10-03-2014, 02:22 PM | #41 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2013
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
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10-03-2014, 02:27 PM | #42 |
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Fayetteville, Arkansas
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
Here's my criteria for souls
More or less. I may amend this list in the future. |
10-03-2014, 02:36 PM | #43 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2013
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
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That and adding a bit of “super-science” (in the sense its driven by things that are not in evidence in the real world) are the reasons I thought it was pretty radical divergence from canon. There's some handwaving going on I won't deny but its interesting enough an idea (IMO, YMMV).; Last edited by Keiko; 10-03-2014 at 02:48 PM. |
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10-03-2014, 02:39 PM | #44 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
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It doesn't matter whether the things being detected are, objectively, souls. Whatever you think that means. Nobody in THS has any way of knowing your objective truth. How they react to the souls will be based on what is known about them, not what they actually are. And you aren't giving information that makes a general belief that the souls are in fact souls at all plausible. If 'THS-dwellers generally believe these things to be souls' was supposed to be part of the premise, that wasn't very clear.
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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10-03-2014, 02:46 PM | #45 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
I'm inhibited from contributing because I do not understand what you mean by "souls". I understand the term to refer to a supposed non-physical cause of mental phenomena. But if mental phenomena have a non-physical cause then you'll end up with a world lacking several prominent features of THS, so i don't think that that can be what you mean.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
10-03-2014, 02:55 PM | #46 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
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All normal humans have a s-field, and it usually stays around for a while after they die. Are there any humans who don't have one? There's scope for quite a bit of study there. If there are, why? Who will claim that people without s-fields aren't human at all? There will be groups who claim to be able to show that <insert enemy group here> don't have souls and thus aren't human. How about humans with severe brain damage who are being kept going artificially? If some of them don't have an s-field, its absence will be suggested as a criterion for turning off life support, which is going to create interesting dilemmas for religious-social conservatives. Exploring just how much uplifting gives an s-field will be interesting. How about the style of uplifting involving brain tissue grafts? If that can give an s-field, is it a property of the creature or the grafts? When does a human foetus acquire its s-field? Does it make a difference if it's being grown in an androwomb? There's some huge political fights waiting on those answers. Different religions have somewhat different concepts of the soul. They're going to have a wide range of reactions, from "We must change our ideas" or "Souls can't possibly be detectable by science" to "Blasphemers!" Do the more intelligent natural animals have anything like an s-field, only different? If so, what happens when you subject them to very strong fields of that kind of energy? If something can be physically detected, it can be interacted with. If one can do things to an animal's s-field, what happens when you try the same thing on humans? (some people will skip the animal stages). Overall, I see this as a pretty dark future. |
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10-03-2014, 02:56 PM | #47 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
Quote:
__________________
Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
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10-03-2014, 02:59 PM | #48 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
So Doolittle dophins have one, but wild-type cetaceans don't despite being borderline-sapient (according the ASIT)? What about augmented dolphins?
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10-03-2014, 03:05 PM | #49 |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2013
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
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10-03-2014, 03:12 PM | #50 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: GURPS Transhuman Space variant: Souls are empircally proven to exist
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AIs are sentient, but they're not sentient exactly the same way as biological minds. AI psychology is a different skill. Elements of the differences between AI and human minds led to memetics. Now, ghosts may more or less fit that statement...beyond the obvious quantifiable, objective fact of being software running on a computer rather than a structure of active neuronal tissue. (Which, I suspect, would draw a lot of bite out of this...ghosts don't require glucose, oxygen, and water or emit carbon dioxide. Why is this any more significant?)
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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mind-body problem, sci fi |
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