Backstage - OOC Forums

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

That the top-heavy, curved, vertical design of the Naglfar was copied from Minmatar totems? Read more in the description

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4

Author Topic: Substitution  (Read 5199 times)

Lyn Farel

  • Guest
Re: Substitution
« Reply #30 on: 07 May 2013, 06:14 »

I would choose the second one without any question. All the benefits of the first one without its cons. Except maybe for children ? Don't care much tbh, but that could be a reason for some people I guess.
Logged

Adreena Madeveda

  • What's your favourite thing about space ?
  • Egger
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 125
  • Mine is space.
    • A Blog !
Re: Substitution
« Reply #31 on: 07 May 2013, 06:22 »

Vikarion, the funny thing is, I agree with 99% of what you just said. Except for the bits about im/mortality :)

Logged
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Shakespeare, Macbecth

Graelyn

  • Ye Olde One
  • Veteran
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1349
  • These things just seem to happen...
Re: Substitution
« Reply #32 on: 07 May 2013, 07:00 »

The problem is, no matter how much you'd want tho think so, the clone waking up would not be you.

You would not wake up. Something else would. For you, the same black cold emptiness that every mortal gets, is the same thing you get.
Logged


If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!

Iwan Terpalen

  • Guest
Re: Substitution
« Reply #33 on: 07 May 2013, 07:25 »

Continuity of consciousness is highly overrated.
Logged

Ché Biko

  • Space Buddho-Commu-Nihilist
  • Veteran
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1166
  • I'll face the stars or the abyss.
    • Biko's Backstage Character Thread
Re: Substitution
« Reply #34 on: 07 May 2013, 09:05 »

[..] you can't relate to anyone [..] You can go and do as you will, because you are fucking rich.
These things, mostly the first, prevent me from choosing option two in a heartbeat.

I fear that without the ability to relate to people, I would regret my decision and lose the will to live or, coupled with the ability to do as I will, become...something that I would not want to become, something jaded and uncaring that fullfills his darkest desires, yet ultimately receives no pleasure from it any longer.

I choose quality over quantity and I see death as the ultimate freedom, and perhaps the only one.
« Last Edit: 07 May 2013, 09:07 by Ché Biko »
Logged
-OOChé

Saikoyu

  • Omelette
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 469
Re: Substitution
« Reply #35 on: 07 May 2013, 10:36 »

Point one, about the soul, there was this guy who tried t weight the soul, but results were never conclusive.

Point two, on the general topic, watch The Prestige, no spoilers, but the ending is related. 

As for me, I'd take two, with two provisions, a fire axe for whatever equipment is needed to bring me back, and poison, just in case.  Though I would probably try and go the Jack Harkness route if possible. 
Logged

Vikarion

  • Guest
Re: Substitution
« Reply #36 on: 07 May 2013, 10:38 »

The problem is, no matter how much you'd want tho think so, the clone waking up would not be you.

Neither was the person who woke up from anesthetic after surgery. In fact, neither was the person who woke up this morning.

By any measure you might care to adopt, save for the most circular, we are always changing, and never the person we were. Ten years ago, I had a different cellular configuration, different brain configuration, different thoughts, and was composed of different atoms. By any measure that can reasonably be taken, the me of ten years ago died.

A thought experiment: if you replaced, over ten years, every part of you with a different part, but kept your memories, would you still be yourself?

Yet this is largely what has happened, even entirely.

We are much more similar to a wave - an effect moving through matter - than we are to matter. So, if what we are is a specific organizing of atoms to create certain effects - consciousness, memory, and everything else that we are - what should it matter to us whether a perfect continuity exists?

Suppose, again, that one were to consider the fate of a song on one's iPod. Suppose that you were listening to this song, only to find out that it had been copied from a vinyl onto a CD, and then, from a CD to the iTunes repository, and from thence to your computer, and then to your player. The components that stored and composed this song have changed. But you still call it the same. What it is is somehow still itself.

And we are no different. We are not, as it turns out, mere crude matter, but the pattern of energy and organization that moves through a continually changing constellation of matter. We are a song, if you will, and I have no difficulties with wanting the option of residing and existing in more than one particular player.
Logged

Techie Kanenald

  • Egger
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 134
  • Beagle
Re: Substitution
« Reply #37 on: 07 May 2013, 10:53 »

I'd take one.  The ability to end, to be finished, is very dear to me. I'd feel far too trapped in eternity if I was immortal.
Logged

Esna Pitoojee

  • Keeper of the Harem
  • Demigod
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2095
Re: Substitution
« Reply #38 on: 07 May 2013, 11:50 »

Nothing about point 2 says you have to -stay- immortal...
Logged
I like the implications of Gallentians being punched in the face by walking up to a Minmatar as they so freely use another person's culture as a fad.

lallara zhuul

  • Now with rainbows and butterflies.
  • Veteran
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1123
Re: Substitution
« Reply #39 on: 07 May 2013, 12:17 »

I'd go with door number two, just to see how humanity fucks itself in the arse in the end.
Logged

Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!

Creep

  • Omelette
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 272
Re: Substitution
« Reply #40 on: 07 May 2013, 12:42 »

Wow, really? I must be the odd one in the gene pool, then. Good to know.

As for existential crises, I respect them, but I don't accept them as a permanent fact. Life might be absurd, pointless, undefinable, and cruel. I'm even willing to agree with Camus, somewhat, and say that the first question is "shall I commit suicide today?" But, really, isn't that just an even better reason to seek as much enjoyment and pleasure as one can out of it? Hell, even rage, spite, and hatred are wonderful reasons to propel oneself out of bed every morning.

I enjoy the experiences of living far too much to want to let it go, especially the intellectual ones. You could give me ten thousand years and I still wouldn't be bored. Trust me, I can schedule what I'd be doing. I'd take option 2 in a heartbeat.

There are millions of books I'm never going to have the time to read. Millions of things I'll never get to learn. I'd love to have doctorates in astronomy, physics, math, engineering, history, and about thirty other subjects I have neither the time or money to pursue. And that's just scholastically. I'd like to play through every RPG I own with every potential character build. I'd like to keep writing until I can actually produce something good. Hell, give me time and I would actually bother to go backpacking and sleep under the stars again.

I simply don't have enough time. I watch movies or read while I play computer games, because I can, I enjoy it, and it provides a maximum of information inflow. I listen to audio books on philosophy (currently working on Arendt), science, and history during work, whenever I am working on something that doesn't take much concentration.

I'm not afraid of the pain leading up to death, particularly, or even afraid of death. But, when I examine my own life, I find so much enjoyment in learning, in thought, in positive and negative emotions, even in the experience of pain, that I find the idea of welcoming an eventual end to it pretty abhorrent. It's not even so much a worry about the dissolution of "I", as the fact that this particular organization of atoms has managed - if I do say so myself - to be a fairly intelligent, not-too-serious entity that really loves discovering reality as it is. I am biased, of course, but I don't see why it is a good thing that that should ever end. Extrapolating from that, I don't see why others would want to ever end, either. But, apparently, they do, and who is this particular peculiar arrangement to question that?

I'm not in denial about it. I don't believe in any gods, in any afterlife, or in anything spiritual at all. I'm skeptical of the idea of the transcendent. But if offered immortality and/or transcendence to some higher plane of existence, or even a much-prolonged life? Yeah, I'd take it. Without a second thought.
With wealth-induced immortality, I would get exactly NOTHING done. Deadlines, the need to produce results or else suffer the consequences, are the only reason I get anything done. Occasionally, I will do something because I've gotten bored of whatever internet-related activity otherwise occupies my time, but without the looming specter of Time's Up, I am useless, and it makes me feel useless.

#1.

(I totally agree with you re: the soul and the Meat Machine.)
Logged

Mitara Newelle

  • Omelette
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 372
Re: Substitution
« Reply #41 on: 07 May 2013, 13:10 »

Poor Aldy.  Cursed with the burden of a sword, as well as the burden of shampoo commerical worthy hair.
His sword is no burden at all, it's quite a source of pleas... oh wait, what?

But very cool artwork!
Logged
Section 3) Shitposting. "The cluster would be a much better place if all Amarrians were set on fire"

Morwen Lagann

  • Pretty Chewtoy
  • The Mods
  • Demigod
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3427
    • Lagging Behind
Re: Substitution
« Reply #42 on: 07 May 2013, 13:10 »

Poor Aldy.  Cursed with the burden of a sword, as well as the burden of shampoo commerical worthy hair.
His sword is no burden at all... oh wait, what?
Well of course it's no burden, you keep the damn thing locked in a box except on alternate Tuesdays!
Logged
Lagging Behind

Morwen's Law:
1) The number of capsuleer women who are bisexual is greater than the number who are lesbian.
2) Most of the former group appear lesbian due to a lack of suitable male partners to go around.
3) The lack of suitable male partners can be summed up in most cases thusly: interested, worth the air they breathe, available; pick two.

Creep

  • Omelette
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 272
Re: Substitution
« Reply #43 on: 07 May 2013, 15:12 »

Poor Aldy.  Cursed with the burden of a sword, as well as the burden of shampoo commerical worthy hair.
His sword is no burden at all... oh wait, what?
Well of course it's no burden, you keep the damn thing locked in a box except on alternate Tuesdays!
Aldy's sword is stuck in Mitara's box?
« Last Edit: 07 May 2013, 17:30 by Creep »
Logged

Sakura Nihil

  • Egger
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Glory
Re: Substitution
« Reply #44 on: 07 May 2013, 15:23 »

Very well done.

Although as usual, I'm several weeks late.  Fuuuuuuuuu.
Logged
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4