Quote from: Sandtrap on July 29, 2014, 11:20:36 AM

Quote from: RC5908 on July 29, 2014, 11:11:03 AM

what is the point of this thread. memories are simply some combination of chemicals and electrical impulses. there's nothing more to it. a hard drive is as mysterious and powerful as a memory is, which is to say it isn't.

On the contrary, that's about as wrong as you can get. A hard drive bears a lot of similarities to memories. But if you break things down, on the smallest level you can, that data, that information stored in particles and electric impulses, is physical because everything in existence is grounded on the interactions of atomic structures. String theory is the idea that a particle exists with a potential. A long string of what it could be, what it could form, and what it could come out as. And it's been proven in their tests with random outcomes every time.

A memory holds more weight than you know. It produces emotions, it produces thoughts, which in turn can translate into you acting based off them in the here and now, which in turn influences the future.

The point of this thread, is to step back and look at things in a different potential light.

Memories and hard drives both use physical mediums for storage. They're fundamentally the same. Obviously, we don't quite understand how memories work yet, but that doesn't mean that anyone relevant assumes that there's anything unexplainable going on.

A hard drive can hold just as much weight as a memory. What if that hard drive contains the launch codes for a middle defense system? The actions of that artificial system can have much more widespread effects than a human spurred by an emotional reaction to a memory.

There ya go! Was a little discussion so hard? The interesting thing about that hard drive with launch codes and access to weapons of large scale destruction, is that it was created by somebody. Somebody with their own memories, their own goals and reasons for creating such a thing. People, as a whole, are small. And so are our actions. They're a very, very long line of a sequence of events that happened beforehand that leads up to something, that continues going on, forever really. But our machinations, are designed to induce widespread change through a very small series of events, sort of like a condensed stack.

Picture a Human life as an enormous stack of papers, thick and heavy. And every piece of paper is a decision, an event, or a memory. And they all add up together and keep growing exponentially in a bigger and bigger pile. Meanwhile, this wee little chip has the launch codes for missiles. Plugged into the right port, you get a nice little yes or no prompt. Hit the button, and all of a sudden, as a result of those few little things, basically, you create a very big stack of papers, which represent multiple events for multiple people and things happening in a very short time frame.

It's all one big chain, and no matter how you look at it, it results in the same end. The collective thoughts and works of no doubt hundreds, if not thousands of people went into creating that missile system. All the memories, all the experiences, everything, lead up to the creation of that system. And that system needs to be activated by someone, who in turn has their own reasons and goals. Which will cause no doubt, many more events for the people who are fired upon.

Ripples in a pond. Humans are small, and singular. But we build machines that do more than act for just one. But the sum of those machines are the people behind them.

2deep4me

That's why you wear rubber boots!

WOULD THAT MEAN THE MEMORIES OF YOUR ANCESTORS COULD REALLY BE INSIDE YOU? IF THEY NEVER GO AWAY THEN IT'S POSSIBLE. OR MAYBE YOU HAVE THE MEMORIES OF YOUR BEST FRIENDS ANCESTORS....

You're like the recon number 54 of this board sandtrap.