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You're having a hard time keeping a coherent train of thought. In your computer simulation of people, if you're modeling individuals as processes, then another

You're having a hard time keeping a coherent train of thought. In your computer simulation of people, if you're modeling individuals as processes, then another process feels pain when a process it cares about is killed. If you're deliberately killing people in a computer simulation where you know the simulated people are sentient, you are an asshole. Your computer analogy only holds when simulating sentient people; the whole point of computers is that they are capable of arbitrary computation. Since we cannot currently use that arbitrary computation to simulate a person, kill -9 in 2016 isn't analogous. e: 2016

andrewfromx 10y ago
If I start a program that creates pids, and each pid is programmed to feel like a little simple human that does stuff, and I slowly slowly make that program more and more complex until it's the level of the AI girl in a movie like ex-Machina at what point is ctrl-c and killing the whole program being a cruel god that wipes out millions of pids/humans without caring?
- pharrington 10y ago
  Don't move the goalposts; removing reality is entirely different than causing pain within the reality. A simpler scenario; I meet you and decide, for whatever reason, to kick you in the dick. In this moment, you are no longer an absurdist: your whole world is pain; pain is literally the only thing you can perceive. Now, post dick-kicking, when you eventually convince yourself again that nothing really matters, does your perception of me change? If so, why? If not, why? And why do you value your pain over the war widow's?
  - andrewfromx 10y ago
    absolutely I'll feel the pain. And it's a challenge to realize my indivual pain is no big deal to the master program. I'm just a pid. By my pid is programmed to feel pain. So yes, I'll feel the pain. Ouch. But i'm a very smart pid that can see I'm like 1 liver cell. If you fry and kill 1 liver cell, but the rest of the liver keeps working perfect. Does that 1 liver cell's pain matter? To that one cell sure, but humans make up 1 "thing" like a liver too. One big organ. 7 billion humans all working together and are part of something but don't even know what it is. All we pids can do is follow our programming.
    - pharrington 10y ago
      You ignored the questions about how and why you'd revaluate someone who deliberately hurt you. But yes, we can only follow our programming. Part of that programming is creating narratives and assigning value judgements to elements of those narratives and our sensory experience. Your narrative overvalues your understanding of basic structures you have a naive understanding of, while suppressing creation of those of a social level. If you find life absurd, its because your outlook leads to internal schisms. You asked why we dance, and then referenced Ex Machina. Kyoko has no free will and is programmed to dance on command, and yet dancing seems like the one thing she actually enjoys. Is there meaning in her dancing?
    - cmurf 10y ago
      In the moment of sheer misery you will not be a smart pid that will give two shits about the grand scheme. You'll only care about yourself, you'll only recognize that reality, that is your fundamental programming. You will not be thinking life is just all fun and games and that your personal pain doesn't matter. That it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things will not give you comfort.

andrewfromx 10y ago

If I start a program that creates pids, and each pid is programmed to feel like a little simple human that does stuff, and I slowly slowly make that program more and more complex until it's the level of the AI girl in a movie like ex-Machina at what point is ctrl-c and killing the whole program being a cruel god that wipes out millions of pids/humans without caring?

pharrington 10y ago
Don't move the goalposts; removing reality is entirely different than causing pain within the reality. A simpler scenario; I meet you and decide, for whatever reason, to kick you in the dick. In this moment, you are no longer an absurdist: your whole world is pain; pain is literally the only thing you can perceive. Now, post dick-kicking, when you eventually convince yourself again that nothing really matters, does your perception of me change? If so, why? If not, why? And why do you value your pain over the war widow's?
- andrewfromx 10y ago
  absolutely I'll feel the pain. And it's a challenge to realize my indivual pain is no big deal to the master program. I'm just a pid. By my pid is programmed to feel pain. So yes, I'll feel the pain. Ouch. But i'm a very smart pid that can see I'm like 1 liver cell. If you fry and kill 1 liver cell, but the rest of the liver keeps working perfect. Does that 1 liver cell's pain matter? To that one cell sure, but humans make up 1 "thing" like a liver too. One big organ. 7 billion humans all working together and are part of something but don't even know what it is. All we pids can do is follow our programming.
  - pharrington 10y ago
    You ignored the questions about how and why you'd revaluate someone who deliberately hurt you. But yes, we can only follow our programming. Part of that programming is creating narratives and assigning value judgements to elements of those narratives and our sensory experience. Your narrative overvalues your understanding of basic structures you have a naive understanding of, while suppressing creation of those of a social level. If you find life absurd, its because your outlook leads to internal schisms. You asked why we dance, and then referenced Ex Machina. Kyoko has no free will and is programmed to dance on command, and yet dancing seems like the one thing she actually enjoys. Is there meaning in her dancing?
  - cmurf 10y ago
    In the moment of sheer misery you will not be a smart pid that will give two shits about the grand scheme. You'll only care about yourself, you'll only recognize that reality, that is your fundamental programming. You will not be thinking life is just all fun and games and that your personal pain doesn't matter. That it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things will not give you comfort.