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On July 19 2010 18:09 BottleAbuser wrote:
Okay, okay. You need to preface your riddle with this:
You are an entity within a room. You have always been here, and you know nothing else, not even language or anything about the universe, except for your prison's setup.
However, this completely changes the problem, because now we're starting from a blank slate and you're asking us to fill it in. Anything goes, and only logically inconsistent answers (or if we're accepting emotions, not even those) are rejected. It's like asking us to create a fictional universe, with no constraints. There's no way to evaluate the answers, because very possibly none of our values are relevant to the answers constructed.
There is always a way to make progress. Including perhaps the acceptance of your revision. In the end I'm doing this because I think it's valuable to me as a person. This might be just a model, but all of our knowledge and wisdom comes from such models.
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On July 19 2010 17:52 RhaegarBeast wrote:
I never said that the prisoner is taken fully grown out of this world. On the contrary - I've implied that he knows nothing else than the prison. He is as grown-up as a newborn at the time of his awakening.
Being a hopeless prisoner in a perfect prison basically makes him exactly a part of the prison. The only way we could call him alive would be if we could know that he was conscious. Since this is impossible, we can safely say that the prisoner is not a living being by any currently accepted standard.
I did not see any of this implied anywhere... If he knows nothing outside of the prison, then why would leaving the prison be considered an incentive? If he is indeed so hopeless, then why does he care whether or not he's alive in the first place? Furthermore, if he is so hopeless, then why do you talk about him dreaming or having hope in enduring the torment (which he should find perfectly normal since that's all he knows)? Also, why do you somehow believe that it would take a great deal of time for him to value self-preservation? Do you not believe that human beings instinctively value self-preservation? Again, if he is indeed as hopeless as you seem to make him out to be, why do you assume that he'll even develop a value of self-preservation?
Without basic things like self-preservation being a value and leaving prison being considered an incentive by the prisoner, why are you even bothering to ask this question or give these scenarios? Your repeated elaborations have essentially rendered the original questions void of any meaning or relevance.
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On July 19 2010 18:09 RhaegarBeast wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2010 18:05 semantics wrote:On July 19 2010 17:42 RhaegarBeast wrote:On July 19 2010 17:38 semantics wrote:
I'm just trying to be as obstinate as possible as my choice doesn't truly effect a prisoner who no longer exists after i let him free at least to me, just refusing to participate in the captors game is the ultimate expression of not being dominated by another. If you could really muster the strength to shout fuck you in the face of your evil master, then I salute you! You're a true berserker! :D The way i have come to know myself, i find it hard for me to see myself doing anything a person who i have no respect or inclination to obey, he does not control my freedom the other guy does. In which case all i wish to do is display my dislike for the person holding my captive. I refuse to die to someone for nothing but a game to another. As i thought more about this problem i tended to take the position of putting myself in one of the prisoners place. And as i thought about it i thought more and more about revenge and escape things that would become very deer to me as i was being tortured. I would like to pull the lever and kill myself of my own accord but i just assumed that was not possible, like a giant weight would crush me as soon as a pulled the lever. The thing is for me not to have control of who i am what i do, to be controlled by another is something that boils my blood. You can be leveled for the amusement of the mage. Like for example - he sets everything up for your release and eternal happyness and then tricks you into getting mad and killing yourself then laughs histerically forever.  That doesn't seem to be against what he told you right?
but that's sure not included in the problem
if that kind of train of thought is the kind of thought you're looking for, i'd love to hear what other kinds of things you think are profound
hey i know the mage might be your mom and the lever is actually a cookie and you're not supposed to eat cookies after dinner so when you pull the lever the mage (your mom) doesn't actually punish you. but it's all a dream and you wake up and none of it happened
deep stuff
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On July 19 2010 18:13 JinMaikeul wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2010 17:52 RhaegarBeast wrote:
I never said that the prisoner is taken fully grown out of this world. On the contrary - I've implied that he knows nothing else than the prison. He is as grown-up as a newborn at the time of his awakening.
Being a hopeless prisoner in a perfect prison basically makes him exactly a part of the prison. The only way we could call him alive would be if we could know that he was conscious. Since this is impossible, we can safely say that the prisoner is not a living being by any currently accepted standard. I did not see any of this implied anywhere... If he knows nothing outside of the prison, then why would leaving the prison be considered an incentive? If he is indeed so hopeless, then why does he care whether or not he's alive in the first place? Furthermore, if he is so hopeless, then why do you talk about him dreaming or having hope in enduring the torment (which he should find perfectly normal since that's all he knows)? Also, why do you somehow believe that it would take a great deal of time for him to value self-preservation? Do you not believe that human beings instinctively value self-preservation? Again, if he is indeed as hopeless as you seem to make him out to be, why do you assume that he'll even develop a value of self-preservation? Without basic things like self-preservation being a value and leaving prison being considered an incentive by the prisoner, why are you even bothering to ask this question or give these scenarios? Your repeated elaborations have essentially rendered the original questions void of any meaning or relevance.
Tough words. I beg to differ. Diamonds are made out of incredible pressure. The living world has emerged out of incredible pressure. Self-preservation has emerged out of pain and fear. And fear is torment for sure.
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are you high
User was warned for this post
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On July 19 2010 18:09 RhaegarBeast wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2010 18:05 semantics wrote:On July 19 2010 17:42 RhaegarBeast wrote:On July 19 2010 17:38 semantics wrote:
I'm just trying to be as obstinate as possible as my choice doesn't truly effect a prisoner who no longer exists after i let him free at least to me, just refusing to participate in the captors game is the ultimate expression of not being dominated by another. If you could really muster the strength to shout fuck you in the face of your evil master, then I salute you! You're a true berserker! :D The way i have come to know myself, i find it hard for me to see myself doing anything a person who i have no respect or inclination to obey, he does not control my freedom the other guy does. In which case all i wish to do is display my dislike for the person holding my captive. I refuse to die to someone for nothing but a game to another. As i thought more about this problem i tended to take the position of putting myself in one of the prisoners place. And as i thought about it i thought more and more about revenge and escape things that would become very deer to me as i was being tortured. I would like to pull the lever and kill myself of my own accord but i just assumed that was not possible, like a giant weight would crush me as soon as a pulled the lever. The thing is for me not to have control of who i am what i do, to be controlled by another is something that boils my blood. You can be leveled for the amusement of the mage. Like for example - he sets everything up for your release and eternal happyness and then tricks you into getting mad and killing yourself then laughs histerically forever. That doesn't seem to be against what he told you right?
To take his hand to get to my happiness is crap, if he set up my release and happiness he doesn't care about me he could have just as easily let me go if he wanted. He is getting something out of this motivation is life it is self. So if he gets pleasure is getting a prisoner and then telling him one day he can leave if another guy sets him free is nothing more then string me along again. If i kill myself and he laughs i am not there to regret my decision, i died knowing what i did was take my life finally in my hands.
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No, but I am permanently high for some time now.
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On July 19 2010 18:17 semantics wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2010 18:09 RhaegarBeast wrote:On July 19 2010 18:05 semantics wrote:On July 19 2010 17:42 RhaegarBeast wrote:On July 19 2010 17:38 semantics wrote:
I'm just trying to be as obstinate as possible as my choice doesn't truly effect a prisoner who no longer exists after i let him free at least to me, just refusing to participate in the captors game is the ultimate expression of not being dominated by another. If you could really muster the strength to shout fuck you in the face of your evil master, then I salute you! You're a true berserker! :D The way i have come to know myself, i find it hard for me to see myself doing anything a person who i have no respect or inclination to obey, he does not control my freedom the other guy does. In which case all i wish to do is display my dislike for the person holding my captive. I refuse to die to someone for nothing but a game to another. As i thought more about this problem i tended to take the position of putting myself in one of the prisoners place. And as i thought about it i thought more and more about revenge and escape things that would become very deer to me as i was being tortured. I would like to pull the lever and kill myself of my own accord but i just assumed that was not possible, like a giant weight would crush me as soon as a pulled the lever. The thing is for me not to have control of who i am what i do, to be controlled by another is something that boils my blood. You can be leveled for the amusement of the mage. Like for example - he sets everything up for your release and eternal happyness and then tricks you into getting mad and killing yourself then laughs histerically forever. That doesn't seem to be against what he told you right? To take his hand to get to my happiness is crap, if he set up my release and happiness he doesn't care about me he could have just as easily let me go if he wanted. He is getting something out of this motivation is life it is self. So if he gets pleasure is getting a prisoner and then telling him one day he can leave if another guy sets him free is nothing more then string me along again. If i kill myself and he laughs i am not there to regret my decision, i died knowing what i did was take my life finally in my hands.
I'm not certain that the mage is evil. For example, I've been thinking that Sauron is a puppet of Gandalf that creates such pressure to the living world as to make people come truly alive. You gotta love philosophy, am i right?
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On July 19 2010 18:17 RhaegarBeast wrote:
No, but I am permanently high for some time now.
i think this explains why the thread has gone the way it has
can you post your solution that took 10 years to come up with?
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I said I finally understood it and that there are many solutions, but I'm concerned with the general idea. I'm not high on drugs, I've just gotten weird lately.
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On July 19 2010 18:19 RhaegarBeast wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2010 18:17 semantics wrote:On July 19 2010 18:09 RhaegarBeast wrote:On July 19 2010 18:05 semantics wrote:On July 19 2010 17:42 RhaegarBeast wrote:On July 19 2010 17:38 semantics wrote:
I'm just trying to be as obstinate as possible as my choice doesn't truly effect a prisoner who no longer exists after i let him free at least to me, just refusing to participate in the captors game is the ultimate expression of not being dominated by another. If you could really muster the strength to shout fuck you in the face of your evil master, then I salute you! You're a true berserker! :D The way i have come to know myself, i find it hard for me to see myself doing anything a person who i have no respect or inclination to obey, he does not control my freedom the other guy does. In which case all i wish to do is display my dislike for the person holding my captive. I refuse to die to someone for nothing but a game to another. As i thought more about this problem i tended to take the position of putting myself in one of the prisoners place. And as i thought about it i thought more and more about revenge and escape things that would become very deer to me as i was being tortured. I would like to pull the lever and kill myself of my own accord but i just assumed that was not possible, like a giant weight would crush me as soon as a pulled the lever. The thing is for me not to have control of who i am what i do, to be controlled by another is something that boils my blood. You can be leveled for the amusement of the mage. Like for example - he sets everything up for your release and eternal happyness and then tricks you into getting mad and killing yourself then laughs histerically forever. That doesn't seem to be against what he told you right? To take his hand to get to my happiness is crap, if he set up my release and happiness he doesn't care about me he could have just as easily let me go if he wanted. He is getting something out of this motivation is life it is self. So if he gets pleasure is getting a prisoner and then telling him one day he can leave if another guy sets him free is nothing more then string me along again. If i kill myself and he laughs i am not there to regret my decision, i died knowing what i did was take my life finally in my hands. I'm not certain that the mage is evil. For example, I've been thinking that Sauron is a puppet of Gandalf that creates such pressure to the living world as to make people come truly alive. You gotta love philosophy, am i right?
What is it, courage, bravery, heroism the things people write about is not who you are in the best of times but who you are in the worst. To know what the world is really like, to know what core of humanity you have to task the people. People unite under pressure this is observed when natrual disasters occur. Although there is a slight difference when you look at donations for the oil spill in the gulf because people blame bp and want bp to pay, rather then see it as a problem beyond another control.
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i mean i used to train hard for sports
and i respected my teammates that suffered through conditioning with me
so if i sat there and endured torture knowing the other guy is enduring too i'd bond with him despite us never having met
but i'd realize he's really dumb for just not pulling the lever and i hate dumb people
so i'd pull that shit and rid the world of one less dumb person then go out and buy a hooker since i've been in prison for so long i'm dying for a dip in the pink
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Self-preservation hasn't emerged out of pain and fear. It's emerged as an evolutionary basis for the perpetuation of our species. The desire to preserve one's existence doesn't require previous experience. It's instinctual and any animal has it. As for your nonsense about being a 24-year-old who knows that the other guy hasn't killed you yet. In any real circumstance, one of the two prisoners would have been dead long before they reached the age of 24 if only due to the curiosity one may have of what might happen if he decided to pull that lever that was in his room as a child... Certainly if that's not the case, you can't actually expect us to believe that this mage raised two prisoners from infancy with this choice all the while torturing them and that neither prisoner pulled the lever to end the torture for 24 years. But then again, it's obvious that the world your talking about is so far removed from our own it makes me wonder why we're even bothering to talk about such a world in the first place.
Your comment about diamonds and the living world being made out of pressure are completely irrelevant to the initial question you posed. You're taking a simple question and covering it with a bunch of nonsense at this point to try to pretend that it's actually deep and meaningful when it's not. Whether that's because you actually don't realize that it's not deep or meaningful or whether it's because you don't want to listen to everyone telling you that the answers are obvious, I don't know, but that's essentially what's going on here. If you're trying to make some sort of philosophical statement, just spit it out already instead of dancing around and trying to guide the discussion in that direction because this is getting pretty pointless now...
Even in the realm of philosophy, this question would be meaningless and no philosophy major I know would even bother dwelling on this, especially in the context of the circumstances you present. In the realm of practical thought, it certainly is, without a doubt meaningless as well. The real "prisoner's dilemma" is essentially practical game theory that requires one to weigh the value of one choice against the other based on logical incentives and consequences. This is nothing of the sort. What you're peddling as a "prisoner's dilemma" is essentially your own personal sermon to the world about your sense of values and morality. Personally, I don't appreciate that because I feel it to be extremely dishonest to people who might have stumbled into this thread looking to find some actual discussion. The moment you proposed your absurd set of circumstances, that all pretty much flew out the window. I honestly have trouble believing that you've sat down and struggled with this for 10 years. If you have, you obviously weren't thinking for more than a combined 10 minutes in those 10 years because even a little thought would reveal why this question is a pointless one.
I have no idea where you're planning to go with this and from the looks of the thread, many others don't either so I think we'd all appreciate it if you sped up the process and got to wherever you're planning to take this...
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I thought this would be a fun mental exercise. It seems some people found it intriguing enough. I'm sorry that you didn't. Everyone is entitled to his opinion. I already said that I don't want to give solutions, I just enjoyed working out the dilemma tremendously and wanted to share it with other people. In fact, some of the beauty of this puzzle is that the solution depends on the kind of person that you are.
... I've preached morality and values? Sorry, but you're just being a troll now.
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A dilemma by definition does not have a solution. A riddle has.
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On July 19 2010 18:41 RhaegarBeast wrote:
I thought this would be a fun mental exercise. It seems some people found it intriguing enough. I'm sorry that you didn't. Everyone is entitled to his opinion. I already said that I don't want to give solutions, I just enjoyed working out the dilemma tremendously and wanted to share it with other people.
... I've preached morality and values? Sorry, but you're just being a troll now.
I'm sorry, what part of this was actually a mental exercise, again? I must have missed that part because the only mental exercise I got out of this was trying to figure out how you could have possibly:
A. Considered this an actual "dilemma".
B. Spent 10 years working on this when just about everyone else in the thread probably spent less than 10 minutes.
C. Found any applicable meaning or life lesson in this.
D. Consider this to relate to real-life philosophy on any level.
E. Come across this problem and actually taken it seriously.
As for the accusation of being a troll, I've already answered your question. Both of them, actually, as have many others here. But every time we give you an answer you just don't seem to be satisfied that it might actually be that simple and proceed to add more and more absurd circumstances and backstory to it just for the sake of making it seem more complicated than it actually is. Hell, I can pretty much tell that you're making up crap on the fly at this point because there are clear holes in your scenario that you would have easily noticed if you actually spent anywhere near as much time working on this "problem" as you claim. If anyone's the troll here, it's you...
Frankly, it's completely my fault for actually taking you seriously for a bit there. There red flags should have immediately gone up as soon as you mentioned Baldur's Gate II as your initial source for the problem... BTW, it also clearly states in the OP that you've found a solution to the problem. What's this solution that took 10 years to arrive at? If you're going to say that "there are lots of solutions", I'd say that's not a solution at all... But I'll throw you a bone and say list one of the many "solutions" in that case.
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I always manage to get flamed in the end in spite of all my good intentions. How do I do it? It's a great dilemma.
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On July 19 2010 18:57 RhaegarBeast wrote:
I always manage to get flamed in the end in spite of all my good intentions. How do I do it? It's a great dilemma.
Everytime someone provided a decent opinion you added some crappy extra postulates like "He is as grown-up as a newborn at the time of his awakening."
And I can't believe you could say JinMaikeul is a troll after all the time he tried his best on this topic.
No wonder you are getting flamed.
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On July 19 2010 18:57 RhaegarBeast wrote:
I always manage to get flamed in the end in spite of all my good intentions. How do I do it? It's a great dilemma.
Well if you said from the start that you want to talk about a completely fantasy world where the people there are absolutely nothing like the people here in their nature or behavior, it might have been a good start since we could have all just avoided the thread from the beginning instead of proceeding to give answers based on our practical observations of human nature, which is obviously something you don't care to hear about.
And for the record, my post was nothing close to a "flame". It was merely an expression of my annoyance at threads like these. If there's no answer, don't bother asking the question. Or if you're going to ask the question, then stop continuously trying to invalidate peoples' answers with extra circumstances afterward. The original question was very simple and there was a very simple answer to it. It wasn't a question of values, life, death, etc. It was a question of what the logical thing to do in such a situation would be and how people would react in that scenario. You proceeded to take that and start talking about a prisoner that knows nothing outside of the prison and talk about what dying and "leaving the prison" means. None of these questions were even part of the original question nor were many of the other questions you asked or points you made throughout the thread. If you have a problem with the fact that this might annoy some people, think uour posts through and structure your OP properly from the beginning next time including all of the things you want to be discussed. That way you can avoid misunderstandings...
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EPT
