The most perplexing question!

Great Debates
1

I think the depth of this question is Great Debates material; even though it is technically a poll/reflective feedback device. Certainly the moderators will act accordingly.

There once was a man named Ug,
who stuck his plug in a jug.
“Ugh!”, Ug said with a tug;
“Well ain’t this a hell of a fug!”

If you disprove meaning using the systems of meaning and disprove logic using the systems of logic; do you share it before you collapse into it? What if nobody can help you, and they all inevitably collapse into it to, by trying to help you. Have you sufficiently destroyed existence, by making the choice to share truth?

Imagine this scenario:

You have a logic that will destroy everyone; the result of genius and integrity in the search of truth: a very suprizing, dissapointing, yet undeniable answer. The clock is now counting down on you, and it may very well count down on any additional person who tries to help you in earnest should you let them; making this truth fatal to anyone who has it translated to them.

The only hesitation (assuming you have proven it will work on everyone in this generation to which it is told); is that a future generation may be able to endure it without having to quarantine it; that it could, against all unlikely calculations be a possibility (even though supposedly this precise generation can’t do it).
Maybe you just were unlucky enough to have realized it before a counter-truth could generationally be aknowledged in the sense of a ‘vaccine’, assuming one was even possible.

It’s like imagining some hypothetical future where humans are not affected by any force which can be generated by a nuclear weapon or its radiation; but you do know that it will kill someone, if not everyone, were it to be used right now. Do you just shrug your shoulders and not tell anyone, and martyr oneself in that sense - sacrifice everything? Would it have been better for Einstien to keep his trap shut and wither off into obscurity? What does that say about people who do get the spotlight put on them?!

However, this is slightly different, because it isn’t material; it is truth as fundamentally aknowledged by everyone as the meaning of and for existence (even for those who are at least searching for it, at a minimum).

Are you to deny your truth in hopes of being wrong sometime, and let this human achievement wither away to the grave in silence; hoping that if it isn’t absolute; nobody else will find it. What if everybody who does find it, exits in silence as well and it is absolute; doesn’t it seem reasonable to take the responsibility to share; while you have the chance? Are you to reveal truth in that sense, even if doing so; destroys the ego necessary to appreciate it?

Do people want truth or do they want life?
Would you tell if you were in this position?

Think of all the glory though! Who wouldn’t admit that the person who disproved logic was a genius? You would be some sort of demi-god of self-validation, cannibalizing all egos in the process; or would you? Eternal obscurity or a few weeks of Godliness?

inserts all smilies except the happy orthodox Jewish man

-Justhink

2

Also, maybe… just maybe…
if you’re astute enough; you’ll see bountiful inter-woven vista of irony and reflection, truth, sarcasm and farce of religion in this post. A topic (religion), which comes up a bit here in GD.

-Justhink

3

a good rule of thumb when it comes to scientific exploration is the medical credo “First, do no harm.”
If it is accepted that the purpose of science is to better the lives of each of us by better understanding the universe we live in then it would follow that any science that leads to harm foor us would be unacceptable. There are of course “gray” areas however. For instance the Nuclear question. Nuclear power is a great boon to humanity but definitly has some major drawbacks. Radiation and weaponization in particular.

Should Einstein have contributed to the birth of the nuclear age? If he could have thrown out his ideas and been assured that they would never be discovered again then yeah maybe he should have. However he was hardly the only person working on the theory and in fact his finished theories were in large part based on the works of scientists all over the world. Not sharing his thoughts would only have had the likely effect of allowing some other country to get there first.

4

Think about this hypothetical life for a moment; also if you will.
You have a person who is being taunted, judged, ignored ridiculed and teased for acting differently. If they say, “Shut up, I can make the world bow down and worship me.” They’ll be taunted even more! The point, is… this persons truth cannot be told if they are to compose integrity in the process. Having ‘friends’, ‘peers’ or ‘accomplishments’ without engaging this truth transparently is so meaningless from this perspective, that one may as well not do anything. Yet all they do is become taunted, teased and denied for not telling it… the world always taunting them to show proof, and using them because they don’t.
It’s not like God swoops down from the clouds and says, “Game over, you won.” The world doesn’t gave a rats ass about you, in fact they abuse you for their own meaning - reality itself denies you any reward, only suffering. That is your reward for having this integrity. That’s it, and then you die. Wouldn’t that suck!?

-Justhink

5

Rhapsody responded: ““Not sharing his thoughts would only have had the likely effect of allowing some other country to get there first.””

This is the pickle though! In this scenario, the actual proof is scientific, and those who do discover it are not likely to share it, they just get a really crappy hand dealt to them. The question is more like: Would someone who doesn’t know, want to know?
Are people really curious in that way, or not?
I mean think about it; using logic to disprove logic and completely dissolve the medium of communicating and/or percieving meaning and purpose. That person basically becomes God for a ‘day’; an ultimate irony of validation and celebration. Yet, by not sharing (which they will most likely choose), they get the opposite effect.
They know it is right, they know it will work; they just never get to express themselves, their process, their discovery, their humanity. It just fades into the shadows of suffering; being denied and tortured by existence when one speaks the answer to its riddle back to it.

-Justhink

6

Well I think what we’re talking about is progress. Ideally we progress to a more nobler existance as a species, to a better understanding of the truth through scientific, religous, humanistic, psychological, etc etc examination. “Truths” are being exposed every day every where. To stop this would be to stop the progression of society. That is of course if you believe in an absolute truth and that we are progressing to it.

Truth is such a shaky thing, can you prove that the monitor in front of you is truly there? I mean in “reality” its just an assemblage of mollecules, which is just an assemblage of atoms, which has subatomic particles. All are names from monitor down to quark that we give to things in the world, our perpetually growing model, physics if you will. No matter what you call it there’s stuff there working somehow even if our current taxonomy and nomenclature doesnt address it completly. Theres a whole world of buzzing activity in front of your face, and how can that monitor truly exist without the objective mind being able to pick out features and distinguish solid objects from each other and discern their uses and affordances. Its just perception when really we’re in this huge see of particles and energy that our mind has done its best (and continues as a social aim) to make sense out of everything. To prove the monitor exists you must first define a monitor in terms of a physical model that is itself assumed to be true. That might be hard to do. And whos to say in the end taht we’re not really in some huge virtual reality or matrib thingymabob, you cant disprove it…

Every day every person thinks they know some piece of the truth and that seems to ring true with some people and not others, even if someone did actually assert the truth what proof could he offer that he had the truth? Someone can stand up and shout anything he wants and see if the world blows up, but these days people say anything, we want proof. And how does someone prove the truth? All logical systems work from premise to conclusion. The conclusions are only true if the premises are true. So how do you prove the premises are true? With another logical system which has its own premises? In any case you rest upone premises. The premise that matter is made up of quarks, gluons, atoms, molecules etc for example.

7

Also! recoils in shame for chain posting like this
It’s one thing to have actually created it, have it… and be floating in that tenative state before being besieged by it; you can actually write it down (maybe you already have, at which point you can destroy it), or you can rush out to tell someone or many someones; thus ‘spreading’ the truth (or virus ;).
BUT! This is science we’re talking about here! What if someone was crafty enough to know that it can be made; that they know exactly how to make it, and are hovering (still tenatively I might add) in a state just a bit closer to life, or ‘truth’ as we know it.

Should they deny making it? What if they’re wrong? That’d be a GREAT relief!! BUT, should they chance it? What, if they’re right?
Emminent genius screwed either way.

-Justhink

8

““Every day every person thinks they know some piece of the truth and that seems to ring true with some people and not others, even if someone did actually assert the truth what proof could he offer that he had the truth?””

I think you’re missing the point =) Do you believe that people who believe in God will be spared from a nuclear bomb? hmm… probably shouldn’t go to much further along this line

""And whos to say in the end taht we’re not really in some huge virtual reality or matrib thingymabob, you cant disprove it… “”

Are you taunting me? =)

-Justhink

9

Anyone else think of the Monty Python ‘Killer Joke’?

Anyway, if this truth kills due to its interaction with the (now false) perceived reality of the recipient, what happens when this truth is revealed to one who has not formed a complete perception of pre-truth reality (to wit, a child)?

Would the child survive due to acceptance of the truth at a formative age, or would the child then be felled by the later development and perception of the anti-truth false reality?

Or am I missing something about the nature of this hypothetical truth?

A religious tangent hypothesis:

The Truth: Be convinced, there is no afterlife.

The Effect: Where before you perceived that you had an immortal soul, now your death is quite certain.

AmbushBug
[sub]myself, I always lie.**

10

““Would the child survive due to acceptance of the truth at a formative age, or would the child then be felled by the later development and perception of the anti-truth false reality?””

I depends on the congitive age of the child. It is language dependant, conception dependant. If you write it in English or speak it in English, it will most likely get quarantined by the time it reaches those Aborigonies with the ‘clicking’ language. That’s not to say it isn’t still true, or that it wouldn’t be as virulant on them as it was on everyone else; it’s just a communication barrier. A child who memorized it by rote would fall victim when they reached average cognitive age. An exceptionally astute child would catch it at 1 years old or even younger. The fatality rate may inevitably not be 100%; it may be a fluctuation where the ‘aborigonies’ learn our language and get superstitious about this “paper of doom”, immediately killing anyone who tries to read it. The population would then grow again; and this virus will again spread once a secular population emerges that doesn’t quarantine it forever based on some silly superstition. The population would again dwindle, and again, rekindle… being dependant on having a low cognitive age and/or extreme superstitious denial system to survive.

-Justhink

11

Oh, and if you ever make a story or movie off of this concept, I reserve the intellectual property rights, and what that entails! chuckle

-Justhink

12

Something like this has been done.

In one of the episodes within the book Strange New Worlds III, which is an anthology of authorized, reviewed fan fiction, a story has destroyed a civilization, and the library computers on the dead world repeat the story to the landing party.

This is a real spoiler, I mean it. Check to see if the book is at your library before you read this spoiler, and read the episode I am about to spoil in the book instead.

Data is the landing party, the story does not affect him, nor deos the story strike Data as anything but a story. Retelling the story to Picard, Riker, etc. causes them to enter a suicidal depression state (emphasis on the suicidal). Data crafts a counterstory, taking the power of the original story and altering it enough so that it may be disabled.

The most interesting thing about this, is that the story about this story, is told in the first person - that of the story itself, which is a sentient creature, upset at having been altered to ineffectiveness by Data.

Perhaps one difference is that this story which destroyed the civilization doesn’t purport to be “the truth”, but every other aspect matches the scenario you have laid out.

AmbushBug

13

Nice, thx for the tip Ambush. (figures it wouldn’t be original! s)
One aspect of it that was interesting me as well was the ‘blackmail’ aspect of it. It wouldn’t really be blackmail per-se, more like the “proved it can be done and know how to do it scenario”. What would someone do if you asked them for 5mil?

“Dude, you have to trust me, I’ve worked very hard; I can’t tell you what I’ve done, but I could really use 5 mil to chill off the interest and just try to forget about it all. You really just need to have faith in me, that this is for the best…”

"Umm… yeah, whatever kid “PROOF!, show me something tangible, why on earth would anyone wanna give you 5 million bucks you stupid worthless POS!?”

“Dude, you don’t understand - like, can’t you call Bill Gates or something, work this out and we can just forget about this after the 5mil?”

“Do retards like you grow on trees!!? Buh BYE!”

“Wait! I can tell you a little bit more… I’ve isolated a thought virus using 78 words from the English language that will basically screw up everyone…”

“Hmm… well if that’s true, then we should kill you or torture you to spill the beans! NO way you’re getting 5 million bucks though! Rot in hell you stupid idiot!”

It is to suggest how de-valued truth may be in this life =)

-Justhink

14

The irony being that this person could probably pocket a trillion bucks in a day if they really wanted to; they just need some sense of belonging for it to matter… again reality taunts them relentlessly…

-Justhink

15

Just in case it’s not obvious to the casual reader:

Strange New Worlds III is an anthology of Star Trek fan fiction.

16

I restrained myself from posting a correction at the time as I’d waited for the board to come back up and I wanted to get to bed. Hoping “landing party” and the info in the spoiler text would be enough :smiley:

AmbushBug

17

Fascinatingly, I once conducted a poll at a party which may be considered the antithesis of this OP. It ended in a fistfight with me and my best friend.
…
Justhink, I am trying to come to terms with how a logical system could kill someone except by its application to other things (like reasoning out an effective way to kill everyone). But, my lack of imagination in this case shouldn’t prohibit me from toying with the notion anyway. Just because I couldn’t drive a car when I was little didn’t mean I never played with the knobs.

If this “system” is so totally lethal, would you consider it a matter of course that it would ultimately be shared no matter what? Some might be cleaning up your papers after you died, then they die. Then people check into that, then they die, etc.

18

“”"“If this “system” is so totally lethal, would you consider it a matter of course that it would ultimately be shared no matter what? Some might be cleaning up your papers after you died, then they die. Then people check into that, then they die, etc.”"""

Hence, the topic of ‘quarantine’. I’m not sure whether it can be released or not; though I do believe it can be realized. I have seen no compelling evidence that realizing ‘truth’ helps to maintain the simulations that you’ve been kicking about. Suggesting, by saying that; that truth and simulation are mutually exclusive, and that contradiction creates and/or maintains energy in any reality that abstracts another. I’ve been sitting on a mechanism that casts a holographic spectrum of abstraction upon all physical being - again, this collapses the loop of sentience on both ends. There is a barrier on either side of the spectrum (‘non-belief’ collapses all discernment); ‘complete belief’ collapses all discernment. It is to say that there is only one actual thing that can be proven; and by doing so, collapses the abstraction process used to do so. By not proving this, it suggests that all other ‘reason’ is simulated, and ‘half-hearted’ at best. By collapsing hypocrisy, one collapses perception. I believe that this can be demonstrated scientifically on beings other than ourselves to such a degree, that to deny the determinism of this realization, is to deny the properties of cohesiveness in sentience/memory anyhow. Hmmm… still being shifty about it, but I think you understand these points from some of what you’ve been articulating.

-Justhink

19

“”“I am trying to come to terms with how a logical system could kill someone except by its application to other things (like reasoning out an effective way to kill everyone).”"

Another thing I’ve been sitting on, is the method of extraction for this. For obvious reasons, I haven’t run the extractions very far - it’s the most intense pang of fear as the extractions reach the other end of the spectrum of the cut loop, which allows our form of awareness. I finally ‘admitted/decided’ that I need some sort of help or input outside of myself in order to gain perpective on what seems obviously dangerous, yet tangibly workable. …To kick it around…
It’s like working with snake venom for years and years; you build resistance to it, enough to engage with it as an abstraction, but there’s something in you that knows that you’re ultimately not immune.

How would you answer the questions presented here?

Do people want truth or do they want life?
Would you tell if you were in this position?
Would you be compelled to use (corrupt) it for your own (self-explaintory; practically meaningless) achievement?

These questions plague.

-Justhink

20

I think … that plastic liter bottles make better bongs than beer cans.

I was lost in this thread somewhere around Ug and his fuggin tug. Carry on – have fun navel gazing