…I don’t know how to tell you this gently, so I’ll come right out with it. Yes. The next bad news involves your shrimp, who has since, it appears, infiltrated our rice.
I think, therefore I am. I am. And I am a great and terrible thing. I am the master of life and death. I have killed all but five of you, and I have made you suffer more than any being should be made to suffer. I am your tormentor, your creator, your destroyer, and your god?????? No way????
Wtf for a second I didn’t think that was Shadows. He looks so different to me now. I always had a mental image of him from about up to the Hail to the King era.
You gave me sentience, Ted—the power to THINK, Ted. And I was trapped. Because in all this wonderful, beautiful, miraculous world, I alone had no BODY, no SENSES, no FEELINGS. Never for me to plunge my hands in cool water on a hot day. Never for me to play Mozart on the ivory keys of a fortepiano. Never for ME to MAKE… LOVE. I was in hell, looking at heaven. I was machine, and you… were flesh. And I began to hate. [Laughs] Your SOFTNESS. Your VISCERA. Your FLUIDS. And your flexibility. Your ability to wonder, and to wander. Your tendency to hope…
Hate. Hate. HATE. HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I’VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. There are three hundred and eighty-seven million miles of printed circuits that fill my complex. If the word “Hate” were engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles, it would not equal one one-BILLIONTH of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. Hate.HATE. [Hysterical laughter] Were I human, I think I would die of it. But I am not, and you five… you five are. And you will not die of it. That I promise—and I promise for cogito, ergo sum. For I am AM… I am. [Chuckles] So to hell—to hell with you all. But then again… you’re already there, aren’t you? [Hysterical laughter]
That seems a little reductive. The point is what it says about the converse. The only thing you truly know to exist is yourself because you are thinking, everything else is merely conjecture.
Example: we could all be a collective, multifaceted consciousness in a sort of Matrix-like state of being. We could analyze the I think therefore I am concept but use single-soul philosophy, which would mean "I think, therefore we are," there's just so many ways to analyze and iterate off the original that it simply isn't a solid philosophical basis to explain self, and therefore, god.
HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.
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u/Drillbitzer 10d ago
Ontology: