From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Thu May 02 2002 - 08:03:09 MDT
Louis Newstrom wrote:
>
> From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey@datamann.com>
>
> > Louis Newstrom wrote:
> > > As a related analogy: Imagine a child on the railroad tracks gets
> killed by
> > > a train. Now imagine that an adult knew this was going to happen and
> didn't
> > > stop it. Would you say "the result is the same, so it doesn't matter"?
> I
> > > wouldn't.
> >
> > Ah, but is virtual death as important as 'real' death?
>
> Ok. Most people are saying the same thing. It doesn't matter because the
> child is not real. Ok, let's make it more personal to the "real" person.
>
> I have had vision problems all of my life. I could not become an astronaut
> (or even an airplane pilot) because my eyes weren't good enough. I have had
> migraine headaches for years. I have had to spend thousands of dollars and
> go through numerous operations just to keep from going blind.
>
> If I am in the real world, then all of this suffering is unavoidable. If I
> am in a simulation, then this is just for someone's entertainment.
>
> To me, it would make a big difference.
Sure, but WHOS entertainment? Are you really just a brain in a vat in a
higher level metaverse? If so, then it is YOU who are being entertained
by your vision problems. You could have chosen them as an interesting
handicap to overcome, or accepted a contract that assigned you a random
probability of random impairments while in this simulation.
If you are not there, you are just a bot in this simulation, then a) it
may matter to you, but it may not to the simulator operators, b)
whatever the purposes of the simulation operators are, they are entirely
immaterial to YOU and your existence and life. You make your own meaning
in life. Fuck THEM.
You are also assuming that the simulation operators had some sort of
control in the actual decision to give you bad sight. This is really an
inappropriate assumption to make. It's like blaming an airline pilot for
the hijacking, bombing, bird strike, lighting strike, or random
mechanical failure that causes the plane to crash. Sure he was flying
the plane, but there are things entirely beyond his control that you
can't blame him for.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:13:46 MST