Posts Tagged ‘extropia dasilva’
ALT! Who goes there? – Part 5 – An essay by Extropia DaSilva
Now Extropia DaSilva has her own blog! This essay is republished with kind permission of Extie — Gwyn Remember that moment in ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, when the bears are heading for home while Goldilocks is sleeping in baby bear’s bed? Small children find her behaviour rather strange, and an experiment involving a tube of sweets can help explain why. In this experiment, a child is offered a tube…
ALT! Who Goes There? Part Three by Extropia DaSilva
In the previous essay, we saw how philosophy embarked on a failed quest to find the core self. Something else that has occupied philosophers’ minds through the ages is the nature of reality. What is it, in and of itself? Are we in a position to know? In concepts and thought experiments like ‘the veil of Maya’, ‘Plato’s Cave’, ‘Descartes’ evil deceiver’ and ‘Nozik’s Experience Machine’, we are invited to…
Alt! Who Goes There? (Part 2) An Essay by Extropia DaSilva
TWO: THE BIRTH OF THE SOUL AND THE DEATH OF THE SELF. In philosophy, investigations into the nature of self-consciousness can be divided into two main theories. ‘Theories of self’ attempt to determine what kind of thing the self is, or attempt to show that it is not a ‘thing’ at all. ‘Theories of personal identity’ are primarily concerned with personal identity over time. In other words, they set out…
Alt! Who Goes There? An Essay by Extropia DaSilva
ONE: DOLLS AND ACTIVES. In ‘Virals And Definitives In SL’ and other essays, I discussed the concept of the ‘Pairson’: A character in an online world that is controlled by two or more people in RL. This lead to various questions, not least of which was ‘to what extent does the character remain the same, if the person behind it has changed’? A more common challenge to personal identity is…
Offline in the Afterlife: An Essay by Extropia DaSilva
‘I’m the urban spaceman baby, here comes the twist: I don’t exist’ – Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band. On the 23rd June 2009 at 3:23 pm (pst), Gwyn said something rather strange. It probably did not strike her as such, and is not likely to seem odd to you either. That is because we are not evolved to understand death. But, we are jumping ahead of ourselves. First, I should reveal…
Ctrl-ALT R 3: RISE OF THE ROBOTS AND THE JESSIE SIM UNIVERSE: An essay by Extropia DaSilva
‘Pierre goes cross-eyed, trying to understand the implications of the slug’s cosmology’ -Charles Stross. In the discussion concerning science fiction, we saw how such stories can occasionally predict the future. However, like most forecasts they are rarely completely accurate. Jules Verne anticipated submarine warfare- but against wooden vessels rather than armoured battle fleets. The 1950s visions of space exploration missed out the role that digital computers would play in such…
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