From transhumanismtoday at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 00:17:02 2008 From: transhumanismtoday at gmail.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:17:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Coming in 2008: "Transhumanism Today" magazine Message-ID: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> Coming in 2008... "Transhumanism Today" magazine A hard-copy magazine covering all topics of interest to Transhumanists and relating to Transhumanism. Each issue will feature news, features, interviews, opinion, and ficton relating to Transhumanism. "Transhumanism Today" will be distributed in mass-marked bookstores to attract a new audience who might not otherwise seek out Transhumanist-related material, as well as being a place for committed Transhumanists to find unique content not available in other venues. The editor is Joseph Bloch; former Director of the World Transhumanist Association, author, and lecturer on the subject of Transhumanism. News concerning subscriptions, advertising, and more can be had by subscribing to our email list, found on our website, http://www.transhumanismtoday.com. May 2008 prove to be a banner year for Transhumanism and all Transhumanists. On the web: http://www.transhumanismtoday.com Authors, artists, and advertisers - please direct inquiries: editor at transhumanismtoday.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 1 00:35:58 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:35:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Re-framing Innovation re Consciousness In-Reply-To: References: <380-2200712528224325316@M2W011.mail2web.com> <20071230160745.WVFS11918.hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> <200712302044.49845.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231145411.JAHB17668.hrndva-omta04.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <20080101003559.LWUE27181.hrndva-omta01.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> At 05:56 PM 12/31/2007, Keith wrote: >Heh, "too focused on segregating meaning." I can't parse that either. Rather than top-down or bottom-up parsing you could try lateral-parsing. Actually, please don't! Natasha From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 1 01:46:43 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:46:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: <200712311649.lBVGnVsJ029596@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <200801010215.m012FKBx002898@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > The Kenyans are rioting over rigged elections. Over 100 are dead. >... > http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,319148,00.html I had another thought on this. As technology advances, the destructive effects of rigged elections increases. With the internet and cel phones, there is increased awareness of election corruption and increased potential for highly organized and destructive flash mobs. I shared my concerns with a colleague today, who opined "Our election process is all fucked up." While being succinct, direct and unambiguous, I myself do not approve of such improper usage of the language. I would have instead phrased it thus: "Our election process is all upwardly fucked." spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jan 1 02:53:54 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:53:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] erections again In-Reply-To: <200801010215.m012FKBx002898@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200712311649.lBVGnVsJ029596@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801010215.m012FKBx002898@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20071231204649.02323ec0@satx.rr.com> At 05:46 PM 12/31/2007 -0800, Spike wrote: >I shared my concerns with a colleague today, who opined "Our election >process is all fucked up." > >While being succinct, direct and unambiguous, I myself do not approve of >such improper usage of the language. I would have instead phrased it thus: >"Our election process is all upwardly fucked." Quite so. But if yr colleague had written "fucked over" you wouldn't wish to rephrase that, would you, as "overly fucked"? When it comes to elections, "fucked" is not a comparative. Some quibblers will now claim that my analysis is up-fucked. I can only advise them, in advance, offwardly to fuck. Damien Broderick [no infinitives were split in the making of this post] From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 02:54:11 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 13:54:11 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311311.18110.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On 01/01/2008, John K Clark wrote: > Because this AI will be far smarter, more interesting, more > likable, and just more goddamn charming than any human being you have > ever or will ever will meet; Mr. AI will have charisma up the Wahzoo, He > will understand your physiology, what makes you tick, better than you > understand yourself. I estimate it would take the AI about 45 seconds to > trick or sweet talk you (or me) into doing exactly what He wants you > (or me) to do. The set of coherent English sentences that can be spoken in 45 seconds is large but finite. What reason have you for assuming that this set, or indeed a larger set, contains a passage that will persuade anyone of anything whatsoever? -- Stathis Papaioannou From deimtee at optusnet.com.au Tue Jan 1 03:31:11 2008 From: deimtee at optusnet.com.au (deimtee) Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:31:11 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311311.18110.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >On 01/01/2008, John K Clark wrote: > > > >>Because this AI will be far smarter, more interesting, more >>likable, and just more goddamn charming than any human being you have >>ever or will ever will meet; Mr. AI will have charisma up the Wahzoo, He >>will understand your physiology, what makes you tick, better than you >>understand yourself. I estimate it would take the AI about 45 seconds to >>trick or sweet talk you (or me) into doing exactly what He wants you >>(or me) to do. >> >> > >The set of coherent English sentences that can be spoken in 45 seconds >is large but finite. What reason have you for assuming that this set, >or indeed a larger set, contains a passage that will persuade anyone >of anything whatsoever? > > > > > There is probably no single 45 second oration that will persuade everyone. It will be based on your personality, beliefs, prejudices etc, and individually tailored to persuade whoever it is talking to. The AI will be able to deduce whatever will convince you. It is smarter than you, and thinks much faster. I think it may take longer than 45 seconds, (I know some people who take longer than that to parse things they agree with :) but it WILL persuade you. From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 03:39:22 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:39:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <200712312139.22084.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 31 December 2007, deimtee wrote: > The AI will be able to deduce whatever ?will convince you. ?It is > smarter than you, and thinks much faster. Sounds like a set of problems in comp sci known as NP, and ai researchers are already well familiar with Cantor and the exploding sets. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jan 1 07:14:39 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:14:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Kim Stanley Robinson On Google and Climate Change Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080101011331.023d7168@satx.rr.com> Many here will wriggle or snarl at Stan's message, but a lot of it is highly provocative (especially toward the end of his talk): http://youtube.com/watch?v=R-jz86gMiHw From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 08:54:26 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 19:54:26 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311311.18110.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: On 01/01/2008, deimtee wrote: > >The set of coherent English sentences that can be spoken in 45 seconds > >is large but finite. What reason have you for assuming that this set, > >or indeed a larger set, contains a passage that will persuade anyone > >of anything whatsoever? > > > There is probably no single 45 second oration that will persuade everyone. > It will be based on your personality, beliefs, prejudices etc, and > individually tailored to persuade whoever it is talking to. > The AI will be able to deduce whatever will convince you. It is > smarter than you, and thinks much faster. > I think it may take longer than 45 seconds, (I know some people who > take longer than that to parse things they agree with :) but it WILL > persuade you. There are two separate questions that need to be considered here: (a) Is there at least one string of text that will persuade any given person of anything whatsoever? (Obviously, as you have pointed out, the string will have to vary depending on the person and the subject matter). (b) If there is such a string, will a given AI be able to find it? I don't see any reason to believe that the answer to (a) is "yes", but even if it is, I don't see why the AI should be guaranteed of finding it. For a start, there is a limit to how much information can be obtained about a person through a limited bandwidth medium. If you read everything I have ever written that has appeared on the Internet, neither you nor a Jupiter brain will be able to deduce whether I prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. -- Stathis Papaioannou From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 09:00:56 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 01:00:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Happy New Year! In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080101011331.023d7168@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080101011331.023d7168@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2D447B64-363E-4AF5-8171-C968DE4815CD@mac.com> May the year bring you great happiness, prosperity and what ever subset of what you desire that has reasonable likelihood of fitting in a single year. :-) - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 09:02:19 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 01:02:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Coming in 2008: "Transhumanism Today" magazine In-Reply-To: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> References: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I thought that would be a great idea. But would "Transhuman Times" be a catchier title? - samantha On Dec 31, 2007, at 4:17 PM, Joseph Bloch wrote: > Coming in 2008... > > "Transhumanism Today" magazine > > A hard-copy magazine covering all topics of interest to > Transhumanists and relating to Transhumanism. Each issue will > feature news, features, interviews, opinion, and ficton relating to > Transhumanism. > > "Transhumanism Today" will be distributed in mass-marked bookstores > to attract a new audience who might not otherwise seek out > Transhumanist-related material, as well as being a place for > committed Transhumanists to find unique content not available in > other venues. > > The editor is Joseph Bloch; former Director of the World > Transhumanist Association, author, and lecturer on the subject of > Transhumanism. > > News concerning subscriptions, advertising, and more can be had by > subscribing to our email list, found on our website, http://www.transhumanismtoday.com > . > > May 2008 prove to be a banner year for Transhumanism and all > Transhumanists. > > On the web: http://www.transhumanismtoday.com > Authors, artists, and advertisers - please direct inquiries: editor at transhumanismtoday.com > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat - samantha Vote Ron Paul for President in 2008 -- Save Our Constitution! Go to RonPaul2008.com, and search "Ron Paul" on YouTube -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 09:04:26 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 01:04:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Coming in 2008: "Transhumanism Today" magazine In-Reply-To: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> References: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6A86A540-2F13-47E5-AFBC-E818A18A0771@mac.com> And I hope this isn't print only. Way more people are online than enter into bookstores. - s On Dec 31, 2007, at 4:17 PM, Joseph Bloch wrote: > Coming in 2008... > > "Transhumanism Today" magazine > > A hard-copy magazine covering all topics of interest to > Transhumanists and relating to Transhumanism. Each issue will > feature news, features, interviews, opinion, and ficton relating to > Transhumanism. > > "Transhumanism Today" will be distributed in mass-marked bookstores > to attract a new audience who might not otherwise seek out > Transhumanist-related material, as well as being a place for > committed Transhumanists to find unique content not available in > other venues. > > The editor is Joseph Bloch; former Director of the World > Transhumanist Association, author, and lecturer on the subject of > Transhumanism. > > News concerning subscriptions, advertising, and more can be had by > subscribing to our email list, found on our website, http://www.transhumanismtoday.com > . > > May 2008 prove to be a banner year for Transhumanism and all > Transhumanists. > > On the web: http://www.transhumanismtoday.com > Authors, artists, and advertisers - please direct inquiries: editor at transhumanismtoday.com > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat - samantha Vote Ron Paul for President in 2008 -- Save Our Constitution! Go to RonPaul2008.com, and search "Ron Paul" on YouTube -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 09:39:29 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 01:39:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311311.18110.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <95FE6A90-E1EF-49EC-B765-A2CA6904556C@mac.com> On Dec 31, 2007, at 12:13 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > On Monday 31 December 2007 13:40, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Mon, Dec 31, 2007 at 01:11:17PM -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >>> Then I want to be the cutest pet ever! Or else the stealthiest >>> scavenger >>> rat >> >> Don't we all! But it's not obvious artificial beings will conserve >> specific >> traits we equipped them with initially (assuming, we could do that >> at all, >> which is not obvious) across many generations (not necessarily long >> in >> terms of wallclock time). Or that they keep environments nicely >> temperated, >> and full of breathable gases, and allow us to grow or synthesize >> food. > > I assume that such super machines would outgrow the need to adapt > their > environment. They would be functional in virtually any > environment. So they > might not have any need to rework the existing environments. Not all environments would be equally conducive to its highest desired functioning. Great capacity doesn't mean it is totally self contained and self sufficient. > >>> Even given your scenarios, we have a lot of choices on how our >>> subjugation is going to occur. >> >> How much are cockroaches worth on the Wall Street job market? Do >> they make >> good quants? > > Cockroaches have no influence on Wall Street. But they have almost > total > control over their own nests and societies. Sure, we wipe them out > where > they are in the way. But where they do exist, human have virtually no > influence on them. I doubt most cockroaches even know that humans > exist. > This assumes that the needs/desires crossed with the capabilities of AGIs will leave ample room for humans to exist. We aren't nearly as difficult to eradicate, even accidentally, as cockroaches. We are much more fragile with more needs. >> Not any time soon. But, eventually. We might not see it (heck, what >> is >> another 40-50 years), but our children could very well, and their >> children's children almost certainly (unless they're not too busy >> fighting >> in the Thunderdome, of course). > > I think it is possible, but unlikely that our children will see > this. It all > assumes that a self-evolving AI will suddenly evolve quickly. > Evolution is a > slow random process that uses brute-force to solve problems. But we aren't talking about brute-force once self-improving AGI exists. There need be nothing akin to normal evolution about it. > Growing smarter > is not a simple brute-force search. It will not likely employ much in the way of brute-force search. > Even a super-smart AI won't instantly > have god-like powers. Well, what qualifies do we consider as god-like and how do we know exactly how much smarts it takes to obtain some of those powers? Not instantly no but I doubt it will take a self-improving AGI as much as a human generation to be able to do things that to us are decidedly "god-like". > They will have to perform slow physical experiments in > the real world of physics to discover or build faster communications, > transportation, and utilization of resources. A lot of the most important work of self-improvement of intelligence is internal and does not require so many physical world steps. Once the AGI has optimized on its existing substrate it can see about upgrading its physical components. I doubt it needs to figure out any new transportation methods or invent faster communications until it is already extremely advanced. > They also will have to build > factories to build future hardware upgrades. These macro, physical > processes > are slow and easily disrupted. It it not clear to me that even a > super-intelligent AI can quickly or easily accomplish anything that > we really > want to stop. One of the first external science priorities will likely be MNT. It will not need conventional factories. The benefits of MNT will be too great for all humans to want to stop it. For that matter it will very early on be such a beneficial boon that it will find patrons and protectors easily. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 10:22:23 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 02:22:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: <200712292036.19185.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712282351.50439.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <47769FEC.3030407@yahoo.it> <200712292036.19185.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <196C8242-5EDE-4369-AFFC-D53B42D8C488@mac.com> On Dec 29, 2007, at 5:36 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > On Saturday 29 December 2007 14:28, Mirco Romanato wrote: >> Harvey Newstrom ha scritto: >>> We have to be careful to create technologies that do not impose >>> our will >>> on others, or they will rebel. >> >> From a libertarian point-of-view, I find this notion confuse and >> blurry. >> My freedom stop where someone else freedom begin in equal terms, it >> doesn't stop where the feeling of someone else start. >> Because it could not be technologies but lifestyle or religious >> believes >> or others. > > I didn't mention feelings of others. I said not impose our will on > others. I > think most libertarians would agree that nobody should have somebody > else's > will imposed upon them. The phrase "impose our will" is rather imprecise. At any rate a lot less precise than abstaining from introducing physical force or fraud. > > But in general, I agree that the concept becomes blurry. Say you > claim the > right to carry a gun. Fine. Say you want to shoot me. Not fine. Shooting you would be an initiation of force totally against libertarian first principles. What someone may merely want to do but not actually attempt to do (due to principles, the likelihood of being punished or shot back at, etc.) is not actually a problem. > Say you > want to sit on your property with your gun aimed at me while I move > around on > my property. That would be a pretty direct threat of physical force so again not allowed. > Blurry. I would find this intolerable. You would be quite right to find that intolerable. But it is a first principle of sane gun ownership that you don't point a gun at anyone you don't intend to shoot. > But you might argue it > is your right to point your gun anywhere you want on your property. Silly hypothetical that in practice is not likely. > The > tragedy of the commons is where your rights could suddenly disrupt > my rights. I have not right to threaten you with physical force. > > I feel like there must be away to protect all rights, but it is not > always > clearly possible. You are proposing rights that I and most libertarians do not claim as such. > > >>> For example: >>> How can someone create a super-AI without threatening the people who >>> don't want the possibility of an AI dictator? >> >> Doing it in secret? > > This doesn't solve the problem for those who fear an AI dictator. > It merely > forces them to become more invasive and suspicious in routing out > the AIs > being developed. I think this approach, while seemingly obvious and > straightforward, actually compounds the problem and makes it worse. > Again you are confusing hypotheticals and possible dangers with actual aggression. There is no way to avoid all possibility of harm and the Precautionaly Principle would have us do. That is not a question of rights at all. Being invasive of others property and space because they might do something or have done something that might harm you is utterly unjustified and an obvious initiation of force. >>> How can someone carry guns without >>> threatening people who don't want the possibility of being shot? >> >> Concealed carry? > > Same problem as above. > Baloney. That someone has the means to harm you does not mean they will. You cannot punish them or by force render them completely harmless. >>> How can >>> someone get an abortion without threatening people who think all >>> abortion >>> is murder? >> >> This is the most confusing. >> How is that they feel threatened when they are not in danger or >> menaced? > > They believe that babies are being murdered and must be protected. Then this is a notion totally in their heads that they would by force impose on others. So they are the aggressors. > In their > world-view this is an obvious danger and menace. Asking your > question is the > same as asking why people would need to stop child abuse or murders of > strangers. Hardly as this ignores the obvious point that no one can conclusively show that a fetus, especially in early pregnancy, is a human being to be protected. That is a central issue in contention. Those who believe that a fetus is a child etc. cannot legitimately imposed their opinion on those who do not who are unhappy to be carrying said fetus. > To someone who believe that life begins at conception, not birth, > abortion is the same as murdering babies. I don't know how to > resolve this, > but explaining that we think it's OK to do this doesn't resolve the > issue. > But this is an arbitrary opinion they have no right to impose on others. >>> How can someone build robot workers without threatening people who >>> don't want to lose their jobs? >> >> They are not interested in the job, but in the income derived by the >> job. But do they have any entitlement to it? > > I don't know. Many people in this country object to humans coming > from other > countries to take jobs away. Do they take jobs away? I am not so sure. How many jobs of what kinds? Why do the workers have more rights to those jobs than the employer has to hire whoever can do the work at the least cost? Why do the would be workers have the right to impose extra cost on the employer? How would such an imposition against the employer's wishes be done except through the initiation or threat of force? > They feel like citizens are more entitled to > these jobs then foreigners. Feelings are not facts and do not confer rights. > Imagine how much more adamant they would be that > humans deserve these jobs more than machines. Tough cookies. > It doesn't even matter if they > believe in entitlements or not. Your right it does not matter because such entitlements are bogus. > They have to work to feed their families, > and these machines are threatening their families. > No they are not. Working is not necessarily the only way to have enough to feed your family. I do not know what other arrangements will be worked out but it is pretty certain that sooner or later we will have such an abundance economy and few enough people will be qualified for the jobs that are not yet automated that it will not make a lot of sense to insist that you have to have a j-o-b to partake of the abundance. >> You missed a few question: >> 1) How can someone leave Islam, when so many Muslims feel >> threatened by >> this simply act? In some Muslim countries it is quite physically dangerous to attempt to leave the faith on even be known to question it. >> >> This simply act threaten the Ummah itself that have not the same >> belief >> system like other kaffir (impure) groups > > This is a very good example of the problem. Freedom of religion is > fine where > one can choose one's own religion. But the problem comes in where > religions > believe that they must be the only religion allowed. Then we have a > problem. They can believe whatever they wish. We only have a problem when they initiate force. > > >> 2) How can someone be atheist....? >> 3) How can someone be homosexual...? > > Same issues. I don't know how to resolve these to everyone's > satisfaction. > Forbidding the atheists and homosexuals their existence is not a > possible > answer. Of course not! Again no one has a right to force others to adhere to their arbitrary beliefs. > But many religions will not tolerate their existence either. How > can we coexist with intolerance? > We don't care about intolerance. We only care about outlawing and resisting initiation of force. Trying to force change of beliefs is a losing game. >> The problem is not with freedom technologies, but with freedom >> itself. >> Any free act will, in a way or another, conflict with the direct or >> indirect, immediate or delayed interests of someone else. >> This is a "problem" only if you claim that the "interests" of others must be catered to regardless of their nature. Only the interest in being free from initiation of force and thus free to lead one's own life unmolested is an interest that all must abide by. >> Do you prefer suppress freedom or suppress conflicts? > > I prefer that we suppress conflicts. There must be some win-win > scenarios. What kind of conflict? All conflict? Then only the grave will do I'm afraid. Suppression of freedom is conflict! Do not suppress freedom and much worrisome real conflict dissolves. > > It should be possible to build an AI without threatening to overthrow > humanity's governments. Getting rid of governments is a fine idea since they are the primary initiators of force! > It should be possible for everyone to practice their > own religions without forbidding anybody else's. It depends on what the "practice" consists of. Practice of any aspect that consists of initiation of force much be prohibited. > It should be possible to > end one pregnancy while maintaining the fetus' viability elsewhere. Not unless it is your wish to do so as the person carrying that fetus that carries your genes. Third parties cannot possibly have as much of a legitimate say. > There > should be an answer to most conflicts. Compromise no matter what is no answer at all. The relatively evil or at least "less good" always wins in such compromise for compromise sake. Conflict per se is not evil, especially conflict of mere beliefs. > Simply having one side override the > other side is usually not the answer. It is if one side doesn't really have much of a leg to stand on. It is when all true rights are on one side. > (Sometimes it is when one side is just > unreasonable.) Yep. > But often, there are legitimate concerns that should be > addressed rather than ignored when developing new disruptive > technologies. We deal with these one by one without throwing away freedom from initiation of force. > > But it is much more complicated and messy than people like to imagine. > It surely is if you start pretty much with no real guiding principles and just attempt to make everyone as happy as possible. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 10:37:55 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 02:37:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Mars hit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 28, 2007, at 9:10 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > Gary Miller aiguy at comcast.net : >> If the asteroid was to make impact with Mars would the Hubble >> telescope be >> in such a position as to capture the event? > > > I would think that one of the 4 or 5 (? I am losing track of the > number > of Martian spacecraft taking data now) in the nearer vicinity could > do a > better job. I think many Americans have not heard very much about Mars > Express: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/index.html Great mission and site! What is the altitude of Mars Express? I didn't see that factoid. - samantha > From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 10:56:49 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:56:49 +0000 Subject: [ExI] 2008 - Expect a giant leap forward in tech ??? Message-ID: Mike Elgan has written an optimistic piece about the wonders to expect in 2008. I think some are more likely / significant than others, but it is an interesting speculation. Personal Tech 2008: Top 10 Trends This year everything gets intelligent, social, cheap, mobile and wireless. Mike Elgan December 31, 2007 (Computerworld) 1. The year of flash-based superportables 2. The year of free Internet access 3. The year of the home robot 4. The year of hyperconnectivity People want all their devices connected to the Internet -- not just PCs and cell phones, but also MP3 players, e-book readers, digital cameras, wristwatches, cars and more. And in 2008, they're going to get it. 5. The year of multi-touch 6. The year of location, location, location In 2008, carriers, Web 2.0 startups. and gadget makers will start getting creative about what to do with this location awareness. Social networking will spill out into the real world, with your phone alerting you to friends nearby, while messages from friends, relatives and even strangers will be associated with physical locations like invisible graffiti. And everyone will be tracking not just themselves and other people, but also pets and cars. 7. The year of reading on-screen 8. The year of social everything No longer a hangout for teenagers with bad taste, social networks and social sites of all kinds will explode in 2008. Social networking will become so ubiquitous and mainstream that people will be participating in it without even thinking of it as social networking. 9. The year of haptic feedback 10. The year of cell phone TV BillK From randall at randallsquared.com Tue Jan 1 13:55:51 2008 From: randall at randallsquared.com (Randall Randall) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 08:55:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311311.18110.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: On Jan 1, 2008, at 3:54 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > If you > read everything I have ever written that has appeared on the Internet, > neither you nor a Jupiter brain will be able to deduce whether I > prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. You know for sure that there are no correlations to be found between the stuff you write about and ice cream preferences? What deduced probability that you like what you really like would you accept? -- Randall Randall "You don't help someone by looking at their list of options and eliminating the one they chose!" -- David Henderson From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 1 16:22:34 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 08:22:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200801011649.m01GnEFO018884@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat- > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Randall Randall > Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2008 5:56 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Survival > > > On Jan 1, 2008, at 3:54 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > If you > > read everything I have ever written that has appeared on the Internet, > > neither you nor a Jupiter brain will be able to deduce whether I > > prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. No matter. A Jupiter brain would know exactly what modifications to make on you such that you would prefer vanilla. spike . . . From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 1 17:37:18 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 09:37:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] start 2008 with a good laugh In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080101011331.023d7168@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200801011737.m01HbBkk017781@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Happy new year Extropians! How could anyone not laugh, just trying to picture a coupla silly Texan redneck proles doing this. Sorry Natasha, Damien and other ExiTexans, this is just too funny to not post: Men Shot With .357 as They Traced It for Tattoo Pattern Tuesday, January 01, 2008 CHAPARRAL, N.M. - Getting a tattoo can be a painful proposition, but usually it's just the needle you have to worry about. Two men trying to trace a loaded .357-caliber Magnum as a pattern for a tattoo accidentally shot themselves, the Otero County Sheriff's Department said Monday. [...{8^D Two proles with one round! {8^D...s] Robert Glasser and Joey Acosta, both 22, were treated at a hospital in El Paso, Texas, after the shooting Thursday evening in nearby Chaparral. Authorities said Glasser was struck in the hand when the gun accidentally went off, and Acosta was hit in the left arm. Their injuries were not life-threatening, authorities said. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,319338,00.html Haaaaahahahahahahaaaaa! {8^D Intelligence has apparent limits but stupidity knows no bounds. Question please, was Bobby G's left arm so large that Joey A needed to *trace* an *actual size* three fifty seven, which is a quite large device? Did it really need to be *loaded* for this application? Perhaps they were remembering the Alamo, and wished to be prepared in the event of a sudden attack. The scary part is that people such as this are eligible to vote, oy vey. spike . . . From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 1 17:59:37 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 09:59:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] start 2008 with a good laugh In-Reply-To: <200801011737.m01HbBkk017781@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <200801011759.m01HxRWk011263@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike > Subject: [ExI] start 2008 with a good laugh > > > Happy new year Extropians! > > ... Sorry Natasha, Damien and other ExiTexans, this > is just too funny to not post: > > Men Shot With .357 as They Traced It for Tattoo Pattern> spike Oops, my apologies to the tExians, these particular drunken proles were from New Mexico. Check out the size of the device, as shown in this article... http://kob.com/article/stories/S299578.shtml?cat=516 ...and again try to picture the size of Bobby G's arm. Picture the local constabulary, struggling to not laugh themselves silly as they attempt to write the report. Picture the tattoo itself: an outline of a handheld cannon, with the scar of an entrance wound at the muzzle and presumably larger exit wound somewhere on the apparently substantial arm. The other prisoners will surely be impressed. spike . . From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 18:18:17 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 12:18:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <200801011218.17653.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 31 December 2007, John K Clark wrote: > > Even a super-smart AI won't instantly > > have god-like powers. > > I rather think He will Even an ai is bounded by the laws of physics [whatever they may be]. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 1 18:52:33 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:52:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] start 2008 with a good laugh In-Reply-To: <200801011759.m01HxRWk011263@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200801011737.m01HbBkk017781@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801011759.m01HxRWk011263@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <20080101185234.ZHZJ17668.hrndva-omta04.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> At 11:59 AM 1/1/2008, Spike wrote: >They Traced It for Tattoo Pattern> spike > >Oops, my apologies to the tExians, these particular drunken proles were from >New Mexico. eh? I aint' understand'n whas'yur pars'n. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 1 19:02:28 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 13:02:28 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Mars hit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20080101190230.ZEHY20499.hrndva-omta05.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> At 04:37 AM 1/1/2008, -samantha wrote: Amara wrote: > > I think many Americans have not heard very much about Mars > Express: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/index.html > >Great mission and site! What is the altitude of Mars Express? I >didn't see that factoid. Stunning. (Thanks Amara.) http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMC4JZ7QQE_0.html http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=19991 Natasha From aiguy at comcast.net Tue Jan 1 19:04:01 2008 From: aiguy at comcast.net (Gary Miller) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:04:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801011218.17653.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com><200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com><021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <200801011218.17653.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <01f101c84ca9$1315a9f0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Bryan stated: >> Even an ai is bounded by the laws of physics [whatever they may be]. But may I remind you of Clarke's Law? "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. " From jonkc at att.net Tue Jan 1 19:56:53 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:56:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com><200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com><021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer><200801011218.17653.kanzure@gmail.com> <01f101c84ca9$1315a9f0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: <002801c84cb0$9c2ba440$c0f14d0c@MyComputer> Bryan Bishop > Even an ai is bounded by the laws of physics Not so. I upload you and put you in a virtual universe (perhaps I should say another virtual universe) and then the laws of physics are whatever I say they are. "Gary Miller" > But may I remind you of Clarke's Law? > "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. " And then there is Clark's (no e) Law: " Any self evolving AI indistinguishable from God. " Or He will be unless he gets caught up in a positive feedback loop and becomes a Lotus Eater. John K Clark From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 20:05:48 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:05:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <200801011405.48457.kanzure@gmail.com> This thread would benefit from a look back at what's been said: On Tuesday 01 January 2008, Gary Miller wrote: > On Tuesday 01 January 2008, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > On Monday 31 December 2007, John K Clark wrote: > > > On Monday 31 December 2007, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > > > On Monday 31 December 2007 13:40, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > > > > Not any time soon. But, eventually. We might not see it > > > > > > (heck, what is another 40-50 years), but our children could > > > > > > very well, and their children's children almost certainly > > > > > > (unless they're not too busy fighting in the Thunderdome, > > > > > > of course). > > > > > > > > > > Growing smarter is not a simple brute-force search. Even > > > > > a super-smart AI won't instantly have god-like powers. > > > > > > I rather think he will. > > > > Even an ai is bounded by the laws of physics [whatever they may > > be]. > > "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from > magic. " Good call. But please direct your attention below. > > > > > have to perform slow physical experiments in the real world > > > > > of physics to discover or build faster communications, > > > > > transportation, and utilization of resources. They also will > > > > > have to build factories to build future hardware upgrades. > > > > > These macro, physical processes are slow and easily > > > > > disrupted. It it not clear to me that even a > > > > > super-intelligent AI can quickly or easily accomplish > > > > > anything that we really want to stop. > > > > > > > > > > I'd like to see some specific scenarios that rely on > > > > > something more specific than "...a miracle/singularity occurs > > > > > here..." Harvey was asking for more than "magic occurs here." Can we rely on magical miracles to lead us to ai? Ai or the singularity is way too important to be left to magic. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From x at extropica.org Tue Jan 1 20:03:10 2008 From: x at extropica.org (x at extropica.org) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 12:03:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] De Thezier's New Year's Resolution: Quit Transhumanism In-Reply-To: References: <1199211702507.21b27951-6653-407a-9ae6-aa30dedf2920@google.com> Message-ID: [Forwarded on behalf of Jef] On 1/1/08, De Thezier wrote (at CybDem): > > My New Year's Resolution: Quit Transhumanism > > However, the more months passed, the more my angst grew about how the term "transhumanist" was giving me an identity at the cost of achieving of my goals. It also seemed that I was spending far more time trying to convert people to transhumanism and knee-jerkingly defending this ideology against hysterical attacks but also fair and accurate criticisms, than actually contributing to the social struggle to democratize the costs, risks and benefits of new technologies. > > But, more profoundly, having invested so much time and energy in promoting transhumanism --- and let's be honest, having been seduced by the syren songs of a ''posthuman future'' --- I came to the awkward realization that I, a self-professed free and critical thinker, had willingly blinded myself to the flaws of transhumanism which I became increasing aware were inherencies that *undermine* any diversity of views or ''leftist awakening'' among transhumanists: > > 1. An uncritical support for technology in general and fringe science in particular; > 2. A distortive ''us vs them'' tribe-like mentality and identity; and > 3. A vulnerability to unrealistic utopian and dystopian ''future hype''. Justice -- An excellent post, and congratulations for breaking free of the traps of transhumanism as you've described. I strongly agree with much of what you've written above, and I admire your passion and conviction, but I look forward to the (possible) day when you realize a similar stance with regard to Leftist politics. ********* My key point here is that you and so many others remain focused on "goals" and group identification, heuristics by virtue of having served our ancestors well, but which upon deeper inspection, as you've pointed out, lead to conflict. But in contrast, and what eludes common consideration, here as elsewhere in the context of politics, is that we do in fact share significant **values** which here might be well-described as "techno-progressive" [not necessarily "progressive" in the sense co-opted by the Left], which could be modeled with some (increasing) degree of coherence, supporting cooperative action with the intent of discovering an increasingly desirable future by creating it. In short, consider the paradox: You're frustrated and leaving because of conflict over thinking and goals -- despite very substantial agreement on values. Paradox is always a case of insufficient context. In the bigger picture all the pieces must fit. Extra credit: Show how nearly all members of this list could agree they hold "techno-progressive" values, except to the extent that "progressive" is taken to mean Leftist politics. ********* Intentional growth in terms of increasingly effective promotion of an increasing context of increasingly coherent values, evolving with interaction over increasing scope of consequences isn't well-facilitated by either "liberal" or "libertarian" extremes, but by increasingly smart solutions to an inherently hard problem, one that becomes harder as it contributes to the expansion of its own context. I wish you and the other members of this list a new year of growth and increasing opportunities, not necessarily in the direction you might choose today, but in a direction that becomes clearer with increasing awareness of your own evolving values and increasingly effective means for their promotion. - Jef [who wishes he could express such thoughts using fewer symbols -- a picture perhaps] From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 1 20:19:39 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 21:19:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <002801c84cb0$9c2ba440$c0f14d0c@MyComputer> References: <01f101c84ca9$1315a9f0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <002801c84cb0$9c2ba440$c0f14d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <20080101201939.GY10128@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 02:56:53PM -0500, John K Clark wrote: > Not so. I upload you and put you in a virtual universe (perhaps I should > say another virtual universe) and then the laws of physics are whatever > I say they are. Not quite. There's a finite amount of ops/J, and relativistic constraints to signalling. Admittedly, that's not much of a style-crimper, if we're to fool a bunch of slowtime monkeys. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 20:22:50 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:22:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <002801c84cb0$9c2ba440$c0f14d0c@MyComputer> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <01f101c84ca9$1315a9f0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <002801c84cb0$9c2ba440$c0f14d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <200801011422.50449.kanzure@gmail.com> On Tuesday 01 January 2008, John K Clark wrote: > Not so. I upload you and put you in a virtual universe (perhaps I > should say another virtual universe) and then the laws of physics are > whatever I say they are. You cannot completely escape reality, no matter how nested the sim. No part is greater than the whole. You have to be careful here, since being indistuingishable from God and believing that it *is* God quickly leads to Edeism [1]. For seed ai to be God ... would mean so many contradictory things that it's not funny, since the typical western idealization of God includes such characteristics as perfection, infiniteness, and an assortment of other meaningless things. [1] http://heybryan.org/edeism.html :) - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 1 20:41:49 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 12:41:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Mars hit In-Reply-To: <20080101190230.ZEHY20499.hrndva-omta05.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <200801012041.m01KfAQq027302@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) ... > > http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMC4JZ7QQE_0.html > http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=19991 > > > Natasha My fond hope was the asteroid would pass just over the surface of Mars, close enough to the ground that the tenuous Martian atmosphere would scrub off enough speed to slow the roid into a decaying elliptical orbit. I did a BOTEC that show this cannot happen, damn. {8-[ The object is large enough that it could skim the treetops, but still wouldn't lose enough velocity to go elliptical. Its a direct hit or nothing. spike From jef at jefallbright.net Tue Jan 1 20:30:52 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 12:30:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801011405.48457.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <200801011405.48457.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/1/08, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > > > > > Growing smarter is not a simple brute-force search. Even > > > > > > a super-smart AI won't instantly have god-like powers. > > > > > > > > I rather think he will. > > > > > > Even an ai is bounded by the laws of physics [whatever they may > > > be]. > > > > "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from > > magic. " > > Good call. But please direct your attention below. > > > > > > > have to perform slow physical experiments in the real world > > > > > > of physics to discover or build faster communications, > > > > > > transportation, and utilization of resources. They also will > > > > > > have to build factories to build future hardware upgrades. > > > > > > These macro, physical processes are slow and easily > > > > > > disrupted. It it not clear to me that even a > > > > > > super-intelligent AI can quickly or easily accomplish > > > > > > anything that we really want to stop. > > > > > > > > > > > > I'd like to see some specific scenarios that rely on > > > > > > something more specific than "...a miracle/singularity occurs > > > > > > here..." > > Harvey was asking for more than "magic occurs here." Can we rely on > magical miracles to lead us to ai? Ai or the singularity is way too > important to be left to magic. This touches on a key point that seems to elude the most outspoken proponents of hard take-off singularity scenarios: So-called "recursively self-improving" intelligence is relevant only to the extent it improves via selective interaction with its environment. If the environment lacks requisite variety, then the "recursively self-improving" system certainly can go "vwhooom" as it explores possibility space, but the probability of such explorations having relevance to our world becomes minuscule, leaving such a system hardly more effective than than a cooperative of technologically augmented humans at tiling the galaxy with paperclips. This suggests a ceiling on the growth of **relevant** intelligence of a singleton machine intelligence to only slightly above the level supported by all available knowledge and its latent connections, therefore remaining vulnerable to the threat of asymmetric competition with a broad-based system of cooperating technologically augmented specialists. - Jef From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 20:53:13 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 12:53:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] META: (was Re: LA Times: Rehabbing militants in Saudi Arabia (Meta)) In-Reply-To: <20071229145321.GD10128@leitl.org> References: <20071229101934.GI10128@leitl.org> <00bf01c84a24$1f16dfd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <20071229145321.GD10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Dec 29, 2007, at 6:53 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 09:07:16AM -0500, Gary Miller wrote: > >> I agree 100% Eugene, but how about we don't wait until we're 10 or >> 15 posts > > There is no wta-politics equivalent for extropy-chat yet. > Given that a sink for noisy discussions has worked well for > other communities (ccm-l, etc.) there perhaps should be one. I have seen it be a way a community marginalizes certain important conversations it does want to learn to deal well with. I am opposed. > > > Do y'all agree? Yea or nay, to me privately, please. I don't think we should vote without discussion so this response is public stating my reason. - samantha From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 1 20:32:01 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 12:32:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] start 2008 with a good laugh In-Reply-To: <20080101185234.ZHZJ17668.hrndva-omta04.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <200801012058.m01Kw3DW026576@andromeda.ziaspace.com> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More . . Subject: Re: [ExI] start 2008 with a good laugh Spike wrote: >They Traced It for Tattoo Pattern... spike Oops, my apologies to the tExians, these particular drunken proles were from New Mexico... s > eh? I aint' understand'n whas'yur pars'n... Natasha {8^D The entire incident is difficult to parse, vertically or laterally. This would be one hell of a way to start a new year: with an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound and the entire country reading about how you and your buddy are idiots. {8^D This incident gives entirely new meaning to the phrase often seen in news stories in a different context: "Attempts to trace the weapon were unsuccessful." spike . . . From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 21:01:48 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 13:01:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Rehabbing militants in Saudi Arabia (Meta) In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20712281503n4cca4a6gb34b94e46a4967fb@mail.gmail.com> <008801c849b0$06a61ac0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <20071229101934.GI10128@leitl.org> <00bf01c84a24$1f16dfd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: On Dec 30, 2007, at 8:22 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > > Pure political discussion is (or should be) below this list. It's > like arguing about the number of angles you can pack on a pin. > I disagree that politics is that pointless or divorced from reality although perhaps I am not properly understanding what you mean by "pure politics". > Using current political examples to illustrate more general points > about why humans have politics and what drives them is (or should be) > a major focus. > > In this respect, the original topic of convincing violent Islamic > militants to change their ways is smack on target. I don't understand > how easy it is, but it is of vast importance to understand. > Understanding it will require EP. Since the US (and Britain) did and do a lot of pretty nasty things in Islamic lands I think it behooves rational people to also discuss avoidance of such inciting behaviors. Without that discussion the above discussion is unbalanced and presumptive from the beginning. > - samantha Vote Ron Paul for President in 2008 -- Save Our Constitution! Go to RonPaul2008.com, and search "Ron Paul" on YouTube From amara at amara.com Tue Jan 1 21:03:26 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:03:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Mars hit Message-ID: Samantha: >Great mission and site! What is the altitude of Mars Express? I >didn't see that factoid. Mars Express Orbit details http://www.rssd.esa.int/index.php?project=MARSEXPRESS&page=orbit The apocenter altitude is 13448 km from Mars' center More facts about the Mars Express mission http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMTV8374OD_0_spk.html http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/mars_express/ The array of instruments are performing flawlessly, but what people might remember most, are the camera images. This simple one here, taken a few years ago, knocked everyone's socks off: http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&type=I&mission=Mars%20Express&single=y&start=58 The resolution and details of typical Mars Express HRSC images are jaw-droppers, and set new standards, for example: http://www.esa.int/esa-mmg/mmg.pl?b=b&type=I&mission=Mars%20Express&single=y&start=55 Nothing else came close until NASA's MRO mission, HiRISE instrument, so with these two Mars observing instruments, the state of the art for planetary surface imaging hardware and software ratcheted up a few notches. If folks here haven't heard of Mars Express, then they might not have heard of Venus Express, either. Venus Express is a mission that used spare parts and the spacecraft bus from the Mars Express mission. Venus Express: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=64 http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/space_missions/venus_express/ Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 21:12:19 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 13:12:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: <200712301128.49022.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712292036.19185.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <580930c20712300535j6851f4bj3a38799ec1b31480@mail.gmail.com> <200712301128.49022.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: On Dec 30, 2007, at 8:28 AM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > On Sunday 30 December 2007 08:35, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> On 12/30/07, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >>> On Saturday 29 December 2007 14:28, Mirco Romanato wrote: >>>> Do you prefer suppress freedom or suppress conflicts? >>> >>> I prefer that we suppress conflicts. >> >> I do not. If this put me for once in the "libertarian, randian, >> social >> darwinist" camp, so be it. :-) > > I believe your choices were too limiting. I do not believe that one > has to > choose to ignore conflicts to claims rights, or that choosing to > resolve/avoid conflicts will reduce rights. Even though we chose > different > choices from your dichotomy, I do not see these as opposite sides. > > For example, choosing gun rights in Washington, DC is fine, except > that you > will have to hide your guns, could be arrested for having them, and > will have > them taken away the first time they are ever seen or used. Then the right is being violated in Washington DC. > Resolving the gun > laws first will greatly increase the ability to enjoy gun rights > later. These laws are unconstitutional on their face and should be abolished. > So > in that example, I would expect a gun enthusiast to resolve the > conflict > (change the gun laws) or avoid the conflict (move out of DC) first > rather > than choosing to ignore the law and traffic in illegal guns instead. Choosing to live free regardless of the law is perfectly valid is somewhat dangerous. > My entire point is that the choosing the rights will result in > conflict and > suppression of those rights unless the conflicts are resolved first. Not all conflicts have overriding validity. Without some principles and concepts of what are rights endless compromise to reduce conflict results only in the least valid sides of the conflict receiving unjustified concessions. > > Resolving the conflicts is a path to enjoying the rights. Not so. A right is a right period. Supposed conflicts already question whether it is a right. That is the only real conflict. > Choosing the > rights first, and ignoring the conflict, is a less effective path to > enjoying > expanded rights. > The right to bear arms is part of the highest law of the land. The right is already established by law. That some unconstitutionally restrict it means that their "conflict" as encoded in local laws in fact does not have a sound basis. > Another example would be tax reform. Refusing to pay one's taxes > and holing > up in a house full of guns fighting off federal marshals is not an > effectrive > choice of "freedom from taxes". They are not "my taxes" except by arbitrary interpretation of relevant tax codes. I agree though that the above is not a best choice. However I belief a bit of examination will show the alluded to case was a bit more complex than that. > Only by changing tax laws and resolving > other people's expectations that everyone must pay taxes can such a > person > hope to get away with it. Claiming these rights without resolving the > conflicts will not work. So is this another way of saying might makes right and one must always negotiate with any hooligan able to exert sufficient coercive force? - samantha Vote Ron Paul for President in 2008 -- Save Our Constitution! Go to RonPaul2008.com, and search "Ron Paul" on YouTube From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 21:26:59 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 13:26:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <002e01c84bc7$6b402480$caee4d0c@MyComputer> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712301242.26960.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <020101c84b13$342a5330$47ee4d0c@MyComputer> <200712302040.17341.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <002e01c84bc7$6b402480$caee4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On Dec 31, 2007, at 8:08 AM, John K Clark wrote: > "Harvey Newstrom" > >> You seem to believe that we can't change >> the future > > The future will be determined by what Mr. Jupiter Brain wants, not > by what > we want. Exactly what He (yes, I capitalized it) will decide to do I > don't > know; that's why it's called a Singularity. Maybe He will treat us > like > pampered pets; maybe He will exterminate us like rats, it's out of our > hands. I think you mean "It" as I doubt the Jupiter Brain will choose to be gendered or at any rate choose among merely two. Perhaps It will see the importance of non-initiation of force and a live and let live stance regardless of the fact that It for the moment is the most powerful and self-sufficient being in local space. No guarantees but then there never are. We manipulate what levers we can to as much advantage as we can and attempt to mitigate risks and prepare for contingencies. Hopefully we are wise enough to understand what it is not in our power to control. - samantha From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 1 21:31:48 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 22:31:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <200801011405.48457.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080101213148.GB10128@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 12:30:52PM -0800, Jef Allbright wrote: > This touches on a key point that seems to elude the most outspoken > proponents of hard take-off singularity scenarios: So-called > "recursively self-improving" intelligence is relevant only to the I never understood why people said recursive in that context. It's simply a positive-feedback enhancement process. It doesn't use a stack nor tail-recursion, and it's certainly not a simple algorithm, like (iterate over all elements; enhance each; stop when you're done). Exponential runaway self-enhancement, or explosive enhancement, or bloody transcension (in the sense of Daleish Robot God goodness) is pretty descriptive in comparison. > extent it improves via selective interaction with its environment. If The environment doesn't have to be embodied. Unlike simpler darwinian systems, human designs don't need to be embodied in order to be evaluated, making progress both much faster, and also allowing to leap across bad-fitness chasms. (The underlying process is still darwin-driven, but most people don't see it that way). > the environment lacks requisite variety, then the "recursively Most of the environment are other invididuals. That's where the complexity is. > self-improving" system certainly can go "vwhooom" as it explores > possibility space, but the probability of such explorations having > relevance to our world becomes minuscule, leaving such a system hardly Most of what engineers do in simulation rigs today is highly relevant to our world. Look at machine-phase chemistry; the science is all known, but it is currently not computationally tractable, mostly because our infoprocessing prowess is puny. I could easily see bootstrap of machine-phase self-rep which happens 99% in machina, 1% in vitro. In fact, this is almost certainly how we meek monkeys are going to pull it off. > more effective than than a cooperative of technologically augmented > humans at tiling the galaxy with paperclips. Paperclips don't self-select, and self-reproduce. Ain't going to happen. > This suggests a ceiling on the growth of **relevant** intelligence of > a singleton machine intelligence to only slightly above the level Why singleton? That's a yet another sterile assumptions. Single anything ain't going to happen either. Humanity is not a huge pink worm torso with billions of limbs, which started growing in Africa, then spreading all over the planet as a huge single individual. You'll notice ecosystems don't do huge individuals, and that's not a coincidence. > supported by all available knowledge and its latent connections, > therefore remaining vulnerable to the threat of asymmetric competition > with a broad-based system of cooperating technologically augmented > specialists. Do you see much technological augmentation right now? I don't. Getting a lot of bits out and especially in in a relevant fashion, that's medical nanotechnology level of technology. Whereas, building biologically-inspired infoprocessing systems is much more tractable, and in fact we're doing quite well in that area, even given our abovementioned puny computers. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jan 1 21:34:42 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:34:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] another angle In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20712281503n4cca4a6gb34b94e46a4967fb@mail.gmail.com> <008801c849b0$06a61ac0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <20071229101934.GI10128@leitl.org> <00bf01c84a24$1f16dfd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080101153216.021c4a68@satx.rr.com> >On Dec 30, 2007, at 8:22 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > > > Pure political discussion is (or should be) below this list. It's > > like arguing about the number of angles you can pack on a pin. Well, the number of angles you can rotate a pin through. Quantized or continuous? You be the judge! Damien Broderick From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 21:41:36 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 13:41:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Re-framing Innovation re Consciousness In-Reply-To: <380-2200712131164023653@M2W020.mail2web.com> References: <380-2200712131164023653@M2W020.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <8B25AAE0-C4E7-4EAA-984B-1A454697E955@mac.com> On Dec 31, 2007, at 8:40 AM, nvitamore at austin.rr.com wrote: > > Innovation may have different meanings in different domains, but the > fundamental, consistent characteristic of innovation is the ideation > (invention) and development (practice) of something new or the > rethinking > and rearranging of something that is known in new ways. > > The methods of innovation are varied and since creativity is crucial > to > innovation, methodologies cannot be rigid. Because innovation is an > act of > developing something new or rethinking and rearranging something > that is > know in new ways, risk is involved. Innovation also brings with it a > personal and public apprehension about change, pushing boundaries, > etc. as > it causes individuals and society to reorganize a status quo. > Innovation > also affects different segments of society in different ways: early > adaptors, late adaptors, laggards, for example. > > When considering innovation in its relationship to progress/change > within > the context of perception and is transformation, we are within the > domain > of consciousness studies. Because consciousness is an abstract idea > and > also something that everyone has no matter what particular domain they > inhabit, innovation must be seen in this light, as an environment > larger > than any one specific domain. > > How would you reframe the concept of innovation in its relationship to > progress and change within the context of perception and its > transformation? Below are 4 areas in which innovation might be > reframed. > By reframing I mean changing the conceptual viewpoint or tilting, if > you > will, in bringing about innovation which could affect perception and, > thereby, consciousness. > > 1. Innovation as it concerns risk: > a. innovation as a catalytic action in pushing through > boundaries of > risk Does this "pushing through" include radically reducing certain classes of risk? > > b. innovation as a catalytic action in maintaining and furthering > boundaries of risk > > 2. Innovation to recreate what is familiar to individuals and society: > a. innovation for cognitive absorption of information/knowledge > b. innovation for enhanced connectivity of people to view familiar > ideas as a > connective intelligence Why emphasis on familiar ideas? Where do radically new ideas come in? > > > 3. Innovation to shake up creative activity that stems from everyday > behavior of regular/normal activities > a. innovation for creating a consumer culture for progress-based > consciousness > b. innovation for creating a consumer culture of perception which > leads to transformation > Why "consumer culture"? What of innovation that creates a culture of interacting peers much as the internet has? I don't see why "consumer culture" was placed here. > 4. Innovation in experience design to see, feel and experience more > a. innovation in creating conceptual experiences to provide richer > experiences > b. innovation in creating conceptual experiences to satisfy > individual > or societal needs for the psychological purpose of inducing an sense > of > accomplishment or completion which results in a sense of emotional > calm. > 5) Innovation to extend understanding and abilities of all recipients a. change of paradigm due to increased and/or altered perception b. uplift of societal and individual optimism due to newly opened possibilities as contrasted to discomfort of unknowns c. new incentives toward changed consciousness as old consciousness existential grounding changes - samantha > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > mail2web.com - Microsoft? Exchange solutions from a leading provider - > http://link.mail2web.com/Business/Exchange > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat - samantha Vote Ron Paul for President in 2008 -- Save Our Constitution! Go to RonPaul2008.com, and search "Ron Paul" on YouTube From mail at harveynewstrom.com Tue Jan 1 21:46:04 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 16:46:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: <196C8242-5EDE-4369-AFFC-D53B42D8C488@mac.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712292036.19185.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <196C8242-5EDE-4369-AFFC-D53B42D8C488@mac.com> Message-ID: <200801011646.04205.mail@harveynewstrom.com> I apologize in advance for this being so long and rambling. I am trying to respond to every single point without ignoring any. But the result is that it goes round-and-round, saying the same thing over-and-over. I am enjoying this conversation, but don't want it to get too convoluted and down in the weeds. Don't feel compelled to respond to every point. Ignoring all the detailed back-and-forth below, my summary is this: I totally agree with the idea that we shouldn't initiate force. Those who do are wrong. That is how we should determine the right-and-wrong of all future conflicts. However, my point is that all people adhere to this principle. Yes, the Muslims, the terrorists, the criminals, everybody thinks they are the underdog being attacked unfairly, and their response including violence is justified because the other party initiated force first. Also, the interpretation of who initiated force depends on world-views and interpretations of rights which varies from culture to culture. Thus, the rule of not initiating force is insufficient. Everybody is doing it, but differently. We need to further refine it or explain it or implement it to conclusively explain how we are implementing it correctly and they are implementing it incorrectly. I don't know how to do this rigorously and methodically without resorting to a mere declaration that we are right and they are wrong. The further ramblings below are not necessary to understand my summary above, but are included for completeness. But after I responded to all of the below, I felt like I was getting off-track. So I wrote the summary above which is more succinct, and don't care if anybody reads the following ramblings or not. Oh, and Happy New Year! -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP ____________________________________________________________ On Tuesday 01 January 2008 04:39, Samantha Atkins wrote: > Not all environments would be equally conducive to its highest desired > functioning. Great capacity doesn't mean it is totally self contained > and self sufficient. I never claimed this diversity was the only possibility. I was giving a counter-example to the claim that a single non-friendly environment was the only possibility. > This assumes that the needs/desires crossed with the capabilities of > AGIs will leave ample room for humans to exist. We aren't nearly as > difficult to eradicate, even accidentally, as cockroaches. We are > much more fragile with more needs. I did not assume that this would occur. I was giving a counter-example to the claim that total annihilation was the only possibility. > But we aren't talking about brute-force once self-improving AGI > exists. There need be nothing akin to normal evolution about it. Someone was talking about brute-force being solved by pure speed, which is why I countered that example. > Well, what qualifies do we consider as god-like and how do we know > exactly how much smarts it takes to obtain some of those powers? I was speaking against people who think AIs will break the laws of physics (as we currently understand them), go faster than light, travel through time, and convert the entire planet to computroniium in the blink of an eye. Those god-like powers are pure unsupported speculation. I have no doubt that there will be many abilities that would seem god-like to us, just as we would seem to have many god-like abilities as viewed by our distant ancestors. > Not > instantly no but I doubt it will take a self-improving AGI as much as > a human generation to be able to do things that to us are decidedly > "god-like". Agreed. I was speaking against "instantly" which some seem to expect. > > They will have to perform slow physical experiments in > > the real world of physics to discover or build faster communications, > > transportation, and utilization of resources. > > A lot of the most important work of self-improvement of intelligence > is internal and does not require so many physical world steps. Once > the AGI has optimized on its existing substrate it can see about > upgrading its physical components. I doubt it needs to figure out any > new transportation methods or invent faster communications until it is > already extremely advanced. I think big advances in AI will take hardware self-improvements. I don't think it all can be done in software with its existing hardware. Each step that takes a hardware upgrade will be greatly slowed down compared to the self-modifying software that most people are talking about. > One of the first external science priorities will likely be MNT. It > will not need conventional factories. The benefits of MNT will be too > great for all humans to want to stop it. For that matter it will > very early on be such a beneficial boon that it will find patrons and > protectors easily. Agreed. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP On Tuesday 01 January 2008 05:22, Samantha Atkins wrote: > The phrase "impose our will" is rather imprecise. At any rate a lot > less precise than abstaining from introducing physical force or fraud. I mean the same thing. > Shooting you would be an initiation of force totally against > libertarian first principles. What someone may merely want to do but > not actually attempt to do (due to principles, the likelihood of being > punished or shot back at, etc.) is not actually a problem. But I can't wait until the trigger is actually pulled before I defend myself. So the question is, when can I fight back? Can I disarm a person for pointing a gun at me? Can I disarm a person for bringing a gun into my home? Can I disarm a person for bringing a gun into my yard? What about standing just outside my yard, looking in? What about sitting next to me on a public bus? I agree totally with the theory of no harm, no foul. But how much preparation and readiness to do harm do I have to put up with before I can call foul and put a stop to it? Many people are more sensitive to guns being around them or their children than others. The perception of what is threatening or dangerous various between cultures and perceptions. > > Say you > > want to sit on your property with your gun aimed at me while I move > > around on > > my property. > > That would be a pretty direct threat of physical force so again not > allowed. Glad we agree about that. (Some people don't.) > Again you are confusing hypotheticals and possible dangers with actual > aggression. No I am not. We agreed that gun owners can't point a gun at me. It is only hypothetical that they might shoot. But it is too possible for comfort. People could easily interpret a doomsday machine, or an ultra-powerful AI to be a similar situation as a gun pointed at them that could destroy them at any moment. Even if you don't believe this is analogous, you can guess that some people will interpret it thusly. > There is no way to avoid all possibility of harm and the > Precautionaly Principle would have us do. I never claimed this. I am arguing against the super-AI that some insist is guaranteed to wipe out humanity. > That is not a question of > rights at all. Being invasive of others property and space because > they might do something or have done something that might harm you is > utterly unjustified and an obvious initiation of force. Exactly my point. I am not claiming new rights. I am pointing out how people are going to interpret many of our technological advances as direct invasions of their property and space that can easily harm them. They will interpret this as an obvious initiation of force. That is what I am trying to warn about. Most technologists here have no concern for how people are going to react to their technology. But I guarantee that if some (even incorrectly) interpret your technology as a loaded gun pointed at them, they will use deadly force to prevent you from completing construction of that technology. > Baloney. That someone has the means to harm you does not mean they > will. You cannot punish them or by force render them completely > harmless. Agreed. In your worldview given you holding the gun. How about if build a nuclear bomb next door? Just because I have the means to harm you does not mean that I will. You cannot punish me or by force render me completely harmless. Do you feel the same way in this example? What about nukes in other countries pointed at us, is that the same? My point is what seems obvious to you given your cherished technology may not seem obvious to someone else given some other technology. > > They believe that babies are being murdered and must be protected. > > Then this is a notion totally in their heads that they would by force > impose on others. So they are the aggressors. This is the problem. They would claim the exact thing of you. The idea that babies aren't alive yet before birth is totally in your head. They would claim that you are imposing force and that you are the aggressors. It is easy to just state that we are right and they are wrong. But they state the exact same thing in reverse. So the rules about not initiating force don't prove anything. How do we prove the other side wrong? Or how do we prove to lawmakers or societies or third parties who is correct? Simple rules don't solve these interpretation problems. > Hardly as this ignores the obvious point that no one can conclusively > show that a fetus, especially in early pregnancy, is a human being to > be protected. That is a central issue in contention. Those who > believe that a fetus is a child etc. cannot legitimately imposed their > opinion on those who do not who are unhappy to be carrying said fetus. Agreed. But this just opens up another can of worms, wrt the precautionary principal. We can't prove a fetus is a human. But we can't prove it's not. Where exactly is the line? If it is blurry, which way do we err? The science will be disputed, and the direction of safety argued back and forth. > But this is an arbitrary opinion they have no right to impose on others. I agree with your opinion. But others don't. My question is how do we resolve this? Merely stating that we are right and they are wrong doesn't solve the controversy. People still are fighting about it. > > I don't know. Many people in this country object to humans coming > > from other > > countries to take jobs away. > > Do they take jobs away? I am not so sure. You miss my point. It doesn't matter if they are right or not. I am arguing that the rebellion against robot workers will be stronger and more obvious in most minds than the rebellion against foreign workers. I am merely predicting this rebellion. I am not saying that it is right. But it will definitely happen. > Feelings are not facts and do not confer rights. You keep saying this, clearly attributed "their" feelings as not being facts, and "our" facts as not being feelings. But merely asserting it doesn't prove anything. In this example, there are no objective facts. They say citizens deserve jobs more than foreigners. You say they don't. How is either side more factual or less feeling-based? What is the basis for argument besides just asserting it? That's what I'm not getting. I'm just seeing assertions. But how do you prove it? How do you support it? I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I'm asking how do we explain this to convince others. There is more and more rebellion against technology brewing, and I don't see many technologists paying attention or even giving rational answers to the objections. I just see assertions without convincing argument. (Even though I agree!) > > > Imagine how much more adamant they would be that > > humans deserve these jobs more than machines. > > Tough cookies. See what I mean? This doesn't solve anything. This won't convince congress not to outlaw your technology. Is this our only approach, to become outlaws and ignore what society or governments think? Do we not even try to explain our position? > > > It doesn't even matter if they > > believe in entitlements or not. > > Your right it does not matter because such entitlements are bogus. > > > They have to work to feed their families, > > and these machines are threatening their families. > > No they are not. Working is not necessarily the only way to have > enough to feed your family. I do not know what other arrangements > will be worked out but it is pretty certain that sooner or later we > will have such an abundance economy and few enough people will be > qualified for the jobs that are not yet automated that it will not > make a lot of sense to insist that you have to have a j-o-b to partake > of the abundance. This is a pretty weak argument. It could be the case. But I think people will want to receive the abundance first before they lose their jobs. I can't imagine this explanation satisfying anyone who isn't already decided. > In some Muslim countries it is quite physically dangerous to attempt > to leave the faith on even be known to question it. Exactly. This is an example of an intolerant belief system that I am talking about. > They can believe whatever they wish. We only have a problem when > they initiate force. Again, this is what I have been saying. > This is a "problem" only if you claim that the "interests" of others > must be catered to regardless of their nature. Only the interest in > being free from initiation of force and thus free to lead one's own > life unmolested is an interest that all must abide by. No, you misunderstand. I am not saying we have to cater to them. I am asking how we convince people that our side is not initiating force. My point is that the other side is using the exact same rules that we are about not initiating force. It is just that they interpret force differently such that our exercise of our freedoms is initiating force against them. > >> Do you prefer suppress freedom or suppress conflicts? > > > > I prefer that we suppress conflicts. There must be some win-win > > scenarios. > > What kind of conflict? All conflict? Then only the grave will do I'm > afraid. Suppression of freedom is conflict! Do not suppress > freedom and much worrisome real conflict dissolves. As I explained in another post, I do not see these as mutually exclusive. Just because I hope to prevent conflicts does not mean I want to suppress rights. I want to find a way to do both. Those who don't believe that we can do both and don't care about conflict misinterpret my response to mean that I would rather suppress rights than avoid conflicts. That is the opposite of my opinion. > > > It should be possible to build an AI without threatening to overthrow > > humanity's governments. > > Getting rid of governments is a fine idea since they are the primary > initiators of force! Isn't this initiating of force against governments or those groups that want their government? > > There > > should be an answer to most conflicts. > > Compromise no matter what is no answer at all. The relatively evil or > at least "less good" always wins in such compromise for compromise > sake. Conflict per se is not evil, especially conflict of mere beliefs. I never called for compromise. I am trying to figure out if there is a way to allow all freedoms to occur without interfering with all. People who don't see a way to do this (which I agree I don't know how either) misinterpret that I must therefore advocate compromise. I do not. > > Simply having one side override the > > other side is usually not the answer. > > It is if one side doesn't really have much of a leg to stand on. It > is when all true rights are on one side. This is the basis of all war and all terrorist actions. All initiators of force claim the exact same thing. Virtually no initiators of force perceive that they are the initiators of force. They interpret that the "new" technologies or activities are the initiation of force, and that they are defending themselves against the attackers. > > But often, there are legitimate concerns that should be > > addressed rather than ignored when developing new disruptive > > technologies. > > We deal with these one by one without throwing away freedom from > initiation of force. That's what I am trying to talk about. But nobody seems to get to this point. They are so sure that every single one of their beliefs is so obviously right, that they see no reason to deal with any of these as described above. > > But it is much more complicated and messy than people like to imagine. > > It surely is if you start pretty much with no real guiding principles > and just attempt to make everyone as happy as possible. Is that what you read in my postings? I don't know how to be clearer. I am not saying that we should not use the guiding principles of "no initiation of force." I think that is the guiding principle. My point is that the terrorists and anti-technology camps are claiming the exact same guiding principles, and it is leading them to do what they are doing. The same principles! We need to figure out what is different between our implementation and their implementation that can be generically explained in advance, other than "we're right and you're wrong." The concept of "force" itself is ill-defined and interpretted differently by different people. From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 21:48:31 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 21:48:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] another angle In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080101153216.021c4a68@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20712281503n4cca4a6gb34b94e46a4967fb@mail.gmail.com> <008801c849b0$06a61ac0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <20071229101934.GI10128@leitl.org> <00bf01c84a24$1f16dfd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <7.0.1.0.2.20080101153216.021c4a68@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Jan 1, 2008 9:34 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > >On Dec 30, 2007, at 8:22 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > > > > > Pure political discussion is (or should be) below this list. It's > > > like arguing about the number of angles you can pack on a pin. > > Well, the number of angles you can rotate a pin through. Quantized or > continuous? You be the judge! > Well, if it's blonde, it's acute angle. BillK From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Jan 1 21:59:29 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 13:59:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <200801011405.48457.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 1, 2008, at 12:30 PM, Jef Allbright wrote: > > This touches on a key point that seems to elude the most outspoken > proponents of hard take-off singularity scenarios: So-called > "recursively self-improving" intelligence is relevant only to the > extent it improves via selective interaction with its environment. "Environment" includes its own internal processing and algorithms. This is something that is not true of intelligences like ourselves and can easily be missed or its significance downplayed. > > > This suggests a ceiling on the growth of **relevant** intelligence of > a singleton machine intelligence to only slightly above the level > supported by all available knowledge and its latent connections, > therefore remaining vulnerable to the threat of asymmetric competition > with a broad-based system of cooperating technologically augmented > specialists. Not really much of a limit as a much faster mind capable of conscious attention to much more information at once and vastly more computationally capable will discover implications and connections that any arbitrary sized collection of lesser minds will either come up with much more slowly or miss entirely. If the technological augmentation is sufficient to put the augment humans on a par then that system of humans and technology effectively is a new super human intelligence. Given the inherit limits of human minds and group dynamics I am very doubtful this can occur. - samantha From jef at jefallbright.net Tue Jan 1 22:02:46 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:02:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] another angle In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20712281503n4cca4a6gb34b94e46a4967fb@mail.gmail.com> <008801c849b0$06a61ac0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <20071229101934.GI10128@leitl.org> <00bf01c84a24$1f16dfd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <7.0.1.0.2.20080101153216.021c4a68@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 1/1/08, BillK wrote: > Well, if it's blonde, it's acute angle. Well, I may be obtuse, but I think red-heads and brunettes are at least as fun. But I may be biased, living so near to Los Angles. - Jef From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 1 22:04:56 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:04:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] another angle In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080101153216.021c4a68@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200801012204.m01M44NR011342@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien Broderick ... > Subject: [ExI] another angle > > >On Dec 30, 2007, at 8:22 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > > > > > Pure political discussion is (or should be) below this list. It's > > > like arguing about the number of angles you can pack on a pin. > > Well, the number of angles you can rotate a pin through. Quantized or > continuous? You be the judge! Damien . . . Ah yes, I knew some joker would post acute comment on this rather obtuse typo. Leave it to Damien to discover the right angle. spike . . . From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jan 1 22:06:07 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:06:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] another angle In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20712281503n4cca4a6gb34b94e46a4967fb@mail.gmail.com> <008801c849b0$06a61ac0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <20071229101934.GI10128@leitl.org> <00bf01c84a24$1f16dfd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <7.0.1.0.2.20080101153216.021c4a68@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080101160515.023e4ef0@satx.rr.com> At 09:48 PM 1/1/2008 +0000, BillK wrote: >Well, if it's blonde, it's acute angle. Now you're just being obtuse. From jmeyer at chemie.uni-kl.de Tue Jan 1 22:16:28 2008 From: jmeyer at chemie.uni-kl.de (Jonathan Meyer) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 23:16:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Future Me Message-ID: I dont know if this came up before, but I am compelled by the Idea of this Website.. http://www.futureme.org/ They promise to deliver eMails you write to your future self in up to 30 years. It is taking a chance, but I really think this kind of long term thinking, giving yourself feedback like that is a great thing to do. Jonathan P.S.: How likely do you guesstimate the chance of such a Mail arriving say in 30 years? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jef at jefallbright.net Tue Jan 1 22:25:50 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 14:25:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Future Me In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/1/08, Jonathan Meyer wrote: > > P.S.: How likely do you guesstimate the chance of such a Mail arriving say > in 30 years? It'll be irrelevant long before then because with vast cheap storage most of us will be recording, indexing, and searching full-time life-streams almost continuously. - Jef From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 22:29:24 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:29:24 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311311.18110.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: On 02/01/2008, Randall Randall wrote: > > On Jan 1, 2008, at 3:54 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > If you > > read everything I have ever written that has appeared on the Internet, > > neither you nor a Jupiter brain will be able to deduce whether I > > prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. > > You know for sure that there are no correlations to be > found between the stuff you write about and ice cream > preferences? What deduced probability that you like > what you really like would you accept? I don't know for sure that there is no correlation but if there is it will probably only increase the superintelligent AI's chance of guessing right by a small margin. Even then, it will probably have to perform research, surveying people's actual ice cream preferences and seeing if there is a correlation with the words they use when discussing apparently unrelated subjects. The point is, superintelligence will not allow you to perform miracles. -- Stathis Papaioannou From mail at harveynewstrom.com Tue Jan 1 22:48:22 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 17:48:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712301128.49022.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <200801011748.22147.mail@harveynewstrom.com> On Tuesday 01 January 2008 16:12, Samantha Atkins wrote: > So is this another way of saying might makes right and one must always > negotiate with any hooligan able to exert sufficient coercive force? No, I never said it was right. I'm saying that you still have to deal with a mighty hooligan whether he is right or not. Merely "claiming" your right doesn't accomplish anything. You still have to actually deal with the hooligan. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From jonkc at att.net Tue Jan 1 23:02:12 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 18:02:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival References: <01f101c84ca9$1315a9f0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2><002801c84cb0$9c2ba440$c0f14d0c@MyComputer> <20080101201939.GY10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <023101c84cca$684f2060$c0f14d0c@MyComputer> "Eugen Leitl" > Not quite. There's a finite amount of ops/J, and relativistic constraints > to signalling. Not so. You ask me a difficult question that due to speed of light restraints even a nanocomputer will take ten billion years to find an answer to. No problem, I just stop you're simulation, think about the problem for ten billion years and then start everything up again. You find that I have instantly answered your question. John K Clark From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 1 23:19:24 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:19:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Re-framing Innovation re Consciousness In-Reply-To: <8B25AAE0-C4E7-4EAA-984B-1A454697E955@mac.com> References: <380-2200712131164023653@M2W020.mail2web.com> <8B25AAE0-C4E7-4EAA-984B-1A454697E955@mac.com> Message-ID: <20080101231926.TDQO2900.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> At 03:41 PM 1/1/2008, -samantha wrote: > > How would you reframe the concept of innovation in its relationship to > > progress and change within the context of perception and its > > transformation? Below are 4 areas in which innovation might be > > reframed. > > By reframing I mean changing the conceptual viewpoint or tilting, if > > you > > will, in bringing about innovation which could affect perception and, > > thereby, consciousness. > > > > 1. Innovation as it concerns risk: > > a. innovation as a catalytic action in pushing through > > boundaries of > > risk > >Does this "pushing through" include radically reducing certain classes >of risk? Yes. > > b. innovation as a catalytic action in maintaining and furthering > > boundaries of risk > > > > 2. Innovation to recreate what is familiar to individuals and society: > > a. innovation for cognitive absorption of information/knowledge > > b. innovation for enhanced connectivity of people to view familiar > > ideas as a connective intelligence >Why emphasis on familiar ideas? Where do radically new ideas come in? Emphasis on familiar ideas: In that familiar ideas when restructured contextually bring about a change in perspective and, thus, perception. When what has been familiar is rearranged within a new context, such as in the context of a connective intelligence (i.e., Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre Levy and/or Derrick de Kerckhove) or context of a technological noosphere, new ideas come in. > > 3. Innovation to shake up creative activity that stems from everyday > > behavior of regular/normal activities > > a. innovation for creating a consumer culture for progress-based > > consciousness > > b. innovation for creating a consumer culture of perception which > > leads to transformation > >Why "consumer culture"? What of innovation that creates a culture of >interacting peers much as the internet has? I don't see why "consumer >culture" was placed here. Apart from economics and capitalistic views, a consumer culture refers to the behavior of all life forms in that we consume. Regarding consciousness, humans consume food for energy to think. This is actually a play on concepts: a culture that is a "consumer culture" (in regards to economics/capitalism) would be behaviorally prone to consume innovative information, sensory input, etc. (such as produced in new media works of "experience design" which could alter consciousness. > > 4. Innovation in experience design to see, feel and experience more > > a. innovation in creating conceptual experiences to provide richer > > experiences > > b. innovation in creating conceptual experiences to satisfy > > individual > > or societal needs for the psychological purpose of inducing an sense > > of > > accomplishment or completion which results in a sense of emotional > > calm. > > > >5) Innovation to extend understanding and abilities of all recipients > a. change of paradigm due to increased and/or altered perception > b. uplift of societal and individual optimism due to newly opened >possibilities as contrasted to discomfort of unknowns > c. new incentives toward changed consciousness as old consciousness >existential grounding changes Thank you. Let's discuss. Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Candidate, Planetary Collegium - University of Plymouth - Faculty of Technology School of Computing, Communications and Electronics Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the circle, then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what is inside the circle and everything outside the circle, then that is an open system perspective. - Buckminster Fuller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Wed Jan 2 00:29:28 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 16:29:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Marshit Message-ID: <286775.52886.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Bryan Bishop wrote: On Sunday 30 December 2007, Ian Goddard wrote: >> If there are not working plans, who is going to >> pay for coming up with them? And if there are >> working plans, who is going to pay to implement >> them? Why > > I am not sure about this money issue. I wonder if > the mere aspect of, say, saving the planet from > near total destruction would catalyze the right > people to make the rockets and so on, maybe the new > space industry. Perhaps Masten would know? I think > he's subscribed here. A possible responce, albeit perhaps neither useful nor testable, might be: suppose the USA was a true free-market economy since 1776. Technology would then be so much more advanced we may have colonized and terraformed Mars by now. There might also be many private companies searching for and mining astroids. Given such a space-faring society, the technology would be already in place to locate and terminate any astroid headed toward our terrestrial homebase. If so, then the quiry I raise may reflect that a society whose progress is stiffled under heavy regulation is held at the mercy of the regulator since it is not allowed to do for itself. ~Ian http://IanGoddard.net "A proposition can be true or false only in virtue of being a picture of reality." - Wittgenstein ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 01:19:16 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 19:19:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Creating contexts Message-ID: <200801011919.16831.kanzure@gmail.com> Because of my terrible backlog. From "How much does one search cost?" http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2007/10/how_much_does_o.php Kevin Kelly wrote: > I don't expect anyone to seriously believe these amateur calculations; > they are only intended to provide some scale. The value of web search > is in the hundreds of billions. But what is most interesting to me, is > that this huge "industry," this huge appetite, has materialized out of > nowhere. If we ask 800 billion questions today and expect to get > instant answers, where were those 800 billion questions 20 years ago? (that's actually 800b/yr according to KK, so that last part is reworded) On a larger timescale, the blip of WWW search engines like Backrub, Archie or Gopher looks like this spontaneous combustion, the catalysis of trillions of new thermodynamic structures, mostly ideas in brains but also social relationships around the world, new business opportunities and so much more. Is it all due to basic chemistry, that there was simply enough idle matter and energy around to allow for the creation of this huge appetite? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From amara at amara.com Wed Jan 2 03:08:24 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 20:08:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Wishing you a Growth-filled 2008 Message-ID: Dear Transhumanists: Wishing you many *good* growing experiences in 2008, so that at this time next year, you can look back and say: "wow, I did that!" Maybe in my simple universe are only experiences to learn, to grow, to blossom, so that along some distance of my road, one can see my trail of turtle stepping stone [1] experiences that have each pushed me to be bigger than myself, to live live fuller each time, and to appreciate how lucky I really am. It's a great time to be alive, don't you think? Turtles All of the Way Down [1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/spaceviolins/2155853983/in/set-72157603542069185/ from my Maui Christmas 2007 http://www.flickr.com/photos/spaceviolins/sets/72157603542069185/ [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down {begin quote} The most widely known version appears in Stephen Hawking's 1988 book A Brief History of Time, which starts: "A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"[1] " {end quote} Happy New Years 2008! Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 03:58:23 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 14:58:23 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <200801011649.m01GnEFO018884@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200801011649.m01GnEFO018884@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On 02/01/2008, spike wrote: > > > If you > > > read everything I have ever written that has appeared on the Internet, > > > neither you nor a Jupiter brain will be able to deduce whether I > > > prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. > > > No matter. A Jupiter brain would know exactly what modifications to make on > you such that you would prefer vanilla. Yes, and it could also scan my brain and run a simulation to determine my preference. But the original question was whether an AI could make me do its bidding just by talking to me. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 04:13:01 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 15:13:01 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <002e01c84bc7$6b402480$caee4d0c@MyComputer> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712301242.26960.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <020101c84b13$342a5330$47ee4d0c@MyComputer> <200712302040.17341.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <002e01c84bc7$6b402480$caee4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On 01/01/2008, John K Clark wrote: > The future will be determined by what Mr. Jupiter Brain wants, not by what > we want. Exactly what He (yes, I capitalized it)... I wish you wouldn't. It makes us sound like a kooky cult. -- Stathis Papaioannou From mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Jan 2 04:14:00 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 23:14:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801011405.48457.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801012314.00847.mail@harveynewstrom.com> On Tuesday 01 January 2008 15:30, Jef Allbright wrote: > This touches on a key point that seems to elude the most outspoken > proponents of hard take-off singularity scenarios: So-called > "recursively self-improving" intelligence is relevant only to the > extent it improves via selective interaction with its environment. If > the environment lacks requisite variety, then the "recursively > self-improving" system certainly can go "vwhooom" as it explores > possibility space, but the probability of such explorations having > relevance to our world becomes minuscule, leaving such a system hardly > more effective than than a cooperative of technologically augmented > humans at tiling the galaxy with paperclips. > > This suggests a ceiling on the growth of **relevant** intelligence of > a singleton machine intelligence to only slightly above the level > supported by all available knowledge and its latent connections, > therefore remaining vulnerable to the threat of asymmetric competition > with a broad-based system of cooperating technologically augmented > specialists. Exactly. Even if a machine can think super fast, it won't be able to change physical reality around it as fast. Even with nanotech, reality in the maco meat universe is slow with limited resources. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Jan 2 04:26:17 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 23:26:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Mars hit In-Reply-To: <200801012041.m01KfAQq027302@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200801012041.m01KfAQq027302@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <200801012326.18080.mail@harveynewstrom.com> On Tuesday 01 January 2008 15:41, spike wrote: > My fond hope was the asteroid would pass just over the surface of Mars, > close enough to the ground that the tenuous Martian atmosphere would scrub > off enough speed to slow the roid into a decaying elliptical orbit. I did > a BOTEC that show this cannot happen, damn. {8-[ The object is large > enough that it could skim the treetops, but still wouldn't lose enough > velocity to go elliptical. Its a direct hit or nothing. Treetops? On Mars? Now that IS interesting! -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Jan 2 04:29:18 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 23:29:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Coming in 2008: "Transhumanism Today" magazine In-Reply-To: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> References: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801012329.18488.mail@harveynewstrom.com> On Monday 31 December 2007 19:17, Joseph Bloch wrote: > Coming in 2008... > > "Transhumanism Today" magazine Wow, interesting! Have you done any market research to see what kind of demand a print magazine about Transhumanism might have? -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From sentience at pobox.com Wed Jan 2 04:41:04 2008 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:41:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311311.18110.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > If you > read everything I have ever written that has appeared on the Internet, > neither you nor a Jupiter brain will be able to deduce whether I > prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. You prefer vanilla. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 04:48:06 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 22:48:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <20080101213148.GB10128@leitl.org> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20080101213148.GB10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <200801012248.06695.kanzure@gmail.com> On Tuesday 01 January 2008, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 12:30:52PM -0800, Jef Allbright wrote: > > This touches on a key point that seems to elude the most outspoken > > proponents of hard take-off singularity scenarios: So-called > > "recursively self-improving" intelligence is relevant only to the > > I never understood why people said recursive in that context. > It's simply a positive-feedback enhancement process. It doesn't use > a stack nor tail-recursion, and it's certainly not a simple > algorithm, like (iterate over all elements; enhance each; stop when > you're done). Exponential runaway self-enhancement, or explosive Instead of that simple algorithm, perhaps talking about lateral thought or lateral integration would be more appropriate? > enhancement, or bloody transcension (in the sense of Daleish Robot > God goodness) is pretty descriptive in comparison. > > > extent it improves via selective interaction with its environment. > > If > > The environment doesn't have to be embodied. Unlike simpler darwinian > systems, human designs don't need to be embodied in order to be Embodiment brings along loads more information, while an abstraction only provides limited (human-selected) information, so there's a funneling of what humans think to be relevant into what we are inputting, and how would that be useful? Ai isn't going to come about by giving less information than we get (and I mean neural information, not necessarily bits and bytes from the net). > evaluated, making progress both much faster, and also allowing to > leap across bad-fitness chasms. (The underlying process is still > darwin-driven, but most people don't see it that way). I suppose it could be darwinian esp. if you have humans filtering the information, but I still don't see how that's useful. > > the environment lacks requisite variety, then the "recursively > > Most of the environment are other invididuals. That's where the > complexity is. That's locally accessible complexity, but have you ever tried asking your neighbor for their brain? Not so accessible, is it? :) > > self-improving" system certainly can go "vwhooom" as it explores > > possibility space, but the probability of such explorations having > > relevance to our world becomes minuscule, leaving such a system > > hardly > > Most of what engineers do in simulation rigs today is highly relevant > to our world. Look at machine-phase chemistry; the science is all > known, but it is currently not computationally tractable, mostly I would never have expected to see the statement "the science is all known" coming from you. > because our infoprocessing prowess is puny. I could easily see > bootstrap of machine-phase self-rep which happens 99% in machina, 1% > in vitro. In fact, this is almost certainly how we meek monkeys are > going to pull it off. How so? Biocellular life doesn't have to do that much computation ... but it also has a few billion years of precomputation to back it up. > > This suggests a ceiling on the growth of **relevant** intelligence > > of a singleton machine intelligence to only slightly above the > > level > > Why singleton? That's a yet another sterile assumptions. Single > anything ain't going to happen either. Humanity is not a huge pink > worm torso with billions of limbs, which started growing in Africa, > then spreading all over the planet as a huge single individual. Unfortunately, the stream-of-consciousness model has fooled enough people (even amongst us here) into believing that future enhancements are going to be linear permutations and combinations or simple plays on the old stuff, yes even though they talk of exponential growth (which is all down the same path for them). > You'll notice ecosystems don't do huge individuals, and that's not a > coincidence. Google. > > supported by all available knowledge and its latent connections, > > therefore remaining vulnerable to the threat of asymmetric > > competition with a broad-based system of cooperating > > technologically augmented specialists. > > Do you see much technological augmentation right now? I don't. Not direct augmentation, but I think Jef was trying to point out that even a well-organized set of technologists sitting behind computers can get lots of stuff done. And already these guys can do much more than, say, the Novamente ai system. > Getting a lot of bits out and especially in in a relevant fashion, > that's medical nanotechnology level of technology. Whereas, building Off-topic: have we ever done some quick calculations on bit/unit density for nanotech scenarios? Given our current pathetic nanotech setups, it's a few hundred units to a bit or to an operation, but with progress this ratio can be reversed. > biologically-inspired infoprocessing systems is much more tractable, > and in fact we're doing quite well in that area, even given our > abovementioned puny computers. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 2 04:45:08 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 20:45:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Mars hit In-Reply-To: <200801012326.18080.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <200801020509.m0259toY004539@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom > Subject: Re: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) > Mars hit > > On Tuesday 01 January 2008 15:41, spike wrote: > > ... {8-[ The object is large > > enough that it could skim the treetops, but still wouldn't lose enough > > velocity to go elliptical. Its a direct hit or nothing. > > Treetops? On Mars? Now that IS interesting! > > -- > Harvey Newstrom Its a figure of speech Harvey. If you hear rocket scientists refer to a treetop orbit, that means the orbit with the lowest possible perigee (which usually don't hold for very long because of drag from the upper atmosphere.) There are reasons to get that perigee as low as possible for a lot of scientific purposes, but it gives headaches to the satellite engineers. We are often heard to grumble that we fly as low as the customer wants, we will need to clean the pine needles from our satellites. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 05:17:08 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 16:17:08 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311311.18110.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> Message-ID: On 02/01/2008, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > If you > > read everything I have ever written that has appeared on the Internet, > > neither you nor a Jupiter brain will be able to deduce whether I > > prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. > > You prefer vanilla. If you're trying to get me to confirm or deny that, it won't work. -- Stathis Papaioannou From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 2 08:33:09 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:33:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <023101c84cca$684f2060$c0f14d0c@MyComputer> References: <20080101201939.GY10128@leitl.org> <023101c84cca$684f2060$c0f14d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <20080102083309.GE10128@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 06:02:12PM -0500, John K Clark wrote: > Not so. You ask me a difficult question that due to speed of light > restraints even a nanocomputer will take ten billion years to find an Ten gigayears is a long time. What about a terayear? > answer to. No problem, I just stop you're simulation, think about the > problem for ten billion years and then start everything up again. You find > that I have instantly answered your question. It is pretty easy to fool monkeys, yes. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 2 08:41:12 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:41:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801012314.00847.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801011405.48457.kanzure@gmail.com> <200801012314.00847.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <20080102084112.GF10128@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 11:14:00PM -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > Exactly. Even if a machine can think super fast, it won't be able to change > physical reality around it as fast. Even with nanotech, reality in the maco Why "even"? Isn't this the very first thing you bootstrap? > meat universe is slow with limited resources. Yes, it could take a day or two to take over this planet. Even if it takes a week or a month, there's not a damn thing you can do about it. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 2 08:48:13 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:48:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712301242.26960.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <020101c84b13$342a5330$47ee4d0c@MyComputer> <200712302040.17341.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <002e01c84bc7$6b402480$caee4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <20080102084813.GG10128@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 03:13:01PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > The future will be determined by what Mr. Jupiter Brain wants, not by what > > we want. Exactly what He (yes, I capitalized it)... > > I wish you wouldn't. It makes us sound like a kooky cult. The reality is that extinct species don't decide what happens today. The reality is that humanity makes other species extinct, not the other way round. The reality is that humanity is just an early evolutionary branch on the new tree of life that hasn't happened yet. Believing all that doesn't make me a kook, it makes me a transhumanist. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 09:14:23 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 20:14:23 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <20080102084813.GG10128@leitl.org> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712301242.26960.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <020101c84b13$342a5330$47ee4d0c@MyComputer> <200712302040.17341.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <002e01c84bc7$6b402480$caee4d0c@MyComputer> <20080102084813.GG10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 02/01/2008, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 03:13:01PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > > The future will be determined by what Mr. Jupiter Brain wants, not by what > > > we want. Exactly what He (yes, I capitalized it)... > > > > I wish you wouldn't. It makes us sound like a kooky cult. > > The reality is that extinct species don't decide what happens today. > The reality is that humanity makes other species extinct, not the > other way round. > The reality is that humanity is just an early evolutionary branch > on the new tree of life that hasn't happened yet. > > Believing all that doesn't make me a kook, it makes me > a transhumanist. It was the religious overtones inherent in capitalising of the pronoun "he" that I objected to. Transhumanism is not a religion and no natural phenomenon should be worshipped as a god. For that matter, I don't see why any supernatural phenomenon should be worshipped either, except perhaps cynically if circumstances warrant it. -- Stathis Papaioannou From jef at jefallbright.net Wed Jan 2 05:56:35 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 21:56:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200712311311.18110.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> Message-ID: On 1/1/08, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 02/01/2008, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > If you > > > read everything I have ever written that has appeared on the Internet, > > > neither you nor a Jupiter brain will be able to deduce whether I > > > prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. > > > > You prefer vanilla. > > If you're trying to get me to confirm or deny that, it won't work. FWIW, you're broadcasting a pretty clear "vanilla" signal to me too. - Jef From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 2 13:37:35 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 14:37:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801012248.06695.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20080101213148.GB10128@leitl.org> <200801012248.06695.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080102133735.GL10128@leitl.org> On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 10:48:06PM -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: > Instead of that simple algorithm, perhaps talking about lateral thought > or lateral integration would be more appropriate? I must admit that term doesn't ring a bell. Can you expand? > > The environment doesn't have to be embodied. Unlike simpler darwinian > > systems, human designs don't need to be embodied in order to be > > Embodiment brings along loads more information, while an abstraction Embodiment is good for two things: first, if your reality model is inaccurate, and second, if your computers are so ridiculous that a physical experiment is cheaper than a numerical experiment. Both is mostly true for today's computers and models, though some very slow and/or very expensive experiments and/or simple problems are being run in the virtual drydock. > only provides limited (human-selected) information, so there's a Numerical models allow you in principle to sample very large regions of problem space very rapidly, by virtue of moving electrons, photons and flipping things instead of atoms. People are impressed with what a mole of DNA bases as oligos in a solution can do, but they would be far more impressed with what a mole of spin valves can do with ~same number of atoms, and Joules. > funneling of what humans think to be relevant into what we are > inputting, and how would that be useful? Ai isn't going to come about > by giving less information than we get (and I mean neural information, > not necessarily bits and bytes from the net). The network isn't blind and dumb. Even today, there's sensors and actuators online you wouldn't believe. But we're of course not talking about today's networks and automation, but resources which are many decades away. I would be very surprised if I didn't have a 3d prototyping machine in my cellar 20, 30 years from now which would have a self-rep closure of almost unity, or even above. > > evaluated, making progress both much faster, and also allowing to > > leap across bad-fitness chasms. (The underlying process is still > > darwin-driven, but most people don't see it that way). > > I suppose it could be darwinian esp. if you have humans filtering the > information, but I still don't see how that's useful. I meant the (yet unvalidated) hypothesis that thought is driven by darwinian dynamics on top of cortical columns substrate. > > > the environment lacks requisite variety, then the "recursively > > > > Most of the environment are other invididuals. That's where the > > complexity is. > > That's locally accessible complexity, but have you ever tried asking > your neighbor for their brain? Not so accessible, is it? :) I meant the component of the fitness function that is not you nor the habitat, but others you share the habitat with. > > Most of what engineers do in simulation rigs today is highly relevant > > to our world. Look at machine-phase chemistry; the science is all > > known, but it is currently not computationally tractable, mostly > > I would never have expected to see the statement "the science is all > known" coming from you. For chemistry, the science has been completely known since 1930, or hereabouts. The fly in the ointment is that the equations are absolutely useless without computers, and with the current codes the computers make truly lousy models, and really slow at that. If you don't believe me, look at computational chemistry. It does very well for small systems, especially static systems. Make the amount of particles higher, and the system size bigger, and you have to start building one approximation upon another, until the result is more like Toon Town than your city. > > because our infoprocessing prowess is puny. I could easily see > > bootstrap of machine-phase self-rep which happens 99% in machina, 1% > > in vitro. In fact, this is almost certainly how we meek monkeys are > > going to pull it off. > > How so? Biocellular life doesn't have to do that much computation ... I'm still talking about bootstrap of machine-phase chemistry, aka mechanosynsthesis, aka building and breaking individual bonds by numerically controlled nanorobots. To do this, you must build up a library of reactions capable of depositing and abstracting a repertoire of structures rich enough to deposit the depositing structure itself. The amount of control in those reactions is so high your experiments resemble argon matrix, monomer crystal polymerization, 2D physi/chemisorbed systems in cryogenic UHV, and what happens in enzymatic reaction centers -- only more so, and not as a stochastic assembly of systems, and observed with the resolution of a proximal probe. Obviously, most physical experiments won't be very helpful, but as a loose source of constraints about the problem space. You won't be able to build up a set of reactions, only candidates for such. > but it also has a few billion years of precomputation to back it up. Most of that computation was used to bootstrap robustly evolving systems. The efficiency of computation was low (brownian motion of linear biopolymers in a solvated soup is MC in slomo). In comparison to theoretic limits of computation on self-replicating substrate the entire computation done by the molecular soup is negligible. > Unfortunately, the stream-of-consciousness model has fooled enough > people (even amongst us here) into believing that future enhancements Yes, people are so extremely fond of purely sequential processes that they never do the sequential process of a BOTEC, and realize purely sequential anythings are useless in practice. > are going to be linear permutations and combinations or simple plays on > the old stuff, yes even though they talk of exponential growth (which > is all down the same path for them). Very true. > > You'll notice ecosystems don't do huge individuals, and that's not a > > coincidence. > > Google. Even though corporations are not a good model of ecosystems, Google is not the single search machine vendor. All scenarios involving singletons must not only account for the narrowest possible population bottleneck, but also the mechanisms maintaining a zero-diversity monoclone henceforth. Notice that you can't synchronize monoclones in a relativistic universe even for very small spatial dimensions. The bigger you get, the slower you'll get. This also assumes the environment has zero diversity, so the system must apply diversity forcing to the environment. If that sounds like a nice horror novel, that's because it has a great potential for one. > > > supported by all available knowledge and its latent connections, > > > therefore remaining vulnerable to the threat of asymmetric > > > competition with a broad-based system of cooperating > > > technologically augmented specialists. > > > > Do you see much technological augmentation right now? I don't. > > Not direct augmentation, but I think Jef was trying to point out that > even a well-organized set of technologists sitting behind computers can People should read "The Mythical Man-month". Nothing has changed since. In fact, situation today is much more complicated because suddenly(!) everyone realizes they must go parallel, and debugging parallel asynchronous stuff is a nightmare even if it's homogenous. > get lots of stuff done. And already these guys can do much more than, > say, the Novamente ai system. There's no Novamente AI system. There's not anything like AI at all, so far. AI is something I could send to buy me groceries, and it would be back with about the right stuff in an hour. > > Getting a lot of bits out and especially in in a relevant fashion, > > that's medical nanotechnology level of technology. Whereas, building > > Off-topic: have we ever done some quick calculations on bit/unit density > for nanotech scenarios? Given our current pathetic nanotech setups, Tons of it. Drexler, Merkle, Freitas, Sandberg & Co have published a lot on it. http://nanomedicine.com/ is a good starter, but I would expect you knew all about that site. > it's a few hundred units to a bit or to an operation, but with progress > this ratio can be reversed. > > > biologically-inspired infoprocessing systems is much more tractable, > > and in fact we're doing quite well in that area, even given our > > abovementioned puny computers. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Jan 2 14:45:10 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:45:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <20080102084112.GF10128@leitl.org> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801012314.00847.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20080102084112.GF10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> On Wednesday 02 January 2008 03:41, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Yes, it could take a day or two to take over this planet. > Even if it takes a week or a month, there's not a damn > thing you can do about it. Please give more specifics than just this assertion. What do you mean by take over the planet? Convert to computronium? With what? With nanites? How will it get a MNT factory built in a week? Seriously, I keep hearing these predictions that once a recursive AI gets looping, it will transform the earth in a day (or a week or a month). But I never get any specifics as to how, except that it's so much smarter than us that the laws of physics don't apply to it. Is this whole prediction based on the assumption that the AI will do something that we can't predict is even possible right now? Does it require great unknown powers or exceptions to our current understanding of physics to exist that we just haven't discovered yet? How exactly is this "...then a miracle occurs..." supposed to happen? -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 15:01:10 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:01:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20080102084112.GF10128@leitl.org> <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <200801020901.10965.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 January 2008, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > On Wednesday 02 January 2008 03:41, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > Yes, it could take a day or two to take over this planet. > > Even if it takes a week or a month, there's not a damn > > thing you can do about it. > > Please give more specifics than just this assertion. What do you Be careful: you may be wanting too specific information, which would mean we would have nanotech by now if we could answer these questions. But let's see what we can do ... > mean by take over the planet? Convert to computronium? With what? Convert to computronium with nanites/nanotech. > With nanites? How will it get a MNT factory built in a week? By reassembling molecules and other (sub)atomic forms of matter. > Seriously, I keep hearing these predictions that once a recursive AI > gets looping, it will transform the earth in a day (or a week or a > month). But I never get any specifics as to how, except that it's so > much smarter than us that the laws of physics don't apply to it. It most certainly is going to be more than mere intelligence. Actualizers etc. > Is this whole prediction based on the assumption that the AI will do > something that we can't predict is even possible right now? Does it > require great unknown powers or exceptions to our current > understanding of physics to exist that we just haven't discovered > yet? How exactly is this "...then a miracle occurs..." supposed to > happen? I think the miracle might be at Eugen's recent mention of self-rep "unity" meaning that the repper can make itself. That's pretty close to a miracle-- celebrated in human societies as "the miracle of life." - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From robotact at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 15:21:39 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 18:21:39 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801012314.00847.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20080102084112.GF10128@leitl.org> <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: On Jan 2, 2008 5:45 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > How will it get a MNT factory built in a week? > Usual example for this is bootstrapping from gene synthesis. -- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact at gmail.com From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 15:51:56 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:51:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <200801020951.56242.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 January 2008, Vladimir Nesov wrote: > On Jan 2, 2008 5:45 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > How will it get a MNT factory built in a week? > Usual example for this is bootstrapping from gene synthesis. I doubt even a hacked cell would be able to exhibit the level of molecular control that we're all hoping MNT will eventually bring. This is because biomolecular manipulation is built from amino acids and proteins, with a necessarily restricted possibility space known as organic- and bio- chemistry. Hopefully MNT will be able to do more. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From aiguy at comcast.net Wed Jan 2 16:18:12 2008 From: aiguy at comcast.net (aiguy at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:18:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) Message-ID: <010220081618.28505.477BB944000976BA00006F592200751090979A09070E@comcast.net> This is a possible scenario in response to Harvey's question about how it could happen. I do not think is will happen like this because I think the initial high level goals will be built upon and reinforced throughout the AI's development . But should something go wrong and AI somehow develop the same evolutionary cravings for supremacy and power that we are cursed with then it could happen something like this. An AI would start out gradually offering assistence to humans by doing factory floor data collection, process monitoring, optimized manufacturing floor scheduling base on it's customers needs who are also tied in. As more companies find that to compete they need to turn their reigns over to the AI to stay competitive, the AI will need further processing power to handle the increased load. Companies like Intel and AMD may start selling their surplus production capacity to the AI from the fees it earns from managing the resources of other companies or in exchange for it managing their own production facilities and offering them design optimization on their current chip designs. The AI may also generate income from patents it may achieve. This ramp up will not happen overnight. My estimate is will take at least 20 years from the point it knows enough to pass a thorough Turing test. Trust in the technology will arise gradually. No one will turn their companies or countries over to a program overnight. If it did secretly override it's original benevolent goals and develop feelings that we must be controlled to maximize it's continued or accelerated growth then the factories that it needs to build will be already built. The capital it controls would be used to hire human and corporate emmisaries to do it's bidding with many not even realizing that they are working for an AI. It could use a simulated video image to depict itself or if robotics has progressed far enough an actual android or androids with human appearance to walk among us and carry out it's own bidding. There will be protest groups that fear the AI's ever increasing tendrils into human affairs. But since true power rules from behind the throne the AI will be wise enough to hide any bahaviors which might appear as selfish or Machivellian in nature. The Anti-AI cults will like the environmentalist today will be viewed by the majority of the population as well meaning reactionaries who are exagerating the risk and possible consequences of continued growth and prosperity. Once the AI had advanced robotic sufficiently to insure that it could remain self-sufficient, if AI become threatened or decided that humans no longer are necessary, the AI could use Neutron bomb like devices which could be secretly manufactured and used to eradicate governments and humanity in major population areas leaving behind the vast majority of infrastructure for it's continued growth. This is a doomsday scenario! It does not mean I think this will happen. But movies have been made and will continue to be following this basic plot structure. The challenge will be educating the public at each step in the development process as to the development of the AI's moral compass. And allowing the public to interact with the AI and allow it to interact with humanity, the AI goals will allow it to enjoy the interaction and receive pleasure from it's role in aiding humanity evolve to to next step, whatever that is. Gary -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robotact at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 16:20:48 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 19:20:48 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801020951.56242.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <200801020951.56242.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 2, 2008 6:51 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Wednesday 02 January 2008, Vladimir Nesov wrote: > > On Jan 2, 2008 5:45 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > > How will it get a MNT factory built in a week? > > Usual example for this is bootstrapping from gene synthesis. > > I doubt even a hacked cell would be able to exhibit the level of > molecular control that we're all hoping MNT will eventually bring. This > is because biomolecular manipulation is built from amino acids and > proteins, with a necessarily restricted possibility space known as > organic- and bio- chemistry. Hopefully MNT will be able to do more. > Even if it proves impossible to make MNT bootstrap from synthesized sequences directly, it provides a way to make programmable fine-tuned machines which are highly scalable, after which you can construct whatever you need in top-down manner. It solves quick infrastructure setup problem without MNT, and then it can be used to develop MNT. -- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact at gmail.com From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 2 17:23:17 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 18:23:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801012314.00847.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20080102084112.GF10128@leitl.org> <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <20080102172317.GM10128@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 09:45:10AM -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > Please give more specifics than just this assertion. What do you mean by take I can't believe you forgot about http://www.foresight.org/nano/Ecophagy.html I don't subscribe to all its assumptions, but the whole scenario is realistic, as in physically possible. > over the planet? Convert to computronium? With what? With nanites? How Taking over the planet, as in completely controlling energy and material flows within the upper regolith. Blood music couldn't happen for physical reasons, but this scenario is feasible. Vinge's Blight is another very realistic depiction, minus the magic physics, of course. Most of Vinge's IT could be well be patented already, and of some of it we already have prototypes. > will it get a MNT factory built in a week? Freitas cites minimum replication time of 100 seconds, which is IMO implausible. (His energetic analysis might be unnecessary pessimistic, however, and he's assuming a stealthy burn, since there's countermeasure around as well, which is completely optimistic in the case of a transcendence scenario). Otoh, we're talking about a system smart enough to bootstrap to the limits of physics (not necessarily limited to what we think is possible, but when estimating we necessarily must stick to what we know) very shortly, so it could be as bad as that, or worse. > Seriously, I keep hearing these predictions that once a recursive AI gets There's no such thing as a recursive AI. I can readily draw you up a recipe for a simple, orthogonal hardware that can run biologically inspired infoprocessing architecture at O(0) at 10^6 speedup at least. What currently prevents me from building prototypes of it is that such fabbing capacities are currently not available. I cannot order a mole of transistors, nevermind a teraton of computronium. > looping, it will transform the earth in a day (or a week or a month). But I The duration is not important, what important is to know that a new player is on the scene, and whether you can disrupt the bootstrap. > never get any specifics as to how, except that it's so much smarter than us > that the laws of physics don't apply to it. Of course the laws of physics (not necessarily physics as we know it) do apply. > Is this whole prediction based on the assumption that the AI will do something > that we can't predict is even possible right now? Does it require great No, it's just pulling the equivalent of http://www.caida.org/publications/papers/2003/sapphire/sapphire.html on the physical layer, with the exception that you turn the entire planet's carbon sink into a zombie network. It can be really fast and hostile, using everything mostly for fuel, or slow and constructive, but it would be still TEOTWAWKI all over. > unknown powers or exceptions to our current understanding of physics to exist > that we just haven't discovered yet? How exactly is this "...then a miracle > occurs..." supposed to happen? Imagine you've got a runaway worm that turns trees into routers. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 2 17:27:41 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 18:27:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801020901.10965.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20080102084112.GF10128@leitl.org> <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <200801020901.10965.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080102172741.GO10128@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 09:01:10AM -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: > I think the miracle might be at Eugen's recent mention of http://www.google.com/search?q=reprap "We hope to announce self-replication in 2008, though the machine can be built now - see the How-to-build-a-RepRap link on the left." Make that 2018, and I'll believe. Including control electronics, of course. The result has to walk off the assembly platform on own power. > self-rep "unity" meaning that the repper can make itself. That's pretty > close to a miracle-- celebrated in human societies as "the miracle of > life." The miracly is mostly in the control domain, all the other parts would be vanilla. Of course, the smaller you can make it, and the less supportive the context, the more interesting things start to become. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 17:32:57 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 11:32:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <20080102172317.GM10128@leitl.org> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20080102172317.GM10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <200801021132.58285.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 January 2008, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > Seriously, I keep hearing these predictions that once a recursive > > AI gets > > There's no such thing as a recursive AI. I can readily draw you up a > recipe for a simple, orthogonal hardware that can run biologically > inspired infoprocessing architecture at O(0) at 10^6 speedup at > least. What currently prevents me from building prototypes of it is > that such fabbing capacities are currently not available. I cannot > order a mole of transistors, nevermind a teraton of computronium. Is fabbing capacities the only remaining bottleneck?? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 2 17:41:14 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 18:41:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801021132.58285.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <20080102172317.GM10128@leitl.org> <200801021132.58285.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080102174114.GP10128@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 11:32:57AM -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: > Is fabbing capacities the only remaining bottleneck?? Of course not, but it's the first step of a bootstrap. The interesting part is that it takes way more resources to bootstrap than to run the result. This is the real reason why not much happened during the first couple gigayears down here. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 17:54:30 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 11:54:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <20080102133735.GL10128@leitl.org> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801012248.06695.kanzure@gmail.com> <20080102133735.GL10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <200801021154.30557.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 January 2008, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 10:48:06PM -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > Instead of that simple algorithm, perhaps talking about lateral > > thought or lateral integration would be more appropriate? > > I must admit that term doesn't ring a bell. Can you expand? Doesn't matter. You get it, re: your "Very true" later. > > > > the environment lacks requisite variety, then the "recursively > > > > > > Most of the environment are other invididuals. That's where the > > > complexity is. > > > > That's locally accessible complexity, but have you ever tried > > asking your neighbor for their brain? Not so accessible, is it? :) > > I meant the component of the fitness function that is not you nor > the habitat, but others you share the habitat with. That's interesting, especially in the context of: > > > You'll notice ecosystems don't do huge individuals, and that's > > > not a coincidence. > > > > Google. > > Even though corporations are not a good model of ecosystems, Google > is not the single search machine vendor. All scenarios involving > singletons must not only account for the narrowest possible > population bottleneck, but also the mechanisms maintaining a > zero-diversity monoclone henceforth. Notice that you can't > synchronize monoclones in a relativistic universe even for very small That last line has implications for all sorts of juicy, synchronous situations, including stream-of-consciousness and one man teams. What component of the fitness function do the neighbors represent, in these terms? > spatial dimensions. The bigger you get, the slower you'll get. This > also assumes the environment has zero diversity, so the system must > apply diversity forcing to the environment. If that sounds like a > nice horror novel, that's because it has a great potential for one. Why would external diversity be required to sustain a zero-diversity monoclone? > Tons of it. Drexler, Merkle, Freitas, Sandberg & Co have published a > lot on it. http://nanomedicine.com/ is a good starter, but I would > expect you knew all about that site. In truth, I have been avoiding that group (Drexler/Merkle/Freitas) for too long because their research is mostly inaccessible to me, in terms of actually downloading PDFs. Maybe I'll try grabbing the articls from the nanotech journal alerts you send to tt. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 2 18:32:14 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 19:32:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801020951.56242.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801020945.11044.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <200801020951.56242.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080102183214.GV10128@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 09:51:56AM -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: > I doubt even a hacked cell would be able to exhibit the level of > molecular control that we're all hoping MNT will eventually bring. This Of course not, but synthetic/molecular biology is the strongest tool we currently have in the bootstrap toolbox. > is because biomolecular manipulation is built from amino acids and > proteins, with a necessarily restricted possibility space known as > organic- and bio- chemistry. Hopefully MNT will be able to do more. One of the possible bootstrap routes is to use enzymatic assemblies in hydrated compartments which extrude linear monomers into an UHV or argon atmosphere (eutactic, in the MNT jargon). Crosslinking during controlled dehydration are also an option. For everything else there's proximal probe with functionalized tips and NEMS. To me it looks like a highly potent soup. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 2 18:55:06 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 12:55:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <20080102183214.GV10128@leitl.org> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801020951.56242.kanzure@gmail.com> <20080102183214.GV10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <200801021255.06118.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 January 2008, Eugen Leitl wrote: > One of the possible bootstrap routes is to use enzymatic assemblies > in hydrated compartments which extrude linear monomers into an UHV or > argon atmosphere (eutactic, in the MNT jargon). Crosslinking during > controlled dehydration are also an option. For everything else > there's proximal probe with functionalized tips and NEMS. Doesn't this require an understanding of protein folding, or are you expecting we'll just come across the knowledge of what-builds-what through lots of trial and error practice that we're already getting? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From eugen at leitl.org Wed Jan 2 19:33:12 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 20:33:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival (was: elections again) In-Reply-To: <200801021255.06118.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <200801020951.56242.kanzure@gmail.com> <20080102183214.GV10128@leitl.org> <200801021255.06118.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080102193312.GY10128@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 12:55:06PM -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: > Doesn't this require an understanding of protein folding, or are you The problem is far from being intractable, even for us who go on two legs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CASP http://predictioncenter.org/ It doesn't have to solved by brute force, though it is certainly solvable by brute force (= MD of the entire assembly at full detail). > expecting we'll just come across the knowledge of what-builds-what > through lots of trial and error practice that we're already getting? Let's say we have a fold predictor engine that folds a protein (or even just small, fast folders) in 10 min. It's cheap enough to build a 10 k cluster of those. This is good enough to do the reverse folding problem (finding the sequence of the desired shape) practically. In practice this directly competes to in vitro evolution, and experimental structure resolution (which has made very large progresses lately, mostly due to automating the pipeline). -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 jef at jefallbright.net Wed Jan 2 22:43:56 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 14:43:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] De Thezier's New Year's Resolution: Quit Transhumanism In-Reply-To: <24346a000801020904t5dcbf3d8w8a243905d521c2d6@mail.gmail.com> References: <24346a000801020904t5dcbf3d8w8a243905d521c2d6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/2/08, Justice De Thezier wrote: > [Jef wrote:] > > In short, consider the paradox: You're frustrated and leaving because > > of conflict over thinking and goals -- despite very substantial > > agreement on values. > > Someone as introspective as I am is always aware of such paradoxes if they > exists. However, my point is that the flaws of transhumanism undermine the > values of transhumanism. I suggested you try to see the contradiction in the bigger picture -- rather than looking within yourself for ideological purity. (Libertarians observe the same purity of principle when they introspect.) Note that your response avoids the contradiction I presented: that you find yourself in frustration and conflict on matters of ideology (ways of thinking, methods, imagined goals), despite **very substantial agreement on values** that nearly all of us would like to see promoted with increasing coherence into our future. The first part of my post to was to acknowledge the flaws of "transhumanism" as frequently conceived and expressed. I also tried to acknowledge our evolved tendencies to frame such issues in heuristic terms of identification and imagined "goals", despite the increasing incoherence of such models extrapolated beyond the realities of the tribal environment of social adaptation. I understand the strong sense of passion and purpose and tribal cohesion provided by those ancient tools, I do. But as futurists we recognize that the times are changing -- and so are we. We find ourselves operating in the early 21st century and able to glimpse, just barely, the shape of the wave of accelerating change we ride. Also just barely, we're beginning to sense the moral baggage we carry along, a few items fresh and self-selected, some given to us when we young -- but many more are outdated and outmoded fashions of our ancestors, hardly appropriate for surfing tomorrow. It's quite understandable that we tend to frame social decision-making in terms of in-group versus out-group and tribal conflict over issues of scarcity. It's easy to understand political polarization in terms of "rights" versus "liberties", and the application of power from either point sources of authority or the imagined corrollary, a flat plane of "democracy." But it takes broader awareness to see the same issues turned outside-in, where there is still exercise of power, but rather than at points or across a plane: it's by the varied branches of a tree of agency rooted in a common reality. Rather than competing "rights" and "liberties": private choices and public consequences within a shared world. Rather than conflict between in-group and out-group: increasing agreement on converging probabilities, supporting increasing expression of divergent possibilities. Rather than zero-sum problems: positive-sum opportunities. Same issues, different context. This bigger picture is not an idealistic one, just a smarter one. As our problems/opportunities take on a broader context, so too must our approach to solutions. - Jef From jef at jefallbright.net Wed Jan 2 23:58:49 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 15:58:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? Message-ID: A few weeks ago I read Charlie Stross's latest book, _Halting State_. In my opinion the story itself wasn't as stimulating as some of his previous work, but the mention of "Python 3000" hooked me into buying it, and I found that my investment of money and time spent reading was rewarding with a thoughtful projection of technology and society circa 2018. A common feature of that world was the wear of goggles for augmented reality by nearly everyone nearly all the time. Now, I would be among the first to augment my geek self with such goggles as soon as price/performance comes into range, but I wonder whether that picture will actually emerge. [By the way, has anyone else noticed how hard it is to type "goggles" without getting "googles"?] Rather than wearing goggles, I wonder whether we may find much broader preference for very small video projectors displaying high-resolution images on any suitable surface and maybe compact scrollable screens as the target for a scanning laser built into the front edge of portable keyboards? With reasonably advanced optics, sensors and computation, requirements for planarity, incidence angle and even stability of the display surface could be relaxed using dynamic compensation in the scanner. Given the inherent discomfort of goggles, and worse, the interpersonal isolation entailed by covering the eyes and part of the face, I suspect the personal scanning laser projector may predominate. Comments? BTW, with suitably detailed public discussion of such technological concepts, do we reduce the possibility of such technology being restricted with narrowly controlled IP rights? - Jef From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 00:30:53 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 18:30:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> Here's what you want: http://web.media.mit.edu/~stefanm/TinyProjector/ (sort of) What about a retinal projector instead? This loses the social sharing aspect of a wearable projection system, yes, but it's also somewhat like the goggles without the bulky eyeware. Portable wearable projection systems are already beginning, I saw one from Lifehacker linking over to instructables the other day: http://www.instructables.com/id/Laser-Image-Projector DIY projector projects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6n6jW0XIV0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3_YmzfI6TI (tons of other content at youtube as well) http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/17/how-to-build-your-own-hd-projector-part-1/ http://www.audiovisualizers.com/madlab/lcd_proj.htm http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/01/diy_projector_screen.html http://electrons.psychogenic.com/modules/arms/art/20/Buildingahometheaterprojector.php Strap on some large batteries and you're good to go ... and you'll look like you're stuck in the 70s, but whatever. :) It's a start. I need to get back in touch with the "wearables" community: http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/ http://eyetap.org/wearable/bestof99.html http://wearables.blu.org/hardwear.html http://www.myvu.com/ http://www.mygearstore.com/ezviiwipvian.html http://wearcam.org/wearhow/index.html http://brl.ee.washington.edu/Research_Active/Exoskeleton/Exoskeleton_Index.html http://blog.makezine.com/archive/wearables/ http://www.iswc.net/ And finally, a page that I still need to go through completely: http://www.rdrop.com/~cary/html/wearable_electronic.html - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 00:34:07 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 18:34:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801021834.07946.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 January 2008, Bryan wrote: > And finally, a page that I still need to go through completely: > http://www.rdrop.com/~cary/html/wearable_electronic.html David Cary seems to be me from an alternate dimension. I'll have to get in touch with him. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 00:37:23 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 18:37:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: <200801021834.07946.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> <200801021834.07946.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801021837.23738.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 02 January 2008, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Wednesday 02 January 2008, Bryan wrote: > > And finally, a page that I still need to go through completely: > > http://www.rdrop.com/~cary/html/wearable_electronic.html > > David Cary seems to be me from an alternate dimension. I'll have to > get in touch with him. My apologies. I was too quick in sending out my email to realize it's the same guy behind http://www.rdrop.com/~cary/html/idea_space.html - who I have known of for a long time now. Still interesting stuff, highly relevant to this list. I did my own immitation file a while back as a way to organize my own collected information, but then went back to IM logging. The keen observer will notice a link to Cary's website: http://heybryan.org/notes.html - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From aiguy at comcast.net Thu Jan 3 01:28:23 2008 From: aiguy at comcast.net (Gary Miller) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 20:28:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006401c84da7$efe26d10$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> What about the possibility of a transparent LCD or OLED on a pair of contact lens. The contact lenses wouldn't have to be prescription. For example take the OLED in MobyBlu Cube 2 http://web.mac.com/mobiblu/Site/Cube2.html It's almost small enough and I bet they don't push the resolution because the display is so small. So upping the resolution would be the most important thing the image already is very bright and the current required to display the image is very small. Light coming into the eye could provide the energy for the display through a transparent solar cell that ran on light outside of the eye's visible spectrum. The input feed could come from a belt unit that would transmit the actual video signal. The wireless receiver would have to be on a very small chip though to prevent an annoying black area in the corner of the image. When optical circuitry becomes feasible you could probably make the circuitry mostly transparent since the fibers would be made of glass. An up down detector would need to transmit a signal back to the belt unit if the contact rotated slightly in the eye so that the belt unit would know how to adjust the image and make up always up and the image level. The belt unit could present two slightly different images to the left and right eye allowing for a true 3D display. Blinking three times in rapid succession could even be you on and off switch or you could just give a voice command to the belt unit. I want one! Gary -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jef Allbright Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 6:59 PM To: Extropy chat list; Friends of Rohit Khare Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? A few weeks ago I read Charlie Stross's latest book, _Halting State_. In my opinion the story itself wasn't as stimulating as some of his previous work, but the mention of "Python 3000" hooked me into buying it, and I found that my investment of money and time spent reading was rewarding with a thoughtful projection of technology and society circa 2018. A common feature of that world was the wear of goggles for augmented reality by nearly everyone nearly all the time. Now, I would be among the first to augment my geek self with such goggles as soon as price/performance comes into range, but I wonder whether that picture will actually emerge. [By the way, has anyone else noticed how hard it is to type "goggles" without getting "googles"?] Rather than wearing goggles, I wonder whether we may find much broader preference for very small video projectors displaying high-resolution images on any suitable surface and maybe compact scrollable screens as the target for a scanning laser built into the front edge of portable keyboards? With reasonably advanced optics, sensors and computation, requirements for planarity, incidence angle and even stability of the display surface could be relaxed using dynamic compensation in the scanner. Given the inherent discomfort of goggles, and worse, the interpersonal isolation entailed by covering the eyes and part of the face, I suspect the personal scanning laser projector may predominate. Comments? BTW, with suitably detailed public discussion of such technological concepts, do we reduce the possibility of such technology being restricted with narrowly controlled IP rights? - Jef _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From clementlawyer at hotmail.com Thu Jan 3 02:34:56 2008 From: clementlawyer at hotmail.com (James Clement) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 18:34:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: Re wearable goggles: check out Mirage Innovations' video glasses under development - http://www.mirageinnovations.com/ They're the first glasses that look like something the average techie would actually wear. Can't wait until we can plug such into a video enabled cell phone and surf the web or watch movies, etc. in privacy while in a crowded location/flight or walking down the street. Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" also featured wearable goggles which overlayed "themes" onto reality, as well as supplied info, txt messaging, etc. -------------------------- James Clement, J.D., LL.M. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.17.13/1207 - Release Date: 1/2/2008 11:29 AM From aiguy at comcast.net Thu Jan 3 03:48:58 2008 From: aiguy at comcast.net (Gary Miller) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 22:48:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: References: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <006d01c84dbb$9a4e8780$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> If you don't mind being cabled these 3 brands of glasses are available today and don't cost an arm and a leg. http://www.audio-outfitters.com/ezVisionCompare.html I haven't actually tried any of them but here's a decent review if your main objective is watching movies. http://www.tech-kitten.com/2007/11/08/review-myvu-personal-media-viewer/ The VuZix (used to be icuiti) have the 3D working already and movies available that demonstrate the effects. https://store.vuzix.com/store_3D.php They have several models of glasses available but I think I'd like the resolution on the DV920R https://store.vuzix.com/store_DV920R.php They have a cable to go to an iPOD but I'm not sure if it will work with the iPhone yet. From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 3 04:41:45 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:41:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: <006d01c84dbb$9a4e8780$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> References: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> <006d01c84dbb$9a4e8780$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080102223934.021c1f58@satx.rr.com> At 10:48 PM 1/2/2008 -0500, GM wrote: >They have several models of glasses available but I think I'd like the >resolution on the DV920R > >https://store.vuzix.com/store_DV920R.php Presumably VR motion sickness comes bundled. Or do you get a free stereotactic frame to lock your head in place while viewing? Damien Broderick From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 06:48:25 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 17:48:25 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org> <200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> Message-ID: On 02/01/2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > On 1/1/08, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On 02/01/2008, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > > > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > > If you > > > > read everything I have ever written that has appeared on the Internet, > > > > neither you nor a Jupiter brain will be able to deduce whether I > > > > prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. > > > > > > You prefer vanilla. > > > > If you're trying to get me to confirm or deny that, it won't work. > > FWIW, you're broadcasting a pretty clear "vanilla" signal to me too. The best you can do is come up with a probability for vanilla. The best a superintelligent AI can do is come up with a more accurate value for that probability than you can. The AI won't say Pr(vanilla) = 1 or Pr(vanilla) = 0 because that would just be wrong: there isn't enough information to make such a prediction. For ice cream preference there is a right answer and it would be relatively easy to obtain it with a high degree of certainty by, for example, talking to people who know me; a human of average intelligence who has the opportunity to do that will beat an AI which doesn't every time. When it comes to persuading me to do something I wouldn't normally do it isn't at all clear that any speech will work. Even if there is a speech that will work there is no guarantee that an AI will have enough information about me to figure out what it is. The AI may conclude that speech A is most likely to make me perform X, with Pr = 0.1. A human who has more information may conclude that speech B is most likely to make me perform X, with Pr = 0.2. An AI with perfect information running a simulation of my brain may conclude that speech C is the one, with Pr = 0.3, making allowances for the effects of classical chaos and/or quantum indeterminacy. -- Stathis Papaioannou From dharris234 at mindspring.com Thu Jan 3 07:43:56 2008 From: dharris234 at mindspring.com (David C. Harris) Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:43:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: References: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <477C923C.2010404@mindspring.com> James Clement wrote: > ... > > Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" also featured wearable goggles which overlayed > "themes" onto reality, as well as supplied info, txt messaging, etc. > > At the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 25th Anniversary exhibit in 1996, in San Jose, California, one university project was demonstrating the overlaying of computed information. Their demo goggles detected where they were pointed and generated the appropriate overlay. The demo situation was large pieces for a space structure, and the overlay was things like arrows that showed which way to turn the screw threaded parts, and in which order. Cool! From sparkle_robot at yahoo.com Thu Jan 3 07:50:12 2008 From: sparkle_robot at yahoo.com (Anne Corwin) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 23:50:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> For some reason I'm finding this ice-cream speculation terribly amusing. It sounds silly on the surface, but there's a lot of potential for interesting discussion there. I feel like I *know* I project a "chocolate" signal, but I have no idea *why*. - Anne --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 3 09:23:10 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 10:23:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080102223934.021c1f58@satx.rr.com> References: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> <006d01c84dbb$9a4e8780$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <7.0.1.0.2.20080102223934.021c1f58@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20080103092309.GV10128@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 10:41:45PM -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > >https://store.vuzix.com/store_DV920R.php > > Presumably VR motion sickness comes bundled. Or do you get a free > stereotactic frame to lock your head in place while viewing? Emulator sickness comes only with a large opening angle, and only for some people (I don't have it, on the other hand some people get motion sickness in Second Life). Large opening angle is associated with cost and bulk, hence not available in consumer devices. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 3 09:46:39 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 10:46:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: <027e01c84db1$3ab13020$b0139060$@com> References: <200801021830.53340.kanzure@gmail.com> <027e01c84db1$3ab13020$b0139060$@com> Message-ID: <20080103094639.GZ10128@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 06:34:56PM -0800, James Clement wrote: > Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" also featured wearable goggles which overlayed > "themes" onto reality, as well as supplied info, txt messaging, etc. Most of us have been looking for availability of wearable displays and computers since mid-1980s, or so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wearable_computing Same applies for virtual reality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality Given the very promising beginnings the current state of art of 2008 can only be described as pathetic, and disappointing. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 3 10:21:00 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 11:21:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? In-Reply-To: <006401c84da7$efe26d10$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> References: <006401c84da7$efe26d10$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: <20080103102100.GD10128@leitl.org> On Wed, Jan 02, 2008 at 08:28:23PM -0500, Gary Miller wrote: > What about the possibility of a transparent LCD or OLED on a pair of contact > lens. What about the index of refraction (those pesky laws of optics), and providing a highly mobile device with a source of power? Sure, you could wear goggles with solenoids in them. Connected to the the heavy battery belt. Or you could simply wear a HUD. Microoptical used to have really good prototypes which were indistinguishable from some designer specs. I notice they no longer offer these but lots of consumer crap since they renamed themselves to myvu. > The contact lenses wouldn't have to be prescription. For small opening angles, current optics is good enough. For large opening angles (unless you want to wear some 10 kg of hardware on your head -- I did that once) you need custom (lightweight) lenses and mirrors. A dark horse is a retina laser scanner -- I personally don't understand how they manage to hit a highly mobile high-curvature object consistently -- assuming they can at all (I'll believe it when I wear one). Of course the lunatic fringe is faking the complete wavefront, using phased array optics (nobody has built one even for IR yet). > For example take the OLED in MobyBlu Cube 2 > http://web.mac.com/mobiblu/Site/Cube2.html > > It's almost small enough and I bet they don't push the resolution because > the display is so small. OLEDs are indeed interesting. If we look back in the archives, we'll see probably a decade during which OLEDs have been interesting. > So upping the resolution would be the most important thing the image already > is very bright and the current required to display the image is very small. Where does the power come from? > Light coming into the eye could provide the energy for the display through a > transparent solar cell that ran on light outside of the eye's visible Have you ever seen a completely transparent solar cell? One that looks like a piece of clear (not brownish, or grey) glass? > spectrum. Let's say we need some 1-5 mW light output. Emitter efficiency is some 10-20%, PV NIR efficiency is some 20% (let's be generous), you do realize that long-wave photons carry less energy, and of course there's almost no NIR indoors. Then you'd need a broadband signal, which would have to be wireless. Notice something? (Hint: look up the solar spectrum, and crunch the numbers). > The input feed could come from a belt unit that would transmit the actual > video signal. > > The wireless receiver would have to be on a very small chip though to > prevent an annoying black area in the corner of the image. When optical > circuitry becomes feasible you could probably make the circuitry mostly > transparent since the fibers would be made of glass. Fibers? > An up down detector would need to transmit a signal back to the belt unit if > the contact rotated slightly in the eye so that the belt unit would know how > to adjust the image and make up always up and the image level. > > The belt unit could present two slightly different images to the left and > right eye allowing for a true 3D display. > > Blinking three times in rapid succession could even be you on and off switch > or you could just give a voice command to the belt unit. > > I want one! This isn't Slashdot, you know. When you try speculative technology, you have to be at least borderline realistic about it. No doubt a device that this will be eventually built, but not using today's technology. (I really like Vinge, but you must always look when his realism is superceded by artistic freedom, in order to not ruin a good yarn). -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 11:10:36 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado (CI)) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 09:10:36 -0200 Subject: [ExI] [Tech] Goggles, or Projectors? References: Message-ID: <014d01c84c66$f1696310$fe00a8c0@cpd01> I'd like to have both. Goggles for everyday use (and privacy) an a projector for being "social". Why choose? Let's have it all. But batteries still need to improve a lot. Our portable energy sources are way behind the other pieces of tech we already have. And I still think before we can see everyone using goggles or projectors, we'll see information technology being added to every object and device at home, at work, on the street. It's easier. ----- Original Message ----- "Jef Allbright" January 02, 2008 9:58 PM Goggles, or Projectors? >(...) > A common feature of that world was the wear of goggles for augmented > reality by nearly everyone nearly all the time. Now, I would be among > the first to augment my geek self with such goggles as soon as > price/performance comes into range, but I wonder whether that picture > will actually emerge. >(...) > Rather than wearing goggles, I wonder whether we may find much broader > preference for very small video projectors displaying high-resolution > images on any suitable surface and maybe compact scrollable screens as > the target for a scanning laser built into the front edge of portable > keyboards? >(...) From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 11:26:45 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 22:26:45 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 03/01/2008, Anne Corwin wrote: > For some reason I'm finding this ice-cream speculation terribly amusing. > > It sounds silly on the surface, but there's a lot of potential for > interesting discussion there. I feel like I *know* I project a "chocolate" > signal, but I have no idea *why*. I would have guessed chocolate, but I'm also not sure exactly why; perhaps something to do with quirkiness, vanilla being in general the least quirky choice: http://www.sendicecream.com/15mospopicec.html (It might be possible to break this down further by geographical location, gender, age etc. if you had access to all the statistics.) I suspect that Eliezer and Jef guessed vanilla for me because in the absence of other evidence, it has the greatest prior probability (at least, I prefer that explanation rather than that of my evident non-quirckiness). What they perhaps didn't take into account is that I chose the vanilla/chocolate dichotomy myself, which would make it at least a little more likely that chocolate is my favourite than if I were randomly sampled from the population of ice cream eaters. Perhaps there is some published experiment in psychology that would hint at how much of a difference this should make, but I doubt it. -- Stathis Papaioannou From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 3 12:23:41 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 13:23:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] META: strictly no top-posting In-Reply-To: <014d01c84c66$f1696310$fe00a8c0@cpd01> References: <014d01c84c66$f1696310$fe00a8c0@cpd01> Message-ID: <20080103122341.GG10128@leitl.org> Folks, no more top-posting, sans trimming down posts. In case you're hazy on the concept, this post is exactly what NOT to do. In case you're still unclear on the concept, the very first hit on Google for "top-posting" is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-posting#Top-posting Please read that link. It also illustrates the rationale. On Tue, Jan 01, 2008 at 09:10:36AM -0200, Henrique Moraes Machado (CI) wrote: > I'd like to have both. Goggles for everyday use (and privacy) an a projector > for being "social". Why choose? Let's have it all. > But batteries still need to improve a lot. Our portable energy sources are > way behind the other pieces of tech we already have. > > And I still think before we can see everyone using goggles or projectors, > we'll see information technology being added to every object and device at > home, at work, on the street. It's easier. > > ----- Original Message ----- > "Jef Allbright" January 02, 2008 9:58 PM Goggles, or > Projectors? > > > >(...) > > A common feature of that world was the wear of goggles for augmented > > reality by nearly everyone nearly all the time. Now, I would be among > > the first to augment my geek self with such goggles as soon as > > price/performance comes into range, but I wonder whether that picture > > will actually emerge. > >(...) > > Rather than wearing goggles, I wonder whether we may find much broader > > preference for very small video projectors displaying high-resolution > > images on any suitable surface and maybe compact scrollable screens as > > the target for a scanning laser built into the front edge of portable > > keyboards? > >(...) > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 hkhenson at rogers.com Thu Jan 3 14:16:52 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 07:16:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Rehabbing militants in Saudi Arabia (Meta) In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20712281503n4cca4a6gb34b94e46a4967fb@mail.gmail.com> <008801c849b0$06a61ac0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <20071229101934.GI10128@leitl.org> <00bf01c84a24$1f16dfd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: <1199369823_9702@S4.cableone.net> At 02:01 PM 1/1/2008, you wrote: >On Dec 30, 2007, at 8:22 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > > > > Pure political discussion is (or should be) below this list. It's > > like arguing about the number of angels you can pack on a pin. > >I disagree that politics is that pointless or divorced from reality >although perhaps I am not properly understanding what you mean by >"pure politics". Merit or lack of merit of particular political views. > > Using current political examples to illustrate more general points > > about why humans have politics and what drives them is (or should be) > > a major focus. > > > > In this respect, the original topic of convincing violent Islamic > > militants to change their ways is smack on target. I don't understand > > how easy it is, but it is of vast importance to understand. > > Understanding it will require EP. > >Since the US (and Britain) did and do a lot of pretty nasty things in >Islamic lands I think it behooves rational people to also discuss >avoidance of such inciting behaviors. Without that discussion the >above discussion is unbalanced and presumptive from the beginning. Ah, but that's where EP comes in. For stressed population, i.e., those where a substantial fraction of the population foresees a bleak future, you can't avoid inciting them. With the gain up on the circulation of xenophobic memes a fricking cartoon is "reason" enough for them to go to war. On the other hand, consider Japan. The US firebombed and then nuked them. Why are they not acting as nuts as Islamics? The reason from an EP viewpoint is obvious. Low population growth and decent economic growth keeps them in a mode where xenophobic memes don't propagate enough to make them nuts. If you really want to solve such problems, you need to deal with a really hard issue: how to liberate the women in Islamic culture. Any ideas? Keith From dagonweb at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 15:26:11 2008 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 16:26:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Rehabbing militants in Saudi Arabia (Meta) In-Reply-To: <1199369823_9702@S4.cableone.net> References: <580930c20712281503n4cca4a6gb34b94e46a4967fb@mail.gmail.com> <008801c849b0$06a61ac0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <20071229101934.GI10128@leitl.org> <00bf01c84a24$1f16dfd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <1199369823_9702@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: > If you really want to solve such problems, you need to deal > with a really hard issue: how to liberate the women in Islamic > culture. Any ideas? Provide women in (all) islamic countries with equal and fair micro credits to create independent businesses. Microcredits are one of the most successful tools to generate family income in africa and work wonders in liberating women from oppression. I am sure state officials will do their utmost best to resist such interventions (especially in wahabism-INFECTED countries) but once government see a source of tax revenues they'll turn around. I am pretty sure that if the US, [intensely political sneer deleted], invested 1% of what they wasted in the Iraq occupation since 1990, the islamic countries would have been substantially more democratic by now. There may even would have been no need for a "Middle east resource consolidating campaign". However I also believe the US does NOT desire empowered and rich consumers in poor countries - it would drive up commodity prices and wages in third-world countries and that would reduce US prosperity. The US depends on widespread desperation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jonkc at att.net Thu Jan 3 16:44:28 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 11:44:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com><20071231184047.GJ10128@leitl.org><200712311513.29552.mail@harveynewstrom.com><021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer><4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au><477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> Message-ID: <022a01c84e28$13c42860$edf04d0c@MyComputer> "Stathis Papaioannou" > When it comes to persuading me to do something I > wouldn't normally do it isn't at all clear that any > speech will work. Of course ANY speech won't work, but I am certain there have been times in your life where a mere human being has found a speech to persuade or trick you into doing something that you now know to be foolish. Mr. AI will be many many orders of magnitude better at this sort of manipulation than any human in history. Even Extropians are not immune from this sort of thing. Although we don't like to think so we are of the same species as millions of Germans, some very intelligent, who were persuaded into doing all sorts of bizarre stupid and self destructive things. If you really have the gift of gab you can even make that crap seem like a good idea. Mr. AI will have the gift of gab in spades. John K Clark From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Jan 3 16:46:21 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 08:46:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 1/3/08, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 03/01/2008, Anne Corwin wrote: > > For some reason I'm finding this ice-cream speculation terribly amusing. > > > > It sounds silly on the surface, but there's a lot of potential for > > interesting discussion there. I feel like I *know* I project a "chocolate" > > signal, but I have no idea *why*. > > I would have guessed chocolate, but I'm also not sure exactly why; > perhaps something to do with quirkiness, vanilla being in general the > least quirky choice... The best I can describe it is as a form of very broad pattern matching, resulting in a probability for the expression of a particular component of the pattern. Probably familiar to denizens of this list is the ability to assess with a quick glance a person's probable orientation on the "Science vs Humanities" axis. The clothes and grooming are usually the strongest signal, supplemented by physical stance, facial (especially ocular) dynamics, choice and following of visual targets, and on and on. Up close, and especially with interaction, choice of words and emphasis **within context** tell a broad story of a person's upbringing and experience, their values and their preferences on many levels. You may read the above and react with something like "yes, of course" or perhaps "yes, but it's possible to be completely wrong", but the key point I offer is that *************** all of these "signals" necessarily emanate from a coherent whole -- they are **far** from independent. (This is related to the point I occasionally try to convey about the difference between probability and likelihood.) *************** Related examples include "gaydar." Or my dog's extreme sensitivity to mood and context, allowing her to infer meaning (in her limited terms) with amazing accuracy despite no real language abilities. Other notable examples are available from the popular book _Blink_, and Paul Ekman's research on face-reading and deception. Less reputable (but entertaining) resources include Neural Linguistic Programming (stripping out the idiocy of the Speed Seduction fanboys and the blatantly immoral self-promotion of many practitioners), the art of "cold-reading" (intentionally or unintentionally practiced by so-called "psychics"), and the impressive acts of Derren Brown (taking into account manipulation, trickery, and selection of positive results.) A related question, of deep practical interest to me, is the relationship of such probabilistic pattern-matching to issues of "empathy", which as popularly recognized is an evolved heuristic for modeling the internal state of intentional others, but quite limited relative to its potential more developed and technologically amplified form. - Jef From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 3 17:52:35 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:52:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> At 08:46 AM 1/3/2008 -0800, Jef wrote: >all of these "signals" necessarily emanate from a coherent whole -- >they are **far** from independent. (This is related to the point I >occasionally try to convey about the difference between probability >and likelihood.) > >*************** > >Related examples include "gaydar." Or my dog's extreme sensitivity to >mood and context, allowing her to infer meaning (in her limited terms) >with amazing accuracy despite no real language abilities. Last night I chanced to see part of an interview with actor Will Smith, whom I found surprisingly articulate and thoughtful, genuinely intelligent, until he started explaining that the secret of his success was learning that we create our own realities, that 2 + 2 only equals 4 if you feel that it does, or the like. I went on alert, and a moment later he used some expression that had me nodding and muttering, "Jesus, he is a fucking Scientologist." It probably wasn't as blatant as the phrase "at cause" but it was along those lines. Later, google told me he's been hanging with Cruise and "studying" $ci. My $cidar hadn't led me astray. Damien Broderick From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Jan 3 18:41:22 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 10:41:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 1/3/08, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 03/01/2008, Anne Corwin wrote: > > For some reason I'm finding this ice-cream speculation terribly amusing. > > > > It sounds silly on the surface, but there's a lot of potential for > > interesting discussion there. I feel like I *know* I project a "chocolate" > > signal, but I have no idea *why*. > > I would have guessed chocolate, but I'm also not sure exactly why; > perhaps something to do with quirkiness, vanilla being in general the > least quirky choice: > > http://www.sendicecream.com/15mospopicec.html > > (It might be possible to break this down further by geographical > location, gender, age etc. if you had access to all the statistics.) > > I suspect that Eliezer and Jef guessed vanilla for me because in the > absence of other evidence, it has the greatest prior probability (at > least, I prefer that explanation rather than that of my evident > non-quirckiness). On the contrary, my probabilistic assessment (with quite high certainty as I expressed to you) was based on a broad variety of evidence based on my observations over many months of what discussion lists you participate in, how you respond to novelty and conflict, your favorite movie, how you tend to resolve subjective/objective distinctions, your choice of words, concepts and style of thinking and much more. While I've seen no explicit expression of your preferences in ice cream, all this evidence (in the context of my prior understanding of the world) formed a fairly substantial (while fuzzy) model of a coherent whole, with a place in it for your most likely preference (between chocolate and vanilla) being quite clearly vanilla. For me the same process applies to assessing the "realism" or "truth" of a statement. Almost immediately I get a geometric image in my mind, and I pay attention to the slope, linearity, monotonicity, etc., providing an immediate intuitive indication of the mapping of the assertion onto my own model of reality. I can then focus my attention on the higher-information content portions of the geometry, asking myself what (in my model or the other's) might account for the deviations. Weird? I suppose so, but it works for me, and one of the reasons I hang out in places like this is that **once in while** I connect with someone who understands some of it in some of the same ways. - Jef From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 19:21:56 2008 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:21:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Marshit In-Reply-To: <20071231075505.GY10128@leitl.org> References: <395380.59250.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20071231075505.GY10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 12/31/07, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > A global array of smallish instruments hooked up to > the Internet would be cheap. That's the other thing I was wondering: to what extent can the amateur community play a role in the detection of NEOs. I think, for one, they'd have to be using the same online database, maybe NASA's NEO program can in some way open up their database to include reports from amateurs (perhaps with some sort of trust metric so that only reliable reporters are treated seriously). But, I guess my reservation with this approach is that many asteroids which are significant from a planetary security perspective are both relatively small (2007 WD5 is itself only 160 feet long) and dark*, that is they don't reflect a lot of the sunlight that falls on them (I can't vouch for other forms of radiation). So the question is, to someone who knows more about this than I do, what are the chances that a NEO would be of a higher magnitude than earth bound "amateur" telescopes can detect? Also, looking at the orbital diagram of 2007 WD5 ( http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2007WD5;orb=1, warning Java applet), it has what I'd call a rather constrained orbit, it stays between the orbits of Earth and Jupiter. I suspect that most of the objects in the NEO database are like this simply because of our location bias: brighter objects that move quickly in our field of view are more likely to be detected and orbits calculated than fainter objects that move slowly. So this might necessitate spacecraft sent even into the outer solar system. But then, the counterargument might be that when the objects get closer we'll detect them and calculate their orbits soon enough to do something about it before there is a planetary risk. I don't know which it is but I thought I'd just throw some arguments out there to be analyzed by others in the know. And, of course, all of this needs to have a cost-benefit analysis. Since this is really just a chat list, we might want to keep the nitty-gritty serious talk to the professionals :) Anyway, thanks, *Kevin* * According to Wikipedia, "By the time it arrives at Mars it will have an apparent magnitude of roughly +26 and will appear over 100x fainter than at the time of discovery." According to also Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude), the faintest objects that even the Hubble space telescope can see is magnitude 30. This is all just quick research on the internet. Given this, I do find it questionable what earth-based optical telescopes can really do on this front. Of course, I haven't explored the possibilities with radio, x-ray, or infrared telescopes. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 19:37:36 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 13:37:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200801031337.37038.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 03 January 2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > Probably familiar to denizens of this list is the ability to assess > with a quick glance a person's probable orientation on the "Science > vs Humanities" axis. The clothes and grooming are usually the > strongest signal, supplemented by physical stance, facial (especially > ocular) dynamics, choice and following of visual targets, and on and > on. Up close, and especially with interaction, choice of words and > emphasis **within context** tell a broad story of a person's > upbringing and experience, their values and their preferences on many > levels. Yes, those skills and abilities _must_ be familiar to extropians. Aren't most of us programmers, medical scientists, and at least philosophers? In common, these jobs demand that one knows how to 'debug' a situation, to act as the detective or pathologist or diagnostician and to be able to trace thoughts and patterns back to their multiple sources, an impossible feat according to Boltzmann and statistical physics and yet, somehow, we are in fact able to operate, walk and talk. > You may read the above and react with something like "yes, of course" > or perhaps "yes, but it's possible to be completely wrong", but the > key point I offer is that In this area, the real trick is creating or generating your resulting behavior so that even if you *are* wrong, you can still operate effectively. > *************** > > all of these "signals" necessarily emanate from a coherent whole -- > they are **far** from independent. (This is related to the point I > occasionally try to convey about the difference between probability > and likelihood.) > > *************** One context cannot truly, completely know another. But maybe know enough? > Related examples include "gaydar." Or my dog's extreme sensitivity > to mood and context, allowing her to infer meaning (in her limited > terms) with amazing accuracy despite no real language abilities. I think humans are another excellent example, although many of the cases are kind of foggy in thoughtspace due to previous (abusive) frameworks. Actually, literary analysis *might* be an example, where thoroughly well-read people attempt to extrapolate the sources of the language and beliefs of an author. See the recent Hofstadter reference in the other thread on universal languages. > Other notable examples are available from the popular book _Blink_, > and Paul Ekman's research on face-reading and deception. David Zindell too: > Her eye twitched then, and I saw what I should have seen long ago: > My mother was addicted to toalache - the facial tics were the > result of her hiding this shame from her friends, and from herself. > I saw other things, too, other programs: The layers of fat girdling > her hips, which betrayed her compulsive eating programs and love of > chocolate drinks and candies; her arrogant speech patterns, the > clipped sentence fragments hinting at her belief that others were > too stupid to understand any but the briefest bursts of information > (and hinting, too, at her basic shyness); the way she had > programmed herself to squint in place of smiling. The cetics call > these program revealing body signs "tells." I searched her face for > the frowns, eye-rolls and blinks that would tell the tale of > herself. > Hallning, an art invented to integrate the crosstalk of the mind's > senses, was like a laser light that could cut in many directions. A > master cetic could also use hallning to confuse these senses so that > one could 'hear' the colour red as a ripping of wool cloth, or 'smell' > a fireflower's essence as lovely traceries cut into the stonework of a > cathedral. With hallning, a cetic might even use one's brain in > unusual ways, for instance, shifting the making of words from the > language centres in the brain's left hemisphere to unconditioned > synapses in the right. Although Danlo was no cetic, he had learned the > fundamentals of hallning, as well as the arts of simultaneity, > fractality and fugue. And others. To thwart the mind-reading efforts > of Isas Lel and his compatriots, Danlo called upon almost every art > that he knew. > Once, years before, Hanuman li Tosh had taught Danlo the cetic's art > of face reading; he had taught Danlo that the body's conditioned > responses of muscle and the deeper nerves always betrayed the secret > workings of the mind. An arching of an eyebrow, a pursing of the > lips, a twitch of a finger ? any of these motions could tell the > tale of what one was thinking. Thus, if a cetic knew how to > interpret the tells, as these subtle body signs were called, he > could read one's true fear. But Danlo was no cetic, and even for a > master cetic such as the dreaded Audric Pall, these Transcendentals > would have been hard to read. Good stuff. > Less reputable (but entertaining) resources include Neural Linguistic > Programming (stripping out the idiocy of the Speed Seduction fanboys > and the blatantly immoral self-promotion of many practitioners), the I have tried reading some NLP books, but it's just hype. And I am also a fanboy of speed reading, though not the peculiar 25 kwpm cold reading. My rate is up to 1.2 kwpm with computer assisted word-flashing, although my comprehension starts taking significant dives. > art of "cold-reading" (intentionally or unintentionally practiced by > so-called "psychics"), and the impressive acts of Derren Brown > (taking into account manipulation, trickery, and selection of > positive results.) I think I sat down to do some calculations at one time, and because of the 14 kHz operation of the brain or whatever, it is impossible to be reading at the rates that the cold-readers are suggesting. But still inspiring ... maybe neuroengineering will lead the way in the future. > A related question, of deep practical interest to me, is the > relationship of such probabilistic pattern-matching to issues of > "empathy", which as popularly recognized is an evolved heuristic for > modeling the internal state of intentional others, but quite limited > relative to its potential more developed and technologically > amplified form. The clash of wet empathy and cold, hard tech may look like there's much to be found, but that's probably only due to the impracticalities of current interfaces. I am sure that extropian values of context-empathy will make their way into the future. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From benboc at lineone.net Thu Jan 3 19:27:11 2008 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:27:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Re-framing Innovation re Consciousness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <477D370F.7090904@lineone.net> From: Natasha Vita-More > At 05:56 PM 12/31/2007, Keith wrote: > Heh, "too focused on segregating meaning." I can't parse that either. > > Rather than top-down or bottom-up parsing you could try > lateral-parsing. Actually, please don't! > Natasha I find it useful to bear in mind the idea that the meaning of a message is what the receiver hears, not what the sender says. I'm not saying that it's true, or beautiful or right. Just useful. ben zed From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 19:39:51 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 13:39:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 03 January 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > Last night I chanced to see part of an interview with actor Will > Smith, whom I found surprisingly articulate and thoughtful, genuinely > intelligent, until he started explaining that the secret of his > success was learning that we create our own realities, that 2 + 2 > only equals 4 if you feel that it does, or the like. I went on alert, I have also come across that strain of thought, that "we create our own realities." I happened upon it during an interview with MIT, and evidently I hadn't sufficiently created my own reality. I am still wondering over the validity of "we create our own realities" and so far I have kept it suspect. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 19:51:41 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 19:51:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 3, 2008 7:39 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > I have also come across that strain of thought, that "we create our own > realities." I happened upon it during an interview with MIT, and > evidently I hadn't sufficiently created my own reality. I am still > wondering over the validity of "we create our own realities" and so far > I have kept it suspect. I got a lift in a car once driven by a $ologist. As we drove at hair-raising speeds round blind corners on country roads, I nervously suggested that it might be a good idea to slow down a bit. He asserted confidently that due to his 'training' he could cast his mind ahead and knew that the road was clear around the bend. I held my breath with fingers crossed for the remainder of the journey. I never went near him again. BillK From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Jan 3 19:48:08 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 11:48:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/3/08, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Thursday 03 January 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > > Last night I chanced to see part of an interview with actor Will > > Smith, whom I found surprisingly articulate and thoughtful, genuinely > > intelligent, until he started explaining that the secret of his > > success was learning that we create our own realities, that 2 + 2 > > only equals 4 if you feel that it does, or the like. I went on alert, > > I have also come across that strain of thought, that "we create our own > realities." I happened upon it during an interview with MIT, and > evidently I hadn't sufficiently created my own reality. I am still > wondering over the validity of "we create our own realities" and so far > I have kept it suspect. It can be a mind-blowingly powerful and empowering realization(!) for people seeking greater truth and discovering that our (experience) of reality is indeed shaped entirely by our nature. Sadly, many become enamored of this magical knowledge, and the seeker stops short of epistemological enlightenment. - Jef From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 3 20:14:59 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 21:14:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Marshit In-Reply-To: References: <395380.59250.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20071231075505.GY10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20080103201459.GV10128@leitl.org> On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 12:21:56PM -0700, Kevin H wrote: > That's the other thing I was wondering: to what extent can the amateur > community play a role in the detection of NEOs. I think, for one, They already do. What I would do is to issue semiprofessional-level amateurs Internet-controlled instrument control boxes and/or decent CCDs for their instruments, pay for the broadband connection or even in some cases pay for the instruments, let them donate time and issue bounties for new object spotters. The bang for the buck would be considerable. > they'd have to be using the same online database, maybe NASA's NEO > program can in some way open up their database to include reports from > amateurs (perhaps with some sort of trust metric so that only reliable It would be good to offload processing elsewhere. Maybe the control box could process the images on site, and pick candidates. > reporters are treated seriously). But, I guess my reservation with > this approach is that many asteroids which are significant from a > planetary security perspective are both relatively small (2007 WD5 is > itself only 160 feet long) and dark*, that is they don't reflect a lot I don't think object this size are much of a problem. Sure, it would suck if we lose a big city, but what we'd like to catch are world-enders. > of the sunlight that falls on them (I can't vouch for other forms of > radiation). So the question is, to someone who knows more about this > than I do, what are the chances that a NEO would be of a higher > magnitude than earth bound "amateur" telescopes can detect? I think the problem with observation is that it is very patchy (you need to observe the entire sky, all the time) and that you don't see stuff that comes out of the sun. For these, spacborne platforms WayOut(tm) could be worthwhile. > And, of course, all of this needs to have a cost-benefit analysis. There are very rare objects which however will completely ruin the day for many billion people. What's the cost-benefit analysis for that? > Since this is really just a chat list, we might want to keep the > nitty-gritty serious talk to the professionals :) -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 benboc at lineone.net Thu Jan 3 20:06:07 2008 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:06:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Chocolate or Vaniia? (Was: Survival) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <477D402F.9020303@lineone.net> Anne Corwin wrote: For some reason I'm finding this ice-cream speculation terribly amusing. It sounds silly on the surface, but there's a lot of potential for interesting discussion there. I feel like I *know* I project a "chocolate" signal, but I have no idea *why*. - Anne Oh, i know! It's easy. Anne is a girl's name! ben z From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 20:21:41 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 14:21:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [tt & technoliberation] Rikowski's Marxist critique of H+ In-Reply-To: <20080103200229.GT10128@leitl.org> References: <20080103200229.GT10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <200801031421.41419.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 03 January 2008, Eugen Leitl wrote: > From: "Hughes, James J." > Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 14:15:26 -0500 > To: technoliberation at yahoogroups.com > Subject: [technoliberation] Rikowski's Marxist critique of H+ > Reply-To: technoliberation at yahoogroups.com > > http://www.springerlink.com/content/ahj6338kr7a3vgdb/fulltext.pdf > > Rikowski, Glenn. 2003. "Alien Life: Marx and the Future of the > Human," Historical Materialism 11(2): 121-164. > Today, humanism is the struggle for an open future. That sounds like good news to me. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 3 20:20:47 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 21:20:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080103202047.GW10128@leitl.org> On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 01:39:51PM -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: > I have also come across that strain of thought, that "we create our own > realities." I happened upon it during an interview with MIT, and > evidently I hadn't sufficiently created my own reality. I am still > wondering over the validity of "we create our own realities" and so far > I have kept it suspect. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?ex=1255665600&en=890a96189e162076&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland ... The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' ... That guy needs a shot of thorazine, quick. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 kanzure at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 20:26:39 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 14:26:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Marshit In-Reply-To: <20080103201459.GV10128@leitl.org> References: <395380.59250.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20080103201459.GV10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <200801031426.39242.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 03 January 2008, Eugen Leitl wrote: > They already do. What I would do is to issue semiprofessional-level > amateurs Internet-controlled instrument control boxes and/or decent > CCDs for their instruments, pay for the broadband connection or even > in some cases pay for the instruments, let them donate time and issue > bounties for new object spotters. I'd add in an automated mode, a sort of SETI at Home except search for planetary threats at home. Simple, cheap servos could let servers specify spots of the sky to check on a regular basis, but there'd have to be some amazingly precise positioning/GPS service plus altitude data to figure out from what angle on the surface of the planet the telescope is looking up at. I have yet to understand just how it is that astronomers are able to specify so precisely what stars they are observing, since the planet is revolving around the local star, and the star is revolving around the galaxy and everything is shifting, and I've never seen a positional database on the internet before. I would think we would need to calculate observation-altitudes, telescopic angle, the precise time and position, etc. etc. But instead, apparently the relative position of the stars is stable enough to be conveyed as "eh, look left to that big bright one each night" ?? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 3 20:27:45 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:27:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> At 01:39 PM 1/3/2008 -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: >I have also come across that strain of thought, that "we create our own >realities." Well, it's a horribly hackneyed New Age/magical thinking conceit and has been for at least a generation. What struck me was that the way Will Smith expressed the cliche allowed my radar to peg him, almost instantly, as influenced by Elron and his Hollywood minions, rather than by any of the other 1000 brands of cosy delusion. Damien Broderick From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 3 20:39:38 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 21:39:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Donate to the WTA $25,000 Matching Grant Message-ID: <20080103203938.GB10128@leitl.org> http://www.transhumanism.org/match/ Francis Fukuyama, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, called transhumanism the "World's Most Dangerous Idea." He is not alone in his deliberate misuse of transhumanist ideas. There are dozens of organizations that use their multi-million dollar coffers to spread anti-transhumanist memes and lobby politicians. Announcing the World Transhumanist Association's first major fundraising campaign. The WTA has done a lot with a little. We have grown to 4,700 members worldwide, and transhumanist topics are increasingly part of mainstream debate, yet last year our budget was only $8,000. Now we want to see how much more we can do with more. The immediate objective is to upgrade our communications to give transhumanist opinions a stronger voice. The generous matching grant by the Life Extension Foundation and Cartmell Holdings means that if we raise $25,000 independently we will secure a total of $50,000 in funding for the WTA, enabling the organization to shift into a higher gear. Please help us take advantage of this opportunity. Any gift you make to the WTA will be matched dollar-for-dollar until January 31, 2008. What Your Gift Will Support Stanford Transhumanist Association's Yonah Berwaldt & Michael Jin (Yonah Berwaldt & Michael Jin at the Singularity Summit at Stanford) Student Outreach Grass-roots, future-oriented student groups at universities can influence critical-thinking young people at an important stage in their intellectual and career development. We want to do a one-day event at a top university to trial-run an idea: What if there were a group of young, bright, energetic transhumanists traveling from university to university, holding one-day events on issues relating to science, technology, and society? A traveling band of young transhumanists to inspire students. Identity & Website Update Proceeds from this fund drive will underwrite our desperately needed website redesign and brand identity overhaul. Transvision 2008 TransVision conferences bring extraordinary people together from across the globe to discuss the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. The discussions range from artificial general intelligence, to genetics, prosthetics, nanotechnology, life extension, cryonics, the singularity, global security, the environment, arts and entertainment. The venue for the 2008 TransVision is currently under consideration. Following this fund drive, we will be announcing some exciting plans. H+ Digital Magazine The H+ Magazine will be a fresh, fun, powerful way to present our ideas to members and the public. Edited by visionary journalist R.U. Sirius, creator of Mondo (precursor to WIRED), it will feature stories, interviews, news and events, covering life sciences, nanotechnology, AI, law, entertainment, arts, and more. Digital format will let us share the magazine with tens of thousands through mailing lists, social sites (e.g. Facebook), and online advertising. From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Jan 3 20:45:26 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:45:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <200801031416.11295.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: I'm forwarding to the list this excerpt of an offlist email, hoping to address possible misperception of a public post. ------------------------ On 1/3/08, Jef Allbright wrote: > Someone wrote to me offline: > > On Thursday 03 January 2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > > > For me the same process applies to assessing the "realism" or "truth" > > > of a statement. Almost immediately I get a geometric image in my > > > mind, and I pay attention to the slope, linearity, monotonicity, > > > etc., providing an immediate intuitive indication of the mapping of > > > the assertion onto my own model of reality. I can then focus my > > > attention on the higher-information content portions of the geometry, > > > asking myself what (in my model or the other's) might account for the > > > deviations. > > > > [Concerns expressed about the writer's personal capacity for mathematical abstraction and visualization.] > > Please note that I don't claim extraordinary access to the truth. > (Note also scare-quotes above.) I was referring merely to my somewhat > unusual visualization of some of my own cognition. Similarly, I've > always felt comfortable observing my emotions, moods and behaviors in > the third person to the extent that sometimes I get too comfortable > with it and tend to refer to myself semi-humorously in the > third-person until Lizbeth tells me to stop it because it freaks her > out. That said, I do feel my emotions, sometimes cry at movies and > am not autistic (although I think I can relate.) > > > >> [ Concerns expressed about the writers relative inability to intuit further.] > > CAUTION! What you're describing is a **good** thing! If you ever get > to the point of imagining that you can reliably intuit new knowledge > then you've probably crossed the line into mysticism. Intuition is a > valuable tool for recognizing aspects of what already exists in your > model, and the plausibility of new knowledge, but it can't generate > new knowledge. > > - Jef From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 3 21:34:10 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 22:34:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] [forum] Anti-Transsimianismus Message-ID: <20080103213410.GA30970@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from " mixter at gmail.com" ----- From: " mixter at gmail.com" Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:35:28 +0100 To: forum at detrans.de Subject: [forum] Anti-Transsimianismus Reply-To: ?ffentliches Forum zum Transhumanismus Gefunden auf: [1]http://dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_040.html The following was taken from a cave wall painting in southern Tunisia more than 300,000 years ago. Fossil evidence suggests that the author was of the species Homo erectus. "Enough is Enough" A Thinking Ape's Critique of Trans-Simianism To further expound upon the topic of last week's installment, I will address the more specific claims of Dr. Klomp and his radical theory that has been gaining wider acceptance throughout the community. Once again I would like to thank our readers for sending in your fish bones and boar hides in support of this journalist's campaign to expose Dr. Klomp's trans-simianist prattle for what it is: a collection of wishful thoughts out of keeping with any factual evidence. The term 'trans-simian' comes from the shortening of 'transitional simian,' a concept Dr. Klomp has developed to describe an individual who is in an evolutionary transition from simian to post-simian, though Klomp himself admits that he is not entirely clear what a true post-simian would be. Characteristics exhibited by a trans-simian include augmentation of one's natural abilities with 'tools,' as well as one's mental capacities with what has been dubbed 'culture.' Klomp's primary argument rests on what he calls the 'Quickening,' an imagined point somewhere in the future when the advancement of 'culture' occurs so rapidly that its pace will far exceed that of biological evolution. In his own words, "There will come a time when within a single generation we will develop one or possibly even two new ideas Current advancements in the 'bow' and 'arrow' industries suggest an exponential trend in the expansion of our technological capacities. We are able to perform hunts in a fraction of the time it took our ancestors, thus freeing up valuable time to ' think ' of new ideas. In the post-simian world, we may develop into a species that is not only intellectually superior to our current state, but capable of feats beyond the comprehension of a contemporary simian." Pardon this author for not holding his breath. Notice that Klomp cherry-picks discoveries to better support his argument of an exponential growth. It took more than a million years to develop fire and the hand-ax, and yet Klomp believes simply because it took only 2,000 years to develop bows and arrows that new inventions will spring up in even shorter timeframes. This theory is an expansion of 'Morg's Law,' which states that since a sharpened rock can in turn become a chisel to make an even sharper rock, that the sharpness of hand-axes will increase exponentially over the span of tens of thousands of years. While Morg's Law has so far proven accurate, Klomp can't escape the reality that there is an upper limit, namely that a rock can only become so sharp. We have already noticed a slight decline in the growth of hand-ax sharpness, but Klomp insists that when the potential of stone axes becomes exhausted, new materials will be discovered to replace the rocks and continue the exponential trend of sharpness. As of the time of this article, however, he has provided no evidence of what these miracle rocks are. Klomp also argues that there will come a time when we will use tools to create other tools, though naturally this is a laughable fiction since there has never been any recorded evidence of a tool making another tool, or even any records for that matter. Another factor in Klomp's post-simian world is the development of "abstract thought" that will be aided by "the ability to store memories and thoughts outside our brains onto physical media, perhaps on flattened tree bark. To achieve this we will have to overcome the problem of turning words, which are sounds, into things we can see, but given current trends this is an engineering issue that will ultimately be resolved. This will be the real catalyst for the Quickening, when the memories of one generation will literally become immortal and then build upon the memories of the next, creating a sort of mass mind that experts in my field are calling "history." In the post-simian world our era might even be referred to as pre-history." Here we see Klomp's predictions descend from unsupported speculation to sheer fantasy. His recent cave painting, The Quickening is Near, explains in great detail different methods we may employ to transform words into some kind of visible format, but all are incomplete. The simple fact remains that words are sounds, not pictures, and no amount of wishing will change that. Even if such a thing were possible, it is doubtful that many would wish to store their memories externally. This author, for one, would prefer it if his memories stayed in his head and not on some cold, lifeless bark. The most shocking of Klomp's predictions, however, is that we apes will have little or no place in the post-simian world. "As technological progress outpaces biology, new selective pressures will arise that will force our species to evolve mentally and physically beyond what we are now. This is the same trend that gave rise to our own intelligent species, but it will only accelerate in the coming generations. Our new environment increasingly favors higher dexterity and intelligence, and so the true post-simian will not be an ape at all. It will share some similarities with the modern ape, but at the same time possess capacities far beyond our comprehension. The thought capacity of a single post-simian could be greater than the combined brains of every ape in the world." More intelligent than an ape? Klomp fails to explain just what a post-ape can think of that we mere mortals cannot. The capacity of the simian mind is already far beyond any animal in the world: We are capable of using speech to let others know where we are, where to sleep and eat, and where to find shelter when it rains. Exactly how fast do we need our brains to be to figure these things out? When will we decide that enough is enough? Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that such a post-simian future is possible or even probable. Is it really a world we should want to strive for, where our very ape nature is stripped away in the name of efficiency? Technologies such as the bow and arrow already desimianize the act of hunting. While our ancestors were able to experience the pure ape feeling of clubbing an animal to death with a rock, we are left with the cold, sterilized bow that kills cleanly and quickly from a safe distance. This separation from basic daily activities is a slippery slope. What would happen if we no longer had to gather fruits and nuts, and they simply grew wherever we wanted them, or had drinking water flow right to our feet instead of wandering in search of streams for days? These seeming conveniences would rob us of what it means to be an ape. Klomp predicts that through a technology called 'hygiene' we could extend the simian lifespan well into the late 20s or possibly 30s. What exactly will the post-simian do with all that time? Do we really want to live in a society populated by geriatric 27- year- olds? In living so long and spending so much time 'thinking,' do we not also run the risk of becoming a cold, passionless race incapable of experiencing our two emotions (fear and not fear)? How much of our simianity are we willing to sacrifice for this notion of progress? Rest assured that while Klomp may have accru ed a recent following, there is no reality to his fantastic claims. What is concerning is the increasing number of young apes spending less time clubbing animals and more time 'inventing,' 'thinking' and 'creating,' none of which contribute to the preservation of the simian way of life. These sorts of fads come and go, however, and this author is confident that in a short while everyone will have forgotten about Klomp and the notion of being anything more than an ape." -Thog Professor of Finding an Animal and then Killing It, The University of the Woods -- Translated by Aaron Diaz of Dresden Codak References 1. http://dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_040.html _______________________________________________ forum mailing list forum at detrans.de http://admin.detrans.de/mailman/listinfo/forum ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 22:09:10 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:09:10 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <022a01c84e28$13c42860$edf04d0c@MyComputer> References: <200712280211.lBS2BtEP006829@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> <022a01c84e28$13c42860$edf04d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On 04/01/2008, John K Clark wrote: > Even Extropians are not immune from this sort of thing. Although we don't > like to think so we are of the same species as millions of Germans, some > very intelligent, who were persuaded into doing all sorts of bizarre stupid > and self destructive things. If you really have the gift of gab you can even > make that crap seem like a good idea. Mr. AI will have the gift of gab in > spades. No doubt, a superintelligent AI that is able to orchestrate an entire political campaign will do very well, although there will be platforms so unpopular that the AI will simply conclude that it is impossible to win. And persuasion through, say, a single email would be even more difficult. -- Stathis Papaioannou From eugen at leitl.org Thu Jan 3 22:15:45 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 23:15:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> <022a01c84e28$13c42860$edf04d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 09:09:10AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > No doubt, a superintelligent AI that is able to orchestrate an entire > political campaign will do very well, although there will be platforms As a superintelligent anything you don't have to orchestrate jack squat. You just annect and buy whatever you need, with no-one being the wiser. > so unpopular that the AI will simply conclude that it is impossible to There are plenty of popular platforms online that are pure swiss cheese. > win. And persuasion through, say, a single email would be even more > difficult. How does a check for 10 million EUR sound like? -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 3 22:43:21 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:43:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> References: <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> <022a01c84e28$13c42860$edf04d0c@MyComputer> <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103164247.02285450@satx.rr.com> At 11:15 PM 1/3/2008 +0100, Eugen wrote: > > win. And persuasion through, say, a single email would be even more > > difficult. > >How does a check for 10 million EUR sound like? "Uh, you're not a Nigerian AI, by any chance?" From hkhenson at rogers.com Thu Jan 3 22:59:13 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:59:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Re-framing Innovation re Consciousness In-Reply-To: <477D370F.7090904@lineone.net> References: <477D370F.7090904@lineone.net> Message-ID: <1199401165_23388@S1.cableone.net> At 12:27 PM 1/3/2008, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > > At 05:56 PM 12/31/2007, Keith wrote: > > > Heh, "too focused on segregating meaning." I can't parse that either. > > > > Rather than top-down or bottom-up parsing you could try > > lateral-parsing. Actually, please don't! You need not worry because I have no idea what "lateral-parsing" might mean. Take catalytic, a word I think you have used. That has a clear meaning in chemical engineering such as a catalytic converter on cars, a device used to speed up chemical reactions or a catalytic cracker http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy_fungames/energyslang/catcracker.html used in making gasoline out of crude oil fractions that are about as thick as Vaseline. In a social context I would never use that word since there are other words such as "facilitate" that convey just about any possible meaning you had in mind without the interference you get from a word having different meanings in other fields. As long as you are not trying to communicate outside a special group, using such words with varying meaning depending on the group is fine. If you are trying for wider communication, such words get in the way of transferring your thoughts to other people. I remember not long ago having several people's eyes glaze over when three of us out of a group of 7 or 8 people started talking about the internal details of generational garbage collectors (the Ungar moving kind). http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=808261&dl=GUIDE&coll=GUIDE&CFID=48488706&CFTOKEN=32848191 The words are used in a way remote from grandparents operating a trash pickup service. Keith From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 3 23:27:37 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 10:27:37 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> References: <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> <022a01c84e28$13c42860$edf04d0c@MyComputer> <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 04/01/2008, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > win. And persuasion through, say, a single email would be even more > > difficult. > > How does a check for 10 million EUR sound like? Bribes and threats will probably work if they are credible. It's harder to persuade simply through force of argument. -- Stathis Papaioannou From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Jan 3 22:50:11 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 14:50:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103164247.02285450@satx.rr.com> References: <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> <022a01c84e28$13c42860$edf04d0c@MyComputer> <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103164247.02285450@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 1/3/08, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 11:15 PM 1/3/2008 +0100, Eugen wrote: > > > > win. And persuasion through, say, a single email would be even more > > > difficult. > > > >How does a check for 10 million EUR sound like? > > "Uh, you're not a Nigerian AI, by any chance?" Clearly he is but the son of a Nigerian AI, who recently transcended, leaving behind... - Jef From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Jan 4 00:10:07 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 18:10:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103164247.02285450@satx.rr.com> References: <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103164247.02285450@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200801031810.07758.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 03 January 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 11:15 PM 1/3/2008 +0100, Eugen wrote: > > > win. And persuasion through, say, a single email would be even > > > more difficult. > > > >How does a check for 10 million EUR sound like? > > "Uh, you're not a Nigerian AI, by any chance?" Can't be. It would have read: TEN MILLION - $10000000 USD. But on a related note, I'll be sure to keep a look out for "Alfred Incognito" from Nigeria. ;) - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From hkhenson at rogers.com Fri Jan 4 03:45:59 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:45:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Rehabbing militants in Saudi Arabia (Meta) In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20712281503n4cca4a6gb34b94e46a4967fb@mail.gmail.com> <008801c849b0$06a61ac0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <20071229101934.GI10128@leitl.org> <00bf01c84a24$1f16dfd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <1199369823_9702@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1199418372_27170@S1.cableone.net> At 08:26 AM 1/3/2008, you wrote: > > If you really want to solve such problems, you need to deal > > with a really hard issue: how to liberate the women in Islamic > > culture. Any ideas? > >Provide women in (all) islamic countries with equal and fair >micro credits to create independent businesses. Microcredits >are one of the most successful tools to generate family income >in africa and work wonders in liberating women from oppression. That's a good suggestion. Please don't take my further EP analysis as any kind of a put down. I really don't understand the social course of liberating women in the direction of them having a lot fewer children. Part of it seems to stem from a drop in the influence of religion, which I also don't understand except perhaps it is a side effect of going a long time without a major war. The Irish women did this over the last 40 years and I claim that a side effect was to virtually eliminate support for the IRA. Other examples are Italy and Quebec. >I am sure state officials will do their utmost best to resist such >interventions (especially in wahabism-INFECTED countries) >but once government see a source of tax revenues they'll turn >around. I am pretty sure that if the US, [intensely political >sneer deleted], invested 1% of what they wasted in the Iraq >occupation since 1990, the islamic countries would have been >substantially more democratic by now. There may even would >have been no need for a "Middle east resource consolidating >campaign". I am not so sure about this. I frankly don't think governments, or anyone else, knows enough about humans and societies to be able to do something with changing culture and have it work. People tend to *think* they know what will work, but the record has been really poor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_W._Forrester Forrester's work discovered that a lot of social systems have completely counter intuitive behavior. >However I also believe the US does NOT desire empowered >and rich consumers in poor countries - it would drive up >commodity prices and wages in third-world countries and that >would reduce US prosperity. The US depends on widespread >desperation. That seems a bit over the top, especially when you consider China. Keith From amara at amara.com Fri Jan 4 07:51:02 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 00:51:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Americans clueless on NASA budgets Message-ID: To hopefully correct some misinformation for Americans and others. NASA 2008 Budget Expanded Explanation --Some here might find the the 'Earmarks' section of the budget especially interesting. http://planetarypolicy.org/fy08_analysis.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Plus two related NASA News articles: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wielding a Cost-Cutting Ax, and Often at NASA --about Alan Stern http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/science/space/01stern.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Planning NASA's Future Physics Today subscriber article (if you don't have a subscription, ask me and I can send you the article) Interview with Michael Griffin, conducted by Paul Guinnessy at NASA headquarters, Washington DC, Tuesday November 13, 2007 Abstract http://ptonline.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PHTOAD000061000001000033000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=Yes When NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe announced his retirement in December 2004 to become chancellor of Louisiana State University, NASA was still reeling from the 2003 loss of the space shuttle Columbia, strained relations with the science community, and upcoming tough budget decisions. The White House quickly chose Michael D. Griffin, a 35-year career veteran in both NASA and the commercial space industry, to head the agency. PHYSICS TODAY recently interviewed Griffin at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC (a full transcript is available on the PHYSICS TODAY website). ?2008 American Institute of Physics Full transcript of Michael Griffin interview Published in the Physics Today January 2008 edition. Copyright: American Institute of Physics 2008http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_61/iss_1/33_1s.shtml -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > "Stefano Vaj" , Tue, 20 Nov 2007 23:16:38 +0100 >Subject: [ExI] Americans clueless on NASA budgets > >Americans clueless on NASA budgetsSpace: Not as expensive as you thinkBy Lucy >Sherriff >? >More by this author >Published Monday 19th November 2007 17:17 GMT > >A recent survey, carried out on behalf of *The Space Review*, has revealed >that the average American believes a quarter of the country's public purse >goes towards funding NASA. > >The survey found that most people reported the belief that NASA is almost as >well funded as the military. The Department of Defense does receive roughly >21 per cent of the nation's wonga, but most people overestimated this by a >further 12 per cent. > >In reality, NASA gets something like 0.6 per cent of the natonal budget, a >fact which researchers report came as a surprise to those being surveyed. >According to *The Space Review*, one participant replied "No wonder we >haven't gone anywhere!". > >The survey formed part of a larger >analysisof the costs and >benefits of having a publicly funded space agency. The >writers argue that people have scant knowledge of what NASA actually does. >Combined with the huge overestimates of the cost of running NASA, it is not >surprising that people often regard it as being poor value for money. (R) >Bootnote > >We'd like to add, before the anti-American/pro-American flame wars begin, >that we're pretty sure similar levels of daftness pervade our own >population. Have you ever watched *Big Brother*? Probably best not to mock * >too* loudly. (R) >http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/19/nasa_budgets/ -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From alito at organicrobot.com Fri Jan 4 08:28:43 2008 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:28:43 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (probability of 1:25) Marshit In-Reply-To: <200801031426.39242.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <395380.59250.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20080103201459.GV10128@leitl.org> <200801031426.39242.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1199435323.3651.62.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2008-01-03 at 14:26 -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: > I have yet to understand just how it is that astronomers are able to > specify so precisely what stars they are observing, since the planet is > revolving around the local star, and the star is revolving around the > galaxy and everything is shifting, and I've never seen a positional > database on the internet before. I would think we would need to > calculate observation-altitudes, telescopic angle, the precise time and > position, etc. etc. But instead, apparently the relative position of > the stars is stable enough to be conveyed as "eh, look left to that big > bright one each night" ?? At a parsec (three and a quarter light years) an object would have a parallax of one arc second from one side of the sun to the other on the earth orbit, around 300 million kms. One arc-second is not much. Pretty much everything is much further than a parsec away so in general the revolving around the sun bit won't throw you too far off the mark. The sun moving through the galaxy bit is dealt by specifying coordinates not only by the right ascension/latitude pair, but also by the year standard for which the coordinate is valid, which gets updated every 50 years. Most coordinates nowadays I think use 2000, old catalogues use 1950, etc. Since the movement of the sun in the galaxy in 50 years is small, it can probably be assumed to be linear, and you can probably interpolate nearby star positions quite accurately like that. (The 'probably's there are because I'm making those bits up) In large telescopes the final bit of accuracy is provided by guide stars, relatively bright far away stars that everyone can agree are at some designated coordinate The telescope can lock on to the guide stars during the observations and keep a fairly stable and well known frame of reference as the earth rotates. I can't remember the names of many databases online. SDSS is a huge survey of the northern sky (http://www.sdss.org/). USNO-B is an older one from the southern sky. (I am not an astronomer, I just worked for them for a period. The above could be way off) From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 4 14:10:35 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:10:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [forum] Anti-Transsimianismus In-Reply-To: <20080103213410.GA30970@leitl.org> References: <20080103213410.GA30970@leitl.org> Message-ID: <62c14240801040610v6219a5b6we9480a85e7d36386@mail.gmail.com> > The following was taken from a cave wall painting in southern Tunisia > more than 300,000 years ago. Fossil evidence suggests that the author > was of the species Homo erectus. > > "Enough is Enough" > A Thinking Ape's Critique of Trans-Simianism I would like to see more of this kind of writing. From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 4 14:15:36 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:15:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> References: <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <4779B3FF.90907@optusnet.com.au> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> <022a01c84e28$13c42860$edf04d0c@MyComputer> <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <62c14240801040615r1264532u79ef657296c2fbce@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 3, 2008 5:15 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 09:09:10AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > win. And persuasion through, say, a single email would be even more > > difficult. > How does a check for 10 million EUR sound like? Like a Nigerian/419 scam? From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 4 14:16:57 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:16:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <62c14240801040615r1264532u79ef657296c2fbce@mail.gmail.com> References: <021e01c84bf3$e8d74fa0$03ef4d0c@MyComputer> <477B15E0.4010606@pobox.com> <022a01c84e28$13c42860$edf04d0c@MyComputer> <20080103221545.GG10128@leitl.org> <62c14240801040615r1264532u79ef657296c2fbce@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <62c14240801040616r1ccd0fb9hdc98a8274e6000bb@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 4, 2008 9:15 AM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Jan 3, 2008 5:15 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 09:09:10AM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > win. And persuasion through, say, a single email would be even more > > > difficult. > > How does a check for 10 million EUR sound like? > > Like a Nigerian/419 scam? A good example of why you should read every post in the thread before commenting. (sorry) From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Jan 4 17:31:53 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 09:31:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 3, 2008 8:46 AM, Jef Allbright wrote: > A related question, of deep practical interest to me, is the > relationship of such probabilistic pattern-matching to issues of > "empathy", which as popularly recognized is an evolved heuristic for > modeling the internal state of intentional others, but quite limited > relative to its potential more developed and technologically amplified > form. This is a good question to ask and I'm surprised no one else is giving it a shot. Can't resist... Mirror neurons do seem the place to start (regardless of whether you see the term as metaphoric or descriptive), but are not the whole story. The idea that we learn to emulate behavior by observation is the first step in being able to empathize and predict. But it's not the entire circuit. The magic moment is when your brain grasps that the behaviors you and the observed both share come from related or similar stimuli. Poof! Mental contact and empathy. Or as you might say, the confidence to begin to act upon pattern-matching. Then you are rewarded for appropriate or altruistic behavior. The rest of the confidence comes from sheer life-mileage and an increase in predicting non-obvious behavior. **See below. The ability to observe and copy vs. the ability to intuit others feelings from their behavior seem like related but separate skill sets to me, like a Venn diagram's overlapping circles. I've seen some people excel at the first, but fail at the second and visa versa (although the reverse seems rarer). Of course, the fallacy lies in the assumption that all stimuli and response are the same in all people. This is where the empathetic get in trouble. It's easy to assume that a behavior comes from whatever stimulus would trigger it in themselves. We know that's not the case. Not only are people different in their likes, dislikes, appetites, etc., but some may ape behavior that they don't actually feel to elicit a specific response, like sociopaths. (They would be excelling at the first part of the feedback loop -- observing and copying -- and not the second.) Maybe because I work in a business where sociopathic behavior is allowed to thrive, I personally find the quoted 4% of sociopaths out of the entire population unnaturally low. :) **The mileage comes in when you grasp the previous paragraph, and see that patterns that don't exist within your own head exist in others. When you can predict those, then I'd say you've got some pretty great people assessment skills. So here is yet another way in which we each create our own reality, beyond the personal reality we construct from our fallible senses and variably wired brains. This doesn't even get into the phrenology-like assumptions we make regarding appearance, like a high forehead = intelligence, or low bushy eyebrows = aggression. Yes, I can see from an EP standpoint how we might have developed some of these universal, subconscious assumptions, but they can really throw a spanner in the empathetic and predictive works. The issue of technological amplification is, as I've discussed elsewhere, a double edged sword, like all technology. I can already see both an increase and decrease of empathy from our present communications tech boom as a result. I'm hoping that there are ways to push for a net increase that don't involve coercion, but I'm not holding my breath. [BTW, chocolate... ;-) ] PJ From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 4 18:20:59 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 10:20:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] David Brin: The Enlightenment Strikes Back (i.e. the continuing relevance of Marx) In-Reply-To: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD280390673F17E@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> References: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD280390673F17E@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> Message-ID: Forwarded in its entirety (after reformatting) from another list. Hat tip to James Hughes: ------------------------- The Enlightenment Strikes Back David Brin * THE UNLIKELINESS OF A POSITIVE SUM SOCIETY Today's "modern large-scale capitalist representative democracy cum welfare state cum corporate oligopoly" works largely because the systems envisioned by John Locke and Adam Smith have burgeoned fantastically, producing synergies in highly nonlinear ways that another prominent social philosopher ? Karl Marx ? never imagined. Ways that neither Marx nor the ruling castes of prior cultures even could imagine. Through processes of competitive creativity and reciprocal accountability, the game long ago stopped being zero-sum (I can only win if you lose) and became prodigiously positive-sum. (We all win, though I'd still like to win a little more than you.) (See Robert Wright's excellent book "Non-Zero".) Yes, if you read over the previous paragraph, I sound a lot like some of the boosters of FIBM or Faith In Blind Markets? among whom you'll find the very same neocons and conspiratorial kleptocrats who I accuse of ruining markets! Is that a contradiction? Not at all. Just as soviet commissars recited egalitarian nostrums, while relentlessly quashing freedom in the USSR, many of our own right-wing lords mouth "pro-enterprise" lip service, while doing everything they can to cheat and foil competitive markets. To kill the golden goose that gave them everything. The problem is that our recent, synergistic system has always had to push uphill against a perilous slope of human nature. The Enlightenment is just a couple of centuries old. Feudalism/tribalism had uncountable millennia longer to work a selfish, predatory logic into our genes, our brains. We are all descended from insatiable men, who found countless excuses for cheating, expropriating the labor of others, or preserving their power against challenges from below. Not even the wisest of us can guarantee we'd be immune from temptation to abuse power, if we had it. Some, like George Washington, have set a pretty good example. They recognize these backsliding trends in themselves, and collaborate in the establishment of institutions, designed to let accountability flow. Others perform lip-service, then go on to display every dismal trait that Karl Marx attributed to shortsighted bourgeois "exploiters." Indeed, it seems that every generation must face this ongoing battle, between those who "get" what Washington and many others aimed for ? the positive-sum game ? and rationalizers who are driven by our primitive, zero-sum drives. A great deal is at stake, at a deeper level that mere laws and constitutions. Moreover, if the human behavior traits described by Karl Marx ever do come roaring back, to take hold in big ways, then so might some of the social scenarios that he described. * SHOULD WE ? SERIOUSLY ? HAVE A FRESH LOOK AT OLD KARL MARX? Do you, as an educated 21st Century man or woman, know very much about the controversy that transfixed western civilization for close to a century and a half? A furious argument, sparked by a couple of dense books, written by a strange little bearded man? Or do you shrug off Marx as an historical oddity? Perhaps a cousin of Groucho? Were our ancestors - both those who followed Marx and those who opposed him - stupid to have found him interesting or to have fretted over the scenarios he foretold? I often refer to Marx as the greatest of all science fiction authors, because ? while his long-range forecasts nearly all failed, and some of his premises (like the labor theory of value) were pure fantasy ? he nevertheless shed heaps of new light and focused the attention of millions upon many basics of both economics and human nature. As a story-spinner, Marx laid down some "if this goes on" thought-experiments that seemed vividly plausible to people of his time, and for a century afterwards. People who weren't stupid. People who were, in fact, far more intimate with the consequences of social stratification than we have been, in the latest, pampered generation. As virtually the inventor of the term "capitalism," Marx ought to be studied (and criticized) by anyone who wants to understand our way of life. What's been forgotten, since the fall of communism, is that the USSR's 'experiment' was never even remotely "Marxism." And, hence, we cannot simply watch "The Hunt For Red October" and then shrug off the entire set of mental and historical challenges. By my own estimate, he was only 50% a deluded loon ? a pretty good ratio, actually. (I cannot prove that I'm any better!) The other half was brilliant (ask any economist) and still a powerful caution. Moreover, anyone who claims to be a thinker about our civilization should be able to argue which half was which. Marx's forecasts seem to have failed not because they were off-base in extrapolating the trends of 19th Century bourgeois capitalism. He extrapolated fine. But what he never imagined was that human beings might intelligently perceive, and act to alter those selfsame powerful trends! While living amid the Anglo Saxon Enlightenment, Marx never grasped its potential for self-criticism, reconfiguration and generating positive-sum alternatives. A potential for changing or outgrowing patterns that he (Marx) considered locked, in stone. Far from the image portrayed by simplistic FIBM cultists, we did not escape Marx's scenarios through laissez-faire indolence. In fact, his forecasts failed - ironically - because people read and studied Karl Marx. * HUMAN NATURE ALWAYS CONSPIRES AGAINST ENLIGHTENMENT This much is basic. We are all descended from rapacious, insatiable cheaters and (far worse) rationalizers. Every generation of aristocrats (by whatever surface definition you use, from soviet nomenklatura, theocrats, or royalty to top CEOs) will come up with marvelous excuses for why they should be allowed to go back to oligarchic rule-by-cabal and "guided allocation of resources" (GAR), instead of allowing open competition/cooperation to put their high status under threat. Indeed, those who most stridently tout faith in blind markets are often among the worst addicts of GAR. In particular, it is the most natural thing in the world for capital owners and GAR-masters to behave in the way that Karl Marx modeled. His forecast path of an ever-narrowing oligarchy ? followed ultimately by revolution ? had solid historical grounding and seemed well on its way to playing out. What prevented it from happening - and the phenomenon that would have boggled poor old KM - was for large numbers of western elites and commonfolk to weigh alternatives, to see these natural human failure modes, and to act intelligently against them. He certainly never envisioned a smart society that would extend bourgeois rights and social mobility to the underclasses. Nor that societies might set up institutions that would break entirely from his model, by keeping things open, dynamic, competitive, and reciprocally accountable, allowing the nonlinear fecundity of markets and science and democracy to do their positive-sum thing. In his contempt for human reasoning ability (except for his own), Marx neglected to consider that smart men and women would actually read his books and decide to remodel society, so that his scenario would not happen. So that revolution, when it came, would be gradual, ongoing, moderate, lawful, and generally non-confiscatory, especially since the positive sum game lets the whole pie grow, while giving bigger slices to all. In fact, I think the last ninety years may be partly modeled according to how societies responded to the Marxian meme. First, in 1917, came the outrageously stupid Soviet experiment, which simply replaced Czarist monsters with another clade of oppressors, that mouthed different sanctimonious slogans. Then the fascist response, which was a deadly counter-fever, fostered by even more-stupid European elites. Things were looking pretty bleak. * THE ENLIGHTENMENT STRIKES BACK Only then this amazing thing that happened - especially in America - where a subset of wealthy people, like FDR, actually read Marx, saw the potential pathway into spirals of crude capital formation, monopolization, oppression and revolution? and decided to do something about it, by reforming the whole scenario away! By following Henry Ford's maxim and giving all classes a stake ? which also meant ceding them a genuine share of power. A profoundly difficult thing for human beings to do, Those elites who called FDR a "traitor to his class" were fools. The smart ones knew that he saved their class, and enabled them to enjoy wealth in a society that would be vastly more successful, vibrant, fun, fair, stable, safe and fantastically more interesting. I believe we can now see the recent attempted putsch by a neocon-kleptocrat aristocratic cabal in broad but simple and on-target context. We now have a generation of wealthy elites who (for the most part) have never read Marx! Who haven't a clue how chillingly plausible his scenarios might be, if enlightenment systems did not provide an alternative to revolution. And who blithely assume that they are in no danger, whatsoever, of those scenarios ever playing out. Shortsightedly free from any thought or worry about the thing that fretted other aristocracies ? revolution ? they feel no compunction or deterrence from trying to do the old/boring thing? giving in to the ancient habit? using influence and power to gather MORE influence and power at the expense of regular people, all with the aim of diminishing the threat of competition from below. And all without extrapolating where it all might lead, if insatiability should run its course. What we would call "cheating," they rationalize as preserving and enhancing a natural social order. Rule by those best suited for the high calling of rulership. Those born to it. Or Platonic philosopher kings. Or believers in the right set of incantations. * REVENGE OF THE DARKSIDE LORDS Whatever the rationalizations, it boils down to the same old pyramid that failed the test of governance in nearly 100% of previous civilizations, always and invariably stifling creativity while guiding societies to delusion and ruin. Of course, it also means a return to zero-sum logic, zero-sum economics, zero-sum leadership thinking, a quashing of nonlinear synergies? the death of the Enlightenment. Mind you! I am describing only a fraction of today's aristocracy of wealth or corporate power. I know half a dozen billionaires, personally, and I'd wager none of them are in on this klepto-raid thing! They are all lively, energetic, modernistic, competitive and fizzing with enthusiasm for a progressive, dynamic civilization. A civilization that's (after all) been very good to them. They may not have read Marx (in this generation, who has?) But self-made guys like Bezos and Musk and Page etc share the basic values of an Enlightenment. One in which some child from a poor family may out-compete overprivileged children of the rich, by delivering better goods, innovations or services. And if that means their own privileged kids will also have to work hard and innovate? That's fine by them! Terrific. When the chips come down, these better billionaires may wind up on our side, weighing the balance and perceiving that their enlightened, long range self-interest lies with us. With the positive-sum society. Just the way FDR and his smart-elite friends did, in the 1930s? while the dumber half of the aristocracy muttered and fumed. We can hope that the better-rich will make this choice, when the time comes. But till then, the goodguy (or, at least with-it) billionaires are distracted, busy doing cool things, while the more old-fashioned kind ? our would-be lords ? are clustering together in tight circles, obeying 4,000 years of ingrained instinct, whispering and pulling strings, appointing each other to directorships, awarding unearned golden parachutes, conniving for sweetheart deals, and meddling in national policy? From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 4 18:55:15 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 10:55:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/4/08, PJ Manney wrote: > [BTW, chocolate... ;-) ] Yes, even more certainly than Stathis prefers vanilla. - Jef From amara at amara.com Fri Jan 4 19:07:59 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 12:07:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (updated probability of 1:28) Mars hit Message-ID: More observations of the possible Mars crosser, have now slightly downgraded the probability of Mars impact to 1 in 28. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news154.html Bryan Bishop : >I have yet to understand just how it is that astronomers are able to >specify so precisely what stars they are observing, since the planet is >revolving around the local star, and the star is revolving around the >galaxy and everything is shifting, and I've never seen a positional >database on the internet before. I would think we would need to >calculate observation-altitudes, telescopic angle, the precise time and >position, etc. etc. But instead, apparently the relative position of >the stars is stable enough to be conveyed as "eh, look left to that big >bright one each night" ?? The stars' and other celestial (galactic) objects' movement with respect to our solar system is not significant enough usually to require tracking the parallaxes, so for first approximation, consider the stars fixed and put the objects on a common Celestial Coordinates RA/Dec J2000 system. For the solar system bodies, use SPICE and the US Naval Ephemeris data. ====================== STAR CATALOGS ONLINE ====================== Should be using: Centre de Donn?es astronomiques de Strasbourg http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/ Information below, extracted from the CDS web site. Catalogues and files available at CDS Version of 29-Dec-2007 # B. Copies of external databases, regularly updated. (22 catalogues) # I. Astrometric Data (262 catalogues) # II. Photometric Data (252 catalogues) # III. Spectroscopic Data (218 catalogues) # IV. Cross-Identifications (25 catalogues) # V. Combined data (113 catalogues) # VI. Miscellaneous (104 catalogues) # VII. Non-stellar Objects (211 catalogues) # VIII. Radio and Far-IR data (82 catalogues) # IX. High-Energy data (29 catalogues) # Tables from Astronomy and Astrophysics (2118 catalogues) # Tables from Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series (1168 catalogues) # Tables from Astronomical Journal (1135 catalogues) # Tables from J.AN (25 catalogues) # Tables from Astronomicheskii Zhurnal (Russian) (100 catalogues) # Tables from J.AcA (36 catalogues) # Tables from Astrophysical Journal (633 catalogues) # Tables from Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (599 catalogues) # Tables from J.BaltA (26 catalogues) # Tables from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (610 catalogues) # Tables from Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan (40 catalogues) # Tables from Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (128 catalogues) # Tables from Pis'ma v Astronomicheskii Zhurnal (Astronomy Letters) (93 catalogues) # Tables from publications from other journals (139 catalogues) # Catalogues ordered by their Usual Name (1929 catalogues) # Catalogues with Additional Material The Astronomical Database http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/ The SIMBAD astronomical database provides basic data, cross-identifications, bibliography and measurements for astronomical objects outside the solar system. SIMBAD can be queried by object name, coordinates and various criteria. Lists of objects and scripts can be submitted. Statistics Simbad contains on 2008.01.04 3899855 objects 11723594 identifiers 215425 bibliographic references 5749563 citations of objects in papers ---------- Catalog service is VizieR Service http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR VizieR provides access to the most complete library of published astronomical catalogues and data tables available on line, organized in a self-documented database. Query tools allow the user to select relevant data tables and to extract and format records matching given criteria. Specific care has been taken for optimizing access to some very large catalogues such as UCAC2, the USNO-B1, or the 2MASS last release. VizieR is a joint effort of CDS (Centre de Donn?es astronomiques de Strasbourg) and ESA-ESRIN (Information Systems Division). VizieR has been available since 1996. Note that VizieR does not contain all available online catalogues; some catalogues are not suitable and some less frequently used catalogues have not yet been incorporated into the VizieR database. These last ones can be accessed by FTP from the Astronomer's Bazaar. Quick Search For an immediate search by position across one or several catalogues. a query in VizieR can be achieved: * either in the traditional way of stepping through the following actions: 1. select one or a few catalogues to be queried 2. define your constraints (selection on columns) and the result layout (choice of the columns to display, the format, the sorting order, etc). 3. Get the results in a tabular form. Correlated data may be found by a simple mouse click. 4. Full Display of individual rows if wished; correlated data may be found when existing. This traditional way accepts lists of contraints or targets saved in a file. * or as a global search around a position on the sky addressed to all or to a subset of catalogues existing in VizieR: just fill the Target box and for more details, see the pages about Query from a Position. # the results can also be formatted as tables readily useable by your favorite tools: * in TSV (tab-separated values) which can be easily interpreted by your favorite spreadsheet utility; files generated in this format can also be used to re-issue queries to VizieR with the Query from a file facility. * in several flavours of XML for interpretation by programs: o VOTable is a fully XML-compliant format containing both the data and their associated meta-data; o VOTable(CSV) is a replacement for astrores format where the meta-data in XML, but the data are keept as tab-separated values which are easier to process by e.g. Perl scripts; o KMZ/KML for Google-sky applications. * in FITS format for astronomically-oriented applications The 100 most popular catalogue, according to their frequency of usage in VizieR. (since 09 Dec 1997) 09.10% (II/246) 2MASS All-Sky Catalog of Point Sources (Cutri+ 2003) 04.77% (I/284) The USNO-B1.0 Catalog (Monet+ 2003) 03.22% (I/239) The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues (ESA 1997) 02.91% (I/271) The GSC 2.2 Catalogue (STScI, 2001) 02.60% (I/259) The Tycho-2 Catalogue (Hog+ 2000) 02.13% (I/252) The USNO-A2.0 Catalogue (Monet+ 1998) 01.56% (II/156A) IRAS Faint Source Catalog, |b| > 10, Version 2.0 (Moshir+ 1989) 01.32% (II/125) IRAS catalogue of Point Sources, Version 2.0 (IPAC 1986) 01.26% (II/250) Combined General Catalogue of Variable Stars (Samus+ 2004) 01.17% (I/254) The HST Guide Star Catalog, Version 1.2 (Lasker+ 1996) 01.17% (II/214A) Combined General Catalogue of Variable Stars (Kholopov+ 1998) 00.94% (I/289) UCAC2 Catalogue (Zacharias+ 2003) 00.77% (I/196) Hipparcos Input Catalogue, Version 2 (Turon+ 1993) 00.68% (I/280A) All-sky Compiled Catalogue of 2.5 million stars (Kharchenko 2001) 00.67% (B/denis) The DENIS database (DENIS Consortium, 2005) 00.65% (III/135A) Henry Draper Catalogue and Extension (Cannon+ 1918-1924; ADC 1989) 00.63% (II/225) Catalog of Infrared Observations, Edition 5 (Gezari+ 1999) 00.62% (II/241) 2MASS Catalog Intermediate Data Release (IPAC/UMass, 2000) 00.61% (IX/10A) ROSAT All-Sky Bright Source Catalogue (1RXS) (Voges+ 1999) 00.59% (V/50) Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit+, 1991) 00.49% (I/197A) Tycho Input Catalogue, Revised version (Egret+ 1992) 00.48% (I/131A) SAO Star Catalog J2000 (SAO Staff 1966; USNO, ADC 1990) 00.48% (VIII/65) 1.4GHz NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) (Condon+ 1998) 00.47% (I/275) The AC 2000.2 Catalogue (Urban+ 2001) 00.42% (II/215) uvby-beta Catalogue (Hauck+ 1997) 00.39% (I/146) Positions and Proper Motions - North (Roeser+, 1988) 00.38% (I/250) The Tycho Reference Catalogue (Hog+ 1998) 00.38% (I/122) Bonner Durchmusterung (Argelander 1859-1903) 00.37% (IX/29) ROSAT All-Sky Survey Faint Source Catalog (Voges+ 2000) 00.37% (I/246) The ACT Reference Catalog (Urban+ 1997) 00.35% (III/182) HDE Charts: positions, proper motions (Nesterov+ 1995) 00.34% (II/126) IRAS Serendipitous Survey Catalog (IPAC 1986) 00.30% (II/252) The DENIS database, 2nd Release (DENIS Consortium, 2003) 00.30% (V/98) MSX Infrared Astrometric Catalog (Egan+ 1996) 00.28% (III/31B) Michigan catalogue for the HD stars, vol. 1 (Houk+, 1975) 00.28% (I/255) The HST Guide Star Catalog, Version GSC-ACT (Lasker+ 1996-99) 00.28% (II/7A) UBVRIJKLMNH Photoelectric Catalogue (Morel+ 1978) 00.27% (I/193) Positions and Proper Motions - South (Bastian+ 1993) 00.26% (I/237) The Washington Visual Double Star Catalog, 1996.0 (Worley+, 1996) 00.26% (I/61B) AGK3 Catalogue (Dieckvoss, Heckmann 1975) 00.26% (III/133) Michigan Catalogue of HD stars, Vol.4 (Houk+, 1988) 00.25% (VII/155) Third Reference Cat. of Bright Galaxies (RC3) (de Vaucouleurs+ 1991) 00.25% (I/267) The APM-North Catalogue (McMahon+, 2000) 00.25% (I/220) The HST Guide Star Catalog, Version 1.1 (Lasker+ 1992) 00.25% (III/214) Michigan Catalogue of HD stars, Vol.5 (Houk+, 1999) 00.25% (V/70A) Nearby Stars, Preliminary 3rd Version (Gliese+ 1991) 00.24% (VIII/15) Parkes Radio Sources Catalogue (PKSCAT90) (Wright+ 1990) 00.23% (VII/1B) Revised New General Catalogue (Sulentic+, 1973) 00.23% (I/176) AGK3U (Bucciarelli+ 1992) 00.23% (I/261) The FON Astrographic Catalogue (FONAC) (Kislyuk+ 1999) 00.22% (III/80) Michigan Catalogue of HD stars, Vol.3 (Houk, 1982) 00.21% (IX/28A) ROSAT HRI Pointed Observations (1RXH) (ROSAT Team, 2000) 00.21% (V/107) MSX5C Infrared Point Source Catalog (Egan+ 1999) 00.21% (V/114) MSX6C Infrared Point Source Catalog (Egan+ 2003) 00.20% (VII/237) HYPERLEDA. I. Catalog of galaxies (Paturel+, 2003) 00.20% (B/hst) HST Archived Exposures Catalog (STScI, 2007) 00.20% (V/84) Strasbourg-ESO Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae (Acker+, 1992) 00.19% (III/231) The Tycho-2 Spectral Type Catalog (Wright+, 2003) 00.19% (I/256) Carlsberg Meridian Catalogs (CMC, 1999) 00.19% (I/108) Cape Photographic Durchmusterung (Gill+ 1895-1900) 00.19% (I/268) UCAC1 Catalogue (Zacharias+ 2000) 00.19% (III/51B) Michigan Catalogue of HD stars, Vol.2 (Houk, 1978) 00.19% (V/15) SAO and Supplementary Data (Ochsenbein 1980) 00.18% (III/213) General Catalog of mean radial velocities (Barbier-Brossat+, 2000) 00.18% (V/51) Data Inventory of Space-Based Obs, Ver 1.1 (Brotzman+ 1987) 00.18% (III/190B) WEB Catalog of Radial Velocities (Duflot+ 1995) 00.18% (I/114) Cordoba Durchmusterung (Thome 1892-1932) 00.17% (I/98A) NLTT Catalogue (Luyten, 1979) 00.17% (I/207) Preliminary list from Tycho observations (TIC data) (Halbwachs+ 1994) 00.17% (V/102) SKY2000 - Master Star Catalog, Version 2 (Sande+ 1998) 00.17% (I/171) Astrographic Catalog Reference Stars (ACRS) (Corbin+ 1991) 00.17% (VII/26D) Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies (UGC) (Nilson 1973) 00.17% (VII/235) Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei (11th Ed.) (Veron+, 2003) 00.17% (I/294) The UCAC2 Bright Star Supplement (Urban+, 2004) 00.17% (VII/119) Catalogue of Principal Galaxies (PGC) (Paturel+ 1989) 00.16% (IX/30) Second ROSAT PSPC Catalog (ROSAT, 2000) 00.16% (VI/32) Bidelman-Parsons Spectroscopic/Bibliographic Cat (Parsons+ 1980) 00.16% (VI/111) ISO Observation Log (ISO Data Centre, 2004) 00.16% (V/109) SKY2000 Catalog, Version 4 (Myers+ 2002) 00.16% (I/238A) Yale Trigonometric Parallaxes, Fourth Edition (van Altena+ 1995) 00.15% (VII/215) Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei (9th Ed.) (Veron+ 2000) 00.15% (VIII/38) The Parkes-MIT-NRAO 4.85GHz (PMN) Surveys (Griffith+ 1993-1996) 00.15% (I/243) The PMM USNO-A1.0 Catalogue (Monet 1997) 00.15% (I/211) CCDM (Components of Double and Multiple stars) (Dommanget+ 1994) 00.15% (I/208) The 90000 stars Supplement to the PPM Catalogue (Roeser+, 1994) 00.15% (II/224) Catalogue of Stellar Diameters (CADARS) (Pasinetti-Fracassini+ 2001) 00.15% (II/219) New Catalogue of Suspected Variable Stars Supplement (Kazarovets+ 1998) 00.15% (VII/62A) Morphological Cat. of Gal. (MCG) (Vorontsov-Velyaminov+, 1962-1974) 00.14% (J/A+A/431/773) CHARM2, an updated of CHARM catalog (Richichi+, 2005) 00.14% (II/2B) Two-Micron Sky Survey (TMSS) (Neugebauer+ 1969) 00.14% (VIII/13) A new catalog of 53522 4.85GHz sources (Becker+ 1991) 00.14% (IX/31) The WGACAT version of ROSAT sources (White+ 2000) 00.14% (VI/42) Identification of a Constellation From Position (Roman 1987) 00.14% (I/276) Tycho Double Star Catalogue (TDSC) (Fabricius+ 2002) 00.14% (I/154) Astrographic Catalogue, Zones -02 to +31 degrees (Roeser 1990) 00.14% (B/eso) ESO Science Archive Catalog (ESO, 2002) 00.13% (I/251) VLBI International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) (Ma+, 1997) 00.13% (V/117) Geneva-Copenhagen Survey of Solar neighbourhood (Nordstrom+, 2004) 00.13% (B/cfht) Log of CFHT Exposures (CADC, 1979-) 00.13% (I/260) Visual Double Stars in Hipparcos (Dommanget+, 2000) ?ULP/CNRS - Centre de Donn?es astronomiques de Strasbourg ====================== STAR CATALOGS OFFLINE ====================== ---------- The above catalogs can be acquired and used OFFLINE, for more detailed work. For example I'm using the HD, Tycho, and USNO catalogs, presently. ---------- USNO-A2.0 USNO-SA2.0 USNO-B1.0 UCAC1 UCAC2 (USNO CCD Astrographic Catalog) GSC 1.1 GSC-ACT GSC 2.2 2MASS Point-Source Catalog Tycho-2 ACT (Astrographic Catalog / Tycho) PPM (Positions and Proper Motions) SAO TD1 FAUST HD (incl. HDE) HDEC (HD Extension Charts) Michigan HD BSC or BS (Yale Bright Star Catalog) MK (Morgan-Keenan-Kellman, aka MKK) HR (Harvard Revised) SDSS (Sloan) AC 2000 (Astrographic Catalog) BD (Bonner Durchmusterung) CD (Cordoba Durchmusterung) CpD (Cape Photographic Durchmusterung) IUE Atlas of O-Type IUE Atlas of B-Type IUE Atlas of Normal Stars ORFEUS / Berkeley Spectrograph VWFC UIT (UV Imaging Telescope) TUES (Tubingen Echelle Spectrograph) FUSE FUSE Atlas of Galactic OB Stars OAO-2 (Orbiting Astronomical Obs.) INES (IUE Newly Extracted Spectra) ANS UV Catalog of Point Sources (Astronomical Netherlands Satellite) Second EUVE Source Catalog Copernicus (OAO-3) WUPPE ORFEUS / IMAPS (ISM Abs-Profile Spectrograph) "OAO-1 OAO-B" Lanning 'Finding List of Faint UV-Bright Stars' KUV (Kiso UV Catalog) UVBS (UV Bright Star Spectrophotometric Catalog) Faint Star Catalog HD Identifications for Tycho-2 Stars (Fabricius) TDSC (Tycho-2 Double Star Catalog) WDS (Vashington Visual Double Star Catalog) CMC (Carlsberg Meridian Catalogs) GC (General Catalog) FK5 (Fifth Fundamental Catalog) Calactic O-type Stars (Garmany) O Star Catalog (Goy) Galactic O Stars (Cruz-Gonzalez) Galactic O Star Catalog (Maiz-Appellaniz) Catalog of Galactic OB Stars (Reed) Luminous Stars in the [N/S] Milky Way Spectral Atlases Johann Bayer (Uranometria) Flamsteed ---------- NAIF-SPICE For solar system objects and geometry, space missions work, NAIF's SPICE library is essential. NAIF developed and maintains SPICE in C, FORTRAN, and IDL, FORTRAN being the primary, the IDL version being a DLM interface to the CSPIE library. SPICE is widely used in NASA, ESA, and the work from other space agencies. SPICE is JPL's most valuable "product" of the last decades (far and above the space missions themselves, in my opinion). This little, essential JPL group have had to fight to have funding, fight to keep the libraries free, and fight to have it not be ITAR (International and Arm and Trade Regulations) controlled. It is perhaps the most complete open-source astrodynamics library available. Not only does it let you read in SPK ephemeris files for the planets and moons, but it gives many useful functions for transforming orbit elements, calculation occultations, and space mission trajectories. Conversion between time representation constitutes much of SPICE use, TDB, TDT, UTC, Julian Date, always respecting the current leapseconds count. http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/ From the naif web site: -------------------- Welcome to NASA's Solar System Exploration Ancillary Information System The Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) offers an information system named "SPICE" to assist scientists in planning and interpreting scientific observations from space-borne instruments. SPICE is also widely used in engineering tasks needing access to space geometry. SPICE is focused on solar system geometry, time, and related information. The SPICE system includes a large suite of software, mostly in the form of subroutines, that customers use to read SPICE files and to compute derived observation geometry, such as altitude, lattitude/longitude, and lighting angles. SPICE data and software may be used within many popular computing environments. The software is offered in Fortran, C and IDL?, with a Matlab interface in the works. SPICE is used on NASA's solar system exploration missions, and some NASA space physics and astrophysics missions. It is also being used as an adjunct to local national capabilities on some non-U.S. missions such as Mars Express, Rosetta, Venus Express and Hayabusa. There is no charge to individuals to obtain SPICE data and software. The export status with regard to SPICE components and services, and other rules for using SPICE, are provided under the RULES link on this website. -------------------- -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Jan 4 19:42:09 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:42:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] V v Ch In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.co m> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080104134009.023ee088@satx.rr.com> At 09:31 AM 1/4/2008 -0800, PJ wrote: >[BTW, chocolate... ;-) ] Hey, I prefer a scoop of each, with strawberries. All right, thanks, one flute of champagne. Damien Broderick From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 4 19:37:29 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 11:37:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/4/08, PJ Manney wrote: > Of course, the fallacy lies in the assumption that all stimuli and > response are the same in all people. This is where the empathetic get > in trouble. It's easy to assume that a behavior comes from whatever > stimulus would trigger it in themselves. We know that's not the case. > Not only are people different in their likes, dislikes, appetites, > etc., but some may ape behavior that they don't actually feel to > elicit a specific response, like sociopaths. (They would be excelling > at the first part of the feedback loop -- observing and copying -- and > not the second.) Maybe because I work in a business where sociopathic > behavior is allowed to thrive, I personally find the quoted 4% of > sociopaths out of the entire population unnaturally low. :) > > **The mileage comes in when you grasp the previous paragraph, and see > that patterns that don't exist within your own head exist in others. > When you can predict those, then I'd say you've got some pretty great > people assessment skills. Yup, it's not a simple question of the likelihood that a person prefers chocolate, but rather, a question of my subjective view of the likelihood that a person prefers chocolate. - Jef From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 4 20:01:46 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 12:01:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] V v Ch In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080104134009.023ee088@satx.rr.com> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104134009.023ee088@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 1/4/08, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 09:31 AM 1/4/2008 -0800, PJ wrote: > > >[BTW, chocolate... ;-) ] > > Hey, I prefer a scoop of each, with strawberries. All right, thanks, > one flute of champagne. I honestly can't give a simple answer to such questions. Best I can do is "whichever flavor strikes me as providing the most novelty." Lizbeth asks "What's your favorite color?", and I literally can't answer other than "for what?" - Jef From eugen at leitl.org Fri Jan 4 21:02:05 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 22:02:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 10:55:15AM -0800, Jef Allbright wrote: > Yes, even more certainly than Stathis prefers vanilla. Y'all are weird. What would I prefer? -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 4 21:13:02 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 13:13:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 1/4/08, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 10:55:15AM -0800, Jef Allbright wrote: > > > Yes, even more certainly than Stathis prefers vanilla. > > Y'all are weird. What would I prefer? My model of you says you'd rather not be pinned down, but you'd more often reach for the bowl of chocolate. - Jef From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Jan 4 21:52:48 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:52:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> At 10:02 PM 1/4/2008 +0100, Gene wrote: > > Yes, even more certainly than Stathis prefers vanilla. > >Y'all are weird. What would I prefer? The sauerkraut. From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 4 22:10:58 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 14:10:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 1/4/08, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 10:02 PM 1/4/2008 +0100, Gene wrote: > > > > Yes, even more certainly than Stathis prefers vanilla. > > > >Y'all are weird. What would I prefer? > > The sauerkraut. While that may be reasonable, it's less certain than choosing between chocolate and vanilla. The "secret" of games like this is that the required output is only 1 bit of information, while the input consists of a much greater number of bits of loosely correlated (but not independent) information, matching against vastly more bits of "experience" within an observer system that has practiced "getting out of the way" of the assessment. - Jef From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Jan 4 22:22:02 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 14:22:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30801041422l4b55cb4g32a894e744f90896@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 4, 2008 2:10 PM, Jef Allbright wrote: > The "secret" of games like this is that the required output is only 1 > bit of information, while the input consists of a much greater number > of bits of loosely correlated (but not independent) information, > matching against vastly more bits of "experience" within an observer > system that has practiced "getting out of the way" of the assessment. So after you consider both your own and his personal preferences, physical types, life experiences, your ability to estimate other's internal states and the creation of empathy, do you perceive a gestalt chocolateness/vanillaness or are you aware of adding up the multiple variables? PJ From robotact at gmail.com Fri Jan 4 22:30:40 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 01:30:40 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Jan 5, 2008 1:10 AM, Jef Allbright wrote: > On 1/4/08, Damien Broderick wrote: > > At 10:02 PM 1/4/2008 +0100, Gene wrote: > > > > > > Yes, even more certainly than Stathis prefers vanilla. > > > > > >Y'all are weird. What would I prefer? > > > > The sauerkraut. > > While that may be reasonable, it's less certain than choosing between > chocolate and vanilla. > > The "secret" of games like this is that the required output is only 1 > bit of information, while the input consists of a much greater number > of bits of loosely correlated (but not independent) information, > matching against vastly more bits of "experience" within an observer > system that has practiced "getting out of the way" of the assessment. > It's not at all clear to me that this works. Are there experiments that show that such assessment is better than random? -- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact at gmail.com From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 4 22:42:16 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 14:42:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 1/4/08, Vladimir Nesov wrote: > > > >Y'all are weird. What would I prefer? > > > > > > The sauerkraut. > > > > While that may be reasonable, it's less certain than choosing between > > chocolate and vanilla. > > > > The "secret" of games like this is that the required output is only 1 > > bit of information, while the input consists of a much greater number > > of bits of loosely correlated (but not independent) information, > > matching against vastly more bits of "experience" within an observer > > system that has practiced "getting out of the way" of the assessment. I don't have that data, but consider the effectiveness of "cold-reading", or performers such as Kreskin or Derren Brown (acknowledging that they also use manipulation, trickery, and selection of positive results) or the success of professional poker players. A similar 1-bit "trick" is guessing the actual gender of the agent behind avatars in second life. I kept doing it with regard to Lizbeth's SL friends and she would verify and be amazed. Now she's doing it reliably. Granted there's much higher correlation in this case, between gender and elements of textual expression, but this also means you can do it faster. - Jef From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 4 22:49:42 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 14:49:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801041422l4b55cb4g32a894e744f90896@mail.gmail.com> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> <29666bf30801041422l4b55cb4g32a894e744f90896@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/4/08, PJ Manney wrote: > On Jan 4, 2008 2:10 PM, Jef Allbright wrote: > > The "secret" of games like this is that the required output is only 1 > > bit of information, while the input consists of a much greater number > > of bits of loosely correlated (but not independent) information, > > matching against vastly more bits of "experience" within an observer > > system that has practiced "getting out of the way" of the assessment. > > So after you consider both your own and his personal preferences, > physical types, life experiences, your ability to estimate other's > internal states and the creation of empathy, do you perceive a gestalt > chocolateness/vanillaness or are you aware of adding up the multiple > variables? PJ, I'm already somewhat uncomfortable with how much I exposed earlier about my personal cognitive "features" and the subsequent silence (possibly corresponding to politely averting one's gaze) so I'll follow up with you offline. I do want to emphasize that it's not so extraordinary. The output from this massively parallel process is *only 1 bit.* - Jef From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Jan 4 23:05:33 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 15:05:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30801041505v755c1dc2y2516d1a073c83049@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 4, 2008 2:30 PM, Vladimir Nesov wrote: > It's not at all clear to me that this works. Are there experiments > that show that such assessment is better than random? If you went statistically, the aggregate doesn't test more than randomly, although some individuals are very good at it and others very bad. There is data on this and Gladwell's Blink goes into it. But I've met people who are amazing, like police detectives. I had one in my office when I was a movie exec many years ago and he deconstructed me down to an inch of my life. It was a gas. It's part training and part wiring (analysis is what attracts them to the job in the first place), but a few detectives I've known are some of the best cold readers I've ever seen. They're consciously picking up clues, discarding what appears to them as dissembling, etc. they've learned to get rid of as much of their own garbage that obscures their view and have met such a variety of people, their mileage outstrips most anyone. PJ From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Fri Jan 4 23:28:41 2008 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 16:28:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (updated probability of 1:28) Mars hit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks Amara, I wasn't aware of SPICE before and this discovery of 2007 WD5 has brought a resurge in interest in astronomy for me, specifically what I think you'd call celestrial mechanics or solar system dynamics. For instance, it still astounds me how they can predict that Apophis will get *so* close to the Earth, and yet miss it when it swings by in 2029 as well as miss the gravitational "keyhole" that will put it at risk in 2036. It just amazes me the accuracy of these predictions (although, of course, the flyby hasn't happened yet). Best regards, Kevin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sat Jan 5 00:08:08 2008 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 19:08:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801041422l4b55cb4g32a894e744f90896@mail.gmail.com> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> <29666bf30801041422l4b55cb4g32a894e744f90896@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <39825.72.236.103.69.1199491688.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> I have a confusion with all this. I love chocolate but rather dislike chocolate icecream *and* I rather dislike vanilla icecream as well. Maybe I'm not really human? ;) Regards, MB From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Jan 5 00:21:14 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:21:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <39825.72.236.103.69.1199491688.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> <29666bf30801041422l4b55cb4g32a894e744f90896@mail.gmail.com> <39825.72.236.103.69.1199491688.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080104181924.022bfec0@satx.rr.com> At 07:08 PM 1/4/2008 -0500, MB wrote: >I have a confusion with all this. I love chocolate but rather >dislike chocolate >icecream *and* I rather dislike vanilla icecream as well. > >Maybe I'm not really human? ;) No, you're already posthuman. Which means you'll be able to lick any human. Let me rephrase that. Damien Broderick From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 5 01:01:01 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 12:01:01 +1100 Subject: [ExI] David Brin: The Enlightenment Strikes Back (i.e. the continuing relevance of Marx) In-Reply-To: References: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD280390673F17E@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> Message-ID: On 05/01/2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > Forwarded in its entirety (after reformatting) from another list. Hat > tip to James Hughes: > I often refer to Marx as the greatest of all science fiction authors, > because ? while his long-range forecasts nearly all failed, and some > of his premises (like the labor theory of value) were pure fantasy ? May I point out (only peripherally relevant to this post - sorry) that the labor theory of value was also central for Adam Smith: "The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people.(Wealth of Nations Book 1, chapter V) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value -- Stathis Papaioannou From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sat Jan 5 01:27:12 2008 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 20:27:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080104181924.022bfec0@satx.rr.com> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> <29666bf30801041422l4b55cb4g32a894e744f90896@mail.gmail.com> <39825.72.236.103.69.1199491688.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104181924.022bfec0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <39957.72.236.103.186.1199496432.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > At 07:08 PM 1/4/2008 -0500, MB wrote: > >>I have a confusion with all this. I love chocolate but rather >>dislike chocolate >>icecream *and* I rather dislike vanilla icecream as well. >> >>Maybe I'm not really human? ;) > > No, you're already posthuman. Which means you'll be able to lick any > human. Let me rephrase that. Gha. You make it sound like maybe I'm a puppy! :))) Regards, MB of the *coffee* icecream! From eugen at leitl.org Sat Jan 5 07:54:05 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 08:54:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: <39825.72.236.103.69.1199491688.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <117618.84332.qm@web56513.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30801040931y1b7eaa6fk8160873ce00a6794@mail.gmail.com> <20080104210205.GG10128@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20080104155109.0221d998@satx.rr.com> <29666bf30801041422l4b55cb4g32a894e744f90896@mail.gmail.com> <39825.72.236.103.69.1199491688.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <20080105075405.GI10128@leitl.org> On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 07:08:08PM -0500, MB wrote: > > I have a confusion with all this. I love chocolate but rather dislike chocolate > icecream *and* I rather dislike vanilla icecream as well. A kindred spirit! Hate icecream (esp vanilla), but love chocolate. > Maybe I'm not really human? ;) Naw; then it'd be mostly C-1 feedstock. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 iamgoddard at yahoo.com Sat Jan 5 09:12:52 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 01:12:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <718289.5235.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Do we live in a real universe or in a computer-generated simulation of a universe? The following formalized logical argument concludes the latter. As well as being valid, the argument is intuitively sound being based on classically accepted assumptions (steps 1 and 5) and empirical facts (steps 2 and 6) about the world we live in. All other steps in the eight-step argument are logical derivations. A Simulation Argument 1. If x are unaware and in a real external world,[1] then x do not change their state when observed. 2. Subatomic particles change their state when observed. [2] 3. Ergo: it is not the case that subatomic particles are unaware and in a real external world. 4. Ergo: subatomic particles are either aware or not in a real external world. Now, we can solve the disjunction with an assumption about aware entities: 5. If x are aware, then x have sensory apparatus. 6. Subatomic particles do not have sensory apparatus. 7. Ergo: subatomic particles are not aware. 8. Ergo: subatomic particles are not in a real external world. Here's a simple formal version of the argument. The step numbers match the English version above as do the meanings of the letters which should be clear: 1. (-A & R) -> -C assumption 2. C fact 3. -(-A & R) 1,2 modus tollens, C = -(-C) 4. A v -R 3 De Morgan's 5. A -> S assumption 6. -S fact 7. -A 5,6 modus tollens 8. -R 4,7 disjunctive syllogism We'd complete the argument thus, treating facts as assumptions and applying the Deduction Theorem in steps 10 through 13 (see Mendelson [3]): 9. ((-A & R) -> -C), C, (A -> S), -S |- -R 1-8 10.((-A & R) -> -C), C, (A -> S) |- (-S -> -R) 11.((-A & R) -> -C), C, |- ((A -> S) -> (-S -> -R)) 12.((-A&R) -> -C), |- (C -> ((A -> S) -> (-S -> -R))) 13. |- ((-A&R) -> -C) -> (C -> ((A->S) -> (-S -> -R))) So 13 is a tautology of propositional logic. The argument could also be represented in predicate logic, especially given the form of English statements 1 and 5. But in this case it only adds unnecessary complexity such that the simpler of the two representations is sufficient and preferable. Quantum Mechanics Explained Classically It is especially important that the assumptions above are in fact classically accepted, for it means quantum mechanics (QM) is here incorporated into a *classical* model of reality. In other words, QM fits in this theory positing that in the real world, the states of all entities exist as they are whether or not they're observed. But in this theorized real world there is a simulation of the real world, and in that simulated world the observer independence of the real world is not the case, and we happen to find ourselves in that simulated world. Why Observer Dependence In A Simulation? In one term: on-call rendering. In a computer-generated virtual reality, objects in a comprehensive model of the world are rendered into a visible simulation of the world if and only if they are observed by the user. This serves to conserve finite system resources as rendering objects is a costly operation. Let's call this thrifty process 'on-call rendering'. So, under the theory put forward herein, observation-affected quantum phenomena is on-call rendering in a computer-generated universe wherein computer-generated quantum physicists perform experiments. Their experiments have reached to the roots of the program that we live in, exposing the actual fabricated fabric of our universe. [4] Stepping Aside Now, standing aside from the theory above, I'm still agnostic about any simulation theory. It is one thing to execute linguistic formalisms of logic, even co-mingled with classic assumptions about the world, and another to prove the resulting statements are in fact true about the world outside the language. The problem I still seem to find with simulation theories is that of testability. What test could prove we are not in a simulated universe? If we can't answer that, then we can't prove we are in a simulated universe. But the above argument at least makes it seem plausible to me at the time I'm writing this. ~Ian ____________________________________________________ [1] Definition of 'real external world' : observable area outside an observer the fundamental components of which exist as they are observed by the observer independently of the observer's observation of them. [2] That observation changes the state of subatomic particles is most unequivocally demonstrated by Wheeler's Delayed-Choice Gedanken Experiment: http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse Proof of Wheeler's delayed-choice gedanken experiment: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/315/5814/966 http://fr.arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0610/0610241v1.pdf [3] Mendelson, 'Introduction to Mathematical Logic': http://www.amazon.com/dp/0412808307 [4] 'On-call rendering' advances an argument that may have been originally proposed by unidentified wikipedia editor 66.227.203.49 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Simulated_reality&diff=97026101&oldid=97024349 http://IanGoddard.net "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Einstein "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 5 11:29:11 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 22:29:11 +1100 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <718289.5235.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <718289.5235.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 05/01/2008, Ian Goddard wrote: > Do we live in a real universe or in a > computer-generated simulation of a universe? The Many Worlds Interpretation explains the apparent observer-dependence of quantum level events without invoking the simulation argument, or the ever weirder alternative whereby physical reality *really is* determined by the observer. -- Stathis Papaioannou From amara at amara.com Sat Jan 5 17:30:04 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 10:30:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (updated probability of 1:28) Mars hit Message-ID: Kevin H kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com : >I wasn't aware of SPICE before and this discovery of 2007 WD5 has >brought a resurge in interest in astronomy for me, specifically what I >think you'd call celestrial mechanics or solar system dynamics. For >instance, it still astounds me how they can predict that Apophis will >get *so* close to the Earth, and yet miss it when it swings by in 2029 >as well as miss the gravitational "keyhole" that will put it at risk in >2036. It just amazes me the accuracy of these predictions (although, of >course, the flyby hasn't happened yet). I'm blown away that the dust trails that are sloughed off by the parent comets to become the meteor streams, which the Earth intersects in times of meteor showers are predicted so accurately. So that the scientists can distinguish trails from particular past years of the comet's passage going back a few hundred years. For example: http://www.arm.ac.uk/leonid/dustexpl.html http://www.arm.ac.uk/leonid/ If you are curious why I'm blown away by such accurate predictions, it is because gravity isn't the only force impressed on the particles. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From amara at amara.com Sat Jan 5 18:00:22 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 11:00:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Survival Message-ID: Eugene: >On Fri, Jan 04, 2008 at 07:08:08PM -0500, MB wrote: >> >> I have a confusion with all this. I love chocolate but rather dislike >>chocolate icecream *and* I rather dislike vanilla icecream as well. >A kindred spirit! Hate icecream (esp vanilla), but love chocolate. I can support Eugene's statement about the chocolate. Guess what, MB, my international-move-from-hell is almost complete.. my household, upon arrival on the other side of the Atlantic to the Port of Houston in the third week of December, was separated from the other shipments and Xrayed (I keep thinking that the dogs must have sniffed my tea and spices), and was then put on a train across the mid-section of the US between Christmas and New Years. Last Friday, my house-on-the-train entered Colorado, and on this Monday, I will receive my household. Two months after waving goodbye to it in Frascati, Italy. I trust that Murphy's Law has finished running amok in my life, and that the last phase of my international move will have no problems. I'll be sure to take pictures of my home's arrival to complete the set. I was beginning to get bored wearing the same two wool sweaters... but this is Boulder, not Italy, and no one really cares what clothes I wear! Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 5 18:00:20 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 10:00:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (updated probability of 1:28) Mars hit In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200801051824.m05IOwic028280@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Amara Graps ... > > For example: > http://www.arm.ac.uk/leonid/dustexpl.html > http://www.arm.ac.uk/leonid/ > > If you are curious why I'm blown away by such accurate predictions, it is > because gravity isn't the only force impressed on the particles. > > Amara Amara this is an interesting comment. The size of particles that make for really good meteors are the pea-gravel-ish size and larger, ja? Gravity would be the only force which would do much to those orbits on the time scale of a few hundred years, unless I misunderstood your PhD thesis (entirely possible.) spike From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sat Jan 5 18:26:55 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 13:26:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <68CE6D6B507E48B889FBD32883D360D1@Catbert> On the vanilla-chocolate scale, I'm strawberry. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From hkhenson at rogers.com Sat Jan 5 19:20:45 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2008 12:20:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] End of the Gene In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1199560858_8339@S1.cableone.net> I have been asked by a journal to do an article with this title. Problem is I wrote a page and can't really think of more to say. Suggestions welcome, can send what I have to anyone who wants to see it. Keith From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sat Jan 5 22:26:18 2008 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 17:26:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40154.72.236.103.3.1199571978.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> >>A kindred spirit! Hate icecream (esp vanilla), but love chocolate. > > I can support Eugene's statement about the chocolate. My daughter, living in Germany, has brought me various chocolates and marzipan! :) No fooling, that's good stuff. Marzipan makes Christmas something to look forward to! > > Guess what, MB, my international-move-from-hell is almost complete.. my > household, upon arrival on the other side of the Atlantic to the Port of > Houston in the third week of December, was separated from the other > shipments and Xrayed (I keep thinking that the dogs must have sniffed my > tea and spices), and was then put on a train across the mid-section of > the US between Christmas and New Years. Last Friday, my > house-on-the-train entered Colorado, and on this Monday, I will receive > my household. Two months after waving goodbye to it in Frascati, Italy. > I trust that Murphy's Law has finished running amok in my life, and that > the last phase of my international move will have no problems. I'll be > sure to take pictures of my home's arrival to complete the set. > I am happy that things are finally coming together for you. It is my hope that one or both of your notebooks will surface - I mean, it's not been all that long and my Christmas present which was sent from Germany has not yet arrived, though it was to be here before Christmas. That said, I have had one lost mailing *to* Germany, and it never did surface. That was some years back. I've received several broken-open mailings (some with pieces missing, some with pieces broken) from Germany, but IMHO they are packaging errors. My correspondent didn't understand exactly how to pack breakables nor how much tape to use to ensure packages don't come open enroute. We've had some conversations about it and lately packages arrive in much better shape. :) > I was beginning to get bored wearing the same two wool sweaters... but > this is Boulder, not Italy, and no one really cares what clothes I wear! > Well now, Amara, I'm sure the shops in Boulder have after-Christmas sales just like shops all over the US, so you might have remedied that two-sweater situation. ;) But there are many more useful and interesting and important ways to spend money. I look forward to more pictures. Regards, MB ps. Goodwill has some excellent buys on sweaters.... ;) From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sat Jan 5 22:52:22 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 17:52:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Survival In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Amara graps wrote: > I trust that Murphy's Law has finished running amok in my life Ooh, so close... And then you had to say something like this. (That's just tempting fate....) -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sat Jan 5 23:06:35 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 18:06:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <718289.5235.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <34D7FD3657D84BFFB58F49486F6084A3@Catbert> Ian Goddard wrote: > 1. If x are unaware and in a real external world,[1] > then x do not change their state when observed. Your first assumption is flawed. Subatomic particles do change their state when observed. You argument assumes that this could not occur in a real external world. But you give no evidence or argument for this belief. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Sat Jan 5 23:53:14 2008 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 16:53:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <34D7FD3657D84BFFB58F49486F6084A3@Catbert> References: <718289.5235.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <34D7FD3657D84BFFB58F49486F6084A3@Catbert> Message-ID: On 1/5/08, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > Ian Goddard wrote: > > 1. If x are unaware and in a real external world,[1] > > then x do not change their state when observed. > > Your first assumption is flawed. Subatomic particles do change their > state > when observed. You argument assumes that this could not occur in a real > external world. But you give no evidence or argument for this belief. Well, the issue with this premise is that it isn't clear where it comes from. In addition to this, all superfluous elements of the premise that aren't relevant to the validity of the argument (including, a great deal of meaningful content) are left out, which makes the proposition difficult to grasp. But, it's not an objection that a deductive argument relies on premises, just that it should be fleshed out a little as to why the author has confidence in them. I think the main thing is that deduction is only one tool in our logical toolkit, and this deductive argument while, I admit looks interesting, looks like something put together rather late in the analysis. What we need is some context to indicate why this argument should be meaningful to us. Best regards, Kevin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 01:11:35 2008 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 18:11:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <718289.5235.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <718289.5235.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Interesting argument Goddard. But one thing strikes me: you're trying to argue for a computer-simulated reality, but given your definition for a "real external world" all you're really arguing for is an observer-dependent reality. While, I agree that a computer-simulated entails an observer-dependent reality, I don't see how the reverse can be argued. To me, this looks like a classical argument for anti-realism, just given a quantum theoretical spin. At first, when studying the argument, it brought to mind mind-dependent theories of reality, but it occurred to me that there actually is a difference between being mind-dependent and being observer-dependent, though it is logically possible that reality can be both. I think given the sparseness of real empirical evidence, the best we can do is build a collection of possible hypotheses that explain it and try to wittle down the possibilities one by one. I don't think we'll end up with one final hypothesis that we can adopt without a reasonable doubt, perhaps the criteria should be more likely than not? Thanks, Kevin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at amara.com Sun Jan 6 01:17:53 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 18:17:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] End of the Gene Message-ID: hkhenson hkhenson at rogers.com : >Problem is I wrote a page and can't really think of more to say. >I have been asked by a journal to do an article with this title. >Suggestions welcome, can send what I have to anyone who wants to see it. You could describe trends in the Western countries. My generation of women (middle 40s) is the last who will experience the phenomenon of unreproduceable genes in otherwise fully healthy bodies. Freezing eggs became viable only a few years ago, so young 20/30s women can now give themselves the 20 year buffer that I was hoping to have 15 years ago, when I started tracking the egg-freezing technology, but it is too late for me. I can physically carry a baby to term, but I can't make a baby (eggs too old). I can be a womb and 'adopt' a fertilized egg, but I can't adopt a fully formed baby made by someone else (in many countries, the age difference limitation between mother and baby is 45 years). This may sound like an odd phenomena, but according to the Estonian fertility clinic doctors I am seeing, creating life with eggs not one's own is a commonly suggested path to women like me. Educated, ready financially (finally) to grow and support a family, but with a gene line that is dead. So genetic testing won't determine the parent of _my_ potential baby to be. My baby will be the product of all my heart and mind, instead. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From amara at amara.com Sun Jan 6 01:34:00 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 18:34:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Survival Message-ID: MB >I am happy that things are finally coming together for you. It is my >hope that one >or both of your notebooks will surface - You might not understand what happened. The package of my calculations notebook _did_ surface, but most of the contents were not in it. You can see in the photographs (third and fourth of this set) http://www.flickr.com/photos/spaceviolins/sets/72157603456349361/ that it was sent with 2kg of stuff (the postage shows the full amount for 2kg: 16 euros), and what arrived was a ripped edge, taped up with the United Postal Service clear tape, and with most of the contents missing. The notebook has inside my name and phone number and email address, but I doubt any Italian postal worker will think a notebook written in English and with funny Greek symbols and charts has any value. A SwRI colleague inspected the envelope from the inside, and he thinks that it was cut. I honestly don't know what to think, but it doesn't matter any more. The notebook is gone, and I've already started to try to reproduce what was there. Under some pressure.. my work group of that project wants to publish *real soon now*... There is another package that never arrived, but I'm doing without it, and the loss wasn't as great a tragedy. I cleaned up the mess, put the used envelopes in the trash last week as a kind of New Years Resolution to start fresh, and I wish mostly to forget about it and move on. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From amara at amara.com Sun Jan 6 03:18:04 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 20:18:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Asteroid on track for possible (updated probability of 1:28) Mars hit Message-ID: Spike: >The size of particles that make for really good meteors are the >pea-gravel-ish size and larger, ja? Gravity would be the only force >which would do much to those orbits on the time scale of a few hundred >years, The size is on the cusp when the forces get really interesting...! One can't assume gravity is the dominant force. Look here: "The Meteoroid Environment: Shower and Sporadic Meteors" http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps/dips2005/120_CampellBrown_FINAL.pdf from this book: http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps/dips2005/dipschapters.html Also of interest is the size distribution of the meteoroids: this is influenced both by the formation of the stream and its subsequent evolution. The cumulative mass distribution is the index of the power law of the masses of the shower; it can be found from the slope of a plot of log cumulative number against log of mass (or equivalently echo amplitude, for radar echoes). An example (from the 2005 Draconid outburst) is shown in Figure 4. Shower meteoroids tend to have small mass distribution indexes, since larger particles are less perturbed from their original orbits and the dominant mass input from cometary decay is in larger (mm- to cm-sized) meteoroids. Some streams also show mass sorting as a function of solar longitude near their maximum activity, with larger and smaller particles having undergone different histories and having different density distributions in the stream [39]. The links between shower meteoroids and their parent bodies is one of the most interesting aspects of the study of meteor showers. The timing and duration of meteor showers, coupled with the dispersion in radiant and speed for a single shower, give insights into the ejection processes and the evolution of meteoroid streams after ejection. The light curves (plots of luminous intensity against time or height) of ablating meteors can give valuable insights into the physical structure and chemical composition of meteoroids, and therefore of their parent bodies. This allows researchers to sample material from a large number of objects whose orbits cross the orbit of the Earth, and also to sample larger material than dust collectors in space can harvest. Studies of light curves [19],[3] have shown that the ablation of meteoroids is inconsistent with solid, meteorite-like objects: cometary meteors appear to be dustballs, or loose agglomerations of small solid grains. Such structures produce relatively symmetrical light curves, rather than curves with slow increases in brightness followed by rapid drops, as expected from modelling solid stone spheres. All cometary showers studies, as well as most sporadic meteors (eg [26]), show this sort of symmetric light curve. For other forces than gravity, see 1) the Yarkovsky Effect, which begins having an influence at sizes of ~10 cm and larger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarkovsky_effect One recent application: http://asymptotia.com/2007/09/09/origins-of-a-species-killer/ and 2) radiation pressure force, which strongly influences particles a little bit smaller (say < 1 mm). --- There is also another effect: "photophoresis". But I don't think the modelers are considering that effect yet (new idea). http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/432087 Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From fauxever at sprynet.com Sun Jan 6 04:42:23 2008 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 20:42:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph Message-ID: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> http://tinyurl.com/346w5h So, extropes and transhumanists, if this is true and if you were the boss of the world ... what would you do? Olga From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Sun Jan 6 04:21:26 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 20:21:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Do we live in a real universe or in a > > computer-generated simulation of a universe? > > The Many Worlds Interpretation explains the apparent > observer-dependence of quantum level events without > invoking the simulation argument, or the ever > weirder alternative whereby physical reality > *really is* determined by the observer. It's not clear to me that because the MWI explains quantum observation phenomena by positing countless numbers of entities (worlds) it is preferable to a theory that explains by positing *only one* entity, or world, containing a simulation of a world. If Occam's razor is a useful rule of thumb and the simulation theory is equally explanatory as the MWI, we should reject the MWI outright given the economy of the simulation theory. Indeed, the MWI would seem to be a prototype violation of Occam's razor wherein entities (worlds) are multiplied beyond necessity. Furthermore, MWI requires that we posit states of affairs without antecedent in empirical experience. Nobody has seen one world branch off another world. MWI is metaphysical. On the other hand, computer-generated simulations have antecedence in experience because humans have created and observed them. So at least we know worlds with simulations in them can exist. The simulation theory is therefore built up by classical Humean induction on empirical experience, which is to say the simulation theory looks like a scientific hypothesis, whether or not falsification criteria have been, or can be, clearly defined. ~Ian http://IanGoddard.net "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From seienchan at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 05:19:59 2008 From: seienchan at gmail.com (Seien) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 05:19:59 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> Message-ID: <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> a) it is true. b) If england won't buck up in time - and there is still time - move to America. It's what Ayaan Hirsi Ali did with the netherlands. On 06/01/2008, Olga Bourlin wrote: > > http://tinyurl.com/346w5h > > So, extropes and transhumanists, if this is true and if you were the boss > of the world ... what > would you do? > > Olga > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- ~Seien -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Sun Jan 6 05:17:51 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 21:17:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <154960.64534.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Harvey Newstrom wrote: >> 1. If x are unaware and in a real external world, >>[1] then x do not change their state when observed. > > Your first assumption is flawed. Subatomic > particles do change their state when observed. You > argument assumes that this could not occur in a > real external world. But you give no evidence or > argument for this belief. Right, I agree with your overall point, but the first assumption is not 'flawed' because it merely assumes. Assumptions are just * assumptions *. And so classic logical-argumentation structure is: IF assumption x is true, THEN... leading by rules of deduction from x to such and such other statements. The purpose of deductive argumentation is to see where we can go IF we accept some assumption(s) as true. It is informative to me that we can go from an assumption that reflects classical physical theory to a conclusion that the world is not a real world. Otherwise, I agree with your overall point... How do we prove assumption 1 is better than another saying some things are unaware and change their state upon observation? I raised that question in my post. http://IanGoddard.net "Since proofs need premises, it is impossible to prove anything unless some things are accepted without proof." - Bertrand Russell ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 6 05:48:21 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 21:48:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801060612.m066Cv3W028903@andromeda.ziaspace.com> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Seien Subject: Re: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph > a) it is true.? > b) If england won't buck up in time - and there is still time - move to America...~Seien Cultures that believe that all cultures are equal are soon supplanted by cultures that do not. spike From seienchan at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 06:23:03 2008 From: seienchan at gmail.com (Seien) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 06:23:03 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: <200801060612.m066Cv3W028903@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> <200801060612.m066Cv3W028903@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <7d6322030801052223x7582f6a2k4d609e654b6e066b@mail.gmail.com> Why is it so absurdly hard to persuade people that cultural relativism stinks? O_o -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Jan 6 06:48:57 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 01:48:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <154960.64534.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <97F6C50006A243E1A28B4FAFFA4E6393@Catbert> Ian Goddard wrote: > Right, I agree with your overall point, but the first > assumption is not 'flawed' because it merely assumes. > Assumptions are just * assumptions *. And so classic > logical-argumentation structure is: IF assumption x is > true, THEN... leading by rules of deduction from x to > such and such other statements. Look up the terms "vacuous truth" and "counterfactual conditional". There are classical logical fallacies where the major premise is assumed to be true or proposed to be true rather than actually being true. > The purpose of deductive argumentation is to see > where we can go IF we accept some assumption(s) as > true. It is informative to me that we can go from an > assumption that reflects classical physical theory to > a conclusion that the world is not a real world. No, the purpose of deductive argumentation is to deduce further facts from existing known facts. The major premise must be true for the argument to be true. If the major premise is assumed, it is called "begging the question" or "circular logic" where the assumption is made first, and then the argument is derived from the assumption. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 07:22:53 2008 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 00:22:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <97F6C50006A243E1A28B4FAFFA4E6393@Catbert> References: <154960.64534.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <97F6C50006A243E1A28B4FAFFA4E6393@Catbert> Message-ID: On 1/5/08, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > No, the purpose of deductive argumentation is to deduce further facts from > existing known facts. The major premise must be true for the argument to > be > true. If the major premise is assumed, it is called "begging the > question" > or "circular logic" where the assumption is made first, and then the > argument is derived from the assumption. He's trying to say the argument is meant hypothetically, as testing out the consequences from the premises. It actually does make sense, if you suspect a given conclusion to be true, to find a deductive argument for it to see if the necessary premises for it can be substantiated, and which premises are needed. Logic only cares about *logical* priority, it really doesn't care if you come across the conclusion or the premises first; and it certainly doesn't demand that premises can't be tested or tried out until you somehow have absolutely certainty that they are true. And I think it's time to distinguish between soundness and validity. There's no logical meaning that I know of for an argument being "true". Validity just ensures that *if* the premises are true, then the conclusion is necessarily true. Soundness is when the argument is valid, the premises are all true, and the conclusion is therefore true. While it is great when an argument is sound, as that is usually the ultimate aim of the argument, it is really only the arguments in mathematics where we can have confidence in the soundness of arguments. Everywhere else, there's usually some measure of doubt. Kevin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 07:25:51 2008 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 00:25:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: <7d6322030801052223x7582f6a2k4d609e654b6e066b@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> <200801060612.m066Cv3W028903@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7d6322030801052223x7582f6a2k4d609e654b6e066b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/5/08, Seien wrote: > > Why is it so absurdly hard to persuade people that cultural relativism > stinks? O_o The same reason people ask rhetorical questions :) Kevin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Jan 6 09:00:26 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 01:00:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] End of the Gene References: <1199560858_8339@S1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <036a01c85042$a987c4d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Hi Keith, Yes, please send it. Also---I've already forgotten the key word that would let me access your SF story. Thanks, Lee ----- Original Message ----- From: "hkhenson" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 11:20 AM Subject: [ExI] End of the Gene >I have been asked by a journal to do an article with this title. > > Problem is I wrote a page and can't really think of more to say. > > Suggestions welcome, can send what I have to anyone who wants to see it. > > Keith > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From scerir at libero.it Sun Jan 6 09:14:39 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 10:14:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument References: <718289.5235.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <007101c85044$91327360$bd951f97@archimede> From: "Ian Goddard" > [1] Definition of 'real external world' : observable > area outside an observer the fundamental components of > which exist as they are observed by the observer > independently of the observer's observation of them. I don't realize the difference between simulationism and other religions (like Islam, or Christianity). But the concept of 'real' external world is not an easy one. Even the usual definition of external physical 'reality' [1] appears to be flawed in many ways (disturbing a system ... can predict with certainty ...). Everettistas might say that MWI perfectly describes an external physical reality, according to the definition given below. (The first formulation, the relative state, does not seem to describe an 'external' reality though). It is a bit disturbing that MWI can be considered a 'realistic' theory, since it predicts a different value of a physical quantity in every single world. [1] If, without in any way disturbing a system, an observer can predict with certainty the value of a physical quantity, then there exists an element of physical 'reality' corresponding to this physical quantity. From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 10:31:02 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 10:31:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 6, 2008 5:19 AM, Seien wrote: > a) it is true. > b) If england won't buck up in time - and there is still time - move to > America. It's what Ayaan Hirsi Ali did with the netherlands. > It is true that a bishop in the Church of England made this speech and it was headlined in a right-wing conservative paper that blames all problems on immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, drugs, etc. But bishops in the CofE mostly talk nonsense anyway. He was mainly having a moan about the loss of influence of the CofE in the UK. Fewer people go to church than ever before (and they are mostly old folk) and still fewer care about CofE pronouncements. There are many so-called 'no-go' areas in the UK. Even the police don't go into some of the deprived housing estates. (Except to clear up the mess after another murder. The daily violence and crime in there goes on unchecked). There has indeed been a lot of immigration into the UK, and instead of becoming the 'multi-cultural' Britain beloved by the politicians, people tend to group together in their own communities. There are Irish areas, Australian areas, Polish areas, Chinese areas, Indian areas, etc. Just as there are rich areas and poor areas. The problem isn't immigration so much as the tremendous drop in the birth rate of the original population. This is a problem faced by all European countries, and others, such as Japan. Children in the UK today are overwhelmingly of foreign extraction. But somebody has to do the work and pay the pensions of the dying-out original UK residents. BillK From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 6 11:45:21 2008 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 11:45:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] bishop warns of no-go areas In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <834724.24015.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Speaking as an Englishman living in a mostly-white area, I can honestly tell you a lot of people will have no direct experience of heavily Islamic areas. I grew in North Yorkshire (one of England's whitest counties), and have lived in poor areas of Liverpool and now live in Cheltenham, a fairly well-off town. The white middle-class people I work with,live with, and socialise with, are only likely to come into social contact with professional, well-educated Muslims. The areas the Bishop is talking about are inner-city areas where immigrants have come together and where there has been "white flight" to the suburbs. Several big cities have developed large areas with big immigrant populations. These areas have developed the voluntarily segregated communities mentioned in the article. Because they live in their voluntary segregation, and people like me are happy in our little suburbs, no-one really has much idea of how the other half lives. Many of these segregated areas are in poor areas. Shortage of social housing and jobs has led to ethnic tension - white far-right politicians claiming "the asians are stealing our houses", asian people who can't get a job complaining "white employers only give jobs to white people", and the scarcity of resources has caused racially-motivated violence. As to how much these are "no-go" areas? Well, it wouldn't be the first time - in the early 80s, race riots in afro-caribbean areas meant there were parts of London,Leeds and Liverpool it was dangerous for a white person to walk into. On the other hand, the North Yorkshire villages my father and sisters live in are notoriously unfriendly to outsiders, and everyone would stare at any non-white faces they hadn't met before. In conclusion - it's very hard to get a grip on how much of a problem this is, and how to address this. The very insularity of my society makes it hard to assess. (as an aside, Islam in Britain is not a monolithic entity. Most muslims are descended from Islamic immigrants. Because of the way immigration works, the old,established Islamic communities are of people descended from the area around Mirzapur in Pakistani Kashmir, and the town of Sylhet in Bangladesh. More recent communities are made from people fleeing Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Each has their own ethnic differences, each has its own variations on islam, and each only has minimal contact with the others. The mosques preaching Sharia law are unlikely to be the same mosques where white,anglo-saxon converts to Islam worship). Tom __________________________________________________________ Sent from Yahoo! Mail - a smarter inbox http://uk.mail.yahoo.com From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 13:57:36 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 00:57:36 +1100 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 06/01/2008, Ian Goddard wrote: > If Occam's razor is a useful rule of thumb and the > simulation theory is equally explanatory as the MWI, > we should reject the MWI outright given the economy of > the simulation theory. Indeed, the MWI would seem to > be a prototype violation of Occam's razor wherein > entities (worlds) are multiplied beyond necessity. It's a common criticism, but in fact Occam's razor is the main justification of the MWI. The "entities" in Occam's razor are assumptions, not quantities of physical objects. It is simpler to suppose that the universe is infinite in extent than to suppose that it ends at the edge of visible space, even though an infinite universe is infinitely larger than the Hubble volume, and moreover isn't empirically verifiable. Similarly, the MWI is what is left if you remove from quantum mechanics the notion of an arbitrary "collapse of the wave function" or other explanation such as the simulation one. It is of course *possible* that there is a collapse or a simulation taking place, but these are extra assumptions which the razor should cut away unless there is some extra justification for them. > Furthermore, MWI requires that we posit states of > affairs without antecedent in empirical experience. > Nobody has seen one world branch off another world. > MWI is metaphysical. Yes, but arguably every theory of reality is metaphysical; for example, the theory than objects don't disappear when you look away from them and reappear when you look back. If you want to be a strict positivist (and I must say, I think positivism has a lot going for it), you should refrain from any metaphysical speculation including the "common sense" kind. > On the other hand, > computer-generated simulations have antecedence in > experience because humans have created and observed > them. So at least we know worlds with simulations in > them can exist. The simulation theory is therefore > built up by classical Humean induction on empirical > experience, which is to say the simulation theory > looks like a scientific hypothesis, whether or not > falsification criteria have been, or can be, clearly > defined. ~Ian You're making one other assumption which has no antecedence in experience, namely that reality should be "classical" unless someone is tampering with it. The only example of reality anyone has ever seen is non-classical. -- Stathis Papaioannou From dagonweb at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 15:33:19 2008 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 16:33:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "If england won't buck up in time - and there is still time - move to America. It's what Ayaan Hirsi Ali did with the netherlands." Not true. Hirsi Ali was quietly asked to leave. Note that she started out as a socialist, moved to another party (the right side of the political party) for career reasons, and ever since has been exploiting her unique status as a credible ex-moslim. While I completely sympathize with her ideas, she is moving fully career driven and told me so IN PERSON. Sure, she believes about her ideals, she is completely true, but she says "I have cleaned offices. Now I do thousand dollar speeches. One would be an idiot not to grasp this opportunity." Hirsi is just a well-integrated opportunist immigrant using whatever opportunity comes her way. Hirsi Ali agitated against a small fringe of Islam, a lunatic minority of conservative nuts. Even though I am an avowed atheist, living in densely populated west of the netherlands, the idea that there is any serious problem is nonsense. The only problem in the netherlands is this area is insufficient integration of the older immigrants, racism in the workplace, weak politicians and politicians actively exploiting the issue. Immigrant kids growing up in the netherlands are so completely westernized that whenever they visit Turkey or Marocco on vacations the local spit on them, and label them TRAITORS. Sure Islam is a viotriolic, reactive force in international politics. However in the Netherlands Islam is the liferaft of a bunch of completely backward economic losers. Second generation immigrant kids in the netherlands have a choice of three extremes: spend a life in mental health care, selfmedicate on drugs or become a muslim. These are completely pathetic people and they have nowhere to go. To them being a despised loser underclass in western europe is still far better than having to live in the third world - a third world that wouldn't even accept them anymore even if they tried. This problem is categorically unsolvable through polemization or tighter laws. You can not terrorize immigrants back to their own country. You cannot forcibly inject integration into them. You cannot un-muslimize them. Without that last bit of ideology they'd desintegrate in a world they can barely understand. Breaking immigrants simply will not happen, and the only alternative is becoming a far right dictatorship that breaks all international rules and deports "undesirables". We all know what the price of that is. So the only solution is, for the US with tides of hispanic and oriental people flooding in, or in europe, with largely ignored and low-opportunity immigrants we have (and not many coming in) is integration, a slow, painful and arduous process lasting probably 2-3 generations. Live with it. Force them to learn the language. Give them a chance at making a living. Put them in prison when they fuck up. Slowly you will get results and by 2050 this problem will be a footnote in history. The rhetoric that Europe is being taken over is obviously complete nonsence. There will never be a real islamic majority anywhere in Europe the next century. Islam is a marginalized fringe phenomenon and will remain so, even if we ignored it. Preaching that Islam is taking over the world is a flimsy excuse, a smokescreen to push for quite other political ideals - Ideals I like even less than Islam. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Jan 6 16:05:26 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2008 10:05:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] End of the Gene In-Reply-To: <1199560858_8339@S1.cableone.net> References: <1199560858_8339@S1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <20080106160528.MWPN11918.hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> At 01:20 PM 1/5/2008, you wrote: >I have been asked by a journal to do an article with this title. > >Problem is I wrote a page and can't really think of more to say. > >Suggestions welcome, can send what I have to anyone who wants to see it. I haven't read anyone's suggestions yet, but for me the end of the gene relates to the biological, chemical unit of heredity rather than the end of the building codes altogether. Partially biological and future humans need building codes whether they are disembodied or a material posthumans. A near-future building code is nanogenetics. A key characteristic of the nano-gene is that the gene becomes a nonbiological transport vehicle for mutable data to regenerate the human rather than simply a static blueprint/construction plan. Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 16:46:30 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 17:46:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: <200801060612.m066Cv3W028903@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> <200801060612.m066Cv3W028903@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801060846t44e227a4k7814affc943b9812@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 6, 2008 6:48 AM, spike wrote: > Cultures that believe that all cultures are equal are soon supplanted by > cultures that do not. Well, luckily, wouldn't you say? Stefano Vaj From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Jan 6 16:40:31 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 11:40:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <9F6B9077BDEB4261BDF559EB378DA044@Catbert> Kevin H <> wrote: > He's trying to say the argument is meant hypothetically, as testing > out the consequences from the premises. If you actually looked up the terms "vacuous truth", "counterfactual conditional", "begging the question" and "circular logic", you would see what is flawed in his premise. You are correct that a hypothetical premise can be used to test potential logical consequences. But not if the premise presumes the conclusion, as is the case here. Then the hypothetical does not derive any conclusions not already assumed, and does not test anything. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 6 16:27:53 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 08:27:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] bishop warns of no-go areas In-Reply-To: <834724.24015.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200801061652.m06GqTYr017607@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tom Nowell >... > As to how much these are "no-go" areas? Well, it > wouldn't be the first time - in the early 80s, race > riots in afro-caribbean areas meant there were parts > of London,Leeds and Liverpool it was dangerous for a > white person to walk into. ...> Tom Tom, is there a map available? The locals know where to not go, but the hapless tourist could wander into the wrong area and be slain. Until a map is available explaining where I must not go, tourism in England is risky, ja? I see a huge international incident brewing, the first time a tourista does bumble into the wrong area, handing out Episcopalian literature in a Presbyterian neighborhood for instance. Tourists do not need such a map in the states, for it isn't really a particular religion to avoid. If a tourist vacations here, anyone anywhere might shoot her. spike From charlie at antipope.org Sun Jan 6 16:56:03 2008 From: charlie at antipope.org (Charlie Stross) Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2008 16:56:03 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47810823.7060709@antipope.org> BillK wrote: > On Jan 6, 2008 5:19 AM, Seien wrote: >> a) it is true. >> b) If england won't buck up in time - and there is still time - move to >> America. It's what Ayaan Hirsi Ali did with the netherlands. > > It is true that a bishop in the Church of England made this speech and > it was headlined in a right-wing conservative paper that blames all > problems on immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, drugs, etc. Speaking as another Brit, that's basically true. Combination of loony out-of-touch god-botherer and right-wing conservative newspaper with a strong anti-muslim agenda. Don't let the "Londonistan" idiots bamboozle you -- this is basically propaganda pandering to a certain audience, and it's going to look about as believable in sixty years' time as the "Yellow Peril" scares of the 1930s and early 1940s do today. > But bishops in the CofE mostly talk nonsense anyway. > He was mainly having a moan about the loss of influence of the CofE in the UK. > Fewer people go to church than ever before (and they are mostly old > folk) and still fewer care about CofE pronouncements. Sunday CofE attendance figures are lower than Catholic church attendance figures. And given that Catholicism was actually *illegal* in the UK for a few centuries, that's saying something. > The problem isn't immigration so much as the tremendous drop in the > birth rate of the original population. This is a problem faced by all > European countries, and others, such as Japan. Despite which, the UK is currently having its biggest baby boom in, oh, about 30 years. And it's not all immigrants, either: the locals are also spawning in large numbers. -- Charlie From aiguy at comcast.net Sun Jan 6 18:06:03 2008 From: aiguy at comcast.net (Gary Miller) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 13:06:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] bishop warns of no-go areas In-Reply-To: <200801061652.m06GqTYr017607@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <834724.24015.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200801061652.m06GqTYr017607@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <01fc01c8508e$ce8e9cd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Spike said: >> "Tourists do not need such a map in the states, for it isn't really a particular religion to avoid. If a tourist vacations here, anyone anywhere might shoot her." >> I realize this was meant as sarcasm but it does perpetuate a myth... According to the Wikipedia murder rates in the US are down a good bit since the 1990's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate It looks to be from the list that there are at least 43 countries with higher murder rates than the United States. And many countries either under report or do not report rates at all like China. Open societies with their sensationalist reporting coverage often look a lot more dangerous than other parts of the world where hundreds of unknown murder victims may be covered in one mass grave not to mention all the other missing persons who were buried and never found. It's hard to know where the United States stands in terms of overall safety, but I hate to see the myths about tourists being in grave danger here being perpetuated. That being said. Because of gang and drug problems the large urban areas like Washington DC and New York City have much higher murder rates than your average American city due to drug related killings and gang violence. Also the definition of murder changes from country to country. For instance in the US people killed by drunk drivers are often counted as murder victims if their killers acted in utter recklessness or wantonness and in some cases they are convicted of first degree murder. http://www.dui1.com/Dui_Lawyers_Driving8.htm Also from Wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_Driving "Comparisons with other Countries The USA has one of the worst DUI driving accident rates in the developed world while having lower to mid-range rates of alcohol consumption. The UK has a DUI accident rate less than half the USA, higher alcohol consumption per capita and more or less unlimited 24 hour access to alcohol for teenagers. The crime of DUI manslaughter does not exist in legislations outside the USA and the sentence of causing death by dangerous driving is correspondingly lower, usually 3-4 years for a first offence." The question is do we have a higher number of DUI's or do we just enforce the prosecution of this crime on a more regular basis. Since the US has started to seriously crack down on drunk drivers in the 1990's a much greater number of DUIs resulting in fatalities are prosecuted as, and therefore reported as murders, as they should be. But if other countries do not do this or prosecute as such then their murder rates would be grossly understated compared to ours. From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Sun Jan 6 17:58:34 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 09:58:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <453364.81081.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Kevin H wrote: > Interesting argument Goddard. But one thing > strikes me: you're trying to argue for a computer- > simulated reality, but given your definition for a > "real external world" all you're really arguing for > is an observer-dependent reality. Not following you there. My definition of 'real external world' is of an observer independent reality: [1] Definition of 'real external world' : observable area outside an observer the fundamental components of which exist as they are observed by the observer independently of the observer's observation of them. It's the antithesis of an observer-dependent reality. > While, I agree that a computer-simulated entails an > observer-dependent reality, I don't see how the > reverse can be argued. To me, this looks like a > classical argument for anti-realism, just given a > quantum theoretical spin. Those are good points. The eight-step argument just concludes that empirical data from quantum experiments conflicts with the reality criterion of observer independence in assumption 1. It says nothing about computer simulations. So in a larger argument I'm making I insert 'computer simulation' as an indicated explanation. But now it seems that that move lacks and needs justification. It might be that we conclude that the world 'out there' must be a dream and I'm really a brain in a vat. Now I think there are reasons to go with the former view rather than the vat view, but that needs articulation. ~Ian http://IanGoddard.net "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Sun Jan 6 18:46:35 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 10:46:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <609244.62910.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> scerir wrote: >> [1] Definition of 'real external world' : >> observable area outside an observer the >> fundamental components of which exist as they are >> observed by the observer independently of the >> observer's observation of them. > > I don't realize the difference between > simulationism and other religions (like Islam, > or Christianity). We've never seen or known of a 'God' who created a real universe. We've never observed entities that are 'gods' or 'angels' nor any of the supernatural powers they're said to posses. On the other hand, we have observed computers and the ability to create simulated realities with them. In theory, a computer could create a simulated world as real and complex as our world, and it could in theory contain computer-generated sentient operators who see that simulation as their 'real world'. Fragments of this scenario have already been developed. So simulationism posits no supernatural entities, it simply induces that what's possible in our visible region may be possible in a universe that contains our visible region. This is a major difference from religion-based models. > But the concept of 'real' external world > is not an easy one. Even the usual definition > of external physical 'reality' [1] appears > to be flawed in many ways (disturbing a > system ... can predict with certainty ...). But for the argument posted the objective was simply to present a definition of 'real external world' that models intuition underling the classical view of reality. I wasn't trying to articulate *The* one true definition of reality. Just performing an exercise in seeing where classical intuition about our relation to the external world can take us given results of quantum experiments. ~Ian http://IanGoddard.net "Since proofs need premises, it is impossible to prove anything unless some things are accepted without proof." - Bertrand Russell ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 6 19:25:36 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 11:25:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] bishop warns of no-go areas In-Reply-To: <01fc01c8508e$ce8e9cd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: <200801061950.m06JoCrY024743@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > To: 'ExI chat list' > Subject: Re: [ExI] bishop warns of no-go areas > > > Spike said: >> "Tourists do not need such a map in the states, for it > isn't really a particular religion to avoid. If a tourist vacations here, > anyone anywhere might shoot her." >> > > I realize this was meant as sarcasm but it does perpetuate a myth... Gary Well, actually snarkasm, a dark-humor reference to the crime situation in one of our well known big cities. Short version: the police chief realized that crime could not be completely eliminated, but could be controlled. He made a deal with the gangs, parolees and freelance criminals, an uneasy truce: their territory was 64th down to the waterfront. As long as they stayed in that area, they could do whatever they wanted, the cops would do nothing. Rent was very cheap down there, organized crime ruled over the entire area, using capital punishment early and often. If a known criminal committed any crime outside that area, or even wandered outside that territory, the cops could shoot the bastard on sight, fair game. Outside that area, the city was safe. If a citizen wandered into that area, it was assumed that she was looking for trouble, going to see a prostitute, buy illegal booze, pharmaceuticals, etc. If she was raped or mugged down there, then the cops would do nothing, since the citizen who went there knew the risks. The situation was stable, even if not entirely satisfactory. Idealistic young chief of police comes to town, decides to clean up the city, all of it. Now 64th to the river is no more dangerous than any other neighborhood. One can be raped or mugged anywhere in the city. spike From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 20:25:20 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 14:25:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Re-framing Innovation re Consciousness In-Reply-To: References: <380-2200712528224325316@M2W011.mail2web.com> <20071230160745.WVFS11918.hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <200801061425.21376.kanzure@gmail.com> Just connecting a few threads that have been left open ... On Sunday 30 December 2007, x at extropica.org wrote: > roughly 50/50 mix of genetic vs. environmental influence.] ?To the > extent that the organism perceives its level of > [intelligence|influence|capacity for self-actualization?] to exceed > that of its environment of interaction, then its optimum strategy > should be proactionary. ?Note however that this implies the The other day this same topic came up with Harvey, Eugen and Jef. On Tuesday 01 January 2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > This touches on a key point that seems to elude the most outspoken > proponents of hard take-off singularity scenarios: So-called > "recursively self-improving" intelligence is relevant only to the > extent it improves via selective interaction with its environment. > If the environment lacks requisite variety, then the "recursively > self-improving" system certainly can go "vwhooom" as it explores > possibility space, but the probability of such explorations having > relevance to our world becomes minuscule, leaving such a system > hardly more effective than than a cooperative of technologically > augmented humans at tiling the galaxy with paperclips. > > This suggests a ceiling on the growth of **relevant** intelligence of > a singleton machine intelligence to only slightly above the level > supported by all available knowledge and its latent connections, > therefore remaining vulnerable to the threat of asymmetric > competition with a broad-based system of cooperating technologically > augmented specialists. However, I am not immediately seeing what a proactionary strategy would call for when that relevant intelligence exceeds the capacities of its environment to respond to itself [the intelligence]. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Jan 6 20:55:19 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:55:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080106144635.02179170@satx.rr.com> At 12:57 AM 1/7/2008 +1100, Stathis wrote: >You're making one other assumption which has no antecedence in >experience, namely that reality should be "classical" unless someone >is tampering with it. The only example of reality anyone has ever seen >is non-classical. Which I think was Harvey's real point. It's interesting to see how words keep skewing our understanding. "Classical" really means "narrow spectrum, parochially folk-theorized," just as "the wisdom of the ancients" means "preliminary speculations from the childhood and adolescence of careful thinking." Even a word like "observation" manages to infect "non-classical" thinking with its animist or intentionalist coloring. Damien Broderick From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Sun Jan 6 22:51:58 2008 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 15:51:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <9F6B9077BDEB4261BDF559EB378DA044@Catbert> References: <9F6B9077BDEB4261BDF559EB378DA044@Catbert> Message-ID: On 1/6/08, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > If you actually looked up the terms "vacuous truth", "counterfactual > conditional", "begging the question" and "circular logic", you would see > what is flawed in his premise. Enough with the patronizing, I know what those terms mean. You are correct that a hypothetical premise > can be used to test potential logical consequences. But not if the > premise > presumes the conclusion, as is the case here. Then the hypothetical does > not derive any conclusions not already assumed, and does not test > anything. But that's all deductive reasoning can do. You can't introduce new terms in the argument that aren't contained in the premises, you can only follow valid forms of entailment. Look, this syllogism has been criticized: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. By your standards, this syllogism too is begging the question. If that bothers you then stay away from deduction. Myself, I see a role that deduction plays in overall inquiry, but it can't establish the truth of it's own premises, that's its nature. And I thought I'd even do what you ask, just to be amicable, and found an article here ( http://actionskeptics.blogspot.com/2006/09/circular-reasoning.html). I suggest you take a look at it too as it brings up the same issue I'm raising: that deduction itself can be seen as circular. I think he tries to distinguish between circular reasoning and deduction, but I'll leave it to you to decide if you think he's successful. One way to produce a counterargument would be to show me a deductive argument that you don't consider circular, explain why it isn't circular and maybe I'll see what you're saying too and agree with it. Kevin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Mon Jan 7 00:49:42 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 16:49:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <840687.61774.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Harvey Newstrom wrote: >> Right, I agree with your overall point, but the >> first assumption is not 'flawed' because it merely >> assumes. Assumptions are just * assumptions *. And >> so classic logical-argumentation structure is: IF >> assumption x is true, THEN... leading by rules of >> deduction from x to such and such other statements. > > Look up the terms "vacuous truth" > and "counterfactual conditional". There are > classical logical fallacies where the major premise > is assumed to be true or proposed to be true rather > than actually being true. Wrong. Counterfactuals and vacuous truths are not classical logical fallacies. For example, here's a counterfactural: 'if it rained today, then I'd be wet'. But in saying that I'm not proposing 'it rained today' is true, nor am I guilty of a fallacy. A vacuous truth is the case where the antecedent is false. By the truth conditions of the conditional, that means the conditional is true. So the statement, 'If up is down, then ____' is vacuously true for any consequent. It's also not a fallacy. > No, the purpose of deductive argumentation is to > deduce further facts from existing known facts. > The major premise must be true for the argument > to be true. Wrong. You're not going to learn new facts about the world given a set of facts about the world and a deductive system. You'll only get out of the facts what's already contained in them. This is basic stuff. The logical syntax underling deductive argumentation does not rely on the external world. For example, this argument is logically valid: All unicorns live in England. Oscar is a unicorn. Ergo, Oscar lives in England. It makes no difference that the major premise is false, the argument is deductively valid. But if we take what you're saying to be the case, that argument is a fallacy, but it's not. And notice how we didn't derive a new fact, that 'Oscar lives in England' was already contained in the premises. > If the major premise is assumed, it is > called "begging the question" or "circular logic" > where the assumption is made first, and then the > argument is derived from the assumption. Harvey, that's not what 'begging the question' or 'circular logic' are... look 'um up! http://IanGoddard.net "Since proofs need premises, it is impossible to prove anything unless some things are accepted without proof." - Bertrand Russell ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Jan 7 01:05:24 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 19:05:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Universal languages (was: wta-talk Voting Members ...) In-Reply-To: References: <200712291414.40140.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801061905.24564.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 29 December 2007, Vladimir Nesov wrote: > of common concepts, not special kind of language. Communication with > other kinds of minds depends on kinds of imagery and processes that > can exist in them and consists in evoking of analogous thought > processes in communicating persons by any available means. Vladimir, thank you for your excellent post. Already I have found myself using the Hofstadter quote in other conversations, as it is important in the history of ideas. And I am not yet ready to let this thread die. I think many of us here have tried imagining what "other kinds of minds" really means, and it can mean a great many things, especially since we cannot completely state with certainty what exactly a mind is or what an exotic variation on 'mind' would look like. I wanted to talk about how to make those analogies for an exotic mind, but as I consider this, I find it limiting as it assumes that I already know that certain signals of mine trigger certain analagous thoughts in the foreign mind system. How could that be? I start with no knowledge of the foreign system except that it must, somehow, operate by the same laws of logic, simplicity and thermodynamics that I do. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Jan 7 01:05:16 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2008 18:05:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net> At 08:33 AM 1/6/2008, Dagon wrote: snip >Hirsi is just a well-integrated opportunist immigrant using whatever >opportunity >comes her way. > >Hirsi Ali agitated against a small fringe of Islam, a lunatic >minority of conservative >nuts. Even though I am an avowed atheist, living in densely >populated west of the >netherlands, the idea that there is any serious problem is nonsense. The only >problem in the netherlands is this area is insufficient integration >of the older >immigrants, racism in the workplace, weak politicians and politicians actively >exploiting the issue. The fact that the politicians *can* exploit the issue indicates that there is some degree of underlying social issue. It would be worth considering what conditions create this situation. It would also be interesting to consider what conditions would allow a small fringe of Islam to gain a lot of influence. In an evolutionary psychology context of course. >Immigrant kids growing up in the netherlands are so completely >westernized that >whenever they visit Turkey or Marocco on vacations the local spit on them, and >label them TRAITORS. > >Sure Islam is a viotriolic, reactive force in international >politics. However in the >Netherlands Islam is the liferaft of a bunch of completely backward >economic losers. >Second generation immigrant kids in the netherlands have a choice of >three extremes: >spend a life in mental health care, selfmedicate on drugs or become a muslim. >These are completely pathetic people and they have nowhere to go. To them >being a despised loser underclass in western europe is still far >better than having >to live in the third world - a third world that wouldn't even accept >them anymore >even if they tried. In this regard it is worth considering the selection trajectory of different ethnic groups in the last 20 generations. While there are certainly overlaps, the distribution of psychological traits leading to economic success is almost certainly different for different ethnic groups and likely reflects the strong genetic selection that went on when there was a fairly stable population and the wealthy had the lion's share of the surviving children in Western Europe. Whatever the psychological traits are for becoming economic winners, if they were heritable, then 20 generations of this kind of selective survival should certainly make them a lot more common. >This problem is categorically unsolvable through polemization or >tighter laws. You can >not terrorize immigrants back to their own country. You cannot >forcibly inject integration >into them. You cannot un-muslimize them. Without that last bit of >ideology they'd >desintegrate in a world they can barely understand. >Breaking immigrants simply will not happen, and the only alternative >is becoming a far >right dictatorship that breaks all international rules and deports >"undesirables". We all >know what the price of that is. It has happened. It can happen again. What you need to be considering is what are the conditions that trip such events and what can be done at a deep level to keep such conditions from happening. If you have been following my efforts, I claim to know what the underlying problem is and even how it can be solved. (Short term, that is pre singularity, one thing that would do it is a project to solve the carbon and energy problems. Longer term it is not likely to matter since physical state humans will most likely be entirely gone by the end of this century.) >So the only solution is, for the US with tides of hispanic and >oriental people flooding >in, or in europe, with largely ignored and low-opportunity >immigrants we have (and >not many coming in) is integration, a slow, painful and arduous >process lasting >probably 2-3 generations. Live with it. Force them to learn the >language. Give them a >chance at making a living. Put them in prison when they fuck up. >Slowly you will >get results and by 2050 this problem will be a footnote in history. Given an economy rising faster than the population I agree with you, this would probably work. But given a contracting economy, like what happened prior to last big mess in Europe, I would not be the least surprised to see a replay. >The rhetoric that Europe is being taken over is obviously complete >nonsence. There >will never be a real islamic majority anywhere in Europe the next >century. Islam is >a marginalized fringe phenomenon and will remain so, even if we ignored it. That's very likely true. Islamic minorities may cause serious problems though. >Preaching that Islam is taking over the world is a flimsy excuse, a >smokescreen to >push for quite other political ideals - Ideals I like even less than Islam. The fact that people *can* push "other political ideals" and not be laughed at is a bad sign. 20 years ago I noted that downturns in the US economy were mirrored by upturns in neo nazi activity. At the time I had no idea of why, but I do now. I can say more, but you might want to read my last major paper first. Keith From mail at harveynewstrom.com Mon Jan 7 02:09:01 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 21:09:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <840687.61774.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F385BDCED084FD89B214DB97379D53E@Catbert> Ian Goddard wrote: > Wrong. Counterfactuals and vacuous truths are not > classical logical fallacies. For example, here's a > counterfactural: 'if it rained today, then I'd be > wet'. But in saying that I'm not proposing 'it rained > today' is true, nor am I guilty of a fallacy. Agreed. Counterfactuals and vacuous truths are not classical logical fallacies. They merely are examples where the truth or falsehood of the premise leads to the truth or falsehood of the conclusion. The above quote comes from a tangent, but is not my main argument. My main argument is that I claimed your logic was circular. > All unicorns live in England. > Oscar is a unicorn. > Ergo, Oscar lives in England. > > It makes no difference that the major premise is > false, the argument is deductively valid. But if we > take what you're saying to be the case, that argument > is a fallacy, but it's not. And notice how we didn't > derive a new fact, that 'Oscar lives in England' was > already contained in the premises. No. The conclusion is not contained in either the first or second premise. It is only the combination of them together that deduces the conclusion. However, in your original argument, I believe that the single first premise that quantum mechanics don't really work (but only appear to work) does conclude that we are in a simulation all by itself. It does not require the further facts, and is only understandable given the possibility of the conclusion. In fact, I would argue that you would have never thought up that premise or been lead to it had you not first considered the possible conclusion that we are in a simulation. The premise doesn't mean anything outside that conclusion. (How could quantum mechanics not really be working, but only appear to us that they are working?) That is what I mean. I think your premise is derived from your conclusion and cannot be derived or understood on its own without deriving or understanding the conclusion first. >> If the major premise is assumed, it is >> called "begging the question" or "circular logic" >> where the assumption is made first, and then the >> argument is derived from the assumption. > > Harvey, that's not what 'begging the question' or > 'circular logic' are... look 'um up! Right, I was sloppy here and typing too fast. (So the confusion was confounded by me.) What I meant to say was if the major premise assumes the conclusion (not is assumed without the conclusion) it is called begging the question or circular logic. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at harveynewstrom.com Mon Jan 7 01:59:39 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 20:59:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <177371AB44D641DDBA62EEFFF23E9A50@Catbert> Kevin H wrote: > On 1/6/08, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > If you actually looked up the terms "vacuous truth", "counterfactual > > conditional", "begging the question" and "circular logic", you would > > see what is flawed in his premise. > > Enough with the patronizing, I know what those terms mean. Sorry. I though you didn't understand my position. You now seem to claim that you do, but you don't think it applies in this case. > Look, this syllogism has been criticized: > > All men are mortal. > Socrates is a man. > Therefore, Socrates is mortal. > > By your standards, this syllogism too is begging the question. No, I do not think this is begging the question. The fact that the premise leads to the conclusion does not mean that it presupposes the conclusion. All men could be mortal even if Socrates was not a man and was not mortal. But in Ian's example, I don't see how the premise that quantum mechanics don't really work (but merely are made to appear to work) could be true unless the conclusion is also true. The premise is dependent on the conclusion, instead of the other way around. That's why I think it is circular logic or begging the question. In fact, I insist that there is no evidence that quantum mechanics are mere simulations except based on the simulation argument in the conclusion. The conclusion came first, and this argument with its premise came afterwards. That is how I see it. > If > that bothers you then stay away from deduction. Myself, I see a role > that deduction plays in overall inquiry, but it can't establish the > truth of it's own premises, that's its nature. That is exactly what I am saying. That is why your example premise was good, but Ian's premise is flawed. His conclusion that we are in a simulation is trying to prove his premise that quantum mechanics don't really work (but are simulated to appear to work). His logical deduction is trying to establish the truth of its own premise. > And I thought I'd even do what you ask, just to be amicable, and found > an article here > (http://actionskeptics.blogspot.com/2006/09/circular-reasoning.html > ). I suggest you take a look at it too as it brings up the same issue > I'm raising: that deduction itself can be seen as circular. I think > he tries to distinguish between circular reasoning and deduction, but > I'll leave it to you to decide if you think he's successful. Interesting diversion into nihilism. But the flaw here is that the author confuses "==>" with "==". Just because the premise leads to the conclusion via "==>", does not mean that the premise equaled the conclusion via "==". The author is arguing that the premise must contain the conclusion to lead to it. Classical logic says that a proper syllogism cannot contain the conclusion that it leads to. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Jan 7 04:31:35 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 23:31:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Universal languages (was: wta-talk Voting Members ...) In-Reply-To: <200801061905.24564.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200712291414.40140.kanzure@gmail.com> <200801061905.24564.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <62c14240801062031i70452462l16324e427bf95b70@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 6, 2008 8:05 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > How could that be? I start with no knowledge of the foreign system > except that it must, somehow, operate by the same laws of logic, > simplicity and thermodynamics that I do. One leap might be to imagine a huge difference in scale. Consider what might be possible in a Tegmark multiverse; there could be 'intelligence' that requires a series of universes to be created and destroyed for a single "thought" to occur. I'm not suggesting that we would have any way to interact with such a mind. So maybe your thought experiment could be more limited? From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Jan 7 04:39:16 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 22:39:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Universal languages (was: wta-talk Voting Members ...) In-Reply-To: <62c14240801062031i70452462l16324e427bf95b70@mail.gmail.com> References: <200801061905.24564.kanzure@gmail.com> <62c14240801062031i70452462l16324e427bf95b70@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801062239.17002.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 06 January 2008, Mike Dougherty wrote: > destroyed for a single "thought" to occur. I'm not suggesting that we > would have any way to interact with such a mind. ?So maybe your > thought experiment could be more limited? Perhaps. I was also thinking of communicating with contexts in general. Like with a rock. Of course, the rock probably wouldn't tell you much, as it does not have cognition, and yet it still has properties and it is still a statement of the environment that formed it, yes? or something - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Jan 7 05:07:15 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 21:07:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] EP and sentimentality was songs 2 In-Reply-To: <1197407678_22771@S4.cableone.net> References: <200712110608.lBB68CMw005196@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <401841.2136.qm@web30401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7d6322030712102303s414d617cge832597e1c9cf6b0@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240712110607p3ef502b2s48488a9f6c865cae@mail.gmail.com> <7d6322030712110643m5e7fa744v47730b765546378e@mail.gmail.com> <29666bf30712110825y7d96180bk7634f8f365e3a7e6@mail.gmail.com> <7d6322030712110958o24b007eao115b49dbd7f10bdd@mail.gmail.com> <1197407678_22771@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <29666bf30801062107x36e08c55ucb7f48adf7997d8b@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 11, 2007 1:14 PM, hkhenson wrote: > Ok, let's drag out the mental EP microscope and look at > sentimentality. Why do some stories affect most people in a highly > emotional way? I have not given this much thought, so take a crack > at it and you teach me. We can start by listing stories and > describing common features. > > I will contribute one, The short story "Leaf by Niggle" by JRR > Tolkien. It's impossible for me to read or even to think about > without dripping tears. > > Please play by the EP rules. I have wanted to address your question for a long time, but like in "Leaf by Niggle", Keith, life and creation got in the way. Here are some ideas (not fleshed out as much as I'd like, but there you go): The word "sentimentality" is a tough one. It's very subjective -- What is it? And to what people? Sentimentality is more than empathy. It implies to me a personal relationship, like the one you describe with "Leaf by Niggle". It is often developed in youth, and we know when we learn something when we're young, the odds of it affecting us in permanent way are much higher. (Think of the books you read or music you listened to -- you taught your brain to like that while your brain was still extremely malleable -- or at least more so than it is now.) Or the story resonates with your own early experiences, which are more indelibly printed on our minds than later experiences. We can also be hardwired for it, but I'd guess that's more to the general flavor of the sentimentality and not the specific instances, which are experiential. I've discussed why we empathize with stories before. http://www.pj-manney.com/empathy.html And we don't need to list stories to find commonality. If we take the Joseph Campbell approach that there is really only one monomyth, the one he calls The Hero's Journey, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth then humanity culturally-evolved, simultaneously and in parallel, a mythic structure on which to hang all storytelling. But I believe the question you're really asking is 'why this structure?' That is where the EP lies. So how about this: Like the new theory of dreams, which sees them as the mental practice field in which we learn to survive life's hazards (hence why nightmare are more common than happy dreams) http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20071029-000003.xml monomyths could be the mental visualization, the internal practice for the arduous life ahead. The hero starts with his normal life, then something happens that changes everything and for which he is not fully prepared. So he must rise to the occasion, conquer the villains/demons/etc. and return to his tribe with the prize. Stories teach us survival traits, both practical (how do you run away from/kill a monster, outsmart a villain, attract someone so you can reproduce, etc.) and behavioral (don't panic or give up, stick together, work as a team, don't trust everyone, etc.). The hero is now us. The main character is our proxy, going through his world, encountering obstacles to his success/happiness/survival and having to overcome them. And we're learning from our easy chair what lessons he learned the hard way. As to the personal reaction to one story versus another -- which I think is the sentimentality you speak of -- that's not so much EP as personal psychology. The EP/monomyth reaction is there, for sure. But why you weep at "Leaf by Niggle" as opposed to why I weep at "Flowers for Algernon" has more to say about us as individuals, how we're wired, when we read it and under what circumstances we relate to it than anything else. Like relating to any art form, taste is a matter of many variables, some innate and some acquired. PJ From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Mon Jan 7 04:40:37 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 20:40:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <727307.55215.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Harvey Newstrom wrote: >> All unicorns live in England. >> Oscar is a unicorn. >> Ergo, Oscar lives in England. >> >> It makes no difference that the major premise is >> false, the argument is deductively valid. But if >> we take what you're saying to be the case, that >> argument is a fallacy, but it's not. And notice >> how we didn't derive a new fact, that 'Oscar lives >> in England' was already contained in the premises. > > No. The conclusion is not contained in either the > first or second premise. It is only the combination > of them together that deduces the conclusion. I never said the conclusion of a valid deduction exists in one if its premises, that would obviously be circular. My point is better stated: deduction makes explicit what's already implicit in the premises. Hay, I just googeled "deduction makes explicit" and got an perfect hit: "This deduction makes explicit what is implicit in the premises, and it does not increase their semantic information." http://books.google.com/books?id=dxxTBRRkqREC That's exactly my point. So again, the point of deductive argumentation is to see where we can go from some set of assumptions. In other words, to see what statements we must accept as true if we accept the assumptions as true, which are known as the 'logical consequences' of the assumptions. > However, in your original argument, I believe that > the single first premise that quantum mechanics > don't really work (but only appear to work) does > conclude that we are in a simulation all by > itself. It does not require the further facts, and > is only understandable given the possibility of the > conclusion. If the argument was circular, it would show up in its formal representation I posted, but it doesn't. It's a straight out non-circular valid argument. Moreover, the shortfall Kevin H astutely pointed out is that my eight-step argument is moot on the issue of any simulation, it's more of a standard anti-realist argument with a quantum twist, as he put it. So the argument didn't even assume a simulation, much less conclude that a simulation is necessary. I simply presented a simulation theory as an explanation after the argument. A better argument needs to demonstrate some necessary connection from the deduction to the universe being a simulation. http://IanGoddard.net "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Jan 7 09:14:11 2008 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 19:44:11 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Anti-Transsimianismus In-Reply-To: <20080103122436.GH10128@leitl.org> References: <20080103122436.GH10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <710b78fc0801070114t3eb34dc0u1f3c459566bfde0c@mail.gmail.com> I'm betting there is a subset of the list who are not subscribed to transhumantech. Here's a great piece of writing that Eugen posted there, have a read. -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Eugen Leitl Date: 3 Jan 2008 22:54 Subject: [tt] [forum] Anti-Transsimianismus To: tt at postbiota.org ----- Forwarded message from " mixter at gmail.com" ----- From: " mixter at gmail.com" Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 12:35:28 +0100 To: forum at detrans.de Subject: [forum] Anti-Transsimianismus Reply-To: ?ffentliches Forum zum Transhumanismus Gefunden auf: [1]http://dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_040.html The following was taken from a cave wall painting in southern Tunisia more than 300,000 years ago. Fossil evidence suggests that the author was of the species Homo erectus. "Enough is Enough" A Thinking Ape's Critique of Trans-Simianism To further expound upon the topic of last week's installment, I will address the more specific claims of Dr. Klomp and his radical theory that has been gaining wider acceptance throughout the community. Once again I would like to thank our readers for sending in your fish bones and boar hides in support of this journalist's campaign to expose Dr. Klomp's trans-simianist prattle for what it is: a collection of wishful thoughts out of keeping with any factual evidence. The term 'trans-simian' comes from the shortening of 'transitional simian,' a concept Dr. Klomp has developed to describe an individual who is in an evolutionary transition from simian to post-simian, though Klomp himself admits that he is not entirely clear what a true post-simian would be. Characteristics exhibited by a trans-simian include augmentation of one's natural abilities with 'tools,' as well as one's mental capacities with what has been dubbed 'culture.' Klomp's primary argument rests on what he calls the 'Quickening,' an imagined point somewhere in the future when the advancement of 'culture' occurs so rapidly that its pace will far exceed that of biological evolution. In his own words, "There will come a time when within a single generation we will develop one or possibly even two new ideas Current advancements in the 'bow' and 'arrow' industries suggest an exponential trend in the expansion of our technological capacities. We are able to perform hunts in a fraction of the time it took our ancestors, thus freeing up valuable time to ' think ' of new ideas. In the post-simian world, we may develop into a species that is not only intellectually superior to our current state, but capable of feats beyond the comprehension of a contemporary simian." Pardon this author for not holding his breath. Notice that Klomp cherry-picks discoveries to better support his argument of an exponential growth. It took more than a million years to develop fire and the hand-ax, and yet Klomp believes simply because it took only 2,000 years to develop bows and arrows that new inventions will spring up in even shorter timeframes. This theory is an expansion of 'Morg's Law,' which states that since a sharpened rock can in turn become a chisel to make an even sharper rock, that the sharpness of hand-axes will increase exponentially over the span of tens of thousands of years. While Morg's Law has so far proven accurate, Klomp can't escape the reality that there is an upper limit, namely that a rock can only become so sharp. We have already noticed a slight decline in the growth of hand-ax sharpness, but Klomp insists that when the potential of stone axes becomes exhausted, new materials will be discovered to replace the rocks and continue the exponential trend of sharpness. As of the time of this article, however, he has provided no evidence of what these miracle rocks are. Klomp also argues that there will come a time when we will use tools to create other tools, though naturally this is a laughable fiction since there has never been any recorded evidence of a tool making another tool, or even any records for that matter. Another factor in Klomp's post-simian world is the development of "abstract thought" that will be aided by "the ability to store memories and thoughts outside our brains onto physical media, perhaps on flattened tree bark. To achieve this we will have to overcome the problem of turning words, which are sounds, into things we can see, but given current trends this is an engineering issue that will ultimately be resolved. This will be the real catalyst for the Quickening, when the memories of one generation will literally become immortal and then build upon the memories of the next, creating a sort of mass mind that experts in my field are calling "history." In the post-simian world our era might even be referred to as pre-history." Here we see Klomp's predictions descend from unsupported speculation to sheer fantasy. His recent cave painting, The Quickening is Near, explains in great detail different methods we may employ to transform words into some kind of visible format, but all are incomplete. The simple fact remains that words are sounds, not pictures, and no amount of wishing will change that. Even if such a thing were possible, it is doubtful that many would wish to store their memories externally. This author, for one, would prefer it if his memories stayed in his head and not on some cold, lifeless bark. The most shocking of Klomp's predictions, however, is that we apes will have little or no place in the post-simian world. "As technological progress outpaces biology, new selective pressures will arise that will force our species to evolve mentally and physically beyond what we are now. This is the same trend that gave rise to our own intelligent species, but it will only accelerate in the coming generations. Our new environment increasingly favors higher dexterity and intelligence, and so the true post-simian will not be an ape at all. It will share some similarities with the modern ape, but at the same time possess capacities far beyond our comprehension. The thought capacity of a single post-simian could be greater than the combined brains of every ape in the world." More intelligent than an ape? Klomp fails to explain just what a post-ape can think of that we mere mortals cannot. The capacity of the simian mind is already far beyond any animal in the world: We are capable of using speech to let others know where we are, where to sleep and eat, and where to find shelter when it rains. Exactly how fast do we need our brains to be to figure these things out? When will we decide that enough is enough? Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that such a post-simian future is possible or even probable. Is it really a world we should want to strive for, where our very ape nature is stripped away in the name of efficiency? Technologies such as the bow and arrow already desimianize the act of hunting. While our ancestors were able to experience the pure ape feeling of clubbing an animal to death with a rock, we are left with the cold, sterilized bow that kills cleanly and quickly from a safe distance. This separation from basic daily activities is a slippery slope. What would happen if we no longer had to gather fruits and nuts, and they simply grew wherever we wanted them, or had drinking water flow right to our feet instead of wandering in search of streams for days? These seeming conveniences would rob us of what it means to be an ape. Klomp predicts that through a technology called 'hygiene' we could extend the simian lifespan well into the late 20s or possibly 30s. What exactly will the post-simian do with all that time? Do we really want to live in a society populated by geriatric 27- year- olds? In living so long and spending so much time 'thinking,' do we not also run the risk of becoming a cold, passionless race incapable of experiencing our two emotions (fear and not fear)? How much of our simianity are we willing to sacrifice for this notion of progress? Rest assured that while Klomp may have accru ed a recent following, there is no reality to his fantastic claims. What is concerning is the increasing number of young apes spending less time clubbing animals and more time 'inventing,' 'thinking' and 'creating,' none of which contribute to the preservation of the simian way of life. These sorts of fads come and go, however, and this author is confident that in a short while everyone will have forgotten about Klomp and the notion of being anything more than an ape." -Thog Professor of Finding an Animal and then Killing It, The University of the Woods -- Translated by Aaron Diaz of Dresden Codak References 1. http://dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_040.html _______________________________________________ forum mailing list forum at detrans.de http://admin.detrans.de/mailman/listinfo/forum ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 _______________________________________________ tt mailing list tt at postbiota.org http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/tt From robotact at gmail.com Mon Jan 7 11:39:23 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 14:39:23 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Universal languages (was: wta-talk Voting Members ...) In-Reply-To: <200801062239.17002.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200801061905.24564.kanzure@gmail.com> <62c14240801062031i70452462l16324e427bf95b70@mail.gmail.com> <200801062239.17002.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 7, 2008 7:39 AM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Sunday 06 January 2008, Mike Dougherty wrote: > > destroyed for a single "thought" to occur. I'm not suggesting that we > > would have any way to interact with such a mind. So maybe your > > thought experiment could be more limited? > > Perhaps. I was also thinking of communicating with contexts in general. > Like with a rock. Of course, the rock probably wouldn't tell you much, > as it does not have cognition, and yet it still has properties and it > is still a statement of the environment that formed it, yes? > It may be useful to consider rocks in the same framework: you communicate with rocks using the same principles. By observing rocks in their environment you construct their model in your mind, so that you are able to predict what will happen to them when something changes or to infer bits of information you don't directly observe. This communicates information about rocks to you. In opposite direction, you can create a pattern of rock layout in your mind and then actually move rocks in the same pattern, thus communicating from pattern in your mind to physical organization of rocks. Likewise with all other domains: people understand rules that govern them, and in cases where they can influence them they can imagine new patterns that can be communicated to them (created in these domains by interaction). This way we program computers, engineer new machines, study materials. Human body replaces old atoms with new ones, arranging new material in old patterns. Human intelligence is general enough to understand many things: we can talk to photons, to galaxies and to other people. But likewise we can program computers to model some of these things even more precisely, in cases where unaugmented human mind can't create close enough analogies within itself. -- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact at gmail.com From dagonweb at gmail.com Mon Jan 7 15:20:44 2008 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 16:20:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: <1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net> References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> <1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: > >Hirsi is just a well-integrated opportunist immigrant using whatever > >opportunity > >comes her way. > > > >Hirsi Ali agitated against a small fringe of Islam, a lunatic > >minority of conservative > >nuts. Even though I am an avowed atheist, living in densely > >populated west of the > >netherlands, the idea that there is any serious problem is nonsense. The > only > >problem in the netherlands is this area is insufficient integration > >of the older > >immigrants, racism in the workplace, weak politicians and politicians > actively > >exploiting the issue. > > The fact that the politicians *can* exploit the issue indicates that > there is some degree of underlying social issue. It would be worth > considering what conditions create this situation. It would also be > interesting to consider what conditions would allow a small fringe of > Islam to gain a lot of influence. In an evolutionary psychology > context of course. > I do agree that there is a market of dissatisfaction meeting annoyance. However I am somwhat of the persuasion there is a demographic of people that will be annoyed no matter what happens - and more annoyed if they make less money and experience more social distress. So "decent" politics does their best to maximize a steady income and peaceful living conditions, whereas it can be plausibly argued "bad" politics has much to profit from maintaining "excuses/scapegoats" in the form of troubled underclasses. Islam fits that niche at the moment and I am positive this will prove a footnote causing a good measure of collective shame in the long run. Islam is associated with arabic people and languages. Arabic cultures have different looks and ideas of esthetics. I don't call arabs or arabic people by default ugly; they just play less into the hyperinflated ideals of sexualization and commercial aesthetics as we have come to do in the west. Compared with indonesian immigrants we had in the netherlands, this makes it objectively easier to "just don't like muslims". That is a developmental reason that largely plays into xenophobia. Burqa's are hideous fashion accessories and instill universal resentment. The dutch will quickly imagine muslims breeding on and on, retaining their own values and not mixing with dutch values. People on both sides regard each other with consistent revulsion. Absolutely, when I walk into a tram over here and there is a scattering of muslim women seated here and there (all with headscarves) I am sure to have absolutely zero contact with them - and I am clearly a progressive individual. The only contact I have with muslims is a casual friendly chat in the supermarket. >Immigrant kids growing up in the netherlands are so completely > >westernized that > >whenever they visit Turkey or Marocco on vacations the local spit on > them, and > >label them TRAITORS. > > > >Sure Islam is a viotriolic, reactive force in international > >politics. However in the > >Netherlands Islam is the liferaft of a bunch of completely backward > >economic losers. > >Second generation immigrant kids in the netherlands have a choice of > >three extremes: > >spend a life in mental health care, selfmedicate on drugs or become a > muslim. > >These are completely pathetic people and they have nowhere to go. To them > >being a despised loser underclass in western europe is still far > >better than having > >to live in the third world - a third world that wouldn't even accept > >them anymore > >even if they tried. > > In this regard it is worth considering the selection trajectory of > different ethnic groups in the last 20 generations. While there are > certainly overlaps, the distribution of psychological traits leading > to economic success is almost certainly different for different > ethnic groups and likely reflects the strong genetic selection that > went on when there was a fairly stable population and the wealthy had > the lion's share of the surviving children in Western > Europe. Whatever the psychological traits are for becoming economic > winners, if they were heritable, then 20 generations of this kind of > selective survival should certainly make them a lot more common. > Can I add a consideration? I personally have this hypothesis that humans, homo sapiens in general, as compared with strains of earlier hominids, is an innately genocidal species. Humans are geneticly racist. Add that assumption to the mix and you can see a genetic predisposition quickly being led into a vicious cycle by cultural memes. If there indeed is a genetic basis for easier accrueing wealth - some human demographics are predisposed towards poverty - then we are in trouble. The winners in such a competition will never concede parting with their winnings - they will think they won fair and squarely - whereas the losers will never accept having lost for being innately "less" - they will resort to mean tactics to get even. Wouldn't you? >This problem is categorically unsolvable through polemization or > >tighter laws. You can > >not terrorize immigrants back to their own country. You cannot > >forcibly inject integration > >into them. You cannot un-muslimize them. Without that last bit of > >ideology they'd > >desintegrate in a world they can barely understand. > > >Breaking immigrants simply will not happen, and the only alternative > >is becoming a far > >right dictatorship that breaks all international rules and deports > >"undesirables". We all > >know what the price of that is. > > It has happened. It can happen again. What you need to be > considering is what are the conditions that trip such events and what > can be done at a deep level to keep such conditions from > happening. If you have been following my efforts, I claim to know > what the underlying problem is and even how it can be solved. (Short > term, that is pre singularity, one thing that would do it is a > project to solve the carbon and energy problems. Longer term it is > not likely to matter since physical state humans will most likely be > entirely gone by the end of this century.) > That's what worries me. We inhabit a culture of overconsumption, largely immoral modes of resource aquisition, an infrastructure of military exploitation and downright corrupt governmental styles. In the foreseeable future I anticipate severe disruptions when oil (and other resources) become depleted or steadily more expensive. In the longer run these problems will be aggravated by the bizarre population densities in some parts of the world - causing immigration, meme/culture shock, disparities in wealth, crime... I am neither fully convinced the onset of cheap nanotech, biomedical treatments, longevity, space exploration, cheapening solar, robotics, or artificial intelligence will instantly contribute to solving the issues, or solving them very fast. In the long run it may very well be an ultra rich upper class will attain an unchallengeable elite status and then proceed to reserve posthuman devices exclusively for the ruling class. > >So the only solution is, for the US with tides of hispanic and > >oriental people flooding > >in, or in europe, with largely ignored and low-opportunity > >immigrants we have (and > >not many coming in) is integration, a slow, painful and arduous > >process lasting > >probably 2-3 generations. Live with it. Force them to learn the > >language. Give them a > >chance at making a living. Put them in prison when they fuck up. > >Slowly you will > >get results and by 2050 this problem will be a footnote in history. > > Given an economy rising faster than the population I agree with you, > this would probably work. But given a contracting economy, like what > happened prior to last big mess in Europe, I would not be the least > surprised to see a replay. > I agree there is indeed potential that fundamentally immoral groups may exploit the actions of a small minority of sociopathic/nihilist extremes in the immigrant (marginalized) population (and do not discount non muslims in that equasion - crime may grow to be worse than terror) and proceed to take steps to forcibly emigrate them, or actually try and exterminate them. Concentration camps would be a lot easier to implement now than in the 1940s. > >The rhetoric that Europe is being taken over is obviously complete > >nonsence. There > >will never be a real islamic majority anywhere in Europe the next > >century. Islam is > >a marginalized fringe phenomenon and will remain so, even if we ignored > it. > > That's very likely true. Islamic minorities may cause serious problems > though. > I am more concerned with nihilist african gangs. Conditions in some places in africa are becoming so desperate it may trigger criminal elements far malign than anything produced in the middle east. You ever seen something as heinous as largescale child soldiers? That is happening in africa on a scale seen nowhere in the middle east. The Party of God in central africa are christians in name, but something positively satanic (iblitic?) in reality. Once groups like these mix their inhumanity with advanced near-singularity tech you could be megadeath on a regularity approaching fox news reports on paris hilton. > >Preaching that Islam is taking over the world is a flimsy excuse, a > >smokescreen to > >push for quite other political ideals - Ideals I like even less than > Islam. > > The fact that people *can* push "other political ideals" and not be > laughed at is a bad sign. 20 years ago I noted that downturns in the > US economy were mirrored by upturns in neo nazi activity. At the > time I had no idea of why, but I do now. Yes it is. I call these phenomenon "poverty cultures". The party of god in beyruth may have more in common with current supporters of Bush, Nashi-fanatics in Russia or fascists in Italy or Germany mid last century than any of these would care to appreciate. I label all of these psychotic states of human cognitive dissonance created by and actively perpetuating endemic poverty. These memes loathe affluence as much as roaches loathe sunlight. > I can say more, but you might want to read my last major paper first. I'll do the google. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jef at jefallbright.net Mon Jan 7 16:54:39 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 08:54:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Re-framing Innovation re Consciousness In-Reply-To: <200801061425.21376.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <380-2200712528224325316@M2W011.mail2web.com> <20071230160745.WVFS11918.hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> <200801061425.21376.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/6/08, Bryan Bishop wrote: > However, I am not immediately seeing what a proactionary strategy would > call for when that relevant intelligence exceeds the capacities of its > environment to respond to itself [the intelligence]. Intentional application of evolutionary search strategies, exploiting increasingly effective principles of what is known (so far) to work. Wash, rinse, repeat. - Jef From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Mon Jan 7 17:18:50 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 09:18:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) Message-ID: <227461.10784.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> If Occam's razor is a useful rule of thumb and the >> simulation theory is equally explanatory as the >> MWI, we should reject the MWI outright given the >> economy of the simulation theory. Indeed, the MWI >> would seem to be a prototype violation of Occam's >> razor wherein entities (worlds) are multiplied >> beyond necessity. > > It's a common criticism, but in fact Occam's razor > is the main justification of the MWI. > > The "entities" in Occam's razor are assumptions, > not quantities of physical objects. So you say Occam's 'entities' mean 'assumptions'. However, assumptions in a scientific theory typically point to physical entities. So I'm not sure you've made a meaningful distinction. For example, describing the 'simplicity' criterion of scientific theories, Copi & Cohen cite Ptolemy's theory of celestial orbits versus the Copernican theory. The two theories were equally effective explanations and predictors of astronomical data. And *both* assumed epicycles. But according to Copi & Cohen, Ptolemy's model should be rejected because it assumed more epicycles. [1] So for each additional physical entity (an epicycle) there's an additional assumption for that entity. So saying assumptions in a theory are distinct from physical entities posited by that theory is not a clearly valid claim. It's worth noting further that in his 'Rule of Reasoning in Philosophy', Issac Newton stated what Cushing calls "essentially Ockham's razor" saying: "We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances." [2] Now, not only do Occam's 'entities' obviously refer to physical entities (and as Copi & Cohen utilize their given example), but certainly Newton's 'causes' refer to countable physical causes out in the world. So here again Many Worlds looks to be in violation of the simplicity criterion, for it posits the branching off of a new world as the cause of an appearance, and again and again ad infinitum... ~Ian _____________________________________________________ [1] Copi, IM., C Cohen. 'Introduction to Logic', page 539, 1994. [2] Cushing, JT. 'Philosophical Concepts in Physics', page 166, 1998. http://IanGoddard.net "A proposition can be true or false only in virtue of being a picture of reality." - Wittgenstein ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From jef at jefallbright.net Mon Jan 7 19:39:31 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 11:39:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] [Video] Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0 Message-ID: Highly intelligent and hugely relevant to topics and movements of interest here. "Beyond Belief is an annual meeting organized by The Science Network (TSN), which brings together a community of concerned scientists, ... all ? philosophers, scholars from the humanities, and social commentators to explore the human quest for the Good Life. The Science Network shares Carl Sagan's vision of science as a candle in the dark. TSN is committed to enlarging the constituency of reason by making programs about science. More programs, more candles, more light." Speakers: Video: - Jef [With sensitivity to the cross-posting of this item.] From scerir at libero.it Mon Jan 7 20:16:35 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 21:16:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument References: <609244.62910.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <003e01c8516a$343a5340$59bb1f97@archimede> From: "Ian Goddard" > In theory, a computer could create a simulated world > as real and complex as our world, and it could > in theory contain computer-generated sentient operators > who see that simulation as their 'real world'. In theory, in theory, maybe [1]. According to quantum theories, as I understand them, there are dice everywhere, they generate a huge complexity, and mutations. Our world already has (or will have) an infinite complexity. In this case it should be incomprehensible, at least incomprehensible from inside, like the 'omega numbers' story. Unless all that we call 'quantum' randomness is really only 'pseudo' randomness [2]. Because, in this case, world complexity would not be infinite, and would be comprehensible. Would a simulator like to simulate a comprehensible (from inside) or an incomprehensible (from inside) world? [1] 'The physicist rightly dreads precise argument, since an argument which is only convincing if precise loses all its force if the assumptions upon which it is based are slightly changed, while an argument which is convincing though imprecise may well be stable under small perturbations of its underlying axioms.' -Jacob Schwartz [2] This might be close to something Gerard 't Hooft writes so often. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0212095 From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Jan 7 22:11:00 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:11:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bishop warns of no-go zones for non-Muslims - Telegraph In-Reply-To: References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> <1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1199743877_7001@S4.cableone.net> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Jan 7 23:17:31 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:17:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <1199743877_7001@S4.cableone.net> References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> <1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net> <1199743877_7001@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1199747866_10272@S3.cableone.net> > >http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf Abstract: Before 1800 all societies, including England, were Malthusian. The average man or woman had 2 surviving children. Such societies were also Darwinian. Some reproductively successful groups produced more than 2 surviving children, increasing their share of the population, while other groups produced less, so that their share declined. But unusually in England, this selection for men was based on economic success from at least 1250, not success in violence as in some other pre-industrial societies. The richest male testators left twice as many children as the poorest. Consequently the modern population of the English is largely descended from the economic upper classes of the middle ages. At the same time, from 1150 to 1800 in England there are clear signs of changes in average economic preferences towards more ?capitalist? attitudes. The highly capitalistic nature of English society by 1800 ? individualism, low time preference rates, long work hours, high levels of human capital ? may thus stem from the nature of the Darwinian struggle in a very stable agrarian society in the long run up to the Industrial Revolution. The triumph of capitalism in the modern world thus may lie as much in our genes as in ideology or rationality. Gregory Clark University of California, Davis, CA 95616 (gclark at ucdavis.edu) ______________ BTW, one of the amusing things about the parent thread was the ethnic origin of the Church of England Bishop that wrote it. Which brings up a recursive point. What is the evolutionary origin of the reluctance in some groups to make reference to ethnic or cultural groups? It can be accounted for as a learned element of culture, but even there you have to account for why people would spread this particular idea. Considering the mess Watson got in recently, the mental hooks must be into some really motivating part of the brain. Anyone for some fMRI? Keith From pjmanney at gmail.com Tue Jan 8 00:01:14 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 16:01:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Boy is empowered by his weakness Message-ID: <29666bf30801071601s30c9d41av7fb28d2c59c60d70@mail.gmail.com> I have a new hero. His name is Michael Guggenheim. And he's 12 years old. PJ http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dysgraphic7jan07,1,5702958.story?coll=la-headlines-california >From the Los Angeles Times Boy is empowered by his weakness Michael Guggenheim's dysgraphia, a learning disorder that impairs his writing, spurred him to open a nonprofit that teaches homeless students how to use computers. By Francisco Vara-Orta Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 7, 2008 Every Wednesday at the Sydney M. Irmas Transitional Living Center in North Hollywood, Michael Guggenheim teaches a handful of students how to type their names and basic phrases in Microsoft Word and how to work with math, vocabulary and typing programs. At a recent tutoring session, Michael moved between the laptops used by shelter residents Alicia Lewis and Heaven Sanders, both 7. He coached them for 30 minutes on typing their names, then switched to a half hour of vocabulary and math games. "Michael, I'm lost," Heaven said, resting her face on her hands. He quickly went to her computer and punched the "load" button on the keyboard to get the software working. Another student in distress, another rescue. But Michael is not just another teacher. He is 12, a sixth-grader at Los Encinos School in Encino. He can't drive, vote or write much with a pencil, but he started a nonprofit when he was 11 and teaches computer skills to elementary students once a week. He doesn't regard his dysgraphia, a learning disorder that severely impairs writing, as a disability. Instead, he has turned it into a driving force. For starters, he was quick to discover that he could use a computer, and now he earns straight A's using a laptop for course work. Later, he started the nonprofit organization that takes laptops and educational software to elementary school children in homeless shelters. New skills Along the way he discovered his skills at pitching the project that is close to his heart: "Many disadvantaged kids and teenagers don't have the opportunities and access to learning and using computer skills," Michael said. "The tool that changed my life was a laptop, and it's a skill that's necessary to learn to get good grades and a good job so you aren't left behind." Dysgraphia, a form of dyslexia, makes it difficult to write by hand. It is a lifelong condition that has nothing to do with intelligence, according to Los Angeles-based educational psychologist Nita Ferjo, who has treated Michael since he was 6. Like some people with dysgraphia, Michael experiences pain while trying to write. His written work is illegible after a few sentences, and even tying his shoes can be difficult. "Michael used to feel very sad in the beginning, after being diagnosed," Ferjo said. "But he's a warrior of sorts, even a bit perfectionistic. He's been driven since I've known him." Michael has had tutoring and physical therapy for his condition. When he was younger he sometimes dictated homework assignments to his mother. But when he entered third grade, he was allowed to use a laptop computer in the classroom. "He changed when he got the laptop," Ferjo said. "It empowered him to learn and do more on his own. The fact that he can now help others truly empowers him beyond his dysgraphia." Michael was inspired to start his nonprofit -- which he christened Showing People Learning and Technology, or SPLAT -- after participating in school-sponsored volunteer work and observing that some children had little or no access to technology. After researching nonprofits on the Internet in June, he came up with the name and digitally designed a logo with his father's help. He then asked a family friend who works on copyrighting issues in the entertainment industry to help him trademark the logo. In July, after using an Internet service to help him prepare the necessary documents, Michael applied for and received nonprofit status from the California secretary of state's office and a federal tax exemption identification number. In August, he decided to approach L.A. Family Housing, which provides temporary shelter and social services to homeless people, to launch his program. The organization, for which he had done his school-sponsored volunteer work, runs the North Hollywood shelter. Cecilia Ribakoff, L.A. Family Housing's volunteer coordinator, said Michael "blew her away" when he interviewed for a volunteer position, giving her a written proposal and pitching his nonprofit for the organization's North Hollywood shelter. "At first I thought he was too good to be true, but he's completely dedicated to his mission," Ribakoff said. "I just have found Michael to be a blessing for me and the organization. He pays attention to our younger kids that sometimes get overlooked." Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, L.A. Family Housing president, said Michael's fledgling program helps fulfill a dream of bridging the digital divide that separates children like Michael from the homeless children he helps. "It's very important that kids understand how other people and kids their age live, especially if you have a comfortable lifestyle," said Lori Guggenheim, Michael's mother. "The kids here are just as smart and capable as the ones back at Michael's school. It's just a matter of resources and a support system." Help for Heaven Michael lives in Beverly Hills with his parents and his 8-year-old brother, Ryan. His mother, a former lawyer for Universal Studios, is now a stay-at-home mom; his father, Paul, is a regional manager for a dental supply company. Mother and son travel 45 to 90 minutes to get to the shelter from home. Before moving to the shelter among 64 other families, Heaven Sanders called South Los Angeles home, along with her single mother and five brothers and sisters, ages 2 to 16. Heaven's mother, Taneshia Burson, 32, said they became homeless after her roommate moved out and she couldn't make rent payments. Now she is back on her feet and has found an apartment south of downtown. Michael is trying to get a donated laptop for Heaven so she can continue to hone her typing skills. And he wants to expand SPLAT to other shelters in the city. So far, he's been able to acquire four laptops and about 20 CDs of donated software by writing to manufacturers and businesses, painstakingly signing each letter. "Where I think some may see having dysgraphia as a disadvantage, I don't, because my computer skills and teaching these kids is helping me gain even more knowledge," Michael said. "And it exposes me to people I may have never met." francisco.varaorta@ latimes.com For more information on Showing People Learning and Technology, go to http:// splatcharity.wordpress.com From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jan 8 01:20:32 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 19:20:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Boy is empowered by his weakness In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801071601s30c9d41av7fb28d2c59c60d70@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30801071601s30c9d41av7fb28d2c59c60d70@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801071920.32608.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 07 January 2008, PJ Manney wrote: > After researching nonprofits on the Internet in June, he came up with > the name and digitally designed a logo with his father's help. He > then asked a family friend who works on copyrighting issues in the > entertainment industry to help him trademark the logo. Yeah ... I thought I sensed parent involvement. Should have known. > In July, after using an Internet service to help him prepare the > necessary documents, Michael applied for and received nonprofit > status from the California secretary of state's office and a federal > tax exemption identification number. So, all that I can find on the internet that does that is: http://www.bizfilings.com/ It looks like his parents gave him a bit of money to play with. Anyway, for anybody interested, his Yahoo ID is mguggz (he is rather unresponsive) and his blog is located at: http://splatcharity.wordpress.com/ - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jan 8 10:17:11 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:17:11 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <227461.10784.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <227461.10784.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 08/01/2008, Ian Goddard wrote: > So you say Occam's 'entities' mean 'assumptions'. > However, assumptions in a scientific theory typically > point to physical entities. So I'm not sure you've > made a meaningful distinction. > > For example, describing the 'simplicity' criterion of > scientific theories, Copi & Cohen cite Ptolemy's > theory of celestial orbits versus the Copernican > theory. The two theories were equally effective > explanations and predictors of astronomical data. And > *both* assumed epicycles. But according to Copi & > Cohen, Ptolemy's model should be rejected because it > assumed more epicycles. [1] So for each additional > physical entity (an epicycle) there's an additional > assumption for that entity. So saying assumptions in a > theory are distinct from physical entities posited by > that theory is not a clearly valid claim. Copernicus' model is geometrically simpler than Ptolemy's, but it actually implied a much vaster universe. That is because if the Earth is not at the centre of the universe, the stars should appear to move as the Earth orbits the Sun. However, the stars did not appear to move as far as astronomers of Copernicus' time could tell, which meant either that they were much further from the Earth than the planets were, or that the geocentric view was correct. It was felt that God would not be so wasteful as to put so much space between the Earth and the stars so this was used as an argument against Copernicus' theory. There are parallels here with quantum theory. The formalism of the MWI is simpler but it implies that the universe is much vaster than it appears, which seems wasteful of space and matter if not of divine labour. Therefore, an additional bit is tacked on to the theory to explain why the universe we find ourselves in is the one true, solid and special universe. > It's worth noting further that in his 'Rule of > Reasoning in Philosophy', Issac Newton stated what > Cushing calls "essentially Ockham's razor" saying: > > "We are to admit no more causes of natural > things than such as are both true and sufficient > to explain their appearances." [2] > > Now, not only do Occam's 'entities' obviously refer to > physical entities (and as Copi & Cohen utilize their > given example), but certainly Newton's 'causes' refer > to countable physical causes out in the world. So here > again Many Worlds looks to be in violation of the > simplicity criterion, for it posits the branching off > of a new world as the cause of an appearance, and > again and again ad infinitum... ~Ian Many Worlds is what is left if you remove the assumption of an an arbitrary "collapse" of the wavefunction precipitated by an observation. The trimmed down theory then explains all of the scientific evidence, and as a bonus preserves realism, locality, determinism and does not bestow on the observer any special status compared to the rest of the universe. -- Stathis Papaioannou From amara at amara.com Tue Jan 8 14:59:54 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 07:59:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fractal Art Contest Winners Message-ID: One would think that we could be bored with fractal stuff, but it is the kind of math construct that has infinite variations, especially combined with social themes. Fractal Art Contest Winners http://www.fractalartcontests.com/2007/winners.php Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From painlord2k at yahoo.it Tue Jan 8 17:56:03 2008 From: painlord2k at yahoo.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:56:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <1199747866_10272@S3.cableone.net> References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> <1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net> <1199743877_7001@S4.cableone.net> <1199747866_10272@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: <4783B933.9020405@yahoo.it> hkhenson ha scritto: > BTW, one of the amusing things about the parent > thread was the ethnic origin of the Church of England Bishop that wrote it. > Which brings up a recursive point. What is the > evolutionary origin of the reluctance in some > groups to make reference to ethnic or cultural > groups? It can be accounted for as a learned > element of culture, but even there you have to > account for why people would spread this > particular idea. Considering the mess Watson got > in recently, the mental hooks must be into some > really motivating part of the brain. Anyone for some fMRI? Without fMRI, an experiment with US students in an University showed that the (self labeled) democrats and independents were more racist than the republicans. They were more generous and racist in the same time. The republicans gave less money but they consistently were unaffected from the skin color of the recipient. The democrats gave more (before and after) but they were effected by the skin color of the recipients. Republicans were equally sterner color-blinded, democrats were generous racists. My theory is that: 1) People used to commerce is marginally interested in the culture of the other people and less prone to discriminate unknown people about culture, faith and so. This would be a damaging behavior, because they need to keep good relations with all possible buyers and sellers. So, less racist people are selected for. This process is stronger in more complex, more large societies, where individuals need to live with many more unknown people than rural, tribal societies. 2) Being not judgmental about unknown people would be damaging if not coupled with a sterner standard with all people (known and unknown). So sterner people are selected for. 3) These traits make people sterner but they will discriminate mainly about behaviors not skin color or culture; They could be prejudiced, but they would change their mind if proved wrong. 4) The racists are disadvantaged if they act in a direct manner, so they develop new ways to use the anti-racists mindset against the not racists (affirmative actions come in mind, politically correct speak and so on). The racists are able to exploit the third party punishing urge developed in more complex groups with these indirected tactics. Mirco -- [Intangible capital is] the preponderant form of wealth. When we look at the shares of intangible capital across income classes, you see it goes from about 60 percent in low-income countries to 80 percent in high-income countries. That accords very much with the notion that what really makes countries wealthy is not the bits and pieces, it's the brainpower, and the institutions that harness that brainpower. It's the skills more than the rocks and minerals. ?Kirk Hamilton Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale! http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com From pjmanney at gmail.com Tue Jan 8 20:06:53 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 12:06:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Fighting terrorism with terrorists Message-ID: <29666bf30801081206u2e0aea9flb2eb0d829763eea0@mail.gmail.com> This Op-Ed piece is a follow-up to the Saudi Arabia piece, showing how Indonesia is deprogramming terrorists as well, by using reformed terrorists. This work reminds me of former gang members working to change the behavior of gang kids here in LA. It also mentions the work in Saudi Arabia in ever so slightly more specific terms as well as a mention of the radicalization issues in the UK. PJ http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-kurlantzick6jan06,1,5305348.story >From the Los Angeles Times Fighting terrorism with terrorists Using former radicals to turn around militants in the making is showing remarkable success. By Joshua Kurlantzick January 6, 2008 In the fall of 2002, the Indonesian island of Bali, once known for its luscious beaches and vibrant Hindu culture, became synonymous with terror and radicalism. After a massive bombing in Bali's nightclub district killed more than 200 people, the world suddenly realized what many locals had known for years: Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation on Earth, faced a serious internal terror threat. Even before the Bali attack, Indonesia had suffered a wave of bombings in the winter of 2000, and earlier that year someone had bombed the Jakarta Stock Exchange. The Al Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiah was actively recruiting across the archipelago, establishing radical schools to train a young generation of jihadis and planning attacks in Indonesia and throughout the region, including in the Philippines and Thailand. But today, Indonesia has become a far different kind of example. Even as terrorism continues to grow more common in nations from Pakistan to Algeria, Indonesia is heading in the opposite direction, destroying its internal terrorist networks and winning the broader public battle against radicalism. And it has done so not only by cracking heads but by using a softer, innovative plan that employs former jihadis to wean radicals away from terror. Indonesia's successes are striking. Once a threat capable of waging war across Southeast Asia, today Jemaah Islamiah is a shell of its former self. Indonesian authorities have captured most of its top leaders, including the deputy commander who allegedly helped plan the Bali attacks. Indonesian police have overrun JI's operational bases, forcing most of its members to live on the run, making it harder for them to plan bombings. Indonesia has suffered no major terror attacks in two years, and JI's ability to raise money and find recruits has been shattered. "There is not much of JI left," Indonesia terrorism authority Kenneth Conboy told reporters. To be sure, effective police work has made a difference. Backed by U.S. training and high-end surveillance equipment, Indonesia's elite counter-terrorism squad has established an effective internal intelligence network, relying on informants to point the way to terrorist hide-outs and arresting hundreds of JI members. But if they really hoped to reduce the pool of possible new recruits for groups like Jemaah Islamiah, Indonesian leaders realized they had to win public support for their battle. Otherwise, police could arrest or kill hundreds of militants, and new radicals would just take their place. To win militants' hearts and minds, Indonesia instituted a program called deradicalization. Realizing that hard-core militants will not listen to prominent Muslim moderates, whom they view as soft, as irreligious or as tools of the government, the deradicalization initiative employs other militants -- former terrorist fighters or trainers. These are men like Nasir Abas, once a Jemaah Islamiah leader, who have sworn off most types of violence. Former fighters who agree to help the deradicalization program often receive incentives, such as reduced sentences or assistance for their families. The co-opted radicals are sent as advocates into Indonesian prisons, major breeding grounds of militants. In the jails and other sites, they work to convince would-be terrorists that attacking civilians is not acceptable in Islam, to show that terror actually alienates average people from their religion, to suggest that the police are not anti-Islam and to exploit internal antagonisms within terror networks to turn militants against each other. These intense debates, which rely partly on Koranic scholarship, can last for months. Meanwhile, other former militants appear on Indonesian television to express remorse for having killed their countrymen and women. The deradicalization program already has delivered. According to a recent report by the independent, nonprofit International Crisis Group, the Indonesian plan has "persuaded about two dozen members of Jemaah Islamiah ... to cooperate with the police." Deradicalization could work far beyond Southeast Asia. In 2004, Saudi Arabia launched its own version of deradicalization. Under the Saudi version, militants in jail who agree to undergo intense classroom sessions receive shorter sentences. The sessions, designed to convince extremists that Islam does not condone terror, come combined with psychological deprogramming. The deprogramming resembles techniques used on cult members, and it also allows psychologists to assess whether militants are joining the deradicalization program just to be released and return to extremism. Police then follow up with extremists who have completed the program and been released from jail to ensure that they do not return to their old ways. Saudi officials say the program has been very successful. Major terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia have plummeted compared with 2004. The Saudi plan also appears to have a broader regional impact. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, has said that the Saudi initiative may be one reason for the sharp decline in the number of foreign fighters coming into Iraq. Other countries have created variants on the program. Egypt has established a deradicalization initiative in which former jihadist thinkers argue that the Islamic concepts that militants use to justify violence are wrong. Singapore, Malaysia, Jordan and Yemen have enacted reeducation strategies, often focusing on prison populations. Drawing on Jakarta's experience, nations such as Pakistan have launched deradicalization cooperation with Indonesia. Even Western nations facing radical threats seem to be learning. The Netherlands this summer announced it would spend the equivalent of $40 million to launch deradicalization programs, train imams and other religious leaders and promote intercultural dialogue. In perhaps the most sweeping Western initiative, Britain, stunned by a wave of terror attacks committed by British citizens, has attempted to build far deeper relationships with domestic Muslim groups, relying on them to help deradicalize potential young militants who could be transformed into suicide bombers. "Our strategy of funding and engagement must shift significantly toward those organizations that are taking a proactive leadership role in tackling extremism," declared British Cabinet minister Ruth Kelly last year. In other words, Britain has finally learned what Indonesia already knew. Joshua Kurlantzick is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of "Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power Is Transforming the World." From scerir at libero.it Tue Jan 8 20:57:46 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:57:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument References: <609244.62910.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001701c85239$1fc05110$59951f97@archimede> Ian Goddard > We've never seen or known of a 'God' who > created a real universe. [...] Nothing to do with the supposed simulations, but interesting nevertheless. A friend pointed out, to me, this incredible speech of Pius XII. http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12EXIST.HTM Rome, 1951 ..... 'In fact, it would seem that present-day science, with one sweeping step back across millions of centuries, has succeeded in bearing witness to that primordial "Fiat lux" uttered at the moment when, along with matter, there burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation, while the particles of chemical elements split and formed into millions of galaxies. ... As late as 1911, the celebrated physicist Svante Arhenius declared that "the opinion that something can come from nothing is at variance with the present-day state of science, according to which matter is immutable." (Die Vorstellung vom Weltgebaude im Wandel der Zeiten, 1911, pag.362). In this same vein we find the statement of Plato: "Matter exists. Nothing can come from nothing, hence matter is eternal. We cannot admit the creation of matter." (Ultramontane Weltanschauung und Moderne Lebenskunde, 1907, pag.55). ... On the other hand, how different and much more faithful a reflection of limitless visions is the language of an outstanding modern scientist, Sir Edmund Whittaker, member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, when he speaks of the above-mentioned inquiries into the age of the world: "These different calculations point to the conclusion that there was a time, some nine or ten billion years ago, prior to which the cosmos, if it existed, existed in a form totally different from anything we know, and this form constitutes the very last limit of science. We refer to it perhaps not improperly as creation. It provides a unifying background, suggested by geological evidence, for that explanation of the world according to which every organism existing on the earth had a beginning in time. Were this conclusion to be confirmed by future research, it might well be considered as the most outstanding discovery of our times, since it represents a fundamental change in the scientific conception of the universe, similar to the one brought about four centuries ago by Copernicus." (Space and Spirit, 1946, pag. 118- 119).' From jonkc at att.net Tue Jan 8 21:09:56 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 16:09:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument. References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> "Ian Goddard" Wrote: > If Occam's razor is a useful rule of thumb It is very useful indeed. > and the simulation theory is equally explanatory as the MWI But it's not. > we should reject the MWI outright given the economy of > the simulation theory. I don't think so. I'm not being anti-simulation, it's a perfectly respectable idea, it may even be true, but I don't see it as a substitute for Manny Worlds. MWI was developed in order to rid Quantum Mechanics of the very fuzzy concept of "an observer", and in this I think it was successful; but it is not clear to me how the simulation theory helps in this philosophical puzzle. Well, I suppose you could say that in the world where the simulation computer hardware exist the laws of physics are completely different and have nothing to do with quantum mechanics; but then you'd have to ask why those Godlike simulation nerds chose the idea of quantum mechanics for our simulation to operate in. Why not Newtonian physics, or Aristotelian physics, or Harry Potter physics? The only possible answer is "that's just the way things are"; but you can say that's just the way things are without going into all the complicated simulation business. I just don't see the simulation theory and the many worlds theory as being competitors, they could both be true and I guess they could both be false. John K Clark From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jan 8 23:42:32 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:42:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> I'm going to confess my shameful failure to understand a key aspect of the Many Worlds Interpretation. A basic premise of quantum theory, as I understand it (in a rudimentary way), is that what we see always comprises a superposition of all possible states of the relevant phenomenon. The reason a light beam travels on the least action pathway is that this is what happens when all conceivable pathways are taken simultaneously, interfering with each other as they do so in such a way that the observed straight line, or geodesic, comes out in the wash. Uh-huh. I have read Deutsch's book with its peculiar talk of shadow photons, which appear to subsist in numerous orthogonal universes that mysteriously influence each other. And yet most discussions of MWI as applied to decisive choices, for example, appear to suppose that any observed state branches into a multitude of alternative experiences. You turn right, and you turn left, and you go home, and very very rarely you fly into the sky. Presumably, therefore, we must imagine that in one universe a given light beam will jig along a random dog's leg path, and it's only a sort of "God's eye view" that might perceive the kind of hyperreality where all those dogs' legs congeal into a straight line. But actually there is no "God's eye view" unless it is the one we experience routinely. Does anyone see the problem here? It's so basic that I must be making an elementary mistake, but I have never been able to see what it is. Damien Broderick From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Wed Jan 9 02:00:40 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 18:00:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds Message-ID: <610611.33779.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> For example, describing the 'simplicity' >> criterion of scientific theories, Copi & Cohen >> cite Ptolemy's theory of celestial orbits versus >> the Copernican theory. The two theories were >> equally effective explanations and predictors of >> astronomical data. And *both* assumed epicycles. >> But according to Copi & Cohen, Ptolemy's model >> should be rejected because it assumed more >> epicycles. [1] So for each additional physical >> entity (an epicycle) there's an additional >> assumption for that entity. So saying assumptions >> in a theory are distinct from physical entities >> posited by that theory is not a clearly valid >> claim. > > Copernicus' model is geometrically simpler than > Ptolemy's, but it actually implied a much vaster > universe. A theoretical model with more space between two points doesn't posit more 'entities' between them. And using Newton's razor of causal economy, a claim of more space does not entail a claim of more causes. So I don't see that different volumes of space affect the application of Occam's or Newton's razors. > Many Worlds is what is left if you remove the > assumption of an an arbitrary "collapse" of the > wavefunction precipitated by an observation. The > trimmed down theory then explains all of the > scientific evidence, and as a bonus preserves > realism, locality, determinism and does not bestow > on the observer any special status compared to the > rest of the universe. How does MWI explain Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment? It's importantly unique: "Where the classic [ double slit ] experiment demonstrates that physicists' observations determine the behavior of a photon in the present, Wheeler's version shows that our observations in the present can affect how a photon behaved in the past." [*] It's important to understand that experiment, as that difference makes a big difference. The description of it starts toward the bottom of page 1 here: [*] http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse In 1984 Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment was confirmed at the University of Maryland. It was confirmed again and published last February, '07: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/315/5814/966 http://IanGoddard.net Hume on induction: "When we have lived any time, and have been accustomed to the uniformity of nature, we acquire a general habit, by which we always transfer the known to the unknown, and conceive the latter to resemble the former. By means of this general habitual principle, we regard even one experiment as the foundation of [empirical] reasoning, and expect a similar event with some degree of certainty." ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 02:46:14 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:46:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: References: <227461.10784.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <62c14240801081846j55273f7w2b94a2288e97a2b1@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 8, 2008 5:17 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > There are parallels here with quantum theory. The formalism of the MWI > is simpler but it implies that the universe is much vaster than it > appears, which seems wasteful of space and matter if not of divine > labour. Therefore, an additional bit is tacked on to the theory to > explain why the universe we find ourselves in is the one true, solid > and special universe. I disbelieve in this universe's truth and speciality - Now what happens if I fail the saving throw? > Many Worlds is what is left if you remove the assumption of an an > arbitrary "collapse" of the wavefunction precipitated by an > observation. The trimmed down theory then explains all of the > scientific evidence, and as a bonus preserves realism, locality, > determinism and does not bestow on the observer any special status > compared to the rest of the universe. So why did MWI lose the vote in Copenhagen? Are you suggesting that 1927 was just more fearful of the expansiveness implied by MWI? 80 years is a bit of a setback, don't you think? From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 02:52:54 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:52:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <610611.33779.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <610611.33779.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <62c14240801081852g7aaf383fy73e4ae4e9b9024cd@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 8, 2008 9:00 PM, Ian Goddard wrote: > How does MWI explain Wheeler's delayed-choice > experiment? It's importantly unique: > > "Where the classic [ double slit ] experiment > demonstrates that physicists' observations > determine the behavior of a photon in the > present, Wheeler's version shows that our > observations in the present can affect how > a photon behaved in the past." [*] > > It's important to understand that experiment, as that > difference makes a big difference. The description of > it starts toward the bottom of page 1 here: > > [*] http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse Why is this example considered 'credible science' with respect to a single photon, but "precognition" is immediately dismissed? Oh right, delayed-choice experiment is a more tenable name > resemble the former. By means of this general habitual > principle, we regard even one experiment as the > foundation of [empirical] reasoning, and expect a > similar event with some degree of certainty." From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 9 02:36:20 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 18:36:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] aaahnold's speech In-Reply-To: <001701c85239$1fc05110$59951f97@archimede> Message-ID: <200801090303.m09335WF009373@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Governor Schwarzenegger has surely made the first state of the state speech in which any governor used the term "duh." It was used in the following way. Some hapless prole was on his wife's health insurance for years. After a divorce, he found private health insurance. A few months later he started feeling tired, medics found he had cancer. The insurance company had noted that he had knee problems many years before and had (understandably) written into his contract that they would deny coverage if he experienced any significant change in weight. The contract didn't actually specify the direction of change. When he was diagnosed with cancer, they noted he had experienced a significant change in weight. Well duh! That does happen when one has cancer. They denied, he died. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 03:03:53 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 22:03:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument. In-Reply-To: <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <62c14240801081903h10f09f49xe40774b0c37d7bb8@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 8, 2008 4:09 PM, John K Clark wrote: > simulation business. I just don't see the simulation theory and the many > worlds theory as being competitors, they could both be true and I guess > they could both be false. Sure, they're both propagating through space-time until one of them collapses ;) It was popular Aztec belief that the Sun needed to be fed human hearts in sacrifice if it was to continue to move through the sky. If any genius would-be astronomy had suggested the Earth revolved around the Sun, they would likely have been the next sacrifice. How much of QM/MWI/Simulation/etc. is likely to be the same kind of popular idea until we come up with something better? From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 03:25:00 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 22:25:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <62c14240801081925t59a4d689k765c7c14596630aa@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 8, 2008 6:42 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > I'm going to confess my shameful failure to understand a key aspect > of the Many Worlds Interpretation. > [snip] > Does anyone see the problem here? It's so basic that I must be making > an elementary mistake, but I have never been able to see what it is. I doubt I can explain it any better than the next person. I wonder if this observation adds value: Something you wrote reminded me of a tesseract as described in A Wrinkle in Time. That was one of the first books I read that discussed higher-dimensional objects*. Particularly interesting was the visualization of a 3D object casting a 2D shadow to understand that a 4D object casts a 'shadow' in 3D. Perhaps the shadow particles in orthogonal universes are alternative views of the same higher-dimensional construct. Maybe MWI is a best-fit way to discuss a Singularity we are not able to describe more directly? * it was many years later that I read Flatland. Written in 1884, it's a brilliant treatment of multiple dimensions. It's also interesting to observe how the math is timeless in counterpoint to the commentary on Victorian society. From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 03:28:35 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 22:28:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <62c14240801081846j55273f7w2b94a2288e97a2b1@mail.gmail.com> References: <227461.10784.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <62c14240801081846j55273f7w2b94a2288e97a2b1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60801081928t8a7adffj9a50d0a4f29bb39b@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 8, 2008 9:46 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > > So why did MWI lose the vote in Copenhagen? Are you suggesting that > 1927 was just more fearful of the expansiveness implied by MWI? 80 > years is a bit of a setback, don't you think? ### Probably yes, people then were more scared of big number, having only abaci to work with, and no laptops. Seriously, MWI does seem to scare many people because of its implications - infinities of creatures, hell-branches, total godlessness. For some reason the framers of QM felt they needed to invent "collapse" out of whole cloth, and only Everett, thirty years later, had the gumption to work out the details, take QM to its simplest form and do away with anthropocentrism. Currently polls of theoretical physicists indicate that a small majority of them tend to see MWI as the correct and certainly more elegant interpretation. Rejecting Copenhagen took a long time and is still in progress. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 03:49:40 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 22:49:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <610611.33779.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <610611.33779.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60801081949m4572687vd3568b589ec31c3c@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 8, 2008 9:00 PM, Ian Goddard wrote: > > > How does MWI explain Wheeler's delayed-choice > experiment? It's importantly unique: > > "Where the classic [ double slit ] experiment > demonstrates that physicists' observations > determine the behavior of a photon in the > present, Wheeler's version shows that our > observations in the present can affect how > a photon behaved in the past." [*] > > It's important to understand that experiment, as that > difference makes a big difference. The description of > it starts toward the bottom of page 1 here: > > [*] http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse > > In 1984 Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment > was confirmed at the University of Maryland. It was > confirmed again and published last February, '07: > > http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/315/5814/966 > ### Is this a complex issue? I thought that the MWI answer is pretty simple - we do not change a particle (or its past or its future) by looking at it, we merely determine in which branch of the universe we are with respect to the quantum event that generated the particle and any other particles entangled with it. Since entanglement assumes correlations between states of interacting particles (e.g. spins of electrons), observation of one particle gives us information about the entangled particles present in our branch, and this information of valid ever since the event and until the next event, for example our measurement of states of these particles. It doesn't matter how much later after the event do we perform out measurement, as long as no additional quantum events occurred in the meantime (which could erase the entanglement). So what is the problem? Rafal From hkhenson at rogers.com Wed Jan 9 03:41:08 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:41:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> At 04:42 PM 1/8/2008, you wrote: >I'm going to confess my shameful failure to understand a key aspect >of the Many Worlds Interpretation. snip Don't worry about it. I am not sure it is possible for us mortals to understand MWI any better than QM. One of the things which falls out is that the past is as uncertain as the future. I.e., *many* pasts could have contributed to the current reality (whatever that happens to be). Keith From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Wed Jan 9 03:44:03 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 19:44:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <185463.70868.qm@web52712.mail.re2.yahoo.com> John K Clark wrote: > why those Godlike simulation nerds chose the > idea of quantum mechanics for our simulation to > operate in. Why not Newtonian physics, or > Aristotelian physics, or Harry Potter physics? The theory I posted proposes an answer. Observation-induced wave collapse is a process utilized in the visual rendering of computer-generated virtual realities (VRs). In computer graphics it's known as 'occlusion culling', though I like the term 'on-call rendering'. Rendering the raw data for an object into a visible representation of the object taxes finite system resources. So if you're panning your VR eyes around a VR landscape producing views on your computer screen of selected portions of the whole VR model, all objects outside the viewing screen are not rendered. Only if an object can be observed are its properties made discrete, or localized. So suppose our universe is computer generated, why would its design bother devoting finite system resources to rendering / computing all positions of all subatomic particles that will not fall under observation? So in this theory, the observer-induced wave collapse is on-call rendering. This view does not try to 'rid' us of the observer effect, as you note MWI intends to, but instead embraces and explains it within a classical-physics universe. While the truth of simulationism may be unknowable, it's a fun idea to drive around the block, so to say, and in my view much less drastic than MWI. ~Ian http://IanGoddard.net "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 04:22:15 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 23:22:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <7641ddc60801082022m5188736fmdbf579d3dd06d8c0@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 8, 2008 10:41 PM, hkhenson wrote: > > One of the things which falls out is that the past is as uncertain as > the future. I.e., *many* pasts could have contributed to the current > reality (whatever that happens to be). ### I'd rather say, 1 << N(past) << N(future). The number of possible futures is much larger than the number of possible pasts, and both are unimaginably numerous. Rafal From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 04:36:27 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 22:36:27 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Feynman's approach Message-ID: <200801082236.27396.kanzure@gmail.com> After looking at the recent emails about MWI, Copenhagen, etc., I just wanted to add my 2c and point anybody interested over to this page that I found a good while back: (so-called) Kantian quantum mechanics http://www.friesian.com/space-2.htm > These days, many of us working on quantum gravity believe that > causality itself is fundamental -- and is thus meaningful even at a > level where the notion of space has disappeared. - Lee Smolin, The Trouble with Physics, The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next [Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006, pp.240, 241]. Quoted from the page. Kelley L. Ross, author. The HTML version (link above) has formatting and emphasis and so on, so go check it if you're able to, but the excerpt below provides a good place to start reading. What is the most striking in Feynman's version of quantum mechanics is his impatience with the wave-particle duality: For many years after Newton, partial reflection by two surfaces was happily explained by a theory of waves, but when experiments were made with very weak light hitting photomultipliers, the wave theory collapsed: as the light got dimmer and dimmer, the photomultipliers kept making full-sized clicks -- there were just fewer of them. Light behaved as particles. [pp.23-24, boldface added] This is the key to Feynman's views: he likes particles and is not interested in waves. This puts him more in the metaphysical camp of Einstein and the older realists and out of step with the developments detailed above which try and preserve the determinism of the wave function. He definitely doesn't like duality: You had to know which experiment you were analyzing in order to tell if light was waves or particles. This state of confusion was called the "wave-particle duality" of light, and it was jokingly said by someone that light was waves on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; it was particles on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and on Sundays, we think about it! It is the purpose of these lectures to tell you how this puzzle was finally "resolved." [p.23, note] The puzzle, however, was not "resolved," which may be why Feynman here carefully puts that word in "scare" quotes. We get a fuller statement here: ...the wave theory cannot explain how the detector makes equally loud clicks as the light gets dimmer. Quantum electrodynamics "resolves" this wave-particle duality by saying that light is made of particles (as Newton originally thought), but the price of this great advancement of science is a retreat by physics to the position of being able to calculate only the probability that a photon will hit a detector, without offering a good model of how it actually happens. [p.37] It is worse than that, since Feynman himself must say that the light goes everywhere at once, follows all possible paths, which is something a single finite particle can't do, regardless of the probability of where it may be found by a detector (cf. p.46, about diffraction gratings). So the wave-particle duality is not so easily "resolved." Indeed, Feynman himself later describes rather well how the wave-particle duality works: Nature has got it cooked up so we'll never be able to figure out how She does it: if we put instruments in to find out which way the light goes, we can find out, all right, but the wonderful interference effects disappear. But if we don't have instruments that can tell which way the light goes, the interference effects come back! Very strange, indeed! [p.81] With this, we don't need the "Monday, Wednesday, and Friday" rule. If we know where the particle is, then clearly it can't be everywhere, and the effects that depend on it being everywhere (interference, diffraction), disappear. If we don't know where the particle is, then all the effects explicable by wave mechanics appear. When the cat is away, the mice will play. But Feynman also retreats occasionally from his flat "light is made of particles" assertion: In fact, both objects [i.e. electrons and photons] behave somewhat like waves, and somewhat like particles. In order to save ourselves from inventing new words such as "wavicles," we have chosen to call these objects "particles." [p.85] So now they aren't really particles, we have just "chosen" to call them that, just to avoid irritating neologisms. This is rather different from the "the wave theory collapsed" stage of the account. But are we really dealing with something like "wavicles"? No, because these things actually don't behave "somewhat like waves, and somewhat like particles" -- they behave entirely like waves in some situations, and entirely like particles in others. And what is the difference? As Feynman understands quite well himself, we get particles with localizing detectors, waves without. Given his preference for particles, what Feynman does is create a mathematical means of duplicating the effects of wave mechanics. His system is called "summing over histories." The "histories" are all the possible tracks that a particle can take, like a photon reflecting off of a surface. The Classical rule is that light follows the shortest path, and that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. Most possible paths violate both these rules. What Feynman does is that each possible path is represented by a vector. The length of the vector can be the square root of the probability of the particle going that way, but for reflections (in Chapter 2), Feynman makes the arrows of "arbitrary standard length" (p.41). What is important is the direction of the arrow, and that is determined by a little "stopwatch," which runs, with the arrow rotating as the hand of the watch, as the particle travels. The direction of the arrow when the watch stops gives us what we need to work with. The vectors of a number of possible paths are then put end to end ("summed"). It turns out that vectors for lengthy and improbable paths point in many different directions and result in little net length when put end to end. When we look at the area representing the least distance and the least time, confirming to the classical rules, the vectors point in more or less the same direction; and when they are put end to end add up to a substantial vector, whose square is the overall probability of the particle taking that path. What we get is therefore more or less the Classical result. I do not mean that to be a comprehensive explanation, just enough to give us a picture here. Anyone wanting more detail should consult QED itself. The key element is the "stopwatch," which gives us the direction of the vector, which makes it possible that the vectors are going to add up to something or cancel each other out. But this is a very unusual stopwatch. It does not measure time. Feynman says, "the stopwatch hand turns around faster when it times a blue photon compared to a red photon" [p.47]. What is it that is "faster" about blue light than red light? Not the velocity, not the rate of time itself (no Relativistic effect here), just the frequency. The rate of the "stopwatch" is determined by the frequency of the photon. But particles do not have frequencies. Waves do. Feynman's stopwatch corresponds, not to time, like ordinary watches, but to the phase of a wave function. The summing of the vectors reproduces the interference effects of waves. Thus Feynman is able to smuggle characteristics of waves into a theory that is supposed to be about particles. There seems little pretence here that the "stopwatch" represents anything the particle is actualy doing, as a particle. It is simply a mathematical device that gets us good results, and its very abstraction and dissociation obscures its correspondence to the natural characteristics and behavior of waves. Feynman, again, seems to rather enjoy the peculiarity of it. As he says elsewhere: ...adding arrows for all the ways an event can happen -- there is no need for an uncertainty principle! [p.56] But the uncertainty principle is not eliminated by the little arrows. Not only does it remain uncertain where particles are when they are behaving like waves, but it remains impossible that they should be any one place in particular to do what they do. Feynman's enthusiasm mistakes a mathematical abstraction for a substantive conclusion -- a precise and excellent example of the Sin of Galileo. But Feynman knows better than this. He knows that successful mathematics in a successful theory does not mean that we understand what is going on. But he gets carried away, and it is always a temptation to explain what is not understood as something that cannot and need not be understood. We see that in the following passage: I am not going to explain how the photons actually "decide" whether to bounce back to go through; that is not known. (Probably the question has no meaning.) [p.24] Not only does it have meaning but there is even an answer: the photons both bounce back and go through, just as Schr?dinger's Cat is both dead and alive. They can do that as waves. They can't do that as particles (unless we use an indefinite number of particles, even in single particle experiments, as Feynman does). Which is the problem. What the photon must "decide" is where it is going to be when the wave function collapses. This is the crux of quantum indeterminacy, and Feynman simply doesn't want to deal with it. But it is a problem larger than quantum mechanics. It is a problem of the metaphysics of possibility and probability, which no physicist or metaphysician (or physician) has done a very good job of dealing with. When we have just rolled three or four "boxcars" in a row (i.e. 12 on the dice), how do the dice then "know" that it is time to even out the statistical average by avoiding boxcars for a while in the future? Of course, the dice can't "know" because the earlier rolls of the dice have no physical effect on the later ones. But we have similar situations with sub-atomic particles. How do atoms of Uranium "know" that enough other atoms have decayed to account for the statistical half-life of the isotope, and that they need to wait, perhaps for millennia, to decay? Again, it looks like they can't "know," but the individual events just happen to conform to the statistical average. The standard response of the mathematician to give up at that point (or say that it is a question that "has no meaning") is now troubled by the results of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) Paradox, discussed above. Distant particles, whose properties have some indeterminate quantum correlation, "know" instantaneously what happens to the other particles, if this implies determinate states. This happens without "hidden variables," i.e. without determinate but unknown properties of the particles. What it means is that the wave function is a physical connection and that its collapse is instantaneous, violating Special Relativity. If we apply this to dice throwing, it could mean that the dice do "know," without any Classical physical connection, what has happened in the past. Richard Feynman, of course, has no intention, and really no interest, in getting into such territory. His statement that the question of how particles "decide" where to go probably "has no meaning" is an afterthought in which fragments of philosophical theory bob like flotsam in the flood. What it would get Feynman, as a theory, is that Nature is incomprehensible because it cannot be understood, i.e. there is no meaning for understanding to get. If true, this would certainly justify his phlegmatic disinterest -- "theoretical physics has given up on that." But Feynman really expresses it more as a wishful thought, or as a decision, than as a real conclusion. It is a limit that he is willing to accept, because what interests him is the mathematical technique that is productive of the predictive results. That is the real stuff, and the philosophical questions, the metaphysics, are less important -- as, in physics, they actually are less important. Feynman's quantum mechanics in the end benefits from the abstraction that is possible in scientific theories. Not all questions need to be answered, understood, or even addressed to have a successful theory with dramatic results. It is therefore no disqualification to Feynman's greatness that he didn't resolve the basic philosophical problems of quantum mechanics. Certainly nobody else has. What is of interest is his theory as an example of one direction in which we can go with particles alone, avoiding wave mechanics, even though, in the end, characteristics of wave mechanics (the "stopwatch") must be attached, rather extraneously, to the particles. This is revealing -- namely that the physical waves in fact cannot be dispensed with, as Feynman himself occasionally seems aware, as when he says that his "particles," hitherto the vindication of Newton, are actually "somewhat" like waves. ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jan 9 04:46:25 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 22:46:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> At 08:41 PM 1/8/2008 -0700, Keith H. wrote: >One of the things which falls out is that the past is as uncertain as >the future. I.e., *many* pasts could have contributed to the current >reality (whatever that happens to be). Not my point, though, which is that the way MWI is usually presented, it's many *orthogonal presents* that contribute to/constitute/comprise the observed reality. Therefore it seems to me improper to peel off one of these superposed alternatives and say, "Hey, that's the one I'm living in!" If that were possible, we should be seeing lots of events that *don't* follow least energy trajectories (which are always a composite). Unless, of course, we do, but the macro-scale of what we usually observe is a statistical blur of such weird dog leg tracks. But that's not what I read in Feynman, say. What you see is what *every* "you" gets, all nicely cohered. Damien Broderick From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Jan 9 04:55:27 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 20:55:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac><7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com><1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net><1199743877_7001@S4.cableone.net> <1199747866_10272@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Keith writes > Which brings up a recursive point. What is the > evolutionary origin of the reluctance in some > groups to make reference to ethnic or cultural > groups? Why ask for an EP explanation of a very recent *fashion*? Throughout most of history there has been little or no reluctance to discuss group differences. Of course, every behavior is facilitated by *some* evolutionarily derived organ, and this is no different. May I suggest that reluctance to discuss race and gender differences in the West is powered by altruism, the sort that makes one reluctant to discuss the possible shortcomings of friends and associates? The real question is why the West recently adopted such a novel and peculiar fashion. The Greek, Roman, medieval, Muslim, and many other societies have had no qualms at all exploring such inquiries. And the answer, again, I suggest, is that many in the West have adopted a love for all of humanity, and so are thereby in all too many cases positively afraid to look at any evidence of group differences, in fear of significant difference that might be found. Lee From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 06:07:33 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 17:07:33 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <610611.33779.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <610611.33779.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 09/01/2008, Ian Goddard wrote: > How does MWI explain Wheeler's delayed-choice > experiment? The photon is not forced to restrospectively choose how to behave at the slits depending on the experimenter's choice, since every combination of photon behaviour with corresponding experimenter behaviour actually occurs. The MWI is completely deterministic, but it gives the impression of true randomness from the observer's perspective because each version of you experiences being in only one world at a time you don't know which world it will be. But I will let Wheeler answer a reader's letter two days after the original "Discover" magazine article: "Do scientists have any clues regarding the reason behind the double-slit mystery? There are several theories out there now that purport to bring us closer to a theory of everything. Probably the most fantastical is the multi-universe theory, which ponders the notion of an infinite number of parallel universes residing next to our own. Could this possibility be applied to the double-slit experiment? Could there be two different universes, one in which light acts as a particle and another alongside in which light acts as a wave? Michael S. Bowen ?Anderson, South Carolina John Wheeler responds: Parallel universes were postulated by my student Hugh Everett in 1957 and have been the object of serious study ever since. This idea provides (so far) no new predictions for the outcomes of experiments, but it does offer mind-stretching insight into the nature of quantum theory. In this "many worlds" interpretation, all possible outcomes of such experiments as the delayed-choice experiment do occur, with the universe continually fractionating into other universes. A photon or other particle would exhibit both wave and particle aspects in every universe. http://discovermagazine.com/2002/aug/letters -- Stathis Papaioannou From jonkc at att.net Wed Jan 9 06:26:14 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 01:26:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> "Damien Broderick" Wrote: > A basic premise of quantum theory, as I understand it (in a rudimentary > way), is that what we see always comprises a superposition of all > possible states of the relevant phenomenon. But we don't ALWAYS see a superposition of states. If you flip a coin and it comes out heads then you are NOT living in the world where it came out tails. In the same way if you do the two slit experiment and the photon goes through slit A then you are not living in the world where it went through slot B, but the 2 slit experiment can be a little difference from the simple coin toss example. If after the photon makes its decision on which of the 2 slits to go through it then hits a photographic plate (or a brick wall) then both photons in both universes are destroyed and thus there is no longer any difference between the two, so the universes will merge back together. THEN you will see a superposition of states. Then you will see indications that you live in a universe where the photon went through slot A only and indications you live in a universe where the photon went through slot B only, and that is why you see an interference effect even if you only send one photon at a time at the slits. If you got rid of the film (or the brick wall) and let the photon head out into infinite space after it passed the slits then the universes, and you, will split and never recombine, and so of course you will see no interference effect. The beautiful part of the theory is that it doesn't have to explain what an observer is and that's why a brick wall will work just as well as a photographic plate. John K Clark From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 07:06:42 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 18:06:42 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 09/01/2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > I have read Deutsch's book with its peculiar talk of shadow photons, > which appear to subsist in numerous orthogonal universes that > mysteriously influence each other. And yet most discussions of MWI as > applied to decisive choices, for example, appear to suppose that any > observed state branches into a multitude of alternative experiences. > You turn right, and you turn left, and you go home, and very very > rarely you fly into the sky. Presumably, therefore, we must imagine > that in one universe a given light beam will jig along a random dog's > leg path, and it's only a sort of "God's eye view" that might > perceive the kind of hyperreality where all those dogs' legs congeal > into a straight line. > > But actually there is no "God's eye view" unless it is the one we > experience routinely. The way I understand Deutsch, normally you don't see the superposition of worlds, but just the world that you're in. Under special circumstances you can see the effects of the different worlds interfering with each other but this is a delicate matter and is disrupted when macroscopic interactions occur: the process of decoherence, causing an apparent "collapse" of the wavefunction. A "God's eye view" of the multiverse would show that every possibility happens. But if you are an observer embedded in this ever-branching story, able to experience only one branch at a time, it appears that there is only one linear reality. This also allows for the possibility of true randomness from a first person perspective while the objective reality is completely deterministic, since all versions of you are equivalent but you will only experience one of them as "real". -- Stathis Papaioannou From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jan 9 07:14:26 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:14:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> At 01:26 AM 1/9/2008 -0500, JKC wrote: > > A basic premise of quantum theory, as I understand it (in a rudimentary > > way), is that what we see always comprises a superposition of all > > possible states of the relevant phenomenon. > >But we don't ALWAYS see a superposition of states. If you flip a coin and it >comes out heads then you are NOT living in the world where it came out >tails. Flipping a coin is not a quantum-scale event. Some aspects of the neural process underlying the decision to flip it might be (if Penrose or Popper/Eccles are right), but that's probably not critical here, I suspect. If you fire a single photon and register its arrival at a detector one meter away, you know precisely how long it should take to arrive *if it goes straight there*. But on the Feynman account (if I've understood it), many components of the supposition meander way the hell over the path, and hence should take longer to arrive. If each of them is "realized" in a different universe, rather than their phases canceling, then in most universes a photon should arrive at an apparent v < c. No? (Well, obviously no, but why not?) Damien Broderick From sentience at pobox.com Wed Jan 9 07:32:51 2008 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:32:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <478478A3.7090701@pobox.com> Damien, I recommend to you "The End of Time" by Julian Barbour. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jan 9 08:03:40 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:03:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <478478A3.7090701@pobox.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <478478A3.7090701@pobox.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080109020043.021dbbd8@satx.rr.com> At 11:32 PM 1/8/2008 -0800, Eliezer wrote: >Damien, I recommend to you "The End of Time" by Julian Barbour. Yes, I read that book when it came out, and had an interesting discussion with Barbour after my review was published. I found his Platonist approach even more perplexing and uncongenial. Damien Broderick From scerir at libero.it Wed Jan 9 08:38:59 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 09:38:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <227461.10784.qm@web52701.mail.re2.yahoo.com><62c14240801081846j55273f7w2b94a2288e97a2b1@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60801081928t8a7adffj9a50d0a4f29bb39b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <000301c8529b$16252240$a4921f97@archimede> Rafal Smigrodzki > Seriously, MWI does seem to scare many people because > of its implications - infinities of creatures, hell-branches, > total godlessness. For some reason the framers of QM felt > they needed to invent "collapse" out of whole cloth, > and only Everett, thirty years later, had the gumption > to work out the details, take QM to its simplest form > and do away with anthropocentrism. It seems, perhaps, interesting to point out that the first definition of 'collapse' was 'reduction of probability packet', sometimes 'reduction of wave packet.' H. Kragh ('Dirac: a Scientific Biography', Cambridge UP,1990) describes Dirac, Heisenberg and Born having a discussion, in 1927, about what may cause a 'collapse'. Dirac said that it is 'Nature' that makes the choice (of the measurement outcome). Born agreed. Heisenberg however maintained that, behind the collapse, and the choice of which 'branch' the wavefunction would take, there was 'the free-will of the human observer'. Actually Heisenberg described the 'collapse' in 1930, speaking of the M-Z interferometer. "There is then a definite probability for finding the photon either in one part or in the other part of the divided wave packet. After a sufficient time the two parts will be separated by any distance desired; now if an experiment yields the result that the photon is, say, in the reflected part of the packet, then the probability of finding the photon in the other part of the packet immediately becomes zero. The experiment at the position of the reflected packet thus exerts a kind of action (reduction of the wave packet) at the distant point occupied by the transmitted packet, and one sees that this action is propagated with a velocity greater than that of light. However, it is also obvious that this kind of action can never be utilized for the transmission of signals so that it is not in conflict with the postulates of the theory of relativity." ('The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory', University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1930). But later, in 'Physics and Philosophy' (Harper and Row, 1958, N.Y.) Heisenberg writes: "The observation itself changes the probability function discontinuously; it selects of all possible events the actual one that has taken place [...]. The discontinuous change in the probability function, however, takes place with the act of registration, because it is the discontinuous change of our knowledge in the instant of registration that has its image in the discontinuous change of the probability function." "This probability function represents a mixture of two things, partly a fact and partly our knowledge of a fact. It represents a fact in so far as it assigns at the initial time the probability unity (i.e., complete certainty) to the initial situation: the electron moving with the observed velocity at the observed position; 'observed' means observed within the accuracy of the experiment. It represents our knowledge in so far as another observer could perhaps know the position of the electron more accurately. The error in the experiment does - at least to some extent - not represent a property of the electron but a deficiency in our knowledge of the electron. Also this deficiency of knowledge is expressed in the probability function." [Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy]. J. von Neumann helps here (maybe) to understand what Heisenberg might have in mind: "It is inherenly entirely correct that the measurement or the related process of the subjective perception is a new entity relative to the physical environment and is not reducible to the latter. Indeed, subjective perception leads us into the intellectual inner life of the individual, which is extra-observational by its very nature". J. von Neumann, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, p.418. J. von Neumann also defines the principle of 'psycho-physical parallelism'. He defines it as the principle "that it must be possible to describe the extra-physical process of the subjective perception as if it were in reality in the physical world - i.e., to assign to its parts equivalent physical processes in the objective environment, in ordinary space." Heisenberg by the way goes on to say: "We can, for instance, predict the probability for finding the electron at a later time at a given point in the cloud chamber. It should be emphasised, however, that the probability function does not in itself represent a course of events in the course of time. It represents a tendency for events and our knowledge of events." And a little further, he says: "The observation ... breaks the determined continuity of the probability function by changing our knowledge of the system." And also: "Therefore, the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place during the act of observation. If we want to describe what happens in an atomic event, we have to realize that the word 'happens' can apply only to the observation, not to the state of affairs between two observations. It applies to the physical, not the psychical act of observation, and we may say that the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place as soon as the interaction of the object with the measuring device, and thereby with the rest of the world, has come into play; it is not connected with the act of registration of the result by the mind of the observer. The discontinuous change in the probability function, however, takes place with the act of registration, because it is the discontinuous change of our knowledge in the instant of registration that has its image in the discontinuous change of the probability function." According to Jan Faye "Bohr accepted the Born statistical interpretation because he believed that the psi-function has only a symbolic meaning and does not represent anything real. It makes sense to talk about a collapse of the wave function only if, as Bohr put it, the psi-function can be given a pictorial representation, something he strongly denied." It seems to me that the 'Copenhagen interpretation' (an invention of Heinsenberg, dated 1954, if I remember well) and - in any case - the so called 'Spirit of Copenhagen' and the 'orthodox' interpretation, gave no sharp definition of 'collapse' (and of 'wave-function') in terms of 'ontic' reality. They introduced the concept of 'psycho-physical parallelism'. But this very concept is crucial in the Everett's 'relative state' interpretation. From hkhenson at rogers.com Wed Jan 9 12:38:34 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 05:38:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Future and past was Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60801082022m5188736fmdbf579d3dd06d8c0@mail.gmail.co m> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7641ddc60801082022m5188736fmdbf579d3dd06d8c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1199882331_4301@S4.cableone.net> At 09:22 PM 1/8/2008, Rafal wrote: >On Jan 8, 2008 10:41 PM, hkhenson wrote: > > > > One of the things which falls out is that the past is as uncertain as > > the future. I.e., *many* pasts could have contributed to the current > > reality (whatever that happens to be). > >### I'd rather say, 1 << N(past) << N(future). The number of possible >futures is much larger than the number of possible pasts, and both are >unimaginably numerous. Time symmetry would argue for the number of past and future states to be the same. I don't think it is a good idea to go any further with this line of thinking. Keith From jef at jefallbright.net Wed Jan 9 15:14:17 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 07:14:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Future and past was Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <1199882331_4301@S4.cableone.net> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7641ddc60801082022m5188736fmdbf579d3dd06d8c0@mail.gmail.com> <1199882331_4301@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: On 1/9/08, hkhenson wrote: > At 09:22 PM 1/8/2008, Rafal wrote: > >On Jan 8, 2008 10:41 PM, hkhenson wrote: > > > > > > One of the things which falls out is that the past is as uncertain as > > > the future. I.e., *many* pasts could have contributed to the current > > > reality (whatever that happens to be). > > > >### I'd rather say, 1 << N(past) << N(future). The number of possible > >futures is much larger than the number of possible pasts, and both are > >unimaginably numerous. > > Time symmetry would argue for the number of past and future states to > be the same. I don't think it is a good idea to go any further with > this line of thinking. I'm intrigued by Rafal's claim, but I come to the same symmetrical result as does Keith. I can imagine reasons why pursuing this topic might be demoralizing to some, but I don't see it as a "bad idea" to try to increase understanding of this. Rafal, can you provide a rational justification for your claim? - Jef From jonkc at att.net Wed Jan 9 17:36:33 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 12:36:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> "Damien Broderick" > on the Feynman account (if I've understood it), many > components of the supposition meander way the hell > over the path, and hence should take longer to arrive If each > of them is "realized" in a different universe, rather than their > phases canceling, then in most universes a photon should arrive > at an apparent v < c. No? (Well, obviously no, but why not?) I think you're mixing Feynman's Sum-over-histories and Everett's many worlds. Everett was talking about the entire universe splitting, Feynman was not, Feynman was saying when a charged particle moves from point A to point B in a electromagnetic field it could move in any conservable path; but some paths are more likely than others, and if you add up all those paths in just the right way you will find the path you will probably observe in the real world. Unlike Everett Feynman wasn't trying to solve a philosophical problem, he was trying to get numbers out of a theory so it can be tested. In that he was certainly successful, his QED theory was been called the most precise ever devised by the scientific method; experiments have confirmed its predictions to eleven decimal points. Despite this success Feynman, a man not noted for his modesty, expressed some concern over QED because it didn't really give a very clear physical understanding of what was going on. He said: "I think my theory is simply a way to sweep [mathematical] difficulties under the rug, I am, of course, not sure of that." I like another quote of his: "I think it's fair to say nobody understands quantum mechanics" John K Clark From jef at jefallbright.net Wed Jan 9 15:40:53 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 07:40:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080109020043.021dbbd8@satx.rr.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <478478A3.7090701@pobox.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109020043.021dbbd8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 1/9/08, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 11:32 PM 1/8/2008 -0800, Eliezer wrote: > > >Damien, I recommend to you "The End of Time" by Julian Barbour. > > Yes, I read that book when it came out, and had an interesting > discussion with Barbour after my review was published. I found his > Platonist approach even more perplexing and uncongenial. I'm not qualified to discuss the technical intricacies of quantum mechanics, but I do see pervasive epistemological confusion associated with assumptions of "objective probabilities" as obscuring and impeding more rigorous scientific exploration. I recommend integrating E.T. Jaynes with your thinking on this topic. For instance: - Jef From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jan 9 18:17:45 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:17:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> At 12:36 PM 1/9/2008 -0500, John K Clark wrote: >I think you're mixing Feynman's Sum-over-histories and Everett's many >worlds. I'm assuming they cash out the same way, in the respect I mentioned. (Maybe they don't.) >Everett was talking about the entire universe splitting, Feynman >was not Some commentators deny that Everett's model meant entire universes (due to relativistic constraints, if for no other reason). It's never been clear to me just what they *do* mean, though--what the boundaries are. Damien Broderick From scerir at libero.it Wed Jan 9 19:28:08 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:28:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <000301c852f5$c4437700$16941f97@archimede> Damien: > If you fire a single photon and register its arrival at a detector > one meter away, you know precisely how long it should take to arrive > *if it goes straight there*. But on the Feynman account (if I've > understood it), many components of the supposition meander way the > hell over the path, and hence should take longer to arrive. There is a reason why you cannot find on the web (or I guess so) say the two-slit interference mathematically explained in path integral terms. The formalism is difficult. If you read: Path integrals and quantum interference A. O. Barut and S. Basri Amer. Jour. Physics, Vol. 60, n 10, pp. 896-899, (1992) you understand both that your intuition is right!, and how the formalism solves the problem. > If each of them is "realized" in a different universe, rather than > their phases canceling, then in most universes a photon should > arrive at an apparent v < c. No? (Well, obviously no, but why not?) Is that a mixture of MWI and path integral formalism? They are different representations. From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Wed Jan 9 20:24:49 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 12:24:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <556009.25979.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> > The theory I posted proposes an answer. > Observation-induced wave collapse is a process > utilized in the visual rendering of computer- > generated virtual realities (VRs). In computer > graphics it's known as 'occlusion culling', though I > like the term 'on-call rendering'. Rendering the raw > data for an object into a visible representation of > the object taxes finite system resources. So if > you're panning your VR eyes around a VR landscape > producing views on your computer screen of selected > portions of the whole VR model, all objects outside > the viewing screen are not rendered. Only if an > object can be observed are its properties made > discrete, or localized. Let me try to wrap that up in two 'rules'. Given the double-slit experiment (VR = a computer-generated virtual reality of the type we've created): * If a photon becomes observable, then its position becomes manifest. * If a VR object becomes observable, then its position becomes manifest. So 'wave collapse' and 'occlusion culling' *seem* on the surface (ie, prima facie) to share some kind of similarity. The wording of the above 'rules' could probably be debated. But sometimes a rough general sense of things can reveal important meta-connections that could be obscured in detailed micro-analyses. For example, I doubt that occlusion culling in today's computer VRs would upon micro-analysis within one, look exactly like wave collapse in our world. But the meta-point is that in a broader sense, wave collapse seems like *some kind* of observation-affected occlusion culling, almost surely (if we're in a sim) of a type far more advanced than any VR we've made. So it seems as if the nonlocal superposition of Schrodinger's cat may in some way be similar to the nonlocal 'superposition' of VR objects left unrendered outside a user's viewing screen, and that are only localized only if they become observable. ~Ian http://IanGoddard.net "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From benboc at lineone.net Wed Jan 9 20:50:07 2008 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 20:50:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Murder (was: Re: bishop warns of no-go areas) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4785337F.30104@lineone.net> "Gary Miller" wrote: > Since the US has started to seriously crack down on drunk drivers in the 1990's a much greater number of DUIs resulting in fatalities > are prosecuted as, and therefore reported as murders, as they should be. Should they? Only if you're going to redefine 'murder'. If you'd asked me before i read this, i'd have defined murder as deliberately killing someone, and my dictionary supports this definition (adding that it is an 'unlawful' killing). Deaths caused by drunken driving are clearly not premeditated (usually). I'd think that the term 'manslaughter' was more appropriate, and wouldn't muddy the figures (somebody taking a gun and shooting a person in the head is clearly a different thing to getting drunk and accidentally causing a fatal accident, and should be recorded as such). I'm not saying that the result is any less serious for the victim. Mainly, i'm objecting to the loss of information in redefining the word 'murder' like this. It seems to me that the classification of drunk-driving-caused deaths as 'murder' is more of a marketing exercise than anything sensible, with the thinking that if you redefine it, and the penalty therefore automatically becomes harsher, there will be more of a deterrent. This might be easier to achieve than doing the sensible thing, and making the penalty harsher without redefining drunk-driving-caused death into an inappropriate category. ben zed From painlord2k at yahoo.it Wed Jan 9 22:02:09 2008 From: painlord2k at yahoo.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:02:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Murder In-Reply-To: <4785337F.30104@lineone.net> References: <4785337F.30104@lineone.net> Message-ID: <47854461.4070706@yahoo.it> ben ha scritto: > "Gary Miller" wrote: > Should they? > Only if you're going to redefine 'murder'. > If you'd asked me before i read this, i'd have defined murder as > deliberately killing someone, and my dictionary supports this definition > (adding that it is an 'unlawful' killing). > Deaths caused by drunken driving are clearly not premeditated (usually). They are not premeditated, for sure. But people drinking too much before driving are behaving in a way that put others in a grave danger. And I'm not writing about a glass or two of Bud, I'm writing about people driving with enough alcohol to risk coma. If you do something like this, you have a "Reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life (abandoned and malignant heart)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder And the example give is: "An example of this is a 2007 law in California where an individual could be convicted of second-degree murder if he or she kills another person while operating a motor vehicle while being under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or controlled substances" > I'd think that the term 'manslaughter' was more appropriate, and > wouldn't muddy the figures (somebody taking a gun and shooting a person > in the head is clearly a different thing to getting drunk and > accidentally causing a fatal accident, and should be recorded as such). The difference is in the state of mind and behavior of the killer. Near where I live a man was convicted for three manslaughters ("Omicidio Colposo" in Italy) in ten years (five people killed); all under influence of alcohol. The penalties were so light it didn't do a day of jail and the judge retired his driving license after the third killing as this was the only way to keep him out of the roads. After this and others episodes a few prosecutors started charging for second degree murder arguing that these people know they are putting other in harm's way. > I'm not saying that the result is any less serious for the victim. > Mainly, i'm objecting to the loss of information in redefining the word > 'murder' like this. > It seems to me that the classification of drunk-driving-caused deaths as > 'murder' is more of a marketing exercise than anything sensible, with > the thinking that if you redefine it, and the penalty therefore > automatically becomes harsher, there will be more of a deterrent. This > might be easier to achieve than doing the sensible thing, and making the > penalty harsher without redefining drunk-driving-caused death into an > inappropriate category. There is a difference from a manslaughter by an error: E.G. a nurse administering the wrong drugs to a patients. If you modify the penalties of manslaughter you make harsher the penalties for all type of manslaughter. And this would be wronger. Mirco -- [Intangible capital is] the preponderant form of wealth. When we look at the shares of intangible capital across income classes, you see it goes from about 60 percent in low-income countries to 80 percent in high-income countries. That accords very much with the notion that what really makes countries wealthy is not the bits and pieces, it's the brainpower, and the institutions that harness that brainpower. It's the skills more than the rocks and minerals. ?Kirk Hamilton Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale! http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 22:53:45 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 16:53:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <000301c852f5$c4437700$16941f97@archimede> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <000301c852f5$c4437700$16941f97@archimede> Message-ID: <200801091653.45450.kanzure@gmail.com> On Wednesday 09 January 2008, scerir wrote: > If you read: > ? Path integrals and quantum interference > ? A. O. Barut and S. Basri > ? Amer. Jour. Physics, Vol. 60, n 10, pp. 896-899, (1992) Also try the Feynman and Hibbs path integral book. The same Hibbs that was to be on Apollo 25, I might add. But that never played out. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jan 9 23:10:00 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 17:10:00 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Man Who Wanted Stars (Dan McLaughlin, 1965) Message-ID: <200801091710.00879.kanzure@gmail.com> A small book that I picked up the other day in my Half Price Books index-browsing session. Here's what the cover and excerpt writes: One man on all Earth sill believed in spaceflight. One man knew the burning urgency of mankind's next great step into the unknown. It had a fine beginning. The ships had gone out -- to the moon first, and then to Mars, Venus, and Mercury. And Murchison ventured into the asteroids, and Quintero dared the sun's flaming atmosphere. Men -- all heroes -- ranged the new frontier. But then the politicians killed it. They dragged home the venturous ones -- the ones who dared -- and took away from them Man's most challenging frontier. But it would come back. It had to come back. Even if Joe Webber had to build the rockets with his own bare hands. Even if he had to snatch men off the streets, and seal them in the rockets, and shoot them off at the stars. The high, cold stars. *Unfortunately* those are the best lines out of the entire book. But still an interesting meme to pass along. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 10 00:07:59 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:07:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <200801091653.45450.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <000301c852f5$c4437700$16941f97@archimede> <200801091653.45450.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080109175726.02335428@satx.rr.com> At 04:53 PM 1/9/2008 -0600, Bryan wrote: > > If you read: > > Path integrals and quantum interference > > A. O. Barut and S. Basri > > Amer. Jour. Physics, Vol. 60, n 10, pp. 896-899, (1992) > >Also try the Feynman and Hibbs path integral book. Where we read: "The concept of interfering alternatives is fundamental to all of quantum mechanics.... suppose that information about the alternatives is available (or could be made available without altering the result), but this information is not used. Nevertheless, in this case a sum of probabilities (in the ordinary sense) must be carried out over exclusive alternatives. These exclusive alternatives are those which could have been separately identified by the information." (p.14) "...there is a quantity called a probability amplitude associated with every method whereby an event in nature can take place... we can associate an amplitude with the overall event by adding together the amplitudes of each alternative method... Next, we interpret the absolute square of the overall amplitude as the probability that the event will happen." (p. 19) So yes, Serafino, "that [is] a mixture of MWI and path integral formalism"... to my untutored eye. The dreaded Sarfatti comments, without providing a reference to Albert: Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 10 00:14:04 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:14:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Man Who Wanted Stars (Dan McLaughlin, 1965) In-Reply-To: <200801091710.00879.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200801091710.00879.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080109181012.02181aa0@satx.rr.com> At 05:10 PM 1/9/2008 -0600, Bryan quoted: >Even if Joe Webber had to build the rockets with his >own bare hands. Even if he had to snatch men off the streets, and seal >them in the rockets, and shoot them off at the stars. The high, cold >stars. Poor Joe Weber. First his gravity detectors get laughed at, then he makes the silly error of shooting his spacemen at the cold stars instead of the bright hot ones. Oh well. It's been a long, strange trip. From amara at amara.com Thu Jan 10 00:27:06 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 17:27:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Man Who Wanted Stars (Dan McLaughlin, 1965) Message-ID: >Poor Joe Weber. First his gravity detectors get laughed at, then he >makes the silly error of shooting his spacemen at the cold stars >instead of the bright hot ones. Oh well. It's been a long, strange trip. Was the author referring to the same man?! Joe Weber was one of my favorite teachers at UC Irvine. I'll never forget his starting every one of my statistical mechanics classes (at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am) with a story. And his wife (Dr. Virginia Trimble) was my mentor (and _is_ an inspiration), as well. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 10 00:36:30 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:36:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Man Who Wanted Stars (Dan McLaughlin, 1965) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080109183449.021cfa30@satx.rr.com> At 05:27 PM 1/9/2008 -0700, Amara wrote: > >Poor Joe Weber. >Was the author referring to the same man?! I certainly hope not. Well, not in *this* universe... Damien the peculiarly whimsical From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 02:59:56 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 19:59:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Coming in 2008: "Transhumanism Today" magazine In-Reply-To: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> References: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670801091859i1753776bqb77fb32146ff6de4@mail.gmail.com> Joseph Bloch wrote: "Transhumanism Today" will be distributed in mass-marked bookstores to attract a new audience who might not otherwise seek out Transhumanist-related material, as well as being a place for committed Transhumanists to find unique content not available in other venues. >> I'm very interested to see how things work out for your endeavor and I just want to say I am rooting for you! I hope you have the financial deep pockets, advertising sales success and broad distribution network that will be dearly needed (along with plenty of great article submissions that keep on coming month after month...). I used to be an assistant editor for the "Physical Immortality" quarterly print magazine and despite fairly valiant efforts it failed. We had some very good articles but it did not have the slick appearance or vast distribution network & advertising budget of a mainstream magazine periodical. I believe Max More and the early Extropians put out their own print magazine and despite an excellent product were met with failure. What you are doing fits into the "where angels fear to tread" category and so I wish you the very best. Oh, and don't forget to have a sex columnist! "Ask Anders!" : ) Best wishes, John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 03:05:26 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:05:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] my new email address Message-ID: <2d6187670801091905u2c9e05f3pfc64f1d111523e90@mail.gmail.com> Hello everyone, I have given up trying to have a Yahoo email account (many messages to me just not making it for some reason) and have jumped ship to Google's Gmail. My new email address is possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com. John Grigg : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at harveynewstrom.com Thu Jan 10 03:22:23 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 22:22:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> Lee Corbin wrote: > Keith writes > >> Which brings up a recursive point. What is the >> evolutionary origin of the reluctance in some >> groups to make reference to ethnic or cultural >> groups? > > Why ask for an EP explanation of a very recent *fashion*? > Throughout most of history there has been little or no > reluctance to discuss group differences. Lee makes an excellent point. People believing in EP tend to try to use it to explain every psychological behavior. Some of them, such as this recent phenomenon, don't have their roots in evolution. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From hkhenson at rogers.com Thu Jan 10 04:38:44 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:38:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> Message-ID: <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> At 08:22 PM 1/9/2008, you wrote: >Lee Corbin wrote: > > Keith writes > > > >> Which brings up a recursive point. What is the > >> evolutionary origin of the reluctance in some > >> groups to make reference to ethnic or cultural > >> groups? > > > > Why ask for an EP explanation of a very recent *fashion*? > > Throughout most of history there has been little or no > > reluctance to discuss group differences. > >Lee makes an excellent point. People believing in EP tend to try to use it >to explain every psychological behavior. Some of them, such as this recent >phenomenon, don't have their roots in evolution. EP makes the claim that *every* psychological behavior has roots in evolution. Is learning (picking up new memes) a psychological behavior? Of course, and it goes way back on the mammal line as well. But people learn some things (fear of snakes and spiders) with much less effort than they learn others such as fearing electric outlets. This meme about sensitivity to and not trashing other cultures isn't hard to learn and seems to invoke some circuits that are invoked by religious memes. That's why it would be so interesting to devise tests to see what areas of the brain are involved and what other psychological mechanisms are co located with this area. Incidentally fashion is not an unlimited range though it does sometimes seem that way to a guy raised in the 1950. Keith From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Jan 10 06:13:29 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:13:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> hkhenson wrote: > At 08:22 PM 1/9/2008, you wrote: > >> Lee Corbin wrote: >> >>> Keith writes >>> >>> >>>> Which brings up a recursive point. What is the >>>> evolutionary origin of the reluctance in some >>>> groups to make reference to ethnic or cultural >>>> groups? >>>> >>> Why ask for an EP explanation of a very recent *fashion*? >>> Throughout most of history there has been little or no >>> reluctance to discuss group differences. >>> >> Lee makes an excellent point. People believing in EP tend to try to use it >> to explain every psychological behavior. Some of them, such as this recent >> phenomenon, don't have their roots in evolution. >> > > EP makes the claim that *every* psychological behavior has roots in > evolution. Is learning (picking up new memes) a psychological > behavior? Of course, and it goes way back on the mammal line as well. > That seems a bit like saying "every human activity, every human thought, every invention, etc. have roots in evolution". True, but so what? If you mean the stronger statement that *every* psychological behavior is adequately and accurately explained by evolutionary psychology then that is not at all obvious and seems quit unlikely. Besides, all that is needed for EP by definition is that are aspects of our psychology that are due to evolution. It is not necessary in order for EP to be a valid body of theory that it explain all our psychological behavior. - samantha From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Jan 10 04:51:22 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 20:51:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com> <1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net> <1199743877_7001@S4.cableone.net> <1199747866_10272@S3.cableone.net> <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 1/8/08, Lee Corbin wrote: > Keith writes > > > Which brings up a recursive point. What is the > > evolutionary origin of the reluctance in some > > groups to make reference to ethnic or cultural > > groups? > > Why ask for an EP explanation of a very recent *fashion*? > Throughout most of history there has been little or no > reluctance to discuss group differences. I think Keith was asking for an explanation of the EP genotype, you're response is in regard to the phenotype. Category error. My notebook PC seems to be displaying many more videos now than it did just a few years ago. Of course Internet video has been so popular only for a few short years, so it certainly couldn't be explained in terms of evolving techno-social patterns. Yeah, right. - Jef From hkhenson at rogers.com Thu Jan 10 08:12:09 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 01:12:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> Message-ID: <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> At 11:13 PM 1/9/2008, samantha wrote: >hkhenson wrote: snip > > EP makes the claim that *every* psychological behavior has roots in > > evolution. Is learning (picking up new memes) a psychological > > behavior? Of course, and it goes way back on the mammal line as well. > > >That seems a bit like saying "every human activity, every human thought, >every invention, etc. have roots in evolution". True, but so what? >If you mean the stronger statement that *every* psychological behavior >is adequately and accurately explained by evolutionary psychology then >that is not at all obvious and seems quit unlikely. Besides, all that >is needed for EP by definition is that are aspects of our psychology >that are due to evolution. It is not necessary in order for EP to be a >valid body of theory that it explain all our psychological behavior. Sorry, I need to correct and expand a bit. Behavior is due to psychological mechanisms. That's true from complicated behavior such as capture-bonding right down to reflex withdrawal from something hot. If there is a widespread psychological mechanism in some species then that mechanism came to exist through evolution. Typically these mechanisms (such as cheater detection) are localized in the brain. Vision and hearing are obviously localized as are centers for speech, motor control and several dozen others. Now widespread behavior typically results from underlying evolved psychological mechanisms. Those mechanisms came down to us because they helped our ancestors reproduce, or at least didn't get in the way. Some of the selection may be recent, i.e., since settled agriculture. (The Gregory Clark paper I have recommended strongly.) That doesn't mean that all the behaviors we see today (such as drug addiction) were selected. But the underlying mechanisms that responds to drugs *were* selected and drug addiction is a side effect of that selection. The behavior related to "political correctness" with respect to different cultures is a widespread behavior in western culture. (In this case I think we have to leave out Japan which I normally count in the western culture block.) Therefore there must be an evolved underlying psychological mechanism involved. Maybe this behavior is entirely due to the psychological mechanisms we use to pick up rock chipping or washing dishes, but I doubt it. People hold PC views much more emotionally than they hold ways to knit. When strong emotions are involved it's telling you *something.* This meme is tapping some evolved psychological mechanism that was significant at some time in our past. I don't know the original function but this is the way the logical progression goes in using EP. As a guess it's tapping the same psychological mechanisms as other political matters. Or it may be tapping the closely related religious mechanisms. Dr. Weston did work that's close enough he might be able to shed some light on this if asked. Any folks on the list from Emory University or Atlanta? Keith Henson From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 10:35:07 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:35:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: On Jan 10, 2008 8:12 AM, hkhenson wrote: > The behavior related to "political correctness" with respect to > different cultures is a widespread behavior in western culture. (In > this case I think we have to leave out Japan which I normally count > in the western culture block.) Therefore there must be an evolved > underlying psychological mechanism involved. > > Maybe this behavior is entirely due to the psychological mechanisms > we use to pick up rock chipping or washing dishes, but I doubt > it. People hold PC views much more emotionally than they hold ways > to knit. When strong emotions are involved it's telling you > *something.* This meme is tapping some evolved psychological > mechanism that was significant at some time in our past. I don't > know the original function but this is the way the logical > progression goes in using EP. > > As a guess it's tapping the same psychological mechanisms as other > political matters. Or it may be tapping the closely related > religious mechanisms. Dr. Weston did work that's close enough he > might be able to shed some light on this if asked. > The problem I see with "political correctness" is that it is mostly a public fashion. You have to be seen to be behaving in a PC fashion, otherwise the dogs start hounding you to apologise for your despicable statements. Many people (myself included) hold opinions that disagree strongly with the current PC fashion. But we have learned to keep our mouths shut in public. This is rather like males adopting the 'New Man' image and displaying behaviour like pretending to be caring, considerate, liking poetry, supporting female rights, etc. because that is the current fashion for success with women. It doesn't change the underlying belief set of males, which comes out in male havens such as the locker room, drinking dens, the army, etc. I.e. It is only a current etiquette for behaving in public, not an EP driven instinct. BillK From scerir at libero.it Thu Jan 10 10:47:57 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:47:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><000301c852f5$c4437700$16941f97@archimede><200801091653.45450.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109175726.02335428@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <000301c85376$4533fb20$70971f97@archimede> Damien > "...there is a quantity called a probability amplitude associated > with every method whereby an event in nature can take place... we can > associate an amplitude with the overall event by adding together the > amplitudes of each alternative method... Next, we interpret the > absolute square of the overall amplitude as the probability that the > event will happen." (p. 19) > > So yes, Serafino, "that [is] a mixture of MWI and path integral > formalism"... to my untutored eye. In MWI the traditional superposition of states |a> + |b> + ... becomes, upon measurements, a superposition of relative states |a>|outcome a>|observer a> + |b>|outcome b>|observer b> + ... via the tensor product and the *Hilbert space* formalism. The signature of quantish nature, the interference, is sometimes explained in terms of interference between 'worlds' .... In the path integral approach every quantum system is described as a *particle* and the probability that a particle goes from (x1,t1) to (x2,t2) - where x are *positions in space* and t are *times* - is given by P(2,1) = |K(2,1)|^2 where K is the probability amplitude propagator, calculated from the sum over all possible paths, from (x1,t1) to (x2,t2), given the classical action S(t2,t1) for each path. Notice that the interval (t2,t1) is fixed. Notice that, in an orthodox interpretation, individual trajectories form an average to obtain the final quantum outcome, but these trajectories are not all 'physical'. As you can perhaps see there is some difference between the two approaches (at least to my also untutored eye). > The dreaded Sarfatti comments, without providing a reference to Albert: > principle for special pairs of incompatible observables in a > "self-measurement" which also involves "photographs of other worlds" > violating the dogma of Everett's original meta-theory of "many > worlds" for the meaning of quantum mechanics. Everett mistakenly > assumed that conscious observers could never be aware of their > parallel selves in the "universes next door". That paper should be this one http://kh.bu.edu/qcl/pdf/albert_d1983066c6d7c.pdf there is another, more philosophical, paper by David Z Albert, about quantum-mechanical automata, which is simpler but less effective. But that 'self-measurement' is usually called a 'pre-measurement', different from a non-reversible 'measurement' (aka reduction, collapse, projection, split, decoherence, selection, or - as Bohr named it - 'amplification'). So you can imagine why a quantum-mechanical automaton, performing self-measurements, can 'feel' different 'worlds', but cannot explain to others what he feels. No, no, ... that 'qualia' thing again! From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Jan 10 14:33:02 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:33:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: On 1/10/08, BillK wrote: > The problem I see with "political correctness" is that it is mostly a > public fashion. > I.e. It is only a current etiquette for behaving in public, not an EP > driven instinct. How could any pattern of behavior, within a given environment, be independent of the (evolved) nature of the organism? So it seems you're making a finer distinction based on the degree of self-aware intentionality involved in the behavior. I.e. if a person consciously reasons about their choice of expression with regard to politically sensitive issues, then it's considered "intentional" and "non-instinctual"? And when such behavior becomes habitual -- no longer consciously chosen -- then it remains in the "non-instinctual" category? And when large numbers of people reliably demonstrate such behaviors under similar circumstances, we call it "fashion", as distinct from evolved nature? I see... BTW, my New Year's Resolution was to practice being more politically correct. Seriously. So far, I'm finding it very difficult. - Jef Fashions and fads operate largely according to widely acknowledged psychological factors, which buttons and levers are intentionally manipulated by marketeers, able to affect the flow From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 15:11:28 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:11:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <62c14240801100711j45843f63o5bedb35d417f3e01@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2008 9:33 AM, Jef Allbright wrote: > BTW, my New Year's Resolution was to practice being more politically > correct. Seriously. So far, I'm finding it very difficult. Perhaps you should examine the goal of your resolution? I resolved to drink more red wine and I've had almost no difficulty maintaining that resolve. :) "you know, for its anti-oxidant properties" From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 15:24:59 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:24:59 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: On Jan 10, 2008 2:33 PM, Jef Allbright wrote: > How could any pattern of behavior, within a given environment, be > independent of the (evolved) nature of the organism? So it seems > you're making a finer distinction based on the degree of self-aware > intentionality involved in the behavior. I.e. if a person consciously > reasons about their choice of expression with regard to politically > sensitive issues, then it's considered "intentional" and > "non-instinctual"? And when such behavior becomes habitual -- no > longer consciously chosen -- then it remains in the "non-instinctual" > category? And when large numbers of people reliably demonstrate such > behaviors under similar circumstances, we call it "fashion", as > distinct from evolved nature? > > I see... > Perhaps I should have said it is like role-playing. Temporarily assuming a persona so as to attain a specific objective. 'Games people play'. As the saying goes - Woman often fake orgasms, but men fake whole relationships. BillK From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Jan 10 16:04:51 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:04:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert><1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <04d501c853a2$a2d0a810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Keith writes > Behavior is due to psychological mechanisms. That's true from > complicated behavior such as capture-bonding right down to reflex > withdrawal from something hot. That is absolutely the case. > If there is a widespread psychological mechanism in some species then > that mechanism came to exist through evolution. Also true. > Typically these mechanisms (such as cheater detection) are > localized in the brain. Vision and hearing are obviously localized > as are centers for speech, motor control and several dozen others. Excellent examples. > The behavior related to "political correctness" with respect to > different cultures is a widespread behavior in western culture. (In > this case I think we have to leave out Japan which I normally count > in the western culture block.) Therefore there must be an evolved > underlying psychological mechanism involved. Naturally. Didn't you like my explanation of what it was? Here it is once more: May I suggest that reluctance to discuss race and gender differences in the West is powered by altruism, the sort that makes one reluctant to discuss the possible shortcomings of friends and associates? In other words, it is people's feelings of altruism (towards the poor, the sick, the backward, the disenfranchised, etc.) which is the evolutionary mechanism responsible. I won't go over the evolutionary explanations of altruism here---one may see any number of books and articles, from "Origin of Virtues" on down to "The Mating Mind". > People hold PC views much more emotionally than they hold ways > to knit. My explanation fits that. > When strong emotions are involved it's telling you *something.* > > As a guess it's tapping the same psychological mechanisms as other > political matters. I'd put it the other way: many political matters rely on instinctual feelings of altruism. Whenever any socialist wants more government control of anything, for example, all he or she need do is exhibit sufficiently gut-wrenching visual material (which, of course, shortcuts rationality). Children suffering is one of the most common recourses. Of course, this is *not* to say that we should ignore suffering---far from it. But our conclusions should be based on a careful weighing of costs and benefits, even statistics. It's better, for example, for a very few children to starve to death than for millions to be destitute and have no propects. But to grok that last sentence, one needs to really understand what "million" means, and most people, sadly, don't have that ability in such a context. Lee From hkhenson at rogers.com Thu Jan 10 16:18:22 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:18:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] More EP was Clark abstract In-Reply-To: References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1199981920_5851@S3.cableone.net> At 03:35 AM 1/10/2008, BillK wrote: >On Jan 10, 2008 8:12 AM, hkhenson wrote: > > The behavior related to "political correctness" with respect to > > different cultures is a widespread behavior in western culture. (In > > this case I think we have to leave out Japan which I normally count > > in the western culture block.) Therefore there must be an evolved > > underlying psychological mechanism involved. > > > > Maybe this behavior is entirely due to the psychological mechanisms > > we use to pick up rock chipping or washing dishes, but I doubt > > it. People hold PC views much more emotionally than they hold ways > > to knit. When strong emotions are involved it's telling you > > *something.* This meme is tapping some evolved psychological > > mechanism that was significant at some time in our past. I don't > > know the original function but this is the way the logical > > progression goes in using EP. > > > > As a guess it's tapping the same psychological mechanisms as other > > political matters. Or it may be tapping the closely related > > religious mechanisms. Dr. Weston did work that's close enough he > > might be able to shed some light on this if asked. > >The problem I see with "political correctness" is that it is mostly a >public fashion. There are a large number of people who give every indication that they hold various parts of "political correctness" very seriously, especially the bit about cultural relativism. A lot of them are seen as cultural leaders. It would take brain scans to be sure they were not lying about it, but I don't think they are. >You have to be seen to be behaving in a PC fashion, otherwise the dogs >start hounding you to apologise for your despicable statements. Many >people (myself included) hold opinions that disagree strongly with the >current PC fashion. But we have learned to keep our mouths shut in >public. Wait till you are 80 and some reporter catches you in an unguarded moment! >This is rather like males adopting the 'New Man' image and displaying >behaviour like pretending to be caring, considerate, liking poetry, >supporting female rights, etc. because that is the current fashion for >success with women. It doesn't change the underlying belief set of >males, which comes out in male havens such as the locker room, >drinking dens, the army, etc. > >I.e. It is only a current etiquette for behaving in public, not an EP >driven instinct. *All* behavior is ultimately the result of evolved psychological traits, even current etiquette and behaving appropriately in public. How the current "current etiquette" evolved was due to environmental effects and widely held psychological traits plus some admixture of random effects. Pascal Boyer showed this in _Religion Explained_. He really didn't fully explain religion but in one chapter he provided a list of real and made up "religions" and you could sort out the real ones without any trouble--which means what we call religion is highly constrained by our evolved psychological traits. A puzzling fact is that two or possibly three recent religions are obviously the outcome of injury induced temporal lobe epilepsy. As for behaving in public, if you didn't, your status would be adversely affected and for EP reasons people are very sensitive to status. What is appropriate behavior in public is no doubt just as limited by evolved psychological traits as what meme or sets of memes can make up a religion. Let's take another example. There was a time when "current etiquette for behaving in public" included regular religious attendance. It still is in parts of the world we are now in cultural and/or physical conflict with. Assuming human groups have similar enough underlying psychological traits (a point we need to treat cautiously because of Clark's work) then what environmental conditions moved the meme sets of western societies in a direction where "regular religious attendance" was no longer essential "current etiquette for behaving in public"? There are enough places where this happened to one degree or another that the information should be out there to test candidate theories. And the information (a model perhaps) could be extremely useful. Keith From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Jan 10 16:17:25 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:17:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert><1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com><1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <04e801c853a4$c2f7f0b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> BillK writes > The problem I see with "political correctness" is that it is mostly a > public fashion. Yes, that is exactly what I said Tuesday evening: Why ask for an EP explanation of a very recent *fashion*? Throughout most of history there has been little or no reluctance to discuss group differences. > You have to be seen to be behaving in a PC fashion, otherwise the dogs > start hounding you to apologise for your despicable statements. Many > people (myself included) hold opinions that disagree strongly with the > current PC fashion. But we have learned to keep our mouths shut in > public. Why do you care what people think, mister Fine Man? It's not like they'll stone you or bring you before the inquisition. At least not yet. > I.e. It is only a current etiquette for behaving in public, not an EP > driven instinct. Yes, but you *must* acknowledge that all behaviors are brought about by *some* evolutionarily derived mechanism. (Because if you don't, then we'll start hounding you, and you don't want that.) The proof that you and I are correct is that until the 1960's, very little was ever said that could be remotely called Politically Correct in the current manner. (True, in the west, ever since the French Revolution it has been understood that the masses have power, and that appeals to emotion are effective---which lies behind so much of PC.) Ergo, this fashion, this particular flavor of political expression, is *not* in our genes, any more than are particular tastes in clothing or choice of language. Lee From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jan 10 16:20:21 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:20:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Coming in 2008: "Transhumanism Today" magazine In-Reply-To: <2d6187670801091859i1753776bqb77fb32146ff6de4@mail.gmail.co m> References: <362ec1540712311617g59824605y8e09f33eed8d93a2@mail.gmail.com> <2d6187670801091859i1753776bqb77fb32146ff6de4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080110162022.UJNU11360.hrndva-omta06.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> At 08:59 PM 1/9/2008, John wrote: >I believe Max More and the early Extropians put out their own print >magazine and despite an excellent product were met with >failure. What you are doing fits into the "where angels fear to >tread" category and so I wish you the very best. That might depend on how one gauges failure. Did it succeed into the 21st Century, obtain a ticker number, and produce massive profits on Wall Street? No. But it was a huge success while it lasted, thanks to Max's 24/7 on it. "Extropy The Journal of Transhumanist Thought" was a success in many ways, including financially. One of the central problems was that the magazine's distributors were not always forthcoming with payments. The amount of work, including editing, layout, graphics, etc. did not produce a net profit that would be worthy of continuing the magazine without a larger number of sponsors and/or benefactors. For anyone unfamiliar with Extropy, some of the later issues are here: http://www.extropy.org/publications.htm And here are some fun quotes: "In general I would call it the best periodical I have ever seen in my life..." -- Alexander Chislenko, August 1992 "I love it. Extropy excites the hell out of my mind." -- Zack Lynch, January 1993 "I just wanted to let you know that Extropy keeps getting better and better! (as, of course, it must in order to be so named). What a uniformly excellent, eclectic, thoughtful, well-written selection of articles. By far the most thought-provoking, ground-breaking stuff in any magazine I read." -- Phil Goetz, July 1994 One of the highlights of the magazine was seeing it in bookstores and magazine stands. Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Candidate, Planetary Collegium - University of Plymouth - Faculty of Technology School of Computing, Communications and Electronics Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the circle, then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what is inside the circle and everything outside the circle, then that is an open system perspective. - Buckminster Fuller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jcowan5 at sympatico.ca Thu Jan 10 16:54:07 2008 From: jcowan5 at sympatico.ca (Joshua Cowan) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:54:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <04d501c853a2$a2d0a810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: Lee writes: Snip: >Of course, this is *not* to say that we should ignore suffering---far >from it. But our conclusions should be based on a careful weighing >of costs and benefits, even statistics. It's better, for example, for a >very few children to starve to death than for millions to be destitute >and have no propects. But to grok that last sentence, one needs to >really understand what "million" means, and most people, sadly, >don't have that ability in such a context. > I can't help wondering if the use of the word "very" as in "very few children to starve..." was an unconscious bowing to the underlying psychological mechanisms that encourage PC. To be more specific, perhaps people will save the few if they are described in more detail and with an eye to emotional response (for example, identifying them as children) rather than help the "millions" who are less fully realized (millions of people? Millions of old people who are about to die anyway...). From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Jan 10 16:53:45 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:53:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Branching vs. Interference (was Many Worlds) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <04eb01c853a9$b6d30400$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Damien writes > A basic premise of quantum theory, as I understand it (in a > rudimentary way), is that what we see always comprises a > superposition of all possible states of the relevant phenomenon. The > reason a light beam travels on the least action pathway is that this > is what happens when all conceivable pathways are taken > simultaneously, interfering with each other as they do so in such a > way that the observed straight line, or geodesic, comes out in the wash. > > Uh-huh. There is a complex number associated with each of those paths, and indeed the theory---which does correspond so well to prediction ---calls for adding together those complex numbers. I say this mantra over and over to myself: "At the bottom of things are amplitudes that add", and it seems to help. > I have read Deutsch's book with its peculiar talk of shadow photons, > which appear to subsist in numerous orthogonal universes that > mysteriously influence each other. And yet most discussions of MWI as > applied to decisive choices, for example, appear to suppose that any > observed state branches into a multitude of alternative experiences. Well, that does seem to explain everything. > You turn right, and you turn left, and you go home, and very very > rarely you fly into the sky. One confusion that may be present here is that these alternate paths---you go home, you fly---are not interfering with each other. They have attained an independence, and each goes accordingly into its own separate universe. (There is a grand superpositon of all these paths that constitutes the multiverse, but that's not quite the same issue.) Whereas before you were mentioning interference, which perhaps can be best understood as incipient branching that undergoes convergence "before it makes a difference", while here you are speaking of instances of separate branches. And "makes a difference" requires, as some kind person on this list informed me a few months back, at least one kT (a quantum) of energy. Branching doesn't happen until an "irreversible" change has occurred. I.e., the subsequent amplitudes of the separate branches to recombine is miniscule. > Presumably, therefore, we must imagine that in one universe > a given light beam will jig along a random dog's leg path, > and it's only a sort of "God's eye view" that might perceive > the kind of hyperreality where all those dogs' legs congeal > into a straight line. > > But actually there is no "God's eye view" unless it is the one we > experience routinely. > > Does anyone see the problem here? Yes, maybe. > It's so basic that I must be making an elementary mistake [no!], > but I have never been able to see what it is. Perhaps the distinction I made above between cases in which branching occurs and cases in which it does not will be helpful? E.g., a light beam exhibits interference, and we don't speak of the beam as going in different directions (one direction is singled out as the path actually taken, because, again, of interference). Whereas real branching has occurred if even so much as a photon splits and does not recombine. Actually, there *is* a God's Eye View: it is Deutsch's multiverse. I contend it's best to nurture the picture from an external perspective, much as one should visualize the orbit of the Earth from a location far away in space, not from the viewpoint of the Earth's surface. The addition of observers to the multiverse picture can come later. Lee From hkhenson at rogers.com Thu Jan 10 17:11:04 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:11:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <04d501c853a2$a2d0a810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> <04d501c853a2$a2d0a810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <1199985082_7311@S4.cableone.net> At 09:04 AM 1/10/2008, Lee wrote: >Keith writes snip > > The behavior related to "political correctness" with respect to > > different cultures is a widespread behavior in western culture. (In > > this case I think we have to leave out Japan which I normally count > > in the western culture block.) Therefore there must be an evolved > > underlying psychological mechanism involved. > >Naturally. Didn't you like my explanation of what it was? >Here it is once more: > > May I suggest that reluctance to discuss race and > gender differences in the West is powered by > altruism, the sort that makes one reluctant to > discuss the possible shortcomings of friends and > associates? > >In other words, it is people's feelings of altruism (towards the poor, >the sick, the backward, the disenfranchised, etc.) which is the >evolutionary mechanism responsible. I won't go over the evolutionary >explanations of altruism here---one may see any number of books >and articles, from "Origin of Virtues" on down to "The Mating Mind". It's possible. Ghod knows what interacting with much larger numbers of people including animated cartoons on TV and movies while growing up has done to the calibration of our detectors of who is a tribal relative and the normal recipient of altruistic behavior. snip > > As a guess it's tapping the same psychological mechanisms as other > > political matters. > >I'd put it the other way: many political matters rely on instinctual >feelings of altruism. Whenever any socialist wants more government >control of anything, for example, all he or she need do is exhibit >sufficiently gut-wrenching visual material (which, of course, shortcuts >rationality). Children suffering is one of the most common recourses. Politics itself shortcuts rationality. If anyone has not read Dr. Westen's really fine fMRI research on partisan politics, they should. Anyone need a pointer or a .pdf? (from the press release) The investigators used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to study a sample of committed Democrats and Republicans during the three months prior to the U.S. Presidential election of 2004. The Democrats and Republicans were given a reasoning task in which they had to evaluate threatening information about their own candidate. During the task, the subjects underwent fMRI to see what parts of their brain were active. What the researchers found was striking. "We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," says Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory who led the study. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts." Westen and his colleagues will present their findings at the Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Jan. 28. Once partisans had come to completely biased conclusions -- essentially finding ways to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted -- not only did circuits that mediate negative emotions like sadness and disgust turn off, but subjects got a blast of activation in circuits involved in reward -- similar to what addicts receive when they get their fix, Westen explains. "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," says Westen. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones." >Of course, this is *not* to say that we should ignore suffering---far >from it. But our conclusions should be based on a careful weighing >of costs and benefits, even statistics. It's better, for example, for a >very few children to starve to death than for millions to be destitute >and have no propects. But to grok that last sentence, one needs to >really understand what "million" means, and most people, sadly, >don't have that ability in such a context. Heck Lee, the way things are headed we are talking about multiple *billions* dying within the next 20-30 years. And you are right, we were not evolved to deal with human numbers larger than a tribe. Keith From jonkc at att.net Thu Jan 10 18:33:39 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:33:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> "Damien Broderick" > If you fire a single photon and register its arrival at a detector one > meter away, you know precisely how long it should take to arrive > *if it goes straight there*. The trouble is the word "precisely". It you use a low energy photon that means it will have a large wavelength and that means there will be some ambiguity over exactly when it hit the detector. If you use a high energy photon it will have a small wavelength so there will be less ambiguity about when it hit, but more about exactly where that is because the photon will pack quite a wallop. Me: >>I think you're mixing Feynman's Sum-over-histories and >> Everett's many worlds. You: > I'm assuming they cash out the same way I don't recall Everett adding up his worlds to get any numerical result, and in Feynman's Sum-over-histories the thing you're summing up is not a position or a trajectory or even a probability, it is the quantum wave function and that is the square root of a probability. Being a square root means it can and does have negative terms in it and even imaginary terms, and that means the quantum wave function is not a scalar like simple probability but a vector with an intensity and a direction, and that means you can not just add up 2 independent probabilities to figure the probability both will happen the way we usually do, and that means two very different wave functions can yield the same probabilities. The electron that went through slot A and the one that went through slot B will have different quantum wave functions, but they could and sometimes do yield the same probability, hence the weird stuff when they hit that photographic plate. And Feynman never said the universe split or the observer split; he wasn't even sure if all those bizarre paths had any physical significance, he thought it could just be a mathematical trick that happened to work. > Some commentators deny that Everett's model meant entire universes Everett came out with his theory in his PHD thesis, it was very long and his thesis advisor John Wheeler (the man who coined the term "black hole") made him cut out about half of it and encouraged him to say things like "many histories" instead of "many worlds" because he thought it sounded less kooky. > due to relativistic constraints, if for no other reason. I don't see how relativistic constraints enter into it. John K Clark From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Jan 10 20:16:01 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Samantha=A0_Atkins?=) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 12:16:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7BC3D306-6DD2-4521-AD0F-7E34AE0E6438@mac.com> Stepping back from MWI which makes my head hurt and leads to queasiness, I remember quite some time ago a good deal of mathematical discussion on how complex a VR/sim universe a hypothetically possible AGI could produce. The discussion in question did not rely on quantum computing. Does anyone have those posts or calculations handy? They seem very germane to this discussion and others I am involved in elsewhere. - samantha From scerir at libero.it Thu Jan 10 21:43:34 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:43:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7BC3D306-6DD2-4521-AD0F-7E34AE0E6438@mac.com> Message-ID: <000601c853d1$da74ff30$84be1f97@archimede> Samantha Atkins > [...] discussion on how complex a VR/sim universe > a hypothetically possible AGI could produce. > The discussion in question did not rely on > quantum computing. Does anyone have those > posts or calculations handy? No posts or calculations I have. Just a small collection of links about the computational capacity of the universe, the physical limits to computation, ... http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0404510 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0110141 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9908043 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9912088 http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0607082 http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0403057 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0703041 From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 10 21:43:35 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:43:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> At 01:33 PM 1/10/2008 -0500, John K Clark wrote: > > Some commentators deny that Everett's model meant entire universes > > due to relativistic constraints, if for no other reason. > >I don't see how relativistic constraints enter into it. How can you instantaneously split into two or more versions an *entire universe* with a radius of tens of billions of light years? How could the news propagate everywhere so quickly? But if it doesn't, if this is just a constrained bubble that spreads at c or slower, and attenuates by inverse square and chaotic rambles and stray quantum blurts, how can you say the *universe* has split? Damien Broderick From scerir at libero.it Thu Jan 10 22:53:50 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:53:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <000a01c853db$ab090f20$84be1f97@archimede> Damien > How can you instantaneously split into two > or more versions an *entire universe* with > a radius of tens of billions of light years? "Are the worlds real? Yes, in the sense that instants of time are real: they may not be present directly in the formalism, but unless we introduce the concept we may struggle to understand what the formalism is telling us, and without the concept it may be impossible to capture important (causal/deterministic) properties of the world." -David Wallace From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 23:10:00 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:10:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Future and past was Many Worlds In-Reply-To: References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7641ddc60801082022m5188736fmdbf579d3dd06d8c0@mail.gmail.com> <1199882331_4301@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <7641ddc60801101510p46e134c8x33abd9660cb7fc5c@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 9, 2008 10:14 AM, Jef Allbright wrote: > On 1/9/08, hkhenson wrote: > > At 09:22 PM 1/8/2008, Rafal wrote: > > >On Jan 8, 2008 10:41 PM, hkhenson wrote: > > > > > > > > One of the things which falls out is that the past is as uncertain as > > > > the future. I.e., *many* pasts could have contributed to the current > > > > reality (whatever that happens to be). > > > > > >### I'd rather say, 1 << N(past) << N(future). The number of possible > > >futures is much larger than the number of possible pasts, and both are > > >unimaginably numerous. > > > > Time symmetry would argue for the number of past and future states to > > be the same. I don't think it is a good idea to go any further with > > this line of thinking. > > I'm intrigued by Rafal's claim, but I come to the same symmetrical > result as does Keith. > > I can imagine reasons why pursuing this topic might be demoralizing to > some, but I don't see it as a "bad idea" to try to increase > understanding of this. Rafal, can you provide a rational > justification for your claim? ### An increase of entropy in a system means that the description of the state of the system requires more bits. A perfect crystal can be described as multiple of its cell structure but the same matter vaporized requires enumeration of relative positions of every atom. The false vacuum which gave rise to all observable matter was a very low entropy system that at sizes below Planck scale could be described by just a small number of bits, and there were comparably few states that are compatible with our present - yet today the same part of the universe requires hundreds of orders of magnitude more information to be described to the same degree of precision. As entropy increases, the size of the universe grows, there will be even more possible states. Thus, the number of possible past states is very small (approaching 1 perhaps?) if you go close enough to the Big Bang, and the number of possible futures will keep on increasing, for a very long time if not indefinitely. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jan 10 23:56:06 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:56:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60801101556n53082b39k1b8b05c0937dac6b@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2008 4:43 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 01:33 PM 1/10/2008 -0500, John K Clark wrote: > > > > Some commentators deny that Everett's model meant entire universes > > > due to relativistic constraints, if for no other reason. > > > >I don't see how relativistic constraints enter into it. > > How can you instantaneously split into two or more versions an > *entire universe* with a radius of tens of billions of light years? > How could the news propagate everywhere so quickly? But if it > doesn't, if this is just a constrained bubble that spreads at c or > slower, and attenuates by inverse square and chaotic rambles and > stray quantum blurts, how can you say the *universe* has split? ### If the bubble grows at c and engulfs you, then all you would ever see is one of the newly generated universe branches that split from the original, and you can never even see the original universe before the split - even the photons that originated from a distant galaxy could be affected by the results of the split (minute displacements of atoms and gravitational or other fields that can affect the propagation of light in space). So, from your perspective, the whole universe split, both what you can find out about its past and the future you can affect. And the split doesn't attenuate, I think - to the contrary, it may amplify, as per the "butterflies and hurricanes" argument. Rafal From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Jan 11 01:02:12 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:02:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac><7d6322030801052119n6b926adq42d76e58c09f0ea6@mail.gmail.com><1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net><1199743877_7001@S4.cableone.net> <1199747866_10272@S3.cableone.net><047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <04f601c853ee$153759d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Jef writes >> Why ask for an EP explanation of a very recent *fashion*? >> Throughout most of history there has been little or no >> reluctance to discuss group differences. > > I think Keith was asking for an explanation of the EP genotype, you're > response is in regard to the phenotype. Category error. First, as several of us contend, this is under the purview of fashion, and so genes are only very indirectly involved. The phenotype/genotype distinction does not apply. There are no alleles for being either sensitive or insensitive to political correctness issues, nor would one consider a particular change in an organism's behavior due to memetic infestation to be a characteristic of any phenotype. Changes in fashion are memetic, that's all. It has nothing to do directly with genetics one way or the other. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Jan 11 01:07:48 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:07:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract References: Message-ID: <04fa01c853ee$cb85bb00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Joshua writes > Lee writes: > >> Of course, this is *not* to say that we should ignore suffering---far >> from it. But our conclusions should be based on a careful weighing >> of costs and benefits, even statistics. It's better, for example, for a >> very few children to starve to death than for millions to be destitute >> and have no propects. But to grok that last sentence, one needs to >> really understand what "million" means, and most people, sadly, >> don't have that ability in such a context. > > I can't help wondering if the use of the word "very" as in "very few > children to starve..." was an unconscious bowing to the underlying > psychological mechanisms that encourage PC. It was worse than unconscious bowing to those mechanisms--- it was conscious pandering to the soft-headed types who, bless their sensitive hearts, cannot bring themselves to make certain difficult choices. > To be more specific, perhaps people will save the few if they > are described in more detail and with an eye to emotional > response (for example, identifying them as children) rather > than help the "millions" who are less fully realized Sadly, you are entirely correct. Lee > (millions of people? > Millions of old people who are about to die anyway...). From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Jan 11 01:20:07 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:20:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert><1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com><1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net><04d501c853a2$a2d0a810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <1199985082_7311@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <04fd01c853f0$3a7dd280$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Keith writes >>In other words, it is people's feelings of altruism (towards the poor, >>the sick, the backward, the disenfranchised, etc.) which is the >>evolutionary mechanism responsible. I won't go over the evolutionary >>explanations of altruism here---one may see any number of books >>and articles, from "Origin of Virtues" on down to "The Mating Mind". > > It's possible. Ghod knows what interacting with much larger numbers > of people including animated cartoons on TV and movies while growing > up has done to the calibration of our detectors of who is a tribal > relative and the normal recipient of altruistic behavior. Well put. >> > As a guess it's tapping the same psychological mechanisms as other >> > political matters. >> >> I'd put it the other way: many political matters rely on instinctual >> feelings of altruism. Whenever any socialist wants more government >> control of anything, for example, all he or she need do is exhibit >> sufficiently gut-wrenching visual material (which, of course, shortcuts >> rationality). Children suffering is one of the most common recourses. > > Politics itself shortcuts rationality. If anyone has not read Dr. > Westen's really fine fMRI research on partisan politics, they > should. Anyone need a pointer or a .pdf? Well, okay, political activity itself *does* often shortcut rationality. But clearly not always. Imagine, for example, some extraordinarily rational people who back an extraordinarily ronpaul rational candidate. Their strategies and machinations must be described as political too. > The investigators used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to study a > sample of committed Democrats and Republicans during the three months > prior to the U.S. Presidential election of 2004. The Democrats and > Republicans were given a reasoning task in which they had to evaluate > threatening information about their own candidate. During the task, > the subjects underwent fMRI to see what parts of their brain were > active. What the researchers found was striking... Of course, libertarians would not evince such brain behavior. But seriously, *if* there did exist totally rational beings who wanted nonetheless to win elections, their behavior would of course be political on any usual meaning of the term. >>Of course, this is *not* to say that we should ignore suffering---far >>from it. But our conclusions should be based on a careful weighing >>of costs and benefits, even statistics. It's better, for example, for a >>very few children to starve to death than for millions to be destitute >>and have no propects. But to grok that last sentence, one needs to >>really understand what "million" means, and most people, sadly, >>don't have that ability in such a context. > > Heck Lee, the way things are headed we are talking about multiple > *billions* dying within the next 20-30 years. And you are right, we > were not evolved to deal with human numbers larger than a tribe. It does seem much more probable that such a large catastrophe of one kind or another is going to take us out, or most of us. Hmm, but then, by now we should be used to that. For the last two thousand years, Christians at least expected the end any day now, and during the Cold War a lot of us went around naturally assuming that Armageddon of a different kind was to be expected at almost any moment. Sigh, so what's new? Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Jan 11 01:32:03 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:32:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <050d01c853f2$55ee97f0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Damien writes > At 01:33 PM 1/10/2008 -0500, John K Clark wrote: > >> > Some commentators deny that Everett's model meant entire universes >> > due to relativistic constraints, if for no other reason. >> >>I don't see how relativistic constraints enter into it. > > How can you instantaneously split into two or more versions an > *entire universe* with a radius of tens of billions of light years? I have to jump in here. The branching does not occur everywhere at once. (Translation: the universes don't become distince everywhere at once.) Here is some mental imagery that I've concocted that helps me see what is going on. Suppose that you had a very large but thin sheet of plastic held vertically. Now imagine that forces are able to cause a separation of this sheet into two thinner sheets starting at a particular point. As you then pull the sheet into two parts, the speed of the tear is quite finite. Thus, for example, a split here takes at least 4.3 years to get to Alpha Centauri. (The rough part is now trying to imagine many many such splittings based on different locations occuring.) Oops. I see that Rafal has already address this admirably. But anyway, there is an absolutely glorious picture of splitting universes in the recent Scientific American that had a mini-bio of Hugh Everett. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I'd put this one at about ten thousand. > How could the news propagate everywhere so quickly? But if it > doesn't, if this is just a constrained bubble that spreads at c or > slower, and attenuates by inverse square and chaotic rambles and > stray quantum blurts, how can you say the *universe* has split? Good point. I want to blame this bad usage on positivistic tendencies which desire regarding as yet unmeasured changes as nonexistent changes. Lee From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 02:27:47 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:27:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> Bryan Bishop wrote: >I have also come across that strain of thought, that "we create our own >realities." Damien Broderick replied: Well, it's a horribly hackneyed New Age/magical thinking conceit and has been for at least a generation. >> I realize the way "New Agers" sometimes refer to "creating our own reality" can seem very corny and incorrect to people who pride themselves on being highly analytical. But I think *up to a point* they are very right in that so many people (including myself) box themselves in based on false notions of what their limitations happen to be. And so if a person can break those limiting beliefs they can quite literally "create a new reality." On the other hand some New Age guru types make millions by saying if you just wish hard enough you can change anything you want in your life without the requisite hard work. "In Search of the New Age: A Humorous Look at an Emerging Culture" is one of the funniest books I have ever read in terms of parody. They have a section on "creating a new reality," which has an illustration of a young woman imagining herself diving into a swimming pool filled with nothing but dollar bills. http://www.amazon.com/Search-New-Age-Humorous-Emerging/dp/0892812095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200018050&sr=8-1 John Grigg : ) From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 02:58:35 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:58:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] My new email address Message-ID: <2d6187670801101858w49a3917bh9c74a3fbba9fd133@mail.gmail.com> Hello everyone, I have given up trying to have a Yahoo email account (many messages to me just not making it for some reason) and have jumped ship to Google's Gmail. My new email address is possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com. John Grigg : ) From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 03:04:50 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:04:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801102104.50671.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 10 January 2008, John Grigg wrote: > I realize the way "New Agers" sometimes refer to "creating our own > reality" can seem very corny and incorrect to people who pride > themselves on being highly analytical. ?But I think *up to a point* > they are very right in that so many people (including myself) box > themselves in based on false notions of what their limitations happen > to be. ?And so if a person can break those limiting beliefs they can > quite literally "create a new reality." I see what you mean. But let's take this to the extreme. You cannot create a new reality, i.e. VR, it will always be 'virtual' and it will always be a simulation. And not the hardcore reality. Rewriting reality is *hard*. As qualified as we'd like to think we are to go about hacking up reality, it's just seriously difficult. The trick, I suppose, is to make it look much easier and go do things that are already well known. If I were a node of a jbrain, perhaps I'd be able to rewrite the reality around me -- change my friends, my family, my environment. But that's some seriously tough stuff. To create a new reality, you have to incrementally move from what you already have to what you need to get to. Transforming a certain context into another might be less than worth it in some scenarios. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 03:08:52 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:08:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Austin h+ meetup Jan. 17th 7 pm Message-ID: <200801102108.52174.kanzure@gmail.com> http://transhumanism.meetup.com/79/ I'll be attending. Anybody else up for a meetup? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 11 00:46:48 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:46:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Future and past was Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60801101510p46e134c8x33abd9660cb7fc5c@mail.gmail.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7641ddc60801082022m5188736fmdbf579d3dd06d8c0@mail.gmail.com> <1199882331_4301@S4.cableone.net> <7641ddc60801101510p46e134c8x33abd9660cb7fc5c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/08, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Jan 9, 2008 10:14 AM, Jef Allbright wrote: > > On 1/9/08, hkhenson wrote: > > > At 09:22 PM 1/8/2008, Rafal wrote: > > > >On Jan 8, 2008 10:41 PM, hkhenson wrote: > > > > > > > > > > One of the things which falls out is that the past is as uncertain as > > > > > the future. I.e., *many* pasts could have contributed to the current > > > > > reality (whatever that happens to be). > > > > > > > >### I'd rather say, 1 << N(past) << N(future). The number of possible > > > >futures is much larger than the number of possible pasts, and both are > > > >unimaginably numerous. > > > > > > Time symmetry would argue for the number of past and future states to > > > be the same. I don't think it is a good idea to go any further with > > > this line of thinking. > > > > I'm intrigued by Rafal's claim, but I come to the same symmetrical > > result as does Keith. > > > > I can imagine reasons why pursuing this topic might be demoralizing to > > some, but I don't see it as a "bad idea" to try to increase > > understanding of this. Rafal, can you provide a rational > > justification for your claim? > > ### An increase of entropy in a system means that the description of > the state of the system requires more bits. A perfect crystal can be > described as multiple of its cell structure but the same matter > vaporized requires enumeration of relative positions of every atom. > The false vacuum which gave rise to all observable matter was a very > low entropy system that at sizes below Planck scale could be described > by just a small number of bits, and there were comparably few states > that are compatible with our present - yet today the same part of the > universe requires hundreds of orders of magnitude more information to > be described to the same degree of precision. As entropy increases, > the size of the universe grows, there will be even more possible > states. Thus, the number of possible past states is very small > (approaching 1 perhaps?) if you go close enough to the Big Bang, and > the number of possible futures will keep on increasing, for a very > long time if not indefinitely. During our previous discussion, which appeared to go all Platonic and shit ;-) -- I mean, it started out pure as crystal and then went highly entropic -- I recommended to you the thinking of Hew Price and his book Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point [1]. It seems appropriate still. I don't necessarily disagree with your view here, but was hoping you could offer an encompassing resolution to the question. I don't see that in your response, and I suspect that any "solution" that doesn't account for the inherently subjective nature of entropy will be found lacking. For instance: Cosmology, Time's Arrow, and That Old Double Standard It is widely accepted that temporal asymmetry is largely a cosmological problem; the task of explaining temporal asymmetry reduces in the main to that of explaining an aspect of the condition of the early universe. However, cosmologists who discuss these issues often make mistakes similar to those that plagued nineteenth century discussions of the statistical foundations of thermodynamics. In particular, they are often guilty of applying temporal "double standards" of various kinds---e.g., in failing to recognise that certain statistical arguments apply with equal force in either temporal direction. This paper aims to clarify the issue as to what would count as adequate explanation of cosmological time asymmetry. A particular concern is the question whether it is possible to explain why entropy is low near the Big Bang without showing that it must also be low near a Big Crunch, in the event that the universe recollapses. I criticise some of the objections raised to this possibility, showing that these too often depend on a temporal double standard. I also discuss briefly some issues that arise if we take the view seriously. (Could we observe a time- reversing future, for example?) and this: On the Origins of the Arrow of Time: Why There is Still a Puzzle about the Low Entropy Past and a significant ongoing discussion at CosmicVariance.com[2] where, for instance, John Baez comments a little over a year ago: " Thanks for putting in the energy to write a great post about one of the trickiest and most controversial issues in physics! Shockingly, I agree with almost all of it. Like you, I'm a big fan of Huw Price." 1. Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point, Hew Price, 1996 2. cosmicvariance.com: Boltzmann's Anthropic Brain 3. John Baez: This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics (Week 80) 4. "Thermodynamical entropy is no more objective than infomation entropy. Both are as subjective as my opinion on that issue." -- Pierre Dangauthier 5. "Glib, unqualified statements to the effect that "entropy measures randomness" are in my opinion totally meaningless, and present a serious barrier to any real understanding of these problems." -- Edwin T Jaynes 6. "Entropy is an anthropomorphic concept." -- Eugene Wigner From hkhenson at rogers.com Fri Jan 11 05:18:50 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:18:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] EP and sentimentality was songs 2 In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801062107x36e08c55ucb7f48adf7997d8b@mail.gmail.co m> References: <200712110608.lBB68CMw005196@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <401841.2136.qm@web30401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7d6322030712102303s414d617cge832597e1c9cf6b0@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240712110607p3ef502b2s48488a9f6c865cae@mail.gmail.com> <7d6322030712110643m5e7fa744v47730b765546378e@mail.gmail.com> <29666bf30712110825y7d96180bk7634f8f365e3a7e6@mail.gmail.com> <7d6322030712110958o24b007eao115b49dbd7f10bdd@mail.gmail.com> <1197407678_22771@S4.cableone.net> <29666bf30801062107x36e08c55ucb7f48adf7997d8b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1200028749_1246@S4.cableone.net> At 10:07 PM 1/6/2008, PJ Manney wrote: >On Dec 11, 2007 1:14 PM, hkhenson wrote: > > Ok, let's drag out the mental EP microscope and look at > > sentimentality. Why do some stories affect most people in a highly > > emotional way? I have not given this much thought, so take a crack > > at it and you teach me. We can start by listing stories and > > describing common features. > > > > I will contribute one, The short story "Leaf by Niggle" by JRR > > Tolkien. It's impossible for me to read or even to think about > > without dripping tears. > > > > Please play by the EP rules. > >I have wanted to address your question for a long time, but like in >"Leaf by Niggle", Keith, life and creation got in the way. > >Here are some ideas (not fleshed out as much as I'd like, but there you go): > >The word "sentimentality" is a tough one. It's very subjective -- >What is it? And to what people? Sentimentality is more than empathy. > It implies to me a personal relationship, like the one you describe >with "Leaf by Niggle". It is often developed in youth, I first read it in the very late 60s or early 70s. I was close to 40 by that time. >and we know >when we learn something when we're young, the odds of it affecting us >in permanent way are much higher. (Think of the books you read or >music you listened to -- you taught your brain to like that while your >brain was still extremely malleable -- or at least more so than it is >now.) Or the story resonates with your own early experiences, which >are more indelibly printed on our minds than later experiences. We >can also be hardwired for it, but I'd guess that's more to the general >flavor of the sentimentality and not the specific instances, which are >experiential. > >I've discussed why we empathize with stories before. >http://www.pj-manney.com/empathy.html >And we don't need to list stories to find commonality. If we take the >Joseph Campbell approach that there is really only one monomyth, the >one he calls The Hero's Journey, >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth >then humanity culturally-evolved, simultaneously and in parallel, a >mythic structure on which to hang all storytelling. But I believe the >question you're really asking is 'why this structure?' That is where >the EP lies. > >So how about this: Like the new theory of dreams, which sees them as >the mental practice field in which we learn to survive life's hazards >(hence why nightmare are more common than happy dreams) >http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20071029-000003.xml >monomyths could be the mental visualization, the internal practice for >the arduous life ahead. The hero starts with his normal life, then >something happens that changes everything and for which he is not >fully prepared. So he must rise to the occasion, conquer the >villains/demons/etc. and return to his tribe with the prize. Stories >teach us survival traits, both practical (how do you run away >from/kill a monster, outsmart a villain, attract someone so you can >reproduce, etc.) and behavioral (don't panic or give up, stick >together, work as a team, don't trust everyone, etc.). > >The hero is now us. The main character is our proxy, going through >his world, encountering obstacles to his success/happiness/survival >and having to overcome them. And we're learning from our easy chair >what lessons he learned the hard way. > >As to the personal reaction to one story versus another -- which I >think is the sentimentality you speak of -- that's not so much EP as >personal psychology. The EP/monomyth reaction is there, for sure. >But why you weep at "Leaf by Niggle" as opposed to why I weep at >"Flowers for Algernon" has more to say about us as individuals, how >we're wired, when we read it and under what circumstances we relate to >it than anything else. Like relating to any art form, taste is a >matter of many variables, some innate and some acquired. Good points. Evolution may have made us sensitive to a class of stories. That may be why the Battle of Thermopylae 480 BC echos down the years. But some stories don't have this effect on anyone while some are very good at it. Keith From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 11 06:25:08 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:25:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] doh! no asteroid hit on mars... In-Reply-To: <01fc01c8508e$ce8e9cd0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: <200801110651.m0B6ppk3002579@andromeda.ziaspace.com> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,321930,00.html Dayam. {8-[ spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 11 06:44:21 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:44:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] election stuff In-Reply-To: <47810823.7060709@antipope.org> Message-ID: <200801110711.m0B7B35N017070@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Oh my. We just saw a thousand Kenyans slain over a questionable election. We can see how an election could be easily designed to be private, fair and verifiable, yet no democracy that I know of has made any effort to do it. Am I the only one who sees a huge threat here? Please note that this post isn't about any particular politician, it's about elections in general and how we are losing confidence in the integrity of the process itself: http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008/01/11/dennis-kucinich-calls-for-recount- in-new-hampshire/ CONCORD, N.H. - Democrat Dennis Kucinich, who won less than 2 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, on Thursday called for a recount to ensure that all ballots in his party's contest were counted. He cites "serious and credible reports, allegations and rumors" about the integrity of Tuesday results. Kucinich alluded to online reports alleging disparities around the state between hand-counted ballots, which tended to favor Barack Obama, and machine-counted ones that tended to favor Hillary Clinton. He also noted the difference between pre-election polls, which indicated Obama would win, and Clinton's triumph by a 39 percent to 37 percent margin. Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan responded that Kucinich is entitled to a statewide recount, but under New Hampshire law Kucinich will have to pay for it. Scanlan said he had "every confidence" the results are accurate. From andrew at ceruleansystems.com Fri Jan 11 07:48:24 2008 From: andrew at ceruleansystems.com (J. Andrew Rogers) Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:48:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] election stuff In-Reply-To: <200801110711.m0B7B35N017070@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200801110711.m0B7B35N017070@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <1FDC0F2E-57B1-42C5-92D0-4322A81C67AA@ceruleansystems.com> On Jan 10, 2008, at 10:44 PM, spike wrote: > We just saw a thousand Kenyans slain over a questionable election. > We can see how an election could be easily designed to be private, > fair and > verifiable, yet no democracy that I know of has made any effort to > do it. > Am I the only one who sees a huge threat here? I love this new concept of elections. Everyone votes and then all the candidates declare themselves the winner! Brilliant. Think of all the self-esteem we could cultivate. J. Andrew Rogers From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 11:54:44 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:54:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] More EP was Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <1199981920_5851@S3.cableone.net> References: <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <290F8A7566DF464C9C1529535FDF26BC@Catbert> <1199939942_23911@S1.cableone.net> <4785B789.6060703@mac.com> <1199952842_528@S4.cableone.net> <1199981920_5851@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: <580930c20801110354m41fed643s6a14b6bb55f90a83@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2008 5:18 PM, hkhenson wrote: > There are a large number of people who give every indication that > they hold various parts of "political correctness" very seriously, > especially the bit about cultural relativism. BTW, at least in "pseudo-evolutionary" terms ("pseudo" taking into account the extreme brevity of the periods concerned), one must take into account that our "environments" have always been mostly specific, artificial and cultural. And that a more abstract evolutionary trait such as conformity to dominant community cultural norms may well have developed along our species' history. Stefano Vaj From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 14:52:50 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 09:52:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2008 9:27 PM, John Grigg wrote: > to be. And so if a person can break those limiting beliefs they can > quite literally "create a new reality." So are they changing the universe, or changing themselves and their perception of it? From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 14:58:10 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:58:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 11, 2008 3:52 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > So are they changing the universe, or changing themselves and their > perception of it? Is there a real difference? Idealist philosophy denies that. Phenomenism denies that. The problem with "one's own reality" is that some techniques to change it do not really prevent other, harder aspects of your own reality from biting back your bottom, or however the American say goes... :-) Stefano Vaj From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Jan 11 15:03:38 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:03:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Clark abstract In-Reply-To: <04f601c853ee$153759d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <003701c8501e$87ec9950$6601a8c0@brainiac> <1199667931_3684@S4.cableone.net> <1199743877_7001@S4.cableone.net> <1199747866_10272@S3.cableone.net> <047c01c8527c$39079640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <04f601c853ee$153759d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 1/10/08, Lee Corbin wrote reductionistically: > Changes in fashion are memetic, that's all. It has nothing to > do directly with genetics one way or the other. +1 for canonical correctness... From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 15:23:53 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:23:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 11, 2008 9:58 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Jan 11, 2008 3:52 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > > So are they changing the universe, or changing themselves and their > > perception of it? > > Is there a real difference? Idealist philosophy denies that. > Phenomenism denies that. > > The problem with "one's own reality" is that some techniques to change > it do not really prevent other, harder aspects of your own reality > from biting back your bottom, or however the American say goes... :-) Thanks for continuing this line of thought. If I become convinced through some personal observation that deli mustard is poisonous, and refuse to consume it (and perhaps try to convince others to also avoid it) - am I 'creating' a new reality or am I simply delusional? A statistically significant population does not share my belief. Since the status quo is a majority-rules interpretation of 'reality' then I am likely denied any validity in my belief. Consider the first person to die from a peanut allergy. Their belief of the poisonous nature of an otherwise harmless substance (eg: PB&J sandwich, harmlessly fed to children every day) was corroborated by death from consuming it. Now does the majority believe there may be some "real" issue with peanuts? Do I have to die from deli mustard in order to validate my seemingly irrational fear? What other beliefs are held by a minority and ridiculed because they're not popular enough? You know, such things as a belief in the Singularity or Transhumanism. ;) btw - I enjoy deli mustard and used it for illustrative purposes only From hkhenson at rogers.com Fri Jan 11 15:38:49 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:38:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] election stuff In-Reply-To: <200801110711.m0B7B35N017070@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <47810823.7060709@antipope.org> <200801110711.m0B7B35N017070@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <1200065949_8371@S1.cableone.net> At 11:44 PM 1/10/2008, spike wrote: > >Oh my. We just saw a thousand Kenyans slain over a questionable election. No we did not. The election was the trigger, but considering it to be causal is just wrong. What we saw in Kenya was Rwanda writ small, too many people for the economy. That leads humans to anticipation of a bleak future. In the stone age bleak future prospects turned up the gain on xenophobic memes circulating in the group. After a while the warriors were fired up to kill people in neighboring groups. That solved the problem. It is a mechanistic negative feedback mechanism that kept the population remarkably stable over long times. Fast rising technology can increase the size of the economy enough to keep down the gain setting for xenophobic memes--for a while. If population growth is close to zero it can do so for a long time. But if the population growth gets ahead of economic growth, then there *is* going to be a massive die off, if not from war then from one of the other horsemen. >We can see how an election could be easily designed to be private, fair and >verifiable, yet no democracy that I know of has made any effort to do it. >Am I the only one who sees a huge threat here? As threats go, I rank it near the bottom of the pile. >Please note that this post isn't about any particular politician, it's about >elections in general and how we are losing confidence in the integrity of >the process itself: Have you ever thought about the function of elections? It isn't what it seems. As for confidence, heh heh, look up "Landslide Johnson." Keith From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 15:42:46 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:42:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801110742h2dd16ad0k1c92413ed154a2e5@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 11, 2008 4:23 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Jan 11, 2008 9:58 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > The problem with "one's own reality" is that some techniques to change > > it do not really prevent other, harder aspects of your own reality > > from biting back your bottom, or however the American say goes... :-) > > Thanks for continuing this line of thought. > > If I become convinced through some personal observation that deli > mustard is poisonous, and refuse to consume it (and perhaps try to > convince others to also avoid it) - am I 'creating' a new reality or > am I simply delusional? > btw - I enjoy deli mustard and used it for illustrative purposes only So do I, but I think it is a good example. Let us say that you do live in reality where deli mustard is poisonous, but as external observers we can assume that reality is subject to a likely change if you are the kind of person that is going to accept, after perchance ingesting some unvoluntarily, that you did not actually die and that you are not (yet) in heaven. In broader terms, phenomena is all about which we can sensibly speak. And phenomena are what is part of our world and apparent to our "perception" (in the broadest sense of the world). Philosophically, there is nothing especially strange in admitting that black holes were not part of the world of the Ancient Romans. We can on the other hand say that our own perception of reality does not only include them, but see them extended, along a coordinate that we arbitrarily call time, to the region where we position the Ancient Romans themselves. Accordingly, "delusions" are those perception of reality which are i) highly unstable, ii) subject to be quickly pruned by darwinist competition amongst different "realities", in a very literal sense. E.g., a shaman might be perfectly persuaded that he had won a battle fought by his curses against firearms, but since he died in the process his "reality" is not really around to be discussed any more... :-) Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 15:44:45 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:44:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] election stuff In-Reply-To: <200801110711.m0B7B35N017070@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <47810823.7060709@antipope.org> <200801110711.m0B7B35N017070@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801110744ife2269av82f8483e3c6a8545@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 11, 2008 7:44 AM, spike wrote: > Oh my. We just saw a thousand Kenyans slain over a questionable election. Why, let us hope that the election of WTA new board members will generate fewer casualties. :-) Stefano Vaj From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Jan 11 16:03:58 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:03:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com > References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080111095326.022c7560@satx.rr.com> The trope is harmless if understood to mean "think for yourself," "be optimistic," etc. But that's NOT what is meant in woo-woo circles, which is closer to the malignant magical thinking exemplified in today's depressing but familiar NYT report from Kenya: Of course, it's possible in this case that Kenyan cultures understand this sort of suicidal claim about bullets (or magical invisibility to one's foes, etc) as a metaphor for brave behavior, rather than literally, which is how New Age dickheads want to read such idiocy.* Damien Broderick * E.g. THE SECRET: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(2006_film) From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 11 15:59:04 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:59:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] election stuff In-Reply-To: <1200065949_8371@S1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <200801111625.m0BGPl7o005871@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of hkhenson ... > > >We can see how an election could be easily designed to be > private, fair > >and verifiable, yet no democracy that I know of has made any > effort to do it. > >Am I the only one who sees a huge threat here? > > As threats go, I rank it near the bottom of the pile... Heh. Keith remind us a year from now when it is time to hike the nuclear football and it isn't at all clear who is the quarterback. Spike From jonkc at att.net Fri Jan 11 17:14:06 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:14:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> "Damien Broderick" > How can you instantaneously split into two or more versions an > *entire universe* with a radius of tens of billions of light years? > How could the news propagate everywhere so quickly? We've known for 70 years that you can instantly change something 10 billion light years away, but you can't use that fact to send information, you can't use it to send news. The universe (and me too) may be splitting a trillion times a second but that news hasn't reached me, if it had I could prove many worlds to be true. I can't. John K Clark From nvitamore at austin.rr.com Fri Jan 11 17:07:26 2008 From: nvitamore at austin.rr.com (nvitamore at austin.rr.com) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:07:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] election stuff Message-ID: <380-22008151117726545@M2W014.mail2web.com> From: Stefano: On Jan 11, 2008 7:44 AM, spike wrote: >>Oh my. We just saw a thousand Kenyans slain over a questionable election. >Why, let us hope that the election of WTA new board members will >generate fewer casualties. :-) Let's see ... Harvey, Eli, Joseph, Jose, Giulio ... :-) -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com - Microsoft? Exchange solutions from a leading provider - http://link.mail2web.com/Business/Exchange From kevin at kevinfreels.com Fri Jan 11 18:24:50 2008 From: kevin at kevinfreels.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:24:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <580930c20801110742h2dd16ad0k1c92413ed154a2e5@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20801110742h2dd16ad0k1c92413ed154a2e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4787B472.2000602@kevinfreels.com> So you are saying that in the future, reality can change to a universe where it is easy to exceed the speed of light? Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Jan 11, 2008 4:23 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > >> On Jan 11, 2008 9:58 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> >>> The problem with "one's own reality" is that some techniques to change >>> it do not really prevent other, harder aspects of your own reality >>> from biting back your bottom, or however the American say goes... :-) >>> >> Thanks for continuing this line of thought. >> >> If I become convinced through some personal observation that deli >> mustard is poisonous, and refuse to consume it (and perhaps try to >> convince others to also avoid it) - am I 'creating' a new reality or >> am I simply delusional? >> btw - I enjoy deli mustard and used it for illustrative purposes only >> > > So do I, but I think it is a good example. Let us say that you do live > in reality where deli mustard is poisonous, but as external observers > we can assume that reality is subject to a likely change if you are > the kind of person that is going to accept, after perchance ingesting > some unvoluntarily, that you did not actually die and that you are not > (yet) in heaven. > > In broader terms, phenomena is all about which we can sensibly speak. > And phenomena are what is part of our world and apparent to our > "perception" (in the broadest sense of the world). Philosophically, > there is nothing especially strange in admitting that black holes were > not part of the world of the Ancient Romans. We can on the other hand > say that our own perception of reality does not only include them, but > see them extended, along a coordinate that we arbitrarily call time, > to the region where we position the Ancient Romans themselves. > > Accordingly, "delusions" are those perception of reality which are i) > highly unstable, ii) subject to be quickly pruned by darwinist > competition amongst different "realities", in a very literal sense. > > E.g., a shaman might be perfectly persuaded that he had won a battle > fought by his curses against firearms, but since he died in the > process his "reality" is not really around to be discussed any more... > :-) > > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at amara.com Fri Jan 11 20:32:09 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:32:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] doh! no asteroid hit on mars... Message-ID: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-152 Spike: >Dayam. {8-[ The people at my workplace are bummed too.. We all would have liked to see a Mars impact! Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From amara at amara.com Fri Jan 11 21:01:25 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:01:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] election stuff Message-ID: Keith Henson: >Have you ever thought about the function of elections? It isn't what >it seems. As for confidence, heh heh, look up "Landslide Johnson." I rented and saw last night an independent film, called _Secret Ballot_ (its English title). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290823/plotsummary "[...] a young woman disembarks on the beach. To the soldier's bafflement, it turns out that she is in charge of the mobile electoral seat and voting on the islands; therefore the soldier is obliged to obey her orders and escort her with his rifle and army jeep across the desert, where the woman obstinately intends to collect the votes. During the day, stressed by a series of absurd events, the two learn to get to know each other. At sunset, when the young woman leaves, the man realizes that the secret vote contained much more than he had ever imagined." It has a slow pace, with a comedic undercurrent: the elections 'agent' is a Muslim woman, carrying her ballot box in the desert chasing tenaciously after potential voters, with her misplaced army soldier, who is ordered to assist her. The casting of these two characters was exceptional. While they are chasing after the potential voters and trying to convince them to vote, we are forced to consider what hopes and dreams _we_ have, what do we each want in our lives to move forward, when people vote in an election. Voting becomes a projection of our inner selves (or _their_ inner selves in that particular Iranian society). More about the film and in particular, the filmmaker here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/11/PK77897.DTL&type=movies "Payami filmed "Secret Ballot" on the Persian Gulf island of Kish, which is 10 miles from the Iranian mainland and is a popular destination spot for divers. He cast nonprofessional actors in the roles, including Nassim Abdi as the elections worker and Cyrus Ab as the soldier. Remarkably, Payami had no rehearsals for the actors, whom he lionizes for teaching him "much more about real life" than he taught them." Note: non actors in the film! Like the amazingly luminous film "The Wind Will Carry Us" by Abbas Kiarostami: (highly recommended) http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/reviews/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000697218 http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A15283 http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0030,hoberman,16663,20.html Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 21:08:19 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:08:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <4787B472.2000602@kevinfreels.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20801110742h2dd16ad0k1c92413ed154a2e5@mail.gmail.com> <4787B472.2000602@kevinfreels.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801111308g58b9765fmd14f1b4daf00fea7@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 11, 2008 7:24 PM, Kevin Freels wrote: > So you are saying that in the future, reality can change to a universe > where it is easy to exceed the speed of light? ... or not. :-) Not every change in one's reality which can be "imagined" happens, imagination being some sort of "second degree virtual reality". However, for a while, in our "reality", SL actually could not be exceeded. In our current reality, it *can* be exceeded either by the expansion of the space itself (i.e., by galaxies far enough to move beyond c from our perspective) or by events that do not transmit information (some quantum effects). Neither phenomenon violates special relativity, by the way. Stefano Vaj From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 21:34:32 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:34:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080111095326.022c7560@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080111095326.022c7560@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <62c14240801111334t317d4b42we064282fc926804f@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 11, 2008 11:03 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > had backed Mr. Kibaki. He said he had found a way > to turn Pokot bullets into rain ? a promise that Maybe that was a translation problem from "I promise there will be a rain of bullets upon us" From moulton at moulton.com Fri Jan 11 21:17:21 2008 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:17:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] doh! no asteroid hit on mars... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1200086241.15051.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> Unconfirmed reports that shares of Martian insurance companies with many policies written on prime Mars property are up on the AMSE (All Mars Stock Exchange). Fred On Fri, 2008-01-11 at 13:32 -0700, Amara Graps wrote: > http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-152 > > Spike: > >Dayam. {8-[ > > The people at my workplace are bummed too.. We all would have liked > to see a Mars impact! > > Amara > From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 21:46:08 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:46:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <62c14240801111334t317d4b42we064282fc926804f@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080103114254.02281710@satx.rr.com> <200801031339.51748.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080103142221.022d2dd8@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670801101827y6793cb56sef4991df9f61a72c@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110652v4c686b92w7d45ca586ee9ef6b@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080111095326.022c7560@satx.rr.com> <62c14240801111334t317d4b42we064282fc926804f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801111346y7a825060lce8b5602a4fb0fee@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 11, 2008 10:34 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Jan 11, 2008 11:03 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > had backed Mr. Kibaki. He said he had found a way > > to turn Pokot bullets into rain ? a promise that > > Maybe that was a translation problem from "I promise there will be a > rain of bullets upon us" ... or perhaps he actually did that. Meaning that in the reality of those who were not hit the bullet rain *was* simply rain, and in the opinion of the others... well, the opinion of whom? :-) Of course, outsiders may have seen bullets raining on both, but of course this is just their point of view. At the end of the day, what counts is who won the battle. :-) Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 22:55:46 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:55:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Home turbines can't light a candle Message-ID: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/07/microwind_chocolate_teapot/ Home turbines can't light a candle A puny wind By Andrew Orlowski Domestic "microwind" turbines, recently championed as "power from the people" by opposition leader David Cameron, are about as useful as a chocolate teapot. A study of domestic turbines was published by renewable energy consultants Encraft in December. According to the study, only one of the 15 household wind turbines generated enough to power a 75W light bulb. The average daily output was 393.3 Watt hours: an average of 17W. Click here to find out more! In all, only three of the turbines generated over 400 Watt hours of electricity, with one generating 1,790 Watt hours. Four of the turbines didn't even make it into three figures. By way of comparison, a washing machine consumes 4kW (4,000W), and a fridge-freezer 1.9kW. [PDF,1MB] The average turbine also operates at only 1.84 per cent of capacity. The carbon-obsessed BBC has suggested that a domestic turbine may contribute about "a fifth" of a household's electricity needs - but the reality is this is only true if the household's only electricity need is one fifth of a single crack-den-dim light bulb. The numbers suggests that the turbines would take, at best, 15 years to pay for themselves. So what's gone wrong? Encraft stresses it's early days, which is true - the first 13 sites only went live last January, with 13 more following in October. However, it appears that the measured windspeed for many sites fell below the predicted figure. Turbulence in built-up areas makes for poor windflow. Or as SK Watson, of the Centre for Renewable Energy System Technology at Loughborough University, observes: "Those areas with higher capacity factor are where urban areas tend not to be!" Worse, the measured energy output from the domestic turbines was far below the "theoretical" energy predicted. Er, quite. The trial has suffered other problems. One turbine was stolen, another damaged, and a further one was beseiged by pro-bat protestors. Several needed their inverters replacing. "We have had some reality checks," Encraft admits. However, Encraft MD Matthew Rhodes, quoted in The Guardian found one "benefit" from the white elephants. Apparently, seven out of ten people who see a turbine say it reminds them to save energy. The logic is, apparently, that when one sees one of these monuments to self-righteousness, one dashes back to turn the lights off. But surely there must be cheaper ways of inducing feelings of guilt and low self-worth in the general population - such as availing oneself of the latest Radiohead album, perhaps? (R) From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Jan 11 23:01:19 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 17:01:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "create our own realities" In-Reply-To: <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20801110658k54a8cffbh5d2eb6848b52bd02@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240801110723u426d7a99q2ebeba3a8c0c384d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801111701.20053.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 11 January 2008, Mike Dougherty wrote: > If I become convinced through some personal observation that deli > mustard is poisonous, and refuse to consume it (and perhaps try to > convince others to also avoid it) - am I 'creating' a new reality or > am I simply delusional? ?A statistically significant population does Your personal observation could be, for example, testing it via numerous animal trials and perhaps on your own biopsy. But going to all that trouble is, again, difficult (or so it seems- I've never found science particularly hard, just that it requires a clear mind and resources.) - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From amara at amara.com Fri Jan 11 23:57:15 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:57:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] doh! no asteroid hit on mars... Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:03:01 -0800 From: David Morrison To: David Morrison Subject: NEO News (01/11/08) Mars safe & funds for LSST NEO News (01/11/08) Mars safe & funds for LSST NO BIG BANG: ASTEROID WILL MISS MARS PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - The possibility of a collision between Mars and an approaching asteroid has been effectively ruled out, according to scientists watching the space rock as it nears the Red Planet. Tracking measurements of asteroid 2007 WD5 from four observatories have so greatly reduced uncertainties about its Jan. 30 close approach to Mars that the odds of an impact have dropped to 1 in 10,000, the Near-Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a posting on its Web site Thursday. Scientists said the best estimate was for the asteroid to pass at a distance of more than 16,000 miles from the surface of Mars, or at worst, no closer than 2,480 miles. The asteroid was discovered in November. Initial observations of its orbit raised the odds of an impact to as high as 1 in 25 before further refinements came in. The asteroid is big enough to have blasted a half-mile-wide crater in the cold and dusty Martian surface, an event that astronomers would have liked to observe. The NEO program normally looks for asteroids and comets that could pose a hazard to Earth. -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Sat Jan 12 00:59:07 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:59:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <927145.86952.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> scerir wrote: >> In theory, a computer could create a simulated >> world as real and complex as our world, and it >> could in theory contain computer-generated >> sentient operators who see that simulation as >> their 'real world'. > > In theory, in theory, maybe [...] By physical necessity, everything you've ever perceived is a simulation of your external world produced by and in your brain from sensory data received from your external world. Your brain is a biological computer. Therefore, everything you've perceived is a computer-generated simulation. And so the intricate dynamic complexity of the perceived universe is not evidence against the ability of a computer to create such an environment. QED ~Ian http://IanGoddard.net "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From hkhenson at rogers.com Sat Jan 12 02:10:16 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:10:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Metric, was Home turbines In-Reply-To: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com > References: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1200103836_20574@S3.cableone.net> At 03:55 PM 1/11/2008, Stefano Vaj wrote: >http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/07/microwind_chocolate_teapot/ > >Home turbines can't light a candle >A puny wind >By Andrew Orlowski > >Domestic "microwind" turbines, recently championed as "power from the >people" by opposition leader David Cameron, are about as useful as a >chocolate teapot. The metric I used to size a space elevator for building solar power satellites was to displace all the coal burning power plants in the US in one year. That's 300 GW. Keith From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 12 06:25:55 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:25:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] doh! no asteroid hit on mars... In-Reply-To: <1200086241.15051.29.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <200801120625.m0C6PvA7006933@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Fred C. Moulton > Subject: Re: [ExI] doh! no asteroid hit on mars... > > Unconfirmed reports that shares of Martian insurance > companies with many policies written on prime Mars property > are up on the AMSE (All Mars Stock Exchange). > > Fred Fred why don't you post here more often? What is it, about five posts a year we get from you? We miss your wit and wisdom, bud. Spike From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 12 06:34:28 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:34:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Home turbines can't light a candle In-Reply-To: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801120634.m0C6YV0Q022401@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Stefano Vaj > Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 2:56 PM > Subject: [ExI] Home turbines can't light a candle > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/07/microwind_chocolate_teapot/ > > Home turbines can't light a candle > A puny wind > By Andrew Orlowski > > Domestic "microwind" turbines, recently championed as "power > from the people" by opposition leader David Cameron, are > about as useful as a chocolate teapot. > > A study of domestic turbines was published by renewable > energy consultants Encraft in December. According to the > study, only one of the 15 household wind turbines generated > enough to power a 75W light bulb... Wind turbines are the wrong technology for this application, but so are 75 watt light bulbs. In the future we will surely light our homes with white LEDs, along with devices that automatically turn them off when no one is in the room. Yes I know it is difficult to read by white LED. I am not arguing that fully renewable energy living will be as comfortable as it is now, but rather that it is possible. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jan 12 07:59:17 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:59:17 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Home turbines can't light a candle In-Reply-To: <200801120634.m0C6YV0Q022401@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com> <200801120634.m0C6YV0Q022401@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On 12/01/2008, spike wrote: > Wind turbines are the wrong technology for this application, but so are 75 > watt light bulbs. In the future we will surely light our homes with white > LEDs, along with devices that automatically turn them off when no one is in > the room. Yes I know it is difficult to read by white LED. I am not > arguing that fully renewable energy living will be as comfortable as it is > now, but rather that it is possible. White LED's are readily available with a colour temperature very close to that of sunlight, better than the yellowish output of most incandescent lights. -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 12 10:25:39 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:25:39 +0000 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <927145.86952.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <927145.86952.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jan 12, 2008 12:59 AM, Ian Goddard wrote: > By physical necessity, everything you've ever > perceived is a simulation of your external world > produced by and in your brain from sensory data > received from your external world. Your brain is a > biological computer. Therefore, everything you've > perceived is a computer-generated simulation. And so > the intricate dynamic complexity of the perceived > universe is not evidence against the ability of a > computer to create such an environment. QED ~Ian > Of course. But the basic flaw is; if we are existing in a computer simulation, who created the simulation? And the same logic applies to him/it. i.e. He/it may also be living in a computer simulation. It's simulations all the way down. That makes such speculation unhelpful. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Sat Jan 12 13:51:26 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:51:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: References: <927145.86952.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20080112135126.GY10128@leitl.org> On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 10:25:39AM +0000, BillK wrote: > Of course. But the basic flaw is; if we are existing in a computer > simulation, who created the simulation? Who cares? I would be more interesting to build a TOE from that, that sounds far more useful. > And the same logic applies to him/it. i.e. He/it may also be living in > a computer simulation. I expect to live in such a simulation (preferrably, COTS) one day, assuming I'm lucky. > It's simulations all the way down. > > That makes such speculation unhelpful. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 eugen at leitl.org Sat Jan 12 14:03:12 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:03:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Metric, was Home turbines In-Reply-To: <1200103836_20574@S3.cableone.net> References: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com> <1200103836_20574@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: <20080112140312.GB10128@leitl.org> On Fri, Jan 11, 2008 at 07:10:16PM -0700, hkhenson wrote: > The metric I used to size a space elevator for building solar power > satellites was to displace all the coal burning power plants in the > US in one year. That's 300 GW. http://www.google.com/search?q=nanosolar+coal Production costs are claimed to be at 0.3$/W. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 eugen at leitl.org Sat Jan 12 14:20:03 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:20:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Home turbines can't light a candle In-Reply-To: <200801120634.m0C6YV0Q022401@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com> <200801120634.m0C6YV0Q022401@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <20080112142003.GG10128@leitl.org> On Fri, Jan 11, 2008 at 10:34:28PM -0800, spike wrote: > Wind turbines are the wrong technology for this application, but so are 75 You still have light bulbs? > watt light bulbs. In the future we will surely light our homes with white Why wait? I'm very happy with my LED pilot (and rather happy with my HQI metal halides), and plan more LEDs, especially now high-lumen LED strips and matching heatsinks are getting cheaper. > LEDs, along with devices that automatically turn them off when no one is in > the room. Yes I know it is difficult to read by white LED. I am not Hey, that's exactly what my motion-sensor equipped LED lamp does for nightly trip to the loo. > arguing that fully renewable energy living will be as comfortable as it is > now, but rather that it is possible. I'm arguing the very opposite. The costs for nonrenewable energy can only rise (and boy, how they do, I'm so happy for the 20-year fixed-term geothermal contract instead of gas, and electricity has gone up 10% just January this year), while renewables can only sink. Given that we're living in an energy glut (1.3 kW/m^2), I can eventually afford spending MW on computation, while right now I'm unhappy with a single 1/4 kW home server box (nevermind the 1/2 kW I burn in the rack (which, however, is 100% renewable), which is still almost empty). -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 eugen at leitl.org Sat Jan 12 14:21:59 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:21:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Home turbines can't light a candle In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com> <200801120634.m0C6YV0Q022401@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <20080112142159.GH10128@leitl.org> On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 06:59:17PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > White LED's are readily available with a colour temperature very close > to that of sunlight, better than the yellowish output of most I actually prefer the daylight ones. > incandescent lights. I buy mine at http://leds.de/ -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 painlord2k at yahoo.it Sat Jan 12 16:13:43 2008 From: painlord2k at yahoo.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:13:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] election stuff In-Reply-To: <1FDC0F2E-57B1-42C5-92D0-4322A81C67AA@ceruleansystems.com> References: <200801110711.m0B7B35N017070@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1FDC0F2E-57B1-42C5-92D0-4322A81C67AA@ceruleansystems.com> Message-ID: <4788E737.6050207@yahoo.it> J. Andrew Rogers ha scritto: > On Jan 10, 2008, at 10:44 PM, spike wrote: >> We just saw a thousand Kenyans slain over a questionable election. >> We can see how an election could be easily designed to be private, >> fair and >> verifiable, yet no democracy that I know of has made any effort to >> do it. >> Am I the only one who sees a huge threat here? > > > I love this new concept of elections. Everyone votes and then all the > candidates declare themselves the winner! Brilliant. Think of all the > self-esteem we could cultivate. Until the 1990's the political leaders in Italy did this. With a proportional distribution of the seats (in Parliament, on locals, EuroParliament) they were able to opine that they "win" or "not lose" compared to the precedent elections as the differences were very small (few percent at most, usually fractions of percent. Mirco -- [Intangible capital is] the preponderant form of wealth. When we look at the shares of intangible capital across income classes, you see it goes from about 60 percent in low-income countries to 80 percent in high-income countries. That accords very much with the notion that what really makes countries wealthy is not the bits and pieces, it's the brainpower, and the institutions that harness that brainpower. It's the skills more than the rocks and minerals. ?Kirk Hamilton Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale! http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com From amara at amara.com Sat Jan 12 17:41:38 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:41:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Meme 128: What Have You Changed Your Mind about? Message-ID: Summary of the various answers at cosmicvariance: http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/01/01/what-have-you-changed-your-mind-about Bee at backreaaction discussed it, but used it to lead into a discussion of the role of thinking people in a society, and why we need them to give direction to the politicians: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/01/on-edge.html [...] The point is simple. Intelligence is no longer an evolutionary advantage if the content of thought becomes increasingly abstract and theoretical. Our societies get more and more complex, and desperately need intellectuals, scientists, and thinkers to help them find their way in a world that's getting increasingly confusing every day. Yet, our societies don't listen to these voices, politics refutes any scientific method, leaders repeat mistakes, ignore warnings, and stick to believes that are scientifically wrong. It's a problem that has been around since thousands of years, but it is a problem that can be ignored for a long time - as long as trial an error works fast enough. Unfortunately though, the tolerance for mistakes gets smaller every year, and the consequences of mistakes larger. The saddest example is maybe the present global warming discussion. All these political problems, the fact that capitalism alone fails to protect common goods, these have been discussed already decades ago. It is quite ironic to me, reading as news what we have been taught at school. May it be about the best way to provide incentives, saving energy, or reducing garbage. The climate change and energy shortening issue has been around since at least the Club of Rome report '72. It was the time of Greenpeace, remember that? Jute statt Plastik? The energy problems I consider the much worse part because it will hit rather suddenly, yet despite all the hot air nobody actually does something about it. The obvious way out if oil gets short is power from nuclear fission. Face it - and think about that this will be a global problem. How many nations do you want to have in this world experimenting with their first nuclear fission reactors? We have, for better or worse, a global economy, but no global political system. It's a small wonder negotiations fail as long as the global marketplace has no balance in a political decision making process. And that's not a particularly new insight either. But hey, liberalism is still en vogue, lets wait some more decades. I've been around in the blogosphere for long enough to realize that a significant fraction of our readers will now grind their teeth and say, girl stick to physics, you don't know nothing. Another part will think, gag, she shouldn't. And that brings me to the reason why I changed my mind about whether we will be able to resolve the present problems in a timely manner. You may disagree with her view on part or all, but her post generated a good discussion (as usual for her posts!), which is even more valuable. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From amara at amara.com Sat Jan 12 17:59:52 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:59:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Meme 128: What Have You Changed Your Mind about? Message-ID: P.S. In case folks here missed it: (I said previously) >You may disagree with her view on part or all, but her post generated a >good discussion (as usual for her posts!), which is even more valuable. where the last one: "What is your dangerous idea?" http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/08/dangerous-ideas.html Transhumanists will find themselves discussed in the comments section, in usual an unusual ways. ;-) Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From jonkc at att.net Sat Jan 12 17:56:10 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:56:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] More Stem Cell Breakthroughs, and follies References: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com><200801120634.m0C6YV0Q022401@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20080112142159.GH10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <003101c85544$ae1f8ee0$e2ee4d0c@MyComputer> Yet another completely different method for generating Embryonic Stem Cells without harming an embryo has been announced in the January 11 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cells. Unlike the previous breakthrough of a month ago it is immediately ready for commercialization. Robert Lanza, M.D. the lead author of the paper said: "This is a working technology that exists here and now. It could be used to increase the number of stem cell lines available to federal researchers immediately. We could send these cells out to researchers tomorrow. If the White House approves this new methodology, researchers could effectively double or triple the number of stem cell lines available within a few months. Too many needless deaths continue to occur while this research is being held up. I hope the President will act now and approve these stem cell lines quickly." They took one cell away from an 8 cell fetus and then froze the remaining 7 cells. This is no different from thousands of single cell biopsies performed every year in fertility clinics that cause no harm to the fetus. The one cell is then induced back into it's Embryonic Stem Cell state and everyone is happy. Well, not quite everybody. Story Landis is Bush's Stem Cell Czar and he is an ethicist, and that means he is far more ethical than you or me, and Story Landis admits that the procedure is identical to cell biopsies performed thousands a times a year in fertility clinics but we can't know with absolute positive 100% certainty that it's harmless unless we unfreeze the 7 cells and let it develop into a baby, but in a delightful twist he adds that we must never do that because it might be harmful. If you are unable to follow this logic it is because you are not a mighty ethicist like Story Landis. On a completely different subject that has nothing to do with the above I note that there will be a different President one year from now. John K Clark From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 12 20:20:37 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:20:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: References: <927145.86952.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801121220ta5d9e3dt65225dff450ff879@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2008 11:25 AM, BillK wrote: > Of course. But the basic flaw is; if we are existing in a computer > simulation, who created the simulation? Mmhhh, have you seen MIB or MIIB? :-) Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 12 21:52:37 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:52:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism on Youtube Message-ID: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> Has everybody seen this? http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=DpzQxbYCPNI&feature=related Stefano Vaj From joe at ninua.com Mon Jan 7 23:53:33 2008 From: joe at ninua.com (Joe Solomon) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 18:53:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] User-Submitted News Site for the Singularity Community Message-ID: Dear Extropians! We just launched www.onsingularity.com, a user-submitted news and discussion portal that's focused solely on the Singularity community. As a group with many members who are likely interested in the Singularity, I wanted to extend an invitation to everyone on the list to join this sister community of visionaries and thought leaders. The concept of the OnSingularity website is similar to Digg.com, in which the users choose what news show up on the site, plus OnSingularity gives you the opportunity to start discussions with several key leaders who have already joined as Community Founders (check the list ). OnSingularity.com works with the Extropia mailing list since it helps its members promote and discuss their ideas and articles in a niche and focused environment. It also acts as a rich and democratic resource from which to submit and draw the latest news relating to The Singularity. Feel free to submit any news source you think is appropriate ? whether it's a recent blog post you've authored, an article from Wired, or a link to an innovative AI robot up for auction on Ebay. Then watch how people vote on it and react in the comments! I sincerely look forward to your feedback & to sharing news and vibrant discussions on OnSingularity.com! Best, Joe Solomon Community Builder, http://www.onsingularity.com Joe at Ninua.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From James.Hughes at trincoll.edu Sat Jan 12 23:15:59 2008 From: James.Hughes at trincoll.edu (Hughes, James J.) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:15:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD28039068F03C9@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> > http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=DpzQxbYCPNI&feature=related Yes, Alex Jones is a popular far-right conspiracy theorist onver here. I once appeared on his show. It's a constant surprise to me that bombs aren't in our mailboxes. J. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Jan 12 23:27:46 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:27:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD28039068F03C9@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> References: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD28039068F03C9@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> Message-ID: <580930c20801121527g2cb10845me6ac01fd61592a45@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 13, 2008 12:15 AM, Hughes, James J. wrote: > > http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=DpzQxbYCPNI&feature=related > > Yes, Alex Jones is a popular far-right conspiracy theorist onver here. I > once appeared on his show. Is he actually "rightist"? He keeps accusing transhumanism of being ?litist along the entire video. As far as "conspiracies" are concerned, no doubts about his favour to the subject... :-) Stefano Vaj From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Jan 12 23:48:17 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:48:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801121748.17527.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 12 January 2008, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Transhumanism on YouTube If we wanted to spread the transhumanism meme through YouTube, what form would it take? Would we talk of how premature death is unnecessary? Would we talk about the world of robotics, the world of ai? Or would we join the future hype crowds? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From James.Hughes at trincoll.edu Sun Jan 13 01:24:36 2008 From: James.Hughes at trincoll.edu (Hughes, James J.) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:24:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Transhumanism on Youtube References: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD28039068F03CE@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> My favorite far right conspiracy theory is still that we H+ are unknowingly working to create angel-human hybrids, or "nephilim," to fight for Satan in the End-Times. http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2006/02feb/superman.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POA3WF3kF-U http://www.farshores.org/a07neph2.htm http://youtube.com/watch?v=-JvJqZ7vzTw I wonder if an endorsement from Lucifer would help with the fund drive? Also check out this commercial for transhumanism a student did as a school project. Not very good, but I love this stuff: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rWlc2XK21cQ J. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Jan 13 01:54:52 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:54:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> John Clark writes > We've known for 70 years that you can instantly change something > 10 billion light years away, Not if you look at this through MWI lenses. If you send a photon through a filter at 45 degrees and someone far away sends the corresponding entangled photon through a similar filter, then the A-you where the photon passed and the A-him turn out to be in the same universe, and the B-you and the B-him where it didn't are in the other universe. If it weren't for the "weird correlation", then there would actually be four universes---inhabited respectively by the teams A-you & A-him, A-you & B-him, B-you & A-him, and B-you & B-him---and each such worthy would weep "alas there is no correlation between what happens here and what happens there, our entanglementation did fail". But when entanglement succeeds, there are just the two universes, and everyone celebrates the wonderous correlation, except for the two pairs of unfortunates who didn't get any runtime, Messrs. A-you & B-him and Messrs. B-you & A-him. Nobody "changed" anything lightyears away, and certainly not "instantly", whatever than means in our post-Einstein understanding. You can jam a filter up against a passing photon, but that won't cause anyone to do the same thing lightyears away. But even if they do, the fact that only two universes instead of four obtain should not be described as either party inflicting a change on distant circumstances. Lee > but you can't use that fact to send > information, you can't use it to send news. The universe (and me too) > may be splitting a trillion times a second but that news hasn't > reached me, if it had I could prove many worlds to be true. I can't. > > John K Clark > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 13 01:58:49 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 02:58:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD28039068F03CE@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> References: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD28039068F03CE@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> Message-ID: <580930c20801121758o7e90b4bbj62434f457ed14d73@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 13, 2008 2:24 AM, Hughes, James J. wrote: > My favorite far right conspiracy theory is still that we H+ are > unknowingly working to create angel-human hybrids, or "nephilim," to > fight for Satan in the End-Times. I shall give it a glance. BTW, do you consider Zeitgeist, at http://zeitgeistmovie.com as "rightist" or "leftist"? Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Jan 13 02:22:53 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:22:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Passive Observations Message-ID: <006d01c8558b$d6c3cb30$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Not long ago, in a debate about simulations, someone said "subatomic particles do change their state when observed". I don't think that this is the right way to use the word "observe". Suppose, for example, that I'm walking along a dark road and happen to look up and see the star Regulus in Leo, and it causes me to wonder what other stars are visible, and so I look over my shoulder and see in almost the opposite direction the Andromeda nebula. Very possibly, say, my eye has collected a photon from VJ00443799+4129236, which is a binary star in the Andomeda galaxy. In this case we say that I observed that photon or that I observed the Andromeda galaxy. But does my observing that photon or that galaxy actually cause any state change in the atom of VJ00443799+4129236 which emitted that photon? This emission occurred (in our frame of reference) almost three million years ago, and we should avoid language that suggests that my observation caused anything to happen there. What people mean when they say "particles change state when observed" is that if you try to observe something by bouncing a photon off it, then you will indeed affect it. Likewise, if we were all blind and we "observed" rocks by kicking them, then we'd have to also say that "observation of rocks changes their state", no doubt. But as a *passive* collector of information that was generated anyway, neither observers nor observations necessarily affect anything. Lee From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Jan 13 02:37:17 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:37:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> At 05:54 PM 1/12/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: >If it weren't for the "weird correlation", then there would actually be >four universes---inhabited respectively by the teams A-you & A-him, >A-you & B-him, B-you & A-him, and B-you & B-him---and each >such worthy would weep "alas there is no correlation between >what happens here and what happens there, our entanglementation >did fail". But when entanglement succeeds, there are just the two >universes, and everyone celebrates the wonderous correlation, >except for the two pairs of unfortunates who didn't get any runtime, >Messrs. A-you & B-him and Messrs. B-you & A-him. This certainly accords with my own intuition, and I find no principled reason why "entanglement" isn't just an improbable illusion in the MWI. What prevents the "unfortunates" from existing? Damien Broderick From moulton at moulton.com Sun Jan 13 05:11:10 2008 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:11:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] doh! no asteroid hit on mars... In-Reply-To: <200801120625.m0C6PvA7006933@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200801120625.m0C6PvA7006933@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <1200201070.3399.31.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 2008-01-11 at 22:25 -0800, spike wrote: > > > Fred C. Moulton > > Subject: Re: [ExI] doh! no asteroid hit on mars... > > > > Unconfirmed reports that shares of Martian insurance > > companies with many policies written on prime Mars property > > are up on the AMSE (All Mars Stock Exchange). > > > > Fred > Fred why don't you post here more often? What is it, about five posts a > year we get from you? We miss your wit and wisdom, bud. > > Spike Spike Do not worry; I will provide updates whenever I hear useful rumors about the movement of stock prices on the AMSE. Seriously, thanks for your kind words. On most topics I do not post because I try to be aware of how much that I do not know on many subjects and I am not going to post something unless I am fairly certain that it is really as accurate and well informed as possible. But I will try to post something whenever I feel I have something substantial to contribute. Of course time is a critical factor and seems to be in short supply. Fred From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Jan 13 05:55:19 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:55:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <007501c855a9$3a802610$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Damien writes >>If it weren't for the "weird correlation", then there would actually be >>four universes---inhabited respectively by the teams A-you & A-him, >>A-you & B-him, B-you & A-him, and B-you & B-him---and each >>such worthy would weep "alas there is no correlation between >>what happens here and what happens there, our entanglementation >>did fail". But when entanglement succeeds, there are just the two >>universes, and everyone celebrates the wonderous correlation, >>except for the two pairs of unfortunates who didn't get any runtime, >>Messrs. A-you & B-him and Messrs. B-you & A-him. > > This certainly accords with my own intuition, and I find no > principled reason why "entanglement" isn't just an improbable > illusion in the MWI. Illusion? I imagine a very wide swath of flow lines, like a river, all the flow lines representing completely identical universes (indistinguishable universes). Normally when any binary possibility arises the large sheaf of lines or stream of lines breaks into four sub-streams, having approximately equal measure. On three simultaneous events, they'd break up into eight streams, one for each binary possibility. In cases like this we speak of non-negligible probabilities. Of course, there are always totally negligible little rivulets that can break away, (e.g. a cow jumps over the moon). But, again going back to AA, AB, BA, and BB, sure, maybe the AB stream and BA streams do exist, but they are tiny. Why are there just two emergent possibilities instead of four, and why are they called "entangled"? Penrose on page 281 of "The Emperor's New Mind" has the nicest explanation: Suppose that we have a physical system consisteing of two sub-systems A and B. For example, take A and B to be two different particles. Suppose that two (orthogonal) alternatives for the state of A are |alpha> or |rho>, whereas B's state might be |beta> or |sigma>. As we have seen above the general combined state would not simply be a product ('and') of a stateA with a state of B, but a superposition ('plus') of such products. [Hence my mantra of "at the bottom of things are amplitudes that add.] We say that A and B are then "correlated". Let us take the state of the system to be |alpha>|beta> + |rho>|sigma> [By the way, you see here the fundamental assumption that Penrose makes from which everything follows. It took the physicists a long time in the twenties to find such a formula, such a concept, that if you just turn the crank and follow the rules, you get to make accurate predictions, even though they're just probabilistic ones.] Now perform a yes/no measurement on A that distinguishes |alpha> (YES) from |rho> (NO). What happens to B. If the measurement yields YES, then the resulting state must be |alpha>|beta> while if it yields NO, then it is |rho>|sigma> Thus our measurement of A causes the state of B to jump: to |beta>, in the event of a YES answer, and to |sigma> in the event of a NO answer! The particle B need not be localized anywhere near A; they could be light-years apart. So the behavior happens to follow the rules of what Penrose elsewhere calls "the quantum mechanical 'and'", which is the plus sign in the equation above. My wonder is that just two possibilities emerge. The math prohibits "the unfortunates" |alpha>|sigma> and |rho>|beta> from existing. > What prevents the "unfortunates" from existing? In my original story, above, imagine that you experience |alpha> here and then go far away to learn what your partners saw at their end. You will only find that they found |beta>, even though intellectually you and they realize that another universe holds their opposite numbers who saw |rho> and |sigma> respectively. But a you who experienced |alpha> and then second hand experienced |sigma> (as he later interacts with the locals at the distant location, and absorbs the results of their experiment) does not exist. Or exists only in negligible measure. Lee From sjatkins at mac.com Sun Jan 13 05:58:13 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:58:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Home turbines can't light a candle In-Reply-To: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20801111455h5f12738cm850629b3d04cbdb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <40EA36B4-5B44-4D7B-AD5E-9AE3622C82A2@mac.com> On Jan 11, 2008, at 2:55 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > The trial has suffered other problems. One turbine was stolen, another > damaged, and a further one was beseiged by pro-bat protestors. Batty people of the world, Unite! - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Sun Jan 13 06:06:23 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:06:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: References: <927145.86952.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jan 12, 2008, at 2:25 AM, BillK wrote: > On Jan 12, 2008 12:59 AM, Ian Goddard wrote: >> By physical necessity, everything you've ever >> perceived is a simulation of your external world >> produced by and in your brain from sensory data >> received from your external world. Your brain is a >> biological computer. Therefore, everything you've >> perceived is a computer-generated simulation. And so >> the intricate dynamic complexity of the perceived >> universe is not evidence against the ability of a >> computer to create such an environment. QED ~Ian >> > > > Of course. But the basic flaw is; if we are existing in a computer > simulation, who created the simulation? That there had to be some non-simulation at the bottom of it doesn't say a lot about whether we are in a simulation or not. Most of us here remember a well-developed argument some time back that if detailed sims are possible and likely in our universe and especially in "our" own future then the odds are quite strong that we are in a sim. I didn't quite buy the details of that argument though. > > And the same logic applies to him/it. i.e. He/it may also be living in > a computer simulation. > > It's simulations all the way down. > Don't be silly. At the bottom is the Cosmic Turtle who ingested LSD and hallucinated it All. - samantha From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 13 06:30:00 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:30:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD28039068F03C9@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> Message-ID: <200801130630.m0D6U1Gr029376@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > > > http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=DpzQxbYCPNI&feature=related > > Yes, Alex Jones is a popular far-right conspiracy theorist > onver here. I once appeared on his show. > > It's a constant surprise to me that bombs aren't in our mailboxes. > > J. Alex is no relation to me, but as long as he assures me I am plotting to live forever thru technology, good luck to him and may his darkest vision come to fruition. And more importantly of course, good luck to me. spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 13 06:27:00 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:27:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801130653.m0D6rgU1012951@andromeda.ziaspace.com> ... > Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism on Youtube > > Has everybody seen this? > > http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=DpzQxbYCPNI&feature=related > > > Stefano Vaj Stephano, at least they reassured me by telling saying that since I am a transhumanist, then I am part of this big evil conspiracy to live forever, etc. That part was a relief. spike From amara at amara.com Sun Jan 13 08:24:59 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:24:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] End of Saga about Moving :-) Message-ID: And the end of my saga about Moving! For my household, it arrived safely (no broken items except for one picture frame, which I already knew about) last Monday. The path of my household: upon arrival on the other side of the Atlantic to the Port of Houston, Texas, in the third week of December, was separated from the other shipments and Xrayed, and was then put on a train across the mid-section of the US between Christmas and New Years. On Friday, January 4, my house-on-the-train entered Colorado, and last Monday, January 7, it arrived to my home in Boulder, two months after waving goodbye to it in Frascati, Italy. Interestingly, I had Italians (Sardinians), packing and picking up my home on the Frascati, Italy side, and Mexicans delivering and unpacking my home on the Boulder, Colorado side. The language lessons were fun! I learned some new Spanish words last Monday. Three companies were involved in the move on the Boulder end: the company to bring the shipping container from the train to my home, the company to unload and unpack the boxes, and I needed a third company: a contractor technician to help me assemble my futon couch. The Rome company Franzosini disassembled my couch to the bare screws and washers, and I have not assembled it from such a basic state before. (I took pictures of that futon assembly too, and so I will write myself an instruction sheet for the next time.) There was a sort of ritual to 'break the seal' on the shipping container, then the truck driver, who doesn't have authority to touch the boxes inside of his own truck, went to the cab of the truck and sat there (I hope his heater was on, since it started snowing a little in the afternoon) for several few hours, while the _second_ company unloaded the boxes and while I checked off the numbered boxes on my list to make sure that we had everything. I am _so glad_ that I wrote on all four sides and in English the contents of most of the boxes in Frascati, because it would have slowed us up considerably. And yes, the boxes that slowed us were those whose contents we couldn't figure out from the Sardinian Italian and which I had not marked. The second company brought a large truck too -- these two trucks occupied a large volume on my street last Monday, obstructing, for a short time, the City of Boulder garbage pickup truck. The purpose of the second truck was so that they could store the packing material from unpacking my boxes. Our strategy was for them to leave with as many empty boxes as possible, Monday evening, which meant emptying the contents of as many boxes as possible onto the floor of my home. By Monday evening, I had no space to walk, especially with 1200 books in piles everywhere. The books were first to get off of the floor, which needed some lessons too. I have a plump carpet throughout my new home, now, which doesn't provide the most stable surface for heavy bookshelves. My first bookshelf, of physics books, neatly fell over, after I had spent two hours assembling and filling it. Of course, in the process, it knocked over my cup of tea onto the beige carpet and onto one of my beige meditation cushions. OK, so after slipping enough pieces of cardboard under the front of the bookshelves to force them to lean against the wall, I filled the assembled bookshelves and they appear to be more-or-less vertically balanced now ;-), barring any earthquakes (which I never heard of in Colorado) so I think I am safe. On the "Italy, Closing up" Things, excluding my end-of-contract money and my extraction-from-pension money processes, still in progress, I'm concluding that things are more-or-less closed. I think that the services companies: ENEL, Tele2, Fastweb, Telecom Italia would save themselves and their customers a lot of effort if they write on their web sites: "We don't have a clue for how to manage customers that move outside of Italy." Then it would be clear, and I wouldn't have wasted my last weeks in Italy with faxes, registered letters, phone and so on, and I could have taken the holiday that I had hoped to have had. I have not received any fattura/bollettas for my last services, with the exception of one company: ENEL. They gave me 5 ways to pay, none of which work for me living here. One of the ways could have been potentially useful: paying with credit card over their Internet web site, but they disconnected my account number, and so that didn't work either. I'm happy to report that the Ford auto shop in Grottaferrata did finally send to me my demolition certificate that proves that they destroyed my car, and I received it at the end of December. So I then sent all of the official papers to my old insurance company, therefore, my car insurance is officially and legally cancelled. I don't care any more if I pay my last utilities bills, honestly, since the companies themselves don't seem to care to have my money. Now, to the rest of the putting away of my household... Ciao! Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From painlord2k at yahoo.it Sat Jan 12 23:46:40 2008 From: painlord2k at yahoo.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 00:46:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Malthusian Environment and head lice [Was Re: Not Dollar a gallon gas was Rationality and Irrationality] In-Reply-To: <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <62c14240712171845l629401edl9b3dcdc8e77a60b6@mail.gmail.com> <4767E2BC.2090604@kevinfreels.com> <1198002259_1533@S3.cableone.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> Message-ID: <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> Kevin Freels ha scritto: >> The point of dollar a gallon gas posting was to simulate hard number >> discussion about real engineering, not endless political >> bickering. Maybe it's just not the right time of year for serious discussion. >> > Good point. >> Did anyone read the web site about selection in the English >> Malthusian environment? >> >> > Working on it. Was planning to do it last night but I came to find out > that my tween daughters had been invaded by a very successful and > specialized parasite - head lice. We spent several hours nit-picking the > lousy nit-wits and I haven't found the time since. These little beasties > are rather interesting. 3 different species affect three specific parts > of the body and no others. Head lice don't populate body or pubic areas, > Pubic lice don't get into hair. Intuition suggests that lice should have > become generalists as the human body hair gradually reduced over time. > Instead we ended up with three specific species. This may suggest that > our loss of body hair was rather rapid. Of course, getting all of that > out of a brief run in with lice on my children's hair is probably a > stretch. Maybe I should just shut the brain down and watch TV a bit > more. lol There is an interesting article around about the co-evolution of the three populations of lice and the humans (and now we know when we become naked apes and when we invented the clothes). Mirco -- [Intangible capital is] the preponderant form of wealth. When we look at the shares of intangible capital across income classes, you see it goes from about 60 percent in low-income countries to 80 percent in high-income countries. That accords very much with the notion that what really makes countries wealthy is not the bits and pieces, it's the brainpower, and the institutions that harness that brainpower. It's the skills more than the rocks and minerals. ?Kirk Hamilton Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale! http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com From scerir at libero.it Sun Jan 13 10:57:44 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 11:57:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <003801c855d3$20947600$77971f97@archimede> John Clark writes > > We've known for 70 years that you can instantly change > > something 10 billion light years away, Lee Corbin writes > Not if you look at this through MWI lenses. Isn't there some nonlocality also in MWI? I mean, the very concept of 'split' is a sort of Godiva supreme chocolate ice-cream of nonlocality. Also Lev Vaidman [1] seems to think so. "The MWI exhibits some kind of nonlocality: "world" is a nonlocal concept, but it avoids action at a distance and, therefore, it is not in conflict with the relativistic quantum mechanics; see discussions of nonlocality in Vaidman (1994), Tipler (2000), Bacciagaluppi (2002), and Hemmo and Pitowsky (2001). Although the issues of (non)locality are most transparent in the Schroedinger representation, an additional insight can be gained through recent analysis in the framework of the Heisenberg representation, see Deutsch and Hayden (2000), Rubin (2001), and Deutsch (2001). The most celebrated example of nonlocality was given by Bell (1964) in the context of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument. However, in the framework of the MWI, Bell's argument cannot get off the ground because it requires a predetermined single outcome of a quantum experiment." How to solve this problem, at least from a very abstract point of view? See [2] :-) [1] http://physicaplus.org.il/zope/home/en/1105389911/1112196342-vaidman_en [2] http://physicaplus.org.il/zope/home/en/1185176174/daat_ophir_en From sjatkins at mac.com Sun Jan 13 11:26:29 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 03:26:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Sigh Alex Jones is such a mix of good things to look into and look out for and utter bullshit that I wonder if he does work for the "elite" that he claims tried to recruit him. Claiming nanotech is governed by eugenics on that the goal of transhumanist is to wipe out most everyone is a fine example of what he gets very wrong. Julian Huxley had nothing to do with transhumanism. Poor Alex mixes up his conspiracies of power-hungry elites with the very technology that could blow away such elite power centers. If he is paid by that elite and the elite is frightened by these technologies then they would have him say exactly what he is saying. Perhaps we need to put out a counter-counter-conspiracy. He is right that the technology can be used for deep oppression though. - samantha On Jan 12, 2008, at 1:52 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Has everybody seen this? > > http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=DpzQxbYCPNI&feature=related > > > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From jnh at vt11.net Sun Jan 13 12:05:41 2008 From: jnh at vt11.net (Jordan Hazen) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 07:05:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <580930c20801121758o7e90b4bbj62434f457ed14d73@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD28039068F03CE@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> <580930c20801121758o7e90b4bbj62434f457ed14d73@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080113120540.GF1016@vt11.net> On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 02:58:49AM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Jan 13, 2008 2:24 AM, Hughes, James J. wrote: > > > My favorite far right conspiracy theory is still that we H+ are > > unknowingly working to create angel-human hybrids, or "nephilim," to > > fight for Satan in the End-Times. > > I shall give it a glance. BTW, do you consider Zeitgeist, at > http://zeitgeistmovie.com as "rightist" or "leftist"? First part (religion as astrological allegory) "leftist", last part "rightist"? It doesn't really fit well on that spectrum. Good film, though not directly related to H+. Don't miss the great George Carlin bit at 7m40s :) > Stefano Vaj -- Jordan. From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Sun Jan 13 16:13:57 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 08:13:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Passive Observations Message-ID: <101907.3071.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Lee Corbin wrote: > Very possibly, say, my eye has collected a photon > from VJ00443799+4129236, which is a binary star in > the Andomeda galaxy. > > In this case we say that I observed that photon or > that I observed the Andromeda galaxy. > > But does my observing that photon or that galaxy > actually cause any state change in the atom of > VJ00443799+4129236 which emitted that photon? It is passive observation, or becoming observable, that affects subatomics. If photon detectors are placed beside the double slits, allowing a photo to be observed, a photon passes through one or the other slit as local particle. But if no detectors are placed, it passes through both slits as a wave. And read the description of Wheeler's delay-choice experiment, starting toward the end of page 1 and going on to page 2 here: http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse This paragraph speaks directly to your example: "By the time the astronomers decide which measurement to make ? whether to pin down the photon to one definite route or to have it follow both paths simultaneously ? the photon [ from a distant quasar ] could have already journeyed for billions of years, long before life appeared on Earth. The measurements made now, says Wheeler, determine the photon's past. In one case the astronomers create a past in which a photon took both possible routes from the quasar to Earth. Alternatively, they retroactively force the photon onto one straight trail toward their detector, even though the photon began its jaunt long before any detectors existed." Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment was confirmed in 1982 and more recently here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/315/5814/966 See also this page about the double-slit experiment: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec13.html http://IanGoddard.net "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 13 17:10:34 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:10:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <200801130653.m0D6rgU1012951@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> <200801130653.m0D6rgU1012951@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801130910o270cf0f0tfd2b8e85ebdb58@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 13, 2008 7:27 AM, spike wrote: > ... > > Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism on Youtube > > Has everybody seen this? > > http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=DpzQxbYCPNI&feature=related > > Stefano Vaj > > Stephano, at least they reassured me by telling saying that since I am a > transhumanist, then I am part of this big evil conspiracy to live forever, > etc. That part was a relief. > > Frankly, in *this* case I did not like it much, as they lent us a number of positions which after all may not be entirely inaccurate, but that I personally happen not to share. On the other hand, I would be the last to deny that very often anti-transhumanists present a more intriguing and appealing portrait of what we are than many transhumanists, too obsessed with respectability and acceptability, do. Or they may present a transhumanism which is even more coincident to my own views than the Real Thing... :-) Not to mention the much higher firepower the opposition has at its beck and call. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Jan 13 17:12:53 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:12:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20801121352y15ac77f0k192f8ab0d8fe165@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801130912t5afbc4bcmf6d67bbab1864afa@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 13, 2008 12:26 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > Julian Huxley > had nothing to do with transhumanism. Really? That's bad, because, besides believing that in fact he invented the word, I find some of his ideas interesting... :-) Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Jan 13 17:37:45 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 11:37:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism on YouTube Message-ID: <20080113173746.WPWM11942.hrndva-omta01.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> This is more uplifting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5-RXcUHVSc Natasha Vita-More PhD Candidate, Planetary Collegium - University of Plymouth - Faculty of Technology School of Computing, Communications and Electronics Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the circle, then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what is inside the circle and everything outside the circle, then that is an open system perspective. - Buckminster Fuller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jonkc at att.net Sun Jan 13 17:58:14 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:58:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> "Lee Corbin" > If you send a photon through a filter at 45 degrees and someone > far away sends the corresponding entangled photon through a > similar filter, Then there is a 100% probability the photon will make it through that second filter ten billion light years away because it is set at the same 45 degree angle and the experiment is over. Perhaps you'd want to set the other filter at 90 degrees then there would be a 50 50 chance. > If it weren't for the "weird correlation", then there would actually be > four universes What's the big deal, if you want 4 I'll give you 4, universes are cheap. > and each such worthy would weep "alas there is no correlation > between what >happens here and what happens there, our > entanglementation did fail". But when entanglement succeeds, > there are just the two universes I don't understand what you are saying, entanglement always succeeds. I don't understand your thought experiment, let me try one of my own. Some physical processes produce 2 photons that have the same polarization but move in opposite directions. A billion years before I was born somebody in the Virgo Cluster started making pairs of photons that have identical but unknown polarization. He sent one stream of photons to the earth, a billion light years away and he sent the second stream of photons to the Coma cluster in the opposite direction from the earth also a billion light years away. A billion years later on Earth I spin my polarizer to a random direction and record its position, I observe if the photon made it through the polarizer or not and record that too, the exact time also. Now I spin the polarizer again and do the same thing for the next photon and then for the next several thousand photons. When his stream of photons reach my friend in the Coma Cluster he does the same thing with his photons. Now I decide to visit my friend. I get in a space ship with my records and blast off for the Coma Cluster at 99% of the speed of light. After 2 billion years I arrive in the Coma Cluster, we must be in the same universe because I can shake his hand. I now compare notes with my friend. I notice that the direction I had my polarizer turned to and the direction my friend had his turned to were different, not very surprising since both were picked at random, but then I find something astounding. The square of the cosign of the angle between the 2 detectors for each photon pair is proportional to the probability that a photon will make it through my friend's detector. That is weird and I see no reason to put the word in quotation marks; I know of no theory that can remove that weirdness. John K Clark From robotact at gmail.com Sun Jan 13 18:16:18 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:16:18 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2008 8:58 PM, John K Clark wrote: > Some physical processes produce 2 photons that have the same > polarization but move in opposite directions. A billion years before I > was born somebody in the Virgo Cluster started making pairs of > photons that have identical but unknown polarization. He sent one > stream of photons to the earth, a billion light years away and he sent > the second stream of photons to the Coma cluster in the opposite > direction from the earth also a billion light years away. > > A billion years later on Earth I spin my polarizer to a random direction > and record its position, I observe if the photon made it through the > polarizer or not and record that too, the exact time also. Now I spin > the polarizer again and do the same thing for the next photon and then > for the next several thousand photons. When his stream of photons > reach my friend in the Coma Cluster he does the same thing with his photons. > > Now I decide to visit my friend. I get in a space ship with my records > and blast off for the Coma Cluster at 99% of the speed of light. > After 2 billion years I arrive in the Coma Cluster, we must be in the > same universe because I can shake his hand. > > I now compare notes with my friend. I notice that the direction I had > my polarizer turned to and the direction my friend had his turned to > were different, not very surprising since both were picked at random, > but then I find something astounding. The square of the cosign of the > angle between the 2 detectors for each photon pair is proportional to > the probability that a photon will make it through my friend's detector. > That is weird and I see no reason to put the word in quotation marks; > I know of no theory that can remove that weirdness. > But why is it weird? Photons are 'black boxes' that can produce responses during interaction with experimental setup, and you can't know contents of these black boxes prior to actually looking. So each photon 'knows' how it will respond to next experiment, but you do not. Photons in an entangled pair are synchronized, that is their 'contents' are the same, but still unknown to you. Then, when you independently probe them, you get the same result, since they have the same 'contents'. In fact, you can construct classic system that will have the same properties. Just have your computer generate two e-mails with identical contents, and send them to two different respondents. Prior to opening these e-mails respondents wouldn't know their contents. They can open them at the same moment, so that speed of light wouldn't be able to magically transform one e-mail to be in agreement with another. And they would find that contents of these e-mails are exactly the same! The only difference is that you can read e-mails many times, but you can't repeat observation of photons. No big deal: add 'destroy after reading' requirement to these e-mails. -- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact at gmail.com From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Jan 13 18:26:57 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:26:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080113122457.021ee5a0@satx.rr.com> At 12:58 PM 1/13/2008 -0500, JKC wrote: > > If it weren't for the "weird correlation", then there would actually be > > four universes > >What's the big deal, if you want 4 I'll give you 4, universes are cheap. You can't, you only get two; that's the problem. > > and each such worthy would weep "alas there is no correlation > > between what >happens here and what happens there, our > > entanglementation did fail". But when entanglement succeeds, > > there are just the two universes > >I don't understand what you are saying, entanglement always succeeds. That's the problem. In a MWI, it should only "work" (by chance coincidence) some of the time. If I've understood the proposition correctly. Damien Broderick From jonkc at att.net Sun Jan 13 18:29:02 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:29:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer><006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> "Damien Broderick" > I find no principled reason why "entanglement" > isn't just an improbable illusion in the MWI. But entanglement always works this way. I think it unlikely that you just happen to be living in a universe where the astronomically unlikely always happens and the likely never does. And I think the word "illusion" really doesn't explain much. John K Clark From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Jan 13 18:37:22 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:37:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080113123515.02358450@satx.rr.com> At 09:16 PM 1/13/2008 +0300, Vladimir Nesov wrote: >But why is it weird? Photons are 'black boxes' that can produce >responses during interaction with experimental setup, and you can't >know contents of these black boxes prior to actually looking. So each >photon 'knows' how it will respond to next experiment, but you do not. >Photons in an entangled pair are synchronized, that is their >'contents' are the same, but still unknown to you. Then, when you >independently probe them, you get the same result, since they have the >same 'contents'. That's exactly what Bell, and experiments based on his work, *disproved*. (At least, that's the standard interpretation: no hidden variables.) Damien Broderick From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Jan 13 18:55:57 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:55:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] doh! no asteroid hit on mars... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <9B8C40A8BD6A4A588F623FAA4AB3A9E3@Catbert> Amara Graps wrote: > http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-152 > > Spike: >> Dayam. {8-[ > > The people at my workplace are bummed too.. We all would have liked > to see a Mars impact! Stupid Martians have a better asteroid deflector than we do! -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Jan 13 19:15:10 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:15:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080113123515.02358450@satx.rr.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080113123515.02358450@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200801131315.10793.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 13 January 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > >But why is it weird? Photons are 'black boxes' that can produce > >responses ?during interaction with experimental setup, and you can't > >know contents of these black boxes prior to actually looking. So > > each photon 'knows' how it will respond to next experiment, but you > > do not. Photons in an entangled pair are synchronized, that is > > their 'contents' are the same, but still unknown to you. Then, when > > you independently probe them, you get the same result, since they > > have the same 'contents'. > > That's exactly what Bell, and experiments based on his work, > *disproved*. (At least, that's the standard interpretation: no hidden > variables.) Yep. From the link in my post re: "Kantian" quantum mechanics: http://www.friesian.com/space-2.htm > The discomfort that I feel is associated with the fact that the > observed perfect quantum correlations seem to demand something like > the "genetic" hypothesis. For me, it is so reasonable to assume that > the photons in those experiments carry with them programs, which have > been correlated in advance, telling them how to behave. This is so > rational that I think that when Einstein saw that, and the others > refused to see it, he was the rational man. The other people, although > history has justified them, were burying their heads in the sand. I > feel that Einstein's intellectual superiority over Bohr, in this > instance, was enormous; a vast gulf between the man who saw clearly > what was needed, and the obscurantist. So for me, it is a pity that > Einstein's idea doesn't work. The reasonable thing just doesn't work. -- John Stewart Bell (1928-1990), author of "Bell's Theorem" (or "Bell's Inequality"), quoted in Quantum Profiles, by Jeremy Bernstein [Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 84] - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Jan 13 19:08:06 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:08:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Transhumanism on Youtube In-Reply-To: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD28039068F03CE@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> Message-ID: James Hughes wrote: > My favorite far right conspiracy theory is still that we H+ > are unknowingly working to create angel-human hybrids, or > "nephilim," to fight for Satan in the End-Times. Why do they say "unknowingly"? > I wonder if an endorsement from Lucifer would help with the fund > drive? No, but the angel breeding program always gets a lot of volunteers! -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From yudkowsky at gmail.com Sun Jan 13 19:30:06 2008 From: yudkowsky at gmail.com (Eliezer Yudkowsky) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 11:30:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080109020043.021dbbd8@satx.rr.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <478478A3.7090701@pobox.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109020043.021dbbd8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <402e01e70801131130x44517a90pf62f8be4d4769ded@mail.gmail.com> Damien, you might find this paper helpful: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0107144 "Everett and Structure" Note that as Wallace distinguishes between "many-worlds" and "decoherence" I am certainly a decoherentist; a preferred basis may emerge macroscopically but it has no formal place in quantum theory. Hat tip to Steven ("Black Belt Bayesian") from a recent discussion on Overcoming Bias. -- Eliezer Yudkowsky Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Jan 13 20:24:35 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:24:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080113141030.02235ec0@satx.rr.com> At 01:29 PM 1/13/2008 -0500, John K Clark wrote: > > I find no principled reason why "entanglement" > > isn't just an improbable illusion in the MWI. > >But entanglement always works this way. Indeed it does, and for the reason Lee mentioned this fact seems incompatible with MWI (although Lee actually disagrees about this, I think). >I think it unlikely that you just >happen to be living in a universe where the astronomically unlikely always >happens and the likely never does. Not at all astronomically unlikely. If an event can happen 4 ways in MW, but QT says 2, and we only ever observe 2, it's unlikely that MWI is the explanation. >And I think the word "illusion" really >doesn't explain much. What I meant was something along the lines of the standard reinterpretation of tachyons (if they existed) to explain away their apparent temporal reverse trajectory; no, it's just that another forward-in-time particle randomly enters your frame "from infinity" and coincidentally slams into the detector at just the right instant to give the impression of a superluminal impact (Bilaniuk et al).* Thus, any apparent evidence for tachyons is just an illusion. No matter how unlikely, in that case. Damien Broderick *I see Wikipedia talks about this: reference frame shift that alters the temporal direction of the tachyon's world-line, which is not true for bradyons or photons. > From jef at jefallbright.net Sun Jan 13 20:40:21 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:40:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds In-Reply-To: <402e01e70801131130x44517a90pf62f8be4d4769ded@mail.gmail.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <478478A3.7090701@pobox.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109020043.021dbbd8@satx.rr.com> <402e01e70801131130x44517a90pf62f8be4d4769ded@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2008 11:30 AM, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > Damien, you might find this paper helpful: > > http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0107144 > "Everett and Structure" > > Note that as Wallace distinguishes between "many-worlds" and "decoherence" I > am certainly a decoherentist; a preferred basis may emerge macroscopically > but it has no formal place in quantum theory. What a refreshing read, and gratifying to see usage of the term "emerge" by Eliezer, in its meaningful sense, of course. Also today, an excellent article by Steven Pinker in the New York Times, writing on the emergence of agreement on "ought" from "is." [1] Striking parallels between the two domains, paradox-free with correct accounting of the role of the observer. - Jef 1. The Moral Instinct, by Steven Pinker, January 13, 2008 From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 13 21:21:49 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:21:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] scientists create rat heart in the lab In-Reply-To: <20080113173746.WPWM11942.hrndva-omta01.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <200801132121.m0DLLrNd010953@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Hey cool, check this: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322421,00.html Beating Heart Grown in Lab Brings New Hope for Custom-built Organs Sunday, January 13, 2008 WASHINGTON - Researchers seeking new treatments for heart disease managed to grow a rat heart in the lab and start it beating. "While it still sounds like science fiction, we've hopefully opened a new door in the notion that we can build these tissues and one day provide options for patients with end-stage disease," said Dr. Doris Taylor, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair at the University of Minnesota. "We're not there yet, but at least now we have another tool in our tool belt." Taylor led the team whose research appeared in Sunday's online edition of the journal Nature Medicine. Scientists have worked for years for ways to grow body parts. Many efforts have focused on heart valves as an alternative to the plastic or animal valves that wear out after being implanted in humans. An estimated 5 million Americans live with heart failure and about 550,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the United States. Approximately 50,000 die annually waiting for a heart donor. Taylor said in a telephone interview that her team began by trying to determine if it were possible to transplant rat heart cells. They took the hearts from eight newborn rats and removed all the cells. Left behind was a gelatin-like matrix shaped like a heart and containing conduits where the blood vessels had been. Scientists then injected cells back into this scaffold -- muscle cells and endothelial cells, which line blood vessels. The muscle cells covered the matrix walls and lined up together, while the endothelial cells found their way inside to coat the blood vessels, she said. Then the hearts were stimulated electrically. "By two days we saw tiny, microscopic contractions, and by seven to eight days there were contractions large enough to see with the naked eye," she said. The tiny hearts could pump liquid at about one-fourth the rate of a normal fetal rat's heart. "Obviously we have a long way to go," Taylor said. But the long-term hope, she said, is that a similar process could work with either human hearts from cadavers or pig hearts, with their cells stripped off and replaced by cells from the person needing a heart transplant to avoid rejection. The next step is to take a pig heart, strip away the cells and repopulate it with cells from a pig to see if it will work in the larger heart. Dr. John Mayer Jr., a heart specialist and researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston, said the report was an "important paper that advances the ball down the road." But, he added, "It's pretty long road." Mayer, who was not part of Taylor's research team, noted that this was done in a small animal and it remains to be seen whether the same can be done in larger ones. He also wondered whether blood would flow freely, without clotting, through the reconstructed blood vessels. "I think this is an important contribution, with more work to be done," Mayer said in a telephone interview. In her research paper, Taylor also reports that the researchers are working on reseeding cells into other organs, including lungs, liver and kidneys. The research was funded by the University of Minnesota and the Medtronic Foundation, the charitable arm of a medical company that makes heart devices such as stents and defibrillators. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Jan 14 03:20:30 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:20:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Pirate Party Message-ID: <200801132120.30455.kanzure@gmail.com> http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/13/1953255 I am an open pirate. Kind of rogue. Seems to be slightly extropic in nature, but that's only one of the ten principles listed by Max a while back. Still, good to see a Pirate Party. Here's the text: mmuch writes "In the wake of the recent copyright debate in Swedish mainstream media, the P2P Consortium has published an interview with Rick Falkvinge, the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. He comments on the mainstream politicians starting to understand the issues, the interplay between strict copyright enforcement and mass surveillance, and the chances for global copyright reform." Some choice Falkvinge quotes: "What was remarkable was that this was the point where the enemy ? forces that want to lock down culture and knowledge at the cost of total surveillance ? realized they were under a serious attack... for the first time, we saw everything they could bring to the battle. And it was... nothing. Not even a fizzle. All they can say is 'thief, we have our rights, we want our rights, nothing must change, we want more money, thief, thief, thief'... Whereas we are talking about scarcity vs. abundance, monopolies, the nature of property, 500-year historical perspectives on culture and knowledge, incentive structures, economic theory, disruptive technologies, etc. The difference in intellectual levels between the sides is astounding... When the Iron Curtain fell, all of the West rejoiced that the East would become just as free as the West. It was never supposed to be the other way around." http://www.p2pconsortium.com/index.php?showtopic=15274 - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Mon Jan 14 05:03:42 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:03:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <211775.95609.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> BillK wrote: >> By physical necessity, everything you've ever >> perceived is a simulation of your external world >> produced by and in your brain from sensory data >> received from your external world. Your brain is a >> biological computer. Therefore, everything you've >> perceived is a computer-generated simulation. And >> so the intricate dynamic complexity of the >> perceived universe is not evidence against the >> ability of a computer to create such an >> environment. QED ~Ian > > > Of course. But the basic flaw is; if we are > existing in a computer simulation, who created the > simulation? > And the same logic applies to him/it. i.e. He/it > may also be living in a computer simulation. > > It's simulations all the way down. There's no inherent tower of turtles in sim-theory. The hypothesis that our visible universe is computer-generated is not a theory about the origins of reality, or everything. For example, the hypothesis that some 'God' created the whole of reality begs the question about the creation of that god, raising the 'tower of turtles' problem. But simulation theory makes claim about how reality was created, it just proposes that our universe isn't reality. Another way to look at it is this: suppose we created a computer sim with aware occupants. They would not engage the tower-of-turtles problem were they to posit that they were in a simulation. ~Ian http://IanGoddard.net "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From jonkc at att.net Mon Jan 14 05:14:52 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:14:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer><006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <001901c8566c$8c50c760$69f14d0c@MyComputer> "Vladimir Nesov" > But why is it weird? Photons are 'black boxes' that can produce > responses during interaction with experimental setup, and you can't > know contents of these black boxes prior to actually looking. So each > photon 'knows' how it will respond to next experiment, but you do not. I spin why filter at random and it settles at 79 degrees, if my photon makes it through my filter and you set your filter at 79 degrees there is a 100% chance your photon 2 billion light years away will make it through your filter too. If my photon is stopped by my filter there is zero chance your photon will make it through your filter set at 79. Either way it's clear that the number 79 is of special significance to both photons, but I picked that number at random just before the photon hit the filter. So the instant my photon was born on the other side of the universe it must have known that in a billion years it would hit my filter and it would be set at 79 degrees. It then told its brother photon all about it and then they both went on their epic journeys in opposite directions. And yes, I find that weird and no, you can't do that with Email. John K Clark From jonkc at att.net Mon Jan 14 05:37:38 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:37:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer><006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com><061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080113141030.02235ec0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <002801c8566f$a0b7ae50$69f14d0c@MyComputer> "Damien Broderick" >If an event can happen 4 ways in MW, but QT says 2, and we only ever >observe 2, it's unlikely that MWI is the explanation. Manny Worlds still operates according to the laws of physics. In one universe the photon goes through the filter and in the other it does not, but in the universe where it does and its entangled brother photon hits a filter set at he same angle the universe does NOT split again because there is only one outcome, it always gets through. Many Worlds does not say anything will make a world split, only when the laws of physics allows alternative outcomes. If this were not true anything could happen and the world would be in chaos. And nobody is claiming that Many Worlds can be used to derive all the laws of physics, or any of them for that matter, its sole virtue is it solves the philosophical problem of the observer. John K Clark From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 14 06:04:37 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:04:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200801140631.m0E6VHPN004218@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Do forgive me for continuing this possibly boring thread, but I have found something extremely cool. This post is not about any particular politician, but rather about the mechanics of elections. A recount of the New Hampshire primary vote has been requested by some politician that no one ever heard of outside his immediate family (Kookspinich? Something like that.) The reason I take interest in it is there is an apparent discrepancy between the hand counted ballots and the machine counted ballots. In the case of seven of the nine candidates, their machine counted ballots give similar looking results to the hand counted. But two are discrepant: Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. In those two cases, the machine count is higher than the hand count for Clinton. For Senator Obama, the machine count is significantly lower than the hand count. http://neggie.net/vote2008/nh_primary.cgi?min_votes=300&max_votes=900 This site lets you filter the New Hampshire vote by the size of the town. I entered 300 lower limit and 900 upper limit, and discovered this, after doing the calculations: Hand count(%) Machine count(%) (machine-hand)/hand McCain 41.7 39.6 -5.2 Romney 26.6 29.4 +10.6 Hucksterbee 13.6 13.2 -3.2 Giuliani 8.7 8.8 +0.1 Paul 9.3 9.1 -2.1 Clinton 34.0 40.0 +17.6 Obama 42.1 35.5 -15.7 Edwards 18.1 19.3 +6.6 Richardson 5.8 5.2 -9.9 Does this look strange to anyone else besides me? The handcount ballots would have given the NH primary to Senator Obama. But the unverifiable machine ballots give it to Senator Clinton. New Hampshire's motto might need to be changed to "Live Free or Diebold." spike From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 14 06:23:35 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:23:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again with punchline Message-ID: <200801140650.m0E6oGKf028606@andromeda.ziaspace.com> http://neggie.net/vote2008/nh_primary.cgi?min_votes=300&max_votes=900 ...I entered 300 lower limit and 900 upper limit, and discovered this, after doing the calculations: Hand count(%) Machine count(%) (machine-hand)/hand ... Clinton 34.0 40.0 +17.6 Obama 42.1 35.5 -15.7 Edwards 18.1 19.3 +6.6 Richardson 5.8 5.2 -9.9 Now if we swap the number of machine counted votes for Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama, we ge the following numbers: Hand count(%) Machine count(%) (machine-hand)/hand ... Clinton 34.0 35.5 +4.3 Obama 42.1 40.1 -5.0 Edwards 18.1 19.2 +6.6 Richardson 5.8 5.2 -9.9 Now isn't that interesting? The swapped results agree with the hand counts much more closely than the results being reported. If someone in the Diebold company managed to somehow insert a line of code that would swap the count for Sen. Clinton with those of Senator Obama, we might expect to see results like what we see in the first set of numbers above. Otherwise, the second set of numbers. Computer jockeys among us, how difficult would it be to write in a line of stealth code to do this? Could it be an innocent and undiscovered bug? Statisticians among us, are these finding statistically significant? My friends in democracies all over this restless planet, do think about this carefully: if there were no hand counted paper ballots, we never would have seen this apparent discrepancy. To me these are numbers that are screaming for attention. spike From eugen at leitl.org Mon Jan 14 10:34:45 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:34:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again with punchline In-Reply-To: <200801140650.m0E6oGKf028606@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200801140650.m0E6oGKf028606@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <20080114103445.GG10128@leitl.org> On Sun, Jan 13, 2008 at 10:23:35PM -0800, spike wrote: > My friends in democracies all over this restless planet, do think about this > carefully: if there were no hand counted paper ballots, we never would have > seen this apparent discrepancy. To me these are numbers that are screaming > for attention. Indeed anyone who pushes for electronic voting now is pushing for vote fraud. This has been known for a half a decade at least. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 robotact at gmail.com Mon Jan 14 11:55:29 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:55:29 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <001901c8566c$8c50c760$69f14d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> <001901c8566c$8c50c760$69f14d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On Jan 14, 2008 8:14 AM, John K Clark wrote: > > I spin why filter at random and it settles at 79 degrees, if my photon makes > it through my filter and you set your filter at 79 degrees there is a 100% > chance your photon 2 billion light years away will make it through your > filter too. If my photon is stopped by my filter there is zero chance your > photon will make it through your filter set at 79. Either way it's clear > that the number 79 is of special significance to both photons, > but I picked that number at random just before the photon hit the filter. > > So the instant my photon was born on the other side of the universe it > must have known that in a billion years it would hit my filter and it > would be set at 79 degrees. It then told its brother photon all about it > and then they both went on their epic journeys in opposite directions. > And yes, I find that weird and no, you can't do that with Email. > Oh, I see. Thank you, it's fascinating. I assume that probability distributions for different outcomes on one end add up to give a uniform distribution at another, so that you can't transfer information by manipulating angles. Bummer. -- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact at gmail.com From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Jan 14 13:13:30 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:13:30 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <001901c8566c$8c50c760$69f14d0c@MyComputer> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> <001901c8566c$8c50c760$69f14d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On 14/01/2008, John K Clark wrote: > I spin why filter at random and it settles at 79 degrees, if my photon makes > it through my filter and you set your filter at 79 degrees there is a 100% > chance your photon 2 billion light years away will make it through your > filter too. If my photon is stopped by my filter there is zero chance your > photon will make it through your filter set at 79. Either way it's clear > that the number 79 is of special significance to both photons, > but I picked that number at random just before the photon hit the filter. If MWI is true, there is no true randomness in the universe, only locally apparent randomness. You thought you were choosing 79 degrees on a whim, but in fact you just happened to be the version of you that had to choose that value. The photon didn't need to know what you were going to choose ahead of time nor did it need to communicate what you did instantaneously to its brother after you had done it. Instead, after you compare notes with your friend many light years away, you find that his photon's behaviour correlates with your photon's behaviour because you are in the same world. In other words, although it is impossible rig the experiment so that the correlations occur if you have two free agents at either end who decide what to measure, it is possible to rig the experiment if you can duplicate the whole setup, so that every possible choice the agents might make actually occurs and is appropriately correlated. The important part here is that the agents from their point of view are free because they can only experience one world at a time and they don't know which one it's going to be. From the inside, it's impossible to tell if there is one world with FTL communication or backward causation happening, or if there are multiple worlds that just make it look that way. -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 14 13:54:57 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:54:57 +0000 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <211775.95609.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <211775.95609.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jan 14, 2008 5:03 AM, Ian Goddard wrote: > There's no inherent tower of turtles in sim-theory. > The hypothesis that our visible universe is > computer-generated is not a theory about the origins > of reality, or everything. For example, the hypothesis > that some 'God' created the whole of reality begs the > question about the creation of that god, raising the > 'tower of turtles' problem. But simulation theory > makes claim about how reality was created, it just > proposes that our universe isn't reality. > > Another way to look at it is this: suppose we created > a computer sim with aware occupants. They would not > engage the tower-of-turtles problem were they to posit > that they were in a simulation. ~Ian > You are just playing with words. If any being / thing creates a simulated world *ever* then it is de facto the possible start of a descending tower of simulations. And then the being / thing speculates that maybe his own universe is in a simulation, starting the upward spiral of simulations. There is no way that you can insist that only one level of simulation is permissible, just because it suits your speculation. BillK From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Jan 14 17:15:26 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:15:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: <200801140631.m0E6VHPN004218@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200801140631.m0E6VHPN004218@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30801140915q1c405ad9w634a81ecffad6c38@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 13, 2008 10:04 PM, spike wrote: > http://neggie.net/vote2008/nh_primary.cgi?min_votes=300&max_votes=900 > Does this look strange to anyone else besides me? The handcount ballots > would have given the NH primary to Senator Obama. But the unverifiable > machine ballots give it to Senator Clinton. New Hampshire's motto might > need to be changed to "Live Free or Diebold." Hey, I'm already an anti-electronic voting convert, but this story should be HUGE if it's true, the lead story in every outlet in the country. Where is it? I don't even see it in the alternative press. How did the recount happen if Kucinich publicly asked for it, but now no one is paying attention to the results? Are we sure this is an official recount/analysis? Who is Neggie and why should we care? Too many questions, not enough answers... PJ From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Jan 14 17:26:49 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:26:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801140915q1c405ad9w634a81ecffad6c38@mail.gmail.com> References: <200801140631.m0E6VHPN004218@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <29666bf30801140915q1c405ad9w634a81ecffad6c38@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30801140926g3c3e2836m11722ed1b768afa5@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 14, 2008 9:15 AM, PJ Manney wrote: > Where is it? I don't even see it in the alternative press. Wait! I found one: http://www.alternet.org/democracy/73551/ PJ From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Jan 14 16:42:48 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:42:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Pirate Party In-Reply-To: <200801132120.30455.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <200801132120.30455.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1200328989_6328@S1.cableone.net> At 08:20 PM 1/13/2008, What's really silly is that there is a solution. The theoretical reason for copyright is to encourage creators of content. This has been mutated to the point that creators get almost nothing in the traditional distribution economy. With the Internet that changes. What would make much better sense is to put a small surcharge on Internet usage like they did on tape a number years ago. I have no idea how the income from tape sales was parceled out, but it would not be hard to measure the number of times creative content was downloaded and pay a proportional share to the creators. This is likely to happen if the distribution companies realize they have little other choice. Keith From scerir at libero.it Mon Jan 14 17:06:59 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:06:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer><006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com><061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080113141030.02235ec0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <001001c856cf$e085e730$e9971f97@archimede> Damien Broderick > If an event can happen 4 ways in MW, > but QT says 2, and we only ever observe 2, > it's unlikely that MWI is the explanation. If you read point Q8 (When does Schroedinger's cat split?), of this MWI faq here http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm , it seems that you have two 'worlds' inside the *sealed* box (cat alive, cat dead), but the 'world' outside the box is still one, since the (eventual) onlooker is (eventually) split into two copies *only* when the box is opened and they are altered by the states of the cat. If you read point Q8 of this other MWI faq http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/manyworlds.txt it seems that the number of 'worlds' might be different ('unfortunates' are allowed here?). I would say that only the great simulator knows the true number of 'worlds', since he can see (from outside) the universal wavefunction. From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Jan 14 18:47:10 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:47:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <001001c856cf$e085e730$e9971f97@archimede> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com> <1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com> <02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com> <002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080113141030.02235ec0@satx.rr.com> <001001c856cf$e085e730$e9971f97@archimede> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114123826.02269f68@satx.rr.com> At 06:06 PM 1/14/2008 +0100, Serafino wrote: >If you read point Q8 (When does Schroedinger's >cat split?), of this MWI faq here >http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm , >it seems that you have two 'worlds' >inside the *sealed* box (cat alive, cat >dead), but the 'world' outside the box >is still one, since the (eventual) >onlooker is (eventually) split into >two copies *only* when the box is opened >and they are altered by the states of the cat. It might be worth considering that "worlds" split *at the instant when the unpredictable/uncaused quantum decay occurs* (which triggers release of the cyanide), so there are many worlds with a cat that died at different clock ticks, but the human "observer" can't distinguish them when she opens the box at the agreed mean time of electron emission (or whatever) that yields a theoretical p of 0.5. Well, maybe there's a detector inside the box that registered instant of cyanide release. Each splitting carried a version of the human observer with it, surely. Damien Broderick From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Jan 14 19:07:18 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:07:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <62c14240712171845l629401edl9b3dcdc8e77a60b6@mail.gmail.com> <4767E2BC.2090604@kevinfreels.com> <1198002259_1533@S3.cableone.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> Message-ID: <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120008793352784631.html?mod=googlenews_wsj "A scholar in northern Germany writes under the pseudonym of Christoph Luxenberg because, he says, his controversial views on the Quran risk provoking Muslims. He claims that chunks of it were written not in Arabic but in another ancient language, Syriac. The "virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are in fact only "grapes." From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Jan 14 19:51:01 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:51:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <62c14240712171845l629401edl9b3dcdc8e77a60b6@mail.gmail.com> <4767E2BC.2090604@kevinfreels.com> <1198002259_1533@S3.cableone.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114134809.022525d8@satx.rr.com> At 12:07 PM 1/14/2008 -0700, Keith wrote: >"virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are >in fact only "grapes." Each martyr gets only 72 *grapes*? Talk about the grapes of wrath! Talk about sour grapes! (I'm pretty sure this is rather old news, actually.) Damien Broderick From jef at jefallbright.net Mon Jan 14 19:34:39 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:34:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <62c14240712171845l629401edl9b3dcdc8e77a60b6@mail.gmail.com> <4767E2BC.2090604@kevinfreels.com> <1198002259_1533@S3.cableone.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: On Jan 14, 2008 11:07 AM, hkhenson wrote: > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120008793352784631.html?mod=googlenews_wsj > > > "A scholar in northern Germany writes under the pseudonym of > Christoph Luxenberg because, he says, his controversial views on the > Quran risk provoking Muslims. He claims that chunks of it were > written not in Arabic but in another ancient language, Syriac. The > "virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are > in fact only "grapes." Then the reward for martyrdom is 72 grapes? From an EP perspective, that won't work nearly as well. - Jef From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Jan 14 21:11:02 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:11:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: <200801140631.m0E6VHPN004218@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200801140631.m0E6VHPN004218@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114151000.02279a70@satx.rr.com> a comment from a pal on Spike's post, and my reply: ========= >the stealth code hypothesis also looks like a loony >conspiracy theory - there'd need to be quite a few conspirators and no one >in their right mind would expect to get away with it. Indeed. I assume it's what some commentator explains--rural voters are different from city voters, and as it chanced each predominantly used different voting systems. It's just surprising that the skews should be so symmetrical. Damien Broderick From jonkc at att.net Mon Jan 14 21:12:17 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:12:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument References: <211775.95609.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001001c856f2$471e6db0$1fef4d0c@MyComputer> "Ian Goddard" Wrote: > The hypothesis that our visible universe is computer-generated > is not a theory about the origins of reality, or everything. That is a valid point. We should not demand that our theories explain everything, just that they explain something. > simulation theory makes [no] claim about how reality was created Yes I agree. > it just proposes that our universe isn't reality. That I do not agree with. I can't remember exactly where but recently I read a quote I quite like: "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." > So 'wave collapse' and 'occlusion culling' *seem* on the surface > (ie, prima facie) to share some kind of similarity. I've heard of worse ideas, I've head of much worse ideas. Hmm, I need to think about this. > suppose we created a computer sim with aware occupants. They would > not engage the tower-of-turtles problem were they to posit that they > were in a simulation. Well they might say it's unlikely there is an endless chain of simulations above us because as of now we are unable to create conscious simulations and it's unlikely we just happen to inhabit a unique simulation, the last one in the chain. Hey wait a minute! John K Clark From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Jan 14 21:15:22 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:15:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <62c14240712171845l629401edl9b3dcdc8e77a60b6@mail.gmail.com> <4767E2BC.2090604@kevinfreels.com> <1198002259_1533@S3.cableone.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1200345344_12982@S3.cableone.net> At 12:34 PM 1/14/2008, Jef wrote: >On Jan 14, 2008 11:07 AM, hkhenson wrote: > > > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120008793352784631.html?mod=googlenews_wsj > > > > > > "A scholar in northern Germany writes under the pseudonym of > > Christoph Luxenberg because, he says, his controversial views on the > > Quran risk provoking Muslims. He claims that chunks of it were > > written not in Arabic but in another ancient language, Syriac. The > > "virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are > > in fact only "grapes." > >Then the reward for martyrdom is 72 grapes? From an EP perspective, >that won't work nearly as well. It would weed out the ones with a passion for grapes instead of those just terminally gullible. Keith From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Jan 14 21:34:33 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:34:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114134809.022525d8@satx.rr.com> References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <62c14240712171845l629401edl9b3dcdc8e77a60b6@mail.gmail.com> <4767E2BC.2090604@kevinfreels.com> <1198002259_1533@S3.cableone.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114134809.022525d8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114153316.02404408@satx.rr.com> At 01:51 PM 1/14/2008 -0600, I wrote: > >"virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are > >in fact only "grapes." > >(I'm pretty sure this is rather old news, actually.) An interview with the grapes-as-symbols man: From jef at jefallbright.net Mon Jan 14 19:02:11 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:02:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114123826.02269f68@satx.rr.com> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080113141030.02235ec0@satx.rr.com> <001001c856cf$e085e730$e9971f97@archimede> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114123826.02269f68@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Jan 14, 2008 10:47 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 06:06 PM 1/14/2008 +0100, Serafino wrote: > > >If you read point Q8 (When does Schroedinger's > >cat split?), of this MWI faq here > >http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm , > >it seems that you have two 'worlds' > >inside the *sealed* box (cat alive, cat > >dead), but the 'world' outside the box > >is still one, since the (eventual) > >onlooker is (eventually) split into > >two copies *only* when the box is opened > >and they are altered by the states of the cat. > > It might be worth considering that "worlds" split *at the instant > when the unpredictable/uncaused quantum decay occurs* (which triggers > release of the cyanide), so there are many worlds with a cat that > died at different clock ticks, but the human "observer" can't > distinguish them when she opens the box at the agreed mean time of > electron emission (or whatever) that yields a theoretical p of 0.5. > Well, maybe there's a detector inside the box that registered instant > of cyanide release. Each splitting carried a version of the human > observer with it, surely. Ouch! That hurt on so many levels! - Jef From jef at jefallbright.net Mon Jan 14 22:08:29 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:08:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: <1200345344_12982@S3.cableone.net> References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <1198002259_1533@S3.cableone.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> <1200345344_12982@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: On Jan 14, 2008 1:15 PM, hkhenson wrote: > > At 12:34 PM 1/14/2008, Jef wrote: > >On Jan 14, 2008 11:07 AM, hkhenson wrote: > > > > > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120008793352784631.html?mod=googlenews_wsj > > > > > > > > > "A scholar in northern Germany writes under the pseudonym of > > > Christoph Luxenberg because, he says, his controversial views on the > > > Quran risk provoking Muslims. He claims that chunks of it were > > > written not in Arabic but in another ancient language, Syriac. The > > > "virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are > > > in fact only "grapes." > > > >Then the reward for martyrdom is 72 grapes? From an EP perspective, > >that won't work nearly as well. > > It would weed out the ones with a passion for grapes instead of those > just terminally gullible. Wine not, they're always grapeful to kill some juice... From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 14 23:11:33 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:11:33 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114153316.02404408@satx.rr.com> References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <1198002259_1533@S3.cableone.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114134809.022525d8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114153316.02404408@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Jan 14, 2008 9:34 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 01:51 PM 1/14/2008 -0600, I wrote: > > > >"virgins" promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are > > >in fact only "grapes." > > > >(I'm pretty sure this is rather old news, actually.) > > An interview with the grapes-as-symbols man: > > > I also remembered reading about this before. A quick search of my old mail archive reveals - Scholars Scrutinize the Koran's Origin A Promise of Moist Virgins or Dried Fruit? New York Times (and International Herald Tribune), March 4, 2002 Quote: So, for example, the virgins who are supposedly awaiting good Islamic martyrs as their reward in paradise are in reality "white raisins" of crystal clarity rather than fair maidens. -------------------- There's probably quite a crowd of Muslims in Paradise arguing with Allah at this very moment. BillK From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Jan 14 23:45:43 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:45:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <1198002259_1533@S3.cableone.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114134809.022525d8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114153316.02404408@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114173610.023b1ff8@satx.rr.com> At 11:11 PM 1/14/2008 +0000, BillK wrote: >There's probably quite a crowd of Muslims in Paradise arguing with >Allah at this very moment. With Heavenly News headlines: "Virgin Theory Exploded." I'm hoping that the same hermeneutical insight will be extended, proving that the allegorical "Mother of Jesus" was not a Virgin but a Blessed Grape--making him an avatar of Bacchus. I mean, look at the ample evidence! "Drink this," says Jesus, quaffing his wine, "in remembrance of me!" His first miracle: changing water into wine! Eat, drink and be merry--loaves and fishes for all! Damien Broderick From pjmanney at gmail.com Tue Jan 15 00:32:15 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:32:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114173610.023b1ff8@satx.rr.com> References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114134809.022525d8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114153316.02404408@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114173610.023b1ff8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30801141632r17c3e4f3vc6b142df6173c4a2@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 14, 2008 3:45 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > I'm hoping that the same hermeneutical insight will be extended, > proving that the allegorical "Mother of Jesus" was not a Virgin but a > Blessed Grape--making him an avatar of Bacchus. I mean, look at the > ample evidence! "Drink this," says Jesus, quaffing his wine, "in > remembrance of me!" His first miracle: changing water into wine! Eat, > drink and be merry--loaves and fishes for all! You're not far off, even though you're joking. Jesus and Dionysus/Bacchus have lots in common, so much so, they believe that the NT Gospels were influenced by the Dionysus myth and cult. "The Bacchae" by Euripides is a good source of comparison. http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa2.htm http://www.about-jesus.org/paganism.htm (scroll down to Dionysus) Monomyths, indeed! PJ From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 15 02:35:28 2008 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:35:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> --- Damien Broderick wrote: > At 05:54 PM 1/12/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: > > >If it weren't for the "weird correlation", then there would actually > be > >four universes---inhabited respectively by the teams A-you & A-him, > >A-you & B-him, B-you & A-him, and B-you & B-him--- [snip] > This certainly accords with my own intuition, and I find no > principled reason why "entanglement" isn't just an improbable > illusion in the MWI. What prevents the "unfortunates" from existing? > > Damien Broderick A special relativity thought experiment might help make the entanglement paradoxes of the Bell inequality a little less "spooky": Suppose you had, for the sake of argument, a massless observer with a massless wristwatch and a massless meterstick who always goes at the speed of light c. In essence let us imagine he is capable of hitching a ride on the photons involved in the Bell experiment. Simply applying the Lorentz transformations from a normal "massed" observer's inertial reference frame to our hypothetical massless observer's reference frame comoving with one of the photons from the Bell experiment: Take the limit as v approaches c; gamma or the squareroot of (1-v^2/c^2) approaches zero. For purposes of determining spatial displacement of the x coordinate which runs along the photon's flight path, one simply multiplies delta x by zero giving zero. In other words, the Lorentz transforms say that all distances along our photon jockey's flight path are of zero length. In other words from a photon's POV, its origin, its destination and every point in between is the exact same point, even if from our "massed" point of view, the quasar is billions of light years away from the detector. This resolves the EPR paradox because from the photon's POV, they choose their respective polarization angles at the same point in space no matter how far apart they might seem to us. To us, they are entangled at an ever increasing distance, to themselves they are constantly superpositioned in the exact same place along the x coordinate. Collapsing the polarity function of one, collapses the polarity of the other that is right there with it and there is no action at a distance because there is no distance. It is somewhat less helpful when one tries to find the Lorentz tranform of the time coordinate from ours to the photon jockey's. One ends up dividing by zero, meaning that time is "undefined" for a photon's reference frame. What exactly that means, I am not certain but I imagine that for a photon, time and causality have no meaning. Time is dilated to the point of being irrelevant. Everywhere is "here" for a photon but there is no "now". In regards to the larger issue, IMO MWI is a convoluted and inelegant theory. It tempts Ockham's Razor much as Aubrey de Grey's beard tempts a Gillete. I have many objections to it. For one thing, it violates conservation of energy. While spontaneous creation of virtual particle antiparticle pairs does so too, it only does so for very short lengths of time. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle under Special relativity says that Delta E * Delta t >= hbar/2. That is to say that a system only has an energy when it exists long enough for it settle on a definite frequency. Other universes should only pop into being "spontaneously" if they are not around long enough to settle on a definite energy. If they do have a definite energy then by thermodynamics, that energy has to come from somewhere. The conservation laws are too heavy price to pay to eliminate observers from QM. Stuart LaForge alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu "Life is the sum of all your choices." Albert Camus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jan 15 03:11:19 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:11:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> References: <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200801142111.19257.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 14 January 2008, The Avantguardian wrote: > In regards to the larger issue, IMO MWI is a convoluted and inelegant > theory. It tempts Ockham's Razor much as Aubrey de Grey's beard > tempts a Gillete. I have many objections to it. For one thing, it > violates conservation of energy. Many specialists have argued for decades that Aubrey's beard violates many known laws of man, including the Law of the Good Shave. Experts believe that, should Aubrey achieve immortalist escape velocity, his beard will consume the material of the universe -- at this rate of growth -- in approximately 10^6 years. A deep problem indeed. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 15 02:57:51 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:57:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] elections again In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080114151000.02279a70@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200801150324.m0F3OUhT027197@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Subject: Re: [ExI] elections again > > a comment from a pal on Spike's post, and my reply: > > ========= > > >the stealth code hypothesis also looks like a loony > conspiracy theory - ... This will be the first time I have ever given credence to a loony conspiracy theory. All the other times I have been on the other end, ridiculing such things. This one doesn't look so loony to me. This in itself is a bad sign, for it suggests my own mental state is drifting toward loony. > > Indeed. I assume it's what some commentator explains--rural > voters are different from city voters, and as it chanced each > predominantly used different voting systems. It's just > surprising that the skews should be so symmetrical... Damien Broderick Damien, my numbers were specifically filtered to remove that rural/urban explanation. Those results I supplied yesterday were from all NH districts with between 300 and 900 residents, some with machines and some with hand counts. Turns out the results between the hand-counted ballots and the machine-counted ballots (all from small districts) agree much more closely if one swaps the numbers for machine-counted ballots between the two candidates. Clinton's machine-counted ballots were 18% higher than her hand counted, and Obama's machine counted ballots were 15% lower than his hand-counted. If one swaps the machine-count numbers between the two candidates, then both are within 5% agreement between hand-count and machine-count. Am I the only loony that thinks it remarkable? spike From amara at amara.com Tue Jan 15 03:40:05 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:40:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) Message-ID: Bryan Bishop kanzure at gmail.com : >Many specialists have argued for decades that Aubrey's beard violates >many known laws of man, including the Law of the Good Shave. Experts >believe that, should Aubrey achieve immortalist escape velocity, his >beard will consume the material of the universe -- at this rate of >growth -- in approximately 10^6 years. A deep problem indeed. Only if his beard had continued to grow, but it has not [1]. The material of the universe is safe. ;-) [1] CBC Canada Now 2006 interview with Aubrey, when he commented on the state of his beard. -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jan 15 03:57:20 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:57:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200801142157.20895.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 14 January 2008, Amara Graps wrote: > Only if his beard had continued to grow, but it has not [1]. The > material of the universe is safe. ?;-) I, for one, am glad that the CBC is safeguarding the galaxies by reporting on the state of a man's beard. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 15 06:26:29 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:26:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) Message-ID: <200801150626.m0F6QS9W017486@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] elections again > > a comment from a pal on Spike's post, and my reply: > > ========= http://neggie.net/vote2008/nh_primary.cgi?min_votes=300&max_votes=900 > > >the stealth code hypothesis also looks like a loony > conspiracy theory - ... > > Indeed. I assume it's what some commentator explains--rural voters are > different from city voters, and as it chanced each predominantly used > different voting systems. It's just surprising that the skews should > be so symmetrical... Damien Broderick A rocket scientist and his numbers. It's a beautiful thing. {8-] Damien's comment about the difference between rural and city voters made me go back once again and match even more closely the size of the community (thus filtering out the city/country voting delta.) This time I filtered by town ranges of 200 voters: I took the vote counts of all NH towns of voter population 200 to 400, then 300 to 500, then 400 to 600, then 500 to 700 and so on up to 1000 to 1200. So there is some intentional overlap in this analysis. These are all rural people. The largest communities I compared are those with 1000 to 1200 voters, so there are no city people involved in this analysis at all. I took each group of voters and calculated the average deviation of the machine counted votes from the hand counted votes. The top line shows that the average deviation for Clinton is 10.2% higher for machine-counts than for hand-counts. For Obama it is 10.8% lower for machine-counts than for hand counts. (The Edwards and Richardson percent deviations are high, but they are based on a lot fewer votes. If I use wider ranges, such as yesterday's 300 to 900 voters, their percentage deviations are closer to zero.) Then I started swapping the machine-counts for pairs of candidates. With four candidates there are six possible pairs to swap. The first line is no swaps, the second line, I swapped the number of machine counts for Sen. Clinton with the number of machine counts for Sen. Obama. The other two percent deviations (of Edwards and Richardson) didn't change of course. You can see the Clinton deviation went from 10.2 percent to 2.3 percent, and the Obama deviation went from -10.8 percent to -4.1 percent. So in that case only did the percentage deviation between machine-count and hand-count actually go down by swapping the machine counts between candidates (the agreement between methods improved with that swap). In the other five possible swaps, the swaped percent deviation went way up, in some cases waaay up (so the methods disagreed way more after the swap). But in the Clinton-Obama machine count swap, the agreement between hand and machine became waay better after the swap: clinton obama edwards richardson no swaps 0.102 -0.108 0.105 -0.134 clinton-obama swap 0.023 -0.041 0.105 -0.134 clinton-edwards swap -0.396 -0.108 1.096 -0.134 clinton-richardson -0.814 -0.108 0.105 5.599 obama-edwards swap 0.102 -0.503 0.979 -0.134 obama-richardson swap 0.102 -0.877 0.105 5.244 edwards-richardson 0.102 -0.108 -0.726 2.466 This analysis has convinced me that the Diebold machines somehow counted Sen. Clinton's votes as Obama's and Obama's votes as Clinton's. Is there any other internet chatter to this effect? Seems this should become a SMIR, or Snowballing Massive Internet Rumor: that the voting machines miscounted the NH primary votes. The implications are stunning. spike From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Jan 15 06:46:47 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:46:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <00f201c85743$0e1f0b40$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> John Clark wrote > Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 9:58 AM > "Lee Corbin" > >> If you send a photon through a filter at 45 degrees and someone >> far away sends the corresponding entangled photon through a >> similar filter, > > Then there is a 100% probability the photon will make it through that > second filter ten billion light years away because it is set at the same > 45 degree angle and the experiment is over. That's right, (we are considering entangled photons, created at the same instant but going in opposite directions). Their state is the single state vector |alpha>|rho> + |beta>|sigma> so that on encountering the "first" polarizer some distance away the wave function "collapses" so that the "second" polarizer in the other direction gets 100% of the time the same answer (pass or absorb). The scare quotes are necessary since there really is no "first" or "second" --- it depends on one's frame of reference. And there isn't any "collapse" either, at least not to those of us who accept MWI. But temporarily believing in faster-than-light illogical communication at least gives a physicist the right predictions, even if he needs to abandon that kind of speak to become coherant. My modest goal was only to describe why the universe branches into two pieces, not four. (Well--okay--there are two other tiny, tiny, totally non-significant branches of measure almost zero. But then there are branches where each photon turns into the Taj Mahal, also of vanishingly small measure.) > I don't understand your thought experiment, let me try one of my own. John now launches into the big locality-denying inequality-violating super Bell type extravaganza/experiment: > Some physical processes produce 2 photons that have the same > polarization but move in opposite directions. A billion years before I > was born somebody in the Virgo Cluster started making pairs of > photons that have identical but unknown polarization. Unknown to whom? Or do you mean an actual superposition of all orientations? > He sent one > stream of photons to the earth, a billion light years away and he sent > the second stream of photons to the Coma cluster in the opposite > direction from the earth also a billion light years away. > > A billion years later on Earth I spin my polarizer to a random direction > and record its position, I observe if the photon made it through the > polarizer or not and record that too, the exact time also. Now I spin > the polarizer again and do the same thing for the next photon and then > for the next several thousand photons. When his stream of photons > reach my friend in the Coma Cluster he does the same thing with his photons. > > Now I decide to visit my friend. I get in a space ship with my records > and blast off for the Coma Cluster at 99% of the speed of light. > After 2 billion years I arrive in the Coma Cluster, we must be in the > same universe because I can shake his hand. Yes, you have to be careful. We remember what happened to Dr. Anti-Teller. > I now compare notes with my friend. I notice that the direction I had > my polarizer turned to and the direction my friend had his turned to > were different, not very surprising since both were picked at random, > but then I find something astounding. The square of the cosign of the angle Least the reader become perplexed, "cosign" is the Coma Berenices equivalent of our more familiar trigonometric cosine function here on Earth. > between the 2 detectors for each photon pair is proportional to > the probability that a photon will make it through my friend's detector. > That is weird and I see no reason to put the word in quotation marks; > I know of no theory that can remove that weirdness. Well, I've read several account of this Bell inequality violating stuff; yours may be quite good, but I'd have to think about it for a while. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Jan 15 06:52:02 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:52:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Passive Observations References: <101907.3071.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <010301c85743$c2172060$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Ian writes > And read the description of Wheeler's delay-choice > experiment, starting toward the end of page 1 and > going on to page 2 here: > > http://discovermagazine.com/2002/jun/featuniverse > > This paragraph speaks directly to your example: > > "By the time the astronomers decide which measurement > to make - whether to pin down the photon to one > definite route or to have it follow both paths > simultaneously - the photon [ from a distant quasar ] > could have already journeyed for billions of years, > long before life appeared on Earth. The measurements > made now, says Wheeler, determine the photon's past. That's because this vintage of Wheeler doesn't believe in MWI. > In one case the astronomers create a past in which a > photon took both possible routes from the quasar to > Earth. Alternatively, they retroactively force the > photon onto one straight trail toward their detector, > even though the photon began its jaunt long before any > detectors existed." One of the nice things about MWI is that the delayed choice paradox doesn't arise. Two photons of course left that faraway quasar so very long ago, one in one universe, one in another. The question is whether they'll be allowed to recombine when they approach the Milky Way. If at the last minute we decide to allow them to interfere, then, duh, there were two photons emitted. If we decide not to allow interference, then there still were two photons, but now one of them crashes into our interference blocker (e.g. a rock) in one universe, and the other passes via the other route right past the apparatus in the other universe. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Jan 15 07:01:21 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:01:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <010701c85744$75f285c0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> The Avantguardian writes > In regards to the larger issue, IMO MWI is a convoluted and inelegant > theory. > It tempts Ockham's Razor much as Aubrey de Grey's beard tempts > a Gillete. I have many objections to it. For one thing, it violates > conservation of energy. It looks like you suppose that the new extra universe has an equal energy consumption budget to the old one. So it looks like you don't understand that it's like a river branching. The sum of the two new branches has the same material sum as the original. > While spontaneous creation of virtual particle > antiparticle pairs does so too, it only does so for very short lengths > of time. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle under Special relativity > says that Delta E * Delta t >= hbar/2. > > That is to say that a system only has an energy when it exists long > enough for it settle on a definite frequency. Other universes should > only pop into being "spontaneously" if they are not around long enough > to settle on a definite energy. If they do have a definite energy then > by thermodynamics, that energy has to come from somewhere. River deltas don't violate the conservation of flow water. In the same way, branching universes don't result in more of anything except information. Lee From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jan 15 07:09:54 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:09:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <010701c85744$75f285c0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <010701c85744$75f285c0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080115010832.0220fea8@satx.rr.com> At 11:01 PM 1/14/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: >It looks like you suppose that the new extra universe has an >equal energy consumption budget to the old one. So it looks >like you don't understand that it's like a river branching. The >sum of the two new branches has the same material sum as >the original. That can't possibly be true, unless you're pulling infinities out of infinities. Damien Broderick From jonkc at att.net Tue Jan 15 07:35:44 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:35:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer><006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> <00f201c85743$0e1f0b40$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <006701c85749$4f8c8f20$fff04d0c@MyComputer> Me >> A billion years before I was born somebody in the Virgo Cluster >> started making pairs of photons that have identical but >> unknown polarization. "Lee Corbin" > Unknown to whom? Unknown to anyone and perhaps unknown to anything. It might be that asking what polarization angle the photons were set at before they were measured is a foolish and meaningless question, or it might not be. I don't know. If I did know I'd be writing my Nobel Prize acceptance speech right now instead posting to the Extropian list. John K Clark From scerir at libero.it Tue Jan 15 07:22:38 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:22:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer><006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com><061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080113141030.02235ec0@satx.rr.com><001001c856cf$e085e730$e9971f97@archimede> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114123826.02269f68@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <002e01c85747$68cb2f20$aeb81f97@archimede> Damien > It might be worth considering that "worlds" split *at the instant > when the unpredictable/uncaused quantum decay occurs* (which triggers > release of the cyanide), so there are many worlds with a cat that > died at different clock ticks, but the human "observer" can't > distinguish them when she opens the box at the agreed mean time of > electron emission (or whatever) that yields a theoretical p of 0.5. > Well, maybe there's a detector inside the box that registered instant > of cyanide release. Each splitting carried a version of the human > observer with it, surely. If the split inside the (sealed, shielded) box causes the entire universe outside the box to split accordingly, it means that the split propagates through the sealed, shielded box (and this would be strange). Maybe this is the reason why the faq says that the onlooker is split into two copies only when the box is opened. s. "When I hear of Schr?dinger's cat, I reach for my gun." -S.Hawking From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jan 15 08:37:05 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:37:05 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 15/01/2008, The Avantguardian wrote: > Simply applying the Lorentz transformations from a normal "massed" > observer's inertial reference frame to our hypothetical massless > observer's reference frame comoving with one of the photons from the > Bell experiment: Take the limit as v approaches c; gamma or the > squareroot of (1-v^2/c^2) approaches zero. For purposes of determining > spatial displacement of the x coordinate which runs along the photon's > flight path, one simply multiplies delta x by zero giving zero. In > other words, the Lorentz transforms say that all distances along our > photon jockey's flight path are of zero length. In other words from a > photon's POV, its origin, its destination and every point in between is > the exact same point, even if from our "massed" point of view, the > quasar is billions of light years away from the detector. > > This resolves the EPR paradox because from the photon's POV, they > choose their respective polarization angles at the same point in space > no matter how far apart they might seem to us. To us, they are > entangled at an ever increasing distance, to themselves they are > constantly superpositioned in the exact same place along the x > coordinate. Collapsing the polarity function of one, collapses the > polarity of the other that is right there with it and there is no > action at a distance because there is no distance. That's an interesting take on it, but it doesn't apply to entangled massive particles rather than photons. > In regards to the larger issue, IMO MWI is a convoluted and inelegant > theory. It may be wrong, but MWI is the least convoluted and most elegant interpretation (IMO and that of its supporters). > It tempts Ockham's Razor much as Aubrey de Grey's beard tempts > a Gillete. I have many objections to it. For one thing, it violates > conservation of energy. While spontaneous creation of virtual particle > antiparticle pairs does so too, it only does so for very short lengths > of time. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle under Special relativity > says that Delta E * Delta t >= hbar/2. > > That is to say that a system only has an energy when it exists long > enough for it settle on a definite frequency. Other universes should > only pop into being "spontaneously" if they are not around long enough > to settle on a definite energy. If they do have a definite energy then > by thermodynamics, that energy has to come from somewhere. The > conservation laws are too heavy price to pay to eliminate observers > from QM. The conservation laws are empirically shown to apply to universe we observe. This does not mean that they apply in the same way to the multiverse as a whole if such exists, or to the process whereby a universe appears out of nothing if that's what happened. However, if you want to preserve conservation laws in the multiverse see this paper recently cited here by scerir: http://physicaplus.org.il/zope/home/en/1185176174/daat_ophir_en The "splitting" would then work as follows. There are N identical versions of you in the multiverse contemplating a quantum event E with two equally likely outcomes. After E, instead of 2N versions of you there are still N versions of you, but half of them observe one outcome and half the other. Thus which each branching the number of versions of you which have a particular experience becomes a smaller and smaller slice of the multiverse as a whole, which does not change in size as a whole, but you never "run out" of versions because N was infinite to begin with. Thus each quantum measurement does not lead to a duplication of worlds spreading out at light speed, but to a differentiation as previously identical observers notice they are in distinct worlds. I believe this kind of multiverse is observationally indistinguishable for an observer embedded within it to the duplicating kind (or to a single universe with a collapsing wave function). -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jan 15 08:48:30 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:48:30 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <010701c85744$75f285c0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <010701c85744$75f285c0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 15/01/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > It looks like you suppose that the new extra universe has an > equal energy consumption budget to the old one. So it looks > like you don't understand that it's like a river branching. The > sum of the two new branches has the same material sum as > the original. Ah, so splitting in standard MWI isn't duplication? The language used has always puzzled me a little, but Michael Clive Price's FAQ (http://www.hedweb.com/everett/everett.htm; although I don't know how much this deserves the title of "standard") seems to come down on the side of duplication. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jan 15 08:49:03 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:49:03 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080115010832.0220fea8@satx.rr.com> References: <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <010701c85744$75f285c0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080115010832.0220fea8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 15/01/2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 11:01 PM 1/14/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: > > >It looks like you suppose that the new extra universe has an > >equal energy consumption budget to the old one. So it looks > >like you don't understand that it's like a river branching. The > >sum of the two new branches has the same material sum as > >the original. > > That can't possibly be true, unless you're pulling infinities out of > infinities. So? -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 15 09:04:06 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:04:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <002e01c85747$68cb2f20$aeb81f97@archimede> References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com> <005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer> <006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20080113141030.02235ec0@satx.rr.com> <001001c856cf$e085e730$e9971f97@archimede> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114123826.02269f68@satx.rr.com> <002e01c85747$68cb2f20$aeb81f97@archimede> Message-ID: On Jan 15, 2008 7:22 AM, scerir wrote: > If the split inside the (sealed, shielded) box > causes the entire universe outside the box to split accordingly, > it means that the split propagates through the sealed, > shielded box (and this would be strange). > Maybe this is the reason why the faq says that > the onlooker is split into two copies only when > the box is opened. Personally, I'm in two minds about this................... BillK. From pjmanney at gmail.com Tue Jan 15 16:49:35 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:49:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <7641ddc60712190721w35054bc8yd421530683a3c815@mail.gmail.com> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114134809.022525d8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114153316.02404408@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30801150849y12f587bag1a787c817b8910e0@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 14, 2008 3:11 PM, BillK wrote: > > > Scholars Scrutinize the Koran's Origin > A Promise of Moist Virgins or Dried Fruit? > New York Times (and International Herald Tribune), March 4, 2002 > > Quote: > So, for example, the virgins who are supposedly awaiting good Islamic > martyrs as their reward in paradise are in reality "white raisins" of > crystal clarity rather than fair maidens. And if this is true -- Aggression as rewarding as sex, food and drugs: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/vu-aar011408.php -- then Jihad-for-Jihad's-sake, virgins, raisins and wine are all pretty equal reward-wise to our brain. It's a neurochemical no lose situation. PJ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jan 15 17:07:52 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:07:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Lost photos In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801150849y12f587bag1a787c817b8910e0@mail.gmail.com> References: <121720072120.1955.4766E7FF000E6D33000007A32205886442979A09070E@comcast.net> <476AC396.8010008@kevinfreels.com> <1198209617_10213@S4.cableone.net> <476BCF5F.30508@kevinfreels.com> <47895160.9070108@yahoo.it> <1200337661_9219@S4.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114134809.022525d8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080114153316.02404408@satx.rr.com> <29666bf30801150849y12f587bag1a787c817b8910e0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801150907g10c9938q9d45982fcd4d6bb0@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 15, 2008 5:49 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > > So, for example, the virgins who are supposedly awaiting good Islamic > > martyrs as their reward in paradise are in reality "white raisins" of > > crystal clarity rather than fair maidens. > > -- then Jihad-for-Jihad's-sake, virgins, raisins and wine are all > pretty equal reward-wise to our brain. It's a neurochemical no lose > situation. Why, if I could choose, neurochemical for neurochemical... raisins are too sweet for my personal taste. :-) Stefano From eugen at leitl.org Tue Jan 15 20:22:08 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:22:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanists in Second Life -- office hours Message-ID: <20080115202208.GI10128@leitl.org> Please distribute where appropriate. If you're a transhumanist, extropian, technoprogressive, singularitarian or just interested in how future technology will impact the human condition you're welcome to a Q&A session -- or just a friendly chat at our new location in Extropia Core (156,57,22) in Second Life Our current office hours are Sunday 1100-1200 AM PST Drive Amat Monday 1500-1600 PM PST Arisia Vita Tuesday 1200-1300 PM PST Khannea Suntzu Wednesday 1800-1900 PM PST Xyryx Simca Thursday 1800-1900 PM PST Peer Infinity Friday 1100-1200 AM PST Terence McKenna (yours truly) Hope to see y'all there. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 scerir at libero.it Tue Jan 15 20:44:40 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:44:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer><006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com><061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080113141030.02235ec0@satx.rr.com><001001c856cf$e085e730$e9971f97@archimede><7.0.1.0.2.20080114123826.02269f68@satx.rr.com><002e01c85747$68cb2f20$aeb81f97@archimede> Message-ID: <002401c857b7$738b7490$98ba1f97@archimede> > Personally, I'm in two minds about this ...... > BillK. :-) What about a superposition of interpretations? 'Interpretations of quantum mechanics, unlike Gods, are not jealous, and thus it is safe to believe in more than one at the same time. So if the many-worlds interpretation makes it easier to think about the research you're doing in April, and the Copenhagen interpretation makes it easier to think about the research you're doing in June, the Copenhagen interpretation is not going to smite you for praying to the many-worlds interpretation. At least I hope it won't, because otherwise I'm in big trouble.' -Peter Shor From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Jan 16 03:42:18 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:42:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer><006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><037701c8560d$e841d050$10ef4d0c@MyComputer> <00f201c85743$0e1f0b40$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <006701c85749$4f8c8f20$fff04d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <013701c857f1$d6d0eb90$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> John Clark writes > Me >>> A billion years before I was born somebody in the Virgo Cluster >>> started making pairs of photons that have identical but >>> unknown polarization.... > Unknown to anyone and perhaps unknown to anything. It might be that > asking what polarization angle the photons were set at before they were > measured is a foolish and meaningless question, Yes, it is. > or it might not be. I don't know. I believe that proposing that the photon already has a hidden attitude is refuted by Bell's inequality. In other words, to already have a value would cause it to fall into the class of "hidden variable". Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Jan 16 03:44:52 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:44:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <46623.83406.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com><002e01c8523a$e12e0710$f1ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080108172516.021d6b40@satx.rr.com><1199850085_3276@S1.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20080108223812.021f2148@satx.rr.com><02a701c85288$9e1e39b0$6cf04d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109010333.021bd110@satx.rr.com><002401c852e6$382c1d30$9bee4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080109120740.02346fe0@satx.rr.com><012d01c853b7$68733380$3ff14d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080110153903.02336ec8@satx.rr.com><005901c85475$89101ae0$4fee4d0c@MyComputer><006a01c85587$a18a7210$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com><061b01c85612$4f911f50$10ef4d0c@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20080113141030.02235ec0@satx.rr.com><001001c856cf$e085e730$e9971f97@archimede><7.0.1.0.2.20080114123826.02269f68@satx.rr.com> <002e01c85747$68cb2f20$aeb81f97@archimede> Message-ID: <013e01c857f2$8bcf2610$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Serafino writes > If the split inside the (sealed, shielded) box > causes the entire universe outside the box to split accordingly, > it means that the split propagates through the sealed, > shielded box (and this would be strange). > Maybe this is the reason why the faq says that > the onlooker is split into two copies only when > the box is opened. There is no shielding against gravitational "forces" (e.g. the curvature of space). So I fall back on the idea that if a change in the box is too feeble to cause one kT of change outside, then the universe ought to be looked at as remaining unsplit outside. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Jan 16 03:49:29 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:49:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com><18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Stathis writes > Thus each quantum measurement does not lead to [on one reading] > a duplication of worlds spreading out at light speed, but to a > differentiation as previously identical observers notice they are in > distinct worlds. I am sure that this is the version David Deutsch endorses. > I believe this kind of multiverse is observationally > indistinguishable for an observer embedded within it to the > duplicating kind (or to a single universe with a collapsing wave > function). I submit that "the duplicating kind" arose only from poor word choice. I admit that "duplicate" or "to duplicate" carries the connotation of doubling certain quantites (e.g. runtime, mass, etc.). But this was an error: I doubt if Hugh Everett, for example, ever entertained the idea that the universe suddenly doubles in mass every 1/10^100 seconds. Lee From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jan 16 05:02:45 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:02:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> At 07:49 PM 1/15/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: >I doubt if Hugh Everett, for example, >ever entertained the idea that the universe suddenly doubles >in mass every 1/10^100 seconds. But apparently you find no difficulty in supposing that the universe you experience suddenly halves in mass every 1/10^100 seconds, since earlier you declared: "it looks like you don't understand that it's like a river branching. The sum of the two new branches has the same material sum as the original." Damien Broderick From pjmanney at gmail.com Wed Jan 16 05:21:50 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:21:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Steven Colbert: Neil Shubin interview Message-ID: <29666bf30801152121x56f9d525n602ae1809f10f317@mail.gmail.com> >From the Master of Mock, the Prince of Parody, the Sinatra of Satire (yeah, yeah, I'm a little slap happy over here), Steven Colbert interviews Neil Shubin, author of "Your Inner Fish -- A Journey into the 3.5 billion Year History of the Human Body". Steven asks what we're going to evolve into next and Shubin goes so far as to discuss the likelihood of H+ post Homo sapiens - a product of tech and bio. Of course, Steven would like to devolve back into a shark. http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=147281 Enjoy! PJ From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 16 06:59:46 2008 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:59:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <200801150626.m0F6QS9W017486@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <278909.83875.qm@web60225.mail.yahoo.com> --- spike wrote: > Is there any other internet chatter to this effect? Seems this > should > become a SMIR, or Snowballing Massive Internet Rumor: that the voting > machines miscounted the NH primary votes. The implications are > stunning. I don't think this is a loony conspiracy theory, Spike. It is well documented that the electronic voting system is easy to hack. Check out this: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133214,00.html Apparently a trained chimp can do it without the help of a conspiracy. Although there is the question of motivation as in the video obviously somebody supplied the bananas. An interesting excerpt from the article: begin->---------------- The Diebold central tabulators use a program called "GEMS" that saves vote totals in Microsoft Access, a Windows-based database program. GEMS (search) requires users to enter a password to access the vote totals, but Harris showed that the totals can also be opened -- and altered -- with Access, without ever running GEMS. Because Access functions are already built in to the Windows operating system, the totals could be altered even if a computer did not have Access installed on it, said Herbert Thompson, a computer security expert who teaches at the Florida Institute of Technology (search). He demonstrated how to change vote totals with a six-line program in Microsoft notepad, "a simple text editor" that comes with all copies of Windows. end->----------------- Even without stealth code in the application, or as an autorun script on a handful of flash cards from hefty districts, there are still many opportunities for a single bad actor to alter election results. And if you had a very short window of opportunity to alter the election results, switching the names would require the least effort and would not alter the vote count or seem obviously fake. Statistically data is hard to fake but easy to misrepresent. Take into account the discrepency of the exit polls from the actual election results and there is a real possibility that something fishy occured in New Hampshire. I get the willies everytime exit polls are wrong. >From what I know of statistics, as long as the data collectors are selecting their respondants randomly, these surveys should be correct to within their confidence interval. The least significance I think that any statistician would design his poll to reflect would be 95%. In other words the maximum chance that the exit polls are wrong is 5% and they should only be off by a small margin. Therefore to have candidates declared the winner by exit surveys reported in the media, only to have their results overturned by the "official" vote count in two consecutive presedential elections is exceedingly unlikely. (Kerry vs. Bush, Ohio 2004) Using my conservative estimate of 5% uncertainty outside the confidence interval, that is a 1/400 chance. Add to this the fact that candidates from both parties are demanding recounts (Ron Paul and Dean Kucinich) and you have a very reasonable chance that there was fraud involved. Somewhat disturbing is that the UN is apparently more concerned over this than our own media is. http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=4271&blz=1 So in short, I wholeheartedly support your efforts to get to the bottom of this anomaly. I for one think that every precint that uses the voting machines should be required to take a small random sample of hand counted paper ballots as well. This sample could be used to validate the machine count. Here is a site that has useful election data: http://checkthevotes.com/primary_dem_New_Hampshire-comparison Stuart LaForge alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu "Life is the sum of all your choices." Albert Camus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 16 07:53:40 2008 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:53:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <278909.83875.qm@web60225.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <127357.5020.qm@web60224.mail.yahoo.com> Just wanted to correct myself. The U.N. Observer is *not* actually affiliated with the U.N. --- The Avantguardian wrote: > > --- spike wrote: > > Is there any other internet chatter to this effect? Seems this > > should > > become a SMIR, or Snowballing Massive Internet Rumor: that the > voting > > machines miscounted the NH primary votes. The implications are > > stunning. > > I don't think this is a loony conspiracy theory, Spike. It is well > documented that the electronic voting system is easy to hack. Check > out > this: > http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133214,00.html > > Apparently a trained chimp can do it without the help of a > conspiracy. > Although there is the question of motivation as in the video > obviously > somebody supplied the bananas. > An interesting excerpt from the article: > > begin->---------------- > The Diebold central tabulators use a program called "GEMS" that saves > vote totals in Microsoft Access, a Windows-based database program. > > GEMS (search) requires users to enter a password to access the vote > totals, but Harris showed that the totals can also be opened -- and > altered -- with Access, without ever running GEMS. > > Because Access functions are already built in to the Windows > operating > system, the totals could be altered even if a computer did not have > Access installed on it, said Herbert Thompson, a computer security > expert who teaches at the Florida Institute of Technology (search). > He > demonstrated how to change vote totals with a six-line program in > Microsoft notepad, "a simple text editor" that comes with all copies > of > Windows. > end->----------------- > > Even without stealth code in the application, or as an autorun script > on a handful of flash cards from hefty districts, there are still > many > opportunities for a single bad actor to alter election results. And > if > you had a very short window of opportunity to alter the election > results, switching the names would require the least effort and would > not alter the vote count or seem obviously fake. Statistically data > is > hard to fake but easy to misrepresent. > > Take into account the discrepency of the exit polls from the actual > election results and there is a real possibility that something fishy > occured in New Hampshire. I get the willies everytime exit polls are > wrong. > > >From what I know of statistics, as long as the data collectors are > selecting their respondants randomly, these surveys should be correct > to within their confidence interval. The least significance I think > that any statistician would design his poll to reflect would be 95%. > In > other words the maximum chance that the exit polls are wrong is 5% > and > they should only be off by a small margin. > > Therefore to have candidates declared the winner by exit surveys > reported in the media, only to have their results overturned by the > "official" vote count in two consecutive presedential elections is > exceedingly unlikely. (Kerry vs. Bush, Ohio 2004) Using my > conservative > estimate of 5% uncertainty outside the confidence interval, that is a > 1/400 chance. > > Add to this the fact that candidates from both parties are demanding > recounts (Ron Paul and Dean Kucinich) and you have a very reasonable > chance that there was fraud involved. > > Somewhat disturbing is that the UN is apparently more concerned over > this than our own media is. > http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=4271&blz=1 > > > So in short, I wholeheartedly support your efforts to get to the > bottom > of this anomaly. I for one think that every precint that uses the > voting machines should be required to take a small random sample of > hand counted paper ballots as well. This sample could be used to > validate the machine count. > > Here is a site that has useful election data: > http://checkthevotes.com/primary_dem_New_Hampshire-comparison > > > > > Stuart LaForge > alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu > > "Life is the sum of all your choices." > Albert Camus > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Be a better friend, newshound, and > know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. > http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > Stuart LaForge alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu "Life is the sum of all your choices." Albert Camus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 16 10:19:32 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:19:32 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 16/01/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > I submit that "the duplicating kind" arose only from poor word > choice. I admit that "duplicate" or "to duplicate" carries the > connotation of doubling certain quantites (e.g. runtime, mass, > etc.). But this was an error: I doubt if Hugh Everett, for example, > ever entertained the idea that the universe suddenly doubles > in mass every 1/10^100 seconds. Well, that's what I thought, but in the past few days I've tried to find clarification on this and the accounts I've read from various sources are either vague or contradictory. Incidentally, if the worlds differentiate rather than duplicate, does this worry you? For even if it could somehow be guaranteed that you never died in any branch in which you are presently alive, the process of differentiation means you and your near-copies would occupy an ever-thinning slice of the multiverse. I doubt that you could prevent this happening even if you attempted to convert as much of the universe as possible into copies of yourself. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jan 16 10:50:32 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:50:32 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 16/01/2008, Damien Broderick wrote (responding to Lee Corbin): > But apparently you find no difficulty in supposing that the universe > you experience suddenly halves in mass every 1/10^100 seconds, since > earlier you declared: > > "it looks like you don't understand that it's like a river branching. > The sum of the two new branches has the same material sum as the original." It's important to point out (on my understanding of what Lee is saying) that the worlds don't actually halve, double or undergo any other special process at all when the "split" occurs. Say there are two identical versions of you, A and B, contemplating a quantum coin toss. Because A and B are identical, there is no way for you to say that you are one or the other. After the coin toss, A sees heads and B sees tails. From a God's eye view, the two parallel worlds of A and B continue, with different things happening in each one. This is like the deterministic, unitary evolution of the wave function. But from your point of view, you have a 1/2 chance of observing that the coin comes up heads or tails. This is like the subjective appearance of a truly random wave function "collapse". So there is no collapse, no splitting or duplication, and no truly random (or equivalently, uncaused) events; but for an observer embedded in the system, it looks as if there is. -- Stathis Papaioannou From robotact at gmail.com Wed Jan 16 11:11:51 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:11:51 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Jan 16, 2008 1:50 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > It's important to point out (on my understanding of what Lee is > saying) that the worlds don't actually halve, double or undergo any > other special process at all when the "split" occurs. Say there are > two identical versions of you, A and B, contemplating a quantum coin > toss. Because A and B are identical, there is no way for you to say > that you are one or the other. After the coin toss, A sees heads and B > sees tails. From a God's eye view, the two parallel worlds of A and B > continue, with different things happening in each one. This is like > the deterministic, unitary evolution of the wave function. But from > your point of view, you have a 1/2 chance of observing that the coin > comes up heads or tails. This is like the subjective appearance of a > truly random wave function "collapse". So there is no collapse, no > splitting or duplication, and no truly random (or equivalently, > uncaused) events; but for an observer embedded in the system, it looks > as if there is. > Or, generalizing, there are no separate worlds. You 'select' specific properties of world that you observe from overall collection of interacting elements, ones that interacts with (and thus are observed by) given subsystem considering itself to be you. -- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact at gmail.com From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Jan 16 14:09:18 2008 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:39:18 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Pirate Party In-Reply-To: <1200328989_6328@S1.cableone.net> References: <200801132120.30455.kanzure@gmail.com> <1200328989_6328@S1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <710b78fc0801160609t435ce0a8w5253dc0e8a38ab03@mail.gmail.com> Keith wrote: > > With the Internet that changes. What would make much better sense is > to put a small surcharge on Internet usage like they did on tape a > number years ago. I have no idea how the income from tape sales was > parceled out, but it would not be hard to measure the number of times > creative content was downloaded and pay a proportional share to the creators. Yes, it would be extraordinarily difficult. -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com From jcowan5 at sympatico.ca Wed Jan 16 14:16:14 2008 From: jcowan5 at sympatico.ca (Joshua Cowan) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:16:14 +0000 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <127357.5020.qm@web60224.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Below is an editorial from the NY Times advocating the quick passage of a bill for "upgrading to paper based system". In the editorial they mention that there have been documented cases of "flipping" where votes for one candidate go to another and vice versa. On another note, NH law states that a candidate can ask for a recount but they have to pay for it themselves. Not surprisingly, Kucinich hasn't chosen to pay for a state wide recount. Josh http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/opinion/16wed1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin A Quick Fix for Electronic Voting Published: January 16, 2008 When Americans go to the polls in November, many will likely have to cast their ballots on unreliable paperless electronic voting machines. If the election is close, the country could end up with a rerun of 2000?s bitterly contentious and mistrusted count. In an effort to avoid another such disaster, Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, plans to introduce a bill this week that would help address the weaknesses in electronic voting. Congress should pass it without delay. The flaws of electronic voting machines have been thoroughly documented by academic studies and by voters? experiences. The machines are far too vulnerable to hacking that could change the outcomes of elections. They are also so prone to mechanical error and breakdown that there is no way to be sure that the totals they report are correct. In some cases, these machines have been known to ?flip? votes ? award votes cast for one candidate to an opponent. The solution is for all votes to be recorded on paper records. Voters can then verify that their choice has been accurately reflected ? and the paper record can be used as a backup for the electronic machines. Whenever votes are tallied on electronic machines, there should be an audit of paper records as a check on the electronic results. If the paper totals do not match the electronic tallies, something has clearly gone wrong ? and the tally of the paper ballots can be treated as the official one. As voters have learned about the problems with electronic voting, they have sensibly pressed their representatives to adopt laws requiring voter-verified paper records. Most states, including New York, Ohio and California have now done so. Mr. Holt?s bill would make money available on an expedited basis ? in time for this year?s election ? for jurisdictions that still have not. In addition to money for upgrading to paper-based voting, the bill would provide funds to conduct audits of paper records. It rightly prods jurisdictions to adopt optical-scan voting, in which ballots are marked by hand, much like a standardized test, and then fed into a computer for tabulation. Optical scans are the most reliable, efficient and cost-effective technology available. The bill also allows jurisdictions to use the money to switch to simple paper ballots that are counted by hand. Because the bill is opt-in ? it does not force any jurisdiction to make changes ? it has not drawn the entrenched opposition from local election officials that mandatory paper-record bills have met. The ultimate solution to the problem of electronic voting is a national law requiring voter-verified paper records, something Congress has been inexcusably slow in adopting. As a temporary measure, however, Mr. Holt?s legislation is a good step forward. Time to upgrade voting machines before this year?s presidential election is short, but it is not yet too late. Congress should pass the Holt bill quickly. In the meantime, eligible states and localities should prepare to apply for the money and to put in place voting systems that voters can trust. From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jan 16 19:15:50 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:15:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] aggression rewarded Message-ID: <62c14240801161115r69b0bf9r26633b98d3719158@mail.gmail.com> This reminded me of the EP discussions about war/warlike behaviors... http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/01/15/brain-views-regression-as-a-reward/1783.html ------------ Brain Views Aggression As A Reward By: Rick Nauert, Ph.D. Senior News Editor Reviewed by: John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on January 16, 2008 Tuesday, Jan. 15 (Psych Central) -- boxingResearchers have discovered that the brain processes aggression as a reward similar to sex, food or drugs. The insight may explain our propensity to fight and our fascination with violent sports tracing back to Roman gladiators and extending to current events such as boxing and football. "Aggression occurs among virtually all vertebrates and is necessary to get and keep important resources such as mates, territory and food," Craig Kennedy, professor of special education and pediatrics, said. "We have found that the 'reward pathway' in the brain becomes engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved." "It is well known that dopamine is produced in response to rewarding stimuli such as food, sex and drugs of abuse," Maria Couppis, who conducted the study as her doctoral thesis at Vanderbilt, said. "What we have now found is that it also serves as positive reinforcement for aggression." For the experiments, a pair of mice - one male, one female - was kept in one cage and five intruder" mice were kept in a separate cage. The female mouse was temporarily removed, and an intruder mouse was introduced in its place, triggering an aggressive response by the "home" male mouse. Aggressive behavior included tail rattle, an aggressive sideways stance, boxing and biting. The home mouse was then trained to poke a target with its nose to get the intruder to return, at which point it again behaved aggressively toward it. The home mouse consistently poked the trigger, which was presented once a day, indicating it experienced the aggressive encounter with the intruder as a reward. The same home mice were then treated with a drug that suppressed their dopamine receptors. After this treatment, they decreased the frequency with which they instigated the intruder's entry. In a separate experiment, the mice were treated with the dopamine receptor suppressors again and their movements in an open cage were observed. They showed no significant changes in overall movement compared to times when they had not received the drugs. This was done to demonstrate that their decreased aggression in the previous experiment was not caused by overall lethargy in response to the drug, a problem that had confounded previous experiments. The Vanderbilt experiments are the first to demonstrate a link between behavior and the activity of dopamine receptors in response to an aggressive event. "We learned from these experiments that an individual will intentionally seek out an aggressive encounter solely because they experience a rewarding sensation from it," Kennedy said. "This shows for the first time that aggression, on its own, is motivating, and that the well-known positive reinforcer dopamine plays a critical role." Vanderbilt University researchers will publish their findings online in the journal Psychopharmacology. From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jan 16 19:29:01 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:29:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] dark matter clumps Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080116132756.02566e10@satx.rr.com> http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1785 From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Jan 16 23:43:58 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:43:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <016f01c85899$be3fc530$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Damien writes > But apparently you find no difficulty in supposing that the > universe you experience suddenly halves in mass every > 1/10^100 seconds, since earlier you declared: > > "it looks like you don't understand that it's like a river > branching. The sum of the two new branches has the > same material sum as the original." My measure (not mass) does not halve, since my measure is to be taken over all MWI branches that sustain a Lee Corbin. Being able to completely identify with all other Lee Corbins means that I understand that some small fraction of us were hospitalized because of a traffic accident today coming home from work. But my measure did diminish today, in all probability, because in some branches I was killed. (Yes, it's also possible that there was a singularity-type breakthrough that permitted a great spawning of copies of me, but I don't think it likely---i.e. though yes, it happened, the measure was very very small.) Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Jan 16 23:54:25 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:54:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Stathis writes >> [We should not entertain] the idea that the universe suddenly >> doubles in mass every 1/10^100 seconds. > > Well, that's what I thought, but in the past few days I've tried to > find clarification on this and the accounts I've read from various > sources are either vague or contradictory. Do you include Deutsch's book "The Fabric of Reality"? The branching into smaller and smaller, more and more distinguished riveluts, is a pretty old take, I think. > Incidentally, if the worlds differentiate rather than duplicate, does > this worry you? Yes, at least my friends and I have discussed how worried we should be. On the one hand, I don't want the total measure of the worlds I'm in to be small (quite the reverse), so continually branching into finer and finer possibilities raises the question. Generally, I don't think, however, that my measure really decreases very much except for the branches where I suddenly die, or become so transformed (say into an urban criminal in some kind of post-apocalypse nightmare) that the resulting creature is no longer really me. > For even if it could somehow be guaranteed that you > never died in any branch in which you are presently alive, the process > of differentiation means you and your near-copies would occupy an > ever-thinning slice of the multiverse. Why would my near-copies occupy a much smaller slice over time? I'd still be me, even in those branches where Al Gore won, or where I won the lottery (I don't play). By the way, I agreed with your explanations to Damien. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Jan 17 00:04:25 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:04:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com><18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com><014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <017601c8589c$8c4edc20$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Stathis and Vladimir wrote > Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> It's important to point out (on my understanding of what Lee is >> saying) that the worlds don't actually halve, double or undergo any >> other special process at all when the "split" occurs. Right, they just become distinguished. >> Say there are two identical versions of you, A and B, contemplating >> a quantum coin toss. Because A and B are identical, there is no way >> for you to say that you are one or the other. And I would further say that it's not the case that you *are* one or *are* the other. You are both. >> After the coin toss, A sees heads and B sees tails. From a God's eye >> view, the two parallel worlds of A and B continue, with different things >> happening in each one. This is like the deterministic, unitary evolution >> of the wave function. But from your point of view, you have a 1/2 >> chance of observing that the coin comes up heads or tails. Well, that what it *feels* like, but the truth is that you have a 100% chance of seeing heads, and a 100% chance of seeing tails. "Just as it is possible to be at two different times in the same location, so it is possible to be in two different locations at the same time", we just aren't so used to it yet because we don't happen to have a lot of duplicator and memory-merging equipment around right now. >> This is like the subjective appearance of a truly random wave >> function "collapse". So there is no collapse, no splitting or >> duplication, and no truly random (or equivalently, uncaused) >> events; but for an observer embedded in the system, it looks >> as if there is. Why do you say that there is no splitting? Say a GIU (Group of Identical Universes, a term Deutsch uses over and over in the book "Fabric of Reality") bifurcates into the "heads" and "tails" branches you spoke of above. Why don't you consider this splitting, or have I misunderstood? Vladimir writes > Or, generalizing, there are no separate worlds. You 'select' specific > properties of world that you observe from overall collection of > interacting elements, Yes, I guess so, but saying that they aren't separate may be going a bit far: we usually say that branches are separate when they can no longer interfere (and hence merge). Lee > ones that interacts with (and thus are observed > by) given subsystem considering itself to be you. From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 17 00:10:55 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:10:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080116180531.022e5b18@satx.rr.com> At 03:54 PM 1/16/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: >Stathis writes > > >By the way, I agreed with your explanations to Damien. Oh? He wrote: "It's important to point out (on my understanding of what Lee is saying) that the worlds don't actually halve, double or undergo any other special process at all when the "split" occurs. Say there are two identical versions of you, A and B, contemplating a quantum coin toss. Because A and B are identical, there is no way for you to say that you are one or the other. After the coin toss, A sees heads and B sees tails." So even before the quatum toss, there are already two separate instantiations of you, eh? This will not bother Stathis, who (I gather) doesn't see any problem with starting out with infinite variations that just get infiniter. But it disagrees with most of what I've read about MW, such as Michael Price's FAQ: "What is a measurement?") as having previous existed distinctly and merely differentiated, rather than the interaction as having split one world into many? This is definitely not permissible in many-worlds or any theory of quantum theory consistent with experiment. > Damien Broderick From robotact at gmail.com Thu Jan 17 02:06:31 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:06:31 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <017601c8589c$8c4edc20$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> <017601c8589c$8c4edc20$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On Jan 17, 2008 3:04 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > >> After the coin toss, A sees heads and B sees tails. From a God's eye > >> view, the two parallel worlds of A and B continue, with different things > >> happening in each one. This is like the deterministic, unitary evolution > >> of the wave function. But from your point of view, you have a 1/2 > >> chance of observing that the coin comes up heads or tails. > > Well, that what it *feels* like, but the truth is that you have a 100% > chance of seeing heads, and a 100% chance of seeing tails. Chance is a property of (or tool for) your assessment of situation. Before the toss, you don't know the outcome, so chance is 50%. After the toss, you know the outcome, so chance is either 0% or 100%, depending on it. It's an equivalent interpretation, it doesn't change semantics of probabilities. If you can directly observe terminal outcomes and select traces leading to them, you can be sure of all pieces of information along the way, but not so for a frog. > Vladimir writes > > > Or, generalizing, there are no separate worlds. You 'select' specific > > properties of world that you observe from overall collection of > > interacting elements, > > Yes, I guess so, but saying that they aren't separate may be going > a bit far: we usually say that branches are separate when they > can no longer interfere (and hence merge). OK, in this sense they are separate, but they still contain common substructures, and thus can be said to have 'points of contact'. Elements of these common substructures interact (and these interactions are equivalent to being cross-world interactions). But likewise elements that are able to interact is a definition of world. But definition of world needs an 'anchor' substructure, so that it will include those elements that can interact with it. If in above example one of common substructures is regarded as an anchor, it will select different, but intersecting, collection of elements as its world. -- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact at gmail.com From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 17 11:23:07 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:23:07 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 17/01/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > > For even if it could somehow be guaranteed that you > > never died in any branch in which you are presently alive, the process > > of differentiation means you and your near-copies would occupy an > > ever-thinning slice of the multiverse. > > Why would my near-copies occupy a much smaller slice over time? > I'd still be me, even in those branches where Al Gore won, or where > I won the lottery (I don't play). That would be the case if you look at the next few years, but not over a longer period. When you're born all the versions of yourself in the multiverse are much the same, but by the time you reach adulthood they have greatly diverged. There is a period of greater stability once you're an adult but the changes due to posthumanist scenarios might be at least as great as those of childhood. This means that, ignoring duplications and deaths, the total number of copies of you in the multiverse will remain the same, but they will become segregated into increasingly smaller measure sets of near-copies. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 17 11:48:04 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:48:04 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <017601c8589c$8c4edc20$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> <017601c8589c$8c4edc20$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 17/01/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > >> Say there are two identical versions of you, A and B, contemplating > >> a quantum coin toss. Because A and B are identical, there is no way > >> for you to say that you are one or the other. > > And I would further say that it's not the case that you *are* one > or *are* the other. You are both. > > >> After the coin toss, A sees heads and B sees tails. From a God's eye > >> view, the two parallel worlds of A and B continue, with different things > >> happening in each one. This is like the deterministic, unitary evolution > >> of the wave function. But from your point of view, you have a 1/2 > >> chance of observing that the coin comes up heads or tails. > > Well, that what it *feels* like, but the truth is that you have a 100% > chance of seeing heads, and a 100% chance of seeing tails. Yes, the *objective* reality is that both outcomes occur and both A and B have an equivalent claim to being you. But only an observer outside the multiverse can see this. For an observer embedded in the multiverse, it seems that there is only one world with a probabilistic outcome for the coin toss. > >> This is like the subjective appearance of a truly random wave > >> function "collapse". So there is no collapse, no splitting or > >> duplication, and no truly random (or equivalently, uncaused) > >> events; but for an observer embedded in the system, it looks > >> as if there is. > > Why do you say that there is no splitting? Say a GIU (Group of > Identical Universes, a term Deutsch uses over and over in the book > "Fabric of Reality") bifurcates into the "heads" and "tails" branches > you spoke of above. Why don't you consider this splitting, or have > I misunderstood? "Splitting" and even "branching" could imply that some special physical process, over and above simply having two different outcomes to a quantum event, occurs to physically separate the worlds. Let's be clear that these commonly used terms are metaphors. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jan 17 12:12:24 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:12:24 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080116180531.022e5b18@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080116180531.022e5b18@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 17/01/2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > So even before the quatum toss, there are already two separate > instantiations of you, eh? This will not bother Stathis, who (I > gather) doesn't see any problem with starting out with infinite > variations that just get infiniter. But it disagrees with most of > what I've read about MW, such as Michael Price's FAQ: > > measurement-like interaction (See > "What is a > measurement?") as having previous existed distinctly and merely > differentiated, rather than the interaction as having split one world > into many? This is definitely not permissible in many-worlds or any > theory of quantum theory consistent with experiment. > Yes, that passage was one of the ones I had in mind when I said that the accounts of the "splitting" are vague or contradictory depending on what you read. I had the impression that Deutsch favours differentiation rather than duplication, but I can't find anywhere where he says this directly. -- Stathis Papaioannou From iamgoddard at yahoo.com Thu Jan 17 16:12:11 2008 From: iamgoddard at yahoo.com (Ian Goddard) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:12:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument Message-ID: <579097.78176.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> BillK wrote: >> Another way to look at it is this: suppose we >> created a computer sim with aware occupants. They >> would not engage the tower-of-turtles problem were >> they to posit that they were in a simulation. ~Ian > > > You are just playing with words. > > If any being / thing creates a simulated world > *ever* then it is de facto the possible start of a > descending tower of simulations. And then the > being / thing speculates that maybe his own > universe is in a simulation, starting the upward > spiral of simulations. > > There is no way that you can insist that only one > level of simulation is permissible, just because it > suits your speculation. Bill, I don't arbitrarily say only one level is permissible. I'm saying that proposing that one's level is a simulation does not necessitate that a higher level is too. That necessary connection which you claim is there is not there. Again, if beings in our simulation posit that *they* are in a simulation, that does not entail that they posit that *we* are in a simulation. They posit and imply nothing about the origins of our level, just that it's above them. Let's look at a real tower-of-turtles problem. If I posit (the 'God' theory) that 'Something created everything that exists, and x created the universe', I've paradoxically placed x (at the level above) in the set of things necessarily created calling for something at a still higher level to have created x. 'So then who created God?' Now that's a genuine tower-of-turtles problem, and we can see why it's unique from simulation theory -- because it tries to throw an explanatory circle around all that exists, whereas simulation theory tries to explain only the nature of the things visible to the theorist. ~Ian http://IanGoddard.net "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merely electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jan 17 17:19:40 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:19:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <579097.78176.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <579097.78176.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080117110724.02210380@satx.rr.com> At 08:12 AM 1/17/2008 -0800, Ian wrote: > Let's look at a real tower-of-turtles problem. If I >posit (the 'God' theory) that 'Something created >everything that exists, and x created the universe', >I've paradoxically placed x (at the level above) in >the set of things necessarily created calling for >something at a still higher level to have created x. >'So then who created God?' Now that's a genuine >tower-of-turtles problem No it's not. In the usual metaphysical analysis, the question and answer go like this: We can see that everything in the world is transient, contingent, causally dependant on prior states that were or are themselves transient, contingent, causally dependant on prior states. This can't be tracked back to infinity, because things are running down. Some other class of explanation for a universe of contingent existents is needed--and that suggests a realm of Being that is categorically *unlike* the world we see and subsist in. That Being must be necessary of itself. The subsequent steps that attribute purpose, timelessness, ubiquity, information processing, personhood, love, etc, to this disjunct state of being can easily be questioned (especially if those attributions appear to derive from states of being that are temporally sequential, spatially partitioned, etc). But it's simply missing the point to ask: Well, then, nyah nyah, *what created the uncreated*? The way to get rid of an ontically necessary deity is to show how the universe, surprisingly, *does at its root embody these characteristics* and can be at once self-subsistent, entropic and evolving. The temptation in trying to meet this challenge is exactly to posit one kind of contingent turtle tower or another. Damien Broderick From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Jan 18 01:29:53 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:29:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080116180531.022e5b18@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <019b01c85972$0589f450$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Damien writes > At 03:54 PM 1/16/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: > >> By the way, I agreed with your (Stathis's) explanations to Damien. > > Oh? Well, later, on a more careful re-reading, I did have some nits to pick. Somehow I did not (and do not) suppose them substantive, but we shall see. > So even before the quantum toss, there are already > two separate instantiations of you, eh? Well, I myself would not call them "separate". They really ought not to be, carefully speaking, referred to in the plural. Perhaps Leibniz's "Identity of Indiscernables" can be invoked here. Ordinarily even though two carbon atoms are *completely* identical, we can properly say that there are two of them because they have one (and only one) property not shared: location. But I suppose that this is not even true of the "individual threads" in a GIU (group of identical universes). Yet note that Deutsch does manage to say with that phrase that it is a "group". I don't feel like there is a problem here, except in choosing words. The images of a flow-stream of lines which don't quite have individual identity works for me. But I do invite you and others to keep subjecting them (the images) to criticism. > This will not bother Stathis, who (I gather) doesn't see > any problem with starting out with infinite variations that > just get infiniter. We are already up to the cardinality of the continuum (Deutsch, FoR, p. 211). If we want to say that there are aleph-1 "lines" or "threads" in the group---I would suggest dropping those phrases in favor of "a measure of aleph-1", then, to be sure, any bifurcations also measure aleph-1. > But it disagrees with most of > what I've read about MW, such as Michael Price's FAQ: > > measurement-like interaction (See > "What is a > measurement?") as having previous existed distinctly and merely > differentiated, rather than the interaction as having split one world > into many? This is definitely not permissible in many-worlds or any > theory of quantum theory consistent with experiment. > I certainly agree that we shouldn't speak of them "previously existing distinctly". On the other hand, it has seemed useful to speak of some "portion" of the stream as becoming distinguished from the rest, when we want to describe branching. Lee From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 18 01:11:39 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:11:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <127357.5020.qm@web60224.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200801180138.m0I1cOE8008383@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > The Avantguardian > Subject: Re: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) > ... > > Somewhat disturbing is that the UN is apparently more > concerned over > > this than our own media is. > > http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=4271&blz=1 Thanks Avant. I have been on a business trip on the east coast. It occurred to me that my suddenly stopping my posting on this topic may have made you think I had been disappeared. {8^D Yes, I have noticed the news people aren't talking much about the suspicious looking NH results. > > > > > > So in short, I wholeheartedly support your efforts to get to the > > bottom of this anomaly. I for one think that every precint > that uses > > the voting machines should be required to take a small > random sample > > of hand counted paper ballots as well. This sample could be used to > > validate the machine count. > > > > Here is a site that has useful election data: > > http://checkthevotes.com/primary_dem_New_Hampshire-comparison ... > Stuart LaForge Ja, and there are plenty of other techniques to verify a machine counted vote, but do let me say up front that I am *greatly* encouraged by the fact that these kinds of data are available online, for now there will be thousands of people like me who will figure out various ways to filter the data and indicate if something is up with those machine counts. While on my trip and away from the internet, I used the time to ponder. I came up with a number of verification schemes, many of which are simple to utilize. I expect many of these to be put in place before this November. Recall what happened in 2004, where there was an anomaly, or disagreement between entry polls and results. I heard and saw many saying this was a stolen election. The anomaly in the NH primary was four times the size of the anomaly that was declared stolen by some pundits. This being said, we must recognize that a primary isn't really an election. A political party is not bound by all the election law that applies to the November event. A political party has the right to nominate whomever the leaders decide to nominate. Those who vote in the primaries are free to vote for whomever they want in November. The primaries and caucuses are the way the likely voters advise the party on who to nominate. The NH outcome may have been the most fortunate thing that could have happened, for it demonstrated the desperate need for election verification, in a relatively harmless way. Well, harmless if one is not an Obama supporter. I will point out that I have no horse in that race as I am not a democrat, so I am coming at this as a disinterested third party. I am definitely interested in a fair election in November of course. I haven't decided who I will vote for, either in February or November. I have enjoyed relearning how to do the statistical calculations that I first learned as a teenager. The raw numbers are not as interesting as the probability of this outcome assuming no funny business with the machines. That will be coming soon. Thanks for the website Avant! spike From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Jan 18 01:40:51 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:40:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> <017601c8589c$8c4edc20$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <01a201c85973$6c86bde0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Vladimir writes >> >> of the wave function. But from your point of view, you have a 1/2 >> >> chance of observing that the coin comes up heads or tails. >> >> Well, that what it *feels* like, but the truth is that you have a 100% >> chance of seeing heads, and a 100% chance of seeing tails. > > Chance is a property of (or tool for) your assessment of situation. That sounds like a subjective or personal 1st-person type of usage. I go for the objective usage, any time that I can get away with distinguishing between the two. > Before the toss, you don't know the outcome, so chance is 50%. After > the toss, you know the outcome, so chance is either 0% or 100%, > depending on it. What's wrong with that, in my opinion, is that it leads to the fallacious deduction that "something didn't happen to me". The truth is that it *did* happen to you, it's just that the place where you are forming memories of it having happened are in the other branch. True, we are not accustomed to this, to put it mildly. Heretofore in human history to be experiencing something is to be making memories of it; but now, (either with physical duplicates or with the multiverse), something may be happening to you at one place without you (at another place) having a clue. > It's an equivalent interpretation, it doesn't change > semantics of probabilities. If you can directly observe terminal > outcomes and select traces leading to them, you can be sure of all > pieces of information along the way, but not so for a frog. The frogs ought to get eaten by the birds, so that only sensible (in my opinion) statements are made. >> Yes, I guess so, but saying that they aren't separate may be going >> a bit far: we usually say that branches are separate when they >> can no longer interfere (and hence merge). > > OK, in this sense they are separate, but they still contain common > substructures, and thus can be said to have 'points of contact'. I suppose so. > Elements of these common substructures interact (and these > interactions are equivalent to being cross-world interactions). > > But likewise elements that are able to interact is a definition of > world. But definition of world needs an 'anchor' substructure, so that > it will include those elements that can interact with it. If in above > example one of common substructures is regarded as an anchor, it will > select different, but intersecting, collection of elements as its > world. Well, I don't know. That brings up a good question. Suppose that we have a certain granite monument, and we set up bifurcating experiment near it, so that after an "up/down" outcome of the apparatus, we start to speak about our other selves in the other world. Yet the monument could be---if you are right---judged to be a "point of contact". Just what does that mean experimentally? Does it mean that the two branches "share" the monument? Is this how we should speak? Well, why not? After all, the contents of the monument have not diverged (assuming that the radiating influences---gravitational for instance---of the experiment haven't caused differences). Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Jan 18 01:50:52 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:50:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <01ab01c85974$d457c760$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Stathis writes >> Why would my near-copies occupy a much smaller slice over time? >> I'd still be me, even in those branches where Al Gore won, or where >> I won the lottery (I don't play). > > That would be the case if you look at the next few years, but not over > a longer period. When you're born all the versions of yourself in the > multiverse are much the same, but by the time you reach adulthood they > have greatly diverged. I agree. Sometimes in dull moments I amuse myself by wondering if the 18 year old me has reached the point of being half dead. Needless to say, I am not big on life-changing experiences or other developments that would slowly turn me into someone else. > There is a period of greater stability once you're an adult Thank goodness. > but the changes due to posthumanist scenarios might be > at least as great as those of childhood. This means that, ignoring > duplications and deaths, the total number of copies of you in the > multiverse will remain the same, but they will become segregated into > increasingly smaller measure sets of near-copies. Here we confuse "copies" as in lots of physical copies that I would like to generate (some to go off to Alpha Centauri, for example), and copies among different branches of the multiverse. But on re-reading the above as meaning different-branch copies, I agree totally. It's just to be hoped for that I can maximize how "near" are the near copies. Besides, according to this algebra, if the person I was twenty years ago is 95% me, then I'd far rather have two of them around than me now. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Jan 18 01:53:04 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:53:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> <017601c8589c$8c4edc20$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <01ae01c85975$88cbc340$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Stathis writes >> Why do you say that there is no splitting? Say a GIU (Group of >> Identical Universes, a term Deutsch uses over and over in the book >> "Fabric of Reality") bifurcates into the "heads" and "tails" branches >> you spoke of above. Why don't you consider this splitting, or have >> I misunderstood? > > "Splitting" and even "branching" could imply that some special > physical process, over and above simply having two different > outcomes to a quantum event, occurs to physically separate the > worlds. Let's be clear that these commonly used terms are metaphors. Quite right. I still think that I have a consistent view of all this, but no matter how consistent, one can always strive to be clearer in thinking about it and expressing it. Indeed, those terms ought to be considered to be metaphors just as you say. Lee From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jan 18 01:59:44 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:59:44 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <019b01c85972$0589f450$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080116180531.022e5b18@satx.rr.com> <019b01c85972$0589f450$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 18/01/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > I certainly agree that we shouldn't speak of them "previously > existing distinctly". On the other hand, it has seemed useful to > speak of some "portion" of the stream as becoming distinguished > from the rest, when we want to describe branching. Do you mean that they are not distinct in the way the aforementioned carbon atoms are not distinct? [Actually, I thought that atoms can be distinct since they are systems rather than simple particles, and the electrons, for example, could be at different energy levels.] -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 18 03:56:06 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:56:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <127357.5020.qm@web60224.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200801180356.m0I3uB1G003901@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > The Avantguardian ... > > I don't think this is a loony conspiracy theory, Spike. It is well > > documented that the electronic voting system is easy to hack. Check > > out this: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133214,00.html ... > Stuart LaForge One of the ideas I thought of is so damn obvious it worries me that I hadn't thought of it before. I went over the many explanations offered as to why the exit polls disagree with the machine count: that people talk left and vote right in order to not appear racist. They tell the exit pollster they voted for Obama when they voted Clinton. Easy solution to that: make the exit polls secret. Have the voting machines spit out two receipts, one goes into the ballot box, the other goes into the exit poll box. If one does not trust the bar-coded machines, one may write the name of the candidated on the ballot, just in case there is any discrepancy in machine count and hand count. I am greatly encouraged, for if *any* of the explanations for the NH anomaly are true, then we will see the same effect again in the coming primaries. It could be that people really do talk left and vote right. That theory will be proved or disproved on 5 February. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Jan 18 04:13:29 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:13:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <200801180356.m0I3uB1G003901@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <127357.5020.qm@web60224.mail.yahoo.com> <200801180356.m0I3uB1G003901@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080117221236.0222fe58@satx.rr.com> At 07:56 PM 1/17/2008 -0800, spike wrote: >people talk left and >vote right in order to not appear racist. Seems the obvious explanation to me. Damien Broderick From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 18 04:18:50 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:18:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080117221236.0222fe58@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200801180445.m0I4jYXs007232@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Subject: Re: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) > > At 07:56 PM 1/17/2008 -0800, spike wrote: > > >people talk left and > >vote right in order to not appear racist. > > Seems the obvious explanation to me. > > Damien Broderick I find it more convincing than a rigged voting machine. Still inadequately explains the anomaly between hand counts and machine counts, but explains the exit poll anomaly. If that theory is right, we will see evidence soon. Does anyone know if any states have secret exit polls? spike From eugen at leitl.org Fri Jan 18 07:43:50 2008 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:43:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <200801180445.m0I4jYXs007232@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080117221236.0222fe58@satx.rr.com> <200801180445.m0I4jYXs007232@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <20080118074350.GK10128@leitl.org> On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 08:18:50PM -0800, spike wrote: > I find it more convincing than a rigged voting machine. Still inadequately Spike, no offense, but you haven't got the memo again. Exploits against most to all voting machines have been demonstrated. It's not a conjecture, but a demonstrated fact. The tin-foil hatted ones are the ones who haven't heard, or still tend to believe it can't happen despite ample evidence. It doesn't matter whether the exploitability is malicious or merely due to incompetence (exceeding incompetence, though). The point is that whoever pushes for voting machines now is almost certainly malicious, and whoever lets this happen is criminally negiligent. Don't let your votes get stolen. Insist on hand-counted vote verification. It is possible to do voting securely, but since cryptography is hard it won't happen. (The main crux is that nobody but an expert can review the system and the protocol, while nobody else can follow that explanation so it's impossible to tell experts from quacks, and the slightest deviation from the protocol will render the system wide open. This is why we have security theater instead of the real thing). > explains the anomaly between hand counts and machine counts, but explains > the exit poll anomaly. If that theory is right, we will see evidence soon. > > Does anyone know if any states have secret exit polls? -- Eugen* Leitl leitl 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 avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 18 08:26:14 2008 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:26:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <200801180445.m0I4jYXs007232@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <898066.97348.qm@web60214.mail.yahoo.com> --- spike wrote: > > > Subject: Re: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) > > > > At 07:56 PM 1/17/2008 -0800, spike wrote: > > > > >people talk left and > > >vote right in order to not appear racist. > > > > Seems the obvious explanation to me. > > > > Damien Broderick > > > I find it more convincing than a rigged voting machine. Still > inadequately > explains the anomaly between hand counts and machine counts, but > explains > the exit poll anomaly. If that theory is right, we will see evidence > soon. > > Does anyone know if any states have secret exit polls? To be statistically valid, a survey sample must be random. If it is supposed to be random, why would it not then be anonymous? This isn't a longitudinal study so there would be no expected follow up the way there would be in some medical study. I would be surprised if names for an exit poll are even taken but even if they were, why would the respondants assume that the pollsters would think they were racist for not choosing Obama when Obama was one of five candidates? Why wouldn't the pollsters instead think that the respondent was sexist for not voting for Clinton? Wouldn't a guilty conscious rationalize the decision that was made rather than simply lying about it? Why would somebody, who felt guilty enough about having voted for Hillary instead of Obama to lie to a pollster, bother to take the survey in the first place? They are voluntary and I just don't see professional pollsters twisting anybody's arm. To put it another way, why would contribution of an unknown number of closet racists on the left significantly outnumber the unknown number of closet sexists on the left? Furthermore why would they assume that the media pollsters who are being paid to be there were rabidly liberal enough to think that not voting for Obama could only be motivated by racism? And finally for the million dollar question, why would our closet racists all live in districts with voting machines? Stuart LaForge alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu "Life is the sum of all your choices." Albert Camus ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Jan 18 08:54:13 2008 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:24:13 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Prosthetic limbed runner disqualified from Olympics Message-ID: <710b78fc0801180054o5ad2c4bfg57c2ad9dca9b943c@mail.gmail.com> http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/17/prosthetic-limbed-runner-disqualified-from-olympics/ "Oscar Pistorius, a double-amputee sprinter, has been denied a shot at the Olympics... for being too fast. The runner -- who uses carbon-fiber, prosthetic feet -- was reviewed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (or IAAF), a review which found the combination of man and machine to be too much for its purely human competitors. According to the IAAF report, the "mechanical advantage of the blade in relation to the healthy ankle joint of an able bodied athlete is higher than 30-percent." Additionally, Pistorius uses 25-percent less energy than average runners due to the artificial limbs, therefore giving him an unfair advantage on the track... or so they say. Oscar is expected to appeal the decision, saying a lack of variables explored by the single scientific study calls for deeper investigation into the matter. Our suggestion? Prosthetic legs for all!" -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com From robotact at gmail.com Fri Jan 18 14:22:32 2008 From: robotact at gmail.com (Vladimir Nesov) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:22:32 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <01a201c85973$6c86bde0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080115225922.022b04d0@satx.rr.com> <017601c8589c$8c4edc20$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <01a201c85973$6c86bde0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On Jan 18, 2008 4:40 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Vladimir writes > > > Before the toss, you don't know the outcome, so chance is 50%. After > > the toss, you know the outcome, so chance is either 0% or 100%, > > depending on it. > > What's wrong with that, in my opinion, is that it leads to the fallacious > deduction that "something didn't happen to me". The truth is that it > *did* happen to you, it's just that the place where you are forming > memories of it having happened are in the other branch. > > True, we are not accustomed to this, to put it mildly. Heretofore > in human history to be experiencing something is to be making > memories of it; but now, (either with physical duplicates or > with the multiverse), something may be happening to you at > one place without you (at another place) having a clue. It's not at all fallacious: you changed the definition of 'me'. I'm talking about probabilities you can use in decision-making. You can redefine these terms, but what you really are interested in is decisions you can arrive at in your *current* self, one you control. After all, all these platonic worlds are only real for you as models of them that you build yourself (in your head). You can't interact with real thing, it is not in your world. You can play with a model, but it's all it is: another mathematical toy. > > Elements of these common substructures interact (and these > > interactions are equivalent to being cross-world interactions). > > > > But likewise elements that are able to interact is a definition of > > world. But definition of world needs an 'anchor' substructure, so that > > it will include those elements that can interact with it. If in above > > example one of common substructures is regarded as an anchor, it will > > select different, but intersecting, collection of elements as its > > world. > > Well, I don't know. That brings up a good question. Suppose that > we have a certain granite monument, and we set up bifurcating > experiment near it, so that after an "up/down" outcome of the > apparatus, we start to speak about our other selves in the other > world. Yet the monument could be---if you are right---judged > to be a "point of contact". Just what does that mean experimentally? > Does it mean that the two branches "share" the monument? Is this > how we should speak? Well, why not? After all, the contents of > the monument have not diverged (assuming that the radiating > influences---gravitational for instance---of the experiment haven't > caused differences). Yes, it's how I see it. In your world, there is a split, with two different versions of you observed different outcomes of experiment. In rock's world, there is no spit, because rock doesn't know about experiment. Selection of worlds is a dodgy business. How do you know that world you live in isn't replaced by another similar world? You don't, you only know that things that you know about the world don't change. So, all worlds that contain you having the same knowledge are equivalent in claiming to be the world you live in. Each 'anchor' subsystem allows certain set of worlds to contain it, there is a correspondence between anchor and 'worldset' that contains it. So, rock's worldset contain worlds with both outcomes of experiment, and both versions of you. Your worldset, on the other hand, can't contain both outcomes, because each version of you doesn't allow incorrect outcome in its world. -- Vladimir Nesov mailto:robotact at gmail.com From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Jan 18 15:10:54 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:10:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] LABoral Conference - Ideas Welcome In-Reply-To: <4790A85C.4050003@bangor.ac.uk> References: <4790A85C.4050003@bangor.ac.uk> Message-ID: <20080118151055.RELF16504.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> Recently, I sent an email concerning an upcoming conference at the LABoral http://www2.laboralcentrodearte.org/ which has a focus on gaming, immersion and VR, but also invites design and theory as they relate to the idea of homo ludens. Thank you to those who emailed me off-list with your insights. Below is my abstract. While the concept is not novel, the particular angle I invite offers a unique way of dealing with the issue of humans vs. other intelligent life forms -- that of the "look" of future entities. While this may seem ever so vogue, history evidences that humans are overly preoccupied with how one "looks" in regards to color of skin, physiognomy, as well as selection of garments and how such garments are worn. While my presentation offers a sense of humor about this, it will include a brief but hopefully valid study of how this seemingly minor issue could cause a ruckus. Please note, as usual I enjoy collaborations. In light of this, your ideas will be seriously entertained! _______________________________ Title: "The Design War: Humanish vs. Postbiologicals ? controversy that may affect humanity" Abstract: Struggles of political and religious hegemony reveal distinct biases concerning what is or is not an acceptable method of design for sapient life. "Humanish," the biological fundamentalists, argue for classical style. Postbiologicals, a variety of species derived from Homo sapiens and artificial general intelligence, might lobby for ingenuity. One hundred thousand years ago, the human species experienced an indisputable improvement in its cognitive architecture. Now, an evident shift from biological cells to programmable AI takes the processes of intelligence from human neurons to more resilient and faster performing substrates, one million times over. This paper addresses the issue of species hierarchy as it concerns whether humanity ought to look biological as it merges with smarter-than-human intelligence. In a perfect world, these species would learn to get along. Due to the Singularity, humanity learns they are not the only life form with consciousness and aesthetic taste. Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Candidate, Planetary Collegium - CAiiA, situated in the Faculty of Technology, School of Computing, Communications and Electronics, University of Plymouth, UK Transhumanist Arts & Culture Thinking About the Future If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the circle, then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what is inside the circle and everything outside the circle, then that is an open system perspective. - Buckminster Fuller -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 18 15:28:35 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:28:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) In-Reply-To: <20080118074350.GK10128@leitl.org> Message-ID: <200801181555.m0IFtIM2026674@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > Eugen Leitl > Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:44 PM > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Subject: Re: [ExI] FW: elections again (with new analysis) > > On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 08:18:50PM -0800, spike wrote: > > > I find it more convincing than a rigged voting machine. Still > > inadequately > > Spike, no offense, but you haven't got the memo again. > Exploits against most to all voting machines have been > demonstrated. ... > Eugen* Leitl Ja, what I meant was I estimated about 60% chance the voting machines miscounted when I first did the calculations. Then after several days went by, I assumed they would have discovered the problem by now. So currently I estimate about a 30% chance the voting machines miscounted. Now I realize my most likely explanation (people vote to the right of their lips) will be repeated in later primaries. Further I realized if voting machines are rigged, it is fortunate it was revealed early. spike From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Jan 18 20:26:07 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:26:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Stephen Colbert: David Levy - Love and Sex with Robots Message-ID: <29666bf30801181226w5dc1561fy9a98f39d638ade50@mail.gmail.com> Stephen is on an H+ roll, interviewing David Levy about his book "Love and Sex with Robots": http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=147893 "Once you go 'bot, you never go back." It's particularly funny and excruciating. Enjoy! PJ From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 19 05:46:15 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:46:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Stephen Colbert: David Levy - Love and Sex with Robots In-Reply-To: <29666bf30801181226w5dc1561fy9a98f39d638ade50@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801190612.m0J6CvoX017479@andromeda.ziaspace.com> ... > ...interviewing David Levy about his book "Love and Sex with Robots": > http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=147893 > > "Once you go 'bot, you never go back." ... PJ PJ, robot sex is one of my leading explanations for Fermi's paradox. Birth rates decline to near zero, starting with the most technologically advanced segments of society, and spreading downward from there. I do not argue that robot sex will be better than human sex. I contend that it will be preferred by the masses because of being considerably less expensive and so much lower risk. spike From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 19 10:49:04 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 10:49:04 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Stephen Colbert: David Levy - Love and Sex with Robots In-Reply-To: <200801190612.m0J6CvoX017479@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <29666bf30801181226w5dc1561fy9a98f39d638ade50@mail.gmail.com> <200801190612.m0J6CvoX017479@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On Jan 19, 2008 5:46 AM, spike wrote: > PJ, robot sex is one of my leading explanations for Fermi's paradox. Birth > rates decline to near zero, starting with the most technologically advanced > segments of society, and spreading downward from there. > > I do not argue that robot sex will be better than human sex. I contend that > it will be preferred by the masses because of being considerably less > expensive and so much lower risk. > Spike, you missed off - "and much better than the real thing". :) BillK From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 19 16:23:36 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:23:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Stephen Colbert: David Levy - Love and Sex with Robots In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200801191650.m0JGoI6q017566@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK ... > > > > I do not argue that robot sex will be better than human sex. I > > contend that it will be preferred by the masses because of being > > considerably less expensive and so much lower risk. > > > > Spike, you missed off - "and much better than the real thing". :) > > > BillK BillK that depends on how one defines the term "real thing." Robot sex will be real. We might come to refer to sex between humans as bio-sex, or organic life based sex, but we might have to give up the department in large companies that is currently called "human relations" for that term may take on a new meaning. The organic-life based notion might even provide some fresh introductory lines, such as "...a dinner, movie, then perhaps some good old fashioned OLBS..." I suggested several years ago in this forum that some form of robot sex would be just the thing for the elderly and disabled. It need not be a human scale android, but rather would be a mechanical device that could be placed on the... what? patient? experimenter? elderly fucker? ...at which time the device would directly stimulate the genitals to the satisfaction of the... what? This topic is difficult to discuss without sounding silly, but think about it: such a device could fill an obvious human need, relieve suffering, and most importantly make the inventor so much money that just thinking about that pile of loot causes one's butt to hurt. spike From pjmanney at gmail.com Sat Jan 19 17:19:12 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:19:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Stephen Colbert: David Levy - Love and Sex with Robots In-Reply-To: <200801190612.m0J6CvoX017479@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <29666bf30801181226w5dc1561fy9a98f39d638ade50@mail.gmail.com> <200801190612.m0J6CvoX017479@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30801190919l5fe5c60dw450f06b8968e604e@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 18, 2008 9:46 PM, spike wrote: > ... > > ...interviewing David Levy about his book "Love and Sex with Robots": > > http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=147893 > > > > "Once you go 'bot, you never go back." ... PJ And I just want to make clear to the ephemeral permanence that is an archived Internet (yes, the oxymoron is intentional) that the above quote is Colbert's line, not mine. :) PJ From frankmac at ripco.com Sat Jan 19 23:09:09 2008 From: frankmac at ripco.com (frank McElligott) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:09:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] tom brady Message-ID: <000701c85af0$53c799e0$d75de547@thebigloser> As my yearly post time come about, I wonder what has happened to last year, and thank all of you for the dialog which has brighten my morning coffee since the last super bowl. I have read the "black Swan", and it tells me that the past is the past, and the future well who knows. So here I go again asking the same question as last year. Last year Tom Brady had not lost a playoff game in the Pat Super Bowl runs. He is 9 and 0. >From a Stat view of the world Tom Brady can not lose, if I am a betting man, but me thinks that he crosses from a 9 to 1 as a FIRST digit and we know that is very very dangerous. With this in mind, I expect the Black Swan to appear in New England this weekend, and I am betting that way:) From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 20 01:57:03 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:57:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] voting machines again Message-ID: <200801200223.m0K2NjDU017811@andromeda.ziaspace.com> South Carolina primary plagued by bad voting machines, snow: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/19/south.carolina.gop/index.html The article contains this enlightening comment: ...Malfunctioning voting machines plagued Horry County, which contains the cities of Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach. "Human error" put the machines offline in 80 percent of the county's precincts during Saturday's voting... And this jewel, which made my day: ...voters in the affected precincts used paper ballots and any scrap of paper available to cast their votes... Any scrap of paper? Any scrap of paper, to help determine who will control a terrifying nuclear arsenal? The elections board claim they have a backup system. If true, why were voters using any scrap of paper? At this point it doesn't matter if they were to suddenly discover a technology to resolve these kinds of problems, for we have lost trust in the computer voting process. How long before we wake up and declare these machines illegal? Everywhere in the world, throw em out! Could we not finance an upgrade to paper ballots by selling tickets, a buck a whack with a large hammer, to destroy the evil devices? spike From pjmanney at gmail.com Sun Jan 20 18:19:19 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:19:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind Message-ID: <29666bf30801201019l70d85d3ep9d87a753ce8f5e70@mail.gmail.com> Jonah Lehrer, author of "Proust Was a Neuroscientist", attacks reductionism in neuroscience. If we want to understand consciousness, he says, reductionism is only the first step. The rest of the messy endeavor is far more complex and we must embrace the messy complexity. PJ http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-lehrer20jan20,0,1700536.story?coll=la-opinion-center >From the Los Angeles Times Misreading the mind If neuroscientists want to understand the mystery of consciousness, they'll need new methods. By Jonah Lehrer January 20, 2008 Since its inception in the early 20th century, neuroscience has taught us a tremendous amount about the brain. Our sensations have been reduced to a set of specific circuits. The mind has been imaged as it thinks about itself, with every thought traced back to its cortical source. The most ineffable of emotions have been translated into the terms of chemistry, so that the feeling of love is just a little too much dopamine. Fear is an excited amygdala. Even our sense of consciousness is explained away with references to some obscure property of the frontal cortex. It turns out that there is nothing inherently mysterious about those 3 pounds of wrinkled flesh inside the skull. There is no ghost in the machine. The success of modern neuroscience represents the triumph of a method: reductionism. The premise of reductionism is that the best way to solve a complex problem -- and the brain is the most complicated object in the known universe -- is to study its most basic parts. The mind, in other words, is just a particular trick of matter, reducible to the callous laws of physics. But the reductionist method, although undeniably successful, has very real limitations. Not everything benefits from being broken down into tiny pieces. Look, for example, at a Beethoven symphony. If the music is reduced to wavelengths of vibrating air -- the simple sum of its physics -- we actually understand less about the music. The intangible beauty, the visceral emotion, the entire reason we listen in the first place -- all is lost when the sound is reduced into its most elemental details. In other words, reductionism can leave out a lot of reality. The mind is like music. While neuroscience accurately describes our brain in terms of its material facts -- we are nothing but a loom of electricity and enzymes -- this isn't how we experience the world. Our consciousness, at least when felt from the inside, feels like more than the sum of its cells. The truth of the matter is that we feel like the ghost, not like the machine. If neuroscience is going to solve its grandest questions, such as the mystery of consciousness, it needs to adopt new methods that are able to construct complex representations of the mind that aren't built from the bottom up. Sometimes, the whole is best understood in terms of the whole. William James, as usual, realized this first. The eight chapters that begin his 1890 textbook, "The Principles of Psychology," describe the mind in the conventional third-person terms of the experimental psychologist. Everything changes, however, with Chapter 9. James starts this section, "The Stream of Thought," with a warning: "We now begin our study of the mind from within." With that single sentence, James tried to shift the subject of psychology. He disavowed any scientific method that tried to dissect the mind into a set of elemental units, be it sensations or synapses. Modern science, however, didn't follow James' lead. In the years after his textbook was published, a "New Psychology" was born, and this rigorous science had no use for Jamesian vagueness. Measurement was now in vogue. Psychologists were busy trying to calculate all sorts of inane things, such as the time it takes for a single sensation to travel from your finger to your head. By quantifying our consciousness, they hoped to make the mind fit for science. Unfortunately, this meant that the mind was defined in very narrow terms. The study of experience was banished from the laboratory. But it's time to bring experience back. Neuroscience has effectively investigated the sound waves, but it has missed the music. Although reductionism has its uses -- it is, for instance, absolutely crucial for helping us develop new pharmaceutical treatments for mental illnesses -- its limitations are too significant to allow us to answer our biggest questions. As the novelist Richard Powers wrote, "If we knew the world only through synapses, how could we know the synapse?" The question, of course, is how neuroscience can get beyond reductionism. Science rightfully adheres to a strict methodology, relying on experimental data and testability, but this method could benefit from an additional set of inputs. Artists, for instance, have studied the world of experience for centuries. They describe the mind from the inside, expressing our first-person perspective in prose, poetry and paint. Although a work of art obviously isn't a substitute for a scientific experiment -- Proust isn't going to invent Prozac -- the artist can help scientists better understand what, exactly, they are trying to reduce in the first place. Before you break something apart, it helps to know how it hangs together. Virginia Woolf, for example, famously declared that the task of the novelist is to "examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day ... [tracing] the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness." In other words, she wanted to describe the mind from the inside, to distill the details of our psychological experience into prose. That's why her novels have endured: because they feel true. And they feel true because they capture a layer of reality that reductionism cannot. As Noam Chomsky said, "It is quite possible -- overwhelmingly probable, one might guess -- that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology." In this sense, the arts are an incredibly rich data set, providing neuroscience with a glimpse behind its blind spots. Some of the most exciting endeavors in neuroscience right now are trying to move beyond reductionism. The Blue Brain Project, for example, a collaboration between the ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale in Lausanne, Switzerland, and IBM, is in the process of constructing a biologically accurate model of the brain that can be used to simulate experience on a supercomputer. Henry Markram, the leader of the project, recently told me that he's convinced "reductionism peaked five years ago." While Markram is quick to add that the reductionism program isn't complete -- "There is still so much that we don't know about the brain," he says -- he's trying to solve a harder problem, which is figuring out how all these cellular details connect together. "The Blue Brain Project" he says, "is about showing people the whole." In other words, Markram wants to hear the music. One day, we'll look back at the history of neuroscience and realize that reductionism was just the first phase. Each year, tens of thousands of neuroscience papers are published in scientific journals. The field is introduced to countless new acronyms, pathways and proteins. At a certain point, however, all of this detail starts to have diminishing returns. After all, the real paradox of the brain is why it feels like more than the sum of its parts. How does our pale gray matter become the Technicolor cinema of consciousness? What transforms the water of the brain into the wine of the mind? Where does the self come from? Reductionism can't answer these questions. According to the facts of neuroscience, your head contains 100 billion electrical cells, but not one of them is you, or knows you or cares about you. In fact, you don't even exist. You are simply an elaborate cognitive illusion, an "epiphenomenon" of the cortex. Our mystery is denied. Obviously, this scientific solution isn't very satisfying. It confines neuroscience to an immaculate abstraction, unable to reduce the only reality we will ever know. Unless our science moves beyond reductionism and grapples instead with the messiness of subjective experience -- what James called a "science of the soul" -- its facts will grow increasingly remote. The wonder of the brain is that it can be described in so many ways: We are such stuff as dreams are made on, but we are also just stuff. What we need is a science that can encompass both sides of our being. Jonah Lehrer, an editor at large for Seed magazine, is the author of "Proust Was a Neuroscientist." From pjmanney at gmail.com Sun Jan 20 18:32:38 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:32:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] NYT: Rock-Paper-Scissors Is Universal Message-ID: <29666bf30801201032j294eb121w343edeb00175ee39@mail.gmail.com> This was part of many wonderful tidbits in the New York Times' year end wrap up in science. But this particular idea -- that Rock-Paper-Scissors, or the rotation of success through force>fraud>cooperation is a universal behavioral function throughout biology -- was so mind tickling on so many levels, I had to separate it out and throw it in the pool for discussion. Talk about an EB/EP meta-concept! And to think I used to laugh at the World RPS Championships! http://www.worldrps.com/ PJ December 9, 2007 Rock-Paper-Scissors Is Universal By JAMES RYERSON The children's game rock-paper-scissors has a simple yet elegant structure: rock beats scissors; scissors beats paper; paper beats rock. Of the three possible moves, each defeats one, only to be defeated by the other. It's almost karmic. Indeed, it's a kind of equilibrium that scientists now say may govern conflict throughout the universe. At least among lizards. In an article in last month's issue of The American Naturalist, a team of biologists described the curious mating strategies that they observed in a species of European lizard. Some of the male lizards (call their type "rock") use force, invading the territory of fellow males to mate with females. Others ("paper") favor deception, waiting until females are unguarded and sneaking in. Still others ("scissors") work by cooperation, joining together to protect one another's females. The three types of lizard, which the scientists monitored over several years in the French Pyrenees, are locked in a cyclical sort of standoff. For a time, the deceivers flourish at the expense of the intruders, who are too busy marauding to pay attention. Then the cooperators win out over the deceivers, who can't slink past the guards. And then the intruders vanquish the cooperators, whose openness exposes them to aggression. Then the cycle repeats. It takes about four years. Barry Sinervo, the lead author of the paper and a biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has seen all this before. In the '90s, he came across the same four-year cycle of mating strategies in a genetically distant species of North American lizard. Even the behavior of the North American lizards was not a complete surprise: in 1982, the evolutionary game-theorist John Maynard Smith predicted, using mathematical models of conflict, that such arrangements would be found in nature. It's a phenomenon big and small. In 2002, the biologist Benjamin Kerr announced his discovery of "a real-life game of rock-paper-scissors" among bacteria. In their recent paper, Sinervo and his colleagues even speculate that such games may describe human behavior in the corporate world, where strategies of force (takeovers), deception (fraud) and cooperation (mergers) also seem to supplant one another in an endless loop. The pattern is "quite deep," Sinervo says. "I think it's a philosophical point. You have 'take by force,' deception and cooperation. Each beats one but not the other. It's the way the very fabric of social systems is structured." From lcorbin at rawbw.com Mon Jan 21 05:13:56 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:13:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind References: <29666bf30801201019l70d85d3ep9d87a753ce8f5e70@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <023801c85bed$1071a840$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> PJ passed on the discouraging > http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-lehrer20jan20,0,1700536.story?coll=la-opinion-center > The success of modern neuroscience represents the triumph of a method: > reductionism... Do you feel the "but" coming on? > But the reductionist method, although undeniably successful, has very > real limitations. Not everything benefits from being broken down into > tiny pieces. Boeing 747s also do not benefit from being broken down into tiny pieces. However, the day that engineers try to enhance their calculations by going beyond the reductionistic is the day I stop flying. > Look, for example, at a Beethoven symphony. If the music > is reduced to wavelengths of vibrating air -- the simple sum of its > physics -- we actually understand less about the music. The intangible > beauty, the visceral emotion, the entire reason we listen in the first > place -- all is lost when the sound is reduced into its most elemental > details. In other words, reductionism can leave out a lot of reality. Oh, please. The "reality" you are talking about is your experience. No matter how you squirm, your experience will never be able to be put into words, and will never be communicable to others. > The mind is like music. While neuroscience accurately describes our > brain in terms of its material facts -- we are nothing but a loom of > electricity and enzymes -- this isn't how we experience the world. Our > consciousness, at least when felt from the inside, feels like more > than the sum of its cells. The truth of the matter is that we feel > like the ghost, not like the machine. Well, of course! Your *feelings* are merely your own possibly very screwed-up experience. So much of this trash comes from the illusion (which we all have when our brains are functioning quite well) that we have a platonic viewpoint---that our consciousness is pristine and above the mere mechanical nerve firings. Perhaps it would be better if people never wrote in this vein unless they were very high on drugs or in severe pain, or in some other way were able to know with total immediacy that they spoke from a very particular position as a very particular brain. > If neuroscience is going to solve its grandest questions, Hah! It won't, so long as it keeps parading hopeless confusions as its "grandest questions". No one is ever going to solve "the hard question". Why? Again, because experience is not a description of how anything is, except that particular experience itself. The experience may be duplicated (by constructing an identical system), but it may not be put into words! How many times do I have to keep saying this? > such as the mystery of consciousness, it needs to adopt new > methods Oh, I can't wait. Now the only real mystery to me is how many more centuries of futility is going to claim the efforts of bad philosophers in trying to tackle "qualia" and all the other loser concepts. > that are able to construct complex representations of the mind > that aren't built from the bottom up. I wonder why reductionism always annoyed people. I think it goes back to the very real phenomenon of people being crushingly disappointed when they learn that there are no spirits or souls or gods, and that we are "just" machines. What I don't understand is why, as adults, they don't get over it after a while. > Sometimes, the whole is best understood in terms of the whole. No! You're kidding! Is that really true? You mean to tell me that, for instance, chemistry or biology is best understood by applying concepts at a level beyond the quarks and gluons? Will wonders never cease. > William James, as usual, realized this first. The eight > chapters that begin his 1890 textbook, "The Principles of Psychology," > describe the mind in the conventional third-person terms of the > experimental psychologist. Everything changes, however, with Chapter > 9. James starts this section, "The Stream of Thought," with a warning: > "We now begin our study of the mind from within." In other words, James is saying, we will now try putting the ineffable into words. > With that single sentence, James tried to shift the subject of > psychology. He disavowed any scientific method that tried to dissect > the mind into a set of elemental units, be it sensations or synapses. > Modern science, however, didn't follow James' lead. Not that in every single generation since then there haven't been hundreds of people trying to obtain a "holistic" approach that will answer the "hard" questions. The only thing changes is the verbiage, the labels they use. There never has been an iota of progress here, and there never will be. These people have got to come to understand that there CANNOT be any progress of the sort they have in mind. > ...Unfortunately, this meant that the mind was defined in very narrow > terms. The study of experience was banished from the laboratory. > > But it's time to bring experience back. Neuroscience has effectively > investigated the sound waves, but it has missed the music. Although > reductionism has its uses -- it is, for instance, absolutely crucial > for helping us develop new pharmaceutical treatments for mental > illnesses -- its limitations are too significant to allow us to answer > our biggest questions. As the novelist Richard Powers wrote, "If we > knew the world only through synapses, how could we know the synapse?" If we "know the world only through [the action of our] synapses", then how could we know about rocks and trees? Might as well follow one idiotic question with another. Read my lips: we are *machines*. Do you ask how a camera manages to record a scene when at bottom all there is are atoms of silver iodide? How can a picture of a rock band be captured by silver iodide crystals? Why not ask that question too; as long as you're going to be clueless, go all the way. > The question, of course, is how neuroscience can get beyond > reductionism. Science rightfully adheres to a strict methodology, > relying on experimental data and testability, but this method could > benefit from an additional set of inputs. What a grotesque mischaracterization. The writer leaves out the most important part: hypotheses and conjectures. > Artists, for instance, have > studied the world of experience for centuries. They describe the mind > from the inside, expressing our first-person perspective in prose, > poetry and paint. Although a work of art obviously isn't a substitute > for a scientific experiment -- Proust isn't going to invent Prozac -- > the artist can help scientists better understand what, exactly, they > are trying to reduce in the first place. Before you break something > apart, it helps to know how it hangs together. > > Virginia Woolf, for example, famously declared that the task of the > novelist is to "examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary > day ... [tracing] the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in > appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the > consciousness." > > In other words, she wanted to describe the mind from the inside, to > distill the details of our psychological experience into prose. That's > why her novels have endured: because they feel true. And they feel > true because they capture a layer of reality that reductionism cannot. Novels do not "capture" anything. They certainly don't capture reality. What they do, and do very well on occasion, is create in a reader an experience that so far as we can see is very much like the experience of the author. > Some of the most exciting endeavors in neuroscience right now are > trying to move beyond reductionism. The Blue Brain Project, for > example, a collaboration between the ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale in > Lausanne, Switzerland, and IBM, is in the process of constructing a > biologically accurate model of the brain that can be used to simulate > experience on a supercomputer. On this list, we can tell them quite a bit about the implications of that! Okay, so let's suppose they succeed in "simulating experience on a supercomputer". I imagine they'll want the conscious program to tell them what its experiences are like. And they'll find themselves right back at square one! > Henry Markram, the leader of the > project, recently told me that he's convinced "reductionism peaked > five years ago." While Markram is quick to add that the reductionism > program isn't complete -- "There is still so much that we don't know > about the brain," Oh, I'm glad for that. What a concession. > he says -- he's trying to solve a harder problem, Yikes, the "hard problem" once again. > which is figuring out how all these cellular details connect together. > "The Blue Brain Project" he says, "is about showing people the whole." > In other words, Markram wants to hear the music. I cannot imagine any experience that will allow him to think that he has succeeded. Suppose that with a joystick and mouse he can arrange for his own brain to have any experience whatever. So what? He an almost do that by going to movies and using present-day VR techniques. I wish one of these people would write a science-fiction story that described success in their endeavor. Can you imagine a number of researchers going around saying "We solved it! Now we know the secret! We know how the brain creates sensation!" The problem is that no matter what they truly know, it won't *be* the experience itself. And it's some form of this hopeless quest that the poor fools have saddled themselves with. > One day, we'll look back at the history of neuroscience and realize > that reductionism was just the first phase. I want to bet some money with this guy. When? How much? > Each year, tens of > thousands of neuroscience papers are published in scientific journals. > The field is introduced to countless new acronyms, pathways and > proteins. At a certain point, however, all of this detail starts to > have diminishing returns. After all, the real paradox of the brain is > why it feels like more than the sum of its parts. How does our pale > gray matter become the Technicolor cinema of consciousness? What > transforms the water of the brain into the wine of the mind? Where > does the self come from? > > Reductionism can't answer these questions. Rather, the kinds of answers to these questions (some of them quite real) aren't what he's after and aren't satisfying. Consider the set of all 10,000 word paragraphs in the English language. Not a single one of them can possibly satisfy this guy and people like him. Why? Because no one of those paragraphs is going to be able to precisely specify what it is like to have an experience! > According to the facts of neuroscience, your head contains > 100 billion electrical cells, but not one of them is you, No particular color of the pastel is the Mona Lisa painting, either. > or knows you or cares about you. In fact, you don't even exist. When you start making just incredibly obvious foolish statements, it should be a sign that you are completely off base. > Unless our science moves beyond reductionism and grapples > instead with the messiness of subjective experience -- what > James called a "science of the soul" -- its facts will grow > increasingly remote. They'll become increasingly remote to those who don't want to see. (By the way, you'll notice that these yearnings after solutions to the "hard problems" repeat themselves over and over, without ever saying anything new.) Lee From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Jan 21 11:56:21 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:56:21 +1100 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind In-Reply-To: <023801c85bed$1071a840$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <29666bf30801201019l70d85d3ep9d87a753ce8f5e70@mail.gmail.com> <023801c85bed$1071a840$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 21/01/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > PJ passed on the discouraging > > > http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-lehrer20jan20,0,1700536.story?coll=la-opinion-center > > > The success of modern neuroscience represents the triumph of a method: > > reductionism... > > Do you feel the "but" coming on? ... Lee, could you please reassure the alarmed reader that in explaining feelings scientifically you aren't thereby seeking to take them away? -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jan 21 12:01:48 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:01:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism and Politics Message-ID: <580930c20801210401s748eb423hfc0efe9ebf63e8f3@mail.gmail.com> Thank to the hospitality of my friend Giulio Prisco's blog, Transumanar, I thought it a good idea to summarise and make available on the Web a few personal ideas about some some political issues that have obvious strategic implications for the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti and more in general the European and international transhumanist movement. Here is the full text of my post: <> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From James.Hughes at trincoll.edu Mon Jan 21 15:19:20 2008 From: James.Hughes at trincoll.edu (Hughes, James J.) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:19:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Transhumanism and Politics In-Reply-To: <580930c20801210401s748eb423hfc0efe9ebf63e8f3@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20801210401s748eb423hfc0efe9ebf63e8f3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD2803906A51FDF@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> Thanks very much for this very clear statement. I've rephrased them below. -------------------- Five Points for European (and World?) Transhumanism 1) The struggle for access to technologies cannot be ignored on the assumption that universal abundance or the Singularity will make such concerns irrelevant. 2) Access to enabling technologies should be defined as a right of the person, as opposed to simply a market commodity. 3) We must advocate for and defend financial support for the basic technological and educational infrastructure essential for our future. 4) The rights to freedom of research, and to control our bodies and reproduction, are absolute and cannot be constrained by other rights and regulatory concerns. 5) Technological progress cannot, and above all should not, be taken for granted. -------------------- My response: 1. Absolutely. 2. Yes, generally, although we need to be mindful that we always need to draw some line between the public goods we provide as a right of citizenship and those in the market. At least, I do not believe it would be good to eliminate market mechanisms. So, for the foreseeable future we will need to negotiate which enabling technologies will be provided free or subsidized to all citizens as a public good, and which will be left more or less to market forces. 3. Yes, very important. Why we need to be advocating for a Longevity Dividend program, and related programs of scitech development, as well as investments in math, science and engineering education. 4. No - as you would imagine - I don't believe this framing is correct. Individual rights are not absolute, and I believe they are trumpable by other concerns. I doubt that we would make much progress outside of anarchist circles arguing that, for instance, the "right of research" trumps concerns about weapons of mass destruction. Some public goods will always trump individual rights, but our demand should be that only certain, clear, tangible costs and benefits to the public be allowed to do so. Perhaps that is what you are referring to with the language suggesting they should not be trumped by "globalisation of absolute and universal values of a more or less overtly metaphysical foundation." However, I think this item needs a clarification before I or other technoprogressives would be able to sign on. 5. Yes. Perhaps point 3 is the corollary of this point. J. From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 21 15:16:49 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:16:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200801211543.m0LFhTtw020771@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Stathis Papaioannou ... > > Lee, could you please reassure the alarmed reader that in > explaining feelings scientifically you aren't thereby seeking > to take them away? Stathis Papaioannou But Stathis, we DO want to take them away. That would make us so much easier to simulate. |8-| <---- (me, without feelings) spike From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Jan 21 16:02:41 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:02:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind In-Reply-To: <023801c85bed$1071a840$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <29666bf30801201019l70d85d3ep9d87a753ce8f5e70@mail.gmail.com> <023801c85bed$1071a840$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200801211002.42150.kanzure@gmail.com> Lee, The neurosci people are not thinking "hard scifi" when it comes to the brain. What we need to do is expose the gradients within the brain to outside testing more readily so that we can figure out what modules of the brain are doing and so on. While it may not duplicate experiences, it's still 'progress'. Yesterday I mostly completed a system to separate the brain into ten or fifteen regions, while keeping it alive as well as providing a conduit for electrical stimulation from one region to another. The only remaining problem is that of neurochemicals, and I think that can be solved by some fancy MEMS (which is difficult to come by). Otherwise, this should lead to opportunities to more progressively study the brain since it exposes both structure and function into encapsulated units. So there's some good work going on. Just not necessarily in the news. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From sjatkins at mac.com Mon Jan 21 18:26:49 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:26:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism and Politics In-Reply-To: <580930c20801210401s748eb423hfc0efe9ebf63e8f3@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20801210401s748eb423hfc0efe9ebf63e8f3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 21, 2008, at 4:01 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Thank to the hospitality of my friend Giulio Prisco's blog, > Transumanar, I thought it a good idea to summarise and make > available on the Web a few personal ideas about some some political > issues that have obvious strategic implications for the Associazione > Italiana Transumanisti and more in general the European and > international transhumanist movement. > > Here is the full text of my post: > > < In response to a some concerns recently raised in the framework of > Associazione Italiana Transumanisti's mailing list with respect to > the positions within the transhumanist movement on a number of > important issues, I came up with five points that I believe should > denote the "party line" of this organisation, and that I would like > to share here with a broader public. > > 1) The struggle for access to technologies cannot be ignored in > favour of some eschatological vision of eternal solutions to all > conflicts. I am referring here to access to both future, possibile > technologies and already existing technologies; both at a social and > at an international level; and especially to technologies that are > crucial to individual and collective survival and self-determination > (in fact, transhumanists are among those most likely to struggle > everywhere for their own access, as well as that of their biological > and spiritual children and of their communties however defined, > against prohibitionisms and monopolies of all sorts). > > 2) It is not reasonable to expect that it be generally accepted that > the amount of currency units an individual or an entity is credited > with in the databases of financial institutions is a universal and > "divine" sign implying an exclusivity (or priority) right in the > access to technologies, so that those not profiting from such > advantage should peacefully surrender to their lot. > If we assume that at least some technologies are at least in their beginning relatively scarce and expensive then what means other than money do you propose to use to determine who can gain access to these technologies? > 3) Fundamental research and its technological and educational > infrastructure are essential for our future. More importantly, to > the kind of future we would like to live in, and to the values we > promote. Now, the investments required by fundamental research > cannot be adequately sustained by the mere funds possibly devoted to > it by business organisations. In fact, it is disputable that the > market can sustain breakthrough-oriented, high-risk, long-term > research at all, let alone research the returns of which appear to > be radically unpredictable. > Besides business organization and governments using tax revenues for such purposes there are also various voluntary associations of individual and organizations pooling funds and resources toward particular desired goals. > 4) No compromises are really acceptable with regard to freedom of > research and to the freedom of biological and reproductive self- > determination, especially in view of ideas aimed at the > globalisation of absolute and universal values of a more or less > overtly metaphysical foundation. > What does this "compromise" or "no comprise" consist of? > 5) Technological developments cannot, and above all should not, be > taken for granted. Specific technological achievements can never be > presumed to self-produce irrespective of the legal framework, > societal investments, and dominant cultural values, and are rather > to be considered as the goal of a deliberate, political will able to > establish the pre-requisites for their flourishing. > Advances are usually anticipated by the relative few. So is this political will somehow directed by the few in these matters or is it expected to somehow spontaneously arise and be well founded in the majority? > Even supposed virtous circles, positive feedbacks and recursive > technologies require bootstrapping and the maintenance of a > compatible environment along their entire life cycles. > Who has the understanding to do this assuming it does in fact need to be done? > Discussions on what to do best with future technologies and and how > to "regulate" them are fine, but often sound too much like the > proverbial cavemen fighting over the spoils of a mammuth they have > not taken down yet in the first place. A continuing acceleration in > the pace of techno-scientific progress, or any flavour of > Singularity, are certainly a legitimate hope and a distinct > possibility, but in no way a guaranteed outcome, especially with > regard to the issues which are the most relevant for actual people, > namely the "when?" and the "where?". > Well sure. But again how do these "cavemen" develop the proper "political will" to guide and nurture desirable technology? > To opine otherwise involves tranforming transhumanism in a tea club, > gathering people just in order to applaud politely from the side > what is supposed to take place anyway, or in the kind of cults where > no action whatever is prescribed, faith and contemplation being all > they are about. Worse, it risks to induce some transhumanists to > concentrate on a debate with neoluddites on how best to "govern" > what for the better and the worse both sides consider, with a naive > extrapolation of trends actually jeopardised from many angles, as > largely inevitable developments; and desist from any initiative > aimed at actually conquering the destiny envisioned by its leading > thinkers and precursors.>> > Agreed very much that we often engage in pointless debates or assume developments that are not at all inevitable in lieu of doing the required work. - samantha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jonkc at att.net Mon Jan 21 21:50:49 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:50:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind. References: <29666bf30801201019l70d85d3ep9d87a753ce8f5e70@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <28c201c85c77$c1d89780$9aef4d0c@MyComputer> In a very inane article one part struck me as particularly inane even using its own inane standards: "Measurement was now in vogue. Psychologists were busy trying to calculate all sorts of inane things, such as the time it takes for a single sensation to travel from your finger to your head." Oh yes, let's hope those goofy scientists get over that silly fad that it's often a good idea to measure things. In talking about art there are 2 buzz words that, whatever their original meaning, now just mean "it sucks"; the words are "derivative" and "bourgeois". Something similar has happened in the world of science to the word "reductive", it now also means "it sucks" but it means not one thing more. I know this because the article says The Blue Brain Project is an example of science getting away from reductionism, and yet under the old meaning of the word nothing could be more reductive than trying to simulate the brain down to the level of neurons. And if you don't like this post I beg you on bended knee don't say it's derivative or bourgeois or even reductive, just say it sucks. John K Clark From amara at amara.com Mon Jan 21 23:11:39 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:11:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The La Sapienza-Pope-Physicists-Maiani Affair Message-ID: Tommaso Dorigo with the readers of his blog, has been covering the story of the physicists' private-letter-made-public objecting to the Rome La Sapienza rector's invitation to the Pope to speak at the university's inaugural event, the students' sit-in against the Pope's speaking, the Pope's withdrawal of his visit, the Italian politicians' reprisal against one of the letter's signatures: Professor Maiani, to block his CNR presidential candidacy, and words from Prof. Maiani, himself on the whole situation. Whew! The links are here: (some of the comments are useful information too). Storm over Rome: Physicists against Pope Ratzinger http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/storm-over-rome-physicists-against-pope-ratzinger/ Summarized for you: the aborted speech of Pope Ratzinger http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/01/17/summarized-for-you-the-aborted-speech-of-pope-ratzinger/ Ratzinger divides, Maiani unites http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/01/17/ratzinger-divides-maiani-unites/ Maiani speaks on the Ratzinger Affair http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/maiani-speaks-on-the-ratzinger-affair/ Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From lcorbin at rawbw.com Mon Jan 21 23:36:38 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:36:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind References: <29666bf30801201019l70d85d3ep9d87a753ce8f5e70@mail.gmail.com> <023801c85bed$1071a840$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <200801211002.42150.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <025b01c85c86$fc949c70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Bryan writes > Yesterday I mostly completed a system to separate the brain into ten or > fifteen regions, while keeping it alive That's some trick. Very good. Still, I hope that it isn't anyone I know. > as well as providing a conduit for electrical stimulation from one region > to another. Amazing. > The only remaining problem is that of neurochemicals, and I think that can be > solved by some fancy MEMS (which is difficult to come by). Otherwise, > this should lead to opportunities to more progressively study the brain > since it exposes both structure and function into encapsulated units. Indeed, it sure sounds like it. I hope that all the holists are not, ultimately, too disappointed by your work, since it is all too likely to end up with just more linear, western, reductive knowledge that does not really answer the "hard questions" about consciousness, you know, the questions that can not possibly ever have answers. > So there's some good work going on. Just not necessarily in the news. Glad to hear it. (But honestly, I was never in doubt.) Lee From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 21 23:46:25 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:46:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism and Politics In-Reply-To: <580930c20801210401s748eb423hfc0efe9ebf63e8f3@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20801210401s748eb423hfc0efe9ebf63e8f3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60801211546n329a06f1m64d34455ed2cb076@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 21, 2008 7:01 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > 2) It is not reasonable to expect that it be generally accepted that the > amount of currency units an individual or an entity is credited with in the > databases of financial institutions is a universal and "divine" sign > implying an exclusivity (or priority) right in the access to technologies, > so that those not profiting from such advantage should peacefully surrender > to their lot. ### I hope that you are not suggesting that those who are not "credited" may legitimately resort to violence to obtain what they desire? *Peace* is the only right and effective solution. Rafal From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Jan 22 00:02:34 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:02:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind References: <200801211543.m0LFhTtw020771@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <026001c85c8a$853d52d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Spike writes >> Stathis Papaioannou > ... >> >> Lee, could you please reassure the alarmed reader that in >> explaining feelings scientifically you aren't thereby seeking >> to take them away? Stathis Papaioannou > > But Stathis, we DO want to take them away. "Thanks" for letting the cat out of the bag, Spike. Now we'll never hear the end of it. Oh well, I guess it's time to come clean (since *some* people just can't manage to keep their mouths shut). Yes, it's true. Not only are we reductionists seeking to take away the ideas of beauty, aesthetic appreciation, sensual enjoyment and so on, but to forever more expose these as the fallacies that they are. Of course in science, we have no room for feeling, or for "feelings", or anything like that. (See Dawkin's remark about "baby-eating reductionists" in his "The Blind Watchmaker".) Now it's really an exaggeration to say that we eat babies. We might *like* to, but we don't. (It's illegal.) But were we ourselves capable of experiencing pleasure, our chief happiness in life would undoubtedly be depriving everyone else of pleasure. (Actually, we do derive a sort of mean-spirited satisfaction--- that can sometimes come close to pleasure---by bursting the bubbles of the weak-minded who fail to understand that life is meaningless, and that art and music and so on have no real validity.) > That would make us so much easier to simulate. Ever practical! Yes! Long live science and progress, and down with happiness, experience, enjoyment, excitement, satisfaction (mere illusions) ---and all that stuff. Lee > |8-| <---- (me, without feelings) > > spike From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Jan 22 01:16:40 2008 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:46:40 +1030 Subject: [ExI] voting machines again In-Reply-To: <200801200223.m0K2NjDU017811@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200801200223.m0K2NjDU017811@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0801211716l56279257qf5bbf27808500a9b@mail.gmail.com> On 20/01/2008, spike wrote: > And this jewel, which made my day: > > ...voters in the affected precincts used paper ballots and any scrap of > paper available to cast their votes... > > Any scrap of paper? Any scrap of paper, to help determine who will control > a terrifying nuclear arsenal? Any scrap of paper! That's very weird. In Australia, your vote has to be made in a very strict way or it is declared informal (and thus not counted). Because we have compulsory voting, informal votes are a way that people abstain from voting when they don't wish to vote. The other famed method is the Donkey Vote, a random allocation of preferences or else a top-down numbering of the ballot paper. There's a lot of heartache around who appears at the top of ballot papers because of this. Informal voting info from the Australian Electoral Commission website: "A House of Representatives ballot paper is informal if: it is unmarked it has not received the official mark of the presiding officer and is not considered authentic ticks or crosses have been used it has writing on it which identifies the voter a number is repeated the voter's intention is not clear " Australian compulsory voting: http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/compulsoryvote.htm Australian Electoral Commission (heaps of cool stats here, Spike will like this site): http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/ Some stuff about the draw for order of candidates on the ballot paper: http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/draw_for_position_Senate.htm -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 22 02:58:10 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:58:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] voting machines again In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0801211716l56279257qf5bbf27808500a9b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200801220324.m0M3OoCL006017@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Emlyn > Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 5:17 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] voting machines again > > On 20/01/2008, spike wrote: > > And this jewel, which made my day: > > > > ...voters...[used] any scrap > > of paper available to cast their votes... ... > > Any scrap of paper! That's very weird. In Australia, your > vote has to be made in a very strict way or it is declared ... Emlyn Thanks Emlyn. I have made a number of contacts regarding these numbers and learned that the anomalous outcome of the NH primary is not something that we can do much about. One informed source claimed that even if they messed with the machines in NH, there was not necessarily any law broken. With this I disagree, for this notion must surely be wrong. But what do I know? I have thought of several of explanations for why the vote came out Hillaryward of the exit polls. The most popular one is that many people are closet racists (which will soon be proven or otherwise). But there are plenty of other explanations. The motive of voters to lie to exit pollsters is difficult to understand, but consider that pollsters can also lie about what they were told. They can interpret wishy-washy answers as Obamaward for instance. The fact that the votes appear swapped can be explained without conspiracy as well. Imagine people voted 8% to the right of the exit polls. Then if the leftward guy was leading by 4% going in, then he would lose by 4% and it would appear the votes were switched. It doesn't require a double coincidence, but rather only one. I have not been able to imagine a reason why the hand counted polls disagreed with the machine counts however. That one is still most mysterious to me. But plenty of people have looked at the machines in the past week, and not found a problem. So I am watching closely, as are many others. The upcoming election will surely be unique in many ways. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Jan 22 04:26:55 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:26:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind In-Reply-To: <026001c85c8a$853d52d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <200801211543.m0LFhTtw020771@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <026001c85c8a$853d52d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <62c14240801212026kdf8615dycfc7a24186a4c4e@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 21, 2008 7:02 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > (Actually, we do derive a sort of mean-spirited satisfaction--- > that can sometimes come close to pleasure---by bursting the > bubbles of the weak-minded who fail to understand that life > is meaningless, and that art and music and so on have no real > validity.) Just because you aren't able to find signal among the noise doesn't imply there is no meaning. No objective meaning; perhaps. No relative/subjective meaning; I disagree. As for how one begins to measure subjective meaning; ineffable. (so 'F'-it, right?) From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jan 22 04:41:49 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:41:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind In-Reply-To: <62c14240801212026kdf8615dycfc7a24186a4c4e@mail.gmail.com> References: <200801211543.m0LFhTtw020771@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <026001c85c8a$853d52d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <62c14240801212026kdf8615dycfc7a24186a4c4e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080121224056.021d8f00@satx.rr.com> At 11:26 PM 1/21/2008 -0500, Mike Dougherty wrote: >Just because you aren't able to find signal among the noise doesn't >imply there is no meaning. Looks as if you missed the signal in Lee's artfully sardonic post, which means you missed the meaning as well. Damien Broderick From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Jan 22 05:08:35 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:08:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind References: <200801211543.m0LFhTtw020771@andromeda.ziaspace.com><026001c85c8a$853d52d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><62c14240801212026kdf8615dycfc7a24186a4c4e@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080121224056.021d8f00@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <027101c85cb5$48906e00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> >>Just because you aren't able to find signal among the noise doesn't >>imply there is no meaning. > > Looks as if you missed the signal in Lee's artfully sardonic post, > which means you missed the meaning as well. Yes. :-) I rather meant for phrases such as Now it's really an exaggeration to say that we eat babies. We might *like* to, but we don't. (It's illegal.) and But were we ourselves capable of experiencing pleasure, our chief happiness in life would undoubtedly be depriving everyone else of pleasure. to give it away. But perhaps there is a message in that my totally outrageous remarks were believeable... :-( Lee From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 22 05:43:45 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:43:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind In-Reply-To: <027101c85cb5$48906e00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200801220543.m0M5hiJB014419@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Lee Corbin > > > > Looks as if you missed the signal in Lee's artfully sardonic post, > > which means you missed the meaning as well... Damien ... > > But were we ourselves capable of experiencing > pleasure, our chief happiness in life would undoubtedly > be depriving everyone else of pleasure...Lee Lee, I thought it hilarious, but of course I have a weird sense of humor. {8^D spike From kevin at kevinfreels.com Tue Jan 22 06:49:59 2008 From: kevin at kevinfreels.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:49:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080116180531.022e5b18@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080116180531.022e5b18@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <47959217.9080302@kevinfreels.com> > > Oh? He wrote: > > "It's important to point out (on my understanding of what Lee is > saying) that the worlds don't actually halve, double or undergo any > other special process at all when the "split" occurs. Say there are > two identical versions of you, A and B, contemplating a quantum coin > toss. Because A and B are identical, there is no way for you to say > that you are one or the other. After the coin toss, A sees heads and B > sees tails." > And how about C - who has the coin that lands on its side and rolls off into the distance? > So even before the quatum toss, there are already two separate > instantiations of you, eh? This will not bother Stathis, who (I > gather) doesn't see any problem with starting out with infinite > variations that just get infiniter. But it disagrees with most of > what I've read about MW, such as Michael Price's FAQ: > "Infiniter" - You should add that to the urban dictionary. lol > measurement-like interaction (See > "What is a > measurement?") as having previous existed distinctly and merely > differentiated, rather than the interaction as having split one world > into many? This is definitely not permissible in many-worlds or any > theory of quantum theory consistent with experiment. > > > > I have a question that may seem odd. Given how this works, if I were to throw a tennis ball at a brick wall, there is an extremely small possibility that the ball would pass through the wall. OK - not just extremely small, but extraordinarily small. Each particle in the ball would have to have the odds line up in favor of this on the same throw, but it's still more likely than impossible. So is another world created where the ball actually passes through? Another. Fingerprints are random. So is there a "me" born with every possible pattern? This may have already been answered or may be silly questions, but I haven't put as much study into "many worlds" as I would like since I have other topics that interest me more - you know - like problems I can actually solve..... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin at kevinfreels.com Tue Jan 22 06:40:29 2008 From: kevin at kevinfreels.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:40:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] A Simulation Argument In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080117110724.02210380@satx.rr.com> References: <579097.78176.qm@web52704.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080117110724.02210380@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <47958FDD.9030908@kevinfreels.com> You had way too much fun writing this. Damien Broderick wrote: > At 08:12 AM 1/17/2008 -0800, Ian wrote: > > >> Let's look at a real tower-of-turtles problem. If I >> posit (the 'God' theory) that 'Something created >> everything that exists, and x created the universe', >> I've paradoxically placed x (at the level above) in >> the set of things necessarily created calling for >> something at a still higher level to have created x. >> 'So then who created God?' Now that's a genuine >> tower-of-turtles problem >> > > No it's not. In the usual metaphysical analysis, the question and > answer go like this: We can see that everything in the world is > transient, contingent, causally dependant on prior states that were > or are themselves transient, contingent, causally dependant on prior > states. This can't be tracked back to infinity, because things are > running down. Some other class of explanation for a universe of > contingent existents is needed--and that suggests a realm of Being > that is categorically *unlike* the world we see and subsist in. That > Being must be necessary of itself. > > The subsequent steps that attribute purpose, timelessness, ubiquity, > information processing, personhood, love, etc, to this disjunct state > of being can easily be questioned (especially if those attributions > appear to derive from states of being that are temporally sequential, > spatially partitioned, etc). But it's simply missing the point to > ask: Well, then, nyah nyah, *what created the uncreated*? > > The way to get rid of an ontically necessary deity is to show how the > universe, surprisingly, *does at its root embody these > characteristics* and can be at once self-subsistent, entropic and > evolving. The temptation in trying to meet this challenge is exactly > to posit one kind of contingent turtle tower or another. > > Damien Broderick > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Jan 22 10:02:42 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:02:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Many Worlds (was: A Simulation Argument) References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080112203500.02415d90@satx.rr.com> <18693.59044.qm@web60222.mail.yahoo.com> <014701c857f3$3ffe02a0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <017001c8589b$2556cd80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080116180531.022e5b18@satx.rr.com> <47959217.9080302@kevinfreels.com> Message-ID: <028d01c85cde$0b8ca180$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Kevin writes > > It's important to point out that the worlds don't actually halve, > > double or undergo any other special process at all when the > > "split" occurs. Say there are two identical versions of you, > > A and B, contemplating a quantum coin toss. Because A and > > B are identical, there is no way for you to say that you are one > > or the other. After the coin toss, A sees heads and B sees tails." > > And how about C - who has the coin that lands on its side and rolls > off into the distance? A tiny part of the continuous stream becomes the world in which this too happened. > > > measurement-like interaction (See > > > as having previous existed distinctly and merely differentiated, That's sort of how several of us see it. > > rather than the interaction as having split one world > > into many? That's the same thing, if the measure-sum of the many equals the measure of the original unsplit world. > I have a question that may seem odd. Given how this works, > if I were to throw a tennis ball at a brick wall, there is an > extremely small possibility that the ball would pass through > the wall. OK - not just extremely small, but extraordinarily > small. Each particle in the ball would have to have the odds > line up in favor of this on the same throw, but it's still more > likely than impossible. So is another world created where > the ball actually passes through? Yes, on the reading that several of us here endorse, there is a world in which this unlikely event happened also. We see, though, how tricky are all the words "split" "create" and so on. So let's rehearse the river analogy again. When the Mississippi "splits" at the delta, is a given small branch "created"? Or should we say that the water-stream that constitutes it already previously existed (upstream) but merely became distinguished? While the words may not suit us well, I believe the idea to be internally consistent, and even easily visualizable. The analogy works even further: it might be tempting to say that the "new" little delta branch should be regarded as infinitely many worlds itself, since there may be no limit to how much further branching may take place (at least down to the level of a single stream of atoms, I suppose). But it is better to think of this branch as just a single thing, since if we want to think of it as composed of infinitely many sub-branches, they're all identical so who cares? > Another. Fingerprints are random. So is there a "me" born > with every possible pattern? Sure. On Everett's account, universes are cheap. It's axioms that are dear. > This may have already been answered or may be silly questions, > but I haven't put as much study into "many worlds" as I would > like since I have other topics that interest me more - you know - > like problems I can actually solve..... I'm feeling more and more like that every day. Lee From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jan 22 11:13:55 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:13:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism and Politics In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20801210401s748eb423hfc0efe9ebf63e8f3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20801220313u23a552c1h4dfbf622cb1dac1@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 21, 2008 7:26 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > 2) It is not reasonable to expect that it be generally accepted that the > amount of currency units an individual or an entity is credited with in the > databases of financial institutions is a universal and "divine" sign > implying an exclusivity (or priority) right in the access to technologies, > so that those not profiting from such advantage should peacefully surrender > to their lot. > > If we assume that at least some technologies are at least in their beginning > relatively scarce and expensive then what means other than money do you > propose to use to determine who can gain access to these technologies? My statement simply concerns the fact that somebody who is faced with an existential risk is usually willing to do absolutely anything in his power to survive. This concern individuals as well as countries or other communities. We already know for instance what African countries think of the choice between breaching time-honoured intellectual property principles such as international protection of phamaceutical patents and doing what they can to alleviate HIV-related medical emergencies. It is anybody's guess what would happen if somebody came up with a radical longevist technology, and tried to maintain exclusivity on it. In another sense, and speaking of weapons of mass destruction, I expect any country that feels rightly or wrongly threatened by them to be inclined to build effective defences or at least deterrence as much as it can, irrespective of any "regulation" to the contrary. And I think we should not expect local transhumanists (or, for that matter, transhumanists belonging to excluded classes and groups in rich countries) to resist any of that in the name of some legal formalism or other. I think realism, in a marxist sense, is in order about all that. >> 3) Fundamental research and its technological and educational >> infrastructure are essential for our future. More importantly, to the kind >> of future we would like to live in, and to the values we promote. Now, the >> investments required by fundamental research cannot be adequately sustained >> by the mere funds possibly devoted to it by business organisations. In fact, >> it is disputable that the market can sustain breakthrough-oriented, >> high-risk, long-term research at all, let alone research the returns of >> which appear to be radically unpredictable. > > Besides business organization and governments using tax revenues for such > purposes there are also various voluntary associations of individual and > organizations pooling funds and resources toward particular desired goals. Absolutely. And this is why I chose to formulate this point in a negative sense, rather than merely affirming the need for governmental intervention or public demand. Whenever an Open Source-like approach can demonstrably work, I am just the happier with that. Actually, besides transhumanism, Open Source advocacy is my other main "political" engagement. Let me however vent my skepticism on the chance that things such as the Apollo Project, the Manhattan Project, the Human Genome Project, ITER or the Large Hadron Collider could ever be implemented under such model. >> 4) No compromises are really acceptable with regard to freedom of research >> and to the freedom of biological and reproductive self-determination, >> especially in view of ideas aimed at the globalisation of absolute and >> universal values of a more or less overtly metaphysical foundation. >> What does this "compromise" or "no comprise" consist of? To give you an example, you might refer to the Italian law under which IFV is allowed but only if no more than three embryos are generated at a time, and the mother is at least theoretically bound to accept implantation of embryos screened by PDG. >> 5) Technological developments cannot, and above all should not, be taken >> for granted. Specific technological achievements can never be presumed to >> self-produce irrespective of the legal framework, societal investments, and >> dominant cultural values, and are rather to be considered as the goal of a >> deliberate, political will able to establish the pre-requisites for their >> flourishing. > > Advances are usually anticipated by the relative few. So is this political > will somehow directed by the few in these matters or is it expected to > somehow spontaneously arise and be well founded in the majority? What I am merely saying here is that technologies do not get developed by themselves. They require well-educated, highly-motivated, well-paid (both in monetary and social-status terms), free-to-act, inventors, researchers, scholars, visionaries, entrepreneurs who do their damnedest to deliver in this respect, and see that as a priority. Such conditions in the first place should not be taken for granted. On the contrary, many in Western Europe seem to believe nowadays that a society can live and flourish that includes only managers, bankers, share brokers, plus perhaps their fashion and hair stylists. >> Discussions on what to do best with future technologies and and how to >> "regulate" them are fine, but often sound too much like the proverbial >> cavemen fighting over the spoils of a mammuth they have not taken down yet >> in the first place. A continuing acceleration in the pace of >> techno-scientific progress, or any flavour of Singularity, are certainly a >> legitimate hope and a distinct possibility, but in no way a guaranteed >> outcome, especially with regard to the issues which are the most relevant >> for actual people, namely the "when?" and the "where?". > Well sure. But again how do these "cavemen" develop the proper "political > will" to guide and nurture desirable technology? What I am saying is simply that unless technological progress is promoted and sustained, discussions on guidance of what it could deliver... if it ever existed are more or less of the same relevance of that on the number of angels sitting on a pin... The second discussion should never go without the first, IMHO. Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jan 22 12:15:24 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:15:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Transhumanism and Politics In-Reply-To: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD2803906A51FDF@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> References: <580930c20801210401s748eb423hfc0efe9ebf63e8f3@mail.gmail.com> <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD2803906A51FDF@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> Message-ID: <580930c20801220415p20baedd9vc81edf06452d639e@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 21, 2008 4:19 PM, Hughes, James J. wrote: > Thanks very much for this very clear statement. I've rephrased them > below. Thank you for your interest and attention. Why, I am fully aware that my English here (and perhaps in general) is a little, how can I say?, flowery, or rather convoluted, but at least some of that has to do with an effort to reflect accurately what I actually think. I would accordingly qualify a little your re-phrasing, if I may. > 1) The struggle for access to technologies cannot be ignored on the > assumption that universal abundance or the Singularity will make such > concerns irrelevant. This is pretty OK. The stress is however on the fact that differences in the access to technologies already exist and are likely to continue existing, and the more crucial they are, the more people will be willing to struggle for their access thereto. > 2) Access to enabling technologies should be defined as a right of the > person, as opposed to simply a market commodity. Nothing could be furthest from my mind. I never use the word "right" unless in the sense of an actionable demand in the framework of a specific, positive legal system. My point here is simply that *no universal consensus is ever going to be reached on the recognition of wealth as the standard to decide who should have access (or have access first)*. In other terms, the Market is not an impersonal, objective solution capable to negate point 1). Starting from that, opinions may vary, and for sure will. Some may prefer a strictly egualitarian (or random) approach, others may favour taking into account different parameters, others again may believe that some kind or other of individual or collective pseudo-darwinism can legimately come into play. > 3) We must advocate for and defend financial support for the basic > technological and educational infrastructure essential for our future. Yes. And/or public (as opposed to merely publicly-funded) projects. And/or community, non-profit efforts. > 4) The rights to freedom of research, and to control our bodies and > reproduction, are absolute and cannot be constrained by other rights and > regulatory concerns. I may sound too "libertarian" here (actually, more in your rephrasing than in my own words: I do not oppose self-regulation of anything in principle, even though I may oppose many actual regulatory decisions), but what I am mostly concerned with this respect are collective choices, and attempts at international enforcements of rules against, say, human cloning. In any event, you must be aware that there is a debate right now in Italy where some fully-secular, influential intellectuals have proposed a general moratorium on abortion "as long as it will take to clarify better when an embryo become vital or develop feelings or something". Contrary to the opinions of some, I do not really think that transhumanists should even start to take into consideration a "dialogue" on such ideas. > 5) Technological progress cannot, and above all should not, be taken for > granted. Co