Like movies. We react and get emotional and startled and stuff, but that’s totally fake and we know it.

And AI. I know it’s just a statistical illusion but I’ll still have a conversation with it. Sometimes I’ll even feel gratitude. So that’s nuts.

And then you have stories handed down by important authorities. Science and religion. The guy said it so I treat it as real. Is that good or bad?

Fact is, we as humans do this thing where we treat fantasy as reality. And sometimes that’s a good and useful and sometimes it’s bad. And sometimes it’s good for a while but then there’s a AHA moment and then you realize you’ve been fooled and it was all fake. And sometimes that matters and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t know. I’m getting confused here. You tell me.

  • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    23 hours ago

    HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

    “Tooth fairies? Hogfathers?”

    YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

    “So we can believe the big ones?”

    YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

    “They’re not the same at all!”

    YOU THINK SO? 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 RIGHTNESSIN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

    “Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”

    MY POINT EXACTLY.

    — A conversation between Death and Susan, Hogfather, Sir Terry Pratchett

    Just one reason I get so much of my philosophy and belief system from the Discworld.

    • fluffy_cloud@piefed.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      22 hours ago

      He places too much stock in fantasy. A story about justice is not justice. Mercy, duty ditto. And I doubt that faking it would bring a man closer to making it either. In fact I think that it might occlude and distract.

      • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        20 hours ago

        And Leonardo da Vinci’s doodles were useless and stupid. Wow. I cannot say how disappointed to know I have no reason to interact with you further.

        edit: I shared something very very very dear to me. You didn’t know that, of course. And you have a right to like or dislike what you will, but to be so crass… wow.