Questionnaire

Please answer by choosing one option:

Life is:

- a blessing

- a punishment

- both

- sometimes one, sometimes the other

- a dynamic combination of the above, and other

- none of the above

- something else (please describe)

This looks like a pretty stupid question to me. Don't you have anything better to do with your life?

Thank you for your answer. Next please.

Are you a tolerant, or a fanatic?

I am a tolerant fanatic; but I am neither a fanatic tolerant, nor a fanatic tolerant.

Three points of view

Q: Do you believe that God exists?

A: Do you believe that triangles exist?

Q: What do you mean?

A: Do you believe that “geometric figures consisting of a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments” exist?

Q: Can't you just answer whether you believe in God or not?

A: Can you understand that I feel I can only answer your question if you can answer mine?

Q: Why wouldn't I believe in such figures? Look, is this drawing I am making of a triangle enough proof that triangles exist?

A: Who would accept that as a triangle? Don't you know that true triangles are made of true lines, which are sequences of non-dimensional points? How could you possibly see a true triangle? Isn't this thing on the paper just a very crude approximation of one? Would you be satisfied if I were to toss at you copies of the bible, the koran and the bhagavad gita as proofs that God exists?

Q: Are you saying that God is an idealisation? Wouldn't that imply that God is not real?

A: Is there a difference between something idealised and something perfect? Would it matter if God belonged in the world of ideas? Would you stop believing in God for being ideal? Besides, who said that ideal objects are not real?

Q: But shouldn't God be real, like us? How could God interact with us from a world of ideas?

A: Don't we interact with the concept of triangles, use them for our profit, approximate them as best we can to solve our problems?

Q: Are you never going to answer my question with a yes or a no?

A: Do you need an assertion? Haven't we reached an answer without making any?

A question about happiness...

Is happiness (true happiness, not the superficial excitement stuff) something that comes in degrees, or is it a binary happy/unhappy phenomenon?
What about love? (Yes, true love, not the superficial excitement stuff).

About erring -I mean, living.

1) To live is to err. The only way to avoid erring is to stop living
(which in some cases may be quite an important error).

2) "The more you err today, the less you'll err tomorrow." ;-)

A sock from Sophie.

Who is? (Is anybody?)

olive jar # 3 by Jeff Hayes

You want to open a jar.

1) You order your left hand to grab it and you tell your right hand to twist the lid open. They do as you tell them and the jar is opened. Who opened it, your hands or you?

2) You have an accident and lose your hands. They are replaced by mechanical claws. They are used by you to open the jar. Who opened the jar, the mechanical claws or you?

3) With your mechanical claws you build a jar-opener controlled from a switch box connected by a cable to it. You use that to open the jar. Who opened the jar?

4) You sever the cord and replace it with a remote control. Who opens the jar now?

5) You replace the remote control with a computer program with a sequence of precise instructions to open the jar. Who opened the jar: you, the mechanical hands, the computer program or the jar opener?

6) You replace the computer program with another one, this one based on genetic algorithms, which tries different strategies and selects the ones that yield the best results. After many attempts the optimal strategy is selected and the jar is opened... by whom?

7) You throw it all away and create a group of little robots able to reproduce and evolve. The only restriction is that you want them to open the jar. Those that work towards the goal are rewarded, those who wander off are punished. In time, a group of them evolves, expert in the art of jar opening. You then give them the jar you are interested in opening and they do the task. Who opened the jar?

8) You ask God to create humans to create robots to control jar openers to open the jar. Who opened the jar?

9) Who is really doing what we think we are doing? Are WE doing things, or are we tools for someone else's aims? Could we find out? If the latter, could we ever find out what "the jar" is?

10) If all this is correct.... when "we" succeed, it is actually "the mind behind the aim" that is succeeding. But when we fail, who is failing?