Good stuff! I’m not sure if you pulled your punches at the end in service of hope—different ghost councils will lead you to different decisions, as will different ways of consulting ghost councils, and different ways of choosing consultation methods, and so on ad infinitum. There is no Cartesian boundary between you and the ghosts that lets you pick what ghosts to listen to from a point of infinite distance and infinite leverage; you just kinda get the ghosts you get. You have to make peace not only with your own agency, but also with your own contingency, to end up in a place where maybe doing your best really can be enough.
Thanks :). I didn’t mean for the ghost section to imply that the ghost civilization solves the problems discussed in the rest of the post re: e.g. divergence, meta-divergence, and so forth. Rather, the point was that taking responsibility for making the decision yourself (this feels closely related to “making peace with your own agency”), in consultation with/deference towards whatever ghost civilizations etc you want, changes the picture relative to e.g. requiring that there be some particular set of ghosts that already defines the right answer.
Good stuff! I’m not sure if you pulled your punches at the end in service of hope—different ghost councils will lead you to different decisions, as will different ways of consulting ghost councils, and different ways of choosing consultation methods, and so on ad infinitum. There is no Cartesian boundary between you and the ghosts that lets you pick what ghosts to listen to from a point of infinite distance and infinite leverage; you just kinda get the ghosts you get. You have to make peace not only with your own agency, but also with your own contingency, to end up in a place where maybe doing your best really can be enough.
Thanks :). I didn’t mean for the ghost section to imply that the ghost civilization solves the problems discussed in the rest of the post re: e.g. divergence, meta-divergence, and so forth. Rather, the point was that taking responsibility for making the decision yourself (this feels closely related to “making peace with your own agency”), in consultation with/deference towards whatever ghost civilizations etc you want, changes the picture relative to e.g. requiring that there be some particular set of ghosts that already defines the right answer.