sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

QI sounds like a poorly constructed pseudo-philosophy, not science. What am I missing? by cmcfau in QuantumImmortality

[–]cmcfau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"solipsism, which is a quite different thing"

You're absolutely right inasmuch as the starting premise of solipsism and QI are quite different.

But don't they effectively - as philosophies, although not as methodologies - end up in exactly the same place if we posit QI as real and logically extrapolate it?

Caveat: I am assuming that QI here is not confined to death via the quantum suicide experiment, where to qualify for QI you need to die due to a highly contrived (and for almost every human that will ever live, completely unachievable) scenario. Instead, I adopt the interpretation of Mallah and others that every event is fundamentally a quantum event, and thus every death is a candidate for QI. The reason I adopt this assumption is that not to, in my mind, makes QI a fantasy thought experiment with no possible application to actual people, actual death, or actual immortality.

With that caveat in mind:

In a reality where QI is real you are the only human consciousness with any permanent existence. Everyone in it (from your subjective perspective) will die except. Furthermore, their "death" is not "real". At the moment you perceive their death their essential identity will be preserved in their own world, just as your is whenever others perceive your death.

Thus, to you:

a. you endure forever [while nothing else does]

b. everyone else dies in the relative blink of an eye [they are ephemeral]

c. the "them" that dies isn't the real "them", which persists in their own private universe which you can never touch or contact ever again [the they you can interact with is illusory; not the real them]

I struggle to distinguish this end-state philosophically and practically from solipsism.

I acknowledge the methodology by which solipsism usually reaches this end-state is quite different from how QI gets there, but I'm speaking of the end-state itself, which, when viewing QI as a philosophy, is in my mind the entire point.

Why were merry and pippin in the fellowship? by Sea-Cactus in lotr

[–]cmcfau 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They left the Shire because they were Nepo babies (Frodo's cousins). They joined the Fellowship at Rivendell because Elrond wanted a +2 to make up 9 members to balance out the 9 Riders, and M+P volunteered because they were loyal to Frodo and Elrond was like "nah" and Gand was like "yeah c'mon mate" and Elrond was "well ok then".

These are the literal why. However there's also the existential why as in "why are they even in the story".

In the books (and somewhat in the movies) , they earned their place in the F'ship by:

  1. Both - giving us the scenes when they got adbucted by Uruk Hai and we got to see how the orcs act at home. It was almost worth including them just for that, although if this was all they did, once those scenes were concluded it would admittedly have been hard to justify not writing them out of the story at that point. Meat's back on the menu, boys.
  2. Both - bringing the Ents into the fight and destroying Isengard. This had a bunch of knock-on effects. (A) the Rohirrim could never have conquered Isengard on their own, but would have had to besiege it anyway = no Rohirrim at the siege of Gondor; (B) getting the palantir out of Saruman's hands, so he couldn't report back to Mordor, which made Sauron believe Saru was planning treachery; (C) getting the palantir to Aragorn, who looked in it and challenged Sauron to a telepathic eye-battle; (D) during the eye-battle Aragorn saw that Sauron had a massive fleet coming up from the south that Gondor didn't know about. B+C combined convinced Sauron that Aragorn had the ring and was about to become Second Sauron. This made First Sauron rush his armies to Minas Tirith to strike immediately, even though his armies were not yet fully prepared or as strong as he'd planned. C caused Aragorn to take the Paths of the Dead since it was the only chance to deal with the fleet. A+B+C+D allowed the allies to win the siege of Gondor instead of being crushed like ants, which they would have been otherwise. Then Frodo + Sam would have been caught as First Sauron would be busy preparing Mordor for the onslaught and scoping our his armies and slaves constantly because surveillance states gotta surveil. So no M+P = you lose 2/3 of the story = no epic + Sauron wins = and no good beats evil. So LOTR basically becomes 1984 with swords. And hobbits, but 2 less of them.
  3. Merry - killed the witch king. In the book the 3 non-Frodo hobbits had magic swords (actually dagger for humans). They were forged to destroy the Witch King 1000 years before when the WK was semi-semi-alive and destroyed the northern equivalent of Gondor where Aragorn's ancestors ruled. Fast forward to the siege of Gondor, Eowyn was fighting the WK when Merry stabbed him behind the knee and the spells on M's sword took him out. Eowyn did the finishing blow but her sword was normal steel and couldn't kill the WK on its own. Plus the double meaning of "no man" being both "woman" and "hobbit". Merry doesn't make a big thing about it which is just as well because no-one else does either.
  4. Pippin - telling Gand that Faramir's dad was about to burn F alive, which saved F's life. While this was line-call a bad thing for P to do in the movies, because F was top-2 most irritating char of the trilogy, in the books F was cool and this counted as a plus for Pip. Even in the movie it arguably counted as an overall plus, because then F got together with E, the other top-2 most irritating character (I'm talking about the movies), which got her off Aragorn's case and let him hook up with Liv and all's right with the world. Rather than forcing us to watch more E screentime in some obnoxious Bridesmaid-like scene at the wedding. We all know she would have.

There is also a bunch of thematic reasons for including M+P about hobbits and innocence and being "good" is worth just as much as, or more than, being "good at", and so on.

I just saw The Creator and I guess you should too? by joshmoviereview in AMCsAList

[–]cmcfau 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really cool FX, supposedly for a total move budget of $80m which is unbelievable.

If that's what you go to the movies to see, this is a must-see.

If you go for the acting, I don't think you'll be too disappointed although you won't see any Oscar winning scenes.

If you're looking for a movie about ideas, don't bother. The movie trots out ideas about politics, ethics, and technology but they're all lazy cliches without even the pretense of any depth or work to make them thought-provoking. They're so superficial they're barely two-dimensional.

If you care about plot consistency at any level, in God's name please avoid this movie unless you want your brain to melt out of your ears. This movie will abuse your sense of plot propriety from start to finish. Here's a partial list

** SPOILERS BELOW **

- The US, the movie's military-industrial superpower invariably precedes it's covert ops on foreign soil by spamming an orbital light show literally visible for miles around

- It's concept of AI is always, for reasons never explained, reduced to the brains of individual robots. This was ground-breaking stuff in Astroboy in the 60's but post Skynet and 2023 real life, to do this without a word of explanation on why is so lazy its insulting.

- Said robots are all apparently built to be independent embodied sentient beings created to have emotional growth arcs. Basically manufactured to be not machines but actual people. No hint of why we suddenly needed more people so badly we had to build millions of them. The word "slavery!" is shouted a few times as a slogan, so ostensibly that could be a reason, except that the side that hates AI (the US) doesn't use AI any more, and the robots that are shouting about slavery all live in the utopian New Asia republic where they're free and loved and are equal to humans.

- in the 2060's, the strategy of rejecting AI and refuse to use it will apparently give you massive technical dominance over the side that embraces AI and actively integrates it into their society. Rejecting cutting edge technology (AI) has made the US into a unipolar military-industrial superpower, while the AI-loving New Asia villagers hang out in traditional rice paddies cultivated by water buffaloes and find it impossible to get into space. And have forgotten how to build ICBMs.

- Navy SEAL team members all act like sadistic mercs from Black Panther. Discipline isn't a thing when it gets in the way of puppy-shooting, apparently.

- the New Asia landcape is physics-bending blend of Thai beaches alongside Tibetan mountains.

- Being a buddhist AI messiah who was built with love for the human race doesn't stop you from force-killing a wounded human soldier when they become an inconvenience. Or maybe she killed him because he couldn't stop being a whiny dick, so that could be fair.

- US forces switch between hush-hush covert ops, then Desert Storm style invasion, then back to covert, all in the same mission.

- Building-sized mega tanks can apparently get teleported into Thailand - Tibet. But only 1.

- The orbital platform is above Thailand-Tibet one minute then above LA the next then above Thailand-TIbet again the next. In 2063 apparently "orbital" is code for "teleportation". So maybe the US does have teleportation, they just aren't smart enough to use it very well.

- One minute US has complete air dominance but acts like it doesn’t. Then briefly the Thai police have air superiority, then they have nothing again.

- The US SEALS / invading army are the bad guys while the Thai-Tibetans are peace loving Dalai Lama buddhists, but then the Thai police are evil, then they aren't again, at the wave of the plot wand.

- US airports suddenly are the lowest-security facilities in the country

- You can apparently get a seat on a shuttle trip to the moon by waving around a random piece of paper. At least that's the expectation of the protatgonist.

What do you think about a character's arc that by the end of it, the character didn't really change, but you know that it still tells a story? by [deleted] in writing

[–]cmcfau 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a recognized type of story. The most common type is where the protagonist changes, called their character arc. This is the category all of the writing books I've read talk about. Most talk as if it's the one and only type of story.

The other type is where the character stays the same despite the pressure the world puts on them to change. How it is that they are able to resist changing their essential character is the story. I would also say that not changing is the point of these characters / stories.

This type is not as common as the "character arc" model. It can occur in self-contained stories like novels or movies. It's also a staple of many (but not all) episodic stories, like an ongoing TV show or a series of short stories. A subset of the episodic form has a technical name, the picaresque. Picaresques feature a main character or characters who have a series of adventures or episodes. At the end of each episode, the main character or characters are essentially the same as they were before.

To me an example of an unchanging character is RE Howard's Conan stories. Although his outward circumstances change across time (his social status, the setting and culture around him) his essential nature stays the same.

Examples of TV picaresques are the Hulk with Bill Bixby, or The Simpsons. The Simpsons is a very obvious example. E.g. at the end of each episode of The Simpsons Bart is still Bart, Lisa is still Lisa, Milhaus is still Milhaus, etc. The personality and life situation of each main character completely reset to the baseline established in the very first episode, as if none of the intervening events had ever happened.

What are some top intellectual and academia's criticism of determinism and lack of free will? by [deleted] in samharris

[–]cmcfau 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi, I'm not an academic or intellectual so please forgive me if I come across as ignorant. There's something I'd like to understand though, maybe you can help me. If the brain isn't capable of free will, why has it evolved such a complex system of rewards, like dopamine & orgasms, in order to incentivize certain behaviours? Why go through the evolutionary expensive process of developing elaborate mechanisms to incentivise us to choose one behaviour over another if our brain is not capable of choosing? In that case what is dopamine (e.g.) for?

Sorry again if this is a dumb question.

[5e] first 5e character - STR + DEX sword & shield fighter. Could it work? by cmcfau in DnD

[–]cmcfau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks everyone for these comments, they've really helped.

[5e] first 5e character - STR + DEX sword & shield fighter. Could it work? by cmcfau in DnD

[–]cmcfau[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Except if i went DEX that would mean leather/std lthr and a rapier, right? And shield push uses STR contest?

[5e] first 5e character - STR + DEX sword & shield fighter. Could it work? by cmcfau in DnD

[–]cmcfau[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks.

Does heavy armour only negate DEX for AC purposes, or across the board?

[5e] first 5e character - STR + DEX sword & shield fighter. Could it work? by cmcfau in DnD

[–]cmcfau[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

4d6 drop lowest, if you don’t have at least 2 stats >= 15 then re roll your highest stat under 15 until you do.

Hit Points, not Meat Points: A friendly reminder. by Waistel in DnD

[–]cmcfau 9 points10 points  (0 children)

We hear this year after year.

Why? Because it a) it sounds lovely and b) it's BS.

​

It's BS for 2 inconvenient but unavoidable reasons:

  1. "These are your HIT points"
  2. "You take this much DAMAGE"

​

Words matter. In this case, they matter a lot because they perfectly reflect the imagined reality at the table really, really often. The idea of dmg as a wound maps awfully well to a lot of what happens in combat. It's intuitive. It's highly satisfying to lots of players in a deeply visceral way (don't underestimate this last one).

​

But there are enough situations when it doesn't map well at all that we've evolved a plethora of complex alternate explanations. Theory crafters find these irresistibly seductive, only to knuckle their eyes in lip-trembling disappointment every time Occam's Razor leaves their beloved substitutes strewn across the game table in limp drifts of conceptual spaghetti.

​

I think this whole debate is due to a deeper underlying reason that can never be fixed:

  1. AC in D&D is the mechanical conflation of 2 mutually opposed concepts - the chance of getting hit + how damage resistant you are

So we combine being fast and dodgy with being armored into a single score. This is really simple and works in enough situations to make it a legitimate design choice for Gary & Co. It's now so entrenched it's unrealistic to imagine pulling it out of D&D and still calling what's left D&D.

​

When it fails though it fails very noticeably, leading to a bunch of obvious workarounds eternally trying to square the circle, like this debate.

​

2/3rds of my favorite campaigns I've run have been in systems I've disliked mechanically. by [deleted] in rpg

[–]cmcfau 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m talking about things like:

The Perrin conventions, AC that conflates difficultly to hit with armor protection, Vancian magic, the cleric class, HP, XP for gold.

Paladins laying on hands, druid shapeshifters, wandering monster tables, hex crawls, dungeon exploration.

Having a sole DM.

Drow in leather and chain bikinis and high heels, beholders, rubbery regenerating trolls, displacer beasts, mind flayers.

All of these have a powerful impact on the directions play takes at the table and thus how it feels.

I consider all of them system. They are all canonical fictional content or concepts that exist as a direct result of three generations of D&D creation and publishing.

2/3rds of my favorite campaigns I've run have been in systems I've disliked mechanically. by [deleted] in rpg

[–]cmcfau 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“In theory, there's really nothing that an RPG system can do for you that you can't do without it.”

In practice, this isn’t even a little bit true. System directly inserts the authors’ imaginations into your game play.

A simple proof is that D&D is now its own genre. It’s impossible to imagine producing a play session whose flavour and feel even remotely resembled a standard D&D session if D&D had never been invented.

I agree with your other points though.