[extropy-chat] Re:Just trying to figure it out

[Robert Bradbury]

On 11/26/05, Anna Tylor <femmechakra at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Ok so here's the truth:
> I am not and never will be a writer or a scientist, I am very well aware
> of
> this fact.  My problem is a little bizarre and I need to talk to someone
> about it or i'm going to lose my mind.


[snip]

So here's the problem: Since August 05, I have not been able to stop
> researching specific fields. (In passing, the last time I researched
> anything that wasn't in my field was over 8 years ago).
> The Pyramids, the stars, AI and Time Travel.  Nothing else.  It almost
> seems
> like an addiction, every spare moment I have I jump on the net to
> research.  This might seem quite naturel to you, but for me it's extremely
> bizarre.  I have over 50 pages of notes and have spent hours and hours
> trying to figure out what all of it means.


 Anna, you should not view this as "unusual".  I've spent much of the last
dozen or so years researching things.  Went through something like 10 1000
page copy cards at the UW back in 92-93 when I was researching aging (no
drugs other than those found in coffee involved).  Now my bookmarks and
saved articles on my hard drives tend to number in the hundreds to
thousands.  I often get the comment that I should consider teaching.
Wanting to become an expert in one or more areas is a natural human trait
(it tends to provide survival advantages if one chooses the area wisely).
The Web and its ease of access to information simply may have enabled buried
interests you may have had for many years.

If you want to ask questions on some of the topics and don't want to consume
list bandwidth, feel free to ask me by direct email.  If it gets too
detailed we could arrange to chat by phone.  Just a word of caution -- in
many areas such as AI and time travel which have various theories and
proponents of those theories you are unlikely to find "consensus" on the
extropian list.

Be forewarned however that many people on the list are quite hard core with
regard to the "rational thought" part of the Extropian Principles. There is
certainly much information available on the Web which fails that type of
analysis unfortunately.  Presenting or asking about information relating to
those failures of reasoning is likely to generate rather terse responses.
To many people in the computer industry this is associated with the
acronym/perspective of "RTFM".  As Wikipedia usually has a pretty good
system for approaching "neutral" ground I would recommend starting there
with any concepts and then bring them to the Extropian List once you have a
basic understanding of what is involved.

Robert
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