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Jun-03-11
 | | Annie K.: <Dom> Yep, I've read several works on that subject. I think the best of them was Asimov's short story, 'The Last Answer'. Here's a link to it I just found online:
http://jasonjackson.com/weblog/2009... Dunno how long before it gets pulled for copyright violation, so if you haven't read it before, take a look while it's there. ;) |
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Jun-03-11
 | | Domdaniel: <Annie> Just to annoy you, there's also Dylan's line: "I guess this is what paradise must be like after a while." A point about mathematical infinity is that *any* given number, no matter how many googols to the gadzillionth it has, is 'really' infinitesimally small - because there are a finite number of smaller numbers but an infinite chain of bigger ones. Rudy Rucker - maths and cyberpunk guy - has a book called 'Infinity and the Mind'. He tries to turn Kurt Gödel into a hippie, though, which is a tad eccentric. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: <dak> If you lose all conception of time, who or what *are* you? |
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Jun-03-11
| | Annie K.: Infinity iz infinite. ;)
<If you lose all conception of time, who or what *are* you?> I dunno, but what's worse, one can't play blitz that way. :p |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: Heh. On the contrary, you could play every possible blitz game with yourself, and still have time for dinner. Anyhoo, here's one for the chess quotes databank:
<Something about that droopy-lidded, wheels-turning-in-the-head gaze of his reminds one of Brad Darrach's description of Bobby Fischer, "Alone, uncounseled, jouncing to rock music in a borscht-belt hotel, Bobby had outgeneraled the mighty Soviet chess establishment."> Mark Leyner, I Smell Esther Williams |
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| Jun-03-11 | | dakgootje: <If you lose all conception of time, who or what *are* you?> Heh, fair enough, suppose there should be some idea of time left. Otherwise you would lose the idea of causality as well. Which is fairly important if you want to draw any conclusions / learn anything. But, well, if you don't want that. Suppose you end up at meditation; eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Or, as someone smarter said, <let a man walk alone, let him commit no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest.> In which case perhaps the whole idea of a heaven would be forgetting who you are. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: <dak> Thank you, thankyou. Just as I was falling asleep last night, I vaguely outlined a story which hinged on a world where causality couldn't be trusted. Then I forgot it. Thanks to your timely reminder, a neuron lit up and a few bits are coming back ... my short term memory is fine, up to the billion-year mark anyway... Hmm. Maybe *this* was the world with untrustworthy causality? I'd better check my memory palace. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: <Annie> I read the Asimov story, thank you. A tad hubristic about the infinite stretch-marks of abstract thought, whether human or meta-human ... but there you go. Asimov tends to sound *flat* to me: he uses words for precision, not texture or colour. |
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| Jun-03-11 | | dakgootje: I once had a noteblock and pencil near my bed - just in case I would think of something just before going to sleep. Didn't work. Generally I was too lazy to write it down, and having the lights on is just a pain to the eyes - perhaps something like glow-in-the-dark ink would've worked. Or a voice-recorder. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: <dak> I had a more complicated problem with the notebook-by-bed routine. I started *dreaming* that I had woken up in order to write something down, but then the pen would malfunction, the bedside lamp refuse to come on, etc. So I'd give up and go 'back' to sleep. Of course, I'd never been fully awake. Some part of my brain was desperately spinning yarns, trying to swindle me into staying under. I have a lot of respect for that yarn-spinning entity in there, whoever or whatever it is. |
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| Jun-03-11 | | dakgootje: I more or less had the exact opposite -- I dreamed that I could not sleep once. Most boring dream ever. Apparently my own version of deciding there is no need for a script and just film the empire state building for hours on end. With the exception that I could not walk out of the theater. |
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Jun-03-11
 | | SwitchingQuylthulg: My problem was that I couldn't understand my handwriting... In my defense, neither could anybody else. |
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Jun-03-11
 | | jessicafischerqueen: <Dom> Wiki may be dodgy, but not youtube. I offer proof of reality at its finest: Yes, it's a German horseracing channel. I suspected you secretly wanted to know about it. http://www.youtube.com/user/GermanH... |
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| Jun-03-11 | | dakgootje: I've always maintained my handwriting was 'creative', rather than unreadable. That said, it actually has improved quite a lot over the last 5 years - so I kept the creative part, but now people can actually read it. If I want them to. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: <Jess> Did you notice <WannaBe> in the second race? Not sure whether he was the jockey or the jockeyed, but he sure gets around. I think <Mate in China> edged out <Cockeyed Ritter> in the first. You may be surprised to learn I have seen Germans riding horses, and winning, live, in the flesh, at the Royal Dublin Horse Show. Germans do everything efficiently, and their horses are much the same. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Annie K.: <Switch> classic! :) <Dom: <Heh. On the contrary, you could play every possible blitz game with yourself, and still have time for dinner.>> No, no, dear, I *could* play every possible <chess> game with myself (or even others), but if there's no conception of time, there's no time pressure, and then it's not <blitz>. ;) <I read the Asimov story, thank you. A tad hubristic about the infinite stretch-marks of abstract thought, whether human or meta-human ... but there you go. Asimov tends to sound *flat* to me: he uses words for precision, not texture or colour.> Yup and you're welcome... ackshly, I have also referred to Asimov's writing - well, his characters, but it's much the same thing - with that exact term, "flat", before. Do a site search for <Asimov flat> and see what comes up! ;) |
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| Jun-03-11 | | dakgootje: I can run the 100 meters in 1 Asimov flat! |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: The <Asimov Flat> is: (a) A horse race for scientific equines, with no quantum jumps. Riders wear pocket protectors and German jockey shorts. (b) Asimovåningen - an apartment staffed by chess-playing Swedish robots, who murmur "Svart gev upp?" after every move. (c) A sensible shoe, although it tends to nag the wearer - "Hey, you - didya *wash* these socks or did a dog lick 'em?" (d) A volume of uncharted space near our current galaxy where spacetime has only two dimensions. Populated by squares. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: <Annie> - < if there's no conception of time, there's no time pressure, and then it's not <blitz>. > Inevitably, you're right. Just too darn logical for a human. Your game, I believe, Ms Spock. As Fritz - a good German - might say, "Why must I to this meat verloren?" |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: If time has pressure, it should also have volume. If we can somehow crank it up to eleven, we get a time machine. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: <Vampire Chess Etiquette> Ne'er bare your fangs at opponents
Nor reduce them to fleshy components
You'll be tempted, but bite not
You'll end up in Zeitnot
Which lasts for some infinite moments. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: <dak> - <In which case perhaps the whole idea of a heaven would be forgetting who you are.> Sounds a bit like basic sci-fi premise #4, the Identity Quest. Seen in Dick, Gibson, McDonald, Wyndham and more. I think I have a t-shirt that says "They stole his soul - and now he wants it back". I can also recall a nonfiction science writer who came up with what he reckoned was a new idea - always a foolhardy act. He imagined that he - or everyone, or the cosmos, I'm a bit vague on specifics - was in fact God, who had suffered some kind of divine accident or nervous breakdown, but was slowly knitting Herself back together. And everything we see is that process unspooling: God's Own Medicine. He tried it out on a theologian, who said "bollocks" or "hyperdulia" or something equally damning. |
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Jun-03-11
| | Annie K.: Heh
Vulcans: so logical, even their ears make good points. Ms. Spock, who must be some kinda moggie, what with all these <emoticons>. ;s |
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Jun-03-11
| | Annie K.: <Sounds a bit like basic sci-fi premise #4, the Identity Quest. Seen in Dick, Gibson, McDonald, Wyndham and more.> Zelazny (Amber series), Farmer (The World of Tiers series), and Van Vogt (the Null-A books) come to mind first. Indeed there are many more. :) |
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Jun-03-11
| | Domdaniel: <Annie> I seem to be following you around, pointing out how right you are. Such behaviour is almost canine. That dawg is getting to me. |
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