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is awesome32274 Posts
Start
I just came back from a friend's house who happened to be with his girlfriend. Shallow, cold, empty.. Oh well... He was telling a story about when we where kids (he has the "pissing old aunt" attitude, I can't stand it sometimes). Thing is he always tells this kind of stories even if he has to humiliate lots of people just to steal a laugh from his girlfriends, whatever. He’s not really a friend, but a guy I have known for a long time, and I guess that’s why I keep up with this kind of stuff.
After some time he managed to get his girlfriend to laugh about something he said, and walked to the kitchen to do something. I didn’t know exactly what because I wasn’t really paying attention. I came back from my thoughts just to find myself in a room alone with this "pile of flesh". There was, of course, and uncomfortable silence. I was thinking of an excuse to leave, but then she started talking about something as I nodded without listening. That’s when I realized.
She only started talking because that is what she was supposed to do. There was no decision behind that act. Just an urge from inside to speak; like she needed to (the phone is ringing, Neo). That is just a reflex. I started thinking of all the people that act with reflex based actions daily. The "hi", repugnance, filling silence with shallow words, etc. I though about all the people that live under the illusion of thinking their actions come from their will only, and not because they are imposed from outside.
Pause
They were definitely not slaves, neither suffered this "thing". "They", I then though "most people" suited it better.
People with a "soul" are hard to find. People that have a different way of thinking, of expressing themselves, people who act randomly (good random, not bad random).
What difference did this girl made in the world? One more robot? But its useless disposing of her. As we know, the world is a machine made from millions of gears and parts (or people) who are supposed to act in a certain way to action other mechanisms in other people. Broken pieces usually end in a newspaper picture, inside a bag or in front of a judge. No matter how bad the piece works (consciously or unconsciously), they only way of living inside the machine is adapting themselves to the other gears. We can't go against the guy with the thick glasses saying something like: "Dr. Ferguson, even if your logic tells you that killing them is not a crime because they never lived, you are WRONG".
Between all the noise inside my head, spiraling down and accelerating... Because the mind works that way, it auto-feeds itself and once it starts you can't really stop it. I guess some will understand what I mean...
I was reacting myself, one of them. Even when I could see all (well most, well just some) of the solutions to a problem, I usually went with the easier, more accepted ones. The common ones.
Choice
Maybe I was not as free as I though I was. Maybe as the big machine has ways of controlling people (shock therapy, or Goth starters kit), it also had ways to control me and my way of thinking. What can one man do? A jihad anti-robot crusade? Useless.
Everybody studies at least once in their life, finds a companion, has children or a pet. You do that or you don't. We know what people usually do though. There’s certainly options, but is there freedom? How can call a decision choosing between black and white?
Rewind
Can’t find the way to express this syndrome?
What I am trying to say is that those I thought were robots are just limited by education/rules/parameters. I don’t even know what to call them now. Maybe it is more than one thing.
Maybe behind those locks in their minds, there’s something special hiding, trying to find moments or words to express itself.
I heard some mumbling and I found myself nodding still as my friend entered the room again. I told him I had to go home and rounded up my list of thoughts on the way home while listening to some music.
The question itself I guess it would be: "is anybody out there?"
Did you realized that maybe there’s a lot more of yourself than you really show. And I don't mean private thoughts, maybe things you want to share but you don’t find a moment or words to do it?
Think, then post, thanks.
ALT + S!
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is awesome32274 Posts
No, theres no ninjas this time, sorry.
edit: i find it very hard to express some of this stuff in english. Sorry if there is any big grammar mistakes.
edit2: Entropy i stole some of your formatting because it looked better 
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
Is there anybody out there?
I assume that all social sentient beings at one point or another, and more than once in their life span, will face such thoughts, will muse about the distinction between the "I" and the collective "us", will wonder about free will & predetermination, and will ponder about the "why" and "if" ..
You just stood at the threshold of an existential crossroad, imbibed by depersonalization and derealization, and on no drugs.. pretty good going. You did not cross it though, you're still standing there, facing the choices, facing reality, facing yourself..
But to answer your question, even if some of us have become comfortably numb, yes we are out here, yes we hear you and yes I too hear you...
Dissociative thought in small doses, owns.
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Austin10831 Posts
Well round one of my thoughts was deleted by my pressing of some key combination that closes tabs on firefox without asking me if I want to close the damn tab. So let's try this again.
Thoughts like this are hard for a reader like me to respond to, simply because notions like this I feel are more debatable on a personal level, through the dynamic of conversation.
That said, I feel what you have said is true to all humans to some extent. The societal environment that someone is brought up in will, by and large, affect how they see themselves in relation to others, and define, on at least a basic level, how they're "supposed" to interact.
While we all are essentially cogs in a machine, the vast difference is that while someone else defines the purpose and function of a specific gear, we have the ability to create our own raison d'etre.
The idea that we are simply cold gears in a massive, impersonal machine seems to exhibit a very bleak world-view. I think it's fair to say that the people who, throughout history, have changed this world for better or for worse were not those who just adapted to the other gears in the machine. That doesn't mean they were broken gears, it meant they redefined themselves, and in turn, the machine as a whole.
On a more individual, intimate level, I'm not sure what you mean.
Of course there are parts of us that wish to express something we can't, for many reasons. My own personal inhibitions have oft thwarted me. Overcoming these inhibitions is part of a personal journey we all partake in.
I'm sorry if this is too scatterbrained or not what you were really asking, sometimes my mind runs away with itself while I'm busy writing, and by the end I don't know where I came from.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
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Man smurg you need to find something simple and sincere to smile at.
Like the grass outside, perhapes.
OMG I saw LS and some silly "emo" post so I automatically thought of smurg!
But it's wow!
How come no way wow ur.....
I'm lost for words...
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no, good post brood.
you too intothewow.
i don't have anything to contribute.
hopefully that will change with some more considered thought.
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I've felt the exact same way as you do. Whenever I go off to college every day I take a look at all the cattle that passes by me every day... People that just go on to do the same old thing day in and day out. The same thing happens when I'm at work. Hundreds of customers that pass through the line without considering a different life. Where are the INNOVATORS these days? I want to be an innovator. I don't want to be a complacent slab of meat and I'm glad that you aren't. And don't worry IntoTheWow, there are people like you and me out there. You just have to look hard to find them .
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good post and I think you are right about people fitting inside the machine without anything special coming out.
I do think that the things people do are for a humane reason though. For instance, I feel from the story your friend wants to get people to laugh, he wants to feel good about himself, tough, and therefore he acts the way he does. You see that that's something that you don't want to do, I like that.
I mean people may act like a robot too like this girl for instance because she might be in a situation like that that's 'random' i guess and act that way to make her feel comfortable.
One of my points that made me write this though, is that that was just one moment, one instance of your lives. Like maybe when she is alone wth her bf, or i bet her parents, she acts differently, she doesn't show the rules of society as much and acts 'randomly'. Around people you don't know she may act more mechanically
To open up a larger metaphor this reminds me of Starcraft. Like if you first start playing starcraft you don't know anything and screw up all the time. When you start learning something then you feel that you must build tanks versus protoss, for example. Then you (or at least I) feel like a machine, protoss=tanks. boring boring boring. But then you realize that tanks work best towards protoss and you want to build tanks versus them. You could build marines, but you have to dance them around more. Nah marines just suck go tanks ill talk about SC later in this post
It's like she could talk to you. but what did she talk to you about I know you didn't listen but let's say you were a newb to conversation then you would say to talk about the weather. but it's like what type of weather, are you optomistic pessimestic (sp)? about it. to get back to Starcraft it's like ok yea you HAVE to build tanks like a machine, but how do you arrange your buildings, when do you move out, when do you research seige. Stuff like that.
If you say that people don't act randomly that's half learned, but that's also because we are all very similar. I mean language theres theories that language started out in different places at the same time, yet its so similar. We are all the same species after all.
Also maybe just talking is the start to MOSTLY every relationship, just like you need to build peons first. I know you have to every game, but you just do. It's like its automatic. There are many parts of automatic things in our life, there must be or we'd all be multitasking to oblivion. This way we do lots of things autmotically and we can use the best part of our existence to finesse
Btw i made a post about the video card, so i thought i should try to contribute in some way. hope i made some sense
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I feel the same way 0.0
Like everyone is there, no particular reason for being there, no where to go, nothing to do, always the same thing, always talk about the same thing, always laugh at the same thing, no point of existence at all. There I am thinking that,watching people talk. I think that I must be different, cause I could never talk about what everyone else was talking about, I was always talking about something new or different if I was talking at all.I could never think of anything meaningful to say to these people (for them as a group) without being the center of attention, and when I'm the center of attention I feel shy or nervous and can no longer think properly, I've heard it all before, if I say what they want it will bore me. So I say nothing.
Then there are times when I say stuff that people don't expect me to say. THey get shocked. Because I say this, they don't know how to respond, I threw them off, they can no longer think, I ended the conversation, total silence.
And there are the innovative thoughts, thoughts that interest people, but leave them clueless, words that NEED silence in order for people to understand, in order for people to respond properly, and the silence makes things awkward, a group of people just sitting there thinking after someone said something does not happen. Someone always says something. Someone always stops the thinking, people are not used to silence, people do not want to think about what they are going to say. They'd rather just say it, as stupid as it may sound, saying something stupid is better (socially) than saying something smart after a few minutes of silence and thought.
People are lazy. They are hypocrites, people are not used to change and prefer things never to change, but always say they want change. They are scared of what they really want, they are scared of what people might think.
I think one on one discussions go a lot further because people dont worry as much about what others might think.
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Russian Federation1953 Posts
is there anybody here?
hello?
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On November 28 2006 23:28 PaleMan wrote:
is there anybody here?
hello?
1/10
You fail, sir
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On November 28 2006 21:46 IntoTheWow wrote:
What difference did this girl made in the world? 1 more robot?. But its useless dispossing of her. As we know, the world is a machine made from millions of gears and parts (or people) who are supposed to act in a certain way to action other mechanisms in other people. Broken pieces usually end in a newspaper picture, inside a bag or in front of a judge. No matter how bad the piece works (conciously or unconciously), they only way of living inside the machine is adapting themselves to the other gears. We can't go against the guy with the thick glasses saying something like: "Dr.Ferguson, even if your logic tells you that killing them is not a crime because they never lived, you are WRONG".
keep in mind there is a difference between being "self aware", aware, and unaware. even people who have a zombie-like existence still experience(I believe.. it's only logical).
Maybe i was not as free as i though i was. Maybe as the big machine has ways of controlling people (shock therapy, or "goth starters kit" ), it also had ways to control me and my way of thinking. What can one man do? a jihad anti-robot crusade? useless.
Everybody studies at least once in their life, finds a companion, has childrens or a pet. You do that or you don't. We know what people usually do though. Theres certainly options, but is there freedom?. How can call a decision choosing between black or white?.
you are confusing me. are you asking if free will exists? It's a good question.
I believe that free will does not exist. What is going to happen is based on, in any given moment, what already has happened. Free will is an illusion that goes hand in hand with time.
I do, however, think that will exists. I think that we can try harder to do whatever we do, including but not limited to our understanding of our existence.
What im trying to say is that those i thought were robots, are just limited by education/rules/parametres, i dont even know what to call them now. Maybe it more than one thing.
I call them rules. Guidelines we live by. Guidelines that have come with evolution to make our lives easier. Easier, but not necessarily right.
These rules are a mixture of genetics and memes. They form our very existence, all the way down to what we call the self.
Objects in the world do not truly exist beyond being a concept or an idea. They are just a part of something bigger that we have come to recognize as having specific meaning or value because of evolution.
Maybe behind those locks in their minds, theres something special hiding, trying to find moments or words to express itself.
I prefer to think of it like, "if you blow up all the dams, the river can run freely".
If you understand what I mean.
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So youre starting to question existence. Yes, there are people out there, humans and other terrestrial and extraterrestrial beings. Each is a sentient being, with their own thought processes and mechanics. Most will not achieve much, while few will begin to scratch at the surface. However, to focus on the individual is not enough; you need to look at them as a whole, a group, before you see the other picture.
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On November 28 2006 21:46 IntoTheWow wrote:
I believe that free will does not exist. What is going to happen is based on, in any given moment, what already has happened. Free will is an illusion that goes hand in hand with time.
I do, however, think that will exists. I think that we can try harder to do whatever we do, including but not limited to our understanding of our existence.
How can will exist without free will? If you are choosing to exercise your will in trying harder at what you do, is that choice not an exercise of free will in itself?
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United States42694 Posts
Everyone wonders that from time to time. And people are fairly shallow. But there is more to humanity than that. Find a film, a book, a poem, a painting, a song that you love. It'll remind you why humanity pretty much owns robots. Or just look at yourself, thinking about how humanity can be so automatic and lifeless. They're not all that different from you, chances are all of them have had that thought too. Conceptual questioning of existence gets some points on the human-o-meter as far as I'm concerned.
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On November 29 2006 00:00 Dametri wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2006 21:46 IntoTheWow wrote:
I believe that free will does not exist. What is going to happen is based on, in any given moment, what already has happened. Free will is an illusion that goes hand in hand with time.
I do, however, think that will exists. I think that we can try harder to do whatever we do, including but not limited to our understanding of our existence.
How can will exist without free will? If you are choosing to exercise your will in trying harder at what you do, is that choice not an exercise of free will in itself?
I understand what you're saying but I don't think I can explain what I mean more than that. I've given this alot of thought, though.
I think of it kind of like the soul can impose it's existence or it can not. I understand how that can appear a choice but I feel as though it's not... a choice is just a word to describe an event you influence while understanding the reason behind that influence.
I guess what I think is that there aren't really words for what I mean. I understand how this could look like im full of it but I really am trying to organize my thoughts as well as I can.
Maybe it stems from the fact that I spend most of my time thinking about this stuff to myself, rather than talking with other people.. which could lead to alot of my thoughts not having so solid of a structure in language.
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On November 29 2006 00:04 Kwark wrote:
They're not all that different from you, chances are all of them have had that thought too.
The problem is that most of them dismiss these thoughts and instead choose to be slaves(yes I am using the term loosely) to those with influence.
As far as I am concerned, that honestly seems sinful. Purposeful ignorance is detrimental to humanity.
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United States42694 Posts
On November 29 2006 00:24 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2006 00:04 Kwark wrote:
They're not all that different from you, chances are all of them have had that thought too. The problem is that most of them dismiss these thoughts and instead choose to be slaves(yes I am using the term loosely) to those with influence.
Or choose to just live their lives simply with those they love and be happy. Leave high philosophy to those for whom happiness lies in the abstract. Someone who knows how to be happy and is content when he is happy seems a lot wiser to me.
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On November 29 2006 00:04 Kwark wrote:
Or choose to just live their lives simply with those they love and be happy. Leave high philosophy to those for whom happiness lies in the abstract. Someone who knows how to be happy and is content when he is happy seems a lot wiser to me.
QFT. This is a simple truth that I really can't expand upon. Happiness is paramount (unless your conviction is that this life is only a test and your precise behavior will determine your eventual fate)
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