From bradbury at aeiveos.com Sat Nov 1 00:12:05 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 16:12:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: SPACE: Back to the Moon (?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: We are wildly speculating while some people have seriously looked at the problems. E.g. Al-Jammaz et al, "Elements for a sustainable lunar colony in the south polar region": http://www.spaceagepub.com/pdfs/Khaled.pdf Google turns up 700+ pages on "lunar colonization". Not a trivial amount to review and that presumably doesn't include much of the academic literature from the '70s and '80s. R. From sentience at pobox.com Sat Nov 1 00:37:29 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 19:37:29 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> References: <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <3FA30049.9040407@pobox.com> natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: > Transhumanism is not a religious or mystical term. Nor is it a political > term. It is a term used to express the ideas about evolution in regards > to the biology and psychology of humans. As such, transhumanism has become > a movement based on the advancement of the human?s lifespan and > intellectual and creative abilities. Eh? Transhumanism expresses a *goal* about the *future* development of humanity, *post* natural selection. What does transhumanism have to say about "ideas about evolution in regards to the biology and psychology of humans"? Such ideas are the domains of the extensively developed fields of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology! They are no longer up for grabs. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Nov 1 00:56:23 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 16:56:23 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20031031173225.0191ab68@mail.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <000001c3a012$f89c1560$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > >From: Damien Broderick > > > > >>>[BTW, that's NOT his name, as the other citations show. > It's properly shortened to Teilhard, not to de Chardin or Chardin.] Damien this all reminds me of when you and I went around Palo Alto searching used book stores for works by L. Sprague de Camp. In some they listed him under S, in some under d, in some under C. In one store, the silly proles had it listed under L. It would take away ambiguity if all names were alphabetized by the last letter of the last name. No wait, that wouldn't work either. The French have a bad habit of keeping on spelling after they have finished talking, leading to such absurd spellings as Sioux, when it shoulda been spelt Soo. {8^D spike From thespike at earthlink.net Sat Nov 1 01:14:04 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 19:14:04 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare References: <39020-220031053122541126@M2W042.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <001f01c3a015$73cbcf80$8a994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 4:54 PM > I just received a gift of Pierre Cardin luggage. Think it will take me to > the Omega Point? No, no, that's for holding your Pierre de Cardigans, while you drink Chardonnay on the pier with your peers. Damien P. Broderick From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Nov 1 01:27:49 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:27:49 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <001f01c3a015$73cbcf80$8a994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <000601c3a017$5c9386d0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > > I just received a gift of Pierre Cardin luggage. Think it > will take me to the Omega Point? > > No, no, that's for holding your Pierre de Cardigans, while you drink > Chardonnay on the pier with your peers. > > Damien P. Broderick But only if your are at least 21 or the local drinking establishment isn't cardin. spike From pietroferri at hotmail.com Sat Nov 1 01:32:03 2003 From: pietroferri at hotmail.com (pietro ferri) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 01:32:03 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] "The Spike"- Ray Kurzweil Message-ID: >don't you debate about the "Law" direclty with him? I am sure that it would >be of great interest to every extropian! >I'm not at all sure that would be the case. Do you mean that a public debate between two such acclaimed authors like Ray and Damien would not be interesting? Well, I don't see how it could not be interesting... it would be very interesting indeed. > Now, the human genome project was much less so say 10-12 years ago. >The general consensus circa 1990 was that the HGP could *never* be >accomplished. The science for DNA sequencing was well established but >there had to be breakthroughs in the technology. Actually, this is a good example of a correct prediction of Ray. He himself on several occasions reminds his readers of how "simple" it was for him to predict the HGP outcome. :-) _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Nov 1 03:59:06 2003 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 19:59:06 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <3FA30049.9040407@pobox.com> References: <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> At 07:37 PM 10/31/03 -0500, you wrote: >natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: > >>Transhumanism is not a religious or mystical term. Nor is it a political >>term. It is a term used to express the ideas about evolution in regards >>to the biology and psychology of humans. As such, transhumanism has >>become a movement based on the advancement of the human's lifespan and >>intellectual and creative abilities. > >Eh? Transhumanism expresses a *goal* about the *future* development of >humanity, *post* natural selection. What does transhumanism have to say >about "ideas about evolution in regards to the biology and psychology of >humans"? Such ideas are the domains of the extensively developed fields >of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology! They are no longer >up for grabs. Not so! Evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists are only part of the package. For someone who is not determined to engage completely in one particular academic discipline, why rely on those who do!? No ideas are exclusively the property of any one particular domain. Ideas are always up for grabs! Such is the idea of evolution - constantly change constructs. Natasha Natasha Vita-More http://www.natasha.cc ---------- President, Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture http://www.transhumanist.biz http://www.transhuman.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From samantha at objectent.com Sat Nov 1 02:04:14 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 19:04:14 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] ping Message-ID: <200310311804.14744.samantha@objectent.com> From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sat Nov 1 05:39:24 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 16:39:24 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare References: <57050-2200310531204948353@M2W081.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <05d601c3a03a$821b9960$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Natasha wrote: > Most transhumanists are spirited toward life and learning, > but leave the soul on the bottom of our shoes. Indeed a > sense of compassion and understand[ing] is often veiled > by a strong desire to push forward out of humanity's womb, > but it is deeply rooted in transhumanism nonetheless. It this > enough in itself, or do we need to leave an open place for > religious views, or are they really a throw back to ingrained > defaults? > > I don't think we need it. I think we need more love and > understanding, story-telling, poetry, imagination, laughter, fun > and companionship, not .. religious mysticism? I don't need religious mysticism to tell me life is worth living, friends are worth having, sensations can be pleasant, emotions are enriching. And I know that some others don't but I'm always please to find one more. Still, I don't think we need be concerned about leaving an open place for religious views any more than we need be concerned about leaving safe places for bacteria to breed in. Religion, theism are natural phenomenon with causative bases. A-religion, a-theism, rationalism, (also natural phenomenon) came later (sometimes) and as a much smaller subset. Multi-cellular life succeeded from unicellular life but uni-cellular life is not extinct nor is it a spent force clinging onto life only at the forbearance of multi-cellular life. At least not so far as I can tell. Functionally, adaptively, memetically, science is the new paradigm, the shorter less proven method or experiment, religion is old (ie. "proven"). Historically (and pre-historically) people have been studying each other and playing politics (by extrapolating and projecting their own needs and desires onto others and using the insight) far longer then they have been engaging in science. Indeed science to some folk of earlier eras was The Great "S" Word rich in promise of dreams to be fulfilled with ever continuing and greater enlightenment. How many scientists died I wonder thinking well not me, not quite, I could not beard the d word dragon, but maybe my children or their children.... Christianity is around 2000 years old, Judaism maybe 6000, and most of the worlds other big religions are even younger than that. Cults that succeed for a time in the meme wars become religions. *Functionally* religions will be around for as long as people *believe* in things, because nature is not the only thing that abhors a vacuum (rational mortal power brokers do too) and *believing* in things has the political effect of leaving one at least *potentially* in thrall to some more rational and more calculating sentient. If one has a tendency to believing one is likely to wake up at some time and discover that ones particular types of beliefs are serving someone else, even someone else in particular ;-) When one announces one "believes", one is announcing (whether one realised it or not) both ones limits and that one is potentially available for manipulation. I am sorry that the "proof" on that one *really* does not fit in the margin but as I am not trying to be a wiseass but to be genuinely provocative and perhaps instructive to some young extropes of less than 120 summers I will expand a bit on this even in this already long post. I think there is a species of naivet? that holds that the social 'sciences' are somehow less important or less influential in ones life than the natural sciences. This is an easy error for a bright young mind born in the age of science to make but it is an error nonetheless. And it can also be a fatal one. The social sciences are in an important sense also natural sciences in so far as what they teach can be apprehended by a mind that is willing to reason. The key practical difference between the study of people as opposed to the study of insentient things is that people as object-subjects do not so readily stand still for re-examination. Evolution has tended to filter out those who are too readily understood *because* they are readily understood and then they are anticipated and consumed by predators who are all too happy to take the resources in the condensed refined form that they are provided. Because people don't stand still for each other to study, the detailed study of other people is necessarily a solitary one. One cannot prove ones insights into people-in-general in the same way as one can tell another scientists how to set up and reproduce ones work in their own lab. But simply because the lessons of studying other people are not easily communicated does not mean that they are not able to be well learnt by some that make the necessary solitary effort. The study of other people is a rational thing for one to do but it is not a moral (nor is it an immoral thing) in itself. Let me now hook back to religion. Most independent confident minds in the course of their development will consider and study both the world of things (insentients) and the world of sentients (other people and to some extent animates or animals) because both matter profoundly. Homo-sapiens are born needy and yearning and they are born dying. They need warmth and nourishment and stimulation. Most of us understand that and we understand that others understand it too but few seem emotionally able to draw things out to there logical conclusion. Perhaps the blackness and solitude of the existential abyss we look into when we consider our own mortality (and other things -there are multiple chasms) scares most folk too much and they have to clamber back to the security and false comfort of group delusion (which ironically is still a cluster of individual delusions that just *seems* like group delusion). Some people get that religion is used by the selfishly (I don't selfish to have a negative connotation) rational to enthral the selfishly less-rational and some don't. And from the ranks of those that get that comes the new cultists and the next generation of religious leaders (though not necessarily only these people - self professed atheists make for poor cultists and indeed may sideline themselves). The battle for political power is a battle to enthral "believers" or compliant confederates kept in confidence of later payment and to add their force be it physical (or their vote or their wealth and influence) to ones own. Atheism is something that a political leader cannot overtly carry, yet ironically god (if he/she/it existed) would not need to merely *believe* in him/her/itself - it would *know* him/her/itself profoundly). God would be an a-theist, as indeed are I suspect most of the worlds true wielders of power, though the toggle switch may flicker from time to time even amongst the very powerful, indeed it may be better (more adaptive) if it does flicker. Now for real spice add in the element of death and the modern possibility of a "reprieve". Historically death has placed a reliable upper limit on how long a lieutenant thrall had to wait to get to succeed their master. Succession planning was important to keep capable lieutenant thralls from launching revolutions. They could bide their time if they were younger than the master they served because they had a chance to replace (usually) him when he died. But if he did not die the lieutenant thrall could not hope to succeed and they would instead be stuck forever in thraldom (until death). It is not hard to imagine (and indeed we frequently do give voice to such imaginings in fiction and fable and nursery rhymes given even to our children perhaps out of some desire to empower them whilst not crushing their 'spirits' for the world of politics that awaits) what a deathless overlord means to a lieutenant thrall. It means permanent endless thraldom. If one wants to get a taste of what the overthrow of death might do to large structures and societies (and why it scares the s**t out of some folks for what it might do to the "fabric of society" one need consider little further than the breaking of the nexus and the changing of the bargain (often implicit) between capable and patient lieutenant thrall and mortal (and so passing on sometime) kings of the hill. Plans and theories are fine but to think that implementing them is just 'one more thing', just another mere intellectual detail or something to be wished away is, well - Forest Gumpish. The implementation step involves actualising *in practice* a conception of reality that is going to remove in many cases someone else's hoped for reality. The thing about the future is that we all have *aspirations* and dreams about it that so long as we are content to keep purely as dreams will pose no problems for others, but if we wish to put them into reality we will find the instantiation destroys or makes impossible the simultaneous instantiation of someone else's incompatible dream. And often the deepest most conventional aspirations of some very capable lieutenant thralls is not the replacement of thraldom (that would scare and overstretch them greatly) but rather their ascendance to king of the hill. Ever notice how religious peoples conceptions of heaven (to give one example) are distinctly lacking in shared detail? Its because a detailed promise even a false one is impossible to sell to multiple parties with multiple and inconsistent aspirations. The illusion works better if it is kept fuzzy. Evolution (or selection) prunes away that which doesn't work in religious illusions too. It keeps what works though - it keeps belief and recycles it from one generation of suckers (babies, innocents) to the next. To go from great idea to actualised reality is alas, not just 'one more small thing'. Each of us has our own perception of the future, of how soon we would wish to get there and what price we are willing to pay. In the end perhaps the hardest thing to achieve is a sustained genuine "we", as theory and idea move into practice and as some folks are determined to take along favourite childish notions with them. Notions like "love" and "spirituality" for instance have preceded this and countless other generation of homosapiens into the world. Words are like coins as well as like labels and they can and have been historically used to purchase thralls. 'We' may not be able move forward whilst carrying some words like 'spirituality' without first unpacking them to see if they containing anything valid at all. If they do then 'we' may do well to repackage just the valid bits into new words or we may find that by using the old debased currency we are in fact only enthralling ourselves yet again and our rate of progress will accordingly stay more pedestrian, incremental and ... evolutionary - which suits those who collect thralls just fine as they may collect or employ us. One can of course *dream* but people have been dreaming for a long long time and the intellectual baggage that we carry effects the speed at which we can travel forward and the extent to which we can stay 'we'. Beliefs are ultimately the perogative and the affliction of the inidividual (reasoning can be conveyed through language and is social, beliefs are presentable only as the static place holders on thought that they are and they are not ultimately social but anti-social) though they may be psychologically sustaining to the individual for a time. Religion ultimately needs little more to work with than belief so the forms of religion may morph but religion as a phenomenon is here for a good while yet. As long I predict as the proclivity to proclaim "I believe". Their will always be some amongst the more rational that will happily accept the power conceded them by the less rational true believers, but what the weilders of power are concerned about is mainly other selfish rationals (sometime pretending to be believers) by with (hard to hide) thrall armies of their own. Sorry, I widely digressed. Truth or dare ? Truth and daring together - naturally, as one only lives once, but the unanswered question is how well and how long? And history has not done with us yet. Nor we with it - I reckon. Brett (Pan-critical non-believer). From sentience at pobox.com Sat Nov 1 07:15:17 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 02:15:17 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> References: <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3FA35D85.5000809@pobox.com> Natasha Vita-More wrote: > At 07:37 PM 10/31/03 -0500, Eliezer wrote: > >> natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: >> >>> Transhumanism is not a religious or mystical term. Nor is it a >>> political term. It is a term used to express the ideas about >>> evolution in regards to the biology and psychology of humans. As >>> such, transhumanism has become a movement based on the advancement of >>> the human?s lifespan and intellectual and creative abilities. >> >> Eh? Transhumanism expresses a *goal* about the *future* development >> of humanity, *post* natural selection. What does transhumanism have >> to say about "ideas about evolution in regards to the biology and >> psychology of humans"? Such ideas are the domains of the extensively >> developed fields of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology! >> They are no longer up for grabs. > > Not so! Evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists are only > part of the package. True, there's also information theory, population genetics, quantitative genetics, sociobiology, cultural anthropology, etc. etc., but that doesn't change my point. > For someone who is not determined to engage completely in one particular > academic discipline, why rely on those who do!? No ideas are > exclusively the property of any one particular domain. Ideas are always > up for grabs! Such is the idea of evolution - constantly change constructs. I stand by my point that if we're talking about anything currently real, as opposed to making statements about what we want for the future, then there is nothing up for grabs. Actually there is never anything up for grabs in science; if the evidence is sparse enough that one can make stuff up without fear of contradiction, it means that one will simply get things wrong. But in this case there is no fear of that; the evidence is strong enough to constrain theories. If anyone tries to make up ideas about evolution in regards to the biology or psychology of humans, they will instantly find themselves shot down by experts in the field. Transhumanism doesn't need, and can't have, and shouldn't have, its own model of evolution, any more than there should be a transhumanist model of physics. There may be a transhumanist moral or ethical stance on evolution, the normativity or non-normativity thereof, but not a "transhumanist" model of what happened and why. Why go there? -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sat Nov 1 08:01:42 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 19:01:42 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare References: <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <3FA35D85.5000809@pobox.com> Message-ID: <063101c3a04e$6351bbe0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Eliezer wrote: > If anyone tries to make up ideas about evolution in regards to the > biology or psychology of humans, they will instantly find themselves > shot down by experts in the field. Interesting thesis. Let's see if its true ;-) "Instantly" looks like rather a tall order to me when people can make up bs just as well when they are eridite as when they are not, but then my eyes still glaze on matters baysian as has been shown, so I'll welcome any lesson on what I don't know whilst making do with what I do in the meantime : ) Sorry for the interjection. Regards, Brett From gpmap at runbox.com Sat Nov 1 09:29:36 2003 From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 10:29:36 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare References: <57050-2200310531204948353@M2W081.mail2web.com><018301c39ff6$8761a340$a1994a43@texas.net> <009e01c39a7f$d4adf440$12ecfea9@kevin> Message-ID: <001201c3a05a$fb3dfbb0$0401a8c0@GERICOM> If the choice is between these two books, read Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines". Then if you want to read something to put things in perspective, read also Teilhard. Yes the science in Teilhard is all wrong according to the modern evolutionary paradigm. Yes he was involved in a scientific hoax. But at the same time he made a honest attempt to reduce the gap between science and mysticism, and he is one of the few writers able to inspire some of that sense of awe and wonder that, I believe, we also need to cultivate. I agree with Natasha that there are more important things [more love and understanding, story-telling, poetry, imagination, laughter, fun and companionship] but I would not dismiss religious mysticism either yet. It has been a very powerful force in the evloution of humanking, for the good and for the bad but always powerful. Perhaps what we need is rethinking Teilhard in view of modern science. Note that if the things we use to say in this forum come true, we will soon witness an evolutionary breakthrough caused not by random mutation and selection, but by conscious and purposeful intervention of thinking beings (ourselves). G. > I am close to finishing "The Spike" and I am searching for my next book to > purchase. I have a long way to go before I feel I am up to speed with many > of the conversations on this list. Should I read "The Age of Spiritual > Machines" or "THE PHENOMENON OF MAN " next? Or should I read something else > entirely? From test at demedici.ssec.wisc.edu Sat Nov 1 12:10:37 2003 From: test at demedici.ssec.wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 06:10:37 -0600 (CST) Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/arts/01AGE.html From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sat Nov 1 12:26:12 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 23:26:12 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare References: <57050-2200310531204948353@M2W081.mail2web.com> <018301c39ff6$8761a340$a1994a43@texas.net> <009e01c39a7f$d4adf440$12ecfea9@kevin> <001201c3a05a$fb3dfbb0$0401a8c0@GERICOM> Message-ID: <06b501c3a073$56380160$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Giu1i0 Pri5c0 writes: > Teilhard ... was involved in a scientific hoax. But at the same > time he made a[n] honest attempt to reduce the gap between > science and mysticism, Gui1i0, like you, I like honesty, but how can you tell Teilhard made an honest attempt? Is the reduction of the gap necessarily a worthy goal? Must all gaps be closed? > and he is one of the few writers able to inspire some of that > sense of awe and wonder that, I believe, we also need to > cultivate. Are you in danger of losing your sense of awe already? Does the whole universe the whole sphere of science and the interplay of persons have no surprise and wonder for you now? (Please feel free to treat these questions as rhetorical or not). Hundreds of generations of homo-sapiens made do with lives that were short and imbued with meaning within the context of being short. Heroism was possible. Things had context. For everything there was a time and a season under heaven. Want to change that? Quite a few don't - how do you figure their motives are they just nitwits or could they have some insight into what makes a good life too? > I agree with Natasha that there are more important things > [more love and understanding, story-telling, poetry, imagination, > laughter, fun and companionship] but I would not dismiss > religious mysticism either yet. Religious mysticism like any other form of mysticism is not exactly the problem in my view, the problem is the disproportionate amount of power that flows to a few in democracies when the many don't or can't think. But the power is not an enabling power it is a handicapping one. The problem is that the many still vote and they vote for bread and circuses and promises that cannot be kept. Power is not so easy to dismiss as mere mysticism but it is because mysticism works so well that power concentrates in the hands of handicappers, many of whom do not realise that they are themselves handicapped. > It has been a very powerful force in the evloution of humanking, > for the good and for the bad but always powerful. Perhaps what > we need is rethinking Teilhard in view of modern science. Why? The good that men do is often interned with the bones whereas the evil lives long after. Why not let it be with Teilhard? Do you want to retain every skerick of ever person that is good and noble and let not a single part fall. So do I sometimes. But so what? > Note that if the things we use to say in this forum come > true, we will soon witness an evolutionary breakthrough > caused not by random mutation and selection, but by conscious > and purposeful intervention of thinking beings (ourselves). We say many things in this forum, sometimes good things, insightful things and sometimes less so. But if the less insightful things go unchallenged then maybe they stick too and maybe they should stick. Do you really think that evolution happens "out there" Gui1iO with you (or me) watching as observers or do you think rather that it evolution is a construct, that the mind and matter split is guff and that what we think is as real as what we do? I think the notion of evolution bringing inevitable progress (by the lights of any subjective individual is) likely to be wrong. Evolution as a process is indifferent to individuals even as it is moved along by the actions of individuals. We are more than our genes, this we know, but we are still determined in part by our genes and we cannot do without them. There is no proof in principle anywhere (that I can see) that personhood persists with the passage of the substrate on which it is based. That is an article of pure faith of belief. Everything can be explained away as evolutionary and as inevitable *after* it happens, but try predicting what evolution will do for you next week and you'll see how useful evolution is as a construct for fashioning a particular future. Now some of the above may be unadultered crap, but if it is not exposed as unadultered crap then it is going into the ears of anyone and possibly the brains of anyone that reads it. Do extropes let people poo in their pool? ;-) Or are long posts ignored - hint take a look at the read count its indicative, but not conclusive as not all read that way but some do and bayes says if I am not mistaken that every piece of factual information can enrich the theory. Regards, Brett From eugen at leitl.org Sat Nov 1 14:17:06 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 15:17:06 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: SPACE: Back to the Moon (?) In-Reply-To: References: <001101c39f67$61268c70$9865fea9@bjsmain2> Message-ID: <20031101141706.GL27418@leitl.org> On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 06:58:31PM +0000, Christian Weisgerber wrote: > What's tricky about welding titanium other than that you can't do > it in an Earth-style atmosphere? (Titanium burns with both oxygen > and nitrogen.) Probably the cheapest structural material on Luna is fused regolith (which can be done very early with solar ovens made large mylar mirrors on a lightweight truss structure or inflatable/in situ polymerizable scaffold). One can glassify regolith surface, and lift resulting plates from loose powder (or leave them, sputtering them with silicon in situ), or spun fiber/rockwool from it. Making metals (Al, Ca, Fe, Ti) and Si is best via electrolysis (there's a neat process for Ti/Cr/Zr which works in CaCl2 melt), or hydrogen reduction and subsequent sintering. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Nov 1 18:10:16 2003 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 10:10:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <3FA35D85.5000809@pobox.com> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101095216.03298de0@pop.earthlink.net> At 02:15 AM 11/1/03 -0500, Eli wrote: >Natasha Vita-More wrote: >>> >>>>Transhumanism is not a religious or mystical term. Nor is it a >>>>political term. It is a term used to express the ideas about evolution >>>>in regards to the biology and psychology of humans. As such, >>>>transhumanism has become a movement based on the advancement of the >>>>human's lifespan and intellectual and creative abilities. >>> >>>Eh? Transhumanism expresses a *goal* about the *future* development of >>>humanity, *post* natural selection. What does transhumanism have to say >>>about "ideas about evolution in regards to the biology and psychology of >>>humans"? Such ideas are the domains of the extensively developed fields >>>of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology! >>>They are no longer up for grabs. >>Not so! Evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists are only >>part of the package. > >True, there's also information theory, population genetics, quantitative >genetics, sociobiology, cultural anthropology, etc. etc., but that doesn't >change my point. > >>For someone who is not determined to engage completely in one particular >>academic discipline, why rely on those who do!? No ideas are exclusively >>the property of any one particular domain. Ideas are always up for >>grabs! Such is the idea of evolution - constantly change constructs. > >I stand by my point that if we're talking about anything currently real, >as opposed to making statements about what we want for the future, then >there is nothing up for grabs. Actually there is never anything up for >grabs in science; if the evidence is sparse enough that one can make stuff >up without fear of contradiction, it means that one will simply get things >wrong. But in this case there is no fear of that; the evidence is strong >enough to constrain theories. If anyone tries to make up ideas about >evolution in regards to the biology or psychology of humans, they will >instantly find themselves shot down by experts in the field. Why suggest that anyone who is fully versed in their field, such as Aubrey de Gray, or evolutionary biologist Michael Rose, make up a point for fiction sake? Further, are you suggesting that transhumanists's ideas about evolution are, or should be, based in "human" transitional views that center around a limited lifespan and that pushing the lifespan father in years is an assault on humanity's acceptance and even worship of death? >Transhumanism doesn't need, and can't have, and shouldn't have, its own >model of evolution, any more than there should be a transhumanist model of >physics. I think your argument is misplaced. Transhumanism is based on ideas about evolution that have been published and promoted for many years and continue to be published and promoted as the science and technology of new ideas surmount. These ideas are transhumanist because they, in their directive intent, are based on questioning traditional acceptance of a limited lifespan and recycling of the human spirit into a mystical landscape. If you are suggesting that any transhumanist be foolish enough to fictionize the facts developed and being investigated, than this is overly broad. It is in opposition to the basics of transhumanism to "make up" ideas to justify a cause. I hardly think any transhumanist would get away with it for more than a few moment to a few weeks. Our society is very hard lined in attempting to make sure that information is as plausible as possible, if not sorely accurate. Natasha Natasha Vita-More http://www.natasha.cc ---------- President, Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture http://www.transhumanist.biz http://www.transhuman.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at earthlink.net Sat Nov 1 16:23:52 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 10:23:52 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey References: Message-ID: <002d01c3a094$8e915900$be994a43@texas.net> > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/01/arts/01AGE.html Almost typically tedious journalism on the topic, perhaps not as jocose and `those wacky boffins'-ish as some, although quick with this sort of empty implication of absurdity or impiety: `Many in the audience seemed unafraid of amending the presumed laws of nature'. The closing paragraphs do seem to me to come close to implying a sort of scam: < Although Mr. de Grey got his listeners talking and thinking, there was no indication that their interest meant they had signed on to the program. Mr. Diffie [`Whitfield Diffie, chief of security for Sun Microsystems, a pioneer in encryption, and a freewheeling thinker'], for one, was unconvinced by the notion of death as something that arrived by accident in evolution. It was, after all, universal. "My nose for when I don't understand something tells me there's something here I don't understand," he said. " I don't think they understand it either." The audience was not lacking in millionaires, but there was no great surge of donations to the Methusaleh Mouse Prize after Mr. de Grey's talk. According to his online record of donations, $1,849 was received during or after Pop!Tech, which ran from Oct. 16 to 18. Mr. de Grey has no illusions about the challenge he faces. He wants to establish an institute to direct research, he said, adding that he probably needs $500 million to achieve the goal of using mouse research to kick-start a global research explosion on human aging. That includes the prize fund. Just before a dinner the night after his talk, one of the participants in the conference approached him and asked, "Can we talk about funding?" "Yeah," Mr. de Grey said, "how much money do you have?" > By "Mr." de Grey, the NYT means, of course, Dr. de Grey. The journalist comments with surprising candor: `...the underlying science and technology are real, Mr. de Grey argued.... `Yet without true expertise in some very sophisticated biology, it was hard to know how far away from the mainstream he was.' Well, yes. What a shame the NYT didn't commission a report from someone with expertise in some very sophisticated biology. Damien Broderick From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Nov 1 18:36:36 2003 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 10:36:36 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: <002d01c3a094$8e915900$be994a43@texas.net> References: Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101103344.0328c6b0@pop.earthlink.net> At 10:23 AM 11/1/03 -0600, Damien wrote: >Well, yes. What a shame the NYT didn't commission a report from someone with >expertise in some very sophisticated biology. What amused me is that the article was in the "Arts" section. While, incidentally, makes me wonder if Eli might have a point :-) The arts are known for fictionalizing circumstances for effect or emotion. (I can just see Eli pulling out his hair right now! (pssst ... Eli - I'm just kidding.) Natasha >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Nov 1 17:10:27 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 09:10:27 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101103344.0328c6b0@pop.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <000201c3a09b$0bd3c9b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > >Well, yes. What a shame the NYT didn't commission a report > from someone with expertise in some very sophisticated biology. > > What amused me is that the article was in the "Arts" section... In today's San Jose Merc, there was a single sentence about a group of scientists at Wake Forest University that had developed a strain of mice that could survive a direct injection of cancer cells. The sentence was in a section called "News of the Weird" which ordinarily features only the most bizarre crime stories, unexplainable stupidity, unsuccessful suicide attempts, government corruption, etc. Evidently much of even modern enlightened society considers life extension as bizarre, undesireable, immoral, etc. We have a big job ahead of us. {8-| spike From kekich at transvio.com Sat Nov 1 17:36:38 2003 From: kekich at transvio.com (David A. Kekich) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 09:36:38 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: <000201c3a09b$0bd3c9b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: Spike wrote: > > In today's San Jose Merc, there was a single sentence > about a group of scientists at Wake Forest University > that had developed a strain of mice that could survive > a direct injection of cancer cells. The sentence was > in a section called "News of the Weird" which > ordinarily features only the most bizarre crime > stories, unexplainable stupidity, unsuccessful > suicide attempts, government corruption, etc. > > Evidently much of even modern enlightened society > considers life extension as bizarre, undesireable, > immoral, etc. We have a big job ahead of us. > Fortunately, we don't need society's support, backing nor understanding... not even modern enlightened society's. Having Aubrey (and others)speak in front of visionaries like Steve Case, John Scully and Robert Metcalfe opens up the possibilities of getting one or more people with financial clout and intellectual leverage to bring funding (and even legitimacy) to our efforts. A little seed funding alone will do it. Once we have a proof of concept, it will be a natural progression to human applications. Stay on tour Aubrey. Dave ***************************** David A. Kekich TransVio Technology Ventures, LLC Tele. 310-265-8644/Fax 310-544-9684 http://www.TransVio.com ***************************** From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Nov 1 18:11:54 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 10:11:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Back to the Moon (?) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031101181154.91579.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com> --- JAY DUGGER wrote: > On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 14:28:06 -0800 (PST) > Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > > > >Firstly, regolith is dirt/sand in consistency, not rock. > >You apply it > >with something like a snowblower, and you get it off with > >the same plus > >a broom. (Lunar Sanitation Engineers Guild Local 001 > >Trainee Manual, > >Care of Antique Lunar Modules for Idiots). > > > > I don't know much lunar geology. Won't regolith > composition vary greatly over the surface? I can see this > holding true some places. There it might be a little > sweeping to place and remove the stuff. Regolith is the detritus of meteorite impacts over billions of years. It is fairly pulverized stuff. > > >Secondly, leaks occur in space modules due to > >micrometeorite impacts, > >primarily, along with radiation induced metal fatigue, > >both of which > >regolith will mitigate. > > > > Welds don't fail, I suppose? Metal never fatigues due to > mechanical stress, from launch or temperature variation? > Such failure might not happen very often, but help lies > far away. Not really. A potable wire fed Mig welder is about the size of a small beer cooler. Popped welds are a sign of structural weakness compared to actual stresses of the application. Properly designed and built, there should be no popped welds from one launch and a few days in transit to the moon. Where you get fatigue is from objects in orbit/trajectory and exposed to radiation and heat/cold for a long while, i.e. a couple years or more. Most space junk comes from upper stages abandoned in orbit and they do not become hazards for years until their rotation (i.e. alternating between heat and cold) and radiation exposure cause failures. If properly protected from radiation and thermal variation by regolith, bonds between module components should become more secure with time. Metals in a vacuum, especially when unoxidised, tend to sinter together over time, i.e. weld themselves. > > >Thirdly, since the pressure is on the inside and vacuum > >is on the > >outside, the proper place to fix any leak is on the > >inside. > > > > I'd feel much safer with a patch on _both_ sides of a hole > and sealant between the two layers, but I have no > experience with repairing pressure chambers and so admit > ignorance. A patch on the outside doesn't do anything. When you get a hole in your cars tire, do you put a patch on the outside? No, you first put a plug in the hole for a short term fix. For a long term fix you seal it with a patch on the inside. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Nov 1 18:23:30 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 10:23:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] antique computers In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE02E@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> Message-ID: <20031101182330.46291.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Emlyn O'regan wrote: > That's an excellent idea, Mike; long overdue. Beautiful polished wood > cases for desktops should have a nice niche amongst the beige-hating > tasteful (count me in :-) > > Have you thought about a wooden keyboard? Finicky, but I would think > it was doable. Also, maybe a wooden mouse; with both of these you > should be able to replace the plastic casing & keys I would think. Ideally, I'm imagining something with a bit of victorian or neuvo design, like an old style antique typewriter, brass hardware trim, etc. though that might be a bit of an effort. A wooden mouse with a brass trackball would be cool though. I've even been thinking of desks with built in computer workstation systems, slots in the top to insert CD/DVD/Floppy media, mount PDA devices, etc. and a flat panel display that slides up. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Nov 1 18:24:38 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 10:24:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] antique computers In-Reply-To: <019801c39f5f$3c63f880$b0994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <20031101182438.10085.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Emlyn O'regan" > Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 7:46 PM > > >Also, maybe a wooden mouse > > Or a little wooden horsie. Computers Of Troy and all that. > > But what about a *real* mouse? Actually, one idea I had was for a coffee mug / mouse with trackball beside the handle. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk Sat Nov 1 18:26:35 2003 From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 18:26:35 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare Message-ID: <3FA3FADB.4040705@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> On Sat Nov 01, 2003 09:14 am Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> Eli: Transhumanism doesn't need, and can't have, and shouldn't have, >> its own model of evolution, any more than there should be a >> transhumanist model of physics. > I think your argument is misplaced. Transhumanism is based on ideas > about evolution that have been published and promoted for many years > and continue to be published and promoted as the science and > technology of new ideas surmount. These ideas are transhumanist > because they, in their directive intent, are based on questioning > traditional acceptance of a limited lifespan and recycling of the > human spirit into a mystical landscape. > Heh! I think if I found myself arguing with a Bayesian logician like Eli I would go and have a lie down till I felt better. :) But you are not really arguing with him. All Eli is saying is that a transhumanist car mechanic would fix your SUV exactly the same as a redneck Ford mechanic would. Similarly transhumanist information theory is no different to IBM information theory. A transhumanist might be thinking about how to use these existing fields of science in future developments, but that doesn't change existing academic disciplines. BillK From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Nov 1 18:28:06 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 10:28:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] antique computers In-Reply-To: <000101c39f6b$9d789bb0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <20031101182806.33144.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Yeah, I liked those designs, though they were plywood and hardly aesthetic. --- Spike wrote: > Hey the first Apples were in a wooden box, of sorts. > In some ways they were better than the plastic cases > that came after. spike > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > > Mike Lorrey > > Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 1:49 PM > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] antique computers > > > > > > I am working on several designs for hardwood computer cases, to > make > > the PC box more aesthetically acceptable for executive desktops, as > > well as for those seeking an organic look vs the cheap appliance > look. > > > > Anyone for a woody? > > > > --- Spike wrote: > > > > > > Altho no one will argue that a model T Ford works > > > as well as a modern car by any measure imaginable, > > > it is considered cool to own and drive one. Same > > > with many items: antiques are chic. How about > > > computers? Are there any antique computer users > > > groups or clubs? Rallies? Competitions? > > > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > > > ===== > > Mike Lorrey > > "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." > > - Gen. John > Stark > > Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com > > Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ > > Pro-tech freedom discussion: > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom > > > > __________________________________ > > Do you Yahoo!? > > Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears > > http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ From gregburch at gregburch.net Sat Nov 1 18:58:05 2003 From: gregburch at gregburch.net (Greg Burch) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 12:58:05 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] antique computers In-Reply-To: <20031101182330.46291.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Building stylish cases for computer hardware was an idea I had 15 years ago or more. I have expected someone to do something like this for a loooong time. Figuring out why it hasn't happened yet would be an important part of a good business plan. Note: I think there are at least three distinct markets. One is for relatively mass-produced products that might be co-marketed with a Dell, HP or some such PC builder. The second is higher-end and likely sold separately, but intended to be manufactured and sold in relatively large numbers (hundreds per unit instead of thousands for the first idea). The last market is for true one-of-a-kind art pieces. One significant problem is that people have gotten used to the idea that the computer hardware on and near their desk has a relatively short life, so they might take some selling to make an investment in IT as physical art. -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 12:24 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] antique computers --- Emlyn O'regan wrote: > That's an excellent idea, Mike; long overdue. Beautiful polished wood > cases for desktops should have a nice niche amongst the beige-hating > tasteful (count me in :-) > > Have you thought about a wooden keyboard? Finicky, but I would think > it was doable. Also, maybe a wooden mouse; with both of these you > should be able to replace the plastic casing & keys I would think. Ideally, I'm imagining something with a bit of victorian or neuvo design, like an old style antique typewriter, brass hardware trim, etc. though that might be a bit of an effort. A wooden mouse with a brass trackball would be cool though. I've even been thinking of desks with built in computer workstation systems, slots in the top to insert CD/DVD/Floppy media, mount PDA devices, etc. and a flat panel display that slides up. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/ _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From samantha at objectent.com Sat Nov 1 19:43:32 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 12:43:32 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] ping Message-ID: <200311011143.32420.samantha@objectent.com> This failed last night. Trying again. From eugen at leitl.org Sat Nov 1 19:44:11 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 20:44:11 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] "The Spike" - Raymond Kurzweil In-Reply-To: <009001c39f11$d4304720$a4994a43@texas.net> References: <009001c39f11$d4304720$a4994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <20031101194411.GF27418@leitl.org> On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 12:15:36PM -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > *Obviously* computer bang for buck, etc, has been increasing pretty much as > Ray charts so usefully in the essay cited. This is the very basis of the Actually, that's not at all obvious, if we're looking at computer performance, not integration density (which Moore is all about). Integration density is real, but it's a potential performance, until it results in real-world traction. This is this not exactly obscure STREAM benchmark thingy: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/ which shows this neat little semi-log plot: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/stream/stream_logo.gif Even then: CPU speed is not integration density, and STREAM memory bandwidth is still a synthetic benchmark. A lot of AI code candidates will perform at <<10% of peak. This is the really really really bad news to notorious optimists. So, yes, a lot of how people view Kurzweil results in bogus claims. > technological singularity discerned by Dr Vinge and discussed in my book and > Ray's. The question is whether this contingent fact of local technological > history can be projected backwards across space and time to yield a general > `Law of Accelerating Returns'. To cite that paper: -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From samantha at objectent.com Sat Nov 1 20:20:19 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 13:20:19 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101095216.03298de0@pop.earthlink.net> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <5.2.0.9.0.20031101095216.03298de0@pop.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <200311011220.19460.samantha@objectent.com> On Saturday 01 November 2003 10:10, Damien Broderick wrote: > `Guardian of established religion' my foot. Gould, and more impressively > still Sir Peter Medawar, showed why Teilhard's teleological and God-dragged > model of evolution is just plain incompatible with random mutation and > natural selection. It's a form of divine Lamarckism. It *could* have been > true, in some other universe; it might even be true to some extent in a > Tiplerian Omega Point universe. But it doesn't jibe with what science has > learned to date about how evolution works. > This debunking by Gould and company rings a bit hollow when we increasingly become able to direct our own evolution. Arguments from "random mutation and natural selection" about the possible future of humanity are increasingly irrelevant. Lamarckism is the doctrine that learned skills and information are inherited by future generations. Funny, that is precisely what today's world looks like and will look like right down to the level of genetics very quickly now. So why do we fall back on outmoded assumptions and dismissive arguments? What is missing from our science and that it is not science's job to provide is a vision of where we want to go. Teilhard and others had vision but not enough science and technology. But he and others saw the possibilities even if they couched them in mystical/poetic terms. From reason at exratio.com Sat Nov 1 20:28:10 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 12:28:10 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: They netted around 7k so far as a result of Pop!Tech. Now, rather than hoping and talking about this, how about you folks make contributions yourselves? One of the important things at this stage is the number of donations - being able to show a long, long list of modest donations makes larger donations much more likely. So how about you folks all jump in for $10 or $100? It's a small amount and won't take you more than three minutes to go to http://www.methuselahmouse.org/donate.htm and do it online. This small amount of money will have an enormous, snowballing effect on your future health and welfare: each dollar could potentially save 685 lives according to Dave Gobel's math. I really can't think of any other cause right now that is doing as much for healthy life extension as this one. (Please note that I'm not asking you to do anything that I haven't already done: please see the donor list at http://www.methuselahmouse.org/donors.php - I'm in as "The Longevity Meme", my advocacy and news organization). On a similar note, why doesn't ExI also contribute a token amount? Alternately, one of you folks could easily contribute on behalf of the ExI if the management is up for that (and of course, I think they should be contributing as well, especially given their views on healthy life extension: lead by example). So how about putting a little of your money where your hopes are? Hope gets you nothing: action does. Reason http://www.exratio.com > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of David A. > Kekich > Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 9:37 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey > > > Spike wrote: > > > > > In today's San Jose Merc, there was a single sentence > > about a group of scientists at Wake Forest University > > that had developed a strain of mice that could survive > > a direct injection of cancer cells. The sentence was > > in a section called "News of the Weird" which > > ordinarily features only the most bizarre crime > > stories, unexplainable stupidity, unsuccessful > > suicide attempts, government corruption, etc. > > > > Evidently much of even modern enlightened society > > considers life extension as bizarre, undesireable, > > immoral, etc. We have a big job ahead of us. > > > > Fortunately, we don't need society's support, backing nor understanding... > not even modern enlightened society's. Having Aubrey (and others)speak in > front of visionaries like Steve Case, John Scully and Robert > Metcalfe opens > up the possibilities of getting one or more people with financial > clout and > intellectual leverage to bring funding (and even legitimacy) to > our efforts. > A little seed funding alone will do it. Once we have a proof of > concept, it > will be a natural progression to human applications. > > Stay on tour Aubrey. > > Dave > > ***************************** > David A. Kekich > TransVio Technology Ventures, LLC > Tele. 310-265-8644/Fax 310-544-9684 > http://www.TransVio.com > ***************************** > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From thespike at earthlink.net Sat Nov 1 20:31:05 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 14:31:05 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net><5.2.0.9.0.20031101095216.03298de0@pop.earthlink.net> <200311011220.19460.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Samantha Atkins" Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 2:20 PM > This debunking by Gould and company rings a bit hollow when we increasingly > become able to direct our own evolution. Arguments from "random mutation > and natural selection" about the possible future of humanity are increasingly > irrelevant. They were not talking about the future but about evolutionary history, as was Teilhard in his bogus theories of `radial and tangential energies' etc. >Lamarckism is the doctrine that learned skills and information > are inherited by future generations. Not at all. Lamarckism is the doctrine that learned skills and information are inherited *genetically and immediately* by the next generation. >Funny, that is precisely what today's > world looks like No it isn't. >and will look like right down to the level of genetics very > quickly now. That's true . >So why do we fall back on outmoded assumptions and > dismissive arguments? Indeed. Outmoded assumptions like Teilhard's. Damien Broderick From samantha at objectent.com Sat Nov 1 20:56:32 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 13:56:32 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <200311011220.19460.samantha@objectent.com> <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <200311011256.32495.samantha@objectent.com> On 10/31 , cmcmortgage wrote: "I read a book titled "The Omega Point" so long ago I don;t even remember the author. It often left me wondering if religions weren't created by our post-human descendents who were capable of manipulating the past. Granted, time would have to be linear which I don't believe to be the case. Still, the idea that religion was created to keep us from reaching singularity faster than we are capable of handling socially is a bit alluring. Maybe it could make for some decent fiction." An alternate view is that some parts of religion were an attempt largely gone awry to influence us toward changes within our consciousness leading to a less violent singularity and us even arriving there at all. It is not too far-fetched for me to consider that the future SI and posthuman society runs countless sim experiments toward understanding how the entire transition could have been a lot less painful or get to more interesting conclusions more gracefully. It would not surprise me if we are in such a sim. Sometimes I think religions are remnants of a much more advanced past or a brush with a much more advanced reality that have degenerated into superstition and dogma to a large degree. But I don't find religion/spirituality utterly bankrupt as many do. BTW, I would recommend "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and Moravec's "Robot - Mere Machines to Transcendent Mind". - samantha From davidson at cs.ualberta.ca Sat Nov 1 21:00:34 2003 From: davidson at cs.ualberta.ca (Aaron Davidson) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 14:00:34 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6FC27030-0CAE-11D8-91D2-000393A485EC@cs.ualberta.ca> > On a similar note, why doesn't ExI also contribute a token amount? > Alternately, one of you folks could easily contribute on behalf of the > ExI > if the management is up for that (and of course, I think they should be > contributing as well, especially given their views on healthy life > extension: lead by example). > > So how about putting a little of your money where your hopes are? Hope > gets > you nothing: action does. Well put Reason! As extropians, we all believe a future without death is possible, but we aren't going to get the future we want by sitting about on our laurels, and discussing it to death on mailing lists. Being pro-active is the key to obtaining our goals. What we need now, more than actual money, are *names*. It only takes about 5 minutes to make a donation (http://methuselahmouse.org/donate.htm), and even if it's only for a few bucks, you get your name on the list of donors (http://methuselahmouse.org/donors.php). I am truly saddened by the short list of names we have now. I am sad not to see the names of ExI members on this list. Even if the amount donated is small, it still sends a strong message that you support the idea. There is no better way to dispel the public's skepticism and general disapproval of life extension, than to lend your own name and credibility to the cause. Over the years, I've seen a common pattern on this list. A whole lot of talk, and not a lot of action, save for a small minority. Here is a chance for everyone to contribute something that will go a long way. I would love for you all to prove me wrong. Let's see some names! -- Aaron Davidson http://spaz.ca/ From samantha at objectent.com Sat Nov 1 21:07:07 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 14:07:07 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <200311011220.19460.samantha@objectent.com> <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <200311011307.07920.samantha@objectent.com> Natasha wrote: "Most transhumanists are spirited toward life and learning, but leave the soul on the bottom of our shoes. Indeed a sense of compassion and understand is often veiled by a strong desire to push forward out of humanity's womb, but it is deeply rooted in transhumanism nonetheless. It this enough in itself, or do we need to leave an open place for religious views, or are they really a throw back to ingrained defaults? I don't think we need it. I think we need more love and understanding, story-telling, poetry, imagination, laughter, fun and companionship, not not religious mysticism? " I think we do need some things often seen in the best of relgion and mysticism. We need a unified, uplifting and compelling vision and a deep ethics/morality in the way we deal with one another and acheive that vision. To date I have not seen anything along these lines as unitive or compelling as the best religion/mysticism has to offer. It would surprise me if religious/mystical memes were entirely absent from such a unitive Vision. I don't think the memes will be sufficiently viable without such. - samantha From david at lucifer.com Sat Nov 1 22:04:32 2003 From: david at lucifer.com (David McFadzean) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 17:04:32 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net><200311011220.19460.samantha@objectent.com><00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> <200311011256.32495.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <027d01c3a0c4$218b5740$6401a8c0@lucifer.com> From: "Samantha Atkins" > Sometimes I think religions are remnants of a much more advanced past or a > brush with a much more advanced reality that have degenerated into > superstition and dogma to a large degree. But I don't find > religion/spirituality utterly bankrupt as many do. An excellent book on religion from an evolutionary psychology perspective is Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained". Boyer does a great job of showing where more simplistic theories of the origins of religions fall short, and explains how religions and supernatural beliefs evolved with human inference systems. David From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sat Nov 1 22:07:30 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2003 09:07:30 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] ping References: <200311011143.32420.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <07e001c3a0c4$8b66a520$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Pings, probably, should not go unponged. Brett From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Nov 2 00:55:58 2003 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 16:55:58 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: <6FC27030-0CAE-11D8-91D2-000393A485EC@cs.ualberta.ca> References: Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101165359.032a22a0@pop.earthlink.net> At 02:00 PM 11/1/03 -0700, Aaron wrote: >As extropians, we all believe a future without death is possible, but we >aren't going to get the future we want by sitting about on our laurels, >and discussing it to death on mailing lists. Being pro-active is the key >to obtaining our goals. I tried to make a donation and the "donate" button went to a bad url which said a problem had occurred. I was not able to make the donation. (Psst... Samantha - technological problem happen on many different Servers, not just ExI's server.) Natasha From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Nov 2 01:08:15 2003 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 17:08:15 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <200311011307.07920.samantha@objectent.com> References: <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <200311011220.19460.samantha@objectent.com> <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101165742.032a3dc0@pop.earthlink.net> At 02:07 PM 11/1/03 -0700, Samantha wrote: >Natasha wrote: >"Most transhumanists are spirited toward life and learning, but leave the >soul on the bottom of our shoes. Indeed a sense of compassion and >understand is often veiled by a strong desire to push forward out of >humanity's womb, but it is deeply rooted in transhumanism nonetheless. It >this enough in itself, or do we need to leave an open place for religious >views, or are they really a throw back to ingrained defaults? > >I don't think we need it. I think we need more love and understanding, >story-telling, poetry, imagination, laughter, fun and companionship, not >not religious mysticism? >I think we do need some things often seen in the best of relgion and >mysticism. We need a unified, uplifting and compelling vision and a deep >ethics/morality in the way we deal with one another and acheive that vision. >To date I have not seen anything along these lines as unitive or compelling >as the best religion/mysticism has to offer. It would surprise me if >religious/mystical memes were entirely absent from such a unitive Vision. I >don't think the memes will be sufficiently viable without such. It might help to go back and read my original post on this thread, Samantha. The issue was Teilhard's mixture of science and theology and my covering his work in my writings about the history of transhumanism and why I think I made a mistake. It am not discounting Teilhard's visionary ideas, or the Omega Point, but the fact that when all is put to rest - Teilhard was not on the an appropriate track toward transhumanism. I'm a very "spiritual" person. It is the center of my core. As an artist and poetic, my own spirituality has given me a vision to live with the Navajo Indians, travel through the Amazon Jungle, study Yoga intensively for 3.5 years, climb inside a volcano, live in the mountains for 10 years, etc. BUT it is not based on religion or any one church or doctrine. It is the spirit of life and adventure inside my mind that propels me forward, and was the catalyst for my art. All this is my spirit - nurtured and nursed by the side of me that is the provider and pragmatist. The poet in me lives each and every day, regardless of what job I have and regardless of what ways I have to function in the "real" world in order to survive. I don't need mysticism and a false illusion. I need poetry and the wonder of the universe around me and Carl Sagon's book, _Science as a Candle in the Dark - The Demon Haunted World_. Natasha >- samantha > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From sentience at pobox.com Sat Nov 1 23:10:26 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 18:10:26 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101095216.03298de0@pop.earthlink.net> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <5.2.0.9.0.20031101095216.03298de0@pop.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3FA43D62.3090007@pobox.com> Natasha Vita-More wrote: > > Why suggest that anyone who is fully versed in their field, such as > Aubrey de Gray, or evolutionary biologist Michael Rose, make up a point > for fiction sake? Further, are you suggesting that transhumanists's > ideas about evolution are, or should be, based in "human" transitional > views that center around a limited lifespan and that pushing the > lifespan father in years is an assault on humanity's acceptance and even > worship of death? This is wholly unrelated to the theory of evolution. It is not an idea about evolution at all. It is a declaration of a goal, which will be achieved through means other than natural selection. >> Transhumanism doesn't need, and can't have, and shouldn't have, its >> own model of evolution, any more than there should be a transhumanist >> model of physics. > > I think your argument is misplaced. Transhumanism is based on ideas > about evolution that have been published and promoted for many years and > continue to be published and promoted as the science and technology of > new ideas surmount. These ideas are transhumanist because they, in > their directive intent, are based on questioning traditional acceptance > of a limited lifespan and recycling of the human spirit into a mystical > landscape. Mm... certainly natural selection, insofar as it replaces theological assertions about the operation of the universe, denies that human limited lifespan had what we would regard as a "good reason" behind it, either in terms of intelligent design or in exploded theories of group selectionism. But this is not a transhumanist idea. It is not the result of supervenience of transhumanist ideology on the development of a scientific paradigm. It is a flat fact about the historical cause of the biological human lifespan, which any rational observer will accept regardless of whether they, personally, wish humans long lives, instant deaths, or precisely threescore and ten. There is nothing wrong with a transhumanist outlook being *based on* the standard model of evolution. Of course it should be based on evolutionary theory; evolutionary theory is the correct account of how we got here; what else would we use? I object to the idea of a transhumanist model of evolution or even the idea that transhumanists, qua transhumanists, should have their own ideas about evolution at all, unless they wish to operate in a dual capacity as ordinary evolutionary theorists (which is what I try to do regarding the evolutionary psychology of human general intelligence and so on). > If you are suggesting that any transhumanist be foolish > enough to fictionize the facts developed and being investigated, than > this is overly broad. It is in opposition to the basics of > transhumanism to "make up" ideas to justify a cause. I hardly think any > transhumanist would get away with it for more than a few moment to a few > weeks. Right! Whether it was a minor or major point, some helpful pedant on the Extropians list would object to it. > Our society is very hard lined in attempting to make sure that > information is as plausible as possible, if not solely accurate. There is no such thing as "plausibility" where information is concerned - either the probability one assigns is justified on observation, or it is not. One who says, "Aha, here's a gap in science, now I can make up something plausible and no one will be able to contradict me" will, of course, end up being wrong, because plausibility combined with prior desire for a particular answer is not a good way to seek out truths. They also end up being shot down because they didn't know what science could or couldn't say - a nonspecialist doesn't know where the gaps are and will invariably stumble over an issue science has already settled. Ideology, transhumanist or otherwise, is not involved in which probabilities are *warranted*, even if through carelessness it should mess up the calculation in practice. There are transhumanist technologies, there is transhumanist art, but there is no such thing as transhumanist science. Solely accurate sounds good to me. We cannot, will not, should not, have no need to creep into the dark forest of the plausible, and I fear we'll get into real trouble if we try. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From reason at exratio.com Sat Nov 1 23:19:16 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 15:19:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101165359.032a22a0@pop.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Try again (http://www.methuselahmouse.org/donate.htm): I just checked that and it worked. They use WorldPay (www.worldpay.com) for donations so it's possible that your machine hiccuped on recognising the different server, who knows. But it's there and working so far as I can see. (The only other thing I can think of is that your browser might not like the form javascript [I'm using IE6 on Windows] so e-mail me offlist if it happens again). Reason http://www.exratio.com > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Natasha > Vita-More > Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 4:56 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey > > > At 02:00 PM 11/1/03 -0700, Aaron wrote: > > >As extropians, we all believe a future without death is possible, but we > >aren't going to get the future we want by sitting about on our laurels, > >and discussing it to death on mailing lists. Being pro-active is the key > >to obtaining our goals. > > I tried to make a donation and the "donate" button went to a bad > url which > said a problem had occurred. I was not able to make the donation. > > (Psst... Samantha - technological problem happen on many > different Servers, > not just ExI's server.) > > Natasha > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Nov 2 01:36:19 2003 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 17:36:19 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <3FA43D62.3090007@pobox.com> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101095216.03298de0@pop.earthlink.net> <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <114780-220031053121500734@M2W071.mail2web.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <5.2.0.9.0.20031101095216.03298de0@pop.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101172620.032a4af0@pop.earthlink.net> At 06:10 PM 11/1/03 -0500, Eliwrote: >Natasha Vita-More wrote: >>Why suggest that anyone who is fully versed in their field, such as >>Aubrey de Gray, or evolutionary biologist Michael Rose, make up a point >>for fiction sake? Further, are you suggesting that transhumanists's ideas >>about evolution are, or should be, based in "human" transitional views >>that center around a limited lifespan and that pushing the lifespan >>father in years is an assault on humanity's acceptance and even worship >>of death? > >This is wholly unrelated to the theory of evolution. It is not an idea >about evolution at all. It is a declaration of a goal, which will be >achieved through means other than natural selection. You we step back a moment and take a look at the definition of "transhuman" as "an evolutionary transition from human to posthuman." If Dawkins claimed genes were selfish and had their own set of "goals" about survival than I suppose, in your view, the genes (and Dawkins) are sadly mistaken. >>>Transhumanism doesn't need, and can't have, and shouldn't have, its own >>>model of evolution, any more than there should be a transhumanist model >>>of physics. >>I think your argument is misplaced. Transhumanism is based on ideas >>about evolution that have been published and promoted for many years and >>continue to be published and promoted as the science and technology of >>new ideas surmount. These ideas are transhumanist because they, in their >>directive intent, are based on questioning traditional acceptance of a >>limited lifespan and recycling of the human spirit into a mystical landscape. > >Mm... certainly natural selection, insofar as it replaces theological >assertions about the operation of the universe, denies that human limited >lifespan had what we would regard as a "good reason" behind it, either in >terms of intelligent design or in exploded theories of group selectionism. > But this is not a transhumanist idea. It is not the result of > supervenience of transhumanist ideology on the development of a > scientific paradigm. It is a flat fact about the historical cause of the > biological human lifespan, which any rational observer will accept > regardless of whether they, personally, wish humans long lives, instant > deaths, or precisely threescore and ten. You might be too careful to mix science and philosophy. Your very interpretation of evolution is base on your set of reference points - whether philosophically, psychologically, or emotionally induced. >There is nothing wrong with a transhumanist outlook being *based on* the >standard model of evolution. Of course it should be based on evolutionary >theory; evolutionary theory is the correct account of how we got here; >what else would we use? I object to the idea of a transhumanist model of >evolution or even the idea that transhumanists, qua transhumanists, should >have their own ideas about evolution at all, unless they wish to operate >in a dual capacity as ordinary evolutionary theorists (which is what I try >to do regarding the evolutionary psychology of human general intelligence >and so on). Some evolutionary theorists are transhumanists. It is much of their writings that set the "goals" of transhumanity. Could thinking along the lines of an Omega Point reinvented type of Singularity which infers an evolutionary digression or ingression from evolutionary biology? >>If you are suggesting that any transhumanist be foolish enough to >>fictionize the facts developed and being investigated, than >>this is overly broad. It is in opposition to the basics of transhumanism >>to "make up" ideas to justify a cause. I hardly think any transhumanist >>would get away with it for more than a few moment to a few weeks. > >Right! Whether it was a minor or major point, some helpful pedant on the >Extropians list would object to it. > >>Our society is very hard lined in attempting to make sure that >>information is as plausible as possible, if not solely accurate. > >There is no such thing as "plausibility" where information is concerned - >either the probability one assigns is justified on observation, or it is >not. One who says, "Aha, here's a gap in science, now I can make up >something plausible and no one will be able to contradict me" will, of >course, end up being wrong, because plausibility combined with prior >desire for a particular answer is not a good way to seek out truths. They >also end up being shot down because they didn't know what science could or >couldn't say - a nonspecialist doesn't know where the gaps are and will >invariably stumble over an issue science has already settled. Ideology, >transhumanist or otherwise, is not involved in which probabilities are >*warranted*, even if through carelessness it should mess up the >calculation in practice. There are transhumanist technologies, there is >transhumanist art, but there is no such thing as transhumanist science. There are certainly aspects of strains of science that, in particular, relate heavily to transhumanism. It is "plausible" that some transhumanists might concur that this science is transhumanistic. >Solely accurate sounds good to me. We cannot, will not, should not, have >no need to creep into the dark forest of the plausible, and I fear we'll >get into real trouble if we try. Solely accurate is good to my ears as well. Plausibility allows for questioning. We must question. Natasha From sentience at pobox.com Sun Nov 2 00:48:39 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 19:48:39 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <200311011256.32495.samantha@objectent.com> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <200311011220.19460.samantha@objectent.com> <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> <200311011256.32495.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <3FA45467.1040808@pobox.com> Samantha Atkins wrote: > > An alternate view is that some parts of religion were an attempt largely gone > awry to influence us toward changes within our consciousness leading to a > less violent singularity and us even arriving there at all. It is not too > far-fetched for me to consider that the future SI and posthuman society runs > countless sim experiments toward understanding how the entire transition > could have been a lot less painful or get to more interesting conclusions > more gracefully. It would not surprise me if we are in such a sim. > > Sometimes I think religions are remnants of a much more advanced past or a > brush with a much more advanced reality that have degenerated into > superstition and dogma to a large degree. But I don't find > religion/spirituality utterly bankrupt as many do. Samantha, you have too damned little faith in humanity if you think that the tiny fragments of light to be found in religion *must* have their origin *somewhere*, *anywhere* outside the ordinary evolved human spirit. Why must Buddha be the mouthpiece of a future civilization to be respected? Why can't he be an ordinary human, absolutely no different from you, in the midst of squalor and ignorance, who decided *on his own and without any help* to be nice to people? Isn't this truth more tragic and heroic and beautiful and, above all, true, than any bad science fiction that might be written about it? Why must the explanation sound mystical to be accepted? -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From CurtAdams at aol.com Sun Nov 2 01:55:05 2003 From: CurtAdams at aol.com (CurtAdams at aol.com) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 20:55:05 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare Message-ID: <109.28b9acab.2cd5bdf9@aol.com> In a message dated 11/1/03 14:06:56, david at lucifer.com writes: >An excellent book on religion from an evolutionary psychology perspective >is Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained". Boyer does a great job of showing >where more simplistic theories of the origins of religions fall short, and >explains how religions and supernatural beliefs evolved with human inference >systems. I really liked Boyer's book and the idea that many characteristics of religion arise from how human minds are geared up for survival. But I was very unconvinced that religion is *entirely* an accident of how we're geared up. First, people usually get profoundly attached to their religions in a way I don't expect from such accidents. Second, religious belief is very strongly influenced by genes, more so than any other human behavior I'm aware of. Third, many of us are quite irreligious even though we have the systems Boyer was talking about in perfectly functional form. I think religion per se serves some kind of function - I'd guess a social one - which is very important to successful human reproduction in a premodern context. I'm inclined to the idea that it serves as a mechanism for irrational (in a strict personal cost-benefit sense) group identification. As with many interactions, sometimes it can be beneficial to commit oneself to a course with no way to get out later even if it becomes beneficial at that time. From aperick at centurytel.net Sun Nov 2 03:15:21 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2003 19:15:21 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth In-Reply-To: <200311020155.hA21tYM21406@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a0ef$8ecf6410$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> CurtAdams at aol.com wrote: >Second, religious belief is very strongly influenced by genes, more so >than any other human behavior I'm aware of. Really, where did you come up with that? I am aware of stupid genes, is that all that you are referring to? You make it sound like more than that. Please continue. From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Nov 2 05:43:21 2003 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2003 21:43:21 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <3FA45467.1040808@pobox.com> References: <200311011256.32495.samantha@objectent.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <200311011220.19460.samantha@objectent.com> <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> <200311011256.32495.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101214220.02f42510@pop.earthlink.net> At 07:48 PM 11/1/03 -0500, Eli wrote: Why must Buddha be the mouthpiece of a future civilization to be respected? Why can't he be an ordinary human, absolutely no different from you, in the midst of squalor and ignorance, who decided *on his own and without any help* to be nice to people? Isn't this truth more tragic and heroic and beautiful and, above all, true, than any bad science fiction that might be written about it? Why must the explanation sound mystical to be accepted? Excellent. Beautiful. Yes. Natasha Natasha Vita-More http://www.natasha.cc ---------- President, Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture http://www.transhumanist.biz http://www.transhuman.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sentience at pobox.com Sun Nov 2 07:16:06 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2003 02:16:06 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <109.28b9acab.2cd5bdf9@aol.com> References: <109.28b9acab.2cd5bdf9@aol.com> Message-ID: <3FA4AF36.7050703@pobox.com> CurtAdams at aol.com wrote: > > I really liked Boyer's book and the idea that many characteristics of religion > arise from how human minds are geared up for survival. But I was very > unconvinced that religion is *entirely* an accident of how we're geared up. > First, people usually get profoundly attached to their religions in a way > I don't expect from such accidents. Second, religious belief is very strongly > influenced by genes, more so than any other human behavior I'm aware of. > Third, many of us are quite irreligious even though we have the systems > Boyer was talking about in perfectly functional form. > > I think religion per > se serves some kind of function - I'd guess a social one - which is very > important to successful human reproduction in a premodern context. I'm > inclined to the idea that it serves as a mechanism for irrational (in a strict > personal cost-benefit sense) group identification. As with many interactions, > sometimes it can be beneficial to commit oneself to a course with no way to > get out later even if it becomes beneficial at that time. Nonreligious people tended to get burned at the stake until very recently. Figure that sometime way back in human history religion started as an epiphenomenon, and shortly thereafter it became extremely nonadaptive to start asking nosy questions. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From CurtAdams at aol.com Sun Nov 2 07:56:45 2003 From: CurtAdams at aol.com (CurtAdams at aol.com) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 02:56:45 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth Message-ID: <140.1ba42958.2cd612bd@aol.com> In a message dated 11/1/03 19:20:32, aperick at centurytel.net writes: > >CurtAdams at aol.com wrote: > >>Second, religious belief is very strongly influenced by genes, more so >>than any other human behavior I'm aware of. > >Really, where did you come up with that? I am aware of stupid genes, is >that all that you are referring to? You make it sound like more than >that. Please continue. It's not "stupid genes". I'll try to find the reference when I'm back at the University Monday. Basically somebody did the classic twin study, measuring degree of religious belief. I think it was 3 levels; something like devout, churchgoing, and unchurched. Identical twins raised separately had about an 80% concordance while fraternal twins had only about 50%. Specific religious beliefs were not particularly correlated. The large differences between identical and fraternal twins indicates that genetics makes a big difference in the degree of religious belief. From CurtAdams at aol.com Sun Nov 2 08:04:25 2003 From: CurtAdams at aol.com (CurtAdams at aol.com) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 03:04:25 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare Message-ID: <196.21f17df2.2cd61489@aol.com> In a message dated 11/1/03 23:20:10, sentience at pobox.com writes: >Nonreligious people tended to get burned at the stake until very recently. Yes, but so did heretics. Actually heretics tended to get it worse. Christians had it way worse in pagan Rome than areligious philosophers. > Figure that sometime way back in human history religion started as an >epiphenomenon, and shortly thereafter it became extremely nonadaptive to >start asking nosy questions. Except they *did* ask nosy questions - only the questions involved (mostly) proposing alternate religions rather than questioning religion itself. There's a funny quote from, I think, the Durants' History of Western Civilization from a traveler to Byzantine Constantinople complaining that you couldn't buy bread or get a haircut without having to suffer through long discourses on one side or the other of various subtle theological disputes which, at the time, were inciting pogroms and civil war. From samantha at objectent.com Sun Nov 2 08:14:46 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 01:14:46 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <3FA45467.1040808@pobox.com> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <200311011256.32495.samantha@objectent.com> <3FA45467.1040808@pobox.com> Message-ID: <200311020014.46482.samantha@objectent.com> On Saturday 01 November 2003 16:48, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Samantha Atkins wrote: > > An alternate view is that some parts of religion were an attempt largely > > gone awry to influence us toward changes within our consciousness leading > > to a less violent singularity and us even arriving there at all. It is > > not too far-fetched for me to consider that the future SI and posthuman > > society runs countless sim experiments toward understanding how the > > entire transition could have been a lot less painful or get to more > > interesting conclusions more gracefully. It would not surprise me if > > we are in such a sim. > > > > Sometimes I think religions are remnants of a much more advanced past or > > a brush with a much more advanced reality that have degenerated into > > superstition and dogma to a large degree. But I don't find > > religion/spirituality utterly bankrupt as many do. > > Samantha, you have too damned little faith in humanity if you think that > the tiny fragments of light to be found in religion *must* have their > origin *somewhere*, *anywhere* outside the ordinary evolved human spirit. > Why must Buddha be the mouthpiece of a future civilization to be > respected? Why can't he be an ordinary human, absolutely no different > from you, in the midst of squalor and ignorance, who decided *on his own > and without any help* to be nice to people? Isn't this truth more tragic > and heroic and beautiful and, above all, true, than any bad science > fiction that might be written about it? Why must the explanation sound > mystical to be accepted? This is a strange response to what I wrote. I certainly meant no disrespect nor do I have an lack of faith in humanity at all. Rather I was speaking to those who act as if religion/sprituality is worthless (true lack of faith in humanity imho) or has nothing further to say now that we have science. The best of religion and spirituality is far beyond "being nice to people". Bad science fiction? I don't think so. I think we are now in a position to make all of those deepest yearnings real. But ask yourself what sorts of myths would occur in the remnants of humanity left behind by an outward bound Singularity. You might get an interesting and provocative reexamination of a few religious memes. I do not grant that one view of how religion/spirituality came to be is privileged. The truth and hypotheses about the truth are much richer and more fun. Why will visions for the future need a mystical wrapper to get accepted? Perhaps because the mystical stuff is inextricably part of the majority of human beings? - samantha From samantha at objectent.com Sun Nov 2 08:20:24 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 01:20:24 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <109.28b9acab.2cd5bdf9@aol.com> References: <109.28b9acab.2cd5bdf9@aol.com> Message-ID: <200311020020.24256.samantha@objectent.com> On Saturday 01 November 2003 17:55, CurtAdams at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/1/03 14:06:56, david at lucifer.com writes: > >An excellent book on religion from an evolutionary psychology perspective > >is Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained". Boyer does a great job of showing > >where more simplistic theories of the origins of religions fall short, and > >explains how religions and supernatural beliefs evolved with human > > inference systems. > > I really liked Boyer's book and the idea that many characteristics of > religion arise from how human minds are geared up for survival. But I was > very unconvinced that religion is *entirely* an accident of how we're > geared up. First, people usually get profoundly attached to their religions > in a way I don't expect from such accidents. Second, religious belief is > very strongly influenced by genes, more so than any other human behavior > I'm aware of. Third, many of us are quite irreligious even though we have > the systems Boyer was talking about in perfectly functional form. > > I think religion per > se serves some kind of function - I'd guess a social one - which is very > important to successful human reproduction in a premodern context. I'm > inclined to the idea that it serves as a mechanism for irrational (in a > strict personal cost-benefit sense) group identification. As with many > interactions, sometimes it can be beneficial to commit oneself to a course > with no way to get out later even if it becomes beneficial at that time. > Religion serves as a way of making sense of what cannot yet be made sense of. It serves as a means of idealizing how things should/could be beyond the ability to make them so, yet. It serves as a lens for focusing highly charged desires and refining visions of what the ultimate best is. Of course it also serves as a lens for sactifying and focusing a lot that is not so positive at all. But all of this is cold and removed from the fire of what a living spirituality is. - s From jacques at dtext.com Sun Nov 2 11:59:56 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2003 12:59:56 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare In-Reply-To: <3FA45467.1040808@pobox.com> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031031195605.0327e7a0@pop.earthlink.net> <200311011220.19460.samantha@objectent.com> <00dc01c3a0b7$16390200$be994a43@texas.net> <200311011256.32495.samantha@objectent.com> <3FA45467.1040808@pobox.com> Message-ID: <3FA4F1BC.6060809@dtext.com> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Samantha, you have too damned little faith in humanity if you think that > the tiny fragments of light to be found in religion *must* have their > origin *somewhere*, *anywhere* outside the ordinary evolved human > spirit. Why must Buddha be the mouthpiece of a future civilization to > be respected? Why can't he be an ordinary human, absolutely no > different from you, in the midst of squalor and ignorance, who decided > *on his own and without any help* to be nice to people? I would agree with Eliezer that the origin of religion doesn't need to be seeked outside of the human mind (though I would stay open to Samantha's or other suggestions), and I would agree with Samantha that there is much more to it than "being nice to people". In fact when I think of religion, this is not at all what I think of. When contemplating transhumanist possibilities, one cannot help to wonder how religions could somehow anticipate such things. Take the transmigration of souls. Given our understanding of the mind-body, this is a totally hopeless theory. When the body dies, there is nothing that escapes the body and goes into another body: the whole body-mind gets lost. So our best scientific knowledge makes transmigration of soul something utterly absurd, based on a gross misconception of what a mind is. But, at the same time, the same scientific knowledge seems to be on the verge of giving us an actual transmigration of minds, the mind going from one body to another body. So we go back to the original religious vision and we wonder: did they stumble on this by pure accident or what? How could they form such ideas, which may now happen to be true? And the answer is not that they were informed by civilisations of the future, but that the human mind is really that strange animal thing for which an animal body is too tight a dress. A human being can imagine much more that what he is; and his situation, and the limits of this situation, appear to him as bizarre. It is an "unexpected" consequence of brain evolution through social interaction and language. The human mind sees things from above, from outside; it can still assist the human being to make fire, hunt animals and find mates, like the minds of his ancestors, but it has a power of imagination and distanciation that is so much larger that it is not really adapted to the body anymore (or the other way around if you prefer). Behold, this is our story: we accidentally became too imaginative for what we were, and, after developing knowledge for centuries, we are now finally going to bring the being to the level of the imagination. Jacques From david at lucifer.com Sun Nov 2 19:02:34 2003 From: david at lucifer.com (David McFadzean) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 14:02:34 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare References: <109.28b9acab.2cd5bdf9@aol.com> Message-ID: <06ac01c3a173$e008cd10$6401a8c0@lucifer.com> From: > I really liked Boyer's book and the idea that many characteristics of religion > arise from how human minds are geared up for survival. But I was very > unconvinced that religion is *entirely* an accident of how we're geared up. I don't think that was Boyer's point. He is saying that the evolved systems in the human mind provide a very fertile breeding ground for supernatural memes, so rather than religion being entirely an accident it is pretty much inevitable given human nature. In other words, it would be truly remarkable if humans didn't have religions for the same reasons it would be highly unlikely if humans didn't have any sort of music. The fact that some of us are non-religious or non-musical doesn't change the fact. Nor would it be a less credible theory if it turned out that individual dispositions toward religion or music was linked to genes. The fact that some people become very attached to their religion (or music) doesn't seem relevant either. David From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Sun Nov 2 21:19:59 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 22:19:59 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101165359.032a22a0@pop.earthlink.net> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20031101165359.032a22a0@pop.earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Nov 2003, Natasha Vita-More wrote: >At 02:00 PM 11/1/03 -0700, Aaron wrote: > >>As extropians, we all believe a future without death is possible, but we >>aren't going to get the future we want by sitting about on our laurels, >>and discussing it to death on mailing lists. Being pro-active is the key >>to obtaining our goals. > >I tried to make a donation and the "donate" button went to a bad url which >said a problem had occurred. I was not able to make the donation. It did work for me. Ciao, Alfio From aperick at centurytel.net Sun Nov 2 22:06:06 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 14:06:06 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Diehard de Chardon - Truth In-Reply-To: <200311021900.hA2J06M17370@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a18d$84d29600$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> CurtAdams at aol.com wrote: It's not "stupid genes". I'll try to find the reference when I'm back at the University Monday. Basically somebody did the classic twin study, measuring degree of religious belief. I think it was 3 levels; something like devout, churchgoing, and uncharted. Identical twins raised separately had about an 80% concordance while fraternal twins had only about 50%. Specific religious beliefs were not particularly correlated. The large differences between identical and fraternal twins indicates that genetics makes a big difference in the degree of religious belief. Rick (aperick at centurytel.net) responds: I would need to see the raw data. I suspect that the samples size may be fairly small and that there are several uncontrolled or overlooked factors which could be at play. Twins in general, and identical ones in particular, may tend to be adopted into similar sorts of families. Until I see the raw data I cannot discount the possibility that stupid genes may yet be at work -- somewhere. In any case, surely there must be goggles of tendencies determined by genes. Are we really all that certain that the tendency towards religious faith is coded in genes to a higher degree than most other tendencies are? I have observed persons from very religious families revert to atheism -- apparently due to enlightenment. There seem to be many different types of atheism, that is to say different sets of goings that lead to godless views. I've got mine, and mine can beat the pants off yours:) From thespike at earthlink.net Mon Nov 3 02:21:24 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 20:21:24 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Nigeria is in Australia References: <000001c3a18d$84d29600$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Message-ID: <006501c3a1b1$33538220$259d4a43@texas.net> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/31/1067233357921.html Australian head of Nigerian scam defrauded people of $5m Sydney October 31, 2003 An Australian pensioner managed to defraud $5 million from unsuspecting victims, including a Saudi Arabian sheikh, in a global internet scam, a NSW court was told today. ... Legal Aid defence solicitor Catherine Colquhoun said her client was a family man currently surviving on a disability pension. "His wife and family are in Sydney, he attends church every Sunday and cares for his sick and elderly parents," Ms Colquhoun said during a bail application. She said Marinellis had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia. From nanogirl at halcyon.com Mon Nov 3 03:07:48 2003 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 19:07:48 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Nanogirl News~ Message-ID: <007a01c3a1b7$a993f900$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> The Nanogirl News November 2, 2003 Intel Funds Nanotechnology Project For Early Disease Detection. Intel Funds Nanotechnology Project For Early Disease Detection. Intel Corporation and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center today announced a collaborative research effort to apply Intel's expertise in nanotechnology to develop improved methods of studying, diagnosing and preventing cancer. The announcement was made at the BioSilico Seminar, held at Stanford University. (SpaceDaily 10/24/03) http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacemedicine-03zb.html A nanotechnology report attached to a Bush administration supplemental budget request touts the technology as the next big thing in areas like data storage, sensors and manufacturing. The Bush administration requested $849 million for nanotechnology research in its fiscal 2004 budget request. The total includes about 14 government agencies participating in the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). (EETimes 10/17/03) http://www.eet.com/at/n/news/OEG20031017S0053 Tiny Robots to Stronger Steel, Caterpillar Scientist Touts Nano. It's a small world, after all. That's not just a song or theme park ride but the wave of future technology. Nanotechnology is work done at the molecular level that creates new structures and functions. And it's now attracting millions of dollars in government funding around the world, said Larry Seitzman, a materials scientist with Caterpillar Inc. Seitzman addressed 100 people Friday afternoon at the Downtown Peoria Public Library branch in the latest in a series of monthly science presentations put on by Peoria NEXT, the central Illinois consortium that includes local hospitals, universities, businesses and the agriculture lab. (SmallTimes 10/31/03) http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=6863 First large scale release of nanotechnology product into the environment provokes concern. An international action group has expressed its concern following the largest environmental release to date of a product created using nanotechnology. A solution intended to prevent erosion has been sprayed on 1,400 acres of Taos Pueblo Native Indian land in the US after a fire destroyed 5,000 acres in an area which is considered sacred by the First Nations community. The fire left the mountainside exposed to erosion and threatened the community's water source. Aerosolised and dropped from helicopters, the product causes silicate particles to self-assemble in the presence of water, forming a crystal matrix. This acts as a mulch, preventing erosion while allowing seeds that have been added to the mix to establish themselves in the soil. The ETC (erosion, technology and concentration) group are concerned that a novel nanotechnology product has been released into the environment without any investigation into potential consequences. (Cordis 10/31/03) Researchers Create 'Supersized' Molecule Of DNA. Scientists at Stanford University have created an expanded molecule of DNA with a double helix wider than any found in nature. Besides being more heat resistant than natural DNA, the new version glows in the dark - a property that could prove useful in detecting genetic defects in humans. A description of the molecule, dubbed ''xDNA,'' is published in the Oct. 31 issue of the journal Science. ''We've designed a genetic system that's completely new and unlike any living system on Earth, '' said Eric T. Kool, a professor of chemistry at Stanford and co-author of the Science study. ''Unlike natural DNA, our expanded molecule is fluorescent and is considerably more stable when subjected to higher temperatures.'' (ScienceDaily 10/31/03) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031031064709.htm The Travels of An Exciton. Researchers have tracked their first exciton. A team reports in the 24 October PRL that they imaged the wave-like motion of the particle, which is essential to the operation of lasers in CD players and grocery scanners. They detected the light of a single trapped exciton and distinguished it from that of a double-particle called a biexciton. The technique may be used in the future to view the wave nature of other nanoscale particles. (Physical Review Focus 10/24/03) http://focus.aps.org/story/v12/st15 Foresight at Pop!Tech 2003. Foresight President Christine Peterson's talk at Pop!Tech 2003, a conference held Oct. 16-19 in Camden, Maine, on "The Impact of Technology on People", presented Foresight's view on the "Sea Change" to be brought by technological transformation over the coming decades. She was quoted on the importance of investment in developing molecular nanotechnology (recently termed "zettatechnology") for the sake of curing diseases, safe-guarding security, protecting the environment, and easily traveling in space. (Nanodot 10/30/03) http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/31/0930244&mode=nocomment&threshold= Nanomotors realize visionary's dream. One of the ambitions of nanotechnology, building motors on a molecular scale, has been realized by scientists in America. Researchers at Berkeley at the University of California created the world's smallest electrical device earlier this year - one hundred million of which could fit on the end of a pin...The motors - the work of Berkeley researchers Alex Zettl and Adam Fennimore - were built using a atom-fine point of a nano-probe, inserting the circuits into place on a silicon chip. The motor sits in the middle of a silicon chip four millimetres square. The motor itself is much, much smaller - the shaft is a half a tenth of a thousandth of a millimetre thick. (BBCNews 10/30/03) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3224329.stm Science plans 'non-stick' submarine. US nanotechnologists are developing what they think could be the ultimate non-stick surface. It is covered with nano-scale needles that enable a liquid, for example, to slip straight off it. One application could be non-stick submarines which would glide through the water with much less resistance and require less force and fuel to propel them...-other applications discussed:-Water hating...Expensive raincoat...Gecko inspiration...Rescue robots. (BBC 10/10/03) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3178136.stm Nanomedicine Vital to Finding a Cancer Cure. The new science of nanomedicine is advancing faster than even experts had expected and many predict the technology will play a vital role in achieving the federal government's stated goal of eliminating suffering and death from cancer by 2015. "Basically, without nanotechnology, it would be impossible to address this issue," Mihail C. Roco, senior advisor for nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation, told United Press International. Roco also serves as chair of the National Science and Technology Council's subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology. (The SmallTimes 10/10/03) http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=6777 Microscopic cracks spoil the transparency of glass, nano-researchers find. The cloudy look on cleaned glass is scattered light, not streaks of dirt. A fundamental discovery about the behavior of cooling glass could have a significant impact on the glass- and plastic-making industries, say researchers at Lehigh University. Himanshu Jain, Diamond chair and professor of materials science and engineering at Lehigh, says the breakthrough was made possible by a combination of nanoscopic science and an old-fashioned kitchen recipe. (Eurekalert 10/10/03) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-10/lu-mcs101003.php Doctor Tests Gold in Fighting Cancer. An Arkansas doctor is trying to find a safe and efficient way to target cancerous cells using flecks of gold that are only nanometers wide. It could set a new standard for breast cancer therapy. Dr. Vladimir Zharov, a biomedical engineer and director of laser research at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, won a $106,500 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program, to study the treatment concept. The concept is still unproven, but preliminary tests have shown the gold "nanoparticles" could interact with laser radiation to destroy only the targeted cells, without collateral damage to healthy cells, Zharov said. (Newsday 10/13/03) Enough Already By Ronald Bailey at Reason Online. A leading environmentalist makes a foolish case against technological innovation. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, by Bill McKibben, New York: Times Books, 288 pages, $25. Environmentalist Bill McKibben has had enough, and he thinks you've had enough too. That's why he wants to stop the development of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and robotics in their tracks. McKibben fears that, if unchecked, these technologies will transform human life ruinously. "These are the most anti-choice technologies anyone's ever thought of," he insists (the emphasis is his). "In widespread use, they will first rob parents of their liberty, and then strip freedom from every generation that follows. In the end, they will destroy forever the possibility of meaningful choice." That claim is not only complete nonsense, it is exactly backward. According to McKibben, science and technology have long been destroying human meaning. "Meaning has been in decline for a very long time, almost since the start of civilization," he asserts. In his neo-Romantic view, humanity once lived in an enchanted world in which every rock, tree, cloud, or bird was imbued with spirit and intention. Our ancestors' theory of the natural world was that objects and creatures behaved much as they themselves did. (Reason online 10/03) http://www.reason.com/0310/cr.rb.enough.shtml Foresight Institute Awards Feynman Prizes in Nanotechnology. The Foresight Institute, a nonprofit nanotech think tank, awarded its 2003 Feynman Prizes in Nanotechnology Saturday to University of California, Berkeley researchers Steven Louie and Marvin Cohen, and University of California, Los Angeles researcher Carlo Montemagno. (SmallTimes 10/13/03) http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?section_id=45&document_id=678 0 Process Prints Nanoparticles. One of the challenges of nanotechnology is finding ways to position the minuscule building blocks that make up microscopic electronics and machines. Researchers from the University of Minnesota have coaxed tiny particles of gold, silver and carbon to assemble into patterns on silicon wafers over areas as large as a square centimeter by using electrical charge patterns to attract and position the nanoparticles. (Technology Review 10/14/03) http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/rnb_101403.asp Nanotech breakthrough shows how brain cells chatter. French scientists using an innovative microscopic scanning technique say they have discovered that nerve cells almost buzz with molecular agitation when they communicate with each other. The work sheds light on how cells operate at the synapse -- the minute gap between neurons, as nerve cells are called.Neurons communicate by sending chemical signals across the synapse, which then latch on to specific targets, known as receptors, on the membrane of the adjoining cell. (HindustanTimes 10/17/03) http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_421345,00040006.htm UD develops nanotechnology professorship. The University of Dayton is looking for someone with big ideas about little things. The school, in conjunction with local development and military officials, wants to find a nationally recognized expert in nanotechnology for a newly created professorship. Nanotechnology is the science of constructing new materials with dimensions about the size of five to 10 atoms. The technology could lead to tiny, fast transistors and the strongest, lightest materials ever made. UD, the Dayton Development Coalition and the U.S. Air Force today unveiled their plans to endow the school's Wright Brothers Institute Endowed Chair in Nanomaterials. (Dayton Business Journal 10/17/03) http://dayton.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2003/10/13/daily51.html TSU plans online nanotech magazine. San Marcos-based Texas State University plans to issue an online magazine early next year targeting scientists and other professionals in the nanotechnology field. (Austin Business Journal 10/17/03) http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2003/10/13/daily35.html Some scientists see cryonics' potential. Most scientists scoff at the idea of freezing the dead and reviving them years after their hearts stop beating. They see it as a sign that some people will grasp at anything that offers the smallest shot at immortality. But several prominent experts say surviving cryonics is not only possible, it's probable. The debate, they insist, is in the details. (The Arizona Republic 10/20/03) http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1020alcor-science.htm l -Also see this Dr. Jerry Lemler of Alcor article: Doubters don't faze Alcor's president. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1020alcor-lemler19.html Toxic Molecules Threat from Nanotechnology, Expert Claims. Expert Professor Ken Donaldson said tiny particles in diesel soot, boot polish, tires and photocopier toner were already implicated in lung damage. Nanotechnology threatens to generate new hazards in the form of toxic molecules that can enter the lungs, it was claimed today. (Scotsman 10/20/03) http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2074380 -Also see: SmallTimes: http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?section_id=39&document_id=680 8 Tiny springs. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new class of nanometre-scale structures that spontaneously form helical shapes from long ribbon-like single crystals of zinc oxide (ZnO). Just 10 to 60 nanometres wide and 5-20 nanometres thick - but up to several millimetres long - the new structures, dubbed nanosprings, have piezoelectric and electrostatic polarisation properties that could make them useful in small-scale sensing and micro-system applications. (e4Engineering 10/21/03) http://www.e4engineering.com/item.asp?id=50276&type=news Motorola Labs Developing Ways to Grow Carbon Nanotubes for Faster, Smaller Transistors. Scientists at Motorola Labs are researching ways to improve control in the growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) that can make transistors smaller and faster and chemical/biological detectors ultra-sensitive. (Yahoo 10/21/03) http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031021/cgtu004_1.html Nanophase Technologies Announces New Web Site Launch. Magnetic barcodes could provide counterfeit-proof tagging. Barcodes peppered with magnetic particles millionths of a millimetre across could mark out fake goods and documents. Russell Cowburn of the University of Durham, UK, presented the new anti-counterfeit technology at a conference on nanotechnology in crime prevention and detection in London this week. (nature 10/30/03) http://www.nature.com/nsu/031027/031027-7.html I hope you all had a spooky but safe Hallow's Eve! Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org Tech-Aid Advisor http://www.tech-aid.info/t/all-about.html nanogirl at halcyon.com "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." From nanogirl at halcyon.com Mon Nov 3 03:18:06 2003 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 19:18:06 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] P.S. The Nanogirl News~ References: <007a01c3a1b7$a993f900$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> Message-ID: <00a301c3a1b9$1c7a1390$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> For those who requested no word wrap in the Nanogirl News, I tried it in this edition and it appears that the end result is broken up. I will not be using this configuration in the future due to this problem. My apologies, Gina` ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gina Miller" To: Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 7:07 PM Subject: [extropy-chat] The Nanogirl News~ > The Nanogirl News > November 2, 2003 > > From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Nov 3 04:05:53 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 15:05:53 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Nigeria is in Australia References: <000001c3a18d$84d29600$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> <006501c3a1b1$33538220$259d4a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <00c101c3a1bf$c6677400$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Damien Broderick wote: > http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/31/1067233357921.html > > Australian head of Nigerian scam defrauded people of $5m > > Sydney > October 31, 2003 A "Dr NICK Marinellis". That's kinda funny. Almost makes one proud to be an Aussie (not). I was almost expecting a surname like Murphy befitting perhaps an older convict pedigree. Interesting that the guy is suspected of having schizophrenia. A mental illness can be a way of escaping binding contracts. Not a very good way though ;-) Regards, Brett From aperick at centurytel.net Mon Nov 3 05:36:07 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 21:36:07 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Diehard de Chardon - Truth (rick) In-Reply-To: <200311030322.hA33MIM25626@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a1cc$635fd110$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Errata: It seems that my spell checker replaced grokings with goings. It should have been: There seem to be many different types of atheism, that is to say different sets of grokings that lead to godless views. I've got mine, and mine can beat the pants off yours:) From thespike at earthlink.net Mon Nov 3 06:03:39 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 00:03:39 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Nanogirl News~ References: <007a01c3a1b7$a993f900$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> Message-ID: <00ed01c3a1d0$3bfe58e0$259d4a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gina Miller" Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 9:07 PM > Some scientists see cryonics' potential. Most scientists scoff at the idea of freezing the dead and reviving them years after their hearts stop beating. They see it as a sign that some people will grasp at anything that offers the smallest shot at immortality. But several prominent experts say surviving cryonics is not only possible, it's probable. The debate, they insist, is in the details. (The Arizona Republic 10/20/03)http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1020alcor-sc ience.html I emailed the Arizona Republic writer, kerry.fehr-snyder at arizonarepublic.com : ===================== In the Arizona Republic, you cite Mark O. Martin, `a geneticist at Occidental College in Los Angeles', as asking skeptically: "Couldn't nanotechnology bring back mummies then?" and add: `Most scientists would agree the answer is no, even though Egyptian mummification is one of the oldest quests for immortality.' In fact, *all* scientists with any sort of clue would agree that the answer is no--not because of the limitations of predictable nanotechnology, but because Egyptian mummies had their brains removed, pulled out bit by bit through their nostrils. Those puppies are *never* going to hunt, and it's no reflection upon either cryonics or nanotechnology. By the way, despite a fair degree of familiarity with this field, I have *never* heard of cryonicists, not even that sub-group affiliated with Alcor, call themselves `Alcorians'. I think someone might have been pulling your leg about that. ============== A Helpful Pedant [maybe I'm wrong about the Alcorians?] From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Nov 3 06:09:34 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 17:09:34 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Diehard de Chardon - Truth (rick) References: <000001c3a1cc$635fd110$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Message-ID: <00f801c3a1d1$0dfc9640$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Rick writes: > There seem to be many different types of atheism, that is to > say different sets of grokings that lead to godless views. I've > got mine, and mine can beat the pants off yours:) That's fascinating Rick. Why don't you just go ahead and outline yours then for the Exi list. ? ;-) Brett From reason at exratio.com Mon Nov 3 06:52:25 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 22:52:25 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The Methuselah Mouse now comes with animated banners to brighten up your websites and weblogs; it'll be greatly appreciated by Dave and Aubrey if you can find a place for these online. Put them on your own sites, or badger a webmaster you know into using them. Spreading the word helps to grow the prize. Pick up your banners at the link below: http://www.methuselahmouse.org/banners.html Reason http://www.exratio.com > -----Original Message----- > From: Reason [mailto:reason at exratio.com] > Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 12:28 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey > > > They netted around 7k so far as a result of Pop!Tech. Now, rather > than hoping and talking about this, how about you folks make > contributions yourselves? One of the important things at this > stage is the number of donations - being able to show a long, > long list of modest donations makes larger donations much more likely. > > So how about you folks all jump in for $10 or $100? It's a small > amount and won't take you more than three minutes to go to > http://www.methuselahmouse.org/donate.htm and do it online. This > small amount of money will have an enormous, snowballing effect > on your future health and welfare: each dollar could potentially > save 685 lives according to Dave Gobel's math. I really can't > think of any other cause right now that is doing as much for > healthy life extension as this one. (Please note that I'm not > asking you to do anything that I haven't already done: please see > the donor list at http://www.methuselahmouse.org/donors.php - I'm > in as "The Longevity Meme", my advocacy and news organization). > > On a similar note, why doesn't ExI also contribute a token > amount? Alternately, one of you folks could easily contribute on > behalf of the ExI if the management is up for that (and of > course, I think they should be contributing as well, especially > given their views on healthy life extension: lead by example). > > So how about putting a little of your money where your hopes are? > Hope gets you nothing: action does. > > Reason > http://www.exratio.com > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of David A. > > Kekich > > Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 9:37 AM > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey > > > > > > Spike wrote: > > > > > > > > In today's San Jose Merc, there was a single sentence > > > about a group of scientists at Wake Forest University > > > that had developed a strain of mice that could survive > > > a direct injection of cancer cells. The sentence was > > > in a section called "News of the Weird" which > > > ordinarily features only the most bizarre crime > > > stories, unexplainable stupidity, unsuccessful > > > suicide attempts, government corruption, etc. > > > > > > Evidently much of even modern enlightened society > > > considers life extension as bizarre, undesireable, > > > immoral, etc. We have a big job ahead of us. > > > > > > > Fortunately, we don't need society's support, backing nor > understanding... > > not even modern enlightened society's. Having Aubrey (and > others)speak in > > front of visionaries like Steve Case, John Scully and Robert > > Metcalfe opens > > up the possibilities of getting one or more people with financial > > clout and > > intellectual leverage to bring funding (and even legitimacy) to > > our efforts. > > A little seed funding alone will do it. Once we have a proof of > > concept, it > > will be a natural progression to human applications. > > > > Stay on tour Aubrey. > > > > Dave > > > > ***************************** > > David A. Kekich > > TransVio Technology Ventures, LLC > > Tele. 310-265-8644/Fax 310-544-9684 > > http://www.TransVio.com > > ***************************** > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From spike66 at comcast.net Mon Nov 3 06:51:44 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 22:51:44 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Diehard de Chardon - Truth (rick) In-Reply-To: <000001c3a1cc$635fd110$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Message-ID: <000001c3a1d6$f1f40400$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > There seem to be many different types of atheism, that is to say > different sets of grokings that lead to godless views... When one suddenly understands everything, it is sometimes called an epiphany. If an atheist wanted to express the epiphany sentiment while avoiding the religiospeak, perhaps we could program our spell checkers to recognize the terms grokiphany and grokasm. Example of use: I studied all evening to no avail, but when I inverted the state matrix and integrated with respect to t, it all became clear in a sudden and satisfying grokasm. spike From spike66 at comcast.net Mon Nov 3 07:04:16 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 23:04:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] why so low? In-Reply-To: <007a01c3a1b7$a993f900$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> Message-ID: <000601c3a1d8$b21d7a30$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Dog whistles and cat-B-gone screechers emit sounds that are above the human hearing range. I have some deer alerts on my bike that also emit a sound higher than can be heard by humans. They supposedly work on mooses, (meese?), elk and their ilk too. Can someone please explain why the human hearing range is so low? Is it the lowest of all the beasts? Hey, grokiphany: we know if we breathe helium, our voice pitch goes way up. If we take a hoot of xenon (density ~3x air) would not we get an octave and a third lower? If we talked like Lurch, would the dog and the cat be able to hear us? spike From reason at exratio.com Mon Nov 3 07:07:43 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 23:07:43 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] NY Times article about Aubrey de Grey In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Alfio Puglisi > On Sat, 1 Nov 2003, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > > >At 02:00 PM 11/1/03 -0700, Aaron wrote: > > > >>As extropians, we all believe a future without death is possible, but we > >>aren't going to get the future we want by sitting about on our laurels, > >>and discussing it to death on mailing lists. Being pro-active is the key > >>to obtaining our goals. > > > >I tried to make a donation and the "donate" button went to a bad > url which > >said a problem had occurred. I was not able to make the donation. > > It did work for me. You've been immortalized :) - http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=69&t=2155&st=0&#entry16182 Natasha, did you manage to get it to work for you? I'm very interested in seeing ExI (and your name, and Max's for that matter) added to the list of donors. Token amounts are fine, but your names are important endorsements in the early donor circles. Reason http://www.exratio.com From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au Mon Nov 3 07:04:54 2003 From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 17:34:54 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Diehard de Chardon - Truth (ric k) Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE03E@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> > -----Original Message----- > From: Spike [mailto:spike66 at comcast.net] > Sent: Monday, 3 November 2003 4:22 PM > To: 'ExI chat list' > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Diehard de Chardon - Truth > (rick) > > > There seem to be many different types of atheism, that is to say > > different sets of grokings that lead to godless views... > > When one suddenly understands everything, it is sometimes > called an epiphany. When one suddenly understands everything, it should usually be called serious delusion ;-) > If an atheist wanted to express the > epiphany sentiment while avoiding the religiospeak, perhaps > we could program our spell checkers to recognize the terms > grokiphany and grokasm. Example of use: I studied all > evening to no avail, but when I inverted the state matrix > and integrated with respect to t, it all became clear in > a sudden and satisfying grokasm. > > spike grokasm (n): A explosive understanding of the fundamentals of some subject. The subsequent requirement to mop up discarded pre-existing mental frameworks usually involves kleenex. Emlyn From spike66 at comcast.net Mon Nov 3 07:30:53 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 23:30:53 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Diehard de Chardon - Truth (rick) In-Reply-To: <000001c3a1d6$f1f40400$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <000801c3a1dc$6a1a9570$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > -----Original Message----- > > When one suddenly understands everything... grokasm. > Example of use: I studied all > evening to no avail, but when I inverted the state matrix > and integrated with respect to t, it all became clear in > a sudden and satisfying grokasm. > spike Then it occurred to me that there are very few words that rhyme with orgasm: spasm, sarcasm, grokasm. Others? It is almost as if they didn't want to compete with it. Understandably. So, those of you who know another language besides English, in that language is there a dearth of words that rhyme with that language's word for orgasm? This shortage in English sure makes it difficult to write poetry. spike From humania at t-online.de Mon Nov 3 08:23:08 2003 From: humania at t-online.de (Hubert Mania) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 09:23:08 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Orgasm-rhymes References: <000801c3a1dc$6a1a9570$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <002401c3a1e3$b7cd5080$5b91fea9@relius> > So, those > of you who know another language besides English, in > that language is there a dearth of words that rhyme > with that language's word for orgasm? This shortage in > English sure makes it difficult to write poetry. > > spike The following column is an extract from a digital dictionary in reverse order (declining dictionary?) that lists the words of the German language "from behind", a wonderful tool for creating limericks. Please note, that this is just a fraction of the whole amount of words that rhyme with "Orgasmus". Even with this small list you can poetically spread the news of orgasm being available in the animal body in all fields of human activities. I would also like to draw your attention to the words with the end syllable "kokkus" towards the end of the column. They seem to bring a whiff of adventure into the whole affair. If anyone is interested in the whole list, please send me an email. Hubert _________________________________________ Lebensrhythmus Herzrhythmus Mimus Animus Primus Generalissimus Serenissimus Intimus Lackmus Hydrophthalmus Kalmus Kartoffelmus Apfelmus Zwetschenmus Pflaumenmus Quittenmus Unmu? Majordomus Kormus Orgasmus Orgiasmus Chiasmus Chiliasmus Enthusiasmus Anankasmus Sarkasmus Ikonoklasmus Metaplasmus Pleonasmus Spasmus Kardiospasmus Gastrospasmus Proktospasmus Marasmus Ismus Dadaismus Judaismus Antijudaismus Bahaismus Manich?ismus Archaismus Lamaismus Pharis?ismus Snobismus Kubismus Tribadismus Sadismus Wedismus Chassidismus Methodismus Hermaphrodismus Avantgardismus Talmudismus Nudismus Deismus Theismus Atheismus Pantheismus Panentheismus Kosmotheismus Henotheismus Monotheismus Polytheismus Epikureismus Cou?ismus Szientifismus Pazifismus Sufismus Dirigismus Staatsdirigismus Pharyngismus Logismus Analogismus Paralogismus Syllogismus Katasyllogismus Panlogismus Neologismus Phraseologismus Psychologismus Synergismus Tachismus Katechismus Revanchismus Masochismus Sadomasochismus Anarchismus Monarchismus Kryptorchismus Faschismus Antifaschismus Neofaschismus Austrofaschismus Fetischismus Panpsychismus Buddhismus Dermographismus Sophismus Hylemorphismus Dimorphismus Trimorphismus Homomorphismus Anthropomorphismus Isomorphismus Polymorphismus Erethismus Schiismus Lamarckismus Trotzkismus Kannibalismus Tribalismus Verbalismus Vandalismus Wandalismus Feudalismus Hochfeudalismus Fr?hfeudalismus Idealismus Realismus Neorealismus Fotorealismus Surrealismus Legalismus Kolonialismus Neokolonialismus Imperialismus Sozialimperialismus Materialismus Industrialismus Kurialismus Merkurialismus Konszientialismus Existentialismus Kolloquialismus Existenzialismus Provinzialismus Sozialismus Nationalsozialismus Konsumsozialismus Kathedersozialismus Staatssozialismus Radikalismus Linksradikalismus Rechtsradikalismus Syndikalismus Klerikalismus Antiklerikalismus Vertikalismus Vokalismus Kemalismus Formalismus Ph?nomenalismus Finalismus Nominalismus Regionalismus Okkasionalismus Konfessionalismus Interkonfessionalismus Professionalismus Nationalismus Internationalismus Rationalismus Irrationalismus Traditionalismus Konditionalismus Fiktionalismus Funktionalismus Oesophagus ?sophagus Magus Asparagus Vagus Negus Pemphigus Cunnilingus Fungus Argus Bacchus Moschus Abelmoschus tsch?s Tsch?s Typhus Paratyphus Flecktyphus Rhus Zyathus Strophanthus Clianthus Helianthus Akanthus Epikanthus Nerthus Mythus Radius Kr?mmungsradius Visionsradius Aktionsradius Bacchius Filius Nauplius Dochmius Genius Nonius Asklepius Plagiarius Konsiliarius Primarius Ordinarius Extraordinarius Sekretarius Stradivarius Sirius Celsius Spekulatius Mauritius Pontius Nuntius Internuntius Lumpazius Delizius Sozius Jus Abakus Spondiakus Zodiakus Syrakus Ischiadikus Medikus Syndikus Pfiffikus Magnifikus Sympathikus Parasympathikus Jonikus Kanonikus Panegyrikus Musikus Physikus Phlegmatikus Schwachmatikus Kretikus Luftikus Politikus Kritikus Levitikus Praktikus Portikus Ekklesiastikus Kokkus Diplokokkus Staphylokokkus Pneumokokkus Echinokokkus Gonokokkus Streptokokkus Ulkus Dokus Jodokus Diplodokus Fokus Autofokus Jokus Lokus Hokuspokus Krokus Tokus Arkus Zirkus Flohzirkus Schizirkus Skizirkus Medienzirkus Wanderzirkus Gro?zirkus Politzirkus Orkus Skus Sk?s Damaskus Hibiskus Diskus Fiskus Meniskus Asteriskus Kuskus Gutenachtku? D?dalus Hydrozephalus Malus Angelus Hilus Trochilus Nautilus Klus Zyklus Sexualzyklus Konjunkturzyklus Vortragszyklus Gedichtzyklus Phallus Thallus Kallus Bazillus Kommabazillus Tuberkelbazillus Lucullus Lukullus ?olus Diabolus Embolus Obolus Dolus plus Plus Surplus Regulus Homunkulus Mulus Famulus Stimulus Romulus Kumulus Zirrokumulus Stratokumulus Tumulus Titulus Mutulus Volvulus Daktylus Mus From maxm at mail.tele.dk Mon Nov 3 08:44:23 2003 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 09:44:23 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] why so low? In-Reply-To: <000601c3a1d8$b21d7a30$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <000601c3a1d8$b21d7a30$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <3FA61567.30001@mail.tele.dk> Spike wrote: > Dog whistles and cat-B-gone screechers emit sounds > that are above the human hearing range. I have some > deer alerts on my bike that also emit a sound higher > than can be heard by humans. They supposedly work > on mooses, (meese?), elk and their ilk too. > Can someone please explain why the human hearing > range is so low? Is it the lowest of all the beasts? It most likely has something to do with the size of our heads. The distance between our ears is decisive in how we can percieve direction. This is due to the wavelength of the lower frequencies. Big headed elephants percieve directions of sounds at much lower frequencies than us. The sounds they produce are also have many low frequency components. I am not really aware that it work that way for higher frequencies. But most likely it does. regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark From amara at amara.com Mon Nov 3 08:29:48 2003 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 10:29:48 +0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism: Teilhard de Chardin - Truth or Dare Message-ID: (apologies if you see this a second time. forgot the .lists) Natasha: >Was Teilhard de Chardin's bottom line a fervid attempt to realize >a reunion of research and religion? I think that de Chardin has written some useful interesting words though. Like all things, you have to filter, and select what is good for you. Amara From my article: Eternal City Grapsody #4 - Scales of Man: Adapting Technology to Transhumans April 23, 2003 http://www.transhumanism.com/articles_more.php?id=P380_0_4_0_C "Teilhard de Chardin reminds us (3) of the creative value of synthesis in evolution. He notes that technological fields have demonstrated that there is definitely more in the molecule than in the atom, more in the cell than in the molecule, more in society than in the individual, and more in mathematical construction than in calculations and theorems. At each further degree of combination, something which is irreducible to isolated elements emerges in a new structure." (3) Teilhard de Chardin, Phenomenon of Man, Harper & Row, revised English translation by Benjamin Wall (1975), p. 268. -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Sipping coffee on a sunbaked terrace can be surprisingly productive." ---Michael Metcalf [on the origin of NUMERICAL RECIPES IN FORTRAN 90] From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 3 11:50:32 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 12:50:32 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] P.S. The Nanogirl News~ In-Reply-To: <00a301c3a1b9$1c7a1390$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> References: <007a01c3a1b7$a993f900$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> <00a301c3a1b9$1c7a1390$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> Message-ID: <20031103115032.GS10586@leitl.org> On Sun, Nov 02, 2003 at 07:18:06PM -0800, Gina Miller wrote: > For those who requested no word wrap in the Nanogirl News, I tried it in > this edition and it appears that the end result is broken up. I will not be X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2720.3000 <-- is broken up, indeed. > using this configuration in the future due to this problem. My apologies, Gina: it's a good idea to include URIs in angled brackets such as: Many otherwise broken mailers still tend to respect that. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Mon Nov 3 13:51:31 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 07:51:31 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? Message-ID: An article I read that analyzes future trends in employment has me a bit nervous: http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,5500,1074083,00.html Being a mortgage broker for the last few years, I have enjoyed watching my job become simpler. The technology improvements so far have made it possible for me to work from home. A careful analysis of this trend however has forced me to accept a frightening possibility. My job may not exist 10 years from now! Currently, many specialized web applications exist that allow me to put in a customer's application and get an underwriting decision in minutes. All that is left is selecting the right loan, gathering the required documentation, and submitting it to an underwriter who then decides if that documentation is acceptable to meet the neccessary guidelines for that particular loan program. At this point, they prepare loan documents and send them to the closing agent for closing. It only stands to reason that when solid verification software and text reading software come online that are capable of handling these duties, the job of brokering, and even underwriting will be left to computers. This can be handled without any AI. It will only take some very complicated software. Software that could probably be built right now if someone wanted to invest millions in development costs. In time, it will come. This is a business that I know well, and it is all I am formally trained in with the exception of a 4 year old A+ certification that isn't worth a dime any more. I have decided that I need to find a new career and go back to school. The only problem is, what should I do? To put it bluntly, I have always achieved below my ability level. I was the high-school kid who could have had it made with scholarships, consistently testing in the top 1% of the nation, only to have spent much of my time chasing girls instead of focusing on homework. Rather than go to college, I got my girlfriend pregnant at 17 and got married. That turned into a mess which ended in divorce by the age of 19. Since then, I have chased my tail trying to make enough to support myself and pay child support. Much of the time until I became a mortgage broker 3 years ago was spent working two jobs. Now I am 32. Going to earn my degree is something that I always wanted to do, but didn;t have the resources. Now I have those resources and the time to do it, but I am scared stiff. I don't understand how it all works and what jobs are available. My major weaknesses are the higher maths and chemistry although I am sure that I could fix that easily enough. But I am concerned with my ability to learn the material as well as someone younger. I have a broad education compared to many people with degrees, but it is mostly comprised of self-directed reading on a variety of subjects and has many holes. A couple of things I find fascinating are evolutionary biology and anthropology. But these are interesting from the safe confines of my home. I don;t know if I have it in me to even peg an insect to a board or handle the corpses of dead animals. Also, I don;t know what kind of jobs that would offer except for teaching positions at a local college. Nanotechnology seems very interesting, but the background needed eludes me. Same with biotech. World is intersting to me as is the history of religions. But details tend to elude me as I am better working with broad patterns and ideas and making connections that others miss while examining the details. So I am stumped. I need to find something with a future. Something that will be around right up to those last moments precluding a singularity. I am looking to all of you for suggestions. Thank you Kevin Freels -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From maxm at mail.tele.dk Mon Nov 3 14:12:53 2003 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 15:12:53 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3FA66265.40505@mail.tele.dk> kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > I am looking to all of you for suggestions. Just do it! Starting at university will feel odd the first day with all the young folks there, then you will be used to it. (Talking from experience.) You can easily catch up if you have the time. regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark From Karen at smigrodzki.org Mon Nov 3 14:27:16 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 09:27:16 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? References: <3FA66265.40505@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <002201c3a216$94ffd400$6501a8c0@DogHouse> I agree with Max M. Start at college, you don't need to know what degree you are going for to begin with. You should be able to scope out different departments, talk with students and professors and see where you fit. First step, just start school. k > kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > > > I am looking to all of you for suggestions. > > > Just do it! > > Starting at university will feel odd the first day with all the young > folks there, then you will be used to it. (Talking from experience.) > > You can easily catch up if you have the time. > > regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From natashavita at earthlink.net Mon Nov 3 15:46:08 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 10:46:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Donation: Aubrey de Gray Message-ID: <244640-22003111315468463@M2W084.mail2web.com> Friends, I have been trying for two days to make donations. Last night ExI tried to make a donation. Please email me and help us get out donation to be supportive of Aubrey. What I would like to do is just call it in rather than using the website. Thank you, Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From alex at ramonsky.com Mon Nov 3 16:10:17 2003 From: alex at ramonsky.com (Alex Ramonsky) Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 16:10:17 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Donation: Aubrey de Gray References: <244640-22003111315468463@M2W084.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <3FA67DE9.7080409@ramonsky.com> Have informed Aubrey; panic ye not : ) AR natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: >Friends, > >I have been trying for two days to make donations. Last night ExI tried to >make a donation. > >Please email me and help us get out donation to be supportive of Aubrey. > >What I would like to do is just call it in rather than using the website. > >Thank you, > >Natasha > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- >mail2web - Check your email from the web at >http://mail2web.com/ . > > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Mon Nov 3 17:54:59 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 18:54:59 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Nov 2003 kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: >An article I read that analyzes future trends in employment has me a bit nervous: >http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,5500,1074083,00.html > >Being a mortgage broker for the last few years, I have enjoyed watching my job become simpler. The technology improvements so far have made it possible for me to work from home. >A careful analysis of this trend however has forced me to accept a frightening possibility. My job may not exist 10 years from now! >Currently, many specialized web applications exist that allow me to put in a customer's application and get an underwriting decision in minutes. All that is left is selecting the right loan, gathering the required documentation, and submitting it to an underwriter who then decides if that documentation is acceptable to meet the neccessary guidelines for that particular loan program. At this point, they prepare loan documents and send them to the closing agent for closing. >It only stands to reason that when solid verification software and text reading software come online that are capable of handling these duties, the job of brokering, and even underwriting will be left to computers. This can be handled without any AI. It will only take some very complicated software. Software that could probably be built right now if someone wanted to invest millions in development costs. In time, it will come. >This is a business that I know well, and it is all I am formally trained in with the exception of a 4 year old A+ certification that isn't worth a dime any more. >I have decided that I need to find a new career and go back to school. Or, you can find a new career as one of the experts in this job. Whoever will make the software will need programmers, funding, and someone who know what the better strategies are. The programs will need to be tested, mantained, upgraded, new ideas must be incorporated in a sensible way. The project director must be well versed in the field. Someone who has already worked in it before. Ciao, Afio From etheric at comcast.net Mon Nov 3 17:58:47 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 09:58:47 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] why so low? References: <000601c3a1d8$b21d7a30$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <006101c3a234$21c3b920$0200a8c0@etheric> http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF8/804.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "Spike" To: "'ExI chat list'" Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 11:04 PM Subject: [extropy-chat] why so low? > > Dog whistles and cat-B-gone screechers emit sounds > that are above the human hearing range. I have some > deer alerts on my bike that also emit a sound higher > than can be heard by humans. They supposedly work > on mooses, (meese?), elk and their ilk too. > Can someone please explain why the human hearing > range is so low? Is it the lowest of all the beasts? > > Hey, grokiphany: we know if we breathe helium, our > voice pitch goes way up. If we take a hoot of > xenon (density ~3x air) would not we get an octave > and a third lower? If we talked like Lurch, would > the dog and the cat be able to hear us? > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From aperick at centurytel.net Mon Nov 3 18:35:28 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 10:35:28 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Brett asked for it In-Reply-To: <200311030823.hA38NZM14685@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a239$4265a8a0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Brett wrote: That's fascinating Rick. Why don't you just go ahead and outline yours then for the Exi list. ? ;-) http://home.centurytel.net/rickw/aonl.htm "an enticing tale of the possibilities of transhumanism" it also outlines much of what I call scientific atheism. From reason at exratio.com Mon Nov 3 20:15:10 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 12:15:10 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Donation: Aubrey de Gray In-Reply-To: <3FA67DE9.7080409@ramonsky.com> Message-ID: I sent an e-mail to Aubrey and Dave, cc'd Natasha; they'll help her get it done. Reason http://www.exratio.com > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Alex > Ramonsky > Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 8:10 AM > To: natashavita at earthlink.net; ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Donation: Aubrey de Gray > > > Have informed Aubrey; panic ye not : ) > AR > > natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: > > >Friends, > > > >I have been trying for two days to make donations. Last night > ExI tried to > >make a donation. > > > >Please email me and help us get out donation to be supportive of Aubrey. > > > >What I would like to do is just call it in rather than using the website. > > > >Thank you, > > > >Natasha > > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > >mail2web - Check your email from the web at > >http://mail2web.com/ . > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >extropy-chat mailing list > >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From nanogirl at halcyon.com Mon Nov 3 20:31:01 2003 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 12:31:01 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] P.S. The Nanogirl News~ References: <007a01c3a1b7$a993f900$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL><00a301c3a1b9$1c7a1390$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> <20031103115032.GS10586@leitl.org> Message-ID: <017701c3a249$65771080$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> Yes, I did have brackets on the urls, and I see that not all of them they worked. Gina` Gina: it's a good idea to include URIs in angled brackets such as: Many otherwise broken mailers still tend to respect that. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl From reason at exratio.com Mon Nov 3 20:55:08 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 12:55:08 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] P.S. The Nanogirl News~ In-Reply-To: <017701c3a249$65771080$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL> Message-ID: Hmm. I leave mine unbracketed, but always put them on a line by themselves with no wrap. That seems to work. Reason http://www.exratio.com > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Gina Miller > Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 12:31 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] P.S. The Nanogirl News~ > > > Yes, I did have brackets on the urls, and I see that not all of them they > worked. Gina` > > > Gina: it's a good idea to include URIs in angled brackets such as: > > > Many otherwise broken mailers still tend to respect that. > > > -- Eugen* Leitl leitl > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From natashavita at earthlink.net Mon Nov 3 21:18:25 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 16:18:25 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] CryoFeast 2003 Message-ID: <46640-220031113211825483@M2W034.mail2web.com> Friends, Would anyone living in Texas like to join me in preparing the CryoFeast 2003, Texas location, for Alcor? It will be located at our home in Austin. Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Nov 3 23:06:55 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 10:06:55 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Brett asked for it References: <000001c3a239$4265a8a0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Message-ID: <00d801c3a25f$2e794c40$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Rick wrote: [There seem to be many different types of atheism, that is to say different sets of g[r]o[k]ings that lead to godless views. I've got mine, and mine can beat the pants off yours:) ] > Brett wrote: That's fascinating Rick. Why don't you just go > ahead and outline yours then for the Exi list. ? ;-) > > http://home.centurytel.net/rickw/aonl.htm > > "an enticing tale of the possibilities of transhumanism" it also > outlines much of what I call scientific atheism. Ah "the pitch" then the reposition to the product you actually have ;-). Not what you offered, nor what I asked for. "An unabashed didactic tale; with a message fit only for those whose unique (sic) abilities to grasp new ideas allow them to conceptually soar". This doesn't parse. If the 'abilities' are unique *you* are stuck in a world with no audience. If the abilities are not unique you've erred real early on in saying they are. Perhaps you and I have different concepts of *unique*. Yours doesn't appeal to me. This argument is not a beat-the-pants-off-other-arguments case for atheism. * I* don't think it even beats this one for instance: ---- God would not need to settle for mere *belief*. God would know. God would be an a-theist. I do not need to *believe* in myself I know. ---- Regards, Brett PS: Your 26 page paper may still be entertaining. Perhaps I'll read it later. From neptune at superlink.net Tue Nov 4 01:16:21 2003 From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 20:16:21 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] CryoFeast 2003 References: <46640-220031113211825483@M2W034.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <009f01c3a271$42bd1d00$d3cd5cd1@neptune> On Monday, November 03, 2003 4:18 PM natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: > Would anyone living in Texas like to > join me in preparing the CryoFeast > 2003, Texas location, for Alcor? It > will be located at our home in Austin. Sorry, it's a bit of a trek for me.:) I'm wonder if there's one in the Northeastern US this year. (No time to google, etc.) I went to a couple in Boston a few years ago, but haven't heard of any in the last three years... Cheers! Dan http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/MyWorksBySubject.html From wingcat at pacbell.net Tue Nov 4 01:52:13 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 17:52:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031104015213.93316.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com> --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > It only stands to reason that when solid > verification software and text reading software come > online that are capable of handling these duties, > the job of brokering, and even underwriting will be > left to computers. This can be handled without any > AI. It will only take some very complicated > software. Software that could probably be built > right now if someone wanted to invest millions in > development costs. Such is the cycle of much that is AI at one point: First it is impossible. Then it is AI. Then it is in the lab. Then it is deployable, but expensive. Then it is usable and cheap. Then it is free and ubiquitous. When the ability to translate from rough natural language descriptions to running code becomes free and ubiquitous, we will have passed our current Singularity - but perhaps be able to envision a new one from there. > I have decided that I need to find a new career and > go back to school. The only problem is, what should > I do? > A couple of things I find > fascinating are evolutionary biology and > anthropology. > Nanotechnology seems very interesting, but the > background needed eludes me. Same with biotech. Evolutionary biotech, perhaps? That is, focus on how (and if) we can use various naturally fast and/or artificially accelerated evolutionary processes for, say, rapid drug discovery, or an in-vivo analog to computer science's genetic algorithms. Just an idea, if you're looking for something to latch on to. As others have said, just getting back into college itself is something to pursue - but having at least a general major can help make your plans more concrete. Maybe pick a few ideas, get a college course catalog, and see what all you'd have to take to pursue each of the ideas, so you can start to gel on a path that looks attractive - but definitely keep yourself open to new possibilities and inspirations after you've started, in case what you start out to do turns out to be less desirable than some other path you haven't heard of yet. (E.g.: if you're going for a Bachelor's in evo. biotech, the Bio department - Biology, or Biological Engineering if they have it - will probably tell you what background you need, in the form of which classes you should take first.) From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au Tue Nov 4 02:06:29 2003 From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 12:36:29 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE047@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> > -----Original Message----- > From: Alfio Puglisi [mailto:puglisi at arcetri.astro.it] > Sent: Tuesday, 4 November 2003 3:25 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] A job for me? > > > On Mon, 3 Nov 2003 kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > > >An article I read that analyzes future trends in employment > has me a bit nervous: > >http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,5500,1074083,00.html > > > >Being a mortgage broker for the last few years, I have > enjoyed watching my job become simpler. The technology > improvements so far have made it possible for me to work from home. > >A careful analysis of this trend however has forced me to > accept a frightening possibility. My job may not exist 10 > years from now! > >Currently, many specialized web applications exist that > allow me to put in a customer's application and get an > underwriting decision in minutes. All that is left is > selecting the right loan, gathering the required > documentation, and submitting it to an underwriter who then > decides if that documentation is acceptable to meet the > neccessary guidelines for that particular loan program. At > this point, they prepare loan documents and send them to the > closing agent for closing. > >It only stands to reason that when solid verification > software and text reading software come online that are > capable of handling these duties, the job of brokering, and > even underwriting will be left to computers. This can be > handled without any AI. It will only take some very > complicated software. Software that could probably be built > right now if someone wanted to invest millions in development > costs. In time, it will come. > >This is a business that I know well, and it is all I am > formally trained in with the exception of a 4 year old A+ > certification that isn't worth a dime any more. > >I have decided that I need to find a new career and go back > to school. > > Or, you can find a new career as one of the experts in this > job. Whoever > will make the software will need programmers, funding, and someone who > know what the better strategies are. The programs will need > to be tested, > mantained, upgraded, new ideas must be incorporated in a > sensible way. The > project director must be well versed in the field. Someone > who has already > worked in it before. > > Ciao, > Afio I agree with Afio. It sounds as though you *like* being a mortgage broker, and have no particular plans in other directions. So start up a venture to computerise it yourself, or get involved with someone else who can do it. Between a domain expert such as yourself, and some competent programmer that you can con into helping you gratis (well, for a slice of the pie of course), you could build a server based automated mortgage broking solution a little bit at a time. Just automate the most obviously useful thing first, then the next most obvious thing, and so on. Eventually you might be able to automate the whole job, but in the meantime you'll be able to stay way out in front of your competitors by being able to work more quickly, with higher quality, less errors, and better information, also probably tracking your money from lending institutions better. A decent web based app should also give you the ability to charge other brokers for its use, thereby getting out of direct mortgage broking, and into service provision for other brokers. Eventually, you will eat all of their lunches, but in the meantime they provide you with the path from single operator to automated empire! Emlyn From samantha at objectent.com Tue Nov 4 02:49:46 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 19:49:46 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200311031849.46136.samantha@objectent.com> My story was not too dissimilar until I was 25 or so and decided too finally get around to going to college. After 8 years of no schoolwork I was a bit worried. But it was actually a piece of cake. If anything I had more knowledge of what I wanted and was less distracted than any competing 18 yr olds. I started with 2nd and 3rd year math and computer classes and easily made the dean's list even in the 1st semester. But you are 7 years older you say? Well the best student in one of my hardest computer courses was a 65 yr old former housewife! Pick something you really care about and believe you can make a real difference in or that would make a difference (beyond just the bucks) in your life and how you see yourself. Anything less and you probably won't do your best or fully engage. Look for something you love. Best of Luck! - samantha From spike66 at comcast.net Tue Nov 4 03:15:56 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 19:15:56 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] rhymes with chasm In-Reply-To: <000801c3a1dc$6a1a9570$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <000001c3a281$f6e59db0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Then it occurred to me that there are very few > words that rhyme with orgasm: ...This shortage in > English sure makes it difficult to write poetry... spike And music too! Such an unfortunate shortage relating to nearly everyone's favorite thing. Consider if we were to attempt a modern remake of the Rogers & Hammerstein classic "The Sound of Music". Every moviemaker knows a G rating kills profits, plus the original definitely needs to be sexed up a bit. In the modern version, consider the scene with the thunderstorm and the Von Trapp children are cowering in Sister Maria's room. The key to a successful remake is to cleverly mix the gaggy sweetness of the original with the modern touch: intriguing suggestiveness. Maria instructs that children that when the dog bites, when the bee stings, she thinks of her favorite things. Suggested new version: Raindrops on roses and biting sarcasm, Fluffy warm kittens, a multi-orgasm, Whips, snowflakes, chains, doves And leather cock rings These are a few of my favorite things. etc. Think of how different that movie would have been, had Maria been singing THAT when the Captain burst into the room. It would surely get the desired R rating, and become a box office smash. Granted, the children would have been puzzled. (On the other hand, Leisl seemed a sporty type, and she must have been suspicious by that time of her boy Rolf's orientation, the way he resisted her advances at the gazebo and all the furtive meetings between him and the old butler Hans.) Had Sister Maria sung it the new way, the next scene woulda been the Captain scouring the seedy section of Salzburg to find a 24 hour fetish shop. Word would spread quickly and Von Trapp's Navy buddies would soon be hanging around the old convent looking for some action. This would greatly improve the movie. spike From karen at smigrodzki.org Tue Nov 4 03:38:12 2003 From: karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 22:38:12 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheist Law Center Message-ID: <005801c3a285$12f3e630$6501a8c0@DogHouse> In case anyone is interested, this is a relatively new site: The Atheist Law Center is your advocate, defending the civil rights of atheists and dedicated to the absolute seperation of religion and governments http://www.atheistlaw.org/index.html Karen Rand Smigrodzki All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self- evident. -Arthur Schopenhauer From mlorrey at yahoo.com Tue Nov 4 04:07:57 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 20:07:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] rhymes with chasm In-Reply-To: <000001c3a281$f6e59db0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <20031104040757.87578.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> spasm phantasm ectoplasm phytoplasm ( and all other substances ending in -plasm) schizm any -ism will do as well Then you can go into the whole Snoop Dog dictionary: "skasm yo basm, da bizm ain't profitizm like in de old dizm." --- Spike wrote: > > Then it occurred to me that there are very few > > words that rhyme with orgasm: ...This shortage in > > English sure makes it difficult to write poetry... spike > > And music too! Such an unfortunate shortage relating > to nearly everyone's favorite thing. Consider if we > were to attempt a modern remake of the Rogers & Hammerstein > classic "The Sound of Music". Every moviemaker knows > a G rating kills profits, plus the original definitely > needs to be sexed up a bit. > > In the modern version, consider the scene with the > thunderstorm and the Von Trapp children are > cowering in Sister Maria's room. The key to > a successful remake is to cleverly mix the > gaggy sweetness of the original with the > modern touch: intriguing suggestiveness. > > Maria instructs that children that when the > dog bites, when the bee stings, she thinks > of her favorite things. Suggested new version: > > Raindrops on roses and biting sarcasm, > Fluffy warm kittens, a multi-orgasm, > Whips, snowflakes, chains, doves > And leather cock rings > These are a few of my favorite things. > > etc. > > Think of how different that movie would have been, > had Maria been singing THAT when the Captain > burst into the room. It would surely get the > desired R rating, and become a box office smash. > > Granted, the children would have been puzzled. > (On the other hand, Leisl seemed a sporty type, > and she must have been suspicious by that time > of her boy Rolf's orientation, the way he resisted > her advances at the gazebo and all the furtive > meetings between him and the old butler Hans.) > > Had Sister Maria sung it the new way, the next scene > woulda been the Captain scouring the seedy section > of Salzburg to find a 24 hour fetish shop. > Word would spread quickly and Von Trapp's Navy > buddies would soon be hanging around the old > convent looking for some action. This would > greatly improve the movie. > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From aperick at centurytel.net Tue Nov 4 07:50:32 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick) Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2003 23:50:32 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Brett asked for it In-Reply-To: <200311040314.hA43ECM05525@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a2a8$54c13720$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Good point, I'll think up an additional adjective to modify "unique" so as not to give some confrontational types the idea that I am speaking of a perfectly unique sort. No -- Yes, I can see now that that WAS in fact stupid of me. I shall simply replace unique with rare. I suppose I should also state firstly that I am not perfect. I'll add that too. That I can fuck up. Have done it a lot. My bad for assuming that readers would just know that. And I thought that the form of my last sentence, and the :) at the end would convey that I was joking and intending to keep things light. Did I err there too? Must you hate me before I have truly earned it? From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Tue Nov 4 09:57:14 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 20:57:14 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Brett asked for it References: <000001c3a2a8$54c13720$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Message-ID: <019501c3a2ba$064667c0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Rick wrote: > Good point, I'll think up an additional adjective to modify > "unique" so as not to give some confrontational types the idea > that I am speaking of a perfectly unique sort. No -- Yes, I can > see now that that WAS in fact stupid of me. I shall simply > replace unique with rare. I suppose I should also state firstly that > I am not perfect. I'll add that too. That I can fuck up. Have done > it a lot. My bad for assuming that readers would just know that. > And I thought that the form of my last sentence, and the :) at the > end would convey that I was joking and intending to keep things > light. Did I err there too? Must you hate me before I have truly > earned it? Oh gee. Sorry I was too harsh. I *did* actually go on and read what you wrote. I though it was pretty good - as adult fiction mind - NOT as an intellectual case for atheism ;-). I enjoyed it. Ironically nothing else really poked me in the eye the same way because I adjusted to the notion it wasn't what I'd expected and I didn't need to take it as seriously. There are some flaws in my opinion - one in particular struck me as internally inconsistent. The lack of regard for children (generally) given John's own 'emergence' from pretty pedestrian parents. I'm not perfect either (obviously), we're all works in progress. It's good to have errors pointed out I think and the Exi list is a great place for getting and giving that sort of service. It need not always be that fierce though you are right about that. Your main character seems reminiscent of John Galt by another writer named Rand and the story contains some of what I saw as flaws in Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead, particularly the handling and status of children. (The eugenics case is not that strong in my view). But this line about love "The highest love is love of self. The next highest is love of someone who is nearly identical to one's self -- an offspring, if in the past one has been silly or reckless...." - This didn't work for me. Regards, Brett From jacques at dtext.com Tue Nov 4 11:28:12 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 12:28:12 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Brett asked for it In-Reply-To: <000001c3a239$4265a8a0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> References: <000001c3a239$4265a8a0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Message-ID: <3FA78D4C.2020802@dtext.com> Hi, I haven't (yet) had a closer look at your text, but I was intrigued by Mtebe ("personal knowledge base companion" software). Whatever happened to it? Why don't you (more simply) release it as an Emacs add-on, for people familiar with Emacs? Or was it not worth the trouble? Jacques rick wrote: > Brett wrote: That's fascinating Rick. Why don't you just go ahead and > outline yours then for the Exi list. ? ;-) > > http://home.centurytel.net/rickw/aonl.htm From eugen at leitl.org Tue Nov 4 12:24:05 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 13:24:05 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? In-Reply-To: <20031104015213.93316.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20031104015213.93316.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20031104122405.GP15418@leitl.org> On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 05:52:13PM -0800, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > Such is the cycle of much that is AI at one point: We don't have AI. AI doesn't mean artificial stupidity. Intelligence doesn't mean being an idiot savant. Isolated skills do not cumulate, nor do they magically integrate into a seamless whole -- so far. If we're lucky, we'll see some of it happening in a couple decades. > First it is impossible. It is. > Then it is AI. No, it's still impossible. We haven't made any fundamental advances for two human generations. People still enter text into editors when they want to solve a problem. > Then it is in the lab. > Then it is deployable, but expensive. > Then it is usable and cheap. > Then it is free and ubiquitous. > > When the ability to translate from rough natural > language descriptions to running code becomes free We're still several years away from suffiently accurate speech recognition, a comparatively trivial task. If coupled with a dumb dialog system it's good enough for a natural language UI, but it won't suddenly start improving itself one day it has processing resources to spare. I'd put self-improvement ability at fully interactive Augmented Reality to obtain behaviour constraints from (it would be essentially fully interactive evolutionary programming on steroids and fast-forward). We don't have the hardware base to render anything but the flick part of that. > and ubiquitous, we will have passed our current > Singularity - but perhaps be able to envision a new > one from there. You don't see an event horizont when traversing a singularity. It's all in the eye of the external observer. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Tue Nov 4 12:48:12 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 23:48:12 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheist Law Center References: <005801c3a285$12f3e630$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: <01de01c3a2d1$e88c9de0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Karen Rand Smigrodzki wrote: > In case anyone is interested, this is a relatively new site: > The Atheist Law Center is your advocate, defending the civil > rights of atheists and dedicated to the absolute seperation of > religion and governments > > http://www.atheistlaw.org/index.html Good idea. I wonder if it might help a bit to have one in Australia. I don't think we are as quite as religious as the US. No Scopes Monkey trials or Bible belts etc here. I'd be *slightly* biased towards expecting more reasoning and less believing from atheists but in the end atheism is a pretty small platform and I'm not sure there is sufficient need in a country like Australia. Parliaments do 'kick off' with prayers though and that is kind of annoying - like opening up your email application and getting a dose of Spam first thing every time. I wonder if having prayers actually *encourages* people to start pronouncing their 'beliefs' as if beliefs qua beliefs should count for anything in social exchanges instead of saying that such is what they *think* (which implies at least *some* thought and intellectual processing and some openness to fairly countenance exploratory discussion and counterpoint). If cats could talk I guess we'd hear a lot of heart-felt *beliefs* about birds, mice and dogs. There would be of course nothing *invalid* about the underlying sentiments so expressed but little interesting about countless re-iterations of the same 'catty' summations either. Talking cats might even refine the expression right down to short pithy imperious sound-shots of approval or snorts of disapproval. Eg. Should we kill all the dogs right away Felix and let God sort them out? "I bee-lieve so!". Are mice or birds worthy of any respect or any rights Buffy? - "I bee-lieve NOT! " Cats probably wouldn't bother to go on and try and affix long windy sentences to their statements of belief. They'd just expect that because they are bona fide *cat* beliefs that in itself should be enough for everyone that matters. i.e. Everyone that's a cat. - Brett 8-1 From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Nov 4 15:03:04 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 10:03:04 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031104094736.01f753e8@mail.gmu.edu> [Hi folks. I've been off the list for a while, but thought I'd rejoin in order to mention the following interesting development. RH] The human race has made tremendous progress in the last century, and honestly there's a lot we don't know about how this has been possible. In particular IQ scores, lifespans, and many other things have been improving at rates we do not really know how to explain via the usual suspects. I've just been made aware of the following paper, that suggests many of these improvements have been driven by travel and urbanization induced wider mixing of human mates, which reduces the expression of recessive alleles. It is at least a plausible theory, and it has the clear implication that these improvements will run out as the population approaches "panmixia". Progress might then continue, but at a slower rate than it otherwise would. (Even so, of course, other kinds of progress may make growth rates then higher than now.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.dienekes.com/blog/archives/000354.html The secular rise in IQ: Giving heterosis a closer look by Michael A. Mingroni, forthcoming in Intelligence Although most discussions today start from the assumption that the secular rise in IQ must be environmental in origin, three reasons warrant giving the genetic phenomenon heterosis a closer look as a potential cause. First, it easily accounts for both the high heritability and low shared environmental effects seen in IQ, findings that are difficult to reconcile with environmental hypotheses. Second, numerous other highly heritable traits, both physical as well as psychological, have also undergone large secular changes in parallel with IQ, which is consistent with the occurrence of broad-based genetic change like heterosis. And third, a heterosis hypothesis for the trend can be tested in several straightforward ways. The paper also provides a hypothetical example, based on data from a real population, of how heterosis can result from demographic changes like those that have taken place throughout the developed world in recent history and shows that under certain conditions, even a small demographic change could cause large genetically based phenotypic changes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From bradbury at aeiveos.com Tue Nov 4 15:05:07 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 07:05:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: ISPs get serious Message-ID: Interesting. In Sweden, the primary ISP (Telia) will now start blocking internet access for systems that have been corrupted by trojans that are sending SPAM. Thus one of the most liberal countries in the world is effectively adopting a policy that you don't get to pee in the public fountain. Telia blocks computers that send spam http://presstjanst.telia.se/press/Article.jsp?category=81&selected=2&article=3700 Worth asking oneself -- Do you have a computer running Microsoft software that connects naked to the net? (i.e. via dial-up, cable, satellite, etc. without going through a firewall). If so have you installed *all* of the various security patches Microsoft has distributed for your O.S.? If not, and you are not running very robust virus/worm detection software then you are part of the problem -- and are behaving in an unextropic fashion because you have no idea whether or not your system may be compromised. I had it happen to me (my laptop was once hijacked by some hackers in Eastern Europe in an attempt to win some distributed computing contest). It can happen to you as well. R. From eugen at leitl.org Tue Nov 4 15:55:29 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 16:55:29 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: ISPs get serious In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20031104155529.GW15418@leitl.org> On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 07:05:07AM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote: > Interesting. In Sweden, the primary ISP (Telia) will now > start blocking internet access for systems that have been > corrupted by trojans that are sending SPAM. The usual half-baked knee-jerk vigilante approach. How do they know the machines are compromised, and sending spam? There's no way to know for sure they're compromised without hacking into the machine. Why should ISPs be allowed that? People go to jail for this for a decade, so why shouldn't they? So they're looking at indirect clues, such as control traffic. How can they tell legit from known blackhat, especially if encrypted? Pattern analysis? I just don't see ISP throwing such expertise at petty spam problems -- small ISPs just can't afford the security budgets. (Besides, do you want your ISP to scrutinize *your* traffic at this level of detail? I sure as hell don't, and I'm no blackhat). So that much is bogus, what about the spam claim? They're either bugging their mailserver with a DIY Carnivore -- assuming spammers use their ISP's mail server (thus reading your mail -- you sure you want that?, comparing for similiar mail getting sent out to some number of recipients -- what's the threshold for this? how do you tell this from legit traffic, just as this mailing list?), or looking at traffic analysis (uh-oh, snoop alert) or looking at spam target complaints, which can be an misunderstanding (there are always false positives in RBLs due to idiocy or malice) or a deliberate forgery, trying to shut a service down -- it's a daily occurence with realtime blackhole listings. In short, it's a wrongheaded "solution", fraught with friendly fire. The only way to kill off spam sustainably is 1) end users use MTAs, sending out SMTP traffic (ISP's mail servers don't get hit, users pay for the traffic generated) 2) algorithmic (Bayesian and otherwise) and realtime user-submitted spam classifiers (using pattern matching algorithms derived from bioinformatics) 3) TMDA challenge (expirable token, reply required for automated whitelisting) 4) associating cost (nanograin digicash, computation) with sending mail, a la hashcash (reducing the rate of mail sent out, could be a problem for legit mail traffic -- use a p2p mail infrastructure for that letting customer nodes amplify strongly authenticated message) 5) redesign SMTP (IM2000), so spammers bear the brunt of costs. It will take several of above measures to slowly phase out spam (just a parasite exploiting the weakness of the original system -- you have to harden the system to get rid of it for good). > Thus one of the most liberal countries in the world is > effectively adopting a policy that you don't get to pee > in the public fountain. > > Telia blocks computers that send spam > http://presstjanst.telia.se/press/Article.jsp?category=81&selected=2&article=3700 > > Worth asking oneself -- Do you have a computer running Microsoft software > that connects naked to the net? (i.e. via dial-up, cable, satellite, > etc. without going through a firewall). If so have you installed *all* of > the various security patches Microsoft has distributed for your O.S.? If > not, and you are not running very robust virus/worm detection software > then you are part of the problem -- and are behaving in an unextropic > fashion because you have no idea whether or not your system may be > compromised. The right solution for this is legal liability, and bearing full costs. If people had FastEthernet at home, a compromised server generates several k$ worth of traffic over the weekend. That would put some serious chlorine in the shallow end of the gene pool. > I had it happen to me (my laptop was once hijacked by some hackers > in Eastern Europe in an attempt to win some distributed computing > contest). It can happen to you as well. > > R. > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike66 at comcast.net Tue Nov 4 16:01:43 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 08:01:43 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] immigration into sweden In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3a2ec$f1120f20$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Interesting. In Sweden,... > Thus one of the most liberal countries in the world... Last Saturday at a dinner party, a Swedish friend commented that Sweden was having a huge immigration of middle easterners. I asked if there is a movement afoot to do street signs in both Swedish and Arabic, like we have both English and Spanish in many Taxifornian cities. He seemed rather annoyed with that innocent question. Anders, what did I say? Whats up with that? spike From spike66 at comcast.net Tue Nov 4 16:01:53 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 08:01:53 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: ISPs get serious In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000101c3a2ec$f7412890$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Robert J. Bradbury > Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: ISPs get serious > > I had it happen to me (my laptop was once hijacked by some hackers > in Eastern Europe in an attempt to win some distributed computing > contest). It can happen to you as well... Interesting. I have been speculating for some time that a clever hacker could steal one's idle CPU cycles and do it in such a way that it would be nearly undetectable, even on a laptop, if they weren't too greedy. Yesterday we had someone on primenet report that GIMPS was using only 50% of the idle CPU time, and that a process identifying itself as System Idle Process was using 50%. Surely some hacker has already done it. Now all she need to do is send that to some big company, and she could steal thousands of computers' idle CPU cycles, enough to quickly find the 10million digit prime and win the $100k. spike From amara at amara.com Tue Nov 4 14:54:37 2003 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 16:54:37 +0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eno in 1st Long-term Thinking seminar of the Long Now Foundation Message-ID: (I saw a reference to this on the Boing-boing site. I would go to this if I could be in Bay area at this time. -- Amara) The next speaker, November 14, will be Brian Eno. "On Nov. 14 Brian Eno launches in San Francisco Long Now's series of Seminars About Long-term Thinking, free to the public. At 7pm at Fort Mason every second Friday, the series will include futurist Peter Schwartz, Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, biologist Daniel Janzen, Laurie Anderson, Danny Hillis, George Dyson, and Paul Hawken." ====================== The Long Now Foundation http://www.longnow.org/ The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996** to develop Clock and "Library" projects as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. It has been nearly 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age and the beginnings of civilization. Progress lately is often measured on a "faster/cheaper" scale. The Long Now Foundation seeks to promote "slower/better" thinking and to foster creativity in the framework of the next 10,000 years. ====================== http://www.longnow.org/10klibrary/Seminars.htm The scheduled speakers so far are as follows: 2nd Fridays in 02003 Nov. 14 - Brian Eno "The Long Now" Dec. 12 - Peter Schwartz "The Art of the Really Long View" 2nd Fridays in 02004 Jan. 9 - George Dyson "There's Plenty of Room at the Top: Long-term Thinking About Large-scale Computing" Feb. 13 - James Dewar "Long-term Policy Analysis" (Dewar is head of RAND's new Pardee Center on very long-term policy---35 to 200 years) Mar. 12 - Rusty Schweickart "The Asteroid Threat Over the Next 100,000 Years" Apr. 9 - Daniel Janzen "It's ALL Gardening" (Janzen is the famed preservation biologist based in Costa Rica) May 14 - David Rumsey "Mapping Time" (see his dazzling http://www.davidrumsey.com) ====================== http://www.longnow.org/about/about.htm The Long Now Foundation GUIDELINES: (for a long-lived, long-valuable institution) 1. Serve the long view (and the long viewer). 2. Foster responsibility. 3. Reward patience. 4. Mind mythic depth. 5. Ally with competition. 6. Take no sides. 7. Leverage longevity. -- *********************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario, INAF - ARTOV, Via del Fosso del Cavaliere, 100, I-00133 Roma, ITALIA tel: +39-06-4993-4384 |fax: +39-06-4993-4383 Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it | http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps ************************************************************************ "If you want to make computers that really work, create a design team composed of healthy, active women with lots else to do in their lives and give them carte blanche." --Brian Eno From eugen at leitl.org Tue Nov 4 16:14:30 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 17:14:30 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: ISPs get serious In-Reply-To: <000101c3a2ec$f7412890$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <000101c3a2ec$f7412890$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <20031104161429.GY15418@leitl.org> On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 08:01:53AM -0800, Spike wrote: > Interesting. I have been speculating for some time > that a clever hacker could steal one's idle CPU cycles > and do it in such a way that it would be nearly > undetectable, even on a laptop, if they weren't too You will see it on load monitor (a good rootkit would catch that), and on network traffic (if it's generating a lot of traffic, can be also addressed by a root kit -- will require multiple penetration to address that on embedded firewall level -- ASIC switches and attached LEDs are utterly immune to penetration, unless you smuggle magic dark LED signatures into the factory). Also, most current OSses (with the possible exception of OS X and 2.6 Linux kernel) will become visibly more sluggish. It will take user and use patter detection to make it really stealthy. It could be done, but it's way beyond the skill level of even a good cracker group. > greedy. Yesterday we had someone on primenet report > that GIMPS was using only 50% of the idle CPU time, > and that a process identifying itself as System > Idle Process was using 50%. Surely some hacker > has already done it. Now all she need to do is > send that to some big company, and she could steal Try the Internet. > thousands of computers' idle CPU cycles, enough to How do several million machines sound like? > quickly find the 10million digit prime and win the > $100k. People who can do that probably make more than $100k/month. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From natashavita at earthlink.net Tue Nov 4 16:29:57 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 11:29:57 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eno in 1st Long-term Thinking seminar of the LongNow Foundation Message-ID: <54360-220031124162957294@M2W079.mail2web.com> ----------------- From: Amara Graps >(I saw a reference to this on the Boing-boing site. >I would go to this if I could be in Bay area at this time. >-- Amara) I'd be there to meet you. I'm sorry I go miss this. Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From natashavita at earthlink.net Tue Nov 4 16:29:58 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 11:29:58 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eno in 1st Long-term Thinking seminar of the LongNow Foundation Message-ID: <410-220031124162958964@M2W087.mail2web.com> ----------------- From: Amara Graps >(I saw a reference to this on the Boing-boing site. >I would go to this if I could be in Bay area at this time. >-- Amara) I'd be there to meet you. I'm sorry I go miss this. Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From jonkc at att.net Tue Nov 4 17:09:59 2003 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 12:09:59 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? References: <3FA66265.40505@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <004101c3a2f6$b1cccf30$c7165e0c@hal2001> Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org Wrote: >We're still several years away from suffiently >accurate speech recognition, a comparatively trivial task. I don't think speech recognition is trivial, in fact I don't think computers will get really good at it until they develop some understanding of what is said. Even a human would have difficulty distinguishing "I scream" from "ice cream" if they didn't understand the context the remark was said in. The same is true about machine translation, when they get good at that the era of AI will have arrived. By the way Eugen, I wish you wouldn't send attachments to the list, they're inconvenient and that's the way people get viruses. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From eugen at leitl.org Tue Nov 4 17:41:15 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 18:41:15 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? In-Reply-To: <004101c3a2f6$b1cccf30$c7165e0c@hal2001> References: <3FA66265.40505@mail.tele.dk> <004101c3a2f6$b1cccf30$c7165e0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <20031104174115.GF15418@leitl.org> On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 12:09:59PM -0500, John K Clark wrote: > > I don't think speech recognition is trivial, in fact I don't think computers > will get really good at it until they develop some understanding of what is > said. Even a human would have difficulty distinguishing "I scream" from "ice Yes, but phoneme streams -> word streams -> meaning ambiguities can be simply resolved by natural language processing system forming hypothesis and asking the user in natural language which one she really means. In fact, this simple technology is currently making a lot of telephonist clerks jobless (it eliminates >90% of a typical service call). I agree it takes a real AI to resolve such ambiguities without resorting to lots of grilling the user. > cream" if they didn't understand the context the remark was said in. The > same is true about machine translation, when they get good at that the era An interactive machine translator using above work-arounds could also avoid having to pass a Turing test to work. > of AI will have arrived. By the way Eugen, I wish you wouldn't send > attachments to the list, they're inconvenient and that's the way people get > viruses. Actually, these are digital signatures in RFC 2015 and 3156 standard. They're there to verify that this message is indeed from me, and not a spoof by somebody else or a virus/worm. You seem to be using MS Outlook, a MUA notorious of ignoring Internet standards. See for lots more. Here's a list of mailers with RFC 2015/3156 support: http://www.spinnaker.de/mutt/rfc2015.html I'm not sure whether this plugin for Outlook http://www3.gdata.de/gpg/download.html will fix your mail client, but it's worth a try. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE From bradbury at aeiveos.com Tue Nov 4 18:29:59 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 10:29:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: ISPs get serious In-Reply-To: <000101c3a2ec$f7412890$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Spike wrote: > > > > Robert J. Bradbury > > Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: ISPs get serious > > > > I had it happen to me (my laptop was once hijacked by some hackers > > in Eastern Europe in an attempt to win some distributed computing > > contest). It can happen to you as well... > > > Interesting. I have been speculating for some time > that a clever hacker could steal one's idle CPU cycles > and do it in such a way that it would be nearly > undetectable, even on a laptop, if they weren't too > greedy. My laptop has a feature that when you consume lots of CPU the fan turns on to get rid of the extra heat -- so its kind of obvious when my laptop goes from being normally fan-off (in power saving mode) to fan-on (in heavy CPU-use mode). Since I normally don't use my laptop (its a very old machine) for DC activities it was fairly obvious that *something* strange was going on. The hackers violated the "too greedy" rule (fortunately for my education). After the event -- which was several years ago -- I moved all of my windows machines behind a firewall. I don't trust the security of Microsoft systems as far as I can throw the floppies (or CDs) they are installed from. R. From natashavita at earthlink.net Tue Nov 4 21:00:26 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 16:00:26 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles Message-ID: <119420-22003112421026669@M2W046.mail2web.com> Throughout history there have been riddles that have intrigued and surprised. Riddles such as Fermat's last theorem*; how Solomon bult himself a royal place and solved the riddles sent to him by Hiram; the location of the legendary 'Sogdian Rock' climbed by Alexander's mountaineers somewhere out on the border of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, south-east of Samarkand; who was Kind Arthur; Schrodinger's Riddle, how life evolved from non-life; or who were the people in Mesoamerica who prepared the soil for the Mayan culture. What are some riddles that some bear light, or a shadow, on our extropic transhumanity? All comments welcome. Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From aperick at centurytel.net Tue Nov 4 21:20:57 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 13:20:57 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Brett asked for it, atheism, MTEBE, and the other AI In-Reply-To: <200311041555.hA4FtiM02163@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <6403147.1067980959961.JavaMail.teamon@b106.teamon.com> Great, I for one am having fun now. My "intellectual case for atheism" - well, my position is one of having been convinced by the evidence that everything makes sense without gods -- and an existent god makes no sense. One should only believe according to evidence. And by evidence I mean verifiable evidence as would be accepted by those most schooled and respected in the ways of science. Additionally, when I look at the various religions, from the outside, they all look very stupid indeed - filled with silliness. Their 'explanations' being just what one would expect from a fake source of truth. In my novella Brett sees the following as being "internally inconsistent." The lack of regard for children (generally) given John's own 'emergence' from pretty pedestrian parents. :Rick: I cannot yet see it as an inconsistency, but I'll try, if helped. Brett also questions "the handling and status of children." In Ayn Rand's two fat fat novels. :Rick: I was once the biggest Rand freak ever, but I cannot now recall her treatment of kids. As a radical transhuman, the child thing can go the way of the feces thing. Wow that's wicked harsh - I sound like a sick puppy. I am just so sick of flossing and tending to other health issues; I seem to be losing the view of life -- as its being sacred and all. I wonder just how alone I am in this, age may be a factor here - and one's general health. (I'm 44) Certainly no healthy young person would fail to consider all life as sacred? The down sides of life being, personally, far off. Brett also writes: (The eugenics case is not that strong in my view). :Rick: I had almost deleted the whole eugenics topic. To me it just seemed like a reasonable personal practice. I did not want to think of eugenics as a function of any governing body. I realize that very few people will think of it as I do. If I should ever "publish" the novella I would pull the whole topic. Currently, my purpose for the existence of the novella is more for personal growth and maybe some cruising, as mentioned in the after-word. :Brett: But this line about love "The highest love is love of self. The next highest is love of someone who is nearly identical to one's self -- an offspring, if in the past one has been silly or reckless...." - This didn't work for me. :Rick: I can see how this will rub most parents in an uncomfortable way. But as you can see below; in context the quote is from John - its intent is to show how firmly he is committed to radical transhuman goals. I am trying to show that, for John, it would have to be silly or reckless for HIM to father children. That he already sees breeding as "old school." I know that that does not logically follow. There is no reason that he should not still father a child just because he is a radical transhumanist. But to John, there is no reason that he should. BUT I THINK THAT PERHAPS I WILL PULL PART OF THIS LINE. It has always felt a bit ... icky. The only reason it appeared in the first place is because much of John's young life is taken from my own. At the age of twenty, I fathered a child with my barely eighteen-year-old gal-pal. Possibly viewable as silly and reckless. John's parents bought into most all the absurd ideas common in Christianity; God loves us all equally, requires us to do the same, and endless similar drivel. When, obviously, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others. It was obvious to John, and he would tell you. "The highest love is love of self. The next highest is love of someone who is nearly identical to one's self--an offspring, if in the past one has been silly or reckless, or perhaps a close comrade." :As for MTEBE: Jacques. I abandoned the further development of the Emacs version to rewrite it as a normal Windows application. I got a start on it, learned how to spawn a thread and capture keystrokes while other applications had focus. But the world of windows programming just overwhelmed me. That sort of ap was way too unusual/advanced for a beginner like me. I also quit using MTEBE, not sure all of why, a new Palm device was one reason, oh and there is one ugly little bug in the Emacs version that still eludes me. It does not much affect the functionality. It has to do with some lisp and such, as best I can now recall. I will dig it up and ask for your help with it - may take me a week or two. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.515 / Virus Database: 313 - Release Date: 9/1/2003 From aperick at centurytel.net Tue Nov 4 22:51:51 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 14:51:51 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheist Law Center In-Reply-To: <200311041555.hA4FtiM02163@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <11758376.1067986414364.JavaMail.teamon@b106.teamon.com> What I could use more would be a web list of Atheist Physicians. Doctors stupid enough to believe in god - I believe I am worth better than that. Does anyone here know of an atheist doctor in the Seattle or Tacoma area? --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.515 / Virus Database: 313 - Release Date: 9/1/2003 From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au Tue Nov 4 23:37:21 2003 From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 10:07:21 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheist Law Center Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE04E@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> That's a great idea actually, for pushing the profile of Atheism a bit. There might actually be some demand for a register of various professionals who are self declared atheists. After all, as you say, do you really want a doctor who believes in God? Or one who knows that there's no backstop? Maybe lawyers too? Or is it fairly clear already that none of them believe in anything anyway? ;-) Emlyn > -----Original Message----- > From: aperick at centurytel.net [mailto:aperick at centurytel.net] > Sent: Wednesday, 5 November 2003 8:22 AM > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheist Law Center > > > What I could use more would be a web list of Atheist > Physicians. Doctors > stupid enough to believe in god - I believe I am worth better > than that. > Does anyone here know of an atheist doctor in the Seattle or > Tacoma area? > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.515 / Virus Database: 313 - Release Date: 9/1/2003 > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Tue Nov 4 23:59:29 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 10:59:29 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheist Law Center References: <11758376.1067986414364.JavaMail.teamon@b106.teamon.com> Message-ID: <008d01c3a32f$af987320$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Rick writes: > What I could use more would be a web list of Atheist Physicians. > Doctors stupid enough to believe in god - I believe I am worth > better than that. Good grief. Why should your belief that you are worth better than that have any more influence on supply and demand curves than a doctor's belief in god? > Does anyone here know of an atheist doctor in the Seattle or > Tacoma area? I can't help with what you asked for but I'd be a little concerned for the health of someone that thought the doctors belief in god or not was a poignant question to ask when that same person clearly endorses believing as a meme in some circumstances. Does the doctor have to be smarter than you philosophically as well as a better doctor as well? Alas, poor Rick, I knew him Horratio, he was a fellow of infinite jest ;-) Regards, Brett From bradbury at aeiveos.com Wed Nov 5 00:06:55 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 16:06:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated Message-ID: Terminology: ILE: Indefinite Lifespan Extension -- preferable to "IMMORTALITY" because IMMORTALITY can take too many hits based on the physics of the universe. (Protons decaying, expansion accelerating, black holes consuming everything else, yada yada yada...). Ok, now one of the serious questions that people should be concerned with with respect to ILE is precisely *how* do I get my cake. For those of us on the upside end of 40, or perhaps 30, cryonics enters into the equation. *But* as some of us know cryonics becomes pretty *iffy* if the legal authorities stick their fingers into the works. (Cases in point range from the current situation regarding the Martinot's in France to the case of Dora Kent in the past.) Today's Science News has a case of good-news/bad-news. "Radically New Anti-rejection Drug Shown To Offer Safe Control Of Immune System In Stanford Study" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031104063449.htm The net result of this (and other efforts) to make organ transplants safer, more effective, cheaper, etc. will be to strengthen the arguments of those who desire that organ donation be made mandatory. Now, mandatory organ donation would be extropic if (a) one did not ever under any conditions wish to be reanimated; or (b) whether people were comfortable with head/brain-only preservation and the reconstruction of a body if one so desired. However without one of those two criteria being satisfied it would seem that mandatory organ donation would be a fundamental violation of personal rights. It would appear that we are on a road where at least some states may confiscate parts of your remains to preserve the lives of others whether you feel this is reasonable or not. Discussion? R. From thespike at earthlink.net Wed Nov 5 00:40:30 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 18:40:30 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: Message-ID: <019301c3a335$6bed16c0$ec994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert J. Bradbury" Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 6:06 PM > It would appear that we are on a road where at least some > states may confiscate parts of your remains to preserve > the lives of others whether you feel this is reasonable > or not. maybe, but > For those of us on the upside end of > 40, I suspect we're safe--who'd want *our* raddled old organs? :) Damien Broderick From CurtAdams at aol.com Wed Nov 5 00:42:12 2003 From: CurtAdams at aol.com (CurtAdams at aol.com) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 19:42:12 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down Message-ID: <27.4a870820.2cd9a164@aol.com> In a message dated 11/4/03 7:18:49, rhanson at gmu.edu cites: >http://www.dienekes.com/blog/archives/000354.html > >The secular rise in IQ: Giving heterosis a closer look >by Michael A. Mingroni, forthcoming in Intelligence > >Although most discussions today start from the assumption that the secular >rise in IQ must be environmental in origin, three reasons warrant giving the >genetic phenomenon heterosis a closer look as a potential cause. First,it >easily accounts for both the high heritability and low shared environmental >effects seen in IQ, findings that are difficult to reconcile with >environmental hypotheses. Um, no, that's not right. Heterosis affects are generally *not* highly heritable. For example, take a individual with an AA genotype (inbred, poor phenotype) and cross with a BB genotype (same). All offspring are AB (outbred, good phenotype). By contrast, if a healthy AB mates with a healthy AB, half the offspring are AA and BB, ie, inbred-like, and poor, genotypes. So *better* parents have *worse* offspring - the opposite expected from high heritability. >Second, numerous other highly heritable traits, >both physical as well as psychological, have also undergone large secular >changes in parallel with IQ, which is consistent with the occurrence of >broad-based genetic change like heterosis. But, also with environmental change. Feed people more, they mature earlier and grow taller. That's definitely an environmental change, even though height is a highly genetically heritable trait. >And third, a heterosis hypothesis >for the trend can be tested in several straightforward ways. The paper also >provides a hypothetical example, based on data from a real population, >of how heterosis can result from demographic changes like those that have >taken place throughout the developed world in recent history and shows that under >certain conditions, even a small demographic change could cause large >genetically based phenotypic changes. The last, and most serious strike, is that heterosis effects could have no ongoing effect in countries of recent settlement, such as the US and Canada. You need generations of strong isolation of small villages to get much inbreeding and the US and Canada were founded by individual or small family migrants from the getgo. There was never any inbreeding to dispose of. From etheric at comcast.net Wed Nov 5 01:02:43 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 17:02:43 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: Message-ID: <0b0001c3a338$8718c770$0200a8c0@etheric> Who has property rights over your "dead" body? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert J. Bradbury" To: "Extropy Chat" Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 4:06 PM Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated > > Terminology: > ILE: Indefinite Lifespan Extension -- preferable to > "IMMORTALITY" because IMMORTALITY can take too many > hits based on the physics of the universe. (Protons > decaying, expansion accelerating, black holes consuming > everything else, yada yada yada...). > > Ok, now one of the serious questions that people should > be concerned with with respect to ILE is precisely *how* > do I get my cake. For those of us on the upside end of > 40, or perhaps 30, cryonics enters into the equation. > > *But* as some of us know cryonics becomes pretty *iffy* > if the legal authorities stick their fingers into the works. > (Cases in point range from the current situation regarding > the Martinot's in France to the case of Dora Kent in the past.) > > Today's Science News has a case of good-news/bad-news. > > "Radically New Anti-rejection Drug Shown To Offer Safe Control Of > Immune System In Stanford Study" > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031104063449.htm > > The net result of this (and other efforts) to make organ > transplants safer, more effective, cheaper, etc. will be > to strengthen the arguments of those who desire that organ > donation be made mandatory. > > Now, mandatory organ donation would be extropic if (a) > one did not ever under any conditions wish to be > reanimated; or (b) whether people were comfortable with > head/brain-only preservation and the reconstruction of a > body if one so desired. However without one of those two > criteria being satisfied it would seem that mandatory > organ donation would be a fundamental violation of > personal rights. > > It would appear that we are on a road where at least some > states may confiscate parts of your remains to preserve > the lives of others whether you feel this is reasonable > or not. > > Discussion? > > R. > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From rhanson at gmu.edu Wed Nov 5 02:15:14 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 21:15:14 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down In-Reply-To: <27.4a870820.2cd9a164@aol.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031104211136.01e5fee8@mail.gmu.edu> On 11/4/2003, Curt Adams wrote: > >http://www.dienekes.com/blog/archives/000354.html > >The secular rise in IQ: Giving heterosis a closer look > >by Michael A. Mingroni, forthcoming in Intelligence > > > >Although most discussions today start from the assumption that the secular > >rise in IQ must be environmental in origin, three reasons warrant giving the > >genetic phenomenon heterosis a closer look as a potential cause. First,it > >easily accounts for both the high heritability and low shared environmental > >effects seen in IQ, findings that are difficult to reconcile with > >environmental hypotheses. > >Um, no, that's not right. Heterosis affects are generally *not* highly >heritable. For example, take a individual with an AA genotype (inbred, >poor phenotype) and cross with a BB genotype (same). All offspring are >AB (outbred, good phenotype). By contrast, if a healthy AB mates with >a healthy AB, half the offspring are AA and BB, ie, inbred-like, and poor, >genotypes. So *better* parents have *worse* offspring - the opposite >expected from high heritability. Maybe you should read the paper first? The topic is average changes, not the change in each possible case. > >Second, numerous other highly heritable traits, > >both physical as well as psychological, have also undergone large secular > >changes in parallel with IQ, which is consistent with the occurrence of > >broad-based genetic change like heterosis. > >But, also with environmental change. Feed people more, they mature >earlier and grow taller. That's definitely an environmental change, >even though height is a highly genetically heritable trait. We don't actually know how much nutrition can account for height changes. >The last, and most serious strike, is that heterosis effects could have no >ongoing effect in countries of recent settlement, such as the US and Canada. >You need generations of strong isolation of small villages to get much >inbreeding >and the US and Canada were founded by individual or small family migrants from >the getgo. There was never any inbreeding to dispose of. You might be right, but I don't think we have the data to support your claim with any confidence. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From sentience at pobox.com Wed Nov 5 03:03:38 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2003 22:03:38 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3FA8688A.1000202@pobox.com> Robert J. Bradbury wrote: > > The net result of this (and other efforts) to make organ > transplants safer, more effective, cheaper, etc. will be > to strengthen the arguments of those who desire that organ > donation be made mandatory. In the US they'd run into severe problems with First Amendment religious separation, since Judaic law has problems with organ donation. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Nov 5 03:02:30 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 19:02:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20031104211136.01e5fee8@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <20031105030230.71102.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> --- Robin Hanson wrote: > >You need generations of strong isolation of small villages to get > >much inbreeding and the US and Canada were founded by individual > > or small family migrants from > >the getgo. There was never any inbreeding to dispose of. > > You might be right, but I don't think we have the data to support > your claim with any confidence. Especially since the claim is wrong. Historically, rural America, which was most of America prior to the 20th century, was heavily homogenous and inbred. Social instruments prevented ethnic, religious, and caste cross breeding. Catholics, Jews, Orthodox, and Protestants all looked down on marrying outside one's religion. Same thing with ethnic groups, some times to very violent degrees of enforcement (lynching for whites and blacks marrying). Well educated parents looked down on marrying uneducated, wealthy looked down on marrying beneath ones own kind. There was little upward mobility by marriage in pre-20th century America, all socio-economic mobility occured via industriousness, but still did not remove social pressures against crossing ethnic and religious barriers. Even with the westward migration, ethnic groups tended to cluster unto themselves. Germanics, Norwegian, Swedes, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, Hispanics, Italians, etc all tended to cluster, and when the clustered, they inbred. Nor could those with the short end of the stick escape this in most cases. Despite the egalitarian rhetoric of US history, most of the US for most of its history represents a story of local communities enforcing patron-client relationships, where one's future relied on what one's last name was. Without cheap transportation, most individuals never moved more than 20 miles from their place of birth. Once the automobile became widely available, individuals from anywhere could move anywhere else, start new lives, meet new people, and create new identities. Where you came from became much less important than what you did and where you were going. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Nov 5 03:07:41 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 19:07:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031105030741.36892.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Robert J. Bradbury" wrote: > > It would appear that we are on a road where at least some > states may confiscate parts of your remains to preserve > the lives of others whether you feel this is reasonable > or not. > > Discussion? 14th Amendment, end of story. You own your body. When you die, it is part of your estate. Any state that would confiscate your body parts is fascist and should be moved out of ASAP. I would not be surprised if people's republics like Taxifornia and Washington adopted such policies. I don't mind, it will keep pushing more people to move to the Free State. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From Karen at smigrodzki.org Wed Nov 5 03:43:25 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 22:43:25 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: Message-ID: <004701c3a34e$f8349cc0$6501a8c0@DogHouse> > The net result of this (and other efforts) to make organ > transplants safer, more effective, cheaper, etc. will be > to strengthen the arguments of those who desire that organ > donation be made mandatory. > > Now, mandatory organ donation would be extropic if (a) > one did not ever under any conditions wish to be > reanimated; or (b) whether people were comfortable with > head/brain-only preservation and the reconstruction of a > body if one so desired. However without one of those two > criteria being satisfied it would seem that mandatory > organ donation would be a fundamental violation of > personal rights. > > It would appear that we are on a road where at least some > states may confiscate parts of your remains to preserve > the lives of others whether you feel this is reasonable > or not. I don't know where you live, but some states do something very similar. Some states have "opt-out" provisions which mandates that you opt-out beforehand or else your organs will be snatched. This doesn't sound so bad, as long as people know they have to register to opt-out; what happens in application of the law is that organ snatchers can take your organs anyway if they don't see your opt-out card. There is a widespread lack of respect for the deceased's wishes throughout the world. In many places, the deceased's relatives can successfully change oppose the expressed desires of the decedent as to disposition of organs/body. There are some systems around the world in which organ donation is mandatory. Brazil is one such country. I do agree with your view that it seems a violation of fundamental rights. Additionally, it is my view that prohibition of contracts for the sale of organs (either non-vitals which can be taken from living donors or vitals for taking after death of seller) is also a violation of fundamental rights. It violates the rights of those who want to earn the money by selling; and also the rights of those who are essentially condemned to a life of painful treatments or to death from organ failure because governments don't want would-be gifters of organs to "miss the pleasure of the gratification of having made this decision purely out of altruism" (Quoting Dr. Pereira, President, National Kidney Foundation on 8/8/2003 on 20/20 in response to John Stossel's question of why selling organs should be illegal.) Karen > > Discussion? > From Karen at smigrodzki.org Wed Nov 5 03:50:03 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 22:50:03 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <20031105030741.36892.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <005b01c3a34f$fd33cc40$6501a8c0@DogHouse> ----- From: "Mike Lorrey" > --- "Robert J. Bradbury" > > > > It would appear that we are on a road where at least some > > states may confiscate parts of your remains to preserve > > the lives of others whether you feel this is reasonable > > or not. > > > > Discussion? > > 14th Amendment, end of story. You own your body. When you die, it is > part of your estate. Any state that would confiscate your body parts is > fascist and should be moved out of ASAP. I would not be surprised if > people's republics like Taxifornia and Washington adopted such > policies. I don't mind, it will keep pushing more people to move to the > Free State. > > ===== > Mike Lorrey You are, I assume, stating what you think the law SHOULD be and not what it IS. It is clear that the body and it's parts are NOT property under the law. When you die, your body does NOT become property of the estate. Your guess of Taxifornia being one which would take your organs is on target. They have the opt-out law that I was mentioning in my previous response to this topic. I am not sure about Washington. I can find out, if you need it. karen From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Nov 5 03:41:24 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 14:41:24 +1100 Subject: [Extropy-chat] Stem cells, starts of life, politics and religion Message-ID: <006701c3a34e$afc7f680$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Next steps in the great dance between science and religion - where science discovers and then religion adapts (but only through the agency of some of its better minds). This can be seen happening in this little article. I recently met Archbishop Peter Carnley at the opening of the National Stem Cell Centre inaugural conference. We chatted amiably until I said I was a catholic who became an atheist - and he retorted I should have become an Anglican :-) Peter Carnley (head of the Anglican Church in Australia) talks in an article in today's edition of The Age about the origins of the religious notion of 'conception' in 1869 and how that notion of conception and the notion of when the human individual life begins must change now in the modern world to avoid logical inconsistency, and further, how this can enable stem cell research (i.e. "therapeutic cloning") to be seen as ethical - God bless Peter Carnley, gentleman and scholar ;-) http://theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/04/1067708217596.html Regards, Brett From Karen at smigrodzki.org Wed Nov 5 04:03:39 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 23:03:39 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <3FA8688A.1000202@pobox.com> Message-ID: <006501c3a351$e43a72a0$6501a8c0@DogHouse> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" > Robert J. Bradbury wrote: > > > > The net result of this (and other efforts) to make organ > > transplants safer, more effective, cheaper, etc. will be > > to strengthen the arguments of those who desire that organ > > donation be made mandatory. > > In the US they'd run into severe problems with First Amendment religious > separation, since Judaic law has problems with organ donation. > > -- > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence That would be the problem; however, they are getting around that now by not making it really mandatory since you can opt-out. Even this method though, if they piss enough people off by taking organs of opted-outs-for-religious-reasons then this opt-out law could be challenged on First Amendment bases. karen From spike66 at comcast.net Wed Nov 5 03:58:04 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 19:58:04 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <20031105030741.36892.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a351$04ad4a90$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Mike Lorrey >...I would not be surprised if > people's republics like Taxifornia and Washington adopted such > policies... Taxifornia isn't even the people's republic anymore. Its the animal's republic, and even the plant's republic in many cases. spike From Karen at smigrodzki.org Wed Nov 5 04:23:08 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 23:23:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <20031105030741.36892.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> <005b01c3a34f$fd33cc40$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: <008a01c3a354$8426edf0$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Can anyone in CA confirm that it is an opt-out (aka "presumed consent") state? I can't find my reference for it, and I want to correct if I am falsely accusing. thanks, karen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karen Rand Smigrodzki" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 10:50 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated > ----- >surprised if > > people's republics like Taxifornia and Washington adopted such > > policies. I don't mind, it will keep pushing more people to move to the > > Free State. > > > > ===== > > Mike Lorrey > > You are, I assume, stating what you think the law SHOULD be and not > what it IS. It is clear that the body and it's parts are NOT property under > the law. When you die, your body does NOT become property of the estate. > Your guess of Taxifornia being one which would take your organs is on > target. They have the opt-out law that I was mentioning in my previous > response to this topic. I am not sure about Washington. I can find out, if > you need it. > > karen > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From karen at smigrodzki.org Wed Nov 5 04:06:43 2003 From: karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 23:06:43 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare Message-ID: <007a01c3a352$392afc30$6501a8c0@DogHouse> For those interested: Space Weather News for Nov. 5, 2003 http://spaceweather.com Giant sunspot 486 unleashed another intense solar flare on Nov. 4th (1950 UT), and this one could be historic. The blast saturated X-ray sensors onboard GOES satellites. The last time this happened, in April 2001, the flare that saturated the sensors was classified as an X20--the biggest ever recorded at the time. Yesterday's flare appears to have been even stronger. --karen From reason at exratio.com Wed Nov 5 06:31:42 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 22:31:42 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <004701c3a34e$f8349cc0$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Karen Rand Smigrodzki > --- "Robert J. Bradbury" wrote: > > The net result of this (and other efforts) to make organ > > transplants safer, more effective, cheaper, etc. will be > > to strengthen the arguments of those who desire that organ > > donation be made mandatory. > > > > Now, mandatory organ donation would be extropic if (a) > > one did not ever under any conditions wish to be > > reanimated; or (b) whether people were comfortable with > > head/brain-only preservation and the reconstruction of a > > body if one so desired. However without one of those two > > criteria being satisfied it would seem that mandatory > > organ donation would be a fundamental violation of > > personal rights. > > > > It would appear that we are on a road where at least some > > states may confiscate parts of your remains to preserve > > the lives of others whether you feel this is reasonable > > or not. Two points: 1) The current organ transplant situation (i.e. shortages, lack of research on making things safer, cheaper, etc) exists because the government outlaws trade in organs; i.e. sets the value of an organ to zero. With no financial incentive to give up organs (either before or after death), people don't. With less financial incentive to improve the technology associated with the current system, people don't. If you want to improve the system, get rid of existing dumb legislation; don't layer more dumb legislation on top...a cry into the void, but there you have the truth of it. Actions follow market incentives; no incentive, no action. 2) We've been heading down the road to the state owning your body for quite the while. How can the legislature put in place any law that regulates what you can do to yourself, with yourself, by yourself (e.g. drugs, body modification, suicide, organ donation, etc, etc, etc) without the presumption of ownership of your body? Reason http://www.exratio.com/ From CurtAdams at aol.com Wed Nov 5 06:34:36 2003 From: CurtAdams at aol.com (CurtAdams at aol.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 01:34:36 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down Message-ID: In a message dated 11/4/2003 6:16:21 PM Pacific Standard Time, rhanson at gmu.edu writes: >Maybe you should read the paper first? The topic is average changes, not >the change in each possible case. I did. They were citing the (well demonstrated) heritability of intelligence (ie. the correlation between relatives, so more or less what I was talking about) as evidence for heterosis as a major effect in IQ increase. My point is that fact is evidence *against* heterosis. High heterosis shows up as large effects neither heritable nor enviromental and will be noise on almost any study I've seen. The main effect of heterosis is an otherwise inexplicable similarity between siblings in that they will resemble each other but *not* their parents. >>But, also with environmental change. Feed people more, they mature >>earlier and grow taller. That's definitely an environmental change, >>even though height is a highly genetically heritable trait. >We don't actually know how much nutrition can account for height changes. Not exactly. but there are large differences between sibs raised in different countries. It's certainly a major influence. >>You need generations of strong isolation of small villages to get much >>inbreeding >>and the US and Canada were founded by individual or small family migrants from >>the getgo. There was never any inbreeding to dispose of. >You might be right, but I don't think we have the data to support your claim >with any confidence. You could get it by looking at the ancestral villages of samples of people in North American colonial villages. I'd think somebody's done something like that although I'd not know of it. I have a friend studying American Revolutionary history/sociology and I'll ask her if she knows anything on this. From reason at exratio.com Wed Nov 5 06:40:47 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 22:40:47 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Robert J. Bradbury > Terminology: > ILE: Indefinite Lifespan Extension -- preferable to > "IMMORTALITY" because IMMORTALITY can take too many > hits based on the physics of the universe. (Protons > decaying, expansion accelerating, black holes consuming > everything else, yada yada yada...). > > Ok, now one of the serious questions that people should > be concerned with with respect to ILE is precisely *how* > do I get my cake. For those of us on the upside end of > 40, or perhaps 30, cryonics enters into the equation. > > *But* as some of us know cryonics becomes pretty *iffy* > if the legal authorities stick their fingers into the works. > (Cases in point range from the current situation regarding > the Martinot's in France to the case of Dora Kent in the past.) I think I would go so far as to say that the entirety of the "cake or not" question revolves around government interference. My take is that we're probably 30 years away from the start of aging as a chronic but controlled condition, *IF* there are clear skies and freedom for fundraising, activism, education and research. There are no show-stopping hurdles beyond a lot of work and a lot of money - exactly the same thing that could have been said about cancer 30 years ago. This time could easily double if politicians and anti-progress forces really dig in and fight seriously to halt medical progress towards ILE...which they show all the signs of doing. Already, scientific progress in regenerative medicine is far behind where it could have been. Reason http://www.exratio.com From CurtAdams at aol.com Wed Nov 5 06:45:11 2003 From: CurtAdams at aol.com (CurtAdams at aol.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 01:45:11 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down Message-ID: <115.2ae8ba41.2cd9f677@aol.com> In a message dated 11/4/2003 7:07:58 PM Pacific Standard Time, mlorrey at yahoo.com writes: >Especially since the claim is wrong. Historically, rural America, which >was most of America prior to the 20th century, was heavily homogenous >and inbred. Social instruments prevented ethnic, religious, and caste >cross breeding You need a *lot* of inbreeding for the effects the authors are talking about. For an inbred village, you'd need centuries. And somehow, in spite of all these impediments, the average american "black" is 1/3 European genetically (with a LOT of variance on that). Seems we did a pretty good job of x-breeding. It takes very little x-breeding to obliterate genetic differences. Over time, literally one lone event per generation for the entire population pretty much does the trick. From CurtAdams at aol.com Wed Nov 5 06:50:12 2003 From: CurtAdams at aol.com (CurtAdams at aol.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 01:50:12 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated Message-ID: <11b.2a35e647.2cd9f7a4@aol.com> In a message dated 11/4/2003 8:13:08 PM Pacific Standard Time, Karen at smigrodzki.org writes: >Can anyone in CA confirm that it is an opt-out (aka "presumed consent") >state? I can't find my reference for it, and I want to correct if I am >falsely accusing. No formal reference, sorry, but last I paid attention to this (years ago) it was "opt-in" by placing a "donor" sticker on one's driver's license. My 6 month old license still has a spot for the sticker. From cphoenix at best.com Wed Nov 5 07:04:08 2003 From: cphoenix at best.com (Chris Phoenix) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 02:04:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> Rick wrote: > One should only believe according to evidence. And by evidence I mean > verifiable evidence as would be accepted by those most schooled and > respected in the ways of science. Is science really a good arbiter of evidence? Until recently, I thought it was. It appears to be ideal: a distributed-intelligence process, backed up by experiment every step of the way. But I've run across a few things that have made me question whether it actually works very well in practice. A major source of discomfort is an excellent book, _Discovering_ by Robert Scott Root-Bernstein. I think this book is to the American scientific establishment what Atlas Shrugged is to socialism, except that _Discovering_ also contains practical advice. Scientific theories, even the most elegant ones, are simply approximations that are good enough until something better comes along. It's easy to think that this implies continuous improvement and means we must be getting really close to the truth now--and perhaps in a few areas we are. But a look at the variety of atomic theories (one of many things explored in the book) shows that scientists spent decades working with theories that wouldn't satisfy a high school chemistry student today--not noticing how inadequate they were, because the theories spent decades being quite adequate for what the scientists were doing with them. But this isn't the worst of it. Scientific answers are decided by consensus. In theory this means that every answer is carefully checked--yeah, and in theory, communism is a fair system. One of the strongest lessons of the book is that scientists usually see what they look for. Especially in the centers of scientific endeavor. Scientists who are good at finding what they expect to find produce fewer controversial results. And predictable results are easier to write grants for. And long careers in one field are a good way to stop innovating. So, the way to maximize funding (and minimize exploration) is to reach a consensus as soon as possible--doesn't matter if it's right, as long as it's good enough to run predictable experiments--and stick to it as long as possible. (Actually, I don't think this last is directly stated in the book, but it's pretty obvious.) I've seen this at work in the way the "most respected" scientists (and the bureaucrats they're symbiotic with) have closed ranks against molecular nanotechnology. No one comes up with a serious argument against it--they just do a bit of handwaving and pretend that they've debunked it. The scary thing is that this works. The final straw came a few nights ago, when I remembered something I'd been trying for a year to forget. One evening last summer, my wife suddenly got a pain in her lower ribs, in a place she'd never had pain before, bad enough that we canceled our plans to go for a walk so I could rub her back (and this had never happened before either). When I started the massage, she said, "How come the more you touch me there, the more I want to cry?" A few minutes later, the pain went away. And a few hours after that, we learned that her brother had been killed in a motorcycle accident within a few minutes of that time, and his lower ribs had been run over. Obviously this is not scientific evidence, it's not a repeatable phenomenon, and it leads to no useful theory. I don't ask anyone else to accept it or act on it; that's not the point. The point is: Is it more "scientific" for me to ignore it, or to accept that it happened and I can't explain it and it might be significant? Any scientist worth their salt would tell me that, since there's no such thing as ESP, there must be some mundane explanation. I told myself that for a year. But I'm becoming convinced that this is the wrong answer. It's the answer that makes scientists see only what they expect to see, every time. Science cannot progress if it can't deal with the unexpected, and science without progress is dead. But modern science, it seems, has only two categories: Things that can be studied with the scientific method, and things that cannot be addressed. There is no category anymore for observations that cannot be categorized, but only catalogued. If there is such a thing as a mundane theory that makes ESP possible, science will find it only by chance. It's heresy even to look. Not long before I read _Discovering_, I participated in a discussion on another list in which a philosopher/chemist made statements like "Science is not about truth." My defense of science was energetic and often verged on scornful. But now I'm wondering whether I owe that guy an apology. Where is the truth in "Since your observation is impossible, it must be meaningless"? How is truth advanced by funding mostly research based on well-established theory? Why is it that the phrase "peer reviewed grant proposal" is not universally horrifying to scientists? Now, to get back to the quote that started this screed: "...evidence as would be accepted by those most schooled and respected in the ways of science." Would this be Richard Smalley, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry? And who recently wrote that an ordinary chemical reaction involves five to fifteen atoms? I guess he's never heard of flame chemistry, or the formation of ozone in the upper atmosphere? Well, maybe he wasn't thinking too hard. He wrote this--and Scientific American printed it--in an attempt to discredit molecular nanotechnology. We must hope that individual scientists are less reliable than science as a whole--otherwise the entire institution is bankrupt! But your criterion requires asking the opinion of individuals, applying methods designed for groups, to insufficient data, outside their field. I really think you'd do better to ask a lawyer; they're trained to deal with unfamiliar information and find weaknesses in strange arguments. Personally, I'd most rather have Richard Feynman evaluate my evidence; but I think he would've been too humble to give the kind of official scientific opinion you're looking for. A Google search for "Feynman religion" found some reviews of _The Meaning of It All_. Amazon quotes him thus: "In case you are beginning to believe that some of the things I said before are true because I am a scientist and according to the brochure that you get I won some awards and so forth, instead of your looking at the ideas themselves and judging them directly...I will get rid of that tonight. I dedicate this lecture to showing what ridiculous conclusions and rare statements such a man as myself can make." And according to a review on ePinions, "His recurrent theme is freedom of thought: the freedom to doubt, to investigate, and to believe. For example, when noting the two legacies of western civilization - the "scientific spirit of adventure" and "Christian ethics" - Feynman concludes that these two legacies are "logically, thoroughly, consistent." We must be free to doubt and question to find new answers, and we must be free to believe and base our actions in a morality larger than ourselves." http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0738201669/102-2708461-0320925?v=glance http://www.epinions.com/book-review-60F8-58F600-3905B39B-prod5 Note: I'm not saying that science should study religion, or should subordinate itself to religion--I'm not talking about religion or anything mystical at all. What I am saying is that even in areas where science could make a contribution, it is usually unwilling to stretch itself far enough to follow up the interesting clues. And the scientific establishment is responsible for an unforgivable waste of potential talent, because people who could have been creative investigators are instead turned into grant-grubbing conformists. (Some scientists escape, but many do not; and those who remain creative often have to resort to lying or stealing to pursue their interesting research.) I'd almost go so far as to say that modern science can't claim credit for its successes, because they happened as much despite the institution as because of it. I'll end with a quote from Isaac Newton. "I don?t know what I may seem to the world, but as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered all before me." How many scientists today would be willing to admit that their work is not even wading into the "ocean of truth"? Are they greater scientists than Newton, or are they completely missing the point? Chris -- Chris Phoenix cphoenix at CRNano.org Director of Research Center for Responsible Nanotechnology http://CRNano.org From sentience at pobox.com Wed Nov 5 07:11:27 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 02:11:27 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day Message-ID: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> Ones and zeroes. We can see them completely and clearly; the entire realm is absolutely under our control; it is a world that we built and that runs entirely on our rules. Destroying the intruder is as easy as making the decision. And yet we still can't get rid of spam. Active shields against grey goo? Yeah, right. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Nov 5 07:59:13 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 18:59:13 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> Message-ID: <014001c3a372$b4492e80$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > Ones and zeroes. We can see them completely and clearly; > the entire realm is absolutely under our control; it is a world > that we built and that runs entirely on our rules. Destroying > the intruder is as easy as making the decision. > > And yet we still can't get rid of spam. > > Active shields against grey goo? Yeah, right. I don't mean to be a smart arse Eliezer, I mean I *really* don't mean to be, but I seem to be having a little trouble winding in the hyper-philosopher at present and it is in that context that I wonder if your starting assertion is correct. I think maybe your angst(?) about grey goo, rolled back to concern about spam may further roll back to an essential misunderstanding in your first proposition. We can see 1s and 0's completely and clearly (but not in context) taken one digit at a time but we *never* encounter there meaning without some other contextual information accompanying them to tell us what the 1's and 0's mean. A one can be a 'label' like the number on ones address eg. 1 First Street, or the digit or numeral or symbol 1 (or 0) can mean other things. Further the 1's and 0's when put together in streams don't simply convey extra potential arithmetic meaning, the new combinations to the interpreter of the message (as opposed to the writer) who may not be sure of the intended context (faces geometric) increases in potential meaning. Context is vital to readers of symbols even in binary bitstreams. If the reader can't discern some sort of additional meta context from the writer that is not contained in just the bitstreams then the reader is doomed to flounder around in infinite possible interpretations. Or so it seems to me. In practice of course in human interactions we don't encounter bitstreams without context we always have some context and no particular human ever lived in a world of bitstreams before they lived in a social world. The bitstreams are therefore fundamental in a way, but secondary in another way. What was fundamental to the first counters or imbue-ers of meaning to bitstreams was some extra context between conveyers of a message. Context cannot be contained in a disembodied message. Perhaps that is as clear as mud. But I'm not stuck with grey goo or spam problems I'm stuck with people who really don't seem to know what they are talking about. (No specific slur or insult intended at all - I'm speaking matter of factly as that's just how things are seeming to me at present.) Regards, Brett From thespike at earthlink.net Wed Nov 5 08:13:46 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 02:13:46 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> <014001c3a372$b4492e80$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <012f01c3a374$bfb8d0c0$ec994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brett Paatsch" Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 1:59 AM [communication is contextually framed and understood] > Perhaps that is as clear as mud. Nope, standard semiotic theory. (My THEORY AND ITS DISCONTENTS goes into this in some detail, FWIW.) Damien Broderick From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Nov 5 10:45:46 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 21:45:46 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> Message-ID: <018601c3a389$f887c400$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Chris Phoenix writes: > Rick wrote: > > One should only believe according to evidence. And by > > evidence I mean verifiable evidence as would be accepted > > by those most schooled and respected in the ways of > > science. > Is science really a good arbiter of evidence? Until recently, > I thought it was ... I don't think any external process can arbitrate evidence for one. One must weight and arbitrate 'evidence' personally. Else one has not weighted or arbitrated at all. There is a difference between reckoning and believing. There is no nonsense or self serving rationalisation in reckoning. It's being honest with oneself. I really have no idea what is going on in peoples heads who say that they believe. I think sometimes they are reckoning but with huge delays in the re-evaluation of the data and re- examination of the premises. The old mariners used dead- reckoning, constantly checking stars, winds, speed of the boat through the water etc, they didn't have certain GPS-like knowledge of their proximity to things like landmasses but they could approximate and continuously re-approximate in an ongoing relationship with the evidence. One could not do a group dead-reckoning as I understand because the chattering and nattering would screw up the good reckoners attention on the scarce data sources. One might be able to show others how to reckon or explain later but to do it well optimally and to describe it or teach it at the same time would be impossible. Compared with reckoning like the good mariners used to do, I don't think most people who say they believe are mapping 'reckoning' and 'believing' to the same process. Reckoning is qualitatively better, but it is necessarily a solitary exercise as it goes on continually in real time. I think you may be anthropomorphising science which is ultimately not a unitary judge but a shared and cross-subjective way of seeing. Science never directs itself - subjective individuals or practitioners of the scientific method direct their attention to places and describe to each other the method they employed and the other can then see if they get the same result. Their is a sort of cross-subjective feedback happening but not true objectivity it seems to me. What purpose would subjective beings have with true objectivity anyway - it seems to me that such is a detachment not even to be wished. No. Objectivity as talked about even by scientists is not true objectivity it is rather a collective specie of shared subjectivity. Subjective individuals have no use for objective seeing only for shared subjective seeing and for personal seeing and not in that order. [snip] > Scientific theories, even the most elegant ones, are simply > approximations that are good enough until something better > comes along. It's easy to think that this implies continuous > improvement and means we must be getting really close to > the truth now--and perhaps in a few areas we are. Perhaps because we are endeavouring to accommodate reality as perceived by other subjunctive-s we direct our investigations to the areas where the other subjective-s we want to commune with require. We don't have to, but for the most part most of us choose to. But all subjective-s want to accommodate so as to overcome some exogenous realities (illness, discomfort etc) that although still subjectively experienced are universally felt and we combine our resources with those of others to . > Scientific answers are decided by consensus. [anthropomorphising science as something that has answers - it doesn't scientist's do and they share a method] > In theory this means that every answer is carefully checked No. > --yeah, and in theory, communism is a fair system. > One of the strongest lessons of the book is that scientists > usually see what they look for. Of course, unless they are looking for something new. > Especially in the centers of scientific endeavor. Scientists > who are good at finding what they expect to find produce > fewer controversial results. And predictable results are > easier to write grants for. And long careers in one field are > a good way to stop innovating. So, the way to maximize > funding (and minimize exploration) is to reach a consensus > as soon as possible--doesn't matter if it's right, as long as it's > good enough to run predictable experiments--and stick to it > as long as possible. (Actually, I don't think this last is directly > stated in the book, but it's pretty obvious.) > > I've seen this at work in the way the "most respected" > scientists (and the bureaucrats they're symbiotic with) > have closed ranks against molecular nanotechnology. No > one comes up with a serious argument against it--they just > do a bit of handwaving and pretend that they've debunked > it. . > The scary thing is that this works. No it doesn't. It just appears to for a time. You are forgetting the dead-reckoners who sometimes don't give a shit for what other people think or more precisely they factor what they think other people think (they practice politics and pyschology the fiends :-) ! ) and upset the whole applecart by reckoning also on the slow moving dim-wits and believers as well. It adds an entirely new dimension to the game because science then seems like merely a planar axis on a 3d space, with the whole interplay between people filling out the 3rd dimension - Metaphorically speaking of course. > The final straw came a few nights ago, when I remembered > something I'd been trying for a year to forget. One evening > last summer, my wife suddenly got a pain in her lower ribs, > in a place she'd never had pain before, bad enough that we > cancelled our plans to go for a walk so I could rub her back > (and this had never happened before either). :-) > When I started the massage, she said, "How come the more > you touch me there, the more I want to cry?" A few minutes > later, the pain went away. And a few hours after that, we > learned that her brother had been killed in a motorcycle > accident within a few minutes of that time, and his lower > ribs had been run over. > > Obviously this is not scientific evidence, it's not a repeatable > phenomenon, and it leads to no useful theory. I don't ask > anyone else to accept it or act on it; that's not the point. Obviously. But its not scientific evidence for more reasons than the obvious one. > The point is: Is it more "scientific" for me to ignore it, or to > accept that it happened and I can't explain it and it might be > significant? Any scientist worth their salt would tell me that, > since there's no such thing as ESP, there must be some > mundane explanation. I started a skeptic society at uni. I know what you mean about any scientist worth their salt having no truck with ESP, but that is like saying that scientist don't think UFOs exist. The acronym through wide usage loses some of the subtley of the separate words and takes on a meaning of its own. Eg. A lot of folk with use UFO as another word for flying saucer etc. But to say a short sighted duck shooter a lots of birds are clearly unidentified flying objects :-). And a saucer can be thrown does that mean it is not flying. A jet engine sort of catapults an aeroplane along with a series of explosions as I understand each explosion could be a throw. I think much of the fog lifts if you unpack ESP into extra sensory perception. Then you think well what are the existing senses that would be added to. The 5. But then one realises (or can ) that those 5 are just arbitrary classifications of sensory input. Why include pressure and heat sensing under just one term of touch for instance. When the sensors are arbitrarily clustered into 5 categories then what is an Extra sense? I hardly care except that some geezer will expect me to know the conventional 5 to talk to him or her. > I told myself that for a year. But I'm becoming convinced that > this is the wrong answer. It's the answer that makes scientists > see only what they expect to see, every time. Science cannot > progress if it can't deal with the unexpected, and science > without progress is dead. No your still anthropomorphising science. Science does not have any sense of progress. Progress is a subjective judgement or a collective of subjective judgements summed. Who is included in the polling of subjective-s summed will of course effect the net rating of progress too. To Tasmanian aborigines of the 1800's there has been little progress since then as they were wiped out. > But modern science, it seems, has only two categories: Things > that can be studied with the scientific method, and things that > cannot be addressed. It is not science that divides things into two classes it is individuals and groups of individuals in agreement with each other. > There is no category anymore for observations that cannot be > categorized, but only catalogued. If there is such a thing as a > mundane theory that makes ESP possible, science will find it > only by chance. Science qua science ain't even looking (it can't) :-) > It's heresy even to look. > > Not long before I read _Discovering_, I participated in a > discussion on another list in which a philosopher/chemist > made statements like "Science is not about truth." Either that was what was said or it was not. "Like" is not helpful here. > My defence of science was energetic and often verged on > scornful. I think science did not care and that you were defending instead your own world view ;-) > But now I'm wondering whether I owe that guy an apology. > Where is the truth in "Since your observation is impossible, it > must be meaningless"? Hang on a unicorn is impossible in some senses but the word unicorn is not meaningless. > How is truth advanced by funding mostly research based > on well-established theory? Why is it that the phrase "peer > reviewed grant proposal" is not universally horrifying to > scientists? Partly, I suspect because some scientists practice the scientific method amongst a variety of other practices for their own subjective good (and don't anthropomorphise it) - the rascals ;-) > Now, to get back to the quote that started this screed: > "...evidence as would be accepted by those most schooled > and respected in the ways of science." Would this be > Richard Smalley, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry? Ah, see you have to judge that for yourself now. You have to dead-reckon not just on the world as seen by Smalley but on the world with subjective Smalley in it as subjective participate. > And who recently wrote that an ordinary chemical > reaction involves five to fifteen atoms? I guess he's never > heard of flame chemistry, or the formation of ozone in the > upper atmosphere? Well, maybe he wasn't thinking too > hard. He wrote this--and Scientific American printed it-- > in an attempt to discredit molecular nanotechnology. . > We must hope that individual scientists are less reliable > than science as a whole--otherwise the entire institution is > bankrupt! What's hope got to do with it? Do some reckoning ;-) > But your criterion requires asking the opinion of individuals, > applying methods designed for groups, to insufficient data, > outside their field. I really think you'd do better to ask > a lawyer; they're trained to deal with unfamiliar information > and find weaknesses in strange arguments. . > Personally, I'd most rather have Richard Feynman evaluate > my evidence; Then it would be his evidence. And there would be no god but Feynman and you may be lucky to be his prophet ;-). > but I think he would've been too humble to give the kind of > official scientific opinion you're looking for. A Google search > for "Feynman religion" found some reviews of _The Meaning > of It All_. Amazon quotes him thus: > "In case you are beginning to believe that some of the things > I said before are true because I am a scientist and according > to the brochure that you get I won some awards and so forth, > instead of your looking at the ideas themselves and judging > them directly...I will get rid of that tonight. I dedicate this > lecture to showing what ridiculous conclusions and rare > statements such a man as myself can make." > > And according to a review on ePinions, > "His recurrent theme is freedom of thought: the freedom to > doubt, to investigate, and to believe. For example, when > noting the two legacies of western civilization - the "scientific > spirit of adventure" and "Christian ethics" - Feynman > concludes that these two legacies are "logically, thoroughly, > consistent." We must be free to doubt and question to find > new answers, and we must be free to believe and base our > actions in a morality larger than ourselves." [snip] My summary - Chris I think you are anthropomorhising science all over the place here. I was going to cut all the above down to that comment - but heck some folks just might appreciate a little redundancy (my apologies to the others). Regards, Brett From samantha at objectent.com Wed Nov 5 10:42:18 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 03:42:18 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> Message-ID: <200311050242.18744.samantha@objectent.com> On Tuesday 04 November 2003 23:11, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Ones and zeroes. We can see them completely and clearly; the entire realm > is absolutely under our control; it is a world that we built and that runs > entirely on our rules. Uh, the world includes *us* and many of us are not good little digital citizens at all. *We* use these digital tools and thus *we* are what needs some control, not the simple world of 1's and 0's (not that it is very so simple either). And no, the world of programs itself does not run entirely on our rules or at least we have very imperfect understanding of the implications and interactions of the rules we thought to impose with one another and the world they are embedded within. > Destroying the intruder is as easy as making the > decision. > Hardly. First you must determine what is and is not an intruder. This is non-trivial. Then you must determine what is the appropriate amount of destruction or other action to acheive the desired result with a minimum of side-effects. OOPS, I left out that you must formulate with some clarity what the goal state is. > And yet we still can't get rid of spam. > > Active shields against grey goo? Yeah, right. Actually, handling spam is not an implausible warm-up exercise. - samantha From eugen at leitl.org Wed Nov 5 11:12:27 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 12:12:27 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: <200311050242.18744.samantha@objectent.com> References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> <200311050242.18744.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <20031105111227.GQ15418@leitl.org> On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 03:42:18AM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote: > > And yet we still can't get rid of spam. Eliezer is mentioning another major human factor: the response is sluggish and unfocused. Effective tools exist, but are not deployed. There's no problem awareness, and where there is the responses are reflexive and mindless. There's every reason to suspect response to a military molecular self-replicator would be similiarly confused and ineffective, even though a countermeasure is available (I don't think there's a countermeasure which can protect ecology effectively -- there's a lot of activity at the physical layer which will destroy biology by side effect). > > > > Active shields against grey goo? Yeah, right. > > Actually, handling spam is not an implausible warm-up exercise. The problem domain is different. It's more like a wormvirus running rampant in physical space. Except that the sysadmins are unavailable, no one can pull the plug on physical layer nor fragment the network, there's physical locality, the countermeasure shares the physical layer, needs to adaptively autoamplify (or rapidly transported from a local prestocked cache) while protecting the biosphere. In other words, it's a lot like wormvirus control, except it's entirely different. No one who goes on two legs can currently provide an analysis worth the dead tree it's printed on. It doesn't look good, though. The best protection is that there's typically a slow advance in capabilities of both the agent and the countermeasure, and that ability and malice rarely occur in the same group. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sentience at pobox.com Wed Nov 5 11:17:08 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 06:17:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> Message-ID: <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> Chris Phoenix wrote: > > The final straw came a few nights ago, when I remembered something I'd > been trying for a year to forget. One evening last summer, my wife > suddenly got a pain in her lower ribs, in a place she'd never had pain > before, bad enough that we canceled our plans to go for a walk so I > could rub her back (and this had never happened before either). When I > started the massage, she said, "How come the more you touch me there, > the more I want to cry?" A few minutes later, the pain went away. And > a few hours after that, we learned that her brother had been killed in a > motorcycle accident within a few minutes of that time, and his lower > ribs had been run over. > > Obviously this is not scientific evidence, it's not a repeatable > phenomenon, and it leads to no useful theory. I don't ask anyone else > to accept it or act on it; that's not the point. The point is: Is it > more "scientific" for me to ignore it, or to accept that it happened and > I can't explain it and it might be significant? Any scientist worth > their salt would tell me that, since there's no such thing as ESP, there > must be some mundane explanation. I told myself that for a year. But > I'm becoming convinced that this is the wrong answer. It's the answer > that makes scientists see only what they expect to see, every time. > Science cannot progress if it can't deal with the unexpected, and > science without progress is dead. But modern science, it seems, has > only two categories: Things that can be studied with the scientific > method, and things that cannot be addressed. There is no category > anymore for observations that cannot be categorized, but only > catalogued. If there is such a thing as a mundane theory that makes ESP > possible, science will find it only by chance. It's heresy even to > look. I don't ask anyone not to catalog these kinds of incidents, or not to investigate them, or not to try and repeat them under experimental controls. Nonetheless, I am willing to assert flatly that nothing paranormal happened. What is the ordinary-world explanation? Well, for all I know, you are posting this story as a test to see if anyone tries to explain it away, give it a pseudo-rational explanation when in fact you just made it up and there *is* no explanation for why that sort of thing would happen under the laws of physics, because it didn't. I do not need to try and give your story an ordinary-world explanation; even if I can't think of any ordinary-world explanation at all, I am nonetheless confident enough in my understanding of the universe to not feel discomfited. This world is my home, and I know it now, and I know the world doesn't work that way. There are a few things left that I don't know yet, but the remaining uncertainty does not have enough slack in it to permit ESP. This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so it is a simulation of a world without ESP. Supposing that I try to think of an "ordinary" explanation for your story, what springs to mind? Several things. I don't know if the name "Elizabeth Loftus" rings any bells; but human memory is far, far more pliable than people like to think. It is possible for a researcher, by asking leading questions, to create a memory completely out of fabric - for example, of being lost in the mall as a child - and later the person will not remember that it is a false memory. Did your wife really have a pain in her lower ribs, or her back? Did you learn about her brother's death a few hours later, or a day? "How come the more you touch me there, the more I want to cry?" sounds to me like not at all the sort of thing that is said spontaneously, but very easily the sort of thing that might be "recalled" afterward. It's a scary thing, but no, you would *not* know if the memory was wildly distorted - that is the message of the literature on memory pliability. In effect, it seems that each time a memory is recalled, it is written back to long-term memory anew. Then there is the selection bias, applied to you personally: You have an entire life to select from to try and recall strange events. There is the selection bias from my perspective; one person on a mailing list has one strange moment in their lives, but that's what repeated. Is the horrifying malleability of human memory, combined with selection biases, enough to explain the incident as you have reported it? Possibly, though it still strikes me as a bit of a stretch. Regardless, people who have studied the cognitive science of human error tend to be much more wary of people's memories - not their honesty, mind you, but their honestly reported memories - than non-CSers. I expect that plenty of people on Earth have memories of events for which there is no rational explanation, because they never happened. People are also very poor at guessing how improbable events really are - again, just as a general statement. Your story, if taken at face value, strikes me as improbable too - but the fact that it strikes me as improbable might simply not be significant. Or it might be. But my intuitive evaluation of the improbability is not to be trusted, even as to rough order of magnitude. What permanently zaps the paranormal explanation is not studying physics, or studying the history of science, or reading the accounts of debunked psychics - it's studying the cognitive science of human error. The literature on this has to be seen to be believed. The human mind is so wildly fragile, so wildly wrong on so many simple problems, that our physics is simply more reliable than any anecdote that can be cited against it. *Any* anecdote. Yes, even anecdotes that really, really seem like they can't be explained away. The human mind is genuinely that weak; physics is genuinely that strong. It doesn't matter whether the explanation I gave is correct. There's no ESP in the universe, no paranormal phenomena, no gods, no demons. It's just us within the laws of physics. That's the upshot, whatever the explanation is - whether you made up the anecdote as a test, or whether human memory is horrifyingly (and replicably) pliable, or whether some other ordinary event happened. If you haven't reached that point of confidence, then by no means should you attempt to convince yourself of it artificially. It took me a long time to reach the point where I was ready to say that, and it is not at all what I was thinking when I started out. But you know... it really is normal. It's all normal. And if you look at it long enough, there's enough evidence to see that it's normal. I hope that helps. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From amara at amara.com Wed Nov 5 10:38:21 2003 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 12:38:21 +0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare Message-ID: yes, indeed.. region sunspot 486 is remarkable See more from that region http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_10_28/ *Hear* more from that region: (click on the audio link in the middle of the page) http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/space-audio/t2003_301_11.html >Space Weather News for Nov. 5, 2003 >http://spaceweather.com >Giant sunspot 486 unleashed another intense solar flare on Nov. 4th (1950 >UT), and this one could be historic. The blast saturated X-ray sensors >onboard GOES satellites. This CME is off of Sun's limb, though (Earth won't be as strongly affected). http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_11_04/ Watch the skies in a few days. The aurora's might be extra pretty... (last week's auroras reached as far south as Florida) http://science.nasa.gov/spaceweather/aurora/gallery_01oct03_page8.html -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "It seems like once people grow up, they have no idea what's cool." --Calvin From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Nov 5 12:33:25 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 23:33:25 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> Message-ID: <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so > it is a simulation of a world without ESP. I reckon (without believing) that it is NOT a sim and could NOT easily be a sim. I think that to entertain the notion that it is is to run the risk of repeating (now dead) Pascal's wager and betting the same wrong way. Of betting that there is a super-natural being that is going to come to the rescue like Santa Claus. I prefer to work with friends and the resources that I have, rather than fret over the resources I don't have. I am not malicious and I will deal with maliciousness if I must with resolution and ferocity of my own. I can see no advantage or change in my habits that I would make if I thought the world was a sim. I would probably have more allies and friends if less people entertained the sim hypothesis so much but so be it. I think that if no-one can come up with a reliable test, (group test - science or solitary test - pure reason) to see if the world is a sim then it would be better to step around what looks like an iteration of the same old mindfuk, to put away childish things and to concentrate minds and energies on the tasks at hand. Regards, Brett From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Nov 5 12:41:11 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 23:41:11 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <119420-22003112421026669@M2W046.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <01d001c3a39a$1806dd60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Natasha writes: > Throughout history there have been riddles that have intrigued > and surprised. Riddles such as Fermat's last theorem*; how > Solomon bult himself a royal place and solved the riddles sent > to him by Hiram; the location of the legendary 'Sogdian Rock' > climbed by Alexander's mountaineers somewhere out on the > border of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, south-east of Samarkand; > who was Kind Arthur; Schrodinger's Riddle, how life evolved > from non-life; or who were the people in Mesoamerica who > prepared the soil for the Mayan culture. > > What are some riddles that some bear light, or a shadow, on our extropic > transhumanity? Here's one - what *political* purpose was served by postulating the notion (and/or propagating the meme) of god as a trinity? i.e. Three persons - one god. Why three in particular (pace Pythagoras ;-) ? Regards, Brett From gregburch at gregburch.net Wed Nov 5 13:11:04 2003 From: gregburch at gregburch.net (Greg Burch) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 07:11:04 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: What Neil Armstrong Really Said In-Reply-To: <01d001c3a39a$1806dd60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: http://www.blogjam.com/neil_armstrong/ Don't visit this page at the office if you've got co-workers with sensitive ears. My blog: http://www.gregburch.net/burchismo.html From sentience at pobox.com Wed Nov 5 13:17:09 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> Message-ID: <3FA8F855.4000307@pobox.com> Chris Phoenix wrote: > > The final straw came a few nights ago, when I remembered something I'd > been trying for a year to forget. One evening last summer, my wife > suddenly got a pain in her lower ribs, in a place she'd never had pain > before, bad enough that we canceled our plans to go for a walk so I > could rub her back (and this had never happened before either). When I > started the massage, she said, "How come the more you touch me there, > the more I want to cry?" A few minutes later, the pain went away. And > a few hours after that, we learned that her brother had been killed in a > motorcycle accident within a few minutes of that time, and his lower > ribs had been run over. Chris, I would like to share a similar story to yours. Not very long ago - just a couple of weeks, in fact - I got an instant message on my computer from a friend, asking me to call. Just that, and nothing more. For some reason, when I saw the message, I was filled with a terrible sinking conviction that something really awful had gone wrong. I reminded myself that the probability that something had gone terribly wrong, conditioned on the text of the instant message, was just exactly the same as it would have been in the absence of any emotional reaction. Drawing on the strength of my knowledge of the genuine non-eerieness of the universe, I flipped open my cellphone and called. Nothing was wrong. That was *two weeks ago*. Opportunities to generate eerie stories are much more frequent than one might think. But the failures are not reported. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From maxm at mail.tele.dk Wed Nov 5 13:34:07 2003 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 14:34:07 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> Message-ID: <3FA8FC4F.70203@mail.tele.dk> Chris Phoenix wrote: > The final straw came a few nights ago, when I remembered something I'd > been trying for a year to forget. One evening last summer, my wife > suddenly got a pain in her lower ribs, in a place she'd never had pain > before, bad enough that we canceled our plans to go for a walk so I > could rub her back (and this had never happened before either). When I > started the massage, she said, "How come the more you touch me there, > the more I want to cry?" A few minutes later, the pain went away. And > a few hours after that, we learned that her brother had been killed in a > motorcycle accident within a few minutes of that time, and his lower > ribs had been run over. "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" - "after the fact, therefore because of the fact" It is very ordinary to think like that. When things happens simultaniously that they are in some way related. That is the way our brain naturally reacts, because it has historically given us a greater chance of survival. After all you will not be given many chances to create a statistical analysis, showing if a predator really is dangerous or not. But it is like a lottery winner saying "I have never played Lotto before, but a hunch made me do it. And I won. That must be proof of the supernatural." When enough random events take place, impossible combinations will happen. And lotto winners do win. We are about 6 billion people on the planet. Living about 100 years. So I guess that about 60 million people die worldvide every year. Deaths are a traumatic experience that we remember well. We also naturally think back to "what was I doing when my loved one died?" And with the minds affinity to link events together, we will try and link everything we can with a death. That is why there are many stories of preminiscence. They are just not real. Rather they are examples of random events happening at roughly the same time, and then being "connected" by our brains. regards Max M From scerir at libero.it Wed Nov 5 14:57:43 2003 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:57:43 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <119420-22003112421026669@M2W046.mail2web.com> <01d001c3a39a$1806dd60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <000601c3a3ad$2b3be0c0$91b31b97@administxl09yj> Brett Paatsch > Here's one - what *political* purpose was served by postulating > the notion (and/or propagating the meme) of god as a trinity? i.e. Three > persons - one god. Why three in particular (pace Pythagoras ;-) ? "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost [...]" - Matthew 28:19 There is a trend. The number of Gods, within a single religion, becomes (|Sp,true>|Je,false>+|Sp,false>|Je,true>)+ +|Fa,false>(|Sp,true>|Je,true>) which, circulating Father, Spirit, and Jesus in that expression, shows up a very interesting property. From jef at jefallbright.net Wed Nov 5 15:49:39 2003 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 07:49:39 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> <014001c3a372$b4492e80$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <00d901c3a3b4$7e5c8820$6401a8c0@int.veeco.com> Brett - I think Eliezer's post was intended more as poetry, rather than the more comprehensive style for which he is well known. It should be appreciated for the idea or feeling that it conveys. Fewer words, crafted to replicate the intended message in the mind of the audience, can be a truer form of communication than a scientific dissertation. Or not. - Jef Brett Paatsch wrote: > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > >> Ones and zeroes. We can see them completely and clearly; >> the entire realm is absolutely under our control; it is a world >> that we built and that runs entirely on our rules. Destroying >> the intruder is as easy as making the decision. >> >> And yet we still can't get rid of spam. >> >> Active shields against grey goo? Yeah, right. > > I don't mean to be a smart arse Eliezer, I mean I *really* don't > mean to be, but I seem to be having a little trouble winding in > the hyper-philosopher at present and it is in that context that > I wonder if your starting assertion is correct. I think maybe your > angst(?) about grey goo, rolled back to concern about spam may > further roll back to an essential misunderstanding in your first > proposition. > > We can see 1s and 0's completely and clearly (but not in context) > taken one digit at a time but we *never* encounter there meaning > without some other contextual information accompanying them to > tell us what the 1's and 0's mean. A one can be a 'label' like the > number on ones address eg. 1 First Street, or the digit or numeral > or symbol 1 (or 0) can mean other things. > > Further the 1's and 0's when put together in streams don't simply > convey extra potential arithmetic meaning, the new combinations > to the interpreter of the message (as opposed to the writer) who > may not be sure of the intended context (faces geometric) > increases in potential meaning. > > Context is vital to readers of symbols even in binary bitstreams. > If the reader can't discern some sort of additional meta context > from the writer that is not contained in just the bitstreams then > the reader is doomed to flounder around in infinite possible > interpretations. Or so it seems to me. In practice of course > in human interactions we don't encounter bitstreams without > context we always have some context and no particular human > ever lived in a world of bitstreams before they lived in a social > world. The bitstreams are therefore fundamental in a way, but > secondary in another way. What was fundamental to the first > counters or imbue-ers of meaning to bitstreams was some extra > context between conveyers of a message. Context cannot > be contained in a disembodied message. > > Perhaps that is as clear as mud. But I'm not stuck with grey goo > or spam problems I'm stuck with people who really don't seem > to know what they are talking about. (No specific slur or insult > intended at all - I'm speaking matter of factly as that's just how > things are seeming to me at present.) > > Regards, > Brett > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From spike66 at comcast.net Wed Nov 5 16:26:19 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 08:26:19 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <01d001c3a39a$1806dd60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <000001c3a3b9$8b667210$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > Brett Paatsch > > Here's one - what *political* purpose was served by postulating > the notion (and/or propagating the meme) of god as a > trinity? i.e. Three > persons - one god. Why three in particular (pace Pythagoras ;-) ? > > Regards, > Brett The early christian church had already split into two major branches by the second century, one preaching that jesus was god, the other that he was a man. They were already killing each other over it, and there weren't even very many christians at the time, so the trinity notion was an attempt to reunify the group, kinda like the World Wrassling Federation and the World Wildlife Foundation reunification match. The major split was avoided for more than a thousand years that way. The glossed verses 1 John 5:7 and 8 were invented as support. Politically a unified church was stronger. Why three? Well, why not? spike From jacques at dtext.com Wed Nov 5 16:34:38 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 17:34:38 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: <00d901c3a3b4$7e5c8820$6401a8c0@int.veeco.com> References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> <014001c3a372$b4492e80$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <00d901c3a3b4$7e5c8820$6401a8c0@int.veeco.com> Message-ID: <3FA9269E.1000803@dtext.com> Jef Allbright wrote: > > I think Eliezer's post was intended more as poetry, rather than the more > comprehensive style for which he is well known. I think Eliezer's style often has a genuine literary quality, that is not at all exclusive of or predominant on its rational quality and knowledge value. By the way: >>Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: >> >>>And yet we still can't get rid of spam. Mozilla mail 1.5 (trained) + SpamAssassin (even without non-local tests) solves it for me. Of course it's only an individual solution, and I still download the crap, so I don't disagree with your statement, but just in case someone is unaware of this possibility... Jacques From spike66 at comcast.net Wed Nov 5 16:37:21 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 08:37:21 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <3FA8FC4F.70203@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <000a01c3a3bb$15cbde80$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > > Chris Phoenix wrote: > ... > > a few hours after that, we learned that her brother had > > been killed in a > > motorcycle accident within a few minutes of that time, and his lower > > ribs had been run over. Remarkable! Only a few months ago, I was out riding a motorcycle, and when I got home I learned my wife had gotten a pain in her ribs. It happened right while I was out on the bike! In the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, some subset of my probability distribution wavefunction gets squashed every time I go out riding, so in some alternate universe, she got the rib pain *right at the same time I was nailed.* spike From jacques at dtext.com Wed Nov 5 16:38:10 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 17:38:10 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Rick's Text In-Reply-To: <000001c3a239$4265a8a0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> References: <000001c3a239$4265a8a0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Message-ID: <3FA92772.4090606@dtext.com> rick wrote: > > http://home.centurytel.net/rickw/aonl.htm > > "an enticing tale of the possibilities of transhumanism" it also > outlines much of what I call scientific atheism. I've read it. Though... and... and of course... it was still a nice little read. I liked the confrontational aspect of it, and the child's agressivity in chapter 2. I thought it was quite funny. Of course, the whole atheism thing would have meant more to me when I was 14. Since that time, it stopped being a hot topic to me. I guess it means more to you in the US, where belief is still the norm. Here's a bit of personal experience, very much contrary to the one of your main character. My parents were believers (father protestant, mother catholic), but eager to make me independent from them and always respectful for and interested in my own beliefs and ideas (of course, I am still a bit angry at them that they would pour such nonsense in my head when I was a child). With time and discussions, they became atheist, too (so I redeemed them :-). Jacques From jef at jefallbright.net Wed Nov 5 17:01:44 2003 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 09:01:44 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> Message-ID: <014201c3a3be$817cf670$6401a8c0@int.veeco.com> I think it's interesting and worth pointing out that superstition, post-modernism, decontructionalism, and other forms of anti-science fit *perfectly* into the scientific worldview. All parts fit perfectly into the whole. Even if the whole keeps getting bigger. Even if in the Godellian sense we can never grasp it in its entirety. It's fun to arrange and re-arrange the pieces of the puzzle as we try to map it onto the greater reality that we experience in bits and chunks. - Jef Chris Phoenix wrote: > Rick wrote: >> One should only believe according to evidence. And by evidence I mean >> verifiable evidence as would be accepted by those most schooled and >> respected in the ways of science. > > Is science really a good arbiter of evidence? Until recently, I > thought it was. It appears to be ideal: a distributed-intelligence > process, backed up by experiment every step of the way. But I've run > across a few things that have made me question whether it actually > works very well in practice. > > A major source of discomfort is an excellent book, _Discovering_ by > Robert Scott Root-Bernstein. I think this book is to the American > scientific establishment what Atlas Shrugged is to socialism, except > that _Discovering_ also contains practical advice. > > Scientific theories, even the most elegant ones, are simply > approximations that are good enough until something better comes > along. It's easy to think that this implies continuous improvement > and means we must be getting really close to the truth now--and > perhaps in a few areas we are. But a look at the variety of atomic > theories (one of many things explored in the book) shows that > scientists spent decades working with theories that wouldn't satisfy > a high school chemistry student today--not noticing how inadequate > they were, because the theories spent decades being quite adequate > for what the scientists were doing with them. But this isn't the > worst of it. > > Scientific answers are decided by consensus. In theory this means > that every answer is carefully checked--yeah, and in theory, > communism is a fair system. One of the strongest lessons of the book > is that scientists usually see what they look for. Especially in the > centers of scientific endeavor. Scientists who are good at finding > what they expect to find produce fewer controversial results. And > predictable results are easier to write grants for. And long careers > in one field are a good way to stop innovating. So, the way to > maximize funding (and minimize exploration) is to reach a consensus > as soon as possible--doesn't matter if it's right, as long as it's > good enough to run predictable experiments--and stick to it as long > as possible. (Actually, I don't think this last is directly stated in > the book, but it's pretty obvious.) > > I've seen this at work in the way the "most respected" scientists (and > the bureaucrats they're symbiotic with) have closed ranks against > molecular nanotechnology. No one comes up with a serious argument > against it--they just do a bit of handwaving and pretend that they've > debunked it. The scary thing is that this works. > > The final straw came a few nights ago, when I remembered something I'd > been trying for a year to forget. One evening last summer, my wife > suddenly got a pain in her lower ribs, in a place she'd never had pain > before, bad enough that we canceled our plans to go for a walk so I > could rub her back (and this had never happened before either). When > I started the massage, she said, "How come the more you touch me > there, the more I want to cry?" A few minutes later, the pain went > away. And a few hours after that, we learned that her brother had > been killed in a motorcycle accident within a few minutes of that > time, and his lower ribs had been run over. > > Obviously this is not scientific evidence, it's not a repeatable > phenomenon, and it leads to no useful theory. I don't ask anyone else > to accept it or act on it; that's not the point. The point is: Is it > more "scientific" for me to ignore it, or to accept that it happened > and I can't explain it and it might be significant? Any scientist > worth their salt would tell me that, since there's no such thing as > ESP, there must be some mundane explanation. I told myself that for > a year. But I'm becoming convinced that this is the wrong answer. > It's the answer that makes scientists see only what they expect to > see, every time. Science cannot progress if it can't deal with the > unexpected, and science without progress is dead. But modern > science, it seems, has only two categories: Things that can be > studied with the scientific method, and things that cannot be > addressed. There is no category anymore for observations that cannot > be categorized, but only catalogued. If there is such a thing as a > mundane theory that makes ESP possible, science will find it only by > chance. It's heresy even to look. > > Not long before I read _Discovering_, I participated in a discussion > on another list in which a philosopher/chemist made statements like > "Science is not about truth." My defense of science was energetic and > often verged on scornful. But now I'm wondering whether I owe that > guy an apology. Where is the truth in "Since your observation is > impossible, it must be meaningless"? How is truth advanced by funding > mostly research based on well-established theory? Why is it that the > phrase "peer reviewed grant proposal" is not universally horrifying to > scientists? > > Now, to get back to the quote that started this screed: "...evidence > as would be accepted by those most schooled and respected in the ways > of science." Would this be Richard Smalley, who won the Nobel Prize > for chemistry? And who recently wrote that an ordinary chemical > reaction involves five to fifteen atoms? I guess he's never heard of > flame chemistry, or the formation of ozone in the upper atmosphere? > Well, maybe he wasn't thinking too hard. He wrote this--and > Scientific American printed it--in an attempt to discredit molecular > nanotechnology. > > We must hope that individual scientists are less reliable than science > as a whole--otherwise the entire institution is bankrupt! But your > criterion requires asking the opinion of individuals, applying methods > designed for groups, to insufficient data, outside their field. I > really think you'd do better to ask a lawyer; they're trained to deal > with unfamiliar information and find weaknesses in strange arguments. > > Personally, I'd most rather have Richard Feynman evaluate my evidence; > but I think he would've been too humble to give the kind of official > scientific opinion you're looking for. A Google search for "Feynman > religion" found some reviews of _The Meaning of It All_. Amazon > quotes him thus: > "In case you are beginning to believe that some of the things I said > before are true because I am a scientist and according to the brochure > that you get I won some awards and so forth, instead of your looking > at the ideas themselves and judging them directly...I will get rid of > that tonight. I dedicate this lecture to showing what ridiculous > conclusions and rare statements such a man as myself can make." > > And according to a review on ePinions, > "His recurrent theme is freedom of thought: the freedom to doubt, to > investigate, and to believe. For example, when noting the two > legacies of western civilization - the "scientific spirit of > adventure" and "Christian ethics" - Feynman concludes that these two > legacies are "logically, thoroughly, consistent." We must be free to > doubt and question to find new answers, and we must be free to believe > and base our actions in a morality larger than ourselves." > > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0738201669/102-2708461-0320925?v=glance > http://www.epinions.com/book-review-60F8-58F600-3905B39B-prod5 > > Note: I'm not saying that science should study religion, or should > subordinate itself to religion--I'm not talking about religion or > anything mystical at all. What I am saying is that even in areas > where science could make a contribution, it is usually unwilling to > stretch itself far enough to follow up the interesting clues. And the > scientific establishment is responsible for an unforgivable waste of > potential talent, because people who could have been creative > investigators are instead turned into grant-grubbing conformists. > (Some scientists escape, but many do not; and those who remain > creative often have to resort to lying or stealing to pursue their > interesting research.) I'd almost go so far as to say that modern > science can't claim credit for its successes, because they happened > as much despite the institution as because of it. > > I'll end with a quote from Isaac Newton. "I don't know what I may > seem to the world, but as to myself, I seem to have been only like a > boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then > finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst > the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered all before me." How many > scientists today would be willing to admit that their work is not > even wading into the "ocean of truth"? Are they greater scientists > than Newton, or are they completely missing the point? > > Chris From Karen at smigrodzki.org Wed Nov 5 17:43:49 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 12:43:49 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <11b.2a35e647.2cd9f7a4@aol.com> Message-ID: <002f01c3a3c4$6281ff30$6501a8c0@DogHouse> ok. thanks. i will have to find my source and check it. k ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 1:50 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated > In a message dated 11/4/2003 8:13:08 PM Pacific Standard Time, > Karen at smigrodzki.org writes: > > >Can anyone in CA confirm that it is an opt-out (aka "presumed consent") > >state? I can't find my reference for it, and I want to correct if I am > >falsely accusing. > > No formal reference, sorry, but last I paid attention to this (years ago) it > was "opt-in" by placing a "donor" sticker on one's driver's license. My > 6 month old license still has a spot for the sticker. > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From natashavita at earthlink.net Wed Nov 5 17:39:33 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 12:39:33 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] DEBATE: AAAS - Sprott vs. de Grey Message-ID: <63340-22003113517393351@M2W087.mail2web.com> Forwarded from Steve Coles: "The one-hour debate went off as scheduled with the small technicality that you couldn't just 'tune in' at the appointed hour without first doing a download of the latest Windows Media Player ver. 9.0 which took about 20 minutes, if you didn't already have a current copy installed on your system, all of which ate into the remaining viewing time. But do not fear, if you missed all or any part of it, there will be a written transcript available in due course. So check back at this same website www.sagecrossroads.net in a few weeks time. By the way, there are several other transcripts that could also be of interest to you, including one with Michael West on 'Therapeutic Cloning and the Future of Anti-Aging Medicine' from last April 22nd." Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From max at maxmore.com Wed Nov 5 17:21:01 2003 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 11:21:01 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031105111702.04bac4f0@mail.earthlink.net> Chris -- given your comments, you'll find the following two papers very interesting. Here are my reviews of them. If you go to the URLs, you'll find links to other relevant material. I, too, am concerned about the integrity of the scientific process as it currently exists. Doing something about it is just about my top priority for ExI, if we had the resources. Max Management Science: What Does it Have to do with Management or Science? Marketing Bulletin by J. Scott Armstrong http://www.manyworlds.com/index.asp?from=CO&coid=CO10270312354673 Some people believe that personal experience is the gold standard of knowledge. Dismissing theory in favor of intuition and experience can be a fatal mistake because human cognition and perception are rife with errors, biases, distortions, and limitations. At the same time, management theory often fails to qualify as "management science", typically systematizing wobbly assumptions into a superficially compelling form. Scott Armstrong investigates what real management science can tell us about the usefulness of formal planning, portfolio matrices for decision making, mission statements, the pursuit of market share, preparing sales forecasts, survey design, and predicting the outcome of a conflict situation. Scientific management research uses objective, replicable procedures to compare various approaches, method, or theories. Only by adhering to standards of scientific rigor can management theory produce results worth paying attention to. Armstrong shows that this research can and has produced useful results but also that most management literature is useless. More worrying is that the proportion of useful work is declining. The useful results that are published are typically unseen, rejected, or ignored. Armstrong does an excellent job of explaining the reasons for this situation as well as suggesting ways to improve the communication of important findings in management science. After analyzing the shortcomings of the research methodology, publication, and dissemination processes, Armstrong looks at the possibilities. He recommends taking all research findings and putting them on the Internet, subjecting them to continuing peer review and avoiding the distorting dynamics of the journal process. In addition, he suggests creating management science "impact sites" to focus on objectives that are relevant, explicit, measurable, and challenging. Impact sites could be used to compare universities and their departments in terms of the usefulness of their research. Armstrong provides specific and helpful recommendations to university deans, reviewers, authors, and practitioners. The contribution of the Internet could be powerfully augmented by using expert systems and software. Expert systems can incorporate new procedures and software new findings, making the default choice to stay current while preventing knowledge leakage. Far-sighted companies might even contribute to the process of improving management science by supporting nonprofits who work on these projects. Armstrong has also should that nonprofits produce more useful results but lack motivation to publish. By contrast, universities have resources but are removed from real problems and businesses are near the problem but usually lack the resources for doing the research. Reaping Benefits from Management Research: Lessons from the Forecasting Principles Project by Ruth A. Pagell; J. Scott Armstrong The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania http://www.manyworlds.com/index.asp?from=CO&coid=CO10270312354673 _______________________________________________________ Max More, Ph.D. max at maxmore.com or more at extropy.org http://www.maxmore.com Strategic Philosopher Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org _______________________________________________________ From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk Wed Nov 5 18:10:55 2003 From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 18:10:55 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day Message-ID: <3FA93D2F.9050102@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 17:34:38 +0100 Jacques ecrit: > Mozilla mail 1.5 (trained) + SpamAssassin (even without non-local > tests) solves it for me. Of course it's only an individual solution, > and I still download the crap, so I don't disagree with your > statement, but just in case someone is unaware of this possibility. > Mozilla Mail 1.5 + MailWasher solves it for me. MailWasher stops the spam at the POP server so I don't ever download the crap. (You can't train the Mozilla Bayesian spam catcher though, if you never download the spam in the first place). It also allows you to try to bounce the spam straight back to them, but this often fails due to forged return addresses. Free from for one mail account. The Pro version ($29.95) handles multiple mail accounts. BillK From natashavita at earthlink.net Wed Nov 5 18:13:54 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 13:13:54 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bounty on Virus Authors Message-ID: <39020-220031135181354450@M2W086.mail2web.com> Bounty Hunting is back in vogue: "The world's largest software company announced Wednesday in Washington that it is creating an anti-virus reward program, backed by $5 million of its cash, to help law enforcement agencies catch the authors of computer worms." Microsoft opponents are asking how in tar'nation is Microsoft going to pull off a secuity officer role. Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From scerir at libero.it Wed Nov 5 18:24:07 2003 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:24:07 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <119420-22003112421026669@M2W046.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <005d01c3a3ca$066cf0f0$67c11b97@administxl09yj> > What are some riddles that some bear light, > or a shadow, on our extropic transhumanity? > Natasha Erwin Schroedinger, in "Nature and the Greeks" Cambridge University Press, 1954, p.93, writes: 'The scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.' I do not know whether the above is a 'riddle', a page of naive philosophy, a moment of discomfort. Nevertheless it seems, to me, a good question. Maybe it is also a question about subjects and objects. From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Wed Nov 5 18:19:30 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:19:30 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant In-Reply-To: <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Brett Paatsch wrote: >I reckon (without believing) that it is NOT a sim and could >NOT easily be a sim. > >I think that to entertain the notion that it is is to run the risk of >repeating (now dead) Pascal's wager and betting the same >wrong way. Of betting that there is a super-natural being that >is going to come to the rescue like Santa Claus. It's exactly the other way around. The biggest concern, when one lives inside a sim, is the possibility that it will be shut down. Just turned off and erased, as any computer program. Ciao, Alfio From gpmap at runbox.com Wed Nov 5 18:22:52 2003 From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:22:52 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> Message-ID: <000e01c3a3c9$d3d9dbd0$0401a8c0@GERICOM> Getting rid of spam may well be as difficult as developing active shields against gray goo. Spam is a moving target: as soon as we devise a good filter for today's spam, they will devise a way around. As soon as we develop a super AI that recognizes spam, they will develop a better AI to produce subliminal advertising bases on those nuances of human psycology that have not be incorporated in the AI design. The bad guys are as smart as the good guys, this is not likely to change too soon. I think we will still have bad guys after the singularity. G. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 8:11 AM Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day > Ones and zeroes. We can see them completely and clearly; the entire realm > is absolutely under our control; it is a world that we built and that runs > entirely on our rules. Destroying the intruder is as easy as making the > decision. > > And yet we still can't get rid of spam. > > Active shields against grey goo? Yeah, right. > > -- > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From cryofan at mylinuxisp.com Wed Nov 5 18:35:44 2003 From: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com (Randy S) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 18:35:44 -0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: <3FA93D2F.9050102@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> Message-ID: Quote from: maxm at mail.tele.dk on November 03, 2003, 07:12:53 >>>>>>>>>>> kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > I am looking to all of you for suggestions. Just do it! Starting at university will feel odd the first day with all the young folks there, then you will be used to it. (Talking from experience.) You can easily catch up if you have the time. regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Don't do it, Kevin! Become a paid plumber's apprentice for 4 years, and then 4 years from now you can start your own business and charge $200/hr for your time. Then is an oversupply of college degreed workers and an undersupply of plumbers. Also there is the cost. Max M here comes from from Denmark, a country that is run for the benefit of its citizens. Tell us, Max, how much they pay students to go to school in denmark? Here in the USA, we are organized for the benefit of the investor. Therefore, it will cost Kevin 10K minimum just for the tuition. ALso, there are costs of living for 4 years--probably about 20K minimum. -- -------------- -Randy From cryofan at mylinuxisp.com Wed Nov 5 18:37:30 2003 From: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com (Randy S) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 18:37:30 -0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] immigration into Sweden In-Reply-To: <63340-22003113517393351@M2W087.mail2web.com> Message-ID: Spike wrote: "Last Saturday at a dinner party, a Swedish friend commented that Sweden was having a huge immigration of middle easterners. I asked if there is a movement afoot to do street signs in both Swedish and Arabic, like we have both English and Spanish in many Taxifornian cities. He seemed rather annoyed with that innocent question. Anders, what did I say? Whats up with that? " Sweden and other western european welfare states started to take in lots of African and muslim immigrants over the last decade. Then they discovered what many researchers are starting to discover--people trust each other more and cooperate better if they look the same and less if they look different. Plus it did not help that the vest majority of the immigrants were on welfare-unemployment. This phenomenon caused a rollback of the welfare state. For example, Swedish unemployment went from 90% of salary to 75% of salary soon after the surge in immigration. From cryofan at mylinuxisp.com Wed Nov 5 18:39:39 2003 From: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com (Randy S) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 18:39:39 -0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] a job for me? In-Reply-To: <000e01c3a3c9$d3d9dbd0$0401a8c0@GERICOM> References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> Message-ID: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>. Quote from: maxm at mail.tele.dk on November 03, 2003, 07:12:53 kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > I am looking to all of you for suggestions. Just do it! Starting at university will feel odd the first day with all the young folks there, then you will be used to it. (Talking from experience.) You can easily catch up if you have the time. regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark >>>>>>>>>>. Don't do it, Kevin! Become a paid plumber's apprentice for 4 years, and then 4 years from now you can start your own business and charge $200/hr for your time. Then is an oversupply of college degreed workers and an undersupply of plumbers. Also there is the cost. Max M here comes from from Denmark, a country that is run for the benefit of its citizens. Tell us, Max, how much they pay students to go to school in denmark? Here in the USA, we are organized for the benefit of the investor. Therefore, it will cost Kevin 10K minimum just for the tuition. ALso, there are costs of living for 4 years--probably about 20K minimum. From cryofan at mylinuxisp.com Wed Nov 5 18:45:27 2003 From: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com (Randy S) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 18:45:27 -0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] a job for me? In-Reply-To: <000e01c3a3c9$d3d9dbd0$0401a8c0@GERICOM> References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> Message-ID: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>. Quote from: maxm at mail.tele.dk on November 03, 2003, 07:12:53 kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > I am looking to all of you for suggestions. Just do it! Starting at university will feel odd the first day with all the young folks there, then you will be used to it. (Talking from experience.) You can easily catch up if you have the time. regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark >>>>>>>>>>. Don't do it, Kevin! Become a paid plumber's apprentice for 4 years, and then 4 years from now you can start your own business and charge $200/hr for your time. Then is an oversupply of college degreed workers and an undersupply of plumbers. Also there is the cost. Max M here comes from from Denmark, a country that is run for the benefit of its citizens. Tell us, Max, how much they pay students to go to school in denmark? Here in the USA, we are organized for the benefit of the investor. Therefore, it will cost Kevin 10K minimum just for the tuition. ALso, there are costs of living for 4 years--probably about 20K minimum. From aperick at centurytel.net Wed Nov 5 19:15:18 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 11:15:18 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <200311051041.hA5AfCM07214@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <15512239.1068059733451.JavaMail.teamon@b107.teamon.com> It has been said: to be great is to be misunderstood. I am going to have to try to remember not to purchase any snug fitting hats. Chris, I think that most scientists are wise in 'failing' to look into most 'strange' questions. One should have an open mind, but maybe not so open so as to let your brains fall out. As for your wife's rib pain. You may have simply witnessed a meaningless coincidence. Such synchronized events happen all the time, just as we would expect given the huge number of events in play. Correlation is no proof of causation. I do not find the fact that a small portion of the population (you and your wife, and thousands of others) encounter at some point in their lifetimes some correlation that seems to them to be "scary" - as the least bit unusual. If we all eat alphabet soup every day of our lives we can expect a few folks to be insulted by the ghost in the minestrone. When an exceedingly rare event occurs (like two similar things, nearly synchronized) it is not a wakeup call for a scientific investigation. Investigation is only warranted when there is an abundance of repetition - patterns may mean something, but virtually never is there a special significance to an isolated static pop. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.515 / Virus Database: 313 - Release Date: 9/1/2003 From samantha at objectent.com Wed Nov 5 19:20:12 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 12:20:12 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> Message-ID: <200311051120.12466.samantha@objectent.com> On Wednesday 05 November 2003 03:17, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Chris Phoenix wrote: > > I don't ask anyone not to catalog these kinds of incidents, or not to > investigate them, or not to try and repeat them under experimental > controls. Nonetheless, I am willing to assert flatly that nothing > paranormal happened. > > What is the ordinary-world explanation? Well, for all I know, you are > posting this story as a test to see if anyone tries to explain it away, > give it a pseudo-rational explanation when in fact you just made it up and > there *is* no explanation for why that sort of thing would happen under > the laws of physics, because it didn't. I do not need to try and give > your story an ordinary-world explanation; even if I can't think of any > ordinary-world explanation at all, I am nonetheless confident enough in my > understanding of the universe to not feel discomfited. That is a huge cop-out. It doesn't fit your worldview so the first choice is to believe it never happened, heh? Convenient but not very relevant. > This world is my > home, and I know it now, and I know the world doesn't work that way. You *know* no such thing. You believe it doesn't work that way. > There are a few things left that I don't know yet, but the remaining > uncertainty does not have enough slack in it to permit ESP. This world > could easily be a computer simulation, but if so it is a simulation of a > world without ESP. I see no way you could have complete enough knowledge or sufficiently vetted theory of knowledge to make such a statement meaningfully. > > Supposing that I try to think of an "ordinary" explanation for your story, > what springs to mind? Several things. I don't know if the name > "Elizabeth Loftus" rings any bells; but human memory is far, far more > pliable than people like to think. It is possible for a researcher, by > asking leading questions, to create a memory completely out of fabric - > for example, of being lost in the mall as a child - and later the person > will not remember that it is a false memory. Did your wife really have a > pain in her lower ribs, or her back? Did you learn about her brother's > death a few hours later, or a day? "How come the more you touch me there, > the more I want to cry?" sounds to me like not at all the sort of thing > that is said spontaneously, but very easily the sort of thing that might > be "recalled" afterward. The story has to be assumed accurate for the questions raised to be even seriously addressed. What you have done looks like more disowning of inconvenient data. We all know most of the things you are bringing up here and yet this nagging residue that doesn't fit remains. > What permanently zaps the paranormal explanation is not studying physics, > or studying the history of science, or reading the accounts of debunked > psychics - it's studying the cognitive science of human error. The > literature on this has to be seen to be believed. The human mind is so > wildly fragile, so wildly wrong on so many simple problems, that our > physics is simply more reliable than any anecdote that can be cited > against it. *Any* anecdote. Yes, even anecdotes that really, really seem > like they can't be explained away. The human mind is genuinely that weak; > physics is genuinely that strong. > What if there is some non-paranormal explanation for such ESPish events that doesn't start by denying they actually happened? > It doesn't matter whether the explanation I gave is correct. There's no > ESP in the universe, no paranormal phenomena, no gods, no demons. It's > just us within the laws of physics. That's the upshot, whatever the > explanation is - whether you made up the anecdote as a test, or whether > human memory is horrifyingly (and replicably) pliable, or whether some > other ordinary event happened. You are frothing at the mouth in support of your pre-existing belief structures. The book is far from closed on what is and is not possible in reality. Our physics today is not known to be utterly comprehensive of all phenomenon possible in reality. It is simply what we have found to date with reasonable rigor. > > If you haven't reached that point of confidence, then by no means should > you attempt to convince yourself of it artificially. It took me a long > time to reach the point where I was ready to say that, and it is not at > all what I was thinking when I started out. But you know... it really is > normal. It's all normal. And if you look at it long enough, there's > enough evidence to see that it's normal. I hope that helps. No, it does not help. It looks like one more closed mind in the world to me. - samantha From jef at jefallbright.net Wed Nov 5 19:33:08 2003 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 11:33:08 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> <000e01c3a3c9$d3d9dbd0$0401a8c0@GERICOM> Message-ID: <002f01c3a3d3$a8257580$3402650a@int.veeco.com> Spam falls into that category of interesting problems where the short-term interests of a few *appear* to outweigh the long-term interests of the many. Prisoners Dilemma, War (in general), failure to exercise one's vote (because it won't make a difference), are examples of situations where one can make what appear to be fully informed fully rational decisions that result in long-term harm to all, including the individual opportunist. In my opinion, these problems will persist until our society has evolved beyond short-term, tribal thinking. I see signs that we may get there. [Google: Superrationality.] - Jef Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: > Getting rid of spam may well be as difficult as developing active > shields against gray goo. Spam is a moving target: as soon as we > devise a good filter for today's spam, they will devise a way around. > As soon as we develop a super AI that recognizes spam, they will > develop a better AI to produce subliminal advertising bases on those > nuances of human psycology that have not be incorporated in the AI > design. The bad guys are as smart as the good guys, this is not > likely to change too soon. I think we will still have bad guys after > the singularity. G. > From etheric at comcast.net Wed Nov 5 19:51:46 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 11:51:46 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com><3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <200311051120.12466.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <003001c3a3d6$40ac2c20$0200a8c0@etheric> This is rather personal, I hope you dont mind the world reads this, I thought to myself. --- Sometime back in the early 90's I felt compelled to clear out a bunch of old psychological baggage concerning my past. One of the People I hadn't come to terms with was my step father, He was a very abusive person, very violent cruel and sick, and had a profoundly damaging effect on my life, I hadn't seen nor heard from him in about 15 years, and he was never a subject of conversation, as he was institutionalized for a genetic brain disorder and was schizophrenic paranoid, and I presumed he was probably dead from the disorder. One day I felt inexplicably compelled to begin an exercise where I began to write down all the things I hated about the guy, and then forgive them item by item. After a few minutes of this I had a eerie feeling, and promptly walked outside to the street curb, and simply stood there rather absently expecting something, but I didn't know what, after a while I got into my car ,and sat in the car at the curb waiting for "something". My mother had noticed this strange behavior and continued to ask me what the hell I was doing just sitting in the car doing nothing, I had no Idea, I couldn't explain. A few minutes pass, and to my utter astonishment, the step Father is walking down the street towards the house, appearently he had escaped from the institution, and had taken several busses across town to get there, he was quite delirious and could barely speak because of Huntington chorea and anti psychotics, and what he spoke about was indeciphrable anyway. I Invited him to sit down outside, I sat with him and to be brief I told him I forgave him but he had to go back to the "hospital", and sat in a strange silent communication for a while. My mother was in a total panic, as she was rather traumatized by this guy in the past, and refused to come out of the house, she was in full astonishment that he was there, and could not believe he was there at all, actually accused me of lying etc. So I called the police and explained the situation, they came and picked him up, we never heard from him again learned later that he died a short while latter. I "knew", I anticipated that he would return, after 10 + years to gone. I suppose I could produce police records, hospital records, etc. take a polygraph and pass, but cant be bothered ast some people "here" are as narrow minded as some Religious Fundamentalists (Satan did it) , in that if it doesn't fit their world view, It cannot be true. (it was a hallucination, he's a liar, its a hoax etc.) From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Nov 5 20:14:23 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 07:14:23 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <006001c3a3d9$67e50980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Alfio Puglisi writes: > >I reckon (without believing) that it is NOT a sim and could > >NOT easily be a sim. > > > >I think that to entertain the notion that it is is to run the risk of > >repeating (now dead) Pascal's wager and betting the same > >wrong way. Of betting that there is a super-natural being that > >is going to come to the rescue like Santa Claus. > > It's exactly the other way around. The biggest concern, when > one lives inside a sim, is the possibility that it will be shut down. > Just turned off and erased, as any computer program. I disagree. If one was in a sim that would imply a creator/designer that at least had an interest in creating/designing the sim. There would be some possibility that an observer of the sim they set up would be watching it. Then there would be the question are they in a sim, and so on. Phooey to the notion that its turtles all the way down. I am with Sagan on that one. Let's just save the step. The hard atheistic position is that there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that reality in total as one experiences it is designed in any way. Ergo the relationship of one to a sim is of some *hope* for outside assistance. - Perhaps some folks sim is between their ears and they need assistance from outside *that* space !? I know, and if I forget but read this list from time to time then no lesser person that Robert Bradbury will remind me with a broadband message - hey guys one bit of inbound space junk could ruin our whole day! (My paraphrasing). To one in a sim there is the possibility that the 'space junk' (or) the desire to turn off the sim may be avoided by some in the sim continuing to be entertaining. To one not in a sim there is not even that hope. So I figure flip the hypothetical simulator the bird (that enough to give any sorry meta-geezer some entertainment) and then ignore the sim scenario as the likely extrapolation of a generation over- impressed by the computing models and architectures. There is not all that much new in the computing paradigms. There is some useful stuff thought though so heck God bless Babbage, and Turin and Shannon even Gates. God can bless 'em I am just grateful for the work that they save me as I am assuming I am not in a sim. But as I hope I have just demonstrated I am reckoning not believing even on the matter of the sim. This 'conversation' would not have been worth my having had I not wanted to communicate and empower potential allies. Regards, Brett From aperick at centurytel.net Wed Nov 5 20:14:43 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 12:14:43 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant In-Reply-To: <200311051336.hA5DamM21329@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <10606496.1068063399332.JavaMail.teamon@b107.teamon.com> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so > it is a simulation of a world without ESP. then Brett proceeds to climb all over him. When I read Eliezer's post, and the above sentence, never did I get the impression that he was truly considering -- with any favor whatever -- the sim view. I got the impression that he was making the point that the sim view - though highly unlikely in the extreme - had more of a chance of being correct than anything like ESP. Perhaps in such a place as this, one's finger belongs on the trigger guard, not the trigger. Or, am I ignorant of previous posts by Eliezer which, having chaffed poor Brett in the past, render Brett understandable sensitive to the touch? From jacques at dtext.com Wed Nov 5 19:28:25 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 20:28:25 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Cheerful thought of the day In-Reply-To: <000e01c3a3c9$d3d9dbd0$0401a8c0@GERICOM> References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> <000e01c3a3c9$d3d9dbd0$0401a8c0@GERICOM> Message-ID: <3FA94F59.3030701@dtext.com> Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: > The bad guys are as smart as the good guys, I think the good guys are smarter. A fortiori when you think of them collectively, as they can coordinate for the better, while the bad guys can't trust each other and coordinate. Bad guys strive on abusing trust which is a parasitic and inherently weak strategy. Plus, deep down they know they are loosers, so when things turn bad, they let go and even seek auto-destruction (you just have to help them out a bit). Caveat: You should not tag normal guys as bad guys absent-mindedly, or else you can get unexpected results. For example, the Swiss may have been called "bad guys" by the Habsbourg in the 14th century, but they still kicked the Habsbourg out of their valleys. As Google says: << 1315 : The Waldst?tten soldiers decimate the austrian troups during the Morgarten parade. First victory of "this horde of rude and impious farmers" over a proper army, it is the beginning of the military power of the Confederates. >> Jacques From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Nov 5 21:00:30 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 08:00:30 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Science, religon and philosophy as apprended by Russell Message-ID: <008301c3a3df$d8f3d9c0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> I think this quote from the Introduction in Bertrand Russell's HISTRORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY may provide some additional handles and context for some current discussions. ---- " 'Philosophy' is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some narrower, I propose to use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to explain. Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All *definite* knowledge - so I should content - belongs to science; all *dogma* as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack form both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so convincing as they did in former centuries. (1) Is the world divided into mind and matter, and if so, what is mind and what is matter? (2) Is mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of independent powers? (3) Has the universe any unity or purpose? (4) Is it evolving toward some goal? (5) Are there really laws of nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order? (6) Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water impotently crawling on a small and unimportant planet? (7) Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? (8) Is he perhaps both at once? (9) Is there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile? (10) If there is a way of living that is noble, in what does it consist, and how shall we achieve it? (11) Must the good be eternal in order to deserve to be valued, or is it worth seeking even if the universe is inexorably moving towards death? (12) Is there such a thing as wisdom, or is what seems such merely the ultimate refinement of folly? To such questions no answer can be found in the laboratory....[t]he studying of these questions, if not the answering of them, is the business of philosophy. ------ Brett (Shucks I put in the numbered brackets myself ;-) but seriously I reckon I could answer a good few of those questions pretty well by now, but would my answers find resonance with others answers - that would be interesting.) Key point ?- Philosophy, as the term is used above, not science, is the 'main game' even for scientists. From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Wed Nov 5 21:10:38 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:10:38 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down References: <20031105030230.71102.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Especially since the claim is wrong. Historically, rural America, which > was most of America prior to the 20th century, was heavily homogenous > and inbred. Social instruments prevented ethnic, religious, and caste > cross breeding. Catholics, Jews, Orthodox, and Protestants all looked > down on marrying outside one's religion. Same thing with ethnic groups, > some times to very violent degrees of enforcement (lynching for whites > and blacks marrying). Well educated parents looked down on marrying > uneducated, wealthy looked down on marrying beneath ones own kind. > There was little upward mobility by marriage in pre-20th century > America, all socio-economic mobility occured via industriousness, but > still did not remove social pressures against crossing ethnic and > religious barriers. > > Even with the westward migration, ethnic groups tended to cluster unto > themselves. Germanics, Norwegian, Swedes, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, > Hispanics, Italians, etc all tended to cluster, and when the clustered, > they inbred. OK. I know I am sticking my neck out to be chopped off, but I have to totally disagree here. History has shown that at each and every opportunity, human beings will have have sex with anything that moves. In "Mapping Human History: Discovering Our Past Through Our Genes" Steve Olson takes an in depth look at both the male Y haplotypes and mitochondrial DNA. Both show the extensinve outbreeding of various ethnic and religious people's of the world. Yes, inbreeding and isolation created much of the races we see today, but since the dawn of language and trade, this has been reversing itself. When you look at people such as the Jewish community, you see that although their religion doesn;t allow for breeding outside their group, it has happened frequently enough that their DNA is almost indistinguishable from others in the larger middle-eastern region. As you leave the region, the spread of the genes "feathers" into the next region. People from regions a long distance away may share little with each other, but as you get geographically closer, the genetics become more similar regardless of the religious or ethnic affiliation. Although whites and blacks were "lynched" for being together, it happend frequently enough that most whites have a little black in them and vice-versa. In fact, many whites share more DNA similarities with blacks than with other whites. Unless a population were totally isolated for a long period of time, you wouldn;t have this. One man walking past an isolated community and raping a woman from that community in the forest can completely disrupt this isolation. Heck, all you have to do is look at the number of people willing to have sex with farm animals and you will know just how promiscuous humans beings are. Although mating with people outside their religion and/or ethnic groups has always been looked down upon, and the tendency to "cluster" cannot be denied, a look at the DNA shows that outbreeding happens much more frequently than it is admitted to. Kevin Freels From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Wed Nov 5 21:15:45 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:15:45 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <019301c3a335$6bed16c0$ec994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: This is a good argument for the Free State movement in New Hampshire. Maybe we can get a state that will recognize cryonic preservation as not only a valid means of interment, but also will provide for protection of assets while being suspended. Maybe the state will even allow for assisted suicide via cryopreservation. This way, you could begin the procedure with the least possible damage to the brain. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Damien Broderick" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 6:40 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Robert J. Bradbury" > Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 6:06 PM > > > It would appear that we are on a road where at least some > > states may confiscate parts of your remains to preserve > > the lives of others whether you feel this is reasonable > > or not. > > maybe, but > > > For those of us on the upside end of > > 40, > > I suspect we're safe--who'd want *our* raddled old organs? :) > > Damien Broderick > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Wed Nov 5 21:13:17 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 08:13:17 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant References: <10606496.1068063399332.JavaMail.teamon@b107.teamon.com> Message-ID: <009701c3a3e1$a23bc120$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > > > This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so > > it is a simulation of a world without ESP. > > then Brett proceeds to climb all over him. Wasn't my intent I am not sure whether yours is a common view. > > When I read Eliezer's post, and the above sentence, never > did I get the mpression that he was truly considering -- with > any favor whatever -- the sim view. I got the impression > that he was making the point that the sim view - though > highly unlikely in the extreme - had more of a chance of being > correct than anything like ESP. > > Perhaps in such a place as this, one's finger belongs on the > trigger guard, not the trigger. In a place like this there is zero possibility of really getting shot. Such is definately NOT the case everywhere. There is great opportunity to learn and to teach and to empower and be empowered. My working conception is more of an academy with Eliezer (and many others) as simultaneously good teacher and good student. > > Or, am I ignorant of previous posts by Eliezer which, having > chaffed poor Brett in the past, render Brett understandable > sensitive to the touch? I am ignorant of all the things that you are ignorant of :-) But thanks for the insights - and perhaps I am going a little over the top and hogging the bandwidth. Regards, Brett From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Wed Nov 5 21:18:54 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:18:54 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare References: <007a01c3a352$392afc30$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: Gee, with all the sudden flaring, I have to wonder if there is something going on thatthey are not telling us. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karen Rand Smigrodzki" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 10:06 PM Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare > For those interested: > > > Space Weather News for Nov. 5, 2003 > http://spaceweather.com > > Giant sunspot 486 unleashed another intense solar flare on Nov. 4th (1950 > UT), and this one could be historic. The blast saturated X-ray sensors > onboard GOES satellites. The last time this happened, in April 2001, the > flare that saturated the sensors was classified as an X20--the biggest > ever recorded at the time. Yesterday's flare appears to have been even > stronger. > > > --karen > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Wed Nov 5 21:26:14 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:26:14 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: Message-ID: Can we get together and buy an island to do all this research on? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Reason" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 12:40 AM Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Robert J. > Bradbury > > > Terminology: > > ILE: Indefinite Lifespan Extension -- preferable to > > "IMMORTALITY" because IMMORTALITY can take too many > > hits based on the physics of the universe. (Protons > > decaying, expansion accelerating, black holes consuming > > everything else, yada yada yada...). > > > > Ok, now one of the serious questions that people should > > be concerned with with respect to ILE is precisely *how* > > do I get my cake. For those of us on the upside end of > > 40, or perhaps 30, cryonics enters into the equation. > > > > *But* as some of us know cryonics becomes pretty *iffy* > > if the legal authorities stick their fingers into the works. > > (Cases in point range from the current situation regarding > > the Martinot's in France to the case of Dora Kent in the past.) > > I think I would go so far as to say that the entirety of the "cake or not" > question revolves around government interference. My take is that we're > probably 30 years away from the start of aging as a chronic but controlled > condition, *IF* there are clear skies and freedom for fundraising, activism, > education and research. There are no show-stopping hurdles beyond a lot of > work and a lot of money - exactly the same thing that could have been said > about cancer 30 years ago. > > This time could easily double if politicians and anti-progress forces really > dig in and fight seriously to halt medical progress towards ILE...which they > show all the signs of doing. Already, scientific progress in regenerative > medicine is far behind where it could have been. > > Reason > http://www.exratio.com > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From thespike at earthlink.net Wed Nov 5 21:18:53 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:18:53 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare References: <007a01c3a352$392afc30$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: <028501c3a3e2$6ee76260$c2994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 3:18 PM > Gee, with all the sudden flaring, I have to wonder if there is something > going on thatthey are not telling us. Yep. Greens from the future are preparing to turn down the solar thermostat to save energy. Read all about it: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook9079.htm :) Damien Broderick From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Wed Nov 5 21:32:01 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:32:01 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> <200311050242.18744.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: How often do you choose to attack the spam sender rather than delete the message? My guess is that most people simply choose to ignore and delete it rather than make the deicion to attack. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Samantha Atkins" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 4:42 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day > On Tuesday 04 November 2003 23:11, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > > Ones and zeroes. We can see them completely and clearly; the entire realm > > is absolutely under our control; it is a world that we built and that runs > > entirely on our rules. > > Uh, the world includes *us* and many of us are not good little digital > citizens at all. *We* use these digital tools and thus *we* are what needs > some control, not the simple world of 1's and 0's (not that it is very so > simple either). > > And no, the world of programs itself does not run entirely on our rules or at > least we have very imperfect understanding of the implications and > interactions of the rules we thought to impose with one another and the world > they are embedded within. > > > Destroying the intruder is as easy as making the > > decision. > > > > Hardly. First you must determine what is and is not an intruder. This is > non-trivial. Then you must determine what is the appropriate amount of > destruction or other action to acheive the desired result with a minimum of > side-effects. OOPS, I left out that you must formulate with some clarity > what the goal state is. > > > And yet we still can't get rid of spam. > > > > Active shields against grey goo? Yeah, right. > > Actually, handling spam is not an implausible warm-up exercise. > > - samantha > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From wingcat at pacbell.net Wed Nov 5 21:24:21 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 13:24:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031105212421.80701.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com> --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > Gee, with all the sudden flaring, I have to wonder > if there is something > going on thatthey are not telling us. Oh, it's just a flame war, solar-style. ^_- From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Wed Nov 5 21:34:23 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:34:23 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com><3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: If we are a sim,. there are probably many others. These others have different variables introduced and their purpose is to find out what these variables produce in the end. I hope we're the sim that survives singularity! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brett Paatsch" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 6:33 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > > > This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so > > it is a simulation of a world without ESP. > > I reckon (without believing) that it is NOT a sim and could > NOT easily be a sim. > > I think that to entertain the notion that it is is to run the risk of > repeating (now dead) Pascal's wager and betting the same > wrong way. Of betting that there is a super-natural being that > is going to come to the rescue like Santa Claus. I prefer to > work with friends and the resources that I have, rather than > fret over the resources I don't have. I am not malicious and > I will deal with maliciousness if I must with resolution and > ferocity of my own. > > I can see no advantage or change in my habits that I would > make if I thought the world was a sim. I would probably have > more allies and friends if less people entertained the sim > hypothesis so much but so be it. > > I think that if no-one can come up with a reliable test, (group > test - science or solitary test - pure reason) to see if the world > is a sim then it would be better to step around what looks like > an iteration of the same old mindfuk, to put away childish > things and to concentrate minds and energies on the tasks > at hand. > > Regards, > Brett > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From bradbury at aeiveos.com Wed Nov 5 21:26:44 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 13:26:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] SECURITY: Wild wild west Message-ID: Well Microsoft just sweetened the pot a little by offering rewards of $250K for people who created viruses to attack Windows. See: Microsoft Offers Reward to Stop Viruses http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Microsoft-Viruses.html?hp R. From wingcat at pacbell.net Wed Nov 5 21:28:50 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 13:28:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031105212850.56048.qmail@web80407.mail.yahoo.com> --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > Can we get together and buy an island to do all this > research on? Say we could do this. How then do we convince the researchers - and the companies that employ them - to move to said island, without bankrupting what minimal resources we'd have available on the island or invoking military action from certain foreign powers? From eugen at leitl.org Wed Nov 5 21:35:08 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 22:35:08 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> <200311050242.18744.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <20031105213507.GV25659@leitl.org> On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 03:32:01PM -0600, kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > How often do you choose to attack the spam sender rather than delete the It is not trivial to parse the headers reliably, and to trace back to the point of origin. Way back, when Windows had consistency of swiss cheese, I used to winnuke systems who sent me spam. Then, I realized in most cases it was just some random dialup user who'd inherited the spammer's IP address who got BSODed. This still applies today, and it's not obvious it's okay to nuke machines taken over by spammers, or running open relays (some vigilantes may disagree). What would be good is to have the spammer's HTML page be aggressively crawled by robots, but it would be trivial to do a DDoS against a legitimate site by sending a spam in their name. The problem is not simple, so any single simple solution will not be sufficient. Several adaptive solutions would do, if deployed widely. > message? My guess is that most people simply choose to ignore and delete it > rather than make the deicion to attack. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Wed Nov 5 21:45:35 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:45:35 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <20031105212850.56048.qmail@web80407.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Money, money, and more money. And maybe starting a rumor that the brilliant minds on the island were willing and capable of destroying anyone who attacked them. There is a long history of people fleeing persecution and tyranny to relocate and it seems it has gone pretty well. OK. Maybe not. It was just a thought. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrian Tymes" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 3:28 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated > --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > > Can we get together and buy an island to do all this > > research on? > > Say we could do this. How then do we convince the > researchers - and the companies that employ them - to > move to said island, without bankrupting what minimal > resources we'd have available on the island or > invoking > military action from certain foreign powers? > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Nov 5 21:48:50 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 13:48:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <005b01c3a34f$fd33cc40$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: <20031105214850.65755.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com> --- Karen Rand Smigrodzki wrote: > ----- > From: "Mike Lorrey" > > --- "Robert J. Bradbury" > > > > > It would appear that we are on a road where at least some > > > states may confiscate parts of your remains to preserve > > > the lives of others whether you feel this is reasonable > > > or not. > > > > > > Discussion? > > > > 14th Amendment, end of story. You own your body. When you die, it > > is part of your estate. Any state that would confiscate your body > > parts is fascist and should be moved out of ASAP. I would not be > > surprised if > > people's republics like Taxifornia and Washington adopted such > > policies. I don't mind, it will keep pushing more people to move to > > the Free State. > > You are, I assume, stating what you think the law SHOULD be > and not > what it IS. It is clear that the body and it's parts are NOT property > under > the law. When you die, your body does NOT become property of the > estate. Don't know what state or country you live in. Last time I checked, the 14th Amendment was clearly interpreted by SCOTUS as saying that you own yourself: no slavery, peony, or indenturement allowed. It is a well settled matter of probate law that the deceased's wishes about disposal of their body are paramount, and if the deceased does not explicitly say so, their next of kin, NOT the state, has the right to dispose of the body. Why? Because under common law, the individuals power to enter into contracts is unlimited. A will is paramount as the final contract you execute. While fascist states like California may be changing this, their changes are not necessarily constitutional. They can claim, if they wish, that a dead body without a will specifying disposal is tantamount to abandoned property. They may even claim that surrender of organs is the price of receiving government benefits of any kind (medicaid, medicare, social security, welfare, bankruptcy. The problem is that the confiscatory attitudes of such fascist states hit head-on the legal traditions of the constitution and common law. > Your guess of Taxifornia being one which would take your > organs is on target. They have the opt-out law that I was > mentioning in my previous > response to this topic. I am not sure about Washington. I can find > out, if you need it. Nope, I'm in NH, where my body is my own. Y'all are quite welcome to join us here in the Free State and build real cryonics protections into law. We have the ear of the governor, who is a tech-nerd himself. See Friendster FreeStateProjct FreeStateProjct for my journal of this past weekend's LPNH Convention. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Nov 5 21:49:45 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 13:49:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <000001c3a351$04ad4a90$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <20031105214945.94725.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Spike wrote: > > > Mike Lorrey > > >...I would not be surprised if > > people's republics like Taxifornia and Washington adopted such > > policies... > > Taxifornia isn't even the people's republic anymore. > Its the animal's republic, and even the plant's republic > in many cases. Ah, evolved from the people's republic to the Pea Pole's Republic ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From mlorrey at yahoo.com Wed Nov 5 22:26:50 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 14:26:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <20031105212850.56048.qmail@web80407.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20031105222650.14736.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > > Can we get together and buy an island to do all this > > research on? > > Say we could do this. How then do we convince the > researchers - and the companies that employ them - to > move to said island, without bankrupting what minimal > resources we'd have available on the island or > invoking > military action from certain foreign powers? Simple: make it a research resort, with centerfold lab assistants, beachside laboratories (surf while your experiment incubates), and NO management allowed.... they would pay to stay in such a place... ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From jcorb at iol.ie Wed Nov 5 22:57:08 2003 From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 22:57:08 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> >Message: 3 >Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 08:26:19 -0800 > >From: "Spike" >Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles >To: "'ExI chat list'" >Message-ID: <000001c3a3b9$8b667210$6501a8c0 at SHELLY> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The early christian church had already split into two >major branches by the second century, one preaching that >jesus was god, the other that he was a man. They were already >killing each other over it, and there weren't even very >many christians at the time, so the trinity notion was >an attempt to reunify the group, kinda like the World >Wrassling Federation and the World Wildlife Foundation >reunification match. The major split was avoided for >more than a thousand years that way. The glossed verses >1 John 5:7 and 8 were invented as support. Politically >a unified church was stronger. >Why three? Well, why not? spike Because Bridge hadn't been invented yet. James... >------------------------------ From jcorb at iol.ie Wed Nov 5 23:04:02 2003 From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 23:04:02 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225759.00aaeec0@pop.iol.ie> >Message: 5 >Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 08:37:21 -0800 > >From: "Spike" >Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence >To: "'ExI chat list'" >Message-ID: <000a01c3a3bb$15cbde80$6501a8c0 at SHELLY> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > > > > Chris Phoenix wrote: > > >... > > > a few hours after that, we learned that her brother had > > > been killed in a > > > motorcycle accident within a few minutes of that time, and his lower > > > ribs had been run over. >Remarkable! Only a few months ago, I was out riding >a motorcycle, and when I got home I learned my wife >had gotten a pain in her ribs. It happened right >while I was out on the bike! In the many worlds >interpretation of quantum mechanics, some subset of >my probability distribution wavefunction gets >squashed every time I go out riding, so in some >alternate universe, she got the rib pain >*right at the same time I was nailed.* spike A few weeks ago I suffered a shredded drive belt that caused a rear-wheel lock up at 60mph. She has a splitting headache this week. Does that count? :) Another point that perhaps you single guys might not pick up on :) - stomach/thoracic pain can often be a precursor to the beginning of the menstrual cycle. Such pains aren't that unusual for the ladies. Poor darlings... James... From jcorb at iol.ie Wed Nov 5 23:28:07 2003 From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 23:28:07 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105231843.00aa9470@pop.iol.ie> >Message: 1 >Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:10:38 -0600 > >From: >Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down >To: "ExI chat list" >Message-ID: >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > > Especially since the claim is wrong. Historically, rural America, which > > was most of America prior to the 20th century, was heavily homogenous > > and inbred. Social instruments prevented ethnic, religious, and caste > > cross breeding. Catholics, Jews, Orthodox, and Protestants all looked > > down on marrying outside one's religion. Same thing with ethnic groups, > > some times to very violent degrees of enforcement (lynching for whites > > and blacks marrying). Well educated parents looked down on marrying > > uneducated, wealthy looked down on marrying beneath ones own kind. > > There was little upward mobility by marriage in pre-20th century > > America, all socio-economic mobility occured via industriousness, but > > still did not remove social pressures against crossing ethnic and > > religious barriers. > > > > Even with the westward migration, ethnic groups tended to cluster unto > > themselves. Germanics, Norwegian, Swedes, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, > > Hispanics, Italians, etc all tended to cluster, and when the clustered, > > they inbred. >OK. I know I am sticking my neck out to be chopped off, but I have to >totally disagree here. History has shown that at each and every opportunity, >human beings will have have sex with anything that moves. This is (unintentionally I'm sure) the funniest statement I've heard today. So essentially, when I comes to randy humans, anything that's not nailed to the floor probably soon will be. >In "Mapping Human History: Discovering Our Past Through Our Genes" Steve >Olson takes an in depth look at both the male Y haplotypes and mitochondrial >DNA. Both show the extensinve outbreeding of various ethnic and religious >people's of the world. Yes, inbreeding and isolation created much of the >races we see today, but since the dawn of language and trade, this has been >reversing itself. When you look at people such as the Jewish community, you >see that although their religion doesn;t allow for breeding outside their >group, it has happened frequently enough that their DNA is almost >indistinguishable from others in the larger middle-eastern region. As you >leave the region, the spread of the genes "feathers" into the next region. >People from regions a long distance away may share little with each other, >but as you get geographically closer, the genetics become more similar >regardless of the religious or ethnic affiliation. At the end of the day, sex was a fairly covert affair, whether premitted or forbidden. There'll always be the one's (many) that got away. > >Although whites and blacks were "lynched" for being together, it happend >frequently enough that most whites have a little black in them and >vice-versa. In fact, many whites share more DNA similarities with blacks >than with other whites. True, either through secret affairs (pace Jefferson) or through force (Master on Slave). More typically the latter, I'm sure. >Unless a population were totally isolated for a long period of time, you >wouldn;t have this. One man walking past an isolated community and raping a >woman from that community in the forest can completely disrupt this >isolation. >Heck, all you have to do is look at the number of people willing to have sex >with farm animals and you will know just how promiscuous humans beings are. >Although mating with people outside their religion and/or ethnic groups has >always been looked down upon, and the tendency to "cluster" cannot be >denied, a look at the DNA shows that outbreeding happens much more >frequently than it is admitted to. My understanding is that we're an inbred species to begin with. IIRC, chimps are more genetically diverse than we are. James... >Kevin Freels > >------------------------------ From thespike at earthlink.net Wed Nov 5 23:21:48 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 17:21:48 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence References: <000a01c3a3bb$15cbde80$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <033101c3a3f3$99f73000$c2994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Spike" Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 10:37 AM > Remarkable! Only a few months ago, I was out riding > a motorcycle, and when I got home I learned my wife > had gotten a pain in her ribs. It happened right > while I was out on the bike! In the many worlds > interpretation of quantum mechanics, some subset of > my probability distribution wavefunction gets > squashed every time I go out riding, so in some > alternate universe, she got the rib pain > *right at the same time I was nailed.* This drollery and more like it serves to show effectively why unanticipated one-off anecdotal cases of apparently weird coincidence count for very little. Oddly enough, this was one strong motive for the parapsychologist in the 1930s, and later, to create artificial (although starkly inhospitable and perhaps counterproductive) environments where they sought to solicit eerie deviations from chance on a repeatable basis. The discipline using this insight is known as parapsychology. < pause for outburst of guffaws, especially from those who have read very little of the lab-based literature > Yes, there are always some universes in the MWI where a `psychic coincidence' is emulated one time by chance, but far fewer where this happens to the same people with frequency such that the null hypothesis is most sensibly abandoned. The usual example I roll out at this point is the vast data base compiled at Princeton University (at the PEAR lab); interestingly, a couple of large attempted replications of those experiments have recently failed to attain significance. So the battle-tested evidence for psi is apparently shrinking. On the other hand, a fine-grained analysis of anomalous results in long sequences of random events, conducted by my friend Fotini Pallikari (a colleague of Physics Nobelist Brian Josephson), suggests that there *is* something intriguing going on under the surface of apparently stochastic sequences, at least when physically unmediated human intention supervenes. Her paper is in the PSI WARS issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies, abstracts and a critical paper in full at http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs_10_6-7.html Damien Broderick From bradbury at aeiveos.com Wed Nov 5 23:54:46 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 15:54:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] META: Back in business Message-ID: Given the variety of conversations over the last several days I would like to explicitly acknowledge that the ExI List is back in business. My tip of the hat to David McFadzean for pulling this off. I don't know much about how difficult it is to establish communities or what it takes to break them but based on my simple observations we seem to have survived a period when what was established over many years might have been broken. For that I am thankful. As Max says: Onward! R. P.S. At the next ExI conference anyone who does not attempt to pull Dave over to their dinner table and buy him dinner (or at least a beer) does not really understand the concept of promoting extropy. From bradbury at aeiveos.com Thu Nov 6 00:07:41 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 16:07:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <20031105214850.65755.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Mike Lorrey wrote: > Don't know what state or country you live in. Last time I checked, the > 14th Amendment was clearly interpreted by SCOTUS as saying that you own > yourself: no slavery, peony, or indenturement allowed. It is a well > settled matter of probate law that the deceased's wishes about disposal > of their body are paramount, and if the deceased does not explicitly > say so, their next of kin, NOT the state, has the right to dispose of > the body. [snip]. Mike, these are important points -- points which should be well documented in public forums, easily available. That means some combination of something like a google search as well as a law database search. The trick would be to get such information near the top of the list in both forums. It doesn't do us a lot of good if only a very limited number of people are aware of the knowledge base. One has to, by "self-interest" generated reasons force the knowledge into the public awareness. I tend to support the free-state concept. But at the same time I am realistic enough to recognize that the masses can easily crush a free-state or a free-island until such time that technology might make that extremely difficult. If that is an accurate foreview then you are attempting to solve a political problem before you have the technological means to accomplish your goals. That seems foolish. R. From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au Thu Nov 6 00:17:21 2003 From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 10:47:21 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] META: Back in business Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE05A@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> I'll second that. Good work! Emlyn > Given the variety of conversations over the last several days > I would like to explicitly acknowledge that the ExI List is > back in business. My tip of the hat to David McFadzean for > pulling this off. I don't know much about how difficult it > is to establish communities or what it takes to break them > but based on my simple observations we seem to have survived > a period when what was established over many years might have > been broken. For that I am thankful. > > As Max says: Onward! > > R. > > P.S. At the next ExI conference anyone who does not attempt to > pull Dave over to their dinner table and buy him dinner > (or at least a beer) does not really understand the concept > of promoting extropy. > From bradbury at aeiveos.com Thu Nov 6 00:26:00 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 16:26:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: <000e01c3a3c9$d3d9dbd0$0401a8c0@GERICOM> Message-ID: This is *important* bacause it contains key insights from very bright people -- (G & E. and indirectly Eugen). > Getting rid of spam may well be as difficult as developing active shields > against gray goo. Spam is a moving target: as soon as we devise a good > filter for today's spam, they will devise a way around. As soon as we > develop a super AI that recognizes spam, they will develop a better AI to > produce subliminal advertising bases on those nuances of human psycology > that have not be incorporated in the AI design. > The bad guys are as smart as the good guys, this is not likely to change too > soon. I think we will still have bad guys after the singularity. The "bad" guys are as smart as the "good" guys. The question becomes are there more "good" guys than "bad" guys? One would suppose in an organized, civilized society we (good) outnumber them (bad). When that condition ceases to hold you -- and I mean each and every extropian should become very very worried. Most of you are not watching the current power play in Russia -- and how many of you have reflected on how that might impact Alcor? If you do not see the possible connections you are betting with your life. R. From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Nov 6 00:32:47 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 11:32:47 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Rick's Text References: <000001c3a239$4265a8a0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> <3FA92772.4090606@dtext.com> Message-ID: <013c01c3a3fd$83e85280$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Jacques wrote: > rick wrote: > > > > > http://home.centurytel.net/rickw/aonl.htm > > > > "an enticing tale of the possibilities of transhumanism" it also > > outlines much of what I call scientific atheism. > > I've read it. Though... and... and of course... it was still a nice > little read. One of the parts I particularly liked was the old joke "would I, would I". Not original maybe Rick - but it was funnier in the extra context that you gave it. It reminded me of two others jokes for some reason. One about three tasks given to - a slightly deaf or dimwitted but stout-hearted Samson (or Hercules maybe). Another about the Big Bad Wolf who got no peace. Brett From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Nov 6 00:35:09 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 11:35:09 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] META: Back in business References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE05A@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> Message-ID: <014c01c3a3fd$d59e98a0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> > I'll second that. Good work! > > Emlyn Yes (aye), thanks David! Brett From bradbury at aeiveos.com Thu Nov 6 00:49:26 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 16:49:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: In a very uncommon circumstance -- I am going to take Eliezer on in this discussion (mostly at the conclusion of the discussion). > And yet we still can't get rid of spam. Yep. Put it down to a legacy effect of non-upgraded software. More important may be the issue that if SPAM can hide itself sufficiently it may be able to escape detection forever. Argues that every system needs white-lists as to whom it is reasonable to communicate with. (I don't claim it is a good solution -- just one of the possible.) > Active shields against grey goo? Yeah, right. You are joining problems that have very different outcomes. SPAM is annoying and problematic but it generally doesn't kill people. Grey Goo could kill people and therefore evokes a significantly greater response. You need to present an argument that (a) people would not see grey goo coming -- something that the papers re: ecophagy by R-Freitas would seem to contraindicate; and (b) we do not have the capability to eliminate grey goo (something that to my knowledge base has never been presented). You have thrown down the gauntlet. Back it up. R. From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Nov 6 00:54:51 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 16:54:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <20031105222650.14736.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20031106005451.99535.qmail@web80410.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mike Lorrey wrote: > --- Adrian Tymes wrote: > > --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > > > Can we get together and buy an island to do all > this > > > research on? > > > > Say we could do this. How then do we convince the > > researchers - and the companies that employ them - > to > > move to said island, without bankrupting what > minimal > > resources we'd have available on the island or > > invoking > > military action from certain foreign powers? > > Simple: make it a research resort, with centerfold > lab assistants, > beachside laboratories (surf while your experiment > incubates), and NO > management allowed.... they would pay to stay in > such a place... Something along those lines is certainly tempting. But would management pay them? And if not, who would? Plus, would we need regular psych tests every so often to make sure the researchers keep their "research is better than everything else" mindsets, so we can trust them to keep researching even with all these distractions? (I know, the suggestion may have been in jest. But I think it's a problem potentially worth solving - and that suggestion, humorous or not, is pretty close to the best answer I've been able to come up with so far.) From sentience at pobox.com Thu Nov 6 00:57:57 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 19:57:57 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant In-Reply-To: <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <3FA99C95.8010401@pobox.com> Brett Paatsch wrote: > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > >>This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so >>it is a simulation of a world without ESP. > > I reckon (without believing) that it is NOT a sim and could > NOT easily be a sim. I used to have a very strong intuition that the world was not a sim. Eventually it went away, and in retrospect I think it was based on nothing but wishful thinking. As Lee Corbin pointed out with respect to the Tegmark bubble duplication, there is no *particular* you, only the *set* of yous. It seems to me likely, on my current model, that at least some of you are living in a computer simulation. The question is whether almost all of you are simulated, or almost all of you are real. > I think that to entertain the notion that it is is to run the risk of > repeating (now dead) Pascal's wager and betting the same > wrong way. Of betting that there is a super-natural being that > is going to come to the rescue like Santa Claus. I prefer to > work with friends and the resources that I have, rather than > fret over the resources I don't have. I am not malicious and > I will deal with maliciousness if I must with resolution and > ferocity of my own. That some people may be inclined to abuse the simulation hypothesis in predictable ways, does not bear on the simulation hypothesis's *actual truth or falsity*. > I can see no advantage or change in my habits that I would > make if I thought the world was a sim. I would probably have > more allies and friends if less people entertained the sim > hypothesis so much but so be it. Okay, so most actions are the same on the simulation hypothesis. Again this does not bear on the simulation hypothesis's actual truth or falsity. > I think that if no-one can come up with a reliable test, (group > test - science or solitary test - pure reason) to see if the world > is a sim then it would be better to step around what looks like > an iteration of the same old mindfuk, to put away childish > things and to concentrate minds and energies on the tasks > at hand. If you can't come up with any experimental observation that differs on the world being a sim, then you don't need to know how much of your measure lies in sims, because it won't make any difference to subjective probabilities. The problem is in dealing with questions like "Would my measure sharply decrease after a Singularity, and if so, what would that look like?", where the triggering event lies in the future, is important, and there is no obvious way to test different hypotheses in advance. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Nov 6 01:11:22 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 17:11:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031106011122.40897.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com> --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > Money, money, and more money. And maybe starting a > rumor that the brilliant > minds on the island were willing and capable of > destroying anyone who > attacked them. Thought of that. Problem: some scared major power - maybe the US, maybe someone else - dresses some educated goons up and briefs them so they can convince the scientists they're on the same team for a short while, then once on the island, they whip out their machine guns and proceed to depopulate. Maybe they pin it on "terrorists", maybe they take credit if their remaining reactionaries are in enough of a froth about it. I can think of a few solutions to that, but they impose costly security measures and distrust enough to ruin the value of doing this. Exception: some place *really* tough for them to get to, like a lunar colony if you own the only reliable cheap launch services while they have to go through NASA. It might help to have no guns up there, as well as surveillance open to everyone in the colony so everyone can see if some people try to start kidnapping or killing some other people anyway. Regular self-defense classes/review sessions might help too, and deal with some problems stemming from lack of exercise in low G. > There is a long history of people fleeing > persecution and tyranny to > relocate and it seems it has gone pretty well. True. > OK. Maybe not. It was just a thought. This list is for discussing thoughts. It's not like anyone's going to be implementing this tomorrow anyway. From sentience at pobox.com Thu Nov 6 01:19:57 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 20:19:57 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <200311051120.12466.samantha@objectent.com> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <200311051120.12466.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <3FA9A1BD.90207@pobox.com> Samantha Atkins wrote: > On Wednesday 05 November 2003 03:17, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: >> >> What is the ordinary-world explanation? Well, for all I know, you >> are posting this story as a test to see if anyone tries to explain it >> away, give it a pseudo-rational explanation when in fact you just >> made it up and there *is* no explanation for why that sort of thing >> would happen under the laws of physics, because it didn't. I do not >> need to try and give your story an ordinary-world explanation; even >> if I can't think of any ordinary-world explanation at all, I am >> nonetheless confident enough in my understanding of the universe to >> not feel discomfited. > > That is a huge cop-out. It doesn't fit your worldview so the first > choice is to believe it never happened, heh? Convenient but not very > relevant. Yes, that's right. It doesn't fit my worldview, and therefore I assert that it never happened. On the hypothesis that the universe is genuinely non-eerie but people are not reliable reporters, it will sometimes be necessary to do that. The important thing is to do it flat out, honestly, and without excuses. It doesn't fit my preconceived notions and therefore, without apology, I reject it. Anyone is welcome to catalog reports like these; doing so is not an assault on Reason, for Reason can take the heat. It is suppressed fear that the universe really *is* eerie that leads to people trying to "suppress memories", "not think about it", deny grant funding to people trying to investigate it, and other harmful strategies. I will not live in fear of Chris Phoenix's report. I accept that he made the report, and deny that it happened as reported. >> This world is my home, and I know it now, and I know the world >> doesn't work that way. > > You *know* no such thing. You believe it doesn't work that way. "You are not me," replied Chuangtse. "How can you know that I do not know that the fish are enjoying themselves?" >> There are a few things left that I don't know yet, but the remaining >> uncertainty does not have enough slack in it to permit ESP. This >> world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so it is a >> simulation of a world without ESP. > > I see no way you could have complete enough knowledge or sufficiently > vetted theory of knowledge to make such a statement meaningfully. On the hypothesis that the universe really is non-eerie, there is no reason why an inhabitant of that universe should not eventually become confident of the fact. Of course, as I noted, it takes some work. >> Supposing that I try to think of an "ordinary" explanation for your >> story, what springs to mind? Several things. I don't know if the >> name "Elizabeth Loftus" rings any bells; but human memory is far, far >> more pliable than people like to think. It is possible for a >> researcher, by asking leading questions, to create a memory >> completely out of fabric - for example, of being lost in the mall as >> a child - and later the person will not remember that it is a false >> memory. Did your wife really have a pain in her lower ribs, or her >> back? Did you learn about her brother's death a few hours later, or >> a day? "How come the more you touch me there, the more I want to >> cry?" sounds to me like not at all the sort of thing that is said >> spontaneously, but very easily the sort of thing that might be >> "recalled" afterward. > > The story has to be assumed accurate for the questions raised to be > even seriously addressed. What you have done looks like more disowning > of inconvenient data. We all know most of the things you are bringing > up here and yet this nagging residue that doesn't fit remains. Right. I am disowning inconvenient data. The important thing is not to make the action look any more respectable than it is, or try to make the incovenient data look less improbable by coming up with pseudo-rational explanations for it. Scientists are nervous around disowned inconvenient data, even though it is, sometimes necessary. That is as it should be, and the reason why, when disowning inconvenient data is necessary, it should be done plainly and without apology. >> What permanently zaps the paranormal explanation is not studying >> physics, or studying the history of science, or reading the accounts >> of debunked psychics - it's studying the cognitive science of human >> error. The literature on this has to be seen to be believed. The >> human mind is so wildly fragile, so wildly wrong on so many simple >> problems, that our physics is simply more reliable than any anecdote >> that can be cited against it. *Any* anecdote. Yes, even anecdotes >> that really, really seem like they can't be explained away. The >> human mind is genuinely that weak; physics is genuinely that strong. > > What if there is some non-paranormal explanation for such ESPish events > that doesn't start by denying they actually happened? I have no need of that hypothesis. I have seen, lots of times, non-paranormal explanations attempted when the actual explanation was the event as reported simply didn't happen. I've even done it myself. Isn't that embarassing? After a while I learned not to try and stretch my explanations. On occasions I have missed an opportunity to appear downright prescient, because I heard a report of something that didn't sound quite right, and tried to explain it, rather than asking "Are you sure that's really what happened?" >> It doesn't matter whether the explanation I gave is correct. There's >> no ESP in the universe, no paranormal phenomena, no gods, no demons. >> It's just us within the laws of physics. That's the upshot, whatever >> the explanation is - whether you made up the anecdote as a test, or >> whether human memory is horrifyingly (and replicably) pliable, or >> whether some other ordinary event happened. > > You are frothing at the mouth in support of your pre-existing belief > structures. The book is far from closed on what is and is not > possible in reality. Our physics today is not known to be utterly > comprehensive of all phenomenon possible in reality. It is simply > what we have found to date with reasonable rigor. I now realize that ordinary physics is comprehensive of mental phenomena, which is something that I did not know previously, and which one would not expect physicists to know. >> If you haven't reached that point of confidence, then by no means >> should you attempt to convince yourself of it artificially. It took >> me a long time to reach the point where I was ready to say that, and >> it is not at all what I was thinking when I started out. But you >> know... it really is normal. It's all normal. And if you look at it >> long enough, there's enough evidence to see that it's normal. I hope >> that helps. > > No, it does not help. It looks like one more closed mind in the world > to me. Okay. Just so long as everything is done plainly and in the open. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Nov 6 01:31:46 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 17:31:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <11b.2a35e647.2cd9f7a4@aol.com> Message-ID: <20031106013146.11764.qmail@web80410.mail.yahoo.com> --- CurtAdams at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/4/2003 8:13:08 PM Pacific > Standard Time, > Karen at smigrodzki.org writes: > > >Can anyone in CA confirm that it is an opt-out (aka > "presumed consent") > >state? I can't find my reference for it, and I want > to correct if I am > >falsely accusing. > > No formal reference, sorry, but last I paid > attention to this (years ago) it > was "opt-in" by placing a "donor" sticker on one's > driver's license. My > 6 month old license still has a spot for the > sticker. I recall reading text along those lines when getting my CA driver's license. "Opt-in", by default dead people in CA keep their organs (modulo the method of death, and preservation of the body afterwards). From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Nov 6 00:44:51 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 11:44:51 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day References: Message-ID: <015201c3a3ff$300dbae0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Robert J. Bradbury wrote: > Most of you are not watching the current power play in Russia > -- and how many of you have reflected on how that might impact > Alcor? If you do not see the possible connections you are betting > with your life. Robert, what do you see as the problem? Brett From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Nov 6 02:03:10 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 18:03:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] A job for me? In-Reply-To: <20031104122405.GP15418@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20031106020310.13821.qmail@web80404.mail.yahoo.com> --- Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 05:52:13PM -0800, Adrian > Tymes wrote: > > > > Such is the cycle of much that is AI at one point: > > We don't have AI. AI doesn't mean artificial > stupidity. My point was that "AI" and "stupidity" are relative terms. What we have now is what would once have been termed AI, even if we now state (with reason) it is not. > Isolated skills do not > cumulate, nor do they magically integrate into a > seamless whole -- so far. There have been many other examples where individual parts combine to something more than the sum of the parts. Synergies between different components, so the overall whole is capable of tasks the components, alone, are not. There are indications that intelligence as a whole might be the same - but we have not even identified all the components as of yet. > > First it is impossible. > > It is. > > > Then it is AI. > > No, it's still impossible. But fiction writers can at least write about hypothetical solutions at this point, calling them "AI", and their readers suspend disbelief instead of claiming it can't possibly happen. > People still enter text into > editors when they want to > solve a problem. For certain problems, it is possible to solve without touching a keyboard. Granted, much of the solution has to be presolved by people typing text into editors, but this can be done far in advance for a generic class of problem, then the particulars input through other means. > > When the ability to translate from rough natural > > language descriptions to running code becomes free > > We're still several years away from suffiently > accurate speech recognition, a > comparatively trivial task. Did I say this was going to happen tomorrow? ;P > We don't have the > hardware base to render anything but the flick part > of that. Yep. We're a *long* ways away from the ultimate end goal. Not disagreeing with you there in the least. > > and ubiquitous, we will have passed our current > > Singularity - but perhaps be able to envision a > new > > one from there. > > You don't see an event horizont when traversing a > singularity. It's all in > the eye of the external observer. We're in violent agreement here. From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Nov 6 02:33:40 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 13:33:40 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <3FA99C95.8010401@pobox.com> Message-ID: <01b901c3a40e$63bc7b60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Brett Paatsch wrote: > > > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > > > >>This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so > >>it is a simulation of a world without ESP. > > > > I reckon (without believing) that it is NOT a sim and could > > NOT easily be a sim. > > I used to have a very strong intuition that the world was not a > sim. Eventually it went away, and in retrospect I think it was > based on nothing but wishful thinking. Even in retropect I wonder why such a notion would just go away? Could it be that the notion was not important to you? > > As Lee Corbin pointed out with respect to the Tegmark > bubble duplication, there is no *particular* you, only the > *set* of yous. It seems to me likely, on my current model, > that at least some of you are living in a computer simulation. [Sorry some ambiguity in that -hard to process] You necessarily see the world from your own standpoint Eliezer and from that standpoint the words "me" and "you" tag different referents than the same words do in other persons standpoints. I am not sure if you mean "you" as a self-reference also (like in "one") or you as other-reference only. > The question is whether almost all of you are > simulated, or almost all of you are real. I know I'm real. Do you know you are real? > > I think that to entertain the notion that it is is to run the risk of > > repeating (now dead) Pascal's wager and betting the same > > wrong way. Of betting that there is a super-natural being that > > is going to come to the rescue like Santa Claus. I prefer to > > work with friends and the resources that I have, rather than > > fret over the resources I don't have. I am not malicious and > > I will deal with maliciousness if I must with resolution and > > ferocity of my own. > > That some people may be inclined to abuse the simulation > hypothesis in predictable ways, does not bear on the simulation > hypothesis's *actual truth or falsity*. True. But really who cares? > > > I can see no advantage or change in my habits that I would > > make if I thought the world was a sim. I would probably have > > more allies and friends if less people entertained the sim > > hypothesis so much but so be it. > > Okay, so most actions are the same on the simulation hypothesis. > Again this does not bear on the simulation hypothesis's actual truth > or falsity. Agreed. > > > I think that if no-one can come up with a reliable test, (group > > test - science or solitary test - pure reason) to see if the world > > is a sim then it would be better to step around what looks like > > an iteration of the same old mindfuk, to put away childish > > things and to concentrate minds and energies on the tasks > > at hand. > > If you can't come up with any experimental observation that > differs on the world being a sim, then you don't need to know > how much of your measure lies in sims, because it won't make > any difference to subjective probabilities. Agreed. > The problem is in dealing with questions like "Would my measure > sharply decrease after a Singularity, and if so, what would that > look like?", [sorry perhaps I am missing something but I don't find that to be an important question. Perhaps it is because I don't think of the Singularity in pro-noun terms. I really don't know. Perhaps I could see your point a bit better if you could unpack 'baby' a bit more. Can you describe the Singularity as you see it with more words than the one (Singularity) but no pronouns? I think that would help. > where the triggering event lies in the future, is > important, and there is no obvious way to test different > hypotheses in advance. You may have a point but I can't parse to it for the reasons given above. Regards, Brett From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Nov 6 03:19:16 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:19:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3a414$c29e47c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > kevinfreels at hotmail.com > Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 1:19 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare > > > Gee, with all the sudden flaring, I have to wonder if there > is something going on thatthey are not telling us... They will tell us, as soon as they figure out how raging capitalism is causing it. spike {8-] From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Nov 6 03:18:08 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:18:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031106031808.72213.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Robert J. Bradbury" wrote: > > On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > Don't know what state or country you live in. Last time I checked, > the > > 14th Amendment was clearly interpreted by SCOTUS as saying that you > own > > yourself: no slavery, peony, or indenturement allowed. It is a well > > settled matter of probate law that the deceased's wishes about > disposal > > of their body are paramount, and if the deceased does not > explicitly > > say so, their next of kin, NOT the state, has the right to dispose > of > > the body. [snip]. > > Mike, these are important points -- points which should be well > documented in public forums, easily available. That means > some combination of something like a google search as well > as a law database search. The trick would be to get such > information near the top of the list in both forums. So I suppose we need to make the public as aware of Hale v Henkel (201 US 43 (1905)) as they are of Roe v Wade and Miranda, specifically: "The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his own private business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He owes no duty to the State or his neighbors to divulge his business, or to open his doors to investigation, so far as it may tend to incriminate him. He owes no such duty to the State, since he receives nothing there-from, beyond the protection of his life and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land long antecedent to the organization of the State... He owes nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights." This citation should be in the legal ammo box of any cryonicist. > > It doesn't do us a lot of good if only a very limited number > of people are aware of the knowledge base. One has to, > by "self-interest" generated reasons force the knowledge > into the public awareness. > > I tend to support the free-state concept. But at the same time > I am realistic enough to recognize that the masses can easily > crush a free-state or a free-island until such time that > technology might make that extremely difficult. If that is > an accurate foreview then you are attempting to solve a > political problem before you have the technological means > to accomplish your goals. Well, I'm not sure what technological means you are speaking of. As it is, technological development requires a nurturing political environment to achieve anything lasting. Places like California seem to me to be on the verge of becoming banana republics, what with natural disasters, political instability, excessive public spending and debt, fasco-socialist tendencies and significant infrastructure reliability problems. Don't know if it's a result of stalling out short of the singularity or what, but a polity trending more toward real political liberty for the individual, free of mobocracy, seems to fit the bill for a better place to be if you are going to be protecting your ass-ets in a post-mortem scenario. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Nov 6 03:27:38 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:27:38 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225759.00aaeec0@pop.iol.ie> Message-ID: <000101c3a415$eded5b90$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > > > Chris Phoenix wrote: > > > > > > >... a few hours after that, we learned that her brother had > > > > been killed in a motorcycle accident... In all our goings on, I neglected to say that I am deeply and sincerely sorry to hear about your brother-in-law's tragic passing. spike From bradbury at aeiveos.com Thu Nov 6 03:37:18 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:37:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare In-Reply-To: <000001c3a414$c29e47c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Spike wrote: > They will tell us, as soon as they figure out how > raging capitalism is causing it. spike Someday spike we are going to figure out how to take your perspective and figure out how to squeeze it down into a really small box that eventually explodes into an alternate universe. And I'll find it very interesting to visit there -- though I doubt I would adopt it as a long term residence. R. From mlorrey at yahoo.com Thu Nov 6 03:46:07 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:46:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare In-Reply-To: <000001c3a414$c29e47c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <20031106034607.48284.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> --- Spike wrote: > > kevinfreels at hotmail.com > > Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 1:19 PM > > To: ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare > > > > > > Gee, with all the sudden flaring, I have to wonder if there > > is something going on thatthey are not telling us... > > > They will tell us, as soon as they figure out how > raging capitalism is causing it. a) It is caused by National Geographic Sunspot Viewing Cruises. So many tourists are now looking at the sun with leaded binoculars that the lenses are reflecting energy back at the sun, making it hotter.... b) Bush isn't telling us that the flares are actually gushers of solar energy bursting from Halliburton test wells on the sun's surface... c) The solar flares are caused by the Galileo probes nuclear batteries impacting on Jupiter and polluting the Jovian environment. My favorite: since it is the holy muslim month of Ramadan, the flares are a sign of how angry allah is with the muslim people for continuing to sinfully commit suicide bombings on innocent civilians... ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Nov 6 04:07:05 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 20:07:05 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3a41b$7115eb40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Spike wrote: > > > They will tell us, as soon as they figure out how > > raging capitalism is causing it. spike > > Someday spike we are going to figure out how to take > your perspective and figure out how to squeeze it > down into a really small box that eventually explodes > into an alternate universe. And I'll find it very > interesting to visit there -- though I doubt I would > adopt it as a long term residence. > > R. Cool, I like alternate universes. {8-] On the contrary, however, you will like it there, as a long term residence. If I have my way, we will all live long and have fun. spike From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Nov 6 05:20:03 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 00:20:03 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] VR-BAR: Harv's back! In-Reply-To: <000801c3a1dc$6a1a9570$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <006f01c3a425$a9c8f310$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Spike wrote, > Then it occurred to me that there are very few > words that rhyme with orgasm: spasm, sarcasm, > grokasm. Others? Harv's slumped form lifted up off the table as he counted on his fingers, "Chasm, cytoplasm, ectoplasm, endoplasm, grokasm, orgasm, phantasm, plasm, protoplasm, sarcasm, spasm, ...um..." He wiggled his fingers trying to coax more knowledge out of the air. "Er, ...as 'em, has 'em, jazz 'em, pizzazz 'em, raz 'em, razzamatazz 'em..." The blond and brunette just stared at him wide-eyed. Even the slime-mold had stopped undulating. "What? Too far?" Harv looked at them questioningly. "You didn't like 'grokasm'?" The blond's jaw hung open. Throat muscles moved, but there was no sound. A piece of sushi slipped from an interrupted pair of chopsticks. Silence echoed between songs. Somewhere on a distant dance-floor a cyberdog howled. The brunette recovered first. "We thought you were dead." Harv tilted his head even further than usual. "We've been letting the slime-mold extract your decaying bodily fluids," the blond finally was able to speak. Harv snapped his head up straight as he scowled at the slime-mold, who by this time had quietly oozed half-way to the opposite side of the table. "We would have shared your queued-up drinks with you," the brunette stammered defensively, "if, um, you know, we had known you were alive." "What time is it?" Harvey looked at the nanotattoo of a watch on his wrist. "It's been four months since you were last conscious in here," the blond declared, "You were drinking that drink and logged off mad." Harv picked up the empty bottle of Rip van Winkle's Zombie-Maker and scrolled the label display to reveal the ingredients. "It's either a very hard Long Island Iced Tea or a very soft cryopreservative... with artificial flavorings." The robotender picked up the empty bottle as soon as it was set down, and then was gone. His voice floated behind him very faintly and very fast, "Drinking this beverage confirms legal consent to all label disclaimers. Suing prohibited by bar policy. Please drink responsibly." "I remember fighting in here," Harv said, setting down the bottle and looking around. "But it seems quiet now." He turned his hovering chair all the way around before facing the table again. "Wow. They fixed all the damage and remodeled the place." "That's it? You're back now?" The brunette poured more sake into three little cups and pushed one of them toward Harv. The blond resumed sushi consumption. The music continued. "If I have time." Harvey tossed back the first sake in one gulp. "I've been busy in the real world. I got my more certifications for my security work. My partner got more hardware wired into his heart. And his mother is entering the final stages of total memory failure." The brunette sympathetically poured more sake for Harv. The slime-mold flowed back to its usual position. The blonde paused the chopsticks, looking expectantly at Harv. "But otherwise..." He took sip of sake and paused thoughtfully. "Yeah. I'm back." -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From sentience at pobox.com Thu Nov 6 05:33:24 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 00:33:24 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant In-Reply-To: <01b901c3a40e$63bc7b60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <3FA99C95.8010401@pobox.com> <01b901c3a40e$63bc7b60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <3FA9DD24.8040909@pobox.com> Brett Paatsch wrote: > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > >>Brett Paatsch wrote: >> >>>Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: >>> >>>>This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so >>>>it is a simulation of a world without ESP. >>> >>>I reckon (without believing) that it is NOT a sim and could >>>NOT easily be a sim. >> >>I used to have a very strong intuition that the world was not a >>sim. Eventually it went away, and in retrospect I think it was >>based on nothing but wishful thinking. > > Even in retropect I wonder why such a notion would just go > away? Could it be that the notion was not important to you? No, (a) I realized it was wishful thinking, (b) I lost some of the premises with which I had been rationalizing the wishful thinking, (c) I understood how to handle the possibilities I was thinking about, rather than flinching away from them. >>As Lee Corbin pointed out with respect to the Tegmark >>bubble duplication, there is no *particular* you, only the >>*set* of yous. It seems to me likely, on my current model, >>that at least some of you are living in a computer simulation. > > [Sorry some ambiguity in that -hard to process] > > You necessarily see the world from your own standpoint Eliezer > and from that standpoint the words "me" and "you" tag different > referents than the same words do in other persons standpoints. > I am not sure if you mean "you" as a self-reference also (like in > "one") or you as other-reference only. Eh? I mean that if there's another Eliezer 10^10^29 meters away from me, then there's no way to say that I'm over here and he's over there; "Eliezer" is the measure of Eliezers wherever they are. At least that's my current guess. >> The question is whether almost all of you are >>simulated, or almost all of you are real. > > I know I'm real. Do you know you are real? Gah, sorry. Talk about the relative measure in simulated versus permanently nontamperable processes, then. >>>I think that to entertain the notion that it is is to run the risk of >>>repeating (now dead) Pascal's wager and betting the same >>>wrong way. Of betting that there is a super-natural being that >>>is going to come to the rescue like Santa Claus. I prefer to >>>work with friends and the resources that I have, rather than >>>fret over the resources I don't have. I am not malicious and >>>I will deal with maliciousness if I must with resolution and >>>ferocity of my own. >> >>That some people may be inclined to abuse the simulation >>hypothesis in predictable ways, does not bear on the simulation >>hypothesis's *actual truth or falsity*. > > True. But really who cares? If there's anything I need to do about the simulation possibility, in my professional capacity, then I care. >>>I can see no advantage or change in my habits that I would >>>make if I thought the world was a sim. I would probably have >>>more allies and friends if less people entertained the sim >>>hypothesis so much but so be it. >> >>Okay, so most actions are the same on the simulation hypothesis. >>Again this does not bear on the simulation hypothesis's actual truth >>or falsity. > > Agreed. > >>>I think that if no-one can come up with a reliable test, (group >>>test - science or solitary test - pure reason) to see if the world >>>is a sim then it would be better to step around what looks like >>>an iteration of the same old mindfuk, to put away childish >>>things and to concentrate minds and energies on the tasks >>>at hand. >> >>If you can't come up with any experimental observation that >>differs on the world being a sim, then you don't need to know >>how much of your measure lies in sims, because it won't make >>any difference to subjective probabilities. > > Agreed. > >>The problem is in dealing with questions like "Would my measure >>sharply decrease after a Singularity, and if so, what would that >>look like?", > > [sorry perhaps I am missing something but I don't find that to be > an important question. Perhaps it is because I don't think of the > Singularity in pro-noun terms. I really don't know. Perhaps I could > see your point a bit better if you could unpack 'baby' a bit more. > > Can you describe the Singularity as you see it with more words > than the one (Singularity) but no pronouns? I think that would help. If I build a superintelligence does our world suddenly require enormously more computing power to simulate to useful accuracy, thus greatly reducing the measure of any branches of probability that lie in a simulation? Does our world become enormously less interesting to simulating SIs, with the same result? And if so, what does it feel like? Is it subjectively the same as dying? Or does it have no effect at all? While I still don't know how to answer questions like those above, I see plausible strategies for handling most of the plausible answers. The quantities involved can be managed intelligently. >>where the triggering event lies in the future, is >>important, and there is no obvious way to test different >>hypotheses in advance. > > You may have a point but I can't parse to it for the reasons given > above. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Nov 6 04:53:16 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 15:53:16 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare References: Message-ID: <023701c3a421$e4666e20$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Robert J. Bradbury writes: > On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Spike wrote: > > > They will tell us, as soon as they figure out how > > raging capitalism is causing it. spike > > Someday spike we are going to figure out how to take > your perspective and figure out how to squeeze it > down into a really small box that eventually explodes > into an alternate universe. And I'll find it very > interesting to visit there -- though I doubt I would > adopt it as a long term residence. I think its best if 'we' let gentle Spike give us his perspective as and when he sees fit (i.e. voluntarily) rather than try and take it from him. Could be that trying to take a persons perspective would destroy it. They would lose it and no-one else would get it either. No Goose AND no eggs. Not that such foolishness as trying to take another's perspective has not been tried many times. - Brett [Ps: Keep laying them Spike your doing fine ;-) ] From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Nov 6 06:13:30 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 17:13:30 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] VR-BAR: Harv's back! References: <006f01c3a425$a9c8f310$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: <028201c3a42d$19bce800$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Harvey wrote: > Harv's slumped form lifted up off the table as he counted > on his fingers, "Chasm, cytoplasm, ectoplasm, endoplasm, > grokasm, orgasm, phantasm, plasm, protoplasm, sarcasm, > spasm, ...um..." He wiggled his fingers trying to coax more > knowledge out of the air. "Er, ...as 'em, has 'em, jazz 'em, > pizzazz 'em, raz 'em, razzamatazz 'em..." The blond and > brunette just stared at him wide-eyed. Even the slime-mold > had stopped undulating. > > "What? Too far?" Harv looked at them questioningly. "You > didn't like 'grokasm'?" > > The blond's jaw hung open. Throat muscles moved, but > there was no sound. A piece of sushi slipped from an > interrupted pair of chopsticks. Silence echoed between > songs. Somewhere on a distant dance-floor a cyberdog > howled. > > The brunette recovered first. "We thought you were dead." > > Harv tilted his head even further than usual. > > "We've been letting the slime-mold extract your decaying > bodily fluids," the blond finally was able to speak. > > Harv snapped his head up straight as he scowled at the > slime-mold, who by this time had quietly oozed half-way to > the opposite side of the table. > > "We would have shared your queued-up drinks with you," > the brunette stammered defensively, "if, um, you know, we > had known you were alive." > > "What time is it?" Harvey looked at the nanotattoo of a > watch on his wrist. > > "It's been four months since you were last conscious in here," > the blond declared, "You were drinking that drink and > logged off mad." > > Harv picked up the empty bottle of Rip van Winkle's Zombie- > Maker and scrolled the label display to reveal the ingredients. > "It's either a very hard Long Island Iced Tea or a very soft > cryopreservative... with artificial flavorings." The robotender > picked up the empty bottle as soon as it was set down, and > then was gone. His voice floated behind him very faintly and > very fast, "Drinking this beverage confirms legal consent to > all label disclaimers. Suing prohibited by bar policy. Please > drink responsibly." > > "I remember fighting in here," Harv said, setting down the bottle > and looking around. "But it seems quiet now." He turned his > hovering chair all the way around before facing the table again. > "Wow. They fixed all the damage and remodeled the place." > > "That's it? You're back now?" The brunette poured more > sake into three little cups and pushed one of them toward Harv. > The blond resumed sushi consumption. The music continued. > > "If I have time." Harvey tossed back the first sake in one gulp. > "I've been busy in the real world. I got my more certifications > for my security work. My partner got more hardware wired > into his heart. And his mother is entering the final stages of > total memory failure." > > The brunette sympathetically poured more sake for Harv. > The slime-mold flowed back to its usual position. The blonde > paused the chopsticks, looking expectantly at Harv. > > "But otherwise..." He took sip of sake and paused thoughtfully. > "Yeah. I'm back." > > -- > Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC > Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec > Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, > SANS Certified GIAC > Welcome back Harvey!!! What a very fine return and a welcome addition you make to the revamped bar/salon. It matters little if one goes away mad and comes back additionally certified if that one is Harvey Newstrom. We are a better bigger we now for your return :-) Cheers, Brett From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Nov 6 06:55:45 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 22:55:45 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] VR-BAR: Harv's back! In-Reply-To: <006f01c3a425$a9c8f310$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: <000401c3a433$00bb2d20$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Subject: [extropy-chat] VR-BAR: Harv's back! > > > Spike wrote, > > Then it occurred to me that there are very few > > words that rhyme with orgasm: spasm, sarcasm, > > grokasm. Others? > > Harv's slumped form lifted up off the table as he counted on > his fingers... Harvey! Welcome back dude! Weve been wondering what ever happened to you. Hope all is well. {8-] As you can see, nothing has changed much. {8^D spike From maxm at mail.tele.dk Thu Nov 6 07:06:12 2003 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 08:06:12 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <003001c3a3d6$40ac2c20$0200a8c0@etheric> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com><3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <200311051120.12466.samantha@objectent.com> <003001c3a3d6$40ac2c20$0200a8c0@etheric> Message-ID: <3FA9F2E4.6090409@mail.tele.dk> R.Coyote wrote: > I "knew", I anticipated that he would return, after 10 + years to gone. > > I suppose I could produce police records, hospital records, etc. take a > polygraph and pass, but cant be bothered ast some people "here" are as > narrow minded as some Religious Fundamentalists (Satan did it) , in that if > it doesn't fit their world view, It cannot be true. (it was a > hallucination, he's a liar, its a hoax etc.) You think of somebody you know, and have thought about frequently. One of the times he shows up at your house. Now is that random coincidence or is it a sign of supernatural powers? Using Occams razor I would guess the first. And that doesn't take a closed mind, only reason. I sometimes have Deja-Vu and it feels eerie and real, but I don't believe that I really have experienced the events before. It's just my mind playing tricks. I am also shure that the most of us have experienced anxiety/panic attacks. Those would seem like a pretty strong precursor to something bad happening. But it never does. But if somebody has one, and then heard that a family member had died, he would certainly couple the two things together. He would be certain that he had a bad "vision". It's called cognitive Ressonance. The problem is that we don't report the negatives. So they don't show up. If we did science the same way, we would be able to prove allmost anything, as only experiments that showed positives would be published. That is exactly one of the problems of the meta analysis' that are done in the supernatural fields. regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark From aperick at centurytel.net Thu Nov 6 07:09:40 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 23:09:40 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant, and the Matrix In-Reply-To: <200311060520.hA65KhM05690@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a434$f4f83df0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> In another online novel (this one not by me) a singularity occurs that, at one point, changes everyone (everybody) from real fleshies into only sims -- in an instant -- with out their knowledge. This could happen to you Brett -- at any time. Past, present, or future. It has already occurred in a novel -- this you cannot deny! :-) :) ;-) :-) I was not terribly fond of the ending, but it is a much better work than mine -- more fun parts, better high tech talk etcetera. And twice as long. http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html Second topic: why I hated the first Matrix movie. I was horrified when they stated that one main reason for the existence and continuance of the matrix Borg-like prison setup was that the machines needed the electric energy produced by the bodies -- that they were like human batteries. The machines were feeding off the energy output from the bodies. Talk about zero understanding of chemistry and physics! No further explanation was given. They could have tried to justify this most inefficient power generation scheme. But they didn't. Millions of movie goers were taught that human bodies are energy producing machines, moreover, that human bodies are the most effective power plants that a super intelligent entity could enlist. I felt like puking. Any fifth grade Japanese student should know better, even the dumbest ones. It's just like so opposite from the truth man. Oh the horror! The horror! From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Nov 6 07:19:56 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 23:19:56 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: <00d901c3a3b4$7e5c8820$6401a8c0@int.veeco.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a436$61b00260$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Ones and zeroes. We can see them completely and clearly; the > entire realm is absolutely under our control; it is a world that we built > and that runs entirely on our rules. Destroying the intruder is as easy as > making the decision. > > And yet we still can't get rid of spam. > > Active shields against grey goo? Yeah, right. Eliezer S. Yudkowsky > Jef Allbright: > I think Eliezer's post was intended more as poetry, rather > than the more comprehensive style for which he is well known... Oh no, I very much disagree, Jef. Had Eliezer's post been intended as poetry, he might have written thus: Zeros and ones, (Please pardon the puns) I see them clearly and completely, I control this realm With just me at the helm And it all comes out very neatly. Its a world built by me, >From messiness free, Runs entirely by my clear-cut rules, There's nothing here rude, Reality dare not intrude, We're never forced to tolerate fools. We know just what to do About the threat of grey goo, About that threat we don't give a damn, When I finish this rhyme Ill spend all my time Just deleting the Nigerian spam. {8^D spike From maxm at mail.tele.dk Thu Nov 6 07:30:38 2003 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 08:30:38 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] a job for me? In-Reply-To: References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> Message-ID: <3FA9F89E.6080901@mail.tele.dk> Randy S wrote: > Also there is the cost. Max M here comes from from Denmark, a country that > is run for the benefit of its citizens. Tell us, Max, how much they pay > students to go to school in denmark? Well it doesn't exactly work like that. I am self-employed and make too much money to be payed the SU (Sttudy Allovance). But other students can receive about $500 a moth to live for. Not much, but enough for a young person with no family. I don't have to pay for tuition however, and that certainly helps. Even though I pay dearly in taxes... regards Max M From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Nov 6 07:36:34 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 23:36:34 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] prayer and healing again In-Reply-To: <006f01c3a425$a9c8f310$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: <000001c3a438$b4301640$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Duke Scientists Test God's Healing Power Duke University Medical Center cardiologists put God to the test to find out if prayer helps to heal the sick. The controversial results: There is no scientific evidence that prayer heals, reports The Telegraph of London. The three-year study, which involved 750 heart patients in nine hospitals, as well as 12 prayer groups of different faiths located around the world, was conducted after earlier, but less extensive, research from the University of Wales in the late '90s suggested prayer has a measurable beneficial effect on healing... I can explain this just from this just from what little info is in this paragraph. The verse says "...The fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much..." The study used 12 prayer groups *of different faiths*. They were different from each other, so clearly they couldn't all be right, but they could all be wrong, which means they were not believing correctly, which means they were not in the truth which means their fervent prayers would not availeth much. Simple explanation for the negative result: they didn't include members of the *true* believers. spike From samantha at objectent.com Thu Nov 6 08:50:43 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 01:50:43 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare In-Reply-To: References: <007a01c3a352$392afc30$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: <200311060050.43112.samantha@objectent.com> It is quite surprising. The 2nd flare last week was considered statistically anomalous by current models. To get a third and more powerful flare than either within a week must certainly be very unusual. It is not an area of any real personal expertise but what I am reading at least looks as if it will cause a fair amount of rework of some of our solar behavior models. We are quite fortunate that this one was not headed squarely our way. I hope this wild level of activity calms down before we catch a good size one. - samantha On Wednesday 05 November 2003 13:18, kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > Gee, with all the sudden flaring, I have to wonder if there is something > going on thatthey are not telling us. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Karen Rand Smigrodzki" > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 10:06 PM > Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare > > > For those interested: > > > > > > Space Weather News for Nov. 5, 2003 > > http://spaceweather.com > > > > Giant sunspot 486 unleashed another intense solar flare on Nov. 4th (1950 > > UT), and this one could be historic. The blast saturated X-ray sensors > > onboard GOES satellites. The last time this happened, in April 2001, the > > flare that saturated the sensors was classified as an X20--the biggest > > ever recorded at the time. Yesterday's flare appears to have been even > > stronger. > > > > > > --karen > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 6 09:31:20 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 10:31:20 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare In-Reply-To: <200311060050.43112.samantha@objectent.com> References: <007a01c3a352$392afc30$6501a8c0@DogHouse> <200311060050.43112.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <20031106093120.GF27591@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 01:50:43AM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote: > We are quite fortunate that this one was not headed squarely our way. I hope > this wild level of activity calms down before we catch a good size one. Lossage of quite a few comm sats would be temporarily painful, but would also invigorate launch industry, and result in a leaner and meaner sat on the average. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From amara at amara.com Thu Nov 6 08:58:38 2003 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 10:58:38 +0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare Message-ID: Dear Samantha, > It is not an area of any real personal expertise but what I am > reading at least looks as if it will cause a fair amount of rework > of some of our solar behavior models. The corona is the least understood part of the Sun, so I don't think that any reworking of 'solar behavior models' for the coronal region is necessary (because it is not understood well now), compared to the the physics of the solar interior (which is understood very well). It was only recently (last 5 years, say) that solar physicists began to understand the coronal heating problem, but I doubt that CMEs (coronal mass ejections) are completely understood yet. A quick search on Google, tells me that the theorists are still working hard: Theor(ies) of Coronal Mass Ejections http://www.aps.org/BAPSDPP98/abs/S550006.html http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EAE03/04769/EAE03-J-04769.pdf http://www.eps.org/aps/meet/APR00/baps/abs/S820009.html (and more) I think that this is cool: Current Solar Maps http://www.raben.com/maps/ -- *********************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario, INAF - ARTOV, Via del Fosso del Cavaliere, 100, I-00133 Roma, ITALIA tel: +39-06-4993-4384 |fax: +39-06-4993-4383 Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it | http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps ************************************************************************ I'M SIGNIFICANT!...screamed the dust speck. -- Calvin From bradbury at aeiveos.com Thu Nov 6 10:54:12 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 02:54:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare In-Reply-To: <20031106093120.GF27591@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Eugen Leitl wrote: > ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org > 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE Alright Eugen -- what the deuce is the above? The "ICBM:" is particularly leading. Are the rest of the numbers the GPS coordinates if I want to target a nuke towards your general area? Seems counter-extropian to me to distribute numbers without explaining what they should be used for. R. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 6 11:09:52 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:09:52 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare In-Reply-To: References: <20031106093120.GF27591@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20031106110952.GK27591@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 02:54:12AM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote: > > On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 Allright! If you send a GPS guided missile to here, it should land on my balcony, or something. It's a static address, it doesn't refresh according to my current position (yet). > > http://www.leitl.org That one is to improve Google ranking, as some mailing list software turns this into a real hyperlinked, to be crawled by web spiders. > > 8B29F6BE: This one is a GPG key ID. If you stick it into http://pgp.mit.edu/ (or your mailer automatically gets key it doesn't have in your keyring yet), you'll get my public key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x8B29F6BE Public Key Server -- Get ``0x8B29F6BE '' -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: PGP Key Server 0.9.6 mQGiBD55j/cRBACM+5KHeUDdu8FnCTVemc/QfCfSiD4qJfigkXbJdQLUggQZwqJP u7tYHa/ByW5KXLXnVG4REKK6DkOoJ3ni+JFIA2gMrQD8XUEqTufEX3I1JHhdlztN hSK7bFXF/GJ4zzw455rb7kztBK7aYy05SkhOU/6S30XLAQbIxiSLZWfBBwCgwNNR 3L+VTlgETLnKFOm2gY+2fv8D/04WsykP3Zd45d7Ems1S2X5/1n7ajDMDdltgsZf8 028INooX6nhJcitpXgYUwfH8EDLUSwNAYZgfAMlwrkU05BbX7JIEqroETGsq6m8m VmAiqqMJcy8tjgxVN9KcZ7uqdPBuW1pWvDzIs4HFLrexAW3Oqft0t9AFUUMsgo2s gP7lA/0SiTg5IoLiK70T/73fpA0626TV1wlvfbZOB1drE1TDXj6PRaHOBB4uvksD Qiovx0u4dlAbWDVW6DSW3gR/t3nNjNkLvbXm1uJulqBfuTKgR2g3Jy62YrTFUZls T7AR2M19J5riDxqHKd8ed1KSbxaCmvkMbI3ZM0XkQEUNJvB5zbQ5RXVnZW4gTGVp dGwgKG1ha2VzIG90aGVyIGtleXMgb2Jzb2xldGUpIDxldWdlbkBsZWl0bC5vcmc+ iQIcBBABAgAGBQI+kIz9AAoJEARVjUj9NCi0KgkP/0VzuaR9XQNEnGmyhlKL3hCN +x/ADzsz+ysV+YtqUfO9dVKxVd86hxRmQbhsN2byGsLDBww+8wtuR0+P5gdqPWoN zD6q2EtSL+CPs1HbIGpiObXBFFZBzv0jF7K+2c593JCvfrpS19EdtVlZKgt+3eMQ BeOrXUPBLBD1lduNSGHwV85PAtzf05A51Iwd7AUo2pMy3PaKa4+XB2vCd5h7QW3c GGfEcgvmDcDRtRo4LN/1NlSvJkP9Wgn6hIgXdm+fEBoRQQTJDEaP4IkUdUlbbp3y 6sahtTGj1cFlVnx1Y/J0r2kcBbOJEyIk5L9wu/tGDGw0AelAqfrJyiF+brmmt5aj HG7E2SVwPIONhPO8kskydqIs2b5xIwDC6Monb8srm8uaSR85C/kq1yK6WfIpBpN4 MztwQlpn9tDRY1YRDAfOUzQAfBD6/15QAZzTS/Tfy5CoSsQeusgB0zUZsgn+RaD7 xMioydqhr9490HveTMu5I4969JUrHueKFvkRogpZPegE0RuwJC46Xsv6FRwtgfVX SW6BCm3qaHIylxQfkAl9nNemZqxm3kSiNMwCAIquCBJ8rhCfMrw5ZHUl4HF83yhe qJgm0S/SPwEpfKtIGeOfPq8bXyStilg7KuzFagp+W9ydPF0lY1ayviMmPokPT/lI 7QgSs2G7YpkuUYAHGCYEiQIcBBABAgAGBQI+kI3fAAoJECT438JsfE9dW8cP/Rrc VyoJS5vD/DFwjIMlJnBtp94QQjMYQh4coOghJXmS8RCPCjSVMe+k9f7sIxepvkoK kftEOUf6L5GzVlUabwm7wrcEC+jwdhBigIDDzxP1jjhuay4R5VeMCFFxqBY9gUXW pDAOKdFUkTKZuSyQUABTeS4NoSaD7y397ldHPuNhCoYiIuGv/vosVx3wxE2MQOCj F7EsVrhxe7K7W3xrfni41Bhjoz5EGTS8n2CsrWA9rH2LMSDPHf0Qyomano4q6c8M fb2lS+o4cx0rcrQ/BENaMIO2D9Oxfhdn0QeSa2CxqW23KPba32qF+H5ow77JDFle M2MqqLFYH8PC76VnODDeRM5ah4eAR2sK2M8FpoMZWl7YfBxXyqlsDCHAkuoBaVXZ diPorV0S/b5n6654VDRJf/drH8CWokAkydT5h1b+kDpRTqQ+m48f2liMnlweKIu5 BO3VjBaTc0Otks3R4acB0EsaMiMPawpxi1OmS3sPTGWfacmQBj4GvR4ZeMkfRIx8 2aYNA6RjJm8/XtRGCVmBEH+Wt8u4ovYp/8YrEcCRAbnnQA4kyMPJnLNqt99Vd8hk ETg2z4IShyBZo0xMY0tkkUbZM5jPe6CAZO9haBiWgNbeAniDwvDyQMIzHwvYimNH UScU79X6Fa5p2h3zRrJu7PSvo8hUWKoysp4hzZJ1iF8EExECAB8FAj55j/cFCRLM AwAECwcDAgMVAgMDFgIBAh4BAheAAAoJEHWwJEOLKfa+cYEAnRY9HPXli7w/o31b 4M9oKhOAYhOZAKCM/6lWYDqIlTjoCrW3tXtI55ZQbbkCDQQ+eZCzEAgA0+MGcfzr hnUb5V7dim0dpqjivsPlJoVwz869v4HSLnQyYiolfSxehDiVrIcHZ9+t90ygV7Nh VQMT2WXCboYxHd/g9DylyH3pQjhmvtfBMGI7Vm7mkclXGQIDGcAJxshp5D2nSFVF bDcAkxSYKhonFpTonabfP9IuBebznETD6aDA4pyNOIYHxxpQnLk8Jt+qZB0i/agK oG7WWd0lYGYR+gv1B51eJ2H0MhFsQEIjY3RjvR4CjzM9ZdIuMyP+KBR+9M8O+uk+ Rzd0vfSdh/Cq4wvqkSPvHFzEzgLHNtHd+dCo/O6LMshMBqztXQTSTTu9xBQLAM9f SJwETCsKxj7HewADBQgAkiRtJG5iCwfqyYw8O4ltCPxc+wllIsTOb2nhHRph/syx 6AEATmu2Vg/GCkKpFkydYELNo3FE2C/COkUKrEcy9oQf8pyso+i6qxKKSuhGAZJe LAsMX9LcsRxMkBon3/PGdS0wJX1ryAh44nqyArImJJzeHBfOPD6ieJGvidpt0Yk4 u3VNqcrgH3KRGlfY5/HG/s2hU/gRlDuPW78I4msPrEWCT3AVoeDjjaWIW/GzQHDc kKpLIvj1bDU+NIe9R+Fa4kzg20QQI2mJCx/ErXP8f1yuRqpnK+lchXE56sygcucO YFNMOj2g41TXtdPxS53X+YfoPIDcn4DCwss5K+QaPYhMBBgRAgAMBQI+eZCzBQkS zAMAAAoJEHWwJEOLKfa+pPYAnRrg3iFBWhsXw0UE0OETPG9O1TkYAJ9c388/ZH2E MUsQbV958Q+LeE2/2Q== =33c3 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- > 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE This is above key's fingerprint. It's very unweildy to verify above key is mine over another channel (phone, mail, card, ESP), so you just use the fingerprint (a kryptographic hash of the key). > Alright Eugen -- what the deuce is the above? The "ICBM:" is > particularly leading. Are the rest of the numbers the GPS If you look into HTML source of http://leitl.org, you'll see This is for the geourl spider. This way you can query who's in your vicinity: http://geourl.org/near/?p=http://leitl.org A poor man's location aware search engine. > coordinates if I want to target a nuke towards your general > area? Seems counter-extropian to me to distribute numbers > without explaining what they should be used for. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bradbury at aeiveos.com Thu Nov 6 11:12:37 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 03:12:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Robert J. Bradbury wrote: > Most of > you are not watching the current power play in Russia -- and how > many of you have reflected on how that might impact Alcor? > If you do not see the possible connections you are betting > with your life. Comments suggest I was a bit obtuse with the above comment. The point would be that the basic question in Russia is whether or not "law" rules. If law does not rule then it is possible for a situation to develop where people toss frozen bodies/heads into the street. I am stretching to extrapolate the lack of "rule-of-law" in Russia to the U.S. *but* I am not stretching things too far (witness current anti-abortion trends). R. From mitchtemporarily at hotmail.com Thu Nov 6 11:25:45 2003 From: mitchtemporarily at hotmail.com (Mitchell Porter) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 11:25:45 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence Message-ID: Eliezer said >It doesn't matter whether the explanation I gave is correct. There's no >ESP in the universe, no paranormal phenomena, no gods, no demons. It's >just us within the laws of physics. There is no rational necessity for such dogmatism, especially when (i) today's standard-issue laws of physics already contain a mechanism for nonlocal correlation, and (ii) anomalous coincidences are a very common experience. Considerations of human irrationality cut both ways here. I recommend the following essay by C.D. Broad: http://www.ditext.com/broad/rprp.html ... because it spells out just what "paranormal" really means: a violation of certain "basic limiting principles which, apart from the findings of psychical research, are commonly accepted either as self-evident or as established by overwhelming and uniformly favourable empirical evidence". Broad's principles fall under these headings: 1. General principles of causation 2. Limitations on the action of mind on matter 3. Dependence of mind on brain 4. Limitations on ways of acquiring knowledge None of Broad's principles are logical necessities. They are all hypotheses. Furthermore, we know how to build physical models which violate the principles in the first category (quantum nonlocality, closed timelike curves), which means that we can describe, in the abstract, material cognitive systems which violate principles from the second and the fourth categories. Even if a Bayesian reasoner only considered mathematical models already devised by human beings, it would have to assign a nonzero probability to the reality of paranormal phenomena (and not just in the form of a world-as-simulation hypothesis). _________________________________________________________________ Hot chart ringtones and polyphonics. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilemania/default.asp From sentience at pobox.com Thu Nov 6 11:30:34 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 06:30:34 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] prayer and healing again In-Reply-To: <000001c3a438$b4301640$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <000001c3a438$b4301640$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <3FAA30DA.9000505@pobox.com> Spike wrote: > Duke Scientists Test God's Healing Power > > Duke University Medical Center cardiologists put God to the test to find > out if prayer helps to heal the sick. The controversial results: There > is no scientific evidence that prayer heals, reports The Telegraph of > London. The three-year study, which involved 750 heart patients in nine > hospitals, as well as 12 prayer groups of different faiths located > around the world, was conducted after earlier, but less extensive, > research from the University of Wales in the late '90s suggested prayer > has a measurable beneficial effect on healing... > > > I can explain this just from this just from what > little info is in this paragraph. The verse says > "...The fervent prayer of the righteous man > availeth much..." The study used 12 prayer groups > *of different faiths*. They were different from > each other, so clearly they couldn't all be right, > but they could all be wrong, which means they were > not believing correctly, which means they were not > in the truth which means their fervent prayers would > not availeth much. Simple explanation for the > negative result: they didn't include members of > the *true* believers. Of course! All we need to do is repeat the study using atheists. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From sentience at pobox.com Thu Nov 6 12:29:32 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 07:29:32 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3FAA3EAC.1070706@pobox.com> Mitchell Porter wrote: > > Eliezer said > >> It doesn't matter whether the explanation I gave is correct. There's >> no ESP in the universe, no paranormal phenomena, no gods, no demons. >> It's just us within the laws of physics. > > There is no rational necessity for such dogmatism, especially when (i) > today's standard-issue laws of physics already contain a mechanism for > nonlocal correlation, (Disagree; Everett.) > and (ii) anomalous coincidences are a very common experience. *Coincidences* are a very common experience. The Bright Hypothesis is that there has not been one single *anomalous* coincidence in the entire history of the universe to date. > Considerations of human irrationality cut both ways here. > > I recommend the following essay by C.D. Broad: > http://www.ditext.com/broad/rprp.html Note, incidentally, the credence in Rhine's data, which was later debunked, and other data which repeated experimentation failed to replicate. Yet another success for the Bright Hypothesis. It takes great daring to stand by your principles in the teeth of early data, but to do so and succeed is a tremendously impressive accomplishment for a theory. The Bright Hypothesis has triumphed over anecdotes, public wisdom, overeager researchers, wishful thinking, and outright experimental fraud. It is one damn strong hypothesis. > None of Broad's principles are logical necessities. They are all > hypotheses. Furthermore, we know how to build physical models which > violate the principles in the first category (quantum nonlocality, > closed timelike curves), which means that we can describe, in the > abstract, material cognitive systems which violate principles from the > second and the fourth categories. Even if a Bayesian reasoner only > considered mathematical models already devised by human beings, it > would have to assign a nonzero probability to the reality of paranormal > phenomena (and not just in the form of a world-as-simulation > hypothesis). Yes, that we live in a magic-free universe is a hypothesis. It happens to be an overwhelmingly supported hypothesis, and I am willing to put my weight down on it, and to wield it as my understanding. The weight of the alternatives is not zero. It is small enough that, confronted with supposed anomalous coincidences, I am willing to deny the data, as history suggests will turn out to be the correct course of action. I deny the data openly rather than covertly, so that I can keep track of what it is I have denied. For example, I earlier denied the data on an experiment purportedly showing 50% recovery rates for prayed-for patients versus 25% recovery rates for un-prayed-for patients: as I commented at the time, a nice non-marginal result, blatant effect size, and clear and straightforward claim, far healthier for debate than all the marginal claims of conventional psychic science. Of course, as the Bright Hypothesis predicts, the study failed to replicate; and so that is one more denial off the stack and one more triumph of the Bright Hypothesis. History shows that the Bright Hypothesis is stronger than anecdotes and early experiments. Needless to say, not even the Bright Hypothesis would be stronger than an experiment with a non-marginal effect size and non-marginal statistical significance that replicated several times in the teeth of surveillance by professional magicians. Needless to say, I predict, wielding the Bright Hypothesis as my understanding, that no such experiment will ever occur. I can take my weight back off the Bright Hypothesis, given a damn good reason to do so; no such reason has been forthcoming, and on the Bright Hypothesis none ever will. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 6 12:43:05 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 13:43:05 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20031106124305.GV27591@leitl.org> On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 04:49:26PM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote: > You are joining problems that have very different > outcomes. SPAM is annoying and problematic but it > generally doesn't kill people. Grey Goo could > kill people and therefore evokes a significantly > greater response. There's zero awareness in the general public right now of what nanotechnology is, and what a successful military self-replicator could do. If you ask random people (notice that your friends and acquaintances are not that) you'll agree that's an accurate description. When will there be a widespread awareness? Probably, after the first large incident. Well, we'd better survive that first incident. What is the impact of a first large incident in terms of policy? Extreme degree of surveillance, down to the microscale. > You need to present an argument that (a) people > would not see grey goo coming -- something that > the papers re: ecophagy by R-Freitas would seem Who has read that paper? Apart from people on this list, I mean. > to contraindicate; and (b) we do not have the > capability to eliminate grey goo (something that > to my knowledge base has never been presented). b) is backwards. You have to prove that we have the capability for that. I used to present lots of arguments why you can't contain military self-rep without dire side effects to biology. No one has ever refuted them, so I'm assuming we can't contain it, as long as there's an ecosystem around. For dry nanosystems grey goo is about as annoying as mites are to biology. Not an issue most of the time, nasty in some cases, terminally so in negligible number of cases. As long as we're stuck with biology, this doesn't help us a lot, of course. But, a successful design is nontrivial, and we don't have that many rampant evil geniuses around. > You have thrown down the gauntlet. Back it up. Eliezer doesn't have the burden of proof here, methinks. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From gregburch at gregburch.net Thu Nov 6 13:15:40 2003 From: gregburch at gregburch.net (Greg Burch) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 07:15:40 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: <20031106124305.GV27591@leitl.org> Message-ID: I'm with Eugene on this -- I think Eliezer's actually made a brilliant comment in his analogy of spam to other, more serious problems that will face us in an increasingly networked and meme-driven world. 'gene's right -- the metaphorical fit is good. Spam may end up having been a blessing, because it gives us a chance to deal with a "toy problem" before we have to deal with desk-top vial engineering and nanotech in the hands of nutcase terrorists. -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 6:43 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day On Wed, Nov 05, 2003 at 04:49:26PM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote: > You are joining problems that have very different > outcomes. SPAM is annoying and problematic but it > generally doesn't kill people. Grey Goo could > kill people and therefore evokes a significantly > greater response. There's zero awareness in the general public right now of what nanotechnology is, and what a successful military self-replicator could do. If you ask random people (notice that your friends and acquaintances are not that) you'll agree that's an accurate description. When will there be a widespread awareness? Probably, after the first large incident. Well, we'd better survive that first incident. What is the impact of a first large incident in terms of policy? Extreme degree of surveillance, down to the microscale. > You need to present an argument that (a) people > would not see grey goo coming -- something that > the papers re: ecophagy by R-Freitas would seem Who has read that paper? Apart from people on this list, I mean. > to contraindicate; and (b) we do not have the > capability to eliminate grey goo (something that > to my knowledge base has never been presented). b) is backwards. You have to prove that we have the capability for that. I used to present lots of arguments why you can't contain military self-rep without dire side effects to biology. No one has ever refuted them, so I'm assuming we can't contain it, as long as there's an ecosystem around. For dry nanosystems grey goo is about as annoying as mites are to biology. Not an issue most of the time, nasty in some cases, terminally so in negligible number of cases. As long as we're stuck with biology, this doesn't help us a lot, of course. But, a successful design is nontrivial, and we don't have that many rampant evil geniuses around. > You have thrown down the gauntlet. Back it up. Eliezer doesn't have the burden of proof here, methinks. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Nov 6 15:44:10 2003 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 07:44:10 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] VR-BAR: Harv's back! In-Reply-To: <006f01c3a425$a9c8f310$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> References: <000801c3a1dc$6a1a9570$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20031106072237.0310a9f0@pop.earthlink.net> ...The fine lines of chiaroscuro tempered the darkness for several moments more, and as the fourth cup of sake wet his throat, a glimpse of a smile curved his upper lip. "Yes, I'm back," she heard him say, this time with a calm. They watched him for a while - some of the familiar faces, a few still soiled by human emotion, and many others oblivious to that trend. "Do you want to dance?" the old friends asked, and yes, he did. Welcome back Harvey! Natasha At 12:20 AM 11/6/03 -0500, you wrote: >Spike wrote, > > Then it occurred to me that there are very few > > words that rhyme with orgasm: spasm, sarcasm, > > grokasm. Others? > >Harv's slumped form lifted up off the table as he counted on his fingers, >"Chasm, cytoplasm, ectoplasm, endoplasm, grokasm, orgasm, phantasm, plasm, >protoplasm, sarcasm, spasm, ...um..." He wiggled his fingers trying to coax >more knowledge out of the air. "Er, ...as 'em, has 'em, jazz 'em, pizzazz >'em, raz 'em, razzamatazz 'em..." The blond and brunette just stared at him >wide-eyed. Even the slime-mold had stopped undulating. > >"What? Too far?" Harv looked at them questioningly. "You didn't like >'grokasm'?" > >The blond's jaw hung open. Throat muscles moved, but there was no sound. A >piece of sushi slipped from an interrupted pair of chopsticks. Silence >echoed between songs. Somewhere on a distant dance-floor a cyberdog howled. > >The brunette recovered first. "We thought you were dead." > >Harv tilted his head even further than usual. > >"We've been letting the slime-mold extract your decaying bodily fluids," the >blond finally was able to speak. > >Harv snapped his head up straight as he scowled at the slime-mold, who by >this time had quietly oozed half-way to the opposite side of the table. > >"We would have shared your queued-up drinks with you," the brunette >stammered defensively, "if, um, you know, we had known you were alive." > >"What time is it?" Harvey looked at the nanotattoo of a watch on his wrist. > >"It's been four months since you were last conscious in here," the blond >declared, "You were drinking that drink and logged off mad." > >Harv picked up the empty bottle of Rip van Winkle's Zombie-Maker and >scrolled the label display to reveal the ingredients. "It's either a very >hard Long Island Iced Tea or a very soft cryopreservative... with artificial >flavorings." The robotender picked up the empty bottle as soon as it was >set down, and then was gone. His voice floated behind him very faintly and >very fast, "Drinking this beverage confirms legal consent to all label >disclaimers. Suing prohibited by bar policy. Please drink responsibly." > >"I remember fighting in here," Harv said, setting down the bottle and >looking around. "But it seems quiet now." He turned his hovering chair all >the way around before facing the table again. "Wow. They fixed all the >damage and remodeled the place." > >"That's it? You're back now?" The brunette poured more sake into three >little cups and pushed one of them toward Harv. The blond resumed sushi >consumption. The music continued. > >"If I have time." Harvey tossed back the first sake in one gulp. "I've >been busy in the real world. I got my more certifications for my security >work. My partner got more hardware wired into his heart. And his mother is >entering the final stages of total memory failure." > >The brunette sympathetically poured more sake for Harv. The slime-mold >flowed back to its usual position. The blonde paused the chopsticks, >looking expectantly at Harv. > >"But otherwise..." He took sip of sake and paused thoughtfully. "Yeah. >I'm back." > >-- >Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC >Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, >NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC > > > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From LaurenceofBerk at aol.com Thu Nov 6 08:54:04 2003 From: LaurenceofBerk at aol.com (LaurenceofBerk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 03:54:04 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley Message-ID: Extropians, who are, as far as I can tell from the web, libertarians or even Ayn Randians, are no help in ridding the cyberworld of spam. Spam is generated by corporations and can be restricted only through goverment action. The problem of spam is only one small example of the fantasy world inhabited by libertarians. They, and their Rebublican fellow travellers, and the Extropian ideologists, tell us, and themselves, that they would like to liberate the human spirit by reducing monolithic oppression. Excellent plan. The delusion, however, comes from supposing that oppressive power comes from government. At certain times and places yes. But not in 21st century America. Here our spammers, our spies, our hoarders of patents and information, our monolithic media, our traffic jams, our pollution - I could go on indefinitely - come from the corporate world, which also finances our politics. So hooray for life extension, intelligence enhancement, super learning and space travel, but please, extropians, lose the libertarianism. It's just a convenient smokescreen for the real powers that be. PS Is this how I reply? When I click on "reply" it produces an addresses too long for my mac to send. From spike66 at comcast.net Thu Nov 6 16:30:42 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 08:30:42 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002601c3a483$52978a80$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > LaurenceofBerk at aol.com > Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley > > > Extropians, who are, as far as I can tell from the web, > libertarians or even Ayn Randians, are no help in ridding the cyberworld of > spam. Spam is generated by corporations and can be restricted only through > goverment action... Most of my spam has been coming from individual huge corporations in Nigeria, asking me to help them loot the country. This government action you call for, will that be in the form of dropping nukes on Nigeria? Lawrence of Berkeley, you need to call on Obi wan Kanobi. He's your only hope. spike From natashavita at earthlink.net Thu Nov 6 16:46:01 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 11:46:01 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley Message-ID: <244640-22003114616461559@M2W075.mail2web.com> LaurenceofBerk at aol.com > Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley > > > Extropians, who are, as far as I can tell from the web, > libertarians or even Ayn Randians, are no help in ridding the cyberworld of > spam. Spam is generated by corporations and can be restricted only through > goverment action... If you are a troll and misplanting information on the list, please reconsider your aim. First of all, Extropes are not "Randians" and secondly, be careful about political positioning of people on this list and elsewhere. Natasha Vita-More President, Extropy Institute -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From bradbury at aeiveos.com Thu Nov 6 17:03:45 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 09:03:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing thought of the day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Greg Burch wrote: Heck. I've won the lottery -- I get to debate Eli, Eugen, and Greg within a single topic. Somedays the universe (sim that it is) is really generous. > I'm with Eugene on this -- I think Eliezer's actually made a brilliant > comment in his analogy of spam to other, more serious problems that will > face us in an increasingly networked and meme-driven world. No -- SPAM doesn't kill people, at least not in a direct fashion that one might attribute to grey goo (which I assume was Eli's point). [This is my assumption -- but if Eli had the impression that grey goo was as dangerous as SPAM then he would not place the need on having a friendly AI bail us out of the potential mess. So I tend to think that SPAM and grey goo are two distinctly different categories.] Worth noting -- the primary point that I was trying to make was that grey goo is no longer the threat that it once was. So Eli or Eugen cannot cite it as the metaphorical boogy monster that it once was. They have to cite some concrete reasons precisely *why* grey goo will not be detected and eliminated. (Yes they can cite human stupidity for not preparing sufficiently -- but we can go back and forth on that argument for a long time. We can just as easily apply it to Near-Earth-Objects which are natural rather than designed.) > 'gene's right -- the metaphorical fit is good. Spam may end up > having been a blessing, because it gives us a chance to deal > with a "toy problem" before we have to deal with desk-top vial > engineering and nanotech in the hands of nutcase terrorists. I don't know -- though I like Microsoft offering a bounty on the heads of the hackers. But as I told the Foresight SA's this year there is a very low threshold to me to come back next year and infect them all with SARS. You are already past the point of "desk-top vial engineering" -- you just don't realize it. It is going to be quite interesting when we get into the issue of precisely where the funds raised in various mosques go (in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, etc.). The significant barriers to bioterrorist attacks are education and equipment resources. Both of those can easily be solved by money. And I would guess that our ability to track the money flows isn't anywhere near what it needs to be. Robert From jonkc at att.net Thu Nov 6 17:21:36 2003 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:21:36 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] prayer and healing again References: <000001c3a438$b4301640$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <3FAA30DA.9000505@pobox.com> Message-ID: <003f01c3a48a$74d27ea0$61165e0c@hal2001> James Watson in his recent book "DNA" talked about a much larger scale test of the effectiveness of prayer. He points out that for hundreds of years millions of people have been publicly praying that the King or Queen of England have a long life, but actuarial studies have shown that monarchs on average have slightly shorter lives than other members of the aristocracy. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From cryofan at mylinuxisp.com Thu Nov 6 17:32:05 2003 From: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com (Randy S) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 17:32:05 -0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] a job for me? In-Reply-To: <3FA9F89E.6080901@mail.tele.dk> References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> , Message-ID: Max M said: > Randy S wrote: > > > Also there is the cost. Max M here comes from from Denmark, a country that > > is run for the benefit of its citizens. Tell us, Max, how much they pay > > students to go to school in denmark? > > > Well it doesn't exactly work like that. I am self-employed and make too > much money to be payed the SU (Sttudy Allovance). But other students can > receive about $500 a moth to live for. Not much, but enough for a young > person with no family. > > I don't have to pay for tuition however, and that certainly helps. ] So if Kevin is in Denmark, he can quit his job (thus no income) and get $500/month to go to school, and he pays no tuition? Right? Plus, if he gets sick, he can go to the hospital and get it taken care without paying, correct? But if he quits his job here in the USA, he is out tuition (approx. 20K average for a state school in the USA), plus his living expenses (say $500/month for 48 months == $24K). And of course he has to pay for medical insurance on top of that, or else just one day in the hospital will break him. Total of $40K or so for America, and approximately $0 in Denmark. Aint America a great country!? -- -------------- -Randy From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Thu Nov 6 18:13:15 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:13:15 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant, and the Matrix References: <000001c3a434$f4f83df0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Message-ID: Hollywood is horrible about getting anything right. Most people fear guns because they think that any punk holding a gun sideways can kill any target with 1 shot from 25 yards. Mission to Mars had a guy freeze-dry instantly and crumble when he took off his helmet in space (not to mention that this guy didn;t even have to die) That's one of my hobbies, picking apart movies...OK maybe not a hobby, but I enjoy doing it. Phil Plaits badastronomy.com is a terrific site for this type of thing. > Second topic: why I hated the first Matrix movie. I was horrified when > they stated that one main reason for the existence and continuance of > the matrix Borg-like prison setup was that the machines needed the > electric energy produced by the bodies -- that they were like human > batteries. The machines were feeding off the energy output from the > bodies. Talk about zero understanding of chemistry and physics! No > further explanation was given. They could have tried to justify this > most inefficient power generation scheme. But they didn't. Millions of > movie goers were taught that human bodies are energy producing machines, > moreover, that human bodies are the most effective power plants that a > super intelligent entity could enlist. I felt like puking. Any fifth > grade Japanese student should know better, even the dumbest ones. It's > just like so opposite from the truth man. Oh the horror! The horror! > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From amara at amara.com Thu Nov 6 17:21:53 2003 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 19:21:53 +0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] Voyager 1 (possibly) at the boundary of the Solar System Message-ID: There are some indications now that the Voyager 1 has reached the Heliopause. If this isn't a reason for a massive party/celebration of the humans on this planet, I don't know what is.... http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2003/031105.htm The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Office of Communications and Public Affairs Laurel, Maryland Media Contacts: Michael Buckley (Johns Hopkins APL) (240) 228-7536 or (443)778-7536 michael.buckley at jhuapl.edu, or Nancy Neal (NASA) (301) 286-0039 nancy.g.neal at nasa.gov November 5, 2003 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE VOYAGER 1 APPROACHES SOLAR SYSTEM'S OUTER LIMITS NASA Spacecraft Offers First Direct Look at Dynamic Region Before Interstellar Space More than 25 years after leaving home, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft reached a key checkpoint on its historic journey toward interstellar space. Analyzing six months of data from Voyager's Low-Energy Charged Particle instrument, a team led by Dr. Stamatios Krimigis of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Md., determined that the spacecraft, while nearly 8 billion miles from Earth, passed through and later returned behind the turbulent zone known as the solar termination shock. At the termination shock, streams of electrically charged gas blown from the Sun -- called the solar wind -- slow down rapidly after colliding with gas and magnetic pressure from between the stars. The shock is also considered the last stop before the invisible boundary of the heliosphere, the bubble-like region of space under our Sun's energetic influence. "Voyager 1 is giving us our first taste of interstellar space," says Krimigis, principal investigator for the Low-Energy Charged Particle (LECP) instrument, which was designed and built at APL. "This is our first direct look at the incredibly dynamic activity in the solar system's outer limits." Voyager 1 is the farthest manmade object in space, and from about Aug. 1, 2002, to Feb. 5, 2003, scientists noticed unusual readings from several instruments on the spacecraft indicating it had entered part of the solar system unlike any encountered before. Science team members' views vary on what the data means; one instrument team maintains that Voyager approached, but didn't cross, the termination shock. (Each team presents its views in the Nov. 6 issue of the journal Nature.) Krimigis says his team, however, found compelling evidence of a shock crossing in data from the LECP. The instrument, mounted on a motorized, rotating platform that allows it to scan the sky in all directions, determines the composition, charge and direction of certain energized particles as they zip through space. First, the team noticed a hundred-fold increase in the intensity of these charged particles, and that they were streaming by the spacecraft mostly along the magnetic field perpendicular to Voyager's path. "This was remarkable," Krimigis says, "because for 25 years, particles from the Sun were flowing straight out. We knew something strange must have happened to the solar wind that helps push these particles out." At a termination shock, the solar wind would brake abruptly from supersonic to subsonic speed. The instrument on Voyager 1 that could measure solar wind speed no longer operates; however, the LECP detector can measure it indirectly from the speed and direction of the ions riding with the solar wind. "The solar wind had slowed from 700,000 miles per hour to less than 100,000 miles per hour," says Dr. Edmond Roelof, an LECP science team co-investigator at APL who developed analysis tools for just this type of data. "Flying a moving device on Voyager -- in this case an electric motor -- was considered a risk," says Dr. Robert Decker, an LECP science team co-investigator and the instrument project manager at the Applied Physics Laboratory. "But that rotating capability was key to collecting this data, and helping us figure out that the solar wind had virtually stopped." The team also found a third crucial clue: by measuring the composition of particles in the area, the instrument detected signatures of interstellar materials -- the atoms and other particles from explosions of dying stars. "That tells us materials originally from outside the solar system are becoming accelerated near the spacecraft -- again, something you expect to happen at the termination shock," says Dr. Matthew Hill, a science team member from the University of Maryland, College Park. Estimating the shock's exact location has been hard since no one knows the precise conditions of interstellar space, though scientists do believe the constantly changing speed and pressure of the solar wind causes the shock's boundary to expand and contract. In this case, LECP readings indicate Voyager 1 crossed the shock at about 85 times the Earth-Sun distance, before the shock moved past the spacecraft at 87 times this distance. Such movement also makes it difficult to predict when the spacecraft will again encounter that boundary. Until then, LECP team is correlating its results with those from other instrument teams, hoping to get a clearer picture of the interplay between the solar wind and interstellar medium, and matching that information to long-held models of the outer solar system. Already, there are some differences. "We saw the right mix of interstellar materials where we thought we would, but overall, things didn't behave the way we expected from models," Krimigis says. "It was strange, but just another indication that nature behaves the way it wants, not according to what our theories predict." Voyager 1 launched on Sept. 5, 1977, and flew past Jupiter and Saturn before heading northward out of the planets' orbital plane. Voyager 2, which launched on Aug. 20, 1977, and explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, is also moving out but in a southward direction and hasn't traveled as far. An APL-built Low-Energy Charged Particle detector flies on each; the Laboratory later developed similar instruments for the Galileo spacecraft, which recently ended its mission at Jupiter, and the Cassini spacecraft, which will begin orbiting Saturn in July 2004. LECP team members presenting their results in the Nature article are Krimigis, Decker and Roelof of APL; Dr. George Gloecker, Dr. Douglas Hamilton and Hill of the University of Maryland, College Park; Dr. Thomas Armstrong of the University of Kansas, Lawrence; and Dr. Louis Lanzerotti, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J. and New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark. For more information on the articles, visit www.nature.com/nature. On the Web: NASA news release and images: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1105voyager.html Animation of the Low-Energy Charged Particle instrument: http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2003/031105.htm Bell Laboratories news release and contacts: http://www.bell-labs.com New Jersey Institute of Technology news release and contacts: http://www.njit.edu/publicinfo/newsroom/index.php The Voyager Mission: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/ Low-Energy Charged Particle instrument and science mission: http://hurlbut.jhuapl.edu/VOYAGER/ ### The Applied Physics Laboratory, a division of The Johns Hopkins University, meets critical national challenges through the innovative application of science and technology. For more information, visit www.jhuapl.edu. -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "The best presents don't come in boxes." --Hobbes From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Thu Nov 6 18:45:30 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:45:30 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com><3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com><01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au><3FA99C95.8010401@pobox.com> <01b901c3a40e$63bc7b60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: With an experiment where we were in a sim, the results of the experiment would be flawed if we knoew we were in the sim. Therefore, they would make it either impossible to prove, or, delete the idea from our memory. So I guess, if we proved we were in a sim, that proof would show that we weren;t in a sim...............? Hmmm. It's a weird day here. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brett Paatsch" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 8:33 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > > > Brett Paatsch wrote: > > > > > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > > > > > >>This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so > > >>it is a simulation of a world without ESP. > > > > > > I reckon (without believing) that it is NOT a sim and could > > > NOT easily be a sim. > > > > I used to have a very strong intuition that the world was not a > > sim. Eventually it went away, and in retrospect I think it was > > based on nothing but wishful thinking. > > Even in retropect I wonder why such a notion would just go > away? Could it be that the notion was not important to you? > > > > > As Lee Corbin pointed out with respect to the Tegmark > > bubble duplication, there is no *particular* you, only the > > *set* of yous. It seems to me likely, on my current model, > > that at least some of you are living in a computer simulation. > > [Sorry some ambiguity in that -hard to process] > > You necessarily see the world from your own standpoint Eliezer > and from that standpoint the words "me" and "you" tag different > referents than the same words do in other persons standpoints. > I am not sure if you mean "you" as a self-reference also (like in > "one") or you as other-reference only. > > > The question is whether almost all of you are > > simulated, or almost all of you are real. > > I know I'm real. Do you know you are real? > > > > I think that to entertain the notion that it is is to run the risk of > > > repeating (now dead) Pascal's wager and betting the same > > > wrong way. Of betting that there is a super-natural being that > > > is going to come to the rescue like Santa Claus. I prefer to > > > work with friends and the resources that I have, rather than > > > fret over the resources I don't have. I am not malicious and > > > I will deal with maliciousness if I must with resolution and > > > ferocity of my own. > > > > That some people may be inclined to abuse the simulation > > hypothesis in predictable ways, does not bear on the simulation > > hypothesis's *actual truth or falsity*. > > True. But really who cares? > > > > > > I can see no advantage or change in my habits that I would > > > make if I thought the world was a sim. I would probably have > > > more allies and friends if less people entertained the sim > > > hypothesis so much but so be it. > > > > Okay, so most actions are the same on the simulation hypothesis. > > Again this does not bear on the simulation hypothesis's actual truth > > or falsity. > > Agreed. > > > > > > I think that if no-one can come up with a reliable test, (group > > > test - science or solitary test - pure reason) to see if the world > > > is a sim then it would be better to step around what looks like > > > an iteration of the same old mindfuk, to put away childish > > > things and to concentrate minds and energies on the tasks > > > at hand. > > > > If you can't come up with any experimental observation that > > differs on the world being a sim, then you don't need to know > > how much of your measure lies in sims, because it won't make > > any difference to subjective probabilities. > > Agreed. > > > The problem is in dealing with questions like "Would my measure > > sharply decrease after a Singularity, and if so, what would that > > look like?", > > [sorry perhaps I am missing something but I don't find that to be > an important question. Perhaps it is because I don't think of the > Singularity in pro-noun terms. I really don't know. Perhaps I could > see your point a bit better if you could unpack 'baby' a bit more. > > Can you describe the Singularity as you see it with more words > than the one (Singularity) but no pronouns? I think that would help. > > > where the triggering event lies in the future, is > > important, and there is no obvious way to test different > > hypotheses in advance. > > You may have a point but I can't parse to it for the reasons given > above. > > Regards, > Brett > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net Thu Nov 6 18:48:59 2003 From: cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net (cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:48:59 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare References: <20031106034607.48284.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <006201c3a496$a533f040$12ecfea9@kevin> > My favorite: since it is the holy muslim month of Ramadan, the flares > are a sign of how angry allah is with the muslim people for continuing > to sinfully commit suicide bombings on innocent civilians... > Since the majority of technology affected by solar flares is created and used by the wes, maybe it is Allah being angry at our presence in the middle east. From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Thu Nov 6 19:04:44 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 13:04:44 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] a job for me? References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com>, Message-ID: I want to thank everyone for their comments on this topic. I have decided to go ahead and enroll for the next semester and get going. One thing I am curious about is student loans. It is my understanding that as long as I am enrolled full time, I don;t have to start paying back the loans. Since I work from home and I can make a decent income working about 20 hours per week, maybe I could stay enrolled full-time until the singularity hits at which point the economy would be so screwed up that I wouldn;t have to worry about paying them back. At worst, I could copy myself and have 1 of me work to pay off t he loans....hmmmm Opinions? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Randy S" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 11:32 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] a job for me? > Max M said: > > > Randy S wrote: > > > > > Also there is the cost. Max M here comes from from Denmark, a country > that > > > is run for the benefit of its citizens. Tell us, Max, how much they pay > > > students to go to school in denmark? > > > > > > Well it doesn't exactly work like that. I am self-employed and make too > > much money to be payed the SU (Sttudy Allovance). But other students can > > receive about $500 a moth to live for. Not much, but enough for a young > > person with no family. > > > > I don't have to pay for tuition however, and that certainly helps. ] > > > So if Kevin is in Denmark, he can quit his job (thus no income) and get > $500/month to go to school, and he pays no tuition? Right? Plus, if he gets > sick, he can go to the hospital and get it taken care without paying, > correct? > > But if he quits his job here in the USA, he is out tuition (approx. 20K > average for a state school in the USA), plus his living expenses (say > $500/month for 48 months == $24K). > > And of course he has to pay for medical insurance on top of that, or else > just one day in the hospital will break him. > > Total of $40K or so for America, and approximately $0 in Denmark. > > Aint America a great country!? > > > > > -- > > -------------- > > -Randy > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From samantha at objectent.com Thu Nov 6 19:07:16 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:07:16 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence In-Reply-To: <3FA9A1BD.90207@pobox.com> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <200311051120.12466.samantha@objectent.com> <3FA9A1BD.90207@pobox.com> Message-ID: <200311061107.16036.samantha@objectent.com> On Wednesday 05 November 2003 17:19, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Samantha Atkins wrote: > > > > That is a huge cop-out. It doesn't fit your worldview so the first > > choice is to believe it never happened, heh? Convenient but not very > > relevant. > > Yes, that's right. It doesn't fit my worldview, and therefore I assert > that it never happened. On the hypothesis that the universe is genuinely > non-eerie but people are not reliable reporters, it will sometimes be > necessary to do that. The important thing is to do it flat out, honestly, > and without excuses. It doesn't fit my preconceived notions and > therefore, without apology, I reject it. Anyone is welcome to catalog > reports like these; doing so is not an assault on Reason, for Reason can > take the heat. It is suppressed fear that the universe really *is* eerie > that leads to people trying to "suppress memories", "not think about it", > deny grant funding to people trying to investigate it, and other harmful > strategies. I will not live in fear of Chris Phoenix's report. I accept > that he made the report, and deny that it happened as reported. > So, what would it take to get through what looks like defensive assertions against anything that disagrees with your worldview? Why is the avoidance of anything that might strike you as being under the very loose term "eerie" such an apparently large value? The Universe *is* "eerie" in many respects or at least more singularly odd than we might be able to hold in our noggins. Why should some form of ESP existing be even a very large threat? It would be yet another unexpected phenomenon to account for as I see it. All of that said I have no general trouble with reporting/observation errors being the first and most likely explanation. I know first hand just how marvelously creative and integrative of things that should not be integrated the human mind is. But it doesn't seem justified to assert those *are* the explanation without examination. > >> This world is my home, and I know it now, and I know the world > >> doesn't work that way. > > > > You *know* no such thing. You believe it doesn't work that way. > > "You are not me," replied Chuangtse. "How can you know that I do not know > that the fish are enjoying themselves?" > I do not have to be you to assert that a bald assertion that the world doesn't work in such a way as to allow X would require near omniscience or at least a far more totally vetted model of reality than any of us to date, to my knowledge, have or are likely to have. The world doesn't work in such a way as to support a blanket assertion that the world doesn't work in such a way as to allow ESP. :0 > >> There are a few things left that I don't know yet, but the remaining > >> uncertainty does not have enough slack in it to permit ESP. This > >> world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so it is a > >> simulation of a world without ESP. > > > > I see no way you could have complete enough knowledge or sufficiently > > vetted theory of knowledge to make such a statement meaningfully. > > On the hypothesis that the universe really is non-eerie, there is no > reason why an inhabitant of that universe should not eventually become > confident of the fact. Of course, as I noted, it takes some work. > Please clarify what you mean by "eerie". From where I sit there are lots of very "eerie" things in some parts of our current scientific models. > > > > The story has to be assumed accurate for the questions raised to be > > even seriously addressed. What you have done looks like more disowning > > of inconvenient data. We all know most of the things you are bringing > > up here and yet this nagging residue that doesn't fit remains. > > Right. I am disowning inconvenient data. The important thing is not to > make the action look any more respectable than it is, or try to make the > incovenient data look less improbable by coming up with pseudo-rational > explanations for it. Scientists are nervous around disowned inconvenient > data, even though it is, sometimes necessary. That is as it should be, > and the reason why, when disowning inconvenient data is necessary, it > should be done plainly and without apology. > I am really not getting what the virtue of this is. If it is really *data* it cannot be disowned without intellectual dishonesty. So I hope this is a quibble about whether such an anecdote is sufficient to qualify as data. - samantha From samantha at objectent.com Thu Nov 6 19:13:33 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:13:33 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant In-Reply-To: <01b901c3a40e$63bc7b60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA99C95.8010401@pobox.com> <01b901c3a40e$63bc7b60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <200311061113.33599.samantha@objectent.com> On Wednesday 05 November 2003 18:33, Brett Paatsch wrote: > > The question is whether almost all of you are > > simulated, or almost all of you are real. > > I know I'm real. Do you know you are real? > The wording itself is suspect. Reality is relative to and includes context. Within the sim you are and experience yourself precisely as being just as real as if you are outside a sim. Why is the original running of universe as we know it more privileged than a fully virtual running of an equally complex universe with just as many (perhaps more) degrees of freedom? Or, if you like, why is meat space forever priviliged over any and all virtual spaces no matter how much more accomodating to everything we hold most dear that any such space could be? - samantha From samantha at objectent.com Thu Nov 6 19:21:11 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:21:11 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] prayer and healing again In-Reply-To: <000001c3a438$b4301640$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <000001c3a438$b4301640$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <200311061121.11448.samantha@objectent.com> On Wednesday 05 November 2003 23:36, Spike wrote: > I can explain this just from this just from what > little info is in this paragraph. The verse says > "...The fervent prayer of the righteous man > availeth much..." The study used 12 prayer groups > *of different faiths*. They were different from > each other, so clearly they couldn't all be right, > but they could all be wrong, which means they were > not believing correctly, which means they were not > in the truth which means their fervent prayers would > not availeth much. Simple explanation for the > negative result: they didn't include members of > the *true* believers. > Hey man, it says "righteous" not right in their isms. For all I know all of them were perfectly righteous cats well attuned to soul. - s From jcorb at iol.ie Thu Nov 6 19:30:56 2003 From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 19:30:56 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20031106192607.0314e470@pop.iol.ie> >Message: 7 >Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2003 19:27:38 -0800 > >From: "Spike" >Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence >To: "'ExI chat list'" >Message-ID: <000101c3a415$eded5b90$6501a8c0 at SHELLY> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > > > Chris Phoenix wrote: > > > > > > > > >... a few hours after that, we learned that her brother had > > > > > been killed in a motorcycle accident... >In all our goings on, I neglected to say that I >am deeply and sincerely sorry to hear about your >brother-in-law's tragic passing. spike > Being a motorcyclist myself, my thoughts to you and your wife, Chris. I hope time has in some small way been healing for you both. Regards, James... >------------------------------ From hibbert at mydruthers.com Thu Nov 6 19:30:36 2003 From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 11:30:36 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony In-Reply-To: <20031106110952.GK27591@leitl.org> References: <20031106093120.GF27591@leitl.org> <20031106110952.GK27591@leitl.org> Message-ID: <3FAAA15C.4090607@mydruthers.com> >>> On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Eugen Leitl wrote: >>>> > ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 > > Allright! If you send a GPS guided missile to here, it should > land on my balcony, or something. It's a static address, it > doesn't refresh according to my current position (yet). Eugene, you should talk to MapQuest and see what it takes to get aerial photos on-line. For your address, the best I can do is a map, while mine (and other densely populated places in the US) comes with an aerial view. (If you click on successively higher zoom buttons, you get an ICBM's eye view.) Eugene: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&zoom=5&latitude=48.07078&longitude=11.61144 Chris: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&zoom=5&latitude=37.36243&longitude=-122.0695 In any case, it ought to be good enough for someone to get driving directions if they wanted to visit. Chris (I've been geocaching (www.geocaching.com), and I've gotten familiar with this tool.) -- C. J. Cherryh, "Invader", on why we visit very old buildings: "A sense of age, of profound truths. Respect for something hands made, that's stood through storms and wars and time. It persuades us that things we do may last and matter." Chris Hibbert hibbert at mydruthers.com http://discuss.foresight.org/~hibbert From wingcat at pacbell.net Thu Nov 6 19:42:11 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 11:42:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] a job for me? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031106194211.84066.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com> --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > One thing I am curious about is student loans. It is > my understanding that > as long as I am enrolled full time, I don;t have to > start paying back the > loans. > Since I work from home and I can make a decent > income working about 20 hours > per week, maybe I could stay enrolled full-time > until the singularity hits > at which point the economy would be so screwed up > that I wouldn;t have to > worry about paying them back. Don't loans usually have a time limit on how long you can remain enrolled? 5 years? Probably under 10. Certainly, others have tried that trick - but planning on staying enrolled 'til they died instead of waiting for the Singularity. Same results, short and long term, as far as they're concerned. > At worst, I could copy myself and have 1 of me work > to pay off t he > loans....hmmmm > Opinions? Copying yourself isn't much different in that aspect from devoting part (timewise) of one of you to working and another part of the same one to studying, as per your current plan. It does give you a larger pool to divvy up, though, allowing more study and more work. It also presents the problem of re-integration afterwards. From natashavita at earthlink.net Thu Nov 6 21:34:51 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 16:34:51 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] UN Delays Decision on Human Cloning Message-ID: <187160-220031146213451472@M2W040.mail2web.com> Here's some good news - "November 6, 2003; UNITED NATIONS, New York City (AP and CNN) -- The United Nations voted narrowly Thursday to delay for two years any consideration of a treaty to ban human cloning, an issue that has left the world body bitterly divided. Facing rival resolutions on a total ban or a partial ban, the General Assembly's legal committee voted 80-79 to accept a motion introduced by Iran on behalf of the 57 Islamic nations to postpone U.N. action on the issue. Fifteen countries abstained." **Now if we could have the gates open for theraputic clonging, I'd be really happy. Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au Thu Nov 6 22:35:35 2003 From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 09:05:35 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] a job for me? Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE05E@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> The classic way of avoiding paying back student loans in Australia (where they are called HECS and the HECS supplement), is to move to a different country as soon as you graduate. This means you can never come back, of course, unless you are willing to begin paying the loans when you come back, but some people don't mind that. When you owe the government $20K+, the big wide world out there suddenly looks very attractive. :-) Emlyn (Some people have mentioned here and there that loading new graduates up with giant debt might be contributing to the brain drain. What a bunch of whiners!) > -----Original Message----- > From: Adrian Tymes [mailto:wingcat at pacbell.net] > Sent: Friday, 7 November 2003 5:12 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] a job for me? > > > --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > > One thing I am curious about is student loans. It is > > my understanding that > > as long as I am enrolled full time, I don;t have to > > start paying back the > > loans. > > Since I work from home and I can make a decent > > income working about 20 hours > > per week, maybe I could stay enrolled full-time > > until the singularity hits > > at which point the economy would be so screwed up > > that I wouldn;t have to > > worry about paying them back. > > Don't loans usually have a time limit on how long you > can remain enrolled? 5 years? Probably under 10. > Certainly, others have tried that trick - but planning > on staying enrolled 'til they died instead of waiting > for the Singularity. Same results, short and long > term, as far as they're concerned. > > > At worst, I could copy myself and have 1 of me work > > to pay off t he > > loans....hmmmm > > Opinions? > > Copying yourself isn't much different in that aspect > from devoting part (timewise) of one of you to working > and another part of the same one to studying, as per > your current plan. It does give you a larger pool to > divvy up, though, allowing more study and more work. > It also presents the problem of re-integration > afterwards. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From jcorb at iol.ie Thu Nov 6 22:53:39 2003 From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 22:53:39 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20031106225222.00aca3d0@pop.iol.ie> >Message: 4 >Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 12:48:59 -0600 > >From: >Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Historic Solar Flare >To: "ExI chat list" >Message-ID: <006201c3a496$a533f040$12ecfea9 at kevin> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > > My favorite: since it is the holy muslim month of Ramadan, the flares > > are a sign of how angry allah is with the muslim people for continuing > > to sinfully commit suicide bombings on innocent civilians... > > >Since the majority of technology affected by solar flares is created and >used by the wes, maybe it is Allah being angry at our presence in the middle >east. Or perhaps Allah simply has gas.... James... *pissed cos he missed seeing the Aurora last week* From reason at exratio.com Thu Nov 6 23:03:10 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 15:03:10 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] UN Delays Decision on Human Cloning In-Reply-To: <187160-220031146213451472@M2W040.mail2web.com> Message-ID: Looks like we all dodged a bullet here. Any of the pending resolutions would have been very obnoxious; the longer that theraputic cloning research continues, the harder it will be to ban - as more tangible results will be to hand. One can be optimistic and hope that this is a turning point of sorts. In reality, if the current US administration is still in power in 2005, we'll most likely be doing this all again. If it's a bunch of democrats instead, we'll probably still be doing it all again... I do recommend contacting your elected representatives to express your feelings on the matter, while this thing is in the news: http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/oppose_global_theraputic_cloning_ban.c fm http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/oppose_the_theraputic_cloning_ban.cfm http://www.longevitymeme.org/projects/oppose_the_european_stem_cell_ban.cfm Reason http://www.exratio.com > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of > natashavita at earthlink.net > Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 1:35 PM > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Subject: [extropy-chat] UN Delays Decision on Human Cloning > > > Here's some good news - > > "November 6, 2003; UNITED NATIONS, New York City (AP and CNN) -- > The United > Nations voted narrowly Thursday to delay for two years any > consideration of > a treaty to ban human cloning, an issue that has left the world body > bitterly divided. Facing rival resolutions on a total ban or a partial > ban, the General Assembly's legal committee voted 80-79 to accept a motion > introduced by Iran on behalf of the 57 Islamic nations to postpone U.N. > action on the issue. Fifteen countries abstained." > > **Now if we could have the gates open for theraputic clonging, I'd be > really happy. > > Natasha > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > mail2web - Check your email from the web at > http://mail2web.com/ . > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From rafal at smigrodzki.org Thu Nov 6 23:33:31 2003 From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 18:33:31 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheist Law Center References: <11758376.1067986414364.JavaMail.teamon@b106.teamon.com> Message-ID: <010301c3a4be$63ce45b0$6401a8c0@dimension> No, but I know one in Murrysville, PA. If you need to see a neurologist who won't hallucinate a soul into your brain, come to me. Rafal, MD ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 5:51 PM Subject: [extropy-chat] Atheist Law Center > What I could use more would be a web list of Atheist Physicians. Doctors > stupid enough to believe in god - I believe I am worth better than that. > Does anyone here know of an atheist doctor in the Seattle or Tacoma area? > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.515 / Virus Database: 313 - Release Date: 9/1/2003 > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From mitchtemporarily at hotmail.com Thu Nov 6 23:44:05 2003 From: mitchtemporarily at hotmail.com (Mitchell Porter) Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 23:44:05 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence Message-ID: Eliezer: >>There is no rational necessity for such dogmatism, especially when (i) >>today's standard-issue laws of physics already contain a mechanism for >>nonlocal correlation, > >(Disagree; Everett.) The key consideration is that Bell's inequality (and many similar constraints that exist under classical local causality) can be violated, because of entanglement. In terms of Julian Barbour's timeless picture, this means that spacelike conditional probabilities can be super-correlated. So if you are an idealized Barbourian model builder trying to guess the Hamiltonian and the quantum state of the universe (and your own position within it), and you come across super-correlation data, you do have the option of interpreting it as data about physics, rather than as data about the reliability of an information source. I'll try to be more specific. Suppose you have a remarkable correlation between two complex material systems reported. Most of the skeptical options boil down to a search for faulty classical information channels. But we do also have the option of looking for quantum information at work, either in isolation (e.g. Bell correlations) or in conjunction with classical processes (e.g. quantum teleportation). So one can ask: what sort of joint quantum state could have produced the reported correlation, and how likely is it that the two systems really were in such a state to begin with? Our understanding of the dynamics of entanglement - its ups and downs, its movement with respect to the world of localized observables - is still very primitive. Most physicists *presume* that it plays no visible role in the everyday macroscopic world, because they have a heuristic which says "Many degrees of freedom + finite temperatures => decoherence." But if you look at what's coming out of quantum information theory, you'll find all sorts of tricky possibilities: decoherence-free subspaces, entanglement echoes, noise-induced entanglement, entanglement production in quantum phase transitions... We have to face it: even if we already know the Hamiltonian of our energy scale (the Standard Model), we are still hugely ignorant when it comes to understanding what it predicts, especially in the domain of many-body quantum effects. We have yet to fully acquire the relevant concepts, let alone apply them to the data. _________________________________________________________________ Hot chart ringtones and polyphonics. Go to http://ninemsn.com.au/mobilemania/default.asp From maxm at mail.tele.dk Thu Nov 6 23:48:37 2003 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 00:48:37 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] a job for me? In-Reply-To: References: <3FA8A29F.5010404@pobox.com> , Message-ID: <3FAADDD5.7050701@mail.tele.dk> Randy S wrote: > So if Kevin is in Denmark, he can quit his job (thus no income) and get > $500/month to go to school, and he pays no tuition? Right? Plus, if he gets > sick, he can go to the hospital and get it taken care without paying, > correct? Yes. > But if he quits his job here in the USA, he is out tuition (approx. 20K > average for a state school in the USA), plus his living expenses (say > $500/month for 48 months == $24K). > > And of course he has to pay for medical insurance on top of that, or else > just one day in the hospital will break him. > > Total of $40K or so for America, and approximately $0 in Denmark. > > Aint America a great country!? I'm afraid that is too simplistic. Cause we end up paying in the end. Make no mistake about that. Taxes are a bitch here. Between 40%-67% depending on income. 25% VAT on all products and services, and 300% on cars and gasoline. So you gains some freedom and you loose some freedom. Generally I would say that the danish system is a bit less efficient, but a bit safer. regards Max M From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Thu Nov 6 23:44:42 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 10:44:42 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com> <01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <3FA99C95.8010401@pobox.com> <01b901c3a40e$63bc7b60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <048001c3a4bf$f3713fa0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> [Hmm I have to conserve my posts like precious shots or I may exceed 8 again :-) ] Kevin wrote: > With an experiment where we were[are] in a sim, the results > of the experiment would be flawed if we kn[o]ew we were in > the sim. Interesting notion. > Therefore, they would make it either impossible to prove, or, > delete the idea from our memory. Why, and more importantly how, would/could "they"? (Hint: Cogito ergo sum). No one gets between one and one's mind without one's consent. > So I guess, if we proved we were in a sim, that proof would > show that we weren;t in a sim...............? > Hmmm. It's a weird day here. The weirdness may linger longer for you (about as long as you think that this sort of thing can be apprehended as proof-for-you by "we". If one does one's own *reckoning* then one may get even more help from one's friends. Brett > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Brett Paatsch" > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 8:33 PM > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant > > > > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > > > > > Brett Paatsch wrote: > > > > > > > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes: > > > > > > > >>This world could easily be a computer simulation, but if so > > > >>it is a simulation of a world without ESP. > > > > > > > > I reckon (without believing) that it is NOT a sim and could > > > > NOT easily be a sim. > > > > > > I used to have a very strong intuition that the world was not a > > > sim. Eventually it went away, and in retrospect I think it was > > > based on nothing but wishful thinking. > > > > Even in retropect I wonder why such a notion would just go > > away? Could it be that the notion was not important to you? > > > > > > > > As Lee Corbin pointed out with respect to the Tegmark > > > bubble duplication, there is no *particular* you, only the > > > *set* of yous. It seems to me likely, on my current model, > > > that at least some of you are living in a computer simulation. > > > > [Sorry some ambiguity in that -hard to process] > > > > You necessarily see the world from your own standpoint Eliezer > > and from that standpoint the words "me" and "you" tag different > > referents than the same words do in other persons standpoints. > > I am not sure if you mean "you" as a self-reference also (like in > > "one") or you as other-reference only. > > > > > The question is whether almost all of you are > > > simulated, or almost all of you are real. > > > > I know I'm real. Do you know you are real? > > > > > > I think that to entertain the notion that it is is to run the risk of > > > > repeating (now dead) Pascal's wager and betting the same > > > > wrong way. Of betting that there is a super-natural being that > > > > is going to come to the rescue like Santa Claus. I prefer to > > > > work with friends and the resources that I have, rather than > > > > fret over the resources I don't have. I am not malicious and > > > > I will deal with maliciousness if I must with resolution and > > > > ferocity of my own. > > > > > > That some people may be inclined to abuse the simulation > > > hypothesis in predictable ways, does not bear on the simulation > > > hypothesis's *actual truth or falsity*. > > > > True. But really who cares? > > > > > > > > > I can see no advantage or change in my habits that I would > > > > make if I thought the world was a sim. I would probably have > > > > more allies and friends if less people entertained the sim > > > > hypothesis so much but so be it. > > > > > > Okay, so most actions are the same on the simulation hypothesis. > > > Again this does not bear on the simulation hypothesis's actual truth > > > or falsity. > > > > Agreed. > > > > > > > > > I think that if no-one can come up with a reliable test, (group > > > > test - science or solitary test - pure reason) to see if the world > > > > is a sim then it would be better to step around what looks like > > > > an iteration of the same old mindfuk, to put away childish > > > > things and to concentrate minds and energies on the tasks > > > > at hand. > > > > > > If you can't come up with any experimental observation that > > > differs on the world being a sim, then you don't need to know > > > how much of your measure lies in sims, because it won't make > > > any difference to subjective probabilities. > > > > Agreed. > > > > > The problem is in dealing with questions like "Would my measure > > > sharply decrease after a Singularity, and if so, what would that > > > look like?", > > > > [sorry perhaps I am missing something but I don't find that to be > > an important question. Perhaps it is because I don't think of the > > Singularity in pro-noun terms. I really don't know. Perhaps I could > > see your point a bit better if you could unpack 'baby' a bit more. > > > > Can you describe the Singularity as you see it with more words > > than the one (Singularity) but no pronouns? I think that would help. > > > > > where the triggering event lies in the future, is > > > important, and there is no obvious way to test different > > > hypotheses in advance. > > > > You may have a point but I can't parse to it for the reasons given > > above. > > > > Regards, > > Brett > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From bradbury at aeiveos.com Fri Nov 7 00:09:55 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 16:09:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony In-Reply-To: <3FAAA15C.4090607@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Chris Hibbert wrote: > >>> On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Eugen Leitl wrote: > >>>> > ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 [snip] > Eugene: > http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&zoom=5&latitude=48.07078&longitude=11.61144 > Chris: > http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&zoom=5&latitude=37.36243&longitude=-122.0695 > > In any case, it ought to be good enough for someone to get driving > directions if they wanted to visit. [more snips] I hereby state in a loud voice -- *ONLY on the EXI list*! There are very few other places on the planet where you will get the contribution to the pool of knowledge that you can get here. It just blows me away at times. Robert P.S. and it would really be interesting if once the X-prize(s) were awarded and pseudo-space travel became reasonable and someone figured out when Eugen's birthday was if Extropes collectively determined to rain down cake on Eugen's location on such a date. I almost cannot imagine Eugen holding up a glass of champagne recognizing the cake streaking across the sky being forced to raise the cry of "incoming". From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Nov 7 00:17:11 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 11:17:11 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA99C95.8010401@pobox.com> <01b901c3a40e$63bc7b60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <200311061113.33599.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <049f01c3a4c4$7d16d720$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Samantha wrote: > On Wednesday 05 November 2003 18:33, Brett Paatsch wrote: [Eliezer] > > > The question is whether almost all of you are > > > simulated, or almost all of you are real. > > > > I know I'm real. Do you know you are real? > > > > The wording itself is suspect. Reality is relative to and includes > context. Within the sim you are and experience yourself precisely > as being just as real as if you are outside a sim. Why is the original > running of universe as we know it more privileged than a fully virtual > running of an equally complex universe with just as many (perhaps > more) degrees of freedom? Or, if you like, why is meat space forever > priviliged over any and all virtual spaces no matter how much more > accomodating to everything we hold most dear that any such space > could be? I think its a good maxim to hold words (as potentially mislabelled 'cans' of concepts) suspect most of the time but I am not entirely sure whether you are referring to my wording or to Eliezer's or both. I'd recommending holding both suspect out of an abundance of caution, not of getting hurt or because I think either Eliezer or I would attempt to deceive you in any deep way but just because of the potential for misunderstanding. You ferocious and redoubtable Samantha are very good at understanding words (but other youngsters like me are potentially reading too so I write in part for them). I have never been outside of the world in which I live (although the world in which I live is I suspect a bit larger than some folks worlds and my world is growing and deepening all the time). Your statement that "you are and experience yourself precisely as being just as real as if you are outside a sim" then, simply does not work for me. You are 'inviting' me to consider something about me that you cannot know and I do. That is that I have never been outside my world. I suspect you have not been outside yours either but are creating it with typical Samantha gusto and fervour and ferocity every single day. If you encounter local deities why I bet you will march right up to them and demand that they give an account of themselves to you or they can just bloody well bugger off. God bless you for that Samantha and don't hold back on the deities but take it a little easy on the flora and the fauna and the young as they do not always get it and so there needs to be some rules so that they have space to learn and grow in safely. Brett [pan-critical non-believer] From rafal at smigrodzki.org Fri Nov 7 00:27:16 2003 From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 19:27:16 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Scientific standards of evidence References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com><3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com><200311051120.12466.samantha@objectent.com> <3FA9A1BD.90207@pobox.com> Message-ID: <02ae01c3a4c5$e63dfac0$6401a8c0@dimension> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" > > I now realize that ordinary physics is comprehensive of mental phenomena, > which is something that I did not know previously, and which one would not > expect physicists to know. ### Tell us more. Rafal From samantha at objectent.com Fri Nov 7 00:41:22 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 17:41:22 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] The world as a Sim ? Irrelevant In-Reply-To: <049f01c3a4c4$7d16d720$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com> <200311061113.33599.samantha@objectent.com> <049f01c3a4c4$7d16d720$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <200311061641.22167.samantha@objectent.com> I think you rather missed the point I was attempting to make. I'll probably get around to taking another stab at it over the weekend. Hyper busy until then. -s On Thursday 06 November 2003 16:17, Brett Paatsch wrote: > Samantha wrote: > > On Wednesday 05 November 2003 18:33, Brett Paatsch wrote: > > [Eliezer] > > > > > The question is whether almost all of you are > > > > simulated, or almost all of you are real. > > > > > > I know I'm real. Do you know you are real? > > > > The wording itself is suspect. Reality is relative to and includes > > context. Within the sim you are and experience yourself precisely > > as being just as real as if you are outside a sim. Why is the original > > running of universe as we know it more privileged than a fully virtual > > running of an equally complex universe with just as many (perhaps > > more) degrees of freedom? Or, if you like, why is meat space forever > > priviliged over any and all virtual spaces no matter how much more > > accomodating to everything we hold most dear that any such space > > could be? > > I think its a good maxim to hold words (as potentially mislabelled 'cans' > of concepts) suspect most of the time but I am not entirely sure whether > you are referring to my wording or to Eliezer's or both. I'd recommending > holding both suspect out of an abundance of caution, not of getting hurt > or because I think either Eliezer or I would attempt to deceive you in any > deep way but just because of the potential for misunderstanding. You > ferocious and redoubtable Samantha are very good at understanding > words (but other youngsters like me are potentially reading too so I > write in part for them). > > I have never been outside of the world in which I live (although the > world in which I live is I suspect a bit larger than some folks worlds and > my world is growing and deepening all the time). Your statement that > "you are and experience yourself precisely as being just as real as if > you are outside a sim" then, simply does not work for me. You are > 'inviting' me to consider something about me that you cannot know > and I do. That is that I have never been outside my world. I suspect > you have not been outside yours either but are creating it with typical > Samantha gusto and fervour and ferocity every single day. If you > encounter local deities why I bet you will march right up to them and > demand that they give an account of themselves to you or they can > just bloody well bugger off. God bless you for that Samantha and don't > hold back on the deities but take it a little easy on the flora and the > fauna and the young as they do not always get it and so there needs > to be some rules so that they have space to learn and grow in safely. > > Brett > [pan-critical non-believer] > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Nov 7 01:05:42 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 20:05:42 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: <002601c3a483$52978a80$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <015f01c3a4cb$478c4fc0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Spike wrote, > Most of my spam has been coming from individual > huge corporations in Nigeria, asking me to help > them loot the country. This government action > you call for, will that be in the form of dropping > nukes on Nigeria? Surely you must know that none of these really come from the government of Nigeria. They are all frauds. In fact, I believe almost all spam are frauds. They fake their addresses so you can't trace them to their real source. They fake headers and subjects to make you look at them even though they are off-topic. They fake remove-me links to collect more e-mails to spam. They insert nonsense words to deliberate get past your filters. They sell lists of names to other spammers of supposedly interested people who are not really interested. In short, they know you don't want it and they are trying to force you to take it anyway. This should be an illegal form of harassment or abuse. If spam had accurate subject lines so we could filter out what we didn't want, there would be no problem. Likewise, if declining really worked and prevented future spams from that source or about that product, there would be no problem. Spammers are criminals who deliberately try to circumvent other people's wishes. "No" means no! Whether you believe government should enforce laws or some other solution should be used, spammers should be considered illegal and shutdown as stalkers who are knowingly harassing unwilling victims. -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Nov 7 01:05:53 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 20:05:53 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Cheerful thought of the day In-Reply-To: <3FA94F59.3030701@dtext.com> Message-ID: <016001c3a4cb$4e310e60$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> JDP wrote, > Plus, deep down they know they are loosers, so > when things turn bad, they let go and even seek auto-destruction (you > just have to help them out a bit). This is a faulty assumption. Human psychology prevents people from knowing they are losers deep down. Deep down everybody is positive that they are right and superior. Even criminals, murderers and rapists justify their actions in their own mind. They think that they are superior and can beat the system. They believe that the timid law-abiding citizens are cowards and losers. -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From thespike at earthlink.net Fri Nov 7 01:11:35 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 19:11:35 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] there was a young laddy of Niger References: <015f01c3a4cb$478c4fc0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: <030401c3a4cc$18a29e20$6c9c4a43@texas.net> > Spike wrote, > > Most of my spam has been coming from individual > > huge corporations in Nigeria > Surely you must know that none of these really come from the government of > Nigeria. They are all frauds. I posted here the other day a Sydney court report that an Australian (allegedly schizophrenic) scammer has been charged as the source of this `Nigerian' operation. Damien Brodrick From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au Fri Nov 7 01:15:55 2003 From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 11:45:55 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] there was a young laddy of Niger Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE063@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> He will only be one source. For example, I'm still getting at least one Nigerian e-mail per day. btw, I'm collecting them. If you get any really unusual or creative examples, please feel free to forward them to me! Emlyn > -----Original Message----- > From: Damien Broderick [mailto:thespike at earthlink.net] > Sent: Friday, 7 November 2003 10:42 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: [extropy-chat] there was a young laddy of Niger > > > > > > Spike wrote, > > > Most of my spam has been coming from individual > > > huge corporations in Nigeria > > > Surely you must know that none of these really come from > the government of > > Nigeria. They are all frauds. > > I posted here the other day a Sydney court report that an Australian > (allegedly schizophrenic) scammer has been charged as the > source of this > `Nigerian' operation. > > Damien Brodrick > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From ABlainey at aol.com Fri Nov 7 02:32:29 2003 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 21:32:29 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] VR-BAR: Harv's back! Message-ID: <14.1bdbf02d.2cdc5e3d@aol.com> Welcome back Harvey, That is some serious list of credentials you have amassed. Congrats on the latest. Alex In a message dated 06/11/2003 06:27:48 GMT Daylight Time, mail at harveynewstrom.com writes: > Harv's slumped form lifted up off the table as he counted on his fingers, > "Chasm, cytoplasm, ectoplasm, endoplasm, grokasm, orgasm, phantasm, plasm, > protoplasm, sarcasm, spasm, ...um..." He wiggled his fingers trying to coax > more knowledge out of the air. "Er, ...as 'em, has 'em, jazz 'em, pizzazz > 'em, raz 'em, razzamatazz 'em..." The blond and brunette just stared at him > wide-eyed. Even the slime-mold had stopped undulating. > > "What? Too far?" Harv looked at them questioningly. "You didn't like > 'grokasm'?" > > The blond's jaw hung open. Throat muscles moved, but there was no sound. A > piece of sushi slipped from an interrupted pair of chopsticks. Silence > echoed between songs. Somewhere on a distant dance-floor a cyberdog howled. > > The brunette recovered first. "We thought you were dead." > > Harv tilted his head even further than usual. > > "We've been letting the slime-mold extract your decaying bodily fluids," the > blond finally was able to speak. > > Harv snapped his head up straight as he scowled at the slime-mold, who by > this time had quietly oozed half-way to the opposite side of the table. > > "We would have shared your queued-up drinks with you," the brunette > stammered defensively, "if, um, you know, we had known you were alive." > > "What time is it?" Harvey looked at the nanotattoo of a watch on his wrist. > > "It's been four months since you were last conscious in here," the blond > declared, "You were drinking that drink and logged off mad." > > Harv picked up the empty bottle of Rip van Winkle's Zombie-Maker and > scrolled the label display to reveal the ingredients. "It's either a very > hard Long Island Iced Tea or a very soft cryopreservative... with artificial > flavorings." The robotender picked up the empty bottle as soon as it was > set down, and then was gone. His voice floated behind him very faintly and > very fast, "Drinking this beverage confirms legal consent to all label > disclaimers. Suing prohibited by bar policy. Please drink responsibly." > > "I remember fighting in here," Harv said, setting down the bottle and > looking around. "But it seems quiet now." He turned his hovering chair all > the way around before facing the table again. "Wow. They fixed all the > damage and remodeled the place." > > "That's it? You're back now?" The brunette poured more sake into three > little cups and pushed one of them toward Harv. The blond resumed sushi > consumption. The music continued. > > "If I have time." Harvey tossed back the first sake in one gulp. "I've > been busy in the real world. I got my more certifications for my security > work. My partner got more hardware wired into his heart. And his mother is > entering the final stages of total memory failure." > > The brunette sympathetically poured more sake for Harv. The slime-mold > flowed back to its usual position. The blonde paused the chopsticks, > looking expectantly at Harv. > > "But otherwise..." He took sip of sake and paused thoughtfully. "Yeah. > I'm back." > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Nov 7 02:44:03 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 13:44:03 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. -Mapping words to referents References: <015f01c3a4cb$478c4fc0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: <04e301c3a4d9$01b985e0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Harvey wrote: > In fact, I believe almost all spam are frauds. .... > This (my post) is off your topic Harvey hence the relabelled subject. I have some half-baked (perhaps) notion that using the word "belief" endorses it as a meme and that that is not helpful to reasoning. Its been hard for me to pin this down as folks seems to misunderstand and insist they should be able to use any word they like ( I agree that they are *free* to - I just don't get why they *choose* to as I think it diminishes the communicative value of what they are saying especially when they are talking to people who may be *believers* of lots of wacky things and may use and therefore misinterpret others use of the same word themselves). In your use of the words "I believe" in the sentence above would your *meaning* still have been preserved/captured etc by one or more of the following statements? "I reckon all spam are frauds" "I think all spam are frauds". "I infer that all spam are frauds" "I conclude that all spam are frauds" Perhaps some other word instead of belief? Surely one of these would have NOT have served: "I guess all spam are frauds" "I posit all spam are frauds" "I have faith that all spam are frauds" "I accept that all spam are frauds" Your feedback on this point with help me develop my mapping model of others-words to others-referents. (I know that others can see me doing this mapping exercise by posting on list - I want that to happen too - but as only you know what you meant by belief when you used it in a sentence only your feedback can give me your intended referent.) Thanks Brett [In experimental communication engineering mode ;-) PS: I do think this may be surprisingly important but even if I am wrong why not humor me.] From ABlainey at aol.com Fri Nov 7 03:06:24 2003 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 22:06:24 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony Message-ID: <5a.2428850c.2cdc6630@aol.com> In a message dated 07/11/2003 01:17:39 GMT Daylight Time, bradbury at aeiveos.com writes: > P.S. and it would really be interesting if once the X-prize(s) were > awarded and pseudo-space travel became reasonable and someone > figured out when Eugen's birthday was if Extropes collectively > determined to rain down cake on Eugen's location on such a > date. I almost cannot imagine Eugen holding up a glass of > champagne recognizing the cake streaking across the sky > being forced to raise the cry of "incoming". > What would be the terminal velocity of a cake dropped from a low earth orbit? How would it differ depending on the material, say Sponge or Fruitcake? Personally I think there are far too many variables to consider when calculating the decent of a dumb cake. I therefore forward the notion that any orbital cake deployment be of the Eugene Seeking Self guiding variety. Perhaps a large chocolate eclair would be ideal due to the superior aerodynamics. If deployed in a raw cakemix configuration, it should be nicely cooked by the time of impact. Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at comcast.net Fri Nov 7 03:55:40 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 19:55:40 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] prayer and healing again In-Reply-To: <200311061121.11448.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a4e3$02a84720$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > On Wednesday 05 November 2003 23:36, Spike wrote: > > > Simple explanation for the > > negative result: they didn't include members of > > the *true* believers. > > > > Hey man, it says "righteous" not right in their isms. For > all I know all of > them were perfectly righteous cats well attuned to soul. > > - s Samantha, it was my weak attempt at humor. I am a former member of a cult that refuses to acknowledge the righteousness of anyone outside the enlightened minority (with the curious exception of Albert Schweitzer). The more extreme members of that sect would argue that having the right ism matters. I find the whole topic of prayer for healing as one that simply invites parody, because any test of the notion would necessarily lead to unending paradox. spike From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au Fri Nov 7 04:01:29 2003 From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 14:31:29 +1030 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE066@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> Self cooking would be interesting. You need to put the chocolate coating on somehow, though. How about a pre-cooked eclair (maybe a little doey, it will get *hot*), with a really thick chocolate coating (3 or four meters?) which acts as an ablative re-entry shield. By the time it gets to Eugen's balcony, the shell should be down to sub-centimeter. I agree that fruitcake it dangerous; do the raisins burn up, or are they dense enough to become incredibly energetic kinetic weapons? Emlyn --- P.S. and it would really be interesting if once the X-prize(s) were awarded and pseudo-space travel became reasonable and someone figured out when Eugen's birthday was if Extropes collectively determined to rain down cake on Eugen's location on such a date. I almost cannot imagine Eugen holding up a glass of champagne recognizing the cake streaking across the sky being forced to raise the cry of "incoming". What would be the terminal velocity of a cake dropped from a low earth orbit? How would it differ depending on the material, say Sponge or Fruitcake? Personally I think there are far too many variables to consider when calculating the decent of a dumb cake. I therefore forward the notion that any orbital cake deployment be of the Eugene Seeking Self guiding variety. Perhaps a large chocolate eclair would be ideal due to the superior aerodynamics. If deployed in a raw cakemix configuration, it should be nicely cooked by the time of impact. Alex From spike66 at comcast.net Fri Nov 7 04:09:58 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 20:09:58 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: <015f01c3a4cb$478c4fc0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: <000001c3a4e5$024ea380$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > Harvey Newstrom > Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 5:06 PM > To: 'ExI chat list' > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence > of Berkeley > > > Spike wrote, > > Most of my spam has been coming from individual > > huge corporations in Nigeria, asking me to help > > them loot the country... > > Surely you must know that none of these really come from the > government of Nigeria. They are all frauds... Ja I was aware of that, but there is an interesting impact of all that Nigerian spam: people are having constantly reinforced the notion that one can *never* invest *any* capital in any African nation. There are too many people eager to steal any pile of money in sight. But other than that, Nigeria isn't much like the U.S. {8^D The spammers are doing unimaginable damage to any possible future development in Africa and pretty much every other currently underdeveloped nation. As far as I know, there are no huge corporations in Nigeria. Now there may never be any. As for government action to stop spam, the government is perfectly helpless to stop spam. The fed must work within the framework of the constitution, and it will quickly get tangled up in free speech issues if it does much. Lawrence from Berkeley made a curious contention, being as how he is in Taxifornia and must have noticed the debacle this state has just been thru. The government cannot help us. This state's government cannot get any more money, yet it's expenses are going up. Consequently, the Taxifornia state government cannot even maintain the services that it has been providing for so many years, never mind take up any new tasks, such as inforcing spam restrictions. Note carefully my claim: the state *may raise taxes* but it *cannot* take in any more money. We must look elsewhere for solutions to spam. spike From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Nov 7 04:26:58 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 23:26:58 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] VR-BAR: Harv's back! In-Reply-To: <14.1bdbf02d.2cdc5e3d@aol.com> Message-ID: <017801c3a4e7$658547e0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> ABlainey at aol.com wrote, > Welcome back Harvey, That is some serious list of credentials you > have amassed. Congrats on the latest. Thanks. I am seriously interested in security. I am analyzing security as an engineering problem with requirements, standards, principles, methodology, and verification. Most security consultants don't have the scientific or engineering background to do more than be consumers of other people's security products. I also am trying to cover all the different kinds of security. Creating security, auditing security, managing security, assessing security, consulting about security, and operating security are different skills. What is interesting to me is that security is not an end in itself. It is a tool that can be used for any endeavor, just like logic, the scientific method, etc. Security measures a bunch of different attributes, how well they are implemented, the risk of failure, and improvement methods for success. There are standard requirements for security, and a bunch of different security attributes that can be analyzed and addressed separately. I think these security methods can be applied to transhumanist endeavors, such as developing AI, controlling nanotechnology, mitigating dangerous technologies, evaluating knowledge accuracy, etc. I plan to further investigate these ideas in the future. Getting credentials in different types of security is just the first step. -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Nov 7 04:27:08 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 23:27:08 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. -Mapping words to referents In-Reply-To: <04e301c3a4d9$01b985e0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <017901c3a4e7$6ae614d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Brett Paatsch wrote, > Harvey wrote: > > In fact, I believe almost all spam are frauds. .... \ > This (my post) is off your topic Harvey hence the relabelled > subject. > > I have some half-baked (perhaps) notion that using the > word "belief" endorses it as a meme and that that is not > helpful to reasoning. Interesting idea. I used the word to indicate my understanding of the problem, but with a concession that I have not exhaustively investigated and proven this to myself. > In your use of the words "I believe" in the sentence above > would your *meaning* still have been preserved/captured etc > by one or more of the following statements? > > "I reckon all spam are frauds" Too colloquial and slangy to me. I don't think this could be used in a business report or an academic paper. It sounds red-neck and uneducated sounding. > "I think all spam are frauds". This sounds weaker to me. I intended my belief to imply that I had reason to believe. This is a higher standard than most people use for their beliefs, so it is probably misleading. To me, "I think" sounds like a student guessing at an answer. > "I infer that all spam are frauds" This sounds too weak to me. Infer sounds like I don't have direct evidence by think it is implied in some way. > "I conclude that all spam are frauds" This sounds too *strong* to me. A conclusion sounds like the result of a logical proof or an investigation in my mind. I would not express my belief as a conclusion without doing more methodical work to validate my belief. > Perhaps some other word instead of belief? I think I really meant "I posit..." even though you list this below as not serving. I believe it is true, and I posit this as a theory. I have not actually run statistics to prove my theory, but I would expect it to come out that way. Scientifically speaking, this is a belief in my mind. It is not a religious belief as most people would take it. > Surely one of these would have NOT have served: > > "I guess all spam are frauds" > "I posit all spam are frauds" > "I have faith that all spam are frauds" > "I accept that all spam are frauds" > Your feedback on this point with help me develop my mapping > model of others-words to others-referents. (I know that others > can see me doing this mapping exercise by posting on list - I want > that to happen too - but as only you know what you meant by > belief when you used it in a sentence only your feedback can > give me your intended referent.) Good. Can you tell me more why you dislike the word "belief"? Do you see it as a faith-based conclusion? In my usage, any "belief" is a stored statement of fact. The word "belief" is more specific to say that this is what is in my mind that is true, but not necessarily what is actually out in the real world as true. In my usage, it does not imply anything about the methodology used to accept this belief. I use scientific methods and logic, but I can see how many people use religion or faith to accept beliefs. Attaching these methodologies to beliefs would lessen their acceptance by scientists or others rejecting these faith-based methodologies. > Thanks Welcomes. > [In experimental communication engineering mode ;-) That what we're here for. > PS: I do think this may be surprisingly important but even if I > am wrong why not humor me.] Yeah, why not. -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Nov 7 06:26:03 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 17:26:03 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. - POSIT the great References: <017901c3a4e7$6ae614d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: <054d01c3a4f8$04dc58a0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Harvey wrote: > Brett Paatsch wrote, > > Harvey wrote: > > > In fact, I believe almost all spam are frauds. .... > \ > > This (my post) is off your topic Harvey hence the relabelled > > subject. > > > > I have some half-baked (perhaps) notion that using the > > word "belief" endorses it as a meme and that that is not > > helpful to reasoning. > > Interesting idea. I used the word to indicate my understanding of the > problem, but with a concession that I have not exhaustively investigated and > proven this to myself. I see. > I think I really meant "I posit..." even though you list this below > as not serving. Ok. And yes, of course you are right. Posit. I should have had it in the list of likely matches. Posit. Excellent word! I almost feel some positing coming onto me now :-) >...I posit this as a theory. >.. > ... Scientifically speaking, this is a belief in my mind. Yuk. > It is not a religious belief as most people would take it. Imagine that! And who would want to be taken for having a religious belief when one was actually POSITING. Not me for sure! > Can you tell me more why you dislike the word "belief"? > Do you see it as a faith-based conclusion? In my usage, any > "belief" is a stored statement of fact. Sure. I see it as a veritable cancerous meme, the single worst one-word cancerous meme I have *ever* encountered, because it actually sounds strong and has a sneaky AIDS-like positive prejorative that makes it very hard even for very bright people to shake. And yet it can have the effect of making those even very bright folks arguments sound no better than dumb arguments or not argument at all when it is put up in opposition to them. To the listener of a debate in parliament for instance who may sometimes be only partly paying attention the word belief gets credit (because it sounds strong) when it should get scorn because it tags *ABSOLUTELY NOTHING* reliable or good. If you were arguing for your life against a witch doctor in a trial I would not want your most eloquent reasoned arguments and POSITINGs being befuddled by your using the word belief and the sleepy jurors hearing your accusers using another belief based diatribe and then figuring what the heck I missed some of the content of what was said but one 'belief' is pretty much as good as another I may as well go with my gut, or toss a coin. And Harvey who "believed" he should get freed stands the same 50/50 chance in front of the dopy audience or jury or judge as the sneaky sometime malicious or mischievious rotter who announces he "believes" as a true *believer* believes that Harvey should burn. Harvey's eloquence in his defence is reduced by Harvey reinforcing the believing (not reasoning meme). The meme may kill Harvey in a really close contest when POSITING with all the simple dignity and courage and eloquence the word carries might have saved him. Words matter because juries and democracies can be full of empowered fools, who do not unpack the words for their content. The next time the deciding body wakes up from its slumbers and hears beliefs on both side of an important question it can go right on and be indiscriminant between shit and chocolate again. I spend a fair amount of time watching politicians do their thing. I hear the word belief a lot. I really, really do not like it. I see folks getting believed to death even in the twenty first century. This does not mean that I do not like any people who use the word belief. I look at them a bit like they are carriers of a deadly meme though. And I try and point it out but the slippery little meme critter keeps getting under the guard. I posit, hopefully, that posit might be used a bit more frequently from now on. But I wish I could be more confident. It is dashed hard to kill a cancerous word meme when it is refined right down to a single positively prejorative word. But maybe, just maybe one can label the rotten cancerous word meme. Actually I sort of hope that one day all my friends will be so thoroughly innoculated against using the cancerous meme word that I will be able to tell fools from non-fools simply by their use of that one word. Then maybe I'll pick another word ;-) Regards, Brett [Having attempted just one of a million smites on a filthy rotten word meme - and wondering if next time he may be able to 'save' or help good Harvey with a booster shot of - do you perchance mean 'posit'? Phew.. Now Samantha will be along Positing *belief in positing* in a moment and I will quietly explode ] From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Nov 7 06:42:06 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 17:42:06 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Quick too the other thread ! Message-ID: <057f01c3a4fa$42d2db00$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> An evil meme had hold of Harvey in the Posit thread and I think I've got it by the tail but I am not sure if I dare let go of it now ;-) Regard, Brett From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Fri Nov 7 06:47:24 2003 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 22:47:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] prayer and healing again In-Reply-To: <003f01c3a48a$74d27ea0$61165e0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <20031107064724.48695.qmail@web60206.mail.yahoo.com> Yes... but since the prayers were "public" the question remains whether their prayers were sincere or they were just doing it for show. (e.g. so as not to be called a traitor or what have you.) This is a problem with all the double blind prayer studies as well, after all how can you invest any true spiritual energy into a prayer for someone's health if you don't even know who it is you are praying for. I think it would be a more accurate study to examine casualty records for wars and such since the military keeps accurate data on the religious denominations of soldiers for funeral purposes and such. Unfortunately prayers by professed atheists under fire might confound such studies, but that too proves a point. ;) John K Clark wrote: James Watson in his recent book "DNA" talked about a much larger scale test of the effectiveness of prayer. He points out that for hundreds of years millions of people have been publicly praying that the King or Queen of England have a long life, but actuarial studies have shown that monarchs on average have slightly shorter lives than other members of the aristocracy. John K Clark jonkc at att.net _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat The Avantguardian "He stands like some sort of pagan god or deposed tyrant. Staring out over the city he's sworn to . . .to stare out over and it's evident just by looking at him that he's got some pretty heavy things on his mind." --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aperick at centurytel.net Fri Nov 7 07:02:44 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick) Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 23:02:44 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. -Mapping words to In-Reply-To: <200311070427.hA74RXM12100@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a4fd$25e48400$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Score this post as one vote in support of Brett's position on the "b" word. > Referents >I have some half-baked (perhaps) notion that using the word "belief" endorses it as a meme and that that is not helpful to reasoning. /> >"I reckon ... I infer ... I conclude [know, understand, can see, ...] /> Now there's an old friend -- an old pet peeve of mine: the word "belief" having the power to cause me nausea; just as much as that other word "faith." I think I had been studying -- bathing in -- all of Ayn Rand's non-fiction books. I tried to swear off the "b" word and even tried to show others the error of their ways. But people are just so damn stupid, nobody sees any reason to change their old patterns of speech -- they claim that it is nearly always clear, to the speaker and to the listener, from context etcetera what the meaning of the "b" word is. I doubt I'll try really getting on the "b" bandwagon again, but on this list hence forth I side with the "B" man. (B)rett. Yup, I reckon so. And there's another word that could stand being avoided: percentage. What a clumsy fuck way of saying hundreds. Just scrambles the brains of folk whose IQ is any less than 93. Or so I'm told. And another one: Rights. When what we really mean to say is: special privileges asserted by some authority that promises to use force if necessary to secure said rights, wups, I mean privileges. When people use the term 'rights' it gets em thinkn bout God givn em out see. And then they get real hot right off see. Some start a thinkn bout IN-ALEINABLE rights, and that's pure fantasy. When used in this context 'rights' puts on such a righteous robe that people get in a fightn mood damn quick out of frustration that the other dumb bastard cant see the holy garment attached to their disrespected privilege. Rights talk is always fightn words. From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Nov 7 07:09:32 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 18:09:32 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] POSIT thread Message-ID: <05c501c3a4fe$18260860$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> [Please note: Reposted on some reflection to put post into own thread - I will NOT repost 'spam-like' like this often - Brett] Harvey wrote: > Brett Paatsch wrote, > > Harvey wrote: > > > In fact, I believe almost all spam are frauds. .... > \ > > This (my post) is off your topic Harvey hence the relabelled > > subject. > > > > I have some half-baked (perhaps) notion that using the > > word "belief" endorses it as a meme and that that is not > > helpful to reasoning. > > Interesting idea. I used the word to indicate my understanding of the > problem, but with a concession that I have not exhaustively investigated and > proven this to myself. I see. > I think I really meant "I posit..." even though you list this below > as not serving. Ok. And yes, of course you are right. Posit. I should have had it in the list of likely matches. Posit. Excellent word! I almost feel some positing coming onto me now :-) >...I posit this as a theory. >.. > ... Scientifically speaking, this is a belief in my mind. Yuk. > It is not a religious belief as most people would take it. Imagine that! And who would want to be taken for having a religious belief when one was actually POSITING. Not me for sure! > Can you tell me more why you dislike the word "belief"? > Do you see it as a faith-based conclusion? In my usage, any > "belief" is a stored statement of fact. Sure. I see it as a veritable cancerous meme, the single worst one-word cancerous meme I have *ever* encountered, because it actually sounds strong and has a sneaky AIDS-like positive prejorative that makes it very hard even for very bright people to shake. And yet it can have the effect of making those even very bright folks arguments sound no better than dumb arguments or not argument at all when it is put up in opposition to them. To the listener of a debate in parliament for instance who may sometimes be only partly paying attention the word belief gets credit (because it sounds strong) when it should get scorn because it tags *ABSOLUTELY NOTHING* reliable or good. If you were arguing for your life against a witch doctor in a trial I would not want your most eloquent reasoned arguments and POSITINGs being befuddled by your using the word belief and the sleepy jurors hearing your accusers using another belief based diatribe and then figuring what the heck I missed some of the content of what was said but one 'belief' is pretty much as good as another I may as well go with my gut, or toss a coin. And Harvey who "believed" he should get freed stands the same 50/50 chance in front of the dopy audience or jury or judge as the sneaky sometime malicious or mischievious rotter who announces he "believes" as a true *believer* believes that Harvey should burn. Harvey's eloquence in his defence is reduced by Harvey reinforcing the believing (not reasoning meme). The meme may kill Harvey in a really close contest when POSITING with all the simple dignity and courage and eloquence the word carries might have saved him. Words matter because juries and democracies can be full of empowered fools, who do not unpack the words for their content. The next time the deciding body wakes up from its slumbers and hears beliefs on both side of an important question it can go right on and be indiscriminant between shit and chocolate again. I spend a fair amount of time watching politicians do their thing. I hear the word belief a lot. I really, really do not like it. I see folks getting believed to death even in the twenty first century. This does not mean that I do not like any people who use the word belief. I look at them a bit like they are carriers of a deadly meme though. And I try and point it out but the slippery little meme critter keeps getting under the guard. I posit, hopefully, that posit might be used a bit more frequently from now on. But I wish I could be more confident. It is dashed hard to kill a cancerous word meme when it is refined right down to a single positively prejorative word. But maybe, just maybe one can label the rotten cancerous word meme. Actually I sort of hope that one day all my friends will be so thoroughly innoculated against using the cancerous meme word that I will be able to tell fools from non-fools simply by their use of that one word. Then maybe I'll pick another word ;-) Regards, Brett [Having attempted just one of a million smites on a filthy rotten word meme - and wondering if next time he may be able to 'save' or help good Harvey with a booster shot of - do you perchance mean 'posit'? Phew.. Now Samantha will be along Positing *belief in positing* in a moment and I will quietly explode ] From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Fri Nov 7 07:20:56 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 18:20:56 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. -Mapping words to References: <000001c3a4fd$25e48400$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> Message-ID: <05d101c3a4ff$afc5d6e0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Rick writes: > > Referents > > >I have some half-baked (perhaps) notion that using the > word "belief" endorses it as a meme and that that is not > helpful to reasoning. > /> > > >"I reckon ... I infer ... I conclude [know, understand, can see, ...] > /> > > Now there's an old friend -- an old pet peeve of mine: the word > "belief" having the power to cause me nausea; just as much as that > other word "faith." I think I had been studying -- bathing in -- all > of Ayn Rand's non-fiction books. I tried to swear off the "b" word > and even tried to show others the error of their ways. > But people are just so damn stupid, > nobody sees any reason to change their old patterns of speech -- they > claim that it is nearly always clear, to the speaker and to the > listener, from context etcetera what the meaning of the "b" word is. I > doubt I'll try really getting on the "b" bandwagon again, but on this > list hence forth I side with the "B" man. (B)rett. Yup, I reckon so. > > And there's another word that could stand being avoided: percentage. > What a clumsy fuck way of saying hundreds. Just scrambles the > brains of folk whose IQ is any less than 93. Or so I'm told. Rick I don't agree with the use of profanity just for the sound of it. I would be very happy to take a bit out of one really bad meme. Profanity for profanitys sake just distorts the message I think. I may regret using any at all even in context if it catches on. Brett From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Fri Nov 7 08:32:37 2003 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 00:32:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <119420-22003112421026669@M2W046.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <20031107083237.90698.qmail@web60202.mail.yahoo.com> Natasha wrote: "What are some riddles that some bear light, or a shadow, on our extropic transhumanity?" Here are some of riddles and unsolved mysteries from science that are very curious indeed: 1. How do homing pigeons and other migratory birds unerringly find their way home? Do they have some special sensory organs to detect the earth's magnetic field? If so why haven't we found it and characterized it yet? If we do find out the mechanism, can we transhumans augment ourselves to have it to, thereby eliminating the need to "litter" earth's orbit with GPS satellites? 2. What is the so called "Hotspot" detected in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy experiments? Could future transhumans use it to navigate deep space the way early navigators used Polaris the North Star to navigate the world? 3. Why is all life on earth asymmetric at a molecular level. The amino acids that make up proteins on earth all have a "left-handed" (levorotary) chirality and the sugars that make up carbohydrates are "right-handed" (dextrorotary). This is quite literally an extropic riddle because in any standard synthesis reaction occuring in nature (enzymatic reactions don't count because enzymes themselves are composed of these asymmetrically "left-handed" amino acids and you get the chicken or the egg problem) the resulting molecules are a racemic mixture i.e. composed of equal amounts of "left-handed" and "right-handed" molecules. The entropy that the biosphere as a thermodynamic system would have had to shed to the universe to be entirely composed of these asymmetric molecules is astronomically huge. This also ties into Erwin Shroedinger's riddle as follows. There have been attempts to duplicate the so-called "primordial soup" like the famed Miller and Urey experiments in 1956, where they recreated the early atmosphere of earth in a laboratory flask and shot electric sparks through it for a week producing amino acids that clung to the inside of the glassware. They succeeded in producing amino acids but they were in, you guessed it, a racemic mixture. 4. How can sperm whales hold their breath for half an hour at a time, descend into the abyss, and have fights to the death with giant squid and then surface without getting the bends or nitrogen narcosis? We can't do that even with all our fancy diving gear unless we mix helium with our air supply and spend hours depressurizing... or can we? 5. How can some really bright people claim to understand the universe so completely that there is nothing eerie, anomolous, or mysterious about it yet still manage to misplace their car keys. ;) The Avantguardian "He stands like some sort of pagan god or deposed tyrant. Staring out over the city he's sworn to . . .to stare out over and it's evident just by looking at him that he's got some pretty heavy things on his mind." --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Fri Nov 7 10:16:01 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 11:16:01 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] UN Delays Decision on Human Cloning In-Reply-To: <187160-220031146213451472@M2W040.mail2web.com> References: <187160-220031146213451472@M2W040.mail2web.com> Message-ID: Isn't it ironic that we have to thank Iran for this? Who where the 79 countries that voted against? Ciao, Alfio On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: >Here's some good news - > >"November 6, 2003; UNITED NATIONS, New York City (AP and CNN) -- The United >Nations voted narrowly Thursday to delay for two years any consideration of >a treaty to ban human cloning, an issue that has left the world body >bitterly divided. Facing rival resolutions on a total ban or a partial >ban, the General Assembly's legal committee voted 80-79 to accept a motion >introduced by Iran on behalf of the 57 Islamic nations to postpone U.N. >action on the issue. Fifteen countries abstained." > >**Now if we could have the gates open for theraputic clonging, I'd be >really happy. > >Natasha > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- >mail2web - Check your email from the web at >http://mail2web.com/ . > > >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From sentience at pobox.com Fri Nov 7 12:29:14 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 07:29:14 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] UN Delays Decision on Human Cloning In-Reply-To: <187160-220031146213451472@M2W040.mail2web.com> References: <187160-220031146213451472@M2W040.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <3FAB901A.1010209@pobox.com> natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: > Here's some good news - > > "November 6, 2003; UNITED NATIONS, New York City (AP and CNN) -- The United > Nations voted narrowly Thursday to delay for two years any consideration of > a treaty to ban human cloning, an issue that has left the world body > bitterly divided. Facing rival resolutions on a total ban or a partial > ban, the General Assembly's legal committee voted 80-79 to accept a motion > introduced by Iran on behalf of the 57 Islamic nations to postpone U.N. > action on the issue. Fifteen countries abstained." > > **Now if we could have the gates open for theraputic clonging, I'd be > really happy. "Clonging" can mean either knee-licking or the soft sound of a doorbell chime. Which did you have in mind? -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From scerir at libero.it Fri Nov 7 13:25:54 2003 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 14:25:54 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <20031107083237.90698.qmail@web60202.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000c01c3a532$af47ec20$b9b51b97@administxl09yj> "The Avantguardian" > How can some really bright people claim to understand the universe so > completely that there is nothing eerie, anomolous, or mysterious > about it [...] Well, I do not think so. In example Glashow says: "I don't have the hubris to imagine a theory of everything. I think that we scientists are seeking an understanding of the natural world. We come in various types -- chemists and physicists and biologists and such -- and we all have the same goal. We are making progress. The theories we have today of life and chemistry and physics are much better than they were ten years ago. And ten years from now they will be better still.I don't know what it means to understand the process of nature perfectly. I don't know what a theory of everything could be. Is it a series of formulas? How could that be?" more at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/view-glashow.html From bradbury at aeiveos.com Fri Nov 7 13:35:43 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 05:35:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <20031107083237.90698.qmail@web60202.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Nov 2003, The Avantguardian wrote: > Here are some of riddles and unsolved mysteries from science that are very curious indeed: A very interesting list -- I'll comment on a few. > 1. How do homing pigeons and other migratory birds unerringly find their > way home? Do they have some special sensory organs to detect the earth's > magnetic field? If so why haven't we found it and characterized it yet? [snip] I believe that the magnetic homing properties of birds and perhaps butterflies have been reasonably characterized. So this is not the mystery it once was. (Google on some combination of magnetic bird migration). > 2. What is the so called "Hotspot" detected in the Cosmic Microwave > Background (CMB) anisotropy experiments? Could future transhumans use it > to navigate deep space the way early navigators used Polaris the North > Star to navigate the world? This I am unaware of -- and would like to know more about. If there is a "Hotspot" it could be a sign of a high computational density location which would be of considerable significance with respect to our thinking about the evolution of the universe as well as our own species. > 3. Why is all life on earth asymmetric at a molecular level. The amino > acids that make up proteins on earth all have a "left-handed" > (levorotary) chirality and the sugars that make up carbohydrates are > "right-handed" (dextrorotary). [snip] I believe this problem also has a "reasonable" proposed solution. I cannot recall it in detail but it has something to do with the interaction between light and dust in young stellar nebula. Perhaps Amara might know the specifics -- otherwise I'd have to go digging for it. > 4. How can sperm whales hold their breath for half an hour at a time, > descend into the abyss, and have fights to the death with giant squid > and then surface without getting the bends or nitrogen narcosis? We > can't do that even with all our fancy diving gear unless we mix helium > with our air supply and spend hours depressurizing... or can we? Now that is a very interesting question -- my best bet would be that they have evolved to be tolerant nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream. To the best of my knowledge there isn't a clear reason that nitrogen bubbles should be harmful (i.e. they aren't toxic in any way). > 5. How can some really bright people claim to understand the universe so > completely that there is nothing eerie, anomolous, or mysterious about > it yet still manage to misplace their car keys. ;) When in doubt the smart people blame it on the Blue People. R. From amara at amara.com Fri Nov 7 12:39:00 2003 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 14:39:00 +0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] Voyager 1 (possibly) at the boundary of the Solar System Message-ID: I said: > >There are some indications now that the Voyager 1 has reached >the Heliopause. > >If this isn't a reason for a massive party/celebration >of the humans on this planet, I don't know what is.... > > > >http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2003/031105.htm > The following is a link to some background information regarding the heliosphere, in case you want to know more. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5527/55?ck=nck Science Volume 293, Number 5527, Issue of 6 Jul 2001, pp. 55-56. News from the Edge of Interstellar Space Edward C. Stone Auroral activity and magnetic storms that occasionally disrupt electric power grids are caused by the supersonic solar wind [HN1] that sweeps past Earth as it blows radially away from the Sun. This wind creates the heliosphere [HN2], a bubble of magnetized plasma that surrounds the Sun and includes the orbits of all known planets. Two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2 [HN3], are approaching the edge of the heliosphere [HN4]--the heliopause--where the radially decreasing pressure of the expanding solar wind balances the inward pressure of the local interstellar medium [HN5]. En route, the spacecraft are sending back important information about the far reaches of the solar system. The size of the heliosphere varies as the solar wind pressure changes with the 11-year solar cycle [HN6], with maximum size at the time of minimum solar activity (1). Currently, the heliosphere is shrinking because solar activity is near its maximum. Furthermore, it is distorted into a cometlike shape by the motion of the interstellar medium relative to the Sun. A long tail extends in the downwind direction. The two Voyager spacecraft are headed in the opposite, upwind direction, where the heliopause is closest to the Sun (see the first figure). (see the article for the rest) -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "The real malady is fear of life, not of death." -- Naguib Mahfouz From rafal at smigrodzki.org Fri Nov 7 13:56:38 2003 From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 08:56:38 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: Message-ID: <060101c3a536$f7731fc0$6401a8c0@dimension> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert J. Bradbury" > > > 3. Why is all life on earth asymmetric at a molecular level. The amino > > acids that make up proteins on earth all have a "left-handed" > > (levorotary) chirality and the sugars that make up carbohydrates are > > "right-handed" (dextrorotary). [snip] > > I believe this problem also has a "reasonable" proposed solution. > I cannot recall it in detail but it has something to do with the > interaction between light and dust in young stellar nebula. Perhaps > Amara might know the specifics -- otherwise I'd have to go digging > for it. ### Probably no need to invoke the stellar dust, since the asymmetry is a direct consequence of the mechanics of biological macromolecule synthesis. An enzyme, ribosome or nucleic acid polymerase can recognize only a limited number of molecular species (just like a lock can recognize only a limited number of keys, all of the same general symmetry), and the moiety that forms the most rigid part in a polymer, the backbone, can only assume a limited number of conformations. Using a standard conformation for the backbone of all monomers saves on the number of enzymes needed to make all the components, and the standard conformation for aminoacids just happened to be the L-conformation. Of course, if there were any imbalances in the concentration of one enantiomer in the primordial soup, that enantiomer would be much more likely to become the standard, but, one way or another, a standard had to choose itself. Rafal From bradbury at aeiveos.com Fri Nov 7 14:02:56 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 06:02:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217BBFE066@adlexsv02.protech.com.au> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Nov 2003, Emlyn O'regan wrote: > How about a pre-cooked eclair (maybe a little doey, it will get *hot*), with > a really thick chocolate coating (3 or four meters?) which acts as an > ablative re-entry shield. By the time it gets to Eugen's balcony, the shell > should be down to sub-centimeter. This requires a very fine interpretation. After all we have a long historical precedent for "let them eat cake". I'm not sure that we can morph this into "let them eat eclairs" and have quite the same impact. However, since the cake is targeted at Eugen's balcony for his birthday and since he may be discourteous enough not to be out on said balcony when the incoming cakes are arriving it makes sense for them to have onboard nanocomputers that allow retargeting. Its always good to have Plan B. That could include Eliezer's house or Greg's house (don't know if they have balconies) or Spike's front lawn which contains the strange math symbols. Perhaps Alex wrote: > What would be the terminal velocity of a cake dropped from a low earth > orbit? Don't know -- this is a question for spike. > How would it differ depending on the material, say Sponge or Fruitcake? I would strongly suspect sponge and fruitcake would have similar properties. > [snip] I therefore forward the notion that > any orbital cake deployment be of the Eugene Seeking Self guiding variety. A reasonable suggestion -- dealt with by the cake with onboard nanocomputers. > Perhaps a large chocolate eclair would be ideal due to the superior > aerodynamics. If deployed in a raw cakemix configuration, it should be > nicely cooked by the time of impact. Screw the aerodynamics. What we are interested in is the display and delivery of cake to Eugen on his birthday. If that cannot be made to work out then we have one or more "Plan B's". I'm particularly fond of that which might potentially "toast" Spike's front lawn. R. From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Nov 7 16:05:04 2003 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 08:05:04 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] UN Delays Decision on Human Cloning In-Reply-To: <3FAB901A.1010209@pobox.com> References: <187160-220031146213451472@M2W040.mail2web.com> <187160-220031146213451472@M2W040.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20031107080108.030fe170@pop.earthlink.net> At 07:29 AM 11/7/03 -0500, Eli wrote: >natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: >>**Now if we could have the gates open for theraputic clonging, I'd be >>really happy. > >"Clonging" can mean either knee-licking or the soft sound of a doorbell >chime. Which did you have in mind? I thought we could lick our knees while sounding chimes. Natasha From eugen at leitl.org Fri Nov 7 14:44:17 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 15:44:17 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <060101c3a536$f7731fc0$6401a8c0@dimension> References: <060101c3a536$f7731fc0$6401a8c0@dimension> Message-ID: <20031107144416.GC3534@leitl.org> On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 08:56:38AM -0500, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > Of course, if there were any imbalances in the concentration of one > enantiomer in the primordial soup, that enantiomer would be much more likely > to become the standard, but, one way or another, a standard had to choose > itself. The enantiomer excess-driven probabilities play no role given that prebiotic organics is nonchiral, in comparison to a randomly emerged stereoselective autocatalyst, that rapidly depletes one half of the ursoup racemate. Ditto autocatalytic set. It's the frozen aftermath of a spontaneous symmetry breaking event, driven by quantum noise at molecular scale. Could have been exactly the other way round, no need to invoke assymetries of spacetime or polarized pulsar radiation destabilizing a part of the molecular cloud accreted into presolar nebula. These are negligible nudges, if we assume emergence of the autocatalyst is a rare event. We can get data on this if we see unrelated self-replicating chemistries over the solar system. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sjvans at ameritech.net Fri Nov 7 16:41:58 2003 From: sjvans at ameritech.net (Stephen J. Van Sickle) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 10:41:58 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1068223317.1061.47.camel@Renfield> On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 07:35, Robert J. Bradbury wrote: > > 4. How can sperm whales hold their breath for half an hour at a time, > > descend into the abyss, and have fights to the death with giant squid > > and then surface without getting the bends or nitrogen narcosis? We > > can't do that even with all our fancy diving gear unless we mix helium > > with our air supply and spend hours depressurizing... or can we? > > Now that is a very interesting question -- my best bet would be that > they have evolved to be tolerant nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream. > To the best of my knowledge there isn't a clear reason that nitrogen > bubbles should be harmful (i.e. they aren't toxic in any way). No, the answer is very well established. Nitrogen narcosis and the bends are the result of breathing compressed air. Whales and other sea mammals don't breath compressed air; they don't breath at all under water. Even humans can perform feats if holding their breath that would result in a scuba diver getting the bends, in the competitive event known as free diving: http://www.divingfree.com/ More in depth (sorry) explanation here: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may97/864759869.Zo.r.html It is also firmly established that whales and other sea mammals simply have a more efficient oxygen metabolism, easily explaining 1/2 hour underwater. Even humans have vestiges of this, in what is known as the "diving reflex": http://www.bartleby.com/61/50/D0305000.html http://animals.about.com/library/dyk/bldyk-diving.htm http://www.deeperblue.net/article.php/225 steve vs From jonkc at att.net Fri Nov 7 17:12:30 2003 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 12:12:30 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> Message-ID: <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> 1) There must be a physical mechanism to compute how proteins fold up since the same protein always turns into the same shape and does it in just a few seconds, but our most powerful supercomputers would take centuries to figure out even the simplest one. What is that computational mechanism? 2) Are Quantum Computers possible and practical? 3) What is Dark Matter? 4) What is Dark Energy? 5) How does turbulence work? 6) How does friction work? 7) What does the wave Quantum Mechanics associates with every particle really mean? 8) What survival value did our ancestors find walking on 2 legs gave them? 9) Why is there something rather than nothing? John K Clark jonkc at att.net From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Fri Nov 7 17:59:42 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 11:59:42 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: SPAM (was Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley) References: <015f01c3a4cb$478c4fc0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: I have come to the conclusion that there are two types of spam. What is spam to one person might not be spam to another. Maybe one of the largest difficulties in controlling spam is getting everyone to agree on a clear definition. I don't think all unsolicited email advertisements should be banned. The important part is getting the subject lines correct. If these were correct, I could easily filter out what I didn;t want. I don;t quite understand everything about how the headers work, but it seems to me that there is a layer missing in the protocols for email. Maybe an added layer that would seperate all email into a few categories such as PERSONAL, BUSINESS, AND ADVERTISEMENT would be a good idea. In the advertisement protocol, there would be a lower content level that had required keywords such as PORN, PENIS ENLARGEMENT, MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING, etc. A national, or worldwide spam-police division could be created that you could forward emails with false headers to. This entity would track down people who falsify headers and violate the new protocols. It would be paid for by a small registration fee required paid by legal spammers to have access to the new protocols. Violaters could then be burned alive at the stake. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harvey Newstrom" To: "'ExI chat list'" Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 7:05 PM Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley > Spike wrote, > > Most of my spam has been coming from individual > > huge corporations in Nigeria, asking me to help > > them loot the country. This government action > > you call for, will that be in the form of dropping > > nukes on Nigeria? > > Surely you must know that none of these really come from the government of > Nigeria. They are all frauds. In fact, I believe almost all spam are > frauds. They fake their addresses so you can't trace them to their real > source. They fake headers and subjects to make you look at them even though > they are off-topic. They fake remove-me links to collect more e-mails to > spam. They insert nonsense words to deliberate get past your filters. They > sell lists of names to other spammers of supposedly interested people who > are not really interested. In short, they know you don't want it and they > are trying to force you to take it anyway. This should be an illegal form > of harassment or abuse. > > If spam had accurate subject lines so we could filter out what we didn't > want, there would be no problem. Likewise, if declining really worked and > prevented future spams from that source or about that product, there would > be no problem. Spammers are criminals who deliberately try to circumvent > other people's wishes. "No" means no! > > Whether you believe government should enforce laws or some other solution > should be used, spammers should be considered illegal and shutdown as > stalkers who are knowingly harassing unwilling victims. > > -- > Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC > Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, > NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From bradbury at aeiveos.com Fri Nov 7 19:51:55 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 11:51:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] IDEA FUTURES: just won't die... Message-ID: Looks like the MIT Technology Review mag. has picked up on Robin's idea and decided to morph it a bit. I have not read the underlying details so don't critique me on any misimpressions. I am just the messenger. Games: Technology Review Launches Futures Market http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/11/07/035241.shtml?tid=127&tid=186&tid=96&tid=98&tid=99 http://trif.technologyreview.com/bk/guide.html R. From eugen at leitl.org Fri Nov 7 19:59:05 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 20:59:05 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <20031107195905.GQ3534@leitl.org> On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 12:12:30PM -0500, John K Clark wrote: > 1) There must be a physical mechanism to compute how proteins fold up since > the same protein always turns into the same shape and does it in just a few > seconds, but our most powerful supercomputers would take centuries to figure > out even the simplest one. What is that computational mechanism? There's no new physics involved. It's a question of how to write code for a big machine -- depending in whether it's clever or dumb code that machine might or might not yet exist. Of course, no currently used forcefield is even approximately up to the task. > 9) Why is there something rather than nothing? If there are an infinite or seminfinite numbers of somethings, several kinds of nothings included, and only one of them did contain you, you still would be asking this question. If seen that way, that question becomes a lot less magical. Of course, one still has no idea about that something which makes above framework possible. That question might well be unknowable. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk Fri Nov 7 20:40:19 2003 From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 20:40:19 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] A Flight Data Recorder for Your Car Message-ID: <3FAC0333.3030605@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> See: and Quote: Imagine you're in your car driving to the grocery store. You're accelerating away from a stop sign when suddenly -- BANG! -- you're hit from behind by a speeding car that never even slowed down. Badly shaken, you stumble out. The police arrive on the scene just minutes after the crash. Plus, they already seem know that you stopped, and the other guy -- who's being arrested -- didn't. And moments later, your cell phone starts ringing. It's your insurance agent, who also has accident details and is calling to reassure you that it looks like a quick decision. How do the police and your insurer know what happened? Because a "black box" in each of the cars told them so, the instant it happened. This system is closer to reality than you may think. It's being built today in Ireland and is expected to spread across Europe over the next few years before taking root in the U.S. Insurance companies like the idea because computer-generated data about the crash will help prevent fraudulent claims and cut insurance costs. Emergency responders will be aided, too, thanks to faster, more detailed information about the exact location and scope of an accident. By mandating that drivers use the boxes, Ireland seems to have snuffed out privacy concerns that have slowed the voluntary adaptation of the technology elsewhere. Hidden away at the end of the article, analyst Rob Bamforth of Bloor Research is quoted: "If black boxes become widespread through new government requirements, it could make an impact on public safety, similar to the effect of speed cameras," he predicted. "If people know there is a black box accurately recording information for insurance purposes, it could have an effect on how people drive," he said. "Over time, there could be broader indirect benefits." Say that again??!! That man is a master of the cool understatement! How would you drive if you had a cop sitting beside you and your insurance rep in the backseat? BillK From Karen at smigrodzki.org Fri Nov 7 21:16:21 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 16:16:21 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] IDEA FUTURES: just won't die... References: Message-ID: <009101c3a574$64c1fcd0$6501a8c0@DogHouse> In the MIT Tech Review article, they cite to www.artificialmarkets.com for those seeking more info on the "scientific validation of the predictive power of artificial markets". -Karen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert J. Bradbury" To: "Extropy Chat" Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 2:51 PM Subject: [extropy-chat] IDEA FUTURES: just won't die... > > Looks like the MIT Technology Review mag. has picked > up on Robin's idea and decided to morph it a bit. > > I have not read the underlying details so don't critique > me on any misimpressions. I am just the messenger. > > Games: Technology Review Launches Futures Market > http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/11/07/035241.shtml?tid=127&tid=186&tid=96 &tid=98&tid=99 > http://trif.technologyreview.com/bk/guide.html > > R. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From scerir at libero.it Fri Nov 7 21:18:15 2003 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 22:18:15 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <001b01c3a574$ae01f8a0$76b41b97@administxl09yj> Another riddle: the universe. I fwd the latest on Hawking (unfortunately also on Derrida). [Hey, J.R., where are you? Its your concept of universe!] s. > NOVEMBER 7 - 13, 2003 > > Quark Soup > > > Brain Worlds > Hawking, Derrida and living with the other > by Margaret Wertheim > > STEPHEN Hawking's voice driftsthrough the air, eerily familiar. These > are the synthesized vocal cords that attempted to explain to Homer > Simpson the nature of space and time, that joshed on the Star Trek > holodeck with Newton and Einstein. Along with the latter's shock of > hair, Hawking's computerized tones have come to symbolize the ideal of > Genius writ large. Yet the source of these sounds seems impossibly > small and fragile in the flesh. Bunched in his wheelchair at the front > of the room, Hawking is a man in miniature, his doll-like body in > hapless contrast to the gargantuan brain it supports. > > At the world's first "string cosmology" conference, held recently at > UC Santa Barbara, Hawking was expounding on his latest ideas about the > creation of the universe. It's a subject he famously catapulted to the > center stage of physics with his proof that space and time must have > begun with a singularity, a cosmic-scale version of a black hole. That > work was the subject of his Ph.D. thesis, and it built upon Einstein's > theory of relativity to demonstrate that any viable universe had to > have been born from a single, infinitely intense point - a kind of > cosmological seed. Hawking had come to Santa Barbara to revise > himself, presenting to an audience of fellow physicists a new model of > cosmic genesis which, as he explained, describes "a universe that > expands, contracts, bounces and expands again." > > Up close Hawking looks like an imp, an escapee from Lord of the Rings. > His delicate features are preternaturally enhanced by four decades of > living with Lou Gehrig's disease. Since I first interviewed him 18 > years ago, he has visibly shrunk, but at this point it is a medical > miracle he is alive at all. It's his eyes that demand your attention, > as if the life force withdrawn from his body has concentrated in his > orbs. They don't just twinkle, they radiate light. Though he can > barely move anymore and must now be attended by a small army of > nurses, when he nods assent to a question, one senses the power of a > still-extraordinary mind at work. This combination of gymnastic > intelligence and immobile body creates a profound sense of otherness - > Hawking is as close to an alien among us as Mr. Spock, and every bit > as enigmatic. > > While he still believes in an original beginning, Hawking suggests > that since this cosmic birth our universe might have had many lives. > Think of a balloon that's inflated, deflated, then inflated again. > According to his new model, our particular space and time will > eventually end, but the universal whole will continue, carrying into > its next life a residue of its past repetitions. > > The impetus for Hawking's revision is the revolution that has > electrified the world of theoretical physics: string theory. Using the > mathematical putty of this theory, physicists are playing gods, > bringing forth from the pluripotent sea of their equations an > explosion of universes. At UCSB, string theorists served up visions > that contained not just one universe but multiple, expanding and > infinitely extending arrays of universes. There were "pocket > universes," "toy universes" and "baby universes" budding like spores > off parent universes - a dizzying plethora of possibility in which > almost any world that might be imagined was deemed to be happening > "somewhere." > > To its proponents string theory holds out the hope that this may be > the longed-for "theory of everything." To others, it seems a theory of > nothing. It is not even science, they argue. For as its greatest > exponents acknowledge, there is not a shred of evidence to support any > of its conclusions so far. Speaking on Nova the other night, Nobel > Prize-winning particle physicist Sheldon Glashow expressed his > feelings in scathing terms. "Let me put it bluntly," he said, "there > are physicists and there are string theorists." For Glashow, physics > is about experiment, and without experimental verification string > theory has no validity. Not since the Middle Ages has speculation so > exceeded the reach of observation. "Is this a theory of physics," > Glashow asked, "or philosophy?" > > > > > > WHATEVER string theory's epistemological status, it's hot. Glashow was > part of a Nova string theory special, PBS's most expensive science > project ever, a $3.5 million, three-part epic titled The Elegant > Universe. The series is based on the 1999 best-selling book of the > same name by Columbia University physicist Brian Greene, and PBS > honchos are clearly hoping it will be the next Cosmos, with Greene the > next Carl Sagan. "If string theory is right," Greene enthused giddily > at the start of the show, "we may be living in a universe where > reality meets science fiction." > > Certainly the producers seemed determined to distract us with all the > techniques of sci-fi cinema - there were more things flying at the > screen than in a Star Wars battle. Like Luke Skywalker, Greene seemed > to be continually dodging projectiles. He took the task in stride, for > he had evidently been schooled in The Crocodile Hunter style of > presentation. I half expected him to wrestle one especially annoying > graphic to the ground. Things whirled and whizzed and flashed; lights > pulsed, objects popped in and out of existence. > > Not that science shouldn't be spectacular. It's just that in the blitz > of special effects it was often hard to keep track of the ideas. It > was a relief whenever they cut to one of the physicists talking about > his work. Especially good was Nobel laureate Stephen Weinberg, whose > insights into why physicists care about this stuff helped to remind us > that science - even string theory - remains a deeply human pursuit, > driven by psychological needs and desires that all too often resist > rational reduction. > > > > STRING theorists are excited, Weinberg noted, because their equations > suggest a path by which physics might be unified. For most of the past > century, physics has portrayed a disturbingly schizophrenic vision. On > the large scale, it describes the universe using Einstein's theory of > general relativity, but on the subatomic scale it reverts to the > wildly "other" perspective of quantum mechanics. General relativity > tells us how space and time behave on the celestial, or cosmological, > scale and ultimately gives us a picture of the universe as a whole. It > has made predictions tested to more than 40 decimal places of > accuracy, yet at the subatomic level it breaks down. Here, quantum > laws prevail and everything is ruled by laws of chance. > > At the cosmological level, things flow; in the subatomic realm they > jitter. Physicists like to use musical analogies, and we might say > that if general relativity describes a Strauss waltz, quantum theory > gives us a speed-metal riff. Practically speaking this duality has > little effect, but aesthetically it's profoundly unsatisfying. > Physicists cannot bear the bifurcation within their world picture; > they yearn for unity. At the Santa Barbara conference, David Berman, a > young English physicist from Hawking's department at Cambridge > University, took the musical theme further. In music, he told me, "You > can have two voices that sound discordant, then a third comes in and > resolves them into a harmonic whole." Physicists are searching for > this resolving voice, and in string theory they believe they might > have found their answer. > > Certainly, the universe has no trouble reconciling itself. The > schizophrenia is not in nature but in our mathematical models. It is > not the world that is fractured, but our understanding of it. > > > > ON THE DAY following Hawking's talk, UCSB hosted another intellectual > superstar, Jacques Derrida, at 73 the bad pensioner of French > philosophy. Derrida had been invited to speak at a conference on > religion, and his theme was living together, a subject he addressed > through the prism of his experience as a Jewish child growing up in > prewar Algeria. I had gone along to his sold-out lecture for entirely > separate reasons beyond my interest in string theory, but it turned > out there were uncanny resonances between the two events. The > organizing motif of Derrida's talk, the idea to which he returned > again and again (his singularity, as it were), was the notion of the > ensemble, or collection. Here, of course, he meant ensembles of people > - ethnic groups, religious communities, nation-states, local > neighborhoods, families and so on. But Derrida also wanted to alert us > to the French use of the word, its adverb sense, ensemble, as in > "vivre ensemble - living together." > > For Derrida the two senses of this one word were necessarily entwined. > Unity, he said, is an illusion. Ensembles are never homogeneous; > differences between members and parts of the whole will always exist. > Not just small differences, but radical dissimilarity. "Otherness," > Derrida insisted, is the norm, and we must learn to live with it. Even > within ourselves there is fragmentation. In Derrida's terms we are all > multiple beings, ensembles within. Accordingly, the demand for oneness > is a pathology we must renounce, for only by accepting the radical > "otherness" of others can we live in harmony with them. As he put it, > "Living together contests the closure of the ensemble." > > From a Derridian perspective, physicists' demand for a harmonic whole > takes on the cast of an unhealthy obsession. Insistence upon closure > is the very ideal he rejects. > > > > STRING THEORY closes the chasm between relativity and quantum > mechanics by smoothing out the jitters of the subatomic realm, > replacing point particles with microscopic loops, or "strings." > According to the mathematical basis of this theory, everything in our > universe is made up of tiny vibrating loops of some fundamental > stringy stuff. Don't even ask what this might be - there is no answer. > Just accept the notion that at its most basic level the world is made > of minute rubber bands. > > But in order to get this theoretical unity, you have to be willing to > take on board a radical extension of the universe beyond all bounds of > human experience. According to string theory, these microscopic loops > require their own dimensions of space. In most currently popular > versions, strings vibrate in six dimensions, though in some versions > it is seven. All of these are additional dimensions tacked on to the > three dimensions of space and the one of time we normally encounter. > It is this aspect of string theory that its detractors so dislike. > Where are these dimensions?, they demand. What are they? How come we > don't see them? > > This last question, at least, has an answer. We don't see the extra > dimensions because they are too tiny to observe with any current > technology. On Nova, Brian Greene gave us an analogy: If an atom was > as big as our solar system, a string would be the size of a large > shrub. To detect something that small, you'd need a particle > accelerator the size of a galaxy. > > Strings aren't the only things the theory predicts. The other > revelation has been a class of objects called "branes," short for > membranes. Over dinner at the Santa Barbara conference, Joseph > Polchinski, from UCSB's hosting Kavli Institute for Theoretical > Physics, offered some illumination. Where strings exist at the > subatomic level, branes are the structures the theory generates on the > cosmological scale. Strings are tiny, branes are huge. If strings are > like spaghetti, branes would be vast sheets of lasagna. Our universe, > according to the theory, is a brane, a cosmic-scale incarnation of the > same fundamental stringy substance. "You can ask what branes are made > of," Polchinski said, "but they're not made of anything. They're just > the stuff the theory describes." > > While strings suggest a subatomic space that has yet to be detected, > branes conform to some of our usual spatial conceptions. The brane of > our universe is said to have the accepted dimensions of space and > time. Yet it is seen as just one potential part of a much larger > five-dimensional realm known as "the bulk." Within the bulk, > Polchinski told me, there may well be other branes. Here "the > universe" becomes not just our brane but the total set of branes > within the bulk-space. > > String theory does not stop there. In Hawking's version, an individual > brane can be continually reborn. Other versions allow the possibility > of branes that spawn from prior branes or infinitely foaming seas of > branes, like a vast cosmological head of beer. In Santa Barbara, > Leonard Susskind, one of the pioneers of string theory, presented an > alarmingly fecund vision in which there were hundreds of "dimensions" > of potential universes, with new ones coming into being all the time. > Spaces upon spaces upon spaces, a multiplication of possibilities that > defy the very notion of limit. > > Although some physicists have objected to the almost organic > proliferation that string theory allows, Derrida, I think, would be > pleased by this explosion of ideas, which supports in the totality of > its weirdness the fundamental theme of his talk. > > > > With his impeccable tailoring and leonine presence, the most > controversial philosopher of our time would command attention even if > he wasn't supported by the buttress of fame. Derrida told us that the > "commandment" to live together imposes upon us demands "beyond law and > nature." Law, he said, is never sufficient to dictate our actions, > which operate in a wider realm of possibility than the statutes of any > legal system. Derrida urged us to embrace this "excess," to live and > love in a broader field of potential. And that is what I like so much > about the new string cosmologies. Despite physicists' desire for > oneness, in the end their equations also have multiplied the > possibilities, giving us a vast domain of potential in which the > "natural laws" here on Earth are just one set among many. It is as if > nature itself resists efforts to press it into a single mode, joining > Derrida on the path of radical multiplicity. Whether we can prove the > existence of these alternate worlds seems of little consequence. > > In string theory we have discovered a language which may well be more > lyrical than empirical, but which, in that very quality, enables us to > contemplate a wild excess of other options. Derrida and Hawking - the > physicist and the philosopher - would, I believe, have embraced one > another. > From scerir at libero.it Fri Nov 7 22:56:17 2003 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 23:56:17 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <000e01c3a582$5b3f9150$5db21b97@administxl09yj> John K Clark: > 7) What does the wave Quantum Mechanics associates > with every particle really mean? That's simple: a big mess :-) "I like to emphasize that light comes in this form - particles. It is very important to know that light behaves like particles, especially for those of you who have gone to school, where you were probably told something about light behaving like waves. I'm telling you the way it *does* behave - like particles." - R.P.Feynman, "QED", p.15 "Particles do not exist, only waves and wave packages. We speak not of 'particles and waves' but of 'detectors and waves'" - P.J. van Heerden, Amer. Journ, of Physics, 43, (1973), p.1015. "Each photon then interferes only with itself. Interference between two different photons can never occur." - P.A.M. Dirac, Principles of Quantum Mechanics, Clarendon, Oxford, 1930, p.15. [Unfortunately the last sentence is dead wrong, and the first is imprudent] "The question of whether the waves are something "real" or a function to describe and predict phenomena in a convenient way is a matter of taste. I personally like to regard a probability wave, even in 3N-dimensional space, as a real thing, certainly as more than a tool for mathematical calculations ... Quite generally, how could we rely on probability predictions if by this notion we do not refer to something real and objective?" - Max Born, Dover publ., 1964, "Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance", p. 107 [Brilliant!] So, the above is enough to say that the experimental *smooth* transition between the wave-like and the particle-like behaviour forbids an interpretation which acknowledges the status of only one of the two properties of the "entity". Either both or none. And none is difficult. (The "entity" is governed by the Greenberger & Yasin inequality, or other similar inequalities.) In general the "entity" can be seen as a carrier of information, of a *finite* quantity of information. In an interferometer we produce a change in the "entity" (say photon) state vector, which has degrees of freedom (i.e. spatial, and spin). Thus we produce a subtle change in that (finite) quantity of information the "entity" was carrying before. Any 'which-way' marking (in an interferometer, i.e. by means of polarizers) contains two degrees of freedom and produces a correlated state like |s1,p1>+|s2,p2>, where s1,s2 are informations (or 'images') about the leg of the interferometer, and p1,p2 are informations about the polarization state. Thus if you change the informations you may also expect some change in the behaviour of the "entity". Zeilinger wrote about it at http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0201026 and this seems to be a possible good description, if not solution. But, of course, now the riddle becomes: the superposition principle! From jcorb at iol.ie Fri Nov 7 23:06:53 2003 From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 23:06:53 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20031107225210.0325c410@pop.iol.ie> >Message: 15 >Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 16:09:55 -0800 (PST) > >From: "Robert J. Bradbury" >Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony >To: ExI chat list >Message-ID: > >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Chris Hibbert wrote: > > >>> On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > >>>> > ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 >[snip] > > Eugene: > > > http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&zoom=5&latitude=48.07078&longitude=11.61144 > > > Chris: > > > http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&zoom=5&latitude=37.36243&longitude=-122.0695 > > > > > In any case, it ought to be good enough for someone to get driving > > directions if they wanted to visit. >[more snips] >I hereby state in a loud voice -- *ONLY on the EXI list*! >There are very few other places on the planet where you >will get the contribution to the pool of knowledge that you >can get here. It just blows me away at times. >Robert >P.S. and it would really be interesting if once the X-prize(s) were >awarded and pseudo-space travel became reasonable and someone >figured out when Eugen's birthday was if Extropes collectively >determined to rain down cake on Eugen's location on such a >date. I almost cannot imagine Eugen holding up a glass of >champagne recognizing the cake streaking across the sky >being forced to raise the cry of "incoming". Interesting site. I've managed to locate my street and pencil in my house location on a saved copy of the map. Not sure if there's a way to show/attach it here, so you'll have to ask me for it :) In the meantime, here's the overall view of my hometown. http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?size=big&mapdata=8JWqc9HMpiYwb9zZYDFMrn3Q%2fSmwBrxHnJpYUafchV1f6hNN8WPY7sIyXiKgRNWcP14yHJv2aHAKoiNb6r4fm4L6YkdwfJOBqvKzd0xsXtN56jyZFFtXZzfepaqhQdZniAw4mCW7GK%2f75uirpkO55%2fIeVaNw7s5LCRvIdribdAebOl%2fEtuL%2f0dTFTkfBElN3hY9uZkxuU3d0FDSsHF0pYGVt7fk1APtHTZgjsDDk6%2f%2bxgyuZRfDvNDuMglxc%2bb%2bJqiDyYhbT3WzS8POptkyKVppYydKFLOAB8aijtfjoIZlTq%2fqEgQn%2fBQ%3d%3d I'm located somewhere roughly in the location of the "N82" label. Actually, if you click on N82 and Zoom in, you'll pretty much find yourself on my street. No peeking, now. I'm not decent. James.... From jcorb at iol.ie Fri Nov 7 23:25:30 2003 From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 23:25:30 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] UN Delays Decision on Human Cloning Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20031107231338.0325b870@pop.iol.ie> >------------------------------ >Message: 10 >Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 07:29:14 -0500 > >From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" >Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] UN Delays Decision on Human Cloning >To: ExI chat list >Message-ID: <3FAB901A.1010209 at pobox.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed >natashavita at earthlink.net wrote: > > Here's some good news - > > > > "November 6, 2003; UNITED NATIONS, New York City (AP and CNN) -- The > United > > Nations voted narrowly Thursday to delay for two years any > consideration of > > a treaty to ban human cloning, an issue that has left the world body > > bitterly divided. Facing rival resolutions on a total ban or a partial > > ban, the General Assembly's legal committee voted 80-79 to accept a motion > > introduced by Iran on behalf of the 57 Islamic nations to postpone U.N. > > action on the issue. Fifteen countries abstained." > > > > **Now if we could have the gates open for theraputic clonging, I'd be > > really happy. >"Clonging" can mean either knee-licking or the soft sound of a doorbell >chime. Which did you have in mind? Damn those knee-licking commie bastards.... I don't see this as necessarily "jump for joy" news. Sounds like it was more politics that scuppered it than any logical consensus. Basically, this means that there's two years to convince some of the more amenable countries that single-genome reproduction is not Frankenscience. This will take a cute clone baby being born and paraded all over the media, cooing and smiling to journalists. Cloning needs a Louise Brown. They had better get a move on. For therapeutic stuff, they've really got to produce something tangible in the next 24 months. Even with a Democrat in the White House next year (no foregone conclusion by any means), the most we'll get out of this is maybe protection for the research side of things. It's likely reprocloning will be banned. The proposed EU Constitution would ban it outright, in fact. Strange place for banning something. I thought a Constitution was about protecting rights.... Oh well. James... >-- >Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ >Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From Karen at smigrodzki.org Fri Nov 7 23:45:18 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 18:45:18 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <20031106031808.72213.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <011201c3a589$33522570$6501a8c0@DogHouse> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Lorrey" > > --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <> > > > On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Mike Lorrey wrote: > > > > > Don't know what state or country you live in. Last time I checked, > > the > > > 14th Amendment was clearly interpreted by SCOTUS as saying that you > > own > > > yourself: no slavery, peony, or indenturement allowed. It is a well > > > settled matter of probate law that the deceased's wishes about > > disposal > > > of their body are paramount, and if the deceased does not > > explicitly > > > say so, their next of kin, NOT the state, has the right to dispose > > of > > > the body. [snip]. > > > > Mike, these are important points -- points which should be well > > documented in public forums, easily available. That means > > some combination of something like a google search as well > > as a law database search. The trick would be to get such > > information near the top of the list in both forums. > > So I suppose we need to make the public as aware of Hale v Henkel (201 > US 43 (1905)) as they are of Roe v Wade and Miranda, specifically: "The > individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is > entitled to carry on his own private business in his own way. His power > to contract is unlimited. He owes no duty to the State or his neighbors > to divulge his business, or to open his doors to investigation, so far > as it may tend to incriminate him. He owes no such duty to the State, > since he receives nothing there-from, beyond the protection of his life > and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land > long antecedent to the organization of the State... He owes nothing to > the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights." > > This citation should be in the legal ammo box of any cryonicist. > > > No, it shouldn't, Mike. Anyone citing this case for almost any reason would be laughed out of court. Especially so if they cite the case for the proposition you suggest. (First of all, a minor note, the case year is 1906, not 1905). Secondly, the case has *nothing* to do with bodies or corpses or their disposition or their classification in the law or whether they become property of an estate or not. Your quotation from the case has nothing to do with those ideas either; also, it is dicta -- not relevant to the holding of the case. Also, important parts of the case were overruled some years later. That overruling is not important to the discussion though since the case has *nothing* to do with the ideas of the body as property or ownership in a body or rights to provide for the disposition of one's corpse after death. The case arose in a grand jury investigation of anti-trust violations under the Sherman Act. The case presented the questions of whether a grand jury had authority to subpoena a witness (an officer of the corporation under investigation) and mandate he present documentation of the corporation when no charges had been filed and when by such actions the witness, as agent of the corporation, may give self-incriminating (the "self" being the corporation) information . The Court held that the grand jury does not need to file a formal charge before examining witnesses. The Court also held that the protection against self-incrimination means "self" incrimination, and does not apply to incrimination of third parties (ie, officer for the corporation). Further, the 1903 "proviso" to the 1890 Anti-Trust Act gave immunity to the witness (officer of the corporation here) which was sufficient to protect the witness against self-incrimination. Further, and finally, the Court held that the corporation could claim a 4th Amendment privilege against unreasonable search and seizure of documents, but the witness (officer of the corporation) could not claim the same in relation to production for the grand jury of documents of the corporation for investigations into violations of the Anti-Trust Act of 1890. --Karen From thespike at earthlink.net Fri Nov 7 23:41:10 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 17:41:10 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's baloney References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031107225210.0325c410@pop.iol.ie> Message-ID: <023101c3a588$a10b1820$ca994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "J Corbally" Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 5:06 PM > I'm located somewhere roughly in the location of the "N82" > label. Actually, if you click on N82 and Zoom in, you'll pretty much find > yourself on my street. However, the simulation isn't fine-grained enough to locate my own home address in Coburg, Victoria, Australia (which appears to have blurred out in my absence--so Emlyn and Brett must just be some sort of place-holders). Damien Broderick [of the San Antonio Brodericks] From thespike at earthlink.net Fri Nov 7 23:46:04 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 17:46:04 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031107225210.0325c410@pop.iol.ie> Message-ID: <023401c3a589$51cb81e0$ca994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "J Corbally" [coordinates] Good god, you're actually *mentioned by name* just to the right of M9. Now *that's* accuracy. Damien Broderick [I see that Dr. Kildare lives nearby. How's the old chap doing these days?] From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Nov 7 23:53:53 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 18:53:53 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: SPAM (was Depressing Thought. from Laurence ofBerkeley) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <00f301c3a58a$66752910$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote, > The important part is getting the subject lines > correct. If these were correct, I could easily filter out > what I didn;t want. Unfortunately, spammers are notorious for lying. They fake subject lines that imply this is an answer a previous e-mail or a job offer or some other offer that the person might want, and then when they open it, it is not. This is a Trojan horse in the sense that they deliberately pretend to be one thing to get past defenses. I don't expect spammers to comply with standard subject lines or classifications any more other Trojan horse writers do. > A national, or > worldwide spam-police division could be created that you > could forward emails with false headers to. This entity would > track down people who falsify headers and violate the new > protocols. It would be paid for by a small registration fee > required paid by legal spammers to have access to the new > protocols. Violaters could then be burned alive at the stake. This is another excellent idea that probably won't work. People already track down spammers and shut them down. The spammers just pop up under a new company name at a different ISP. In fact, it is so common that many spammers use each ISP only once and assume they will be shut down immediately. This has also lead spammers to start breaking into ISPs or using people's open mail relay servers. Meaning, spammers literally hack into other servers or use other people's servers without permission to send their spam once, and then disappear so that tracing it back won't do any good. After one spam attack, they are gone. The main problem is spammers lie. Most of these ideas have been tried somewhere, and they always fail. Where they have to mark their subject lines or classify their e-mail to get through, they just fake the wrong classification to get through. Where we trace them down to shut off their ISP, they just start jumping between ISPs after one use. Where we require valid return addresses, they just fake somebody's else's address. Where they are required to have opt-out links, they just link it to some unrelated company's opt-out link so it looks like they have one. Where we limit the number of copies that can be sent out, they just send a series of slightly different individual mails. Where we limit the total amount of mail a single address can send out, they fake different return addresses on each e-mail. Where we filter out keywords, they misspell or put symbols in the middle of the keywords. Where we look for duplicate messages, they add nonsense words so messages appear different. Where we look for grammatically correct sentences, they have nonsense sentence generators that appear to be valid ramblings. No matter what scheme we invent, a hacker-type mind can think of ways around it. -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From aperick at centurytel.net Sat Nov 8 00:59:24 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 16:59:24 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] the F word, struggling with, embarrassment? Message-ID: <1502224.1068254229292.JavaMail.teamon@b107.teamon.com> I had to compose the following rambling verbiage before concluding that while poking a sleeping bear is a sign of great and praise-worthy courage when there is a real need to evict the bear from his chamber - in the absence of that need the same poke just makes you an asshole. I am left to suffer the pain of one who has seen, through new lenses, no cuteness where a *belief* had previously placed it. Just one more bit of evidence that 'beliefs' are the root of all evil. > Many persons in the general public would conclude that since I do not own a necktie that I am a lowly creature. We are proud of our Atheism. Care not one tiddle if Christians object to us pointing and laughing at their sacred bible and their silly God. We totally disregard their feelings as we permit women to kill their unborn babies. Yet many of us dare not reevaluate their code regarding sexuality. And of those who do, most will not admit to violating popular xtian mores about sex. We conceal our consumption of pornography. Yet we flaunt our consumption of books on evolution and any other form of blaspheme. Should we fear their response to Ricks use of the F word more than what they may do after witnessing us take the side of the baby killers in family planning clinics? Many persons in the general public feel sorry for souls too stupid to see the power and glory of the one true God. Many others see instead prideful allies of Satan - massively hated by God. But do any of us fear that these believers will think even less of us, find us even less credible, because we have the gall to utter the vulgar profanity king: that enemy of Christ: the F word? Oh I would understand my being publicly chastised if I averaged more than one or two such ... pause ... what is this, adrenaline? Did my choice of word spring from a deep and painful anger? It had felt so playful at the time. Just an innocent rebellion. What makes an A__hole? /> From aperick at centurytel.net Sat Nov 8 00:59:32 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 16:59:32 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <200311071900.hA7J0AM29655@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <16164701.1068254234680.JavaMail.teamon@b107.teamon.com> John K Clark jonkc at att.net wrote: > 9) Why is there something rather than nothing? This one is painfully obvious. If there were nothing there would be nothing to ask your question. There is something because there had to be in order for you to have asked about it. And you did ask. From Karen at smigrodzki.org Sat Nov 8 01:56:19 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 20:56:19 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Religion in the news References: <000001c3a4fd$25e48400$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz> <05d101c3a4ff$afc5d6e0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <008a01c3a59b$8109c180$6501a8c0@DogHouse> This is so funny, I had to share it. The latest issue of Church & State (publication of American's United for Separation of Church & State) reports that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon reports that former US Presidents Jefferson and Madison (among others) have endorsed him in what he calls "spirit world" conferences. The conference was chaired by Eisenhower. From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Nov 8 02:12:35 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 18:12:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] A Flight Data Recorder for Your Car In-Reply-To: <3FAC0333.3030605@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> Message-ID: <20031108021235.74950.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> --- BillK wrote: > > Say that again??!! > That man is a master of the cool understatement! > How would you drive if you had a cop sitting beside you and your > insurance rep in the backseat? THis is nothing new. The fight was lost when people didn't notice that they no longer owned their cars when vehicle registration and licensing was instituted. The states pulled a real scam there: conning car dealers into not mentioning the MSO (Manufacturers Statement of Origin, the 'real' title to the car) to the buyers. When the buyer drives away without it, or otherwise ignorantly surrenders it to a financier (the bank that financed the loan for the car) who sends it to the state, the state treats the MSO as abandoned property and thus 'siezes' the car in legal fashion. Your "Certificate of Title" is only a piece of paper issued by the state that says "Yes, we have title to this vehicle". The real MSO was shredded shortly after they scanned it to microfilm, so you can never again get your hands on it and reposess 'your' car. Thus, the registration charges you pay are nothing but the rent you pay to the state for use of THEIR car, which is why registration fees are generally variable with the value of the car. You can escape this trap, though. Simply pay cash for a brand new car, and do not pay a cent until the dealer agrees to give you the MSO. An increasing number of people are doing this, and are then able to drive their cars without registration, without a license plate (since it is used for personal reasons, it is a 'personal conveyance' and NOT a 'motor vehicle', which is a term that only applies to commercial 'for hire' opertion of a vehicle.) LP Presidential Candidate and constitutional scholar Michael Badnarik has done this for years, successfully fought police citations in the courts. I am not surprised that the state wants a black box in their cars to keep an eye on your irresponsible behavior, to make sure you behave like a proper serf. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From etheric at comcast.net Sat Nov 8 02:20:49 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 18:20:49 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Religion in the news References: <000001c3a4fd$25e48400$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz><05d101c3a4ff$afc5d6e0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <008a01c3a59b$8109c180$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: <003301c3a59e$eda20520$0200a8c0@etheric> I attended those conferences, and I have first hand knowledge that Jefferson does NOT endorse him! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karen Rand Smigrodzki" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 5:56 PM Subject: [extropy-chat] Religion in the news > This is so funny, I had to share it. The latest issue of Church & State > (publication of American's United for Separation of Church & State) reports > that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon reports that former US Presidents Jefferson and > Madison (among others) have endorsed him in what he calls "spirit world" > conferences. The conference was chaired by Eisenhower. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From Karen at smigrodzki.org Sat Nov 8 02:59:00 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 21:59:00 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Religion in the news References: <000001c3a4fd$25e48400$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz><05d101c3a4ff$afc5d6e0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au><008a01c3a59b$8109c180$6501a8c0@DogHouse> <003301c3a59e$eda20520$0200a8c0@etheric> Message-ID: <00b801c3a5a4$42676dc0$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Drat. So much for my paper on the real intent of the Constitutional drafters as corrected by The Spirit World Conference. ----- Original Message ----- From: "R.Coyote" > I attended those conferences, and I have first hand knowledge that Jefferson > does NOT endorse him! > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Karen Rand Smigrodzki" > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 5:56 PM > Subject: [extropy-chat] Religion in the news > > > > This is so funny, I had to share it. The latest issue of Church & State > > (publication of American's United for Separation of Church & State) > reports > > that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon reports that former US Presidents Jefferson > and > > Madison (among others) have endorsed him in what he calls "spirit world" > > conferences. The conference was chaired by Eisenhower. > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Nov 8 03:12:23 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 19:12:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <011201c3a589$33522570$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: <20031108031223.32492.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> --- Karen Rand Smigrodzki wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Mike Lorrey" > > So I suppose we need to make the public as aware of Hale v Henkel > > (201 US 43 (1905)) as they are of Roe v Wade and Miranda, > > specifically: "The individual may stand upon his constitutional > > rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his own private > > business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He > > owes no duty to the State or his neighbors to divulge his business, > > or to open his doors to investigation, so far as it may tend to > > incriminate him. He owes no such duty to the State, since he > > receives nothing there-from, beyond the protection of his life > > and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the > > land long antecedent to the organization of the State... He owes > > nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their > > rights." > > > > This citation should be in the legal ammo box of any cryonicist. > > > > > > No, it shouldn't, Mike. Anyone citing this case for almost > any reason would be laughed out of court. Especially so if they cite > the case for the proposition you suggest. (First of all, a minor > note, the case year is 1906, not 1905). Secondly, the case has > *nothing* to do with bodies or corpses or their disposition or > their classification in the law or whether they become property of > an estate or not. Your quotation from the case has nothing to do > with those ideas either; also, it is dicta -- not relevant to > the holding of the case. Also, important parts of the case were > overruled some years later. That overruling is not important to the > discussion though since the case has *nothing* to do with the ideas > of the body as property or ownership in a body or rights to provide > for the disposition of one's corpse after death. > The case arose in a grand jury investigation of anti-trust > violations under the Sherman Act. The case presented the questions of > whether a grand jury had authority to subpoena a witness (an officer > of the corporation under investigation) and mandate he present > documentation of the corporation when no charges had been filed and > when by such actions the witness, as agent of the corporation, may > give self-incriminating (the "self" being the corporation) > information . > The Court held that the grand jury does not need to file a > formal charge before examining witnesses. This is part of the problem for cryonics, though, isn't it? I die, I get frozen and leave my assets to a trust to finance my freezing and support my eventual revival and future life, leaving my hypothetical spouse(s) and kid(s) in the lurch. Said spouses and kids use grand jury subpoenas to force my cryonics organization to produce the body for autopsy whereupon it becomes thawed and worth nothing but fertilizer. With my ass now worthless, the trust I set up to protect my assets devolves to my survivors, and they win. Furthermore, grand juries can subpoena all of the notes and other documents produced by cryonics organization officers and employees, as was the case with a recent case in which claims of drug induced murder were made against a cryonics team. In a non-fascist environment, all of this evidence would be treated as sacredly as doctor-patient privilege, but caselaw that you mention, that partly overrules Hale v Henkel had a hand in empowering the grand jury system of today through the socio-fascist incrementalism of the 20th century. It is not impossible to seek to reclaim these lost rights. US v Lopez helped the people reclaim much of their rights which were usurped by Roosevelt to Reagan era interpretations of what 'interstate commerce' regulatory powers actually empower congress to regulate. Nor is dicta commentary worthless. While this is a common assumption among professional lawyers, there is no SCOTUS case that specifically says that dicta is irrelevant to caselaw. I recall that professional lawyers, until a couple years ago, claimed the same thing about rulings on writs of certioari (sp?), but a case came up where the SCOTUS ruled otherwise. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From Karen at smigrodzki.org Sat Nov 8 03:29:48 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 22:29:48 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <20031108031223.32492.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <010101c3a5a8$90270170$6501a8c0@DogHouse> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Lorrey" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 10:12 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated > > --- Karen Rand Smigrodzki wrote: > > this evidence would be treated as sacredly as doctor-patient privilege, > but caselaw that you mention, that partly overrules Hale v Henkel had a > hand in empowering the grand jury system of today through the > socio-fascist incrementalism of the 20th century. I think you misunderstood what case I was reciting; I wasn't clear enough. The case I was reciting WAS Hale v Henkel, NOT the one that overruled it in part. karen From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Nov 8 03:52:13 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 19:52:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated In-Reply-To: <011201c3a589$33522570$6501a8c0@DogHouse> Message-ID: <20031108035213.69802.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> --- Karen Rand Smigrodzki wrote: > Further, and finally, the Court held > that the corporation could claim a 4th Amendment privilege against > unreasonable search and seizure of documents, but the witness > (officer of the corporation) could not claim the same in relation > to production for the > grand jury of documents of the corporation for investigations into > violations of the Anti-Trust Act of 1890. Isn't this just an end-run, though? Doesn't it completely eviscerate the 4th Amendment (and I REALLY don't get applying the 4th to a corporation and not an individual, esp given conspiracy law, where the right hand does not need to know what the left hand is doing to be culpable)? ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Nov 8 05:50:00 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 21:50:00 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3a5bc$25fedc00$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Robert J. Bradbury > > ... or Spike's front lawn which contains the > strange math symbols. Strange math symbols? Golden ratio elipses are not strange. Of course the *back* yard contains a wall shaped like an integral sign, and a region intentionally formed into a three dimensional golden ellipsoid, but the front yard is all golden ratio ellipses. > Perhaps Alex wrote: > > > What would be the terminal velocity of a cake dropped from > a low earth orbit? > > Don't know -- this is a question for spike. I suppose it would break up during reentry. > > I'm particularly > fond of that which might potentially "toast" Spike's front lawn. > > R. Whaddya got against grass? I just got that yard looking good, now you wanna toast it? I object! {8^D spike From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Nov 8 06:05:56 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 22:05:56 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <20031107083237.90698.qmail@web60202.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a5be$601d2d40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Here are some of riddles and unsolved mysteries from science that are very curious indeed: 1. How do homing pigeons and other migratory birds unerringly find their way home? Do they have some special sensory organs to detect the earth's magnetic field? If so why haven't we found it and characterized it yet? If we do find out the mechanism, can we transhumans augment ourselves to have it to, thereby eliminating the need to "litter" earth's orbit with GPS satellites? GPS sats are waaaay up there. No problem with litter there. Good chance there never will be. Migratory birds' homing systems have end-game guidance, so that their internal homing organs are not accurate enough to do cool things like guide self-driving cars. 4. How can sperm whales hold their breath for half an hour at a time, descend into the abyss, and have fights to the death with giant squid and then surface without getting the bends or nitrogen narcosis? We can't do that even with all our fancy diving gear unless we mix helium with our air supply and spend hours depressurizing... or can we? Whale's joints are different from ours. Mixing helium with the air supply is a perfectly appropriate technology, and it obviates depressuring. We have the technology, what's the problem? 5. How can some really bright people claim to understand the universe so completely that there is nothing eerie, anomolous, or mysterious about it yet still manage to misplace their car keys. ;) They neglected to affix radio frequency identification tags to their key rings. Or they had insufficient technology in that they did not purchase a car with keyless entry and keyless start. Why are we still building cars that need keys? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Nov 8 06:15:19 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 22:15:19 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000501c3a5bf$afb754b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > > > 4. How can sperm whales hold their breath for half an hour > at a time, > > descend into the abyss, and have fights to the death with > giant squid > > and then surface without getting the bends or nitrogen narcosis? We > > can't do that even with all our fancy diving gear unless we > mix helium > > with our air supply and spend hours depressurizing... or can we? > > Now that is a very interesting question -- my best bet would be that > they have evolved to be tolerant nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream. > To the best of my knowledge there isn't a clear reason that nitrogen > bubbles should be harmful (i.e. they aren't toxic in any way). No wait, please disregard my previous post. The reason whales don't get the bends is that they are not actually breathing while they are under water, the way human scuba divers do. They don't get nitrogen narcosis for the same reason: they aren't carrying much nitrogen to the depths. The reason they can hold their breath half an hour is related to the square-cube law. Compare your breathing rate to that of a mouse, then scale linearly up to the size of a whale. spike From etheric at comcast.net Sat Nov 8 06:21:32 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 22:21:32 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony References: <000001c3a5bc$25fedc00$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <000801c3a5c0$8e35f2f0$0200a8c0@etheric> A cake of... what? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Spike" To: "'ExI chat list'" Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 9:50 PM Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony > > Robert J. Bradbury > > > > ... or Spike's front lawn which contains the > > strange math symbols. > > Strange math symbols? Golden ratio elipses are not > strange. > > Of course the *back* yard contains a wall shaped like > an integral sign, and a region intentionally formed > into a three dimensional golden ellipsoid, but the > front yard is all golden ratio ellipses. > > > Perhaps Alex wrote: > > > > > What would be the terminal velocity of a cake dropped from > > a low earth orbit? > > > > Don't know -- this is a question for spike. > > I suppose it would break up during reentry. > > > > > I'm particularly > > fond of that which might potentially "toast" Spike's front lawn. > > > > R. > > Whaddya got against grass? I just got that yard looking > good, now you wanna toast it? I object! {8^D spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Nov 8 06:27:45 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 22:27:45 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] A Flight Data Recorder for Your Car In-Reply-To: <3FAC0333.3030605@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> Message-ID: <000001c3a5c1$6c309420$6501a8c0@SHELLY> >..."If people know there is a black box > accurately > recording information for insurance purposes, it could have > an effect on > how people drive," he said. "Over time, there could be > broader indirect > benefits." > > Say that again??!! > That man is a master of the cool understatement! > How would you drive if you had a cop sitting beside you and your > insurance rep in the backseat? BillK This is great, BillK. If everyone had these boxes, there would be no need for speed limits. Of course, insurance companies would be free to charge you whatever they thought your risk of accident justified. But then you would be free to go to another company. Companies could specialize in fast good drivers, just as currently there are companies that specialize in insuring motorcyclists with bikes capable of going 190 mph. Information is good. spike From alex at ramonsky.com Sat Nov 8 07:18:55 2003 From: alex at ramonsky.com (Alex Ramonsky) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 07:18:55 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Voyager 1 (possibly) at the boundary of the Solar System References: Message-ID: <3FAC98DF.5040606@ramonsky.com> Amara Graps wrote: > I said: > >> >> There are some indications now that the Voyager 1 has reached >> the Heliopause. >> >> If this isn't a reason for a massive party/celebration >> of the humans on this planet, I don't know what is.... >> I was halfway there, dammit, is this party happening at the edge of the universe or what? I can't afford this sort of fuel every day you know. ...I bet you _everybody_ brings potato salad. AR From hal at finney.org Sat Nov 8 07:25:53 2003 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 23:25:53 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles Message-ID: <200311080725.hA87Pr214237@finney.org> I was interested to hear the discussion of why whales don't get the bends. However the explanation doesn't seem complete. I believe that ordinary air, if compressed within the lungs, will dissolve to a greater degree in the blood, so the bends are possible even if you don't breathe compressed air. According to http://rbcm1.rbcm.gov.bc.ca/programs/whales/t-activity-5.html, whales have additional adaptations to prevent gases from being dissolved in their blood during dives, mechanisms to reduce the interface between air and blood. According to http://www.msnbc.com/news/977733.asp, a study reported in Nature last month suggested that some recent whale strandings after exposure to military sonars may have been caused by the animals getting the bends. The author is quoted, "This new evidence from our study of marine mammal diseases in the U.K. challenges the widely held notion that cetaceans (marine mammals) cannot suffer from decompression sickness." Hal From alito at organicrobot.com Sat Nov 8 07:38:12 2003 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 17:38:12 +1000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's baloney In-Reply-To: <023101c3a588$a10b1820$ca994a43@texas.net> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031107225210.0325c410@pop.iol.ie> <023101c3a588$a10b1820$ca994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <1068277091.6304.1375.camel@alito.homeip.net> On Sat, 2003-11-08 at 09:41, Damien Broderick wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "J Corbally" > Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 5:06 PM > > > I'm located somewhere roughly in the location of the "N82" > > label. Actually, if you click on N82 and Zoom in, you'll pretty much find > > yourself on my street. > > However, the simulation isn't fine-grained enough to locate my own home > address in Coburg, Victoria, Australia (which appears to have blurred out in > my absence--so Emlyn and Brett must just be some sort of place-holders). > Terraserver used to have pretty good pictures of my house in Brisbane, but it now wants me to subscribe to see them (you do get a fully cooked and boneless turkey when you subscribe, but i just wanted to check out my new place since i moved) alejandro From jcorb at iol.ie Sat Nov 8 10:29:09 2003 From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 10:29:09 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20031108102301.0325fea0@pop.iol.ie> >Message: 11 >Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 17:46:04 -0600 > >From: "Damien Broderick" >Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony >To: "ExI chat list" >Message-ID: <023401c3a589$51cb81e0$ca994a43 at texas.net> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "J Corbally" >[coordinates] >Good god, you're actually *mentioned by name* just to the right of M9. Now >*that's* accuracy. >Damien Broderick >[I see that Dr. Kildare lives nearby. How's the old chap doing these days?] > > >------------------------------ Heh, heh, I run this dump, dontcha know :) Seriously though, there are a few areas around here called Corbally, that one having been built nearly 10 years ago, before my current residence was made. There's also an area on the Dublin mountains (to the South of the map, in fact I'm on the foothills). I've no idea what connection they have to me (if any). If you find Sundale Park to the North of that place then you've found my street. Can I get a cake now too? :) James... From jcorb at iol.ie Sat Nov 8 10:36:36 2003 From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 10:36:36 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] A Flight Data Recorder for Your Car Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20031108103400.03262070@pop.iol.ie> >Message: 3 >Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 20:40:19 +0000 > >From: BillK >Subject: [extropy-chat] A Flight Data Recorder for Your Car >To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >Message-ID: <3FAC0333.3030605 at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed >See: and > >Quote: >Imagine you're in your car driving to the grocery store. You're >accelerating away from a stop sign when suddenly -- BANG! -- you're hit >from behind by a speeding car that never even slowed down. Badly shaken, >you stumble out. The police arrive on the scene just minutes after the >crash. Plus, they already seem know that you stopped, and the other guy >-- who's being arrested -- didn't. > >This system is closer to reality than you may think. It's being built >today in Ireland and is expected to spread across Europe over the next >few years before taking root in the U.S. Insurance companies like the >idea because computer-generated data about the crash will help prevent >fraudulent claims and cut insurance costs. Emergency responders will be >aided, too, thanks to faster, more detailed information about the exact >location and scope of an accident. >By mandating that drivers use the boxes, Ireland seems to have snuffed >out privacy concerns that have slowed the voluntary adaptation of the >technology elsewhere. Not sure if I'll still be here if and when this becomes commonplace, but I'll keep the list up-to-date with anything I find out about it. Given the high cost of insurance here, people might just go for it. Wonder where they'll fit it on a motorcycle though. James.... From samantha at objectent.com Sat Nov 8 10:28:44 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 03:28:44 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <20031107195905.GQ3534@leitl.org> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> <20031107195905.GQ3534@leitl.org> Message-ID: <200311080228.44940.samantha@objectent.com> > > 9) Why is there something rather than nothing? Because you are here to ask. From rafal at smigrodzki.org Sat Nov 8 13:49:05 2003 From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 08:49:05 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <200311080725.hA87Pr214237@finney.org> Message-ID: <072a01c3a5ff$1413c7b0$6401a8c0@dimension> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hal Finney" To: Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 2:25 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles > I was interested to hear the discussion of why whales don't get the bends. > However the explanation doesn't seem complete. I believe that ordinary > air, if compressed within the lungs, will dissolve to a greater degree > in the blood, so the bends are possible even if you don't breathe > compressed air. ### But the amount of air within the lungs of a whale must be minuscule compared to the amount of air contained in a diver's bottle, at least if divided by the volume of tissue in which the gas can dissolve in. The whale carries most of his oxygen internally in the form of myoglobin, and doesn't carry around a lot of gaseous nitrogen. --------------------------------------------------- > > According to > http://rbcm1.rbcm.gov.bc.ca/programs/whales/t-activity-5.html, whales > have additional adaptations to prevent gases from being dissolved in > their blood during dives, mechanisms to reduce the interface between > air and blood. > > According to http://www.msnbc.com/news/977733.asp, a study reported > in Nature last month suggested that some recent whale strandings after > exposure to military sonars may have been caused by the animals getting > the bends. The author is quoted, "This new evidence from our study of > marine mammal diseases in the U.K. challenges the widely held notion that > cetaceans (marine mammals) cannot suffer from decompression sickness." > ### But is it certainly the bends? I seem to recall reading about cavitation as the postulated mechanism here. Rafal From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Sat Nov 8 14:00:33 2003 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 06:00:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <060101c3a536$f7731fc0$6401a8c0@dimension> Message-ID: <20031108140033.90851.qmail@web60201.mail.yahoo.com> > > 3. Why is all life on earth asymmetric at a molecular level. The amino > > acids that make up proteins on earth all have a "left-handed" > > (levorotary) chirality and the sugars that make up carbohydrates are > > "right-handed" (dextrorotary). [snip] > Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:### Probably no need to invoke the stellar dust, since the asymmetry is a direct consequence of the mechanics of biological macromolecule synthesis. An enzyme, ribosome or nucleic acid polymerase can recognize only a limited number of molecular species (just like a lock can recognize only a limited number of keys, all of the same general symmetry), and the moiety that forms the most rigid part in a polymer, the backbone, can only assume a limited number of conformations. *Correct- but you are putting the cart before the horse, unless you are proposing that either enzymes or ribozymes came somehow into being whole-cloth without some form of stochastic polymerization event from their monomer constituents. Are you suggesting a Special Creation event? I would not be terribly mortified if this is what you were suggesting since if I walked into a room and saw thousands of coins all showing heads, despite knowing that there is a finite none-zero probability that they fell that way by pure chance, I would find the hypothesis that "someone" arranged them that way to be the more probable hypothesis. Eleizer, what say you, oh disciple of Bayes? * Using a standard conformation for the backbone of all monomers saves on the number of enzymes needed to make all the components, and the standard conformation for aminoacids just happened to be the L-conformation. *Yes, and a standardized hardware configuration, operating system, and programming language would save much money, time, and effort by IT professionals the world over. But game theory predicts there will be two or more standards, e.g. Macs vs. PCs or Unix vs. Windows vs Applesoft, that in a competitive enviroment will reach a Nash equilibrium with one another which incedently is the observed case. Note I would not be so surprised if even a huge majority of life forms used one "chiral standard or the other" but the fact that it is entirely a single standard strikes me as highly improbable and wondrous.* Of course, if there were any imbalances in the concentration of one enantiomer in the primordial soup, that enantiomer would be much more likely to become the standard... *ok, now both thermodynamically and game theory wise, it is easy to see how a completely imbalanced asymmetric system might over time evolve into either a chemical or a Nash equilibrium. For example it is easy to imagine a perfectly ordered system of all reactants or all products becoming a chemical equilibrium of both, even if products vastly outweigh the reactants, but you would still have some reactant present at any given temperature. Likewise lets say in game theory you have a system composed entirely of doves, then hawks having such a huge advantage in such a population would quite naturally evolve. Likewise doves will arise in a pure population of hawks (since the hawks will kill one another while the doves wont). Yet going the other way is much less credible. It is easier to believe that Pepsi arose simply to compete with Coke's former monopoly and stole market share from it, than to believe that if Coke and Pepsi started out with equal market share that someday one would buy the other out and gain a monopoly.* one way or another, a standard had to choose itself. * Are you suggesting that in a former Spirit World Conference chaired by the RNA Fairy the amino acid spirits got together and passed an unanimous resolution calling for them to all become left-handed from that day forward? Was the Esteemed Reverend Sun Yung Moon privy to those proceedings or is that just hear-say?* The Avantguardian "He stands like some sort of pagan god or deposed tyrant. Staring out over the city he's sworn to . . .to stare out over and it's evident just by looking at him that he's got some pretty heavy things on his mind." --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sentience at pobox.com Sat Nov 8 14:02:28 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 09:02:28 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <200311080228.44940.samantha@objectent.com> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> <20031107195905.GQ3534@leitl.org> <200311080228.44940.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <3FACF774.4080902@pobox.com> Samantha Atkins wrote: >>>9) Why is there something rather than nothing? > > Because you are here to ask. If I ask "Why are my pants on fire?" it probably means that my pants are on fire, since, after all, if my pants were not on fire I would not be asking the question. But this does not answer the question of *why* my pants are on fire. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From rafal at smigrodzki.org Sat Nov 8 15:22:19 2003 From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 10:22:19 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <20031108140033.90851.qmail@web60201.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <075801c3a60c$19e062e0$6401a8c0@dimension> ----- Original Message ----- From: "The Avantguardian" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 9:00 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles > > > > > > > 3. Why is all life on earth asymmetric at a molecular level. The amino > > > acids that make up proteins on earth all have a "left-handed" > > > (levorotary) chirality and the sugars that make up carbohydrates are > > > "right-handed" (dextrorotary). [snip] > > > Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:### Probably no need to invoke the stellar dust, since the asymmetry is a > direct consequence of the mechanics of biological macromolecule synthesis. > An enzyme, ribosome or nucleic acid polymerase can recognize only a limited > number of molecular species (just like a lock can recognize only a limited > number of keys, all of the same general symmetry), and the moiety that forms > the most rigid part in a polymer, the backbone, can only assume a limited > number of conformations. > > *Correct- but you are putting the cart before the horse, unless you are proposing that either enzymes or ribozymes came somehow into being whole-cloth without some form of stochastic polymerization event from their monomer constituents. Are you suggesting a Special Creation event? I would not be terribly mortified if this is what you were suggesting since if I walked into a room and saw thousands of coins all showing heads, despite knowing that there is a finite none-zero probability that they fell that way by pure chance, I would find the hypothesis that "someone" arranged them that way to be the more probable hypothesis. Eleizer, what say you, oh disciple of Bayes? * ### Of course ribozymes came into being whole-cloth by stochastic polymerization (maybe with some help from montmorillonites), and once there was a single self-replicating ribozyme (or even a pre-RNA molecule), all the molecules derived from it had to have the same chirality. The room with thousands of coins is an old creationist shtick, but irrelevant here. Think about a room with thousands of high-energy entities (like standing dominoes or abiotically produced nucleotide triphospates). You need one event, a domino being flipped to the right or to the left or polymerization of a single ribozyme, and you end up with thousands of dominoes stacked in the same orientation, or with billions of macromolecules of same chirality. --------------------------------------- > > Using a standard conformation for the backbone of > all monomers saves on the number of enzymes needed to make all the > components, and the standard conformation for aminoacids just happened to be > the L-conformation. > > *Yes, and a standardized hardware configuration, operating system, and programming language would save much money, time, and effort by IT professionals the world over. But game theory predicts there will be two or more standards, e.g. Macs vs. PCs or Unix vs. Windows vs Applesoft, that in a competitive enviroment will reach a Nash equilibrium with one another which incedently is the observed case. Note I would not be so surprised if even a huge majority of life forms used one "chiral standard or the other" but the fact that it is entirely a single standard strikes me as highly improbable and wondrous.* ### No, not wondrous, but inevitable. If you have only one vendor and the companies that split from it, because there was only one vendor in the beginning, you will inevitably have identical standards for the basic system. --------------------------------------- > > Of course, if there were any imbalances in the concentration of one > enantiomer in the primordial soup, that enantiomer would be much more likely > to become the standard... > > *ok, now both thermodynamically and game theory wise, it is easy to see how a completely imbalanced asymmetric system might over time evolve into either a chemical or a Nash equilibrium. For example it is easy to imagine a perfectly ordered system of all reactants or all products becoming a chemical equilibrium of both, even if products vastly outweigh the reactants, but you would still have some reactant present at any given temperature. Likewise lets say in game theory you have a system composed entirely of doves, then hawks having such a huge advantage in such a population would quite naturally evolve. Likewise doves will arise in a pure population of hawks (since the hawks will kill one another while the doves wont). Yet going the other way is much less credible. It is easier to believe that Pepsi arose simply to compete with Coke's former monopoly and stole market share from it, than to believe that if Coke and Pepsi started out with equal market share that someday one ! > would buy > the other out and gain a monopoly.* > > one way or another, a standard had to choose itself. > * Are you suggesting that in a former Spirit World Conference chaired by the RNA Fairy the amino acid spirits got together and passed an unanimous resolution calling for them to all become left-handed from that day forward? Was the Esteemed Reverend Sun Yung Moon privy to those proceedings or is that just hear-say?* > ### Wrong analogies. Most likely there were never two populations. Being a D-aminoacid creature in a world of L-aminoacid creatures would not give you an advantage of a hawk over doves. Therefore there is no selective pressure to evolve D-aminoacid proteins from scratch, like in founding a company to cash-in on a monopoly. The correct analogy is having two species of paramecium in the same tank - no matter how closely matched their number in the beginning of an experiment, one of the species dies out. Only one species can stably fill a single ecological niche. Rafal From Karen at smigrodzki.org Sat Nov 8 16:55:11 2003 From: Karen at smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 11:55:11 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <20031108035213.69802.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <006801c3a619$129d0760$6501a8c0@DogHouse> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Lorrey" PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated > > --- Karen Rand Smigrodzki> > Further, and finally, the Court held > > that the corporation could claim a 4th Amendment privilege against > > unreasonable search and seizure of documents, but the witness > > (officer of the corporation) could not claim the same in relation > > to production for the > > grand jury of documents of the corporation for investigations into > > violations of the Anti-Trust Act of 1890. > > Isn't this just an end-run, though? Doesn't it completely eviscerate > the 4th Amendment (and I REALLY don't get applying the 4th to a > corporation and not an individual, esp given conspiracy law, where the > right hand does not need to know what the left hand is doing to be culpable)? > > The case, Hale v Henkel, is irrelevant. The case is out of date, the statutes sections amended and/or repealed long ago. karen From jonkc at att.net Sat Nov 8 17:16:14 2003 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 12:16:14 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie><01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> <000e01c3a582$5b3f9150$5db21b97@administxl09yj> Message-ID: <02ed01c3a61c$13e1dc10$26165e0c@hal2001> P.A.M. Dirac Wrote in Principles of Quantum Mechanics: "Each photon then interferes only with itself. Interference between two different photons can never occur." scerir Wrote: >Unfortunately the last sentence is dead wrong, >and the first is imprudent Well, if you fire a bunch of photons at 2 slits you get the same pattern if you send them one at a time as you do if you send them all at once; the only difference is the pattern takes longer to form. If they interfered with each other you'd think there would be a difference. >the experimental *smooth* transition between the wave-like and the >particle-like behaviour forbids an interpretation which acknowledges >the status of only one of the two properties of the "entity". But the transition is never smooth, in the 2 slit experiment the photons act like waves until they hit the photographic plate, then they don't produce a smudge at you'd expect a wave to do, they make a point as you'd expect a particle to do. >In general the "entity" can be seen as a carrier of information I don't see how it can carry information if you can never detect it. We can never detect the "entity" directly because it isn't even a probability, it's the square root of a probability and being a square root means it can and does have negative terms in it and even imaginary terms, and that means the quantum wave function is not a scalar like simple probability but a vector with an intensity and a direction, and that means you can't just add up 2 independent probabilities to figure the probability both will happen the way we usually do, and that means two very different wave functions can yield the same probabilities, and that means we can't do things the way common sense would dictate. And that's why the quantum world is so weird. John K Clark jonkc at att.net From bradbury at aeiveos.com Sat Nov 8 17:25:57 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 09:25:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <000501c3a5bf$afb754b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Nov 2003, Spike wrote: > No wait, please disregard my previous post. The reason > whales don't get the bends is that they are not actually > breathing while they are under water, the way human > scuba divers do. They don't get nitrogen narcosis for > the same reason: they aren't carrying much nitrogen > to the depths. Ok, Spike -- I'll buy this to a limited extent but you are going to have to convince me that the amount of N2 in the volume of a whale's lung is significantly less than the amount of N2 in a diver's tank. Then on top of that you are going to need to convince me that a whale should have significantly lower O2 consumption because I can't imagine how they manage to stay down that long in the first place. I'd start to wonder if whale hemoglobin is significantly different from human hemoglobin in terms of its oxygen carrying capacity -- or whether whale tissues are significantly more tolerant of CO2 levels. I don't think this one is quite so easily answered as one might think. R. From etheric at comcast.net Sat Nov 8 17:32:38 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 09:32:38 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated References: <20031108035213.69802.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <010d01c3a61e$4e345cb0$0200a8c0@etheric> An interesting read re. personal Liberty Lawrence v. Texas http://www.cato.org/pubs/scr2003/revolution.pdf ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Lorrey" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 7:52 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated > > --- Karen Rand Smigrodzki wrote: > > Further, and finally, the Court held > > that the corporation could claim a 4th Amendment privilege against > > unreasonable search and seizure of documents, but the witness > > (officer of the corporation) could not claim the same in relation > > to production for the > > grand jury of documents of the corporation for investigations into > > violations of the Anti-Trust Act of 1890. > > Isn't this just an end-run, though? Doesn't it completely eviscerate > the 4th Amendment (and I REALLY don't get applying the 4th to a > corporation and not an individual, esp given conspiracy law, where the > right hand does not need to know what the left hand is doing to be culpable)? > > ===== > Mike Lorrey > "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." > - Gen. John Stark > Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com > Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ > Pro-tech freedom discussion: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard > http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From bradbury at aeiveos.com Sat Nov 8 17:52:48 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 09:52:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony In-Reply-To: <000801c3a5c0$8e35f2f0$0200a8c0@etheric> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Nov 2003, R.Coyote wrote: > A cake of... what? Well, since it was intended for Eugen's birthday presumably it must be a birthday cake. Now when I was young I managed to get my mother to bake me a Maraschino Cherry birthday cake every year but Eugen has a different cultural history and might prefer something else. Generally speaking I would consider it to be extropic if one were going to deliver cake from space onto someones balcony for their birthday that such cake should be of a variety that the recipients are fond of. If we are going to retarget for Greg or others then I think we may have to query them individually -- a self-morphing cake during reentry is a little bit more complex but not out of the question (presumably if we used nanotech to get the cake up there we can use nanotech to transform the cake as its coming back down). Now, with respect to Spike's front lawn -- I think the eclair idea is just fine. They should be particularly gooey after the reentry trajectory. In Spike's case the extropic preferences bias may be waived. It does however perhaps raise another significant debate -- is Spike's front lawn most extropic as-is or after it has been subjected to a delivery from space of birthday eclairs? (And for that matter why do we need to wait for robust nanotech to deliver eclairs into space... We could take a lesson from the Iraqis or Palestinians -- mortars would be perfectly sufficient to deliver eclairs to spikes front lawn though they might not be toasted quite as well.) R. From jacques at dtext.com Sat Nov 8 18:00:37 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 19:00:37 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <3FACF774.4080902@pobox.com> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> <20031107195905.GQ3534@leitl.org> <200311080228.44940.samantha@objectent.com> <3FACF774.4080902@pobox.com> Message-ID: <16301.12101.635900.721456@localhost.localdomain> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky a ?crit (8.11.2003/09:02) : > > Samantha Atkins wrote: > > >>>9) Why is there something rather than nothing? > > > > Because you are here to ask. > > If I ask "Why are my pants on fire?" it probably means that my pants are > on fire, since, after all, if my pants were not on fire I would not be > asking the question. But this does not answer the question of *why* my > pants are on fire. Note to audience, especially British: please abstain from Freudian interpretation of this example and focus instead on Eliezer's philosophical point :-) Jacques From bradbury at aeiveos.com Sat Nov 8 18:18:23 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 10:18:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Voyager 1 (possibly) at the boundary of the Solar System In-Reply-To: <3FAC98DF.5040606@ramonsky.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, Alex Ramonsky (and Amara(?)) wrote: > >> There are some indications now that the Voyager 1 has reached > >> the Heliopause. > >> > >> If this isn't a reason for a massive party/celebration > >> of the humans on this planet, I don't know what is.... > >> I concur. Voyager 1 was launched September 5, 1977 [1]. I was almost 21 years old at the time. I am 47 now. That satellite has been traveling and operating literally my entire adult life. > I was halfway there, dammit, is this party happening at the edge of the > universe or what? I can't afford this sort of fuel every day you know. > ...I bet you _everybody_ brings potato salad. The Far Side party is scheduled but there is a minor problem with getting Keith Henson out of Canada and whether or not Perry Metzger will attend. However given the probable date (current era + 80000 years) I am reasonably certain that potato salad will not be the major dish that people bring. So at least we are safe on that count. R. 1. http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/captions/voyager/voy06.htm From bradbury at aeiveos.com Sat Nov 8 18:36:10 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 10:36:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.1.20031108102301.0325fea0@pop.iol.ie> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, J Corbally wrote: > Can I get a cake now too? :) James, though I am not going to go running around looking at lots of sat images -- I am reasonably certain that when we can affordably setup cake delivery to Eugen we will be able to do so for you as well. So you may want to lobby with Natasha (or even help setup the database yourself) with respect to cake preferences. Perhaps the database should include landing preferences. Obviously the eclairs in Spike's front yard should go *SPLAT*. However the delivery of various birthday cakes could have some quite creative sound effects. So for example the delivery of Eli's cake might be announced with "XYZZY" (this is kind of a test -- if Eli never played Adventure then he may not get this...) R. From spike66 at comcast.net Sat Nov 8 18:57:34 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 10:57:34 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3a62a$2b90c110$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Robert J. Bradbury: >...when I was young I managed to > get my mother to bake me a Maraschino Cherry birthday cake... Whaddya mean "when"? You are young now. In fact you are getting younger in a sense: the ratio of your age to mine is approaching 1. > ... is Spike's front lawn most extropic as-is or > after it has been subjected to a delivery from space of birthday > eclairs? R. Hey that gives me an idea. (As Robert's posts often do.) We should have an extropic lawn contest. Or rather an extropic domicile contest, where entrants suggest ways in which their digs promote extropy. Having shelves full of cool books is a good start, but what we want are ideas and designs that promote extropian style and aesthetics, which may be considered by some unenlightened sorts as merely a subset of geek chic. Golden ratio ellipses in the lawn would count, as would voice activated light switches and automated control of appliances and such. Lets see some of that perpetual progress and dynamic optimism, expressed in our immediate personal surroundings. Websites count as part of the home in a sense, so Anders and Greg Burch are strong contestants already. One's conveyance is also a part of one's personal environment, so if one has a car that expresses extropian ideals, that counts too. Artistic sorts like Natasha and Anders could perhaps judge the aesthetics, and the hard core techies such as Robert and Damien could judge the technical merit, kinda like the figure skaters who get two scores which are then sold to the highest b... I mean *averaged* to get the final score. spike From cphoenix at best.com Sat Nov 8 19:37:58 2003 From: cphoenix at best.com (Chris Phoenix) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 14:37:58 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Physics and simulations References: <200311080625.hA86PfM29279@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <3FAD4616.BE9207EA@best.com> Please consider the following as stupid fun shake-up-your-brain speculation, not as actual science... Has anyone else noticed that the recent small-scale physics theories look a lot like something that could be implemented on a cellular automaton? You could read this either as a reference to Wolfram (though I haven't read his book) or to the theory that we're in a simulation. We have strings, which "just are", corresponding to cellular automaton cells. And branes, which organize the strings into universes. And I recently read in SciAm (not that I trust them--they appear to be trying to fill Omni's old niche) that our 3D experience may be a perception of an underlying 2D reality. And another article claimed that we might be in a wrap-around universe, much smaller than it appears, and with dodecahedral boundaries. (I'm not kidding, that's what it said. But as I write this, I'm having intense flashbacks to Oliver Wendell Jones of Bloom County.) If I were implementing a simulation of the universe, I wouldn't use the same level of granularity everywhere. Instead, I'd make it fine-grained around the stars, and use a coarser matrix with similar (but obviously not identical) physics between them. Dark matter? Cosmological constant? I wonder if we'll find that the Planck length is different Out There? And obviously the wrap-around universe makes sense; wrapped boundaries are common in simulations. Getting really silly now... "What the--hey, we've got a buffer overflow in this simulation." "What happened?" "Looks like something left the fine-grained area, but is communicating back into it about local conditions. It's getting all tangled up." "Weird. Is it a bug?" "I don't think so. Looks like it might be an emergent, but I haven't seen this happen before. Let's keep running it, see what else comes out. But this entanglement will screw up everything." "Do we have enough cells to extend the fine-grained area?" "I think so... let's see... yes, we can go another 10^50 steps or so." "OK, let's go for it." <> http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1105voyager.html Chris -- Chris Phoenix cphoenix at CRNano.org Director of Research Center for Responsible Nanotechnology http://CRNano.org From bradbury at aeiveos.com Sat Nov 8 19:37:29 2003 From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 11:37:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <16301.12101.635900.721456@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, JDP wrote: > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky a ?crit (8.11.2003/09:02) : > > > > Samantha Atkins wrote: > > > > >>>9) Why is there something rather than nothing? > > > > > > Because you are here to ask. > > > > If I ask "Why are my pants on fire?" it probably means that my pants are > > on fire, since, after all, if my pants were not on fire I would not be > > asking the question. But this does not answer the question of *why* my > > pants are on fire. > Commenting on this probably rates as one of the most stupid things I have ever done in my life. Wading in between Eli, Samantha and a Frenchperson (no offense Jacques I just tend to stereotype you as having strong opinions -- my potentially politically incorrect opinion). Now, with respect to the comments.... "Why are my pants on fire?" -- because your pants are on fire ninny. A sufficient number of flamable elements within your pants reached the temperature that spontaneous oxidation given the makeup of the atmosphere could occur. Pick a different molecular makeup for your pants; pick a different atmosphere. And your pants are not on fire. Why? You are in the wrong place (oxidative atmosphere) wearing the wrong clothes (flamable pants) not carrying an appropriate fire extinguisher. The question of *why* your pants are on fire is one of simple chemistry. It is the release of free energy (do a google on Gibbs Free Energy). R. From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Sat Nov 8 19:50:48 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 20:50:48 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] Physics and simulations In-Reply-To: <3FAD4616.BE9207EA@best.com> References: <200311080625.hA86PfM29279@tick.javien.com> <3FAD4616.BE9207EA@best.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, Chris Phoenix wrote: >If I were implementing a simulation of the universe, I wouldn't use the >same level of granularity everywhere. Instead, I'd make it fine-grained >around the stars, and use a coarser matrix with similar (but obviously >not identical) physics between them. Dark matter? Cosmological >constant? I wonder if we'll find that the Planck length is different >Out There? And obviously the wrap-around universe makes sense; wrapped >boundaries are common in simulations. > >Getting really silly now... > "What the--hey, we've got a buffer overflow in this simulation." > "What happened?" > "Looks like something left the fine-grained area, but is >communicating back into it about local conditions. It's getting all >tangled up." Wasn't the Voyager 1 the spacecraft with some unexplained motion? I read some report that, after taking into account the residual solar gravity, heat dissipation, and about 10,000 known factors, the probe was accelerating a bit different than predicted. Ciao, Alfio From aperick at centurytel.net Sat Nov 8 20:17:55 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 12:17:55 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <200311080625.hA86PeM29272@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <2018768.1068322934746.JavaMail.teamon@b106.teamon.com> Spike wrote: >The reason they can hold their breath half an hour is related to the square-cube law. Compare your breathing rate to that of a mouse, then scale linearly up to the size of a whale. /> Bottle-nosed dolphins, and seals, require other explanations. More heme in the red blood cells, the ability to control where blood flows, heart rate, and other factors. I wonder why obese people frequently breathe twice as fast as skinny ones. Must be due to the inverse stair law. (grin) From aperick at centurytel.net Sat Nov 8 20:18:06 2003 From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 12:18:06 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Voyager 1 In-Reply-To: <200311080625.hA86PeM29272@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <5907635.1068322940354.JavaMail.teamon@b106.teamon.com> Amara wrote: >There are some indications now that the Voyager 1 has reached >the Heliopause. > >If this isn't a reason for a massive party/celebration >of the humans on this planet, I don't know what is.... I'll party with ya. From thespike at earthlink.net Sat Nov 8 20:26:49 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 14:26:49 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: Message-ID: <00cb01c3a636$a7689680$d1994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert J. Bradbury" Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 1:37 PM > The question of *why* your pants are on fire is one of simple > chemistry. It is the release of free energy Quite so, and I think this is a clue. (The other common sense of `why' might call for the answer: `Because Robert was infuriated and set Eliezer's pants on fire with a flaming match', or some such, but that formulation is even farther from touching the original ontological enquiry.) Pants changing their electrochemical state, like every issue about the observable world, is a transform of one mass/energy/information state into another. `Why something not nothing?' is an utterly different kind of question, since it presumes that `nothing' is the name of the *thing* that could take the place of another thing, a *something* in fact. But our experience does not support this word (mis)usage, this conceptual slippage, this conjuring trick. We never experience *nothing* (as I've argued before on this list), only the absence of one thing in favor of another. When a chair burns, its hard rigidity vanishes into a small pile of ash, a quantity of dissipated heat, and gases that can't be readily seen. When ice evaporates, it seems to become... nothing. But it doesn't. True, the informational state subserving or perhaps supervening upon the water molecules has changed; perhaps one could say it has become nothing. But if so, it can reappear from nothing when the temperature drops. The question, then, looks like a cognitive optical illusion, and one that has no counterpart we can readily draw upon for analogy. Pants on fire isn't it. Why am I here rather than in another galaxy, why am I now rather than at the end of time--these are locational or deictic questions with, perhaps, anthropic answers. But being and nothingness isn't like that. It really isn't. It's *sui generis*, and blows away when you think hard about it into... nothing. Damien Broderick From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sat Nov 8 22:08:23 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 14:08:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Voyager 1 In-Reply-To: <5907635.1068322940354.JavaMail.teamon@b106.teamon.com> Message-ID: <20031108220823.45706.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- aperick at centurytel.net wrote: > Amara wrote: > >There are some indications now that the Voyager 1 has reached > >the Heliopause. > > > >If this isn't a reason for a massive party/celebration > >of the humans on this planet, I don't know what is.... > > I'll party with ya. Well, I'm wondering what such a party would be called and what we would do at such an event. Since the heliopause is a halt in the solar wind, such an event would not call for much movement or activity. Perhaps a moment of silence? A sit-in? A sleep-over? A Big Chill? ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From reason at exratio.com Sat Nov 8 22:23:42 2003 From: reason at exratio.com (Reason) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 14:23:42 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] suggestions sought: immortality book Message-ID: A group of us at the Immortality Institute (http://www.imminst.org) are putting together a small book for publication early next year (tentatively titled "Practical Immortality") - basically advocacy, healthy life extension, defeating aging, plus singularitarianism/transhumanism with shades of the first half of Physics of Immortality (Tipler), constructed from existing writings. I'm pulling together a list of articles/papers for suggested inclusion, plus a list of people to solicit for short original work. I have all the usual suspects listed so far, but I'd be interested to hear your suggestions on known writers, journalists and people in the transhumanist community. Who do you think would be good to include in such a book, or is there a meaningful piece of work out there that I haven't seen yet? If you have criticisms, frame in the form of suggestions for inclusion, please :) Reason http://www.exratio.com From max at maxmore.com Sat Nov 8 22:41:37 2003 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 16:41:37 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <00cb01c3a636$a7689680$d1994a43@texas.net> References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031108163345.037efe28@mail.earthlink.net> At 02:26 PM 11/8/2003, Damien wrote: >----- Original Message ----- > >The question, then, looks like a cognitive optical illusion, and one that >has no counterpart we can readily draw upon for analogy. Pants on fire isn't >it. Why am I here rather than in another galaxy, why am I now rather than at >the end of time--these are locational or deictic questions with, perhaps, >anthropic answers. But being and nothingness isn't like that. It really >isn't. It's *sui generis*, and blows away when you think hard about it >into... nothing. Much like the question: What caused the first event? This always comes up in discussing the "cosmological argument" in philosophy of religion. Students were always puzzled at first why it was that, if you assume that there *was* a first event, it makes no sense to ask "what caused it?" "You mean: What came before the first thing to make it happen?" "Yeah, exactly." "You mean: What came before the FIRST thing to make it happen?" "Right, right." [Pregnant pause] "You mean: What came BEFORE the FIRST thing to make that FIRST thing happen?" "Yeah, yeah... oh, wait... ahhh" That's how it usually went. Max _______________________________________________________ Max More, Ph.D. max at maxmore.com or more at extropy.org http://www.maxmore.com Strategic Philosopher Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org _______________________________________________________ From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Sat Nov 8 22:54:29 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 23:54:29 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20031108163345.037efe28@mail.earthlink.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20031108163345.037efe28@mail.earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, Max More wrote: >"You mean: What came before the first thing to make it happen?" It's much easier in Italian. The words for "first" ("primo") and "before" ("prima") are almost the same, and it happens that the word "first", gender-adjusted for "thing", becames "prima" too. So, if you try to utter the previous sentence, the contradiction will hit you full force. It's a pity that, with "what happens after the last event", it doesn't work in the same way... Ciao, Alfio From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sat Nov 8 23:26:12 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 10:26:12 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal References: <200311080725.hA87Pr214237@finney.org> Message-ID: <004c01c3a64f$b2882580$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> [forked thread as this interjection is off-topic] Hal Finney writes: > I believe (sic) that ordinary air, if compressed within the lungs, > will dissolve to a greater degree in the blood, so the bends are > possible even if you don't breathe compressed air. Why do you use the word *believe* here Hal instead of a clear alternative? Indeed why do you proclaim you *believe* anything? Is your use of the word *belief* an example of an otherwise good brain farting? Did you get infected by the *belief* meme one day when your resistance was down and have you been carrying it around propagating it unconsciously like a memetic Hep. C virus or do you in fact think it is the best way of expressing exactly what you wanted to say? Open the pod door please Hal - to consider your use of the *belief* word and thereby propagating it, and to let the stink out. Regards - for you but not for brain-farting, Brett From scerir at libero.it Sun Nov 9 00:26:01 2003 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 01:26:01 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie><01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001><000e01c3a582$5b3f9150$5db21b97@administxl09yj> <02ed01c3a61c$13e1dc10$26165e0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <000601c3a658$0e816600$f0c7fea9@scerir> [Dirac] "Each photon then interferes only with itself." "Interference between two different photons can never occur." [John K Clark] Well, if you fire a bunch of photons at 2 slits you get the same pattern if you send them one at a time as you do if you send them all at once; the only difference is the pattern takes longer to form. If they interfered with each other you'd think there would be a difference. [me] The reason why I wrote that Dirac's second statement is wrong is simple. There are dozens of experiments showing the two-independent-photon (so called second-order)interference. In example this one: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0208174 Of course the condition for the interference is always the same: indistinguishability. That is to say: no possiblity of knowing which photon came from which source. The first statement by Dirac seems also wrong to many authors (Glauber i.e.) because it is very difficult - within the QM statistical interpretation, where are just particles and probabilities - to understand what kind of *physical* self-interference may happen. In any case this self-interference is almost unobservable in a single (one) photon event. You can just infere, or deduce, something like that (maybe using the Mach-Zehnder interferometer?). But you cannot prove, or show, directly, self-interference or, in general, non locality, with a single, individual photon. So, to me, that self-interference is just a beautiful koan, like the sound of one hand clapping. A propos, there are also weird two-slit esperiments in which a light beam is divided by a (random) shutter in such a way that the two slits are never open *simultaneously*. Nevertheless you get the interference. Consider a diaphragm, with two slits, slit 1 and slit 2. Each of these slits can be opened, or closed, by a shutter connected with a separate counter. A weak alpha-particle emitter is placed between the two counters. Imagine that, in the beginning of the experiment, both slits are closed. If an alpha-particle strikes one of the counters, the slit connected with this counter is opened, and the counters cease to operate, and a light-source is turned on, in front of the diaphragm, and this light-source illuminate a photographic plate placed behind the diaphragm. Following qm rules, we can write psi = 1/sqrt2 (psi_1 + psi_2) where psi_1 is the wavefunction describing the system when the slit 1 is open (psi_2 when the slit 2 is open). Thus, from the theory, we get the usual interference pattern, on the photographic plate behind the diaphragm. But if we keep our eyes opened, and we observe which slit is open (slit 1, or slit 2) then, in accordance with the 'complementarity' principle, and the 'projection' postulate, a reduction takes place, and no interference pattern appears on the plate. The above interesting 'gedanken' experiment is due to L. Janossy, and K. Nagy, [Annalen der Physik, 17, (1956), 115-121]. Btw, Janossy and Nagy thought it was possible to perform such an experiment, but they also thought it was impossible to get that interference. After useful considerations by Leonard Mandel [J. Opt. Soc. Amer., 49, (1959), 931] at last R.M. Sillitto and Catherine Wykes [Physics Letters, 39-A-4, (1972), 333] performed the Janossy and Nagy experiment and found a marvelous interference when just one photon was present in their interferometer, at a time, and when their electro-optic (not random) shutter was switched several times during the time-travel of each photon. In terms of photons the condition for interference is that the two paths lead to the same cell of phase space, so that the path of each photon is intrinsically indeterminate (the usual 'welcher weg' issue). Of course, the shutter (random or not) must switch in a time which is less than the uncertainty in the time arrival of the photon. [John K Clark] But the transition is never smooth, in the 2 slit experiment the photons act like waves until they hit the photographic plate, then they don't produce a smudge at you'd expect a wave to do, they make a point as you'd expect a particle to do. [me] The notion of the *smooth* transition within the wave-particle duality or complementarity (in deeper terms: localization and superposition are complementary) may be quantified by the inequality V^2 + K^2 = 1, relating the fringe visibility V, and the path knowledge K. This inequality is verified in many different experiments. (And suggests a limited, finite amount of information ...). An excellent gedanken experiment was presented by Zurek (and also Wootters?) this way | | | s d | | d | | there is a single slit and then a double slit, but their axes are not in line, so you can calculate that 99 per cent of the photons passing through the single slit also pass through the upper slit (in the two-slit apparatus). Still you get a little interference. Now I must stop, it is too late here :-) From scerir at libero.it Sun Nov 9 00:48:27 2003 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 01:48:27 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <00cb01c3a636$a7689680$d1994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <001101c3a65b$309f8020$f0c7fea9@scerir> > The question, then, looks like a cognitive optical illusion, and one that > has no counterpart we can readily draw upon for analogy. [...] > Damien Broderick There is a similar (???) problems now in physics. There are effects involving a probability > 0 There are - it seems so - effects involving a probability < 0 (negative!). (Well, Feynman started this thread). From spike66 at comcast.net Sun Nov 9 00:59:01 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 16:59:01 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Voyager 1 In-Reply-To: <20031108220823.45706.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a65c$aa43fbd0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > > Amara wrote: > > >There are some indications now that the Voyager 1 has reached > > >the Heliopause. > > > > > Well, I'm wondering what such a party would be called and > what we would do at such an event. ...Perhaps a > moment of silence? Mike Lorrey We would pray for a moment of pause. {8^D spike From spike66 at comcast.net Sun Nov 9 01:05:33 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 17:05:33 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal In-Reply-To: <004c01c3a64f$b2882580$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > > Hal Finney writes: > > > I believe (sic) that ordinary air, if compressed within the lungs, > > will dissolve to a greater degree in the blood, so the bends are > > possible even if you don't breathe compressed air. Altho there would be *some* notrogen dissolved from the lungs of the diving whale, it isn't enough to produce either the bends or narcosis. > Why do you use the word *believe* here Hal instead of a clear > alternative?... to consider your use of the > *belief* word and thereby propagating it, and to let the stink out. > > Regards - for you but not for brain-farting, > Brett Brett, I don't get this. No need to explain, I just don't get it. spike From sentience at pobox.com Sun Nov 9 01:49:41 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 20:49:41 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <00cb01c3a636$a7689680$d1994a43@texas.net> References: <00cb01c3a636$a7689680$d1994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <3FAD9D35.3070102@pobox.com> > Why is there something instead of nothing? "I don't know" is an acceptable answer here. I can add things like... "but I strongly suspect it's a wrong question, because I run into paradoxes when I try to analyze it" or "Are you sure there *is* something instead of nothing?" or "Maybe if I fully answer 'Why do people think there is something instead of nothing?' the question will go away." Nonetheless, "I don't know" is an acceptable answer, and it remains my answer for the moment. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From sentience at pobox.com Sun Nov 9 02:09:35 2003 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2003 21:09:35 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <02ed01c3a61c$13e1dc10$26165e0c@hal2001> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie><01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> <000e01c3a582$5b3f9150$5db21b97@administxl09yj> <02ed01c3a61c$13e1dc10$26165e0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <3FADA1DF.6040207@pobox.com> John K Clark wrote: > P.A.M. Dirac Wrote in Principles of Quantum Mechanics: > > "Each photon then interferes only with itself. Interference > between two different photons can never occur." I don't know whether Dirac said this, but this can't possibly be right. There is no such thing as a *particular* photon, any more than there is a *particular* dollar in an electronic bank account. If photon 1 goes to A and photon 2 goes to B, it is exactly the same point in configuration space as if photon 2 goes to A and photon 1 goes to B, and we add the complex amplitudes. The universe simply does not distinguish between photon 1 and photon 2; the universe's bookkeeping just tracks the final state "photon at A, photon at B". All of quantum mechanics is set up to operate on configuration spaces, not particles, and cannot be factorized into particles. "Particles" are just a way of doing bookkeeping on the connectivity of the configuration space. We know from the laws of physics that, regardless of what our brains might like to think, there is no such thing as the "same" photon. The probability of physics someday discovering a way to distinguish between the two photons is even less than the probability of physics someday discovering a way to make the photons go faster than c; it would even more strongly violate the fundamental way that reality seems to be structured. If Dirac said this, he can't possibly have meant what the sentence seems to say. Perhaps he was talking about some specific experimental setup. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sun Nov 9 02:21:56 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 18:21:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Friendster No Like YABB (& v/v) Message-ID: <20031109022156.18492.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> I've noticed a curious bug when I've got two IE windows open, one on any YABB bbs/forum site, and the other on any Friendster page: images will not load in either window, and this sometimes carrys over to other sites seen in other windows. ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 02:26:28 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 13:26:28 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Politics and possessing the right ISM References: <000001c3a4e3$02a84720$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <00ef01c3a668$e1a80380$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Spike wrote (in the thread "prayers and healing") > ....I am a former member of a cult that refuses to > acknowledge the righteousness of anyone outside the > enlightened minority (with the curious exception of Albert > Schweitzer). The more extreme members of that sect > would argue that having the right ism matters. One can hardly live intelligently in the world without at some time or other experiencing the embarrassment and the inconvenience of being judged by association as sharing the views (including the erroneous views - not to mention the behaviours) of one's friends. The world can be divided into two types of people. Those that divide the world into two types of people and those that don't (and those that don't do - they just don't realise that they do). One that is alive necessarily perceives oneself as a work in progress. Because life is movement and change whereas stasis is death. One seldom wants others to fully label one as being contained in an ism but one necessarily reduces others to isms or stereotypes of varying levels of granularity because one can only experience the other from outside and can only know the other as a type of more or less detail and vividness. Even a loved other is an informal ism (an apprehended set of 1 although one does not formally bother to turn that other into an ism with language because the others *name* is enough to map them for one). To Adam (metaphorical), Eve was Eve, there was no other Eve so there was no need for Eve-ism. But as Adam was not Eve and as Adam had other things on his mind besides Eve, including Adam, Adam did not perceive Eve as richly as Eve perceived Eve. As soon as Adam had to deal with others other than Eve, others (the concept of otherS) had meaning. OtherS are isms to one, they are isms separately but they are also isms collectively - they are the ism (the set) of all others. The set of non-selves that one cannot have full access too and which therefore present to one as types. Now no-one likes to be *just* a type to others (even though they are necessarily just types of less or more detail to one) so one does not like to be thought of as encased in an ism of someone else's construction because one knows that that other's construction of one, and not the full vivid reality of one will be the one with which that other will attempt to interact. I understand this now. I understand why I do not want to be an ism to others. And I understand why others do not want to be an ism to me. Too bad. Interestingly though I can look back on my life and on my progress through certain stages and see even myself as having moved through time and space and in that movement to have been usefully classifiable to the present me as having been in an ism of some form or another. Born into a catholic family I was almost enthralled to catholicism, but I escaped as it wasn't big enough for me. Later I had states of mind that for an instant or longer might have been considered to be agnosticism as I questioned theism and found it wanting of any form of validation and then atheism as I realized that non-belief in God was the pragmatic position with which to proceed. I might have stayed an agnostic were it not for my need to be pragmatic and to live in the world. Because I was surrounded by theists I became by necessity to create living and mental working space for myself an atheist (and only learned later to my surprise that others like me existed). Yet atheism is not a philosophy of life it is a minority standpoint on one issue alone and it is not even an important issue. I needed more of a philosophy for life than atheism and I found in the writing of others such as Voltaire the notion of humans being the highest and indeed only source of rich interaction and assistance for each other and I became a humanist and practiced humanism in my thinking. I wanted to cooperate with other humans to recapture what I had lost when I had had to abandoned theism. I wanted as Voltaire did to both 'cultivate the garden' with confederates and to 'crush the infamous things'. The pettinesses. The meanness of spirit and of mind both in myself and in others. I do not want to crush others. I learnt (or perhaps rather refined) philosophy and embraced scepticism as the means of practicing discovery and employing the scientific method and rationalism as my charter for working with others and understanding the world. Rationalism was also my means of dealing with the world, not because everything had to be rational but because nothing was allowed to be irrational. Irrationality was a mind crime against myself. Emotions are a-rational. I do not *believe* in compassionate love - I know it. I became a humanist (not because humanism encapsulated all that I was but because I found I wanted to be around others and those others I wanted to be around had in common the humanist outlook). Then later I found I did not want to be around all those who seemed to be classified by others as practicing humanism because I was embarrassed at the stupidity and baseness of some humanists. I had no illusion that I was beyond stupidity or baseness myself I knew I was not, but whilst I could work on my own errors and correct them, I could do little it seemed about the errors of other humanists and I could do nothing about the human tendency to group others into two types of people. Nothing except make it harder for them to miss-classify me. Nothing except work against the other's notion that I was stuck completely in their formal ism they had constructed for me. I found I did not want to be a humanist if so many humanists or practisers of humanism talked nonsense and behaved badly as I did not want to assist still others who were not humanists to classify me as a humanist or classify me as an ism. I wanted to proclaim no ism. I was willing to be Brett Paatsch and to know that for others that would be an informal ism just as every other is to me an informal ism, a set of 1. Humanism was something I messed about with for a while. But had to put behind me because that boat contained too many fools. Nicer fools - a better class of fools in some dimensions than those I had found in other isms but fools nonetheless. That boat still had *believers* in it. There was also other problems too - human is too broad a term. A cancer cell in a human is a *human* cancer cell. I cannot endorse all forms of human life that being the facts. And humanists tend to talk of humans as the key thing. It ain't. Personhood may be the key thing for persons. But person-ism isn't going to cut it for me either. What joy to find on the internet groups of transhumans and extropians like armies-of-one rationalist angels. The transhumans -with the sense to see and make the case that human-ness was not a static thing. That it was a staging post along the way to something else. Extropy the opposite of entropy also seemed good. And it seemed prudent that the stalwarts of extropy especially Max who wrote about Pan-critical rationalism were smart enough to be on-guard against extropy becoming an ism. Of course ism-hood is not something one wisely puts voluntarily on oneself ever it is a label that others put on one or one's affiliate groups so as to better handle (intellectually and *politically*) one or one's affiliate group. So there was wisdom in *trying* to not be an ism. But the attempt is not working. But dammit now I find that the damned "believing" meme is invading here too. If it persists I may have to start wearing a tee-shirt saying I am not a transhumanist and am not an extropian (despite greatly enjoying their company) and the reason why I am not is because some who are likely to be percieved as such are still propagating the believing anti-reasoning meme and I don't want to be classified by association with their practices. Nor do I want to found a new group called the "a-believers" because that would be as narrow a philosophy of life as a-theism. Not everyone practices believing within these groups but the ones that do bring the damn meme in the door with them and pass it around without being aware of it. One may be tolerant of brain-farts like believing when the rest of the world stops believing themselves and one with them to death. This does not look imminent to me. All the big problems are still going under the radar cloaked in belief. There is no escaping the tyranny of the believing meme in democracies where believers and non-believers both vote. One might make a fortune not-believing but the damned believers (the meme they are enthralled to more than them) would just take it as one would have nowhere on the planet to live free from them believing they were entitled to take it from one. Ergo, the belief meme must be met head on. Regards, Brett [pan-critical non-believer - who noted the last word in Matrix Revolutions - a modern myth - with disgust] From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sun Nov 9 02:29:30 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 18:29:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <3FADA1DF.6040207@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20031109022930.19791.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote: > John K Clark wrote: > > > P.A.M. Dirac Wrote in Principles of Quantum Mechanics: > > > > "Each photon then interferes only with itself. Interference > > between two different photons can never occur." > > I don't know whether Dirac said this, but this can't possibly be > right. > There is no such thing as a *particular* photon, any more than there > is a > *particular* dollar in an electronic bank account. Oh, I don't know. Considering how Feynman showed that particle equations work just as fine backward in time as forward, I like to imagine that there is just one photon in the universe, the proverbial cosmic christmas fruit bread, going back and forth and creating everything, playing the role of every particle and wave packet in existence. The whole "God is light" routine.... ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/ Pro-tech freedom discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From spike66 at comcast.net Sun Nov 9 02:36:57 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 18:36:57 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Politics and possessing the right ISM In-Reply-To: <00ef01c3a668$e1a80380$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <000001c3a66a$583972d0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > Brett Paatsch > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Politics and possessing the right ISM > > To Adam (metaphorical), Eve was Eve, there was no other > Eve so there was no need for Eve-ism... What did Adam say the first time he saw Eve? "You better stand back, Honey, I don't know how big this thing is going to get." {8^D > ...But dammit now I find that the damned "believing" meme is invading > here too... Ja, but all I mean when I say "I believe" is that I *think* this comment or notion is true, but I might be wrong and so I am open to further evidence and reasoning to the contrary. Hmmm, perhaps you have a point there Brett, for this definition of "I believe" is almost exactly opposite to the religious definition of "I believe". spike From etheric at comcast.net Sun Nov 9 02:41:22 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 18:41:22 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <00cb01c3a636$a7689680$d1994a43@texas.net> <3FAD9D35.3070102@pobox.com> Message-ID: <006601c3a66a$f67801f0$0200a8c0@etheric> Ok Ill try, I'm sure the resident physicists will butcher this, I apologize in advance Why is there something instead of nothing, is because in the natural world, the entire idea of nothing as such is illusory, there are only something(s), it is like asking what is ten miles north of the north pole. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" To: "Damien Broderick" ; "ExI chat list" Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 5:49 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles > > Why is there something instead of nothing? > > "I don't know" is an acceptable answer here. > > I can add things like... "but I strongly suspect it's a wrong question, > because I run into paradoxes when I try to analyze it" or "Are you sure > there *is* something instead of nothing?" or "Maybe if I fully answer 'Why > do people think there is something instead of nothing?' the question will > go away." > > Nonetheless, "I don't know" is an acceptable answer, and it remains my > answer for the moment. > > -- > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From riel at surriel.com Sun Nov 9 02:44:21 2003 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 21:44:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: SPAM (was Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley) In-Reply-To: References: <015f01c3a4cb$478c4fc0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Nov 2003 kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > I don't think all unsolicited email advertisements should be banned. The > important part is getting the subject lines correct. If these were > correct, I could easily filter out what I didn;t want. 1) Spam volume is already 70% of mail on many mail servers, encouraging spam is bound to make the S/N ratio of email so low that the medium by itself is next to useless. 2) If you filtered out all the well behaved advertisements, which you would need in order to read your mail, you'd still have the badly behaving ones you have today. > I don;t quite understand everything about how the headers work, but it > seems to me that there is a layer missing in the protocols for email. > Maybe an added layer that would seperate all email into a few categories > such as PERSONAL, BUSINESS, AND ADVERTISEMENT would be a good idea. See last year's april fools day RFC, the one about the Evil bit in IP packets. You don't truly believe that people will only send you the mail in the way you want it to be sent, do you? If you do, your belief conflicts with your mailbox ... cheers, Rik -- "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sun Nov 9 02:48:02 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 18:48:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Politics and possessing the right ISM In-Reply-To: <000001c3a66a$583972d0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <20031109024802.24911.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> --- Spike wrote: > > > Brett Paatsch > > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Politics and possessing the right ISM > > > > To Adam (metaphorical), Eve was Eve, there was no other > > Eve so there was no need for Eve-ism... > > What did Adam say the first time he saw Eve? > "You better stand back, Honey, I don't know > how big this thing is going to get." Hey, now, Adam was just showing Eve he was an ism of one, too. > > {8^D > > > ...But dammit now I find that the damned "believing" meme is > invading > > here too... > > > Ja, but all I mean when I say "I believe" is that > I *think* this comment or notion is true, but I might > be wrong and so I am open to further evidence and > reasoning to the contrary. Hmmm, perhaps you have > a point there Brett, for this definition of "I believe" > is almost exactly opposite to the religious definition > of "I believe". A product of modern rationality. "Belief" is taken as a less valid, an unverified, guess or leap of faith, i.e. a working hypothesis but not to be taken as a rule and open to further evidence and cross examination, as opposed to "knowing". Perhaps there needs to be a distinctive term differentiating testable beliefs versus untestable beliefs (perhaps 'guess' vs 'hope'???) ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..." - Mike Lorrey Do not label me, I am an ism of one... Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From riel at surriel.com Sun Nov 9 02:49:21 2003 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 21:49:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Nov 2003 LaurenceofBerk at aol.com wrote: > Extropians, who are, as far as I can tell from the web, libertarians > or even Ayn Randians, are no help in ridding the cyberworld of spam. > Spam is generated by corporations and can be restricted only through > goverment action. [snip to contradiction part #2] > The delusion, however, comes from supposing that oppressive power comes > from government. At certain times and places yes. But not in 21st > century America. > ... from the corporate world, which also finances our politics. All in all, a good troll ... too bad about the contradiction. ;) Still, I wonder what "the real power lies with corporations" means for libertarian beliefs. Rik -- "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan From mlorrey at yahoo.com Sun Nov 9 02:53:45 2003 From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 18:53:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <006601c3a66a$f67801f0$0200a8c0@etheric> Message-ID: <20031109025345.54453.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> An excellent answer, Coyote. There is no real absolute zero, there is no true vacuum, there is no nothingness. Zero is a modern fiction to deal with double entry book-keeping and avoiding the tax man. Zero and God are equally fictitious. --- "R.Coyote" wrote: > Ok Ill try, I'm sure the resident physicists will butcher this, I > apologize > in advance > > Why is there something instead of nothing, is because in the natural > world, > the entire idea of nothing as such is illusory, there are only > something(s), it is like asking what is ten miles north of the north > pole. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" > To: "Damien Broderick" ; "ExI chat list" > > Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 5:49 PM > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles > > > > > Why is there something instead of nothing? > > > > "I don't know" is an acceptable answer here. > > > > I can add things like... "but I strongly suspect it's a wrong > question, > > because I run into paradoxes when I try to analyze it" or "Are you > sure > > there *is* something instead of nothing?" or "Maybe if I fully > answer 'Why > > do people think there is something instead of nothing?' the > question will > > go away." > > > > Nonetheless, "I don't know" is an acceptable answer, and it remains > my > > answer for the moment. > > > > -- > > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ > > Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ===== Mike Lorrey "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils." - Gen. John Stark "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..." - Mike Lorrey Do not label me, I am an ism of one... Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 03:02:17 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 14:02:17 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Spike writes: > > > > Hal Finney writes: > > > > > I believe (sic) that ordinary air, if compressed within the lungs, > > > will dissolve to a greater degree in the blood, so the bends are > > > possible even if you don't breathe compressed air. > > Altho there would be *some* notrogen dissolved from the > lungs of the diving whale, it isn't enough to produce > either the bends or narcosis. > > > Why do you use the word *believe* here Hal instead of a clear > > alternative?... to consider your use of the > > *belief* word and thereby propagating it, and to let the stink out. > > > > Regards - for you but not for brain-farting, > > Brett > > Brett, I don't get this. No need > to explain, I just don't get it. No need not to get it Spike. My point is that *believe* is a bad word to use and that there are real consequences of using (and by using propagating) it when there are any number of better ones that more clearly map to a valid referent. I did make a mistake changing the word *believe* to *belief* above it should have been *believe* all the way through for clarity. However the words *believe* and *belief* would almost certainly derive from the same root. http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=belief Shows words (synonyms) that are faith based mixed in with words that are theory or science based. Memetically this is a *very* unfortunate coupling. By using the word belief listeners can get the impression that science and theory are pretty much the same as faith-based worldviews. If anyone can find the etymology of the word "belief" or "believe" I would be interested. I am also interested in seeing if non-English and non-Slavic languages also have a word that fills the same space as "belief". I am wondering if at some point the religion memeset jumped over to mix itself in with the scientific/rational one or if rather scientists in using words to talk to each other did not fully appreciate the need to get right away from words like belief that map to uncertain referents and have religious faith-based connotations. Regards, Brett From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 03:38:22 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 14:38:22 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Politics and possessing the right ISM References: <000001c3a66a$583972d0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <010701c3a672$ece02160$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Spike writes: > > Brett Paatsch > > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Politics and possessing the right ISM > > ....all I mean when I say "I believe" is that > I *think* this comment or notion is true, but I might > be wrong and so I am open to further evidence and > reasoning to the contrary. Hmmm, perhaps you have > a point there Brett, for this definition of "I believe" > is almost exactly opposite to the religious definition > of "I believe". The message a rational person in a democracy sends when they choose or rather fail not to choose the words *I believe* is not what the majority of voting proles who are mostly believers of the other sort hear. Guess who is setting the policy in free open western societies where one person roughly translates to one vote Spike? It is *real* hard to pursuade majorities in democracies with hard arguments at the best of times because complexity makes them drowsy. Every bit of advantage that can be gained by differentiating ourselves (as reasoners) from the non-reasoners in a political process needs to be seized upon. Otherwise guess what bud, the proles vote not on what you *think you said* but on what they *think they heard* and they think they heard "beliefs-on-one-hand" vs "beliefs-on-the -other hand" and maybe you'll hear them mumbling "what was all that guff about therapeutic cloning or a persons right- to-use-cryonics-in-a-free-society-if-it-harms-no-one-else again - actually don't worry about it, it probably wasn't important. By the way senator did you hear that great joke about what Adam said to Eve? I luv telling them jokes to my Pastor!". Regards, Brett From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sun Nov 9 03:51:50 2003 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 22:51:50 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal In-Reply-To: <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Brett Paatsch wrote: > > If anyone can find the etymology of the word "belief" or > "believe" I would be interested. My Webster's Seventh New Collegiate says: believe [ME beleven, fr. OE belefen fr. be- + lyfan, lefan "to alllow", "believe"; akin to OHG gilouben "to believe", OE leof "dear" - more at "love"] ...which is certainly not what I expected! Sorta seems like it's turning into "belove"! And that's for sure irrational. I pretty much understand where you're coming from with the "I believe" thing; I often have a similar reaction to "I feel". :))) How about "opine"? Regards, MB From ABlainey at aol.com Sun Nov 9 03:55:26 2003 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 22:55:26 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] VR-BAR: Harv's back! Message-ID: <1e0.12f72d2c.2cdf14ae@aol.com> In a message dated 07/11/2003 05:36:41 GMT Daylight Time, mail at harveynewstrom.com writes: > > Welcome back Harvey, That is some serious list of credentials you > > have amassed. Congrats on the latest. > > Thanks. I am seriously interested in security. I am analyzing security as > an engineering problem with requirements, standards, principles, > methodology, and verification. Most security consultants don't have the > scientific or engineering background to do more than be consumers of other > people's security products. I also am trying to cover all the different > kinds of security. Creating security, auditing security, managing security, > assessing security, consulting about security, and operating security are > different skills. > > What is interesting to me is that security is not an end in itself. It is a > tool that can be used for any endeavor, just like logic, the scientific > method, etc. Security measures a bunch of different attributes, how well > they are implemented, the risk of failure, and improvement methods for > success. There are standard requirements for security, and a bunch of > different security attributes that can be analyzed and addressed separately. > > I think these security methods can be applied to transhumanist endeavors, > such as developing AI, controlling nanotechnology, mitigating dangerous > technologies, evaluating knowledge accuracy, etc. I plan to further > investigate these ideas in the future. Getting credentials in different > types of security is just the first step. > > -- All very good stuff. Its nice to see someone that takes all aspects of security seriously, as I do myself. It is most definitely an area which most people see as not much more than a necessary evil. Even with events over the last couple of years and a greater general awareness of security needs, both physical and electronic. there is still an underlying tone of ambivalence and half arsed efforts when it comes to security issues. I wouldn't mind getting a few credentials and seriously getting into the field myself. Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 04:33:46 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 15:33:46 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Politics and possessing the right ISM References: <20031109024802.24911.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <013401c3a67a$aa625da0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Mike writes: > --- Spike wrote: >> > > Ja, but all I mean when I say "I believe" is that > > I *think* this comment or notion is true, but I might > > be wrong and so I am open to further evidence and > > reasoning to the contrary. Hmmm, perhaps you have > > a point there Brett, for this definition of "I believe" > > is almost exactly opposite to the religious definition > > of "I believe". > > A product of modern rationality. "Belief" is taken as a less > valid, an unverified, guess or leap of faith, i.e. a working > hypothesis but not to be taken as a rule and open to further > evidence and cross examination, as opposed to "knowing". Thats dangerous thinking Mike. I accept that that is how you see or hear the word *belief* because you are a rationalist. But that doesn't mean that it how most people "hear" it. They "hear" it in the sense that has meaning for them, not in the sense that has best meaning for you. > > Perhaps there needs to be a distinctive term differentiating testable > beliefs versus untestable beliefs (perhaps 'guess' vs 'hope'???) Big mistake. There is nothing a rational person needs to use the word *believe* for. [Except to talk about the word as a meme and a danger] There are *heaps* of alternatives that a rational person can use. Look in any dictionary or thesarus. It is a big mistake to keep using belief or to try and modify it, or sort out good beliefs from bad beliefs because that just suggests it sometimes maps to a valid referent. It doesn't. It doesn't because the person *using* it cannot be sure that others *hearing* it will get the meaning that it was intended to have when they used it. And belief is always a word that is weilded with strong emotive weigth attached in precisely those places where clear thinking would do us most good and the lack of it can do us most harm. ie. In government (where policy is formed) and in the courts where we may find ourselves judged by our "peers" who are by overwhelming majority "believers" in bulldust. It is far better to not use the word at all and thereby not encourage it. We have other words for our valid referents we should use them and leave the believe word to the bunnies we want to see label themselves with their language. I would love to live in a world where politicians would dare not use the words "I believe" because they would be hooted down for substiution a prejudice for a judgement. A spin trick for proper analysis. We are not even close to that yet though. Indeed it is my contention that we may be killed by the prevalence of the belief meme in our parliaments, and in our courts. We may be literally "believed" to death. Regards, Brett From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 04:38:56 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 15:38:56 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <20031109025345.54453.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <014001c3a67b$63303dc0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Mike Lorrey writes: > ... There is no real absolute zero, there is no true vacuum, there is > no nothingness. Zero is a modern fiction to deal with double entry > book-keeping and avoiding the tax man. Mike what about in coordinate geometry (for one example). What is the midpoint between -1 and +1 ? What have you got against coordinate geometry? What about arithmetic? If you have $1 and you give it or exchange it for $1 worth of product form me how many dollars do you have left? Regards, Brett From etheric at comcast.net Sun Nov 9 04:51:30 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 20:51:30 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <20031109025345.54453.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com> <014001c3a67b$63303dc0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <00a901c3a67d$245e52b0$0200a8c0@etheric> Zero is not nothingness != ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brett Paatsch" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2003 8:38 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles > > Mike Lorrey writes: > > > ... There is no real absolute zero, there is no true vacuum, there is > > no nothingness. Zero is a modern fiction to deal with double entry > > book-keeping and avoiding the tax man. > > Mike what about in coordinate geometry (for one example). What is > the midpoint between -1 and +1 ? What have you got against > coordinate geometry? > > What about arithmetic? If you have $1 and you give it or exchange it > for $1 worth of product form me how many dollars do you have left? > > Regards, > Brett > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From ABlainey at aol.com Sun Nov 9 04:52:41 2003 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 23:52:41 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Stonehenge & Unsolved Riddles was:(Solved & Unsolve Message-ID: <11f.27542a61.2cdf2219@aol.com> On the issue of unsolved mysteries. A couple of days ago I drove past Stonehenge while going to a meeting. So as the meeting finished mid afternoon I decided that I would stop on the way home and have a quick wander around the old (Old,OLd...OLD) place and see it with more mature eyes than those of a Six year old. Which was when I first saw it. I was amazed by the place, not just for the scale of the stones, which are Damn big, but dwarfed by the size of virtually any modern building. What impressed me so much was the obvious signs of earthworks around the site. Which spread out into the salisbury plains as far as the eye can see. There are Barrows (small man made hills and burial mounds), concentric rings of ditches and ridges and a large flat path that leads about half a mile to a man made plateau. Which had symmetrically placed areas each side which appeared to be chalk drawings cut into the surrounding hillsides. These chalk drawings interested me as they almost look like writing in Arabic or hebrew and do not portray images of horses, etc. Which is usual for this type of ancient artform. While walking around. I was using a handheld narrator device that is given to each visitor. A very handy thing that has numbered buttons which you press in correspondence to markers on the ground, which are dotted around the site. It delivers a recorded message that tells you all about what you are looking at in that location. 'Henge means hanging stones, yada yada...Made of this, etc.' After completing the narrated tour I was overcome by the overwhelming feeling that 99% of the information that I had heard and the stated facts were nothing more than complete guesswork. We have no idea who built Stonehenge, Why or When. All we do know is the few small facts that are available. Those being the physical facts of the site itself. The largest stone weighs roughly 45 tons and is about 6 meters high (9 meters total length as most people forget that one third of it is buried. That is a fairly big piece of rock that has been brought about 100miles from Wales by unknown methods. The narration tells of how the site was constructed by 20,000 or so workers. Interesting, Am I right in thinking that at the highest point of roman occupation. London had a population of about 1,000 people? Baring in mind that the Romans didn't appear until several millennia after Stonehenge was allegedly built. What would the whole population of England have been when it was built? I would imagine that finding 20,000 people and getting them all in one place would have been a fantastic achievement in itself. Let alone get them to carry 45 ton rocks 100miles across the country and then built Stonehenge and all the earthworks around it. Even if the quantity of people is diluted by time. this is still a mammoth achievement and one we would be very hard pressed to achieve today. So when it comes to the mysteries of history. I think that Stonehenge has to rank pretty damn high on the board. From samantha at objectent.com Sun Nov 9 06:18:01 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 23:18:01 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <3FACF774.4080902@pobox.com> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> <200311080228.44940.samantha@objectent.com> <3FACF774.4080902@pobox.com> Message-ID: <200311082218.01452.samantha@objectent.com> On Saturday 08 November 2003 06:02, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Samantha Atkins wrote: > >>>9) Why is there something rather than nothing? > > > > Because you are here to ask. > > If I ask "Why are my pants on fire?" it probably means that my pants are > on fire, since, after all, if my pants were not on fire I would not be > asking the question. But this does not answer the question of *why* my > pants are on fire. It is a trite more subtle than that. From spike66 at comcast.net Sun Nov 9 06:32:16 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 22:32:16 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] computer chess again In-Reply-To: <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <000001c3a68b$382d3e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> For those who follow these sorts of things, silicon and carbon are going to slug it out once more over the chess board starting Tuesday 11 November as Kasparov takes on Fritz, a commercially available chess program running on an ordinary 2.4GHz computer. How it thrills me to realize I can attach the adjective "ordinary" to such a device, to know that such ordinary devices can be had by average proles such as me for a couple days wages from an average paying job such as mine. {8-] Perception management on the part of IBM after the Kasparov-Deep Blue match of 1997 has caused many people to believe that chess computers are currently stronger than the best humans, however since 1999, there have been 7 matches between computers and human players with Elo ratings over 2700 (the top 10 to 15 human players). Remarkably all seven of these matches have ended in a tie score. These seven matches represent a total of 49 games. The fact that the top humans and computers are dead even over all that time suggest that the humans are getting better at exactly the same rate as the top chess software. Perhaps someone can suggest a different explanation for the even score since 1999. A decisive outcome in next week's match for either side would surely be both exciting and puzzling. Of course, a sense of solidarity with my own kind leads me to cheer on the silicon player, but I will be eagerly anticipating the match anyway, and will report its progress Wednesday when I return from a business trip. For anyone wishing to place bets, I understand that there are opportunities available to do so on the web. This in itself is a sign of the strange and wonderful times in which we are fortunate enough to live. spike From samantha at objectent.com Sun Nov 9 06:31:47 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 23:31:47 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200311082231.47566.samantha@objectent.com> On Saturday 08 November 2003 18:49, Rik van Riel wrote: > > Still, I wonder what "the real power lies with corporations" > means for libertarian beliefs. > I worry about corporate power only when political power exists in sufficient concentrations to be a tempting and even necessary target for corporate acquisition. -s From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 08:02:29 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 19:02:29 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] computer chess again References: <000001c3a68b$382d3e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <017f01c3a697$d2495680$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Spike writes: > For those who follow these sorts of things, > silicon and carbon are going to slug it out > once more over the chess board starting Tuesday > 11 November as Kasparov takes on Fritz, a > commercially available chess program running > on an ordinary 2.4GHz computer. > > How it thrills me to realize I can attach > the adjective "ordinary" to such a device, to > know that such ordinary devices can be had by > average proles such as me for a couple days > wages from an average paying job such as mine. {8-] Average my foot ;-) You are living in the US and *you* have to look way to the left on the curve to find average from your position. I hope you may continue to do so for a long time yet. It *is* interesting about the draws. Regards, Brett From spike66 at comcast.net Sun Nov 9 07:57:48 2003 From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike) Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 23:57:48 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: <200311082231.47566.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <000001c3a697$2b4ac9e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> > On Saturday 08 November 2003 18:49, Rik van Riel wrote: > > > > Still, I wonder what "the real power lies with corporations" > > means for libertarian beliefs. Corporations are collections of people making a living, creating wealth by making things, creating jobs and wellbeing. Corporations are our friends! If real power lies with corporations, then real power lies with people working together to create wealth, which sounds good to me. Far better this way than with real power being wielded by those who create nothing but merely redistribute the wealth that corporations create, while destroying much of that wealth in the process. This seems to me to be perfectly compatible with libertarian ideals. spike From bjk at imminst.org Sun Nov 9 08:27:38 2003 From: bjk at imminst.org (Bruce J. Klein) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 02:27:38 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Anders Sandberg - ImmInst Chat @ Noon Eastern Sunday In-Reply-To: <017f01c3a697$d2495680$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <000001c3a68b$382d3e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <017f01c3a697$d2495680$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20031109022257.01bec008@mail.kia.net> Chat With Anders Sandberg Founder and former chair of the Swedish Transhumanist Association, Sandberg joins ImmInst members to discuss his ideas concerning our future. CHAT: Sun Nov 9 @ *12 Noon Eastern (*Special Time) http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=67&t=1413&st=0 From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 08:44:21 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 19:44:21 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley References: <000001c3a697$2b4ac9e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <018d01c3a69d$ac06a9e0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Spike writes: > > On Saturday 08 November 2003 18:49, Rik van Riel > > wrote: > > > > > > Still, I wonder what "the real power lies with corporations" > > > means for libertarian beliefs. > > Corporations are collections of people making a living, > creating wealth by making things, creating jobs and > wellbeing. This is true is a sense and false in another. Its true how Spike sees it above but its false in that incorporation is a legal device designed to reduce accountability. Mistakes can be walked away from and perhaps repeated without wearing the full measure of accountability unless the veil of incorporation is lifted - which of course it rarely is. > Corporations are our friends! Corporations are not people. They are legal constructs. A strange choice for friends. >If real power lies with corporations, then real power lies with > people working together to create wealth, which sounds good > to me. Real power is distributed in 2003 between corporations, and democracies both of which are hopelessly blind beyond a 3 years or so horizon. Corporations work for their shareholders in a multi- national competitive context which includes taking advantage of closed societies and the disadvantages of the people therein. On the other hand democracies tend to opporate within open societies to preserve good places for those who have incorporated to actually live and to raise their families. The wealthy in the closed societies have tax havens outside their open society that they can use. Neither corporations nor democracies are all good or all evil and neither can run too long without being checked by the other. The planning cycle of corporations is lucky to be longer than 3 to 5 years as set by capital and the planning cycle of governments to get re-elected is also similarly short. > Far better this way than with real power being wielded by > those who create nothing but merely redistribute the wealth > that corporations create, while destroying much of that > wealth in the process. This seems to me to be perfectly > compatible with libertarian ideals. War is a great source of creative destruction though for organisations that only think in 3 - 5 years. It is easy to see that materials and consummables destroyed will have to be replaced. And the closed economies of open societies can replace them and keep the jobs coming for a few more years. This guarantees a sort of progress but its progress with an upper speed limit because of the planning horizon. The problem with governments and corporations both working on 3 - 5 year cycles is that progress can only happen in relatively small increments because of the strong self-fulfilling prophecy effect and planning beyond the 3 - 5 year cycle is incredible difficult to do. This is because changes in government policy make for very difficult business planning. And governments get changed by voters. A global corporation that has to plan for a change in US government or Chinese government for instance has a huge amount of uncertainty in its market projections and in calibrating its return on investment beyond 3- 5 years - so they don't try to do it. They work on 3 - 5 year cycles and try and be adaptive beyond that. Anything with a payoff beyond the 3-5 year timeframe - like molecular nanotech perhaps or medicines finds it very difficult to get a look in - not because their wouldn't be demand but because the market conditions for things that far out in terms of delivery times are almost impossible to predict. Some of the above could be wrong. I'd like to see a good economist say Robin take a crack at disputing or rebutting it though. Regards, Brett From samantha at objectent.com Sun Nov 9 10:15:54 2003 From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 03:15:54 -0700 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: <000001c3a697$2b4ac9e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <000001c3a697$2b4ac9e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <200311090215.54310.samantha@objectent.com> On Saturday 08 November 2003 23:57, Spike wrote: > > On Saturday 08 November 2003 18:49, Rik van Riel wrote: > > > Still, I wonder what "the real power lies with corporations" > > > means for libertarian beliefs. > > Corporations are collections of people making a living, > creating wealth by making things, creating jobs and > wellbeing. >Corporations are our friends! Corporations supported by major state power are no one's friend, including their own. >If real power > lies with corporations, then real power lies with people > working together to create wealth, which sounds good to me. This is too simplistic. Too many corporations are about making the maximal money for their stock holders. This is NOT synonymous with actually creating wealth. It is too often extracting the maximum number of dollars for the least amount of effort and creativity. It is often about suing into oblivion anyone or any other corporation that actually dares to innovate. -s From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Sun Nov 9 12:16:35 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 13:16:35 +0100 (MET) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal In-Reply-To: <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Brett Paatsch wrote: >If anyone can find the etymology of the word "belief" or >"believe" I would be interested. I am also interested in >seeing if non-English and non-Slavic languages also have >a word that fills the same space as "belief". The corresponding Italian word (and, I suspect, also in French, Spanish and other Latin-derived languages) has more or less the same multiple meanings as the English one: "I think", "I deduce", "I have faith", and so on. Ciao, Alfio From cr-yofan at mylinuxisp.com Sun Nov 9 12:38:55 2003 From: cr-yofan at mylinuxisp.com (randy) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 06:38:55 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: <200311090215.54310.samantha@objectent.com> References: <000001c3a697$2b4ac9e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <200311090215.54310.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <13dsqvs9l57ci3hrindpvrm683qlhbcd9i@4ax.com> On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 03:15:54 -0700, you wrote >On Saturday 08 November 2003 23:57, Spike wrote: >> > On Saturday 08 November 2003 18:49, Rik van Riel wrote: >> > > Still, I wonder what "the real power lies with corporations" >> > > means for libertarian beliefs. >> >> Corporations are collections of people making a living, >> creating wealth by making things, creating jobs and >> wellbeing. > >>Corporations are our friends! > >Corporations supported by major state power are no one's friend, including >their own. > >>If real power >> lies with corporations, then real power lies with people >> working together to create wealth, which sounds good to me. > >This is too simplistic. Too many corporations are about making the maximal >money for their stock holders. This is NOT synonymous with actually creating >wealth. It is too often extracting the maximum number of dollars for the >least amount of effort and creativity. It is often about suing into >oblivion anyone or any other corporation that actually dares to innovate. > > Not only that, but the corporations are so powerful that they use the govt to shut out small time operators. Plus, they use the govt to set up social situations that decrease the power of citizens. Perfect example of course is the ongoing propaganda that keeps the USA from instituing govt-run universal health care (UHC). UHC empowers the citizen-worker. It increases mobility. As an analogy, UHC is like the recent law compelling cellular phone carriers to allow customers to keep their personal numbers when they switch carriers. Naturally, because UHC empowers the citizen, corporations dislike it. That disempowers them. >-s >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat ------------- -Randy From scerir at libero.it Sun Nov 9 16:38:36 2003 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 17:38:36 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] humour References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY><00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <000301c3a6df$ec9659a0$f0c7fea9@scerir> Brett Paatsch wrote: "If anyone can find the etymology of the word "belief" or believe" I would be interested." In two books on the discourse of "belief" published in the late '70s "Believing: An Historical Perspective" and "Faith and Belief: The Difference Between Them", the late historian of comparative religions Wilfred Cantwell Smith has demonstrated in detail that ever since the sixteenth century, "belief" has been departing from its original meaning. The etymology of "belief" is actually cognate with "belieben" (German: "to hold dear") and with "libido"(Latin). FAPP see: http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gnoreligion/flash.htm From jacques at dtext.com Sun Nov 9 17:03:48 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 18:03:48 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal In-Reply-To: <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <16302.29556.715292.307100@localhost.localdomain> Brett Paatsch a ?crit (9.11.2003/14:02) : > > If anyone can find the etymology of the word "belief" or > "believe" I would be interested. << In writing this piece I was pleased to learn about the etymology of the word 'belief'. As we mention in the paper, it derives from a degraded form of the Original Teutonic word 'galaubian', which means 'to hold estimable or pleasing; to be satisfied with', intensified by the addition of the prefix 'be'. Thus, etymologically, a belief is something with which one is thoroughly satisfied or much pleased. I often wonder if (and am thoroughly satisfied to hold that) this is true neurologically as well, muddying the distinction that we usually draw between belief and desire. Some of my philosophical heros argued this a long time ago: Ludwig Wittgenstein's discussion of the nature of 'a solution' fits in well with this notion, as does Charles Peirce's insistence that logic and epistemology must be grounded in aesthetics. >> http://www.ualberta.ca/~chrisw/IndexLHSFrame.html > I am also interested in > seeing if non-English and non-Slavic languages also have > a word that fills the same space as "belief". French "croire" does, yes. In fact it is even much more used. "Do you think the shop is still open? -- No, I don't think so." => "Tu crois que le magasin est encore ouvert ? -- Non, je crois pas." It comes from Latin "credere" which means to lend, to entrust with, to trust, to believe. Not the same original concept as the English one, then. To me, we indicate (and this is coherent with the Latin origin) the amount of confidence we have by saying "I believe that" instead of "I know for sure that". Which sounds fine to me, no reason to ban this word. Jacques From hibbert at mydruthers.com Sun Nov 9 18:22:59 2003 From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 10:22:59 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] computer chess again In-Reply-To: <000001c3a68b$382d3e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <000001c3a68b$382d3e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <3FAE8603.6030407@mydruthers.com> > Remarkably all seven of these matches have ended > in a tie score. These seven matches represent > a total of 49 games. The fact that the top humans > and computers are dead even over all that time > suggest that the humans are getting better at > exactly the same rate as the top chess software. > Perhaps someone can suggest a different explanation > for the even score since 1999. This makes some sense to me. I don't follow chess, but I do pay attention to serious backgammon. There are several extremely good backgammon programs these days (all available for reasonable prices if you don't mind running them on a PC.) They all seem to be based on neural nets, and have a fairly consistent style. They are able to report on their decisions on a play-by-play scale, and can give advice about particular moves. The best players are starting to come to understand, after very detailed analysis, the choices the programs are making in some non-obvious cases. They are starting to incorporate the unconventional strategies and trade-offs in their own games, and I've seen at least one book that tries to explain to mid-level players what the experts are learning about backgammon from the expert programs. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that chess players, with their long history of studying the games of other experts, are taking lessons from the grand master programs. The best human players should be able to keep up with the best computer players, except in exhaustive cases like the three piece end-game puzzle that takes 147 moves to mate. It's also not surprising to find out that perfectly played chess should usually lead to a draw. Are chess players publishing analyses of the games of the top-level programs? Chris -- It's always ourselves we find in the sea. -- E. E. Cummings http://www.ecopsychology.org/gatherings4/ Chris Hibbert hibbert at mydruthers.com http://discuss.foresight.org/~hibbert From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Sun Nov 9 18:27:37 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 13:27:37 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: <200311090215.54310.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <004c01c3a6ef$2a4e1260$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Samantha Atkins wrote, > This is too simplistic. Too many corporations are about > making the maximal money for their stock holders. I even doubt this sometimes. Many corporations are about swindling the stockholders and making a few criminals at the top richer. All of the money-market scandals, accounting scandals and dot-com busts are examples of corporate officers making themselves rich while maximizing losses for their corporations and stock holders. -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk Sun Nov 9 18:35:57 2003 From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 18:35:57 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] I believe Message-ID: <3FAE890D.5070700@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> On Sat Nov 08, 2003 09:33 pm Brett Paatsch wrote: > There is nothing a rational person needs to use the > word *believe* for. [Except to talk about the word as a meme > and a danger] There are *heaps* of alternatives that a rational > person can use. Look in any dictionary or thesaurus. > > It is a big mistake to keep using belief or to try and modify it, or > sort out good beliefs from bad beliefs because that just suggests it > sometimes maps to a valid referent. It doesn't. It doesn't because > the person *using* it cannot be sure that others *hearing* it will > get the meaning that it was intended to have when they used it. > Brett has a point here, because according to the dictionary 'believe' legally can be used in many different ways. Meaning 1) (Which Brett objects to) to follow a credo, to have a religious faith, to be a believer. Usage: "When you hear his sermons, you will be able to believe also". Meaning 2) to credit with veracity. Usage: "You cannot believe this man" "Should we believe a newspaper like the National Enquirer?". Meaning 3) to be confident about something. Usage: "I believe that my income tax form has been completed correctly". Meaning 4) to accept as true, to take to be true. Usage: "I believe his report" "He believes in mysticism" "We didn't believe his stories from the War". Meaning 5) to judge or regard, to look upon. Usage: "I believe (think) he is very smart" "I believe (judge) that he is her boyfriend" "A racist believes (considers) such people to be inferior" But, in my opinion, it is too restrictive to the English language to force 'believe' into the straitjacket of Meaning 1. A religious context would invoke Meaning 1, but in normal day-to-day conversation 'believe' is used constantly with no religious connotations at all. Although when someone says "I believe United will win the Cup" it is debatable just how much religious fervor is invoked by football supporters. ;) BillK (believing his opinion to be correct) From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Sun Nov 9 18:40:31 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 13:40:31 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] FUTURE: More Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <200311082218.01452.samantha@objectent.com> Message-ID: <004d01c3a6f0$f74ce740$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> How about some more important future riddles: Why is sushi Extropian? If I'm so damn smart, how come I'm not rich? If technology keeps getting better and better exponentially, why does my PC still crash regularly? Why don't people converge on the single correct answer more often instead of holding millions of different unsupportable belief systems? Why aren't more people interested in life-extension? Why can't all our brilliant minds working together accomplish more that what we are doing now? How do we capture all our great knowledge from all these chats and utilize them so we never have to have this conversation ever again? -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From alito at organicrobot.com Sun Nov 9 19:08:58 2003 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 05:08:58 +1000 Subject: [extropy-chat] computer chess again In-Reply-To: <3FAE8603.6030407@mydruthers.com> References: <000001c3a68b$382d3e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <3FAE8603.6030407@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: <1068404937.6305.1412.camel@alito.homeip.net> On Mon, 2003-11-10 at 04:22, Chris Hibbert wrote: > This makes some sense to me. I don't follow chess, but I do pay > attention to serious backgammon. There are several extremely good > backgammon programs these days (all available for reasonable prices if > you don't mind running them on a PC.) They all seem to be based on > neural nets, and have a fairly consistent style. They are able to > report on their decisions on a play-by-play scale, and can give advice > about particular moves. > > The best players are starting to come to understand, after very > detailed analysis, the choices the programs are making in some > non-obvious cases. They are starting to incorporate the unconventional > strategies and trade-offs in their own games, and I've seen at least > one book that tries to explain to mid-level players what the experts > are learning about backgammon from the expert programs. > > It wouldn't surprise me to hear that chess players, with their long > history of studying the games of other experts, are taking lessons from > the grand master programs. The best human players should be able to > keep up with the best computer players, except in exhaustive cases like > the three piece end-game puzzle that takes 147 moves to mate. It's > also not surprising to find out that perfectly played chess should > usually lead to a draw. > This is not happening much in chess mainly because humans cannot learn to see 8-9 moves ahead at close to full breadth search like computers do, and grand master humans are still kilometres ahead of computers when it comes to evaluation of the board, and strategic planning (this does not mean that games are not analysed with computers. It's likely that no GM analyses a game without one, but this is done for detecting tactical holes, not for strategic planning on what the idea should be). Note that no successful computer program does extensive use of neural networks since this would make the evaluation too slow, and the program wouldn't be able to search many nodes. This is not much of a problem for backgammon because it is played in a more strategic manner, with calculation either only being a couple of ply deep (or in the endgame), since the possible moves in backgammon at each ply are MUCH bigger than in chess, making proper calculation impossible for humans (and not very deep for computers). Backgammon is a very special case for computer game playing since due to this very shallow depths attained it's very hard to write a good evaluation code, and because of its probabilistic nature, a standard mini-max searcher would be too cautious. It was the first game where self-learning neural networks learnt to play the game at a master level (the original TD-gammon had no calculation at all AFAIK, so it's pretty good achievement for NNs. Later versions had up to 3-ply depth (a ply is a half-move btw) and maybe other programs calculate deeper, but depth doesn't seem to be very important in backgammon since it doesn't seem to improve the program much. A chess program that saw three ply deep vs the same program when seeing 2 ply deep would just kill it) > Are chess players publishing analyses of the games of the top-level > programs? > Public GM vs computer games are published and analysed. But there are very few of these as there is very little for the GMs to win. 99.9999% of the real GM vs computer games are private of course. alejandro From alito at organicrobot.com Sun Nov 9 19:38:41 2003 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 05:38:41 +1000 Subject: [extropy-chat] computer chess again In-Reply-To: <000001c3a68b$382d3e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <000001c3a68b$382d3e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <1068406721.6305.1439.camel@alito.homeip.net> On Sun, 2003-11-09 at 16:32, Spike wrote: > Perception management on the part of IBM after > the Kasparov-Deep Blue match of 1997 has caused > many people to believe that chess computers are > currently stronger than the best humans, however > since 1999, there have been 7 matches between > computers and human players with Elo ratings > over 2700 (the top 10 to 15 human players). > > Remarkably all seven of these matches have ended > in a tie score. These seven matches represent > a total of 49 games. The fact that the top humans > and computers are dead even over all that time > suggest that the humans are getting better at > exactly the same rate as the top chess software. > Perhaps someone can suggest a different explanation > for the even score since 1999. > I'll try. First, the cutoff at 2700 is completely arbitrary, and if games vs slightly lower ranked players is included, the results are nowhere near as neat. This is then, i think, a statistical fluke. But more importantly, the games won by computers and the games won by GMs are different in nature. Computers win by GMs blundering, or by the game being open and tactical. GMs otoh, squeeze computers to death. (A few exceptions on both sides, but great majority adheres to that). What i think this means is that a year 2000 program would have won and lost the same games that the year 2003 program won or lost. It then makes a bit of sense for the GMs to be not getting much worse in matches since they are mainly playing against themselves. If they are tight and play well, they'll win/draw, otherwise they'll lose, and they seem to be making blunders and letting computers open the position up at about the same rate than they used to. Based on this, some predictions: if matches of these kind become more common (ie human GMs resign to the fact that they will be beaten and play more often in public without demanding six figure sums for the effort), then 1) some GMs will do much better against computers than their ELO would suggest, and some will do worse. 2) Kasparov will be part of this second group. alejandro From alito at organicrobot.com Sun Nov 9 19:48:40 2003 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 05:48:40 +1000 Subject: [extropy-chat] computer chess again In-Reply-To: <1068406721.6305.1439.camel@alito.homeip.net> References: <000001c3a68b$382d3e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <1068406721.6305.1439.camel@alito.homeip.net> Message-ID: <1068407320.6304.1442.camel@alito.homeip.net> On Mon, 2003-11-10 at 05:38, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > same rate than they used to. Based on this, some predictions: if > matches of these kind become more common (ie human GMs resign to the > fact that they will be beaten and play more often in public without > demanding six figure sums for the effort), then 1) some GMs will do much > better against computers than their ELO would suggest, and some will do > worse. 2) Kasparov will be part of this second group. Forgot 3) Some computer programs will be much better against humans than their computer-only scores would reflect (Junior should probably go in that group) alejandro From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 21:14:08 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 08:14:08 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.29556.715292.307100@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <005a01c3a706$6a780a00$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Jacques writes: > > Brett Paatsch a ?crit (9.11.2003/14:02) : > > > > > If anyone can find the etymology of the word "belief" or > > "believe" I would be interested. [lots of interesting stuff - still in his post ] then.... > To me, we indicate (and this is coherent with the Latin > origin) the amount of confidence we have by saying > "I believe that" instead of "I know for sure that". Which > sounds fine to me, no reason to ban this word. Please be clear Jacques I am not advocating banning it in the sense of prohibiting people from using it - that would be impossible as folk who did not even care one way or another would start using it just to assert their 'right' too. It has to be a voluntary choice to use a more precise word and I think that will only happen if individuals see that (1) the word they use is sometimes not heard with the same meaning they intended to imbue it with (2) in the case of *belief* as a word that consequence - ie. the hearer hearing a different meaning than the speaker meant - can be very harmful in that it makes it harder for the listener to differentiate between two different sorts of proposition. It is a sublety that goes to the engineering of communication (especially in important life and death circumstances). When you absolutely positively must get every bit of your meaning clear - if you use the word *belief* you find that the hearer hears what *they* think you meant not what you think you said. The simple solution is to use another word that doesn't feed into the listeners tendency to err. And there are plenty of substitute words the message sender can use that I think we have seen. The listener may be an empowered listener. ie. The listener may be sitting on a jury or may be a parliamentarian about to vote on a law. I am definately not saying ban use of the word *belief*. I am saying please *choose* not to use it voluntarily - as using it propagates its usage and its usage results in less sound decisions being made at the policy levels. The levels where we want to have people understand therapeutic cloning, gmo's, the-right-to-cryonics-if-it-harms-no-one-else etc... These discussions (and we are actually trying to pursuade here and the duty of pursuading falls on those who want to make changes) are already hard enough to have at the policy level lets not make them harder by helping the listeners mis-perceive "beliefs-on-the -one-hand" vs "beliefs-on-the-other". They don't get (if we don't *say*) its beliefs vs reasons. Arguments vs blind-faith. Does this make sense? Regards, Brett From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 21:33:18 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 08:33:18 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] I believe References: <3FAE890D.5070700@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> Message-ID: <006b01c3a709$177b32c0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> BillK writes: > On Sat Nov 08, 2003 09:33 pm Brett Paatsch wrote: > > There is nothing a rational person needs to use the > > word *believe* for. [Except to talk about the word as > > a meme and a danger] There are *heaps* of alternatives > > that a rational person can use. Look in any dictionary or > > thesaurus. > > > > It is a big mistake to keep using belief or to try and modify > > it, or sort out good beliefs from bad beliefs because that > > just suggests it sometimes maps to a valid referent. It > > doesn't. It doesn't because the person *using* it cannot > > be sure that others *hearing* it will get the meaning that it > > was intended to have when they used it. > > > > Brett has a point here, because according to the dictionary > 'believe' legally can be used in many different ways. > > Meaning 1) (Which Brett objects to) > to follow a credo, to have a religious faith, to be a believer. > Usage: "When you hear his sermons, you will be able to > believe also". > > Meaning 2) > to credit with veracity. > Usage: "You cannot believe this man" [trust] [snip] > Meaning 3) > to be confident about something. > Usage: "I believe that my income tax form [is] correct[ly]". [think] [am confident] > > Meaning 4) > to accept as true, to take to be true. > Usage: "I believe his report" [accept] [am confident of] > "He believes in mysticism" ...this *may* be a valid use - or it *may* be a slur on him. If he said "I believes" in mysticism - then it is fair warning to others to pass on warning that their is a dangerous meme carrier around. But even in this usage most folks will not hear that statement as a warning unless they are against mysticism. > "We didn't believe his stories from the War". [accept] [credit] > > Meaning 5) > to judge or regard, to look upon. > Usage: "I believe (think) he is very smart" > "I believe (judge) that he is her boyfriend" > "A racist believes (considers) such people to be inferior" You've put some substitues in already. But it is here that *belief* is MOST dangerous and it is here where the substitutes are not done in parliaments and on juries. belief in the context of judgements denotes PREJUDICE not JUDGEMENT - exactly the opposite of what we want !! > > > But, in my opinion, it is too restrictive to the English language > to force 'believe' into the straitjacket of Meaning 1. A religious > context would invoke Meaning 1, but in normal day-to-day > conversation 'believe' is used constantly with no religious > connotations at all. Do you want to use the language to help save your life or do you want to have a meme use your life to help it propagate? Please note one cannot ban a meme like the word belief -one can only point out its dangers and one-by-one (person) try and show that the person should choose for themselves not to help talk themselves to death by propagating the believing meme. > > Although when someone says "I believe United will win the > Cup" it is debatable just how much religious fervor is invoked > by football supporters. ;) > > > BillK > (believing his opinion to be correct) Bill, do you think it is better to be clearer in trying to get a message through? Do you think that those who hear you use the word belief in the wider world will hear in you use the same meaning that you intended to have when you are arguing for things that may be important to you? If not -why not choose to use the words that give you the best chance of being understood and being persuasive? Regards, Brett From wingcat at pacbell.net Sun Nov 9 21:41:15 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 13:41:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] FUTURE: More Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <004d01c3a6f0$f74ce740$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: <20031109214115.99513.qmail@web80406.mail.yahoo.com> --- Harvey Newstrom wrote: > Why is sushi Extropian? Ironic contrast: people accuse us of being anti-religious, and yet we celebrate soul food. > If I'm so damn smart, how come I'm not rich? Wealth often requires patience and luck as well as intelligence. Many of us would not be displeased were the Singularity to happen today. > If technology keeps getting better and better > exponentially, why does my PC > still crash regularly? Mine doesn't. ;P -or- You're using the cheap (in $ and time) solution, and it's getting cheaper for the same performance. > Why don't people converge on the single correct > answer more often instead of > holding millions of different unsupportable belief > systems? Memetics. It's like the reason there are still influenza viruses that can infect - and, on rare occasion, even kill - humans after all these years. > Why aren't more people interested in life-extension? Because most people think it's not actually possible, and there is a long history of fraud in this field. > Why can't all our brilliant minds working together > accomplish more that what > we are doing now? They could, in theory. But how to get to that state? > How do we capture all our great knowledge from all > these chats and utilize > them so we never have to have this conversation ever > again? One possibility: create a software agent capable of understanding typed conversation (at least as well as a human), but with much more memory resources. Create a memory coprocessor, that can upload understanding of predigested facts to human brains. Use the first to create upload packages for the second. From riel at surriel.com Sun Nov 9 22:48:00 2003 From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 17:48:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: <000001c3a697$2b4ac9e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> References: <000001c3a697$2b4ac9e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, Spike wrote: > Corporations are collections of people making a living, > creating wealth by making things, creating jobs and > wellbeing. Corporations are our friends! That would be so nice, if only it were true. Every day in the news we can see corporations doing the exact opposite: creating wealth by buying laws that stifle innovation; creating cartels to keep creativity out of the marketplace; moving operations to cheaper labour countries overseas, where they don't have any obligations to create a wellbeing for their employees. Sure, these corporations still create some wealth, but only for the people at the top, not for society. Rik -- "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan From cryofan at mylinuxisp.com Sun Nov 9 23:07:01 2003 From: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com (randy) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 17:07:01 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: References: <000001c3a697$2b4ac9e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 17:48:00 -0500 (EST), you wrote >On Sat, 8 Nov 2003, Spike wrote: > >> Corporations are collections of people making a living, >> creating wealth by making things, creating jobs and >> wellbeing. Corporations are our friends! > >That would be so nice, if only it were true. > >Every day in the news we can see corporations doing the >exact opposite: creating wealth by buying laws that >stifle innovation; creating cartels to keep creativity >out of the marketplace; moving operations to cheaper >labour countries overseas, where they don't have any >obligations to create a wellbeing for their employees. > >Sure, these corporations still create some wealth, but >only for the people at the top, not for society. > >Rik You must be one of the Euro-extropians--all the Americans ones seem to have been brainwashed to think that corporations can do only good. ------------- -Randy From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk Sun Nov 9 23:53:08 2003 From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK) Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 23:53:08 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] I believe Message-ID: <3FAED364.30406@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> On Sun Nov 09, 2003 02:33 pm Brett Paatsch wrote: > Do you want to use the language to help save your life or do > you want to have a meme use your life to help it propagate? > > Please note one cannot ban a meme like the word belief -one > can only point out its dangers and one-by-one (person) try > and show that the person should choose for themselves not > to help talk themselves to death by propagating the believing > meme. > I think your policy is the exact opposite of what is required! :) First, I should make it clear that I am all in favor of clarity of speech and meaning. I have seen far too many discussions degenerate into the participants saying, in effect, "words mean what I want them to mean - not what you want them to mean!" Now, all the English language dictionaries agree that the common usage of the word 'believe' has a wide range of meanings, depending on context. You can hear people 'believing' all the time in ordinary conversation - nothing to do with deep religious or mystical beliefs. This is a GOOD thing! If you restrict the meaning to 'religious belief' you are giving far too much self-importance to that belief. (Ignoring for the moment that any given group of 100 'believers' will believe 100 different things). If you hear people saying, for example, "I believe it will rain tomorrow" "I believe he will make a good president" "I believe I am going to heaven" "I believe the Matrix is true" "I believe my SUV is better than yours" then the effect of this is to equate religious belief with any other belief, like whether it will rain tomorrow. It WEAKENS the belief meme to the level of any other inconsequential belief a person might have. It is a good result when someone says "I believe I am going to heaven" and the response is "Yea - Well I believe in the Tooth Fairy and I've got more real evidence than you have". BillK (No teeth, but lots of coins under my pillow) From gregburch at gregburch.net Mon Nov 10 00:03:44 2003 From: gregburch at gregburch.net (Greg Burch) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 18:03:44 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The corporate form per se is no more or less problematic than any other means of holding and using property and contract rights. The problem arises when state power is fused with the form through corporatist government policies. Blaiming "corporations" is like blaming any other interest group that bids for and buys government favor, be they "farmers," "unions" or other organized groups that manage to garner preferential treatment from the state. Corporations are RELATVELY weak in the EU (compared to the US), but these other organized interest groups have done just as much harm by co-opting state power for their special interests in the EU -- viz. France and their endless strikes and labor-driven politics, or the agricultural protectionism in the EU that is one of the main factors derailing free trade in the world. The evil doesn't lie in the legal form per se, but in the sell-out of state power. http://www.gregburch.net/burchismo.html From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Sun Nov 9 23:53:44 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:53:44 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley References: <000001c3a697$2b4ac9e0$6501a8c0@SHELLY> Message-ID: <00b301c3a71c$b5a4b8a0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Randy writes in response to Rik: > You must be one of the Euro-extropians--all the > Americans ones seem (sic) to have been brainwashed to > think that corporations can do only good. Please be precise Randy, do you mean the American ones *seem* that way to *you* in particular (or are you trying to imply something wider perhaps? - the second is less appealing. They American-based extropes do not *seem* that way to me. Not as a generalisation. I want to hear good arguments for and against propositions and I don't care where geographically the arguments come from. A person working with intellectual property in the US for instance may have some very valuable *personal* insights ;-) Brett From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Nov 10 00:32:30 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:32:30 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] I believe References: <3FAED364.30406@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk> Message-ID: <00c801c3a722$216994c0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Bill writes: > On Sun Nov 09, 2003 02:33 pm Brett Paatsch wrote: > > Do you want to use the language to help save your life or do > > you want to have a meme use your life to help it propagate? > > > > Please note one cannot ban a meme like the word belief -one > > can only point out its dangers and one-by-one (person) try > > and show that the person should choose for themselves not > > to help talk themselves to death by propagating the believing > > meme. > > > > I think your policy is the exact opposite of what is required! :) > > First, I should make it clear that I am all in favor of clarity of > speech and meaning. I have seen far too many discussions > degenerate into the participants saying, in effect, "words mean > what I want them to mean - not what you want them to mean!" > > Now, all the English language dictionaries agree that the common > usage of the word 'believe' has a wide range of meanings, > depending on context. You can hear people 'believing' all the > time in ordinary conversation - nothing to do with deep religious > or mystical beliefs. > > This is a GOOD thing! > > If you restrict the meaning to 'religious belief' you are giving far > too much self-importance [ :-) !!! ] to that [interpretation > of the word] belief. (Ignoring [ sic ] for the moment that any > given group of 100 'believers' will believe 100 different things). > > If you [one] hear[s] people saying, for example, > "I believe it will rain tomorrow" > "I believe he will make a good president" > "I believe I am going to heaven" > "I believe the Matrix is true" > "I believe my SUV is better than yours" > > then the effect of this is to equate religious belief with any > other belief, like whether it will rain tomorrow. It WEAKENS > the belief meme to the level of any other inconsequential belief > a person might have. > > It is a good result when someone says "I believe I am going > to heaven" and the response is "Yea - Well I believe in the > Tooth Fairy and I've got more real evidence than you have". > > BillK > (No teeth, but lots of coins under my pillow) Your arguments are getting better young extrope :-) Good for you (AND good for me - let the truth out ! ) I want to let this better challenge you are making sit for a little while so others can take a peak at it as well if they want. But let me ask you this question. How would your argument above be effected if I could show you examples of the courts and the leaders of free countries making huge decisions like to go to war or to set a person free on the basis purely of belief - belief in the sense of prejudice - a sense that has nothing to do with and indeed is the opposite of judgement? There is little point me providing these examples to you if they will not effect you view as to what is good. I like talking to open minds (and I like being shown to be wrong too - *if* I am) but I don't like talking just to hear the sound of my voice as I could be doing other better things with the time. Would *you* change *your* mind if I could provide *you* with examples of heads of government making very big even world-historic decisions on the basis of beliefs-that-are- prejudices? And/or courts? Regards, Brett From wingcat at pacbell.net Mon Nov 10 00:33:42 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 16:33:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.1.20031107225210.0325c410@pop.iol.ie> Message-ID: <20031110003342.22668.qmail@web80405.mail.yahoo.com> --- J Corbally wrote: > http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?size=big&mapdata=8JWqc9HMpiYwb9zZYDFMrn3Q%2fSmwBrxHnJpYUafchV1f6hNN8WPY7sIyXiKgRNWcP14yHJv2aHAKoiNb6r4fm4L6YkdwfJOBqvKzd0xsXtN56jyZFFtXZzfepaqhQdZniAw4mCW7GK%2f75uirpkO55%2fIeVaNw7s5LCRvIdribdAebOl%2fEtuL%2f0dTFTkfBElN3hY9uZkxuU3d0FDSsHF0pYGVt7fk1APtHTZgjsDDk6%2f%2bxgyuZRfDvNDuMglxc%2bb%2bJqiDyYhbT3WzS8POptkyKVppYydKFLOAB8aijtfjoIZlTq%2fqEgQn%2fBQ%3d%3d > > I'm located somewhere roughly in the location of the > "N82" > label. Actually, if you click on N82 and Zoom in, > you'll pretty much find > yourself on my street. > > No peeking, now. I'm not decent. No worries about that. The photos are a few years out of date, at least. I had solar panels installed on my house a few months after the California blackouts of 2000, but you can't see them here. http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?mqmap.x=220&mqmap.y=207&mapdata=xU4YXdELrnCTxwvPTmj4WAYd1iIM1onMNxscUvJ2l1QRxird7gJpSS74McxoaMCMajakgXtgBDa8s%252byJ%252fOtRC6ouQoF%252ffZdWRvYlryObOY3CIE9EgFV5FWQ7hd0G9FdzZ%252bbXYco8Mx3%252fKVFc9zs2noBafYm1Ded%252f8RH4tra2LXga%252fsB2orJy4HHOme5x%252bptRbE908%252f2qkG1LIVBq%252fWnzyGtaCVXjBkwJPJP%252fxMG14CpNzK5F%252f%252bNtmF0C%252f3gBbwPDcsHr7DYTzfGrnzWN5bj0Aux5WPnOgYlU9R%252boo68XM2UgxID0KU8rGtmoK1LuSFimbJgZlUW%252b6BQEkFGSahjre6OQiSqcGPHV5lJ4ToD7tcB5SpiBq5evu3k9aDUej%252frO&click=center Fifth house from the end in the non-double row of houses. (Next to the triple-treed house.) Note the mostly light grey roof; solar panels are, of course, black, and they cover about half my roof. From jacques at dtext.com Mon Nov 10 00:36:23 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 01:36:23 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal In-Reply-To: <005a01c3a706$6a780a00$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.29556.715292.307100@localhost.localdomain> <005a01c3a706$6a780a00$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <16302.56711.538309.647078@localhost.localdomain> Brett Paatsch a ?crit (10.11.2003/08:14) : > > Jacques writes: > > > > Brett Paatsch a ?crit (9.11.2003/14:02) : > > > > > > > If anyone can find the etymology of the word "belief" or > > > "believe" I would be interested. > > [lots of interesting stuff - still in his post ] then.... > > > To me, we indicate (and this is coherent with the Latin > > origin) the amount of confidence we have by saying > > "I believe that" instead of "I know for sure that". Which > > sounds fine to me, no reason to ban this word. > > Please be clear Jacques I am not advocating banning it > in the sense of prohibiting people from using it - that would > be impossible as folk who did not even care one way or > another would start using it just to assert their 'right' too. > > It has to be a voluntary choice to use a more precise word > and I think that will only happen if individuals see that > > (1) the word they use is sometimes not heard with the same > meaning they intended to imbue it with > (2) in the case of *belief* as a word that consequence > - ie. the hearer hearing a different meaning than the speaker > meant - can be very harmful in that it makes it harder for the > listener to differentiate between two different sorts of > proposition. > > It is a sublety that goes to the engineering of communication > (especially in important life and death circumstances). When > you absolutely positively must get every bit of your meaning > clear - if you use the word *belief* you find that the hearer > hears what *they* think you meant not what you think you > said. "I believe that X" allows me to express some degree of confidence that X holds: nothing more, nothing less. If the audience doesn't give a damn about your level of confidence that X holds, then using this concept is not useful in that particular situation. Thus, it is true that in debates, and if you are unknown to the audience, you might as well not use that word at all, and only provide facts and arguments for other people to consider and form their own belief. But that is not a problem with the word "belief". It is simply that in this situation, no one cares about your "level of confidence". Suppose that in such a debate, one guest is a famous and respected Nobel Prize. Her use of "belief" is going to matter, because people (rightly or wrongly, doesn't matter here) are interested in her level of confidence that X holds. So, I can agree with you on something -- and you'll tell me if this matches your preoccupation -- namely that if you are in a hostile situation, and you need to convince people, you may as well give up on any explicit belief self-attribution, as people may seize the occasion to think, "oh, this is just a belief, then". I can also agree that when bringing new ideas (like transhumanist ideas) into society, we may often find ourselves in such situations, and hence it may sometimes be preferable to avoid the use of "belief". (But at other times, I think it may on the contrary be useful to say that yes, you do believe in it, and you are not just playing with words.) Still, I think that 1) potential problems with the use of this word are not really linked to a common misunderstanding of its meaning, 2) it is a useful concept, and 3) using it here and there in our discussions when it comes naturally, to express just what it means, causes no particular problem. Jacques From gregburch at gregburch.net Mon Nov 10 00:44:03 2003 From: gregburch at gregburch.net (Greg Burch) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 18:44:03 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Luddite Leadership: The New Atlantis Message-ID: All extropians should be aware of a new journal called "The New Atlantis." http://www.thenewatlantis.com/index.html The inaugural issue (they're now on No. 2) had a leading editorial by arch-bioluddite Leon Kass. I STRONGLY urge all of our members to read this piece, as it is one of the most eloquent statements of the anti-progress mentality you'll find, as well as one by a man who has real power over public policy in the U.S. (through his leadership position on the President's Council on Biotechnology and his position as THE spokesman for bio-luddism among the current political leaders in America). There are other articles that will inlfame anyone who shares the basic transhumanist agenda, but are also vitally important. There's an article by Adam Keiper http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/2/keiper.htm that shows a very good grasp of the possibilities of Drexlerian nanotechnology. What's important here is not what the article is (other, similarly clued-in articles are becoming common outside the narrow confines of transhumania), but WHERE it is. "The New Atlantis" has clearly been formed as a rallying point for the anti-progress party, and that they are zeroing in on Drextech should give us all cause for concern. Another article in the first issue deals with transhumanism square-on, calling it "extinctionism" because it posits progress beyond the human: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/1/rubin.htm This article discusses Moravec and Kurzweil and will set the teeth of a transhumanist on edge, but again, what's important is that the discussion is happening in a forum designed to define policy. I urge all of you to become familiar with this site: It is the anti-extropy. My blog: http://www.gregburch.net/burchismo.html From wingcat at pacbell.net Mon Nov 10 01:53:25 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 17:53:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Luddite Leadership: The New Atlantis In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031110015325.45809.qmail@web80407.mail.yahoo.com> --- Greg Burch wrote: > http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/2/keiper.htm > > that shows a very good grasp of the possibilities of > Drexlerian nanotechnology. What's important here is > not what the article is (other, similarly clued-in > articles are becoming common outside the narrow > confines of transhumania), but WHERE it is. "The > New Atlantis" has clearly been formed as a rallying > point for the anti-progress party, and that they are > zeroing in on Drextech should give us all cause for > concern. Actually, I find it most refreshing that even our enemies have such a good field guide to the facts. It's biased in the opinions it offers in addition to the facts, true, but it means we can argue the facts rather than made-up hysteria. > Another article in the first issue deals with > transhumanism square-on, calling it "extinctionism" > because it posits progress beyond the human: > > http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/1/rubin.htm > > This article discusses Moravec and Kurzweil and will > set the teeth of a transhumanist on edge, but again, > what's important is that the discussion is happening > in a forum designed to define policy. I snickered as I read it. I did not see a single argument made there that has not been made, and thoroughly countered, elsewhere. For instance, the sharp discontinuity between human and uploaded mind: there have been ways proposed to utterly eliminate that discontinuity. If this is the best our enemies - and I use the term deliberately, even if the immediate battle is for hearts and minds rather than lives - can muster, as it seems it may be, we have little to worry about. (We can't slack off, of course, but this is a level of opposition we can handle.) From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Nov 10 02:10:38 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 13:10:38 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.29556.715292.307100@localhost.localdomain> <005a01c3a706$6a780a00$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.56711.538309.647078@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <00dd01c3a72f$d5aa11a0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Jacques writes: >> [Brett] >> Please be clear Jacques I am not advocating banning [belief >> as a word] in the sense of prohibiting people from using it - > > that would be impossible as folk who did not even care > > one way or another would start using it just to assert their > > 'right' too. >> >> It has to be a voluntary choice to use a more precise word >> and I think that will only happen if individuals see that >> >> (1) the word they use is sometimes not heard with the same >> meaning they intended to imbue it with >> (2) in the case of *belief* as a word that consequence >> - ie. the hearer hearing a different meaning than the speaker >> meant - can be very harmful in that it makes it harder for the >> listener to differentiate between two different sorts of >> proposition. >> >> It is a sublety that goes to the engineering of communication >> (especially in important life and death circumstances). When >> you absolutely positively must get every bit of your meaning >> clear - if you use the word *belief* you find that the hearer >> hears what *they* think you meant not what you think you >> said. [Note: Jacques - your arguments below imo are honing in now on the nub and it matters now - if our time is not to be wasted in getting to this point (where the truth may be clearer) to be careful with our (yours and my) language - so apologies in advance for what may seem like an overdose of pedantry. The use of the word "one" as oppose to 'you' or 'me' in some cases makes things clearer and I have substituted it. Please also note that anybody who hasn't followed this thread will not NECESSARILY intuitively get it now coming in at this stage.] > "I believe that X" allows me [one] to express some degree of > confidence that X holds: nothing more, nothing less. > If the audience doesn't give a damn about your [one's] level of > confidence that X holds, then using this concept is not useful in > that particular situation. > > Thus, it is true that in debates, and if you are [one is] unknown > to the audience, you [one] might as well not use that word at all, > and only provide facts and arguments for other people to > consider and form their own belief [#1 !!!!] -I think you mean opinion or judgement here do you not? -or are you in fact inadvertly presuming the outcome of our inquiry - I think that may make my point about the danger of the belief meme - .i.e. if *you* can't hold the-matter-under-inquiry (belief) separate from the inquiry process itself !! (No criticism of you - I think the belief meme critter is really that slippery - especially for those who think it is harmless). > But that is not a problem with the word "belief". It is simply > that in this situation, no one cares about your "level of > confidence". No as I indicate above it is also that the word is used to prejudice inquiry. It slips past the guard of those that use it. It is a very, very slippery meme. I think it just slipped past your (Jacques') guard above at #1 did it not? > Suppose that in such a debate, one guest is a famous and > respected Nobel Prize [winner]. Her use of "belief" is going > to matter, because people (rightly or wrongly, doesn't matter > here [in this contention]) are interested in her level of > confidence that X holds. So you think that people (generally) make judgements not on evidence but on the perceived authority of the presenter ? - On the whole I think this is true but this is part of my point - It hurts the cause of shared-truth-discovery to encourage this natural human tendency to laziness though. And the Nobel Prize winner does the audience a disservice if she deliberately engages in persuasion by appeal to authority (ie. if she uses the statement 'I believe X') rather than ('the evidence indicates X') by appeal to reason. > So, I can agree with you on something -- and you'll tell me > if this matches your preoccupation *** [ :-) I prefer contention if you don't mind] > -- namely that if you are [one is] in a hostile situation, and > you [one] need[s] to convince people, you [one] may as well > give up on any explicit belief self-attribution, as people may > seize the occasion to think, "oh, this is just a belief, then". That is pretty close to my contention yes. Except to push it further the *belief* meme is SO SLIPPERY that they may not even need to formally think the sentence "oh, this is just a belief, then" - they may do that or they may not even be *that* aware. > I can also agree that when bringing new ideas (like > transhumanist ideas) into society, we may often find > ourselves in such situations, and hence it may (sic) > sometimes be preferable to avoid the use of "belief". What do you mean may - can you think of a particular instance or not? > (But at other times, > I think it may (sic) on the contrary be useful to say that > yes, you do believe in it, and you are not just playing > with words.) How can you know what they *believe* in? This is part of my point - You can't - even if they use the word belief as it reliably maps to no specific referent - they are leaving you to guess at their meaning (and if indeed they even *have* a meaning and are not merely articulating a PREJUDICE ?!!!). > Still, I think that 1) potential problems with the use of this > word are not really linked to a common misunderstanding > of its meaning, 2) it is a useful concept, and 3) using it here > and there in our discussions when it comes naturally, to > express just what it means, causes no particular problem. I think you erred in the process of arriving at the above conclusion for the reasons I articulate above. Please demonstrate your contention that the word belief is useful by giving an instance where you think it better (than any alternate word) conveys meaning between people. - Without of course using it in a self-referential way - that doesn't count. I.e. we of course need to use the word to talk about the word as a word and to consider its harmfulness (my contention) as a meme or its usefulness (your apparent contention above). Regards, Brett From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Nov 10 02:48:08 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 13:48:08 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Luddite Leadership: The New Atlantis References: Message-ID: <00ff01c3a735$12b71700$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Greg writes: > All extropians should be aware of a new journal called > "The New Atlantis." > > http://www.thenewatlantis.com/index.html > [snip] > "The New Atlantis" has clearly been > formed as a rallying point for the anti-progress party, Which anti-progress party Greg? Do you mean an *actual* political party or do you mean an aggregation of entrenched empowered [monied] individuals who want to broker the rate of change toward the future so they can control and own the technology and the IP as it emerges or what in fact do you mean? Regards, Brett From thespike at earthlink.net Mon Nov 10 02:50:01 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 20:50:01 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Honing in on the pod door References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY><00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au><16302.29556.715292.307100@localhost.localdomain><005a01c3a706$6a780a00$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au><16302.56711.538309.647078@localhost.localdomain> <00dd01c3a72f$d5aa11a0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <014201c3a735$57e16380$8b994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brett Paatsch" Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 8:10 PM > [Note: Jacques - your arguments below imo are honing in now > on the nub While we're discussing the utility and accuracy of the word `belief', I'll throw in the nagging observation that when people say `honing' in this way they almost always mean `homing'. You hone a blade, you even hone an argument (make it sharper), but you home in on a target. A Helpful Pedant [sets my teeth on edge, it does] From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Nov 10 03:22:23 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 14:22:23 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Honing in on the pod door References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.29556.715292.307100@localhost.localdomain> <005a01c3a706$6a780a00$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.56711.538309.647078@localhost.localdomain> <00dd01c3a72f$d5aa11a0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <014201c3a735$57e16380$8b994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <011101c3a739$dbf8dc80$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Damien (a VERY helpful pedant) writes: [Brett] > > [Note: Jacques - your arguments below imo are honing in now > > on the nub > > While we're discussing the utility and accuracy of the word `belief', > I'll throw in the nagging observation that when people say `honing' > in this way they almost always mean `homing'. You hone a blade, > you even hone an argument (make it sharper), but you home in on > a target. Sorry and thank you sir ;-) Brett From gregburch at gregburch.net Mon Nov 10 03:44:38 2003 From: gregburch at gregburch.net (Greg Burch) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 21:44:38 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Luddite Leadership: The New Atlantis In-Reply-To: <00ff01c3a735$12b71700$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Brett Paatsch > Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 8:48 PM > Greg writes: > > > All extropians should be aware of a new journal called > > "The New Atlantis." > > > > http://www.thenewatlantis.com/index.html > > > [snip] > > > "The New Atlantis" has clearly been > > formed as a rallying point for the anti-progress party, > > Which anti-progress party Greg? Do you mean an *actual* > political party or do you mean an aggregation of entrenched > empowered [monied] individuals who want to broker the rate > of change toward the future so they can control and own the > technology and the IP as it emerges or what in fact do you > mean? I was using a rather old-fashioned way of writing, I guess, because I meant neither of the things you suggest. As to the former, in the U.S. the Republican's have probably signed on to the bioluddite agenda more than the Democrats, while the Democrats have a nascent tendency toward a Euro "greenish" anitpathy to non-human biotech. In Europe, I think both sides of the political spectrum have begun to show bioluddite tendencies, but I'm not as conversant with European politics, so I could be wrong (although it's obvious even to a numb Yank that the left/greens in Euroland have solidly signed up to the bioluddite cause). The second alternative you suggest isn't really concrete yet in any way -- there's nothing like saleable IP for real human augmentation, and the folks who make business policy in the BigPharma companies are notoriously short-sighted; I doubt human augmentation is really on their radar screens yet, so they don't have a position. No, I'm referring to the cultural opponents of the transumanist agenda, the same note I've been sounding for some time: http://www.gregburch.net/progress.html My blog: http://www.gregburch.net/burchismo.html From rafal at smigrodzki.org Mon Nov 10 03:33:15 2003 From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 22:33:15 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] heterosis, consanguinity and IQ Message-ID: <000001c3a73d$56ec5b80$6401a8c0@dimension> Thinking about the postulated role of heterosis in secular IQ trends, I realized that if there is really a significant influence of panmixis and heterosis, then their opposite, inbreeding, should register as lower IQ on a society-wide scale. According to http://www.consang.net/global_prevalence/map.html, there are countries with rates of consanguinity orders of magnitude higher than in the rest of the world. Do their inhabitants have a lower IQ? I wasn't able to find data on these countries, but I am sure they exist. Rafal From thespike at earthlink.net Mon Nov 10 03:57:03 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 21:57:03 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] heterosis, consanguinity and IQ References: <000001c3a73d$56ec5b80$6401a8c0@dimension> Message-ID: <016801c3a73e$b692f0c0$8b994a43@texas.net> > [po:] inbreeding, should register as lower IQ on a > society-wide scale. Is this right, though? Two recessive deleterious genes will be expressed more often, munging the offspringen (who might die as a result, often in utero), while two recessive advantageous genes will pop up more often as well. I had the impression that this is a partial explanation for the elevated IQs of Orthodox Jews, e.g., even though they pay the price in certain rare horrid afflictions. (I seem to recall a post from Eliezer implying that this might account in part for his own unusual brain.) Damien Broderick From thespike at earthlink.net Mon Nov 10 04:51:24 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 22:51:24 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Meatrix References: <200311050215.hA52FiM29499@tick.javien.com><3FA8A0E8.C39365FE@best.com> <3FA8DC34.8010505@pobox.com><01c001c3a399$020c7340$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au><3FA99C95.8010401@pobox.com> <01b901c3a40e$63bc7b60$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <018d01c3a746$5dea6ea0$8b994a43@texas.net> I don't think this merry little (grim little?) item has been mentioned here yet: http://www.gristmagazine.com/soapbox/meatrix110503.asp Damien Broderick From cphoenix at best.com Mon Nov 10 05:03:17 2003 From: cphoenix at best.com (Chris Phoenix) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 00:03:17 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley References: <200311091900.hA9J09M05251@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <3FAF1C15.FF15C4C4@best.com> Spike wrote: > > Corporations are collections of people making a living, > creating wealth by making things, creating jobs and > wellbeing. Corporations are our friends! If real power > lies with corporations, then real power lies with people > working together to create wealth, which sounds good to me. > Far better this way than with real power being wielded by > those who create nothing but merely redistribute the wealth > that corporations create, while destroying much of that > wealth in the process. This seems to me to be perfectly > compatible with libertarian ideals. There are different kinds of power, just as there are different kinds of problems to solve. "How much should a corporation pay for the right to kill someone?" is an appalling question. (I mean deliberately kill an individual; random fractional deaths may be a different case.) But "How much should a policeman pay for the right to kill someone?" is equally appalling. The words "pay" and "kill" simply don't belong in the same sentence--unless you're in the Mafia, which is an appalling organization. But you should also notice that the policeman (Guardian) has very different imperatives than the corporation (Commercial). Creating wealth by maximizing benefit on voluntary transactions is one kind of problem. Corporations do that very well. Unfortunately, sometimes big corporations start taking on Guardian characteristics. Minimizing loss from zero-sum or negative-sum transactions is a very different kind of problem. It may require the use of force or deception--both of which corporations are not supposed to practice. (Limiting openness is not the same as active deception.) Interestingly, there's at least one other way to create wealth: unlimited-sum transactions (Information), in which the friction and cost are negligible, and the benefit is substantial and not proportional to the cost. Open Source is a great example of this, and it's enabled by the unlimited-sum nature of copying text files. And although some corporations are figuring out ways to work with unlimited-sum entities, corporations are not that kind of entity, can never be, and should not try. This explains the Napster problem and the Internet bubble. Guardian and Commercial as separate systems come straight from Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs. Building on a paper by Pat Gratton, I added Information as a third system, and the analysis of how the three systems relate to zero-sum, positive-sum, and unlimited-sum transactions. You can read more (including a tie-in to molecular nanotechnology) at: http://CRNano.org/systems.htm Can corporations solve Guardian-type problems? No. Will Guardian-type problems always exist? Yes. If we didn't have government, we'd have to invent it. Chris -- Chris Phoenix cphoenix at CRNano.org Director of Research Center for Responsible Nanotechnology http://CRNano.org From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Mon Nov 10 05:23:01 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 16:23:01 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Luddite Leadership: The New Atlantis References: Message-ID: <018001c3a74a$b749ee40$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Greg Burch wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Brett Paatsch > > Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 8:48 PM > > Greg writes: > > > > > All extropians should be aware of a new journal called > > > "The New Atlantis." > > > > > > http://www.thenewatlantis.com/index.html > > > > > [snip] > > > > > "The New Atlantis" has clearly been > > > formed as a rallying point for the anti-progress party, > > > > Which anti-progress party Greg? Do you mean an *actual* > > political party or do you mean an aggregation of entrenched > > empowered [monied] individuals who want to broker the rate > > of change toward the future so they can control and own the > > technology and the IP as it emerges or what in fact do you > > mean? > > I was using a rather old-fashioned way of writing, I guess, > because I meant neither of the things you suggest. As to the > former, in the U.S. the Republican's have probably signed > on to the bioluddite agenda more than the Democrats, while > the Democrats have a nascent tendency toward a Euro > "greenish" anitpathy to non-human biotech. > > [snip comment on Europe] > > The second alternative you suggest isn't really concrete yet in > any way -- there's nothing like saleable IP for real human > augmentation, No but, what about in say the GMO, GE and stem cell areas? What do you think of the possibility of brokering-the-future in these areas using bi-lateral trade agreements? > and the folks who make business policy in the > BigPharma companies are notoriously short-sighted; I doubt > human augmentation is really on their radar screens yet, so > they don't have a position. I agree on BigPharma and human augmentation. > No, I'm referring to the cultural opponents of the transumanist > agenda, the same note I've been sounding for some time: > > http://www.gregburch.net/progress.html Thanks Greg. Perhaps without having read the New Atlantis but having read some of Kass' writings on the Presidents Council of Bioethics, my feeling is maybe - lots more rope to Kass - let him and those like him help raise the level of public awareness - a bit of Hegelian dialectic may be good for transhumanism if it gives the media some theatre around which to report- and once folks realise what is on offer (ie. when the technological feasibility is less in dispute) then the citizen voters of the west will start joining the dots for themselves. Right now I'm more concerned that the citizen-voters haven't got a clue what is on offer and so they vote against or to ban what they don't understand which is nearly everything. The best thing for the transhumanism memeset to get reported and to straighten itself out may be a worthy adversary. This is not necessarily a deeply considered opinion (on Kass and New Atlantis anyway). Regards, Brett From maxm at mail.tele.dk Mon Nov 10 08:15:27 2003 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 09:15:27 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <20031107195905.GQ3534@leitl.org> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> <20031107195905.GQ3534@leitl.org> Message-ID: <3FAF491F.8030808@mail.tele.dk> Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 12:12:30PM -0500, John K Clark wrote: > >>1) There must be a physical mechanism to compute how proteins fold up since >>the same protein always turns into the same shape and does it in just a few >>seconds, but our most powerful supercomputers would take centuries to figure >>out even the simplest one. What is that computational mechanism? > > There's no new physics involved. It's a question of how to write code for a > big machine -- depending in whether it's clever or dumb code that machine > might or might not yet exist. Of course, no currently used forcefield is even > approximately up to the task. I think that point that John tried to make is that it is deterministic, not chaotic. And so should allow simplification. We just need some way to add the hinges. Emzyme chemistry and proteomics will be soo big. I am pretty shure that Nano will come from this direction. So fast protein folding will be a really big issue. >>9) Why is there something rather than nothing? And another one in the same family: Why is there a limit on the speed of light? regards Max M From maxm at mail.tele.dk Mon Nov 10 08:43:10 2003 From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 09:43:10 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <20031107083237.90698.qmail@web60202.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20031107083237.90698.qmail@web60202.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3FAF4F9E.5030308@mail.tele.dk> The Avantguardian wrote: > Natasha wrote: > "What are some riddles that some bear light, or a shadow, on our extropic > transhumanity?" > 3. Why is all life on earth asymmetric at a molecular level. The amino > acids that make up proteins on earth all have a "left-handed" > (levorotary) chirality and the sugars that make up carbohydrates are > "right-handed" (dextrorotary). This is quite literally an extropic > riddle because in any standard synthesis reaction occuring in nature > (enzymatic reactions don't count because enzymes themselves are > composed of these asymmetrically "left-handed" amino acids and you > get the chicken or the egg problem) the resulting molecules are a > racemic mixture i.e. composed of equal amounts of "left-handed" and > "right-handed" molecules. That is most likely because it uses a to simplistic view of the chemical pathways, and chemicals included. There are other ways to create asymetric chemistry than those two. Some of those results in chemical isomers that are much alike, but has different chemical properties. Very often you end up with a mixture that is a balance. Not a complete reaction. Most likely some of these compounds plays nicer with some of the assymetric proteins than with others. Over a few generations that should give a significant difference. regards Max M From jacques at dtext.com Mon Nov 10 11:46:18 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:46:18 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Honing in on the pod door In-Reply-To: <011101c3a739$dbf8dc80$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.29556.715292.307100@localhost.localdomain> <005a01c3a706$6a780a00$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.56711.538309.647078@localhost.localdomain> <00dd01c3a72f$d5aa11a0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <014201c3a735$57e16380$8b994a43@texas.net> <011101c3a739$dbf8dc80$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <3FAF7A8A.9060808@dtext.com> Brett Paatsch wrote: > Damien (a VERY helpful pedant) writes: > > [Brett] > >>>[Note: Jacques - your arguments below imo are honing in now >>>on the nub >> >>While we're discussing the utility and accuracy of the word `belief', >>I'll throw in the nagging observation that when people say `honing' >>in this way they almost always mean `homing'. You hone a blade, >>you even hone an argument (make it sharper), but you home in on >>a target. > > > Sorry and thank you sir ;-) Yes, thanks Damien. After looking up "honing" and "nub" in a dictionary, I had to resort to guessing to understand what Brett meant. It's a problem I have from time to time on the list: I don't know English well enough to understand the mistakes, too. Brett: I'll try to answer this evening, as I will be too busy till then. But I can already let you know of the summary: you are wrong. (just kidding) Jacques From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Mon Nov 10 13:16:25 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 14:16:25 +0100 (CET) Subject: [extropy-chat] Eugen's balcony In-Reply-To: <20031110003342.22668.qmail@web80405.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20031110003342.22668.qmail@web80405.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: To continue the game, I can add my location too: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?zoom=7&mapdata=EqjxpwWGKHOIj8ZJDB951WsUtsPVlAs9FOVy02PHEc2L7dnnJFdOrEw1BQs0VOVvEL9Sl2Tbe%2bKsQL0hGqXxnNBcsH1Ze5bLdEkcUJ7Al%2fP3ovk2IJp%2f3GJ9RlPCM3eqnTFLTAi6vrscH4VBz1hIhuS%2f%2bRyS3w8qRzQyAvvpgNod5yRPXeO1M7v58bA1RfDBA7wE6UNa4sC3QBmVZoC8ED%2bNhTo4RwKB29f5Q28bqpwT%2b73Z3If33FW8%2fE%2fW5%2bADUV0S3LiDZ8r%2b37oabmM%2bnxJe3hk%2frG1JXQ3%2bYl0fSlgdJHAnmxy1jEH7x2QPgJbDNJtULTlSeFsTpJpzXiUbybDe8zCNMLMNaPDs7JQ4j%2fI%3d Zoom in to see the exact street. Ciao, Alfio On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Adrian Tymes wrote: >--- J Corbally wrote: >> >http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?size=big&mapdata=8JWqc9HMpiYwb9zZYDFMrn3Q%2fSmwBrxHnJpYUafchV1f6hNN8WPY7sIyXiKgRNWcP14yHJv2aHAKoiNb6r4fm4L6YkdwfJOBqvKzd0xsXtN56jyZFFtXZzfepaqhQdZniAw4mCW7GK%2f75uirpkO55%2fIeVaNw7s5LCRvIdribdAebOl%2fEtuL%2f0dTFTkfBElN3hY9uZkxuU3d0FDSsHF0pYGVt7fk1APtHTZgjsDDk6%2f%2bxgyuZRfDvNDuMglxc%2bb%2bJqiDyYhbT3WzS8POptkyKVppYydKFLOAB8aijtfjoIZlTq%2fqEgQn%2fBQ%3d%3d >> >> I'm located somewhere roughly in the location of the >> "N82" >> label. Actually, if you click on N82 and Zoom in, >> you'll pretty much find >> yourself on my street. >> >> No peeking, now. I'm not decent. > >No worries about that. The photos are a few years out >of date, at least. I had solar panels installed on my >house a few months after the California blackouts of >2000, but you can't see them here. > >http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?mqmap.x=220&mqmap.y=207&mapdata=xU4YXdELrnCTxwvPTmj4WAYd1iIM1onMNxscUvJ2l1QRxird7gJpSS74McxoaMCMajakgXtgBDa8s%252byJ%252fOtRC6ouQoF%252ffZdWRvYlryObOY3CIE9EgFV5FWQ7hd0G9FdzZ%252bbXYco8Mx3%252fKVFc9zs2noBafYm1Ded%252f8RH4tra2LXga%252fsB2orJy4HHOme5x%252bptRbE908%252f2qkG1LIVBq%252fWnzyGtaCVXjBkwJPJP%252fxMG14CpNzK5F%252f%252bNtmF0C%252f3gBbwPDcsHr7DYTzfGrnzWN5bj0Aux5WPnOgYlU9R%252boo68XM2UgxID0KU8rGtmoK1LuSFimbJgZlUW%252b6BQEkFGSahjre6OQiSqcGPHV5lJ4ToD7tcB5SpiBq5evu3k9aDUej%252frO&click=center > >Fifth house from the end in the non-double row of >houses. (Next to the triple-treed house.) Note the >mostly light grey roof; solar panels are, of course, >black, and they cover about half my roof. >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 10 14:15:00 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 15:15:00 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <3FAF491F.8030808@mail.tele.dk> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031105225405.00aad8c0@pop.iol.ie> <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> <20031107195905.GQ3534@leitl.org> <3FAF491F.8030808@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <20031110141500.GK13214@leitl.org> On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 09:15:27AM +0100, Max M wrote: > > I think that point that John tried to make is that it is deterministic, Of course it's determistic! We're alive, aren't we? > not chaotic. And so should allow simplification. We just need some way It is not obvious that you can compute the folding target without expediting much less computational work than the folding molecule itself does. Given brute-force via MD with ~fs integration step target it is obvious that we need lots faster computers than today (which typically do 1 fs within 1 s wall clock time; fast folders can fold in ms, we can presume we can bootstrap nano with fast folders alone -- you'll need min/h scale to understand biology, though) to do it brute force. The state of the art is here: It is pretty pathetic but for a few special cases. > to add the hinges. > > Emzyme chemistry and proteomics will be soo big. I am pretty shure that > Nano will come from this direction. Bottom-up (self-assembly) is going to result in practical molecular electronics before top-down (machine-phase nanorobotics). We should be able to use the computational resources of molecular electronics to design the latter, though. > So fast protein folding will be a really big issue. You need a machine to fold in minutes to hours of wall clock time for in machina design (reverse folding problem by evolutionary algorithms on primary sequence). -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Mon Nov 10 14:39:32 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 08:39:32 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: SPAM (was Depressing Thought. from Laurenceof Berkeley) References: <015f01c3a4cb$478c4fc0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: > You don't truly believe that people will only send you the > mail in the way you want it to be sent, do you? > > If you do, your belief conflicts with your mailbox ... > No, but I do believe it could be regulated a bit. Here is what I don;t understand, and maybe someone can clear this up. OK. Currently, the sending of unsolicited email is illegal. Unfortunately, the only penalty the senders seem to be paying is to have their sites tracked down. Now it is my understanding that these people are doing this in order to make money from a website at some end point. Otherwise, they wouldn;t send the spam. So I see this as one possibility. 1.) Make the penalties stiffer with fines which increase with each instance. 2.) Make a standard set of subject lines for each industry 3.) Heavy fines or jail time for those who intentionally mislead in the subject lines Tracking the people should be as easy as having a task force follow a link to their website, making a small purchase on a credit card, and following the money. The FBI is very good at following funds. I don;t understand why this should be any different. All it lacks is a real desire to tackle the problem. Am I missing anything here? From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Mon Nov 10 14:59:34 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 08:59:34 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Luddite Leadership: The New Atlantis References: <20031110015325.45809.qmail@web80407.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Tit for tat. Maybe it is time for me to build my own website to counter theirs. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrian Tymes" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 7:53 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Luddite Leadership: The New Atlantis > --- Greg Burch wrote: > > http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/2/keiper.htm > > > > that shows a very good grasp of the possibilities of > > Drexlerian nanotechnology. What's important here is > > not what the article is (other, similarly clued-in > > articles are becoming common outside the narrow > > confines of transhumania), but WHERE it is. "The > > New Atlantis" has clearly been formed as a rallying > > point for the anti-progress party, and that they are > > zeroing in on Drextech should give us all cause for > > concern. > > Actually, I find it most refreshing that even our > enemies have such a good field guide to the facts. > It's biased in the opinions it offers in addition to > the facts, true, but it means we can argue the facts > rather than made-up hysteria. > > > Another article in the first issue deals with > > transhumanism square-on, calling it "extinctionism" > > because it posits progress beyond the human: > > > > http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/1/rubin.htm > > > > This article discusses Moravec and Kurzweil and will > > set the teeth of a transhumanist on edge, but again, > > what's important is that the discussion is happening > > in a forum designed to define policy. > > I snickered as I read it. I did not see a single > argument made there that has not been made, and > thoroughly countered, elsewhere. For instance, the > sharp discontinuity between human and uploaded mind: > there have been ways proposed to utterly eliminate > that discontinuity. > > If this is the best our enemies - and I use the term > deliberately, even if the immediate battle is for > hearts and minds rather than lives - can muster, as it > seems it may be, we have little to worry about. (We > can't slack off, of course, but this is a level of > opposition we can handle.) > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Mon Nov 10 15:46:23 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:46:23 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <3FAF4F9E.5030308@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <002d01c3a7a1$ce516580$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Natasha wrote: > 3. Why is all life on earth asymmetric at a molecular level. The amino > acids that make up proteins on earth all have a "left-handed" > (levorotary) chirality and the sugars that make up > carbohydrates are > "right-handed" (dextrorotary). This is quite literally an extropic > riddle because in any standard synthesis reaction occurring > in nature > (enzymatic reactions don't count because enzymes themselves are > composed of these asymmetrically "left-handed" amino acids and you > get the chicken or the egg problem) the resulting molecules are a > racemic mixture i.e. composed of equal amounts of "left-handed" and > "right-handed" molecules. I would guess it had to do with the Coriolis effect during evolution. This is the force that makes water spin one direction over the other while flowing down the drain. I would guess that it is easier for molecules to bend in one direction compared to the other. -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 10 16:05:44 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 17:05:44 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <002d01c3a7a1$ce516580$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> References: <3FAF4F9E.5030308@mail.tele.dk> <002d01c3a7a1$ce516580$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Message-ID: <20031110160544.GQ13214@leitl.org> On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 10:46:23AM -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > I would guess it had to do with the Coriolis effect during evolution. This > is the force that makes water spin one direction over the other while > flowing down the drain. I would guess that it is easier for molecules to http://www.tafkac.org/faq2k/science_3.html > bend in one direction compared to the other. You're kidding, right? Autoamplification of initial random fluke (the very first autocatalytic set, could have happened adsorbed on a silicate surface, but it's not really strictly necessary, could have happened on an achiral surface or solution bulk as well) in the initial prebiotic racemate ur-pool is the only plausible hypothesis so far. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cryofan at mylinuxisp.com Mon Nov 10 16:45:28 2003 From: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com (randy) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:45:28 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Europe vs America (was Depressing thought....) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 18:03:44 -0600, you wrote >The corporate form per se is no more or less problematic than any other means of holding and using property and contract rights. The problem arises when state power is fused with the form through corporatist government policies. Blaiming "corporations" is like blaming any other interest group that bids for and buys government favor, be they "farmers," "unions" or other organized groups that manage to garner preferential treatment from the state. Corporations are RELATVELY weak in the EU (compared to the US), but these other organized interest groups have done just as much harm by co-opting state power for their special interests in the EU -- viz. France and their endless strikes and labor-driven politics, But how do you define "harm"? The strikes in Europe are simply the expression of solidarity of the people and have resulted in the superior living conditions of the French (and other NW European countries), as compared to the Americans: The average American works 25% more hours than the average French. And the average French does not have to ever worry about getting cancer and not being able to pay for treatment--medical care is provided by the state without charge in France. Likewise, they do not have to worry about saving up for their child's education -- it is provided without charge by the state. Plus, if the job comes to an end, there is long term unemployment. The French obtained this superior lifestyle through strikes and other tactics. So where is the "harm"? Or did you mean "benefit"? :-) >or the agricultural protectionism in the EU that is one of the main factors derailing free trade in the >world. The evil doesn't lie in the legal form per se, but in the sell-out of state power. American govt sells out 10 times worse than any of the NW Euro countries. The European citizenry would (and have) shut down their countries if they think they have been sold out. ------------- The United States of America: If you like low wages, you'll love long hours! From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Mon Nov 10 17:03:17 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:03:17 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] no life on Earth Message-ID: There's no life on Earth! At least that's what the Viking Mars lander would have found had it landed in Chile's Atacama Desert. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/08marsnolife/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Mon Nov 10 16:59:54 2003 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:59:54 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <20031110160544.GQ13214@leitl.org> Message-ID: <001101c3a7ac$13c2e8a0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT> Eugen Leitl wrote, OK, you got me. I was duped by this urban legend as well. I was not aware that the Coriolis effect was too weak to observe in water draining out of a sink. -- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Mon Nov 10 17:16:20 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:16:20 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Extropian wars Message-ID: I just had a thought, but I doubt it was the first time it has been brought up here. When the first "uploads" become available and people are actually able to become immortal, and when cryo-preserved people canbe brought back, the religious establishment is going to go beserk. I remember reading something many years ago where they were talking about how in the "future" everyone will be given a number and would not be able to conduct financial transactions without it. This would be implanted into the hand or the forehead. Many christians believe this is the proverbial "number of the beast" Given the slow speed at which religion can change to reflect new scientific breakthroughs, I see that an impending singularity, approaching ever faster, would create a backlash from religious freaks throughout the world. They will see this promise of immortality in exchange for a binary existance the ultimate expression of satan's plan and the "number of the beast". All who take this number will be doomed to hell and the rest will be expecting and might possibly begin a process that leads to armageddon. This could become a polarizing force which would pit transhumans against christians. Families would break apart and ultimately, war would break out as fanatical christians take to destroying all machines capable of supporting uploads on the grounds that they are doing God's work. Whew. A scary proposition! Could make for a decent work of fiction if I can find time to write it. Of course, I'm sure this has been discussed here, but it just recently came to my mind. Maybe before we start uploading, we had better find a way off this planet. Kevin Freels -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Mon Nov 10 17:25:27 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 18:25:27 +0100 (CET) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Extropian wars In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > > > >I just had a thought, but I doubt it was the first time it has been brought up here. > >When the first "uploads" become available and people are actually able to become immortal, and when cryo-preserved people canbe brought back, the religious establishment is going to go beserk. I don't know if you read "Permutation City" by Greg Egan. It doesn't deal with this problem, but something can be read between the lines. In the book, most the early uploads are rich people. Very rich, since they need to afford powerful hardware to have their uploads run at a sufficient speed to interact with the outside world (and, at least at the beginning of the book, no significant "virtual" world seem to be estabilished). It's a work of fiction, but I believe-OOOOOPS!!! I think that it is a reasonable position: rich and powerful people are as human as the rest, and at least a fraction of them will jump into immortality, *when* they can see that it's real, and not some hothead delirium. Money and power will go a long way at countering opposition. The first virtual enclaves may and up quite closed, and quite defensive too. And the actual hardware must be either secured and guarded, or as dispersed and backed up as possible. Now, if 90% of the elite goes squarely against uploads, and is willing to dump a few 100M $ to stop it... Ciao, Alfio From twodeel at jornada.org Mon Nov 10 17:30:03 2003 From: twodeel at jornada.org (Don Dartfield) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 09:30:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Extropian wars In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Nov 2003, Alfio Puglisi wrote: > I don't know if you read "Permutation City" by Greg Egan. It doesn't > deal with this problem, but something can be read between the lines. In > the book, most the early uploads are rich people. Very rich, since they > need to afford powerful hardware to have their uploads run at a > sufficient speed to interact with the outside world (and, at least at > the beginning of the book, no significant "virtual" world seem to be > estabilished). Another good book of his dealing with something along these lines is _Diaspora_. From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it Mon Nov 10 17:35:16 2003 From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 18:35:16 +0100 (CET) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Extropian wars In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Nov 2003, Don Dartfield wrote: >Another good book of his dealing with something along these lines is >_Diaspora_. Warning: spoiler following! . . . . . . Diaspora is one of the best books I read on uploads, but it's set very farther away: thousands of years have passed since the virtual worlds were started, and only a tiny percentage of humanity is still living on the Earth surface. Their opposition has almost no power, except to harm themselves. Ciao, Alfio From rhanson at gmu.edu Mon Nov 10 18:12:36 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 13:12:36 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110093343.022b0668@mail.gmu.edu> In September 2000, the NSF held a Workshop on "Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology", and soon after issued a report: http://wtec.org/loyola/nano/NSET.Societal.Implications/ I complained about that report, and so and have been invited to participant in the next version of the conference, being held December 3-5, 2003 (with abstracts due Nov. 17). I haven't been thinking much about this topic for a while, and so I thought I'd strike up a conversation here to see what current thinking is and to refresh my mind. An easy simple opinion to have is that nanotech won't have much in the way of specific social implications. In this view, manufacturing will slowly become more precise and more automated, as it has for centuries, and so the social implications of nanotech are subsumed by the social implications of generally improving tech, and any specific products that enables. Another opinion that I've heard has more distinct social implications, though I'm not sure how many people (still?) take it seriously. It is described in the novel "Diamond Age" and in several books by Drexler and company. In that vision, future manufacturing becomes much like how PCs are used today. People have personal general manufacturing devices (PGMD, I'll call them) close to home, and most consumer goods are produced locally on PGMDs, via downloaded designs and a few general feedstocks. A variation on this position posits that PGMDs can produce more PGMDs relatively quickly. And a refinement of this position posits that such self-reproducing PGMDs dramatically lowers costs relative to technology available just prior to this point. I'll focus my musings for now on this Drexlerian scenario, though I'm interested to hear if there are others that are taken seriously. Here are some tentative observations, in no particular order: 1. It is often assumed that a world of PGMDs is one of marginal costs near the cost of feedstocks, with the main fixed cost being the cost of design. But this depends crucially on the PGMDs being typically used well below capacity, as most PCs are today. Most manufacturing plants today have a pretty low marginal cost, in terms of how much you save if you operate them below capacity. But since the plants are used near capacity, this makes them little like software or other goods that really do have a low marginal cost of production. 2. A big question is by what factor general manufacturing devices are less efficient than specialized manufacturing devices, either in terms of production time, material waste, or final product quality. The bigger this factor is, the larger need to be the scale economies in the production of PGMDs for them to dominate. At the moment most manufacturing devices are really quite specialized. 3. PGMDs embody almost *fully* automated manufacturing - if they need people to step in frequently to diagnose and fix assembly line problems, they become much less attractive. While many manufacturing plants today are highly automated, it may cost quite a lot to produce designs for fully automated production processes. So design costs may be a lot higher. 4. The manufacturing fraction of the cost of most consumer goods today is rather small (15%), and only part (~1/3) of those manufacturing costs now are the physical capital, rather than labor and design. So it is not clear how just lowering those manufacturing costs will have a huge effect on the economy. 5. If the cost of designing and building an effective self-reproducing PGMD is much higher that of ordinary PGMDs, there might be plenty of ordinary ones around before any self-reproducing ones appear, minimizing the social impact of this transition. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Mon Nov 10 18:31:18 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:31:18 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] vitrification question Message-ID: To vitrify, or not to vitrify: that is the question. Whether 'tis healthier for the mind to suffer the ripping and tearing of Molar Glycerol, or to take arms against these destructions of the mind and by decapitation, prevent them. To freeze: to sleep; is there more? And by a freeze to say we end the heart-ache and the imminent cellular death that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to freeze; To freeze: perchance to live: ay, there's the rub; For after that sleep of cryopreservation what life may come when we have replaced this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect that makes calamity of immortal life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of deceased love, the law's ineptitude, the ignorance of the religious and the spurns, that patient merit of unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, to think and explore under a binary life, but that dread of nothingness after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller has yet returned. puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have than to fly to others we are unsure of; Thus does consciousness make cowards of us all; OK. I digressed a bit. But really. I am assuming most, if not all of you are signed up with Alcor just in case... I am doing it now. I am trying to decide between neurosuspension and full body, or the open-ended option. I am leaning towards neurosuspension because of the vitrification process. Any comments? Also, if you are neurosuspended, what do they do with the rest of the body? Just curious. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Mon Nov 10 18:44:28 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:44:28 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Extropian wars References: Message-ID: Every time I turn around, there is another book suggested that I read. I can hardly keep track of them. I am going to attempt the assimilation of a list of suggested reading in both fiction and non-fiction catagories and post it on a website for anyone and everyone. I would like to include a brief synopsis as well. If anyone would like to contribute to my little project, please email me offlist with the information. I am setting up the site at http://transhumanismbooks.iwarp.com It won't be anything fancy, but hey, it's something. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alfio Puglisi" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 11:35 AM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Extropian wars > On Mon, 10 Nov 2003, Don Dartfield wrote: > > >Another good book of his dealing with something along these lines is > >_Diaspora_. > > Warning: spoiler following! > > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > > Diaspora is one of the best books I read on uploads, but it's set very > farther away: thousands of years have passed since the virtual worlds were > started, and only a tiny percentage of humanity is still living on the > Earth surface. Their opposition has almost no power, except to harm > themselves. > > > Ciao, > Alfio > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From thespike at earthlink.net Mon Nov 10 18:38:52 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:38:52 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech References: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110093343.022b0668@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <00c201c3a7b9$e5c09de0$e2994a43@texas.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robin Hanson" Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 12:12 PM > Another opinion that I've heard has more distinct social implications, > though I'm not sure how many people (still?) take it seriously. It is > described in the novel "Diamond Age" and in several books by Drexler and > company. In that vision, future manufacturing becomes much like how PCs > are used today. People have personal general manufacturing devices (PGMD, > I'll call them) close to home, and most consumer goods are produced locally > on PGMDs, via downloaded designs and a few general feedstocks. It's some time since I read DIAMOND AGE, but as I recall matter compilers were almost exactly NOT like PCs or microwave ovens; they were large `mainframe-like' gadgets more akin to ATMs. This was (I think) a social control mechanism, as well as a security precaution against random crackers compiling Sarin gas, machine guns, etc. This might well be what we'd expect to see if Drextech-ish molecular manufacture arrives in the next 15-30 years. (BTW, I still prefer and recommend my term `mint', from Molecular Nanotechnology or MNT, to an unpronounceable acronym like `PGMD'.) Damien Broderick From amara at amara.com Mon Nov 10 17:43:55 2003 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 19:43:55 +0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] Domiciles Message-ID: At 12:00 PM -0700 11/8/03, Spike wrote: > > > Robert J. Bradbury: > > ... is Spike's front lawn most extropic as-is or >> after it has been subjected to a delivery from space of birthday >> eclairs? R. > >Hey that gives me an idea. (As Robert's posts often do.) >We should have an extropic lawn contest. Or rather an >extropic domicile contest, where entrants suggest ways >in which their digs promote extropy. Having shelves full >of cool books is a good start, but what we want are ideas >and designs that promote extropian style and aesthetics, >which may be considered by some unenlightened sorts as >merely a subset of geek chic. > >Golden ratio ellipses in the lawn would count, as would >voice activated light switches and automated control of >appliances and such. Lets see some of that perpetual >progress and dynamic optimism, expressed in our immediate >personal surroundings. Websites count as part of the >home in a sense, so Anders and Greg Burch are strong >contestants already. One's conveyance is also a part >of one's personal environment, so if one has a car that >expresses extropian ideals, that counts too. > >Artistic sorts like Natasha and Anders could perhaps >judge the aesthetics, and the hard core techies such >as Robert and Damien could judge the technical merit, >kinda like the figure skaters who get two scores which >are then sold to the highest b... I mean *averaged* to >get the final score. The following is a description of parts of my domicile. I don't propose it for a contest entry (I'm still building furniture...), but you might like the description of the parts I like best. Thank you for helping me look at my home in a different light, Spike. If I were to describe my domicile, I would call it "Amara's Road (*) on the Edge of the Eternal City". Why? One window overlooks the city of Rome, another window looks to a 710m mountain called Monte Cavo, through which an ancient Roman road (Via Sacra) meanders. Traveling, motion and pieces of the Universe (mostly the Earth) are primary themes that move through my home (but please ignore the boxes!) Library -------- In my largest moves, I've towed my faithful library behind me. My books collectively weave the cloak, which I wear to keep me warm. (~1000 books: mostly math, physics, astronomy, numerical analysis, software, languages, poetry, classics, philosophy, psychology, mythology, photography, art, science fiction) * my favorite books from my bookshelf here: http://www.amara.com/aboutme/renhuman.html I find languages both fascinating and a bit scary, but I must know some because they are my bridges in my physical and intellectual travels. Languages help me to enter into the worlds of the people I meet, as well as learn something from human's and my family's past. Language (learning+general) books: German, Latvian, Italian, some Estonian, some Polish, some Czech, and Dictionaries (in above languages + French, Russian, Finnish, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, Hawaiian) Tasting is part of the traveling, therefore, in my kitchen I have food recipe books, in Latvian, Estonian, Hungarian, German, Greek, and Italian languages in addition to English, and some notes of translations of cooking measures such as 'teaspoon', 'Tablespoon'... Photographs (blown up, matted, framed) on my walls --------------------------------------------------- On my smaller moves, my bike(**) and my camera have been typically my companions. (~10 of my photos, mostly b&w, some color) some can be seen here: http://www.amara.com/photo/NBSunset.jpg http://www.amara.com/photo/beachsunrise.jpg http://www.amara.com/photo/KlamathLake1.jpg http://www.amara.com/photo/KlamathLake2.jpg http://www.amara.com/photo/TreePath.jpg http://www.amara.com/photo/YosemiteRoad.jpg http://www.amara.com/photo/JoshuaRoad.jpg http://www.amara.com/photo/FoggyFarm.jpg http://www.amara.com/photo/LonelyBranch.jpg (web gallery here: http://www.amara.com/photo/photo.html) (two Etna volcano shots, taken by my best friend) http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/etna/etna02/etna0211southvent/icons/s55.jpg (left) http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/etna/etna02/etna0211ashandpeople/icons/p52.jpg 'Beaches' --------- I have a collection of shells/sand/glass/driftwood/seagullfeathers/glass fishing floats/ etc. from some places I've lived in or visited since 1961. In 1998, when I moved to Germany, I found I missed the ocean alot, so I constructed a small beach in a large rectangular baking dish from elements of my collection. Over time I've mixed the beach elements together, so now I have a kind of 'World white sand beach' with beach elements from Oahu, Maui, Molokai (Hawaiian Islands), Southern and Northern California, Sagres (Portugal). I am in the process of creating a small black sand beach with beach elements from Stromboli, Vulcano, Lipari, Pantelleria, Hawaii (the island). A friend gave me white sand he collected from Easter Island, so I keep that separate in clear wine glass with an outline of the map of the world. The snapshot of my mind covering my refrigerator door ------------------------------------------------------- I like to buy refrigerator magnets from places to which I travel because they are relatively cheap souvenirs that fit easily in my luggage. I have many and it is with these magnets that I pin to the refrigerator the images from my mind. From bookshops (usually) I've found interesting and artistic postcard-sized images or images+words that reflect some part of my present thinking and emotions. Some are thoughts of ways of being, other cards are dreams, and other cards are moods. I have a hundred or so of these, so I rotate the snapshot of mind on my refrigerator door every few months. Web: http://www.amara.com/ (many layers deep, an extension of my mind, so no site map exists) (*) Polaroid Snapshot of a sign in my home: "Amara's Road" http://www.amara.com/aboutme/medsign.gif This sign existed in my childhood in Haleiwa (Oahu), Hawaii. The cross street was Kalanianiole Highway. When I was young, it was a dirt road. My friends lifted this sign as a going away gift to me when I moved from Hawaii while the road was still a dirt road. The city of Haleiwa replaced it with a green Amara Road sign. When I was older, Amara Road became paved. Then when I was in my late teens, Amara Road was paved over to become the parking lot of a supermarket. (**) Amara's faithful steed: http://www.amara.com/port/parkedbike at Sines_50.jpg -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara at amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." --Anais Nin From thespike at earthlink.net Mon Nov 10 18:54:13 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:54:13 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] The Extropian wars References: Message-ID: <00e001c3a7bc$0c82e120$e2994a43@texas.net> kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > >I just had a thought, but I doubt it was the first time it has been brought up here. > > > >When the first "uploads" become available and people are actually able to become immortal, and when cryo-preserved people canbe brought back, the religious establishment is going to go beserk. >"Permutation City" by Greg Egan. An earlier novel (although not a terribly well argued one IMHO) is 1960s' sf bad boy Norman Spinrad's DEUS X, where a dying Catholic priest agrees to be uploaded to learn whether he retains a soul in this new embodiment; the shock finding is that he doesn't. Spinrad referred to this fictional outcome in his dismissive ASIMOV'S review of THE SPIKE, http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0106/stories/asimovs.onbooks.shtml as if his novel had settled the question in advance and rendered any further discussion of transhumanist uploading prospects irrelevant, stupidly reductionist, or Pollyannaish. Damien Broderick From wingcat at pacbell.net Mon Nov 10 19:20:49 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:20:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] The Extropian wars In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20031110192049.42678.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com> --- kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote: > This could become a polarizing force which would pit > transhumans against christians. Families would break > apart and ultimately, war would break out as > fanatical christians take to destroying all machines > capable of supporting uploads on the grounds that > they are doing God's work. > > Whew. A scary proposition! Could make for a decent > work of fiction if I can find time to write it. It already has. One recent example: a modified form of this (augmented people in general, not just uploads) was part of Starcraft's backstory. (The augmented ones lost and were exiled; when, eventually, they settled, they just happened to land in the path of an alien army.) Which is not to say that there's not room for many more good takes on it. Problem is, without being handled very carefully, most people might find themselves identifying with the "evil" religious types, and take it as an encouragement to ossify their views against technology. From jacques at dtext.com Mon Nov 10 19:30:34 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 20:30:34 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Domiciles In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16303.59226.323263.78819@localhost.localdomain> Amara Graps a ?crit (10.11.2003/19:43) : > http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/etna/etna02/etna0211southvent/icons/s55.jpg Oh my... (don't miss that!) Jacques From amara at amara.com Mon Nov 10 18:57:18 2003 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 20:57:18 +0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] (not exactly) Domiciles Message-ID: Jacques: >http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/etna/etna02/etna0211southvent/icons/s55.jpg >Oh my... (don't miss that!) Incredible, hmm? Here are more: (look for those taken by Marco Fulle) http://www.stromboli.net/ Amara From hal at finney.org Mon Nov 10 20:16:29 2003 From: hal at finney.org (Hal Finney) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:16:29 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech Message-ID: <200311102016.hAAKGTY29723@finney.org> I have a lot of trouble considering these future scenarios. All these possibilities get mixed together, sometimes in contradictory ways. What about AI? Surely computer aided design will be much farther along, and even if Moore's Law stops working in the next decade, nanotech could put us back on track. This should greatly decrease the need for human engineers, although artistic ability may not be so easy to bottle. Likewise for robotics? What will these imply for labor? How will people work, what will they do? What will happen if the demand for labor begins dropping by several percent per year or even faster, over a multi-year period? PGMDs would essentially eliminate transportation, labor and capital costs for products. What else is there? Design and marketing? What if the AIs can do most of that, too? Even if we keep factories, presumably the same improved efficiencies in the manufacuring process can apply to transportation and any other costs which can be further automated or made more efficient. What exactly are the PGMDs building all day? Could we reach a state of satiation, where we simply can't consume as much as our machines can produce? What would that imply for the economy? Or would we always be in a situation of scarcity? Could we have an "open source" economy, where people work on whatever interests them, or create designs that satisfy their own needs, then make the fruits of their labor available to everyone for free? What if nanotech ultimately drives capital costs to near zero, eliminates labor as a component of manufacturing costs, drastically reduces design costs, and similarly makes every economic factor tremendously cheaper? What does the resulting economy look like? If nanotech really does all this, then whether it happens in one year or twenty years, you're going to have major dislocations. I think it would be useful to see an economic analysis of the economy in a mature nanotech era like this. Maybe it is obvious to an economist, but it is hard for a non-specialist to see how all the pieces would fit together, when everything is so different from what we are used to. Hal From rhanson at gmu.edu Mon Nov 10 20:18:46 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 15:18:46 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <00c201c3a7b9$e5c09de0$e2994a43@texas.net> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110093343.022b0668@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110151324.01702050@mail.gmu.edu> At 12:38 PM 11/10/2003 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > > "Diamond Age" ... vision, future manufacturing becomes much like how PCs > > are used today. People have personal general manufacturing devices (PGMD, > > I'll call them) close to home, and most consumer goods are produced > > locally on PGMDs, via downloaded designs and a few general feedstocks. > >It's some time since I read DIAMOND AGE, but as I recall matter compilers >were almost exactly NOT like PCs or microwave ovens; they were large >`mainframe-like' gadgets more akin to ATMs. It's been some time since I read it too, but the key point is that they were near final customers, and so nearly as numerous as customers. >This was (I think) a social >control mechanism, as well as a security precaution against random crackers >compiling Sarin gas, machine guns, etc. This might well be what we'd expect >to see if Drextech-ish molecular manufacture arrives in the next 15-30 years. I want to factor out the social control hypotheses - first I want to understand the technical/cost possibilities, and then I can evaluate regulatory options. >(BTW, I still prefer and recommend my term `mint', from Molecular >Nanotechnology or MNT, to an unpronounceable acronym like `PGMD'.) "Mint" has more ordinary connotations, and MNT is ambiguous about plant size and nearness to customers. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From etheric at comcast.net Mon Nov 10 20:26:33 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:26:33 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] (not exactly) Domiciles References: Message-ID: <004601c3a7c8$ef537df0$0200a8c0@etheric> Well I was going to show you mine, but all I have now is a pic of this life extension experiment gone horribly wrong... http://www.zvis.com/images/nuks/sedan.jpg From max at maxmore.com Mon Nov 10 20:41:41 2003 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 14:41:41 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110093343.022b0668@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031110143452.039ab680@mail.earthlink.net> Robin, The following article on "direct manufacturing", though not about nano, has some relevant thoughts that you might find worth scanning quickly: Instant Manufacturing Ivan Imato Technology Review, November 2003 http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/amato1103.asp My review (and links to related material such as "Fax It Up, Scotty"): http://www.manyworlds.com/exploreCO.asp?coid=CO1140318504119 I'd also highly recommend the new book "Experimentation Matters" since PGMDs -- or steps along the way to them -- would boost rapid prototyping and other approaches analyzed extensively in Stefan Thomke's book. My review of the book is here: http://www.manyworlds.com/exploreCO.asp?coid=CO1130316143063 Onward! Max _______________________________________________________ Max More, Ph.D. max at maxmore.com or more at extropy.org http://www.maxmore.com Strategic Philosopher Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org _______________________________________________________ From CurtAdams at aol.com Mon Nov 10 20:44:25 2003 From: CurtAdams at aol.com (CurtAdams at aol.com) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 15:44:25 EST Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech Message-ID: <75.1c362219.2ce152a9@aol.com> In a message dated 11/10/03 10:18:19, rhanson at gmu.edu writes: >1. It is often assumed that a world of PGMDs is one of marginal costsnear >the cost of feedstocks, with the main fixed cost being the cost of >design. But this depends crucially on the PGMDs being typically used well >below capacity, as most PCs are today. Most manufacturing plants today >have a pretty low marginal cost, in terms of how much you save if you >operate them below capacity. But since the plants are used near capacity, >this makes them little like software or other goods that really do have >a low marginal cost of production. Right. The distinction between nanotechnology (machines able to operate at very small scales) and Drextech (self-replicating nanotechnology) is critical here. If machines have to be constructed then there's no reason to construct excess (costly) so they will, as you point out, have similar economics to macromachinery. Only if they replicate will you get a situation like biology where the cost of something (in the long term) is basically the cost to feed it. Even with self-replication current IP laws would defer most of the effects for the duration of the patent. Given the demonstrable clout of major patentholders (e.g. Microsoft) they might figure out how to extend patent indefinitely. >2. A big question is by what factor general manufacturing devices are less >efficient than specialized manufacturing devices, either in terms of >production time, material waste, or final product quality. That's a great question and I know there's work on this. Specialization -> efficiency goes back to Adam Smith. Unfortunately my vague recollections from reading some of this stuff is that the results are contentious. Anything quantitative on this would be great. The hip pop versions of complexity theory certainly encourage the idea that there *would* be fairly general rules, but I've never seen anything, so it's probably not there. There might be some studies from chip design. >3. PGMDs embody almost *fully* automated manufacturing - if they need >people to step in frequently to diagnose and fix assembly line problems, >they become much less attractive. While many manufacturing plants today >are highly automated, it may cost quite a lot to produce designs for fully >automated production processes. So design costs may be a lot higher. Drextech vs. nanotech again; only if you self-replicate can you erase your inital design costs. The trend in the modern world is to higher specialization. The big exception is computer chips. But, to be fair, to *use* the generalized chip requires a lot of *software* design and I'd expect the same for nanotech. If Drextech doesn't fly, or at least doesn't soon, I would expect nanobot to be made by methods similar to chip manufacturing, etching and layers large numbers of duplicates on a single block. >4. The manufacturing fraction of the cost of most consumer goods today is >rather small (15%), and only part (~1/3) of those manufacturing costs now >are the physical capital, rather than labor and design. So it is not clear >how just lowering those manufacturing costs will have a huge effect on the >economy. Good point; not too much effect there. I'd think more in terms of nanobots in consumer hands, able to exert physical force on scales an in locations not currently possible. Dishwashers that can actually scrub; carpets that can roll themselves up; home under-gum plaque removers; indwelling periodic catheterization devices; stuff like that. >5. If the cost of designing and building an effective self-reproducing >PGMD is much higher that of ordinary PGMDs, there might be plenty of >ordinary ones around before any self-reproducing ones appear, minimizing >the social impact of this transition. I think manufactured PGMD are almost guaranteed to precede self-reproducing PGMD. How can we build something to do something as complex as self-replication before we're *very* good at making it? I think the transition from manufactured to self-replicating would still have *enormous* social implications, though, if it happens. The values for centralization and for current manufacturing stock could go "poof" in a big hurry, depending on the speed of the transition. From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 10 20:45:01 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 21:45:01 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110093343.022b0668@mail.gmu.edu> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110093343.022b0668@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <20031110204501.GV13214@leitl.org> On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 01:12:36PM -0500, Robin Hanson wrote: > I haven't been thinking much about this topic for a while, and so I thought > I'd strike up a conversation here to see what current thinking is and to > refresh my mind. I doubt things changed much while you weren't looking. It's a small, small pool. > An easy simple opinion to have is that nanotech won't have much in the way > of specific social implications. In this view, manufacturing will slowly Sure, Singularity won't have much in the way of specific social implications. We'll get superhuman AI, it kills/transforms the entire local ecosystem by side effect or malice aforethought, completely remodels the solar system and transforming the entire universe in its lightcone into something we currently can't imagine -- and that's assuming no major new physics. Business as usual, in other words. > become more precise and more automated, as it has for centuries, and so the Sure, a couple of centuries worth of hitherto progress rolled into a month, or a couple of days. Accelerating up to a rate of 3 kYears of progress within 24 hours -- that be 3 kYears of instant superculture progress, of course, not us-current. Pass the butter. What else is new? > social implications of nanotech are subsumed by the social implications of > generally improving tech, and any specific products that enables. > > Another opinion that I've heard has more distinct social implications, > though I'm not sure how many people (still?) take it seriously. It is > described in the novel "Diamond Age" and in several books by Drexler and The first time I read "Diamond Age" I laughed. Apart from broken physics in a whole number of places, the future described was ludicrously incongrous. No superhuman AI. Biology-based infoprocessing being competitive to dry nanoware. Containable gray goo. Ridiculous. Nice science fiction, though. Snow Crash was considerably better, however. Lots more realistic. > company. In that vision, future manufacturing becomes much like how PCs > are used today. People have personal general manufacturing devices (PGMD, > I'll call them) close to home, and most consumer goods are produced locally > on PGMDs, via downloaded designs and a few general feedstocks. A You'll notice Diamond Age doesn't allow end users to design. Even architects are supervised closely (but easy enough to subvert). What do you think Eliezer's PGMD's first batch will be? Hmm, let me guess... No idea. *I* would be fabbing computronium by the metric truckload, though. Cubic meters, cubic miles, if I can afford it. > variation on this position posits that PGMDs can produce more PGMDs > relatively quickly. And a refinement of this position posits that such > self-reproducing PGMDs dramatically lowers costs relative to technology > available just prior to this point. Molecular manufacturing that is useless for its own production doesn't happen. It just gets eaten alive by the other kind. We already can manipulate single atoms and molecules just fine. With processivity indistinguishable from zero, though, and that kills the golden goose before it could even hatch. Things become far more interesting if we can get fractional self-rep closure, and things just explode once closure is over unity. Before, you're limited to nanogram output from very, very large installations. On a budget very much like the Manhattan Project. > I'll focus my musings for now on this Drexlerian scenario, though I'm > interested to hear if there are others that are taken seriously. Here are > some tentative observations, in no particular order: > > 1. It is often assumed that a world of PGMDs is one of marginal costs near > the cost of feedstocks, with the main fixed cost being the cost of Evolution was a pretty good designer, last time I looked. Takes good care of feedstock. Diversifies into places it wasn't originally destined to go. Like: us. A pretty funky metamethod. > design. But this depends crucially on the PGMDs being typically used well > below capacity, as most PCs are today. Most manufacturing plants today > have a pretty low marginal cost, in terms of how much you save if you > operate them below capacity. But since the plants are used near capacity, > this makes them little like software or other goods that really do have a > low marginal cost of production. If you don't have mints minting themselves, or at least going a good way along the way there (looms to weave raw buckys from large-scale thermosynthesis do qualify), you don't have molecular manufacturing. Notice that you can get pretty good computronium by way of autoassembly, no magic mints + Fairy Dust Forte(tm) required. > 2. A big question is by what factor general manufacturing devices are less > efficient than specialized manufacturing devices, either in terms of > production time, material waste, or final product quality. The bigger this > factor is, the larger need to be the scale economies in the production of > PGMDs for them to dominate. At the moment most manufacturing devices are > really quite specialized. How does current economy handle production of production means, including persons? In an exponential rate? Superhuman persons? I'm not sure current economic theory would be a good predictor here. > 3. PGMDs embody almost *fully* automated manufacturing - if they need > people to step in frequently to diagnose and fix assembly line problems, People rarely step in to diagnose and fix the reproduction of locusts and influenza. It's just a no-brainer self-runner. A mint is a lot less complex than a locust. > they become much less attractive. While many manufacturing plants today > are highly automated, it may cost quite a lot to produce designs for fully > automated production processes. So design costs may be a lot higher. What does it take to produce a good meta-designer? A robust morphogenetic code, an evolutionary system, a good nanoscale simulator, and lots of computronium to run the above. As embarrassingly parallel as they come. And that's about the only metainvention you need to make. > 4. The manufacturing fraction of the cost of most consumer goods today is > rather small (15%), and only part (~1/3) of those manufacturing costs now > are the physical capital, rather than labor and design. So it is not clear > how just lowering those manufacturing costs will have a huge effect on the > economy. What would happen to the current economy if Alladin's lamps (with no limitations on use, and no nasty Taliban types inside) could be had at WalMart? > 5. If the cost of designing and building an effective self-reproducing > PGMD is much higher that of ordinary PGMDs, there might be plenty of > ordinary ones around before any self-reproducing ones appear, minimizing > the social impact of this transition. I think it's a highly laudable idea to figure out how to contain that Pandora's box of tightly packed nonlinearities, but I just don't see it happening. It will explode all over the place, and that's probably all for the best. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rhanson at gmu.edu Mon Nov 10 20:46:55 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 15:46:55 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <200311102016.hAAKGTY29723@finney.org> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110153458.01702050@mail.gmu.edu> On 11/10/2003, Hal Finney wrote: >I have a lot of trouble considering these future scenarios. All these >possibilities get mixed together, sometimes in contradictory ways. >What about AI? Surely computer aided design will be much farther along, >and even if Moore's Law stops working in the next decade, nanotech could >put us back on track. ... >Likewise for robotics? >What will these imply for labor? How will people work, what will they >do? What will happen if the demand for labor begins dropping by several >percent per year or even faster, over a multi-year period? ... What if aliens show up? What if time-travelers from the future come back? It seems to me to make the most sense to choose some sort of baseline scenario, then analyze each substantial change by itself, and only after try to combine these scenarios. So let's assume, for the purpose of analyzing nanotech, that automation progresses over the next few decades at a similar pace and character as it has over the last few decades. >PGMDs would essentially eliminate transportation, labor and capital costs >for products. What else is there? Design and marketing? As I said before, whether it eliminates capital costs depends crucially on the cost of creating PGMDs, and on whether they are used to capacity. >Even if we keep factories, presumably the same improved efficiencies >in the manufacuring process can apply to transportation and any other >costs which can be further automated or made more efficient. I don't see why we should presume this. Progress in one area does not imply the same progress in other areas. >What exactly are the PGMDs building all day? Could we reach a state >of satiation, where we simply can't consume as much as our machines can >produce? What would that imply for the economy? Or would we always be >in a situation of scarcity? You are assuming something about how fast these things work. What if they worked very slowly? >Could we have an "open source" economy, where people work on whatever >interests them, or create designs that satisfy their own needs, then >make the fruits of their labor available to everyone for free? The form of the market for designs seems a separate issue. Logically, you could have ordinary factories and open source design, or you could have PGMDs and profit-motivated copyrighted designs. >What if nanotech ultimately drives capital costs to near zero, eliminates >labor as a component of manufacturing costs, drastically reduces design >costs, and similarly makes every economic factor tremendously cheaper? >What does the resulting economy look like? >If nanotech really does all this, then whether it happens in one year >or twenty years, you're going to have major dislocations. I think it >would be useful to see an economic analysis of the economy in a mature >nanotech era like this. Maybe it is obvious to an economist, but it is >hard for a non-specialist to see how all the pieces would fit together, >when everything is so different from what we are used to. Sure, if pigs can fly, the sky is going to look different. But we need to do the analysis step by step, and not jump too quickly to big conclusions. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From jacques at dtext.com Mon Nov 10 20:53:24 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 21:53:24 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal In-Reply-To: <00dd01c3a72f$d5aa11a0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <000101c3a65d$93bd1e40$6501a8c0@SHELLY> <00f001c3a66d$e2894980$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.29556.715292.307100@localhost.localdomain> <005a01c3a706$6a780a00$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> <16302.56711.538309.647078@localhost.localdomain> <00dd01c3a72f$d5aa11a0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <16303.64196.177855.121292@localhost.localdomain> Brett Paatsch a ?crit (10.11.2003/13:10) : > > [Note: Jacques - your arguments below imo are honing in now > on the nub and it matters now - if our time is not to be wasted > in getting to this point (where the truth may be clearer) to be > careful with our (yours and my) language - so apologies in > advance for what may seem like an overdose of pedantry. The > use of the word "one" as oppose to 'you' or 'me' in some cases > makes things clearer and I have substituted it. Please also note > that anybody who hasn't followed this thread will not > NECESSARILY intuitively get it now coming in at this stage.] > > > "I believe that X" allows me [one] to express some degree of > > confidence that X holds: nothing more, nothing less. > > If the audience doesn't give a damn about your [one's] level of > > confidence that X holds, then using this concept is not useful in > > that particular situation. > > > > Thus, it is true that in debates, and if you are [one is] unknown > > to the audience, you [one] might as well not use that word at all, > > and only provide facts and arguments for other people to > > consider and form their own belief > [#1 !!!!] > > -I think you mean opinion or judgement here do you not? -or > are you in fact inadvertly presuming the outcome of our inquiry > - I think that may make my point about the danger of the belief > meme - .i.e. if *you* can't hold the-matter-under-inquiry (belief) > separate from the inquiry process itself !! > (No criticism of you - I think the belief meme critter is really that > slippery - especially for those who think it is harmless). > > > But that is not a problem with the word "belief". It is simply > > that in this situation, no one cares about your "level of > > confidence". > > No as I indicate above it is also that the word is used to prejudice > inquiry. It slips past the guard of those that use it. It is a very, very > slippery meme. I think it just slipped past your (Jacques') guard > above at #1 did it not? Not, it did not. I am not trying to avoid the use of the word "believe", as it seems to me to be (as I said) a perfectly well-defined and useful concept. What I said above is that in some situations, it may be appropriate to avoid to refer in any way to what you believe, and to only provide facts and arguments for other people to consider and form their own belief, i.e. so that they form some picture of reality in which they put some confidence. It's quite plain and I don't think it deserves four exclamation points... > > Suppose that in such a debate, one guest is a famous and > > respected Nobel Prize [winner]. Her use of "belief" is going > > to matter, because people (rightly or wrongly, doesn't matter > > here [in this contention]) are interested in her level of > > confidence that X holds. > > So you think that people (generally) make judgements not on > evidence but on the perceived authority of the presenter ? - On > the whole I think this is true but this is part of my point - It > hurts the cause of shared-truth-discovery to encourage this > natural human tendency to laziness though. And the Nobel > Prize winner does the audience a disservice if she deliberately > engages in persuasion by appeal to authority (ie. if she uses > the statement 'I believe X') rather than ('the evidence indicates > X') by appeal to reason. I might agree with this, too, depending on the context. If someone's belief is based on evidence and theory that he can readily explain, or at least usefully point to, to his audience, it's probably better to do that. But it's often not possible, and in certain situations, stating your belief can be a useful thing to do. If I hire Harvey to manage the security of my network, and that I hear about some threat, I may tell him: "Harvey, do you believe this threat is a concern for our network"? I don't necessarily want him to explicate all the evidence, the experience, the theory, etc. he has. Maybe I couldn't even understand all that, he's the expert in computer security, not me. For some reason (maybe his certification list, maybe a long experience of fruitful collaboration), I trust his competence. So I just want to know what he believes in the instance, and I will make my decision based on this. > > So, I can agree with you on something -- and you'll tell me > > if this matches your preoccupation > *** > [ :-) I prefer contention if you don't mind] Well, you have a contention, but you also seem to have a preoccupation. You are not just arguing about some linguistic thing for the sake of linguistics, it seems to matter a lot more than that to you ("matters of life and death", etc.). (In fact, I wouldn't bother to argue about this if you didn't seem genuinely preoccupied with it.) > > -- namely that if you are [one is] in a hostile situation, and > > you [one] need[s] to convince people, you [one] may as well > > give up on any explicit belief self-attribution, as people may > > seize the occasion to think, "oh, this is just a belief, then". > > That is pretty close to my contention yes. Except to push it > further the *belief* meme is SO SLIPPERY that they may > not even need to formally think the sentence "oh, this is just > a belief, then" - they may do that or they may not even be > *that* aware. Good. I understood your point then, and I agree with it. Are you sure you want to extend it so that I cannot agree? :-) > > I can also agree that when bringing new ideas (like > > transhumanist ideas) into society, we may often find > > ourselves in such situations, and hence it may (sic) > > sometimes be preferable to avoid the use of "belief". > > What do you mean may - can you think of a particular > instance or not? First, let me tell you right away that I will also keep using the word "may", not only the word "belief" (unless you persuade me otherwise), as I find that word useful and non-problematic, too! Now to answer your question, yes, I can think of instances when it should be used, and instances when it should not be used. I gave above examples of the former (asking my security expert, "do you believe this threat should be a concern to us?") and of the latter (useless to talk about your beliefs qua beliefs if the audience doesn't give a damn about the level of confidence with wich you think that something holds). > > (But at other times, > > I think it may (sic) on the contrary be useful to say that > > yes, you do believe in it, and you are not just playing > > with words.) > > How can you know what they *believe* in? This is part > of my point - You can't - even if they use the word belief > as it reliably maps to no specific referent - they are leaving > you to guess at their meaning (and if indeed they even > *have* a meaning and are not merely articulating a > PREJUDICE ?!!!). You seem to be making a confusion between two things, the belief on one hand, and on the other hand the way it was formed, and what it is based on. A belief is bad when it was formed in a silly way and is not based on anything solid. It is not bad *because it is a belief*. The fact that some people have silly beliefs is far from being a sufficient reason to discard the concept of belief, which is actually absolutely essential. In fact, it's exactly the same with trust. Trusting some guru that you should commit suicide to see the light is bad. Does that make trust a bad thing? Of course not. Trust may be a very good thing. And it's necessary in many circumstances, we couldn't do much without it. Trust in the others, trust in oneself. You just need the trust to be based on something solid, or else it's risky. Same with belief. > Please demonstrate your contention that the word belief is useful > by giving an instance where you think it better (than any alternate > word) conveys meaning between people. I believe I did that above in a way that should match your expectation. If not, tell me more precisely what you want and I will try to deliver. Let me add one thing, to make my point even more clear: every time you say "I think that X", you may feel safer and more rational by refering to thought rather than to belief, but what you really mean is actually that you *believe* that X. What else could you mean? Certainly not what is literaly said, namely that you just entertained this thought at that moment (which would not commit you to anything). "Believe", in the family of concepts that serve to express the confidence an individual has in the holding of some fact, is the central one. Removing it is not desirable. But again, I understood your original point about avoid this word in certain situations, and I agree with it. Jacques From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com Mon Nov 10 20:43:32 2003 From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 12:43:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhumanism launched in Mexico Message-ID: <20031110204332.10801.qmail@web41303.mail.yahoo.com> Dear Extropian friends, I just came back from Mexico where I was invited by the World Future Society (Mexico Chapter) to modearate a panel about the future role of corporations. John Smart was also there, and we both gave a public talk broadcasted live to over 15.000 university students. While in Mexico City, I took the time to organize the first formal transhumanist meeting there. We were 10 people at a local restaurant last Saturday, November 8th: 4 media people (3 from technical magazines and 1 from radio), 1 economics student, 1 internationalist, 1 political scientist (but commie:-), 1 computer scientist, 1 high-school deputy director and me. All the participants were very interested: one came from a contact given to me by J. Hughes and the others were people who listened to the talks and presentations by John and me. One participant really surprised me when he gave a copy of his university thesis (just published by Universidad Iberoamericana, the most prestigious private university in Mexico City), which was about transhumanism and posthumanism. As incredible as it sounds, this young guy is really futurist, and now manages a maga! zine called WOW. We also started a Yahoogroup, where we have included a picture of the first meeting and the agenda and minutes of the reunion: http://mx.groups.yahoo.com/group/transhumanismomexico Soon, there will be more information in our web page, and for those interested (who can read Spanish:-) you can se below the message I wrote to my Mexican friends this morning:-) Extropianilly yours, La vie est belle! Yos? =========================================================== Muy estimad at s amig at s transhumanist at s mexican at s: Muchos saludos desde Venezuela. Estoy regresando a Caracas despu?s de una encantadora semana en mi querido M?xico. Un maravilloso viaje coronado con la creaci?n del Cap?tulo Mexicano de la Asociaci?n Transhuman?stica Mundial el pasado s?bado 8 de noviembre en el VIPS del Angel de la Revoluci?n. ?Qu? grupo tan preparado! Con un poco de todo: jovenes y menos j?venes (incluyendo una encantadora abuela transhuman?stica, Alicia, y su joven nieto economista, Luis), ingenieros en computaci?n (Ramiro), comunicadores sociales (Alejandra, Alfredo, Josu? y V?ctor), internacionalistas (Jorge), polit?logos (Rodolfo), etc. Un excelente grupo con gente que conoc?a el movimiento transhumanista desde hace tiempo como Ramiro y el propio Alfredo que escribi? su excelente tesis de grado en la prestigiosa Universidad Iberoamericana sobre el transhumanismo y el posthumanismo. Espero que esto sea apenas el comienzo de un futuro espectacular:-) Transhuman?sticamente, La vie est belle! Yos? La vie est belle! Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 10 21:17:12 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 22:17:12 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <75.1c362219.2ce152a9@aol.com> References: <75.1c362219.2ce152a9@aol.com> Message-ID: <20031110211712.GW13214@leitl.org> On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 03:44:25PM -0500, CurtAdams at aol.com wrote: > > Right. The distinction between nanotechnology (machines able to operate > at very small scales) and Drextech (self-replicating nanotechnology) is It is very important to keep track of the lingo here. Orelse, we arrive at the "dental nanopaste" and "scratch-proof nanoparticle car finish" kind of nanotechnology (I kid you not, last Saturday I was privy to what the Deutsche Museum NanoTag/VDI understands by nanotechnology -- cheap potshots at Drexler & Merkle included). > critical here. If machines have to be constructed then there's no reason to > construct excess (costly) so they will, as you point out, have similar > economics to macromachinery. Only if they replicate will you get a situation > like biology where the cost of something (in the long term) is basically > the cost to feed it. I suggest we talk about molecular manufacturing when we mean molecular manufacturing, and leave the nanofabs (which, somehow, magically came into being, and then, suddenly, somehow can't make parts of themselves, nor otherwise assist in their own manufacturing) roam the plains along the bands of elves and flocks of unicorns. I don't at all think that http://www.jetpress.org/volume13/Nanofactory.htm is how it is going to happen, but we shouldn't regard self-replication as something magical. Even we can do it; why can't machines? > Even with self-replication current IP laws would defer most of the effects > for the duration of the patent. Given the demonstrable clout of major IP laws has remarkably little clout when it comes to limiting the scope of information dissemination. This not only includes directly monkey-consumables, but news and virtual machines (software) as well. All that while people go to jail for it. Why should blueprints be different? It's just information, after all. > patentholders (e.g. Microsoft) they might figure out how to extend patent > indefinitely. Even if we introduce capital punishment (all over the planet? fat chance) IP violations will occur routinely. > >2. A big question is by what factor general manufacturing devices are less > >efficient than specialized manufacturing devices, either in terms of > >production time, material waste, or final product quality. Computers are all-purpose information processing devices. They have almost completely destroyed all special-purpose information processing devices. A nanofab with a structural repertoire equal to or a bit beyond biology will completely transcend biology. We can make computronium from proteins just fine. It's just spintronics in SWNT matrix is so much better. And each iteration of the technology assists its own ascension. > That's a great question and I know there's work on this. > Specialization -> efficiency goes back to Adam Smith. Unfortunately > my vague recollections from reading some of this stuff is that the > results are contentious. Anything quantitative on this would be great. > The hip pop versions of complexity theory certainly encourage the idea > that there *would* be fairly general rules, but I've never seen anything, > so it's probably not there. There might be some studies from chip design. > > >3. PGMDs embody almost *fully* automated manufacturing - if they need > >people to step in frequently to diagnose and fix assembly line problems, > >they become much less attractive. While many manufacturing plants today > >are highly automated, it may cost quite a lot to produce designs for fully > >automated production processes. So design costs may be a lot higher. > > Drextech vs. nanotech again; only if you self-replicate can you erase Let's call it molecular manufacturing, please. > your inital design costs. The trend in the modern world is to higher > specialization. > The big exception is computer chips. But, to be fair, to *use* the > generalized > chip requires a lot of *software* design and I'd expect the same for I get all my software from the global network for free. I could use silicon compilers (for free, of course) to design my own circuits, should I want it. If I had my own desktop nanolithoprinter, you can assume I'd quit my job and started tinkering. So would many, many others. > nanotech. If Drextech doesn't fly, or at least doesn't soon, I would expect > nanobot to be made by methods similar to chip manufacturing, etching and > layers large numbers of duplicates on a single block. I would assume large-scale autoassembly and bottom-up to produce the first simple self-rep systems. > >4. The manufacturing fraction of the cost of most consumer goods today is > >rather small (15%), and only part (~1/3) of those manufacturing costs now > >are the physical capital, rather than labor and design. So it is not clear > >how just lowering those manufacturing costs will have a huge effect on the > >economy. > > Good point; not too much effect there. I'd think more in terms of nanobots > in consumer hands, able to exert physical force on scales an in locations > not currently possible. Dishwashers that can actually scrub; carpets that > can roll themselves up; home under-gum plaque removers; indwelling > periodic catheterization devices; stuff like that. Machine which can actually think and make improved copies of themselves; stuff like that. > >5. If the cost of designing and building an effective self-reproducing > >PGMD is much higher that of ordinary PGMDs, there might be plenty of > >ordinary ones around before any self-reproducing ones appear, minimizing > >the social impact of this transition. > > I think manufactured PGMD are almost guaranteed to precede self-reproducing > PGMD. How can we build something to do something as complex as PROCESSIVITY. Think about it. How do you scale nanograms/h in a large hall to kilotons/h? Not without self-rep. > self-replication before we're *very* good at making it? I think the > transition from manufactured to self-replicating would still have > *enormous* social implications, though, if it happens. The values > for centralization and for current manufacturing stock could go "poof" in > a big hurry, depending on the speed of the transition. We should see the impact of cheap photovoltaics on decentral energy production within the next 10-15 years. Ditto wireless networks linking up to a global mesh. The centralist paradigm is fighting a battle uphill. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From natashavita at earthlink.net Mon Nov 10 21:14:16 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 16:14:16 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] BOOK SIGNING: Brian Alexander's RAPTURE Message-ID: <265000-2200311110211416918@M2W076.mail2web.com> Extropes - Brian Alexander, author of _Rapture_ will be appearing at two border's bookstores to discuss rapture and related issues this coming weekend Nov. 15-16. In his book, Brian outlines the culture of transhumanity and our reach toward improving the human condition. He mentioned many of our friends here in the Transhumanist community of Extropy! :-) I'm currently reading Rapture, and loving it! I'm giggling, over a hot cup of chocolate, at the delightful humor that Brian Alexander uses. It's a marvelous book, and I think that you all will enjoy it. Borders bookstore in Torrance on Torrance Blvd. at 3:00 PM on Saturday the 15th, and at the Brea Borders on South Associated Rd. at 3:00 PM on Sunday the 16th. >! Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 10 21:44:28 2003 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 22:44:28 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110153458.01702050@mail.gmu.edu> References: <200311102016.hAAKGTY29723@finney.org> <5.2.1.1.2.20031110153458.01702050@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <20031110214428.GY13214@leitl.org> On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 03:46:55PM -0500, Robin Hanson wrote: > What if aliens show up? What if time-travelers from the future come back? We can plausibly show that aliens most likely don't exist (or we wouldn't be here). Ditto time travelers (they're really indistinguishable from aliens this way). As are elves, Ents, unicorns and celestial bodies made of ripe gorgonzola. However, it will be a tad more difficult to show that certain widespread local organisms don't think, that we can't figure out how they do it (nor derive those methods from scratch via brute-force evolutionary algorithms), using means of atom-scale imaging of vitrified chunks of said animals, and cheap computational hardware by the metric wagonload. Meaning: ff you postulate molecular manufacturing, you better show a plausible mechanism preventing advent of AI via one of the above routes, or both. > It seems to me to make the most sense to choose some sort of baseline > scenario, then analyze each substantial change by itself, and only after > try to combine these scenarios. So let's assume, for the purpose of If you look at two subcritical chunks of plutonium, you will not arrive at the correct conclusion of what a supercritical assembly of them will bring you, unless you factor in adequate level of theory. > analyzing nanotech, that automation progresses over the next few decades at > a similar pace and character as it has over the last few decades. > > You are assuming something about how fast these things work. What if > they worked very slowly? If they work very, very, very slowly they wouldn't be able to fab themselves, and hence are not there for all practical purposes (see Manhattan project). Nevertheless, self-amplification is exponential in principle. You will notice that humans replicate very, very slowly. It took them a while to become very visible on this local planet here. Nevertheless, we're very lucky their self-reproduction rate is adaptive, and tapering off. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation, by virtue of being dead, or not having been born in the first place. > >Could we have an "open source" economy, where people work on whatever > >interests them, or create designs that satisfy their own needs, then > >make the fruits of their labor available to everyone for free? > > The form of the market for designs seems a separate issue. Logically, What's the market for gcc? autoconf? GNU/Linux? I notice this particular market has been eating several Large Companies alive, yet has not yet found adequate treatment in classical economics circles. > you could have ordinary factories and open source design, or you could > have PGMDs and profit-motivated copyrighted designs. Both have their niches. I'm presuming a more biology-inspired development model, though. > Sure, if pigs can fly, the sky is going to look different. But we need > to do the analysis step by step, and not jump too quickly to big > conclusions. If your premises are bogus, your conclusions are food for the abovementioned airborne porcines. I'm not sure whether you're looking for publishable papers, or trying to map the more radical implications of comparatively simple technologies like molecular nanofacturing (completely ignoring the AI issue for time being). If you're realistic, your peers will reject your papers. If you're conservative, your fellow transhumanists will point and laugh. I'm not sure there's a sweet spot between those two bonfires. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: not available URL: From namacdon at ole.augie.edu Mon Nov 10 21:46:27 2003 From: namacdon at ole.augie.edu (Nicholas Anthony MacDonald) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 15:46:27 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] [FICTION] Strong Medicine Message-ID: <1068500787.b2ef5660namacdon@ole.augie.edu> New short story posted to Salon.com ... may or may not be of interest. http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/11/10/medicine/index1.html -Nicq MacDonald From rhanson at gmu.edu Mon Nov 10 22:03:40 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 17:03:40 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110165151.0232e998@mail.gmu.edu> On Nov 10, 2003 Curt Adams wrote: >Right. The distinction between nanotechnology (machines able to operate >at very small scales) and Drextech (self-replicating nanotechnology) is >critical here. ... Only if they replicate will you get a situation >like biology where the cost of something (in the long term) is basically >the cost to feed it. >Even with self-replication current IP laws would defer most of the effects >for the duration of the patent. Given the demonstrable clout of major >patentholders (e.g. Microsoft) they might figure out how to extend patent >indefinitely. I agree. There are more implications of self-replication, but it is of interest to figure out the implications of what you call ordinary nanotech as well. > >3. PGMDs embody almost *fully* automated manufacturing - if they need > >people to step in frequently to diagnose and fix assembly line problems, > >they become much less attractive. While many manufacturing plants today > >are highly automated, it may cost quite a lot to produce designs for fully > >automated production processes. So design costs may be a lot higher. > >Drextech vs. nanotech again; only if you self-replicate can you erase >your inital design costs. ... I'm not sure I follow you. Self-replication can spreads out the cost of designing the self-replicating PGMDs, but not the cost to design other things one instructs those PGMDs to produce. Even if I have a cheap PGMD, there is work to tell it how to produce some other produce, like a shirt. If the PGMD typically halts halfway into producing a shirt, and needs a human to come fix it, the cost of shirts stays pretty high. So PGMD manufacturing of shirts needs to be very highly automated to make a big difference. >... I'd think more in terms of nanobots >in consumer hands, able to exert physical force on scales an in locations >not currently possible. Dishwashers that can actually scrub; carpets that >can roll themselves up; home under-gum plaque removers; indwelling >periodic catheterization devices; stuff like that. Sure. Knowing that nanotech is possible gives you some idea about how far we can eventually go with a richer economy and better technology. If you didn't believe such things would ever be possible, this is news. >I think manufactured PGMD are almost guaranteed to precede self-reproducing >PGMD. How can we build something to do something as complex as >self-replication before we're *very* good at making it? I think the >transition from manufactured to self-replicating would still have >*enormous* social implications, though, if it happens. The values >for centralization and for current manufacturing stock could go "poof" in >a big hurry, depending on the speed of the transition. Of course this depends on the speed of self-replication. If it takes 15 years for each thing to copy itself, the effect is much smaller. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Mon Nov 10 22:18:43 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 17:18:43 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20031110143452.039ab680@mail.earthlink.net> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110093343.022b0668@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110171405.02334330@mail.gmu.edu> On 11/10/2003 Max More wrote: >The following article on "direct manufacturing", though not about nano, >has some relevant thoughts that you might find worth scanning quickly: >Instant Manufacturing, Ivan Imato, Technology Review, November 2003 >http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/amato1103.asp >My review (and links to related material such as "Fax It Up, Scotty"): >http://www.manyworlds.com/exploreCO.asp?coid=CO1140318504119 >I'd also highly recommend the new book "Experimentation Matters" since >PGMDs -- or steps along the way to them -- would boost rapid prototyping >and other approaches analyzed extensively in Stefan Thomke's book. My >review of the book is here: >http://www.manyworlds.com/exploreCO.asp?coid=CO1130316143063 These are good reference points. Direct manufacturing (perhaps personalized) and rapid prototyping obviously have some social implications, but they are obviously relatively minor compared to the apparent implications of easily-programmable fast self-reproducing PGMDs. So we need to carefully distinguish these different visions, so we can distinguish their social implications and talk about which ones are how likely how soon. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Mon Nov 10 22:20:59 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 17:20:59 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <20031110211712.GW13214@leitl.org> References: <75.1c362219.2ce152a9@aol.com> <75.1c362219.2ce152a9@aol.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110170241.01702050@mail.gmu.edu> On 11/10/2003 Eugen Leitl wrote: > > Even with self-replication current IP laws would defer most of the effects > > for the duration of the patent. Given the demonstrable clout of major > >IP laws has remarkably little clout when it comes to limiting the scope of >information dissemination. This not only includes directly >monkey-consumables, but news and virtual machines (software) as well. ... This is much more true of IP directly consumed by ordinary people than of IP used by large corporations. While people can and do now easily steal music and newspaper articles, and probably movies will fall soon, corporations regularly pay big money to buy software, and this doesn't look likely to change soon. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From thespike at earthlink.net Mon Nov 10 23:15:02 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 17:15:02 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush extols technology's power over censorship and control References: <75.1c362219.2ce152a9@aol.com> <75.1c362219.2ce152a9@aol.com> <5.2.1.1.2.20031110170241.01702050@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <02df01c3a7e0$7ae2c260$e2994a43@texas.net> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/politics/06TEXT-BUSH.html?pagewanted=print &position= Gee: < Historians ... will point to the role of technology in frustrating censorship and central control, and marvel at the power of instant communications to spread the truth, the news and courage across borders. > Damien Broderick From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Tue Nov 11 01:16:55 2003 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 17:16:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <3FAF491F.8030808@mail.tele.dk> Message-ID: <20031111011655.98014.qmail@web60206.mail.yahoo.com> Max M wrote: And another one in the same family: Why is there a limit on the speed of light? *The physics of Special Relativity seem to suggest that it is because you, the observer, are not going the speed of light. It has to do with the higher than 3-dimensionality of space-time. Only if you are going slower than light does light seem to travel at finite speed. In other words, if you could ride along with a photon at the speed of light, from your perspective the Fitzgerald contraction would shrink the universe in your direction of travel to 0 length. More-over time would stop flowing for you. Thus you would be at all points along your vector of travel at once and not take any time to do it in. From your perspective riding along at c, you would be everywhere along the infinite path at once with no time lapse at all. Thus light travels at infinite velocity in its own inertial frame. It is only when someone outside of the photon's inertial reference frame that light has a high yet finite velocity. Unfortunately this always the case since all observers that I can be certain exist have mass and massive observers cannot travel at the speed of light. Then again, many theologians claim that God is eternal and omnipresent. Perhaps He is electromagnetic radiation or a massless observer traveling at c. I don't think that adequately answered your question but I know it has something to do with the percieved passage of liminal time. In other words the fact that we can observe that light takes time to cross a gap follows from the fact that we as observers are able to percieve the passage of time.* _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat The Avantguardian "He stands like some sort of pagan god or deposed tyrant. Staring out over the city he's sworn to . . .to stare out over and it's evident just by looking at him that he's got some pretty heavy things on his mind." --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wingcat at pacbell.net Tue Nov 11 02:13:45 2003 From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 18:13:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles In-Reply-To: <01ff01c3a552$7b381480$47165e0c@hal2001> Message-ID: <20031111021345.5139.qmail@web80406.mail.yahoo.com> --- John K Clark wrote: > 5) How does turbulence work? Microscopic irregularities in the flow, under intense conditions (high pressure or otherwise high energy), get maginified to macroscopic proportions. > 6) How does friction work? A few molecules on one surface keep bonding and debonding with the adjacent, moving surface. Given a few moments, more bondings occur - which is why static friction is higher than moving friction. This was actually studied in depth when they came out with geckotape a while back. > 8) What survival value did our ancestors find > walking on 2 legs gave them? Just a guess, but perhaps both longer-ranged sight and the freeing up of 2 limbs for constant tool use? From etheric at comcast.net Tue Nov 11 03:22:23 2003 From: etheric at comcast.net (R.Coyote) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 19:22:23 -0800 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <20031111021345.5139.qmail@web80406.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <04a601c3a803$06c5a410$0200a8c0@etheric> What survival value did our ancestors find > > walking on 2 legs gave them? to carry more stuff From thespike at earthlink.net Tue Nov 11 03:28:58 2003 From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2003 21:28:58 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <20031111021345.5139.qmail@web80406.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <038401c3a803$f3240c20$e2994a43@texas.net> > 8) What survival value did our ancestors find > walking on 2 legs gave them? Wrecks their backs, which quickly leads to the invention of the walking stick, the first technology.* The rest is prehistory. (Museum paintings and dioramas sometimes incorrectly show these primordial tools as clubs.) Damien Broderick *cf. the celebrated riddle of Oedipus:# `What goes on four legs at dawn, two legs at noon, three legs in the evening?' #yes, I do mean Oedipus Wrecks. From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au Tue Nov 11 11:11:55 2003 From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 22:11:55 +1100 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal Message-ID: <000b01c3a844$9e1318c0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Jacques wrote: >> > "I believe that X" allows .. [one] to express some degree of >> > confidence that X holds: nothing more, nothing less. >> > If the audience doesn't give a damn about .. [one's] level of >> > confidence that X holds, then using this concept is not useful in >> > that particular situation. >> > >> > Thus, it is true that in debates, and if .. [one is] unknown >> > to the audience, .. [one] might as well not use that word at all, >> > and only provide facts and arguments for other people to >> > consider and form their own belief >> [#1 !!!!] >>[Brett] >> - I think you mean opinion or judgement here do you not? >> -or are you in fact inadvertly presuming the outcome of our >> inquiry >> - I think that may make my point about the danger of the >> belief meme - .i.e. if *you* can't hold the-matter-under- >> inquiry (belief) separate from the inquiry process itself !! >> (No criticism of you - I think the belief meme critter is really >> that slippery - especially for those who think it is harmless). >> >> > But that is not a problem with the word "belief". It is >> > simply that in this situation, no one cares about [the speaker's >> > /writer's] "level of confidence". >> >> No as I indicate above it is also that the word is used to > >prejudice inquiry. It slips past the guard of those that use it. > > It is a very, very slippery meme. I think it just slipped past > > your (Jacques') guard above at #1 did it not? > > Not, it did not. I am not trying to avoid the use of the word > "believe", as it seems to me to be (as I said) a perfectly > well-defined and useful concept. There is no point my trying to persuade you that (1) it behoves you to choose not to use the 'belief' word because (2) that would be better for us *if* you are *unable* to stop using it even for the purposes of exploring that possibility. For all I can tell from my position you might be *enthralled* to the meme and I may not be able to do anything to help you. Are you *able* to stop using it whilst it is itself the matter at issue (ie. under our joint exploration)? Are you *willing* to whilst it is itself the matter at issue (ie. under joint exploration)? If the answer to either of these is no - then there is little I can do to persuade *you*. > What I said above is that in some situations, it may (sic) be > appropriate to avoid referring in any way to what you believe, > and to only provide facts and arguments for other people to > consider and form their own belief, i.e. so that they form > some picture of reality in which they put some confidence. [Please note that "may" above is NOT a judgement on point.] Is it your present judgement that it can be counterproductive to use the word 'belief' in some situations then? > > > Suppose that in such a debate, one guest is a famous > > > and respected Nobel Prize [winner]. Her use of "belief" > > > is going to matter, because people (rightly or wrongly, > > > doesn't matter here [in this contention]) are interested > >> in her level of confidence that X holds. > > > > So you think that people (generally) make judgements > > not on evidence but on the perceived authority of the > > presenter ? - On the whole I think this is true but this is > > part of my point - It hurts the cause of shared-truth- > > discovery to encourage this natural human tendency to > > laziness though. And the Nobel Prize winner does the > > audience a disservice if she deliberately engages in > > persuasion by appeal to authority (ie. if she uses > > the statement 'I believe X') rather than ('the evidence > > indicates X') by appeal to reason. > > I might (sic) agree with this, too, depending on the context. > If someone's belief is based on evidence and theory that > he can readily explain, or at least usefully point to, to his > audience, it's probably better to do that. But it's often > not possible, and in certain situations, stating .. [one's] > belief can be a useful thing to do. ["Might" is ambiguous - please resolve the ambiguity by answering the question] Can you make a provisional judgement without labelling that process a belief (even in your own mind)? > If I hire Harvey to manage the security of my network, > and th[en] I hear about some threat, I may tell him: > "Harvey, do you believe this threat is a concern for our > network"? I don't necessarily want him to explicate all > the evidence, the experience, the theory, etc. he has. I'd keep a watch on that hypothetical Harvey as you hired him to secure your network and now it belongs to both of you. (Just joking. You said 'my' then 'our') > ... You are not just arguing about some linguistic thing > for the sake of linguistics, .... True. I'm not. .. [Jacques - [] are Brett's] > > -- namely that if ..[one is] in a hostile situation, and > > .. [one] need[s] to convince people, .. [one] may as > > well give up on any explicit belief self-attribution, as > > people may seize the occasion to think, "oh, this is just > > a belief, then". > > That is pretty close to my contention yes. Except to push it > further the *belief* meme is SO SLIPPERY that they may > not even need to formally think the sentence "oh, this is just > a belief, then" - they may do that or they may not even be > *that* aware. > > Good. I understood your point then, and I agree with it. Are > you sure you want to extend it so that I cannot agree? :-) Actually I let you through with a 'pretty close' and that did neither of us a service. I should not have let your confounding (in the sense of confounding the inquiry) use of the word belief go through. We can't explore 'belief' as a meme until it is clear than you are at least free enough from it to keep it out of the process of exploration itself. To answer your question. No I don't want you to not agree - I respect your right not to be coerced and I hope to persuade you one free mind to another. What I want is to get your agreement that (a) belief is a word that is harmful (at least sometimes would probably do -and I think you and I are at that point already - by your comment below #2). (b) belief is a word that can *always* be replaced by you with no loss of ability to communicate should you so choose. (I don't see that you agree with this point yet). And therefore (c) you should freely choose not to use it in the interests of better communication and to avoid propagating a bad meme that competes with the reasoning meme and is harmful to both of us. Finally (d) if I can persuade you, I'd like you to pass the innoculation service on to someone you respect at the appropriate time. Eventually it may be possible for even the least experienced meme-warriors amongst us to look at any towering ediface of baloney and spot the weaknesses by the conspicuous 'hanging thread' use of 'belief'-meme. Then we may home in on that weakness without having to worry about hitting a mis-guided friendly talking loosely and allowing the BS-artists and enthrallers to hide behind our desire not to hit our friends. That's pretty much what I want. (#2 ? ) [Jacques] > > > I can also agree that when bringing new ideas (like > > > transhumanist ideas) into society, we may often find > > > ourselves in such situations, and hence it may (sic) > > > sometimes be preferable to avoid the use of "belief". > Now to answer your question, yes, I can think of instances > when it should be used, and instances when it should not be > used. I gave above examples of the former (asking my > security expert, "do you believe this threat should be a > concern to us?") and of the latter (useless to talk about > your beliefs qua beliefs if the audience doesn't give a > damn about the level of confidence with w[h]ich you think > that something holds). The example you gave was NOT good. You could have used alternate words. You could (presuming you are not en-thralled to the belief meme) have also said: "Harvey, do you [see] this threat [a]s a concern for our network"? Or if you didn't like "see". "Perceive". Harvey might understand posit very well but not regard it as a better word than "see" or "perceive". Even if you get the desired outcome from Harvey using "believe" that wouldn't mean that you had chosen well not to use another word like 'see' or 'perceive'. Because in using those words instead you would not be propagating the believing meme and getting you and hypothetical Harvey over-comfortable with a way of speaking that might one day trip you and him or both of you up. And I think you have agreed that sometime the belief-word can trip folks up. > You seem to be making a confusion between two things, > the belief on one hand, and on the other hand the way it was > formed, and what it is based on. On the contrary I am concerned with the ramifications of the propagation of the view that believing as opposed to reasoning is a better way of operating in a social and *political* world where believers and reasoners get one vote each. By using belief as a word you unnecessarily propagate it as a meme. To the extent that the rest of your discourse is sensible you give intellectual credit by association to the belief-meme to others who are not yet fully innoculated against it. > The fact that some people have silly beliefs is far from being a > sufficient reason to discard the concept of belief, which is > actually absolutely essential. You have not demonstrated that it is essential. I think I have shown to your satisfaction that sometimes its use is harmful. The only reason I am not sure I have shown that is because you prefix your sentences with 'may' or 'might' rather than make a provisional judgement - at least so far. > In fact, it's exactly the same with trust. Trusting some guru > that you should commit suicide to see the light is bad. Does > that make trust a bad thing? Of course not. Trust may be a > very good thing. And it's necessary in many circumstances, > we couldn't do much without it. Trust in the others, trust in > oneself. You just need the trust to be based on something solid, > or else it's risky. Same with belief. Your conception of trust differs from mine too. But your concept of trust is less dangerously propagated than the belief-meme. > > Please demonstrate your contention that the word belief is > > useful by giving an instance where you think it better (than > > any alternate word) conveys meaning between people. > > I believe I did that above in a way that should match your > expectation. If not, tell me more precisely what you want > and I will try to deliver. I know you did not do that for the reasons I gave. > Let me add one thing, to make my point even more clear: > every time you say "I think that X", you may feel safer > and more rational by refering to thought rather than to > belief, but what you really mean is actually that you > *believe* that X. This is a little worrying. This is the implication of "believers" everywhere. That they can only believe and so that is all that is available to everyone else as well. This is part of what makes believing as a meme so dangerous. Reasoners invites the other to look at what is unsettled between them. Believers (and bs-artists) make unsupported assertions and act on their beliefs and try to get others too. By using their word you actually help them. > What else could you mean? If you stop using the word belief whilst we step through the arguments together you may be able to see what I mean. > But again, I understood your original point about avoid this > word in certain situations, and I agree with it. I am not yet convinced that you did understand it. Perhaps you will (or do). Perhaps you don't and wont. Perhaps you can. Perhaps you can't. Regards, Brett From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Nov 11 14:26:59 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 09:26:59 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <20031110204501.GV13214@leitl.org> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20031110093343.022b0668@mail.gmu.edu> <5.2.1.1.2.20031110093343.022b0668@mail.gmu.edu> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031111090606.02352488@mail.gmu.edu> At 09:45 PM 11/10/2003 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > An easy simple opinion to have is that nanotech won't have much in the way > > of specific social implications. In this view, manufacturing will slowly > >Sure, Singularity won't have much in the way of specific social implications. >We'll get superhuman AI, it kills/transforms the entire local ecosystem by >side effect or malice aforethought, completely remodels the solar system and >transforming the entire universe in its lightcone into something we currently >can't imagine -- and that's assuming no major new physics. Business as usual, >in other words. It is crucial to try to distinguish the various causes of things that might happen in the future, so we can intelligently ask what would happen if some of these causes are realized and others are not. Would the mildest versions of nanotech really, by themselves, induce superhuman AI? It is not obvious. >Sure, a couple of centuries worth of hitherto progress rolled into a >month, or a >couple of days. Accelerating up to a rate of 3 kYears of progress within >24 hours The mildest versions of nanotech don't seem capable of inducing such rapid change. Again, the point is to try to be as clear as possible about what assumptions lead to what conclusions. >You'll notice Diamond Age doesn't allow end users to design. Even architects >are supervised closely (but easy enough to subvert). ... As I said before, I want to separate hypotheses about the technical abilities from hypotheses about regulation. My reference to Diamond age was about the technical abilities, not the regulations described there. >Molecular manufacturing that is useless for its own production doesn't >happen. It just gets eaten alive by the other kind. That assumes that the other kind exists, and is fast/effective enough. > > 2. A big question is by what factor general manufacturing devices are > less > > efficient than specialized manufacturing devices, ... > >How does current economy handle production of production means, including >persons? In an exponential rate? Superhuman persons? I'm not sure current >economic theory would be a good predictor here. Current economic theory isn't as tied as you might think to the state of our current economy. I think that, if used carefully, it is capable of predicting what consequences follow from what assumptions. So I want to get clear on the assumptions. >What does it take to produce a good meta-designer? A robust morphogenetic >code, an evolutionary system, a good nanoscale simulator, and lots of >computronium to run the above. As embarrassingly parallel as they come. >And that's about the only metainvention you need to make. And how damn hard is it to have "lots" of "robust" "good" items like these? > > It seems to me to make the most sense to choose some sort of baseline > > scenario, then analyze each substantial change by itself, and only after > > try to combine these scenarios. ... > >If you look at two subcritical chunks of plutonium, you will not arrive at >the correct conclusion of what a supercritical assembly of them will bring >you, unless you factor in adequate level of theory. Agreed. But you'd need that same level of theory to predict what a critical chuck will do. > > >Could we have an "open source" economy, where people work on whatever > > >interests them, or create designs that satisfy their own needs, then > > >make the fruits of their labor available to everyone for free? > > > > The form of the market for designs seems a separate issue. ... > >What's the market for gcc? autoconf? GNU/Linux? I notice this particular >market has been eating several Large Companies alive, yet has not yet found >adequate treatment in classical economics circles. I meant that open source counts as a market form. We have some insight into it, and some open questions remain, as with all market forms. > > Sure, if pigs can fly, the sky is going to look different. But we need to > > do the analysis step by step, and not jump too quickly to big conclusions. > >If your premises are bogus, your conclusions are food for the abovementioned >airborne porcines. >I'm not sure whether you're looking for publishable papers, or trying to map >the more radical implications of comparatively simple technologies like >molecular nanofacturing (completely ignoring the AI issue for time being). >If you're realistic, your peers will reject your papers. >If you're conservative, your fellow transhumanists will point and laugh. >I'm not sure there's a sweet spot between those two bonfires. I've just said I want to do analysis step by step, carefully making distinctions and identifying assumptions, in the best spirit of academic study. I worry about any conclusions drawn by people who think such an approach is too conservative or unrealistic. Robin Hanson rhanson at gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From jacques at dtext.com Tue Nov 11 16:50:43 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 17:50:43 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Should we drop the "believe" word/concept/behaviour In-Reply-To: <000b01c3a844$9e1318c0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> References: <000b01c3a844$9e1318c0$11262dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <3FB11363.3050206@dtext.com> (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solv... Open the pod door pls Hal) To clear up some potential mess and "home in on the nub" some more: if I speak of "believe", it will be the word; if I speak of , it will be the concept; if I speak of believing, it will be the behaviour. And if I want to use the concept, I will speak of the belief meme (whether this is the most fruitful concept to use we will see in the discussion). Sorry for <> which is slightly non standard, but we need adequate tools for this kind of linguistic stuff. Also, I will kindly ask you not to modify my quotes, as quotes are, well, quotes. Feel free to comment however you like, but please leave what I said as I said it. Brett Paatsch wrote: >> > It is a very, very slippery meme. I think it just slipped past >> > your (Jacques') guard above at #1 did it not? >> >> Not, it did not. I am not trying to avoid the use of the word >> "believe", as it seems to me to be (as I said) a perfectly >> well-defined and useful concept. > >There is no point my trying to persuade you that (1) it behoves >you to choose not to use the 'belief' word because (2) that >would be better for us *if* you are *unable* to stop using it >even for the purposes of exploring that possibility. For all I can >tell from my position you might be *enthralled* to the meme >and I may not be able to do anything to help you. > >Are you *able* to stop using it whilst it is itself the matter at >issue (ie. under our joint exploration)? Yes, I am able to avoid to use the word. >Are you *willing* to whilst it is itself the matter at issue >(ie. under joint exploration)? OK, I will avoid using the word, except when talking about it on purpose. But, depending on what we talk about, I may still use the concept (identical to ), by using the clumsy synonyms you ask me to use instead (see "it is your judgement that" below). And, needless to say, I will keep believing some things (behaviour), i.e. having some confidence that some things hold. Also, as your goal is for me to stop using this word, and as I contend this is not desirable, I cannot just stop using it without further ado, which would by complying with what I don't want. So, I will abstain from using the word for the time being to let you see that it is under my control, but I will add an asterisk(*), so that people reading this understand there is something weird and this is not what I would normally say. >> What I said above is that in some situations, it may (sic) be >> appropriate to avoid referring in any way to what you believe, >> and to only provide facts and arguments for other people to >> consider and form their own belief, i.e. so that they form >> some picture of reality in which they put some confidence. > >[Please note that "may" above is NOT a judgement on point.] >Is it your present judgement that it can be counterproductive >to use the word 'belief' in some situations then? It is my judgement(*) that using "belief", and consequently the concept, is counter-productive in some propositions and some situations, yes. I will add that I can imagine, for ANY word/concept, propositions and situations in which it is counter-productive to use them. >> > > Suppose that in such a debate, one guest is a famous >> > > and respected Nobel Prize [winner]. Her use of "belief" >> > > is going to matter, because people (rightly or wrongly, >> > > doesn't matter here [in this contention]) are interested >> >> in her level of confidence that X holds. >> > >> > So you think that people (generally) make judgements >> > not on evidence but on the perceived authority of the >> > presenter ? - On the whole I think this is true but this is >> > part of my point - It hurts the cause of shared-truth- >> > discovery to encourage this natural human tendency to >> > laziness though. And the Nobel Prize winner does the >> > audience a disservice if she deliberately engages in >> > persuasion by appeal to authority (ie. if she uses >> > the statement 'I believe X') rather than ('the evidence >> > indicates X') by appeal to reason. >> >> I might (sic) agree with this, too, depending on the context. >> If someone's belief is based on evidence and theory that >> he can readily explain, or at least usefully point to, to his >> audience, it's probably better to do that. But it's often >> not possible, and in certain situations, stating .. [one's] >> belief can be a useful thing to do. > >["Might" is ambiguous - please resolve the ambiguity by >answering the question] >Can you make a provisional judgement without labelling >that process a belief (even in your own mind)? I can if I do a hypothesis, yes. But not otherwise. Hypothesis is the only form of "judgement" (which I wouldn't call judgmeent, but, precisely, "hypothesis") that I can make without labelling it a belief in my own mind, because I cannot judge something to be true without having some confidence that it is true. It makes no sense if you are mentally healthy. >> If I hire Harvey to manage the security of my network, >> and th[en] I hear about some threat, I may tell him: >> "Harvey, do you believe this threat is a concern for our >> network"? I don't necessarily want him to explicate all >> the evidence, the experience, the theory, etc. he has. > >I'd keep a watch on that hypothetical Harvey as you >hired him to secure your network and now it belongs >to both of you. (Just joking. You said 'my' then 'our') It's a common trick of owners to suggest the company belongs to their employees, too ;-) >> ... You are not just arguing about some linguistic thing >> for the sake of linguistics, .... > >True. I'm not. Good. Then there is a stake, at least for you, which is a good thing to have when one spends time arguing. >[Jacques - [] are Brett's] > >> > -- namely that if ..[one is] in a hostile situation, and >> > .. [one] need[s] to convince people, .. [one] may as >> > well give up on any explicit belief self-attribution, as >> > people may seize the occasion to think, "oh, this is just >> > a belief, then". >> >> That is pretty close to my contention yes. Except to push it >> further the *belief* meme is SO SLIPPERY that they may >> not even need to formally think the sentence "oh, this is just >> a belief, then" - they may do that or they may not even be >> *that* aware. >> >> Good. I understood your point then, and I agree with it. Are >> you sure you want to extend it so that I cannot agree? :-) > >Actually I let you through with a 'pretty close' and that did >neither of us a service. I should not have let your confounding >(in the sense of confounding the inquiry) use of the word >belief go through. We can't explore 'belief' as a meme until it >is clear than you are at least free enough from it to keep it out >of the process of exploration itself. > >To answer your question. No I don't want you to not agree >- I respect your right not to be coerced and I hope to persuade >you one free mind to another. > >What I want is to get your agreement that (a) belief is a word >that is harmful (at least sometimes would probably do -and >I think you and I are at that point already - by your comment >below #2). Agreed. Like any word/concept in some propositions and situations. So you should really reframe your initial advice not as linked to a particular word, but as: when expressing transhumanist ideas to new people, do not insist on the confidence you have in your visions, but provide evidence and facts that will influence people's judgments(*). I understand you mean much more than that, though, and I don't agree. > (b) belief is a word that can *always* be replaced >by you with no loss of ability to communicate should you so >choose. (I don't see that you agree with this point yet). Any word can always be replaced by a synonym or a synonymous phrase. The important point here is that we cannot, and should not, dispense with the concept. > And >therefore (c) you should freely choose not to use it in the >interests of better communication and to avoid propagating a >bad meme that competes with the reasoning meme and is >harmful to both of us. It's easy for you to see above how my restrictions on your premises make this conclusion false to me. >Finally (d) if I can persuade you, I'd like you to pass the >innoculation service on to someone you respect at the >appropriate time. Eventually it may be possible for even >the least experienced meme-warriors amongst us to look >at any towering ediface of baloney and spot the weaknesses >by the conspicuous 'hanging thread' use of 'belief'-meme. Then >we may home in on that weakness without having to worry >about hitting a mis-guided friendly talking loosely and allowing >the BS-artists and enthrallers to hide behind our desire not to >hit our friends. That's pretty much what I want. I do and will spread the habit of questioning one's beliefs, and of basing one's beliefs on a good base, not the habit of using clumsy synonyms to "belief". ["belief" used on purpose in this sentence as this is what I am talking about] >(#2 ? ) [Jacques] >> > > I can also agree that when bringing new ideas (like >> > > transhumanist ideas) into society, we may often find >> > > ourselves in such situations, and hence it may (sic) >> > > sometimes be preferable to avoid the use of "belief". > >> Now to answer your question, yes, I can think of instances >> when it should be used, and instances when it should not be >> used. I gave above examples of the former (asking my >> security expert, "do you believe this threat should be a >> concern to us?") and of the latter (useless to talk about >> your beliefs qua beliefs if the audience doesn't give a >> damn about the level of confidence with w[h]ich you think >> that something holds). > >The example you gave was NOT good. You could have >used alternate words. You could (presuming you are not >en-thralled to the belief meme) have also said: > >"Harvey, do you [see] this threat [a]s a concern for our >network"? > >Or if you didn't like "see". "Perceive". Harvey might understand >posit very well but not regard it as a better word than "see" or >"perceive". It's obvious enough that "see" and "perceive" are used here in a metaphorical way (or "abstracted" way) to mean something else, which, I contend, is the concept, for which the word "belief" is the most natural choice. "See" and "perceive" literaly refer to perception through sense organs, which is not what I want to express to Harvey. So, this only makes sense if one judges(*) the WORD should be avoided at all costs, while still recognizing that the concept expressed by that word can and must often be used. This seems incoherent with what you suggested above, when you said "without labelling it in your own mind", which seems to refer to concept rather than word. So, is your contention only about avoiding the word, while you recognize that the concept expressed by this word is useful in some propositions, and that the behaviour that it denotes is useful in some situations? > Even if you get the desired outcome from Harvey >using "believe" that wouldn't mean that you had chosen well >not to use another word like 'see' or 'perceive'. Because in >using those words instead you would not be propagating the >believing meme and getting you and hypothetical Harvey >over-comfortable with a way of speaking that might one day >trip you and him or both of you up. And I think you have >agreed that sometime the belief-word can trip folks up. What I think is true here, is that you may be better off asking your security expert some kind of justification, rather than treating him like an oracle. But this is because the trust in his abilities, rigor, vigilance, honesty, etc., is limited. It is not useful otherwise. And using "believe" or "perceive" doesn't change anything, you have to ask him a report instead of just asking him his conclusion. >> You seem to be making a confusion between two things, >> the belief on one hand, and on the other hand the way it was >> formed, and what it is based on. > >On the contrary I am concerned with the ramifications of the >propagation of the view that believing as opposed to reasoning >is a better way of operating in a social and *political* world where >believers and reasoners get one vote each. I am sorry to say that you do make the previously mentioned confusion, or let us say "fusion" to use a neutral word. There is no opposition between reasoning and believing. A sound belief is the product of a good reasoning. That's how the concepts articulate. Belief and reasoning are not alternative, they are different stages of the process. You can reason all you want, if you don't end up *believing* [used on purpose] something, then you will never DO anything. Belief is the way propositions make people do things. It is the vital connection between propositions and people. No belief, no behaviour. Belief is a central behaviour (not really the right word, let's say mental state), is thus a central concept, and there is only one word reserved in the language to denote/express them, and that word is "belief". > By using belief as a >word you unnecessarily propagate it as a meme. Do you promote buying stupid things by buying what you buy, and by saying it with the word "buy"? SHould we stop using the word "buy" to avoid people to buy stupid things? SHould we rather say: "Honey, did you exchange some of your money with some bread this morning?" Your suggestion seems as reasonable as this to me. >> The fact that some people have silly beliefs is far from being a >> sufficient reason to discard the concept of belief, which is >> actually absolutely essential. > >You have not demonstrated that it is essential. This is a new evidence that you are not clear about whether you speak of the WORD "belief" or the CONCEPT . Please clarify. >> In fact, it's exactly the same with trust. Trusting some guru >> that you should commit suicide to see the light is bad. Does >> that make trust a bad thing? Of course not. Trust may be a >> very good thing. And it's necessary in many circumstances, >> we couldn't do much without it. Trust in the others, trust in >> oneself. You just need the trust to be based on something solid, >> or else it's risky. Same with belief. > >Your conception of trust differs from mine too. But your concept >of trust is less dangerously propagated than the belief-meme. Please tell me what you think is false in my account of trust in the previous paragraph. >> Let me add one thing, to make my point even more clear: >> every time you say "I think that X", you may feel safer >> and more rational by refering to thought rather than to >> belief, but what you really mean is actually that you >> *believe* that X. > >This is a little worrying. This is the implication of "believers" >everywhere. That they can only believe and so that is all >that is available to everyone else as well. This is part of what >makes believing as a meme so dangerous. Reasoners invites >the other to look at what is unsettled between them. Believers >(and bs-artists) make unsupported assertions and act on their >beliefs and try to get others too. By using their word you >actually help them. > >> What else could you mean? > >If you stop using the word belief whilst we step through >the arguments together you may be able to see what I mean. This is yet another evidence that you are unclear about whether it is the word or the concept (and the behaviour that correspond to it) you have a problem with. To sum up: If you are talking about the concept and the behaviour, then yes, obviously in some circumstances it is not what is required. If I ask Helmut (I figure Harvey might get tired to be in our argument :-)): "What makes you think that this is not a threat", and he answers, "Because I believe so", then this is not what is desired in the situation. Likewise for other situations / propositions, and it may possibly make sense to talk about such things, and give persuasion advice and such. If you are talking about the word, thinking it's bad because it "reinforces the belief meme", meaning by this the beliefs based on thin air, in particular the belief in God, then my answer is that 1) I judge(*) this effect is not real except in some situations (discussions on this list being no such situation), 2) we need the concept, we have one word in our languages reserved for that meaning slot, and it is not desirable to remove the word, even on an individual and voluntary basis. >I am not yet convinced that you did understand it. Perhaps >you will (or do). Perhaps you don't and wont. Perhaps you >can. Perhaps you can't. And they say *I* am arrogant... :-) Jacques From amara at amara.com Tue Nov 11 15:52:43 2003 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 17:52:43 +0200 Subject: [extropy-chat] FUTURE: More Unsolved Riddles Message-ID: >Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 13:41:15 -0800 (PST) >From: Adrian Tymes > >--- Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > Why is sushi Extropian? > >Ironic contrast: people accuse us of being >anti-religious, and yet we celebrate soul food. body and soul ? The "prostitution of sushi" ... http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001788074_sushi11m.html (alternative to those little boats) Amara From kevinfreels at hotmail.com Tue Nov 11 17:19:10 2003 From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (kevinfreels at hotmail.com) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 11:19:10 -0600 Subject: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles References: <20031111021345.5139.qmail@web80406.mail.yahoo.com> <04a601c3a803$06c5a410$0200a8c0@etheric> Message-ID: It also gave them the ability to walk while looking over the top of the tall grasses on the savannah. The taller, more upright ones could see trouble coming and avoid it better. ----- Original Message ----- From: "R.Coyote" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 9:22 PM Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles > What survival value did our ancestors find > > > walking on 2 legs gave them? > > to carry more stuff > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From jacques at dtext.com Tue Nov 11 17:22:51 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 18:22:51 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush extols technology's power over censorship and control In-Reply-To: <02df01c3a7e0$7ae2c260$e2994a43@texas.net> References: <75.1c362219.2ce152a9@aol.com> <75.1c362219.2ce152a9@aol.com> <5.2.1.1.2.20031110170241.01702050@mail.gmu.edu> <02df01c3a7e0$7ae2c260$e2994a43@texas.net> Message-ID: <3FB11AEB.4060108@dtext.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/politics/06TEXT-BUSH.html?pagewanted=print > &position= > > Gee: > > < Historians ... will point to the role of technology in frustrating > censorship and central control, and marvel at the power of instant > communications to spread the truth, the news and courage across borders. > I've read it all and I think the speech was rather good (though I am only a casual reader of such things, and by no way an expert). It didn't assume too much, and while it celebrated a certain political philosophy (the one of liberty), it did that with the proper arguments, mostly focused on things that can hardly be denied, and did show some sort of respect for dissenting views. Of course it is only a speech, if you like, but a good one. And I prefer that the superpower head say such things rather than others. I'm not sure that competition is our final fate, but we still need it badly. Jacques From natashavita at earthlink.net Tue Nov 11 17:35:19 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 12:35:19 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Ebay Auctions Space Dev Message-ID: <187160-2200311211173519323@M2W065.mail2web.com> SpaceDev Auctioning Microsatellite Mission On eBay SpaceDev (OTCBB: SPDV) is auctioning a world exclusive private space mission on eBay. This first of its kind eBay auction is being listed for the ten-day period of 8:00 PM (PST) Monday, November 10, through 8:00 PM (PST) Thursday, November 20th. The SpaceDev space mission auction is at: http://echo.bluehornet.com/ct/ct.php?t=355015&c=192606617&m=m&type=3 Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From natashavita at earthlink.net Tue Nov 11 17:35:49 2003 From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 12:35:49 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Ebay Auctions Space Dev Message-ID: <410-2200311211173549996@M2W067.mail2web.com> SpaceDev Auctioning Microsatellite Mission On eBay SpaceDev (OTCBB: SPDV) is auctioning a world exclusive private space mission on eBay. This first of its kind eBay auction is being listed for the ten-day period of 8:00 PM (PST) Monday, November 10, through 8:00 PM (PST) Thursday, November 20th. The SpaceDev space mission auction is at: http://echo.bluehornet.com/ct/ct.php?t=355015&c=192606617&m=m&type=3 Natasha -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From jacques at dtext.com Tue Nov 11 18:28:27 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:28:27 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] Europe vs America (was Depressing thought....) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16305.10827.992498.992323@localhost.localdomain> Randy wrote (10.11.2003/10:45) : > > Greg wrote > > >The corporate form per se is no more or less problematic than any > >other means of holding and using property and contract rights. The > >problem arises when state power is fused with the form through > >corporatist government policies. Blaiming "corporations" is like > >blaming any other interest group that bids for and buys government > >favor, be they "farmers," "unions" or other organized groups that > >manage to garner preferential treatment from the state. > >Corporations are RELATVELY weak in the EU (compared to the US), but > >these other organized interest groups have done just as much harm > >by co-opting state power for their special interests in the EU -- > >viz. France and their endless strikes and labor-driven politics, > > But how do you define "harm"? The strikes in Europe are simply the > expression of solidarity of the people and have resulted in the > superior living conditions of the French (and other NW European > countries), as compared to the Americans: Randy, I wish the picture you are drawing of France was true. France has 10% unemployment (that's NOT counting people on social welfare, only people who were employed some months ago) and rising. The social security (meaning free health services) has a HUGE deficit, so it won't be able to carry on very long that way. The government has every difficulty to make the least reform, because of the unions and strikes, especially in the public service. Meanwhile, problems accumulate, and seem to never get solved. Here's my current view of things: Liberty and responsability directly correlate with collective prosperity through creative competition. If you are not sure you want to say to the weak: "find a way to make yourself useful or die", and to the strong: "you're welcome to become a half-god by accumulating wealth", because you value equality, and the support of the weak, you can do it, but it will lower collective prosperity. Even in France, there are many people who work very hard the whole day only to sustain themselves. I find it reasonable to be appalled at it. Neither the US nor France are at one extremity of the theorical spectrum. But France is a bit more on the equality-support side. It has some good aspects (humble people feel more empowered and less "enslaved", and there may be a general "quality of life" and more relaxed approach of things), and it has some bad aspects (less prosperity, which means even more support needed, and so on in a vicious circle). One thought which I never heard voiced, but which seems rather obvious to me, is that by being more on the liberty-responsability end of the spectrum, the USA pay the "inequality price" for some of its creativity, that is then available for free to other countries. It might be that Europe would have been forced a long time ago to get back to more liberty-responsability if it couldn't use what the US create (think computers, Internet, etc.). I'm not an economist, though. I don't think there is one definite answer about liberty-responsability versus equality-support. Within the bounds of our ape psyche (and maybe beyond), the redirection of competitive "instincts" into production at the exclusion of coercion (which is what the political philosophy of liberty is about seen at our contemporary light) may well be the best way to go. It has to be acknowledged that it does pressure individuals, though, even if more collective prosperity tends to make things easier even for the weak. In the end, it's probably more difficult in France than in the US due to less prosperity, but the perception people in lower situations have of life may be a bit better and less harsh, which possibly produces a "better atmosphere". Silly French joke: You know why they chose the rooster as the embleme for France? Because it's the only animal that still sings even with his feet in the mud. I am afraid this is what you get with too much equality-support: some kind of warmth with material misery. Jacques > > The average American works 25% more hours than the average French. > > And the average French does not have to ever worry about getting > cancer and not being able to pay for treatment--medical care is > provided by the state without charge in France. > > Likewise, they do not have to worry about saving up for their child's > education -- it is provided without charge by the state. > > Plus, if the job comes to an end, there is long term unemployment. > > The French obtained this superior lifestyle through strikes and other > tactics. So where is the "harm"? Or did you mean "benefit"? :-) > > >or the agricultural protectionism in the EU that is one of the main factors derailing free trade in the >world. The evil doesn't lie in the legal form per se, but in the sell-out of state power. > > American govt sells out 10 times worse than any of the NW Euro > countries. The European citizenry would (and have) shut down their > countries if they think they have been sold out. > > > > > > ------------- > The United States of America: If you like low wages, you'll love long hours! > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat From jacques at dtext.com Tue Nov 11 18:35:14 2003 From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:35:14 +0100 Subject: [extropy-chat] [FICTION] Strong Medicine In-Reply-To: <1068500787.b2ef5660namacdon@ole.augie.edu> References: <1068500787.b2ef5660namacdon@ole.augie.edu> Message-ID: <16305.11234.166862.262566@localhost.localdomain> Nicholas Anthony MacDonald a ?crit (10.11.2003/15:46) : > > New short story posted to Salon.com ... may or may not be of interest. > > http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/11/10/medicine/index1.html I have read it and I didn't find it interesting at all. Jacques From cphoenix at best.com Tue Nov 11 19:59:38 2003 From: cphoenix at best.com (Chris Phoenix) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 14:59:38 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech References: <200311111900.hABJ0AM07986@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <3FB13FAA.DE63BE4F@best.com> Robin Hanson wrote: > Would the mildest versions > of nanotech really, by themselves, induce superhuman AI? It is > not obvious. I assume the word "nanotech" here means MNT. And MNT becomes interesting when it becomes capable of exponential manufacturing. A "mildest version" might be a Merkle-type "assembler". I have argued that this could lead rapidly to a nanofactory capable of making monolithic kg products: http://www.jetpress.org/volume13/Nanofactory.htm Does this count as "mild"? It's still limited to diamondoid, and still requires human design to build products. But such a system could certainly build billions of tightly networked computers--probably for just a few dollars. (Could build trillions, but I'm not sure about cooling them.) > >Sure, a couple of centuries worth of hitherto progress rolled into a > >month, or a > >couple of days. Accelerating up to a rate of 3 kYears of progress within > >24 hours > > The mildest versions of nanotech don't seem capable of inducing such rapid > change. Again, the point is to try to be as clear as possible about what > assumptions lead to what conclusions. We don't know how powerful the algorithms might get. If you put enough crunch power in a box, and run an evolutionary system on it, you might indeed get a system that could be amazingly efficient at discovering new science and technology. But there's a lot of supposition here. > >What does it take to produce a good meta-designer? A robust morphogenetic > >code, an evolutionary system, a good nanoscale simulator, and lots of > >computronium to run the above. As embarrassingly parallel as they come. > >And that's about the only metainvention you need to make. > > And how damn hard is it to have "lots" of "robust" "good" items like these? Are you questioning the ability to build such a system fault-tolerant? It's not hard to make a very reliable system on top of a very unreliable system. Takes only one level of abstraction (e.g. TCP/IP). And you can play this game as often as necessary to make it appear that you have billions of 100% reliable computers. It might cost you some speed and energy, but it's doable. > I meant that open source counts as a market form. We have some insight into > it, and some open questions remain, as with all market forms. Interesting. I'd like to float a definition here. An "unlimited-sum transaction" is one in which the benefit to one (or both) of the parties is much higher than the cost, and is not correlated with the cost. Copying a text file off a web site is an example. The bandwidth is trivial. The benefit will vary widely depending on who reads the file. I argue that open source is based on, and enabled by, unlimited-sum transactions. And, that commercial trading is incapable of dealing adequately with unlimited-sum transactions. http://CRNano.org/systems.htm Note that economic theory probably can deal with unlimited-sum transactions. If economic theory can deal with war, which is also outside the scope of commercial trading, then it can probably deal with open source. But commercial trading can't deal with open source. Chris -- Chris Phoenix cphoenix at CRNano.org Director of Research Center for Responsible Nanotechnology http://CRNano.org From hugh.crowther at esoterica.pt Tue Nov 11 19:56:44 2003 From: hugh.crowther at esoterica.pt (Hugh Crowther) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:56:44 +0000 Subject: [extropy-chat] Europe vs America (was Depressing thought....) In-Reply-To: <16305.10827.992498.992323@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: Somebody once told me, possibly PJ o'Rourke, that the French are just Germans with good food. I love the supercilious irony about relative living conditions. > From: "JDP" > Reply-To: ExI chat list > Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:28:27 +0100 > To: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com, ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Europe vs America (was Depressing thought....) > > Randy wrote (10.11.2003/10:45) : >> >> Greg wrote >> >>> The corporate form per se is no more or less problematic than any >>> other means of holding and using property and contract rights. The >>> problem arises when state power is fused with the form through >>> corporatist government policies. Blaiming "corporations" is like >>> blaming any other interest group that bids for and buys government >>> favor, be they "farmers," "unions" or other organized groups that >>> manage to garner preferential treatment from the state. >>> Corporations are RELATVELY weak in the EU (compared to the US), but >>> these other organized interest groups have done just as much harm >>> by co-opting state power for their special interests in the EU -- >>> viz. France and their endless strikes and labor-driven politics, >> >> But how do you define "harm"? The strikes in Europe are simply the >> expression of solidarity of the people and have resulted in the >> superior living conditions of the French (and other NW European >> countries), as compared to the Americans: > > Randy, > > I wish the picture you are drawing of France was true. > > France has 10% unemployment (that's NOT counting people on social > welfare, only people who were employed some months ago) and rising. > The social security (meaning free health services) has a HUGE deficit, > so it won't be able to carry on very long that way. > > The government has every difficulty to make the least reform, because > of the unions and strikes, especially in the public service. > Meanwhile, problems accumulate, and seem to never get solved. > > Here's my current view of things: Liberty and responsability directly > correlate with collective prosperity through creative competition. If > you are not sure you want to say to the weak: "find a way to make > yourself useful or die", and to the strong: "you're welcome to become > a half-god by accumulating wealth", because you value equality, and > the support of the weak, you can do it, but it will lower collective > prosperity. Even in France, there are many people who work very hard > the whole day only to sustain themselves. I find it reasonable to be > appalled at it. > > Neither the US nor France are at one extremity of the theorical > spectrum. But France is a bit more on the equality-support side. It > has some good aspects (humble people feel more empowered and less > "enslaved", and there may be a general "quality of life" and more > relaxed approach of things), and it has some bad aspects (less > prosperity, which means even more support needed, and so on in a > vicious circle). > > One thought which I never heard voiced, but which seems rather obvious > to me, is that by being more on the liberty-responsability end of the > spectrum, the USA pay the "inequality price" for some of its > creativity, that is then available for free to other countries. It > might be that Europe would have been forced a long time ago to get > back to more liberty-responsability if it couldn't use what the US > create (think computers, Internet, etc.). I'm not an economist, > though. > > I don't think there is one definite answer about > liberty-responsability versus equality-support. Within the bounds of > our ape psyche (and maybe beyond), the redirection of competitive > "instincts" into production at the exclusion of coercion (which is > what the political philosophy of liberty is about seen at our > contemporary light) may well be the best way to go. It has to be > acknowledged that it does pressure individuals, though, even if more > collective prosperity tends to make things easier even for the weak. > In the end, it's probably more difficult in France than in the US due > to less prosperity, but the perception people in lower situations have > of life may be a bit better and less harsh, which possibly produces a > "better atmosphere". > > Silly French joke: You know why they chose the rooster as the embleme > for France? Because it's the only animal that still sings even with > his feet in the mud. I am afraid this is what you get with too much > equality-support: some kind of warmth with material misery. > > Jacques > > > > > >> >> The average American works 25% more hours than the average French. >> >> And the average French does not have to ever worry about getting >> cancer and not being able to pay for treatment--medical care is >> provided by the state without charge in France. >> >> Likewise, they do not have to worry about saving up for their child's >> education -- it is provided without charge by the state. >> >> Plus, if the job comes to an end, there is long term unemployment. >> >> The French obtained this superior lifestyle through strikes and other >> tactics. So where is the "harm"? Or did you mean "benefit"? :-) >> >>> or the agricultural protectionism in the EU that is one of the main factors >>> derailing free trade in the >world. The evil doesn't lie in the legal form >>> per se, but in the sell-out of state power. >> >> American govt sells out 10 times worse than any of the NW Euro >> countries. The European citizenry would (and have) shut down their >> countries if they think they have been sold out. >> >> >> >> >> >> ------------- >> The United States of America: If you like low wages, you'll love long hours! >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat > From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Nov 11 20:33:22 2003 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson) Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 15:33:22 -0500 Subject: [extropy-chat] Social Implications of Nanotech In-Reply-To: <3FB13FAA.DE63BE4F@best.com> References: <200311111900.hABJ0AM07986@tick.javien.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031111152427.0235be48@mail.gmu.edu> On 11/11/2003, Chris Phoenix wrote: > > Would the mildest versions of nanotech really, by themselves, induce > > superhuman AI? It is not obvious. > >I assume the word "nanotech" here means MNT. And MNT becomes >interesting when it becomes capable of exponential manufacturing. We had been explicitly distinguishing several possibilities short of quickly reproducing nanotech factories. >We don't know how powerful the algorithms might get. If you put enough >crunch power in a box, and run an evolutionary system on it, you might >indeed get a system that could be amazingly efficient at discovering new >science and technology. But there's a lot of supposition here. And that's putting it mildly. > > >What does it take to produce a good meta-designer? A robust morphogenetic > > >code, an evolutionary system, a good nanoscale simulator, and lots of > > >computronium to run the above. As embarrassingly parallel as they come. > > >And that's about the only metainvention you need to make. > > > > And how damn hard is it to have "lots" of "robust" "good" items like these? > >Are you questioning the ability to build such a system fault-tolerant? I'm much more concerned about the robustness of the code. >... I'd like to float a definition here. An "unlimited-sum >transaction" is one in which the benefit to one (or both) of the parties >is much higher than the cost