Re: Belief, truth, reality, and other deep issues

From: Loren Miller <loren_at_wharton.upenn.edu>
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 14:20:28 +0000

carlf_at_panix.com (Carl Fink) writes:
> People have asked why I feel so strongly about this. ... Say that
> my gang of PCs manages ... to prevent the destruction of the city
> of Bikhy by Chaos.

> Now, in the "whatever is believed is true" universe, some future
> heroquester can retroactively rearrange history so that he and his
> sister saved the city,

That happens in the real world too. You know that history is written by the victor, and ancient history is written by the persuasive scholar, not by the correct one. And if your actions get credited to someone else then yes, your achievements are stolen in a sense, but in the same sense you have become incorporated in the famous hero. Who wrote Shakespeare's plays? How many people did things that were credited to Artur, an ancient king of the Britons? Memory is imperfect, history is memory, and if history can be supposed to be faintly related to reality then yes, reality is determined at least in part by what we remember and believe.

I'll agree that it isn't fair that imperfect memory can mean that deserved accolades go to the wrong persons, but that's how we humans work.

whoah!

+++++++++++++++++++++++23

Loren Miller <loren_at_wharton.upenn.edu> Computer Guy <http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren>

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