b3ta.com board
You are not logged in. Login or Signup
Home » Messageboard » XXX » Message 9356789 (Thread)

# It's as playground as asking 'why was I born into this life?'
COME ON, YOU'RE SMARTER THAN THIS

edit: actually it is more akin to asking 'why am I the result of my experiences and/or choices?'
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 7:57, archived)
# Well
If we make an exact duplicate of you, with some kind of duplicating machine, and we put you both in a room and switch you around a bit, like in that game with the three cups, and then somebody picks one of you and sends him off to live in a palace, that's just the other one's bad luck, right? Now, it might happen that, rather than using a duplicating machine, two people just happen to grow to be extremely similar - let's say, identical - due to their life experiences and choices. One of them may happen, however, to end up in a palace, while the other doesn't, and again, it's just his bad luck (assuming he likes palaces). This is an unlikely thing to imagine happening, but not so unlikely as it might be, given that human knowledge is a matter of trying to lay hold of objective truth, and therefore our ideas tend to grow together rather than apart, despite all our various different interests and preferred forms of investigation into the world. Therefore we can imagine two people who are not identical, but just broadly similar, and once again, one may live in a palace and the other not, and it's just the other one's bad luck, because any two people are in a vague sense equivalent.

I have trouble making sense of all this, as I'm sure do you.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 8:12, archived)
# I used to work in an IVF lab and have destroyed a cloned zygote of myself
The concept of genetic clones versus (let's call them experience/choice clones for the sake of this) experience/choice clones is just freudian versus jungian all over again.

It's impossible to create perfect clones because there will never be two genetically identical humans who have experienced the exact same choices and events.

Why does it happen? That's pretty much the same question any discussion boils down to.
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 8:16, archived)
# What a wonderful thing to have done.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 8:19, archived)
# It helped me understand religious people.
These days I'm a non-practising quaker.

One day soon I might tell the story.
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 8:23, archived)
# I mean
When a river happens to meander in one direction rather than another, from a multiverse perspective, both things have happened, producing a nice symmetrical tree-like structure of possibilities over time. When, due to the random action of something, such as rats, a lift loses power and ceases to function, that also has a perfectly reasonable position in the multiverse as one branch on an elegant tree. However, from my point of view, I may find myself stuck in the now broken lift, perhaps with somebody I hate. Yet I know that, in a parallel universe, there is another me who is not stuck. How is that in any way fair? Also, in what sense am I the one who is stuck in the lift, and not the one who isn't? It's all very well observing this retrospectively and saying that I'd better put up with it, but how did I get there? Why can't I have both experiences at once?
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 8:42, archived)
# Who's to say multiple universes even exist?
Fuck them even if they do, there's no point in getting caught up with things you can't control.
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 8:58, archived)
# Indeed. Bastards, sitting all smug in their palaces.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:05, archived)
# We get to laugh at them because a palace hardly buys a loaf of bread in their universe on a 7:10 basis
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:24, archived)
# also if the direction of a stream was determined by a big rock in the way the resulting two rivers would not necessarily be symmetrical
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:04, archived)
# Yes, but it would be symmetrical overall
if there was an equal chance of a big rock being in the way in a different place. Perhaps there wouldn't be, due to the rock having fallen off a cliff and probably falling in a particular direction, but overall, there would be an equal probability of the cliff being on the opposite side of the river. Or else there wouldn't be, and so on.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:08, archived)
# what i'm trying to say is that very few big rocks will deflect the water in equal quantities on both sides
so if there's a 60/40 at the top then every 'branch' from there on is affected and there is less and less of a chance that a branch on the outside will eventually reach equilibrium.
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:12, archived)
# Oh, well, right at the top, then yes.
If the very first chance that happens anywhere in time is an unequal chance, then, yes. The tree would be all bent.
(_Felix 's school of dance and occult sciences, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:16, archived)
# Now we just need to work out what the odds are of a perfect 50/50 at the first split
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:19, archived)
# probably the second few splits as well
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:20, archived)
# like if there was a big mountain nearby with its own waterfall or something
ok I'm not using water as a metaphor anymore
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:22, archived)
# so if we're stuck out on one of these outside branches
do we cease to exist when the water dries up or do we just stagnate in our shitty puddle of consciousness?
(I helped save b3ta! gronkpan @vomitinglarry.bsky.social, Mon 13 Apr 2009, 9:17, archived)