Re: >H What should you ask a wish machine to do for you?

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Sep 26 1997 - 15:31:01 MDT

CALYK@aol.com writes:

> In a message dated 97-09-26 11:36:22 EDT, you write:
>
> << What Klaupatius asked Trurl's wish machine for in
> Lem's _The Cyberiad_: "Make Nothing".
> >>
>
> Which is?

Quoting from memory: "The machine didn't move, it just hummed slightly.
Klaupatius looked smug, and Trurl exclaimed 'What did you expect? It
is doing nothing at all!'. 'Yes, but what I was refering to was not
nothing, but Nothing, the great void, non-being itself. Obviously
your machine is flawed since it cannot do it'. 'Excuse me', the
machine said, 'but look around...'" Stanislaw Lem is a quite fun author,
and the Cyberiad is another influence on my transhumanist ideas. 

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y

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