Jean Descole (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scientificflair) wrote2012-12-08 12:39 pm
scientificflair) wrote2012-12-08 12:39 pm
007. [Audio/also a couple of other things.]
[AUDIO]
[More violin music over Descole's feed today; it's an incredibly simplified version of Song of the Stars - although really, someone ought to teach him the Jeopardy theme, considering how much that instrument gets whipped out when he's feeling like bombarding the network with both the fact that he can't hold all his feels, and he has something best described as "pseudo-philosophical what" to say.
As before, he plays for a while before the melody fades and shifts into something long and drawn-out, idling while he speaks; the sound is quieter, as though the violin has been directed away from the 'Gear a bit.]
There's a famous thought experiment that poses the following:
Imagine yourself standing outside a large field; you see, in the distance, what looks to you to be a specific animal - for simplicity's sake, let's say a bull. You then form the belief that there is a bull in the field. And you are correct - there is, indeed, a bull in the field. However, the bull is lying down behind a hill, just outside your line of vision; you can't see it from your current position. Moreover, what you actually saw was a tarp that had gotten tangled over a bush; from outside the field, it looked like a bull, but actually wasn't anything of the sort.
Again, you were factually correct, and you had a well-justified true belief that there was a bull in the field. However, can you really say you knew?
[He pauses for a moment, continuing to play quietly while he thinks.]
And if you were to find yourself in such a situation - where a belief is true and well-justified, and yet the proof of it being true isn't where you believe it is - would you say that your belief was any less valid?
[And with that, the feed cuts off.]
[PRIVATE TEXT TO FLUTTERSHY]
Miss Fluttershy,
I have something to ask you, should it not be an inconvenience.
[PRIVATE TEXT TO COLONEL ARCHER]
There's something that we need to discuss.
Now.
[More violin music over Descole's feed today; it's an incredibly simplified version of Song of the Stars - although really, someone ought to teach him the Jeopardy theme, considering how much that instrument gets whipped out when he's feeling like bombarding the network with both the fact that he can't hold all his feels, and he has something best described as "pseudo-philosophical what" to say.
As before, he plays for a while before the melody fades and shifts into something long and drawn-out, idling while he speaks; the sound is quieter, as though the violin has been directed away from the 'Gear a bit.]
There's a famous thought experiment that poses the following:
Imagine yourself standing outside a large field; you see, in the distance, what looks to you to be a specific animal - for simplicity's sake, let's say a bull. You then form the belief that there is a bull in the field. And you are correct - there is, indeed, a bull in the field. However, the bull is lying down behind a hill, just outside your line of vision; you can't see it from your current position. Moreover, what you actually saw was a tarp that had gotten tangled over a bush; from outside the field, it looked like a bull, but actually wasn't anything of the sort.
Again, you were factually correct, and you had a well-justified true belief that there was a bull in the field. However, can you really say you knew?
[He pauses for a moment, continuing to play quietly while he thinks.]
And if you were to find yourself in such a situation - where a belief is true and well-justified, and yet the proof of it being true isn't where you believe it is - would you say that your belief was any less valid?
[And with that, the feed cuts off.]
[PRIVATE TEXT TO FLUTTERSHY]
Miss Fluttershy,
I have something to ask you, should it not be an inconvenience.
[PRIVATE TEXT TO COLONEL ARCHER]
There's something that we need to discuss.
Now.
[Audio]
No? I mean, I don't run around yapping stuff like this to anyone, it's only when the topic comes up. Otherwise I just go about like usual.
[Audio]
Well, I'd hope so - but at the same time, behavior patterns do make themselves clear to other people over time.
[Audio]
Yeah? I don't act differently than anyone else.
[Well okay that's a lie, but he doesn't act like a monster in public! Only under orders.]
I say things are all about perception, but like I said before, consensus is also important. People agreeing on how to see things and how to act.
[Audio]
Descole you are not one that is allowed to talk re: this subject just saying]So I suppose it's a matter of manipulating others' perception of oneself such that it blends with what's general accepted? Is that about right?
[...that's actually more curious than pointed, however; just a question, really.]
[Audio]
If you think abstractly, it's about following the consensus to blend in... but questions about the true self and who you really are are the questions I hear more often. More than questions of reality, that is.
[Audio]
I've met some for whom the discrepancy is incredibly severe, in my time here.
[Audio]
There's a lot where we have to all sit down and really figure out whether the disagreement is a good or bad thing, ultimately. Especially when both sides see the other as immoral and doing abusive things to the people they reign over. Wars start over things like that, after all.