Understanding Humanity

We are so used to these things - playing games on computers, watching movies, admiring beauty in art and drawn representations of ourselves. Things that essentially boil down to either images that flash in quick succession such that our brains interpret it as "movement", or patterns that stimulate the temporal regions that tell us to recognize them as pictures of people.

What if there was some other life out there, one just as advanced - if not more advanced - than us, but ...

Upon engaging in a discussion recently I constructed a thought experiment that sent chills down my spine not only because of its obvious analogy, but also the visceral empathy evoked in its reading. I have thus decided to immortalize this in a blog post for my own reference as well as to turn it into an "open letter" of sorts to those interested in discussing the philosophy of mind and the limits that science can recreate.

Originally Posted by Counterguardian

Are emotions something that cannot be programmed

...

After reading Brynhilde's blog entry on learning and the transition from one level of proficiency to another, I cannot help but realize that this is a rather frightful echo of my high school days going into university as a biomedicine student, and an ominous prophecy for the future. Although I cannot say I have experienced the same things to the same extent as Bryn, I feel I am at least obligated to share mine. This is a deviation from the more detached questions I have asked in previous posts, ...

If we leave people who believe in things that are detrimental to their function in society proceed as they are, it is immoral.

If we interfere with someone's life based on his belief that we perceive as detrimental to their function as society, it is immoral.


What would you do?

If a multiverse exists by means of branching from our own universe at "decision points", there must be other possibilities - else all multiverses will simply be clones of each other. If there are multiple possibilities, then therefore the universe we live in must be one among many. How then, may an omniscient entity exist? How can solipsism (the philosophical view that only one's mind is sure to exist) be true if we can conceive of concepts that are not linked to one's mind or even one's ...