From sentience at pobox.com  Wed Aug  1 21:54:18 2007
From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky)
Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:54:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Max More: Which books?
Message-ID: <46B1010A.9060104@pobox.com>

Max, at Transvision 2007 you referenced some books you'd found useful 
on evidence-based management.  What were they?

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sun Aug  5 04:07:56 2007
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:07:56 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Yikes, what's up with the list?
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20070804230641.02269020@satx.rr.com>

I see a sudden small burst of activity that people evidently sent off 
a week back, just now getting posted up. Is the sky falling?

Damien Broderick


From fauxever at sprynet.com  Sun Aug  5 04:24:26 2007
From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin)
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2007 21:24:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Australian Aborigine Communities Awash in Abuse
References: <21f701c7d38f$9c61aee0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <003401c7d718$82c6c4c0$6401a8c0@brainiac>

From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin at rawbw.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:26 AM

> Traditionally it was the families that decided what children did, not 
> governments.

Two comments:

1)  Historically speaking, "traditional" and "family" have not been linked 
consistently to humans until quite recently;

2)   Families don't always make the best decisions, and governments don't 
always make bad ones.

Olga



From emerson at singinst.org  Wed Aug  1 00:21:28 2007
From: emerson at singinst.org (Tyler Emerson)
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:21:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] SIAI: Why We Exist and Our Short-Term Research Program
Message-ID: <632d2cda0707311721w5f03c969le2821c0123979f8f@mail.gmail.com>

Dear all:

Here is a new overview of SIAI, focusing on why we think our mission
is an important one, and where we're looking to focus research efforts
in the short-term.

http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/07/31/siai-why-we-exist-and-our-short-term-research-program/

Let me know what you think: emerson at singinst.org. I look forward to
any thoughts you have.

I hope you enjoy it!

Best regards,

--
Tyler Emerson
Executive Director
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
P.O . Box 50182, Palo Alto, CA 94303 USA
650-353-6063 | emerson at singinst.org |  singinst.org

***

SIAI: Why We Exist and Our Short-Term Research Program

Why SIAI Exists

As the 21st century progresses, an increasing number of
forward-thinking scientists and technologists are coming to the
conclusion that this will be the century of AI: the century when human
inventions exceed human beings in general intelligence. When exactly
this will happen, no one knows for sure; Ray Kurzweil, for example,
has estimated 2029.

Of course, where the future is concerned, nothing is certain except
surprise; but the mere fact that so many knowledgeable people (such as
Stephen Hawking, Douglas Hofstadter, Bill Joy, and Martin Rees) take
the near advent of advanced AI as a plausible possibility, should
serve as a "wake-up call" to anyone seriously concerned about the
future of humanity.

The potential of advanced AI, for good or evil, has been amply
explored in science fiction literature and cinema. In the early 90's,
Vernor Vinge coined the term "technological singularity" to refer to
the difficulty of predicting or understanding what will happen after
the point at which humans are no longer the most intelligent and
capable minds on Earth.

It's easy to be passive about this issue. Technology is advancing, and
none of us have the power to stop it. There are also plenty of more
pressing issues around us, so there may seem no clear need to worry
about something that may happen in 2029, or 2020, or 2050.

Everyone involved with SIAI, however, believes that this kind of
passivity is both shortsighted and dangerous. As a starting point,
futuristic predictions are not always overoptimistic ? sometimes they
wind up overpessimistic instead. Jetsons-style spacecraft aren't here
yet, but the Internet is, and hardly anyone foresaw that until it came
about. It's important to also note that the 22 years until Kurzweil's
2029 prediction is not very long at all. Advanced AI is a big thing to
understand, and it's also something that can be done either safely or
unsafely. The time to start thinking very, very hard about how to do
it safely is this year, not next year, or five years from now. The
potential dangers of creating advanced AI the wrong way are very
severe; and the potential rewards of creating it the right way are at
least equally tremendous.

Our core, long-term mission at the Singularity Institute is to figure
out how to develop advanced AI safely to help bring about a world in
which the vast potential benefits of this technology can be enjoyed by
all of humanity. We want to create a rigorous scientific,
mathematical, and engineering framework to guide the development of
safe advanced AI.

In our view, this is the most critical issue facing humanity. We are
on the verge of creating minds exceeding our own. Unfortunately, the
amount of societal resources presently going into figuring out how to
do this right is absurdly tiny. SIAI is the only organization on the
planet right now that's squarely focused on this incredibly important
problem. By reading this, you are among the .01% who have even heard
about this issue; and that estimate may be high.

The Most Important Question Facing Humanity

There are many ways to work toward figuring out how to develop
advanced AI. Engineering specific AI systems is valuable, as it helps
us gain experimental knowledge of semi-advanced AI systems, while
they're still at an infra-human level. Studying human brain and
cognition is valuable, since after all, at the present time, the human
mind is the only highly generally intelligent system we have at our
disposal to study. Other disciplines like ethical philosophy and
mathematical decisions theory also have a lot to contribute.

However, there is one question we feel is absolutely critical to the
goal of figuring out how to develop advanced AI the right way, which
remains essentially unexplored within academia and industry. SIAI's
short-term research mission is to resolve this one question as
thoroughly as possible. Compactly stated, the question is this:

How can one make an AI system that modifies and improves itself, yet
does not lose track of the top-level goals with which it was
originally supplied?

This question is simple to state but devilishly difficult to resolve ?
it's not even an easy thing to formalize in the language of modern
mathematics and AI.

To understand the significance of this question, think about this:
What is the most likely way for humans to create an AI system that's a
lot smarter than humans? The answer is: To create an AI system that's
a little smarter than humans ? and ask it to figure out how to make
itself a little bit smarter; and so on, and so on.

This is not an original idea, it's been around since at least the
1930's, in various forms. However, we are approaching a time when it
can actually happen. The pressing question is, then: If we embody the
initial "a little smarter than humans" AI system with some nice goals
(including helping humans rather than harming them), how do we know
the subsequent systems it creates, and the ones its creations create,
etc., will still embody these goals?

The current focus of SIAI's Research Program is to move toward a
rigorous understanding and hopefully a clear resolution of this
question.

SIAI's Short-Term Research Program

We aim to resolve this crucial question by simultaneously proceeding
on two fronts:

1. Experimentation with practical, contemporary AI systems that modify
and improve their own source code.
 2. Extension and refinement of mathematical tools to enable rigorous
formal analysis of advanced self-improving AI's.

These directions are not disjoint; they have great potential to
cross-pollinate each other, just as theoretical and empirical science
have done throughout the ages. On a technical level, part of the
cross-pollination will occur because both our experimental and our
theoretical work is grounded in probability theory: probabilistic AI
and probabilistic mathematics.

A Practical Project in Self-Modifying AI

For the practical aspect of the SIAI Research Program, we intend to
take the MOSES probabilistic evolutionary learning system, which
exists in the public domain and was developed by Dr. Moshe Looks in
his PhD work at Washington University in 2006, and deploy it
self-referentially, in a manner that allows MOSES to improve its own
learning methodology.

MOSES is currently implemented in C++, and is configured to learn
software programs that are expressed in a simple language called
Combo. Deploying MOSES self-referentially will require the
re-implementation of MOSES in Combo, and then the improvement of
several aspects of MOSES's internal learning algorithms.

Hitherto MOSES has proved useful for data mining, biological data
analysis, and the control of simple embodied agents in virtual worlds.
In a current project, Novamente LLC and Electric Sheep Company are
using it to control a simple virtual agent acting in Second Life.
Learning to improve MOSES will be the most difficult task yet posed to
MOSES, but also the most interesting.

Applying MOSES self-referentially will give us a fascinating concrete
example of self-modifying AI software ? far short of human-level
general intelligence initially, but nevertheless with many lessons to
teach us about the more ambitious self-modifying AI's that may be
possible.

Toward a Rigorous Theory of Self-Modifying AI

Studying self-modification in the context of a particular contemporary
AI algorithm such as MOSEs is important, but ultimately it only takes
you so far. One of the values of mathematics is that it lets you
explore important issues in advance of actually observing them
empirically. For instance, using mathematics, Einstein understood the
nature of black holes long before they were ever empirically observed.
Similarly, we may use mathematics to understand things about advanced
self-modifying probabilistic AI systems, even before we have worked
out the details of how to create them (and before we have sufficient
hardware to run them).

Theoretical computer scientists such as Marcus Hutter and Juergen
Schmidhuber, in recent years, have developed a rigorous mathematical
theory of artificial general intelligence (AGI). While this work is
revolutionary, it has its limitations. Most of its conclusions apply
only to AI systems that use a truly massive amount of computational
resources ? more than we could ever assemble in physical reality.

What needs to be done, in order to create a mathematical theory that
is useful for studying the self-modifying AI systems we will build in
the future, is to scale Hutter and Schmidhuber's theory down to deal
with AI systems involving more plausible amounts of computational
resources. This is far from an easy task, but it is a concrete
mathematical task, and we have specific conjectures regarding how to
approach it. The self-referential MOSES implementation, mentioned
above, may serve as an important test case here: if a scaled-down
mathematical theory of AGI is any good, it should be able to tell us
something about self-referential MOSES.

This sort of work is difficult, and the time required for success is
hard to predict. However, we feel very strongly that this sort of
foundational work ? inspired by close collaboration with computational
experiment ? is the most likely route to achieving true understanding
of the fundamental question posed above: How can one make an AI system
that modifies and improves itself, yet does not lose track of the
top-level goals with which it was originally supplied?

Hiring Plan

SIAI is currently a small organization, with one full-time Research
Fellow (Eliezer Yudkowsky) and part-time involvement by a number of AI
researchers, including Director of Research Dr. Ben Goertzel. We are
seeking additional funding so as to enable, initially, the hiring of
two doctoral or post-doctoral Research Fellows to focus on the above
two areas (practical and theoretical exploration of self-modifying
AI).

These two Fellows would work under the supervision of Dr. Ben
Goertzel; and in collaboration with Eliezer Yudkowsky as well. They
would also benefit from interaction with the group of AI luminaries
who are involved with SIAI, including SIAI Director Ray Kurzweil and
SIAI Advisors Neil Jacobstein and Dr. Stephen Omohundro.

Two Research Fellows, of course, represent a rather small allocation
of society's overall resources ? one could argue that, in fact, a
substantial percentage of our collective resources should be allocated
to exploring issues such as those that concern SIAI, given their
potentially extreme importance to the future of humankind. But many
great things start from small initiatives, and we believe that the
right two researchers, focused squarely on these issues, can make a
huge difference in advancing knowledge and better directing AI R&D in
the right direction.

Part of our goal is to make progress on these issues ourselves,
in-house within SIAI; and part of our goal is to, by demonstrating
this progress, interest the wider AI R&D community in these
foundational issues. Either way: the goal is to move toward a deeper
understanding of these incredibly important issues.

Toward a Positive Singularity

Advanced self-modifying AI is almost sure to happen in this century ?
as Ray Kurzweil, Bill Joy, and others have foreseen. The big question
is whether we succeed in creating it with rigor, care, and foresight.

SIAI doesn't claim to have the answers ? not yet, anyway. What we do
have is a systematic, well-defined research program, aimed at focusing
on the most essential questions. With sustained effort, maybe a little
brilliance and luck, and a lot of help, we may well create an
understanding that will help the human race navigate its way in the
coming decades to a positive Singularity. If you are aligned with this
vision, we hope you will help us.

Why is it advantageous to invest in SIAI now rather later? There's a
clear, rational answer to this question: If you invest now, you will
increase the probability that we can scale SIAI and its community of
friends and supporters to a level where there's a sufficiently-sized
body of capable researchers who can work full-time on these critical
issues. SIAI is the only organization focused on these problems right
now, thus we are a nucleus around which a certain amount of talent has
already accrued, and around which additional talent can be accrued
over time. If you invest later, you will likely have reduced the
probability that SIAI will be able to reach a sufficient critical mass
to effectively confront these issues before it's way too late. SIAI
must boot-strap into existence a scientific field and research
community for the study of safe, recursively self-improving systems;
this field and community doesn't exist yet. This is going to be hard;
it's going to take time, but the sooner SIAI can grow, the greater the
chance we'll have of being able to catalyze a critical mass in-time to
deal with these problems before we're in a nose-dive situation that we
can't reverse.

One of the best ways to support SIAI is by contributing to the
Singularity Challenge, which will allow us to grow the organization.
If you donate or email us a pledge by August 6th, we can ensure your
gift is matched. We hope many of you reading will do this; and thank
you!

http://www.singinst.org/challenge/

If you want to get involved with SIAI, or if you have resources to
share (such as expertise, talent, promotion, or contacts), then please
email us: institute at singinst.org.


From scerir at libero.it  Sun Aug  5 06:03:00 2007
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 08:03:00 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Aharonov-Bohm Effect
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20070308114540.023a9958@satx.rr.com><7.0.1.0.2.20070309174315.024b6500@satx.rr.com><4249F7D5E13BF24C9BA37E6ACC55B8B61E0928@webmail.sensetech.no><f7bfe5740703151411x77d4cc74oc276d15037536734@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20070315172201.022a3ea8@satx.rr.com><7.0.1.0.2.20070315175649.022ec7e8@satx.rr.com><003801c7698d$54548940$53961f97@archimede><7.0.1.0.2.20070318140758.0236d6c8@satx.rr.com><002b01c76a51$5dbfbad0$0fba1f97@archimede><0aa301c7c695$8165d5f0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><000301c7c70d$dca19df0$33921f97@archimede><213b01c7d138$5344f3b0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><000301c7d214$4331e230$a1961f97@archimede>
	<219901c7d22a$440c3aa0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <001e01c7d726$47e04e40$f7911f97@archimede>

Lee:
> You're not a believer in MWI?

I think that one real world is enough :-)
 
> Now, may I visualize one of the two paths (of one 
> particle) emanating from one slit and, as it nears the
> solenoid, penetrating one after the other of the
> cylindrical surfaces and then un-penetrating them
> in turn as the electron goes further away?  Or is
> that the wrong idea?

Something like that yes. And something like that
also for the other path (amplitude) coming from the other
slit. Since the vector potential field is rotating
(say) anticlockwise, its radial components affect 
differently the upper and the lower paths (amplitudes) 
of the same electron.

> In principle it sounds simple:  just lower a gravitating
> field inside the two paths of an interstellar split beam
> experiment. (Wheeler loved to describe such a large
> "apparatus" wherein the two possibilities interfere
> after traveling many light years.)  So I would think
> that this latter experiment would not involve EM,
> but rather gravitation, and might show just the same
> thing.

Yes, Wheeler and his 'dragon'. Within neutron 
interferometry it is possible to show anomalies
in the interference pattern, due to the different
distance of the paths (amplitudes) from the source
of gravitation (Earth). At least that is what I remember.
But I may be wrong.
 


From scerir at libero.it  Sun Aug  5 06:09:45 2007
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 08:09:45 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Yikes, what's up with the list?
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20070804230641.02269020@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <003f01c7d727$39276d10$f7911f97@archimede>

> Is the sky falling? 
> Damien Broderick

The Vatican is studying exactly that.
(Fear of MWI?)
http://counterbalance.net/ctns-vo/index-frame.html

s.

'The theory yields a lot, 
but it hardly brings us any closer 
to the secret of the Old One.'
-Einstein, to Max Born, 
       4 December 1926.


From amara at amara.com  Sun Aug  5 06:45:56 2007
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 08:45:56 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Xanadu Revived?!
Message-ID: <p06230901c2db2242799e@[23.237.66.13]>

Silly me, I should have checked here first to see the full story
(since the 90s)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Xanadu

Amara


-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Tucson
INAF Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, Italia

From amara at amara.com  Sun Aug  5 06:39:10 2007
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 08:39:10 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Xanadu Revived?!
Message-ID: <p06230900c2db205706ae@[23.237.66.13]>

whoa!

Xanadu revived?

http://transliterature.org/

Very interesting...! The original Xanadu architects have moved on (I think),
so with the exception of Ted Nelson, is this a new generation of
Xanadu-ans?


Amara

P.S. I like Ted's scribbled diagrams. :-)
-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Tucson
INAF Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, Italia

From scerir at libero.it  Sun Aug  5 06:49:00 2007
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 08:49:00 +0200
Subject: [ExI]  dynamics, attractors, knots
References: <24f36f410707231400v2392ffeep6b3377d86b5f822@mail.gmail.com><20070724064330.GJ20274@leitl.org><203a01c7ce89$e9ca9e40$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><46A99169.2060603@mac.com><20c201c7d020$12953e10$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><46AA271D.7070300@mac.com><20f701c7d0a3$2d4e6eb0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><46ABC1E1.2080607@mac.com>
	<217f01c7d1a3$ca76b480$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <000301c7d72c$b4e64070$f7911f97@archimede>

?tienne Ghys http://www.umpa.ens-lyon.fr/~ghys/
wrote an interesting (and difficult) paper
http://www.umpa.ens-lyon.fr/~ghys/articles/ghys-icm.pdf
showing that the Lorenz 'attractor' have 'periodic'
orbits which are 'knots'. A beautiful presentation
(pdf) with many interesting images is here
http://www.umpa.ens-lyon.fr/%7Eghys/articles/icm.pdf
with many interesting and difficult animations
http://www.josleys.com/show_gallery.php?galid=303
by http://www.josleys.com/

s.

A different subject, but see also
Planet Earth: 'extropic' shapes.
http://www.josleys.com/show_gallery.php?galid=313
and the 'FormaTerre' conference
http://www.formaterre.fr/archives/2006/conferences-2006/index.htm




From eugen at leitl.org  Sun Aug  5 09:01:38 2007
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 11:01:38 +0200
Subject: [ExI] massive "green" industrial transformation of the landscape
In-Reply-To: <a6a17bd40707292104o6e3aa4eeg5807b7f76943bb39@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200707281428.l6SESGol007774@ms-smtp-06.texas.rr.com>
	<20070728173546.GE20274@leitl.org>
	<a6a17bd40707292104o6e3aa4eeg5807b7f76943bb39@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20070805090138.GX20274@leitl.org>

On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 09:04:56PM -0700, Jeff Davis wrote:

> Just because you haven't heard of him doesn't mean that Jesse Ausebel,
> isn't "a leading scientist" and top drawer.  I've known of his work

Readily admit to that. As you say, it was a rant. At times going
overboard to try bringing a point across.

> http://phe.rockefeller.edu/biblio.php
> Renewable and nuclear heresies
> http://phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/HeresiesFinal.pdf
> Elektron: Electrical Systems in Retrospect and Prospect
> http://phe.rockefeller.edu/Daedalus/Elektron/
> The Evolution of Transport
> http://phe.rockefeller.edu/TIP_transport/transport.pdf

Thanks for those, have begun reading them.
 
> And don't we all agree that nuclear power is surpassingly green, and

Not at all. There are many diverse beefs to have with nuclear power
today: it is centralistic, has a powerful lobby, is heavily subsidized,
relies on scarce ores, has a bad security story, dumps low-level radiactivity
across life cycle, is intensely polarizing, etc. 

In contrast to these, wind today generates 9% of electricity in Germany,
and for the first time this year was visible enough to stabilize electricity
prices on the large-scale realtime electricity market. If you remember, it was
last year that photovoltaics achieved a break-even, albeit briefly, and in
the same market. 

I would put aeolean, passive solar and photovoltaics in the exceedingly
green cathegory. They have almost no additional footprint to the residential
structures they supply.  Especially, if integrated into the structures at
design time, and not added posthaste.

> that the political opposition to same over the past ~3 decades is
> decidedly non-rational?  One doesn't therefor have to be a shill for

Ignoring non-rational components of a feasibility landscape is also
not exceedingly rational. People are afraid of large-scale energy
production, especially from nuclear sources. They readily embrace
small-scale facilities though, especially those they own privately.
Speaking about non-rational (okay, brownouts), feeling in control 
is a very non-rational, and very powerful factor.

(Btw, I've outlawed incandescents in this household (first 3 W
LED spots, now metal halide lamps for the living room), and will
be buying a wood/coal oven next year. I'm thinking about adding
passive solar, though roof alignment, inclination and shading
by trees is suboptimal. A low-voltage PV-charged power supply for
home network and electronics is on the drawing boards, too).

> the nuclear industry to hold and espouse such a position.  In fact,
> considering the anti-nuke pop culture, doesn't professor Ausebel, as
> Director of the Program for the Human Environment, at the liberal
> Rockefeller University, New York, NY, qualify as a scholar with
> intellectual integrity and even a bit of courage?

I might have mispigeonholed the man. He sounded very much like a nuclear
shill, and his comparision was awfully skewed. He was doing precisely what
one would try if one would want to discredit the renewables, and shine
golden light upon the nuclear industry.
 
> Despite the harshness of your earlier "critique", I have every
> confidence you will give the good professor a fair and judicious
> assessment when you've had an opportunity to look at his actual body
> of work.

Possible, but since I'm usually well-informed on renewables it's
unlikely I've overlooked something so critical to require a 
reassessment.
 
> Life is good here, as I hope it is with all of you.

Good for you! I personally can't complain, though the likely impending 
Great Depression has really started to worry me. It's been looming in 
the background for many years, but this year could be it. 

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From mmbutler at gmail.com  Sun Aug  5 09:09:32 2007
From: mmbutler at gmail.com (Michael M. Butler)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 02:09:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Xanadu Revived?!
In-Reply-To: <p06230901c2db2242799e@23.237.66.13>
References: <p06230901c2db2242799e@23.237.66.13>
Message-ID: <7d79ed890708050209s3acf7b7cne76ca587812a2186@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/4/07, Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
> Silly me, I should have checked here first to see the full story

Well, to see _a_ story. It's Wikipedia. I counted six factual errors
and stopped reading.

-- 
         Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m
I've pulled birdshot out of ducks that didn't teleport at the right
time.  --J Thomas

From pgptag at gmail.com  Sun Aug  5 09:23:15 2007
From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 11:23:15 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Xanadu Revived?!
In-Reply-To: <7d79ed890708050209s3acf7b7cne76ca587812a2186@mail.gmail.com>
References: <p06230901c2db2242799e@23.237.66.13>
	<7d79ed890708050209s3acf7b7cne76ca587812a2186@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <470a3c520708050223i2d67e8e4i7d9d76841e2cc739@mail.gmail.com>

So please let us know. What is _the_ story? I thought Xanadu was dead
like the dinosaurs.
G.

On 8/5/07, Michael M. Butler <mmbutler at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/4/07, Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
> > Silly me, I should have checked here first to see the full story
>
> Well, to see _a_ story. It's Wikipedia. I counted six factual errors
> and stopped reading.
>
> --
>          Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m
> I've pulled birdshot out of ducks that didn't teleport at the right
> time.  --J Thomas
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>

From amara at amara.com  Sun Aug  5 09:27:36 2007
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 11:27:36 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Xanadu Revived?!
Message-ID: <p06230902c2db473d2483@[23.237.66.13]>

Michael M. Butler mmbutler at gmail.com :

>Well, to see _a_ story. It's Wikipedia. I counted six factual errors

which are?

>and stopped reading.

yes, it was short. :-/

I am curious what happened to the project post-Autodesk. I could ask
some of the people involved, but that would involve email and phone,
and my now time right now is limited.

Wikipedia links to this:

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr_18/BBfr18a.html

which looks much more complete. Only skimmed it though, and I have
no idea if errors exist.

Amara
-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Tucson
INAF Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, Italia

From dagonweb at gmail.com  Sun Aug  5 11:11:52 2007
From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 13:11:52 +0200
Subject: [ExI] "Up against the warming zealots"...hmmm
In-Reply-To: <f3afeba0707290157i742e96f7w54e0caf1e0b4a49b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <61c8738e0707210843x544df471ja6482c1fae2c6f6e@mail.gmail.com>
	<710b78fc0707230512s1672af0dg36eede1411c321c9@mail.gmail.com>
	<f3afeba0707290157i742e96f7w54e0caf1e0b4a49b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <bf3acbfc0708050411w6e6fa18fuc2136a7bdee4d11a@mail.gmail.com>

Lets give a cynical reply

Ecologically minded or "green" folks are of a particular memeset that
has links (not always but quite commonly) to the left, anarchy,
PETA, greenpeace, spirituality, wicca, shamanism, etc. This demographic
is quite visible in the Netherlands and has come under close scrutiny
after an extremist animal rights activist shot the to-be-next-prime minster
in the head. Google "volkert van der graaf" en "pim fortuyn" for details.

These are people traditionally left out in the cold by big business. They
have absolutely no empathy, and lots of resentment for big business - and
often academic society. They have some sort of vague love for Mother
Earth, more as a metaphor for simple biological lifestyle, and even though
in any other context their arguments would have merit, they don't in a world
with 6+ billion humans. Their resentment of modern industrial society
is incompatible with current global populations.

If you come across as some sort of creature of academia, hightech
nerdlyness or the company scene, you will instantly be targetted for
suspicion; I have experienced that problem several times when discussing
transhumanism in my peer group.

This democraphic scene will become more militant as government and the
corporate sector will increase in relevance, and as their effective income (more
than the average composed of welfare as many of them simply do not have
an alternative) decreases.

By understanding the greens and by stressing green solutions, it would be
fairly easy to sway ecologically minded groups in favor of transhumanism.

From dagonweb at gmail.com  Sun Aug  5 11:15:29 2007
From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 13:15:29 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Full Colour 3D Printing - the next big thing?
In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0707291810l6d4acaf5r9d625acc100d3f1e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <710b78fc0707291810l6d4acaf5r9d625acc100d3f1e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <bf3acbfc0708050415t6eb92f9bsf05d6903621110d8@mail.gmail.com>

Anyone ever played wargames here? Warhammer 40K?
*giggles*

3D printing will kill that scene overnight - unless they are
smart and start selling the 3D models.

From max at maxmore.com  Sun Aug  5 16:12:47 2007
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:12:47 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Max More: Which books?
In-Reply-To: <46B1010A.9060104@pobox.com>
References: <46B1010A.9060104@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <200708051612.l75GCmQc006966@ms-smtp-02.texas.rr.com>

Eli, here's the info:

Evidence-Based Management
by Jeffrey Pfeffer, Robert I.  Sutton
Harvard Business School Press, published on 01/01/2006
My commentary/review is here:
http://www.manyworlds.com/exploreCO.aspx?coid=CO1230051617356

You'll also find links to my reviews of other relevant pieces, such 
as "Management Science: What Does it Have to Do with Management or 
Science?", "Selection Bias and the Perils of Benchmarking", and "Why 
Hard-Nosed Executives Should Care About Management Theory"

The book-length version of the first paper above is here:
Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From 
Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton 
(Hardcover - Mar 1, 2006)
http://www.amazon.com/Facts-Dangerous-Half-Truths-Total-Nonsense/dp/1591398622/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-4558742-8615969?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186329962&sr=1-1

Also relevant, but more specifically focused on typical reasoning errors:
The Halo Effect: ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That 
Deceive Managers
by Phil Rosenzweig (Hardcover - Feb 6, 2007)
http://www.amazon.com/Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions-Managers/dp/0743291255/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-4558742-8615969?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186329991&sr=1-1

Onward!

Max


At 04:54 PM 8/1/2007, you wrote:
>Max, at Transvision 2007 you referenced some books you'd found useful
>on evidence-based management.  What were they?
>
>--
>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.cgi/extropy-chat


From hibbert at mydruthers.com  Sun Aug  5 16:34:10 2007
From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert)
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 09:34:10 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Xanadu Revived?!
In-Reply-To: <p06230902c2db473d2483@[23.237.66.13]>
References: <p06230902c2db473d2483@[23.237.66.13]>
Message-ID: <46B5FC02.8040307@mydruthers.com>


Michael M. Butler wrote:
 >> >Well, to see _a_ story. It's Wikipedia. I counted six factual errors

And Amara responded:
 > which are?

Michael's experience covers a period that partially overlaps mine, so I 
notice different errors.

In this paragraph, I detect the point of view of one of the "factions", 
and a mischaracterization of the divestiture and history of the factions.

   "Then a newer group of programmers, hired from Xerox PARC, used
   the problems with this software as justification to rewrite the
   software in Smalltalk. This effectively split the group into
   two factions, and the decision to rewrite put a deadline
   imposed by Autodesk out of the team's reach. In August 1992,
   Autodesk divested the Xanadu group, which became the Xanadu
   Operating Company, which struggled due to internal conflicts
   and lack of investment."

The "newer group" was led by Mark Miller, who'd been a part of the 
project from the Swarthmore days.

"Justification" is pejorative.  Since the "problems" are admitted here, 
it seems more like a "reason".  I worked at XOC from mid-1991 to early 
1993.  It was XOC the entire time, as I recall.

I was the Manager of Software Development for most of the time I was 
there before the divestiture, and there was no deadline imposed by 
Autodesk that I ever heard of.  We announced deadlines we set for 
ourselves, and delivered software to customers at Autodesk and elsewhere 
on-time or within a few weeks of target dates.

I was in Europe (watching the Olympics in Barcelona) when the 
divestiture happened.  Autodesk divested all of its external 
subsidiaries at the same time in an effort to put more attention into 
their revenue-producing products.  It's hard to see why anyone familiar 
with the situation would say that Xanadu was singled out for failing to 
meet commitments when the divestiture was general.

The part about internal conflicts is true, though the intervention of 
Memex (mentioned in the following paragraph) addressed the lack of 
investment.

Chris
-- 
It is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup, but not so
easy to turn fish soup back into an aquarium.
-- Lech Walesa on reverting to a market economy.

Chris Hibbert
hibbert at mydruthers.com
http://mydruthers.com


From mmbutler at gmail.com  Sun Aug  5 17:38:16 2007
From: mmbutler at gmail.com (Michael M. Butler)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 10:38:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Xanadu Revived?!
In-Reply-To: <470a3c520708050223i2d67e8e4i7d9d76841e2cc739@mail.gmail.com>
References: <p06230901c2db2242799e@23.237.66.13>
	<7d79ed890708050209s3acf7b7cne76ca587812a2186@mail.gmail.com>
	<470a3c520708050223i2d67e8e4i7d9d76841e2cc739@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7d79ed890708051038v3d4429pde7c6f2c5ae1f34b@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/5/07, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com> wrote:
> So please let us know. What is _the_ story? I thought Xanadu was dead
> like the dinosaurs.
> G.
>
> On 8/5/07, Michael M. Butler <mmbutler at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 8/4/07, Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
> > > Silly me, I should have checked here first to see the full story
> >
> > Well, to see _a_ story. It's Wikipedia. I counted six factual errors
> > and stopped reading.
> >

Giulio (and Amara):

If you ask five different (ex-)Xanies, you'll likely get more than
five answers. People presume that there _is_ "a" "the story" but even
modulo Wikipedia's faults there are many stories. I'm not being
postmodern here, I an acknowledging difficulties in determining fact.
I know at least one person on this list who could wipe the floor with
me on probably-accurate Xanadu lore.

Giulio:

"Dead like the dinosaurs?" I wouldn't say that. But that wasn't my
main irritation with the Wikipedia article.

Ted is still chasing the dream, and on his birthday this year he and
his current coder released a demo that illustrates in 3D one kind of
representation of transclusion he drew on paper decades ago. I have no
idea how much of that Xanalogical stuff actually is working "under the
hood" because the demo seems to be locked.

That's the XanaduSpace 1.0 demo pointed to at the bottom of the
Wikipedia article.

There's a few other worthies out there professing to be diddling with
the Udanax Gold and Green code, about whom I know virtually nothing.

Amara:

[Sidebar: Wkipedia sucks a large fraction of the time because jerks
with misinformation or axes to grind (and no life) get the final say.
Google Jaron Lanier's article on Wikipedia (or see Encyclopedia
Dramatica's not-very-safe-for-work parody/criticism site) for some
further insights.]

Their Xanadu article isn't totally broken, though cites are largely lacking.

Since I did actually technically "work on" Xanadu and at Memex (not
that I accomplished much), by the editorial policies of Wikipedia I am
not permitted to correct factual errors there. Terrific, huh?

I know for a fact that the description of events after 1979 contain
errors and anachronisms.

And the description of tumblers is brain dead and will leave the
reader wondering what the big deal is.

And there are other problems.

So I stopped reading before I noticed the link to Ted's latest
offering, with a bad taste in my mouth.

But... so what? :) Ted's still cranking away, and bless him for that.

-- 
         Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m
I've pulled birdshot out of ducks that didn't teleport at the right
time.  --J Thomas

From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Sun Aug  5 19:07:13 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 20:07:13 +0100
Subject: [ExI] on inflation in long term thinking
In-Reply-To: <38613567-68BF-4398-9733-F458B0384701@mac.com>
References: <38613567-68BF-4398-9733-F458B0384701@mac.com>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0708051207t3fb5ba1dt71121edde30bbf56@mail.gmail.com>

On 7/31/07, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

> What bothers me is the implicit notion rational decision making requires
> maximal extension of hypotheticals.   None of us have any real idea whether
> humanity or its descendants have a future beyond this planet, solar system
> or local galactic neighborhood.  That we might perhaps become or create
> near-gods that touch the entire galaxy eventually can surely be said of
> every reasonably sapient species in the universe.   But is it really
> rational to judge risk to humanity as equating to a major risk to the entire
> universe?   I don't see how this is justified.   Do we judge a human being
> not just on his own character and likely potential but on the potential of
> all those myriad of beings he might possibly be an ancestor to plus all
> those artificial beings that he might create or have some small part in
> creating and all their works as well?  Surely this throws reasonable
> context, likelihood analysis and any basis for rational decision making into
> disarray.
>
> So what is the proper means of cleaning this up?  How is it properly
> delimited to something actually useful?  Am I missing something?
>

I can see the philosophical justification for it, but I agree with you that
it's not useful. In practice, following that train of thought just leads us
into a state of mind where we're not thinking straight; we end up letting
fear and despair make our decisions for us, and in that condition we flinch
away from (not rationally guard against, but flinch away from) that which
_appears_ dangerous - and likely as not, right into the jaws of that which
truly _is_ dangerous.

I can't speak for everyone, but for myself I've decided the best approach
is:

1) I acknowledge I cannot know what will happen in the distant future.

2) That doesn't mean I can't hope. The hope of future wonders can't provide
detailed guidance for the here and now, but it can provide inspiration.

3) My scope for action extends over the next few years, maybe couple of
decades, and that is the timescale on which I make plans.
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From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Sun Aug  5 19:36:27 2007
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 12:36:27 -0700
Subject: [ExI] massive "green" industrial transformation of the landscape
References: <200707281428.l6SESGol007774@ms-smtp-06.texas.rr.com><20070728173546.GE20274@leitl.org><a6a17bd40707292104o6e3aa4eeg5807b7f76943bb39@mail.gmail.com>
	<20070805090138.GX20274@leitl.org>
Message-ID: <013501c7d798$080e1550$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Eugen writes


> (Btw, I've outlawed incandescents in this household (first 3 W
> LED spots, now metal halide lamps for the living room), and will
> be buying a wood/coal oven next year.

What if everyone did that?

Lee

> I'm thinking about adding
> passive solar, though roof alignment, inclination and shading
> by trees is suboptimal. A low-voltage PV-charged power supply for
> home network and electronics is on the drawing boards, too).


From hibbert at mydruthers.com  Sun Aug  5 18:32:15 2007
From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert)
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:32:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Xanadu Revived?!
In-Reply-To: <7d79ed890708051038v3d4429pde7c6f2c5ae1f34b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <p06230901c2db2242799e@23.237.66.13>	<7d79ed890708050209s3acf7b7cne76ca587812a2186@mail.gmail.com>	<470a3c520708050223i2d67e8e4i7d9d76841e2cc739@mail.gmail.com>
	<7d79ed890708051038v3d4429pde7c6f2c5ae1f34b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <46B617AF.7070101@mydruthers.com>

When I want to add more light about what went on at Xanadu, or what the 
interesting technological details are, I contribute something to 
http://www.sunless-sea.net/, a site dedicated to reviving and 
understanding the details.  I recently uploaded some info I found in two 
afternoons I spent poring over Stanford's collection of Keith Henson's 
papers (http://www.sunless-sea.net/wiki2/Main/KeithHensonsPapers).

There are several papers from that archive that I think are worth 
digitizing and explaining. 
(http://www.sunless-sea.net/wiki2/Main/WorthCopying)  Unfortunately, 
this is back burner for me.  I actually have a couple of customers 
asking for my attention at the moment, and we're remodeling our house 
(see my blog for a few details.)

Chris
-- 
Currently reading:
    Sunny Auyang, How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?;
    Greg Mortenson and David Relin, Three Cups of Tea;

Chris Hibbert
hibbert at mydruthers.com
http://mydruthers.com


From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Sun Aug  5 19:59:16 2007
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 12:59:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] on inflation in long term thinking
References: <38613567-68BF-4398-9733-F458B0384701@mac.com>
	<8d71341e0708051207t3fb5ba1dt71121edde30bbf56@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <013b01c7d79b$1c407ec0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Russell writes

> Samantha wrote
> 
> > What bothers me is the implicit notion rational decision making requires
> > maximal extension of hypotheticals.

This is a fine point to always bring up---even if just as a reminder.
And I really commend your phrasing.

> > None of us have any real idea whether humanity or its descendants
> > have a future beyond this planet, solar system or local galactic
> > neighborhood.  That we might perhaps become or create near-gods...
> > But is it really rational to judge risk to humanity as equating to a major
> > risk to the entire universe?

First, just to be clear.  We're talking about a finite portion of the
visible universe, because with the acceleration of expansion, most
of what we see can't and won't be within reach of our civilization.

In principle, I do consider it rational to so judge. Unless it benefits
someone, there isn't much use to the universe (a truism). The
*real* question is pursued further by you and Russell later.

> > Do we judge a human being not just on his own character and
> > likely potential but on the potential of all those myriad of beings
> > he might possibly be an ancestor to plus all those artificial beings...

To be precise, again, "judge" probably isn't the word you need, because
blame and punishment still must be accorded to individuals as their
capacities and actions call for. But in my opinion, yes indeed,
their *value* must include the contribution they'll make towards
converting dead matter into living matter in the long run, multiplied
by the probability, of course, that they'll actually do so.

> > So what is the proper means of cleaning this up?  How is it
> > properly delimited to something actually useful?  Am I missing
> >something? 

Missing something?  No, I think that caution is commendable.
But I do suspect that there may lurk here real differences in
*values* between you and Russell, on the one hand, and me,
Bostrum, Yudkowsky, and the usual suspects on the other.
Or it may be simply reducible to our necessary tendencies to 
assign different probabilities from one another to different
possibilities.

Russell then answers

> I can see the philosophical justification for it, but I agree with you
> that it's not useful. In practice, following that train of thought just
> leads us into a state of mind where we're not thinking straight; [!]
> we end up letting fear and despair make our decisions for us,

Oh, come now  :-)

> and in that condition we flinch away from (not rationally guard against,
> but flinch away from) that which _appears_ dangerous - and likely
> as not, right into the jaws of that which truly _is_ dangerous. 

If you think, for example, that global warming is a dire threat,
and I don't, it' doesn't follow that you aren't thinking straight
or are "letting fear and despair make our decisions for us".
(Well, yes, probably that's true of *some* people, but it is
downright un-Christian to assume that it's true for all.)

> I can't speak for everyone, but for myself I've decided the best approach is:

> 1) I acknowledge I cannot know what will happen in the distant future.

Good.  Applies, as ready examples, both to a deadly and fast
AI takeoff (which I fear) and to catastrophic global warming
(which I don't).

> 2) That doesn't mean I can't hope. The hope of future wonders
> can't provide detailed guidance for the here and now, but it can
> provide inspiration. 

Quite so.

> 3) My scope for action extends over the next few years, maybe
> couple of decades, and that is the timescale on which I make plans.

I guess I have to agree with you, here, and pull back a little on
my own enthusiasm for worrying too much, say, about "the
Singularity".   While yes, I'm very glad that there are some people
worrying about it as their professions, it has also occurred to me
recently that everything is just too unpredictable.

(I read a few pages of "The Black Swan", I think it's called, which
has some very telling anecdotes about making overly detailed plans
concerning a too uncertain future.  And reading prognostications
that are even four years old, e.g. "Robotic Nation", causes one to
see how very quickly our guesses become outdated.)

Can't some agreement be reached here simply by each of us
assigning different probabilities to various risks?  In other words,
is anything really new here?

Lee


From eugen at leitl.org  Sun Aug  5 20:23:27 2007
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 22:23:27 +0200
Subject: [ExI] massive "green" industrial transformation of the landscape
In-Reply-To: <013501c7d798$080e1550$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <20070805090138.GX20274@leitl.org>
	<013501c7d798$080e1550$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <20070805202327.GH20274@leitl.org>

On Sun, Aug 05, 2007 at 12:36:27PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
> Eugen writes
> 
> 
> > (Btw, I've outlawed incandescents in this household (first 3 W
> > LED spots, now metal halide lamps for the living room), and will
> > be buying a wood/coal oven next year.
> 
> What if everyone did that?

I hereby encourage everybody to pick up fluorescents, LEDs and metal
halides instead of old incandescents -- the wood oven part is however
a pure insurance on my part. I expect to things become somewhat
nasty during impending economic turmoil, and methane to become
scarce and/or expensive for the duration. Wood and especially coal
wouldn't work for dense industrial centers, mostly for emission
reasons.

You should be clean with a modern fuel pellet oven, though. All of this
is short-term, in 15-30 years suburbia should be net energy
producer. 

Of course the usual other suggestions do apply: house insulation,
energy-efficient home appliances, solar thermal, heat pump, etc.
 
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From mmbutler at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 02:28:16 2007
From: mmbutler at gmail.com (Michael M. Butler)
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2007 19:28:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Xanadu Revived?!
In-Reply-To: <46B617AF.7070101@mydruthers.com>
References: <p06230901c2db2242799e@23.237.66.13>
	<7d79ed890708050209s3acf7b7cne76ca587812a2186@mail.gmail.com>
	<470a3c520708050223i2d67e8e4i7d9d76841e2cc739@mail.gmail.com>
	<7d79ed890708051038v3d4429pde7c6f2c5ae1f34b@mail.gmail.com>
	<46B617AF.7070101@mydruthers.com>
Message-ID: <7d79ed890708051928t1d53ade1x10d9187ca52d2ad4@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/5/07, Chris Hibbert <hibbert at mydruthers.com> wrote:
> When I want to add more light about what went on at Xanadu, or what the
> interesting technological details are, I contribute something to
> http://www.sunless-sea.net/, a site dedicated to reviving and
> understanding the details.

Interesting, and thanks. It's back-burner for me, also, but I just
turned up an old videotape of some Xanadu chalk talks from back in the
1987-1991 timeframe. If they're at all salvage-able, I'll try to
convert them and upload them there.


-- 
         Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m
I've pulled birdshot out of ducks that didn't teleport at the right
time.  --J Thomas

From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 06:49:11 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 07:49:11 +0100
Subject: [ExI] on inflation in long term thinking
In-Reply-To: <013b01c7d79b$1c407ec0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <38613567-68BF-4398-9733-F458B0384701@mac.com>
	<8d71341e0708051207t3fb5ba1dt71121edde30bbf56@mail.gmail.com>
	<013b01c7d79b$1c407ec0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0708052349qf883e95lebbfa75987ab4023@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/5/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>
> If you think, for example, that global warming is a dire threat,
> and I don't, it' doesn't follow that you aren't thinking straight
> or are "letting fear and despair make our decisions for us".
> (Well, yes, probably that's true of *some* people, but it is
> downright un-Christian to assume that it's true for all.)


Different kinds of hypothetical danger generate different responses in
people - we are not Bayesian agents, after all (more on that below). I agree
of course that it would be un-Christian to simply make such assumptions,
which is why I am not doing so - my claims regarding the pitfalls here are
based on first-hand experience; I spent awhile in this trap myself.

(I read a few pages of "The Black Swan", I think it's called, which
> has some very telling anecdotes about making overly detailed plans
> concerning a too uncertain future.  And reading prognostications
> that are even four years old, e.g. "Robotic Nation", causes one to
> see how very quickly our guesses become outdated.)


*nods* The Black Swan is good reading - some of the polemics are skippable,
but Taleb also makes some very good points.

Can't some agreement be reached here simply by each of us
> assigning different probabilities to various risks?  In other words,
> is anything really new here?
>

Partly. I don't think we're disagreeing on values - maybe not everyone here
has exactly the same values, but I would guess close enough to the same for
these purposes. Part of it is different probabilities, but I wince at using
that word, because part of it is also a difference in philosophical
approach. I am not a Bayesian. Oh don't get me wrong, Bayesian reasoning is
normative _where applicable_. But for human beings in the real world (as
opposed to mathematically abstracted agents in a closed-world toy universe),
it usually is not applicable. In the absence of hard statistical data,
"probability" assignments are nothing of the sort, and the kind of errors
Bayes will help you with are on the whole not the kind people actually make.
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From femmechakra at yahoo.ca  Mon Aug  6 06:23:00 2007
From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 02:23:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [ExI] Myth or Factual for Aug 27?
In-Reply-To: <p06230904c2d1d5559f8c@[23.237.66.13]>
Message-ID: <960539.49135.qm@web30407.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi Amara,

One of my friends mentioned today that on August 27,
2007, Mars will be closest to the Earth than X amount
of years. (I'm not really sure that he knew all the
details about it but I thought that maybe there was
something based on the history).
As I haven't kept up with my sky watching (I'm rather
busy during the summer), I thought that maybe I could
witness something that I haven't seen before. Can you
describe what I should look for, what time this event
should occur if there really is an event?  

Any heads up or is this just a bogus claim?
Just curious and hope your not too busy to answer.
Thanks
Anna   

   



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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Mon Aug  6 06:59:54 2007
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 01:59:54 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Myth or Factual for Aug 27?
In-Reply-To: <960539.49135.qm@web30407.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <p06230904c2d1d5559f8c@[23.237.66.13]>
	<960539.49135.qm@web30407.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20070806015847.0215f598@satx.rr.com>

At 02:23 AM 8/6/2007 -0400, Anna wrote:

>One of my friends mentioned today that on August 27,
>2007, Mars will be closest to the Earth than X amount
>of years.

Go straight to Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp



From femmechakra at yahoo.ca  Mon Aug  6 07:34:29 2007
From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 03:34:29 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [ExI] Myth or Factual for Aug 27?
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20070806015847.0215f598@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <80600.71837.qm@web30409.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

> 
> Go straight to Snopes:
> 
> http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp

What makes you think I don't know how to Google? 
I was refering to a post I wrote a while back to Amara
regarding how she frequently posted noted events
within astronomy (my sky-watching). 

My apology if I don't get your point.
Anna






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From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Mon Aug  6 08:47:09 2007
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 01:47:09 -0700
Subject: [ExI] on inflation in long term thinking
References: <38613567-68BF-4398-9733-F458B0384701@mac.com><8d71341e0708051207t3fb5ba1dt71121edde30bbf56@mail.gmail.com><013b01c7d79b$1c407ec0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<8d71341e0708052349qf883e95lebbfa75987ab4023@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01a101c7d806$67f68100$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Russell writes

> Different kinds of hypothetical danger generate different responses in people - we are not Bayesian agents, after all (more on 
> that below). I agree of course that it would be un-Christian to simply make such assumptions, which is why I am not doing so - my 
> claims regarding the pitfalls here are based on first-hand experience; I spent awhile in this trap myself.<

Your passage wasn't very clear to me.  Mind elaborating on
the "trap" you were in; e.g., the circumstances or examples?


> > (I read a few pages of "The Black Swan", I think it's called, which
> > has some very telling anecdotes about making overly detailed plans
> > concerning a too uncertain future.  And reading prognostications
> > that are even four years old, e.g. "Robotic Nation", causes one to

Argh.  I do *not* recommend that particular, extremely economically
ignorant story, or Marshall  Brain's silly essays---hope no one thought I did.

> > see how very quickly our guesses become outdated.)

> *nods* The Black Swan is good reading - some of the polemics are
> skippable, but Taleb also makes some very good points.

> > Can't some agreement be reached here simply by each of us
> > assigning different probabilities to various risks?  In other words,
> > is anything really new here?

> Partly. I don't think we're disagreeing on values - maybe not everyone here has exactly the same values, but I would guess close 
> enough to the same for these purposes. Part of it is different probabilities, but I wince at using that word, because part of it 
> is also a difference in philosophical approach. I am not a Bayesian. Oh don't get me wrong, Bayesian reasoning is normative _where 
> applicable_. But for human beings in the real world (as opposed to mathematically abstracted agents in a closed-world toy 
> universe), it usually is not applicable. In the absence of hard statistical data, "probability" assignments are nothing of the 
> sort, and the kind of errors Bayes will help you with are on the whole not the kind people actually make.
<

Well, it's been a while since we've discussed Bayesianity.  My
own views have shifted a bit.  Would you mind elaborating
on your disagreement with Bayesianism, or providing some
links?  (Preferably in a new thread.)

Thanks,
Lee





_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat 


From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Mon Aug  6 08:53:38 2007
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 01:53:38 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Myth or Factual for Aug 27?
References: <80600.71837.qm@web30409.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <01af01c7d807$4b0025a0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Anna writes

> What makes you think I don't know how to Google?

There was no implication of that in Damien's post.

> I was refering to a post I wrote a while back to Amara
> regarding how she frequently posted noted events
> within astronomy (my sky-watching).

Well, you wrote in "Myth or Factual",

> I thought that maybe I could
> witness something that I haven't seen before. Can you
> describe what I should look for, what time this event
> should occur if there really is an event?

Damien was merely pointing to a web site that debunks
claims.  I didn't know about that site.  If I had been you,
I would have interpreted that as a direct answer to my
question of whether this was "Myth or Factual".  That
web site directly calls this an urban legend.  Hence your
friend was wrong.  That's all.

Lee


> --- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Go straight to Snopes:
>>
>> http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp
>
> What makes you think I don't know how to Google?
> I was refering to a post I wrote a while back to Amara
> regarding how she frequently posted noted events
> within astronomy (my sky-watching).
>
> My apology if I don't get your point.
> Anna
>
>
>
>
>
>
>      Get news delivered with the All new Yahoo! Mail.  Enjoy RSS feeds right on your Mail page. Start today at 
> http://mrd.mail.yahoo.com/try_beta?.intl=ca
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> 


From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 11:12:03 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 12:12:03 +0100
Subject: [ExI] on inflation in long term thinking
In-Reply-To: <01a101c7d806$67f68100$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <38613567-68BF-4398-9733-F458B0384701@mac.com>
	<8d71341e0708051207t3fb5ba1dt71121edde30bbf56@mail.gmail.com>
	<013b01c7d79b$1c407ec0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<8d71341e0708052349qf883e95lebbfa75987ab4023@mail.gmail.com>
	<01a101c7d806$67f68100$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0708060412m4a67eec1g590871acea512d4a@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> Your passage wasn't very clear to me.  Mind elaborating on
> the "trap" you were in; e.g., the circumstances or examples?

I elaborated awhile ago over on SL4:
http://sl4.org/archive/0608/15606.html

> Argh.  I do *not* recommend that particular, extremely economically
> ignorant story, or Marshall  Brain's silly essays---hope no one thought I did.

The Black Swan is economically ignorant? I thought some parts were
skippable, but there were also some useful insights.

From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 11:32:32 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 12:32:32 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
Message-ID: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>

Lee Corbin wrote in another thread:
> Well, it's been a while since we've discussed Bayesianity.  My
> own views have shifted a bit.  Would you mind elaborating
> on your disagreement with Bayesianism, or providing some
> links?  (Preferably in a new thread.)

Sure. Like I said, I think Bayesianism is normative _where
applicable_, but that's not nearly as much of the time as one might
wish. The problematic ideas are:

1) All statements have a probability.

There are lots of statements for which the concept is extremely dubious, e.g.

The Tegmark multiverse exists. (I'm not even going to get into the
quagmire of probability assignment to "God exists".)
Theft is immoral.
Roses are pretty.
The Continuum Hypothesis is true.

2) All probabilities are in the range (0, 1) exclusive.

The probability that 2 + 2 = 4 (given the usual definitions of the
terms) is 1. The probability that Goldbach's conjecture is true is
either 0 or 1, though I don't know which. The probability that P = NP
is either 0 or 1; it's not proven yet, but I'm confident it's 0.

3) We should express uncertainty by making up numbers and calling them
probabilities.

There are situations where this is the right thing to do. What's the
probability that a fair coin will come up heads? 0.5. What's the
probability that I will die this year? I don't know, but life
insurance companies have tables that could be consulted for a number,
which could reasonably be interpreted as a probability _because it is
based on statistical data_.

But Bayesianism encourages us to make up numbers where there is no
such data. Not only do we not have any basis for calling these numbers
probabilities, but we have excellent reason to refrain from doing so.
One study showed that statements to which people attached "90%
confidence" were right about 30% of the time; nor is this at all
atypical.

From neptune at superlink.net  Mon Aug  6 11:53:07 2007
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 07:53:07 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004201c7d820$5b11e140$4d893cd1@pavilion>

On Monday, August 06, 2007 7:32 AM Russell Wallace
russell.wallace at gmail.com wrote:
> 3) We should express uncertainty by making up numbers and calling them
> probabilities.
>
> There are situations where this is the right thing to do. What's the
> probability that a fair coin will come up heads? 0.5. What's the
> probability that I will die this year? I don't know, but life
> insurance companies have tables that could be consulted for a number,
> which could reasonably be interpreted as a probability _because it is
> based on statistical data_.
>
> But Bayesianism encourages us to make up numbers where there is no
> such data. Not only do we not have any basis for calling these numbers
> probabilities, but we have excellent reason to refrain from doing so.
> One study showed that statements to which people attached "90%
> confidence" were right about 30% of the time; nor is this at all
> atypical.

I think the problem matches up with the difference, in economics,
between risk and uncertainty (Knight) as well as between plain vanilla
ignorance and sheer ignorance (Lachmann).  On the former dyad, risk is
quantifiable unknowns while uncertainty is not quantifiable.  On the
latter, an example might be I don't know how many symphonies Mozart
wrote, but I _know_ I don't know that, while there are many things I'm
not even aware that I _don't know_ I don't know.

Regards,

Dan


From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 12:24:39 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 13:24:39 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <004201c7d820$5b11e140$4d893cd1@pavilion>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<004201c7d820$5b11e140$4d893cd1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0708060524sdf66832pcb2be115d653e511@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Technotranscendence <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:
> I think the problem matches up with the difference, in economics,
> between risk and uncertainty (Knight) as well as between plain vanilla
> ignorance and sheer ignorance (Lachmann).  On the former dyad, risk is
> quantifiable unknowns while uncertainty is not quantifiable.  On the
> latter, an example might be I don't know how many symphonies Mozart
> wrote, but I _know_ I don't know that, while there are many things I'm
> not even aware that I _don't know_ I don't know.

*nods* That's certainly an aspect of the reason why a single number
isn't sufficient to express uncertainty.

From jef at jefallbright.net  Mon Aug  6 15:35:44 2007
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 08:35:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Russell Wallace <russell.wallace at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sure. Like I said, I think Bayesianism is normative _where
> applicable_, but that's not nearly as much of the time as one might
> wish.

Bayesianism?  Apparently you're framing this in regard to the
religion, evidenced by your top-level emphasis on "normative, where
applicable".  It took me a moment to grasp your "...ianism" frame --
at first I kept thinking you meant "effective, where applicable", but
that would be nearly tautological.  It seemed you were somehow denying
the elegance, power,  and nearly universal applicability of the
principle known as Bayes' Rule.

However, your post seems to continually blur this distinction.



> The problematic ideas are:
>
> 1) All statements have a probability.

Presuming you mean by "statements", "all statements about the
(observed) actuality of some state", then how could there not be a
probability?  Essentially, any such statement asserts the accuracy of
some aspects of an observer's model of reality, and any model is
necessarily ultimately incomplete.


> There are lots of statements for which the concept is extremely dubious, e.g.
>
> The Tegmark multiverse exists. (I'm not even going to get into the
> quagmire of probability assignment to "God exists".)

These particular topics are difficult due to lack of relatively direct
evidence, but Bayes remains applicable since the aggregate of all your
evidence (and all evidence is indirect to some extent) contributes to
what approaches a necessarily single, unified model.


> Theft is immoral.

> Roses are pretty.

These assertions suffer not from lack of evidence, but from inadequate
specification.


> The Continuum Hypothesis is true.

This assertion too suffers from inadequate specification.  This may be
more difficult for some people to grasp, as here it is the
mathematical context that is inadequately specified.  As G?del
famously showed, even mathematics can never be fully specified.

Heed ye, the Importance of Context!


> 2) All probabilities are in the range (0, 1) exclusive.

Well yes, because every statement of probability refers to some aspect
of the difference between a model and putative reality.  Note that
while the model is highly dimensional, the difference (however
defined) can always be reduced to a scalar.


> The probability that 2 + 2 = 4 (given the usual definitions of the
> terms) is 1. The probability that Goldbach's conjecture is true is
> either 0 or 1, though I don't know which. The probability that P = NP
> is either 0 or 1; it's not proven yet, but I'm confident it's 0.


These aren't statements of probability.  You're not turning Platonist
are you? ;-)


> 3) We should express uncertainty by making up numbers and calling them
> probabilities.
>
> There are situations where this is the right thing to do. What's the
> probability that a fair coin will come up heads? 0.5. What's the
> probability that I will die this year? I don't know, but life
> insurance companies have tables that could be consulted for a number,
> which could reasonably be interpreted as a probability _because it is
> based on statistical data_.


It appears you may be unclear about the distinction between
probability and likelihood.



> But Bayesianism encourages us to make up numbers where there is no
> such data. Not only do we not have any basis for calling these numbers
> probabilities, but we have excellent reason to refrain from doing so.
> One study showed that statements to which people attached "90%
> confidence" were right about 30% of the time; nor is this at all
> atypical.

Your statements here demonstrate that you don't really understand
Bayesian reasoning. It appears we lack sufficient mutual background
here to  go much further.  It might be useful to point out though,
that even to frame a question necessarily entails some relevant prior
knowledge.

As for "Bayesianism", I'm not much of a joiner and tend to avoid
"isms" in general.

- Jef


From mmbutler at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 16:11:02 2007
From: mmbutler at gmail.com (Michael M. Butler)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 09:11:02 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Myth or Factual for Aug 27?
In-Reply-To: <01af01c7d807$4b0025a0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <80600.71837.qm@web30409.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<01af01c7d807$4b0025a0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <7d79ed890708060911i704017c4scb70e755d2023173@mail.gmail.com>

Anna, your friend has the right month and day, but the wrong year.
What your friend is talking about actually already happened, in 2003.

At 5:51 a.m. EDT on Aug. 27, 2003, Mars was reportedly within
34,646,418 miles (55,758,006 kilometers) of Earth. This was the
closest that Mars has come to our planet in nearly 60,000 years.

Sorry to disappoint.

-- 
         Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m
I've pulled birdshot out of ducks that didn't teleport at the right
time.  --J Thomas

From jef at jefallbright.net  Mon Aug  6 16:11:15 2007
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 09:11:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI]  Resend: Bayesian epistemology
Message-ID: <f7bfe5740708060911u63aef196ncd6daed4896ca165@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Russell Wallace <russell.wallace at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sure. Like I said, I think Bayesianism is normative _where
> applicable_, but that's not nearly as much of the time as one might
> wish.

Bayesianism?  Apparently you're framing this in regard to the
religion, evidenced by your top-level emphasis on "normative, where
applicable".  It took me a moment to grasp your "...ianism" frame --
at first I kept thinking you meant "effective, where applicable", but
that would be nearly tautological.  It seemed you were somehow denying
the elegance, power,  and nearly universal applicability of the
principle known as Bayes' Rule.

However, your post seems to continually blur this distinction.



> The problematic ideas are:
>
> 1) All statements have a probability.

Presuming you mean by "statements", "all statements about future
observations of some state", then how could there not be a
probability?  Essentially, any such statement asserts the accuracy of
some aspects of an observer's model of reality, and any model is
necessarily ultimately incomplete.


> There are lots of statements for which the concept is extremely dubious, e.g.
>
> The Tegmark multiverse exists. (I'm not even going to get into the
> quagmire of probability assignment to "God exists".)

These particular topics are difficult due to lack of relatively direct
evidence, but Bayes remains applicable since the aggregate of all your
evidence (and all evidence is indirect to some extent) contributes to
what approaches a necessarily single, unified model.


> Theft is immoral.

> Roses are pretty.

These assertions suffer not from lack of evidence, but from inadequate
specification.


> The Continuum Hypothesis is true.

This assertion too suffers from inadequate specification.  This may be
more difficult for some people to grasp, as here it is the
mathematical context that is inadequately specified.  As G?del
famously showed, even mathematics can never be fully specified.

Heed ye, the Importance of Context!


> 2) All probabilities are in the range (0, 1) exclusive.

Well yes, because every statement of probability refers to some aspect
of the difference between a model and putative reality.  Note that
while the model is highly dimensional, the difference (however
defined) can always be reduced to a scalar.


> The probability that 2 + 2 = 4 (given the usual definitions of the
> terms) is 1. The probability that Goldbach's conjecture is true is
> either 0 or 1, though I don't know which. The probability that P = NP
> is either 0 or 1; it's not proven yet, but I'm confident it's 0.


These aren't statements of probability.  You're not turning Platonist
are you? ;-)


> 3) We should express uncertainty by making up numbers and calling them
> probabilities.
>
> There are situations where this is the right thing to do. What's the
> probability that a fair coin will come up heads? 0.5. What's the
> probability that I will die this year? I don't know, but life
> insurance companies have tables that could be consulted for a number,
> which could reasonably be interpreted as a probability _because it is
> based on statistical data_.


It appears you may be unclear about the distinction between
probability and likelihood.



> But Bayesianism encourages us to make up numbers where there is no
> such data. Not only do we not have any basis for calling these numbers
> probabilities, but we have excellent reason to refrain from doing so.
> One study showed that statements to which people attached "90%
> confidence" were right about 30% of the time; nor is this at all
> atypical.

It appears we lack sufficient mutual background
here to  go much further.  It might be useful to point out though,
that even to frame a question necessarily entails some relevant prior
knowledge.

As for "Bayesianism", I'm not much of a joiner and tend to avoid
"isms" in general.

- Jef


From mmbutler at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 16:46:29 2007
From: mmbutler at gmail.com (Michael M. Butler)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 09:46:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com>

> It appears you may be unclear about the distinction between
> probability and likelihood.

1) It's been a while since I've cracked open my E. T. Jaynes
(_Probability Theory As Extended Logic_) and I seem to have packed it
prior to my recent move. Can you point me (us) to someone on teh
Intarweb who does a good concise job of making this distinction clear
in a Bayesian (but not Bayesianismistic) context?

2) The other thing that is confusing me about the (0,1) range Russell
Wallace used is that a huge part of that book (even unto the title!)
was about propounding the view that probability theory starting with
Laplace generalizes Aristotelian logic. Which, it sems to me, means
that it reduces to deductive logic when hypotheses are T/F. And a true
"reduction", it seems to me, would be that the interval dealt with is
actually [0,1].

Now, is that a limit case that can only be approached, as the "open
interval" notation used by Russell W. indicates? Is it factually the
case that can only speak of the results of Bayesian/Jaynesian analyses
terms of zillions of dB rather than 0 or 1? And if so, is that an
indictment of any kind, or merely a description of fact--that
Aristotelian logic works fine at the limit, and Bayesian stuff works
all the way up to just outside that?

3) I agree with Russell W. that plucking numbers from the air seems
odd and prone to misestimation, but I also think that (empirically) if
someone claims to be 90% confident and reality shows them they "ought
to have been" only 30% confident, the problem is with their bias, not
with Bayes per se.

Robin Hanson has (as many on the list must know) been running the
Overcoming Bias website for some time now, and it's worth at least
peeking in from time to time.

In the case mentioned above, I think Jaynes would say that after you
got a negative outcome it would behoove you to include that in your
priors for your next estimate and revise your confidence rating.
Iteration and refinement are part of the deal. Am I right?

Sorry for the tyro questions.

-- 
         Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m
I've pulled birdshot out of ducks that didn't teleport at the right
time.  --J Thomas

From mmbutler at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 17:35:43 2007
From: mmbutler at gmail.com (Michael M. Butler)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 10:35:43 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com>
	<7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7d79ed890708061035v62a99fb9k36879935ec421513@mail.gmail.com>

Apologies for my scrambled syntax. Corrigenda:

> 2) The other thing

s/b "Something"

> Is it factually the
> case that [one] can only speak of the results of Bayesian/Jaynesian analyses
> [in] terms of zillions of dB rather than 0 or 1?

-- 
         Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m
I've pulled birdshot out of ducks that didn't teleport at the right
time.  --J Thomas

From sjatkins at mac.com  Mon Aug  6 17:36:32 2007
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 10:36:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1186421792.1488.34.camel@ub2>

On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 12:32 +0100, Russell Wallace wrote:
> Lee Corbin wrote in another thread:
> > Well, it's been a while since we've discussed Bayesianity.  My
> > own views have shifted a bit.  Would you mind elaborating
> > on your disagreement with Bayesianism, or providing some
> > links?  (Preferably in a new thread.)
> 
> Sure. Like I said, I think Bayesianism is normative _where
> applicable_, but that's not nearly as much of the time as one might
> wish. The problematic ideas are:
> 
> 1) All statements have a probability.

Useless if there is no way of ascertaining the probability if there is
one.  Does this meta statement have a probability and is it < 1?


> But Bayesianism encourages us to make up numbers where there is no
> such data. Not only do we not have any basis for calling these numbers
> probabilities, but we have excellent reason to refrain from doing so.
> One study showed that statements to which people attached "90%
> confidence" were right about 30% of the time; nor is this at all
> atypical.

If a mathematical method useful in decision making has become an -ism
then we are surely lost.

- samantha


From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 17:50:21 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 18:50:21 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <1186421792.1488.34.camel@ub2>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<1186421792.1488.34.camel@ub2>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0708061050h646a1c9dra7cc28c277d18c03@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> If a mathematical method useful in decision making has become an -ism
> then we are surely lost.

Well it's been floating around as an -ism (or I think Eliezer called
it something like "Bayesutsu", only partly tongue in cheek) for awhile
now, so while the conclusion that we're surely lost is a little on the
pessimistic side even for me :), I figured there was no harm in
discussing the reasons why, while the mathematical method is great
stuff as far as it goes, the -ism aspect takes things too far.

From jef at jefallbright.net  Mon Aug  6 19:08:35 2007
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 12:08:35 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <8d71341e0708061050h646a1c9dra7cc28c277d18c03@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<1186421792.1488.34.camel@ub2>
	<8d71341e0708061050h646a1c9dra7cc28c277d18c03@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f7bfe5740708061208i2566c35he3e191e4726ef823@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Russell Wallace <russell.wallace at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/6/07, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> > If a mathematical method useful in decision making has become an -ism
> > then we are surely lost.
>
> Well it's been floating around as an -ism (or I think Eliezer called
> it something like "Bayesutsu", only partly tongue in cheek) for awhile
> now, so while the conclusion that we're surely lost is a little on the
> pessimistic side even for me :), I figured there was no harm in
> discussing the reasons why, while the mathematical method is great
> stuff as far as it goes, the -ism aspect takes things too far.

Russell, I'm sorry if you felt an implication of harm in my response
to your initiation of this thread.  I've been deep in software
engineering for the last several weeks and it tends to bring out my
analytical side, parsing **everything** literally and logically and
critically.  You and Lee and Gordon wind up being the unhappy
recipients of my "gifts" of criticism, perhaps unaware that if I
didn't respect you I wouldn't have even bothered to engage.

I strongly agree with your point that the Bayesian suffers when it
becomes the Bayesianistic.  Bayes theorem is elegant in its power and
applicability, but it's by no means the right tool for every job. That
would be like applying the elegant but abstract principles of
trigonometry or Newtonian physics to the task of catching a tossed
ball.

- Jef

From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 20:16:03 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 21:16:03 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <f7bfe5740708061208i2566c35he3e191e4726ef823@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<1186421792.1488.34.camel@ub2>
	<8d71341e0708061050h646a1c9dra7cc28c277d18c03@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740708061208i2566c35he3e191e4726ef823@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0708061316l3e9aa968oebc6383e81c2dfa3@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
> Russell, I'm sorry if you felt an implication of harm in my response
> to your initiation of this thread.  I've been deep in software
> engineering for the last several weeks and it tends to bring out my
> analytical side, parsing **everything** literally and logically and
> critically.  You and Lee and Gordon wind up being the unhappy
> recipients of my "gifts" of criticism, perhaps unaware that if I
> didn't respect you I wouldn't have even bothered to engage.

No problem, I know how that goes!

> I strongly agree with your point that the Bayesian suffers when it
> becomes the Bayesianistic.

Right, I wasn't sure from your earlier reply, which seemed to be
expressing disagreement in general terms but then making a number of
specific comments that were consistent with mine, so I figured I'd
come back to it later, seems we're in agreement then ^.^

From jef at jefallbright.net  Mon Aug  6 20:28:06 2007
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 13:28:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <8d71341e0708061316l3e9aa968oebc6383e81c2dfa3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<1186421792.1488.34.camel@ub2>
	<8d71341e0708061050h646a1c9dra7cc28c277d18c03@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740708061208i2566c35he3e191e4726ef823@mail.gmail.com>
	<8d71341e0708061316l3e9aa968oebc6383e81c2dfa3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f7bfe5740708061328i299e0aa0h7a16b36672240849@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Russell Wallace <russell.wallace at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wasn't sure from your earlier reply, which seemed to be
> expressing disagreement in general terms but then making a number of
> specific comments that were consistent with mine, so I figured I'd
> come back to it later, seems we're in agreement then ^.^

Strange.  I thought I disagreed with several of your specifics.

But you can rest assured that all else considered, we certainly do
agree more than not.

- Jef

From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Mon Aug  6 21:38:04 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 22:38:04 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <f7bfe5740708061328i299e0aa0h7a16b36672240849@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<1186421792.1488.34.camel@ub2>
	<8d71341e0708061050h646a1c9dra7cc28c277d18c03@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740708061208i2566c35he3e191e4726ef823@mail.gmail.com>
	<8d71341e0708061316l3e9aa968oebc6383e81c2dfa3@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740708061328i299e0aa0h7a16b36672240849@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0708061438y6530afefh1f792e9fe50a77d4@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
> Strange.  I thought I disagreed with several of your specifics.

That's why I used the phrase "consistent with" - I didn't reply line
by line because it seemed to me that would be likely to miss the
point, but there were a few cases where I would have said "er yes, you
have (given a reasonable interpretation of the terms) correctly
pointed out _why_ such and such isn't a matter of probability" etc :)

From jef at jefallbright.net  Mon Aug  6 18:41:33 2007
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 11:41:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com>
	<7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f7bfe5740708061141s643f13ebm5867f029d31d42c8@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Michael M. Butler <mmbutler at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It appears you may be unclear about the distinction between
> > probability and likelihood.
>
> 1) It's been a while since I've cracked open my E. T. Jaynes
> (_Probability Theory As Extended Logic_) and I seem to have packed it
> prior to my recent move. Can you point me (us) to someone on teh
> Intarweb who does a good concise job of making this distinction clear
> in a Bayesian (but not Bayesianismistic) context?


I did a quick "Intarweb search" for helpful references and found a
great deal of misinformation on this simple fundamental point.  So
here's my attempt to convey it in simple terms:

Again it's very much about context, meaning necessarily partial information.

We can think of likelihood as the function (in "reality") that
determines the distribution of outcomes.  Probability, or better,
posterior probability, is the product of our prior and the likelihood
function and reflects our uncertain (i.e. incomplete) knowledge of the
parameters of the likelihood function.

>From Jaynes' _Probability Theory - The Logic of Science, section 8.5:

<quote>
In applying Bayes' theorem, the posterior pdf for a parameter [theta]
is always a product of a prior p(theta | l) and a likelihood function
[mathematical function]; the only place where the data is in the
latter. Therefore it is manifest that

"Within the context of the specified model, the likelihood function
L(theta) from data D
contains all the information about [theta] that is contained in D."

For us, this is an immediate and mathematically trivial consequence of
the product rule of probability theory, and is no more to be
questioned than the multiplication table.  Put differently, two data
sets D, D' that lead to the same likelihood function to within a
normalization: [mathematical equation], where `a' is a constant
independent of [theta], have just the same import for any inferences
about [theta], whether it be point estimation, interval estimation, or
hypothesis testing. But for those who think of a probability
distribution as a physical phenomenon arising from n`randomness'
rather than a carrier of incomplete information, the above quoted
statement -- since it involves only the sampling distribution - has a
meaning independent of the product rule and Bayes' theorem. They call
it the `likelihood principle', and its status as a principle of
inference has been the subject of long controversy, still continuing
today.
</quote>

Sorry, too busy with work to continue here, but I think understanding
the foregoing is key.

- Jef

From sentience at pobox.com  Mon Aug  6 23:32:58 2007
From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky)
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:32:58 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
In-Reply-To: <7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com>
	<7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <46B7AFAA.8000703@pobox.com>

Michael M. Butler wrote:
>>It appears you may be unclear about the distinction between
>>probability and likelihood.
> 
> 
> 1) It's been a while since I've cracked open my E. T. Jaynes
> (_Probability Theory As Extended Logic_) and I seem to have packed it
> prior to my recent move. Can you point me (us) to someone on teh
> Intarweb who does a good concise job of making this distinction clear
> in a Bayesian (but not Bayesianismistic) context?

http://yudkowsky.net/bayes/bayes.html
(albeit it's quite Bayesianitarian)

In simple terms, "likelihood" is the probability of seeing evidence E 
if a hypothesis H is true; it refers to p(E|H).  It is not to be 
confused with p(H) or p(H|E), respectively the probability of the 
hypothesis, and the posterior probability of the hypothesis after 
taking into account the evidence.  If that confused you see the above 
website.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

From nanogirl at halcyon.com  Tue Aug  7 00:11:00 2007
From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 17:11:00 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Book covers
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com><f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com><7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740708061141s643f13ebm5867f029d31d42c8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00fc01c7d888$097a9990$0200a8c0@Nano>

Okay so I've finished a book project I have been working on. With images for the stories completed I recently finalized the book cover, front and back. Find out more here: http://www.nanogirl.com/personal/elocbookcovers.htm

I also recently had one of my older images used for a different book cover:
http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-book-cover.html

Kind regards, 

Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com
Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/
Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/
Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org
Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."
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From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Tue Aug  7 00:44:54 2007
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 10:14:54 +0930
Subject: [ExI] Full Colour 3D Printing - the next big thing?
In-Reply-To: <bf3acbfc0708050415t6eb92f9bsf05d6903621110d8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <710b78fc0707291810l6d4acaf5r9d625acc100d3f1e@mail.gmail.com>
	<bf3acbfc0708050415t6eb92f9bsf05d6903621110d8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <710b78fc0708061744o14f15383lace147e5786d3032@mail.gmail.com>

I thought that too; miniatures for all!

Here's a thought...

When people talk about 3D printing for the masses, the assumption is
we'd move to a model where people sell blueprints rather than hardware
(3d models that you can download and print). I think this misses
something much more interesting.

When I imagine how it'll play out, I think of how people use paper
printers. What do they print? Do they download and print documents
made by others? Sometimes. But not so much. People tend to print stuff
they write/put together themselves.

I think it'll be the same with 3d printing. There'll be some static
models that people might want to download and print, sure, but often
(for a while anyway) it'll probably be cheaper to buy a mass produced
and distributed version than print your own one-off.

OTOH, 3d modeling is kinda complex... I can't see people installing 3d
studio max next to Word on all the consumer machines out there.

What I see is a lot of custom software which can do some restricted
customisations on a basic model or models. For example, with gaming
miniatures, downloading and printing the existing miniatures would be
ok, but downloading software that lets you choose colours, hairstyles,
weapons, stuff like that, showing you the result onscreen as you play
with the parameters, then lets you print out the result... now that
has legs.

Or for World of Warcraft players, imagine the ability to 3d print your
character. Or a mug with your character on it. etc...

Consumer electronics - what's cooler than an iPod? Perhaps an mp3
player where you buy a kit with internals and a CD with software that
lets you heavily customise the colours and shape of the external case
(in simple ways - select a shape, size, colour scheme, etc etc), then
print out the result and clip it all together. The models used by the
software would be designed by the same industrial designers that
currently design the iPod  et al, so you wouldn't lose the excellence
of those designs, just add choice.

Thoughts?

Emlyn

On 05/08/07, Dagon Gmail <dagonweb at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyone ever played wargames here? Warhammer 40K?
> *giggles*
>
> 3D printing will kill that scene overnight - unless they are
> smart and start selling the 3D models.
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>

From nanogirl at halcyon.com  Tue Aug  7 00:57:39 2007
From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 17:57:39 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pirated nano/cryo artwork and pictures- You all need to check
	for your own!
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com><f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com><7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com><f7bfe5740708061141s643f13ebm5867f029d31d42c8@mail.gmail.com>
	<00fc01c7d888$097a9990$0200a8c0@Nano>
Message-ID: <017401c7d88e$8cb6bbd0$0200a8c0@Nano>

I found this out from cryonet that this was happening. I am forwarding you my response to his "announcement". If you are an artist, photographer, author, graph maker etc. and/or might have an image, artwork or photo available online, you might want to check the link below to make sure it is not being sold illegally at the webpage made by Jonano (also known as Jon Despre, desp, Jonano Despres, nanoaging, Jon, John, Johnathan, Desp, Despre, Futurismboy):
-----------------------

I went to the Jonano's webpage (http://futurism.fotki.com/nanorobots/) and found my work, for sale, for a dollar. Jonano you did not ask my permission (to download, upload or sell) my artwork, please remove all of my images from all of your webpages. It is illegal to sell someone else's work without their permission. 
I make business transactions for publication of my work, I can assure you it is not for a dollar, by you selling it for as much, you very well may have taken work away from me. Please also tell me if you have "sold" my work to anyone, who they are and what their email is. They will need to be informed that they have been sold copyrighted material. 
I clearly state on each one of my artworks webpages that permission must be asked for any use of my work. You did not ask me and for future reference, no matter what your next big idea is, I do not want to be involved, in any way, no matter what it is. 
I also suggest that you have the permission of the other artists and photographers you have on your site, you should do this before you put it up, not after. Please remove all of my images immediately. 


Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com
Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/
Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/
Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org
Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."
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From tyleremerson at gmail.com  Tue Aug  7 01:15:51 2007
From: tyleremerson at gmail.com (Tyler Emerson)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 18:15:51 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The Singularity Challenge - Final Deadline at Midnight
	Tonight Pacific Time
Message-ID: <632d2cda0708061815m6ab389b4w95c02ac6df0e3e3d@mail.gmail.com>

The $400,000 challenge fund offered by Peter Thiel and Rob Zahra in
support of the Singularity Institute will no longer be available to
match after midnight tonight. If you support the Singularity
Institute's mission and goals, then please make a gift at this time so
that we can match as much as possible before the deadline. You can
also send a written pledge to institute at singinst.org, which will be
matched dollar-for-dollar as long as your pledge is received by
December 31st. Thank you!

Give to the Challenge:
http://www.singinst.org/challenge

Best regards,

Tyler

--
Tyler Emerson
Executive Director
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
P.O . Box 50182, Palo Alto, CA 94303 USA
650-353-6063 | emerson at singinst.org | singinst.org

From nanogirl at halcyon.com  Tue Aug  7 02:03:29 2007
From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 19:03:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pirated nano/cryo artwork and pictures- Your pictures are
	for sale here!
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com><f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com><7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com><f7bfe5740708061141s643f13ebm5867f029d31d42c8@mail.gmail.com><00fc01c7d888$097a9990$0200a8c0@Nano>
	<017401c7d88e$8cb6bbd0$0200a8c0@Nano>
Message-ID: <023501c7d897$b5649e40$0200a8c0@Nano>

Just some examples of the photos here that are being sold for between a dollar to 25 dollars depending on what type of prints you want:

Natasha:
http://futurism.fotki.com/blog/natasha1.html

Eliezer photo:
http://futurism.fotki.com/blog/eliezeryudkowsky.html

Singularity Institute logo: 
http://futurism.fotki.com/blog/5658.html

Bradbury photo:
http://futurism.fotki.com/blog/bradburybw.html

Chris Phoenix:
http://futurism.fotki.com/blog/chrisphoenix.html

Treder:
http://futurism.fotki.com/blog/treder.html

Nick Bostrom:
http://futurism.fotki.com/blog/nickbostrom.html

Wowk:
http://futurism.fotki.com/cryonics/drbrianwowk.html

Fahy:
http://futurism.fotki.com/cryonics/drgregfahy.html

Looks like most of the nanomedicine gallery is on there (from the Foresight webpage). Also logos, book covers, cartoons, movie covers and graphs. 

Gina
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Tue Aug  7 02:08:35 2007
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 22:08:35 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Full Colour 3D Printing - the next big thing?
In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0708061744o14f15383lace147e5786d3032@mail.gmail.com>
References: <710b78fc0707291810l6d4acaf5r9d625acc100d3f1e@mail.gmail.com>
	<bf3acbfc0708050415t6eb92f9bsf05d6903621110d8@mail.gmail.com>
	<710b78fc0708061744o14f15383lace147e5786d3032@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <62c14240708061908s3a2e75dagfc19d40b238ab966@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/6/07, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> When I imagine how it'll play out, I think of how people use paper


The print / consume / dispose in a very short time.  Hopefully the 3d
printouts will be more recyclable than paper.

customisations on a basic model or models. For example, with gaming
> miniatures, downloading and printing the existing miniatures would be
> ok, but downloading software that lets you choose colours, hairstyles,
> weapons, stuff like that, showing you the result onscreen as you play
> with the parameters, then lets you print out the result... now that
> has legs.


And if the IP laws are not brought within reason before then, you will have
to purchase a license for the basic model, subscribe to the software to
customize and lease the derivative works for the duration of their
existance.

Or for World of Warcraft players, imagine the ability to 3d print your
> character. Or a mug with your character on it. etc...


Why would a Word of Warcraft player need any physically real objects?  Sure,
they might want the blueprints for the sake of owning them, but what good is
an object if you can't show it off in-game to your friends?

Consumer electronics - what's cooler than an iPod? Perhaps an mp3
> player where you buy a kit with internals and a CD with software that
> lets you heavily customise the colours and shape of the external case
> (in simple ways - select a shape, size, colour scheme, etc etc), then
> print out the result and clip it all together. The models used by the
> software would be designed by the same industrial designers that
> currently design the iPod  et al, so you wouldn't lose the excellence
> of those designs, just add choice.


Of the American consumers I know, they'd more likely pay the 0.01% of the
population (who think like you suggest) to do the work for them and just
give them the product.  This is exactly why, despite CafePress' ease of use,
people still purchase items from existing sellers rather than set up their
own store.

Is there a widespread use for 3d printing?  It will probably require
creating a market, similar to how the cell phone went from a tool employed
only by doctors (and drug dealers) to every soccer mom and mallrat.

I wonder if these "printers" will be capable of producing all the parts
required to build one.  :)  You could purchase the hardware once and
subscribe to an update service.  Every (exponentially shorter time interval)
the device produces it's successor which then produces a more efficient
recycler into which it places both it's predecessor and the previous
recycler.
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From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Tue Aug  7 03:27:00 2007
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 20:27:00 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bayesian epistemology
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com>
	<1186421792.1488.34.camel@ub2>
Message-ID: <020201c7d8a2$d8ab1220$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Samantha writes

> If a mathematical method useful in decision making has become an -ism
> then we are surely lost.

Unfortunately, methods do differ between frequentists, Bayesians,
proponents of Popper's propensity view, and the "chance" view.
Well, at least I know that methods do differ between the first two
schools mentioned.  For example, the frequentists (and classical
statisticians) can become embarrassed over applications of the
stopping rule, whereas Bayesians (so I am informed by Peter Lee's
book "Bayesian Statistics") likewise can become embarrassed 
over "Jeffreys' rule for finding reference priors, [which is] 
incompatible wit the likelihood principle" (p. 210).

Has statistics gone irreversibly down the route of dismality in the
wake of economics?   :-)

Now I was taught the use of confidence intervals when I first
took statistics, and it came as a shock that Bayesians never use
them. I did convert to Bayesianism, however, but still can't help
but lapse into non-Bayesian concepts often.  Currently I
am taking more and more seriously what seemed for me---but
I am a total amateur---a possible Achilles' Heel:  we know of
one area in which objective probability is very manifest: QM
and Quantum Field Theory.  What's worse, (in my opinion) is
that if you take MWI very seriously, which I do, then you are
stuck with a definite fraction of worlds in which one thing happens
a certain way.

For a concrete example, let's suppose that George Bush is about
to give a scheduled speech on a certain day at a certain time.
What is the probability that he will read the speech exactly as
written by his speechwriter and as it appears on the teleprompter?
More precisely, what is the distribution of when he'll digress, or
stumble, or deviate from that exact sequence of words?

David Deutsch would remind us that we want to start with a 
particular "group of identical universes" at a particular time (say,
just before the speech begins).  Then that particular group of
identical universes (see Fabric of Reality where the phrase is
used over and over again and is meant quite literally) will begin
to fray at once.  (There will be meteor strikes, insects, or 
whatever that can immediately cause branching to occur, as
well as the harder to conceive of but equally real build-up of
neuronal quantum events---all of which cause George to 
deviate.)

Now on this reading, given a particular group of identical universes,
Barbara Bush's knowledge and his speechwriter's knowledge of
Bush do not---unlike in Bayesianism---play any role!  Jaynes brilliantly
(it seemed to me, though again I am no expert and may have mis-
understood his motivation) strongly emphasized the concept of a
*robot* and what the robot *knows*.  I surmise that he did this
to make the reader aware that he was talking about something
quite objective and real, namely, the state of the robot's
knowledge.  I liked that.  Maybe it even helped explain why
Jaynes belongs to the school of "objective Bayesians", which,
I readily confess, had a pleasing sound to me.

I don't know how to reconcile the preceding two paragraphs.

Here is how the whole mess started for me.  At first, it was
simplicity itself.  At age 18 I took my first course in probability,
and actually felt insulted that somebody's name (Bayes') was
attached to what seemed then to be a very obvious formula
of elementary probability. I was unaware of how some problems
are pretty tricky, but I still would not have been impressed, because
it still was nothing more than relative weights of cases.  What
*would* have impressed me would have been if I had known
exactly what problem Bayes was struggling with, and for which
he obtained a solution:

  "Given that the number of times in which an unknown event has
  happened and failed: *Required* [is] the chance that the
  probability of its happening in a single trial lies somewhere
  between any two degres of probability that can be named."

----Reverend Bayes in 1764, Philosophical Transactions of
the Royal Society (as I quote from my book "Against the Gods,
the Remarkable Story of Risk" by Peter Bernstein).

Now that's a hard problem!  Suppose you remain just outside
a betting parlor and your friend enters and begins to play some 
game (but you have no idea what).  All you hear is him cry out
in his unmistakable voice "Damnation!", "Oh yes!", "Damnation!",
"Damnation!", "Oh yes!", e.g., he's had two successes in five 
tries.  What probability of winning are you to assign to that game?
It's not so simple.  One calculation, for example, yields Laplace's
Rule of Succession, in which the correct probability is not one's
first guess 2/5, but rather is (2 + 1)/(2 + 3 + 1 + 1), or 3/7.
(This assumes a uniform prior distribution---in other words,
as you decide you know nothing about what is going on, you
assign as equally probable the true probability lying anywhere
between 0 and 1, as Laplace, I suppose, would advise, and
then "update" that information with your friend's results. I did
the calculus a few years ago and I think I got Laplace's Rule to
come out.

Anyway, as I understand it, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
I think that I read that one definition of a Bayesian is if he or
she swears by MaxEnt, the principle of Maximum Entropy.
Jaynes certainly does, and makes it a cornerstone of his big
2003 book (unfortunately, Jaynes did not live to see the
publication). 

Believe it or not---and I'm sure you won't have any trouble
believing this---this also relates (in my opinion) to the 
philosophical problem of personal identity, about which
we have spoken so much.  As
one takes MWI more and more seriously, and if one agrees
entirely with the patternist (state) notion of identity, then the
frequencies I mentioned above become correspondingly 
more important. As I contend that many people fail to appreciate
MWI *precisely* because they cannot believe that there are
other versions of themselves in adjacent universes, and that
they themselves already *are* all their duplicates in identical
and nearly identical universes, the horrid thought has occurred
to me that failure to agree with the state view of identity could
even be playing a role in the Great Statistical debate!

So it's high time I reviewed the reasons for my 2003 conversion
to Bayesianism.

Lee


From emlynoregan at gmail.com  Tue Aug  7 03:39:42 2007
From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 13:09:42 +0930
Subject: [ExI] Full Colour 3D Printing - the next big thing?
In-Reply-To: <62c14240708061908s3a2e75dagfc19d40b238ab966@mail.gmail.com>
References: <710b78fc0707291810l6d4acaf5r9d625acc100d3f1e@mail.gmail.com>
	<bf3acbfc0708050415t6eb92f9bsf05d6903621110d8@mail.gmail.com>
	<710b78fc0708061744o14f15383lace147e5786d3032@mail.gmail.com>
	<62c14240708061908s3a2e75dagfc19d40b238ab966@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <710b78fc0708062039w1fa491f9nf1749306c3ae8cf9@mail.gmail.com>

> I wonder if these "printers" will be capable of producing all the parts
> required to build one.  :)  You could purchase the hardware once and
> subscribe to an update service.  Every (exponentially shorter time interval)
> the device produces it's successor which then produces a more efficient
> recycler into which it places both it's predecessor and the previous
> recycler.
>

The one I posted wont - that's not the objective.

OTOH, reprap aims to do just that:

http://reprap.org/

Emlyn

From nanogirl at halcyon.com  Tue Aug  7 03:40:52 2007
From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 20:40:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pirated nano/cryo artwork and pictures- Your pictures
	arefor sale here!
References: <8d71341e0708060432y690f6200lfa3f7a711b3858b1@mail.gmail.com><f7bfe5740708060835m4713e39dv95da84229038d99f@mail.gmail.com><7d79ed890708060946t6c1fd929pf2ca6eefa75b68fd@mail.gmail.com><f7bfe5740708061141s643f13ebm5867f029d31d42c8@mail.gmail.com><00fc01c7d888$097a9990$0200a8c0@Nano><017401c7d88e$8cb6bbd0$0200a8c0@Nano>
	<023501c7d897$b5649e40$0200a8c0@Nano>
Message-ID: <039401c7d8a4$e46e79b0$0200a8c0@Nano>

Someone just informed me of a complaint form available here:
http://about.fotki.com/complaint/

Gina 
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From dagonweb at gmail.com  Tue Aug  7 04:25:59 2007
From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 06:25:59 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Full Colour 3D Printing - the next big thing?
In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0708061744o14f15383lace147e5786d3032@mail.gmail.com>
References: <710b78fc0707291810l6d4acaf5r9d625acc100d3f1e@mail.gmail.com>
	<bf3acbfc0708050415t6eb92f9bsf05d6903621110d8@mail.gmail.com>
	<710b78fc0708061744o14f15383lace147e5786d3032@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <bf3acbfc0708062125h829fd26mdc4dade5fcc5265@mail.gmail.com>

I'll rather thing the nett effect, especially when combined,
will be a lot like with the MP3/downloading revolution

From thespike at satx.rr.com  Tue Aug  7 05:37:02 2007
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:37:02 -0500
Subject: [ExI] wtf? Casimir reversed??
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20070807003331.021d21c0@satx.rr.com>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/06/nlevitate106.xml

"Now, using a special lens of a kind that has already been built, 
Prof Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin report in the New Journal of 
Physics they can engineer the Casimir force to repel, rather than att[r]act."

Of course, the "New Journal of Physics" is published from a roadhouse 
by truckdrivers.

http://www.iop.org/EJ/njp


From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Tue Aug  7 06:14:29 2007
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 23:14:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] on inflation in long term thinking
References: <38613567-68BF-4398-9733-F458B0384701@mac.com><8d71341e0708051207t3fb5ba1dt71121edde30bbf56@mail.gmail.com><013b01c7d79b$1c407ec0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677><8d71341e0708052349qf883e95lebbfa75987ab4023@mail.gmail.com><01a101c7d806$67f68100$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<8d71341e0708060412m4a67eec1g590871acea512d4a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <023301c7d8ba$eb9314b0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Russell wrote


> On 8/6/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>> Your passage wasn't very clear to me.  Mind elaborating on
>> the "trap" you were in; e.g., the circumstances or examples?
> 
> I elaborated awhile ago over on SL4:
> http://sl4.org/archive/0608/15606.html
> 
>> Argh.  I do *not* recommend that particular, extremely economically
>> ignorant story, or Marshall  Brain's silly essays---hope no one thought I did.
> 
> The Black Swan is economically ignorant? I thought some parts were
> skippable, but there were also some useful insights.

No, I meant "Robotic Nation", a story by Marshall Brain.  On the 
contrary, what I read of Taleb's "Black Swan" looked very good.

Lee


From scerir at libero.it  Tue Aug  7 08:13:31 2007
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 10:13:31 +0200
Subject: [ExI] wtf? Casimir reversed??
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20070807003331.021d21c0@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <001701c7d8ca$d8f50c40$74911f97@archimede>

a short review is here
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/30670

'Quantum levitation by left-handed metamaterials'
Ulf Leonhardt, Thomas Philbin
is scheduled for NJP, August 2007 edition

but you can read it at
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0608115

they also published
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/0707.3686  and
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1367-2630/8/10/247

(no idea about these invisibility devices,
optical Aharonov-Bohm effects, negative
refraction space-time transformations, etc.) 

From amara at amara.com  Tue Aug  7 12:03:28 2007
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 14:03:28 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Physics and Searching for the Perfect Wave
Message-ID: <p06230901c2de0f5043a1@[23.237.66.13]>

Another in Sabine's ("Bee") Inspiration series on backreaction: Garrett Lisi

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/08/garrett-lisis-inspiration.html


-------
Extract:

B: Okay, so among all the possibilities to show off, why physics and surfing?

       G: Because they're the hardest? No, actually, physics and surfing
       aren't about showing off. I've always been intrigued by the
       relationship between mathematics and nature. In school, we learn
       the math first, then later we learn some physics and see that the
       math relates to what happens in the world. Then we learn more
       complicated math -- calculus, group theory, differential geometry,
       and so on -- and see how this all connects up and describes how
       the universe works; it's quite wonderful. I got hooked. And the
       surfing... surfing really nice waves is simply the most fun one
       can have on this planet.

       We have these big brains, and a limited amount of time. So what to
       do? A lot of people spend their time making money, sometimes with
       the hope that they'll be able to do what they want after they make
       it. But you never get that time back. Theoretical physics is the
       most abstractly beautiful and challenging pursuit there is. It's
       what I want to spend my time thinking about, so that's what I do.

       But all thinking and no action would make for a dull life. So I
       surf.

  A lot.


-------

Enjoy!

Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Tucson
INAF Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, Italia

From russell.wallace at gmail.com  Tue Aug  7 12:32:57 2007
From: russell.wallace at gmail.com (Russell Wallace)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 13:32:57 +0100
Subject: [ExI] on inflation in long term thinking
In-Reply-To: <023301c7d8ba$eb9314b0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <38613567-68BF-4398-9733-F458B0384701@mac.com>
	<8d71341e0708051207t3fb5ba1dt71121edde30bbf56@mail.gmail.com>
	<013b01c7d79b$1c407ec0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<8d71341e0708052349qf883e95lebbfa75987ab4023@mail.gmail.com>
	<01a101c7d806$67f68100$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<8d71341e0708060412m4a67eec1g590871acea512d4a@mail.gmail.com>
	<023301c7d8ba$eb9314b0$6501a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <8d71341e0708070532o675604a0vf19f45389387629e@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/7/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> No, I meant "Robotic Nation", a story by Marshall Brain.

Ah! Fair enough, I haven't read that one; thanks for the warning, I'll
leave it off my to-read list.

From scerir at libero.it  Tue Aug  7 16:09:09 2007
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 18:09:09 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Physics and Searching for the Perfect Wave
References: <p06230901c2de0f5043a1@[23.237.66.13]>
Message-ID: <000701c7d90d$4a808f50$17be1f97@archimede>

>        And the surfing... surfing really nice waves 
>        is simply the most fun one can have on this planet.

that reminds me of the song 
'Onda su Onda', by Paolo Conte
http://www.italianissima.net/testi/ondasu.htm

From mmbutler at gmail.com  Tue Aug  7 18:02:29 2007
From: mmbutler at gmail.com (Michael M. Butler)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 11:02:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Physics and Searching for the Perfect Wave
In-Reply-To: <000701c7d90d$4a808f50$17be1f97@archimede>
References: <p06230901c2de0f5043a1@23.237.66.13>
	<000701c7d90d$4a808f50$17be1f97@archimede>
Message-ID: <7d79ed890708071102o21862feai6603a79f9ddde6e6@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/7/07, scerir <scerir at libero.it> wrote:
> >        And the surfing... surfing really nice waves
> >        is simply the most fun one can have on this planet.
>
> that reminds me of the song
> 'Onda su Onda', by Paolo Conte
> http://www.italianissima.net/testi/ondasu.htm

Umm, I'm not fluent, but isn't that song about the guy falling off a
ship into freezing water and thinking about his shallow girlfriend,
then deciding he doesn't care about how superficial she is, and then
his hallucinating about a beautiful island as he dies of hypothermia?

Memory truly is a funny thing. :)
-- 
         Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m
         "I'm going to get over this some time. Might as well be now."

From scerir at libero.it  Tue Aug  7 18:47:37 2007
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 20:47:37 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Physics and Searching for the Perfect Wave
References: <p06230901c2de0f5043a1@23.237.66.13><000701c7d90d$4a808f50$17be1f97@archimede>
	<7d79ed890708071102o21862feai6603a79f9ddde6e6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <000601c7d923$6f230fc0$b3971f97@archimede>

Michael:
> isn't that song about the guy falling off a ship 

yes

> into freezing water and thinking about his 
> shallow girlfriend, then deciding he doesn't care 
> about how superficial she is, 

someting like that, yes

> and then his hallucinating about a beautiful 
> island as he dies of hypothermia?

Not exactly.
He really discovers a true paradise ...
made of waves, music, songs, bananas, etc.

> Memory truly is a funny thing. :)

Happiness is .. bad memory?

BTW, the song seems to be here
http://www.mp3fiesta.com/album_di_paolo_conte_cd1_album89185/
oh my pc-audio is broken again.

From amara at amara.com  Tue Aug  7 19:25:12 2007
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 21:25:12 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Physics and Searching for the Perfect Wave
Message-ID: <p06230900c2de6bfffcb3@[23.237.66.13]>


Michael, I think it could be a common phenomena for Latin singers to
sound incredibly happy while they are describing their distraught
hearts. Conte's piece (Onda su Onda) sounds almost like a ragtime.

The Mediterranean doesn't have waves, unfortunately. This might come
the closest, though. ;-)

http://www.amara.com/current/lakeofthewavelets.html


Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Tucson
INAF Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, Italia

From amara at amara.com  Tue Aug  7 19:28:17 2007
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 21:28:17 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Physics and Searching for the Perfect Wave
Message-ID: <p06230901c2de7803cd91@[23.237.66.13]>


>Michael, I think it could be a common phenomena for Latin singers to
>sound incredibly happy while they are describing their distraught
>hearts. Conte's piece (Onda su Onda) sounds almost like a ragtime.

Or if you really want to sing your soul, "Onda su Onda ",
you could  be a dog.

http://www.inklingmagazine.com/inkycircus/detail/francis-ford-coppolas-best-friend/


Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Tucson
INAF Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, Italia

From mmbutler at gmail.com  Tue Aug  7 19:58:42 2007
From: mmbutler at gmail.com (Michael M. Butler)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 12:58:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Physics and Searching for the Perfect Wave
In-Reply-To: <p06230901c2de7803cd91@23.237.66.13>
References: <p06230901c2de7803cd91@23.237.66.13>
Message-ID: <7d79ed890708071258p4bf98d59qe4214aee9835f41b@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/7/07, Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
>
> >Michael, I think it could be a common phenomena for Latin singers to
> >sound incredibly happy while they are describing their distraught
> >hearts. Conte's piece (Onda su Onda) sounds almost like a ragtime.

Yes. Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and a lot of my favorite songwriters
play with paradoxical moods and (possibly-)unreliable narrators.

 It's just a pop song, after all, and interpreting song lyrics is a
time honored tradition.

Sure. I like it just fine, I figured that he's on his way out, he
might as well dream about a nice island where all the girls understand
him, unlike "Sara", etc. It seems to me that if he really fell into
freezing water, the odds are pretty good he's not in drifting range of
a tropical island. And adrift in tropical waters the odds of meeting a
shark go up.

NONE of which should happen to Bee, I hasten to add. :)

-- 
         Michael M. Butler  :  m m b u t l e r  ( a t )  g m a i l . c o m
         "I'm going to get over this some time. Might as well be now."

From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Aug  7 20:38:52 2007
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 21:38:52 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Physics and Searching for the Perfect Wave
In-Reply-To: <p06230900c2de6bfffcb3@23.237.66.13>
References: <p06230900c2de6bfffcb3@23.237.66.13>
Message-ID: <ee50357e0708071338v54e7b3d6x918ff0a9f72fb19a@mail.gmail.com>

On 8/7/07, Amara Graps wrote:
<snip>
> The Mediterranean doesn't have waves, unfortunately. This might come
> the closest, though. ;-)
>

Hey, that's news to me!   :)
When the wind blows, you get waves.

All those holidays in the Med I had where I imagined waves.

And all these people surfing in the Med:
<http://www.wannasurf.com/spot/Europe/index.html>

Surfing in Italy here:  (with photos)
<http://www.wannasurf.com/spot/Europe/Italy/index.html>

And, of course, St Paul was shipwrecked in a storm on the Med.


BillK

From femmechakra at yahoo.ca  Wed Aug  8 00:34:49 2007
From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor)
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 20:34:49 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [ExI]  Myth or Factual for Aug 27?
Message-ID: <588797.83390.qm@web30415.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Anna wrote: 
>>What makes you think I don't know how to Google? 

Lee Corbin wrote:
>There was no implication of that in Damien's post. 

Yes, that was clearly an emotional response, my
apology.  I assumed that he thought I was smart enough
as to have already thought to Google to find out if it
was a myth or factual (guess not :) and that there was
something other than the simple obvious question that
I asked.  I have a tendency to drop thoughts without
fully explaining my direction, I am working on that.

>>I was referring to a post I wrote a while back to
>>Amara regarding how she frequently posted noted
>>events within astronomy (my sky-watching). 

>Well, you wrote in "Myth or Factual".

This is probably where my lack of clarity caused
confusion.  

The actual scenario was that a friend drove me home
the other night and I was commenting on the clear
night sky and how clearly you could see the stars.  He
mentioned that he heard that on August 27, 2007, Mars
will be closest to the Earth than X amount of years. 
As I have a passion for sketching stars,
constellations and moon phases (I clearly wouldn't
disrespect Amara and her profession by calling my
hobby anything more than sky watching) and I haven't
had time to enjoy my hobby lately, I figured I would
check it out to see if it was a true claim.  As Damien
mentioned, I discovered it wasn't, it was a myth.  

This is where the confusion comes in: 
I still didn't believe that there wasn't any point to
the comment.  
I figured I would ask Amara as she is clearly the most
knowledgeable in that domain.  I figured she would
respond with something like "No, it's a myth, yes,
there is something going on that particular day or
that on August 28, 2007 there is a lunar eclipse
(which I should have just looked up myself and instead
got lazy) that you might want to check out" (as she
usually gives a head ups when events occur). 

I titled the post myth or factual because in my mind I
was associating the myth with the fact that some
Internet site tells me it's so, which is not a
guarantee that it is a myth to getting the answer from
someone who clearly has the expertise to dispute it. 
The thought t