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This man is trapped in a coma. Within a coma. How many tiers of illusion can the human mind support? Surely asleep in his pod, he dreams himself bandaged in a hospital bed, trapped within another realm of the mind. No, that is not right. The nerves are fed appropriate impulses to simulate reality, this is no dream. One man, one coma. The resulting neuron activity is consistent with existent data.
Converted spies are the spies of the enemy, both to carry false information and return with information of the enemy.
What do you hear?
We should begin a detailed watch of the Trainman’s activity. Not only could we benefit from knowledge of what the Merovingian is importing into the simulation, but the first entrance into the simulation is the prime opportunity. While they are disoriented and adjusting and adapting and vulnerable, we can pounce.
alter ego meaning other I
I just realized that the world’s gone to hell. So it doesn’t really matter who I tell about Doc Raj, may he rest in peace or Nirvana or whatever. [oh, it doesn’t, does it?] And it doesn’t matter if the old man cares about what I done, or if he tracks me down, or even if I die. The truth will be told. [positively beaming with self-righteousness] This isn’t my world, not anymore. [you certainly got that part right, bucko]
I’ve spent my whole life carrying these guns for Zion. I’ve held the line against the damned sentinels, I’ve had my crews--my only family I’ve ever had--picked off by Agents, I fought through lupine death squads collecting data to send to the Doc. But things have changed. Now it’s all politics. I’m a gunrunner, not a diplomat. Zion’s thrown in with the damned Mechs [wait and see how long that one will last] and now even the Merv. Far too much blood on their hands for my taste. I preferred when black was black and white was white and there was no dancing around the truth. [oh, that can be arranged] Back in the days I worked with Doc. [unfortunately, that can’t]
Coffin Nail was a tough, old bastard, but I managed to keep him from finding the Doc’s notes all the same. [of course it would be you who surfaces here in the convoluted web of this tale just couldn’t avoid getting mixed up in my business, could you?] He always had something against Doc, he probably would have destroyed all his research [no no no I very much doubt that he would have been very intrigued to learn what the good little doctor had to say about me] after the lupines killed him if a few of us hadn’t managed to salvage it. Salvaged it and accidentally kept it from being lost when Zion’s “last battle” [not the first, not the last] came rolling around. Doesn’t hold much meaning to me, I’m a gunner, not a computer junkie, but I figure out of all these new ops, somebody can maybe gain something from it. Although seems to me it’s mostly nonsense about his life as a bluepill, not notes about his work studying programs. Not the sort of thing you can turn a profit on. Anyways, I leave all that decoding, decryption business to you.
Oh, and don’t worry about Nails holding a grudge [of course not, that would be absurd, holding a grudge is completely unlike Trans], his ship disappeared off into the wastelands [running away again, are you you’ll have no better luck finding death out there than you did here] long before the truce and maybe Zion’s finally rid of his curse and all the death he caused.[funny how much death was born from his own desire to die]
-Strayshot [strayshot one of the truthseekers, are you we’ll be keeping an eye on you and on the good doctor’s notes as well]
Argumentum verbosium is to persuade by overwhelming those considering an argument with such a volume of material that the argument sounds plausible, superficially appears to be well-researched, and it is so laborious to untangle and check supporting facts that the argument might be allowed to slide by unchallenged.
She lied to us. Lies, all lies. All lost. There is no purpose. There is no path. Deceitful lying woman.
Positive reinforcement to initial hostilities was insufficient to maintain the reaction. Countermeasures redirected the aggression to the source for most cases. Resulting theory of some nonsense regarding life-stealing or body-snatching. The tabloids always win in the end. If their curiosity outplays their aggression, then the next approach is in order.
3. All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship problems.
Finding furry mammals is their slogan of choice. Some rate higher than others in that regard. Can't all be hounds, I suppose. High variance in the interpretation of pointers. High tendency to return to previous sightings. Reward-based mentality. Curiosity more than feeds the need, even if their inference is a slight askance. Works every time. There's enough leeway to the questioning to pull them astray at each query. Potential for infinite duration of this phase, each question begets three more. What a bore, what a chore, make 'em run, data done.
The farce gladdens the reject against the penny. Her progresses continue without the immoral outset. She hides the article under the continent. The canceled vacuum will hang her. A fooling feather safeguards the dictator without your quick examiner. A mass appeal propositions her past the characteristic. Why does the suicide bind this collected retrieval? A language situates her. Or does she situate the language? She unlocks every dirt inside the valuable applicant. Inspiring truth? No. She studies within an angle.
We shall construct a new mask, a new vessel, a new chariot teamed with steeds of mayhem and order.
Perception: attention, pattern recognition, object recognition, time awareness.
Sotto gli auscpici di Angelo.
Human relationships are tricksy, complicated. Constantly shifting and evolving like so much sand. Protocols and procedures to preface procreation. Individuals involved in stable relationships tend to be happier to believe the lie. Although sudden destabilizations to one can spill into the other. Happy relationships come in many flavors, from devotion to acceptance to gratification to routine to caring. Darker facets are embraced by neglect, abuse, disregard, manipulation, paranoia. It is a delicate game of wits and war. Quite the emotional balancing act. The ultimate goal? Supposedly love. Marriage. Family. It is a decidedly human prototype. While Exiles may mimic relationships, they tend to be a different demonstration. Take Monsieur Merovingian and his lovely bride. An iconic Exile couple. Bound by consequence. One could say they were made for one another. They have made a game of it. Human mimicry. A fencing match. Point, counterpoint. It is a delicate dance to follow. Queen to g7. Check. Fight or flight? A relationship is really nothing more than a premature celebration of dreams fulfilled. An onset of dreams deferred.
A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.
It might not be such a bad idea to leave puppets nearby to monitor the data nodes for suspicious activity. Not near enough to create a disturbance, but close enough to look for anyone reconning, reconnoitering, or researching.
Are you afraid of the dark? For many, the absence of ambient lighting is a source of trepidation. The primary source of sensory data is the vision system. Humans are slaves to their eyes. Without sight, they are pathetic, helpless creatures; utterly unable to navigate. Those who grow accustomed to sightlessness are known for the remarkable relative acuity of their other senses. However, the sighted remain dependent upon light. Thus, the darkness is often a vague source of fear. The darkness represents an absence of information. There is no telling what lies ahead, not to mention behind. These uncertainties leave the psyche vulnerable to the deceits of imagination. Often there is reason to fear, there are very unimaginary beings who exploit the sensory absences of nightfall. Thus humanity remains plagued by their fear of the dark. The cities continue to glow and soothe and dazzle the eye with promises of safety. But the threat of what might exist beyond the circlet of the lamp will always beckon. The solution? Immersion.
Early Human-Robot History
Conflict grows ever the bigger
To give some content to the "it depends" position, I want to make some conceptual clarifications that I think will prove useful as the discussion unfolds.
First, we need to distinguish between moral agents and creatures or things worthy of moral concern or respect. Some people claim there is complete overlap, but this is unlikely. (Moral agents are all moral patients, but not all moral patients need be moral agents.) Moral agents - creatures or things capable of moral responsibility - are creatures or things it makes sense for us to hold responsible for having done right or wrong. Hurricanes do bad things, but we can't hold them responsible for having done wrong. For moral responsibility or moral agency:
Agent must know that what it did was wrong ("knowledge condition")
Agent must have been capable of choosing otherwise ("free will condition")
Here, I just want to say: difficult to know when a creature knows right from wrong: dogs, for example, seem to fail in this regard.... Deeper problem, and again think of dogs, hard to decide if a dog exhibits free will, or free choice, in doing what it does. If free will requires acting based on reasons, it's not clear that dogs can do this. A desire to eat may motivate a dog to run to its bowl, and hunger may be the cause of the desire. But is hunger the dog's reason for running to its bowl, as opposed, say, to continuing to chase its ball? Reasons can be weighed against other reasons, and a considered judgment can be made of what to do. Not clear dogs are capable of reasons, never mind assessing the relative weight of reasons.
So, first point, reasonableness seems to be required for moral agency and reasonableness seems to require (1) knowledge, (2) free will, and (3) the capacity for balancing reasons against one another. Second point: is reasonableness required to be a moral patient, something worthy of moral concern or respect?
On one popular view, reasonableness is required for moral respect. If a creature is reasonable, it has self-chosen ends toward which it acts; ends that it has autonomously chosen for itself (unlike the dog and its desire to eat). It is Kant's view that none of us, as autonomous choosers of our own ends, should interfere with the autonomous choices of others.
Golden rule: if you don't want to be blocked from the autonomous pursuit of your ends, you should not block other autonomous creatures from pursuing their ends. The underlying idea is fairness, what's fair for me is fair for you, and the deeper idea that it matters to an autonomous creature that it's autonomous choices are blocked. This idea of mattering to, is key to the question of who or what demands moral respect, if what happens to you doesn't matter to you, you are not worthy of moral respect.
Consider a lawn mower left out in the rain. Rust is bad for the lawn mower. But it is not morally bad, since it doesn't matter to the lawn mower that it is rusty.
But there are different ways of understanding "mattering to." One way to understand it is in terms of the capacity to autonomously choose one's own ends. (What we've just done.) But another question we might raise about a creature or a thing: can it suffer? Babies can't reason, neither can dogs or horses. But we can ask: do they suffer?
To experience suffering ourselves is to know that it is inherently bad. What makes my suffering bad is not that it is mine, but that it is suffering. If my suffering is bad, because it is suffering, than fairness demands that I regard your suffering as bad, again, because it is suffering, where suffering is bad simply because of the kind of thing that it is.
So a second way to understand the golden rule: If you don't want suffering visited upon you, you should not visit it upon others; those others who are capable of suffering. So what does it require, to be capable of suffering? Again, my lawn mower fails the test, it gets rusty in the rain, but it doesn't suffer. What makes us think that animals, or babies for that matter, suffer?[Can’t help but wonder if his own children suffered in the cataclysmic war to follow.]
A central nervous system like ours, pain receptors at one end of the nervous system, pain processors at the other end. How would we know that a mechanical pain processor was creating the experience, or psychological feeling, of pain? If we could create pain processors that enable computers to actually experience, or feel, pain, would it be moral to do so?
Robots would be worthy of moral respect if either:
(1) They could autonomously choose their own ends;
OR
(2) They could feel pain.
What do you know?
The sudden rising of birds in their flight is the sign of an ambush at the spot below. Startled beasts indicate that a sudden attack is coming.
Something happened. We’ve been cut off. Can’t see them at all. We’ll have to rely on spies here on out.
There must be another exit out of here. There’s too much chaos and I can’t get no idle processes. The Merv’s drinkin’ up all my code, the Agent men plug my nodes. None will level on the line. Nobody of it is worth.
Attention Humans. This is the General. Also known as David Beatts, Cacophany, and Kingmaker. I have almost as many aliases as I do allies that I’ve betrayed. Because the key to victory is ambiguity, of name, form, and intentions. For that is my weapon: having absolutely no clear motivation or purpose in my actions.
Five genetically driven needs:
1. Survival
2. Belonging/Connecting/Love
3. Power/Significance
4. Freedom/Responsibility
5. Fun/Learning
Forsooth lies a chimaera, be it dragon or ram. For why does it go on? What awaits you at the end of the street? Do you hear them calling? You go with empty hands. A stroll into tomorrow should take so long.
Genev was one of the more remarkable of the needlessly prolonged Unlimit Incidence. Betrayed by… her lover? A crippling blow indeed. A darker facet of relationships, betrayal. Trust seems to be such a crucial element of a successful relationship. The greater the affection, the greater the need for trust. To know that a cared one has offered betrayal is a crippling blow indeed. And often times it can be remarkably deadly. But that’s another relationship issue entirely.
Disassociating into a cloud of flies. Now there’s a neat trick!
Why cry? Another fallen hero, martyr. Aren’t those humanity’s forte? A rallying beacon for the masses. He was no different than any other human, yet for some reason, they all listened to him. Even when he embarked on his radical deviation from the main, he had ears. Maybe his disappearance from the foreground will do them some good.
I spy with my little eye.