consideration, we have to examine the reasons why.
Though this point of view has been expressed in this thread, it is not
mine. I haven't, as far as I recall, argued that chosing to remain in
the simulation would simply be a 'normal human reaction' --
indeed,this is more in line with your own point of view. What I claim
is that while you or I, being outside observers, can determine one
world to be objectively more real, it is not the case that Perry Simm
can subjectively percieve the real world as anything other than less
real.
This is not the same as saying that "Perry Simm thinks the real world
is a dream" or that "Perry Simm doesn't learn how to live in the real
world". It's more akin to the nature of an optical illusion.
Consider any classical optical illusion. If I explain to you how it
works, you do not suddenly see past the illusion and percieve "the
thing as it really is". You do not even, to use one of your common
concepts, come to this realization with time. The fact that you know
how the trick is done does not make you immune to it.
*And*, this inability to see past the illusion does not mean that you
are "unable to see the truth of it" -- the truth of the illusion *is*
the way it appears to you. There *isn't* some 'hidden truth' that is
hidden behind the illusion, there is only the illusion as it presents
itself (This is closer to Husserl than Heidegger).
>
>What reasons did PRISM have to believe that the simulation world was
>the realer of the two worlds? You said it yourself:
>* memory
>* his senses
>* his psychology
>
>What evidence did PRISM have to believe that the simulation world was
>the less real of the two worlds?
>
>* the fact that he was able to create and destroy worlds so easily in
>the simulation -- HIS OWN WIFE AND CHILD had reactions that he himself
>*witnessed* were manipulated by the computer! He did go back into the
>simulation even after the Project was implemented and checked things
>out; obviously his family and others he knew must have reacted totally
>differently (much more positively). Indeed, he goes and lives in this
>simulation finally.
>
Well, you do omit the idea, which I espoused at one point, that Perry
would view the simulations encountered in the main body of the game as
'degenerate realities' from his own.
>If parallel futures and the ability to jump ahead and live 60 years in
>the future aren't incredibly strong evidence that your world is a
>bounded construction, I don't know what is. If the ability to switch
>back and forth between the real world and the simulation world and SEE
>the effects that the real world has on the simulation isn't strong
>evidence, I don't know what is.
>
Well, you keep on making an argument here based on intellecting, and
I'm making an argument based on perception. I agree that PRISM almost
certainyl intellects the state of things. But nothing you've mentioned
has any bearing on his *perception* of reality. It's like the magic trick.
>* an explanation from Dr. Perelman that took into account and
>explained why his memory, senses, and psychology were as they were
>
Now, this isn't a very good justification either for changing Perry
SImm's knowledge, or his intellection.
>Now, did PRISM at least have a good suspicion that the simulation
>world was the less real? I think so. So how much time did he spend in
>the real world trying to evaluate things for himself? Less than a
>month! Not even 31 days! Is that really enough to see whether your
>entire world may be a fake?!
Absolutely. It doesn't take 31 days to realize that the sky is blue,
or that you don't like jazz, or that 'Survivor' is a really dumb
show, or (more relevantly) whether or not you can see and hear. Add
to that the fact that, as a computer, PRISM's experience of
the world is very different and human timescales don't apply.
>
>I think not. PRISM wanted to jump back more quickly than he should
>have -- but why?
As I keep saying, because his being wasn't being-in that reality.
>
>Well, the Project got implemented primarily because of PRISM's
>approval of it. He said that things went well in the simulation world
>with the Project in place. He had a good idea of what his position
>would be in the simulation world when he got back; he would be
>wealthy, famous, and would live in a land of practically infinite
>bounty and peace. He would be an author, living off accomplishments
>that he didn't actually achieve. Would the real world turn out to be
>so nice? PRISM didn't stick around to find out.
>
Right. Because how nice it turned out to be didn't matter one whit to
him. You repeatedly assault the simulated world because it's
*pleasant*. The fact that it was pleasant had very little to do with
the decision (of course, an unpleasant simulation would be one more
thing in the 'reasons not to go' column, but, otoh, I suspect Perry
would have preferred the simulation anyway).
It didn't matter how the real world turned out because it was not
*his* world.
>Even assuming that PRISM did not know about the real world's
>extraordinary richness, he had reason to investigate it further. The
>fact that he didn't coupled with his knowledge of the future in the
>simulation world explains quite clearly why he wanted to go back: he
>wanted to simply retreat into the plastic and silicon paradise that he
>knew he had setup. Understandable, but cowardly nonetheless.
>
You really don't understand at all. Any world I imagine (that is, a
dream-world) could contain extrordinary richness (Not the supposed
infinite richness of the real world, but nonetheless richness which
might interest me -- might interest me even more than whatever
richness I could come across in the real world), but you wouldn't
argue that I have any major reason to 'investigate' it to make sure
it's not the "real" world in which I should be living -- I can tell in
an instant that this is not the world that defines my being.
I think the most telling thing about your argument is this:
Suppose that we changed the ending to AMFV a bit...
In this new ending, after PRISM enters the new simulation, he finds
himself in a hospital. We discover that Perry Simm was in some
accident and recieved a massive concussion, resulting in severe
hallucinations, including a hallucination that he was actually a
computer living a simulated life.
Now, suppose, for the sake of argument, that we are told this in a
manner that makes it clear to us that this is the absolute truth of
the matter (That is, Perry Simm himself might have reason to question
whether this is really the case or not, but we as the readers know
absolutely that, in fact, we have been decieved, and Perry Simm was a
real human after all).
Does your argument still make sense? Not in the slightest. Frankly,
it wouldn't have been nearly so good a game, but if nothng else, you
would have no basis for your claim that Perry Simm was "cowardly" or
that he'd 'committed joybooth suicide'.
Consider, on the other hand, my position. My position still holds. The
only difference is that, from the third-person's perspective, Perry
Simm's perceptions where in line with reality rather than opposed to them.
>How about the idea that though the real world may be more variable in
>its choices, that the simulation world was still adequate to PRISM's
>needs. Well, many things may be adequate to a person's needs. The
>question is whether someone is willing to stick with what is adequate
>or explore to the furthest reaches of one's potential.
And here, you again insert the baseless claim that the simulation must
be too limited.
Now, you try to hide the baselessness of your claim by supposing that
any limit at all is 'too limited'. However, since you can't prove
that the Real Universe is indeed unlimited, and whether it is or not
cannot possibly influence you, because you'd have no way of knowing
whether it was or not, this doesn't make sense.
I submit that if Perry Simm 'explores to the furthest reaches of his
potential', he will *still* not slam up against the esdge of the
simulation. I base this on the fact that Perry Simm could remain
totally unaware of the fact that it was a simulation for the majority
of his life.
You claim that even though he cannot percieve the limits, they hold
him back. However, since you cannot establish that these limits
really do not exist in the real world, you have no way of knowing that
similar limits don't hold you back. There are *certainly* some limits
to what one can do inthe real world -- we call them the laws of
physics. We could characterize differences in the 'responsiveness' of
the simulated world as a sort of different laws of physics. Now, I
don't think it's fair to say that the laws of physics make for an
argument that the world is "restrictive".
>
>Joybooth suicide itself is a form of simulation that one can deny as
>"bad" on any kind of absolute grounds. It is a crime because it a
>person's denial of his own abilities and his own inheritance of human
>potential and the possibilities therein. That's what Perry took upon
>himself when he went back to the simulation world.
No. Perry Simm's human potential and human responsibilities are
determined by the world whuich defines his being. His being is defined
by the simulated world. It is the world in which his being is (Yes,
that's a horrible sentence). To deny that would be suicide.
>
>Now, specific points.
(oh god, I'm only halfway through)
>
>No, I don't see how the simulation could simulate a holy man. To do
>so, it would have to get into the mindset of a holy man. Many holy men
>claim that they have mindsets that are extraordinary and supernatural.
>Such things may not be able to be represented at all; they may be
>beyond representation. We just don't know. Humans can't represent what
>they don't know might exist.
When you speak to a holy man, do you percieve the divine in him? Do
you percieve that he is something more than a collection of
appearances and phrases?
Actually, you probably think you do. Now I get to add freud to the
list of thinkers who disagree with you.
The simulation needs not simulate that a holy man is divinely
inspired. It needs only simulate that he *acts as if* he is divinely
inspired.
Quite a few people believe that most (or all, depending on the person)
holy men are not, in fact, divinely inspired, but many of them will
grant you that they give that appearance. ANd it is certainly the
case, given the charlatains in the world, that one can give the
appearance of being divinely inspired without God actually talking to
you. You may suppose that "Deep down, I'd know if it was the real
thing" -- but here, even more thinkers disagree with you. *all* you
have access to is the appearance. The simulation can simulate the appearance.
>Fine, but there is more than enough evidence for PRISM to perceive
>that the simulation world must have extremely narrow boundaries--even
>if the doesn't necessarily reach them--compared to the real world;
>enough evidence that he should have explored the real world in much
>greater detail before making his decision.
>
This is not true. Like I keep saying, you can't percieve
infinity. Once you have seen as far as the eye can see, you *can't*
know that there's anything more to see -- you can suspect it, you can
deduce it, but you can't *see* it. (I am not speaking literally
here). There is no evidence in Perry Simm's normal experience (I will
exclude, for the sake of keeping things simple, the degenerate
simulations) that there are boundaries to his world.
>
>If I could reprogram you at the touch of a button, I think that would
>be grounds for rather serious doubts--don't you?
(1) Perry Simm can't reprogram the simulation. PRISM can't either. The
programmers can. But, of course, if I told you that I could
reprogram your friend, you'd tell me I was insane.
>
>Because I wouldn't want to live life loving, crying, kicking, winking,
>shaking hands with, having lunch with, talking with, or walking with
>lumps of rock who resembled humans quite closely.
*You'd* *never* *know*.
(Wait. you'll jump on that. *You'd* *never* *see* *it* *that* *way*)
>
>What's your argument? How can simulation humans be as flexible as real
>humans? They don't think! They're just facades; there's a "vacancy"
>sign behind those neon eyes. Perelman tells PRISM as much. What PRISM
>experiences in the simulation manipulations should have alerted him to
>the fact that Perelman was serious.
And Once Again.
You do not percieve (EVER) the fact that another person thinks, that
there's 'something behind the facade'. All you *ever* experience is
the facade, in this world or in a simulation.
>
>For 30 days? Oh that's a lot of time to make a decision on which
>reality to permanently inhabit of two to which you have equal access!
So, if he'd taken a year, you wouldn't object? I suspect that if the
epilogue had said that PRISM had hung around for ten years before
going back to the simulation, you wouldnt' change your tune at all.
>If I even suspected, I would take steps to learn much more! I wouldn't
>merely try to forget. That's understandable, perhaps, but certainly
>cowardly nonetheless.
If that was true, you'd spend yor entire life researchign the relaity
of things -- you must by now have at least a hint of suspicision --
like Descartes -- that everythign around you is just an elaborate
hoax.
Unless, of course, you Just Know that it's real; you Just Know it by
virtue of Being-in-a-world with it. That's the same kind of
relationship Perry Simm has with his simulation.
>
>That depends on whether I believed he was conscious or not. If I
>thought he was aware of me in some way, I would continue to care about
>him. Indeed, even if I had good reason to believe otherwise, I might
>never completely stop caring about him, but I would certainly place my
>priorities on beings that actually had an awareness behind the face.
And how do you determine that there's an awareness behind the face? I
mean, I'll grant you that you can often tell if there isn't. But how
could you ever tell that there *was* a consciousness, except by how it
acted?
>
>Well, he couldn't perceive the bounds because he lived in them. You
>can't know to look for what you haven't experienced. This is why his
>decision not to move into the real world for an extended period of
>time is so disappointing.
And suppose he had looked around the real world for a good long time,
and deterined that "There's no differences I can see, except that I
don't have a physical body here." -- Would you still make this
argument?
>
>Yes, they certainly do. Perelman says that Perry's robotic friends are
>NOT thinking. They are the random-driven, symbolic machines that are
>non-sentient. They existed only to give Perry fodder. Perry is
>special. Perry is different. Perry is the only one in his world who is
>conscious. The rest are all like rocks and stones, basically unaware.
But since all you ever see is how they act and react, and they clearly
*act* like they're real, creative human beings, there's no difference.
>
>Perry can be as creative as a human being but the rest of the
>population cannot be.
>
Yeah, but it's only Perry's creativty that's at issue; he doesn't
experience the creativty of others -- only the effects of that
creativity. The effects can be simulated.
>
>If it is, that's where he chooses to go. He lives in the third reality
>when he opts to go into 2091, a final simulation. He skips 60 years of
>his life in the process. Boy, that's a courageous choice. What
>happened to all his friends in those intervening years? Obviously that
>doesn't concern PRISM much. And does it concern him that none of his
>friends or family notice his absence?
>
It's worth noting that it appears (since Perry Simm isn't actually
surprised by anything he sees in the simulations), that in entering a
simulation, he also possesses the memories apropriate to beign a part
of that simulated world.
>
>Sorry, I think I missed this implication....do you know where in the
>story the implication of a resistance is?
I inferr the existance from the fact that the Powers that Be act as if
they are trying to put one down.
Joao Mendes
Hi, :)
shiv...@nobletree.com (Akilesh Ayyar) wrote in
news:3d36aa8a....@news.easynews.com:
> Yes, they certainly do. Perelman says that Perry's robotic friends are
> NOT thinking. They are the random-driven, symbolic machines that are
> non-sentient. They existed only to give Perry fodder. Perry is
> special. Perry is different. Perry is the only one in his world who is
> conscious. The rest are all like rocks and stones, basically unaware.
Hmm... Yes, sometimes I feel like this too... :)
J.
Adam Thornton
Heiko Nock <zif...@wtal.de> wrote:
>When I first saw Brazil's ending I became depressed for three days.
>Meanwhile I've come to the conclusion, that it's actually a happy ending.
I assume you mean the real ending, not the American ending.
It's the happiest of all possible endings, let's say.
Adam
Eytan Zweig
"Adam Thornton" <ad...@fsf.net> wrote in message
news:ah2lm3$amn$4...@news.fsf.net...
Actually, nowdays (at least according to both friends of mine who saw it and
the IMDB) most American editions also carry the original ending.
Eytan
Christiane Schwind
Please, can someone explain? I only saw *one* ending, don't know
which!
Christiane
Stephen Bond
> > >When I first saw Brazil's ending I became depressed for three days.
> > >Meanwhile I've come to the conclusion, that it's actually a happy ending.
> >
> > I assume you mean the real ending, not the American ending.
> >
> > It's the happiest of all possible endings, let's say.
> >
> > Adam
> >
> Please, can someone explain? I only saw *one* ending, don't know
> which!
SPOILERS FOR BRAZIL
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In the real ending, Sam is lobotomised and goes insane. He dreams
of escaping and living with Jill in some idyllic countryside, but
it's made quite clear that this is a dream. The movie ends back
in the interrogation chamber. This is the version you probably saw
if you are in Europe, but you can find out more about the other
versions here:
http://www.trond.com/brazil/b_faq03.html
I used to think this was a happy ending, by the way, but not any
longer. Living in a dreamworld isn't a solution for anything.
Stephen.
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~bonds/
Heiko Nock
> SPOILERS FOR BRAZIL
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> I used to think this was a happy ending, by the way, but not any
> longer. Living in a dreamworld isn't a solution for anything.
For Sam is is, since it's the only possibility to live with his love again.
And in the end that is all that matters.
--
"Ich gebe zu, das mit den "Fragen" war blöd. Aber mit ein bischen
nachdenken wäre mir sicher was noch blöderes eingefallen..."
-- Mike Ucker in de.soc.recht.misc
David Brain
(Christiane Schwind) wrote:
You really need to read the book "The Battle for Brazil" or look for the
excellent Criterion DVD release, which includes "both" versions of the film.
A grossly simplified version of some ludicrously complicated events follows.
Gilliam wanted the film to end the way you saw it, which is clearly the
artistically correct way for the film to end. The studio were horrified
when they saw the film and refused to allow the release despite the fact
that everyone else who had seen it realised it was close to a masterpiece
(flawed as it is.)
IIRC Gilliam hired a cinema in Los Angeles and paid to have the film shown
there for a week (the minimum requirement for Oscar nominations etc.) The
LA Film Critics Circle promptly gave it their Best Picture award and I think
it made it onto Oscar shortlists. Of course this put the studio in a rather
invidious position since they now *had* to release the film, which they did
rather grudgingly.
But for the film's US TV premiere someone hacked it about to produce a
shorter, slightly less complex version, known as the "Love Conquers All"
edition. This was apparently shown *once* on US TV and then consigned to
the dustbin of history, only to be resurrected for the DVD release (with a
fabulous commentary that points out exactly *how* the editor had
misunderstood the film.)
And if you think *that* is no way to behave, I urge you to see "Lost in La
Mancha" which is a documentary about the awful fate of Gilliam's "The Man
Who Killed Don Quixote". You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll see glimpses of
what might have been one of the great films, but most of all you'll come out
wondering how any movies get made at all. Ever. (I mean, this makes the
problems that beset "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" look like a
picnic...)
--
David Brain
London, UK
L. Ross Raszewski
>
>Perry Simm is a fiction. He existed only in the mind of PRISM. Thus
>PRISM would not have to kill Perry Simm, he would merely have to
>"shelve" him, the way you or I would shelve a video game. That's
>hardly killing someone.
If you really hold this view, that Perry Simm is not a person in his
own right, but an aspect of PRISM, then whatever PRISM may be, he is
*not* human, even psychologically. It's therefore silly of you to
suppose that he should be held to a human code of conduct or that his
actions should be judged by a human standard of 'cowardice'.
>
>And this inability to subjectively perceive the reality of a thing is
>of course the reason Perry decides to go back to the
>simulation...right? Perhaps in claiming this to be a normal human
>reaction, I was being overly optimistic about human nature. Humans
>certainly are often cowards. And I'll be the first to admit that I
>resemble that statement more often than I'd like. My point is not to
>condemn PRISM as a "bad" entity so much as to show that his choice was
>morally inappropriate--foolish, if you will, and impulsive.
Well, I won't keep trying to argue with you about whether 'the reality of a
thing' is something that one can ever actually know, because clearly
you don't think that way.
But I'm not sure it's legitimate of you to say "I'm not saying he's
bad, but he did do something morally reprehensible."
I doubt we will ever get anywhere in this discussion so long as you
force everything into your perception that there *is* an 'objectively
right' which one can somehow grasp.
I am not saying -- have never said -- that Perry Simm "did the human
thing by recoiling in cowardice from the real world in favor of the
pleasantness of the simulation". What I am saying, have been saying
all along, is that it is against his fundamental nature to exist in
the "real" world in such a way that he experiences it as real. There
is no honor in his "toughing it out" nor any cowardice in his
"returning to the simulation". He didn't make a choice representative
of his nature as a flawed, cowardly human being -- he made the only
choice possible due to his nature as *a conscious being* (I'd actually
prefer to say 'dasein' in those asterisks, but I thought I'd show a
little deference to the fact that not everyone has read Heidegger. If
you have, though, substitute that in there and hopefully the argument
will sound better. If you've only read Sartre, pour-soi works too, but
not as well)
>
>So the intellect should never trump perception, however wrong
>perception may be, right? The sun appears to revolve around the earth,
>therefore we should never question that, right? Why should we? Even
>when scientific calculations show that the Earth must indeed be
>revolving around the sun, the daily illusion never changes.
See, you're showing a misunderstanding of phenomenology on a number of
levels. First, the sun does not appear to go around the earth. I've
never seen the sun go around the earth. I've never seen the earth go
around the sun either. I see the sun over yonder in the morning, over
on the other side at sunset. The minute I say "this means that the sun
goes around the earth", I've moved beyong my perceptions and started
making speculations.
More to the point, though. Reduction ad absurdum doesn't work
here. The defining characteristic of 'reality', vis a vis people in
it, is that you are *in it* in a certain way. This isn't a matter of
'the true state of things being hidden by the illusion'. Reality
*is* your perception of it. The fact that I know the first letter on
the eye chart is 'E' doesn't mean I don't need glasses.
>
>I meant it to be in conjunction with the previous point. The previous
>point demolishes the idea that the simulation is real, and this point
>fills in the gap with new information. Thus PRISM is hardly stuck in
>knowledge limbo. He has a very good explanation of what is happening,
>should he choose to examine it.
>
But still irrelevant in terms of his perception. But, alas, I doubt I
could convince you on my stand toward perception of reality .
>
>Again, why was he willing to skip 60 years into the future? Why not
>rejoin "his" world from where he left it?
An interesting question, though I don't think it's one that is
relevant to this discussion.
I rather tend to think that PRISM's lifespan was shorter than that of
a normal human, and so chose to live out his remaining time in a
simulation that had been adjusted to account for his lifespan.
>
>There obviously is reason to investigate which is the real world if
>there is free switching between the worlds.
This would be a very compelling argument if Science Was All There Was
-- but the scientific method does not apply to the nature of reality
itself. Perry Simm's dilema is metaphysical, not scientific. There is
no 'I have seen evidence of X, therefore I must investigate in order
to see whether X' -- It's a phenomenological situation: "I see
X. Therefore X." You do not have to 'investigate' to determine
whether the world is real -- I 'freely' move back and forth between this
world and a number of dream worlds on a regular basis -- often several
times a night. But my belief that *this* is reality is not something I
'arrived at over time by collecting evidence': it's something I
*percieve*, something I know with the same immediacy as I percieve the
color of my screen.
>
>Of course I would have a basis. I still don't think PRISM investigated
>the real world adequately for one thing. Secondly, we have to examine
>the *reason* why he went back to the simulation world. He went back
>because he knew it was going to be paradise. He knew what was going to
>happen because he had tested it many times.
>
>My problem with PRISM's decision is that he shows no sign of real
>curiousity about his situation and that he goes back 60 years into the
>future knowing his place in the sun.
You keep changing your argument; sometimes it's 'He should have stayed
in the real world', sometimes it's 'He should have spent longer
deliberating on his decision', and sometimes it's 'The world he ends
up in is too pleasant.'
>
>Obviously as far as we know PRISM could not have had perfect objective
>knowledge of the reality behind the two worlds. But the same
>skepticism can be applied to every facet of human endeavor and the
>result will be a nihilistic negation of every bit of human knowledge.
Sort of.
Again getting some use out of all those philosophy classes I took:
The mistake Descartes made in his thought experiment was to begin with
the assumption that "the senses had decieved him" and to discard them
in favor of Pure Reason.
See, your senses don't ever really decieve you -- it's your reason
that decieves you. If I see something, then I *really do see it*. THe
things I can be wrong about are the conclusions I draw from these
noumena. (That is, it is not my perception that is at fault if I think
the earth goes around the sun. What is wrong is the *very long* chain
of reasonings I make:
Fact: I see the sun on the left in the morning, on the right in the
evening
Supposition: Doesn't look like I'm moving.
Conclusion: I am not moving
Sylogism: Either I or the sun must be moving
I am not moving
Therefore the sun is moving
...
Therefore the sun goes around the earth
Only the very first statement there is a fact. The senses do not lie.
The mind just makes more out of them than it should.)
It is absolutely the case that Perry Simm percieves the two worlds in
different ways. There is no room for him to take up cartesian or
nihilistic doubt about the fact that *he percieves them differently*
The one, he percieves in a certain way -- the way of *being in the
world*; that's what we measure reality by. It just so happens that
world he percieves himself as being-in is a simulation.
>
>What makes a joybooth worse than the real world? Why is joybooth
>suicide even a derogatory term? Because the joybooth is a limited
>thing that does not permit the individual to exercise his creativity
>and potential, that's why. That's why it's seen as hideous, and that's
>why PRISM should have had doubts.
Um... no. Joybooth suicide is considered a bad thing because it leaves
you dead. Because it involves taking yourself out of a world of which
you are a part.
>Right. We don't know the limits of the real world, but we DO know that
>by definition the simulated world must be smaller, since it FITS in
>the real world. The simulation is also limited because it is a
>SIMULATION; simulations aren't conscious and thus are not capable of
>real creativity. They are only capable of parroting someone's
>programming.
Will you please stop forcing me to repeat myself? 'We don't know where
the limits are' is not the opposite of 'we know limits exist'. You
keep playing them off as if they're in opposition. They're orthagonal.
The question can't be "do limits exist?"; the answers would be 'maybe'
and 'yes', but that isn't very telling.
The question has to be "where are the limits?" -- in that case, the
answers would be "I don't know" and "He doesn't know" -- that is,
they're the same.
>
>He certainly will slam up against the edge of things, but he won't
>know it. It's like the prisoners of Plato's cave, staring numbly at
>the shadows. They will never know what they are missing.
I don't get where this 'certainly' comes from.
And I don't get how it's relevant. If, as you say, he's slamming into
these limits, but doesn't know it, how is that different from the
possibility that *you* are slamming into limits and don't know it? I
know that "this is a real world so it doesn't have limits maybe" - but
by your very admission, we'd never know if it did -- we'd never
experience that it did -- we'd never percieve that it did.
>
>And even if someone tells them all the justifications for trying hard
>to free themselves, that there is a world behind them full of color
>and beauty, they will still insist that they see only the shadows. And
>of course they'll be stuck there.
Gee. That's pretty. Almost poetic.
You leave out the fact that if they ever *did* turn around and look at
the world, they would't 'recoil in cowardice' -- they'd go totally and
completely insane.
>We don't what the laws of physics are. And we don't know how they
>apply to that most interesting phenomenon called consciousness.
And we don't know how the limits of the simulation apply to *anything
at all* (because we, the readers, don't have that information)
>
>As above -- Perry doesn't exist. PRISM exists. Perry is a fiction,
>merely an alias, no more than a piece of clothing carelessly tossed
>off after an afternoon of muddy play.
Again. If Perry Simm is not PRISM, then PRISMs consciousness is
something other than human and it's inapproperiate to speak of his
decisions in terms of human morality.
>
>What I perceive of him may bear little or no relation to what he
>really is. What if there are paranormal powers that affect me in ways
>that I do not notice -- but affect me nonetheless? For example, let's
>say, hypothetically, that there was something called fate, and holy
>people had the power to change it. I might never know that my fate was
>changed, though changed it was, and due to a power I never knew
>operated.
Um... What then? 'THe holy man changes your fate via his spirituality'
and 'the simulated holy man changes your fate by altering the
parameters of the simulation' aren't perceptibly different.
>
>How would the simulation simulate something like that -- something
>which took place on a plane of which humans had no comprehension?
You've almost lost me. Do you think that if I replaced, say, the rest
of the universe, with a planetarium globe that perfectly mimicked it,
your life would be any different? THe fact that the stars are just
painted on and not the result of complex physical processes doesn't
have any bearing at all on what *you* percieve.
>
>The divine is, by definition, beyond the human. To program a
>simulation to act divinely inspired, a human would have to program
>what cannot be understood by a human, by definition. This is
>impossible.
>
That's ridiculous. If there is *no way* I can percieve whether or not
the holy man is truly divinely inspired, or simply a charismatic
schizophrenic, then it follows that there is nothing about him *as he
presents himself* that is outside the sphere of human understanding.
I can simulate *as he presents himself*.
>A human could program in his CONCEPTION of what the divine might be
>like, but god only knows how much of a relation that conception bears
>to reality.
>
So what? You keep shouting "THe simulated world cannot hold as much
wonder and mystery as the real one" The simulated world isn't the real
one -- why should it have the same gods? What's so important about it
holding *the same* wonder and mystery -- far better, in fact, for it
to hold a wonder and mystery all its own.
>People might be fooled, but that doesn't mean that there is no such
>thing as the truly divine, whether people know it or not.
No argument. But that doesn't change anything. What I'm saying is that
whether *all* holy men, *no* holy men, or *some* holy men are actually
divinely inspired, it changes nothing in how *we* percieve them.
(Yay. I think I brought Kierkeggard into the argument.)
>But PRISM has seen it, over and over and over and over again. The
>personalities, memories, and histories of people he knew well changed
>again and again. What more are they than cardboard cutouts,
>manipulable from a workstation, then?
He has? Really? I must have missed that.
WHat he sees is that he can move forward and backward in the
simulation's timeline.
>
>You're right, because in 10 years I would expect him to do some
>serious investigation and testing of the simulation world. He would
>have to show some excellent reasons why he still thought the
>simulation world was realer--reasons of which I cannot conceive.
He'd still need a reason? Even after ten years, "This Just Isn't
Where I Belong" isn't good enough?
You *still* labog under the delusion that there is something
*perceptibly "realer"* about the real world. There just isn't; that's
the nature of reality.
>
>I do :)
>
After this thread, I have serious doubts about just about
everything. Except, of course, theat Perry Simm didn't committ
joybooth suicide.
>
>Anyway, PRISM has far more than a hint of suspicion. He has a whole
>truckloads of the stuff, enough to fill barges, enough to fill up
>several landfills, and enough left over then to live comfortably the
>rest of his days by selling the rest.
Intellectual suspicion. But nothing at all has happened to alter his
fundamental perception of reality.
>
>How about the fact that it is programmed, and you can see the
>programming? You can't tell absolutely, of course. But you can make
>some good guesses. The amount of information shoved down PRISM's
>throat should have sparked some investigative instinct in him if he
>was really anything but a coward.
Ah, the C-word back again. Can PRISM see the programming? I mean, he
could be shown source code, but I can show you a print out of your
DNA sequence, and tell you, as a teacher would tell a fifth grade
science class, that it's like a computer program for a human, and I
somehow doubt it changes anything.
You also have this Noble Scientist's view of
investigation==bravery. Frankly, lots of people never investigate
*anything*, and this isn't borne out of cowardice.
>
>Yup, because he obviously is being deliberately dense. He is refusing
>to see the programming behind his simulated world, programming that he
>has seen in action numerous times.
Bzzt. You're again makign the assumption that the simulated world is
'smaller' than the real world in a way that can be percieved. But, as
I repeatedly have submitted, this cannot be the case if the simulated
world produced Perry Simm.
ALso, there's a great "anyone who ever disagrees with me is beign
dense because what I believe is Obviously True" argument in there.
>
>That assumes the programmers of the simulation can simulate another
>Leonardo da Vinci or Mozart. They might be able to emulate those
>people, but not create another genius of that magnitude. That sort of
>creativity, being really spontaneous (that's why it's so creative)
>cannot be captured in a program.
Like I keep saying. Whether the latest award-winning dada poem is the
product of a genius mind or a markovian relevance model is not
something that can be percieved from reading the poem.
>
>Well of course he's not surprised. He's checked out the simulated
>world several times (to make sure the "Project" went well). But since
>the simulation acts in real time, he couldn't possibly have had the
>time to live those 60 years in less than 31 days. So any memories he
>would have would be implanted; they would reflect an illusion, and a
>betrayal of his former 2031 identity in a much more insidious way than
>merely abandoning it as a videogame character.
What the hell?
The man's whole life is a simulation. 'We will alter your memory to
make it consistant with the world in which you live' isn't a betrayal
of identity -- it's the correction of a mental disorder.
>
>In short, PRISM seems perfectly willing to abandon his old "being" --
>the "being" that "is intrinsically wound up" in the simulation world
>of 2031. What happened to the Perry Simm of 2031? Disappeared into the
>mist, did he? Or must we unravel the "scarlet thread of murder running
>through the colourless skein of life"? ;)
Give it up. Waxing poetic isn't an effecitve way to hide your lack of
an argument.
L. Ross Raszewski
>On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 02:25:29 GMT, lrasz...@loyola.edu (L. Ross
>Raszewski) wrote:
>>If you really hold this view, that Perry Simm is not a person in his
>>own right, but an aspect of PRISM, then whatever PRISM may be, he is
>>*not* human, even psychologically. It's therefore silly of you to
>>suppose that he should be held to a human code of conduct or that his
>>actions should be judged by a human standard of 'cowardice'.
>
>the capacity to learn and grow. So does PRISM. PRISM has memories of
>humanity. It has language, rational thought, laughter, and the ability
>to understand the dilemmas associated with fleshy existence. All these
>are garnered from a false personality, true, but the personality can
>be shelved while the abilities and lessons retained. After all, the
>personality and the lessons are both attributes of something larger.
>
>Shelving Perry Simm means that PRISM can pick him up and remember him
>whenever he wants.
>
Um. I don't see where you're going with this. I'm just arguing that
if, as you say over and over again, that the human memories and
behaviors are somethign that PRISM contains, and can 'shelve', then
your entire 'joybooth suicide' claim makes no sense; PRISM is a
different kind of being from a human, and should not be bound by human
moral codes or human metrics of cowardice.
>
>To deny it is to deny everything. Of course we can admit that we don't
>know quite what it is, that we are fallible. But we pick ourselves up
>and go on with the best guesses available.
You're trying to be poetic again. The fact that you and I both see
somethign the same way doesn't mean that the way we see it has some
existance indepdent of us. People who think they have a handle on an
'objective truth' tend to be the dangerous sort.
>
>Sorry, but I'm not as familiar as I'd like with the continental
>philosophers. Let's stick with "conscious being." I really don't see
>why it is against his fundamental nature to pick the real world. Can
>you explain this in a little more detail? Yes, Perry Simm has been
>constructed from the simulated world. But Perry Simm's memories can be
>retained in the real world. Indeed, they are. Presumably, they are
>what coax PRISM into going back into the simulation. What's the
>problem, then, with simply retaining Perry's memories but choosing not
>to permanently re-enter the simulation?
Without dumping pretty much all of Heidegger on you, the fundamental
state of a 'conscious being' is being-in-the-world. That is, a
conscious being is fundamentally associated with the world. This isn't
something to do with memories; it's somethign to do with -- the best
word is probably 'orientation'. It's the state of
being-in-the-simulation which defines Perry Simm's being (And, of
course, I do not consider PRISM to be a superset of Perry Simm -- Yes,
PRISM and Perry Simm-as-simulated-human are not identical, but I think
it's fair to conclude that PRISM has no consciousness beyond Perry
Simm). That is, except as part of the simulated world, Perry Simm
does not exist as a conscious being (Before you even say it -- outside
the simulation Perry Simm is *not* failing to be part of the simulated
world; it is still 'against' that world that he exists).
Now, that explains (probably poorly, but usenet isn't a good format
for my explaining what it took Heidegger 500 pages to get down) why I
don't think Perry Simm could exist as part of the 'real' world.
For an encore, I'm going to explain why this *isn't* the same thing as
"Perry Simm has a fault in his nature that forces him to live in an
unsatisfying degenerate world.
The world (that is, reality) is, to the conscious being, a
phenomenon. The 'worldhood' (to use Heidegger's language. Well,
Heidegger's language was german, so. You can say 'reality' or
'real-ness' of you like) of the real world *comes from the fact that
you are in it*.
Consider, for a moment, the 'real world' of the game. We talk about it
as the 'real world' but it's not, of course. You and I talk about it
as real because we're told it's real, but we know immediately and
fundamentally that is isn't -- and this is not because we do research
and investigate all the evidence that it is fictional: we know it
isn't real because *we aren't in it*. Of course, the world seems real
to the characters because they are in it.
What I'm saying is that, whatever an outsider may think of things, as
far as the individual is concerned, the world is real *only* because
they are in it.
>
>Not really. You can simply sit there, if you're patient enough, and
>*watch* the sun move across the sky. In fact, though, the sun is not
>moving. The earth is moving. That's my point. Perceptions can deceive.
>Or take your example of optical illusions. It comes to the same thing.
>
Nope. You do not see the sun move. You see *the image of the sun
change its relationship to other images* It no more looks "like" the
sun is moving than, when you go for a walk, it looks 'like' the rest
of the world is moving around you. WHat happens is you see the images
change their relationship, assume yourself to not be moving, and
*conclude* that the sun is moving.
>
>I am saying that this is a shallow view of reality. Reality is more
>than perception. There is more to the out there than merely the
>sensory. That's my point. Not all of this extra-sensory stuff (or even
>any of it) can be known absolutely, but to deny it exists is to
>endorse an animal existence, if that.
Oh. And I'm saying there isn't.
I'm not saying that there isn't more in heaven and earth, mind you;
I'm just saying that the *reality* of the world -- what makes it real
-- is *purely* a perceptual phenomenon caused by your being in it.
(Incidentally, this connection is the reason I prefer 'dasein' to
'human consciousness', its usual translation. Dasein means, roughly
'there-being', and you can read the implication: consciousness *is*
the state of "being somewhere")
>
>Where's the evidence for this? Or is this pure speculation?
Well, as I said, I don't think it's relevant to the discussion. It's
just one of those conclusions I draw from logical deduction based on
the evidence (That is, Perry Simm experiences simulated time in
near-realtime: Perry Simm's final simulation simulates him as an old
man: Old men do not live as long as young men: Perry Simm will not
live all that much longer: backpatch)
>
>You're denying any form of knowledge beyond the sensory. PRISM would
>have to investigate not if Science Was All There Was but if Science
>Existed At All. I don't buy your basic contention here, but I'll
>address it further below.
>
You are so totally missing the point. What have I been arguing this
whole time? Only that the *reality* of the world is not something you
deduce, but that you percieve. Like blue.
>
>That's because all three arguments are true. He should have stayed
>longer in the real world to deliberate on his decision. If he had,
>that would have showed gumption; moreover, he could have realized the
>benefits the real world had to offer. The reason why the simulation's
>pleasantness is an issue is that it points to a very likely reason he
>returned: he wanted to live in paradise. He knew it was going to be
>paradise. It's no coincidence that he decided to go 60 years into the
>future when the Project was theoretically perfectly achieved. It's no
>coincidence he didn't start at 2031 when he might have had to labor a
>lot more for his gains.
No, all three arguments are wrong, and based entirely on your decision
to hate happy endings, totally in opposition to the themes of the work.
>
>Why stop here? Why not say then that one cannot make definitive
>statements even about what one's senses say? Any kind of knowledge
>requires time. For a human to know he is sensing something requires an
>instant in time. That requires memory. Memory is fallible.
Because it is not a conclusion. Because it is not based on memory. 'I
have seen X' is a conclusion. 'I see X' is not. It's a statement of
your perception -- a statement about reality.
>
>For instance, one cannot be sure that one's memories of a moment ago
>are real. They could have been fabricated and planted in one's head.
>In that case can one even say "I see the sun on the left in morning"?
>No. Even as one says the words, one is not sure whether they are true.
>One can only be sure of what one is seeing RIGHT NOW, this instant,
>but by the time even thinks that thought, the instant is gone.
>
You do realize that you're still trying to argue based on reduction ad
absurdum after I told you it didn't make sense to?
>
>>The one, he percieves in a certain way -- the way of *being in the
>>world*; that's what we measure reality by. It just so happens that
>>world he percieves himself as being-in is a simulation.
>
>What's "the way of being in the world"? And just because one perceives
>oneself in this way, is there no other way of being? Cannot one change
>oneself? People have grown up in provincial towns. They move to the
>city and their horizon expands in some ways and contracts in others.
>They've changed. Why couldn't PRISM do the same?
For the same reason you can't have your horizon 'expanded' by moving
to a planet with a methane atmosphere.
I don't want to repete the heidegger, so I'll foolishly assume that
i've explained 'the way of being in the world' by now.
>
>Life leaves you dead. Life is not considered a bad thing.
Fine.
But it's total bullsht for you to claim that the reason suicide is
considered bad is that it is 'refusing the infinite mystery and wonder
of the world' as you seem to claim.
>
>And the joybooth is part of the simulated world. Perry is familiar
>with it. So what's wrong with using it again?
>
Nothing's wrong with using it. Something's wrong with moving in.
>
>They are not orthagonal when that for which we do not know where, if
>they exist at all, the limits are, must necessarily be much less
>limited than the other thing.
Awwk! No parse found.
>
>But though we don't know the limits of the real universe, he could
>easily have discovered the limits of his simulated universe with a
>little investigation. A lack of conscious entities is a pretty serious
>limitation.
No. Reality is perceptual. The lack of conscious entities is not
percievable so long as there is the presence of the *appearance of
conscious entities*. You cannot argue that someone's experience of
reality is hurt by the absense things that they cannot percieve as
absent.
>
>Imagine a person born and raised among wolves. He never knows
>language, or the meaning of human companionship. Would he ever realize
>these lacks? No. Does that mean they don't affect him at every moment
>of his life? No.
>
>Imagine a person who has only ever used an old IBM XT, with
>accompanying software. She has never heard of, let alone used, a
>Pentium. Would she ever realize what she's missing? No. Does that mean
>that these limits don't shape her every moment of her life? No.
>
These are both ridiculous statements. Among the reasons is this:
Is your life limited by the fact that the matter transporter hasn't
been invented yet?
>
>The real world, is, at the least, much much less limited than the
>simulation world.
>
And a billion dollars is a lot less than a trillion. However, they're
both more than I am ever liable to have in my bank account. As far as
I am concerned, therefore, they are roughly equivalent amounts of money.
>
>I'm seeing your position more and more clearly. You believe people are
>rooted to their identity throughout their lives. They cannot move,
>they cannot change. They are who they are and that's that.
>Unfortunately, history proves you false. Many people have moved into
>entirely different lands, different languages, different cultures --
>as good as different worlds -- and made the transition successfully.
>There is no reason to believe that people are as static and easily
>broken as you believe. Indeed, humans make the transition from world
>to world just by growing up.
>
You intentionally fail to see the point more and more clearly, that's
what you do.
You have already stated, repeatedly, that we're not talking about
something that is like moving from one land, culture, language,
etc. If I supposed that someone choosing to remain in their homeland
after seeing all the "wonders" that, say, the united states had to
offer was being "cowardly", you'd rightly call me insane, or at the
least, short-sighted. We're talking about a choice whether or not to
*change one's plane of reality* -- it's more akin to someone choosing
to return to their life after, say, a near-death experience: would you
call them cowards for not choosing to face that undiscovered country
(one which many popular religions hold is even 'more real' than this
veil of tears)?
We're talking about changing the fundamental way in which Perry Simm
exists with respect to the world. If anything, your argument is that
he does not choose to transcend his reality -- that's not suicide;
it's self-preservation: transcending one's reality is something that
generally only happens by way of death.
>
>How would the simulation know what the holy man was doing to your
>fate? Humans can't see fate. They cannot know if it is being
>manipulated. Thus they cannot program it into their computers in the
>attempt to make their simulation realistic, because they cannot know
>if that is what happens in reality. For all we know, even the holy man
>himself may not know what he is doing, or if questioned may not be
>able to communicate it adequately.
You said it yourself. Humans can't see fate. All humans can see is the
effect on the outside world. You can simulate the effect. Whether or
not you simulate the cause is irrelevant to someone in the world.
>
>That assumes that you could create a planetarium globe that perfectly
>mimicked the rest of the universe. Again, just because *I* couldn't
>tell the difference, due to my limited knowledge, does not mean that
>the world I would have seen would have been different than the
>planetarium globe. Maybe something strange would have happened that
>human physicists would have had no clue about, and thus couldn't have
>properly mimicked. I would never know that that's what would have
>happened, yet it would have been a different future.
Um. Yes.
But you hold that this would be a degenerate future. I hold that this
is bullshit. If you'd never know the difference, that's *the same* as
it not being different.
I can't watch every television program that is aired. This doesn't
mean that I live in some degenerate reality where I don't have the
benefit of the mystery and wonder that exists on digital cable -- no
matter what Comcast says.
>
>You can emulate how others HAVE presented themselves. But that doesn't
>mean that you could simulate how he would present himself to someone
>new. It is just possible that the way holy people act has something to
>do with the situation? Is it possible that they might act completely
>differently in a different situation, and that the difference might
>not fall into any discernable, simulatable pattern? What then?
Then something would happen in the simulation that didn't happen in
the real world. THe simulation would contain something new that
couldn't exist in the real world.
Doesn't sound so 'limited' to me.
>
>Because the human ability to imagine mystery is limited by experience.
>Humanity has only experienced a tiny fraction of what's out there. And
>even that much Perry cannot meaningfully interact with. It will
>respond in a programmed way, and Perry, never knowing how the emulated
>object might have responded in the real world, will never be able to
>tell the difference, never know what he missed.
>
And I can generate an image of the entire universe from a small piece
of fairy cake.
>
>What he sees is that with different variables (future="Project" or
>future="Plan") the people he interacts with, *in the same (parallel)
>years* have had totally different experiences, totally different
>memories, and totally different personalities.
How is this different from if, say, Perry Simm was, say, a human time
traveller investigating the results of the project and the plan by
time travelling?
>
>You still labor under the delusion that perception is all there is for
>us to base our actions on.
As opposed to what?
Not reason, clearly; one can't reason past one's inability to
percieve, and one can't deduce metaphysics.
The only thing I can think of is some kind of Extraordinary Experience
-- God coming down and saying 'THIS IS REALLY IT!' -- Though I can't
posit whether such a thing would actually happen, or in what way it
would distinguish itself from a simulation of same.
>
>Heh. Trust an argument to shut off any possibility of changing
>anyone's mind.
>
It is quite probably time to end this, since it's clear that neither
one of us is going to budge (This, of course, is because you're
stubborn and I'm right :-) ), and I think the spectators have all
taken sides by now.
But I'm determined to get some use out of that philosophy minor.
>
>If by changing DNA you could erase people, transform reality to make
>it as if they had never existed, I would have even more serious doubts
>about the reality of this world than I already do :)
Supposing again I had a time machine at my disposal, this would be
fairly easy, but, I think, still not enough to convince you that
reality Wasn't.
>
>>You also have this Noble Scientist's view of
>>investigation==bravery. Frankly, lots of people never investigate
>>*anything*, and this isn't borne out of cowardice.
>
>That's because most people aren't slapped in the face like PRISM was
>with evidence that their world is a fraud.
>
I am unsure of this. I think it's the sort of argument like the recent
one beginning 'Most people don't read because they were never shown
the wonder and majesty of it'
>
>If I didn't believe it was obviously true, I wouldn't claim he was a
>coward. If a perfectly normal 30-year-old decided to jump off a cliff,
>what would you conclude? Right. He wasn't perfectly normal after all.
>Obviously.
I also wouldn't conclude he was a coward.
Whatever I did conclude, though, would be a conclusion. Not The Truth
Of Things.
>
>Like I keep saying, you can't perceive what would have been had things
>been different. But the real world is definitely different from a
>simulation, that much is for certain.
No disagreement here. What I disagree with is that it is 'less good'
from the perspective of someone in it ('good' isn't a great word, but
I think it carries the right connotation. Yes, it's smaller. Yes, it
isn't infinite. But less able to allow one to self-actualize (Wow. Now
Maslow's involved!)? We can't know that, though the story gives us
reason to assume otherwise. Less able to seem like a reality to a
human inside it? Definately not, if we pay any attention at all to the
story. So 'good' is the best word I can come up with that captures the
subjective comparison between the two worlds)
>
>No, it's not. Perry could have chosen to return to 2031 reality, where
>no memory alteration would have been required (if indeed any memory
>alterations were performed in the first place).
>
>He CHOSE to live 60 years in the future. He CHOSE to abandon his
>friends and family over that time period, to have them live a life
>without him. He CHOSE to have a simulated past, a past which he did
>not actually carry out, even in the simulated world.
>
>So he CHOSE to abandon his previous identity and assume a new one --
>an author, rich, famous, adored in an extraordinary world. Not a poor
>broken 20-year-old after the death of a friend.
>
It is not entirely clear to me how much say PRISM had, exactly, in the
specific parameters of the final simulation, but that's neither here
nor there.
I think it's folly to say 'didn't really happen not even in the
simulation'.
And I still don't think any of this is relevant.
>
>And telling me to give it up is not an argument. PRISM chose to
>abandon 2031 Perry and live 2091 Perry. That is, according to your own
>argument, a betrayal of his identity, and it goes to strongly confirm
>that thing about joybooths and suicide that I keep talking about.
I was wondering when you'd get back to claiming random things support
your joybooth suicide claim. I do appologize for the 'give it up'
thing; I thought I'd try spouting random things, since an ordered,
philisophically grounded rebuttal of your claims wasn't pushing thigns
forward.
Every time you try to say that something is 'according to my own
argument', you demonstrate that I am either making my point poorly, or
that you simply have a totally irreconcilable concept of one's
perception of reality.
Matthew Murray
> Shelving Perry Simm means that PRISM can pick him up and remember him
> whenever he wants.
PRISM is not interested in remembering Perry Simm--PRISM wants to
live as Perry Simm, because PRISM spent over twenty years of his life
believing he WAS Perry Simm. Perry Simm IS his life. I fail to
understand why this concept is so difficult for you to grasp.
> retained in the real world. Indeed, they are. Presumably, they are
> what coax PRISM into going back into the simulation. What's the
> problem, then, with simply retaining Perry's memories but choosing not
> to permanently re-enter the simulation?
Because Perry Simm, then, is no longer living. PRISM wants to
continue LIVING, he does not want to be content with solely remembering
things he used to do. He wants to go back to the world of Jill, Mitchell,
and their children and grandchildren. He wants to go back to the world
where he was a writer and explored the infinite possibilities of
creativity in a way that simply isn't possible living existence as PRISM.
He wants to continue to progress forward, not stay where he is.
> >I rather tend to think that PRISM's lifespan was shorter than that of
> >a normal human, and so chose to live out his remaining time in a
> >simulation that had been adjusted to account for his lifespan.
>
> Where's the evidence for this? Or is this pure speculation?
How many computers have you personally come in contact with that
have continued to live and work for 70-100 years?
> >You keep changing your argument; sometimes it's 'He should have stayed
> >in the real world', sometimes it's 'He should have spent longer
> >deliberating on his decision', and sometimes it's 'The world he ends
> >up in is too pleasant.'
>
> That's because all three arguments are true.
No, all three arguments are NOT true. Each of the arguments is
what you are arguing, but because you believe them does not make them
true, any more than believing that the sun moves around the Earth makes
ThAT true.
> He should have stayed
> longer in the real world to deliberate on his decision
How long is long enough? An extra month? An extra year? An
extra decade? If memory serves, A Mind Forever Voyaging already spans a
few months as it is. How much time would be enough for you to find
acceptable? I'm guessing that you would be unsatisfied with the way
things turned out regardless, merely because it goes against your own
personal beliefs and perceptions.
> If he had,
> that would have showed gumption;
So, he would only have shown gumption because his choice agreed
with yours? Interesting.
> moreover, he could have realized the
> benefits the real world had to offer.
What benefits does the real world offer him? He's a big COMPUTER.
He can't leave the PRISM complex. He can't explore. He can't love. He
can't feel. He can't create in the same way he could as Perry Simm. He
cannot live the life he spent over twenty years believing he was living.
The real world has nothing to offer PRISM that he wants.
> The reason why the simulation's
> pleasantness is an issue is that it points to a very likely reason he
> returned: he wanted to live in paradise.
Cite proof of this, please. This is never mentioned in the game.
NOT ONCE.
> He knew it was going to be
> paradise.
There is no proof of this in the game either.
> It's no coincidence that he decided to go 60 years into the
> future when the Project was theoretically perfectly achieved.
You're right, it's not. Because he had lived through the
simulations leading up to 2091 in testing the Project. He did not need,
or most likely want to, live through things again he had already lived
through once. He wanted to move forward. You DID read the introductory
text to the epilogue, right?
> It's no
> coincidence he didn't start at 2031 when he might have had to labor a
> lot more for his gains.
In all seriousness, did you play the game at all? He had already
lived through 2031. And 2041. And 2051 through 2081 under the Project.
He wanted to continue life from the point where he stopped testing the
Project.
> For instance, one cannot be sure that one's memories of a moment ago
> are real.
Can one really be sure anything is real?
> What's "the way of being in the world"? And just because one perceives
> oneself in this way, is there no other way of being? Cannot one change
> oneself? People have grown up in provincial towns. They move to the
> city and their horizon expands in some ways and contracts in others.
> They've changed. Why couldn't PRISM do the same?
Because he didn't want to. He wanted to live the life he had been
bred and conditioned to live--and HAD lived--for over twenty years in the
simulation before the story begins, and through the testing of project,
which added an additional sixty years of experiences and memories to him.
He has approximately 80 years invested in the world of the simulation, and
you want him to just throw it away?
> And the joybooth is part of the simulated world. Perry is familiar
> with it. So what's wrong with using it again?
What are you talking about? What does this have to do with
anything?
> But though we don't know the limits of the real universe, he could
> easily have discovered the limits of his simulated universe with a
> little investigation.
In your opinion. It's supported by nothing in the game. He never
found them within the 20 or so years he lived life as Perry Simm before
the game started, there is no reason to believe he would ever find them
afterward. You are only claiming he would find those boundaries because
you, as an outside observer, can see where they might lie. But there's
nothing to suggest they would appear to anyone in the Simulation.
> The real world, is, at the least, much much less limited than the
> simulation world.
In your opinion. Are boundaries and limits that don't affect you
really boundaries and limits?
> I'm seeing your position more and more clearly. You believe people are
> rooted to their identity throughout their lives. They cannot move,
> they cannot change. They are who they are and that's that.
He has never argued this. Not once. I have read every single one
of his posts in this thread, and he has never said this or anything like
this. Do you feel so insecure about your argument that you must lie about
his in order to support your own views?
> Unfortunately, history proves you false. Many people have moved into
> entirely different lands, different languages, different cultures --
> as good as different worlds -- and made the transition successfully.
Right. And many people have chosen to stay with what is familiar,
what is comfortable, what they want, and what will make them happy. Are
those people less human because they made different choices?
> There is no reason to believe that people are as static and easily
> broken as you believe. Indeed, humans make the transition from world
> to world just by growing up.
Please give me exactly quotes where he has ever said this. With
attributions, please.
> How would the simulation know what the holy man was doing to your
> fate? Humans can't see fate. They cannot know if it is being
> manipulated. Thus they cannot program it into their computers in the
> attempt to make their simulation realistic, because they cannot know
> if that is what happens in reality. For all we know, even the holy man
> himself may not know what he is doing, or if questioned may not be
> able to communicate it adequately.
Huh? Are you serious?
> You can emulate how others HAVE presented themselves. But that doesn't
> mean that you could simulate how he would present himself to someone
> new. It is just possible that the way holy people act has something to
> do with the situation? Is it possible that they might act completely
> differently in a different situation, and that the difference might
> not fall into any discernable, simulatable pattern? What then?
You have completely and utterly lost me.
> >After this thread, I have serious doubts about just about
> >everything. Except, of course, theat Perry Simm didn't committ
> >joybooth suicide.
>
> Heh. Trust an argument to shut off any possibility of changing
> anyone's mind.
He is not doing anything except stating a fact. Perry Simm does
not commit joybooth suicide at any point during the game. That is not
opinion. That is fact.
> Like I keep saying, you can't perceive what would have been had things
> been different. But the real world is definitely different from a
> simulation, that much is for certain.
It is different from a simulation for someone in the "real world."
For someone in the simulation, are they not one and the same?
> He CHOSE to live 60 years in the future. He CHOSE to abandon his
> friends and family over that time period, to have them live a life
> without him. He CHOSE to have a simulated past, a past which he did
> not actually carry out, even in the simulated world.
Except he actually DID live in the simulated years between 2031
and 2091 in testing the Project. Or, as suggested above, did you not read
the introductory text to the prologue?
> So he CHOSE to abandon his previous identity and assume a new one --
> an author, rich, famous, adored in an extraordinary world. Not a poor
> broken 20-year-old after the death of a friend.
He didn't do anything of the sort. The Perry Simm of 2091 is the
outgrowth of the previous sixty years of simulations that led up to the
Epilogue we see. The experiences were real to him, and since he had
tested the project, he knew what happened in the previous six decades.
Why repeat them? Why not start fresh when he would be able to have new
experiences?
> And telling me to give it up is not an argument. PRISM chose to
> abandon 2031 Perry and live 2091 Perry.
Except that, no, that's not what happened. You're ignoring the
sixty years of simulated data that created the 2091 Perry. The 2091 Perry
is the extension of the 2031 Perry. Pure and simple. Reread the
introductory text to the epilogue if you don't believe that PRISM had been
testing the simulations up to that point.
> That is, according to your own
> argument, a betrayal of his identity, and it goes to strongly confirm
> that thing about joybooths and suicide that I keep talking about.
It confirms nothing, because PRISM does not commit joybooth
suicide during the game. This is confirmable in the game, whether you
like it or not. Joybooth suicide is something utterly different, and the
simulations are not joybooths. This seems to be the vital part of the
argument you keep missing.
----------------------------
Matthew A. Murray
matthe...@mindspring.com
http://www.matthewmurray.net
----------------------------
John W. Kennedy
> The senses do not lie.
> The mind just makes more out of them than it should.)
Though not disputing your main point, this is not strictly true; the
senses themselves often lie, as you yourself will realize if you think
back to certain 8th-grade science experiments.
--
John W. Kennedy
Read the remains of Shakespeare's lost play, now annotated!
http://pws.prserv.net/jwkennedy/Double%20Falshood.html
L. Ross Raszewski
<jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>L. Ross Raszewski wrote:
>> The senses do not lie.
> > The mind just makes more out of them than it should.)
>
>Though not disputing your main point, this is not strictly true; the
>senses themselves often lie, as you yourself will realize if you think
>back to certain 8th-grade science experiments.
>
Though I think I know what you're getting at, I don't recall any
eighth grade science experiments that established that if I see blue
I'm not really seeing blue, or that when I see a pencil in a glass of
water, I don't really see a bend in the pencil. The mistake isn't
that I don't see what's really happened, it's that I assume what I see
to mean something that it doesn't.
The senses don't lie. The mind screws up when it tries to turn the
sensations into a Hypothetical World.
Ce n'est pas un pipe.
DJohn37050
inherent in the object.
Don Johnson
DJohn37050
context. We see something as blue or red, etc. based on teh background
lighting, etc. Monet showed that with his painting last century, get with it.
Don Johnson
L. Ross Raszewski
Bzzt. That's not a lie. The lie is your reason telling you that the
blue you see has something to do with the object.
And, for that matter, your claim that 'color is just in your head' is
a nice clever thing to say on the scientific basis that 'color is a
human perception of a wavelength of light', but you could as easily
say "width is just in your head" or 'texture is just in your head' or
anything else you like.
Color certainly is something inherent in the object; it's a function
of how the object absorbs and reflects light, among other things.
Your senses aren't lying when they say you see blue. You don't sense
that said blue is "something inherent about the object"; that's
reasoning about your senses -- you just sense blue.
Adam Cadre
> Though I think I know what you're getting at, I don't recall any
> eighth grade science experiments that established that if I see blue
> I'm not really seeing blue
An especially apropos example given that my understanding is that you're
color-blind. So (and this is an hypothetical, not a prediction): I hold
up a red apple. You and eleven other people look at it. The other eleven
say it's red. You say it's gray. But yet, you contend, your senses are
not lying, because it is a fact that you *are* seeing gray. It is *not*
the case that you are seeing red and think you're seeing gray; you *are*
seeing gray. Ergo, no lie. Am I right so far? (About the issue of
sensory truth, not about what you actually see in real life when you
look at red apples.)
If so, I'm not sure what the import of the statement "senses don't lie"
is. In fact, it seems to me to be a nonsense statement, as the senses
*are not setting forth a proposition* that is true or false. The
senses, as you've framed them, are not saying, "That apple is gray";
they are saying "gray" (or, rather, saying something non-verbal, the
best verbal equivalent to which is "gray"). "Gray" is not a statement
that can be declared true or false. So senses cannot lie, sure, but
neither can they tell the truth. The same way that when my cat says
"meow" it is neither lying nor telling the truth. No?
-----
Adam Cadre, Holyoke, MA
http://adamcadre.ac
John W. Kennedy
But what about the cold-water/hot-water->warm-water experiment? Or the
two-pencils-in-the-small-of-your-back experiment? Or the persistent
complementary-color spot, or the pencil rubbed between two crossed
fingers. Or the Martian "canals"? (Not the theories about them, but
the plain fact that so many astronomers _saw_ them.)
DJohn37050
field of view, but if something is there, watch out.
At Disney World, there is something called a sensorium, which is great. They
had one object that had 2 sets of tubes wrapped around a cylinder. One tube
was warm, the other ice cold. Touching both make you sense HOT and I mean HOT.
I have thought they would use this method on interrogation subjects and it
would not even leave a mark, but the subject would think they were being burned
alive.
This works because the senses send a CODE along the nerves as to what they
sense and in normal life there are no objects that alternate warm and ice cold
so close together.
Don Johnson
L. Ross Raszewski
>
>Well, I've never claimed that PRISM was a human. But he certainly has
>a human personality, a human intelligence, and all the other mental
>attributes of a human. I don't see why he shouldn't be bound by
>"human" ethics; there is, in other words, no reason to believe "human"
>ethics cannot just be named ethics in general.
Wait; you just claimed that the human aspect of PRISM is something he
can switch off and put away.
>
>What is the ultimate purpose of ethics, anyway? To allow one to be the
>most dynamic, creative and harmonious entity one can be. I don't see
>why this would apply any less to PRISM than to a human.
>
Only if you're aristotle. If you're anyone else, the purpose of ethics
is to keep society from falling apart.
>
>OK, then he can continue to exist "against" that world forever. PRISM
>can always remember his life in the simulation, and always use that as
>a reference point if he so desires. It would probably happen
>automatically.
Not if he gives decides to stop living in it and to start treating the
outside world as a 'real' world. I have a hard time believing that
you'd think it was kosher for PRISM to stay in the real world but to
do so despite never actually feeling that the world was real.
>
>By your definition, then, as soon as PRISM is in the real world, he
>should have no desire to re-enter the old simulation world, since that
>is not real. And as soon as he enters the simulation world, he would
>have no desire to re-enter the real. Sorry, but that's a bit absurd.
>You picture PRISM as having no rational capability.
Sigh. I really am going to have to recite all five hundred pages of
Being and Time to you. PRISM is not 'in' the real world in the same
way that he is 'in' the simulated world.
And 'rational capability' (Wow, you're a *really* ahardcore
aristotelian, aren't you?) doesn't enter into it. Reason can't change
the basic facts.
>
>Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming? It is a well-known phenomenon
>that occurs when people realize that they are dreaming *within* their
>dreams. How does that square with your concept that a world is real
>just because you are in it?
>
Perfectly. You realize it's a dream because you aren't 'in' the dream
world the same way that you're 'in' the real world.
>So is it coincidence that for most of human history most civilizations
>were heliocentric? Why was THAT the intuitive position? Why was THAT
>the first conclusion? It's because there's something in the way that
>the images change their relationship that makes it seem as if the
>OTHER is moving. The assumption that you are not moving doesn't come
>from nowhere; there is something of that inherent in the perception.
>
No. There's nothing about the perception that tells you that. What
tells you that is reason. The reason that the opinion that the sun
goes around the earth surfaced first is because it's a simpler thing
to reason.
>
>I think this is rather doubtful. Perelman says near the end of the
>game: "...his final request: to live out the remainder of his days --
>and how long that might be, nobody knows -- simulating his human
>existence."
>
>I think this implies rather strongly that Perry doesn't necessarily
>have human limits to his existence, and if he did, no one knows that
>they exist.
>
Yeah, but you also think that the story in any way shape or form
supports your joybooth suicide hypothesis, so I'll take your opinion
of what implies what with a grain of salt.
>
>OK. So you have reduced human knowledge to what the senses say RIGHT
>THIS SECOND and nothing else. Lovely.
You enjoy misrepresnting me, don't you? Can you really not see past
Pure Reason? *I'm not talking about human knolwedge* *I've never been
talking about human knowledge*. I'm talking about metaphysics.
>
>
>You do realize that it is not reductio ad absurdum because your
>argument is absurdum to begin with? :)
Well, except for the fact that my argument has the weight of modern
philosophy behind it, whereas yours contradicts pretty much every
major thinker since aristotle.
>
>Yet PRISM is able to live 30 days in the real world. Could he live 30
>more? Yes. And 30 after that? Yes. I don't see where it would stop.
>
YOu could live indefinately in a methane atmosphere if you were
wearing an environment suit. But you wouldn't really be 'living in'
the methane atmosphere. You'd be a sort of permanent tourist, always
separated from the world by a shield which you can't put down because
to doso would be suicide.
>
>But that IS the reason it's considered bad. Why do people consider
>cocaine addicts to be wasting their lives, but don't feel the same
>about mystics who claim to experience higher levels of reality?
>Leaving aside the issue of whether the mystics are fooling themselves,
>the fact is that intuitively, we don't feel the mystics are wasting
>their lives EVEN IF they are leaving this reality for another,
>different one. It's because the mystics are exercising a longing for
>truth, beauty, and reality -- in other words, attempting to explore
>the infinite mystery and wonder and themselves and the real world.
>
BUt people who take drugs like marijuana for spiritual reasons are
similarly condemned.
And people who committ suicide for religious reasons are likewise
condemned.
Cocain addicts aren't condmened because htey're not
self-actualizing. THey're condemned because they're a burden and
hazard to society.
>
>My apologies :). What it says is: the real world is less limited than
>the simulated world. Much less limited.
Oh. Nontheless, still irrelevant.
And you don't know how much less limited it is. The real world might
well be just slightly larger than the simulated one.
>
>PRISM can't know what real conscious entities are like without
>spending substantial time in the real world and without investigating
>the limitations of the simulation programming. Without doing these
>things, he would of course not perceive the limitations of the
>simulation cardboard cutouts.
You inasist that these limits are perceptabile purely on the basis of
"Well, I think *i'd* know". There's no grounds. No justification.
ANd you're still relying on this attitude that reality is rational,
and so "he should have investigated"
You're further making the bullshit assumption that "If he'd
investigated, the real would would have 'obviously' shown itself to be
better."
>
>And yes, I am definitely arguing that someone's experience of reality
>is hurt by absent things that they cannot perceive as absent. That's
>been a crucial part of my argument all along. Ignorance is not bliss.
>What you don't know can hurt you, although you may not realize the
>extent of the injury.
That's like saying that the aliens are using thought-control rays to
affect you.
And, you once again reduce everything to reason. 'Ignorance' implies
that knowledge ais at hand here. It's not. Perception is.
>
>Of course it is. History has been molded by limitations like these. It
>used to be that a mountain range was a near-impenetrable barrier to
>travel, trade, and communication. People used to spend months or years
>going from one coast of the United States to the other. World history
>has been shaped by, as one author puts it, the tyranny of distance.
>
So, do you lament every day how your life is ruined and limited by the
fact that the matter transporter hasn't been invented yet? No; the
limit you don't percieve doesn't *hurt* you. It would be ridiculous
for me to say that you were a fool or a coward for not, say, havign
youreself frozen so that you could live in a less-limited world where
matter transportation existed.
>
>You would be wrong. If you had a billion dollars in the bank account,
>you would merely be one of the richest people in the world. If you had
>a trillion dollars in the bank account, you would probably have more
>liquid money than the majority of nations. You might potentially have
>much more influence -- or at least attract much more attention -- than
>a mere billionaire.
Possibly. But *I'm never going to have either anyway* (Perhaps it'd
have been better if I said 'trillion' and 'gazillion'), so this
difference means nothing to me.
>
>Only if there was good evidence that the next world was a higher
>reality. In this case, there is good evidence that the real world is a
>higher, richer reality than the simulated world.
>
No, there's no perceptual evidence that one world is higher or richer
than the other. One can reason this based on the idea that the one
contains the other, and contained things are smaller than containing
things (Excluding dimentionally transcendent things, of course). But
that's not the same as evidence.
>And it's interesting that you use the "death" experience as an
>example. What if you retained all your memories in the death
>experience? What if you realized that all the humans you had
>interacted with were hollow ghosts, but that in the world after death
>things were different? What if you realized that you couldn't have any
>real impact on this world, but things were different for the next? If
>all these were the case, then yes, I would definitely say that it was
>cowardly to come back to this world.
>
I don't see how this is signifigantly different from the near-death
experience. For that matter, it's *exactly* what several major
religions preach.
And you're the only person I've *ever* heard call coming
back from a near-death experience cowardly.
>But that's not typically what people who have had near-death
>experiences report. And, you will notice, no major world religions
>that I know advocate suicide or anything less than a hearty
>appreciation for life.
Religion is full of suicide cults, of traditions of human sacrifice, etc.
>
>>
>>We're talking about changing the fundamental way in which Perry Simm
>>exists with respect to the world. If anything, your argument is that
>>he does not choose to transcend his reality -- that's not suicide;
>>it's self-preservation: transcending one's reality is something that
>>generally only happens by way of death.
>
>If it's suicide, what is it that transcends the reality? There is
>something common between what was transcended and what comes out on
>the other side. That's the true identity.
>
Ooh. Magic true identity!
>
>I see you're still not getting my point.
>
>Let's compare.
>
>Real world:
>Your future is X.
>You meet holy person.
>Holy person changes your future to Y in some paranormal way.
>
>Simulation:
>Your future is X.
>You meet holy person.
>Simulation cannot know that holy person has paranormal power.
>Your future stays X.
>
>See the difference?
I see that you want a difference to be there, so you put it there.
Your future is X.
You meet holy person
Simulation rolls 3d6
Your future is Y
>
>You wouldn't know the difference.
>
>But there is a difference.
>
>A big difference.
Why do you care? ANd how could you, who prize reason so highly, make
a decision about how to live your life based on somethin you'd never
percieve, never know, and have absolutely no evidence for believing
even exists?
>
>That's simply not true. A person born a slave might never even
>conceive of being free. Does that mean they're missing nothing?
A person who's born blind might never even conceive of seeing. Does
that mean he's living a lie? A degenerate life? That his life is
incomplete, inadequate?
>
>Your inability to watch all television programs is indeed a very real
>limitation on your abilities. You can only be in one place at once.
>You can only pay attention to so many things at once. If you don't
>think these limitations shape your life drastically, you're not
>thinking hard enough.
Shape. But should I lament them? Should I *care* about them? These
limitations are defining characteristics of myself. They *make* my
world, not limit it.
>
>It doesn't mean you're living in a degenerate reality. This world
>could only be degenerate in comparison to another, better world. And
>there would have to be evidence that that other, better world was in
>fact richer and more significant than this world. To do that at the
>very least that world would have to show how this world depended on
>it.
>
'And there would have to be evidence'. SUppose this better world
transcends logic. THat is, the laws of logic are a limitation, and,
therefore by your reasoning, something that a better plane of
existance would do without. But, if it did, then your logical
argument "That universe would have to contain this one to be better"
is totally invalid.
But logic doesn't play that way. YOu aren't allowed to question
logic. You aren't allowed to trascnend logic. Why, logic even limits
God Himself. At least, so says logic.
>
>Oh, it's very limited. Just because something happens in the
>simulation that's different from the real world doesn't make it less
>limited. That's like saying that if the only thing could people say in
>the simulated world was "Blah," that that would show the simulation
>world not to be limitated. After all, that would be impossible in the
>real world, right? People wouldn't just have one vocabulary world in
>the real world. But that doesn't mean that the simulation world is
>less limited.
Hey, I know, I'll make up a silly example and claim it invlaidates
your point. Even your much touted logic has to admit that a
counterexample doesn't disprove existance.
>
>You would have to show time travelling to be possible, and under what
>parameters. You can't use a hypothetical device which we don't even
>understood to bolster your argument.
>
THen we can't have this argument (Thank God!). The simulation itself, and Perry
SImm himself, are just hypothetical devices.
Wait. I get it.
You insist that the simulation must be "close to" what we in our own
world and time can make a simulation to be. THat's why you consider it
a necessary truth that the simulation must be bitingly limited (You've
already conceeded --indeed, made the claim repeatedly thinkign it
weakened my argument -- that the real world has limits too. But you
haven't proven that the limits of the real world are somehow friendly
happy limits whereas those of the simulation are Evil Biting Limits)
>There's no evidence that time travelling exists in the world of the
>game, and we really have very little understanding of it, if any at
>all, in the real world.
We also have no idea how to make a computer with a Real Human
Consciousness -- in fact, we know that it really *can't be done* in
the sort of computing paradigms we currently use.
>
>That's because there's no evidence that time travel is really
>possible. It all resides as possibilities within the minds of
>theoretical physicists, right now.
>
There's no evidence that Perry SImm is possible.
You can't seriously think it's reasonable to say that the ground rules
for this discussion are "Things known to us, plus a conscious
computer".
Wait -- you *do*. Because you're tyrying to not allow a simulation
whose limits are sufficiently distant.
>
>Well there's more than wonder and majesty to reading. There's also
>plenty of utility. But there are reasons that even people who have
>been exposed to all of these don't read. Perhaps some lack the time.
>Perhaps some have learning disabilities. But in absence of all of
>these mitigating circumstances, and depending on the knowledge I had
>of the situation, I might have to chalk it down to laziness.
As opposed to Just Not Liking It Very Much.
Unless you want to elevate reading to some Special Position (which you
[probably do), I can make exactly the same argument about Playing
Soccer, Firefighting, or Karaoke.
>
>I wouldn't conclude he was a coward, either. My point is that
>believing something to be obvious is natural in some circumstances.
>The adult is obviously not normal. PRISM is obviously being a coward.
No. PRISM is obviously not normal.
>
>Obviously. What's your point? That unless we are talking about The
>Truth Of Things we shouldn't put forth our ideas? I don't have to
>preface my every opinion with "in my opinion." With value judgments,
>that's assumed. That doesn't make value judgments unimportant.
Oh, I haven't argued that you shouldn't put forward your opinion. But
you certainyl shouldn't put it forward as THe 'obvious truth',
especially since you admit it's an opinion.
What I'm doing is arguing that your conclusion is Totally Wrong,
Contradicts the Story in Every Major Regard, and Shows a Totaly
ignorance of modern metaphysics, psychology, and one or two other
things.
>
>No, I would say that it is less able to allow one to self-actualize.
>You may climb to some heights, in the simulation, but it's quite
>possible that you would have climbed to much higher heights in the
>real world. How can a simulation, admittedly without thinking
>creatures, rival real people for the joy and challenge of
>interactivity. How can a simulation, admittedly based on limited human
>knowledge and imagination, ever rival the real world for depth of
>mystery?
>
>Take an example: let's say one decided to become a physicist in the
>simulation world. Let's say one were investigating the quantum theory
>of gravity or some other such cutting edge possibility. How would the
>simulation world respond to such experiments? How would it know what
>to do?
>
>Even if you say that scientists could run the experiment in the real
>world and feed the results in (which obviously couldn't be in real
>time), there are still other problems.
>
>What if crucial to the experiment was a machine that could only be
>constructed out of some material that, unbeknowest to the simulation,
>lay undiscovered on some deserted beach in Norway? How would the
>simulation simulate that? How would the physicist ever be able to find
>that critical material?
'you could maybe climb higher heights in the real world' isn't a valid
argument. We assume that the nature of the simulation is such that you
can climb just as high. THe difference is that in the real world, when
you have climed as high as you can, there's a mile of climbing left
that you can't do, and in the simulated world, there's only fifty
yards.
>It's not clear, but I think that since it is PRISM's final request, it
>can be very safely assumed that he had control over where in time he
>wanted to go. Why *wouldn't* he have such control?
>
>Are you telling me that if PRISM said, "I want to rejoin my family
>where I left off," that that request would have been rejected? If
>PRISM didn't make his request that specific, that itself is a fault.
You neglect that he's already experienced the Project simulation in
the intervening years as part of testing it. He'd hardly want to
rewind time and live those years "over again", since he already has
lived in them and has knolwedge of what will happen.
>
>How can you not think it's relevant? Let's review your argument.
>
>Perry is PRISM's real identity. Perry is formed by "being in the
>world" of the simulation. To abandon that world would be to kill
>Perry. Thus PRISM should stay in the simulation world.
>
>But of what is the world of the simulation comprised? Are you telling
>me that the time in the simulation world has nothing to do with what
>it is?
>
>Are you telling me that Perry's *circumstances* in the simulation
>world have nothing to do with his being in the world? That the family
>and friends that he *interacted* with over 20 years have nothing to do
>with anything important?
>
>Are you telling me that the fact that Perry lived his life day by day
>and constructed it of it his own free will has nothing to do with the
>"orientation" of Perry in the simulation world?
>
>Aren't these critical?
>
Yes. I just don't think it has any impact on your point. Important and
Relevant aren't the same thing.
>Aren't these part of the reason why he shouldn't go into the real
>world? And if they are, *why did he abandon them*, of his own
>volition? Why did he venture into another time, where the family,
>friends, and circumstances he would encounter would be changed by
>SIXTY years of absence, unfaced challenges, and unearned rewards? Is
>that what you call being true to oneself?
Like I said. He lived in the intervenined years, albeit briefly. You
keep calling him a coward for wanting to live in the pleasant future
-- but that's a future that only has a *probability* of beign
pleasant. He already experienced the simulation of the intervening
years. He already has the memories associated with them. If he were
to go back to the simulation at the time he left it, he'd be going to
a world where he *knew* how things were going to turn out. Not a world
where "things look like they're going to turn out well", but where
things *are* going to turn out well, because he's already seen the end
of it.
Eytan Zweig
"Akilesh Ayyar" <shiv...@nobletree.com> wrote in message
news:3d40173b....@news.easynews.com...
> On Sun, 21 Jul 2002 18:49:52 GMT, lrasz...@loyola.edu (L. Ross
> Raszewski) wrote:
> >>That's simply not true. A person born a slave might never even
> >>conceive of being free. Does that mean they're missing nothing?
> >
> >A person who's born blind might never even conceive of seeing. Does
> >that mean he's living a lie? A degenerate life? That his life is
> >incomplete, inadequate?
>
> it in other ways. We're all handicapped one way or the other, though.
> None of us is the ideal person. But given the choice to move from a
> more limited to a less limited situation, we should generally take it.
>
> >>
> >>Your inability to watch all television programs is indeed a very real
> >>limitation on your abilities. You can only be in one place at once.
> >>You can only pay attention to so many things at once. If you don't
> >>think these limitations shape your life drastically, you're not
> >>thinking hard enough.
> >
> >Shape. But should I lament them? Should I *care* about them? These
> >limitations are defining characteristics of myself. They *make* my
> >world, not limit it.
>
> to be more than you are right now, to know more than you are right
> now, to be happier than you are right now? You have no urge for
> self-expansion?
>
Ok, I've been following this discussion with interest but not much to say,
but I feel I should chime in here. As for your first question (do I want to
stay in the world of finitude) - absolutely. Does that contradict expansion?
of course not. I can expand within the paremeters afforded me in the world I
live in (read more books, play more IF, learn more skills and language,
acquire more friends, gain weight, lose weight, etc.) I have no desire, and
in fact a strong distate for the idea of, expanding in any other form. My
boundaries give me form, coherence, definition, identity. By breaking my
boundaries, I destroy myself. I would rather be myself, and limited, than be
unlimited, and no longer myself.
Of course, not having played A Mind Forever Voyaging, I don't have any
opinion whether the philosophy inherent in the game leans towards your view
of this matter or mine. Given how many words have been exchanged in this
thread without either side referring to in-game evidence, I assume that it
doesn't really provide a clear view of either.
Eytan
Matthew Murray
> Ok, I've been following this discussion with interest but not much to say,
> but I feel I should chime in here. As for your first question (do I want to
> stay in the world of finitude) - absolutely. Does that contradict expansion?
> of course not. I can expand within the paremeters afforded me in the world I
> live in (read more books, play more IF, learn more skills and language,
> acquire more friends, gain weight, lose weight, etc.) I have no desire, and
> in fact a strong distate for the idea of, expanding in any other form. My
> boundaries give me form, coherence, definition, identity. By breaking my
> boundaries, I destroy myself. I would rather be myself, and limited, than be
> unlimited, and no longer myself.
>
> Of course, not having played A Mind Forever Voyaging, I don't have any
> opinion whether the philosophy inherent in the game leans towards your view
> of this matter or mine. Given how many words have been exchanged in this
> thread without either side referring to in-game evidence, I assume that it
> doesn't really provide a clear view of either.
Well, that's because it's not exactly the focal point of the game.
One could argue that it's the focal point of the full game experience,
which includes the packaging and the epilogue, but in terms of what you
actually play, it's not really a goal. You portray PRISM, a sentient
supercomputer testing the Plan for Renewed National Purpose, who, in
simulations is someone named Perry Simm. In actuality, PRISM was given
birth to and his mind 'programmed' through approximately 20 years in the
simulations, the extensions of which test the Plan, and later the Project,
the world under which is the subject of the epilogue, which has been much
discussed in this thread.
The whole idea of "boundaries" as it's currently being discussed
is not exactly one that appears in the game itself and, in fact, why it's
even an issue I'm not really sure. (Does anyone remember how we got onto
this particular aspect of the discussion?) Akilesh Ayyar claims that the
boundaries of the simulation are far too limiting for Perry or anyone, and
that PRISM should never have chosen such a limitation, even though, as has
been pointed out time and time again, Perry is not able to ever reach
those boundaries because of the way the simulation is programmed. The way
I see it, there are effectively NO boundaries in the simulation from
PRISM's perspective as Perry. So, the way I see it, Akilesh Ayyar is
attempting to argue that no boundaries whatsoever are somehow limiting.
If you ever figure this out, will you please explain it to me?
By the way, if you have any other questions about the game, please
let me know. I highly recommend you play it, but of the 200+ computer
games I've played over the last 18-19 years, AMFV is far and away my
favorite.
L. Ross Raszewski
points I felt most merited it.
On Sun, 21 Jul 2002 20:20:33 GMT, Akilesh Ayyar <shiv...@nobletree.com> wrote:
>There's also a difference between a trillion and a gazillion, and
>between any number and any other. What would a gazillion dollars mean?
>Does that mean wild inflation? Does that mean extraordinary riches?
>You're groping in the dark here.
How about a trillion and a trillion-and-one? Is the difference signifigant?
>
>There's a reason these aren't major world religions, right?
>
Yeah. Because they got irradicated by the europeans. This is a good
thing?
(You thought I was talking abotu crazy little cults, didn't you? When
I said that, I was specifically thinking of the South and Central
American ancient civilizations; the Inca, Aztec, and Maya all
practiced human sacrifice. For that matter, so did the Greeks, though
not with quite the fervor.)
>
>Yes. It's unfortunate he's living a blind life, but he can make up for
>it in other ways. We're all handicapped one way or the other, though.
>None of us is the ideal person. But given the choice to move from a
>more limited to a less limited situation, we should generally take it.
Except that, as i said before, there is clinical evidence this is not
true, *specifically* in the case of someone who is blind.
>
>So you want to stay stuck in the world of finitude? You have no urge
>to be more than you are right now, to know more than you are right
>now, to be happier than you are right now? You have no urge for
>self-expansion?
>
To be happier than I am, sure. But how much more happiness there is
in the world than I could possibly have doesn't matter to me.
To know more than I know, sure. But how much knowledge is out there
that I'll never have doesn't matter to me.
>>Unless you want to elevate reading to some Special Position (which you
>>[probably do), I can make exactly the same argument about Playing
>>Soccer, Firefighting, or Karaoke.
>
>I said that they might lack time. Why would they lack time? Perhaps
>it's because they are occupying themselves with other worthwhile
>activities.
That's not good enough. If I had all the time in the world at my
disposal, it wouldn't make me want to play soccer or fight fires. (I
would probably spend quite a bit of time singing karaoke, however)
How about 'they just can't derive any pleasure from the act'? Isn't
that a good enough reason not to do it?
Mapping this back to your view on AMFV, though, I suspect you'd think
something like "It's inconvievable that anyone wouldn't enjoy
reading. The only people who claim not to simply haven't read enough
to realize that they really do enjoy it." -- which is an argument I
could make about soccer or karaoke (Though I'm only liable to make the
argument in the latter case. Everyone loves karaoke.)
>A good analogy would be: in the simulation world you have three paths
>you can take, while in the real world you have three million. And then
>the moment you take your first step down any path, there are another
>three paths that confront you in the simulated world. In the real
>world there are another three million.
>
>If you had lived your life in the three-path world, you might never
>know the joy of living in a world with three million paths.
>
>Obviously, the exact scale I chose (three and three million) is
>arbitrary, but the point remains.
No; the scale *is* at hand here.
It doesn't matter how many paths there are; I can *only walk down one
of them*.
I live in a world with three million brands of toothpaste. I do not
derive any joy from the fact that I don't live in a world with only
two million brands of toothpaste. This is because I only use one brand
of toothpaste, and because one hundred brands of toothpaste are
already more than I can consider when choosing which of these I'll use
to clean my teeth.
>Let me try again (again, with your premises):
>
>1. Perry's identity is in the world of 2031 simulation
>2. Perry leaves that world
>3. He enters the simulation 60 years later
>4. This is another world
>5. When you leave your world for another, you are killing your real
>identity
>6. Therefore he is killing his identity
>
4 is false. I just don't know how to say this in a way that will
convince you.
>
>He has only a few days worth of memories.
This is obviously untrue; when Perry enters each of the simulations of
the main game, he has memories relevant to that period (For example,
he remembers buying the book found in his apartment in 2041 regardless
of whether or not he actually did this during the 2031 simulation
(plus or minus 10 years))
>
>Only on the broad macroscopic scale, and only if you believe that the
>simulated world is so limited Perry's presence has no effect on its
>future.
Um... It doesn't.
Not the big stuff, anyway.
Just like my life doesn't directly affect the major points of culture
in our time.
Oh, sure, it could. Perry could run for political office, become a
military leader, start a revolution. In fact, it wouldn't be too hard,
since he has memories of how the future will tend toward ending
out. But that would be cheating, wouldn't it?
History has some weight to it.
>7b. Your hypothesis: he does so because he doesn't want to see the
>future as it already might have happened. Seeing the future before it
>happened would deprive him of the pleasure of seeing new things and
>facing new challenges.
>8b. This means he did it because it was pleasant.
Wait. That's cheating.
If you can draw your conclusion 8b, then I can draw this:
suppose PRISM had stayed in the real world...
7c. PRISM stays in the real world because it offers him the pleasure
of seeing new things and facing new challenges
8c. This means he did it because it was pleasant.
>Anyway, what do you call killing yourself for pleasure? Whether one
>adopts your premises or mine, the answer comes to the same.
(Actually, killing yourself for pleasure is never called suicide,
except in the joybooth situation. )
Furthermore, I never said he as killing himself. Because, y'know, he's
not.
Final point to ponder -- What's your opinion of hermits who
permanantly withdraw from the world; they choose to forsake social
interactions -- the area in which you say the simulation is *most*
limited, and pursue lives which are devoid of any interest in the
external world, becoming totally internalized.
I suppose that's suicide too.
L. Ross Raszewski
>
>Of course, not having played A Mind Forever Voyaging, I don't have any
>opinion whether the philosophy inherent in the game leans towards your view
>of this matter or mine. Given how many words have been exchanged in this
>thread without either side referring to in-game evidence, I assume that it
>doesn't really provide a clear view of either.
>
Actually the game is totally clear in this; it's a happy ending. It's
your reward for winning. The argument isn't so much about what the
game thinks, but whether the game is 'right' to think it. (Very early
in the discussion, there was some claim that the authors were 'typical
liberal boneheads' or somesuch for making the 'happy ending' end like
that)
Christiane Schwind
Thanks a lot to Stephen Bond and David Brain for help with Brazil!
Good stuff there. Yes, its the European release I saw. Can't believe
what Sheinberg did to it *shudder*.
Christiane
Christiane Schwind
On Sun, 21 Jul 2002, Matthew Murray wrote:
> In actuality, PRISM was given birth to and his mind 'programmed'
> through approximately 20 years in the simulations, the extensions
> of which test the Plan, and later the Project, the world under
> which is the subject of the epilogue, which has been much
> discussed in this thread.
Is he testing an actual "Project" in the end, or just being gently
shelved? I believe that was one of the questions which triggered this
thread.
On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Eytan Zweig wrote:
> Given how many words have been exchanged in this thread without either
> side referring to in-game evidence, I assume that it doesn't really
> provide a clear view of either.
Well, I did bring in in-game evidence (see previous posts), trying to
show that there is an allover context of death, which seems to suggest
that the scenario of the epilogue is one of death as well (a virtual
after-life, heavily ironic in my view).
On Monday, 22 Jul 2002, L. Ross Raszewski wrote:
> Actually the game is totally clear in this; it's a happy ending.
This sounds pretty apodictic to me, seeing that a couple of people
here have pronounced a different view and have presented arguments,
including in-game evidence (see above), to support it.
Christiane
Nele Abels
[Hollywood ruins "Brazil"]
> Actually, nowdays (at least according to both friends of mine who saw it and
> the IMDB) most American editions also carry the original ending.
There seems still to be hope for American culture... :/
BTW, I have heard about a watered down US remake of the fabulous
British series "Cracker", starring Robbie Coltrane. The series is about
an alcoholic and gambling addicted psychologist who assists the police in
understanding the criminals' minds. The series is one of the most brilliant
police series I've ever seen. Does anybody know about the US remake? I've
never seen it, only heard about it.
Nele
--
Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -
they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
Matthew Murray
> On Sun, 21 Jul 2002, Matthew Murray wrote:
>
> > In actuality, PRISM was given birth to and his mind 'programmed'
> > through approximately 20 years in the simulations, the extensions
> > of which test the Plan, and later the Project, the world under
> > which is the subject of the epilogue, which has been much
> > discussed in this thread.
>
> Is he testing an actual "Project" in the end, or just being gently
> shelved? I believe that was one of the questions which triggered this
> thread.
The testing of the Project occurs between Part III and the
Epilogue. This is explicity stated.
Christiane Schwind
> On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Christiane Schwind wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 21 Jul 2002, Matthew Murray wrote:
> >
> > > In actuality, PRISM was given birth to and his mind 'programmed'
> > > through approximately 20 years in the simulations, the extensions
> > > of which test the Plan, and later the Project, the world under
> > > which is the subject of the epilogue, which has been much
> > > discussed in this thread.
> >
> > Is he testing an actual "Project" in the end, or just being gently
> > shelved? I believe that was one of the questions which triggered this
> > thread.
>
> The testing of the Project occurs between Part III and the
> Epilogue. This is explicity stated.
I may be missing something. Is this the passage you have in mind
(between Part III and Epilogue):
"PRISM, the supercomputer who exposed the Ryder scandal, will soon be
granted his final request: to live out the remainder of his days --
and how long that might be, nobody knows -- simulating his human
existence. PRISM, who recently received the Congressional Medal of
Honor as well as a citation from President Bowden, has been spending
much of his time in simulations, giving top grades to the
administration's new program to replace the discredited Plan.
"At a press conference in Rockvil, Doctor Abraham Perelman, one of the
creators of PRISM, insisted that the world's first intelligent machine
was, in fact, quite human." The picture cuts to Perelman, standing
behind a podium. "His body may be silicon and steel," Perelman is
saying, "but in his heart he's as human as anyone I've ever met. As
PRISM prepares to embark on his final voyage of the mind, I'd like to
read a line from 'Hamlet' as his epitaph, so to speak: 'He was a man,
take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.'"
The image from the WNN Feed suddenly blinks off, and you find yourself
back at the entry level of Communications Mode. The list of outlets
indicates that none are currently active. A message is coming in:
"PRISM, programming of the Simulation Controller with the parameters
of the New Plan is complete. Everything is set for you to enter
Simulation Mode. From all of us here at the PRISM Project, thanks and
farewell."
So, the parameters of some "New Plan" have been programmed into the
Sim Controller. I can't find any clues to what this "New Plan" is
supposed to be outside this passage. And what the passage says is that
PRISM has requested "to live out the remainder of his days ...
simulating his human existence". That seems to be all the "New Plan"
is about: the granting of PRISM's final wish (a sort of deathbed
wish); no more than the simulation of a happy life for Perry Simm.
Nothing to do with any "real world" projects as far as I can see.
There's no mention of a "testing" situation either.
If you're thinking of a different passage or found more evidence
elsewhere, please let me know!
Christiane
L. Ross Raszewski
>Honor as well as a citation from President Bowden, has been spending
>much of his time in simulations, giving top grades to the
>administration's new program to replace the discredited Plan.
This is pretty darned explicit, if you ask me.
Matthew Murray
What, then, is your interpretation of: "PRISM, who recently
received the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as a citation from
President Bowden, has been spending much of his time in simulations,
giving top grades to the administration's new program to replace the
discredited Plan." To me, it can't possibly get more clear than that.
Christiane Schwind
> What, then, is your interpretation of: "PRISM, who recently
> received the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as a citation from
> President Bowden, has been spending much of his time in simulations,
> giving top grades to the administration's new program to replace the
> discredited Plan." To me, it can't possibly get more clear than that.
See the point, and see my mistake. Yes, there has been another
simulation, of a "new program", but I didn't think that was identical
with the "New Plan" of the last part of the passage. Perhaps because
of the words: (the) "programming of the Simulation Controller with the
parameters of the New Plan is complete". I took this to mean that an
entirely new sim world was programmed for Perry's "retirement". But I
see now the "programming" probably just concerns the circumstances of
Perry's life in the final sim (his age, the starflight etc.), and the
"New Plan" *is* the "new program". OK, so I guess you're right. But
I'm not sure what to make of it.
Perry's sim life in the epilogue, then, is his way of taking part in a
(more or less) ideal world he himself helped to establish? The ideal
final sim *is* a mirror of an *actually* redeemed and equally ideal
"real world"?
Somehow I find it hard to believe in such a degree of optimism in an
otherwise very dark game of this quality. Makes me think of the "Love
conquers all" version of Brazil (*shudder again*). And what do you
make of those ever-present meta-messages of death?
L. Ross Raszewski
<c_sc...@gmx.net> wrote:
>See the point, and see my mistake. Yes, there has been another
>simulation, of a "new program", but I didn't think that was identical
>with the "New Plan" of the last part of the passage. Perhaps because
>of the words: (the) "programming of the Simulation Controller with the
>parameters of the New Plan is complete". I took this to mean that an
>entirely new sim world was programmed for Perry's "retirement". But I
>see now the "programming" probably just concerns the circumstances of
>Perry's life in the final sim (his age, the starflight etc.), and the
>"New Plan" *is* the "new program". OK, so I guess you're right. But
>I'm not sure what to make of it.
I wondered about that for a while myself. I think the simplest
conclusion is that the final programming mentioned in that paragraph
is the programing of the final time zone -- akin to how the time zones
of the mid-game come on-line in succession.
>
>Somehow I find it hard to believe in such a degree of optimism in an
>otherwise very dark game of this quality. Makes me think of the "Love
>conquers all" version of Brazil (*shudder again*). And what do you
>make of those ever-present meta-messages of death?
>
Well, an important thing to remember is that AMFV *isn't* apocalyptic;
it's not takign the stand that things are going to go downhill and the
world's going to hell and there's nothign to be done about it. The
'dark' part of the game is really constrained to just the one
section.
For several years (Well, that's a stretch; the commodore broke down
and I didn't play it again untill Masterpieces came out), I didn't
complete the first simulation, and was a little troubled
(thematically) that the plan broguht about this fairly pleasant world
(rather than the not-very-nice one of the sample transcript)
Christiane Schwind
> Well, an important thing to remember is that AMFV *isn't* apocalyptic;
> it's not takign the stand that things are going to go downhill and the
> world's going to hell and there's nothign to be done about it
I agree with your point (PRISM saving the world from the evil "Plan"),
in fact I agreed with *that* all the way. But that's not my problem
now. See, my misreading allowed me to assume that while the "Plan" was
dismissed, the epilogue's paradisical scenery existed in sim only, and
"real life" was probably still a rather instable thing (just the
immediately imminent danger averted for the time being). Now it seems
I have to accept that the "New Plan" has established True Paradise On
Earth (with some probability at least). That's different from the game
merely not being apocalyptic.
And the paradisical state of affairs appears to be final, doesn't it?
I didn't see that before, either. No more simulations appear to be
necessary, PRISM gets sent on his "final voyage". If we were to assume
that there was another, say more modern, system to take over, I think
the game would say so. This is not just not apocalyptic, but
positively apotheotic, the world saved and the saviour upsoaring
and darting into the Eastern light...
I see I'll probably simply have to swallow this, but can't help, it
feels Wrong.
Hey, I so *want* to keep liking the game!
L. Ross Raszewski
<c_sc...@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>And the paradisical state of affairs appears to be final, doesn't it?
>I didn't see that before, either. No more simulations appear to be
>necessary, PRISM gets sent on his "final voyage". If we were to assume
>that there was another, say more modern, system to take over, I think
>the game would say so. This is not just not apocalyptic, but
>positively apotheotic, the world saved and the saviour upsoaring
>and darting into the Eastern light...
>
>I see I'll probably simply have to swallow this, but can't help, it
>feels Wrong.
See now, I find this attitude sort of intereasting; it harkens back to
what I said near the beginning of this thread: a lot of people have a
hard time liking utopian views of the future.
And, of course, we really don't see enough of that world ourselves to
distinguish "perfect future world" from "substantially nicer future
world than the present one".
Actually, it might have been nice to see a 'control simulation', since
it's sort of implied that if they did *nothing*, the world was going
to go to pot too.
John W. Kennedy
> Eytan Zweig wrote:
>
> [Hollywood ruins "Brazil"]
>
>
>>Actually, nowdays (at least according to both friends of mine who saw it and
>>the IMDB) most American editions also carry the original ending.
>
>
> There seems still to be hope for American culture... :/
>
> BTW, I have heard about a watered down US remake of the fabulous
> British series "Cracker", starring Robbie Coltrane. The series is about
> an alcoholic and gambling addicted psychologist who assists the police in
> understanding the criminals' minds. The series is one of the most brilliant
> police series I've ever seen. Does anybody know about the US remake? I've
> never seen it, only heard about it.
It wasn't too badly watered down, by US standards -- nothing at all as
bad as the two US versions of "Fawlty Towers" or the US version of
"The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin". It starred Robert Pastorelli
(best known for his role on "Murphy Brown"), and Robbie Coltrane guest-
starred on it once as a villain.
A somewhat similar premise has just appeared in "Monk", starring
Tony Shaloub as a police detective with a severe case of
obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Lucian P. Smith
a while?
At any rate, there is a parallel here that I'll throw into the mix: The
Truman Show. If the end of AMFV were to be translated to that movie, at
the end, Jim Carrey would say, "You know, you're right," and sail back
across the lake to his home to finish his life in his old house. He'd
know everything was scripted, but hey, it's all designed with him
expressly in mind, and he has legions of adoring fans.
I can see some people thinking this would be a win, actually. The 'real
world' didn't seem that nice a place, and being pampered can be cool. He
certainly wasn't prepared for life on the outside, either.
But I dare say lots of people would have thrown popcorn at the screen.
It's about growing up, stepping out of the nest, taking risks, expanding
your horizons. It's not for everyone. But it's what I hope I'd do.
-Lucian
Christiane Schwind
On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, L. Ross Raszewski wrote:
> See now, I find this attitude sort of intereasting; it harkens back to
> what I said near the beginning of this thread: a lot of people have a
> hard time liking utopian views of the future.
That may be true, but doesn't apply right now. There are two different
issues here: Yes, I find it hard to *believe* in eu-topies, but no, I
have no problems listening to them and enjoying them if they're well
and consistently told. My problem here is with the inconsistency
between a central point of the game (you damn better take care or the
world will go to pieces) and the flatly eutopian ending.
> And, of course, we really don't see enough of that world ourselves to
> distinguish "perfect future world" from "substantially nicer future
> world than the present one".
What we see must suffice. If the author had wanded to present
something different or more differentiated, he would (or should) have
done so. And what we see *is* a "perfect future world". How could it
be more rosy than it is? Choirs of angels? It's close enough to that
already, so much so that I took it for pure irony as long as I thought
the last sim was meant to be just a fantasy.
> Actually, it might have been nice to see a 'control simulation', since
> it's sort of implied that if they did *nothing*, the world was going
> to go to pot too.
I don't see that's implied, and that's exactly what annoys me.
On the other hand, if I were to agree with you that we're to assume
that whatever sort of control is to be continued because the world
remains essentially instable, I'd head straight back to the joybooth
suicide fraction, for in that case, the final sim *would* be a flight
into fantasy.
Matthew Murray
> This is an amazingly long conversation. Has anyone said anything new for
> a while?
>
> At any rate, there is a parallel here that I'll throw into the mix: The
> Truman Show. If the end of AMFV were to be translated to that movie, at
> the end, Jim Carrey would say, "You know, you're right," and sail back
> across the lake to his home to finish his life in his old house. He'd
> know everything was scripted, but hey, it's all designed with him
> expressly in mind, and he has legions of adoring fans.
>
> I can see some people thinking this would be a win, actually. The 'real
> world' didn't seem that nice a place, and being pampered can be cool. He
> certainly wasn't prepared for life on the outside, either.
>
> But I dare say lots of people would have thrown popcorn at the screen.
The reason they'd throw popcorn at the screen is because such an
ending would have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the character
of Truman. Truman was set up, from the very beginning, as someone who had
never been satisfied with living in his small, closed-off community, and
wanted to leave to explore other things, only to find himself unable to at
every turn. So, it made sense that, under those circumstances, the
boundaries established for him would eventually have to break.
Perry Simm, on the other hand, has far fewer restrictions of that
nature. There exists no physical boundaries preventing him from escaping.
While Perry Simm was generally happy with his life the way it was, as the
epilogue proves, if Perry decided to travel, then he could travel. If he
decided he wanted to make all sorts of changes in his life, he could,
without restriction, because the simulation would adjust appropriately.
If you could make the comparisons between The Truman Show and A
Mind Forever Voyaging clearer, I think I would really appreciate it. I
just don't see that many parallels, I'm afraid.
> It's about growing up, stepping out of the nest, taking risks, expanding
> your horizons. It's not for everyone. But it's what I hope I'd do.
If that's what you think A Mind Forever Voyaging is about,
that's perfectly fine, but the specifics are so different that I don't
think a comparison as simplistic as the one you've laid out here
really applies. The problem with Truman's world is an inability (or
unwillingness) to adapt to changing circumstances in the life of its
subject. The simulation simply has no such restrictions.
But beyond that, going back to conclude his life in the simulation
is what PRISM wants. In making him sentient, Perelman and the others gave
him the ability to make choices based on all sorts of different factors
and, perhaps, make mistakes. But Perry had everything he wanted in the
simulation (unlike Truman), was never given any reason to accept any of it
as unreal (unlike Truman) and was living a fine life until the day it was
all shattered. He went into the so-called "real world" and did what they
asked of him. As a reward, they asked him what he wanted. He told them
he wanted to lead HIS "real life" again. They agreed.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see why any of this is that hard.
That may be what The Truman Show
is about (though I disagree, but then again, I'm not a fan of that movie)
>
> -Lucian
Lucian P. Smith
: On 24 Jul 2002, Lucian P. Smith wrote:
:> I can see some people thinking this would be a win, actually. The 'real
:> world' didn't seem that nice a place, and being pampered can be cool. He
:> certainly wasn't prepared for life on the outside, either.
:>
:> But I dare say lots of people would have thrown popcorn at the screen.
: The reason they'd throw popcorn at the screen is because such an
: ending would have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the character
: of Truman. Truman was set up, from the very beginning, as someone who had
: never been satisfied with living in his small, closed-off community, and
: wanted to leave to explore other things, only to find himself unable to at
: every turn. So, it made sense that, under those circumstances, the
: boundaries established for him would eventually have to break.
Hmm. I saw that happen only where the movie picked up--maybe a week or
two. The implication is that he was clueless the rest of the time. And,
to my mind, how you get the information is less important than what you do
with the information. In both, they found out that their surroundings
were not reacting 'genuinely', but rather under the control of a
director/program. All of Truman's interactions his whole life were with
the diretor. All of Perry's were with a program. At least the director
was sentient in his own right.
: While Perry Simm was generally happy with his life the way it was, as the
: epilogue proves, if Perry decided to travel, then he could travel. If he
: decided he wanted to make all sorts of changes in his life, he could,
: without restriction, because the simulation would adjust appropriately.
I'm not entirely convinced of this. I think the parallel might be closer
to 'Truman visits Mt. Rushmore' where he saw a crude cardboard cutout.
The town was simulated OK, but the only outside we ever see simulated is
the moon colony in the epilogue, and the implication there is that the
town sim is being abandoned in favor of the moon sim. A bit of work to
start all that up, but not too bad.
Remember that Truman was told he could visit anywhere, too, if he would
just wait a week (for them to set up the simulation). It's still a sim.
: If you could make the comparisons between The Truman Show and A
: Mind Forever Voyaging clearer, I think I would really appreciate it. I
: just don't see that many parallels, I'm afraid.
-Both grow up not knowing their surroundings are simulated
-Both find out later in their life
-Both are given a choice at the end whether to stay or not.
Perry decides to stay. Truman decides to go.
:> It's about growing up, stepping out of the nest, taking risks, expanding
:> your horizons. It's not for everyone. But it's what I hope I'd do.
: If that's what you think A Mind Forever Voyaging is about,
: that's perfectly fine, but the specifics are so different that I don't
: think a comparison as simplistic as the one you've laid out here
: really applies.
I'll grant you that that's not what AMFV is about. I'm saying this is
what *life* is about.
: The problem with Truman's world is an inability (or
: unwillingness) to adapt to changing circumstances in the life of its
: subject. The simulation simply has no such restrictions.
This isn't true. Truman's sim adapted to him all the time as he grew up.
The director would have figured out a way to keep it adapting should
Truman have decided to stay. It actually could have been an interesting
post-modern experiment. But the point is that it was a sim, and Truman
found that intrinsically unsatifying. Sure, Perry decided it would be
satisfying for him. That's fine. I'm saying it makes him a weaker
character because of it, and that I would hope I would not make the same
decision in his shoes.
: But Perry had everything he wanted in the
: simulation (unlike Truman)
No, Truman was also given everything he wanted.
:, was never given any reason to accept any of it
: as unreal (unlike Truman) and was living a fine life until the day it was
: all shattered.
No, Perry *was* given a reason to accept it as unreal. He was told "It's
not real." And they both were living fine lives until they found out.
: He went into the so-called "real world" and did what they
: asked of him.
'So-called'? 'So-called'?!?
It sounds like the root issue here is that you don't like the 'so-called
real world' and that happiness is more important to you than reality. The
real world is certainly not a universally happy place, and I can
understand that desire. I will put it another way: while I certainly
think that Perry could experience happiness in the final sim, I believe he
will never experience joy.
: As a reward, they asked him what he wanted. He told them
: he wanted to lead HIS "real life" again. They agreed.
: I'm sorry, but I just don't see why any of this is that hard.
I think I get it. You believe reality is a much of a sim as Perry's
world. No, I don't find that hard to accept. I find it sad to accept. I
also think you're going the wrong way.
-Lucian
Matthew Murray
> Remember that Truman was told he could visit anywhere, too, if he would
> just wait a week (for them to set up the simulation). It's still a sim.
Okay, that part I do not remember. Was that ever specifically
stated in the movie? Or, perhaps more appropriately, was it ever done in
Truman's life? As mentioned, the movie is not one of my favorites, but I
remember the big deal being that Truman always wanted to get out of the
city but was never able to. (Since the "set" was an enormous enclosed
hemispehre in Southern California, this made sense to me.) If I'm
misremembering, I'm sorry.
> : If you could make the comparisons between The Truman Show and A
> : Mind Forever Voyaging clearer, I think I would really appreciate it. I
> : just don't see that many parallels, I'm afraid.
>
> -Both grow up not knowing their surroundings are simulated
> -Both find out later in their life
> -Both are given a choice at the end whether to stay or not.
>
> Perry decides to stay. Truman decides to go.
The difference being, as I see it, that Truman had always
displayed the predilection to traveling. He was never content with where
he was--he always wanted to go other things and see other places. Perry
Simm never displays this, which suggests either (a) he is perfectly happy
living his entire life in Rockvil, or (b) the simulation is capable of
allowing this by simulating other places just as it would simulate
Rockvil. I guess I'm assuming (b) because of the nature of the epilogue.
You disagree, that's fine. I'll admit the game is not really specific on
this point.
> : The problem with Truman's world is an inability (or
> : unwillingness) to adapt to changing circumstances in the life of its
> : subject. The simulation simply has no such restrictions.
>
> This isn't true. Truman's sim adapted to him all the time as he grew up.
> The director would have figured out a way to keep it adapting should
> Truman have decided to stay.
See, this is one of my problems with the movie. As mentioned
above, I remember nothing about the "set" of Truman's world ever allowing
him to do the one thing he wanted to do more than just about anything
else--travel. Truman was kept inside that enclosed structure, and longed
to leave it, so eventually something had to snap. Since the enclosed
structure couldn't easily be expanded, it had to be Truman. That's my
interpretation of events. If I am forgetting or misinterpreting a vital
part of the film, please remind me.
> It actually could have been an interesting
> post-modern experiment. But the point is that it was a sim, and Truman
> found that intrinsically unsatifying. Sure, Perry decided it would be
> satisfying for him. That's fine. I'm saying it makes him a weaker
> character because of it, and that I would hope I would not make the same
> decision in his shoes.
I don't think it necessarily makes a weaker character, though. It
makes a different character. It is absolutely positively within Truman's
character to leave the "set." As far as I was concerned, there was
never--for one second--the slightest possibility he would stay. PRISM
asks for it specifically, out of all the things in the universe he could
possibly ask for. He is sentient, so he wants to continue to live the
sentient life he was programmed to live. The two situations just strike
me as very different--one isn't more cowardly than the other. I just,
personally, think we're arguing about AMFV more because PRISM actually
made a controversial choice. Truman actually had no choice. Leaving was
the only dramatically truthful thing he could do. If he had stayed, the
whole movie would have fallen apart at the seams. With AMFV, Perry Simm
never gave thought to what he'd do in the situation because he was too
busy living his life. PRISM just wanted to live that again.
I still think the two situations are different, but thanks for
expanding on your ideas.
> : But Perry had everything he wanted in the
> : simulation (unlike Truman)
>
> No, Truman was also given everything he wanted.
I don't recall that. All I do remember are Truman's plans for
taking trips or going to other places being thwarted at every turn. At
one time, in his life, did Truman ever leave the "set" prior to the end of
the movie? That's the part I'm forgetting.
> :, was never given any reason to accept any of it
> : as unreal (unlike Truman) and was living a fine life until the day it was
> : all shattered.
>
> No, Perry *was* given a reason to accept it as unreal. He was told "It's
> not real." And they both were living fine lives until they found out.
I didn't make this clear, I'm sorry. I meant BEFORE the truth was
revealed. Sorry. I didn't express myself appropriately.
> : He went into the so-called "real world" and did what they
> : asked of him.
>
> 'So-called'? 'So-called'?!?
I was saying that as though I were seeing it from PRISM's
perspective. Sorry again.
> It sounds like the root issue here is that you don't like the 'so-called
> real world' and that happiness is more important to you than reality. The
I'm sorry, what?!? Where did that come from?
> real world is certainly not a universally happy place, and I can
> understand that desire. I will put it another way: while I certainly
> think that Perry could experience happiness in the final sim, I believe he
> will never experience joy.
That's perfectly fine. I don't know that there's really enough
information present in the game to say for sure.
> : As a reward, they asked him what he wanted. He told them
> : he wanted to lead HIS "real life" again. They agreed.
> : I'm sorry, but I just don't see why any of this is that hard.
>
> I think I get it. You believe reality is a much of a sim as Perry's
> world. No, I don't find that hard to accept. I find it sad to accept. I
> also think you're going the wrong way.
I really think you're projecting here. I don't believe I said any
of this. I'm talking about A Mind Forever Voyaging and The Truman Show,
and am trying to analyze the choices the characters made from their
respective points of view. My feelings on the issue are really beside the
point, and I don't believe I brought them up.
Billy Harris
Schwind <c_sc...@gmx.net> wrote:
> > Actually, it might have been nice to see a 'control simulation', since
> > it's sort of implied that if they did *nothing*, the world was going
> > to go to pot too.
>
> I don't see that's implied, and that's exactly what annoys me.
Actually, if you look at the NEWSFEED, it looks like the world is in
crisis mode and falling apart. I agree that the whole premis of "The
governement must have its 20 year Master Plan" bothers me.
L. Ross Raszewski
> The reason they'd throw popcorn at the screen is because such an
>ending would have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the character
>of Truman. Truman was set up, from the very beginning, as someone who had
>never been satisfied with living in his small, closed-off community, and
>wanted to leave to explore other things, only to find himself unable to at
>every turn. So, it made sense that, under those circumstances, the
>boundaries established for him would eventually have to break.
I think a lot of it has to do with how it's told, too. If, say, Truman
had gone back to the simulation to Be With His One True Love, we'd
have a Love Conquers All Ending that the herdlike audience would eat
up.
L. Ross Raszewski
<c_sc...@gmx.net> wrote:
>What we see must suffice. If the author had wanded to present
>something different or more differentiated, he would (or should) have
>done so. And what we see *is* a "perfect future world". How could it
>be more rosy than it is? Choirs of angels? It's close enough to that
>already, so much so that I took it for pure irony as long as I thought
>the last sim was meant to be just a fantasy.
It has been some time, but I didn't see that the final sim was
choirs-of-angels rosy. Aside from the fact that there was a moon
colony, it didn't seem all that different from a pleasant suburban
neighborhood of today.
I could be mis-remembering, of course, but I think you're just seeing
too much from the contrast between the horrors of the immediately
preceeding sims.
>
>> Actually, it might have been nice to see a 'control simulation', since
>> it's sort of implied that if they did *nothing*, the world was going
>> to go to pot too.
>
>I don't see that's implied, and that's exactly what annoys me.
From the manual:
'The story begins in the world of 2031, a world on the brink of
chaos. The econemy of the United States of North America has been
stagnating for decades. Crackpot religions are springing up all over
the place. Crime and urban decay are rampant. Schools have become
violent, chaotic places ill-suited for educating children.
...
The global situation is even grimmer. The calcuttization of the Third
World has almost reached its limit, causing extrele overpopulation and
poverty. This has created a climate ripe for East Bloc adventurism,
exploting instability and fanning the numerous flashpoints around the
globe. The superpower race to build ... miniature nuclear weapons
... and smuggle them into enemy cities ... threatens to turn the USNA
into a giant police state.
>
>On the other hand, if I were to agree with you that we're to assume
>that whatever sort of control is to be continued because the world
>remains essentially instable, I'd head straight back to the joybooth
>suicide fraction, for in that case, the final sim *would* be a flight
>into fantasy.
I'm sorry; I don't inderstand what you're saying here (I'm not saying
that I find your point unbelievable, just that I can't seem to parse
this sentence properly).
Christiane Schwind
> It has been some time, but I didn't see that the final sim was
> choirs-of-angels rosy. Aside from the fact that there was a moon
> colony, it didn't seem all that different from a pleasant suburban
> neighborhood of today.
>
> I could be mis-remembering, of course, but I think you're just seeing
> too much from the contrast between the horrors of the immediately
> preceeding sims.
That certainly adds to the effect, but I think it's there alright, and
in its own right. I'm taking together both descriptions of stuff and
scenery and the Silver Dove allusion (I quoted the poem in a previous
post, won't repeat it now). See next point.
> >> Actually, it might have been nice to see a 'control simulation', since
> >> it's sort of implied that if they did *nothing*, the world was going
> >> to go to pot too.
> >
> >I don't see that's implied, and that's exactly what annoys me.
>
> From the manual:
> 'The story begins in the world of 2031, a world on the brink of
> chaos. The econemy of the United States of North America has been
> stagnating for decades. Crackpot religions are springing up all over
> the place. Crime and urban decay are rampant. Schools have become
> violent, chaotic places ill-suited for educating children.
> ...
> The global situation is even grimmer. The calcuttization of the Third
> World has almost reached its limit, causing extrele overpopulation and
> poverty. This has created a climate ripe for East Bloc adventurism,
> exploting instability and fanning the numerous flashpoints around the
> globe. The superpower race to build ... miniature nuclear weapons
> ... and smuggle them into enemy cities ... threatens to turn the USNA
> into a giant police state>
(That's what Billy Harris means, too, I think.)
I see I misunderstood you, sorry. Thought you were talking about
life *after* the "New Plan", and that "doing nothing" meant "doing no
more control sims". I still requote the passages you mention to
contrast them with the following from the epilogue, to support my rosy
world theory:
>read paper (in apartment)
The headline story is about a newly released study which indicates
that the average life expectancy for both sexes has now passed one
hundred years, and success in the development of regeneratives should
send that figure even higher. Despite the dropping mortality rate,
global population remains stable at just under two billion, with
offworlding now running at a staggering seven million people annually.
To celebrate next month's special twentieth anniversary Disarmament
Day, the World Council has passed a bill authorizing fireworks
displays in each of the former capital cities of the twenty-two former
nuclear powers. The fireworks displays, by Aerialist designer Jean
M'gomo, will feature disarmament themes, and will be the largest
display of pyrotechnic art in this century...
>look at station (from the cab)
You can make out the gleaming surface of the receiver station, nestled
among the forests west of the city, where orbiting solar collectors
beam their precious energy.
And the ending lines:
You and Jill would never live to see the completion of that first
step, generations hence... But you would still have been part of that
dawning of a new age, that future of unlimited potential. Humanity was
beginning a journey into the universe, a voyage that would last
forever.
Which, by the way, I find rather remindful of the joybooth ad of the
manual:
"Let's pretend that you are the most sophisticated machine imaginable
- a conscious, intelligent computer. Only the programmed "mind" of
such a computer could travel into the untested realm of the future.
We're sure that if you made such a journey, a wonderful world where
science joins with moral strength to bring us a nation we can proudly
call our own. And we're equally sure that joybooths would be a
distinguished part of that not-too-distant future."
> >On the other hand, if I were to agree with you that we're to assume
> >that whatever sort of control is to be continued because the world
> >remains essentially instable, I'd head straight back to the joybooth
> >suicide fraction, for in that case, the final sim *would* be a flight
> >into fantasy.
>
> I'm sorry; I don't inderstand what you're saying here (I'm not saying
> that I find your point unbelievable, just that I can't seem to parse
Yeaaaah, sorry again, it's an ugly monster of a sentence, wrote it at
2 in the morning. Let me retry (and thanks for your patience):
You say: the game implies that the world is essentially unstable (even
after the installation of the New Plan - hope I get you right here),
and control is still needed and must be continued. It's not explicitly
said, just rather obvious.
I say: I don't think that's implied, but if I did, I'd have to go back
to supporting the joybooth suicide theory. Because in that case the
world of the final sim would not be the virtual equivalent of the
"real world", but an idealization of it.
Mind you, I absolutely agree with you and Matthew that Perry can lead
his life in sims only (different from Truman who, being human, *can*
live in both worlds). For me, the alternative (happy ending or joybooth
suicide) is not between life in a sim and existence as PRISM the
computer, but between living in a fantasy sim and living in a truthful
one.
L. Ross Raszewski
Well, it's certainly upbeat, a little moreso than I remembered, but I
still don't think it sounds like a total choir-of-angels utopia; it
seems more like a major urban rennaisance. The two major utopian
aspects I see here are the declining mortality rate and the
stabilization of the world population, which are indeed very nice
things, but I'd be hard-pressed to say that they constitute even a
tremendously unlikely degree of progress over the period. I think the
point we're supposed to take away isn't specifically that the world
becomes a good and happy and perfect place, but that it *doesn't* slip
backward into chaos.
>
>You say: the game implies that the world is essentially unstable (even
>after the installation of the New Plan - hope I get you right here),
>and control is still needed and must be continued. It's not explicitly
>said, just rather obvious.
Actually, I didn't mean to say that at all; I do believe that even
after the new plan the world isn't perfect, though I don't think I
ever actually said that. I think that the evidence we see of the
post-new-plan world shows that things have improved considerably from
the real world of 2032 (when it looked like bad times ahead) -- and,
of course, things have improved from the real world of 2002 (the one
we live in), but I don't think they've improved out-of-line with a
'realistic' view of how things could go (Aside from the typical sci-fi
mis-estimation of how quickly the space program progresses)
What I actually meant, I think, is that the world was tending toward
chaos *before* the plan, and I thought part of your objection was that
we didn't have enough evidence for this, or for the need for widescale
government intervention (Not wanting the government to cook up a
MasterPlan to Set Things Right is a reasonable perspective, but not a
necessary one. I tend to consider the Plan and the New Plan to be
something along the lines of the New Deal -- though obviously, the
first incarnation of the Plan was more quick-fix oriented and
horrendously flawed in the long-term -- Hm... When did trickle-down
economics take off?)
>
>I say: I don't think that's implied, but if I did, I'd have to go back
>to supporting the joybooth suicide theory. Because in that case the
>world of the final sim would not be the virtual equivalent of the
>"real world", but an idealization of it.
>
Ah. See, not only don't I think that the real world, post-plan is a
utopia, I don't think the simulated one is either. The thing is that
we see *so little of it*. I mean, yes, what we see of it is rather
nice, but, hey, I personally am not clubbed over the head by the
failings of our society on a daily basis. It does seem to simulate a
society with a fairly positive outlook, but lots of people in
*today*'s society have a fairly positive outlook -- and not without
justification.
Sean T Barrett
>: But Perry had everything he wanted in the
>: simulation (unlike Truman)
>
>No, Truman was also given everything he wanted.
This is false, and was a significant flaw in the movie:
this is what Christo *claims* in his final monologue,
but in point of fact Truman has spent most of the movie
obsessing over a woman who was taken away from him, and
whom Christo shows no inclination to return to him.
However, I agree with your general point, although I think
there is a stronger argument to be made from The Matrix,
which features a human character who wants to go return to
the sim and an AI character who desperately wants out of it.
When I posted about it before[*], the only claim I advanced
was that it was pointless to call the sim "Perry Simm's
reality", and I didn't get any disagreement. But I think
there are a lot more fairly obvious analogies to be drawn
in the behaviors of those two characters.
Specifically, I think it is intended to seem cowardly
of the one human who wants to be put back in the sim
to live out the rest of his life as a rich and powerful
virtual guy munching on steaks. No surprise that this
character is a villain in the movie. And I think people
DO perceive it as cowardly. And yet the analogy between
this person and PRISM is fairly strong, except for their
respective protagonist vs. antagonist roles.
(I also think it's intended to seem sympathetic for the
one AI to want to get out of the Matrix, but since it
would be at the cost of the human resistance, it's not
something moviegoers sympathize with.)
SeanB
* http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=GypAIn.JsK%40world.std.com
Joao Mendes
buz...@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett) wrote in
news:Gzs3r...@world.std.com:
> However, I agree with your general point, although I think
> there is a stronger argument to be made from The Matrix,
> which features a human character who wants to go return to
> the sim and an AI character who desperately wants out of it.
IIRC, the AI didn't want _out of_ the matrix, he just wanted the whole
thing to end already...
The parallel to the human that wanted back in seems to fit. Notice,
however, that said human asks for guarantees that he will be made to not
remember that the whole thing is a sim.
Don't know if that's really relevant or not, just felt like pointing it
out... :)
Cheers,
J.
Christiane Schwind
> What I actually meant, I think, is that the world was tending toward
> chaos *before* the plan, and I thought part of your objection was that
> we didn't have enough evidence for this, or for the need for widescale
> government intervention ...
To get rid of our (hopefully) last misunderstanding: no, I
didn't mean that, hope it's become clear. I think we've pretty much
sorted our positions out now. There's a couple of things we agree
about, above all that the game *does* have a happy, non-ironical
ending (which took me long to accept), though you like it and I don't,
depending on our different view of the final sim.
> Ah. See, not only don't I think that the real world, post-plan is a
> utopia, I don't think the simulated one is either.
Yes, there's the difference. I do.
> we see *so little of it*.
Hm, enough for my taste...
> I mean, yes, what we see of it is rather nice, but, hey, I
> personally am not clubbed over the head by the failings of our
> society on a daily basis.
I admit that's close to what I feel like sometimes.
> It does seem to simulate a society with a fairly positive outlook,
Very, very positive....
> but lots of people in *today*'s society have a fairly positive
> outlook -- and not without justification.
Are you saying that our outlook today is not so very different from
that of the sim? Solar energy established, mortality rate declining
and yet mass population problem solved, disarmament of the nuclear
powers? Wish I could see it that way...
Heiko Nock
> Specifically, I think it is intended to seem cowardly of the one human who
> wants to be put back in the sim to live out the rest of his life as a rich
> and powerful virtual guy munching on steaks. No surprise that this
> character is a villain in the movie. And I think people DO perceive it as
> cowardly.
It's only cowardly, because he betrays other people, who don't want to live
in the sim.
--
"Ich gebe zu, das mit den "Fragen" war blöd. Aber mit ein bischen
nachdenken wäre mir sicher was noch blöderes eingefallen..."
-- Mike Ucker in de.soc.recht.misc
L. Ross Raszewski
<c_sc...@gmx.net> wrote:
>Are you saying that our outlook today is not so very different from
>that of the sim? Solar energy established, mortality rate declining
>and yet mass population problem solved, disarmament of the nuclear
>powers? Wish I could see it that way...
>
Oh no; I meant personal outlooks. Lots of people today think they live
in a relatively happy world where things aren't perfect, but are
generally getting better all the time.
Life expectancy is expected to go up quite a bit in the next century
(In fact, according to some reasonably conservative estimates, 20% of
people who *are alive now* will be alive in 2100). The problems of
overpopulation are being slowly dealt with, and solar energy -- well
hey.
I can see why one would consider a world where nuclear disarmament had
happened to be 'utopian', though I don't see it in and of itself as a
sufficent condition; what I'm trying to get at is that I think you and
I have vastly different ideas about what constitutes a utopian
society.
Christiane Schwind
> I can see why one would consider a world where nuclear disarmament had
> happened to be 'utopian', though I don't see it in and of itself as a
> sufficent condition; what I'm trying to get at is that I think you and
> I have vastly different ideas about what constitutes a utopian
> society.
I'm not saying utopian but eutopian, there's a difference.
But what's more important to me here is the literary dimension, or
what shall I call it. See *how* the final scenery is described. The
reason why I dislike it is that there's just Nothing Else but
happiness and progress and peace on Earth and the Silver Dove, and
that after what we've seen in the main part of the game. It's
inconsistent. A good argument you gave in a previous post was that
that's your reward for winning the game. I agree, it just doesn't
convince me. The way I see it now, the game breaks apart at the
beginning of Part 3.
Matthew Murray
> But what's more important to me here is the literary dimension, or
> what shall I call it. See *how* the final scenery is described. The
> reason why I dislike it is that there's just Nothing Else but
> happiness and progress and peace on Earth and the Silver Dove, and
> that after what we've seen in the main part of the game. It's
> inconsistent.
No, it's not. The main part of the game and the epilogue--as was,
I thought, already discussed to death elsewhere in this thread--were
simulated under different programs. Parts I and II of the game were under
the Plan, the epilogue under the New Plan or the Project.
But also, you see one slice of the world, through Perry's eyes.
The epilogue is the conclusion to A Mind Forever Voyaging. Keep in mind,
though, that the real story of A Mind Forever Voyaging did not begin the
first time you typed commands in, it began in the story in the game's
documentation. Consider that story the first chapter, consider the
epilogue the end. Do you still think it's inconsistent? I sure don't.
The simulation ended as it began, showing Perry the world from HIS
perspective. His life, at that point, is pretty good. The rest of the
world is absolutely irrelevant to what's happening at Perry's life at that
time.
> A good argument you gave in a previous post was that
> that's your reward for winning the game. I agree, it just doesn't
> convince me. The way I see it now, the game breaks apart at the
> beginning of Part 3.
A lot of people have problems with part III, and that's fair. But
even if the epilogue is only your reward for finishing the game (and I,
personally, think it's a great reward--one of the best ending sequences
from any game, graphic or text, old or new), to me, it is logically
consistent with everything that came before. It doesn't change what
you're seeing or how you're seeing it--it presents the world of 2091
identically to the way every other bit of Perry's life was presented.
Christiane Schwind
> The epilogue is the conclusion to A Mind Forever Voyaging. Keep in mind,
> though, that the real story of A Mind Forever Voyaging did not begin the
> first time you typed commands in, it began in the story in the game's
> documentation. Consider that story the first chapter, consider the
> epilogue the end. Do you still think it's inconsistent? I sure don't.
> The simulation ended as it began, showing Perry the world from HIS
> perspective. His life, at that point, is pretty good. The rest of the
> world is absolutely irrelevant to what's happening at Perry's life at that
> time.
Good point, I re-read it. I agree only partly, though; I think the
perspective of the beginning is different from that of the end. Yes,
in the beginning, the rest of the world seems quite irrelevant to
Perry's life (Hero's as yet totally unaware of the role he's going to
play). In the final sim, on the other hand, it's very relevant. It has
to, cause Perry has helped saving the world and has become more and
more aware of greater issues. That's well done; that awareness is
*why* the informations you/Perry get when looking at things in the
epilogue focus so much on those greater issues. It's what your
character is interested in now, not just private stuff as in the
magazine story. That's very consistent.
I'll say once more what annoys me and then shut up: the way I see it,
what we get in the epilogue is not just the world saved from a
disastrous enterprise but The World Redeemed, and that simply doesn't
fit in with the rest of the game. Perhaps it's just overdone (a
matter of grade), but the effect on me is it that it doesn't feel true
(a matter of quality). Which really helps encouraging joybooth suicide
theories, I think.
> A lot of people have problems with part III, and that's fair. But
> even if the epilogue is only your reward for finishing the game (and I,
> personally, think it's a great reward--one of the best ending sequences
> from any game, graphic or text, old or new),
Fine with me, really! I can feel that sense of enthusiasm in the final
scenes, too, just can't enjoy it as much as you can, for reasons
stated too many times.
> to me, it is logically
> consistent with everything that came before. It doesn't change what
> you're seeing or how you're seeing it--it presents the world of 2091
> identically to the way every other bit of Perry's life was presented.
Formally, yes, but not with regard to what's being shown. See above.
Hm, I think we just don't agree here.