[extropy-chat] Drexler laying down a hand...

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Mar 03, 2007 at 01:37:05PM -0500, Robert Bradbury wrote:

>    Well, well, well, it looks like I get the tidy "hot news that should
>    have been on the list that wasn't" award for this month.
>    It looks like the long anticipated "Engines of Creation 2.0" is out.
>    URL: [1]http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?bookid=503

I have no idea why they "need to confirm my identity" for a free
download. I guess no EoC2 for me, then. (I thought EoC was
a Nanosystems for pedestrians, so I never bothered with it.
Is EoC2 any different?). Anyone read it? Any good?
Any kind pirate (ARRRR! Shiver me timbers!) can send me a copy? 

>    I have not read it, so don't ask me to comment.  But at 646 pages it
>    comes in at 6 pages less than TSIN.  I am not sure if one can buy a

"Spikes" has 394 pages, and "Biophysics of Computation" 562, 
"The Synapse" 249, "Computational Modeling of Genetic and Biochemical
Networks" 336, "Neurobiology" 760, "Methods in Neuronal Modeling" 671,
"The Student's Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience" 403, and I need to
have read all of them in two months. 

>    cellulose copy of this (it doesn't come up on Amazon).  So now for all
>    of those naysayers out there (oh, lets see, the names Eugen and Rafal

What? Naysayer? Me? Nah... You must be thinking of somebody else...

>    come to mind) may be "on task" to explain why not.

I have no idea what that book is not available as a dead tree version.
I have no idea why I have to explain *that*, I am completely innocent.
I would have released it under some digital commie (copyleft, etc)
license, but I guess that wasn't possible for some mumble legal reasons.

>    Also of interest with people following nanotechnology it will be
>    interesting with such a page count the extent to which Eric may be
>    raking critics over the coals.  (drama in the nanotech world....)
>    So now, if I can manage to get a printed copy. I can whack
>    nanotechnology luddites over the coals in the left side of their heads
>    with TSIN and the right hand side of their heads with EoC2.0.  And

TSIN? What's that?

>    then maybe on the top of their heads with NM VI.  And if I
>    unfortunately I can only get an electronic copy of EOC2.0. well the
>    laptop with its downloaded contents will do as a good substitute for a
>    printed copy.
>    The problem (maybe) with an international list where people have grown
>    up in other countries may be the perspective of "cannot' rather than
>    "can".  I would like to hope that we (as rational engines) want the
>    numbers on the table to say we "can" before we say "can't".  Spike
>    didn't ever say they could not set a lander down on Pluto.  He did say

This is the most cryptic post you probably ever did. How very unexpected
of you.

>    it would be very very hard.  And I proposed ways out of the box.
>    The naysayers do *not* have the numbers on the table which would
>    assert that a complete nanoechnology enabled reality is not possible
>    in 30 years, or 20 years or 10 years.

I'm aware of precisely one (1) person of the extropians who's actually
busting his chops, trying to make machine-phase happen. Since I typically
miss about 90% of what is going on, I would like to see who else is working
in molecular nanotechnology. Working as in, studying currently, or doing
R&D in the lab, whether government, academia or industry.

>    If you cannot assert that it is impossible, then why should I stop
>    trying to make the "impossible" happen?

You shouldn't stop trying, of couse. I would in fact very much like to know 
what exactly you've been up lately. Something quite beyond drawing widgets
in Nanoengineer-1, from the sound of it.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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