to those who have not met anyone here...

...in person. You could consider this possibility in any forum, or even any interaction with people in real life (this does work with those who have actually met people face to face here, but you must extend the concept to an uncomfortable level).

When we interact with other "people" here, we assign in our minds one conscious being attached to each screen name, though we know this is not always the case. Many posters here DO HAVE multiple screen names, for various reasons. Most of which are innocuous, for getting back into a chat room, or if you wanted someone to leave you alone. But it is the guise of anonymity that makes the very nature of web forums conducive to "trollers," who can get creative, and often do use multiple screen names to cause controversy, or elicit responses from a group.

So, since you know that more than one "member" here can be operated by one person, then you really never know how many different people you are actually interacting with. You might perceive hundreds or more, when in fact it could be as few as just a handfull; or maybe just a couple of cops trying to bust the one unsuspecting person who happens in and reads the fabricated logs of the board; or maybe even just one person, working frantically to maintain the facade of all these different people.

Then is it too much of a stretch to think if that guy worked so diligently to keep you fooled with a few hundred fake screen names and photos, he couldn't just write a program to do it all? Not too far fetched. That means you are talking to no one, outside of artificial intelligence. This means even what I type is generated by a subroutine of the program, as a peripheral character. Maybe intentionally; surely the appearance of someone questioning the validity of the program would better instill it's authenticity to the user (or mark!).

It;s not as pure of an application, but fOr those of you who know, or think you know other posters in real life, the handiwork of Descartes' "Evil Genius" can be extended outside the Eworld just as easily (the methods of trickery are just more far fetched). Either matrix style, or OrangeHairs' "Is Life a Video Game?" thread. (Notwithstanding the concept that orangehairs presented where we were all controlled in the players vid game. There is only ONE truth for everyone reading this- and that is the "reality" of our OWN consciousness. This is the only self evident truth, outside of formal systems (like math). We (each individual for him/herself) know that while everyone and everything else we perceive could be an illusion, our consciousness' (in whatever form it takes, whether actually housed in a flesh machine like we think or free flowing energy waves in deep space dreaming of this life for a little while) independence cannot be denied; moreover, it is the only truth that cannot be denied.

Well, yeah you could be right...

But did anyone else besides me ever get to see a picture of Lulu?

If you saw what lulu looks like in real life, you'd be posting all the time too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RIP ODB

Well, yeah you could be right...

But did anyone else besides me ever get to see a picture of Lulu?

If you saw what lulu looks like in real life, you'd be posting all the time too.

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LOL, yeah, but you are Lulu. You just assumed your RIP identity to manipulate me into going to lookup the photo you created!

I wish, my friend... But lulu has deleted her picture from all of society. So unless you already saw it, you'll never see it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RIP ODB

I wish, my friend... But lulu has deleted her picture from all of society. So unless you already saw it, you'll never see it.

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No, I think I did see it when I posted mine, if it was the one that says "ok chatters..." then something about pics, from last week. Why was the board programmed to remove it? A privacy/paranoid component was written into Lulu's code.

Yeah man it was called "ok chatters" and then it read something like "here's something for you stoners to drool over. thanks bye - lulu"

Oh, so apparently it was something different than the first pic on the thread that I am seeing (b.c that one's still there). Although I agree with you that she is hot, you are forgetting the fact that women do not exist on the internet!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 2600

Oh, so apparently it was something different than the first pic on the thread that I am seeing (b.c that one's still there). Although I agree with you that she is hot, you are forgetting the fact that women do not exist on the internet!

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LOL haha, of course not man. I know she's make-believe.

lulu is a great looking gal! i`ve seen her picture before that thread was ever created.
she has the power to do what she wants with her pictures because she is a mod.
plain and simple!
your welcome lulu.
p.s. lulu send me another one please, i`ll not abuse it. i promise! LOL.

:D LULU is a top lady and both her and I are as real as any of you. My pic went on the mentioned thread and I was shocked that ppl thought I wud look diff than I did....But I am me and I'm real..... :D

I understand what you mean by false identities 2600. Unless we meet other chatters on the board we can never be 100% sure whether we are talking to the person that they have claimed to be. Also some people "talk" differently on the net to what they would face to face so when we are talking to someone we can wonder whether we are getting the real deal with a person or not.

Yeah, what made me think of that was seeing schmoko having problems w/the chatroom- he kept coming in under different names, I started thinking, what if he is controlling aall of the personalities I am seeing now?
and why..

rarrr= cop in nyc, a grandmother on a farm in Iowa, and Malcom Young

(Don't worry, I know it's not true, but I am a skeptic!)

Hmm all three in one you could be right ther 2600

"Then is it too much of a stretch to think if that guy worked so diligently to keep you fooled with a few hundred fake screen names and photos, he couldn't just write a program to do it all? Not too far fetched. That means you are talking to no one, outside of artificial intelligence. This means even what I type is generated by a subroutine of the program, as a peripheral character. Maybe intentionally; surely the appearance of someone questioning the validity of the program would better instill it's authenticity to the user (or mark!)."

LOL, I've had that exact same thought myself, usually when baked while browsing the board.

haha yeah dude. that would be crazy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by poorman3

p.s. lulu send me another one please, i`ll not abuse it. i promise! LOL.

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Yeah, sure you won't, Poorman!!! ;) :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 2600

Yeah, what made me think of that was seeing schmoko having problems w/the chatroom- he kept coming in under different names, I started thinking, what if he is controlling aall of the personalities I am seeing now?
and why..

rarrr= cop in nyc, a grandmother on a farm in Iowa, and Malcom Young

(Don't worry, I know it's not true, but I am a skeptic!)

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Yes you are right 2600 we are all either cops, cia,mafia.or extraterrestrial beings ..... I am Laura Bush/fellow druggie/pimp...........

Well, somebody could be assuming all the other identities, but why bother with such a meaningless pursuit?

I know I'm real, at any rate.

As I read the various posts, a lot of different personalities have emerged. So, if any one source was responsible, it'd have to be one screwed-up individual with way too much time on his/her hands, or a program written by someone (screwed-up) with way too much time on his/her hands.

I prefer to think that you are all actual people, with way too much time on your hands.

42

i can say that scarlettcrush is real. that is fact. theres some security hopefully.

I'm real!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4252

Well, somebody could be assuming all the other identities, but why bother with such a meaningless pursuit?

I know I'm real, at any rate.

As I read the various posts, a lot of different personalities have emerged. So, if any one source was responsible, it'd have to be one screwed-up individual with way too much time on his/her hands, or a program written by someone (screwed-up) with way too much time on his/her hands.

I prefer to think that you are all actual people, with way too much time on your hands.

42

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Of course we prefer to believe our perceptions (the evidence overwhelmingly supports them, and moreover is corroborated by each other's accounts), but if the reality was that someone had too much time on their hands, then "I know I'm real at any rate.", might not be much consolation, when you find out that might be only partially true. While it might only freak you out a little bit if you found out you were talking to yourself in here, consider finding out your entire life was a deception- of even who "you" are.

Because when you "wake up" from the chatroom, who "you" are is still the same, only the perceptions of your surroundings change. But what if, for instance you wake up and realize everything you've lived, everything you remember has been literally a dream. Not only has everything you lived been an illusion, all your memories dreams, but what you thought was "the real you", was not.

So let's say you are a gob of intelligent high energy plasma clinging to a iron cliff isolated on a distant planet, you being the only intelligent life in the universe. You've woken up from the "human life", where there were people, and jobs, and weed, and computers. But now none of that is relevant. You say "oh yeah, this is my existence. wow, what a crazy dream, I was a human, whatever that is. well, good to be back clinging to the iron cliff." But you would still have no justification to say "this is real," or "this is the real me," because the only self evident truth is your consciousness, not what it's seated in.

I used the chat forum example as a microcosm to represent the greater application, because the methods of "trickery" more salient (it doesn't have to be a dream, or a matrix, or something far fetched enough to fool our senses, just what appears on the screen).

Ok, i admit it i'm the box :rolleyes:

actually none of us are real
we are all figments of imaginations
or wierd dreams?
and some are fucking nightmares

joking

ive met folks face to face that i met on line here(and marihemp.com)
they sure smoke dope like REAL people
thats not saying some have not reg'd lots of names
peace