Marcello comments on The Strangest Thing An AI Could Tell You - Less Wrong
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We actually live in hyperspace: our universe really has four spacial dimensions. However, our bodies are fully four dimensional; we are not wafer thin slices a la flatland. We don't perceive there to be four dimensions because our visual cortexes have a defect somewhat like that of people who can't notice anything on the right side of their visual field.
Not only do we have an absolute denial macro, but it is a programmable absolute denial macro and there are things much like computer viruses which use it and spread through human population. That is, if you modulated your voice in a certain way at someone, it would cause them (and you) to acquire a brand new self deception, and start transmitting it to others.
Some of the people you believe are dead are actually alive, but no matter how hard they try to get other people to notice them, their actions are immediately forgotten and any changes caused by those actions are rationalized away.
There are transparent contradictions inherent in all current mathematical systems for reasoning about real numbers, but no human mathematician/physicist can notice them because they rely heavily on visuospacial reasoning to construct real analysis proofs.
Agreed, but the fact that religion exists makes the prospect of similar things whose existence we are not aware of all the scarier. Imagine, for example, if there were something like a religion one of whose tenants is that you have to fool yourself into thinking that the religion doesn't exist most of the time.
They say that everybody in the world who knows about "The Game" is playing The Game. This means that, right now, you are playing The Game. The objective of The Game is to forget about its existence and the fact that you are playing for as long as possible. Also, if you should remember, you must forget again as quickly as possible.
Given that you mentioned The Game (bastard), the most unexpected thing that the AI could possible say would be "The Game." Not the most interesting, but the most unexpected.
Well, okay, maybe something you'd never thought before would be more unexpected. But still.
bastard
What ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)
EDITED because Markdown (which is infuriating) won't allow parentheses in URLs, nor does subsituting ")" seem to work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)
See comment formatting: Escaping special symbols on the Wiki.