[extropy-chat] Group mind exploration

[Robert Bradbury]

Alex, I've got one of the largest libraries in the world (at Harvard) at my
disposal and I'm relatively sure I can get things out of MIT [1,2].  If you
can find the book in their catalogs I'm willing to attempt to check them
out  I have *not* attempted to cross reference my wish list with the Harvard
and MIT catalogs.  I strongly suspect that since most of the books on my
wish list are recent publications there is only a passing (50:50?) chance
that they would be in the catalog and available.  However, I do my best work
when I can highlight the books and scribble in the margins [3].  Libraries
tend to frown on that.

Jay, I don't know how to rate them from a priority standpoint (I don't think
Amazon allows you to do that -- if this is not true please tell me how [or
send a note to Amazon about adding such a capability]).  From a practical
viewpoint I would probably order them from short term to long term,
engineering to theoretical.  So this would allow some flexibility in
choosing those topics which you know I may be interested in and where your
perceptions of short vs. long, easy vs. hard may be different from mine.
(Treat me as a grad student -- I will not be offended.)

This is where the experiment in group mind comes into play -- I do not
expect my interests to match those of others and I do not expect that my
extraction of information would be the same  that other individuals would
do.  But people on the list presumably know my mindset and presumably know
if there is something of interest I will identify it.  So this is an
experiment in distributed application of a transhumanist mind framework.
"Can one send Robert off to do something useful from ones own perspective at
relatively low cost?" [4]

I will commit that if information explored is outside of ones realm of
expertise and I view it as important but the supplier may not have an
awareness of that an attempt will be made to educate one to the level that
one can appreciate the value.  I do not like creating a situation where
people are unhappy with the results and a satisfied customer is the best way
to get people to buy me more books :-;

I stress that this is an experiment.  To the best of my knowledge this has
never been attempted using current era tools in quite this way.  So it
remains to be seen whether it can be viewed as a fruitful approach.  I am in
effect attempting to determine whether a random (presumably thoughtful)
population can vote and vote effectively.

Robert

1. http://hollis.harvard.edu/
2. Barton: http://library.mit.edu/F?func=find-b-0
3. My copy of TSIN which is autographed by Ray and highlighted and margin
scribbled in by me will presumably someday be a valuable antique.
4. I'm not working for "free", I've already selected the vectors I am
interested in exploring.  What one is doing is biasing those vectors in line
with ones personal interests and priorities.  You are in effect "spinning"
potential future realities (under the gross assumption that if you influence
what Robert knows you influence what he may influence).  You don't have to
make an argument or justify a perspective, you simply have to send me a
book.
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