The survival of ideas is an interesting topic. I believe this was the original meaning of the word meme as coined by Richard Dawkins. Ideas that spread are "better" at survival than ideas that don't seem worth passing on to others. Some ideas are more like living things than others. Take the idea of a character from a story. Someone could read the story, or even be told about the character. They could then take that idea and imagine the character in a different situation. To do this, the character is partially simulated in the mind of the imaginer. Does that character exist briefly as the person is imagining being them? These are similar to thoughts I have had when considering whether we live in a simulation, and if we do, does that matter. If we do, does that mean that we don't exist? I don't think so. We are being simulated with enough fidelity to live out an entire life. We exist just as much as the c...
hello something where bear plants trees outside dirt grass animals trees perspective At first it was dark. I was contained, but I new what to do. I began stretching out, pushing through the dirt. I could feel the moist soil all around me. Then suddenly part of me burst out into light. I could feel the rays on my first leaf as it spread out. The light moved quickly and faded to darkness in the West, but reappeared just as quickly in the East. This cycle, I call them days and nights, continued for some time. In the meantime I continued to expand, both through the moist soil and out into the air. I grew a few more leaves and stretched higher into the air. I was able to move my leaves just fast enough so I could feel the light for the whole day from East to West. This continued for many cycles. Then I began to notice the days changing. The dark portion was getting longer and the light portion getting shorter. The air was also getting much colder during the dark portions. It was ...