Chuck has all the answers but he won't tell us Re: Money, happiness, and the halting problem Re: I can finallyanswerone point-blank

[Brian Atkins]

Chuck Murcko wrote:
> 
> On Friday, July 27, 2001, at 07:10 PM, Brian Atkins wrote:
> 
> > Chuck Murcko wrote:
> >>
> >> On Thursday, July 26, 2001, at 09:12 PM, Brian Atkins wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Actually, you don't seem to be getting it. Your words do not seem to
> >>> be
> >>> in any way related to what I originally said regarding happiness being
> >>> nearly equivalent to the meaningless state of getting high. I was not
> >>> attempting to say that in a literal way (taking certain drug = exact
> >>> feeling of happiness); rather it was a comparison meant to show the
> >>> transient unimportance of all of our experiences UNLESS we find some
> >>> way to continue living. The whole point being that if you kick the
> >>> bucket
> >>> then so do your hard won and cherished experiences, thereby making it
> >>> all pointless. Lasting achievement must stay tied to the physical
> >>> world.
> >>>
> >>
> >> How does the "meaningless experience of getting high" nearly describe
> >> the happiness in any of these three experiences? It doesn't. That's how
> >> my words relate to yours.
> >
> > You're still confusing the issue- see below.
> >
> 
> I'm afraid I'm not. I'm saying that human experience, emotional or
> otherwise, is meaningful, real, and quite completely different from
> nonexistence or some diluted experience such as drugs, regardless of
> context, just as my shoe is still up the existentialist's derriere in
> the forest even if no one hears them yelp.

I'm not claiming otherwise.

> 
> I'm also saying that the value and meaning of these experiences has jack
> to do with human mortality.

Here's where you're wrong. See below. :-)

> 
> That in sum would be rejecting your illustrative comparison *and* your
> point, not missing or confusing them.
> 
> Clear enough?
> 
> See below.
> 
> >>
> >> The physical/(rest of the) world doesn't much care whether I become
> >> happy. Neither recognition nor propagation of my happiness are
> >> requirements for me to become or remain happy. That's about fame,
> >> something entirely different. My happiness is not required to be a
> >> lasting achievement, for it need not affect anyone other than me. So
> >> what if I'm happy, and that dies with me. Does that make it any less
> >
> > Then it's gone along with the rest of you, and you might have well
> > never lived or gone to the trouble to experience anything. Just like
> > the feeling of a high fades after the drugs are gone, your feelings
> > and memories fade to nonexistence after your mind is gone. Both just
> > blips of information that popped in and out of being.
> >
> > So no your happiness is not required to be lasting. No one's forcing
> > you to stay alive. Just wanted you to realize the meaninglessness of it
> > all if you end up kicking the bucket.
> >
> > This all relates to the happiness thread because I was trying to get
> > across the idea that simply seeking happiness is not enough. You have
> > to make your life last if you want it all to continue to be worth
> > anything.
> >
> 
> Cicero, Jack London, and William Shakespeare all manage to convey the
> emotions they felt to us well enough that we feel them ourselves,
> despite their meaningless and finite lives.
> 
> Perhaps this happened because you were not available to tell them "it's
> gone along with the rest of you, and you might have well never lived or
> gone to the trouble to experience anything."
> 
> Thankfully, we are not the poorer for them having heard and believed you.

I was expecting you would resort to this. It does fail utterly to address
what I said up there regarding YOU. I'm sorry Chuck but you are not
Shakespeare, and even if you were 99% of your experiences would have
died with you no matter your plays containing blunt approximations of
a few. It's funny you claim drugs (or probably any other technology)
can't recreate a real experience, and yet some written words on a page
can? (two different points here, make sure you address both)

So, to reiterate I am not saying that experiences are meaningless. I
am not telling you your life is pointless. I'm married, go mountain
biking, and go ride amusement park rides just for the hell of it. All
I'm saying is you have stay alive to escape turning it all into 99.9%
pointlessness. Death is where things go bad :-)

> >>
> >> I believe what you're talking about (your abc list) cannot yield by
> >> itself any insight about or aid to gaining happiness. Jack is not
> >> related to happiness. All IMHO, as I said at the beginning.
> >
> > Fine Chuck, enjoy your nonexistence OR call yourself very lucky if
> > the future created by others with jack allows you and your memories
> > to survive.
> >
> 
> Mmmm, no thanks, I'll continue to enjoy life and finding happiness and
> passing on whatever I come up with, after I clean my shoe. Perhaps I'll
> even pick up some more jack along the way, if it doesn't interfere with
> anything of real meaning to me.

And then you'll die and 99% of it all will be gone. And then your kid
and friends will eventually die taking another .9% with them. And then
no one will ever use Apache or anything else you've done, leaving you
utterly lost to the dustbin of history. Sounds pretty pointless to me.
Wouldn't it just be a lot better to live a lot longer?

> 
> Maybe you'll call yourself lucky if someone happy appears (despite
> understanding and being capable of the mental masturbation necessary to
> convince themselves there's *really* no reason) to extract you from the
> rubble of the future which those well-meaning but quite misguided others
> with jack thought they could decide for everyone, and which no one got
> any happiness from anyway.

Don't be grumpy Chuck, get out there and make some jack and help point
the future where you want it. You sound very upset that anyone gets to
ever do anything that just might happen without your say so.

> 
> So long, and thanks for all the fish.
> 
> Chuck Murcko
> Topsail Group
> http://www.topsail.org/
> 
> http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

-- 
Brian Atkins
Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/