I have been reading through the Discworld books in publication order, and they have been downright delightful.
I have only finished the first eleven, but thus far all of them have been fun and most of them have little nuggets of wisdom that really do invite thought into a deeper theme. Thus far my favorite has been Mort, but I also ended up really liking Sourcery as well.
I hadn’t read any Pratchett while he was still alive, I hadn’t even heard of him in fact, but given how prolific he was and the level of cleverness in his stories, I wish he was still alive.
I wish he was still alive too, but I think the books had come to an end, at least the mainline ones. The problem was he started taking it in a very Victorian direction and I felt like it lost the dark grittiness the earlier books had. He was at his best when riffing off others, Shakespeare and Tolkien and the other influences that were, again, a bigger part of the earlier books.
I think it was Going Postal or Monstrous Regiment where I thought to myself I don't look forward to these the same anymore. Before then I would read a new Discworld in one sitting. However, when I look back it was the Truth (book 25) where I felt the direction went off for me, even though I continued to enjoy them. I mean, 25 incredibly funny books is an amazing and wonderful thing anyway (I think Thief of Time 26 was very good).
I haven’t read Discworld. Although funnily enough I worked in a team where our services were named after Discworld characters, so I’m aware of _some_ lore lol.
That said.. it’s kind of daunting to start a series with so many books, and I consider myself a prolific reader (~30-40 books per year).
They are very short books, and written at about a 6-8th grade reading level. As a prolific reader you could churn through them in a year or less. It's not unusual for me to read one in a single sitting, but I am a very quick reader. Regardless, I would instead recommend savoring them a bit rather than trying to read the entire series at once and making yourself crazy.
They generally don't build on each other or require that you have read the prior books, so if you put them down for a few years and come back you won't be too lost.
I have been unemployed for a few months and there’s only so much YouTube I can take between interviews, so in my particular case the large volume of work actually served in its favor.
I needed something that would entertain me for very long periods of time, and I had bought the Discworld Humble Bundle about a year ago.
I have only finished the first eleven books, but with the exception of the first two, the books are more or less self-contained so you can read them in pretty much any order.
The problem with starting is that the very early books aren't that well written. They're funny and imaginative and great stories, but the actual text is a bit difficult. I found this out when reading them out loud to my oldest who was a bit slow to reading (fine now).
The recommendation I've had and am happy to pass along is to begin with Guards! Guards!, which is the first novel where it really becomes evident what Pratchett has to say now he's gotten all the juvenilia out of the way and set to work in earnest.
The series is certainly worth the trouble, though possibly not if you approach it with the expectation of being graded.
I started in publication order, and while I agree the writing is not as refined in Colour of Magic, it does at least lay the groundwork for some of the overarching themes of the series.
I actually thought Light Fantastic did a pretty good job wrapping up Colour of Magic, though I would probably tell people to start with Mort.
I used to avoid the Discworld books because the first one I listened to as an audiobook had too many squeaky-voiced characters in it. But a few years later I read Mort and really liked it (might be something to do with the father-daughter relationship in it). Since then I have read a couple of the others.
To me, what made Mort so good is the coming of age aspects of it, both for Mort and Death.
Death is having a bit of an existential crisis and trying to figure out what being a human actually is, and the main issue of the story is teenage Mort being unwilling to accept the unfairness of the world and as a result saves the princess who was slated to die.
The genius part to me is when, at the end, when Death and Mort are fighting, upon seeing Mort’s willingness to die for something he believes in, Death finally realizes the most important part of being a human: compassion, and he ultimately redeems himself and achieves some level of humanity by deciding to spare Mort purely out of compassion. To me it ended the story so perfectly; it was an ending that felt earned and ultimately felt very in tune with the themes that the book (and Discworld as a whole).
Thus far what I have liked about the series has ultimately been a rejection of cynicism. The heroes of the story become heroes almost entirely out of their willingness to believe in something.
I always wondered about the idea posed in this short story. Does the "everything that can happen does happen" theory apply to free will? If there really are infinite universes, is there a one when I'm walking a street full of people and out of nowhere we all start singing Ode to Joy in perfect unisono? Or get naked and have a massive orgy? No law of physics rules this out.
I've always wondered if this (kinda widespread?) theory stems from most people thinking that "infitnity" includes every possible option, which is not true.
Mathematician here, so educated layman on the physics but expert on infinity if you like.
Mathematically, "infinity" doesn't imply every possible option. But in terms of quantum physics, yes it kind of does include every possible option. There is a kind of joke classroom exercise in quantum physics class to calculate the probability that a piano would instantaneously rematerialize a meter away from its previously observed location. Its 10^-[ ridiculous number] but still thats not zero.
The size of physical reconfiguration of a person's brain to cause them to break out singing is a much smaller deviation so comparatively likely. So 10^-[somewhat less ridiculous nunber]
The bigger issue with all those non-zero probabilities is they're meaningless while you still experience actual time as a human...but become pretty damn significant when you experience no time after you die.
So tiny probabilities become essentially guarantees unless the heat death of the universe is so thorough as to erase the slight probability that the whole thing pops back into existence.
I think an example would be the two body problem. It stays on an eccentricity. So it does not explore different eccentricities although they can have the same total energy.
(But I just looked that up too because this concept is mostly used/assumes in statistical physics)
Doesn't infinity include every possible option (possible meaning that it can happen within rules of physics)? If the model of the universe is one where events are happening with some probability, then if the probability is nonzero and the number of universes is infinite, then the event should happen in some of the universes.
It appears to me unnecessary to say much about the terrors of death. The subject has been sufficiently enlarged upon by various writers; besides, every one knows and feels for himself that life is sweet and death is bitter. However old a man may be, however broken in health, however miserable his circumstances, the thought of death is an unwelcome one. There are three principal reasons why all sensible people fear death so much:
First, because the love of life, the dread of death is inherent in human nature. Secondly, because every rational being is well aware that death is bitter, and the separation of soul and body cannot take place without inexpressible suffering. Thirdly, because no one knows whither he will go after death
> However old a man may be, however broken in health, however miserable his circumstances, the thought of death is an unwelcome one
I have read that studies consistently find there are states of ill-health sufficiently unpleasant that patients generally and consistently report they would genuinely prefer to be dead.
We also recover from many things so being sick once more is something we might recover from. Some know it's a there time and other really could have years so hope plays a part too
That's interesting! I'm supposing you've been really afraid before, and you'll know it's quite an agitated state to be in. So normally, without fear, folks will be more at peace, more at ease.
As far as sociopaths and egomaniacs go, my experience is that they are usually quite fearful, though they try to mask it with compensating measures. You might feel bad for them if they weren't so often spoiling other peoples fun with their antics.
You weren't dead for infinity. Death is a state that only exists after life, because by definition death is the cessation of life. The state of non-being before birth and the state of non-being after death may be the same, but the context of the existence of a physical living body in the interim matters.
I stood beside the caskets of my mother, my father and my grandmother. Trust me, life is finite and death is real.
>I stood beside the caskets of my mother, my father and my grandmother. Trust me, life is finite and death is real.
Yeah, many of us have stood beside, behind, slightly in front of, or perhaps at some angle to the caskets of some loved one. This makes us exactly zero percent experts in how final death is, since of course we have no real clue one way or the other. That's a statement of fact, taking all religion aside. Given that we don't yet know what consciousness itself is or what it emerges from for our perception, we can't say anything certain about its nature after death. You're trying to be clever with weary cynicism, but know no better than anyone else.
There is nothing called plum. All there is experience. Changing experience. Appearing in awareness. The awareness is constant. Among time. Only constant.
I dunno, I'm holding this thing and I'm calling it a plum. Also, I was definitely not aware when sleeping last night, so that doesn't seem right either.
While I understand each of the words you have written, I have no idea what you are trying to say. What would you suggest I do with this information?
I get the impression that you were trying for something cryptic and profound sounding, but went a little too overboard and lost the underlying message, leaving the reader trying to decipher a bunch of meaningless 2 to 4 word sentences.
He's saying that the plum is not infinite because the plum is not real, only the perception of the plum is real and implying that the same is true of time.
It's an argument that is akin to, but not the same as, "the map is not the territory."
Whatever LLM you're using to write these responses, whether software or organic, you should know anything released in or after 2022 writes more coherently...
Nothing in what you wrote makes sense. Do you know what a double negative is?
See, that's how we know you're lying. You've contradicted yourself in practically every comment you've written, so if anything you saying you're not trying to do something elsewhere, means you're doing the opposite now. Were you lying then or lying now? So everything breaks down.
The question is settled; a software LLM is not needed.
Makes good sense. If we were like Lions, every action we’d ever do would be roughly correct (can still be a mistake, but not wrong). To echo Death, you can see how I’m failing at describing this because I’m still constrained by right and wrong.
For example, a Lion committing infanticide is not immoral. By all definitions of an animal, nothing a human does is immoral.
… TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET - Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
‘Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point -’
> […] By all definitions of an animal, nothing a human does is immoral.
> So why are we immoral then?
On what do you base the idea that morality exists? (If you reject the supernatural.) If there is nothing more but the natural world, then what does it matter how the molecules that make it up are arrange (or act)? Why should one arrangement of molecules be determined to be better or good(er) than another?
More seriously, you've just described the "moral" of the story of Adam and Eve. In that view of the world our problem is that we understand morality (thanks to that apple eating strumpet) and therefore can make choices. Animals, infants, and the simple-minded have no such concept and therefore can't be held responsible for violating it.
This, of course, all nonsense and implies a sort of paternalistic universe, but it was always going to be that way. Everything we know is defined by it's relationship to something else we know, and we don't know God. We know Dad.
Fundamentally it's a way to make God seem like less of a child-abusing jerk. A sky-daddy who "punishes" those who understand morality, but grants slack to the cutie-patootie babies and puppies is just nicer for people to believe in.
I always saw it as a mind-hack by the powers that be: by declaring everybody is a sinner simply by virtue of being born as the progeny of other sinners you start off with your life in the balance and only the church can absolve you. That's just high pressure sales for a service that you might otherwise find you can do perfectly without.
After watching my wife play Animal Crossing during the pandemic I've started to think of it as the "Tom Nook" method. "Welcome to the island. BTW - You owe me a zillion dollars just for existing."
>Fundamentally it's a way to make God seem like less of a child-abusing jerk. A sky-daddy who "punishes" those who understand morality, but grants slack to the cutie-patootie babies and puppies is just nicer for people to believe in.
I think this is far too modernist an interpretation. When Genesis was written the characterization of God wouldn't have been interpreted as a "child-abusing jerk." God's behavior reflected what was expected of a father and a king given the culture and morals of the time, as well as the cold and indifferent brutality of the natural world, and was little different in those regards to other sky-father gods.
Bear in mind this same God doesn't "grant slack to the cutie-patootie babies and puppies" either, at all. People sacrificed animals to God and God engaged in infanticide more than once.
All very fair. My interpretation is intentionally quit modern.
To be honest, trying to interpret the original authors intent has driven better men than me completely crazy. The Jewish and Christian interpretations, for example, are pretty clearly at odds with one another as are the modern and early Christian understandings.
Let’s take God’s punishment unto man from the events of Eden for a moment.
If you don’t hold a creature given morality accountable, then that creature is fundamentally the same as a creature that was not given morality. We’d be asking God to “undefine” us.
Remember, even with the punishment, most don’t understand the accountability that comes with our extra gift.
Let me put it another way. I’ll use the potential of all possibilities, with respect to all possible creations. The potential for a God to create everything is there. So, a Jellyfish, or, a rainbow colored one, or, a giant rainbow colored one. It’s possible a creature with perfect morality could have been created, no morality, some morality, and so on.
So, it’s possible to create both a human that will be judged and one that will not be judged. The one that is to be judged can yell and scream “but why but why but why”, to which the answer would be “because, by definition, this is the definition of the thing created”. If it was said that a Lion was to eat antelope, then that is the case. If it was said a Lion was to eat jellybeans only, then that is the case. It’s what was defined.
—-
If I promote you to CEO but give you none of the powers of a CEO, then I did not make you a CEO.
So, we know we were given morality. Why should the definition not be complete with inevitable judgement? We’d be asking to be redefined.
The accountability aspect itself is equally inconsistent. The accountability is typically regarded as if it were a "punishment". However, the point of punishment is to teach. Touch the stove and mommy smacks your hand - It's meant to be a small pain to prevent a bigger pain.
What then is the point of the sort of eternal punishment that's usually implied by this worldview? What can possibly be learned from that sort of punishment? What larger pain does it prevent?
It becomes obvious that what we're considering isn't punishment, or even accountability, at all. It's torture.
Well, now we enter the magical explanation. There is a place that is perfect, and it requires perfect understanding. If one cannot even understand how thieving harms the world, then they can’t be good in a nice place like that. Plus it’s eternal, so imagine not understanding an eternal place and why even one flaw would last for eternity in a place like that.
It’s not something anyone will consider until the last few days of their lives. The very last few moments and seconds.
You can’t walk in dirty to a pristine palace, not because you are dirty and bad, but because such a place is to be clean, for eternity. That requires an other worldly level of solidarity, which would take a lifetime for humans, who cannot even feed and house all their brothers and sisters in this world right here, to understand.
Of course, God can just make it all so, but then our creation can just be done away with. We were defined in a very specific way, the same way Angels are defined to be perfect. We were not to be that. The same way a Lion was to never consider what we are talking about here.
——
Which brings me to my final point. I am God of my codebase. A function that I give life to cannot, ever, sit around and lament “why oh why, I lowly Fibonacci function, must compute Fibonacci numbers forever?”. Because I fucking said so.
Arrogance at the possibility of God in the exact way I’m describing is just something a human will have to deal with. Many are confident in that arrogance. That’s about all we can say.
I can delete any function from my codebase, but I have mercy. Catch my drift?
> There is a place that is perfect, and it requires perfect understanding.
I counter that a perfect place would not require anything of it's inhabitants, except perhaps that they be capable of joy. Requiring more would make the place imperfect.
The concept that one must meet certain qualifications, take certain actions, and be certain things to EARN a right to exist is nothing but the strange artifact of an elderly belief system born of scarcity models of the universe. Again, people define things based on the other things they know. When this model of the universe was created everything was scarce, and daily life was mostly misery. Sky-daddy had to decide who got to eat, and who didn't - So, obviously, it was the good boys and girls that agreed with sky-daddy.
> You can’t walk in dirty to a pristine palace, not because you are dirty and bad, but because such a place is to be clean, for eternity.
God does not require you to be perfect, or God would have made you that way from the start. Or to use your code analogy- If God wrote my code in such a way that it won't run within the operating system provided then he is a bad programmer. He is not, therefore we know my code will run there.
Note: I should caveat that I don't believe any of this - I'm just arguing from a sort of devils advocate position because it's entertaing to me. Please don't let it offend you if you are a true believer.
Please don't let it offend you if you are a true believer.
Of course not. I believe in fucking magic, so happy to even be taken seriously (in the context of willing discourse). This shit takes an open mind for sure.
> Let’s take God’s punishment unto man from the events of Eden for a moment.
> If you don’t hold a creature given morality accountable, then that creature is fundamentally is the same as a creature that was not given morality.
In the story, Adam and Eve did not learn about good and evil until after they ate the fruit.
>In the story, Adam and Eve did not learn about good and evil until after they ate the fruit.
Did they though?
They knew that eating the fruit was wrong, so they clearly already understood the concept of good and evil, and they could be talked into disobeying God (arguably by appealing to their envy of God,) so they already had the ability to choose.
The sin wasn't the ability to choose to eat the fruit, or to comprehend the choice, because humans were already made in God's image as moral beings, but in making the choice itself. They "knew good and evil" because they already knew good, and then chose evil, in the same way you "know comfort and pain" by stabbing yourself in the arm with a knife. The knife doesn't grant you the ability to feel pain, that's just the consequence of your actions.
That's just my interpretation, and I'm not a believer. As a mythological narrative, it makes more sense to me that the forbidden fruit is a moral test. But I have no idea what the original authors intended.
It will be difficult to understand the human condition without properly understanding universal law.
For example, what authority did Satan have to torture Job in Job 2:1-7 for no reason?
Well, Luke 4:6 clearly shows Satan is the king of the earth, and he gives power to whomever he pleases (1 John 5:19).
Okay, but how did it happen? Humans rejected God’s support in Eden and sided with a rebellious sect (Satan, meaning “resistor”) and as long as humanity sides with that sect they will be dealt as co-conspirators along with that rebellion under universal law.
We now harbour the demons on earth (Rev 12:7-9) and there is apparently a Demon pulling strings behind every nation (Dan 10:13, Dan 10:20,21). This bodes badly for us, although Michael, also called Jesus, is very fond and cares greatly about humans and wishes to spare many.
Yeah that’s interesting… well do you think Satan would have tried to lie to Jesus, the King, who knew everything. That’s obviously not going to work, and Satan is smarter than that. Jesus didn’t dispute Satan on his claim either. Satan’s main angle was to tempt Jesus’ ambition, which would have been useless if Satan didn’t have the authority to actually offer the throne of Earth.
In Rev 13:2 (2-4 for context) Satan “the dragon” (identified in Rev 20:2) gives the symbolic beast authority over the Earth. Meaning of beast explained Dan 7:23 (15-24 for context)
Thinking about it … if Satan doesn’t have authority over Earth, 1) then Jesus would be king of earth, hence why would Satan bother to tempt Jesus giving him authority he already had? , and 2) why would Jesus permit Demons to rule nations on Earth, previously cited. Jesus would have cleared out his own house prior to coming.
Michael is the archangel (Jude 9) and 1 Thess 4:16 say Jesus is also (14-16 for context), so if there is one archangel then they are the same person.
Not uncommon to receive a new name after a significant event, for example Saul renamed to Paul, Jacob to Israel. Or maybe Michael is just the name used by angels and Jesus is what was picked by his human parents.
That's an interesting take, but it all sort of hinges on the exact translation you use because it leans heavily on interpreting one particular sentence, and even one word in a very particular way. In this case it seems to be the word "the" in the phrase "the archangel." That's dangerous, and I'd love to talk about why it's dangerous. Lets start here:
If we check out some of the other translations, we can see that Thessalonians 4:16 has been interpreted many ways over the years, so we'll just have to pick the one that seems closest to the original. Of course, you're free to pick another, but to me the one that makes the most sense is the legacy standard bible version, as they try very hard to stay close to the original greek, and also they italicize the words that a translator had to add themselves which weren't in the original. Remember that ancient Greek sentence structures weren't the same as English sentence structures, this happens a lot. Many other versions of the Bible just gloss over it.
So, in the LSB version, it reads "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a [b]shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first."
To me that sounds more like the lord is bringing a list of things with him, and one of the things on that list is an archangel to use as a voice, but more importantly the phrase "the archangel" is here which does imply that there is only one, even though it is often interpreted in other versions as "an archangel". Which one is the best translation?
Well there's a clue here. The word "the" is this version is one of the italicized words, meaning it was added by the translator, because it wasn't there at all in the original Greek. The other translators have just been picking whichever one "felt right" to them at the time.
If you're doubting this particular translation, you're free to manually translate that bit of Greek yourself or check one of the other more literal interpretations. I think the NASB version is also very good.
Okay, I see what you are saying and I’m happy to put 1 Thess 4:16 completely aside a moment since I do not know Greek to be certain either way.
I do think there are holistically other reasons to conclude prince Michael and Jesus are the same, for example comparing the use of “stand up” in Dan 11:2,3,4 referring to kings, and then Dan 12:1.
Also there are parallel accounts of the prophecy regarding a great time of distress and resurrection in the last part of the days: 1 Thess 4:16b, Matt 21:23 and Dan 12:2, each describing the same foremost person, but they use Jesus and prince Michael interchangeably.
If this is not convincing then I just have to let it alone, it doesn’t really change the Bible’s message if Jesus is Michael or not. But it is good to hear from someone who cares as much as you do.
> But it is good to hear from someone who cares as much as you do.
I'm not a religious person, but I've read the bible a few times in different translations, and I do find it all very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to explain your perspective.
Ignoring the moral question in the story, many people are satisfied by saying "haha funny, the cat is both dead and alive" and they just move on.
Reading Pratchett for almost 30 years, it has fueled quite an interested in quantum mechanics in me, he subtly introduces QM teasers in almost every book I read. Particularly Mort.
As I dropped out of highschool, I didnt have the luck to properly study physics, but in my 30s, I my existential crisis hit, as they say, a man dies twice, and the stupid half dead cat wouldn't leave me alone. And one night the omnipotent youtube algorithm recommended Susskind's lectures to me, then Feynman, Shankar, .. it just kept going. Now I watch and re-watch them but take screenshots and send them to claude when I am confused (which is still most of the time).
If you are a layman like me and just want to know what is up with the cat, I encourage you to watch Sean Carroll's lectures (dont miss the Q&A videos) and it will for sure allow you to ask at least better questions.
I have been reading through the Discworld books in publication order, and they have been downright delightful.
I have only finished the first eleven, but thus far all of them have been fun and most of them have little nuggets of wisdom that really do invite thought into a deeper theme. Thus far my favorite has been Mort, but I also ended up really liking Sourcery as well.
I hadn’t read any Pratchett while he was still alive, I hadn’t even heard of him in fact, but given how prolific he was and the level of cleverness in his stories, I wish he was still alive.
I wish he was still alive too, but I think the books had come to an end, at least the mainline ones. The problem was he started taking it in a very Victorian direction and I felt like it lost the dark grittiness the earlier books had. He was at his best when riffing off others, Shakespeare and Tolkien and the other influences that were, again, a bigger part of the earlier books.
I think it was Going Postal or Monstrous Regiment where I thought to myself I don't look forward to these the same anymore. Before then I would read a new Discworld in one sitting. However, when I look back it was the Truth (book 25) where I felt the direction went off for me, even though I continued to enjoy them. I mean, 25 incredibly funny books is an amazing and wonderful thing anyway (I think Thief of Time 26 was very good).
I haven’t read Discworld. Although funnily enough I worked in a team where our services were named after Discworld characters, so I’m aware of _some_ lore lol.
That said.. it’s kind of daunting to start a series with so many books, and I consider myself a prolific reader (~30-40 books per year).
They are very short books, and written at about a 6-8th grade reading level. As a prolific reader you could churn through them in a year or less. It's not unusual for me to read one in a single sitting, but I am a very quick reader. Regardless, I would instead recommend savoring them a bit rather than trying to read the entire series at once and making yourself crazy.
They generally don't build on each other or require that you have read the prior books, so if you put them down for a few years and come back you won't be too lost.
Ah that’s good to know. Yeah I frankly haven’t looked into them. Might have to give them a shot ;)
I have been unemployed for a few months and there’s only so much YouTube I can take between interviews, so in my particular case the large volume of work actually served in its favor.
I needed something that would entertain me for very long periods of time, and I had bought the Discworld Humble Bundle about a year ago.
I have only finished the first eleven books, but with the exception of the first two, the books are more or less self-contained so you can read them in pretty much any order.
The problem with starting is that the very early books aren't that well written. They're funny and imaginative and great stories, but the actual text is a bit difficult. I found this out when reading them out loud to my oldest who was a bit slow to reading (fine now).
The recommendation I've had and am happy to pass along is to begin with Guards! Guards!, which is the first novel where it really becomes evident what Pratchett has to say now he's gotten all the juvenilia out of the way and set to work in earnest.
The series is certainly worth the trouble, though possibly not if you approach it with the expectation of being graded.
I started in publication order, and while I agree the writing is not as refined in Colour of Magic, it does at least lay the groundwork for some of the overarching themes of the series.
I actually thought Light Fantastic did a pretty good job wrapping up Colour of Magic, though I would probably tell people to start with Mort.
I used to avoid the Discworld books because the first one I listened to as an audiobook had too many squeaky-voiced characters in it. But a few years later I read Mort and really liked it (might be something to do with the father-daughter relationship in it). Since then I have read a couple of the others.
SPOILERS FOR MORT BELOW:
To me, what made Mort so good is the coming of age aspects of it, both for Mort and Death.
Death is having a bit of an existential crisis and trying to figure out what being a human actually is, and the main issue of the story is teenage Mort being unwilling to accept the unfairness of the world and as a result saves the princess who was slated to die.
The genius part to me is when, at the end, when Death and Mort are fighting, upon seeing Mort’s willingness to die for something he believes in, Death finally realizes the most important part of being a human: compassion, and he ultimately redeems himself and achieves some level of humanity by deciding to spare Mort purely out of compassion. To me it ended the story so perfectly; it was an ending that felt earned and ultimately felt very in tune with the themes that the book (and Discworld as a whole).
Thus far what I have liked about the series has ultimately been a rejection of cynicism. The heroes of the story become heroes almost entirely out of their willingness to believe in something.
I always wondered about the idea posed in this short story. Does the "everything that can happen does happen" theory apply to free will? If there really are infinite universes, is there a one when I'm walking a street full of people and out of nowhere we all start singing Ode to Joy in perfect unisono? Or get naked and have a massive orgy? No law of physics rules this out.
(Sorry, I'm a layman.)
I've always wondered if this (kinda widespread?) theory stems from most people thinking that "infitnity" includes every possible option, which is not true.
(I'm a layman, too)
Mathematician here, so educated layman on the physics but expert on infinity if you like.
Mathematically, "infinity" doesn't imply every possible option. But in terms of quantum physics, yes it kind of does include every possible option. There is a kind of joke classroom exercise in quantum physics class to calculate the probability that a piano would instantaneously rematerialize a meter away from its previously observed location. Its 10^-[ ridiculous number] but still thats not zero.
The size of physical reconfiguration of a person's brain to cause them to break out singing is a much smaller deviation so comparatively likely. So 10^-[somewhat less ridiculous nunber]
The bigger issue with all those non-zero probabilities is they're meaningless while you still experience actual time as a human...but become pretty damn significant when you experience no time after you die.
So tiny probabilities become essentially guarantees unless the heat death of the universe is so thorough as to erase the slight probability that the whole thing pops back into existence.
Isn't it cold death of the universe?
This is related to the question whether a system/the universe is ergodic (among other properties changing energy, space).
What are examples of things that are NOT ergodic?
I think an example would be the two body problem. It stays on an eccentricity. So it does not explore different eccentricities although they can have the same total energy.
(But I just looked that up too because this concept is mostly used/assumes in statistical physics)
Doesn't infinity include every possible option (possible meaning that it can happen within rules of physics)? If the model of the universe is one where events are happening with some probability, then if the probability is nonzero and the number of universes is infinite, then the event should happen in some of the universes.
(Still a layman, though.)
That’s the beauty of Pratchett’s conception of Death… when all else fails, you’ll be met with a smile.
As far as I can see from the books, what comes next after death is mostly determined by what has gone on before. So, a bit like life, really.
And as we see often, it’s based on what you truly believe; not what you wished you believed.
Something to think about.
And don't forget your potato
It appears to me unnecessary to say much about the terrors of death. The subject has been sufficiently enlarged upon by various writers; besides, every one knows and feels for himself that life is sweet and death is bitter. However old a man may be, however broken in health, however miserable his circumstances, the thought of death is an unwelcome one. There are three principal reasons why all sensible people fear death so much:
First, because the love of life, the dread of death is inherent in human nature. Secondly, because every rational being is well aware that death is bitter, and the separation of soul and body cannot take place without inexpressible suffering. Thirdly, because no one knows whither he will go after death
> However old a man may be, however broken in health, however miserable his circumstances, the thought of death is an unwelcome one
I have read that studies consistently find there are states of ill-health sufficiently unpleasant that patients generally and consistently report they would genuinely prefer to be dead.
We also recover from many things so being sick once more is something we might recover from. Some know it's a there time and other really could have years so hope plays a part too
Have you considered who you would be without your fear?
What if you had nothing to fear and nothing to doubt?
Without fear I would probably be a sociopath, without doubts a proudful egomaniac with god complex
That's interesting! I'm supposing you've been really afraid before, and you'll know it's quite an agitated state to be in. So normally, without fear, folks will be more at peace, more at ease.
As far as sociopaths and egomaniacs go, my experience is that they are usually quite fearful, though they try to mask it with compensating measures. You might feel bad for them if they weren't so often spoiling other peoples fun with their antics.
There is no death. It's just an idea in awareness.
You were dead for infinity.
How can you be dead for infinity and alive now. Makes no sense.
Only explanation is it's infinite.
0 - 1 second alive is not 1 second.
It's infinite.
You weren't dead for infinity. Death is a state that only exists after life, because by definition death is the cessation of life. The state of non-being before birth and the state of non-being after death may be the same, but the context of the existence of a physical living body in the interim matters.
I stood beside the caskets of my mother, my father and my grandmother. Trust me, life is finite and death is real.
>I stood beside the caskets of my mother, my father and my grandmother. Trust me, life is finite and death is real.
Yeah, many of us have stood beside, behind, slightly in front of, or perhaps at some angle to the caskets of some loved one. This makes us exactly zero percent experts in how final death is, since of course we have no real clue one way or the other. That's a statement of fact, taking all religion aside. Given that we don't yet know what consciousness itself is or what it emerges from for our perception, we can't say anything certain about its nature after death. You're trying to be clever with weary cynicism, but know no better than anyone else.
Death is certain if you think you are body mind..
Death is certain regardless of what you think you are.
And here you are. Dead for infinity. And aware.
No, I'm not.
Please stop trying to be clever, this is puerile and tedious.
Haha. If you say so.
How can this plum I'm holding have been not a plum for infinity, but is a plum now? Makes no sense. Clearly it is infinitely a plum.
There is nothing called plum. All there is experience. Changing experience. Appearing in awareness. The awareness is constant. Among time. Only constant.
I dunno, I'm holding this thing and I'm calling it a plum. Also, I was definitely not aware when sleeping last night, so that doesn't seem right either.
While I understand each of the words you have written, I have no idea what you are trying to say. What would you suggest I do with this information?
I get the impression that you were trying for something cryptic and profound sounding, but went a little too overboard and lost the underlying message, leaving the reader trying to decipher a bunch of meaningless 2 to 4 word sentences.
He's saying that the plum is not infinite because the plum is not real, only the perception of the plum is real and implying that the same is true of time.
It's an argument that is akin to, but not the same as, "the map is not the territory."
The master appears when student is ready.
But if you are serious look into advaita or madhyamaka.
My kid sometimes says stuff like this when trying to impress people. It's a phase I'm excited for them to grow out of.
Oh, you've now edited your comment from calling yourself a "master" to something else entirely (while still not answering the question I asked).
Sure. There is three possibilities.
I am writing to impress you anonymous stranger. Maybe for karna farming. Or to inflate my ego.
Or maybe there is a pointing that you can't grasp yet that inan trying to convey.
Or I am full of shit.
Part of being knowledgeable about something, is being able to convey that thing to others.
Thus, of your three options, two are much more likely, and one much less likely.
See. I am not here to teach anyone
I have told what I think is true from my understanding.
If you don't understand it or thinks it's bs it's fine. Just leave it.
My goal is not to awaken any of you.
I just posted it because it felt true to me.
And if someone else resonated that's good enough.
I understand when you say it sounds BS and empty.
I would have said the same a few years back.
And I don't think anything I have written could have changed that opinion.
You see the words just appear as patterns to you.
The meaning is generated internally.
Whatever LLM you're using to write these responses, whether software or organic, you should know anything released in or after 2022 writes more coherently...
Nothing in what you wrote makes sense. Do you know what a double negative is?
Haha. That's okay. I am not trying to make sense to you. As I mentioned above.
But you can always copy paste my replies to your modern LLMS and ask what I am talking about. Maybe they can settle for sure I am full of shit..
See, that's how we know you're lying. You've contradicted yourself in practically every comment you've written, so if anything you saying you're not trying to do something elsewhere, means you're doing the opposite now. Were you lying then or lying now? So everything breaks down.
The question is settled; a software LLM is not needed.
If you say so. So be it.
You are focused on trying to understand truth through axioms which you have already assumed to be be true.
Can't you see the contradiction?
Makes good sense. If we were like Lions, every action we’d ever do would be roughly correct (can still be a mistake, but not wrong). To echo Death, you can see how I’m failing at describing this because I’m still constrained by right and wrong.
For example, a Lion committing infanticide is not immoral. By all definitions of an animal, nothing a human does is immoral.
So why are we immoral then?
… TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET - Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
‘Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point -’
MY POINT EXACTLY.
From Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
> […] By all definitions of an animal, nothing a human does is immoral.
> So why are we immoral then?
On what do you base the idea that morality exists? (If you reject the supernatural.) If there is nothing more but the natural world, then what does it matter how the molecules that make it up are arrange (or act)? Why should one arrangement of molecules be determined to be better or good(er) than another?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue
> So why are we immoral then?
Mostly because it's easier than the alternative.
More seriously, you've just described the "moral" of the story of Adam and Eve. In that view of the world our problem is that we understand morality (thanks to that apple eating strumpet) and therefore can make choices. Animals, infants, and the simple-minded have no such concept and therefore can't be held responsible for violating it.
This, of course, all nonsense and implies a sort of paternalistic universe, but it was always going to be that way. Everything we know is defined by it's relationship to something else we know, and we don't know God. We know Dad.
Fundamentally it's a way to make God seem like less of a child-abusing jerk. A sky-daddy who "punishes" those who understand morality, but grants slack to the cutie-patootie babies and puppies is just nicer for people to believe in.
I always saw it as a mind-hack by the powers that be: by declaring everybody is a sinner simply by virtue of being born as the progeny of other sinners you start off with your life in the balance and only the church can absolve you. That's just high pressure sales for a service that you might otherwise find you can do perfectly without.
After watching my wife play Animal Crossing during the pandemic I've started to think of it as the "Tom Nook" method. "Welcome to the island. BTW - You owe me a zillion dollars just for existing."
And yet, Tom Nook is way kinder than his real-world equivalents. (He doesn't even charge interest!)
>Fundamentally it's a way to make God seem like less of a child-abusing jerk. A sky-daddy who "punishes" those who understand morality, but grants slack to the cutie-patootie babies and puppies is just nicer for people to believe in.
I think this is far too modernist an interpretation. When Genesis was written the characterization of God wouldn't have been interpreted as a "child-abusing jerk." God's behavior reflected what was expected of a father and a king given the culture and morals of the time, as well as the cold and indifferent brutality of the natural world, and was little different in those regards to other sky-father gods.
Bear in mind this same God doesn't "grant slack to the cutie-patootie babies and puppies" either, at all. People sacrificed animals to God and God engaged in infanticide more than once.
All very fair. My interpretation is intentionally quit modern.
To be honest, trying to interpret the original authors intent has driven better men than me completely crazy. The Jewish and Christian interpretations, for example, are pretty clearly at odds with one another as are the modern and early Christian understandings.
Let’s take God’s punishment unto man from the events of Eden for a moment.
If you don’t hold a creature given morality accountable, then that creature is fundamentally the same as a creature that was not given morality. We’d be asking God to “undefine” us.
Remember, even with the punishment, most don’t understand the accountability that comes with our extra gift.
Let me put it another way. I’ll use the potential of all possibilities, with respect to all possible creations. The potential for a God to create everything is there. So, a Jellyfish, or, a rainbow colored one, or, a giant rainbow colored one. It’s possible a creature with perfect morality could have been created, no morality, some morality, and so on.
So, it’s possible to create both a human that will be judged and one that will not be judged. The one that is to be judged can yell and scream “but why but why but why”, to which the answer would be “because, by definition, this is the definition of the thing created”. If it was said that a Lion was to eat antelope, then that is the case. If it was said a Lion was to eat jellybeans only, then that is the case. It’s what was defined.
—-
If I promote you to CEO but give you none of the powers of a CEO, then I did not make you a CEO.
So, we know we were given morality. Why should the definition not be complete with inevitable judgement? We’d be asking to be redefined.
The accountability aspect itself is equally inconsistent. The accountability is typically regarded as if it were a "punishment". However, the point of punishment is to teach. Touch the stove and mommy smacks your hand - It's meant to be a small pain to prevent a bigger pain.
What then is the point of the sort of eternal punishment that's usually implied by this worldview? What can possibly be learned from that sort of punishment? What larger pain does it prevent?
It becomes obvious that what we're considering isn't punishment, or even accountability, at all. It's torture.
Well, now we enter the magical explanation. There is a place that is perfect, and it requires perfect understanding. If one cannot even understand how thieving harms the world, then they can’t be good in a nice place like that. Plus it’s eternal, so imagine not understanding an eternal place and why even one flaw would last for eternity in a place like that.
It’s not something anyone will consider until the last few days of their lives. The very last few moments and seconds.
You can’t walk in dirty to a pristine palace, not because you are dirty and bad, but because such a place is to be clean, for eternity. That requires an other worldly level of solidarity, which would take a lifetime for humans, who cannot even feed and house all their brothers and sisters in this world right here, to understand.
Of course, God can just make it all so, but then our creation can just be done away with. We were defined in a very specific way, the same way Angels are defined to be perfect. We were not to be that. The same way a Lion was to never consider what we are talking about here.
——
Which brings me to my final point. I am God of my codebase. A function that I give life to cannot, ever, sit around and lament “why oh why, I lowly Fibonacci function, must compute Fibonacci numbers forever?”. Because I fucking said so.
Arrogance at the possibility of God in the exact way I’m describing is just something a human will have to deal with. Many are confident in that arrogance. That’s about all we can say.
I can delete any function from my codebase, but I have mercy. Catch my drift?
> There is a place that is perfect, and it requires perfect understanding.
I counter that a perfect place would not require anything of it's inhabitants, except perhaps that they be capable of joy. Requiring more would make the place imperfect.
The concept that one must meet certain qualifications, take certain actions, and be certain things to EARN a right to exist is nothing but the strange artifact of an elderly belief system born of scarcity models of the universe. Again, people define things based on the other things they know. When this model of the universe was created everything was scarce, and daily life was mostly misery. Sky-daddy had to decide who got to eat, and who didn't - So, obviously, it was the good boys and girls that agreed with sky-daddy.
> You can’t walk in dirty to a pristine palace, not because you are dirty and bad, but because such a place is to be clean, for eternity.
God does not require you to be perfect, or God would have made you that way from the start. Or to use your code analogy- If God wrote my code in such a way that it won't run within the operating system provided then he is a bad programmer. He is not, therefore we know my code will run there.
Note: I should caveat that I don't believe any of this - I'm just arguing from a sort of devils advocate position because it's entertaing to me. Please don't let it offend you if you are a true believer.
Please don't let it offend you if you are a true believer.
Of course not. I believe in fucking magic, so happy to even be taken seriously (in the context of willing discourse). This shit takes an open mind for sure.
> Let’s take God’s punishment unto man from the events of Eden for a moment. > If you don’t hold a creature given morality accountable, then that creature is fundamentally is the same as a creature that was not given morality.
In the story, Adam and Eve did not learn about good and evil until after they ate the fruit.
>In the story, Adam and Eve did not learn about good and evil until after they ate the fruit.
Did they though?
They knew that eating the fruit was wrong, so they clearly already understood the concept of good and evil, and they could be talked into disobeying God (arguably by appealing to their envy of God,) so they already had the ability to choose.
The sin wasn't the ability to choose to eat the fruit, or to comprehend the choice, because humans were already made in God's image as moral beings, but in making the choice itself. They "knew good and evil" because they already knew good, and then chose evil, in the same way you "know comfort and pain" by stabbing yourself in the arm with a knife. The knife doesn't grant you the ability to feel pain, that's just the consequence of your actions.
That's just my interpretation, and I'm not a believer. As a mythological narrative, it makes more sense to me that the forbidden fruit is a moral test. But I have no idea what the original authors intended.
It will be difficult to understand the human condition without properly understanding universal law.
For example, what authority did Satan have to torture Job in Job 2:1-7 for no reason?
Well, Luke 4:6 clearly shows Satan is the king of the earth, and he gives power to whomever he pleases (1 John 5:19).
Okay, but how did it happen? Humans rejected God’s support in Eden and sided with a rebellious sect (Satan, meaning “resistor”) and as long as humanity sides with that sect they will be dealt as co-conspirators along with that rebellion under universal law.
We now harbour the demons on earth (Rev 12:7-9) and there is apparently a Demon pulling strings behind every nation (Dan 10:13, Dan 10:20,21). This bodes badly for us, although Michael, also called Jesus, is very fond and cares greatly about humans and wishes to spare many.
Luke 4:6 is a direct quote from the devil, as he's tempting Jesus in the garden. The devil can lie.
Yeah that’s interesting… well do you think Satan would have tried to lie to Jesus, the King, who knew everything. That’s obviously not going to work, and Satan is smarter than that. Jesus didn’t dispute Satan on his claim either. Satan’s main angle was to tempt Jesus’ ambition, which would have been useless if Satan didn’t have the authority to actually offer the throne of Earth.
In Rev 13:2 (2-4 for context) Satan “the dragon” (identified in Rev 20:2) gives the symbolic beast authority over the Earth. Meaning of beast explained Dan 7:23 (15-24 for context)
Thinking about it … if Satan doesn’t have authority over Earth, 1) then Jesus would be king of earth, hence why would Satan bother to tempt Jesus giving him authority he already had? , and 2) why would Jesus permit Demons to rule nations on Earth, previously cited. Jesus would have cleared out his own house prior to coming.
> Michael, also called Jesus
Is this a Jehovah's Witness thing? I'd never heard it before today.
Michael is the archangel (Jude 9) and 1 Thess 4:16 say Jesus is also (14-16 for context), so if there is one archangel then they are the same person.
Not uncommon to receive a new name after a significant event, for example Saul renamed to Paul, Jacob to Israel. Or maybe Michael is just the name used by angels and Jesus is what was picked by his human parents.
That's an interesting take, but it all sort of hinges on the exact translation you use because it leans heavily on interpreting one particular sentence, and even one word in a very particular way. In this case it seems to be the word "the" in the phrase "the archangel." That's dangerous, and I'd love to talk about why it's dangerous. Lets start here:
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1%20Thessalonians%204%...
If we check out some of the other translations, we can see that Thessalonians 4:16 has been interpreted many ways over the years, so we'll just have to pick the one that seems closest to the original. Of course, you're free to pick another, but to me the one that makes the most sense is the legacy standard bible version, as they try very hard to stay close to the original greek, and also they italicize the words that a translator had to add themselves which weren't in the original. Remember that ancient Greek sentence structures weren't the same as English sentence structures, this happens a lot. Many other versions of the Bible just gloss over it.
So, in the LSB version, it reads "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a [b]shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first."
To me that sounds more like the lord is bringing a list of things with him, and one of the things on that list is an archangel to use as a voice, but more importantly the phrase "the archangel" is here which does imply that there is only one, even though it is often interpreted in other versions as "an archangel". Which one is the best translation?
Well there's a clue here. The word "the" is this version is one of the italicized words, meaning it was added by the translator, because it wasn't there at all in the original Greek. The other translators have just been picking whichever one "felt right" to them at the time.
If you're doubting this particular translation, you're free to manually translate that bit of Greek yourself or check one of the other more literal interpretations. I think the NASB version is also very good.
Okay, I see what you are saying and I’m happy to put 1 Thess 4:16 completely aside a moment since I do not know Greek to be certain either way.
I do think there are holistically other reasons to conclude prince Michael and Jesus are the same, for example comparing the use of “stand up” in Dan 11:2,3,4 referring to kings, and then Dan 12:1.
Also there are parallel accounts of the prophecy regarding a great time of distress and resurrection in the last part of the days: 1 Thess 4:16b, Matt 21:23 and Dan 12:2, each describing the same foremost person, but they use Jesus and prince Michael interchangeably.
If this is not convincing then I just have to let it alone, it doesn’t really change the Bible’s message if Jesus is Michael or not. But it is good to hear from someone who cares as much as you do.
> But it is good to hear from someone who cares as much as you do.
I'm not a religious person, but I've read the bible a few times in different translations, and I do find it all very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to explain your perspective.
I will read what you said later and get back to you.
Why are we immoral then? You said it, because we're not just animals. We think, we are humans.
"Life is beautiful. Really, it is. Full of beauty and illusions. Life is great. Without it, you'd be dead."
-- Gummo
GNU Terry Pratchett
What's GNU in this context?
(Clearly not "Gnu's Not Unix", and it seems like a substitute for RIP...?)
https://xclacksoverhead.org/home/about
Aha, TIL. Thanks!
Ignoring the moral question in the story, many people are satisfied by saying "haha funny, the cat is both dead and alive" and they just move on.
Reading Pratchett for almost 30 years, it has fueled quite an interested in quantum mechanics in me, he subtly introduces QM teasers in almost every book I read. Particularly Mort.
As I dropped out of highschool, I didnt have the luck to properly study physics, but in my 30s, I my existential crisis hit, as they say, a man dies twice, and the stupid half dead cat wouldn't leave me alone. And one night the omnipotent youtube algorithm recommended Susskind's lectures to me, then Feynman, Shankar, .. it just kept going. Now I watch and re-watch them but take screenshots and send them to claude when I am confused (which is still most of the time).
If you are a layman like me and just want to know what is up with the cat, I encourage you to watch Sean Carroll's lectures (dont miss the Q&A videos) and it will for sure allow you to ask at least better questions.
I love that cat so much.
---
Sean Carroll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI09kat_GeI&list=PLrxfgDEc2N...
Richard Feynman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kFOXP026eE&list=PLS3_1JNX8d... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAnnEiAjN6U&list=PLYZ3-8b-4z...
Leonard Susskind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyX8kQ-JzHI&list=PL6i60qoDQh...
Ramamurti Shankar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK2eFv7ne_Q&list=PLF366409F5...
Barton Zwiebach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jANZxzetPaQ&list=PLUl4u3cNGP...
Carl Bender: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYNOGk3ZjFM&list=PL43B1963F2...
If you struggle with calculus, I found Herb Gross to be partucularly good
Herb Gross: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFRWDuduuSw&list=PL3B08AE665...
Of course watch 3blue1brown, alphaphoenix, styropyro etc as well