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PostPosted: Mon Mar 01, 2004 10:18 pm 
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That's IT! I officially give up my title as the forum Necromancer. It is a practice that is too wide spread to stop. But I will have this.
I Give myself the title of "The Master of the SUPER ULTRA MEGA BUMP!!!"

I will at least be known as the first.

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 01, 2004 10:24 pm 
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But who for the second.

Bump

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 1:07 am 
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IcyMonkey, ne Zarathustra wrote:
Tamayo wrote:
[insert dictionary definitions here]


You're using a very specific interpretation of a very particular sub-meaning of the word "dualism" to make your case. Not a good idea. I'm only iterating what the generally-accepted philosophical conceptions of these terms are. In general, Descartes is considered a daulist whereas Plato is considered a monist.


Nay again. Please look once more at those dictionary definitions; the definition I used was listed first, not third where yours is found. That is the meaning of "dualism" I have used all my life. That is the meaning of "dualism" my friends who are not lucky enough to be mathematicians tease me with.

Most math people (I among them) think that analytic statements, such as "two plus two equals four" or "all finite groups over n elements are subgroups of the group of symmetries on n elements" or "any formal system that is sufficiently powerful such that it may describe the arithmetic of natural numbers must be incomplete, inconsistent or both" are discovered, not invented; such statements are necessarily true, but only known for sure once someone has proven them. That belief is a weak kind of dualism, and I admit it. It's a bit embarrassing, but you aren't going to change my mind about it; many people have tried, and failed.

But wait -- there's more! That's the only definition given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Where did yours go?

Et tu, Brute.

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If by "every event has a motive" you mean "humans are ultimately responsible for all of their actions", then can you please define responsibility, and define action?


No, that's not what I meant. If I may refer to another topic elsewhere, we are apparently in agreement that the universe is non-teleological. That is what I meant.

A fallacy, to a logician, is the presumption of post hoc ergo propter hoc: if event B occurred after event A, then event B must have occurred because of event A. This is manifestly not the case, but it is the pattern of Sartre's philosophy. (Camus did it better.)

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Again, I really don't want to sound to patronizing, arrogant, or offensive. The last thing we need is a flame war over something as stupid as this. I respect anyone who displays the level of knowledge you do on these subjects. I'm just saying that your understanding of this subject is incomplete and flawed, while my understanding of it is... slightly less so.


Perhaps so; but you did patronize me, and I admit I dislike having my intelligence insulted. You may not have intended that, and I should not be quick to see that it is happening, but ...

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Admittedly, I don't have a degree or anything to show for this (yet). All I can say is I have a burning interest in it, have taken many college courses on it already, and have read extensively on the subject.


A philosopher with this much background should not be so quick to say, "I know more than you do" to someone he respects. ;-)


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 2:05 pm 
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Since this thread used to be about how I saw the Matrix, I figure it's as good a place as any for my dumbass plot questions.

Is the world within the Martrix a literal representation of our world, or just a world that vaguely resembles ours? If it is a representation of our world, did it start off in the 19th century or something? What happens when it advances to the point in history that the machines killed all the guys in totally cool mech suits and stuffed everyone else in a gigantic postmodern thought experiment? Did virtual machines put all of the virtual people into a virtual matrix, where virtual virtual people are menaced by virtual virtual agents?

Or am I just full of shit?


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 2:11 pm 
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RMG wrote:
I am just full of shit


Fixed it for you.

Actually thats a good question, someone else answer is as my mexi-fu is kicking in and I feel like a nap.

-MiB

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 3:06 pm 
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RMG wrote:
Since this thread used to be about how I saw the Matrix, I figure it's as good a place as any for my dumbass plot questions.

Is the world within the Martrix a literal representation of our world, or just a world that vaguely resembles ours? If it is a representation of our world, did it start off in the 19th century or something? What happens when it advances to the point in history that the machines killed all the guys in totally cool mech suits and stuffed everyone else in a gigantic postmodern thought experiment? Did virtual machines put all of the virtual people into a virtual matrix, where virtual virtual people are menaced by virtual virtual agents?

Or am I just full of shit?


*Hits Reset button* Think that's all they'd do, and I believe in the first one they said: "We chose this time because you were at the peak of your civilization, I say your civilization because once you created us to think for you, it became our civilization" - Stuck up sweaty guy to drugged up Morpheus.

So you'd think that 1) They would keep it within a certain time period, pobably the 1990's - XXXX date when the machines really started to become more prominant, but before the war.

or that 2) "The One" comes out of the woodwork in a reasonable amount of time, requiring a reset with them one step closer to "balancing the equation".

But going along with your suggestion that they would just let it keep going, I wonder: Would the rebels be able to stop the same thing from happening in the Matrix? Or, would the machines (real world) feel a moral obligation to their counterparts in the virtual world?

Edit: Also, you'd think they'd avoid any outright war, since if you die in the Matrix, you die in the real world. Losing your batteries is annoying.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 3:49 pm 
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I would figure that within the Matrix, to avoid the unnessasary death of their batteries, they would keep the people at a technological standstill, avoiding any reprocussions of technological advances.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 4:03 pm 
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And besides... it's not like they actually thought that whole thing out before they made it.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 5:15 pm 
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Skjie wrote:
I would figure that within the Matrix, to avoid the unnessasary death of their batteries, they would keep the people at a technological standstill, avoiding any reprocussions of technological advances.


Wouldn't the pseudo-90s be the worst time to simulate if you want a technological standstill? In the real 90s, innovation was pretty much appearing everywhere-- in Silicon Valley, in the biotech industry, under rocks, in stool samples, etc. Wouldn't people start to wonder why the high tech company they work for hasn't released any new products for the last hundred or so years, or why they haven't finished up the human genome project yet?


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 5:44 pm 
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I used to bitch about the Matrix all the time. But then I just decided to accept that there were so many plot holes in it that I didn't have enough time to continue and still have a 'life'.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 7:41 pm 
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RMG wrote:
Skjie wrote:
I would figure that within the Matrix, to avoid the unnessasary death of their batteries, they would keep the people at a technological standstill, avoiding any reprocussions of technological advances.


Wouldn't the pseudo-90s be the worst time to simulate if you want a technological standstill? In the real 90s, innovation was pretty much appearing everywhere-- in Silicon Valley, in the biotech industry, under rocks, in stool samples, etc. Wouldn't people start to wonder why the high tech company they work for hasn't released any new products for the last hundred or so years, or why they haven't finished up the human genome project yet?


Also, the 90's had one of the lowest human mortality rates in human history. Nothing truely bad was going on in the world, their batteries would last longer than in any other time period.

Maybe instead of a complete standstill, force only an AI standstill. Everything moves forward except any advances in AI.

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 7:52 pm 
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The Matrix has little to fear from your logic's heat and radiation.

...what?

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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 8:06 pm 
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I still want some of that cake.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 17, 2004 8:10 pm 
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EvilPoohCutie wrote:
RMG wrote:
Since this thread used to be about how I saw the Matrix, I figure it's as good a place as any for my dumbass plot questions.

Is the world within the Martrix a literal representation of our world, or just a world that vaguely resembles ours? If it is a representation of our world, did it start off in the 19th century or something? What happens when it advances to the point in history that the machines killed all the guys in totally cool mech suits and stuffed everyone else in a gigantic postmodern thought experiment? Did virtual machines put all of the virtual people into a virtual matrix, where virtual virtual people are menaced by virtual virtual agents?

Or am I just full of shit?


*Hits Reset button* Think that's all they'd do, and I believe in the first one they said: "We chose this time because you were at the peak of your civilization, I say your civilization because once you created us to think for you, it became our civilization" - Stuck up sweaty guy to drugged up Morpheus.

So you'd think that 1) They would keep it within a certain time period, pobably the 1990's - XXXX date when the machines really started to become more prominant, but before the war.

or that 2) "The One" comes out of the woodwork in a reasonable amount of time, requiring a reset with them one step closer to "balancing the equation".

But going along with your suggestion that they would just let it keep going, I wonder: Would the rebels be able to stop the same thing from happening in the Matrix? Or, would the machines (real world) feel a moral obligation to their counterparts in the virtual world?

Edit: Also, you'd think they'd avoid any outright war, since if you die in the Matrix, you die in the real world. Losing your batteries is annoying.


Exactly what I was thinking. The One facilitated a reset of the system. Probably reverts it back to about 1900 (about a 100 year cycle, as Morpheus says, sounds exactly the way a machine would think). War and such could be fought be "NPCs", or even not at all. All you have to do is tell someone you're fighting a war, and make it plausible with a few doctored photos. Especially since the machines control everything you're exposed to.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 3:48 am 
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Jasper wrote:
Probably reverts it back to about 1900 (about a 100 year cycle, as Morpheus says, sounds exactly the way a machine would think).


Being Binary machines, setting it back to 100 is actually not a logical thing for them to do. 128 is the most logical.

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 8:03 am 
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Or maybe an advanced AI that can develope a sense of self-preservation and intelligence, and capable of constructing something as complex as The Matrix(tm) would have moved beyond binary into something more, uhm, fluid?

-MiB

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 8:33 am 
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I think even 128 years is too short a time between resets. In that time only two generations will have been born and died. It would make greater sense for the matrix to be run as long as possible without requiring a reset. However, it is equally possible that they turn on a second matrix at a certain stage, as the first nears the whole rise of the machines thing, and swap over the newborn kiddies to the second with "npc" parents. Meanwhile in the first one the parents actually have "npc" kiddies, but as time goes on everyone in the first matrix dies and so they can switch it off until it gets to that point again in the second matrix.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 11:27 am 
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Why would it need to reset? It could be running several versions of the program, and moving poeple minds in and out of various instances aof the program as needed. The Matrix controls what goes into the mind of the person while they are plugged into the system, and could easily move on mind in and out of various sceneriaos at while. the resetting could well be done only to the minds of the humans.
The matrix may well be an infinite repeating instance of itself.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 12:01 pm 
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Someone go kidnap the directors... we have questions!

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 18, 2004 3:53 pm 
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See what I mean?

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