‘Here’s
the deal’ as Tim introduced:
You’re an omnipotent god, and you’re told by your boss
that you have to create an infinite checkerboard—one that extends forever in
every direction in a 2-dimensional plane. You’ll then create an infinite
number of new humans and put one on each square of the board, where he or she
will live forever. Both the board and the lives of the humans on it will exist
for an infinite eternity of future once you make them. Your boss gives you two
options for the type of board you create:
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| Editted picture. Source; waitbutwhy.org |
This
was his summary answer:
If you’re concerned with infinity of space, you pick the happy board with
a drop of sadness. So the logical answer to Question 1 is the happy board.
If you’re concerned with infinity of time, you pick the sad board with a happy drop. So the logical answer to
Question 2 is the sad board.
My answer is:
First, the comments given on the article illustrate people narrowing down to HOPE and DESPAIR answers. With no one
interested in despair, we seek for hope- hence preferring the happy board.
Sad-or funny-enough, people think they are living in a desperate world and they
have all the evidences to prove. They think that they were born on a sad board
(soil). Ask any layman whether the world is ideal and he will tell you that not
even Elon Musk is free of worries (though his worries may be advanced).
I look at the boards from an angle
of reality (secular) and illusion (religion). Sadness is real. Happiness is
illusion. Where tYou can also think vice versa if you are a good debater. We would
want to be perfect- to do things as we wish and want. But the gods and their
bosses do not want to be jobless if so they exist. As you exist you should
work- even in illusion. This is why dreams involve us running away from the
one-eyed ogre.
I would not care on which board I
will be because it doesn’t matter in which status I will be infinite in.
Reality tells me that there is no infinite goodness/badness. What if badness is
seen from the other way round? I have seen boys run away from healthy homes to
streets and the poverty stricken blame their parents for being such lazy and
unfortunate. To think that street life is not ideal is to be opinionated. Ask
the boys whether they think they are suffering. They are alright- from their
perception.
To think that the drop will never
reach you- of sadness as of happiness because of time (not told how many years)
is a matter of gambling- sweet to my ears. It may, it may not. I would wish to
be born on a happy board that I will have died before the sad drop reached me.
What a happy life! Or there is no death in happiness? And if I was born on a
sad board, then let me be near the epicenter- where the drop will give me soon
happiness. This is if sadness is not a death striker.
To say that if I be placed on the sad
board with a drop of happiness is the best choice to ever do is like to tell a
child to study hard for a better future. It also abuses my presence. It makes
me suffer at first waiting for something I may never find- assuming that I am
at infinity of sadness. This is an example of advises that we give when we
think we are rational- things we would never do under some real need.
Importantly last, if you say that
the happy board will always have happy people at infinity, what do you mean?
The question was about me. Me! It is not about the others and their happiness
or sadness. It is about me and the happiness I would want to conserve. I may
think I am at infinity today and be engulfed in the sadness circle tomorrow.
There is no wisdom there.
In summary, I would let the god put
me on the board he thinks best and have self ‘evolve’ for that position. I will survive!
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