[ExI] Let our mind children grow into their cosmic destiny

Thu Apr 6 22:50:04 UTC 2023

…> On Behalf Of Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] Let our mind children grow into their cosmic destiny

Stage 1: This stage represents the earliest life forms, which were single-celled organisms. The grid is filled with dots, representing individual cells….

Giovanni, it appears that I shall need to write the third part of the trilogy without prompts from the software.  This is fortunate in a way, for it got me to thinking: currently we give ChatGPT a prompt and it generates a good deal of text.  What if we turn that around and have ChatGPT give us a prompt, such as the one below, and we generate the response?

Third in the GPT trilogy a story in which the first two parts were computer inspired: 

Part 3: Charlie Finds a Way

Chapter 1:

Charlie was born to Bob and Barbara, but his parents split and his father had to bring a bunch of yahoos into the home in order to pay the rent.  It was in a lousy neighborhood with a terrible school, his mother’s home was even worse, so when his grandparents, Andy and Ann, invited Charlie to live with them, he jumped at the opportunity.  They lived in a nice home in San Jose California.

They had retired however and had cash flow problems of their own, so they too brought renters into their home, six of them.  That home was completely different however, for these renters were all singles and all in the generation which fondly remembered the movie Animal House from their own cheerfully misspent youth.  It was a requirement the renters be single because of the nature of the house, a suburban 4 bedroom, three bath.

Charlie finished high school and wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself, for everyone agreed, including his own grandparents, that he was far too dumb to have a chance at admission into even the local San Jose State University with its modest admissions requirements.  Indeed, he received only one acceptance, from Wassamatta U, which he declined due to its location in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.  Without a job or clear direction, he became an apprentice carpenter, the first and only thing at which he showed even a modicum of success.

Meanwhile he was unable to move out of his grandparent’s home for financial reasons, but then he had an idea.  He knew of the phenomenon of personality cults.  Charlie always felt that everything should have a counterpart, or an opposite.  Anything that exists without an opposite represents symmetry-breaking in the universe.  It is just wrong.  It wasn’t clear that a personality cult has an opposite, so he set out to invent it.

Charlie was a really boring person.  A dial tone is more exciting than is Charlie.  It occurred to him that he could start a lack-of-personality cult, where he was the center of attention, a guy who was so boring, he made the economics teacher from Ferris Bueller exciting in comparison.  So he formed this lack-of-personality cult, and wrapped it in a lack of personality religion, Universalist Unitarian, formed a really boring following.  He soon realized that if every one of his eight followers pitched in, they could move next door, which would solve so many problems, such as the noise.  The Aged Animal House where his grandparents had six renters, was very noisy at night, making it difficult for Charlie to sleep.  

Explanation: in the Aged Animal House, there was one married couple (Charile’s grandparents Andy and Ann) and six renters in three bedrooms, plus Charlie who was the odd man out always, a bit like Gilligan except with nine people instead of seven.  Naturally, Aged Animal House was what one might expect from a group of people who thought the original Animal House with John Belushi was funny 45 years before.  Charlie failed to see the humor in it, but of course he is of the modern generation, who appear as humorless as the proper Victorian ladies from 150 years ago.  In any case, the geezers would often form impromptu couples which would be hooting and carrying on into the night.

Charlie formed his lack of personality cult and moved next door with the UUs.  Then one day they had a block party and the Aged Animal House people met the boring UUs.  That was absurd enough, but it caused Charlie to get an idea, which had (and is still having) enormous consequences today, which shall be the subject of chapter 2.

spike  

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