[hodgesrm]

Notes for those planning to sell your soul online: eBay specifically prohibits such transactions. [1] Compared to some online bans, the reasoning is pleasingly coherent.

  eBay does not allow the auctioning of human souls for the  
   following reasons: If the soul does not exist, eBay could 
   not allow the auctioning of the soul because there would be nothing 
  to sell. However, if the soul does exist then, in accordance with 
  eBay's policy on human parts and remains, we would not allow the 
  auctioning of human souls.

This is unfortunate. eBay seems perfect as souls are by definition somewhat used.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/soul-listing-policy-ebay-201...

[abecedarius]

About a dozen people sold their souls on Twitter a while back, so there's another venue.

E.g. https://twitter.com/liminal_warmth/status/142135011902313677...

Terms: https://liminalwarmth.com/contract-for-sale-of-soul/

Discussion: https://liminalwarmth.com/the-questionable-ethics-of-buying-...

As a total atheist I'd still say don't do it. It's not farfetched to interpret the word 'soul' as a future high-res brain scan runnable in emulation on future hardware. There may be other pitfalls.

[samatman]

My argument against this is as follows: would you sell your dignity for $10?

Now, my dignity doesn't exist in any sense which makes selling it meaningful. So it's kind of like free money.

But really it isn't. There's someone out there who can say "I own samatman's dignity, and I got it for cheap". I'm a guy who sold his dignity, and everyone knows it. I feel like people would judge me for that.

There are definitely people out there who will judge you for selling your soul. It doesn't have to exist for that to be real. Is it actually worth ten bucks? I expect there aren't many people who would see that and say "oh cool, you sold your soul for less than a sandwich in SF! You must be an interesting person, I think better of you now that I heard that".

[diegoperini]

Humans usually put their dignity on rent.

[tuckfrump666]

Nobody has come up with a SaaS for renting your dignity

[TeMPOraL]

Instagram and YouTube are two known sites for doing just that. You loan out your dignity when you become an influencer, and have it come back when everyone forgot about that chapter of your life.

[onecommentman]

The Internet never forgets. Never. People may forgive and be forgiven, but the Internet never forgets.

[cmeacham98]

Counterpoint: I have serious doubt that many people (even those religious) believe you can sell your soul using a contract from the legal system in this mortal world. Thus, almost everyone should see it as the joke/fun that it is, and not you actually valuing your soul at $10. "I sold my soul for $10" is a lot better icebreaker than I've ever used.

[tsimionescu]

Religious people who believe in the existence and sanctity of the human soul would probably see such a transaction as something similar to spitting on a holy object - it doesn't hurt the object itself, but as a symbolic gesture it shows your lack of respect for it.

[France_is_bacon]

Dude. We've ALL sold parts and parcels of our dignity for $10 or less.

Some people, simps for example, don't even get $10 for themselvs, but instead pay to have their dignity removed from them.

(this post is meant to be half humorous, and half not humorous.)

[ASalazarMX]

What if you sell it to many people? Dignity, as an abstract concept, is self-replenishing and infinite. In fact, all of our dignities should be given for free, as they're infinitely less scarce than any currency that uses finite resources.

[jareklupinski]

ah i liked that episode too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Sells_His_Soul

>After proclaiming there is no such thing as a soul, Bart agrees to sell his to Milhouse for $5 on a piece of paper which reads "Bart Simpson's soul". Lisa warns Bart that he will regret selling his soul, but he dismisses her fears.

[mbfg]

i'd sell my dignity for a million tho. So like anything else, it's just about what the price is. The cost for my soul would be much lower.

[White_Wolf]

aaa.. onlyfans for less than $10?(heard from a simp friend... really)

[suifbwish]

Unfortunately one does not need to be religious to realize that it’s foolish to assume there is no “god” when we have no way of proving that with science since we can only deduct reliably.

[zwirbl]

Isn't it just as foolish to assume there to be a good?

[vintermann]

No. These questions have been well explained by a couple of old French philosophers, but they're usually presented in such a weak form ("weak man") that their answers aren't appreciated.

Pascal's infamous wager, for instance. It's usually rendered in the form of salvation and probability, but it's better for modern people to think of it in terms of meaning rather than salvation, and the probabilistic part of it can be simplified away.

Instead of asking, "Is there a God", ask first, "Does anything matter in any meaningful sense?".

If the answer is no, then one of the things which doesn't matter, is what you answer to that question. So you might as well answer yes. But if the answer is yes, then you should definitively answer yes, no matter what thing matters (because clearly, it also matters that it matters).

A better version of the argument in Pascal's wager is thus that "nihilism isn't more reasonable than the alternatives, even on its own terms". So you might as well have positive beliefs (though which ones, this argument can't answer). Bringing in probabilities is not necessary.

The classic argument against Pascal's wager is "but what if there's a God who will punish you from following the logic of this argument?". You can make that argument in a non-probabilistic way too, and suggest that maybe the positive meaning of existence is to not buy into arguments about the positive meaning of existence.

But that is rejected by another much misunderstood French philosopher's argument, Descartes' demon. The argument is that if there's some demon messing with my thoughts and perceptions to make me come to exactly the wrong solutions, then I am screwed anyway. Outsmarting it by definition won't work. So obviously, we might as well reject this assumption too.

To sum up, we reject the assumption that we have no meaning in the universe, because if that is true, we might as well. And we reject the assumption that the universe is out to get us, because if that is true, it makes no difference what we think.

[dalmo3]

> Instead of asking, "Is there a God", ask first, "Does anything matter in any meaningful sense?".

That's moving the goalposts and completely avoiding GP's argument. Interesting viewpoint nonetheless.

[suifbwish]

Precisely. If atheists are correct and there is not a god, you gain/lose nothing. However if the other side is correct and God does exist, the risk of existential woe is unfathomable. (None of this describes a personal perspective, merely things I’ve read)

[IntrepidWorm]

The refutation that occurs to me (and has been raised before) is thus: if your belief in a god is wholly predicated on self preservation (avoiding eternal damnation/suffering/etc), and not motivated by the moral tenets of the religion, does that not defeat the purpose of being a believer? More to the point, if a god is all-powerful and all-knowing (or at the very least has some supernatural insight into human drives and motivations), there is little chance of deceiving the deity into accepting you as a true believer.

I would say a better reading of pascal's wager is to live your life morally and compassionately (relative to social norms), and accept that any god that may exist will judge you based on the character of your actions and decisions, and not on adherance to strict dogma.

[vintermann]

That is exactly the "straw" interpretation I tried to argue against. It's not about God, at least not on this point.

It's about existential nihilism being pointless on its own terms. If you ask the question, "why does this matter" (and "this" can be absolutely anything) you've already assumed some things matter more than others. We absolutely won't get anywhere talking about God if we don't talk about this first.

[mbfg]

atheists don't say there is no god. At least the general definition of atheism. Only that there is no reason to believe that there is one.

[mbfg]

Things matter to me, and that's all i need.

[ithinkso]

To this day, constructive mathematicians at eBay are trying to close the remaining loophole in the ban's reasoning

[hodgesrm]

Given the subject matter, I'm going to hazard a guess they are somehow getting stuck on the Axiom of Choice.

[a1369209993]

Not really. The axiom of excluded middle is false* because it's a universal quantification, and consequently includes pathalogical cases like "This proposition is false."; there are plenty of specific classes of proposions on which resticted versions of excluded middle are valid, just like there are plenty of classes of sets (eg all well-founded sets) that have well defined membership despite Russel's paradox.

*: Give or take technicalities.

[dr_dshiv]

I've seen the law of excluded middle used to deny the existence of platonic idealism. But I really don't get it. I'd love to understand your explanation better.

If soul=psyche (as in Plato) then it seems easy to sell access to the attention. But if soul is referring to an ideal noetic form, then it's hard to understand how immaterial ownership would work without a material intermediary.

[a1369209993]

The axiom of excluded middle is that for every proposition, either that proposion is true or it is false. That's a universal quantification, so any counterexample makes it false. "This proposition is false." is such a counterexample (it can't be true, because than it's false and your logic is inconsistent, and it can't be false, because than it's true and ditto). This reasoning applies to pretty much any recognizable system of propositional logic (including, per Godel nineteen-thirty-something, systems that explicitly prohibit the basic self-referential counter example, as long as they're expressive enough to describe arithmetic), so it's at least colloquially correct to simply dismiss it as false, even if the pedantic version is that it's a axiom that cannot be part of a consistent set of axioms.

The theorem of included middle doesn't prevent specific classes of propositions from being exclusively divided into true and false, though. As a simple example, any proposition of the form "natural number SSS...SS0 is prime" will be either true or false, and there's nothing inconsistent about (say) "for every proposion P matching regex /(S)*0 is prime/, either P is true or P is false". Just like there's nothing weird about a linter that can reliably tell you that "while(1) {...}" doesn't terminate, halting problem or not.

[ithinkso]

I understand what you're saying (in the first paragraph). I really do because I also went down this path. Self-reference is very tricky and it's way easier to trick yourself into proving things than to prove things.

You are referencing Godel and there is a reason why he only proved 'non-provability', namely Tarski's undefinability theorem[1]. In short, you cannot express the truthiness of a statement in the system within the system itself. This prohibits you to draw conclusions in a way you did above.

I'm of course no expert on the matter, and I might be wrong just as likely, but I'll encourage you not to make such strong, definitive statements. Maybe the reason for it is only that what you stated above would be a huge result in mathematics so one would think there is a mistake somewhere (especially since Liar's paradox is nothing new). And one would explore the subject further to find it rather than 'I post it on online forums because no one wants to accept my theory'

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_undefinability_theo...

[a1369209993]

> you cannot express the truthiness of a statement in the system within the system itself.

Of course not; I'm not talking about truthiness; I'm talking about truth.

> that what you stated above would be a huge result in mathematics

Not really; it's the same sort of trivially-blatantly-obvious thing as "two-boxing on Newcomb's problem is irrational" or "quantum superpositions never actually collapse".

[perl4ever]

>"This proposition is false."

What about "this proposition is true"? Does it have a truth value?

If "this proposition is true" is true, then it's true. But if "this proposition is true" is false, then it's false.

It's self consistent whether it's true or false, but there's no way to determine if it is true or false.

I've been wondering what the formal name is for this kind of statement; surely it's not a paradox. Searching for "the opposite of a paradox" is apparently not the right query.

I feel like there's something questionable going on with the word "is" in either statement.

[a1369209993]

> What about "this proposition is true"? Does it have a truth value?

I think it'll probably end up being neither true nor false too in most 'nice' systems (since general rules that could be used to prove or disprove it tend to set off things like Curry's paradox[0]), but unlike the other one it's (I think) dependent on the details of how you're defining things.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry's_paradox

[jesuslop]

They could use a paraconsistent logician also

[dkersten]

Surely the modern way to sell your soul online is through NFTs?

[praptak]

Not necessarily. It is speculated that the Devil can solve any mathematical problem and thus human crypto is useless to him, as he can just reverse all hashes, compute the discrete logarithms and factor arbitrarily large numbers.

So an NFT (or any other cryptographic artifact) is rather something that Satan can offer you for your soul.

[highspeedbus]

That's a running thing in my mind for years. The devil can do math. So It's an incredible lost opportunity when people are being possessed and we dont go and ask them some clever questions.

[anchpop]

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-th...

[mountainriver]

Perhaps we should creat soulcoins which are a secure way of trading souls

[IIAOPSW]

Its true. Instead of oracle calls, I use Faustian bargains.

[dkersten]

I meant more human-to-human selling of your soul, as an alternative to selling on ebay. Doesn't even require you to believe in the supernatural.

[weare138]

Money made with math seems like something the Devil would be into.

[alangibson]

That's not the way math works. G-d himself can't reverse a hash.

Before you go invoking the "miracle" loophole, consider that miracles are logically impossible. If an impossible thing happens, then it was not in fact impossible. We just didn't understand the rules.

[praptak]

God himself is omniscient, so He by definition knows all the reverses of all hashes.

Also, to know the reverse of any hash you don't even need full omniscience, just "merely" the knowledge of anything that ever happened. Rewind the history of the universe, read the reverse from RAM when the hash was computed, done.

[anthk]

If God is omniscient, he can't do shit to punish you as he already knew you would commit a sin since the beginning of times.

[praptak]

Yes, the conflict of omniscience and free will is known in theology. I think they try to solve it by redefining omniscience to "being able to know everything but also being able to exclude stuff from one's knowledge".

[alangibson]

That's prior knowledge of the answer. Not the same thing as rewinding a trapdoor function. It's not very impressive if you already know the answer.

[ithinkso]

That's how maths works. Hashes are trivially reversible, all it takes is time, no miracle needed.

Oracles in complexity theory are a bread and butter concept

[pjbeam]

If two different x can produce the same y information is lost on the hash transformation. Finding _an x_ for your y is not the same as finding _the x_. That said, Laplace's Demon is, well, a demon. Presumably the devil can get the demon to unspool time to see what the input was and the math doesn't matter, collisions or not.

[Sebb767]

> Finding _an x_ for your y is not the same as finding _the x_.

Not in all cases, but in the case of NFTs and other cryptocurrencies, it is. If a second private key fulfills all constraints of the original one (like size and all computed results so far), it is functionally equivalent to the original one.

[ithinkso]

In cryptography either you only need 'an x', in cases that the original x does not matter, or if it does, then you can just as easily find all x of size less than large enough N and find 'the x', it is still solely restricted by time.

Laplace's demon, information loss, Landauer's principle etc. are at most tangentially related to the problem discussed

[alangibson]

If hashes were trivially reversible, there'd be no cryptography.

You're thinking of something like a rainbow table. Definitely not the same thing as rewinding a function that loses information.

[dsr_]

The omniscient one doesn't need to reverse a hash; they recognize immediately all possible values that could produce the hash.

[alangibson]

So God had access to a really big rainbow table. Not terribly impressive for the supposed creator of the universe.

[Jerrrry]

You are failing to grasp the notion that rainbow tables and knowing 51 factors to 17 and 3 are equivalent.

[true_religion]

Back when I studied theology, the way we used to describe omniscience was to indicate that entities that exist outside of our universe can trivially see all points of our time stream.

Thus the hypothetical devil need not reverse the hash, they just have to view its creation to know what it was created from.

[alangibson]

Anything existing outside out universe would have no access to anything happening inside it by definition. If the could access it, they would have to be part of the universe system. How else could information be transferred.

[highspeedbus]

God is supernatural by definition. Anything we can compute, analyze and give logical meaning is just regular science.

[mbfg]

For a god to have value to humans, however, that god would have to interact in some way with the natural world. Those things can be detected by science.

[vmception]

The NFT standards need to be updated to include a hook that ensures royalties go to the creator upon transfer.

Sadly this is currently impossible as the NFT doesn't store the amount of value it was traded for within it. But it could.

For now, royalties only occur on third party platforms of NFTs.

[dkersten]

Seems that they're doing just what they were intended to: proving ownership, nothing more.

Having said that, yes, I think building a concept of royalties in would have been a good idea.

[Adverblessly]

They brought up Death Note, but not Jigoku Shoujo ("Hell Girl"), presumably because one is vastly more popular and well-known than the other.

Going by Jigoku Shoujo you can actually sell your soul online, though it is a bit closer to a "contact me" form, you only really get to buy "revenge" and only on one person. Definitely a far cry from what you'd expect of modern online commerce.

[swayvil]

As I understand it, "soul" is synonymous with "attention".

That is : you direct it and concentrate it. And it is prone to distraction (temptation?).

Given that, we are all well familiar with our soul. And its manipulation is a common everyday occurrence.

[mbfg]

I think many religious people would disagree with your definition. That's the problem with any discussions of the "soul". It is poorly defined.

[swayvil]

Better to refer to an observation than a definition, when discussing real stuff. It's the more solid reference.

We can observe attention.

Can we observe this alternative to which you refer?

[mbfg]

No of course not. However, changing a definition away from what billions of people believe doesn't seem productive. If you want to talk about attention, cool, but call it attention. Most religious people don't consider the soul to be a synonym for attention.

It's similar to how some people want to redefine god as the universe. Ok, then just call it the universe, doing otherwise drags all kinds of assumptions and presuppositions that muddy the waters.

[swayvil]

Then you refer to a fantasy.

Billions are immersed in fantasy.

One might call that a classically religious debacle.

[mbfg]

I'm not saying that's what i believe. I don't believe a soul exists, or could exist. But I'm saying that's what billions of people believe. It doesn't help to redefine away a problem.

[dv_dt]

If it were a financial market, one could perhaps sell the option to buy a soul pending resolution of the matter.

[mimixco]

You've just invented a new kind of "futures trading" and the mother of all kinds of innovative financial scams. Awesome! Someone should definitely start a business trading in "souls" and NFTs seem to be of the same ilk, so you guys are onto something.

[classified]

Couldn't the Bockchain be used to make sure souls can be optioned away only once? We would have finally found a use for the Blockchain after all!

[TeMPOraL]

This already exists - that's how Heaven and Hell keep track of souls.

You know why it's so hot in Hell? Because that's where the exhaust ports of the AC units cooling the soulchain mining servers are.

[mimixco]

Fantastic! Surely someone will torture you for your key, no? This needs to be an episode of Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell.

[classified]

Even with the key the transaction cannot be deleted. The eternity of the soul is a perfect fit for an append-only ledger.

[dv_dt]

Starting a timer to see how long it takes for a soulchain to be offered.

[ithinkso]

Well, if you're powerful enough you can always fork to create Horcruxes

[MichaelZuo]

That technology is too advanced to be revealed to humans, didn’t you get the memo?

[varelse]

Sell your soul: not OK Sell your best years to the man(tm): 100% OK

[prpl]

I tried to buy a soul ~2004 but got the auction cancelled when I saw there was a duplicate auction

[hansvm]

So long as they were transparent about the soul having been split I'm not sure I see the issue.

[SuoDuanDao]

Didn't you read the ending of Harry Potter? Split souls are not something most people would want around!

[vinceguidry]

You're really better off selling it to a demon anyway. If you get nothing out of it then when you get to the afterlife you can convincingly claim that the demon reneged on the deal.

[the_only_law]

Given what I know from retrocomputing eBay, I imagine people would try to sell their souls at much more than they’re actually worth.

[classified]

But in the long term the market would determine a fair price. Assuming demons are rational economic actors, that is.