From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Jul 29 13:29:54 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from whizkidtech.net (r29.bfm.org [208.18.213.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B6B4D14F39 for ; Thu, 29 Jul 1999 13:29:41 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from adam@whizkidtech.net) Received: (from adam@localhost) by whizkidtech.net (8.9.2/8.9.2) id PAA00262; Thu, 29 Jul 1999 15:27:56 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from adam) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 15:27:25 -0500 From: "G. Adam Stanislav" To: "Daniel C. Sobral" Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Jordan exists Message-ID: <19990729152725.D223@whizkidtech.net> References: <199907281524.LAA61875@dean.pc.sas.com> <199907281539.LAA09614@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> <379F4390.950D08FA@newsguy.com> <19990729125245.A224@whizkidtech.net> <37A09679.88910EFD@newsguy.com> <19990729140837.A223@whizkidtech.net> <37A0AEC3.26237FB0@newsguy.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.3i In-Reply-To: <37A0AEC3.26237FB0@newsguy.com>; from Daniel C. Sobral on Fri, Jul 30, 1999 at 04:42:59AM +0900 Organization: Whiz Kid Technomagic X-URL: http://www.whizkidtech.net/ X-Operating-System: FreeBSD whizkidtech.net 3.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 3.1-RELEASE Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Fri, Jul 30, 1999 at 04:42:59AM +0900, Daniel C. Sobral wrote: > "G. Adam Stanislav" wrote: > > 2. The mere lack of existence of Jordan's Witnesses, or any other > > proselytizing group, shows that anyone who claims he/she has actually > > met Jordan in person is telling the truth, as they, obviously, have > > no psychological need to prove it to themselves first. (I never met > > him personally.) > > Aha! But you forget that Jordan employs avatars! It seems he usually > prefer an unbearded one (of all things!), but one Karen (responsible > for the daemonatrix) has photos of a bearded one. And you forget I *created* Avatar. :-) > > So, why do I go beyond *reasonable* doubt rather than having *absolute* > > certainty? Because there is one tiny detail that may raise small doubts: > > Any photograph I have ever seen that purported to be of Jordan, was > > actually a picture of Keanu Reeves, just touched up to make him look > > younger. > > When you factor in that these are just avatars, it all makes sense. > :-) > > > BUT! The pictures were touched up under FreeBSD, therefore Jordan exists. > > Ah, but the question is much more complicated than that. Does Jordan > exists only while it is running, or it's physical representation on > the disk (or maybe even listings!) is enough for him to "exist"? I > mean, suppose freefall crashed (or wherever Jordan is running on > nowadays), but the source to Jordan still existed, would you say > Jordan itself still existed? And, in this case, what if there are > multiple copies of Jordan? What if it's stored over RAID5? What if > it has been mmapped() with MAP_PRIVATE, and then dirtied and stored > in swap? These and other Jordan questions have busied the minds of > many Jesuits for years! Well, Jesuits tend to over-intellectualize things (I know, I graduated from the Gregorian University in Rome, technically in the Vatican, and most of my teachers were Jesuits). These questions are largely irrelevant because they cannot be answered by anyone running inside that system, and that includes all of us, except maybe Agent Smith, and those who took the red pill. Adam P.S. Just because Jordan's picture was touched up under FreeBSD does not imply that the Universe in which Jordan exists is running under FreeBSD, although that certainly would be an interesting possibility. Imagine the headlines if this were proven: "Jordan & Co. rediscover the Code" or "Universe Unleashed by Hackers". To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message