Thoughts on why 12?

[loserpatrol]

good comments troops....good comments.

[Chalcedony]

Alan said:

Agreed! I wondered that exact same thing.

From a technical viewpoint, the concept is utterly ridiculous. Six thinks she can survive a direct hit from a nuke by transferring her consciousness into another body?? That would be a pretty good trick, considering that the transmitter would have to transmit her whole personality through a massive wave of EM interference in the exact moment it was being blown to teensy tiny bits. ;D

...

The concept works better if it's propaganda or religion rather than literal truth.

This consciousness transfer does look kind of similar to the old idea of metempsychosis/palingenesis/etc., that whole transmigration of souls thing. Maybe the die-here, wakeup-there thing IS religious for them. And maybe the distinction between the technological process (whatever the hell that might turn out to be) and the spiritual is as irrelevant in Cylon metaphysics.

If the soul was a kind of program based on a finite number of human algorithms... Say twelve archetypes...

Blah blah blah.
;D
xo,
S.

[Boomer]

Maybe this is starting to lean towards the 'Cylons' threads.

HOWEVER, if the bio-Cylons can download themselves between bodies, how does this effect the different Cylons in copied bodies?

Do they each get part, or all, of the personality that has developed in the now 'dead' body, or is there a sort of hierarchy where the experiences are filtered through the Cylons with the same body?

Valerii, for example, appears to be two distinct and seperate individuals at this point.
Surely each one will develop differently given the dramatically different situations they are in.
What happens to the personality and experiences then? Who gets them, if anyone at all?

Blah blah blah.

Indeed.

[Chalcedony]

Boomer said:

Maybe this is starting to lean towards the 'Cylons' threads.

HOWEVER, if the bio-Cylons can download themselves between bodies, how does this effect the different Cylons in copied bodies?

Do they each get part, or all, of the personality that has developed in the now 'dead' body, or is there a sort of hierarchy where the experiences are filtered through the Cylons with the same body?

Valerii, for example, appears to be two distinct and seperate individuals at this point.
Surely each one will develop differently given the dramatically different situations they are in.
What happens to the personality and experiences then? Who gets them, if anyone at all?

Indeed.

I don't know if it's really necessary to assume that the different experiences require a different (rather than unifying) subjectivity/personality/entity/whatever.

E.g., Valerii on Caprica is able to make a claim about Helo's integrity although that specific instantiation of that Cylon model had never seen him before (the one that had is back on the Battlestar). They are clearly sharing experiences somehow, even though each specific instantiation is reacting to its specific environment. I don't think that has to be any different from the difference in the way human beings are "different" based on their context, using compartmentalized personae developed for specific use (e.g., this is how I act in a business meeting, this is how I act when I'm intimidating, this is how I act when I am seducing, etc.). Each iteration or instantiation of the program might just be bringing different information to the collective, to be used on an ad hoc basis.

Also, just because we generally have a single consciousness does not mean that there are no other possible kinds of consciousnesses. Schizophrenics go insane not because they have so many personalities inside of them, but because of the mental disorganization that it causes. Also, there's the seemingly paranormal "twin" effect in humans, where twins who are separated at birth seem to remain in sync with each other, and "telepathic" connections between siblings and close family (e.g., people "knowing" about something that has happened to someone else). Genetics, metaphysics, etheric links, plenty of red-hot AM Coast-to-Coast speculations to go around - the point being that these aren't particularly new ideas and there are plenty of low-tech postulates that can account for them.

In the end, a simple statement of propositional logic is all you need:

P = {p1, p2, p3, p4...}

Da da da.

xo
S

[Alan]

Chalcedony said:

They are clearly sharing experiences somehow, even though each specific instantiation is reacting to its specific environment. I don't think that has to be any different from the difference in the way human beings are "different" based on their context, using compartmentalized personae developed for specific use (e.g., this is how I act in a business meeting, this is how I act when I'm intimidating, this is how I act when I am seducing, etc.). Each iteration or instantiation of the program might just be bringing different information to the collective, to be used on an ad hoc basis.

But the Boomer back on Galactica clearly isn't getting full information from the others, since she doesn't even seem to know that she's a Cylon! It's got to be more complicated than that.

[Chalcedony]

Alan said:

But the Boomer back on Galactica clearly isn't getting full information from the others, since she doesn't even seem to know that she's a Cylon! It's got to be more complicated than that.

Boomer is programmed not to know, but she's still sharing information with Valerii on Caprica (based on Valerii on Caprica's knowledge of Helo). It's running in the background, but it's running. That iteration isn't aware of the others yet, but the more they spin her up, the more likely it is that she'll figure it out.

I ran some hypotheses about the Boomer/Tyrol relationship on that thread that Aaron Douglas is on and by his response I think that at least some of it will turn out to be accurate.

Speaking of which, Douglas went kind off on some guy from some other board named Lang, what's that all about? How does some netizen end up with the ability to fire up someone in the relatively exalted position of actually being on the show? Whoever he is, I'm sure he's thrilled to be getting flamed by actual cast. And Douglas seems almost inordinately modest and self-effacing. It was kind of strange to see him go bonkers like that, with alphabetically ordered flamebaits.

xo
S.

[Alan]

Chalcedony said:

Speaking of which, Douglas went kind off on some guy from some other board named Lang, what's that all about?

Languatron is a TOS fan whose rants cross the boundaries of merely bizarre and irrational, forging boldly into the realms of the psychotic and dangerous.

He's been banned from pretty much every major Galactica-related BBS system.

If you see him coming, cross the street and avert your eyes. It's not polite to stare.

[Chalcedony]

Alan said:

Languatron is a TOS fan whose rants cross the boundaries of merely bizarre and irrational, forging boldly into the realms of the psychotic and dangerous.

Dangerous? How can he boil anyone's bunny from online? Seriously.

S

[Blade Runner]

Chalcedony said:

Dangerous? How can he boil anyone's bunny from online? Seriously.

S

If they allow him in, probably quite easily

[loserpatrol]

Mustex posted a link to a board where languatron just started trashing Aaron. xsorbit26.com/users5/languatron/index.php?topic=22

i rather enjoyed his A-Z comebacks. with the exception of Z. i did not enjoy it, i LOVED it and will probably have it tattooed on my chest.

[Mustex]

loserpatrol said:

Mustex posted a link to a board where languatron just started trashing Aaron. xsorbit26.com/users5/languatron/index.php?topic=22

i rather enjoyed his A-Z comebacks. with the exception of Z. i did not enjoy it, i LOVED it and will probably have it tattooed on my chest.

Hey, Lang claimed to post a come-back on this board, and was banned. Is this true? If so I'm not surprised.

[Blade Runner]

Mustex said:

Hey, Lang claimed to post a come-back on this board, and was banned. Is this true? If so I'm not surprised.

His first post was a personal attack on Aaron Douglas, so he was banned.

[mattw65]

And of that we are all (or should all be) very grateful.

Praise the gods that Blade Runner is here to save the day (or rather save us all from the freak that is Languatron). ;D

[Xenu]

It was more than just a personal attack, though; it was actually both slanderous and obscene...and that's coming from ME!

[Mustex]

Blade said:

His first post was a personal attack on Aaron Douglas, so he was banned.

Just checking. What thread was it in? Anyway, I read it at his board, and it wasn't so much an attack on Douglas specifically, as a generic insult to everyone here, declaring that we're all "gay".