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> And it plays out over a trillion or so years. Horrifying. Horrifying to whom? The character isn't suffering. They aren't aware of the passage of those trilli

by bccdee 2y ago

> And it plays out over a trillion or so years. Horrifying. Horrifying to whom? The character isn't suffering. They aren't aware of the passage of those trillions of years. There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation. And so what if you're the only one? That's not really true in a functional sense. Every human you interact with is indeed a truly conscious individual with a discrete personality and life. You only become integrated as a single organism when the egg "hatches" and you join the broader society of adults.

A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
> There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation. Reincarnation tends to assume at least some degree of continuity and free will. This thing assumes that you're eventually going to be, e.g., The Elephant Man, or that poor Japanese guy who got cooked by a megadose of radiation and the doctors wouldn't let him die. That, if there's a torture that you've heard of, or any cautionary tale you've seen reported, you are going to experience it or have already -- and without learning anything at all.
- bccdee 2y ago
  The guy in the story has as much free will as anyone does. Just because everything's stitched together with time travel, doesn't mean the individual instances of the character aren't making authentic choices in each moment. Free will doesn't mean our choices are non-deterministic and detached from our circumstances and history; I don't know why that would even be desirable. Compatibilism is the only coherent stance on free will. > and without learning anything at all Well, you learn something later, when the egg hatches. But blank-slate reincarnation also promises that you'll completely forget the trauma of being the elephant man, at least for the duration of the egg process. Surely the real burden would be remembering all those billions of lives with only your paltry human mind to bear it.
  - naikrovek 2y ago
    > Surely the real burden would be remembering all those billions of lives with only your paltry human mind to bear it. the being going through this in the story is not a human. a tiny part of them dips its finger into the universe created by the narrator and what is experienced is a human life, but the being experiencing those lives is not human. the human is the lower dimensional representation of the higher-dimensional being that the narrator is speaking to. if I touch a sheet of paper, part of me exists in the same plane as the paper, but I am not a piece of paper, I am a much more complex being. It is the same for the narrator and the person who just died and believed until this conversation that they were "merely" a human. the humanity of this being is the interface between them and their past selves. once they graduate/hatch from this egg, they are much larger than the sum of all the lives that they have lived. they contain all of those experiences, and will remember them all.
    - bccdee 2y ago
      Right—I agree that they'll be fine once they hatch & become a greater being. I was responding to this comment: > if there's a torture that you've heard of, or any cautionary tale you've seen reported, you are going to experience it or have already -- and without learning anything at all. which suggests that there's something horrifying about the cycles of forgetting that take place inside the egg, while the protagonist is still human.
    - singleshot_ 2y ago
      If you “touch” a piece of paper, aren’t your electrons a fraction of a distance above the paper, and not coplanar at all?
      - yetihehe 2y ago
        Only if that paper is a perfectly flat and non-elastic surface. When you touch real everyday paper, it has pretty fuzzy soft layer, some atoms of your finger will be below "average" level of that paper's surface.
  - A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
IanCal 2y ago
If it were true, the idea that I was Hitler and everyone that worked at unit 731 is pretty horrifying. > There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation. Under that wouldn't I be one of many going through some different lives? Rather that there is only one person ever who goes through all lives.
- bccdee 2y ago
  > Rather that there is only one person ever who goes through all lives. So what? They're not really meaningfully one person until all the memories get collected. If they each start as a blank slate, they're all functionally separate people. It's not like they're experiencing loneliness during their lives because of any of this. > If it were true, the idea that I was Hitler and everyone that worked at unit 731 is pretty horrifying. That part is supposed to be uncomfortable, but I don't find it existentially horrifying. After all, given that Hitler exists, someone had to be him. Surely it's less horrifying for that person to also be all of Hitler's victims.

by bccdee 2y ago

A_D_E_P_T 2y ago

> There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation. Reincarnation tends to assume at least some degree of continuity and free will. This thing assumes that you're eventually going to be, e.g., The Elephant Man, or that poor Japanese guy who got cooked by a megadose of radiation and the doctors wouldn't let him die. That, if there's a torture that you've heard of, or any cautionary tale you've seen reported, you are going to experience it or have already -- and without learning anything at all.

bccdee 2y ago
The guy in the story has as much free will as anyone does. Just because everything's stitched together with time travel, doesn't mean the individual instances of the character aren't making authentic choices in each moment. Free will doesn't mean our choices are non-deterministic and detached from our circumstances and history; I don't know why that would even be desirable. Compatibilism is the only coherent stance on free will. > and without learning anything at all Well, you learn something later, when the egg hatches. But blank-slate reincarnation also promises that you'll completely forget the trauma of being the elephant man, at least for the duration of the egg process. Surely the real burden would be remembering all those billions of lives with only your paltry human mind to bear it.
- naikrovek 2y ago
  > Surely the real burden would be remembering all those billions of lives with only your paltry human mind to bear it. the being going through this in the story is not a human. a tiny part of them dips its finger into the universe created by the narrator and what is experienced is a human life, but the being experiencing those lives is not human. the human is the lower dimensional representation of the higher-dimensional being that the narrator is speaking to. if I touch a sheet of paper, part of me exists in the same plane as the paper, but I am not a piece of paper, I am a much more complex being. It is the same for the narrator and the person who just died and believed until this conversation that they were "merely" a human. the humanity of this being is the interface between them and their past selves. once they graduate/hatch from this egg, they are much larger than the sum of all the lives that they have lived. they contain all of those experiences, and will remember them all.
  - bccdee 2y ago
    Right—I agree that they'll be fine once they hatch & become a greater being. I was responding to this comment: > if there's a torture that you've heard of, or any cautionary tale you've seen reported, you are going to experience it or have already -- and without learning anything at all. which suggests that there's something horrifying about the cycles of forgetting that take place inside the egg, while the protagonist is still human.
  - singleshot_ 2y ago
    If you “touch” a piece of paper, aren’t your electrons a fraction of a distance above the paper, and not coplanar at all?
    - yetihehe 2y ago
      Only if that paper is a perfectly flat and non-elastic surface. When you touch real everyday paper, it has pretty fuzzy soft layer, some atoms of your finger will be below "average" level of that paper's surface.
- A_D_E_P_T 2y ago

IanCal 2y ago

If it were true, the idea that I was Hitler and everyone that worked at unit 731 is pretty horrifying. > There's nothing any more horrifying about this than about bog-standard reincarnation. Under that wouldn't I be one of many going through some different lives? Rather that there is only one person ever who goes through all lives.

bccdee 2y ago
> Rather that there is only one person ever who goes through all lives. So what? They're not really meaningfully one person until all the memories get collected. If they each start as a blank slate, they're all functionally separate people. It's not like they're experiencing loneliness during their lives because of any of this. > If it were true, the idea that I was Hitler and everyone that worked at unit 731 is pretty horrifying. That part is supposed to be uncomfortable, but I don't find it existentially horrifying. After all, given that Hitler exists, someone had to be him. Surely it's less horrifying for that person to also be all of Hitler's victims.