From 9698183d180a470329d77304dc8e87d976fa753d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Akshay Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2022 22:19:41 +0530 Subject: new post: a reference counted afterlife --- posts/a_reference_counted_afterlife.md | 49 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 49 insertions(+) create mode 100644 posts/a_reference_counted_afterlife.md (limited to 'posts') diff --git a/posts/a_reference_counted_afterlife.md b/posts/a_reference_counted_afterlife.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e578d40 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/a_reference_counted_afterlife.md @@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ +I took interest in the Egyptian rendition of the afterlife +recently. + +### Parts of the Soul + +Ancient Egyptians believed that the soul comprised of +several components: + +- _ren_ +- _ka_ +- _ib_ +- _ba_ +- _sheut_ + + +Egyptians emphasized on preserving the different parts of +the soul. Mummification for example, served to preserve the +physical part of the soul. The other components have their +respective preservation strategies. + +Of all of these bits, I find _ren_, which simply means +_name_, to be the most interesting. _Ba_, the human-headed +chicken that represents _personality_, is a close favourite. + +_Ren_ is the name given to a person at birth. Egyptians +believed that this portion of the soul would continue to +live on for as long as it was spoken. If you were someone +worthy of continued existence, your name would be inscribed +all over the place. If you were the type to snatch away +bread from children, your name would be condemned from +memory, forgotten. + +### Garbage-collection + +The concept of _ren_ seems to be perfectly analogous to +reference counted garbage-collection. + +- A name (_ren_) is assigned to an object (person) on + initialization (at birth) +- Names are used to refer to objects +- Objects go out of existence when there are no more + references to them + +The concept of _ren_ seems to model human-memory. The +similarity with garbage-collection is now easily explained, +because garbage-collection models a program's memory. + +Perhaps some cheeky Egyptian has attained immortality by +creating a _ren_-cycle. -- cgit v1.2.3