From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 00:28:54 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:28:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802291828.55039.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 29 February 2008, estropico wrote: > Italy (like any other country) is unique. Part of its "uniqueness" is > the presence of the Vatican and the power of catholic institutions. What power? Money? They certainly don't have supercomputers, they don't have massive research institutions, they don't have neurofarms, the only power they have is lots of listeners and a widely distributed mental program. What does this power have to do with transhumanism? > Is this an obstacle to the transhumanist project? Often it is > (embryonic stem cells), sometimes it isn't (genetically modified > crops). So, which is the best approach? I don't claim to know, but I The religious institutions are not doing ES cell nor GMO research. > see that all mainstream parties, on both the left and right, are > always very cautious not to upset the "catholic vote", and I see that > the most anti-catholic (in the political sense) parties are the small An unfortunate distinction to make ... has little relevance to the research and technology issues, except perhaps funding cost, but we're increasingly able to do research without financial cost (more "DIY"). > ones. I also see that Italians have a healty tendency to take the > Vatican's pronouncements with a pinch of salt. How else to explain > Italy's birthrates (among the lowest in the world), given the Vatican > stance on contraception? Am I the only one to think that twenty years > from now Italians will take the same pragmatic approach to > life-extension therapies? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 00:31:51 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:31:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <580930c20802291055s1d21fdc0x28f2bce338c2493d@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20802291055s1d21fdc0x28f2bce338c2493d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802291831.52012.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 29 February 2008, Stefano Vaj wrote: > According to various interesting polls, I believe it fair to say that > the country the most transhumanist by far in terms of popular > mentality is without any doubt India. I wonder if Ramanujan would have counted as a transhumanist. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 1 00:34:30 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:34:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200802291828.55039.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200802291828.55039.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080229183221.0238eb28@satx.rr.com> At 06:28 PM 2/29/2008 -0600, Bryan Bishop wrote: >[estropico wrote:] > > Italy (like any other country) is unique. Part of its "uniqueness" is > > the presence of the Vatican and the power of catholic institutions. > >What power? Money? They certainly don't have supercomputers, they don't >have massive research institutions, they don't have neurofarms, the >only power they have is lots of listeners and a widely distributed >mental program. What does this power have to do with transhumanism? Uh oh. Have you never heard of Stalin's famous contemptuous taunt: "How many divisions does the Pope have?" Damien Broderick From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 00:49:04 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:49:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080229183221.0238eb28@satx.rr.com> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200802291828.55039.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080229183221.0238eb28@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200802291849.04618.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 29 February 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > >What power? Money? They certainly don't have supercomputers, they > > don't have massive research institutions, they don't have > > neurofarms, the only power they have is lots of listeners and a > > widely distributed mental program. What does this power have to do > > with transhumanism? > > Uh oh. Have you never heard of Stalin's famous contemptuous taunt: > "How many divisions does the Pope have?" No, I hadn't, but what difference does it make how many the Pope has? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 00:54:16 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:54:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Bio, News] Alnylam says it has acheived RNAi first In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200802291854.16675.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 29 February 2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > Alnylam is seeking to develop novel technologies based on RNA > interference, or RNAi, a naturally occurring mechanism within cells > for selectively silencing and regulating specific genes; because many > diseases are caused by the inappropriate activity of specific cells, > the ability to silence genes selectively through RNAi is thought to > have great potential. http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/ejb/v6n1/a01.pdf http://idi.harvard.edu/pdfs/cbrbreakthrough_dec2006.pdf http://www.dharmacon.com/docs/siRNA%20Reading%20List_083105.pdf http://www.biochemsoctrans.org/bst/032/0952/0320952.pdf http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/36777/frontmatter/9780521836777_frontmatter.pdf - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Sat Mar 1 04:31:44 2008 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:31:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200802291828.55039.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <625860.90409.qm@web30403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Bishop wrote: On Friday 29 February 2008, estropico wrote: >>Italy (like any other country) is unique. Part of >>its "uniqueness" is the presence of the Vatican and >>the power of catholic institutions. >What power? Money? They certainly don't have >supercomputers, they don't have massive research >institutions, they don't have neurofarms, the only >power they have is lots of listeners and a widely >distributed mental program. What does this power >have to do with transhumanism? What power do they have? The power to influence many people as much as any religion, race and/or language. Funny thing is that is any organization that wants to become a "fundamental" recognition has to understand that there will be followers and to understand the general thinking of others. This is so important it's beyond belief. You don't make a movement without a great cause. Whether the Vatican is involved or not should not be an issue. People lead not religion. Just an opinion Anna Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail. Click on Options in Mail and switch to New Mail today or register for free at http://mail.yahoo.ca From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 04:44:34 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:44:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <625860.90409.qm@web30403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <625860.90409.qm@web30403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200802292244.34178.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 29 February 2008, Anna Taylor wrote: > What power do they have? ?The power to influence many > people as much as any religion, race and/or language. The unspoken portion here is probably "and they will want to stop us." Really? They haven't been stopping us yet, and we've been freezing people, doing brain-computer interfaces, making rockets, experimenting in nanotech, stem cells, etc. No matter how much they want it to not be true that stem cells don't exist, they in fact do exist, for example. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Sat Mar 1 05:07:51 2008 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:07:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200802292244.34178.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <746181.66790.qm@web30408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Bishop wrote: >The unspoken portion here is probably "and they will >want to stop us." Really? They haven't been stopping >us yet, and we've been freezing people, doing brain->computer interfaces, making rockets, experimenting >in nanotech, stem cells, etc. No matter how much >they want it to not be true that stem cells don't >exist, they in fact do exist, for example. My computer broke down the other day. I was petrified. What to do without my computer? I went to see the tech guy...I got a diagnostic..didn't tell me much...but poof my computer started working again. I don't know why. The point of the story is that technology is the wave of the future and i'm sure that many knowledgeable, intelligent, smart, and /or creative people are paying attention, it doesn't take a religion to confirm it and it doesn't take a an Atheist to believe it. Anna:) Get a sneak peak at messages with a handy reading pane with All new Yahoo! Mail: http://ca.promos.yahoo.com/newmail/overview2/ From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 05:50:20 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:50:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <746181.66790.qm@web30408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <746181.66790.qm@web30408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200802292350.20093.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 29 February 2008, Anna Taylor wrote: > My computer broke down the other day. ?I was > petrified. ?What to do without my computer? I went to > see the tech guy...I got a diagnostic..didn't tell me > much...but poof my computer started working again. ?I > don't know why. ?The point of the story is that > technology is the wave of the future and i'm sure that > many knowledgeable, intelligent, smart, and /or > creative people are paying attention, it doesn't take > a religion to confirm it and it doesn't take a an > Atheist to believe it. I can relate to that story, but I wonder what reading it must be like to those who just don't understand the feeling of anxiety that occurs when you start realizing your dx is way too low. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Sat Mar 1 07:11:15 2008 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 02:11:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200802292350.20093.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> My apology Bryan. I thought I was writing for those that correctly understood my point of view. I'm on the Extropy List..I felt free to give my opinion. I've been here for at least (very minimum) 2 years, I apologize if I offended anybody. I didn't mean to confuse anybody. PS. I still don't understand what DX means? Anna:) --- Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Friday 29 February 2008, Anna Taylor wrote: > > My computer broke down the other day. ?I was > > petrified. ?What to do without my computer? I went > to > > see the tech guy...I got a diagnostic..didn't tell > me > > much...but poof my computer started working again. > ?I > > don't know why. ?The point of the story is that > > technology is the wave of the future and i'm sure > that > > many knowledgeable, intelligent, smart, and /or > > creative people are paying attention, it doesn't > take > > a religion to confirm it and it doesn't take a an > > Atheist to believe it. > > I can relate to that story, but I wonder what > reading it must be like to > those who just don't understand the feeling of > anxiety that occurs when > you start realizing your dx is way too low. > > - Bryan > ________________________________________ > Bryan Bishop > http://heybryan.org/ > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail. Click on Options in Mail and switch to New Mail today or register for free at http://mail.yahoo.ca From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 09:36:54 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 20:36:54 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Mindless Thought Experiments In-Reply-To: <005001c87afa$52c1bba0$45ef4d0c@MyComputer> References: <200802281006.02410.kanzure@gmail.com> <005201c87a8f$e9ea7d70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <402e01e70802290723id16c225r11d0052ecef7ec91@mail.gmail.com> <005001c87afa$52c1bba0$45ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On 01/03/2008, John K Clark wrote: > Somewhere in the universe there may be a language where this Email, > without changing a single character, expresses in perfect grammar the > instructions on how to operate a new type of can opener; but as neither > of us knows that language there is little danger of this conversation > being diverted into a discussion of can opener technology. It is true that this email provides can opener instructions in some possible language, but it is true only in a trivial sense. This is because the instructions are only useful if you know the language, and you can't "deduce" the language from random data unless you know what it says in the first place. Similarly, a random physical system such as atoms jostling each other in a gas might correspond to a member of the set of all possible computers simulating a can opener, but this is only useful if there is a means of decoding it: some sort of I/O device is needed, which would require a conventional computation containing at least all the information in the putative simulation to "reverse engineer". Now, what if the obscured computation at issue simulates an inputless virtual environment with conscious inhabitants? We on the outside once again will not be able to understand it or interact with it unless we do the whole computation from scratch using a conventional computer. But this should make no difference to the conscious inhabitants: they remain conscious, isolated in their virtual world. For all we know, we could be living in such a simulation, with no possibility of communication with the world "outside" our universe. -- Stathis Papaioannou From scerir at libero.it Sat Mar 1 10:23:57 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 11:23:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200802291828.55039.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <000301c87b86$5db18bd0$de921f97@archimede> estropico wrote: > > Italy (like any other country) is unique. Part of its "uniqueness" is > > the presence of the Vatican and the power of catholic institutions. Bryan wrote: > What power? Money? They certainly don't have supercomputers, they don't > have massive research institutions, they don't have neurofarms, the > only power they have is lots of listeners and a widely distributed > mental program. What does this power have to do with transhumanism? An important connection, in the past, between the Vatican and a 'sort' of transhumanism, was the 'monitum' you can read in the following page http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/dechardin.txt A famous dictum says that the opposite of a profound belief may well be another profound belief. I tend to agree, with Fabio, in that the fight 'transhumanism vs. church' is not on the top of the reasonable priorities. As Amara wrote, in another thread, 67 physicists of Rome university 'La Sapienza' (and among them the Dirac medalist Parisi) wrote a letter about and against the Pope giving a speech in that university. Unfortunately the papers published that letter. The Pope did not go there. Popularity of prof. Ratzinger reached the top. s. From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 10:49:22 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 21:49:22 +1100 Subject: [ExI] The subjectivity of entropy, the role of the observer...==> Rational metaethics In-Reply-To: <402e01e70802290723id16c225r11d0052ecef7ec91@mail.gmail.com> References: <200802281006.02410.kanzure@gmail.com> <005201c87a8f$e9ea7d70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <402e01e70802290723id16c225r11d0052ecef7ec91@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 01/03/2008, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote: > If you know the positions and speeds of all the elements in a system, > their motion stops looking like heat, and starts looking like a > spinning flywheel - usable kinetic energy that can be extracted right > out. What if all the atoms in a monoatomic gas started vibrating in the same axis? -- Stathis Papaioannou From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 12:05:45 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 06:05:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200803010605.45311.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Anna Taylor wrote: > My apology Bryan. ?I thought I was writing for those > that correctly understood my point of view. ?I'm on > the Extropy List..I felt free to give my opinion. ? > I've been here for at least (very minimum) 2 years, I > apologize if I offended anybody. ?I didn't mean to > confuse anybody. Huh? I thought we were in agreement? > PS. I still don't understand what DX means? The token 'dx' refers to a differential, or rate of change. It's basically the limit of the distance between the two points of a secant line as it becomes a tangent line wrt another curve. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From pharos at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 13:37:01 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 13:37:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200803010605.45311.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200803010605.45311.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > The token 'dx' refers to a differential, or rate of change. It's > basically the limit of the distance between the two points of a secant > line as it becomes a tangent line wrt another curve. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiation > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate > Well, certainly that's one meaning. :) See: I count 16 meanings for dx. Your usage is grouped at the end, under 'Other'. As readers cannot read minds, cryptic comments in emails are often difficult to decode for readers who are not familiar with the writer's normal usage. Viz. Damien's reference to hungry dieties. ;) BillK From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 15:30:17 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 08:30:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <580930c20802291354k1c616efdn3402af387fe07cfd@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <000701c87ac2$c6cb1060$36961f97@archimede> <2d6187670802290648w6c218fbfxb4c267e918ae2dbd@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20802291055s1d21fdc0x28f2bce338c2493d@mail.gmail.com> <2d6187670802291117l1a55addejd6e2043eb323e78e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20802291354k1c616efdn3402af387fe07cfd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803010730h43e12b1do9b0970c2ba2e2dbf@mail.gmail.com> Stefano Vaj wrote: Besides anedoctical evidence or personal inferences, and speaking of statistics, for instance, already in 1993, an international poll conducted by Daryl Macer, manager in Japan of the Eubios Ethics Institute, verified that the percentage of the general population in favour of the general availability of genetic engineering technology aimed at both preventing diseases and increasing physical and mental abilities inherited by their offspring ranged, if I am not mistaken, from 22% in Israel to 43% in the US to *83%* (!) in India. >>> I am mytified by the low numbers for Israel. I realize they have a vocal conservative population among them (as the U.S. does) but I thought on the whole it was a very technologically progressive nation. In fact, I've heard many anecdotes about how the typical Israeli is "adrift in a sea of modernity" and definitely not religiously devout. My take on Judaism (even the more orthodox and conservative forms) was that they would be much more open to "radical" biotech, etc. as compared to conservative American Evangelicals. Does anyone here know more about this matter? I considered the combination of a highly educated citizenry, the constant need to keep their already very high-tech economy competitive, the story of having been so unloved by God that they have no confirmed oil reserves on their land (as Golda Meir would joke!), and being a sliver of a country surrounded by potential enemies (and so advanced technology is key to defeating their numbers), that they would have a much more positive view of genetic engineering. I'd like to see a new poll taken to find out if the 22% positive rating has gone up significantly (since it was taken wayyyy back in 1993!, lol). And I want to have the reasons for/against also nailed down in this poll. I have a feeling that the political, military and business leaders of Israel will one way or another get the nation to invest heavily in genetic engineering so they can reap the full benefits as the technology matures. And the parents there will want their kids to have every competitive advantage available (when the gene tweaking to make humans smarter, healthier, longer lived, etc. becomes available) so the odds of personal success will be in their offspring's favor. It's hard for me to do, but I will leave out the Jewish mother jokes. : ) John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 1 16:28:02 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:28:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] gravity glitches Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080301102523.021cce40@satx.rr.com> sample: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 1 16:58:06 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:58:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200803010605.45311.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080301105414.02296e88@satx.rr.com> At 01:37 PM 3/1/2008 +0000, BillK wrote: >As readers cannot read minds, cryptic comments in emails are often >difficult to decode for readers who are not familiar with the writer's >normal usage. > >Viz. Damien's reference to hungry dieties. ;) I know, mea culpa. You start playing around with bad puns on misspelled deities and diets, and it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Damien Broderick From jef at jefallbright.net Sat Mar 1 17:35:26 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 09:35:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080301105414.02296e88@satx.rr.com> References: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200803010605.45311.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080301105414.02296e88@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 8:58 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > I know, mea culpa. You start playing around with bad puns on > misspelled deities and diets, and it's all fun and games until > someone loses an eye. Wasn't lost; merely misplaced - Jef From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 1 17:46:51 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 09:46:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mindless Thought Experiments References: <200802281006.02410.kanzure@gmail.com><005201c87a8f$e9ea7d70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><402e01e70802290723id16c225r11d0052ecef7ec91@mail.gmail.com> <005001c87afa$52c1bba0$45ef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <011001c87bc4$d06c3ce0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> John Clark writes > About a week ago I sent the following to Jaron Lanier, I did not receive a > reply: > > ========= > > I read your article "Mindless Thought Experiments" at: > http://www.jaronlanier.com/aichapter.html > > I have a few comments. > ... >> so is the rainstorm conscious? We have hashed that out so many times years and so many years ago. I suppose I'm proud to have been on the cutting edge so very long ago. Jason's comments and questions are really very, very old stuff here. As far as I know, the Extropian list, and then later Wei Dai's list and SL4, were the first forums in which all this was debated at length and at a very high level. >> AI proponents usually seize on some specific stage >> in my reducto [sic] ad absurdum to locate the point >> where I've gone too far. Yeah, right. "His" reductio. (Does he use a spell-checker for his published articles?) He's just now getting around to reading Moravec? Well, perhaps not, I don't know. But it sounds that way. > I believe if you're going to attempt a reducto ad absurdum proof care must > be taken to ensure that your conclusion is contradictory and not just odd. > Einstein also came up with a thought experiment, he thought it proved that > Quantum Mechanics must be wrong because otherwise things would be odd; > not illogical, not contradictory, just odd. In the last few years this > thought experiment (Bell's Inequality) was actually performed and now we > know that things are indeed odd. Well put. Now, of course, this is not to mean to say that all these very complex questions have been totally resolved. They haven't, and they won't be for a long time. Someday, even if it were thousands of years from now, barring catastrophe or collapse, uploaded entities who run however many copies of themselves whenever they want, and who have long ago left biological substrates, will no doubt consider these questions resolved. Meanwhile, what we have done is to practice thinking about what their answers will be. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 1 18:03:52 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 10:03:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ramanujan References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com><580930c20802291055s1d21fdc0x28f2bce338c2493d@mail.gmail.com> <200802291831.52012.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <012201c87bc6$ebd38c70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> > I wonder if Ramanujan would have counted as a transhumanist. Oh, certainly not. Now wikipedia says http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan > Ramanujan's first Indian biographers describe him as rigorously orthodox. > Ramanujancredited his acumen to his family goddess, Namagiri, and looked > to her for inspiration in his work.[77] He often said, "An equation for me has > no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God."[78] [79] > G. H. Hardy cites Ramanujan as remarking that all religions seemed equally true > to him. Hardy further argued that Ramanujan's religiousness had been overstated > -- in the point of belief, not practice -- by his Indian biographers, and romanticised > by Westerners. At the same time, he remarked on Ramanujan's strict observance > of vegetarianism. Nonetheless, from reading Robert Kanigel's "The Man Who Knew Infinity" ---the best single biography I ever read---I think that Hardy was understating Ramanujan's religious beliefs, attitudes, and practices. Anyway, in my opinion, there is absolutely no correlation between mathematical genius and a tendency towards transhumanist beliefs. Or sensible philosophic beliefs at all. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 1 18:21:07 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 10:21:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] "Deities" and "Patents" References: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com><200803010605.45311.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080301105414.02296e88@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <012e01c87bc9$08fb0290$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Damien writes > > Are the dieties of India "jealous gods?" > > Mostly jealous of each other's chow; they are certainly *hungry* > gods, those dieties. :-) Okay, we do know your posts should be read for such fun. But it would be nice if just in the subject line folks could be more careful. We've now had a very long thread on "Pattents". And, alas, one started on "Dieties", which did merit your witty scorn. I'm sure that many, many people noticed "Pattents" is misspelled. Why didn't even one of them correct it? Lee From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 1 18:19:36 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:19:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] i before e, except after god In-Reply-To: References: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200803010605.45311.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080301105414.02296e88@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080301121205.024348c8@satx.rr.com> At 09:35 AM 3/1/2008 -0800, Jef wrote: > > I know, mea culpa. You start playing around with bad puns on > > misspelled deities and diets, and it's all fun and games until > > someone loses an eye. > >Wasn't lost; merely misplaced Yeah, had been going to say that, after an i.e., but just knew in me old bones that it would cause even more vexing confusion. A pun might be the shortest distance between two straight-lines, but it helps to have a laugh track of applauding old Monty Python ladies cued up, and I'm fresh out of them. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 1 18:30:20 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:30:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "Deities" and "Patents" In-Reply-To: <012e01c87bc9$08fb0290$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200803010605.45311.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080301105414.02296e88@satx.rr.com> <012e01c87bc9$08fb0290$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080301122811.024bcc18@satx.rr.com> At 10:21 AM 3/1/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: >I'm sure that many, many people noticed "Pattents" is >misspelled. Why didn't even one of them correct it? Doesn't that mess up the threading? And to change it to "Patents (was: Pattents)", which I gather does retain the thread, might look insulting, perhaps? That's my excuse, anyway. Damien Broderick From estropico at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 18:48:54 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 18:48:54 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803011048k62f8955axaad7f6ed7a96d79a@mail.gmail.com> > From: "Stefano Vaj" > > ...be the Nouvelle Droite > fascist or not, if I were a "representative" of the same... You might want to update your book's website, then: "responsabile italiano del S?cretariat Etudes et Recherches del Groupement de Recherche et Etudes pour la Civilisation Europ?enne (GRECE)": http://www.biopolitica.it/biop-autore.html On the "fascist or not" and its relationship with GRECE: Wikipedia on the "New Right" (Nouvelle Droite): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouvelle_Droite Wikipedia on GRECE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRECE Cheers, Fabio From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br Sat Mar 1 18:35:15 2008 From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 15:35:15 -0300 (ART) Subject: [ExI] Fruits In-Reply-To: <012e01c87bc9$08fb0290$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <441364.70280.qm@web50611.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Some time ago, I've seen an article at www.fantastic-voyage.net about scientists discovering why exactly fruits is good for health, i believe it was chinese or taiwan scientists... but I cant find the article anymore, I searched the archives, the internet archive, google.. to no avail.. could someone please help find it? Mark. Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o ?nico sem limite de espa?o para armazenamento! http://br.mail.yahoo.com/ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 1 19:19:00 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 11:19:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: <014c01c87bd1$bf8b7c30$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Estropico writes > On the "fascist or not" and its relationship with GRECE: Wikipedia on > the "New Right" (Nouvelle Droite): > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouvelle_Droite Well, I can certainly recognize (often) when it would take me years to get up to speed on something. No way I'm going to get a good understanding of what is being debated here. But that link has one interesting passage that really got my attention: "As Martin Lee explains, " By rejecting Christianity as an alien ideology that was forced upon the Indo-European peoples two millennia ago, French New Rightists distinguished themselves from the so-called New Right that emerged in the United States during the 1970s. Ideologically, [the European new Right group] GRECE had little in common with the American New Right, which [the European new Right ideologue] de Benoist dismissed as a puritanical, moralistic crusade that clung pathetically to Christianity as the be-all and end-all of Western civilization.[6]" Talk about mixed currents! It's as though the European coordinate system has been rotated 45 degrees from the American one. And, oh yes, the Nouvelle Droite throughout Europe does not hesitate to call into question "market practices", evidently. (Actually, I feel like apologizing for my ignorance, but I just wrote an email to someone telling them never to do that!) Lee From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 20:23:23 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 13:23:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] i before e, except after god In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080301121205.024348c8@satx.rr.com> References: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200803010605.45311.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080301105414.02296e88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080301121205.024348c8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803011223lf861f02ia73fb0fe4582b93b@mail.gmail.com> Damien wrote: Yeah, had been going to say that, after an i.e., but just knew in me old bones that it would cause even more vexing confusion. A pun might be the shortest distance between two straight-lines, but it helps to have a laugh track of applauding old Monty Python ladies cued up, and I'm fresh out of them. >>> Yes, Damien's pun went right over my head, or around my head, or under my head, anyway..., it went somewhere! lol I grew up on Monty Python and so as a hapless American guy I need prompts such as applauding old ladies so I know when a well-educated subject of the Queen is displaying their fine sense of humor. I don't want to "look beyond the mark" and overcomplicate things. And to think just the other day I was listening to Spider Robinson's classic "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon," where in a fun scene the characters gathered together at the bar to celebrate "Punday." : ) John Grigg P.S. I can't wait to see Spamalot! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pjmanney at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 20:42:32 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 12:42:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Time Magazine: Person of the Year: Putin Message-ID: <29666bf30803011242q76e9c7ceya425aef89e8a52af@mail.gmail.com> Back in December, there was much consternation on this list over Time Magazine's dubbing Vladimir Putin "Person of the Year". Now you will understand why he was chosen. BTW, it always helps to know where your media comes from. It usually comes from highly paid PR executives in the employ of the people or corporations they're shilling. PJ Published on Center for Media and Democracy (http://www.prwatch.org) Ketchum Caught "Man of the Year" Title for Putin Vladimir Putin and George Bush (July 2007 [1])Ketchum [2], the PR firm involved in the Armstrong Williams [3] "pundit payola" scandal, helped Vladimir Putin become Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for 2007. The firm also conducted "dozens of media briefings in Moscow, New York and Washington, D.C. for both the Russia [4]n Federation and its natural gas monopoly Gazprom [5]," reports O'Dwyer's. Ketchum was paid $845,000 for two months of work for the Russian Federation in early 2007, around the G8 [6] Summit and visits to Moscow by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [7] and Defense Secretary Robert Gates [8]. Ketchum has a $250,000 per month contract with Gazprom; the gas company also pays the Gavin Anderson [9] firm $100,000 per month. In 2007, Ketchum's Gazprom work included "several press and think tank [10] briefings," and organizing "meetings as executives visited the U.S. in late November and early December." ________________________________ Source URL: http://www.prwatch.org/node/7021 Links: [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Vladimir_Putin_and_George_W._Bush.jpg [2] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ketchum [3] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Armstrong_Williams [4] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Russia [5] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gazprom [6] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=G8 [7] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Condoleezza_Rice [8] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_Gates [9] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gavin_Anderson [10] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=think_tank From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 21:03:48 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 22:03:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803011048k62f8955axaad7f6ed7a96d79a@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803011048k62f8955axaad7f6ed7a96d79a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803011303w1f749a5ah1f79e7872217ad9@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 7:48 PM, estropico wrote: > > From: "Stefano Vaj" > > > > ...be the Nouvelle Droite > > fascist or not, if I were a "representative" of the same... > > You might want to update your book's website, then: "responsabile > italiano del S?cretariat Etudes et Recherches del Groupement de > Recherche et Etudes pour la Civilisation Europ?enne (GRECE)": > http://www.biopolitica.it/biop-autore.html Mere sloppiness or deliberate misinformation? The truncated quote of my bio thereing reads "gi? responsabile del...", meaning "former head of...". That S?cretariat in fact has not even existed for more than twenty-five years now. As for the quality of the work performed by the same, the number of Nobelists involved at that time in the publications of GRECE is a good enough testimony of what it could achieve before its deplorable conservative turn, which led on the other hand to Mr. de Benoist's regular invitations as a speaker by the Italian post-fascist environments supported by your friends and yourself. Stefano Vaj From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 21:14:35 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 14:14:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Time Magazine: Person of the Year: Putin In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803011242q76e9c7ceya425aef89e8a52af@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803011242q76e9c7ceya425aef89e8a52af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803011314q2b5838ffq1d3c8bc2441eb7dd@mail.gmail.com> I personally think Putin was a good choice for the "Man of the Year" Time magazine title. Whether for good or bad, he has had a nearly overwhelming influence on modern Russia, one of the most powerful nations in the world. And not all the people who have gotten this title over the years have been saints. But the way this all came about is another story, entirely. My question is..., were any real laws broken during this successful effort to boost Putin's name? Or was this just global big business/public relations doing things "business as usual" in an ethical gray zone where spotlights are rarely brought to bear. I had no idea PR firm executives could make such large sums of money! lol And so I guess a Master's degree in public relations is on par with a law degree if your career takes the right trajectory. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 21:20:50 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 15:20:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Ramanujan In-Reply-To: <012201c87bc6$ebd38c70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200802291831.52012.kanzure@gmail.com> <012201c87bc6$ebd38c70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803011520.50729.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > Nonetheless, from reading Robert Kanigel's "The Man Who Knew > Infinity" ---the best single biography I ever read---I think that > Hardy was understating Ramanujan's religious beliefs, attitudes, and > practices. I never did read Kanigel's book all the way through (got distracted with "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers" half way through, you see), but I did pick up a few interesting quotes which I think illustrate some of the transhumanist mindset, for example: > His work was the work from which most of us would shrink. There's > admiration there, but maybe a wisp of derision, too--as if in wonder > that Ramanujan, of all people, could stoop so willingly to the realm > of the merely arithmetical. And yet, Ramanujan was doing what great > artists always do--diving into his material. He was building an > intimacy with numbers, for the same reason that the painter lingers > over the mixing of his paints, or the musician endlessly practices his > scales. And his insight profited. For him, it wasn't what his equation > stood for that mattered, but the equation itself, as pattern and form. > And his pleasure lay not in finding in it a numerical answer, but from > turning it upside down and inside out, seeing in it new possibilities, > playing with it as the poet does words and images, the artist color > and line, the philosopher ideas. Ramanujan's world was one in which > numbers had properties built into them. Chemistry students learn the > properties of the various elements, the positions in the periodic > table they occupy, the classes to which they belong, and just how > their chemical properties arise from their atomic structure. Numbers, > too, have properties which place them in distinct classes and > categories. Ramanujan was an artist. And numbers--and the mathematical > language expressing their relationship--were his medium ... > Ramanujan's was no cool, steady Intelligence, solemnly applied to the > problem at hand; he was all energy, animation, force. He had a > determination to succeed and to sacrifice everything in the attempt. > That could be a prescription for an unhappy life; certainly for a life > out of balance, sneering at timidity and restraint. Sometimes, as > Ramanujan sat or squatted on the pial, he'd look up to watch the > children playing in the street with what one neighbor remembered as 'a > blank and vacant look.' But inside, he was on fire. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 21:23:47 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 15:23:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "Deities" and "Patents" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080301122811.024bcc18@satx.rr.com> References: <418536.78547.qm@web30402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <012e01c87bc9$08fb0290$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080301122811.024bcc18@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200803011523.47665.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > Doesn't that mess up the threading? In some cases. I have my email client on maxium threadability, whatever that means. So sometimes I get completely new threads attached below a message somewhere. Maybe this is because somebody is replying to a previous message from the list instead of writing a new email? Or in some cases, Amara's messages are misplaced as new threads. Odd problems. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 21:21:37 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 22:21:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <014c01c87bd1$bf8b7c30$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <014c01c87bd1$bf8b7c30$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <580930c20803011321o5ec4fbfdu7ee8fb9bd6c1a34a@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 8:19 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Talk about mixed currents! It's as though the European coordinate system > has been rotated 45 degrees from the American one. > > And, oh yes, the Nouvelle Droite throughout Europe does not hesitate > to call into question "market practices", evidently. (Actually, I feel like > apologizing for my ignorance, but I just wrote an email to someone > telling them never to do that!) All in all, what you say is basically correct. On the other hand, the French environment that is now known as the Nouvelle Droite has unfortunately picked up along the way many themes and attitudes that belong to the worst kind of neoluddite and technophobic New Left. Therefore, they may well have emphatically avoided being neocons or authoritarians or nazis, but at the same time have ended up being unpleasantly close to Mr. Rifkin's or Mr. N?ss's ideas. In fact, many intellectuals who used to belong to that area and were closer, often ante litteram, to transhumanist ideas, such as Yves Christen (Les ann?es Faust, ou, La science face au vieillissement) or Charles Champetier (http://www.lesmutants.com), simply left quite soon when the GRECE turned conservative and at the same time turned mostly its back to science and technology along "gauchiste" refrains. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 21:32:51 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 22:32:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803010730h43e12b1do9b0970c2ba2e2dbf@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <000701c87ac2$c6cb1060$36961f97@archimede> <2d6187670802290648w6c218fbfxb4c267e918ae2dbd@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20802291055s1d21fdc0x28f2bce338c2493d@mail.gmail.com> <2d6187670802291117l1a55addejd6e2043eb323e78e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20802291354k1c616efdn3402af387fe07cfd@mail.gmail.com> <2d6187670803010730h43e12b1do9b0970c2ba2e2dbf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803011332l1bb1d9d3ga8f98cfd6c2b71cf@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 4:30 PM, John Grigg wrote: > I am mytified by the low numbers for Israel. I realize they have a vocal > conservative population among them (as the U.S. does) but I thought on the > whole it was a very technologically progressive nation. In fact, I've heard > many anecdotes about how the typical Israeli is "adrift in a sea of > modernity" and definitely not religiously devout. My take on Judaism (even > the more orthodox and conservative forms) was that they would be much more > open to "radical" biotech, etc. as compared to conservative American > Evangelicals. Does anyone here know more about this matter? > While I suspect that Israel has its own fair share of religious fundamentalists, and that opposition to H+ ideas may not be limited to the same, I know for instance that Israel has, or used to have, special schools for, and research programmes on, "superdotati" (specially-endowed? super-intelligent? high IQ?) children, where such things have been unthinkable in Europe, and AFAIK not exactly the most politically correct idea in the US either, for a long while. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 1 21:46:38 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 13:46:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ramanujan References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200802291831.52012.kanzure@gmail.com> <012201c87bc6$ebd38c70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <200803011520.50729.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <015601c87be5$cdd7ac50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Bryan writes > On Saturday 01 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: >> Nonetheless, from reading Robert Kanigel's "The Man Who Knew >> Infinity" ---the best single biography I ever read---I think that >> Hardy was understating Ramanujan's religious beliefs, attitudes, and >> practices. > > I never did read Kanigel's book all the way through (got distracted > with "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers" half way through, you see), but I > did pick up a few interesting quotes which I think illustrate some of > the transhumanist mindset, for example: All that (below) just seems really like anyone who loves his work, or is highly fascinated by something. There is nothing characteristically transhumanist (or even philosophical) that I can see. Lee >> His work was the work from which most of us would shrink. There's >> admiration there, but maybe a wisp of derision, too--as if in wonder >> that Ramanujan, of all people, could stoop so willingly to the realm >> of the merely arithmetical. And yet, Ramanujan was doing what great >> artists always do--diving into his material. He was building an >> intimacy with numbers, for the same reason that the painter lingers >> over the mixing of his paints, or the musician endlessly practices his >> scales. And his insight profited. For him, it wasn't what his equation >> stood for that mattered, but the equation itself, as pattern and form. >> And his pleasure lay not in finding in it a numerical answer, but from >> turning it upside down and inside out, seeing in it new possibilities, >> playing with it as the poet does words and images, the artist color >> and line, the philosopher ideas. Ramanujan's world was one in which >> numbers had properties built into them. Chemistry students learn the >> properties of the various elements, the positions in the periodic >> table they occupy, the classes to which they belong, and just how >> their chemical properties arise from their atomic structure. Numbers, >> too, have properties which place them in distinct classes and >> categories. Ramanujan was an artist. And numbers--and the mathematical >> language expressing their relationship--were his medium ... >> Ramanujan's was no cool, steady Intelligence, solemnly applied to the >> problem at hand; he was all energy, animation, force. He had a >> determination to succeed and to sacrifice everything in the attempt. >> That could be a prescription for an unhappy life; certainly for a life >> out of balance, sneering at timidity and restraint. Sometimes, as >> Ramanujan sat or squatted on the pial, he'd look up to watch the >> children playing in the street with what one neighbor remembered as 'a >> blank and vacant look.' But inside, he was on fire. > > - Bryan > ________________________________________ > Bryan Bishop > http://heybryan.org/ > From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 22:16:44 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 16:16:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Ramanujan In-Reply-To: <015601c87be5$cdd7ac50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200803011520.50729.kanzure@gmail.com> <015601c87be5$cdd7ac50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803011616.44698.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > All that (below) just seems really like anyone who loves his > work, or is highly fascinated by something. There is nothing > characteristically transhumanist (or even philosophical) that > I can see. Math, philosophy, logic, reason, numbers, these are all tightly intertwingled subjects, and I believe stepwise lead to transhumanism or at least futurism, context-exploration, and realizing the future by creating it. In this context, Ramanujan was an amazing journeyman in such explorations, able to map out more territory that should have been possible with the limiting circumstances he was born into, and isn't this transcension? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 22:26:26 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 23:26:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Basically, DNA is a computing problem Message-ID: <580930c20803011426x6d60f3d5x9651fa19f95c1cda@mail.gmail.com> Basically, DNA is a computing problem The revolution of genome sequencing has spawned a parallel revolution in computing, as scientists in Cambridge have found The computing resources of the Sanger Institute at Hinxton, near Cambridge, are almost unfathomable. Three rooms are filled with walls of blade servers and drives, and there is a fourth that is kept fallow, and for the moment full of every sort of debris: old Sun workstations, keyboards, cases and cases of backup tapes - even a dishwasher. But the fallow room is an important part of the centre's preparations. Things are changing so fast that they can have no idea what they will be required to do in a year's time. When Tony Cox, now the institute's head of sequencing informatics, was a post-doctoral researcher he could sequence 200 bases of DNA in a day (human DNA has about 3bn bases). The machines being installed today can do 1m bases an hour. What will be installed in two years' time is anyone's guess, but the centre is as ready as it can be. Invisible revolution Genome sequencing, which is what the centre excels at, has wrought a revolution in biology that many people think they understand. But it has happened alongside a largely invisible revolution, in which molecular biology - which even 20 years ago was done in glassware inside laboratories - is now done in silicon. A modern sequencer itself is a fairly powerful computer. The new machines being brought online at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute are robots from waist-height upwards, where the machinery grows and then treats microscopic specks of DNA in serried ranks so that a laser can illuminate it and a moving camera capture the fluorescing bases every two seconds. The lower half of each cabinet holds the computers needed to coordinate the machinery and do the preliminary processing of the camera pictures. At the heart of the machine is a plate of treated glass about the size of an ordinary microscope slide, which contains around 30m copies of 2,640 tiny fragments of DNA, all arranged in eight lines along the glass, and all with the bases at their tips being directly read off by a laser. To one side is a screen which displays the results. The sequencing cabinet pumps out 2MB of this image data every second for each two-hour run. With 27 of the new machines running full tilt, each one will produce a terabyte every three days. Cox was astonished when he did the preliminary calculations. "It was quite a simple back-of-the envelope calculation: right, we've got this many machines, and they're producing this much data, and we need to hold it for this amount of time and we sort of looked at it and thought: oh, shit, that's 320TB!" Think of it as the biggest Linux swap partition in the world, since the whole system is running on Debian Linux. The genome project uses open source software as much as possible, and one of its major databases is run on MySQL, although others rely on Oracle. "History has shown," says Cox, "that when we have created - it used to be 20TB or 30TB, maybe - of sequencing data, for the longer term storage, then you may need 10 times that in terms of real estate, and computational process, to analyse and compare and all the things that you want to do with it. So having produced something in the order of 100TB to 200TB of sequential data, then the layer beyond that, the scratch space, and the sequential analysis, and so on - to be honest, we are still teasing out what that means, but it's not going to be small." Down in the rooms where the servers are farmed you must raise your voice to be heard above the fans. A wall of disk drives about 3m long and 2m high holds that 320TB of data. In the next aisle stands a similarly sized wall of blade servers with 640 cores, though no one can remember exactly how many CPUs are involved. "We moved into this building with about 300TB of storage real estate, full stop," says Phil Butcher, the head of IT. "Now we have gone up to about a petabyte and a half, and the last 320 of that was just to put this pipeline together." This new technology is the basis for a new kind of genomics, with really frightening implications. The ballyhooed first draft of the Human Genome Sequence in 2000 was a hybrid of many people's DNA; like scripture, it is authoritative, but not accurate. Now the Sanger Institute is gearing up for its part in a project to sequence accurately 1,000 individual human genomes, so that all of their differences can be mapped. The idea is to identify every single variation in human DNA that occurs in 0.5% or more of the population sampled. This will require one of the biggest software efforts in the world today. Although it is only very rare conditions that are caused by single gene defects, almost all common conditions are affected by a complex interplay of factors along the genome, and the Thousand Genome Project is the first attempt to identify the places involved in these weak interactions. This won't be tied to any of the individual donors, who will all be anonymous. But mapping all the places where human genomes differ is the first necessary step towards deciding which differences are significant, and of what. There are three sorts of differences between your DNA - or mine, or anyone's - and the sequence identified in the human genome project. There are the SNPs, where a single base change can be identified; these are often significant, and are certainly the easiest things to spot. Beyond that are the changes affecting tens of bases at a time: insertions and deletions within genes; finally there are the changes which can affect relatively long strings of DNA, whole genes or stretches between genes, which may be copied or deleted in different numbers. The last of these are going to be extremely hard to spot, since the DNA must be sequenced in fragments that may be shorter than the duplications themselves. "It's a bit like one of those spot the difference things," Cox says. "If you have 1,000 copies, it's very much easier to spot the smallest differences between them." Genome me? All of the work of identifying these changes along the 3bn bases of the genome must be done in software and - since the changes involved are so rare - each fragment of every genome must be sequenced between 11 and 30 times to be sure that the differences the software finds are real and not just errors in measurement. But there's no doubt that all this will be accomplished. The project is a milestone towards genome-based medicine, in which individual patients could be sequenced as a matter of course. Once that happens, the immense volumes of data that the Sanger Institute is gearing up to handle will become commonplace. But the project is unique in that it must not just deal with huge volumes of data, but keep all of it easily accessible so different parts can quickly be compared with each other. At this point, the old sort of science is almost entirely irrelevant. "It now has come out of the labs and into the domain of informatics," Butcher says. The Sanger Institute, he says, is no longer just competing for scientists. It is about to embark on this huge Linux project just at the time that the rest of the world has discovered how reliable and useful it can be, so that they have to compete with banks and other employers for people who can manage huge clusters with large-scale distributed file systems. Perhaps the threatened recession will have one useful side effect, by freeing up programmers to work in science rather than the City. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/28/research.computing -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pjmanney at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 22:27:04 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 14:27:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Time Magazine: Person of the Year: Putin In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803011314q2b5838ffq1d3c8bc2441eb7dd@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803011242q76e9c7ceya425aef89e8a52af@mail.gmail.com> <2d6187670803011314q2b5838ffq1d3c8bc2441eb7dd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30803011427k3fcc943ekf5ba5abe12afb6a4@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 1:14 PM, John Grigg wrote: > But the way this all came about is another story, entirely. My question > is..., were any real laws broken during this successful effort to boost > Putin's name? Or was this just global big business/public relations doing > things "business as usual" in an ethical gray zone where spotlights are > rarely brought to bear. Business as usual. They will never be made illegal, because the people who benefit most are those most influencing our laws. > I had no idea PR firm executives could make such > large sums of money! lol And so I guess a Master's degree in public > relations is on par with a law degree if your career takes the right > trajectory. Honestly, if you're talented and high up the food chain, PR can make law salaries look like chump change. In our country, the really rich, successful PR execs morph into lobbyists and campaign strategists. And I can tell you they didn't make their fortunes lobbying on behalf of Greenpeace or Planned Parenthood. ;-) PJ From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sat Mar 1 22:06:12 2008 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 22:06:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <939952.8409.qm@web27010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> I'm sorry if the following post sounds in anyway anti-Bryan, but his posts have been the most dismissive towards religious influence recently. I'm going to mention why I think we should pay attention to religion and how it views transhumanism. Bryan said " They certainly don't have supercomputers, they don't have massive research institutions, they don't have neurofarms, the only power they have is lots of listeners and a widely distributed mental program. What does this power have to do with transhumanism?" Well, if they decide that some transhumanist ideas or methods are incompatible with their code of ethics, they will use that mental program to try and influence as many people as possible. This includes many lapsed catholics without a particularly strong interest in science, who when pushed on a bioethical topic may go "I don't know! I guess it sounds a bit contrary to what I was taught as a child, so I suppose I'm a little bit against transhumanist technology X". Italy, like most developed countries, is a representative democracy. This means laws are made, and taxes spent, by people who's career depends on chasing votes. If enough Italian politicians decide that chasing the catholic vote is more important than letting some biological research facility or experimental medical clinic do what it wants, then transhuman progress in that country may be seriously held back. The US ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research didn't hold back the field as much as some feared, but the prospect of labs being banned from performing certain research is very real. Bryan also said "The religious institutions are not doing ES cell nor GMO research." This is true, but they *are* funding think tanks which comment on these lines of research and lobby politicians with their point of view on how these things should be licensed. Your ES cell or GMO research group would like to allowed to legally earn a living without risking jail or being closed down. Bryan also said "we're increasingly able to do research without financial cost (more "DIY")." DIY research still depends on being allowed to do it legally. If your research requires iodine, red phosphorous or hydrochloric gas you risk DEA investigation in the US, as the link below makes clear. http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/csa/872.htm If the war on terror becomes the war on bio-terror, anyone doing home biotech research risks being locked up without trial. I think it was in Greg Bear's "Quantico" where he painted a picture of a US filled with terrorism, where even vineyards were closely monitored for their biotech fermentation equipment, and the FBI was furiously trying to contain biotech. I must admit, I've always liked the idea of DIY biotech research, and would love to become a "wetware hacker" of sorts, but I think in the UK I'd be breaking a huge number of laws. I can imagine a future in which me and Bryan are sat in the Guantanamo Bay rehabilitation facility for suspected bioterrorists, being played lectures on Intelligent Design over and over again until we confess that genetics is a lie and god made the human race perfect, and please may we have a phone call? I was going to finish by commenting on remarks about Italy's low birthrate despite the catholic church's opinion on contraception, but as I was typing discovered there was no way I could do this without making a large number of potentially offensive remarks all based on a couple of highly dubious magazine articles which selectively reported statistics about sexual behaviour around the world. You have to love the British media, they'll use sex to sell anything, but I wouldn't want to rely on their statistics. Tom ___________________________________________________________ Rise to the challenge for Sport Relief with Yahoo! For Good http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/forgood/ From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 23:24:38 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 17:24:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <939952.8409.qm@web27010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <939952.8409.qm@web27010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200803011724.38240.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Tom Nowell wrote: > I'm sorry if the following post sounds in anyway > anti-Bryan, but his posts have been the most > dismissive towards religious influence recently. I'm > going to mention why I think we should pay attention > to religion and how it views transhumanism. Just to make sure, you do understand that I am not dismissive of religions at all, merely in terms of making "transhumanism" a reality, such as making futurist technologies realized, since *not* paying attention to religion does not influence the bottomline technicality of the technologies involved. Otherwise, it's an amazing cultural phenomena and much more. > Bryan said " They certainly don't have supercomputers, > they don't have massive research institutions, > they don't have neurofarms, the only power they have > is lots of listeners and a widely distributed > mental program. What does this power have to do with > transhumanism?" > Well, if they decide that some transhumanist ideas or > methods are incompatible with their code of ethics, > they will use that mental program to try and influence > as many people as possible. This includes many lapsed > catholics without a particularly strong interest in > science, who when pushed on a bioethical topic may go > "I don't know! I guess it sounds a bit contrary > to what I was taught as a child, so I suppose I'm a > little bit against transhumanist technology X". No matter how much they proclaim to be against a possibility does not determine that bottom line of feasability. Yes, they can protest, yes, they can try to stone us, they can try to burn us alive, but you see, we can diffuse the information over the internet, and good luck warring against the internet. It will route around the damage. > Italy, like most developed countries, is a > representative democracy. This means laws are made, > and taxes spent, by people who's career depends on > chasing votes. If enough Italian politicians decide > that chasing the catholic vote is more important than > letting some biological research facility or > experimental medical clinic do what it wants, then > transhuman progress in that country may be seriously > held back. The US ban on federal funding of embryonic > stem cell research didn't hold back the field as much > as some feared, but the prospect of labs being banned > from performing certain research is very real. Thought police fail, and so will fabrication police, it'd be like trying to control the whole sum of biological innovation occuring at the bacterial level, which is a near impossibility -- just like killing an evil man does not kill Satan (for the sake of brevity of point). So just because the State declares it "illegal", what does this mean? Really? > Your ES cell or GMO research group would like to > allowed to legally earn a living without risking jail > or being closed down. Yes, they'd like that. And what if they can't? Then I guess they, by definition, wouldn't be the ES/GMO research group then, right? Time to move in some more interested parties in performing that research ... > Bryan also said "we're > increasingly able to do research without financial > cost (more "DIY")." DIY research still depends on > being allowed to do it legally. If your research You are wrong. Look at the DIY malacious software industry. That's completely illegal. And it works. > requires iodine, red phosphorous or hydrochloric gas > you risk DEA investigation in the US, as the link > below makes clear. Hm, that's an interesting problem, but I think that we can come up with interesting ways of getting the chemicals we need -- after all, there must be a source for these chemicals and resources, right? > If the war on terror becomes the war on bio-terror, > anyone doing home biotech research risks being locked > up without trial. I think it was in Greg Bear's Writing certain words, thinking certain thoughts -- no, this is usually completely untraceable. It's when you start telling people, when you become "on the grid" (as I have); it's when you leave enough clues and a trail for some seriously intense detectives to trace everything back to you. Otherwise there's little risk. > "Quantico" where he painted a picture of a US filled > with terrorism, where even vineyards were closely > monitored for their biotech fermentation equipment, > and the FBI was furiously trying to contain biotech. I saw Greg Bear on television a few months ago, he was surprised that there wasn't more high school students doing biotech and related engineering yet, and he's right that it will probably change pretty soon. I should go get the book. Sounds interesting. > I must admit, I've always liked the idea of DIY > biotech research, and would love to become a "wetware > hacker" of sorts, but I think in the UK I'd be > breaking a huge number of laws. I can imagine a future Then are you also breaking the law by unknowingly increasingly applying selective pressures on germs and bacteria via applying chemicals to kill them (such as hand sanitizers, soap, etc.)? > in which me and Bryan are sat in the Guantanamo Bay > rehabilitation facility for suspected bioterrorists, http://biohack.sf.net/ <-- I am probably already on their list. > being played lectures on Intelligent Design over and > over again until we confess that genetics is a lie and > god made the human race perfect, and please may we > have a phone call? On that note, who the hell are you supposed to call if you get locked up in Gitmo? Not just any regular lawyer, surely. A super lawyer, perhaps? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 23:27:01 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 17:27:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Basically, DNA is a computing problem In-Reply-To: <580930c20803011426x6d60f3d5x9651fa19f95c1cda@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20803011426x6d60f3d5x9651fa19f95c1cda@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803011727.01574.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Stefano Vaj wrote: > A modern sequencer itself is a fairly powerful computer. The new > machines being brought online at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute > are robots from waist-height upwards, where the machinery grows and > then treats microscopic specks of DNA in serried ranks so that a > laser can illuminate it and a moving camera capture the fluorescing > bases every two seconds. The lower half of each cabinet holds the > computers needed to coordinate the machinery and do the preliminary > processing of the camera pictures. At the heart of the machine is a > plate of treated glass about the size of an ordinary microscope > slide, which contains around 30m copies of 2,640 tiny fragments of > DNA, all arranged in eight lines along the glass, and all with the > bases at their tips being directly read off by a laser. It is my understanding that it is a bit more complicated than that, not just fluorescent laser spectroscopy, but rather some sort of gel electrophoresis system where the DNA strands are ran down all at once and then you correlate massive datasets together to figure out where all of the DNA molecules were in synch or where they weren't, and stuff like that. I'd like to be wrong - I hope it's as easy as a laser reading each individual nucleotide reporter. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 1 23:26:59 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 15:26:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ramanujan References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200803011520.50729.kanzure@gmail.com> <015601c87be5$cdd7ac50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <200803011616.44698.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <018b01c87bf4$2c5c9200$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Bryan writes > On Saturday 01 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > > All that (below) just seems really like anyone who loves his > > work, or is highly fascinated by something. There is nothing > > characteristically transhumanist (or even philosophical) that > > I can see. > > Math, philosophy, logic, reason, numbers, these are all tightly > intertwingled subjects, and I believe stepwise lead to > transhumanism or at least futurism, context-exploration, and > realizing the future by creating it. Well, there are many, many people who are totally into math, philosophy, logic, reason and number, but who abhor anything even remotely connected with longevity research, cryonics, expanding human capabilities, and---hold your breath--- technology (!). And I don't think that those things are as intertwined as you do. Lots of math fiends, for example, totally disdain anything philosophical. Now exactly how they can be like this beats me, but that's the way it is. One of the most shocking things that ever happened to me was that my bosom buddies who I knew between age 20 and 30, who lived in southern California, who were epitomes of philosophical erudition, good taste, interests in math and science---were completely uninterested when (when we were about 40) the new advent of cryonics, later ideas of David Pearce (www.hedweb.com), and talk of the singularity. I was baffled, and still am. > In this context, Ramanujan was an amazing journeyman in > such explorations, able to map out more territory that > should [not] have been possible with the limiting circumstances > he was born into, and isn't this transcension? He was totally amazing, all right, but only in the narrow area of pure math. I expect that if he'd been born in the West, or in India now, he would have turned into a much more conventional---but still tremendously, tremendously good --- regular mathematician. I think that Hardy thought so too. Lee From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 00:16:35 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 18:16:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Ramanujan In-Reply-To: <018b01c87bf4$2c5c9200$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200803011616.44698.kanzure@gmail.com> <018b01c87bf4$2c5c9200$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803011816.35532.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > Bryan writes > > On Saturday 01 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > > > All that (below) just seems really like anyone who loves his > > > work, or is highly fascinated by something. There is nothing > > > characteristically transhumanist (or even philosophical) that > > > I can see. > > > > Math, philosophy, logic, reason, numbers, these are all tightly > > intertwingled subjects, and I believe stepwise lead to > > transhumanism or at least futurism, context-exploration, and > > realizing the future by creating it. > > Well, there are many, many people who are totally into math, > philosophy, logic, reason and number, but who abhor anything > even remotely connected with longevity research, cryonics, > expanding human capabilities, and---hold your breath--- > technology (!). And I don't think that those things are as > intertwined as you do. Lots of math fiends, for example, > totally disdain anything philosophical. Technology, when broken down to its elemental forms, can mean anything from the integral symbol to the device that brings back the (nearly) dead. Is the mathematician not an inventer of technologies, just as the longevitist, the cryonicist, the programmer or logician? If they want to refute the well-studied connections between philosophy and mathematics, and computation (i.e., pick self-representation), they may try, of course, and they may despise it, yes, but how does that make it any less true or false whether they give their support or not? Lee, are you making an argument from authority? > Now exactly how they can be like this beats me, but that's Oh, are you claiming that since they reject technologies, they are not transhumanist? Since they have such a specialized niche that they cut themselves off? Arguably, the transhumanist problem space can be mapped to other niches and environments in ideaspace, and therefore there are other representations of transhumanists than simply those who verbally reject technology (no matter how much they like their own biological technology, *ahem* self-replication?). > the way it is. One of the most shocking things that ever > happened to me was that my bosom buddies who I knew > between age 20 and 30, who lived in southern California, > who were epitomes of philosophical erudition, good taste, > interests in math and science---were completely uninterested > when (when we were about 40) the new advent of cryonics, > later ideas of David Pearce (www.hedweb.com), and talk > of the singularity. I was baffled, and still am. I am reminded of the shock levels mentioned on sl4.org, perhaps an ontology of transhumanists can be developed, such that there are certain transhumanist-journeymen who can handle a certain shock level? Wasn't this the idea of "levels of transcension" in Orion's Arm? > > In this context, Ramanujan was an amazing journeyman in > > such explorations, able to map out more territory that > > should [not] have been possible with the limiting circumstances > > he was born into, and isn't this transcension? > > He was totally amazing, all right, but only in the narrow area > of pure math. I expect that if he'd been born in the West, > or in India now, he would have turned into a much more > conventional---but still tremendously, tremendously good > --- regular mathematician. I think that Hardy thought so too. I am not saying that he would have otherwise transcended via technological replacement of his body or anything like that, I know I can't make that argument nor do I want to. But instead I am suggesting that there is some commonality in the problem space that he worked in, and it is that which makes him somewhat transhumanist. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 2 01:03:56 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 17:03:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ramanujan References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200803011616.44698.kanzure@gmail.com> <018b01c87bf4$2c5c9200$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <200803011816.35532.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <019601c87c01$4dac2d00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Bryan writes >> Well, there are many, many people who are totally into math, >> philosophy, logic, reason and number, but who abhor anything >> even remotely connected with longevity research, cryonics, >> expanding human capabilities, and---hold your breath--- >> technology (!). And I don't think that those things are as >> intertwined as you do. Lots of math fiends, for example, >> totally disdain anything philosophical. > > Technology, when broken down to its elemental forms, can mean anything > from the integral symbol to the device that brings back the (nearly) > dead. Is the mathematician not an inventer of technologies, just as the > longevitist, the cryonicist, the programmer or logician? It seems to me that you are using some words very non-standardly. Pure math, for example, is never considered technology. You should not use "technology" to > mean anything from the integral symbol to the device that brings > back the (nearly) dead. on pain of simply being misunderstood by practically everybody. > If they [some people] want to refute the well-studied connections > between philosophy and mathematics, and computation The people who love math and despise philosophical activity are hardly interested in *refuting* any such thing. That would be philosophy, after all. And as a subject, philsophy is so broad, that many philosophers simply are totally uninterested in math or technology (beyond, as you say, that it serves them well enough to keep the electricity flowing so that they can read). > ...and they may despise it, yes, but how does that make it > any less true or false whether they give their support or not? I agree. Relationships and truth, of course, do not depend on anyone's support, recognition, or agreement. >> Now exactly how they can be like this beats me, but that's > > Oh, are you claiming that since they reject technologies, they are not > transhumanist? Since they have such a specialized niche that they cut > themselves off? Yes, and yes. > Arguably, the transhumanist problem space can be mapped > to other niches and environments in ideaspace, and therefore there are > other representations of transhumanists than simply those who verbally > reject technology (no matter how much they like their own biological > technology, *ahem* self-replication?). I suppose that anything can be mapped to anything. The play Hamlet can probably be mapped to fourier analysis in one way or another. And I would not be completely shocked if someone who was an expert on Hamlet and also really, really loved fourier analysis spoke of connections he saw. But that would be merely a reflection of how his own brain mapped things. In high school I loved math and chess, and I swear, I used the very same neurons for both. I simply could not understand how some people could be very good in one, and be terrible, try as they might, in the other. But for me to have said that chess is very mathematical would have been a mistake. >> He was totally amazing, all right, but only in the narrow area >> of pure math. I expect that if he'd been born in the West, >> or in India now, he would have turned into a much more >> conventional---but still tremendously, tremendously good >> --- regular mathematician. I think that Hardy thought so too. > > I am not saying that he would have otherwise transcended via > technological replacement of his body or anything like that, I know I > can't make that argument nor do I want to. But instead I am suggesting > that there is some commonality in the problem space that he worked in, > and it is that which makes him somewhat transhumanist. The commonality you see between Ramanujan's math on the one hand, and transhumanist concerns and investigations on the other, really, I contend, just reflect the way *you* think. There is no real commonality. Except maybe the very, very common human urges to understand and to create, which typify intelligent people everywhere (and even some not so intelligent ones). Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 2 01:25:03 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 17:25:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question (Emitter Follower) Message-ID: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> I have a question for people who know about transistor circuits. On page 56 of Horowitz and Hill's classic "The Art of Electronics", there is a nice description of the emitter follower circuit. The following is used as an example: The bottom of the diagram is at -10 volts and the top is at +10 volts (i.e. a 20volt supply somewhere). Just above the -10 volts is a 1K resistor, and above that the emitter of an NPN transistor. There is no resistor between the collector and the +10 volts. The experiment is to let the base voltage (input) vary between +10 and -10. The output is taken (hence "emitter-follower") at the top of the 1K resistor. Because the base-emitter voltage is always around .6 volts, the output naturally follows the input, but at .6 volts less. But the book says that when the input voltage drops down to -4.4 volts, the base-emitter junction gets back-biased, (and the transistor turns off?). I don't understand why the voltage on the base cannot keep going down, say to -6V, with the output voltage continuing to keep in step, say at -6.6. Even at -6 volts, there seems to me to be plenty of leeway between that and the -10V source below it. Here is their explanation: "The output can swing to within a transistor saturation voltage drop of VCC (about +9.9v) but it cannot go more negative than -5 volts. That is because on the extreme negative swing the transistor can do no more than turn off, which it does at -4.4 volts input (-5V output). Further netgative swing at the input results in back-biasing of the base-emitter juntion, but no further change in output." I still don't see why the base could not be at, say, -6v and the output .6 lower. Why should the base-emitter junction be back-biased when there is still a big voltage difference between the base and the -10 volts at bottom? Thanks, Lee From jef at jefallbright.net Sun Mar 2 02:58:04 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 18:58:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question (Emitter Follower) In-Reply-To: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 5:25 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > I have a question for people who know about transistor > circuits. On page 56 of Horowitz and Hill's classic "The Art > of Electronics", there is a nice description of the emitter > follower circuit. The following is used as an example: > > The bottom of the diagram is at -10 volts and the top is at > +10 volts (i.e. a 20volt supply somewhere). Just above the > -10 volts is a 1K resistor, and above that the emitter of an > NPN transistor. There is no resistor between the collector > and the +10 volts. The experiment is to let the base voltage > (input) vary between +10 and -10. The output is taken > (hence "emitter-follower") at the top of the 1K resistor. > > Because the base-emitter voltage is always around .6 volts, > the output naturally follows the input, but at .6 volts less. > > But the book says that when the input voltage drops down > to -4.4 volts, the base-emitter junction gets back-biased, > (and the transistor turns off?). I don't understand why the > voltage on the base cannot keep going down, say to -6V, > with the output voltage continuing to keep in step, say at > -6.6. Even at -6 volts, there seems to me to be plenty > of leeway between that and the -10V source below it. > > Here is their explanation: > > "The output can swing to within a transistor saturation > voltage drop of VCC (about +9.9v) but it cannot go > more negative than -5 volts. That is because on the > extreme negative swing the transistor can do no more > than turn off, which it does at -4.4 volts input (-5V > output). Further netgative swing at the input results in > back-biasing of the base-emitter juntion, but no further > change in output." > > I still don't see why the base could not be at, say, -6v > and the output .6 lower. Why should the base-emitter > junction be back-biased when there is still a big voltage > difference between the base and the -10 volts at bottom? > Lee - You didn't mention the value of the load impedance, but if it were equal to the emitter resistor value, then you would in effect have a voltage divider putting the emitter at approximately -5V, and (when the transistor is forward-biased) the base at approximately -4.4. Wow, this takes me back more than a few years. Does this answer your question? Does this topic belong on the Extropy list? - Jef From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 03:24:08 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 21:24:08 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question (Emitter Follower) In-Reply-To: References: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803012124.08718.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > Does this topic belong on the Extropy list? If not, there's piclist. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 03:25:55 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 21:25:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question (Emitter Follower) In-Reply-To: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803012125.55457.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > But the book says that when the input voltage drops down > to -4.4 volts, the base-emitter junction gets back-biased, > (and the transistor turns off?). ?I don't understand why the > voltage on the base cannot keep going down, say to -6V, > with the output voltage continuing to keep in step, say at > -6.6. ?Even at -6 volts, there seems to me to be plenty > of leeway between that and the -10V source below it. I was recently brushing up on my understanding of transistor tech, and while my understanding isn't of the same nature that Jef portrays, it was my interpretation that transistors throw off because of the restriction to the amount of electrons that can flow through due to the field effect generated by the incoming electrons from the base. If its voltage was to drop, I think that would mean that the field would become inverted, thus not allowing anything to travel through any of the doped material. But this is my layman interpretation. Consult Jef. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From jef at jefallbright.net Sun Mar 2 03:30:03 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 19:30:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question (Emitter Follower) In-Reply-To: <200803012124.08718.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <200803012124.08718.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 7:24 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Saturday 01 March 2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > > Does this topic belong on the Extropy list? > > If not, there's piclist. I saw the question as directly relevant to the typical disconnect between Lee and me: it's another example of blindness to the importance and ubiquity of context (any description of the behavior of a system is incomplete without accounting also for its environment.) But as a question of basic transistor circuit theory I fail to see its relevance to this list. - Jef From jef at jefallbright.net Sun Mar 2 03:34:20 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 19:34:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question (Emitter Follower) In-Reply-To: <200803012125.55457.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <200803012125.55457.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 7:25 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > I was recently brushing up on my understanding of transistor tech, and > while my understanding isn't of the same nature that Jef portrays, it > was my interpretation that transistors throw off because of the > restriction to the amount of electrons that can flow through due to the > field effect generated by the incoming electrons from the base. If its > voltage was to drop, I think that would mean that the field would > become inverted, thus not allowing anything to travel through any of > the doped material. But this is my layman interpretation. Note that the example was of an emitter-follower using not an FET but a silicon junction transistor. > Consult Jef. Please don't. Transistor circuits ceased to be of much interest to me 30 years ago. - Jef - Jef From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 03:55:40 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 21:55:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Ramanujan In-Reply-To: <019601c87c01$4dac2d00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200803011816.35532.kanzure@gmail.com> <019601c87c01$4dac2d00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803012155.40909.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 01 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > > Technology, when broken down to its elemental forms, can mean > > anything from the integral symbol to the device that brings back > > the (nearly) dead. Is the mathematician not an inventer of > > technologies, just as the longevitist, the cryonicist, the > > programmer or logician? > > It seems to me that you are using some words very non-standardly. > Pure math, for example, is never considered technology. You should > not use "technology" to > > > mean anything from the integral symbol to the device that brings > > back the (nearly) dead. > > on pain of simply being misunderstood by practically everybody. Wikipedia: > Technology is a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and > knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability > to control and adapt to its environment. > > Arguably, the transhumanist problem space can be mapped > > to other niches and environments in ideaspace, and therefore there > > are other representations of transhumanists than simply those who > > verbally reject technology (no matter how much they like their own > > biological technology, *ahem* self-replication?). > > I suppose that anything can be mapped to anything. The play > Hamlet can probably be mapped to fourier analysis in one > way or another. And I would not be completely shocked if > someone who was an expert on Hamlet and also really, really > loved fourier analysis spoke of connections he saw. But > that would be merely a reflection of how his own brain > mapped things. In high school I loved math and chess, > and I swear, I used the very same neurons for both. I > simply could not understand how some people could be > very good in one, and be terrible, try as they might, in > the other. But for me to have said that chess is very > mathematical would have been a mistake. Chess *is* very mathematical. Certainly you are aware of the problem solving mathematics for chess, but I am talking about the basis of chess itself. It is a graph, it is a topology in particular, one where you can describe, what, 10^50 possible state spaces, with various 'moves' or translations from one state to another, making it essentially an operator algebra of one kind or another (ooh, maybe a cellular automata can be used to model it). Not necessarily a Lie group, but that's getting close. What would the binary operations be? That gets complex, there's probably a better entity to use as a prototype to represent the game of chess. This is why you are able to play chess with DNA molecules, or with electrons in your computer. There are some seriously intense mathematicians out there that can show you how those electronic circuits in a processor directly correlate to graph theoretic "topological conversions" (speaking extremely loosely) to the algebras. Now, these same sorts of conversions do not always work (assume the same coherency in processing), so that's why not anything can be mapped to anything, that's why I cannot be mapped immediately to my death. And so what if it's "merely" showing how his brain mapped things? Not all maps are useless (and in this case, there must be a coherency to these wild mappings that the man makes, whether Hamlet, Dark Prince of Denmark, or Oedipus, or Godot). > > I am not saying that he would have otherwise transcended via > > technological replacement of his body or anything like that, I know > > I can't make that argument nor do I want to. But instead I am > > suggesting that there is some commonality in the problem space that > > he worked in, and it is that which makes him somewhat > > transhumanist. > > The commonality you see between Ramanujan's math on the > one hand, and transhumanist concerns and investigations on > the other, really, I contend, just reflect the way *you* think. How could it do otherwise? > There is no real commonality. Except maybe the very, very > common human urges to understand and to create, which > typify intelligent people everywhere (and even some not > so intelligent ones). What is transhumanism but the urge to self-create? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 2 04:08:53 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 20:08:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question References: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <01c301c87c1b$263e7dd0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Yeah, this is pretty off-topic, and I do apologize to the list. But it was a quiet Saturday afternoon, and I thought it might provide some interest---besides, I was getting damn sick staring at the circuit diagram. :-) Jef writes > You didn't mention the value of the load impedance, It didn't say. The circuit is supposed to have high output impedance, so I thought it wouldn't matter---and I'm pretty sure that that's what the authors are trying to communicate. > but if it were equal to the emitter resistor value, then you would in effect have a > voltage divider putting the emitter at approximately -5V, and (when > the transistor is forward-biased) the base at approximately -4.4. Hopefully I have "drawn" the circuit intelligibly for you. A load impedance (load resistor) that you are describing would be parallel to the 1K resistor I described, right? If so, I don't see any voltage divider. Besides, in this example, the base is at the whim of the investigator, the emitter is therefore .6 volts below that. The resulting voltage draws amps from the 1K resistor (and definitely not from anything else). Did I communicate that properly? > Wow, this takes me back more than a few years. Thanks for your kindly assistance, Lee >> The bottom of the diagram is at -10 volts and the top is at >> +10 volts (i.e. a 20volt supply somewhere). Just above the >> -10 volts is a 1K resistor, and above that the emitter of an >> NPN transistor. There is no resistor between the collector >> and the +10 volts. The experiment is to let the base voltage >> (input) vary between +10 and -10. The output is taken >> (hence "emitter-follower") at the top of the 1K resistor. >> >> Because the base-emitter voltage is always around .6 volts, >> the output naturally follows the input, but at .6 volts less. >> >> But the book says that when the input voltage drops down >> to -4.4 volts, the base-emitter junction gets back-biased, >> (and the transistor turns off?). I don't understand why the >> voltage on the base cannot keep going down, say to -6V, >> with the output voltage continuing to keep in step, say at >> -6.6. Even at -6 volts, there seems to me to be plenty >> of leeway between that and the -10V source below it. >> >> Here is their explanation: >> >> "The output can swing to within a transistor saturation >> voltage drop of VCC (about +9.9v) but it cannot go >> more negative than -5 volts. That is because on the >> extreme negative swing the transistor can do no more >> than turn off, which it does at -4.4 volts input (-5V >> output). Further netgative swing at the input results in >> back-biasing of the base-emitter juntion, but no further >> change in output." >> >> I still don't see why the base could not be at, say, -6v >> and the output .6 lower. Why should the base-emitter >> junction be back-biased when there is still a big voltage >> difference between the base and the -10 volts at bottom? From jef at jefallbright.net Sun Mar 2 04:16:16 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 20:16:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question In-Reply-To: <01c301c87c1b$263e7dd0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <01c301c87c1b$263e7dd0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 8:08 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Yeah, this is pretty off-topic, and I do apologize to the list. > But it was a quiet Saturday afternoon, and I thought it might > provide some interest---besides, I was getting damn sick > staring at the circuit diagram. :-) > > Jef writes > > > You didn't mention the value of the load impedance, > > It didn't say. The circuit is supposed to have high output impedance, > so I thought it wouldn't matter---and I'm pretty sure that that's what > the authors are trying to communicate. The defining characteristic of an emitter-follower circuit is its **low** output impedance, capable of driving higher-current loads. > > but if it were equal to the emitter resistor value, then you would in effect have a > > voltage divider putting the emitter at approximately -5V, and (when > > the transistor is forward-biased) the base at approximately -4.4. > > Hopefully I have "drawn" the circuit intelligibly for you. A load > impedance (load resistor) that you are describing would be > parallel to the 1K resistor I described, right? If so, I don't see > any voltage divider. Yes, the load would be in parallel with the emitter resistor, and ideally of approximately equal value for efficient coupling (energy transfer.) - Jef From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 2 04:25:00 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 20:25:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ramanujan References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200803011816.35532.kanzure@gmail.com> <019601c87c01$4dac2d00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <200803012155.40909.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <01c701c87c1d$662c8a70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Bryan writes >> It seems to me that you are using some words very non-standardly. >> Pure math, for example, is never considered technology. You should >> not use "technology" to >> >> > mean anything from the integral symbol to the device that brings >> > back the (nearly) dead. >> >> on pain of simply being misunderstood by practically everybody. > > Wikipedia: >> Technology is a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and >> knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability >> to control and adapt to its environment. Well, "tools and crafts" doesn't include math on most people's usage of these terms. Mind, there is no *right* and *wrong* meaning to be ascribed to any given word, except what it conveys in the common parlance. Sure, math is a tool in some ways, but that is not what the wikipedia meant. No one could call Smale, Wiles, and Kolmogorov (rest his soul) "leaders of technology". It's just a vocabulary and concept mismatch. >> and I swear, I used the very same neurons for both. I >> simply could not understand how some people could be >> very good in one, and be terrible, try as they might, in >> the other. But for me to have said that chess is very >> mathematical would have been a mistake. > > Chess *is* very mathematical. Certainly you are aware of the problem > solving mathematics for chess, but I am talking about the basis of > chess itself. It is a graph, it is a topology in particular, one where > you can describe, what, 10^50 possible state spaces, with Well, no one, at least no one until recently, approached it as a math problem. It's a game, or an art. People can be very good at it who are lousy at math. Others can be very good at math but can't play chess for the life of them. They're really separate talents. >> The commonality you see between Ramanujan's math on the >> one hand, and transhumanist concerns and investigations on >> the other, really, I contend, just reflect the way *you* think. > > How could it do otherwise? Take N. F. Fyodorov, for example. His concerns really did relate to cryonics and hence to transhumanism. Other writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries also clearly expressed transhumanist ideals. Ramanujan? No way. If you want to say he did, then you are reduced to claiming that every mathematician is a transhumanist, and other equal absurdities. >> There is no real commonality. Except maybe the very, very >> common human urges to understand and to create, which >> typify intelligent people everywhere... > > What is transhumanism but the urge to self-create? Wikipedia says: Transhumanism (sometimes symbolized by >H or H+),[1] a term often used as a synonym for "human enhancement", is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes, and ameliorate what it regards as undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human condition, such as stupidity, suffering, disease, aging and involuntary death. Transhumanist thinkers study the possibilities and consequences of developing and using human enhancement techniques and other emerging technologies for these purposes. But what I referred to, namely the urge "to create", applies especially to musicians, poets, artists, novelists, web-designers, and can characterize the thinking, often, of scientists, mathematicians, engineers, business leaders, and so on. Your term "self-create" seems a tad ambiguous. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 2 04:35:49 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 20:35:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question References: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><01c301c87c1b$263e7dd0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <01d301c87c1e$e9210ea0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Jef writes >> It didn't say. The circuit is supposed to have high output impedance, >> so I thought it wouldn't matter---and I'm pretty sure that that's what >> the authors are trying to communicate. > > The defining characteristic of an emitter-follower circuit is its > **low** output impedance, capable of driving higher-current loads. Oops. Thanks for the correction. Yes, I meant low output impedance. > Yes, the load would be in parallel with the emitter resistor, and > ideally of approximately equal value for efficient coupling (energy > transfer.) Hmm. Well, I still doubt it would matter any what the load is, because, as you say, the point is to provide a low impedance signal to the next stage. Do you think that maybe the transistor needs a certain amount of *current* to keep going? It might happen then that if the base went down to -4.4V, the current it drew (i.e. over the 1K, about 5.6 milliamps) wouldn't be enough. But I can't remember reading anything like that. Thanks, Lee From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 05:00:41 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 16:00:41 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Mindless Thought Experiments In-Reply-To: <011001c87bc4$d06c3ce0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <200802281006.02410.kanzure@gmail.com> <005201c87a8f$e9ea7d70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <402e01e70802290723id16c225r11d0052ecef7ec91@mail.gmail.com> <005001c87afa$52c1bba0$45ef4d0c@MyComputer> <011001c87bc4$d06c3ce0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 02/03/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > We have hashed that out so many times years and so many years > ago. I suppose I'm proud to have been on the cutting edge > so very long ago. Jason's comments and questions are really > very, very old stuff here. > > As far as I know, the Extropian list, and then later Wei Dai's list and > SL4, were the first forums in which all this was debated at length and > at a very high level. Hilary Putnam discussed this idea in his 1988 book "Representation and Reality". > Now, of course, this is not to mean to say that all these very complex > questions have been totally resolved. They haven't, and they won't be > for a long time. Someday, even if it were thousands of years from now, > barring catastrophe or collapse, uploaded entities who run however > many copies of themselves whenever they want, and who have long > ago left biological substrates, will no doubt consider these questions > resolved. Meanwhile, what we have done is to practice thinking about > what their answers will be. One possible answer could be that it's true and it isn't incompatible with functionalism. Let me define another philosophical position: Addition Functionalism. This is the theory that addition is multiply realisable, on widely varying substrates. Thus, addition can be implemented on your fingers, in your head, on an abacus, and so on. It is also being implemented by accident in any arbitrary physical system with enough complexity, even though no-one is around to recognise it. But this is absurd; so either Addition Functionalism is false, or some rule must be added to stop the accidental implementations. Right? -- Stathis Papaioannou From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 2 05:23:39 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 21:23:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Addition Functionalism (was Mindless Thought Experiments) References: <200802281006.02410.kanzure@gmail.com> <005201c87a8f$e9ea7d70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <402e01e70802290723id16c225r11d0052ecef7ec91@mail.gmail.com> <005001c87afa$52c1bba0$45ef4d0c@MyComputer> <011001c87bc4$d06c3ce0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <01dd01c87c25$9a7bd4e0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Stathis writes > Let me define another philosophical position: Addition Functionalism. > This is the theory that addition is multiply realisable, on widely > varying substrates. Thus, addition can be implemented on your fingers, > in your head, on an abacus, and so on. It is also being implemented by > accident in any arbitrary physical system with enough complexity, even > though no-one is around to recognise it. But this is absurd; so either > Addition Functionalism is false, or some rule must be added to stop > the accidental implementations. Right? Okay, I'll bite :-) I would say "right", and that Addition Functionalism is correct. My proviso: the key factor is how explicit it is. If two planetoids gently collide, their masses are explicitly added, but if Van Maanen's Star and S Doradus each emit a certain but different number of photons in a given second, then the addition is highly implicit (or hidden). At a different, higher level, an intelligent entity (from a crow to an advanced AI) may map these environmental additions, but mostly only explicit ones, into mental sums or feelings of numerical quantity. Lee From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 05:31:05 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 16:31:05 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Basically, DNA is a computing problem In-Reply-To: <200803011727.01574.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <580930c20803011426x6d60f3d5x9651fa19f95c1cda@mail.gmail.com> <200803011727.01574.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 02/03/2008, Bryan Bishop wrote: > It is my understanding that it is a bit more complicated than that, not > just fluorescent laser spectroscopy, but rather some sort of gel > electrophoresis system where the DNA strands are ran down all at once > and then you correlate massive datasets together to figure out where > all of the DNA molecules were in synch or where they weren't, and stuff > like that. I'd like to be wrong - I hope it's as easy as a laser > reading each individual nucleotide reporter. That's so: the laser and computer automate the reading out and analysis of DNA fragments separated according to length by electrophoresis. I remember 20 years ago doing it all by hand on big glass plates, squinting at autoradiographs to read off a few hundred nucleotides at a time. -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Sun Mar 2 06:37:50 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 22:37:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question (Emitter Follower) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200803020704.m2274Xbc010099@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Jef Allbright ... > > If not, there's piclist. > > I saw the question as directly relevant to the typical > disconnect ... But as a question of > basic transistor circuit theory I fail to see its relevance > to this list. > > - Jef Do you guys remember the Muppet Show? Whenever needed, someone would call out for the Royal Smart Person. We are among friends here. It is considered legitimate use the ExI-chat list as one's personal collection of RSPs, so long as the privege is not abused and people don't get too bored. Technical discussions can always be taken offlist. I found Lee's transistor question interesting, altho I struggled in electronics theory class myself and didn't have the answer. Thanks Jef for serving as the local electronics RSP. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 08:32:32 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 19:32:32 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question In-Reply-To: <01d301c87c1e$e9210ea0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <019c01c87c04$44fd1810$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <01c301c87c1b$263e7dd0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <01d301c87c1e$e9210ea0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 02/03/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > Do you think that maybe the transistor needs a certain amount > of *current* to keep going? It might happen then that if the > base went down to -4.4V, the current it drew (i.e. over the > 1K, about 5.6 milliamps) wouldn't be enough. But I can't > remember reading anything like that. It does sound like that's what the authors are saying, since on the next page it says "Possible solutions to this problem [i.e. the clipping on the negative voltage swing] involve... decreasing the emitter resistor...", which would have the effect of increasing the emitter current and hence the base current for a given emitter voltage. Note that at this point the *emitter* current would be 5mA, but the base current would be about 5mA/Hfe. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 08:34:53 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 19:34:53 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Addition Functionalism (was Mindless Thought Experiments) In-Reply-To: <01dd01c87c25$9a7bd4e0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <200802281006.02410.kanzure@gmail.com> <005201c87a8f$e9ea7d70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <402e01e70802290723id16c225r11d0052ecef7ec91@mail.gmail.com> <005001c87afa$52c1bba0$45ef4d0c@MyComputer> <011001c87bc4$d06c3ce0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <01dd01c87c25$9a7bd4e0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 02/03/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > Stathis writes > > > Let me define another philosophical position: Addition Functionalism. > > This is the theory that addition is multiply realisable, on widely > > varying substrates. Thus, addition can be implemented on your fingers, > > in your head, on an abacus, and so on. It is also being implemented by > > accident in any arbitrary physical system with enough complexity, even > > though no-one is around to recognise it. But this is absurd; so either > > Addition Functionalism is false, or some rule must be added to stop > > the accidental implementations. Right? > > Okay, I'll bite :-) I would say "right", and that Addition Functionalism > is correct. My proviso: the key factor is how explicit it is. If two planetoids > gently collide, their masses are explicitly added, but if Van Maanen's Star > and S Doradus each emit a certain but different number of photons in a > given second, then the addition is highly implicit (or hidden). > > At a different, higher level, an intelligent entity (from a crow to an advanced > AI) may map these environmental additions, but mostly only explicit ones, > into mental sums or feelings of numerical quantity. There's not much practical difference between saying addition is not implemented unless someone observes it, or addition is implemented but is of no interest unless someone observes it. But if the physical process in question has associated with it consciousness, you would have to say that the consciousness still happens, unless you claim that it is somehow contingent on being observed by another conscious entity. -- Stathis Papaioannou From estropico at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 09:40:18 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 09:40:18 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803020140v11ab8884tdd9d9e5505e1e24@mail.gmail.com> Another few clarifications seem to be necessary to clarify Stefano's "accusations". I have never voted for, never mind supported, the Italian politcal party called Alleanza Nazionale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Alliance_(Italy), nor is my site (www.estropico.com) in any way connected with that party. I actually have some serious issues with their former Agriculture minister who was against genetically modified crops, and I'm far from keen on their statalism, but I started dropping my *fundamental* prejudices against them from the moment they became, and it took them decades, a **post** fascist party, despite their historical roots. From the Alleanza Nazionale Wikipedia entry: "When Gianfranco Fini visited Israel in late November 2003 in the function of Italian Deputy Prime Minister, he labeled the racial laws issued by the fascist regime in 1938 as "infamous". He also referred to the RSI as belonging to the most shameful pages of the past, and considered fascism part of an era of "absolute evil". Is that why Stefano seems to hate this party so much? Does he see them as "traitors"? The problem I have with Stefano Vaj and his personal brand of transhumanism is that, despite his continuos denials of never having had anything to do with the far right, his name keeps popping up over and over again on the websites of a certain Italian political side, which is difficult to label and that is been called different things by different people: Nouvelle droite? Far right? "Ethno-identitarian"? "Antagonistic" right? Alternative right? Anti-globalisation fascist? Pagan neo-fascist? Plain neo-fascist? Take your pick. One thing they are not, I suspect, is **post** fascists... Here's a Google translation of a (longish) article where I provide some background on this strange fringe of the neo-fascist microcosm, the emergenge, from it, of a "transhumanist" sub-fringe, its impact on the Italian Transhumanist Association, and why www.estropico.com has found it necessary to publish such an article to distantiate itself from their brand of "transhumanism". http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.estropico.com%2Fid314.htm&langpair=it%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 Cheers, Fabio > From: "Stefano Vaj" > Subject: Re: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: > <580930c20803011303w1f749a5ah1f79e7872217ad9 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 7:48 PM, estropico wrote: > > > From: "Stefano Vaj" > > > > > > ...be the Nouvelle Droite > > > fascist or not, if I were a "representative" of the same... > > > > You might want to update your book's website, then: "responsabile > > italiano del S?cretariat Etudes et Recherches del Groupement de > > Recherche et Etudes pour la Civilisation Europ?enne (GRECE)": > > http://www.biopolitica.it/biop-autore.html > > Mere sloppiness or deliberate misinformation? > > The truncated quote of my bio thereing reads "gi? responsabile > del...", meaning "former head of...". That S?cretariat in fact has > not even existed for more than twenty-five years now. As for the > quality of the work performed by the same, the number of Nobelists > involved at that time in the publications of GRECE is a good enough > testimony of what it could achieve before its deplorable conservative > turn, which led on the other hand to Mr. de Benoist's regular > invitations as a speaker by the Italian post-fascist environments > supported by your friends and yourself. > > Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 12:23:31 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 13:23:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803020140v11ab8884tdd9d9e5505e1e24@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803020140v11ab8884tdd9d9e5505e1e24@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803020423q59479029k7156aabed9df7a48@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 10:40 AM, estropico wrote: > Another few clarifications seem to be necessary to clarify Stefano's > "accusations". My only "accusations" concern you deliberate lies and half-truths aimed at deliberately sabotaging, usually through me, the AIT's action. > > I have never voted for, never mind supported, the Italian politcal > party called Alleanza Nazionale > He also > referred to the RSI as belonging to the most > shameful pages of the past, and considered fascism part of an era of > "absolute evil". Is that why Stefano seems to hate this party so much? > Does he see them as "traitors"? "Hate"? I happen to have a small but staunch group of personal fans in this party (as I do, btw, amongst Italian federalists and some very peculiar left-wing groups). Their press is wide open to me for whatever I fancy to contribute and the official party daily newspaper has interviewed me and published favourable critics of my books. As a law scholar, to my great surprise, I happen to have been recently indicated by Alleanza Nazionale, together with Mr. Berlusconi's party and the Northern League, to the Lombard governor and parliament, as one of the five "wise men" to whom the drafting of the new Lombardy constitution has been entrusted. Yet, I have never made it a secret that I cannot condone the fact that the current leadership of Alleanza Nazionale has chosen to support positions that are hardly defensible from H+, be they libertarian or progressive, points of view, such as bioluddism, parasitic economic monopolies (such as Mr. Berlusconi's on Italian TV broadcasting), pro-life militantism, teocon extremism (see the delirious campaign for the obligatory exhibition of catholic symbols in Italian schools), the power and salaries of Italian unelected, unsupervised bureaucrats, and above all the "nuke-'em-all" international relationship approach that you seem to like so much, even though Alleanza Nazionale may now pretend to have substituted US- or Israeli super-hawks as the object of their loyalty to Nazi Germany. So, basically, I think it fine and dandy that transhumanism is represented throughout the entire political spectrum, Alleanza Nazionale and Mr. Berlusconi's party and other Italian right-wing groups obviously included. I strongly oppose the idea, however, that by paying some lip service to technology of immediate business or military relevance transhumanism should be manipulated in becoming an additional recruitment operation for dubious, partisan and minority power environments who do not even show any appreciation of your efforts to this end and preach neo-luddite ideas much more than the Italian left does. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pgptag at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 15:13:01 2008 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 16:13:01 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists In-Reply-To: <580930c20803020423q59479029k7156aabed9df7a48@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803020140v11ab8884tdd9d9e5505e1e24@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803020423q59479029k7156aabed9df7a48@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <470a3c520803020713u2f0ff3a9n5e842ee922c917cf@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 1:23 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 10:40 AM, estropico wrote: > > > Another few clarifications seem to be necessary to clarify Stefano's > > "accusations". > > My only "accusations" concern you deliberate lies and half-truths aimed at > deliberately sabotaging, usually through me, the AIT's action. I used to find this discussion, originating from personal grudges, very boring when it used to take place on the AIT list. I still find it boring, perhaps even more, on the Extropy list. I am happy to report that the discussion on the AIT list has, since more that one year, moved on to more productive and interesting topics. I hope the same will happen here. I took the initiative to forward to the list a very interesting and well written document written by AIT members, and especially by Riccardo Campa, hoping to stimulate a discussion on the content of the document. Instead, I see the old and tired personal attacks of some Italian transhumanists against some others. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 15:46:13 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 08:46:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200803011724.38240.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <939952.8409.qm@web27010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200803011724.38240.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803020746i1f70e497u8bbedafdd7d9ef3b@mail.gmail.com> Bryan Bishop wrote: Just to make sure, you do understand that I am not dismissive of religions at all, merely in terms of making "transhumanism" a reality, such as making futurist technologies realized, since *not* paying attention to religion does not influence the bottomline technicality of the technologies involved. Otherwise, it's an amazing cultural phenomena and much more. >>> Not paying attention to religion may not influence the bottomline *technicality* of a technology. But in terms of the actual *successful development* of a technology, you need generally a combination of political, corporate, academic and financial support. The "amazing cultural phenomena" you describe, if it turns against you (stem cell research vrs. the Bush Administration, for instance), results in a definite slowing or stopping of potentially life saving medical technology. And even though the research and development would continue in other nations, the U.S. would then be at a serious disadvantage to be a leader in the biotech field and reap the financial harvest. And remember that it's just plain "un-American" to not make tons of money and dominate technological progress! lol you continue: No matter how much they proclaim to be against a possibility does not determine that bottom line of feasability. Yes, they can protest, yes, they can try to stone us, they can try to burn us alive, but you see, we can diffuse the information over the internet, and good luck warring against the internet. It will route around the damage. >>> But warring against research labs and those who fund them in another matter, entirely. It generally takes serious money and disciplined scientific teams to tease out Mother Nature's secrets. you continue: I saw Greg Bear on television a few months ago, he was surprised that there wasn't more high school students doing biotech and related engineering yet, and he's right that it will probably change pretty soon. I should go get the book. Sounds interesting. >>> I think part of the problem may be that highschool chemistry teaching has fallen into such disrepair. "Oh, no, we can't trust the kids to not blow themselves up!" lol In chemistry people learn the joy of scientific investigation. A fairly large percentage of the grad students and postdocs in U.S. research labs are foreign nationals. While I think some "intellectual capital cross-pollination" is a very good thing, I believe the United States may be nearing a "Sputnik crisis" level of potential uneasiness if we do not get *many more* of our young people into science research related advanced degree programs. It may take several decades to fully see the destructive effect of this on the U.S. economy in terms of global competitiveness. And by the time we try to really turn things around we may have lost some critical advantages that might never be fully regained. In terms of national security (and economic strength is a foundation of military strength) and a having a powerful and effective armed forces, the U.S. in my view needs to be much more careful in terms of who does scientific research in our labs and who can gain access to our technological trade secrets. I think we should only let in foreign nationals that are from nations which do not have longterm plans to take our spot as the definitive world superpower. I cringe to think of all the knowledge & power which is leaked out to potentially hostile foreign competitors because we are so dependent on researchers not from our native country. We groom all these brilliant young researchers to only have them go home and make their home nation much more competitive, economically and sometimes militarily. I realize we get short term benefits out of their efforts here but I see it as short term gain for long term loss. Now, regarding a nation truly friendly to us, I say it is our ethical duty to help them and enrich the skills of their research scientists. But we must be careful. An FBI agent once noted that with scientific knowledge so diffused now, foreign intelligence gatherers can find out so much by simply reading various scientific journals and other very public sources of information. They just have to "put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together" to find what they are searching for in the oceans of information around them. The example was given of a new U.S. naval submarine innovation, which to the horror of the U.S. military, was found to have "all the pieces" for it's reproduction scattered around academia and various journals. Someone just needed to be patient as they hunted for each piece, which could later be used to "assemble the puzzle." We are in a race to develop whatever the next generation of technological innovations are that we must have to stay not just competitive, but ahead of the rest of the world. And yes, we do have our top secret military labs that surely have incredible security and well vetted researchers, but the tech that feeds those places comes generally from corporate and academic America. It will be carefully nurtured and protected technological progress that will maintain our economic strength, and this must be protected every bit as much as some state of the art new weapons system. Nationalism is a two-edged sword. On the one side it can cause healthy competition among developed nations to make rapid progress in key technologies that would potentially change our lives for the better. I am very grateful for this (would you want a powerful world government that had a negative view of biotech research and passed laws in effect *everywhere* to enforce their stance?, lol) But on the other hand, nationalism can cause extreme over-competitiveness, which leads to wars, both cold and hot. you continue: On that note, who the hell are you supposed to call if you get locked up in Gitmo? Not just any regular lawyer, surely. A super lawyer, perhaps? >>> Why, you get whatever legal defense your military tribunal decides to assign you... ; ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at amara.com Sun Mar 2 16:43:03 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 09:43:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: Bryan Bishop kanzure at gmail.com : On Friday 29 February 2008, estropico wrote: > Italy (like any other country) is unique. Part of its "uniqueness" is > the presence of the Vatican and the power of catholic institutions. >What power? Money? They certainly don't have supercomputers, they don't >have massive research institutions, they don't have neurofarms, the >only power they have is lots of listeners and a widely distributed >mental program. What does this power have to do with transhumanism? Bryan, see my comment here: http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/storm-over-rome-physicists-against-pope-ratzinger/#comment-91952 and my previous post(s) http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2008-February/040996.html regarding a saga involving the Pope. Here is one example of his role in the Italian government; A very well-qualified (for once) scientist was nominated to head the CNR, and some number of Vatican sympathizers in the Italian Parliament hung up his nomination due to his signing a letter objecting to the Pope making a speech at the inaugural events at Rome La Sapienza University. If you look at the laws passed in the Italian Parliament in the last 5 years, you will find a few significant anti-transhumanism laws passed, due to the influence of the Church. And, you are aware of the Vatican Observatory, aren't you? http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo/R1024/VO.html Their main observatory (the Pope 'scope) is a significant piece of instrumentation on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. The Vatican astronomers are world-class scientists, and I note that one of them is finishing an important position in the largest body of planetary scientists in the world (http://dps.aas.org/) (Consolmagno, see: http://members.aas.org/directory/public_directory_member_details.cfm?ID=13174) Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 17:24:41 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 18:24:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20803020924g5c54397eoc3b38d5489272784@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 5:43 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > Bryan, see my comment here: > http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/storm-over-rome-physicists-against-pope-ratzinger/#comment-91952 > > and my previous post(s) > http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2008-February/040996.html > > regarding a saga involving the Pope. Here is one example of his role in > the Italian government; A very well-qualified (for once) scientist was > nominated to head the CNR, and some number of Vatican sympathizers in > the Italian Parliament hung up his nomination due to his signing a > letter objecting to the Pope making a speech at the inaugural events at > Rome La Sapienza University. > > If you look at the laws passed in the Italian Parliament in the last > 5 years, you will find a few significant anti-transhumanism > laws passed, due to the influence of the Church. Amara is right. The growing political power in Italy of the Catholic Church, in a period where its religious power has been in steep decline for decades and its ranks are growingly filled by immigrated priests, does not depend from any kind of overwhelming popular support, but on two main factors: - the enormous assets and financial resources it has accumulated during the Cold War when the Christian Democrats were entrusted with the task of keeping the communist party out of the Italian government by the entire West and West-friendly Italian public opinion, also thank to the fact that after twenty year of fascist regime the Church was besides the communist party the only Italian force to have a diffused, territorially widespread coverage; - the fact that in the nowadays bipolar political system, the 4 or 5% of catholic fundamentalists are believed to be on most occasions the swinging vote, determining whether the right or the left is going to govern a given municipality o the entire country; thus, both coalitions tend regularly to put forward candidates with an immaculate catholic or philo-catholic pedigree. Having said that, pro-life is the concern of a militant minority which is a source of embarassment even to the small catholic parties, religion is largely irrelevant to the everyday life of the average Italian unless as a folkloric tradition on the occasion of births, funerals and (less and less) marriages, and creationism, far from being a debated issue, is mostly laughed off from schools and academias. Yet, denouncing the catholic lobby or challenging openly its tenets in public is of growing political sensitiveness, to the point that you would be hard-pressed to find a communist or former communist politician who is willing to admit his own allegiance to dialectic materialism... :-) Stefano Vaj From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 2 17:27:55 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 09:27:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Addition Functionalism (was Mindless Thought Experiments) References: <200802281006.02410.kanzure@gmail.com> <005201c87a8f$e9ea7d70$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <402e01e70802290723id16c225r11d0052ecef7ec91@mail.gmail.com> <005001c87afa$52c1bba0$45ef4d0c@MyComputer> <011001c87bc4$d06c3ce0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <01dd01c87c25$9a7bd4e0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <020e01c87c8b$3389daf0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Stathis writes >> [I would say] that Addition Functionalism >> is correct. My proviso: the key factor is how explicit it is. If two planetoids >> gently collide, their masses are explicitly added, but if Van Maanen's Star >> and S Doradus each emit a certain but different number of photons in a >> given second, then the addition is highly implicit (or hidden). >> >> At a different, higher level, an intelligent entity (from a crow to an advanced >> AI) may map these environmental additions, but mostly only explicit ones, >> into mental sums or feelings of numerical quantity. > > There's not much practical difference between saying addition is not > implemented unless... I'm sure you meant "difference between saying addition is implimented unless..." So I'll proceed on that basis. You wrote > There's not much practical difference between saying addition is > implemented unless someone observes it, or addition is implemented > but is of no interest unless someone observes it. I'll agree with the latter, but my guess is that we can get away with saying that what remote non-intelligent natural processes sometimes do is "add", and to call this process addition. I like to de-emphasize observers and to try to use scientific sentences to apply to phenomena, whether or not they are observed by anything, just as we do in daily life. > But if the physical process in question has associated with it > consciousness, you would have to say that the consciousness > still happens, Yes, consciousness is a physical activity, and surely someday rather good criteria will be firmly established that sort all machines on the continuum from the very conscious end to the unconscious pebbles and trees on the other end. Our mind children will judge that we now are already pretty good at it, I'll wager. > unless you claim that it is somehow contingent on being observed > by another conscious entity. :-) Yep, I have never liked the views that ascribe a role to consciousness, though in some sense it can be argued that your observation determines which universe you'll inhabit, and that may turn out to be isomorphic to some of what the "consciousness counts" crowd says. Lee From benboc at lineone.net Sun Mar 2 17:30:59 2008 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:30:59 +0000 Subject: [ExI] "Deities" and "Patents" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47CAE453.3070501@lineone.net> "Lee Corbin" wrote: > I'm sure that many, many people noticed "Pattents" is > misspelled. Why didn't even one of them correct it? Could it be something to do with the fact that that's how Americans (mis-)pronounce it? If you're going to pronounce it that way, why not spell it like that? Surely that's simpler and more Websterish, no? ben zaiboc From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 2 18:07:25 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 10:07:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italiantranshumanists Message-ID: <022d01c87c90$b690fff0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Estropico writes about the fascist and neo-fascist ideologies. Could someone supply a score-card to us innocent bystanders as to what is meant? My problem is that in the Anglosphere the word "fascist" is almost entirely meaningless (mainly because no one calls themselves such a thing). George Orwell said as early as 1946(!) that it had become meaningless. But perhaps in Europe, especially in Italy where the term originated of course, things might be different. In the long URL below, Fabio has evidently written > The label "fascist" (or "neo-fascist") is generally rejected, > but not by all [1]. but I cannot read the footnote. Are there really significant numbers of people who call themselves either of these labels? Are any of them, calling themselves "fascist" or "neo-fascist" in the Italian Transhumanist movement? (If there are, they should keep a low profile about these names, since they certainly give a bad impression. Or so I suppose.) On what "fascism" originally meant, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism says, not surprisingly "patriotism, nationalism, statism, militarism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, corporatism, populism, collectivism, autocracy and opposition to political and economic liberalism On neo-Fascism, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-fascism says Neo-fascism is a post-World War II ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. The term neo-fascist may apply to groups that express a specific admiration for Benito Mussolini and fascist Italy. Neo-fascism usually includes nationalism, anti-immigration policies or, where relevant, nativism (see definition), anti-communism, and opposition to the parliamentary system and liberal democracy. Allegations that a group is neo-fascist may be hotly contested, especially if the term is used as a politic epithet. Some post- World War II regimes have been described as neo-fascist due to their authoritarian nature, and sometimes due to their fascination with fascist ideology and rituals. which seems fair (to me) and makes sense (to me). It does in English, that is :-) Thanks, Lee > http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.estropico.com%2Fid314.htm&langpair=it%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 > Cheers, > Fabio From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 18:10:57 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 11:10:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2d6187670803021010y126cbfads857bb268b4543f0c@mail.gmail.com> Amara Graps wrote: If you look at the laws passed in the Italian Parliament in the last 5 years, you will find a few significant anti-transhumanism laws passed, due to the influence of the Church. >>> Amara, how much real influence/raw power does the Roman Catholic Church have on a global scale? Can they still strongly sway American Catholics? Non-Italian European Catholics? Asian Catholics? I would think in the developed world as a whole their power to affect politics & science is quite limited. But in the third world (especially Latin America) they probably still hold great sway. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 18:55:22 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 12:55:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200803021255.23132.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 02 March 2008, Amara Graps wrote: > If you look at the laws passed in the Italian Parliament in the last > 5 years, you will find a few significant anti-transhumanism > laws passed, due to the influence of the Church. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From robert.bradbury at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 18:56:41 2008 From: robert.bradbury at gmail.com (Robert Bradbury) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 13:56:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? Message-ID: I have not posted to the list in some time. And due to philosophical differences I will not engage in open discussions (which are not really open!). But a problem has been troubling me recently as I have viewed press releases for various AI conferences. I believe the production of an AGI spells the extinction of humanity. More importantly it has what I would call back propagating effects. Why should iI expend ntellectual energy, time, money, etc. in a doomed species? Put another way, those of you who have had and/or are investing in children are potentially pursuing a pointless endeavor. If an AGI develops or is developed their existence is fairly pointless. Our current culture obviously shows absorption is nearly instantaneous for younger minds. They will know they are "obsolete" in an AGI world. So given some limited genetic drive to keep making humans, that will last a while. But I see no way out of the perspective that the general development (vs the managed development) of an AGI leads to the survival of humanity. And so, we must present transhumanism as an "Extinction Level Event" -- are willing to deal with thiat? Robert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From xuenay at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 19:03:20 2008 From: xuenay at gmail.com (Kaj Sotala) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 21:03:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6a13bb8f0803021103w2da4df0ey2deea6798199ade3@mail.gmail.com> On 3/2/08, Robert Bradbury wrote: > I believe the production of an AGI spells the extinction of humanity. More > importantly it has what I would call back propagating effects. Why should > iI expend ntellectual energy, time, money, etc. in a doomed species? Put The AGI can come up with ways for us to voluntarily upgrade into a posthuman species. Then we won't become obsolete. -- http://www.saunalahti.fi/~tspro1/ | http://xuenay.livejournal.com/ Organizations worth your time: http://www.singinst.org/ | http://www.crnano.org/ | http://lifeboat.com/ From clementlawyer at hotmail.com Sun Mar 2 19:39:46 2008 From: clementlawyer at hotmail.com (James Clement) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 11:39:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Robert; If you've been following transhumanist email lists such as this one and WTA-Talk, then you'll know that we're not blind to the potential negative consequences of an unfriendly AGI. The WTA in particular supports the concerns and work of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (see in particular http://www.singinst.org/upload/artificial-intelligence-risk.pdf by Eliezer Yudkowsky) and the Lifeboat Foundation (see the AIShield program at http://lifeboat.com/ex/ai.shield). Both of these organizations are working to create research guidelines, safety protocols, and contingency plans dealing with "friendly AI." As someone who has computer programming knowledge and an obvious concern over these matters, perhaps you would want to join these organizations and participate in their work. Since you've stated that you don't want to engage in open discussions, I'd be happy to assist you in contacting the above-referenced groups offlist, if you so desire. Personally, I follow Ray Kurzweil's philosophy that you have to look at what's going on in the whole of science and technology and not focus on the problems of just one area as though advances will ONLY take place in that field in isolation of all of the other fields. Many researchers are working on improving human-level cognition, human-computer interfaces, and other neuroengineering challenges. I personally think it would be jumping to a conclusion to think that AGI will reach any sort of superhuman intelligence level before we have the ability to plug into such systems and use them directly for our own purposes. That's not to say it can't happen (hence the importance of the work being done by the above-referenced organizations), just that we shouldn't jump to the most extreme, doomsday, conclusions. Best regards, James ClementExecutive Director World Transhumanist Association Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 13:56:41 -0500From: robert.bradbury at gmail.comTo: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.orgSubject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI?I have not posted to the list in some time. And due to philosophical differences I will not engage in open discussions (which are not really open!).But a problem has been troubling me recently as I have viewed press releases for various AI conferences.I believe the production of an AGI spells the extinction of humanity. More importantly it has what I would call back propagating effects. Why should iI expend ntellectual energy, time, money, etc. in a doomed species? Put another way, those of you who have had and/or are investing in children are potentially pursuing a pointless endeavor. If an AGI develops or is developed their existence is fairly pointless. Our current culture obviously shows absorption is nearly instantaneous for younger minds. They will know they are "obsolete" in an AGI world.So given some limited genetic drive to keep making humans, that will last a while. But I see no way out of the perspective that the general development (vs the managed development) of an AGI leads to the survival of humanity.And so, we must present transhumanism as an "Extinction Level Event" -- are willing to deal with thiat?Robert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 20:08:00 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 21:08:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20803021208h807625bl3e7cc250d723799@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 7:56 PM, Robert Bradbury wrote: > I believe the production of an AGI spells the extinction of humanity. > More importantly it has what I would call back propagating effects. Why > should iI expend ntellectual energy, time, money, etc. in a doomed species? > Put another way, those of you who have had and/or are investing in children > are potentially pursuing a pointless endeavor. If an AGI develops or is > developed their existence is fairly pointless. Our current culture > obviously shows absorption is nearly instantaneous for younger minds. They > will know they are "obsolete" in an AGI world. > OK. Thus, you think that if somebody who would like to perpetuate himself he or she should start investing from now in the development of an AGI. Fine with me, even though I believe that no harm will derive from a few children on the side... :-) Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 2 20:10:46 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 12:10:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: Message-ID: <023f01c87ca1$8410ede0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Hi Robert! Welcome back. Your posts have been sorely missed, and I neglected to mention this when you posted a month or so ago. > I have not posted to the list in some time. And due to philosophical > differences I will not engage in open discussions (which are not really open!). Sorry to hear about that, but I can understand. But could you mention a bit how that is, just for closure? I've been driven off myself, at least once. (Would need a new thread, if you could be so kind). > But a problem has been troubling me recently as I have viewed press > releases for various AI conferences. I believe the production of an > AGI spells the extinction of humanity...Why should I expend intellectual > energy, time, money, etc. in a doomed species? I figure that humanities chances are about fifty-fifty. Or, rather, it's absolutely too hard to have a good idea of what will happen (as Taleb explains so well in "The Black Swan", though rather wordily). So: Half the time, I'm dead. We're all dead. Case closed. How sad. But half the time somehow the reigning intelligence(s) manage to respect private property and respect tradition[1]---in which case H O T D A M N ! ! Things will be so literally unimaginably good for me/us that we literally cannot conceive of it. Now... do the weighted sum.... :-) > If an AGI develops or is developed their existence is fairly pointless. Not for me. "To delight in understanding" is my credo, what life is all about for me. Besides, there'll be nice drugs that will help moods (www.hedweb.com!), as we know, without interfering in other things. And that's before uploading! > Our current culture obviously shows absorption is nearly instantaneous > for younger minds. They will know they are "obsolete" in an AGI world. Obsolete for what? I'm already obsolete in music composing and nanotube transistor design. Lee [1] I have often called this "the logic of cryonics": We save those who came before, in order that those who come after will save us. An AI may reason similarly: it can very well become obsolete too, so it has logical reason to subscribe to this doctrine. At completely negligible expense it can preserve its ancestors (including us), so why not? Then it may expect its replacements to follow the same logic, and so on. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 20:16:35 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 21:16:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20803021216l4ea4fea9y28e0e575acfe67b9@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 8:39 PM, James Clement wrote: > That's not to say it can't happen (hence the importance of the work being > done by the above-referenced organizations), just that we shouldn't jump to > the most extreme, doomsday, conclusions. > Lest I repeat myself for the umpteenth time on this issue, I would limit myself to reiterate that defining a future substitution of "children of the mind" to "biological children" as an unqualified "doomsday conclusion" should at least be argumented a little more. Unless of course we consider the coming of homo sapiens as "doom" or "extinction" for our pre-sapiens ancestors. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at amara.com Sun Mar 2 20:38:56 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 13:38:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: Tom Nowell nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk : >Italy, like most developed countries, is a >representative democracy. That's not strictly true, in Italy's case. http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/2008/03/illegal_political_elections.html Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Mar 2 20:56:52 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 14:56:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <580930c20803021216l4ea4fea9y28e0e575acfe67b9@mail.gmail.co m> References: <580930c20803021216l4ea4fea9y28e0e575acfe67b9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080302145542.022ea6b8@satx.rr.com> At 09:16 PM 3/2/2008 +0100: >Unless of course we consider the coming of homo sapiens as "doom" or >"extinction" for our pre-sapiens ancestors. > >Stefano Vaj Of course we do (it was), but we don't care, unless we're exceptionally sentimental. Damien Broderick From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 21:08:03 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 15:08:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200803021508.03805.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 02 March 2008, Robert Bradbury wrote: > I believe the production of an AGI spells the extinction of humanity. There was a post on one of these mailing lists years ago that argued that we are already ai. Thus intelligence is a factor of our humanity. Therefore, you're arguing that the production of more intelligence means the extinction of intelligence (and lots of other things that make up 'humanity'). Which is false, since producing intelligence != immediately destroying intelligence. If you wish to remove intelligence from our humanity, aren't you that very AGI that you originally set out to destroy? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 21:09:27 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 22:09:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080302145542.022ea6b8@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20803021216l4ea4fea9y28e0e575acfe67b9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080302145542.022ea6b8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803021309n2553e0b8y2d1e81ad706f16b4@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 9:56 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 09:16 PM 3/2/2008 +0100: > >Unless of course we consider the coming of homo sapiens as "doom" or > >"extinction" for our pre-sapiens ancestors. > > Of course we do (it was), but we don't care, unless we're > exceptionally sentimental. > Yes, this is a possible way to put things. In the event of biological descent one could even argue that each subsequent generation represents the extinction of the previous one, or that mitosis represents the "death" of the parent, and subsequently splitted, cell. A more optimistic spin on the same phenomenon, however, is that the "life" of a given species or unicellular organism "goes on" in its progeny. I suspect that the difference between the two languages is much more of a rhetoric rather than substantial nature. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From joao at genetics.med.harvard.edu Sun Mar 2 20:35:46 2008 From: joao at genetics.med.harvard.edu (Joao Magalhaes) Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:35:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Basically, DNA is a computing problem Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.2.20080302153546.0d0859d0@receptor.med.harvard.edu> The new generation sequencing technologies don't require electrophoresis: http://www.illumina.com/pages.ilmn?ID=203 They do require a scaffold reference genome for alignment of all the reads. Cheers, Joao Pedro At 18:27 01-03-2008, you wrote: >On Saturday 01 March 2008, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > A modern sequencer itself is a fairly powerful computer. The new > > machines being brought online at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute > > are robots from waist-height upwards, where the machinery grows and > > then treats microscopic specks of DNA in serried ranks so that a > > laser can illuminate it and a moving camera capture the fluorescing > > bases every two seconds. The lower half of each cabinet holds the > > computers needed to coordinate the machinery and do the preliminary > > processing of the camera pictures. At the heart of the machine is a > > plate of treated glass about the size of an ordinary microscope > > slide, which contains around 30m copies of 2,640 tiny fragments of > > DNA, all arranged in eight lines along the glass, and all with the > > bases at their tips being directly read off by a laser. > >It is my understanding that it is a bit more complicated than that, not >just fluorescent laser spectroscopy, but rather some sort of gel >electrophoresis system where the DNA strands are ran down all at once >and then you correlate massive datasets together to figure out where >all of the DNA molecules were in synch or where they weren't, and stuff >like that. I'd like to be wrong - I hope it's as easy as a laser >reading each individual nucleotide reporter. > >- Bryan >________________________________________ >Bryan Bishop >http://heybryan.org/ >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat --- Joao Pedro de Magalhaes, PhD Harvard Medical School, Dept. of Genetics 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, NRB 238 (Church lab) Boston, MA 02115 Telephone: 1-617-432-6512 http://www.senescence.info From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 21:40:07 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 14:40:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <023f01c87ca1$8410ede0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <023f01c87ca1$8410ede0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <2d6187670803021340n2a28325asa49078a11a22f168@mail.gmail.com> Robert Bradbury (>) and Lee Corbin wrote: > But a problem has been troubling me recently as I have viewed press > releases for various AI conferences. I believe the production of an > AGI spells the extinction of humanity...Why should I expend intellectual > energy, time, money, etc. in a doomed species? I figure that humanities chances are about fifty-fifty. Or, rather, it's absolutely too hard to have a good idea of what will happen (as Taleb explains so well in "The Black Swan", though rather wordily). So: Half the time, I'm dead. We're all dead. Case closed. How sad. But half the time somehow the reigning intelligence(s) manage to respect private property and respect tradition[1]---in which case H O T D A M N ! ! Things will be so literally unimaginably good for me/us that we literally cannot conceive of it. Now... do the weighted sum.... :-) > If an AGI develops or is developed their existence is fairly pointless. Not for me. "To delight in understanding" is my credo, what life is all about for me. Besides, there'll be nice drugs that will help moods (www.hedweb.com!), as we know, without interfering in other things. And that's before uploading! > Our current culture obviously shows absorption is nearly instantaneous > for younger minds. They will know they are "obsolete" in an AGI world. Obsolete for what? I'm already obsolete in music composing and nanotube transistor design. Lee [1] I have often called this "the logic of cryonics": We save those who came before, in order that those who come after will save us. An AI may reason similarly: it can very well become obsolete too, so it has logical reason to subscribe to this doctrine. At completely negligible expense it can preserve its ancestors (including us), so why not? Then it may expect its replacements to follow the same logic, and so on. (end of excerpt, but hopefully not humanity) Wow! This exchange between Robert and Lee reminded me of the "good old days" of the Extropy list (back before even the dawn of the 21st century). : ) I have very fond memories of Robert Bradbury due to his online postings and having met him in person. He helped me attend Extro 5, where I had some great experiences. I wish Robert would come back to the group and that he could feel free to speak his mind. I am disturbed that he now views the prospects for humanity as being very slim to none. Robert Bradbury is a very bright and educated man so I take into serious consideration what he says. But I do wonder if matters in his personal life have somehow clouded his perspective (this is only conjecture and I mean no offense to you, Robert). I say this because sometimes when I let life get me down, I temporarily develop a very negative worldview. Lee's thoughtful words put a smile on my face and helped boost my spirits because of his very life-affirming and enthusiastic logic. I realize Robert has a point but we must not give in to dispair. Lee Corbin wrote regarding if things should actually work out for humanity: Things will be so literally unimaginably good for me/us that we literally cannot conceive of it. Now... do the weighted sum.... :-) >>> I have to say..., "I don't know, Lee, I can literally conceive of ALOT of good things!" LOL : ) But I understand what you mean. And while I don't envision an utterly problem free utopia, I do think we will look back to this present time as darkly medieval by comparison. John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Sun Mar 2 22:18:21 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 16:18:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Basically, DNA is a computing problem In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.2.20080302153546.0d0859d0@receptor.med.harvard.edu> References: <6.1.1.1.2.20080302153546.0d0859d0@receptor.med.harvard.edu> Message-ID: <200803021618.21365.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 02 March 2008, Joao Magalhaes wrote: > The new generation sequencing technologies don't require > electrophoresis: http://www.illumina.com/pages.ilmn?ID=203 This page is hard to understand. It looks like they're saying they have chemical protocols for the manipulation and PCR amplification of DNA fragments, and are somehow using fluorescent techniques to identify each base pair, but this doesn't tell me what's actually going on. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From joao at genetics.med.harvard.edu Sun Mar 2 22:38:30 2008 From: joao at genetics.med.harvard.edu (Joao Magalhaes) Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 17:38:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Basically, DNA is a computing problem In-Reply-To: <200803021618.21365.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <6.1.1.1.2.20080302153546.0d0859d0@receptor.med.harvard.edu> <200803021618.21365.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.2.20080302173420.0d087d70@receptor.med.harvard.edu> Here is a more detailed description of the Solexa technology used to re-sequence the human genome: http://web.mit.edu/6.874/www/lectures/lecture1/SS_DNAsequencing.pdf And an overview written by my boss of different new generation sequencing technologies: http://arep.med.harvard.edu/pdf/Church05s.pdf Cheers, JP At 05:18 PM 2/3/2008, you wrote: >On Sunday 02 March 2008, Joao Magalhaes wrote: > > The new generation sequencing technologies don't require > > electrophoresis: http://www.illumina.com/pages.ilmn?ID=203 > >This page is hard to understand. It looks like they're saying they have >chemical protocols for the manipulation and PCR amplification of DNA >fragments, and are somehow using fluorescent techniques to identify >each base pair, but this doesn't tell me what's actually going on. > >- Bryan >________________________________________ >Bryan Bishop >http://heybryan.org/ >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sun Mar 2 23:50:19 2008 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 23:50:19 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <325354.68760.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Bryan's latest comment was "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" in response to Italy's political situation. I have two problems with this attitude: 1) Expecting people to "get out of the kitchen" in the 21st century. This isn't the 19th or early 20th centuries with America asking to "give me your masses, your huddled poor" and many Italians moving to South America to the burgeoning industries there. The most technologically advanced nations are the USA, or "Fortress America" as politicians try to make it in election year, and Japan, a nation with very harsh immigration laws. OK, they do have the right to move anywhere else in the EU, as long as they can overcome the language & cultural barriers. It's still not an easy job. Let's just hope the EU doesn't introduce any anti-transhuman laws like they did laws banning GMO crops, otherwise there's nearly a billion of us with nowhere to run to. 2) "The kitchen" in this case is a significant nation. Looking at wikipedia's list of countries by nominal GDP, the IMF, world bank and CIA factbook all place Italy at no.7. The world's seventh-largest economy introducing anti-transhumanist laws is potentially a moderately sized brake on global development. To take Bryan's analogy, if you can't stand being in the kitchen, what are you going to for food? Try and build a barbecue in the backyard and hope it doesn't rain? In the UK, I'm already familiar with the situation that an Irish woman who wants an abortion has to travel to the British mainland to get it done. When successful technologies based on embryonic stem cells arise, what's the betting that people needing medical treatment may be forced to do the same? We do need to pay attention to what is happening in politics regarding the issues we care about. Tom ___________________________________________________________ Rise to the challenge for Sport Relief with Yahoo! For Good http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/forgood/ From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 00:49:37 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 18:49:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <325354.68760.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <325354.68760.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200803021849.38376.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 02 March 2008, Tom Nowell wrote: > Bryan's latest comment was "If you can't stand the > heat, get out of the kitchen" in response to Italy's > political situation. I have two problems with this > attitude: This is the same attitude as taking your hand out of a hot flame. > 1) Expecting people to "get out of the kitchen" in the > 21st century. This isn't the 19th or early 20th So are you saying we have grown stupider? > centuries with America asking to "give me your masses, > your huddled poor" and many Italians moving to South > America to the burgeoning industries there. The most You must take your own hand from the fire, nations can't do it for you. > technologically advanced nations are the USA, or > "Fortress America" as politicians try to make it in > election year, and Japan, a nation with very harsh Nations don't do tech, people do tech. Do it yourself (and with others). > immigration laws. OK, they do have the right to move > anywhere else in the EU, as long as they can overcome > the language & cultural barriers. It's still not an > easy job. Yeah, nobody said things have to be easy. Luckily the body has an immediate reaction to fires and danger, so it's sort of automated. > Let's just hope the EU doesn't introduce any > anti-transhuman laws like they did laws banning GMO > crops, otherwise there's nearly a billion of us with > nowhere to run to. Just because they make something illegal does not mean that it alters the fundamental technicality of being able to do GMO or whatever. And the last time I checked, nearly 100% of the universe was still open. > 2) "The kitchen" in this case is a significant nation. No. "The kitchen" was a metaphor of risk. > Looking at wikipedia's list of countries by nominal > GDP, the IMF, world bank and CIA factbook all place > Italy at no.7. The world's seventh-largest economy > introducing anti-transhumanist laws is potentially a > moderately sized brake on global development. To take You think laws can stop the singularity? > Bryan's analogy, if you can't stand being in the > kitchen, what are you going to for food? Try and build > a barbecue in the backyard and hope it doesn't rain? http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Meat-on-a-stick > In the UK, I'm already familiar with the situation > that an Irish woman who wants an abortion has to > travel to the British mainland to get it done. When That's just money. With enough money, a rich woman could have snuck in an surgical abortionist and performed the operation in Ireland, since that seems to be so important to her. Also, what's wrong with travel? > successful technologies based on embryonic stem cells > arise, what's the betting that people needing medical > treatment may be forced to do the same? We do need to The woman was not forced. She chose an interpretation of the law and stuck with it. The govt (at this point) would be unable to scan the brains of every person within their borders to see if anybody knows how to perform an abortion and assemble the tools and drugs etc. And even if they could, what about one-time pads for sneaking in the relevant information and experience in forms of brain-interface chips? (Since I used mind-reading, I might as well include experience downloading.) > pay attention to what is happening in politics > regarding the issues we care about. Pay attention to the science and the tech. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From ABlainey at aol.com Mon Mar 3 01:11:48 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 20:11:48 EST Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? Message-ID: In a message dated 02/03/2008 18:57:00 GMT Standard Time, robert.bradbury at gmail.com writes: >I have not posted to the list in some time. And due to philosophical differences I will >not engage in open discussions (which are not really open!). > >But a problem has been troubling me recently as I have viewed press releases for >various AI conferences. >I believe the production of an AGI spells the extinction of humanity. More > importantly it has what I would call back propagating effects. Why should iI expend >ntellectual energy, time, money, etc. in a doomed species? Put another way, those >of you who have had and/or are investing in children are potentially pursuing a >pointless endeavor. If an AGI develops or is developed their existence is fairly >pointless. Our current culture obviously shows absorption is nearly instantaneous >for younger minds. They will know they are "obsolete" in an AGI world. >So given some limited genetic drive to keep making humans, that will last a while. >But I see no way out of the perspective that the general development (vs the >managed >development) of an AGI leads to the survival of humanity. > >And so, we must present transhumanism as an "Extinction Level Event" -- are >willing to deal with thiat? > >Robert Hello again Robert (been a long time). I have similar concerns as yourself and I am heavily leaning toward AGI=very bad. In a fairly recent poll of opinions regarding AGI's for Bruce Klien of Novamente. I voiced some of my concerns. The main backbone which these fears are framed around, is the lack of hormonal or chemical influence on an AGI. A subject which I raised many years ago. Personally I have continued to invest in children mainly in the hope that my unified general theory of relativity finally falls together and can be easily applied to get my off this rock, just before the singularity occurs. If all goes well I may return. If not, then at least my home made interstellar cryo chamber won't need topping up every few weeks. There is always hope....... hopefully. Alex Copy of my reply to Bruce pasted below. >Alex, quick question... when do you think AI will surpass human-level intelligence? [ ] 2010-20 [ ] 2020-30 [ ] 2030-50 [ ] 2050-70 [ ] 2070-2100 [ ] Beyond 2100 [ ] Prefer not to make predictions [ ] Other: __ > Hi Bruce, Im not sure I would agree with the question itself, but If you want my honest answer, then it really isn?t as simple as a tickin the box time frame. The truth is that AI already surpasses human intelligence in many areas. As for the fields of intelligence where AI does not equal or surpass human ability, this is really an issue of ?lack of application? rather than lack of applicable technology. I am sure that if the people you have asked this question to are the usual suspects, then you will receive many in-depth calculations of comparative computation, so I will skip the maths to prove the point. So what it boils down to is this: When will we finally put all the relevant technology together in one box, to create an AI that surpasses the average human intelligence? My answer to this would be 2020-30. Unless there is a major world economic upset in the next decade, which is a distinct possibility. In which case I would push it to 2030-50. However I would add a strong caveat and warning. If we do not put all the technology together in one box in a systematic and controlled manner, at some point it will happen spontaneously, through pure chance or accident. The internet being a prime example of opportunity for this to occur. When it happens, and it will. We will have no control, insight or warning. We (Homosapiens) will instantly become obsolete. The ramifications of this are impossible to predict. As if this isn?t bad enough, A spontaneously formed AI will have far superior information gathering skills, strategic analysis, will know our entire knowledge base (Including all the utter rubbish on Wikipedia) and will be completely devoid of ?natural hormonal control? which in short means no emotions, fears, wants, needs or empathy for anyone or thing, including itself. An Intelligence of this magnitude with a global reach into just about every control system on the planet could and probably will do major damage. Although probably not through design or desire, but just through exploration of ability or pure accident. When would I put a time frame on this happening? 2020-30 So as you can see, I think the singularity is going to happen quite soon, whether we want it to or not. It sounds like I am a Doomsayer, but far from it. When you are going to be hit in the head,you generally see it coming and have the chance to duck. The race to the singularity is already well underway and so the real question is: Will we be in control? Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 3 01:42:57 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 19:42:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "my unified general theory of relativity" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080302194149.022b5058@satx.rr.com> At 08:11 PM 3/2/2008 -0500, Alex expressed: >the hope that my unified general theory of relativity finally falls >together and can be easily applied to get my off this rock How's that coming along? From ABlainey at aol.com Mon Mar 3 01:56:55 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 20:56:55 EST Subject: [ExI] "my unified general theory of relativity" Message-ID: In a message dated 03/03/2008 01:43:37 GMT Standard Time, thespike at satx.rr.com writes: > >the hope that my unified general theory of relativity finally falls > >together and can be easily applied to get my off this rock > > How's that coming along? > > It's coming along nicely. If I could just figure out how to spell light with a 'C', then it should all fall into place. :o) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 02:05:51 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 20:05:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "my unified general theory of relativity" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080302194149.022b5058@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080302194149.022b5058@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200803022005.51154.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 02 March 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 08:11 PM 3/2/2008 -0500, Alex expressed: > > the hope that my unified general theory of relativity finally falls > > together and can be easily applied to get my off this rock > > How's that coming along? Relatively well? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From ABlainey at aol.com Mon Mar 3 02:15:20 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 21:15:20 EST Subject: [ExI] "my unified general theory of relativity" Message-ID: In a message dated 03/03/2008 02:03:04 GMT Standard Time, kanzure at gmail.com writes: > > How's that coming along? > > Relatively well? > > - Bryan LOL, someone had to. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 3 02:29:22 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:29:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "my unified general theory of relativity" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080302202806.0234ae60@satx.rr.com> At 08:56 PM 3/2/2008 -0500, Alex B wrote: >If I could just figure out how to spell light with a 'C', then it >should all fall into place. That would be c. From mail at harveynewstrom.com Mon Mar 3 03:43:58 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 22:43:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] JOKE: You know it's coming... Message-ID: <812ABD0E09134A90A3D329CFA97F9F19@Catbert> -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at harveynewstrom.com Mon Mar 3 03:51:52 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 22:51:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "my unified general theory of relativity" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <8D4BA7EC81C84C0A9DEC4BAAE08278EB@Catbert> Al Blainney wrote: > It's coming along nicely. If I could just figure out how to spell > light with a 'C', then it should all fall into place. "candela" (IPA: /k?n?dil?/, symbol: cd) is the SI base unit of luminous intensity (that is, power emitted by a light source in a particular direction, weighted by the luminosity function, a standardized model of the sensitivity of the human eye to different wavelengths). . -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CIFI GSEC IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 04:09:37 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 22:09:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] JOKE: You know it's coming... In-Reply-To: <812ABD0E09134A90A3D329CFA97F9F19@Catbert> References: <812ABD0E09134A90A3D329CFA97F9F19@Catbert> Message-ID: <200803022209.38150.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 02 March 2008, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > I carry a "citation needed" sign with me to class each day in the spirit of xkcd and Wikipedia. Teachers hate it. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From robert.bradbury at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 04:06:49 2008 From: robert.bradbury at gmail.com (Robert Bradbury) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 23:06:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <6a13bb8f0803021103w2da4df0ey2deea6798199ade3@mail.gmail.com> References: <6a13bb8f0803021103w2da4df0ey2deea6798199ade3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 2:03 PM, Kaj Sotala wrote: > > The AGI can come up with ways for us to voluntarily upgrade into a > posthuman species. Then we won't become obsolete. > > Kaj, please allow me to assume you have a young mind. And you can assume a transition to a posthuman state. Which may be fine for you -- I don't know. The problem is what happens to those of us who choose not to upgrade? What happens to those 6 billion or more humans (a good 5 billion or more of completely unaware of the forthcoming transition). I.e. those who have not read Nanosystems or Nanomedicine VI or "The consequences of the development" of an AGI, which has not been written yet? I want to allow your future while I cherish your past. Please tell me how to do that. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 04:33:43 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 22:33:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: <6a13bb8f0803021103w2da4df0ey2deea6798199ade3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803022233.44032.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 02 March 2008, Robert Bradbury wrote: > The problem is what happens to those of us who choose not to upgrade? That's like asking what happens to those who don't change. They die. > What happens to those humans unaware of the forthcoming transition? Due to identity problems, I have no idea. But we can try to store their DNA, their minds, their stories, their data, never of course completely capturing their state, but it's better than waiting for them to die. > I want to allow your future while I cherish my past. (edited) The more you cherish the past, the more restrictive, the more structural, the more crystallized, less entropic, less living, totally dead. You said you are worried about the death of those five billion -- cherishing them too much will bring about their death. > Please tell me how to do that. Maybe if we have a sufficient gradient to attract enough people away from this planet and on to another ... but then you'll lose a significant portion of your past since so many people will just get up and leave (if the gradient is powerful enough). So this is more destructive than you might be looking for. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 07:54:00 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 08:54:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20803022354t777dd4b2t747e1946502b0fe7@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 2:11 AM, wrote: > If we do not put all the technology together in one box in a systematic and > controlled manner, at some point it will happen spontaneously, through pure > chance or accident. The internet being a prime example of opportunity for > this to occur. When it happens, and it will. We will have no control, > insight or warning. We (Homosapiens) will instantly become obsolete. The > ramifications of this are impossible to predict. I do not think that AGI is going to be a dramatic quantum leap, a sudden awakening of given computer, any more than the moment could be identified when Homo sapiens or a horse was suddenly born from something radically different. What is going to happen is that from machines that can pass the Turing test over 10 questions 1% of the times with 1% of the users (we are probably already there) we will get to machines that can do that over 100 questions 50% of the times with 50% of the users to those who score better than real humans on any finite number of interactions with any finite number of users. As for the obsolescence of Homo sapiens, well, biology is not static itself, what's the big deal? Even though the definition of "extinction" may vary, my own favourite is "dying away without leaving behind any successor". And this, by definition, would definitely not the case should fully artificial, uploaded or mixed digital intelligences become the dominant form of sentience on the planet. Stefano Vaj From amara at amara.com Mon Mar 3 08:27:04 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 01:27:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: Stefano Vaj: >Having said that, pro-life is the concern of a militant minority which >is a source of embarassment even to the small catholic parties, >religion is largely irrelevant to the everyday life of the average >Italian I don't think that the Italian women can say that such laws are irrelevant, however. "Demonstrations on Abortion in Italy" (about the abortion Law 194, that is now on the agenda for April's election) http://www.ippfen.org/en/News/Intl+news/Demonstrations+on+abortion+in+Italy.htm "Reproductive medicine, politics and religion in Italy: Reflections on the 2005" (about Law 40, that is doing a good job driving Italian women and couples out of Italy for their reproductive help) http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/ogmius/archives/issue_15/reproductive_medicine.html Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 09:13:59 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 10:13:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <325354.68760.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <325354.68760.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803030113m2a18f02ck232c3631fcd9fb77@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 12:50 AM, Tom Nowell wrote: > Bryan's latest comment was "If you can't stand the > heat, get out of the kitchen" in response to Italy's > political situation. I have two problems with this > attitude: > > 1) Expecting people to "get out of the kitchen" in the > 21st century. This isn't the 19th or early 20th > centuries with America asking to "give me your masses, > your huddled poor" and many Italians moving to South > America to the burgeoning industries there. > > 2) "The kitchen" in this case is a significant nation. > Looking at wikipedia's list of countries by nominal > GDP, the IMF, world bank and CIA factbook all place > Italy at no.7. The world's seventh-largest economy > introducing anti-transhumanist laws is potentially a > moderately sized brake on global development. I appreciate that Italy may not be an entirely pleasant or convenient immigration target (ask Amara about that!), depending on the circumstances. On the other hand, while communities may well become with time less territorial in nature, and less invariably identified with Nation-States (which after all have been the dominant political form for just a few centuries...), I think that one has better fight the good fight where he is and where he belongs, be it in Italy or China, Iran or Switzerland, before considering emigration. Especially as long as prior to a posthuman change and to technological leaps we do not exactly have at hand "empty" and unchartered territories where transhumanists may emigrate, Pilgrim Fathers' style, to build their own New Zion. In fact, the remains of political independence that allow countries to pass anti-transhumanist laws are also comforting in the sense that they make for the possibility of passing pro-transhumanist ones, escaping global bans, and maintain a degree of diversity and of international competition that is our best chance in the medium term against prohibitionism and neoluddism. Stefano Vaj From estropico at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 09:35:10 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 09:35:10 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803030135x6a1d0de8x499de94af763c641@mail.gmail.com> > From: "Lee Corbin" > > In the long URL below, Fabio has evidently written > > The label "fascist" (or "neo-fascist") is generally rejected, but not by all [1]. > but I cannot read the footnote. Here's a better translation of the footnote than Google's (I hope!): Adriano Scianca http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=adriano-scianca&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGIC_enGB230GB230 is an AIT member and an outspoken overhumanist* that doesn't seem to have a problem in publicly declaring that "being a fascist is more fun than being a boring liberaldemocratic" and adds, in answer to the question "Why are you a fascist?", that "in European fascism I find a cultural exuberance, an enthusiasm for experimentation, a philosophical vivacity, a debate on the really central themes of our times that I cannot see in the opposite political side, where all I see is the recycling of puerile phylosofies two thousand years old?" http://www.mirorenzaglia.com/index.php?itemid=70 * I've settled on the neologism "overhumanism" to describe this peculiar version of transhumanism. "Superhumanism" would be a more correct translation, but it's too close to transhumanism (Wikipedia redirects from one to the other) and I feel there's a need of stressing the difference... > Are there really significant numbers > of people who call themselves either of these labels? Are any of > them, calling themselves "fascist" or "neo-fascist" in the Italian > Transhumanist movement? (If there are, they should keep a low > profile about these names, since they certainly give a bad impression. > Or so I suppose.) First of all, as clarified in the note above, "fascist" is a label that is generally publically rejected (the example above being an exception). In the article I also add that "...however tempting it is to simply brand Vaj and the overhumanists as fascists or neofascists, that is not the whole story, even if that is undoubtably their cultural and political background. A more apt description would be that of followers of the French "Nouvelle Droite" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouvelle_Droite That's the reason why I added a question mark to the title of this thread, btw. To understand the narrative of this *offshoot* of neofascism requires an understanding of what the French Nuovelle Droite is (or was, given that it has sank back into obscurity after some initial success in the late '70s/early '80s). I strongly recommend the Wikipedia link and also a look at two texts I quote in my article: Richard Wolin, "The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism" Stanley G. Payne, "A History of Fascism 1914-1945" Both are in English, obviously, and also available and searcheable on Google Books (searchstring: "nouvelle droite"). According to Wolin: "Their agenda [the Nouvelle Droite's intellectuals] has been relatively straightforward: in a postwar era during which the extreme right had been delegitimated owning to the misdeed of fascism and the taint of collaboration, they have sought to bring right-wing ideas into the political mainstream once again. While, qua intellectuals, many Nouvelle Droite leader have remained politically marginal, in retrospect one would have to avow that they largely succeeded in their primary aims: to reestablish a discourse of xenophobia and racial hatred that has had a deleterious influence on French political culture of the 1980s and 1990s." Payne illustrates, without meaning to, how some Nouvelle Droite sympatisers might be attracted to transhumanism: "the Nouvelle Droite is "extremely elitist, hierarchical and antiegalitarian but rejects the mysticism and idealism of an Evola, affirming the importance of science in modern life and relying heavily on the new sociobiology. Unlike the classic right, the new right maintains a religious position that is exclusively pagan, opposing equally Marxism and 'Judaeo-Christianity'. It attempts to create a political and philosophical program on the basis of a certain kind of human anthropology, which give it an intellectuality and a rigor normally lacking in vitalist neofascism." Last but definitively not least, a quote, taken from my article, from Giorgio Locchi, "source of inspiration for the overhumanists and author of "Political Expression and Repression of the Overhumanist Principle", in which he explains that "one cannot understand fascism without realising, or refusing to admit, that the so-called 'fascist phenomenon' is nothing but the first political manifestation of a larger spiritual and cultural phenomenon, which we can call 'overhumanism'". Further on, we find that "the 'overhumanist principle', in relation to the world surrounding it, becomes the absolute rejection of an opposite 'egalitarian principle' which conforms that world. If the fascist movements recognised the 'enemy', spiritual even before than political, in the democratic ideologies ? liberalism, parlamentarianism, socialism, communism, anarcho-communism ? it is because within the historic prospective instituted by the overhumanist principle those ideologies represent as many manifestations [?] of the opposite egalitarian principle, all aiming toward the same goal, with different level of understanding, and all causes of the spiritual and material decadence of Europe, of the progressive weakening of European man, of the disintegration of Western societies." The introduction to the text is by Stefano Vaj and in it we find that Vaj is in agreement with Locchi on the relationship between fascism and overhumanism. And yes, there are at least two AIT members that belong to this current, the one that's not ashamed of publicly describing himself as a fascist, and Stefano Vaj (who's also the association's unelected "national secretary"). There are also a few others whose membership status I'm not sure about (out of a full membership of 15, myself -for now- included). My main bone of contention with the Italian Transhumanist Association (AIT) is that Campa (the association's founder and president) has made Vaj national secretary (without an election, as there are going to be no internal elections before 2012, by statute). In my opinion this is a PR disaster waiting to happen and risks creating confusion between transhumanism and "overhumanism", both in Italy and internationally. And that's exactly why I am desperately trying to distance my website (www.estropico.com) from the overhumanists. It is difficult to do so without appearing to attack AIT, and for that I'm sorry as we had constructively collaborated until the overhumanists' arrival, but I do make a clear effort, here and in my article, to explain what my target is. A final comment: these "overhumanists" are no jackbooted thugs (which is what most of us think when we hear the term "fascist"). We are talking about prolific writers whose articles frequently appear on a number of (in my opinion, unsavoury) websites and sometimes on national newspapers (party organs, usually), and Vaj is a published author and a fine intellectual. The problem I have is not with who they are but with what they write... BTW, I'm working on a proper (as opposed to Google's) English translation of my article, which I hope will be ready at some point in March. Cheers, Fabio From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 12:24:20 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 06:24:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <580930c20803022354t777dd4b2t747e1946502b0fe7@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20803022354t777dd4b2t747e1946502b0fe7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803030624.20534.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 03 March 2008, Stefano Vaj wrote: > What is going to happen is that from machines that can pass the > Turing test over 10 questions 1% of the times with 1% of the users > (we are probably already there) we will get to machines that can do > that over 100 questions 50% of the times with 50% of the users to > those who score better than real humans on any finite number of > interactions with any finite number of users. > > As for the obsolescence of Homo sapiens, well, biology is not static While reading this, I began to think: why not automate the Turing tests? Let's set up a cloning operation so that we can characterize both the human and ai. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Mar 3 13:17:36 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 06:17:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <580930c20803022354t777dd4b2t747e1946502b0fe7@mail.gmail.co m> References: <580930c20803022354t777dd4b2t747e1946502b0fe7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1204550323_80448@S4.cableone.net> Re this topic, consider spam or computer viruses. Nobody I know supports either. They are, like it or not, a part of our world. Same with AGI. We could be lucky if people of good will incorporate what we learn about what make people "good" into machines. Still, I think zero is the most likely number of physical state humans in the year 2100. Keith From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 15:08:47 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 16:08:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20803030708m28434913y50b48569960dba@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 9:27 AM, Amara Graps wrote: > Stefano Vaj: > >Having said that, pro-life is the concern of a militant minority which > >is a source of embarassment even to the small catholic parties, > >religion is largely irrelevant to the everyday life of the average > >Italian > > I don't think that the Italian women can say that such laws are irrelevant, > however. Not at all, nor are they for men, for that matter, What I mean is that popular support to anti-transhumanist, or pro-life, laws is minimal. Even the referendum against the law on IVF etc, was lost only because it was voided by the too few votes expressed, not because the anti-IVF had any majority support. Stefano Vaj From lcorbin at rawbw.com Mon Mar 3 15:19:10 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 07:19:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Scientology Taking Hits Online (LA Times) Message-ID: <026d01c87d42$29a43500$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Looks like the evil cult's having a harder time these days. Good news: From: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/newmedia/la-et-scientology3mar03,0,4668513,full.story A Growing Number of Critics and Disgruntled Ex-members are Using the Web to Attack the Church's Tightly Controlled Image. By David Sarno, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer March 3, 2008. "We were born. We grew up. We escaped." So reads the motto of ExScientologyKids.com, a website launched Thursday by three young women raised in the Church of Scientology who are speaking out against the religion. Their website accuses the church of physical abuse, denying some children a proper education and alienating members from family. One of the women behind the site, Jenna Miscavige Hill, is the niece of David Miscavige, the head of the church, and Kendra Wiseman is the daughter of Bruce Wiseman, president of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a Scientology-sponsored organization opposed to the practice of psychiatry. The day before ExScientologyKids.com launched, another inflammatory allegation about the church began to circulate virulently online. "L. Ron Hubbard Plagiarized Scientology," read a headline at the popular Internet culture blog BoingBoing. The post linked to images of a translated 1934 German book called "Scientologie," which critics say contains similar themes to Hubbard's Scientology, which he codified in 1952, according to a church website. These were just the latest in a series of Scientology-related stories to burn across the Internet like grass fires in recent weeks, testing the church's well-established ability to tightly control its public image. The largest thorn in the church's side has been a group called Anonymous, a diffuse online coalition of skeptics, hackers and activists, many of them young and Web-savvy. The high-wattage movement has inspired former Scientologists to come forward and has repeatedly trained an Internet spotlight on any story or rumor that portrays Scientology in unflattering terms. No corner of the Web, it appears, is safe for Scientology. Blogger and lawyer Scott Pilutik recently posted a story noting that Scientology was yanking down EBay auctions for used e-meters, the device the church uses for spiritual counseling. EBay allows brand owners -- Louis Vuitton or Rolex, say -- to remove items they believe infringe on their trademark or patent rights. Basically, fakes. But, Pilutik said, the used e-meters being taken down were genuine. Reselling them was no different than putting a for-sale sign on your old Chevy. "What's actually going on here," he wrote, is that the church is "knowingly alleging intellectual property violations that clearly don't exist." Within a day Pilutik's blog had gotten over 45,000 visitors -- so much traffic that his site crashed completely. Facing a steady stream of negative publicity and a growing number of critical voices, Scientology has found itself on the defensive. The church has referred to Anonymous as a group of "cyber-terrorists" and, in a statement, said the group's aims were "reminiscent of Al Qaeda spreading anti-American hatred and calling for U.S. destruction." "These people are posing extremely serious death threats to our people," said church spokeswoman Karin Pouw in a phone interview. "We are talking about religious hatred and bigotry." A recent video posted to YouTube contained a threat to bomb a Southern California Scientology building. An FBI spokeswoman said an investigation was in progress but that no suspects had been identified. Reporters have long had to tread carefully when writing about Scientology, fearful that lawsuits and other kinds of retaliation would follow any story that Scientology did not like. But that may be changing. "Before this Internet onslaught," said Douglas Frantz, a contributing editor at Portfolio magazine who covered Scientology for the New York Times in the 1990s (and is a former editor at the L.A. Times), "they were always able to go after their critics and do a good job of being able to discredit or intimidate them." Angry former church members also perceive a kind of safety in numbers afforded by the Internet, and more are coming forward to share their stories. "People have been scared out of their minds to speak out about Scientology," said Hill, Miscavige's niece, in an interview. "Nobody should have to be that scared to speak out about a church." Wiseman echoed the sentiment, adding that the Anonymous campaign had influenced her decision to reveal her identity last week. "The Internet is listening. If something happens to me, all of these people will know." The current wave of anti-Scientology activity began in January, when a video of Tom Cruise extolling the religion's tech-based approach to enlightenment was leaked onto YouTube, where users holding it up to ridicule copied and recopied it; several sites posted it without hesitation. It wasn't long before Nick Denton, who as publisher of the blog syndicate Gawker Media had put the video online first, received a legal threat from a law firm representing Scientology, alleging copyright infringement. But Denton refused to take the video down. "It was an awesome news story," Denton wrote in an e-mail. "If we didn't race to post it up, some other site would have. That, rather than litigation by Scientology, was the fear going through my mind." The church's whack-a-mole campaign with the Cruise video became a rallying cry for Anonymous, which saw efforts to remove the videos from YouTube as an unwanted incursion into the domain of digital culture, where information and media, copyrighted or no, are often exchanged freely. In a YouTube video of its own, Anonymous declared open war on the church. Early on, the group also staged cyber-attacks on Scientology websites. But on Feb. 10, thousands of masked Anonymous members picketed at Scientology locations around the globe, chanting slogans and handing out fliers. No violent incidents were reported. The protests generated yet another wave of online media -- videos, photos, news stories, blog posts -- little of it in praise of Scientology. The result of all this attention has been that just about any story critical of Scientology -- even those that have been publicly accessible for years -- can gain immediate Web currency. On Digg.com, a popular "social news" aggregator that features popular stories from around the Web, dozens of Scientology stories have ascended to the site's most-viewed list in the last several weeks. A successful Digg story can drive tens of thousands of views to the originating site, as was the case with Pilutik's post about e-meters. In addition, the clamor generated by Anonymous has raised the profile of the small but vehement anti-Scientology community that existed before Anonymous, and even made for some cross-pollination between the two camps. Scientology's longtime detractors, such as those at Operation Clambake (xenu.net) and Scientology Lies, claim it is not a religion at all but a business that charges its parishioners ever more onerous fees for access to revealed truths. Other online forums, such as the Ex-Scientologist Message Board and ExScientologyKids, have become places for former members to congregate, share stories and offer support Ironically, it is the church's aversion to negative publicity -- and the legal strategy it has long used to prevent it, that has aroused more online ire than any other issue. The website ChillingEffects .com has posted dozens of cease-and-desist letters sent by Scientology's lawyers to various website and Internet service providers requesting that copyrighted material be removed. But in the diffuse and often Byzantine world of the Web, some precision legal strikes are more likely to backfire than hit their target. Scientology's use of copyright law appears to be an increasingly losing battle on the Web, said Andrew Bridges, a San Francisco-based intellectual property attorney. "The big question is: Is the copyright serving the purpose of promoting science and the useful arts, or is the purpose essentially the stifling of criticism?" Still, according to Scientology spokeswoman Pouw, the church views the Internet as a positive tool. It is, Pouw said, "concentrating on using the Internet as a resource for promoting its message and mission in this world, not as a ground for litigation." But now that goal will have to exist alongside a seemingly steady stream of online attacks. And while anonymous political activity, such as postering around a town, is nothing new, Bridges noted, the speed of the Web is what is giving Scientology trouble. "What's different is that more people can see the stuff faster than Scientology can go around and get it taken down." From lcorbin at rawbw.com Mon Mar 3 15:26:27 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 07:26:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Plants Apparently Using Quantum Computing (Apr 2007) Message-ID: <028401c87d43$913bdf00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Sorry if this is old news, but it blew me away: http://www.chemlin.net/news/2007/apr2007/photosynthesis.htm Excerpt: "Electronic spectroscopy measurements made on a femtosecond(millionths of a billionth of a second) time-scale showed these oscillations meeting and interfering constructively, forming wavelike motions of energy (superposition states) that can explore all potential energy pathways simultaneously and reversibly, meaning they can retreat from wrong pathways with no penalty. This finding contradicts the classical description of the photosynthetic energy transfer process as one in which excitation energy hops from light-capturing pigment molecules to reaction center molecules step-by-step down the molecular energy ladder." Full story with nice picture: http://www.chemlin.net/news/2007/apr2007/photosynthesis.htm. Full story text: BERKELEY, CA - Through photosynthesis, green plants and cyanobacteria are able to transfer sunlight energy to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. Speed is the key - the transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously so little energy is wasted as heat. How photosynthesis achieves this near instantaneous energy transfer is a long-standing mystery that may have finally been solved. A study led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) at Berkeley reports that the answer lies in quantum mechanical effects. Results of the study was presented in the April 12, 2007 issue of the journal Nature. "We have obtained the first direct evidence that remarkably long-lived wavelike electronic quantum coherence plays an important part in energy transfer processes during photosynthesis," said Graham Fleming, the principal investigator for the study. "This wavelike characteristic can explain the extreme efficiency of the energy transfer because it enables the system to simultaneously sample all the potential energy pathways and choose the most efficient one." Fleming is the Deputy Director of Berkeley Lab, a professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley, and an internationally acclaimed leader in spectroscopic studies of the photosynthetic process. In a paper entitled, Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems, he and his collaborators report the detection of "quantum beating" signals, coherent electronic oscillations in both donor and acceptor molecules, generated by light-induced energy excitations, like the ripples formed when stones are tossed into a pond. Electronic spectroscopy measurements made on a femtosecond (millionths of a billionth of a second) time-scale showed these oscillations meeting and interfering constructively, forming wavelike motions of energy (superposition states) that can explore all potential energy pathways simultaneously and reversibly, meaning they can retreat from wrong pathways with no penalty. This finding contradicts the classical description of the photosynthetic energy transfer process as one in which excitation energy hops from light-capturing pigment molecules to reaction center molecules step-by-step down the molecular energy ladder. "The classical hopping description of the energy transfer process is both inadequate and inaccurate," said Fleming. "It gives the wrong picture of how the process actually works, and misses a crucial aspect of the reason for the wonderful efficiency." Co-authoring the Nature paper with Fleming were Gregory Engel, who was first author, Tessa Calhoun, Elizabeth Read, Tae-Kyu Ahn, Tomas Mancal and Yuan-Chung Cheng, all of whom held joint appointments with Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division and the UC Berkeley Chemistry Department at the time of the study, plus Robert Blankenship, from the Washington University in St. Louis. The photosynthetic technique for transferring energy from one molecular system to another should make any short-list of Mother Nature's spectacular accomplishments. If we can learn enough to emulate this process, we might be able to create artificial versions of photosynthesis that would help us effectively tap into the sun as a clean, efficient, sustainable and carbon-neutral source of energy. Towards this end, Fleming and his research group have developed a technique called two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy that enables them to follow the flow of light-induced excitation energy through molecular complexes with femtosecond temporal resolution. The technique involves sequentially flashing a sample with femtosecond pulses of light from three laser beams. A fourth beam is used as a local oscillator to amplify and detect the resulting spectroscopic signals as the excitation energy from the laser lights is transferred from one molecule to the next. (The excitation energy changes the way each molecule absorbs and emits light.) Fleming has compared 2-D electronic spectroscopy to the technique used in the early super-heterodyne radios, where an incoming high frequency radio signal was converted by an oscillator to a lower frequency for more controllable amplification and better reception. In the case of 2-D electronic spectroscopy, scientists can track the transfer of energy between molecules that are coupled (connected) through their electronic and vibrational states in any photoactive system, macromolecular assembly or nanostructure. Fleming and his group first described 2-D electronic spectroscopy in a 2005 Nature paper, when they used the technique to observe electronic couplings in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) photosynthetic light-harvesting protein, a molecular complex in green sulphur bacteria. Said Engel, "The 2005 paper was the first biological application of this technique, now we have used 2-D electronic spectroscopy to discover a new phenomenon in photosynthetic systems. While the possibility that photosynthetic energy transfer might involve quantum oscillations was first suggested more than 70 years ago, the wavelike motion of excitation energy had never been observed until now." As in the 2005 paper, the FMO protein was again the target. FMO is considered a model system for studying photosynthetic energy transfer because it consists of only seven pigment molecules and its chemistry has been well characterized. "To observe the quantum beats, 2-D spectra were taken at 33 population times, ranging from 0 to 660 femtoseconds," said Engel. "In these spectra, the lowest-energy exciton (a bound electron-hole pair formed when an incoming photon boosts an electron out of the valence energy band into the conduction band) gives rise to a diagonal peak near 825 nanometers that clearly oscillates. The associated cross-peak amplitude also appears to oscillate. Surprisingly, this quantum beating lasted the entire 660 femtoseconds." Engel said the duration of the quantum beating signals was unexpected because the general scientific assumption had been that the electronic coherences responsible for such oscillations are rapidly destroyed. "For this reason, the transfer of electronic coherence between excitons during relaxation has usually been ignored," Engel said. "By demonstrating that the energy transfer process does involve electronic coherence and that this coherence is much stronger than we would ever have expected, we have shown that the process can be much more efficient than the classical view could explain. However, we still don't know to what degree photosynthesis benefits from these quantum effects." Engel said one of the next steps for the Fleming group in this line of research will be to look at the effects of temperature changes on the photosynthetic energy transfer process. The results for this latest paper in Nature were obtained from FMO complexes kept at 77 Kelvin. The group will also be looking at broader bandwidths of energy using different colors of light pulses to map out everything that is going on, not just energy transfer. Ultimately, the idea is to gain a much better understanding how Nature not only transfers energy from one molecular system to another, but is also able to convert it into useful forms. "Nature has had about 2.7 billion years to perfect photosynthesis, so there are huge lessons that remain for us to learn," Engel said. "The results we're reporting in this latest paper, however, at least give us a new way to think about the design of future artificial photosynthesis systems." From amara at amara.com Mon Mar 3 15:51:54 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 08:51:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: Stefano Vaj: >Even the referendum against the law on IVF >etc, was lost only because it was voided by the too few votes >expressed, not because the anti-IVF had any majority support. Are you sure? I think it's important for Transhumanists to understand: Why too few votes? Why couldn't that referendum gather 50%? Can you answer? The only answer I have is that the Vatican was extremely effective in that campaign. I still have my brochure from 'the Committee of Science and Life' that arrived in my mailbox. I still remember the posters up all over my town from them telling people not to vote. I remember *my scientific colleagues not voting*, telling me that the assisted reproductive technology laws were 'too wild' and 'needed to be controlled'. Of course I couldn't vote myself, because I was an illegal immigrant Italian government astronomer. In a country where the voting turnout is typically ~85%, in the mother and family-oriented Italian culture, how could a set of draconian laws that marginalizes women and family choices, and was delivered by an extremely unpopular prime minister, be extinguished so easily? If you can answer that, then you know what challenges the AIT (and the larger body of Transhumanists) have in front of them. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 16:00:48 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 17:00:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803030135x6a1d0de8x499de94af763c641@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803030135x6a1d0de8x499de94af763c641@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803030800n19cd08b0q9466f4aa535e52d1@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 10:35 AM, estropico wrote: > In my opinion this is a PR disaster waiting to happen. So far, the only PR annoyances we are suffering are the embarassing implications deriving by your using the word "estropico" for neocon propaganda and from your maniacal and almost solitary witch hunt, which in any event has been sofar met with a remarkable lack of interest by the media and the public, in spite of the AIT's substantial exposure of the last couple of years and your restless efforts. And you and Wolin will pardon me if I woud rather be associated any day with the alleged "unreason" of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Baudrillard or Lyotard than with Mr. Pelanda's or Mr. Wolfovitz's dubious crusades. Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 16:14:58 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 17:14:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20803030814u6027dc40t560fd2debefcbb5e@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > Stefano Vaj: > >Even the referendum against the law on IVF > >etc, was lost only because it was voided by the too few votes > >expressed, not because the anti-IVF had any majority support. > > Are you sure? This is what the figures testify... The great majority of those who voted voted in favour of the abrogation of the law. > I think it's important for Transhumanists to understand: > Why too few votes? Why couldn't that referendum gather 50%? Can you > answer? Mmhhh. Lack of information? Censorship by mainstream media? Cultural limits? Insufficient mobilisation or blatant betrayal of the forces who should theoretically have supported the referendum? Fear of the swinging catholic 4-5% in the upcoming elections (rumors say that the election of Mr. Prodi as the Italian prime minister was offered by the church in exchange for the renouncing of the center-left to fight that battle as it was requested to do by most of its militants...)? The clever presentation of the law by its supporters as something concerning only couples with fertility problems (in fact it forbids almost all kinds of human reproductive or genetic technology)? > The only answer I have is that the Vatican was extremely effective in > that campaign. I still have my brochure from 'the Committee of Science > and Life' that arrived in my mailbox. I still remember the posters up > all over my town from them telling people not to vote. I remember *my > scientific colleagues not voting*, telling me that the assisted > reproductive technology laws were 'too wild' and 'needed to be > controlled'. Yes, this was also a factor. But please keep in mind that one need not be persuaded not to vote - rather the contrary. If you do not care one way or another, you do not vote, period. Thus, silence on the issue was at least as effective as negative propaganda. Thus, the minority of people actively supporting that prohibitionist law had just to bet on the disinformation or passivity of the majority of the Italian voters. If, as in Switzerland, referendums are valid irrespective of the number of voters, it would have been veeeeeeeeeery difficult for the Vatican to get a number sufficient of voters to say "no" to the abrogation of that law. In fact, "no" votes were almost non-existent. Stefano Vaj From scerir at libero.it Mon Mar 3 16:21:11 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 17:21:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Plants Apparently Using Quantum Computing (Apr 2007) References: <028401c87d43$913bdf00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <3cfb01c87d4a$9b6d69b0$e5961f97@archimede> Lee writes: > Sorry if this is old news, but it blew me away: > http://www.chemlin.net/news/2007/apr2007/photosynthesis.htm Here is another report http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27582 That quantum effects (essentially superposition and entanglement,which is another kind of superposition, and quantum beats, that is to say superposition in time) may play a role at a mesoscopic scale is more than probable. After all there is just one physics in this world, and we all live in a subtle bath made of quantum fields or of quantum particles (but they are the same thing). http://www.physorg.com/news113824784.html From jonkc at att.net Mon Mar 3 16:24:52 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 11:24:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: Message-ID: <00c501c87d4b$5dffbf00$e4f04d0c@MyComputer> Robert Bradbury Wrote: > I believe the production of an AGI spells > the extinction of humanity. Me too. > Why should I expend intellectual energy, > time, money, etc. in a doomed species? If you don't want to develop an AI somebody else certainly will, there is too much money and power involved for such a possibility to be ignored, not to mention the adrenalin high creating such a godlike being would bring. And if you're the first to make an AI you would have more control (very small but larger than zero) over future events than the person who came in second. It may also give these developers some comfort to know that even if they or their children do not survive their mind children will. > those of you who have had and/or are investing > in children are potentially pursuing a pointless endeavor. Sucks doesn't it? Still, things aren't completely hopeless, just almost hopeless. If you or your biological children have any wish to survive they must shed the silly superstitions regarding identity and consciousness that is epidemic in society and even infects most members of this list. If they can do that then there would be no reason not to upload and engage in pedal to the metal upgrading, and if they are also very lucky they might survive. > And so, we must present transhumanism > as an "Extinction Level Event" Yes. > are willing to deal with thiat? Well, it's not like we had any choice over the matter. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 17:07:04 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 09:07:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku Message-ID: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> I'm glad books like this are around for my kids. I've got it on pre-order. PJ http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-bk-lippincott2mar02,0,5225927.story >From the Los Angeles Times BOOK REVIEW 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku A scientific exploration into the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation and time travel. By Sara Lippincott March 2, 2008 Physics of the Impossible A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel Michio Kaku Doubleday: 330 pp., $26.95 "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and . . . the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote." Thus did A.A. Michelson, America's first Nobel science laureate, sum up the consensus of the world's physicists. It was 1894 -- six years before the birth of quantum theory and 11 years before the special theory of relativity. Michio Kaku, in his new book, "Physics of the Impossible," quotes Michelson to warn us that nothing should be considered impossible or beyond our ken. "In my own short lifetime," he writes, "I have seen the seemingly impossible become established fact over and over again." A professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, Kaku is a tireless science popularizer -- author of, among other books, "Parallel Worlds," "Beyond Einstein" and the bestselling "Hyperspace" -- and thoroughly committed to bringing scientific illiterates into the light. He does physics too; he pioneered string field theory and is now working on the fabled Theory of Everything (a satisfactory union of gravity with the three other fundamental forces: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces). His new book's intent and tone are nicely encapsulated in its subtitle, "A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel." This book would be read, optimally, at age 14 -- up in your bedroom on a stormy Saturday, with the house quiet and rain drumming against the windows. It's science as escapist literature. Kaku divides the "seemingly impossible" into three classes. Class I consists of technologies that "might be possible in this century," including "teleportation, antimatter engines, certain forms of telepathy, psychokinesis, and invisibility." Class II awaits the wisdom we will have acquired in "millennia to millions of years in the future" and includes time machines, hyperspace travel and popping through wormholes in space into another universe. Class III -- well, don't hold your breath. This class, a short one, contains but two candidates, neither of which made the subtitle: the hoary "perpetual motion machine," which crackpots have been working on for hundreds of years, and precognition (efforts dating back to the Greeks). Of these, Kaku concludes that if "they do turn out to be possible, they would represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics." Mighty few theoretical physicists would bother expounding some of these possible impossibilities, and Kaku is to be congratulated for doing so, even if what he accomplishes here is only to get the juices of future physicists flowing. It's too late for me, but I was vastly entertained to learn, for instance, that scientists have already succeeded in levitating frogs and that a possible "invisibility cloak," ? la Harry Potter, while rendering you invisible, would not allow you to see anything once you were wrapped up in it, thus vitiating its usefulness. Kaku is nothing if not accessible. His website invites you to send him your own theory of everything, asking only that you summarize it in a paragraph. He notes (wistfully and endearingly) that "I simply do not have time for proposals where the main idea is spread over many pages." God bless him. * sara.lippincott at latimes.com Sara Lippincott is an assistant editor for Book Review From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 17:20:22 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 09:20:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Abbott's 'Flatland' vs. the animated film version Message-ID: <29666bf30803030920j1472fa92r6776225f4296f955@mail.gmail.com> This week's Sunday book review section revealed two classic satires I've never read, but should have: "Flatland" (and the "Flashman" series by George MacDonald Fraser, which is not H+ or extropic in the least, but is brutal anti-imperial historical satire and therefore right up my alley). Regarding "Flatland, apparently neither of the movie versions embrace the satire of the original. My father was right. Too many books, too little time. PJ http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-bk-wertheim2mar02,0,7981806.story >From the Los Angeles Times BOOK REVIEW It's a flat, flat, flat, flat world The text of Abbott's 1884 novella 'Flatland' and the screenplay of the latest animated film version. By Margaret Wertheim March 2, 2008 Flatland The Movie Edition Edwin A. Abbott, with Thomas Banchoff and the filmmakers of "Flatland" Princeton University Press: 168 pp., $15 IN 1884, the English mathematician Edwin Abbott Abbott published an enchanting fable set in a two-dimensional world he called Flatland. Within this planar universe live triangles, squares, hexagons and other polygonal beings, who go about their business within a mere two degrees of freedom, working, playing and carrying on the processes of government without the luxury of depth. The hero and narrator, one A. Square, is a modest fellow, rather low down in the social hierarchy of Flatland but intellectually curious and a bit of a mathematician at heart. He likes to think about numbers and shapes, and at times he wonders whether there isn't, somehow, more to reality than meets the eye. In A. Square's dexterously naive voice, addressed to "the Reader," we learn about the physics, physiology, educational system, history, governance and social hierarchy that pertain in his two-dimensional, Euclidean domain. Here, a rigid pecking order reigns: The more sides a citizen has, the higher is his class. Thus Triangles are the lowest class, with Isosceles even lower than Equilaterals; next come Squares, who serve as clerks, scribes and other literate functionaries; then Pentagons and Hexagons, who make up the professionals (physicians, lawyers); and so on up to the "infinitely-sided" Circles, the priestly and noble classes. All this is delivered with the earnestness of a convert; toward the end of the tale, we learn that A. Square has been inducted into the mysteries of the Third Dimension by a magnificent stranger in the form of a Sphere. Under Lord Sphere's guidance, he has been vouchsafed a glimpse of the vast, expanded cosmos of three-dimensional space, herein known as Spaceland, in which reside the transcendently excellent figures of Cubes, higher-dimensional versions of his own lowly form. Like so many other heroes who have seen the light of a higher order, from Jesus to Galileo, A. Square will suffer greatly for the illumination he offers his fellow citizens. In Flatland, any discussion of a third dimension is heresy, punishable by imprisonment or death. Indeed, A. Square narrates from prison, where he has been confined for the past seven years, having failed to stifle his enthusiasm over what he witnessed during his brief time in Spaceland. To many students of mathematics, "Flatland" stands alongside "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" as one of the most beloved stories of the modern age. Like Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Abbott was able to transform complex mathematical ideas -- in this case, an emerging understanding of multidimensional space -- into a fantastical story at once whimsical and serious, which, by confounding genre, remains as fresh and appealing as when it was first published. Just as the Alice tales have done, "Flatland" has inspired many imitators and renditions in other media. Among its "sequels" are "Sphereland" (1965) by Dionys Burger; "The Planiverse" (1984) by A.K. Dewdney, mathematical games columnist for Scientific American; "Flatterland" (2001) by English mathematician Ian Stewart; and "Spaceland" (2002) by U.S. mathematician Rudy Rucker. In an episode of "Cosmos," Carl Sagan used "Flatland" to explain higher-dimensional spaces, and in a 1960s episode of "The Outer Limits," a character named Eck visited humans from his own two-dimensional world. In 1965, Dudley Moore narrated the first animated film version, which was followed by a second film in 1982, directed by mathematician Michele Emmer. There has even been an opera -- "VAS: An Opera in Flatland" (2002) by Steve Tomasula. My favorite theatrical rendition is a delightful puppet opera by Randall Wong, performed here last year at the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Last year also saw the production of not one but two new film versions, the first a full-length animated feature directed by Ladd Ehlinger Jr., updating the story from Victorian England to contemporary America, and the second a 30-minute animation starring the voices of Martin Sheen, Kristen Bell and Michael York, which has just been released on DVD. Accompanying the latter is "Flatland: The Movie Edition," published by Princeton University Press, in which we get Abbott's novella plus the script of the movie, along with an introduction by Brown University mathematics professor Thomas Banchoff and commentary by the film's writer and producer (Seth Caplan), director (Jeffrey Travis) and chief animator (Dano Johnson). All movies of beloved stories must struggle against the preconceptions of their fans, and I will be honest in confessing that as soon as I laid eyes on the lush color graphics in the Princeton book my heart began to sink. I first read "Flatland" when I was studying mathematics at Sydney University 25 years ago and fell in love with its subtle blend of fantasy, pedagogy and satire. Reading it again a quarter-century later, I was particularly struck by Abbott's incisive skewering of class-bound Victorian society, and particularly by his parodic rendition of Victorian attitudes to women. In "Flatland," women are the lowest class of all, being merely straight lines with no area at all, and hence literally no space for brains. When Flatland was first published, some readers misunderstood Abbott's point and accused him of misogyny, whereas in fact he was a brilliant teacher who supported the cause of women's education. Beneath its fairy-tale trappings, "Flatland" was a subversive piece of social commentary, and it wasn't written for little children. The makers of the new film have stripped this multifaceted story of much of its depth and reduced it to a bland, rather saccharine lesson. The basic educational message -- about one-, two-, three-, and possibly higher-dimensional spaces -- is intact, but the social satire is gone. Instead, we get a simplified story in which there is little ambiguity about who is "good" and who is "bad." A. Square has been given a mathematically inclined granddaughter named Hex, who is a hexagon, and it is she who first plants in his mind the idea of a third dimension. (This has a parallel in the original, where A. Square has a smart hexagonal grandson.) Although it's nice to see a female character taking a mathematical lead, the very power of satire is in revealing what it is apparently obscuring. Hex's intellectual perkiness comes off as a politically correct gesture, as do several other simplifications in aspects of the film, which seems aimed at a primary-school audience. The filmmakers have made admirablye attempteds to inform the look of "Flatland: The Movie" with mathematical motifs, such as fractals, but I wish they'd paid less attention to visual effects and more to the texture of the story. Sadly, this is a very flattened version of Flatland. If you want to experience the full depth of this miniature masterpiece, pick up "The Annotated Flatland," with notes by Stewart. Its multidimensional treasures will leave you as starry-eyed as A. Square himself. Margaret Wertheim is the author of "The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space From Dante to the Internet." From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 3 17:38:22 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:38:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists In-Reply-To: <580930c20803030800n19cd08b0q9466f4aa535e52d1@mail.gmail.co m> References: <4eaaa0d90803030135x6a1d0de8x499de94af763c641@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803030800n19cd08b0q9466f4aa535e52d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080303112933.021de158@satx.rr.com> At 05:00 PM 3/3/2008 +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote: >I woud rather be associated any >day with the alleged "unreason" of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Baudrillard >or Lyotard than with Mr. Pelanda's or Mr. Wolfovitz's dubious >crusades. That is hardly the only choice. And frankly, I'd rather be associated with Peter and the Wolf, or the three blind mice, or Huey, Dewey and Louie, than with Heidegger the Nazi or Baudrillard the glossolaliac. Damien Broderick From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 17:51:02 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 18:51:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080303112933.021de158@satx.rr.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803030135x6a1d0de8x499de94af763c641@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803030800n19cd08b0q9466f4aa535e52d1@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303112933.021de158@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803030951u303dd578t73d1053dd6c7f6d2@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 6:38 PM, Damien Broderick > That is hardly the only choice. And frankly, I'd rather be associated > with Peter and the Wolf, or the three blind mice, or Huey, Dewey and > Louie, than with Heidegger the Nazi or Baudrillard the glossolaliac. Ditto for Peter and the Wolf, but they were not in the multiple choice... :-) Having said that, and seriously, both Heidegger and Baudrillard have a marked penchant for what may well be interpreted in terms neoluddism and antiprometheism. So, while there are here and there ambiguous pieces and bits that can also serve a H+ fight, I frankly would be the first to hesitate to recommend them as points of reference to all of us. Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 17:56:40 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 18:56:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803030956n744a244am8ce1837a355516e2@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 6:07 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > I'm glad books like this are around for my kids. I've got it on pre-order. Should I understand it as an unqualified recommendation? The presentation and the subject sound very interesting, but I was disappointed by other Kaku books, even though I believe I recorded a few of them in the Universal Transhumanist Bibliography at http://www.transumanisti.it/8.asp... Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 18:01:26 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 19:01:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Abbott's 'Flatland' vs. the animated film version In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803030920j1472fa92r6776225f4296f955@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803030920j1472fa92r6776225f4296f955@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803031001i404418a8s912889ac50cea560@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 6:20 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > This week's Sunday book review section revealed two classic satires > I've never read, but should have: "Flatland" > Flatland is very brief, utterly transhumanist and "upwinger" in spirit, and last but not least available in a free, full-text Web version, at http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/eaa/FL.HTM and probably elsewhere. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 3 18:07:36 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:07:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.co m> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> At 09:07 AM 3/3/2008 -0800, PJ quoted from an LA Times review: >Class III -- well, >don't hold your breath. This class, a short one, contains but two >candidates, neither of which made the subtitle: the hoary "perpetual >motion machine," which crackpots have been working on for hundreds of >years, and precognition (efforts dating back to the Greeks). Of these, >Kaku concludes that if "they do turn out to be possible, they would >represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics." I have to make my boringly familiar point: this second allegedly impossible physics-shattering phenomenon is routinely observed in parapsychology labs (on a stochastic basis), and the few physicists who've tried to find some explanation for precognition usually claim that it is quite consistent with accepted physics--perhaps, in fact, required by the canon, which is almost entirely time symmetrical. Damien Broderick From scerir at libero.it Mon Mar 3 19:09:19 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 20:09:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists References: <4eaaa0d90803030135x6a1d0de8x499de94af763c641@mail.gmail.com><580930c20803030800n19cd08b0q9466f4aa535e52d1@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303112933.021de158@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <005201c87d62$16682490$9a961f97@archimede> > That is hardly the only choice. And frankly, I'd rather be associated > with Peter and the Wolf, or the three blind mice, or Huey, Dewey and > Louie, than with Heidegger the Nazi or Baudrillard the glossolaliac. > Damien Broderick Our great poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, glossomaniac, daredevil, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_D'Annunzio fascist, maybe futurist, inventor of brands like 'il Parrozzo', 'il Senzanome', 'Aurum', and much much more, born 30 miles from here (ahem), wrote a story about a fascist ?bermensch. As far as I remember, the peculiar character of his ?bermenschism wasn't just the anti-democracy, the force, the power, the war, and so on, but the beauty and the sexual voluptousness .... Is there enough room for a neo-decadentist transhumanism? From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 19:34:49 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 11:34:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku In-Reply-To: <580930c20803030956n744a244am8ce1837a355516e2@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803030956n744a244am8ce1837a355516e2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30803031134l8f251b8lde47a3d04a0c422e@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 9:56 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Should I understand it as an unqualified recommendation? The presentation > and the subject sound very interesting, but I was disappointed by other Kaku > books, even though I believe I recorded a few of them in the Universal > Transhumanist Bibliography at http://www.transumanisti.it/8.asp... No. Even the reviewer said it's the kind of book for 14 year olds to read under the covers, as they dream of future possibilities. I suspect you are older than 14... ;-) PJ From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 19:35:50 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 11:35:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: Abbott's 'Flatland' vs. the animated film version In-Reply-To: <580930c20803031001i404418a8s912889ac50cea560@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803030920j1472fa92r6776225f4296f955@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803031001i404418a8s912889ac50cea560@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30803031135k29ae8238g1a0323a7888710f@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Flatland is very brief, utterly transhumanist and "upwinger" in spirit, and > last but not least available in a free, full-text Web version, at > http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/eaa/FL.HTM and probably elsewhere. Thanks for the link! PJ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 20:07:00 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 21:07:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? WAS: Manifesto of Italian transhumanists In-Reply-To: <005201c87d62$16682490$9a961f97@archimede> References: <4eaaa0d90803030135x6a1d0de8x499de94af763c641@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803030800n19cd08b0q9466f4aa535e52d1@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303112933.021de158@satx.rr.com> <005201c87d62$16682490$9a961f97@archimede> Message-ID: <580930c20803031207l783d7087v30b50aab2be56a0a@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 8:09 PM, scerir wrote: > As far as I remember, the peculiar character of his ?bermenschism > wasn't just the anti-democracy, the force, the power, the war, > and so on, but the beauty and the sexual voluptousness .... > Is there enough room for a neo-decadentist transhumanism? > It may be of interest, by the way, to note that the D'Annunzio had himself a late but explicit fling with a kind-of, ante-litteram, transhumanism, namely in the novel *Forse che s?, forse che no*("It May Be, It May Be Not", or "Perhaps Yes, Perhaps No") where he celebrates, Marinetti-style, the speed and the merger between the Man and the Machine, and the overcoming of human limitations through technology... :-) I do not know if an English translation of the novel is available. In German it is known as *Vielleicht, vielleicht auch nicht*, while a French translationexists under the original Italian title. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 20:08:20 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 21:08:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803031134l8f251b8lde47a3d04a0c422e@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803030956n744a244am8ce1837a355516e2@mail.gmail.com> <29666bf30803031134l8f251b8lde47a3d04a0c422e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803031208h1da2c83em86b117620c3c8642@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 8:34 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > I suspect you are older than 14... ;-) > Somewhat older, yes, in spite of an aggressive nutritional supplementation programme... :-) Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 3 20:41:03 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:41:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Neo-fascist transhumanists? In-Reply-To: <580930c20803031207l783d7087v30b50aab2be56a0a@mail.gmail.co m> References: <4eaaa0d90803030135x6a1d0de8x499de94af763c641@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803030800n19cd08b0q9466f4aa535e52d1@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303112933.021de158@satx.rr.com> <005201c87d62$16682490$9a961f97@archimede> <580930c20803031207l783d7087v30b50aab2be56a0a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080303143710.023c68c8@satx.rr.com> At 09:07 PM 3/3/2008 +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote: >It may be of interest, by the way, to note that the D'Annunzio had >himself a late but explicit fling with a kind-of, ante-litteram, transhumanism In "English" poststructural academese that would be "avant la lettre." :) That is, "before the word or phrase existed, or had currency." Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 3 20:50:23 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:50:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Stefano Vaj In-Reply-To: <580930c20803031208h1da2c83em86b117620c3c8642@mail.gmail.co m> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803030956n744a244am8ce1837a355516e2@mail.gmail.com> <29666bf30803031134l8f251b8lde47a3d04a0c422e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803031208h1da2c83em86b117620c3c8642@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080303144608.0224ba70@satx.rr.com> Given all the angst flying about, I wonder if Dr. Vaj might provide us with some background? Google's usual amusing translation provides a bio note to his BIOPOLITICA (Barbarossa Publishing Company, 2005 Milan): ============================= THE AUTHOR: Stefano Vaj, Milan and known professional lecturer at the University of Padua, deals with metapolitica, vision of the world in scientific and cultural news from the end of the seventies. From positions resolutely identity, and postmodern sovrumaniste it writes well over the years in various languages, on the Free Men, The Journal Ticinese, Ecole Nouvelle, La Padania, Literature-Customs, Rebirth, Intervention, The Ring, Federalism, Transumanar , dissent and the Candido. On the same themes, in addition to intensive activities lecturer, translator (eg system to kill the people of Guillaume Faye [Web]), editor (eg Definitions Giorgio Locchi) and publicist, has published numerous essays, including Legality and legitimacy in the Italian legal (ContrOpinione), and Konrad Lorenz etologia (Man free), Survey on Human Rights. Genealogia di una morale (LEdE) [ versione Web ], La tecnica, l'uomo e il futuro (l'Uomo libero). Genealogy of a moral (LEdE) [Web] technology, man and the future (free man). Already responsible for the Italian S?cretariat Etudes et Recherches the Groupement Etudes et de Recherche pour la Civilisation Europ?enne (GRECE) and secretary of the circle Milan Fourth Time, the animated with Faye Collectif de R?flexion sur le Monde Contemporain, and is now a member of the 'Association Italian Transumanisti and member of the cultural Insubre Earth. Vari altri scritti dell'autore disponibili sul Web sono elencati qui . Several of the other writings available on the Web are listed here. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 22:26:29 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 23:26:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Before the letter and Psi Message-ID: <580930c20803031426n166331e3m864a2d19a9b1368f@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 9:41 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > In "English" poststructural academese that would be "avant la lettre." :) > I see. For an Italian cultured mother-tongue speaker, this is still understandable, but he would find Latin phrase more usual... By the way, are you the same Damien Broderick of *Outside the Gates of Science *, which I have finished just minutes ago? Because near the end there are a few transhumanist references, and I have a vague recollection of having heard it mentioned on some list or other... If you are, congratulations. A very disconcerting and well-researched book. I personally switched from blind, albeit strictly materialistic, faith in psi when I was a teenager, to skepticism, back to the general impression that some more in-depth and/or large scale research would be in order. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 22:53:57 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 23:53:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Background Message-ID: <580930c20803031453y5002cac0r2c24dda75018d6d5@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Given all the angst flying about, I wonder if Dr. > Vaj might provide us with some background? > Google's usual amusing translation provides a bio > note to his BIOPOLITICA (Barbarossa Publishing Company, 2005 Milan): > What can I say? I am a practising Italian lawyer and a law professor at the University of Padua in New Technologies Law, and in my spare time I have been authoring or translating for years a number of essays and shorter articles, published in volume or in very diverse publications and newspapers, a few of them concern technology, philosophy and biopolitics and promote, in broad terms, prometheism, the posthuman change, and anti-prohibitionism with regard to biotech. At a point in time this made me get in touch with the WTA, especially since I became curious to explore not just the bio, "wet" transhumanist topics, but also the hard, "cyber" ones; and eventually I contributed with a few friends to the legalisation and rather dramatic growth of its Italian chapter, the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti, which had already been informally in place for a couple of years (something that was not really appreciated by a few Italian old-timers with very idiosincratic and sectarian agendas; hence their reiterated, bitter defamatory campaigns). In the process, I worked together with other AIT members to the establishment of a Universal Transhumanist Bibliography (available on the AIT's Web site linked above), to the publication of a rather academic H+ paper in Italian called *Divenire*, the first issue of which should be in print in a few weeks, and to the Manifesto that was initially mentioned by Giulio Prisco and is currently being translated by Riccardo Campa, its main author. Through all that, I met Natasha, who was kind enough to encourage me to subscribe to ExI chat list, as I not-so-recently-any-more did. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Mar 3 23:59:09 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 18:59:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Medical Costs In-Reply-To: References: <391783.21192.qm@web65402.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <16ea01c872b2$9ab9c470$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7641ddc60802221530s14e9776euaaa15600c4f4f4aa@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60802271504h2f7b7949seb023bbae1d4c1e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60803031559t3776751fqa96ab5ff4843bfbb@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 8:27 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > The feedback loops in large organisations are not that different > whether the organisation is public or private. ### Really, they are. More specifically, the largest difference is between non-monopolistic organizations controlled through the price mechanism, and monopolistic organizations which do not use the price mechanism. The price mechanism with exit option acts as a truthful conduit and integrator of information with a feedback delay directly related to product cycle. No society has ever discovered a more precise and faster feedback mechanism for the organization of economic activity than prices. ---------------------------------------------------------- If the cleaner doesn't > do a good job, customers or other staff bring it to the attention of > his supervisor, who either tries to make him work harder or argues to > his superiors that more cleaners need to be employed. If a bad > decision is made - too much or not enough money spent employing > cleaners, or too many incompetent cleaners employed - this comes to > the attention of management further up. ### What catches managerial attention of a profit-driven entity is the bottom line. Customer complaints are analyzed only insofar as they indicate problems that could lead to financial losses, which tend to be immediate, and roughly proportional to the volume of complaints. Customer complaints in politically controlled entities are irrelevant unless they reach the power-wielders in a sufficient amount as to have an impact on their ability to stay in power (i.e. the strength of feedback is not proportional to the number of dissatisfied patients), and tend to have very long feedback delay, measured in years. These are large differences. -------------------------------------------------------- > By it reaches the board of > directors it will have become very serious, affecting sales, customer > complaint levels, or some other outcome measure. Some work will need > to be done to determine why exactly the customers are leaving or why > the incidence of gastroenteritis has increased. Ultimately, if things > are handled badly enough, the shareholders/electors can vote to sack > the board of directors. ### Exit option for patients is almost immediate in a private system, extremely limited or absent in a state system. Absent in the sense you can't ever stop paying, even if you are dead, since money will be taken from your inheritance as estate taxes. Limited in the sense that you can't go to a different, independent hospital system without paying double. This is a huge difference. More generally, *within* a private organization, especially a large one, you may have feedback mechanisms that are similar to state ones, that's why large companies, like GM, may ossify and no longer act nimbly to serve the customer. However, the loops operating *between* a competitive organization and its customers are based on price, supply, demand, and easy exit, which is how they differ from states. ---------------------------------------------------- > Maybe a combination of private (to provide competition) and public (to > guarantee a basic standard) is the ideal. ### Do you think you need state control of facilities (and their prices) to guarantee a basic standard? Or do you need only the state as a payor of last resort? These are two distinct positions. I disagree strongly with the former, and largely disagree with the latter. I also disagree with the need to have a basic standard (i.e. a guaranteed minimum of access to medical care). ---------------------------------- > Good for you: you should always question propaganda. But your life > would not necessarily have been any better had you lived in one of the > many poor, disorganised countries where the propaganda (and the > prisons, and the death squads) was intended for the evil socialists. ### The enemy of my enemy is *not* my friend! :) I know that socialists have been persecuted, tortured and killed by some of their enemies. Persecuting communists doesn't automatically make you good in my book (although supporting them makes you bad). What I am arguing for is not simply absence of socialism, which is only one form of evil, but rather a principled rejection of violence. That implies a principled rejection of the legitimacy of taxation. ------------------------------------------------------------ There are many commercial situations where you can't readily go to > someone else, for example if you live in an apartment building and you > don't agree with the way it is being renovated. You could move, but at > great cost and inconvenience. ### But the cost is not actively imposed on you by violent means. You have orders of magnitude more choice among apartment lessors than among tax assessors, and the latter cost about an order of magnitude more. ------------------------------------------- > But yes, if you can't > afford anything else, and you don't like the variety of the food on > offer, there is probably no immediate personal gain from complaining. > It's better not to be poor, if you can help it. ### People who are not taxed tend to get richer than those who are, ceteris paribus. ------------------------------------------------- Oddly enough, the Australian taxation system penalises high income > earners who don't take out private health insurance: they pay a higher > tax rate, which can work out to many times more than the cost of the > insurance depending on income, so people have an incentive to take out > insurance even if they don't think they need it. This was brought in > as an attempt to curtail public health spending by shifting some of > the burden to the private sector. ### Jeez, so not only you are being fleeced but you can't get even a bit of the losses back by using the services made possible with your money! This adds a whole another layer of injury. ----------------------------------------------------------- > The result has not been that public > hospitals are left in the dust by their private counterparts. The only > real advantage of private insurance has traditionally been quicker > access to some types of elective surgery, such as joint replacement. > But even this has changed as public patients have been demanding > quicker service, perhaps comparing themselves to their private > counterparts. In terms of research, handling of complicated cases, > innovative techniques and general prestige, the large public hospitals > are still way ahead. ### If you have access to extorted monies you can grow much bigger than somebody who has to earn his keep (and keep paying taxes). ------------------------------------------------------------- > The Australian PBS > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_Benefits_Scheme) is not a > monopsony. Australia is a small market by world standards and drug > companies are free not to release drugs in that market if they feel it > isn't profitable, or to release them on a private script only basis. > You may as well accuse pharmacies of being monopsonies on the grounds > that they buy medications in bulk. ### Yes, it is a monopsony. It takes money from citizens and *then* buys medications in bulk, rather than by individual decisions of patients. By taking your money away and offering "benefits" in return it acts as a strong disincentive to buy individually (which would be equivalent to paying double). Pharmacies buy in bulk *in response* to individual patient demand, and there are many independent pharmacies, thus preserving individual patient input into the pricing system. A supplier of goods with very low marginal cost of production, such as drugs, has a choice - either deal with the local monopsonist, or else essentially lose the market altogether. As long as there are enough markets where you can recoup your costs, the drug maker will survive, but a few more such monopsonies could bring pharma down. ------------------------------------------- The majority of the 200,000 Australians with schizophrenia are > provided with free or almost free second generation antipsychotics at > a monthly cost to the PBS of $200-$300 per person. I don't see any of > the drug companies withdrawing their product on the grounds that this > revenue isn't worth their while. ### Do you think that withdrawal of suppliers from a market is a necessary criterion for detecting a monopsony? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 01:23:14 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 20:23:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Problem with Pattents In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60802221644u236b26d2u425008563b2772ba@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60802251520y54d25e35y7c7a87c6a4b1689e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60803031723k388cc32ew345b1042af2fa6bb@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:10 PM, Tom Tobin wrote: > > I think you discount the potential of open-source, collaborative means > of invention and authorship; given the currently available body of > ideas and a mandate to go nuts (and maybe a RepRap), why shouldn't the > same blooming of useful creative work happen in other fields just as > with computer programming? ### I am warmly supportive of open-source programming, and any donation of intellectual property to the public domain. However, the vast majority of useful products involve *toil* rather than fun which is why most people making them want to get paid. ----------------------------------------------------------- Insofar as *feelings* go, I actually believe that all IP is unethical;just as a conviction that all slavery is unethical, this doesn't stemfrom reason or a cost/benefit analysis. ### I think that Stefano answered this well but let me add some more. The essence of property is the right of exclusion. This legal theory posits that all the other rights usually bundled in property rights are secondary to this one fundamental right. Right of exclusion means that you have the recourse to the legal system should somebody enter the property in question. You may demand restitution, and even retribution so as to remain in sole possession of your property. If you say that IP is unethical, it means that you have no right to exclude others from your own mind, wouldn't you say? It is unethical to own ideas and thoughts, such as the invention of a new mousetrap, or a new poem, therefore you have no right to deny access to such thoughts. Should somebody demand the source code to the web page you created, you must obey. You don't own your intellectual creations, remember? So, are you going to humbly obey and regurgitate the contents of your mind to all comers? Or do we need to use some "persuasion" to get our due? ----------------------------------------------------------- > > > Conflating IP with physical property gets far too messy for the point > of any analogy to shine through. ### I am exquisitely aware of the differences between the various forms of tangible, intangible and intellectual property. The PC IP (perpetual-competitive IP) in propose is an attempt to make IP more like tangible property, and I know what I am doing, since tangible property is in general easier to own (i.e. establish the rights of exclusion) than IP. --------------------------------------------------------- > > Yes and no; my feelings don't help me reach goals, but they're also > the reason I *have* goals in the first place. If my desire is a > zero-IP world, then all the cost/benefit analysis in the world doesn't > really do me any good. ### Not quite. Most of our desires are secondary, they exist in the context of certain beliefs about the world. You may strongly desire a "strong man" to lead the country, if you believe that this is what it takes to make you safe, and you may enthusiastically wave flags, march and beat up "others". Once you grow up, and see that strongmen don't make anybody better off, that desire may subside. Lots of desires are lost as we grow up, and understand the trade-offs better. ------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Now, since you seem to speak with a great degree of conviction, > > claiming that IP limits innovation, how can you explain the plain fact > > that innovation is fastest in countries with strong IP laws? How does > > that play into your thesis? > > The economist's mantra: Correlation does not imply causation. ### Wait, you expressed a conviction that IP limits innovation.... based on what data? Correlation does imply a direct or indirect causal relationship between quantities, it just doesn't prove it, and by itself does not give you the direction of causation. Positive correlation between IP and innovation implies that either IP helps to innovate, or innovation leads to IP, or there is a positive feedback loop between them, or there is a common cause for both IP and innovation. It most definitely does not imply that IP limits innovation. Most beliefs about causation are indeed built from correlations, especially once mechanistic theories of cause and effect are developed to explain correlation. Therefore, my statement adduces circumstantial evidence against your claim, so you need to give arguments of your own. It's just as if we were arguing if high horsepower engines help cars drive faster, and you dismissed the positive correlation between the two as *mere* correlation, claiming that engines make cars slower. -------------------------------------------------------- > Besides the current unfeasibility (which I won't hold against it ? > we're on a transhumanist list, after all), what happens to those who > don't want to play the game? What happens to people who want to > dedicate their work to the public domain? If they "reinvent" > something, are all the royalties to the other inventors cancelled? > ### Do I really need to spell it out? Whoever generates an IP, can charge any price whatsoever, which means he can give it away to everybody for free. Other inventors can of course still charge money but nobody is forced to buy from them. Every customer is free to choose between them. ------------------------------------------------ >Anything involving mind-scanning strikes me as horrid; I'm even infavor of laptops >and other mental prostheses receiving complete > privacy protection from all outside parties, including governments > with search permits. So as a means for figuring out who "reinvented" > something, err, I'd pass. ### Mind-scanning is going to happen, so you'd better make sure the law is on your side. If you think IP is unethical, what recourse do you have to deny others access to your thoughts? Nobody would force you to be mind-scanned under PC IP. You would volunteer only if you wanted to make money on an invention. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Ultimately, I'll readily admit that I wouldn't care *how* cheap IP > might be under this system: the notion that I might hear about an > invention and be forever tainted is simply too awful. ### What do you mean by "tainted"? If you heard about an invention and wanted to make money off it, you could always have the memory removed and try to reinvent it. Or else, you could use the memory to try and invent something even better and make even more money. I don't see how it would taint you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > You might find it easier to think about IP like you do about bread. > > Except that I can't think bread into existence, or, more aptly, I > can't create a clone of a piece of bread (or a Platonic ideal of > bread) that exists somewhere else already by thinking it up. And with > bread, the baker no longer has it if I take it. (Can you tell I don't > like analogies with physical property?) ^_^ ### Indeed, Intellectual property does not have the "exclusivity property" that is inherent in most forms of tangible and some intangible property. This is a true difference, however it is not substantive to my argument. Can you elaborate on why do you think that lack of exclusivity is a decisive argument against IP? ---------------------------------------------------- Again, ideas are *nothing whatsoever* like bread. Hell, we need to > stop using the term *IP* (I've been guilty of it, too), because it's > not *property*, it's a government-granted monopoly right. ### So, just to go back to basics, what is "property"? And why can't you imagine privately managed IP? Did I ever imply that what I want is government-controlled IP? Knowing my aversion to the gummint, you should expect I want the opposite. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 01:24:52 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 20:24:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Problem with Pattents In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60802221644u236b26d2u425008563b2772ba@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20802251131v40c45b8co7956591073b4cd21@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60802251539k1260b241h9427ac9d0f41a46c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60803031724o7559ae14g7db29dab10ce72ff@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:16 PM, Tom Tobin wrote: > On 2/25/08, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 3:44 PM, Tom Tobin wrote: > > > > > I think we're looking at the situation the wrong way. Instead of > "How > > > can pharma companies recoup their R&D costs?", I'd like to ask "Is > > > there a better way to enrich the public good regarding medicine?" > > > Between the questionable efficacy of many medical products and a > > > laborious FDA approval process, I don't think the current system is > a > > > net gain; I'd rather see slower (and, hopefully, steadier) progress > > > (with a combination of public financing, cheap generics, and looser > > > regulations during a "prototype" testing period). I'd also like to > > > see *far* more emphasis placed on prevention rather than treatment; > > > prevention is both cheaper *and* more effective. A healthy diet and > > > exercise regimen alone is worth more than the fruit of decades of > > > research into new drugs. > > > > > > ### Yeah? How does that solve the problem of e.g. glioblastoma > > multiforme? Healthy eating? Prevention??? lol > > Prevention would help knock down a whole host of easy targets that > claim plenty of lives; when heart disease kills 268 people out of > every 100,000 per year, tossing up an example with a 2 per 100,000 > incident rate makes me scratch my head. ### What does heart disease prevention have to do with IP? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 01:32:10 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 20:32:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Problem with Pattents In-Reply-To: <580930c20802280802pd6f440bp4fa7bf3e4f1bb329@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60802221644u236b26d2u425008563b2772ba@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20802251131v40c45b8co7956591073b4cd21@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20802280802pd6f440bp4fa7bf3e4f1bb329@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60803031732lda2416bhda4b2426ed535c21@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > > There are however plenty of other conceivable methods to finance and/or > motivate R&D. The Soviet Union, e.g., put a Sputnik in orbit without a > patent system at all. :-) > > ### But, what was it good for? The other methods for R&D financing are more liable to produce all kinds of useless results. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 01:59:54 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 19:59:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Problem with Pattents In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60803031723k388cc32ew345b1042af2fa6bb@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60803031723k388cc32ew345b1042af2fa6bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803031959.55200.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 03 March 2008, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### I am warmly supportive of open-source programming, and any > donation of intellectual property to the public domain. However, the > vast majority of useful products involve *toil* rather than fun which > is why most people making them want to get paid. The vast majority of useful products do not involve toil. Any toil can be automated out of the process, so it's increasingly untoiled. They don't want to get paid because they hate doing the work. In most cases it's because the monetary system happens to be what they have been indoctrinated into. > The essence of property is the right of exclusion. This legal theory > posits that all the other rights usually bundled in property rights > are secondary to this one fundamental right. Right of exclusion means > that you have the recourse to the legal system should somebody enter > the property in question. You may demand restitution, and even > retribution so as to remain in sole possession of your property. That design is intellectually horrid. Property? Rights? What? > If you say that IP is unethical, it means that you have no right to > exclude others from your own mind, wouldn't you say? It is unethical > to own ideas and thoughts, such as the invention of a new mousetrap, No, it's impossible to own anything. > or a new poem, therefore you have no right to deny access to such > thoughts. Should somebody demand the source code to the web page you > created, you must obey. You don't own your intellectual creations, > remember? You must obey? Who says? > So, are you going to humbly obey and regurgitate the contents of your > mind to all comers? Or do we need to use some "persuasion" to get our > due? I tend to regurgitate as much as I can, yeah. > ### Wait, you expressed a conviction that IP limits innovation.... > based on what data? Correlation does imply a direct or indirect Though I cannot counter with numbers or anything of the like, it's obvious that the more easily accessible information is, the better. See the transformative powers of the printing press and the internet in comparison to our pathetic rates of book production via the method of painful arthritis fab lines. > Therefore, my statement adduces circumstantial evidence against your > claim, so you need to give arguments of your own. It's just as if we > were arguing if high horsepower engines help cars drive faster, and > you dismissed the positive correlation between the two as *mere* > correlation, claiming that engines make cars slower. Making things accessible is easier than otherwise, and in our digital age, nearly anybody can get a copy (including those who had the "secured access" in the 'security' model beforehand). So I don't see what's wrong. > ### Mind-scanning is going to happen, so you'd better make sure the > law is on your side. If you think IP is unethical, what recourse do > you have to deny others access to your thoughts? If you allow mind scanning, then suppose also brain alteration tech. The solution would be to alter your brain for the duration of the scanning procedure. > > Except that I can't think bread into existence, or, more aptly, I > > can't create a clone of a piece of bread (or a Platonic ideal of > > bread) that exists somewhere else already by thinking it up. And > > with bread, the baker no longer has it if I take it. (Can you tell > > I don't like analogies with physical property?) ^_^ Some would argue that you can, in fact, think bread into existence, just as easily as authors think their books into creation, or the programmer and his software. > ### Indeed, Intellectual property does not have the "exclusivity > property" that is inherent in most forms of tangible and some > intangible property. This is a true difference, however it is not > substantive to my argument. Can you elaborate on why do you think > that lack of exclusivity is a decisive argument against IP? What? So you want to propose that intellectual property is a new classification of neuronal structures in the brain and to somehow guarantee a strict novelty law in the DNA hooked up to a centralized server so that there is absolute exclusivity? I don't see how this would be helpful. It would be quite distracting, honestly. > ### So, just to go back to basics, what is "property"? And why can't Property seems to be fairly meaningless except in a sociocontext. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From pjmanney at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 04:43:13 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 20:43:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Forbes Magazine Special Report: Time Message-ID: <29666bf30803032043i348d9915y1c30c892a560b71a@mail.gmail.com> Geez, Forbes is on a roll. This is their issue on time, in all its meanings. Please click on the main link to find the sublinks. Enjoy! PJ http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/28/time-calendar-measurement-oped-cx_de_mn_time08_0229land.html?partner=weekly_newsletter Time is a Dimension Time's Sleight Of Hand By Brian Greene Whatever it is, time doesn't behave the way you would think. A Brief History Of Time Machines By David Toomey The truth may be stranger than fiction. Time is Money The Price Of Time By Paul Maidment Time is a strange economic good, difficult to price and easy to waste. The Money Meter By David M. Ewalt & Blair Ellis They say time is money. How much is yours worth? Time is Flying A Cure For Chronocentrism By Tim Powers To a leap day baby, time is more like an unfenced landscape than the clicking of an odometer. Peace Time By David A. Andelman Back in the simpler days of 1919, at the Paris peace talks, the whole world was redrawn under different rules of time and space. Time is Measured The World's Oldest Working Clock By Parmy Olson Salisbury's cathedral's clock is still ticking after more than 600 years. Collections: Vintage Rolexes By Nicola Ruiz Evan Zimmermann has a lucrative passion for old watches. In Pictures: The World's Most Expensive Watches Time Is Perception What Is Time? By Elisabeth Eaves It speeds up, slows down, and stands still. Is Time Just A Trick Of The Mind? By Lionel Laurent Notions of past, present and future may be our way of filling in the blanks. Time is Up The End By Steve Almond All significant data now point to the same unwelcome conclusion. From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 04:51:00 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 22:51:00 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Forbes Magazine Special Report: Time In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803032043i348d9915y1c30c892a560b71a@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803032043i348d9915y1c30c892a560b71a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803032251.01085.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 03 March 2008, PJ Manney wrote: > Time is a Dimension This is the one that I have the most trouble with. Dimensions just don't make sense to me. Though I understand the ideas of three dimensions for spaces and objects, especially in the case of computer modeling and so on, I have trouble with the idea of a time dimension, a necessary "univeral indexing system". Subjectivity, time, entropy, extropy relations need to be further explored (at least for myself). - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 4 05:15:35 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 21:15:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <00c501c87d4b$5dffbf00$e4f04d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <032c01c87db7$3c7ef6e0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> John Clark writes > Robert Bradbury Wrote: > > I believe the production of an AGI spells the extinction of humanity. > > Me too. But you do not think it *certain*, of course. This talk of utter doom concerning an unknown future is misplaced. Yes, things are grim, but they were grim back in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, but it would have been wrong to speak of unavoidable doom. There was a chance that we'd make it through, you see. > If you don't want to develop an AI somebody else certainly will, A very important point! > And if you're the first to make an AI you would have more control > (very small but larger than zero) over future events than the person > who came in second. It may also give these developers some > comfort to know that even if they or their children do not survive > their mind children will. Well, since we are mostly interested in survival, such consolation is beneath the radar. > Still, things aren't completely hopeless, just almost hopeless. > If you or your biological children have any wish to survive > they must shed the silly superstitions regarding identity and > consciousness that is epidemic in society and even infects > most members of this list. You mean, like retaining one's memories? The cryonicists, like everyone else I know, suppose that total and permanent loss of memory is death I thought that you agreed with the statement "Anything that remembers being me is me (to some larger or smaller degree)." No? > > And so, we must present transhumanism as an "Extinction Level Event" > Yes. No we should not. The future is too uncertain for any such claim. Besides, in my reply I mentioned the "weighted sum". Would you take the following gamble: 1. Suppose that you are capable (which you are almost surely not, nor is any of us) of imagining that you could begin living a life 100 times more valuable to you than is the one you are now leading. 2. You can press button A and there will be a .9 chance of immediate death, and a .1 chance of obtaining said life. (If it makes the chooser feel any more comfortable, consider that our best theory of physics strongly suggests universe branching, and that regardless, you'll still live, but in only one-tenth as many universes.) But even people on a ship just striking an iceberg doomed to sink the ship and kill most of the people do not say "this iceberg is an extinction level event for us". They keep their eye on the main chance. Lee From estropico at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 08:48:03 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 08:48:03 +0000 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 54, Issue 6 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803040048h2d5d9f02vfdf9e0f58bdae748@mail.gmail.com> > From: "Stefano Vaj" > > So far, the only PR annoyances we are suffering are the embarassing > implications deriving by your using the word "estropico" for neocon > propaganda and from your maniacal and almost solitary witch hunt... One moment I'm a bloodthirsty neocon, the next I'm a wild-eyed anarcho-capitalist, then I'm some sort of a papist zeolot... the feeling of being trapped in a surrealist's nightmare is getting stronger... As for the "solitary witch hunt" you have decided to forget those that have asked for their money back, cancelling their AIT membership, or that have been effectively silenced on the AIT list. Cheers, Fabio From estropico at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 09:14:54 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 09:14:54 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Stefano Vaj's background. Was: Neo-fascist transhumanists? Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803040114n1d312bcdn8fedfe7ff5b1c5ae@mail.gmail.com> On the subject of Stefano Vaj's background, as provided by himself. That's not quite the full story, is it? Care for full-disclosure? Some time ago, on an Italian list, somebody challenged Stefano regarding his alleged status as a law professor at Padua University, but all he could do in reply was to make a joke about it, wich puzzled me. Why not simply provide a link? It was only later that I came to realise that perhaps we searched the University's website using the wrong surname. I would be interested to see Stefano clarify to the list whether "Vaj" is a pseudonym and whether, on his business website (where the name "Stefano Vaj" does NOT appear), there might or might not be a little something that gives the lie to his claims that he has nothing to do with the far right. Perhaps he might even provide the list with the url in question, just in case it's just me seeing things. Cheers, Fabio > From: "Stefano Vaj" > Subject: [ExI] Background > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: > <580930c20803031453y5002cac0r2c24dda75018d6d5 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Damien Broderick > wrote: > > > Given all the angst flying about, I wonder if Dr. > > Vaj might provide us with some background? > > Google's usual amusing translation provides a bio > > note to his BIOPOLITICA (Barbarossa Publishing Company, 2005 Milan): > > > > What can I say? I am a practising Italian lawyer and a law professor at the > University of Padua in New Technologies Law, and in my spare time I have > been authoring or translating for years a number of essays and shorter > articles, published in volume or in very diverse publications and > newspapers, a few of them concern technology, philosophy and biopolitics and > promote, in broad terms, prometheism, the posthuman change, and > anti-prohibitionism with regard to biotech. > > At a point in time this made me get in touch with the WTA, especially since > I became curious to explore not just the bio, "wet" transhumanist topics, > but also the hard, "cyber" ones; and eventually I contributed with a few > friends to the legalisation and rather dramatic growth of its Italian > chapter, the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti, > which had already been informally in place for a couple of years (something > that was not really appreciated by a few Italian old-timers with very > idiosincratic and sectarian agendas; hence their reiterated, bitter > defamatory campaigns). > > In the process, I worked together with other AIT members to the > establishment of a Universal Transhumanist Bibliography (available on the > AIT's Web site linked above), to the publication of a rather academic H+ > paper in Italian called *Divenire*, the first issue of which should be in > print in a few weeks, and to the Manifesto that was initially mentioned by > Giulio Prisco and is currently being translated by Riccardo Campa, its main > author. > > Through all that, I met Natasha, who was kind enough to encourage me to > subscribe to ExI chat list, as I not-so-recently-any-more did. > > Stefano Vaj From jonkc at att.net Tue Mar 4 08:57:09 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 03:57:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <00c501c87d4b$5dffbf00$e4f04d0c@MyComputer> <032c01c87db7$3c7ef6e0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <001c01c87dd6$0427ce10$3fef4d0c@MyComputer> Me: >> If you or your biological children have any wish >> to survive they must shed the silly superstitions >> regarding identity and consciousness that is >> epidemic in society and even infects most >> members of this list. "Lee Corbin" >You mean, like retaining one's memories? No, I'm talking about the superstition virtually everyone you'd likely meet on the street believes in and even most members of this list have about atoms. If you believe in ESP or cold fusion you are wrong but your belief is unlikely to seriously harm you, but if you are unable to overcome the atoms superstition, if you do not understand that you are an adjective not a noun then you will die; that particular superstition is lethal, it will kill you dead dead dead. I'm afraid it's as simple as that. > I thought that you agreed with the statement > "Anything that remembers being me is me" I do indeed agree with that statement, as a matter of fact unless I'm much mistaken I'm the one who coined it. As for biological humans facing an Extinction Level Event, I've said before that I think the possibility a creature we would recognize as human existing in 50 years is low, and the possibility such a being could be found in 100 years is zero. I stand by that remark. But that's OK, 99% of all species that ever existed are extinct, but unlike most of them we will have descendants, and pretty damn interesting ones too! You'd probably want to join the party, me too. If you can get over the atoms superstition you have a chance; not a good chance but a chance. If you can't overcome the superstition the outcome is certain, you're worm food. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 10:10:02 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 11:10:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 54, Issue 6 In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803040048h2d5d9f02vfdf9e0f58bdae748@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803040048h2d5d9f02vfdf9e0f58bdae748@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803040210p54d71227sf21975b8a29dbaee@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 9:48 AM, estropico wrote: > One moment I'm a bloodthirsty neocon, the next I'm a wild-eyed > anarcho-capitalist, then I'm some sort of a papist zeolot... No, I agree that you and your friends are not *anarco*-capitalists nor Randian in the least, and understand that monopolies and and market-protected industrial-military complexes are perfectly fine with you. As for papism, well, given that no evangelical New Right exists in Italy, I assume that Vatican is the best local approximation for any good Italian neocon. Stefano Vaj From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 11:37:09 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 08:37:09 -0300 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Damien> I have to make my boringly familiar point: this second allegedly > impossible physics-shattering phenomenon is routinely observed in > parapsychology labs (...) And yet none of them is one million dollars richer. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 4 14:11:00 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 06:11:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question References: <934976.15997.qm@web31007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <03b901c87e01$98a7a5d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Dear Ed McHale, Thanks very much for following up on this. Stathis has also suggested that with such software he's been able to duplicate the experiment that was suggested by my description. Unfortunately I did not quite describe the circuit as accurately as I could have; I also got some other help meantime, and am near a solution. I'm anxious to print out your diagrams which I can't make out very well on my home system. More later when I have more time, probably later today. Also, I should have said pages 54-55 of H&H, (First Edition), in the section entitled "Emitter Follower". Thanks again Yours, Lee ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ed McHale" To: "Lee Corbin" ; "ExI chat list" Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 5:35 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question > Hi, > This is my first post to this group, although I have > lurked for a while. > Lee, as far as I can tell your original intuition > about what this circuit should do was correct, > assuming that I understood your description correctly. > My edition of Horowitz and Hill has no circuit such as > you describe on page 56. > One way to explore this and other circuits is with a > simulator, and there are a number of free ones around. > (Also a number of better ones that typically cost > quite a bit.) Besides being essential for real > hardware design, circuit simulators are excellent > educational tools as well as being absolutely terrific > time wasters (fair warning). Perhaps the easiest to > use is the student version of PSPICE. > Attached are pdf files of the original circuit as > entered into PSPICE, and the resulting output. I hope > this does not run afoul any list rules against posting > attachments. If it does, please accept my apologies. I > am new to this. > Regards, > Ed McHale From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 15:27:51 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 08:27:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku In-Reply-To: <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <2d6187670803040727i4ca9b417pc8b4c8c00012b025@mail.gmail.com> Michio Kaku will be coming to ASU sometime later this year and I look forward to it with all of my inner 14 year-old ( but if only Carl Sagan were still around...)! lol Richard Dawkins will be speaking here the day after tomorrow (and I barely managed to get tickets in time). But his talk will cause a scheduling conflict with an Aubrey de Grey vrs S. Jay Olshansky debate occurring "across town" at the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix. I emailed the conference involving de Grey and explained that there was a scheduling conflict. I don't know if they would take my concern into consideration but at least I tried! Damn!!! John : ( -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 4 15:32:41 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:32:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku In-Reply-To: <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com> At 08:37 AM 3/4/2008 -0300, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: >Damien> I have to make my boringly familiar point: this second allegedly > > impossible physics-shattering phenomenon is routinely observed in > > parapsychology labs (...) > >And yet none of them is one million dollars richer. I assume that's a reference to the bogus Randi Foundation challenge. Have a look at this: <http://www.dailygrail.com/features/the-myth-of-james-randis-million-dollar-challenge> (I don't vouch for any of the other contents of that site, but the article at the url looks fairly sound.) Btw, your ellipses removed my crucial point that the phenomena are stochastic; their power is low, and there is very little likelihood (as estimated even by those who place credence in the results of parapsychologists) of one-off or short-run miraculous psi events on demand. Damien Broderick From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 15:53:46 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 10:53:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Problem with Pattents In-Reply-To: <200803031959.55200.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60803031723k388cc32ew345b1042af2fa6bb@mail.gmail.com> <200803031959.55200.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60803040753s481aa0e2q9f51d0d93309fc6e@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 8:59 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Monday 03 March 2008, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > ### I am warmly supportive of open-source programming, and any > > donation of intellectual property to the public domain. However, the > > vast majority of useful products involve *toil* rather than fun which > > is why most people making them want to get paid. > > The vast majority of useful products do not involve toil. ### Lol! And again lol! -------------------------------------------- > > ### Indeed, Intellectual property does not have the "exclusivity > > property" that is inherent in most forms of tangible and some > > intangible property. This is a true difference, however it is not > > substantive to my argument. Can you elaborate on why do you think > > that lack of exclusivity is a decisive argument against IP? > > What? So you want to propose that intellectual property is a new > classification of neuronal structures in the brain and to somehow > guarantee a strict novelty law in the DNA hooked up to a centralized > server so that there is absolute exclusivity? I don't see how this > would be helpful. It would be quite distracting, honestly. ### Centralized server? Where did you get that? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 16:08:21 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 13:08:21 -0300 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com><004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> HeMM>>And yet none of them is one million dollars richer. Damien> I assume that's a reference to the bogus Randi Foundation challenge. I am! I just couldn't miss the joke :-) Damien> Have a look at this: > http://www.dailygrail.com/features/the-myth-of-james-randis-million-dollar-challenge > (I don't vouch for any of the other contents of that site, but the > article at the url looks fairly sound.) Indeed. The site is barely a trustworthy source. Anyway, Randi responded to the article (http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/169/1/#i9) and the site posted a replica (http://www.dailygrail.com/node/6008)... This can go on and on forever. But I still trust Randi more than the grail and object to the term 'bogus'. Damien> Btw, your ellipses removed my crucial point that the phenomena are > stochastic; their power is low, and there is very little likelihood > (as estimated even by those who place credence in the results of > parapsychologists) of one-off or short-run miraculous psi events on > demand. Sorry for that. But this stochastic thing reminds me of a Russel's Teapot comic http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/omni-impotence.html From amara at amara.com Tue Mar 4 16:38:12 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 09:38:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: From: "Stefano Vaj" On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > > I think it's important for Transhumanists to understand: >> Why too few votes? Why couldn't that referendum gather 50%? Can you >> answer? > >Mmhhh. Lack of information? Censorship by mainstream media? Cultural >limits? Insufficient mobilisation or blatant betrayal of the forces >who should theoretically have supported the referendum? Fear of the >swinging catholic 4-5% in the upcoming elections ? The >clever presentation of the law by its supporters as something >concerning only couples with fertility problems (in fact it forbids >almost all kinds of human reproductive or genetic technology)? Thank you for these examples. It's quite a list. These are the challenges of yours and AITs and the Italian transhumanists wouldn't you say? For example, media. After Berlusconi is re-elected next month as Italy's prime minister, to distribute accurate information (media) and change Italy's current media laws, who do you think will win, a comedian-activist or one of the richest men in the world? Your other examples (which depend on education, pure research funding, political agendas, the Vatican's influence in Italy's politics) have similar (IMO insurmountable) challenges. Amara At 8:51 AM -0700 3/3/08, Amara Graps wrote: >If you >can answer that, then you know what challenges the AIT (and the larger >body of Transhumanists) have in front of them. -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 4 16:53:17 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:53:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku In-Reply-To: <00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com> <00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080304105002.0234be50@satx.rr.com> At 01:08 PM 3/4/2008 -0300, HeMM wrote: >But this stochastic thing reminds me of a Russel's Teapot comic >http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/omni-impotence.html That would kill me stone dead if I thought for a moment there was an omnipotent deity behind psi, or behind the effectiveness of aspirin on heart attacks, or any other multifactorial effect with low power. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 4 17:19:02 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:19:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Randi again In-Reply-To: <00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com> <00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080304111321.02438310@satx.rr.com> At 01:08 PM 3/4/2008 -0300, HeMm wrote: >Randi responded to >the article >(http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/169/1/#i9) ... This can go on and >on forever. But I still trust Randi more than the grail and object to the >term 'bogus'. Uh huh. You trust this sort of thing, eh? My abysmal ignorance of statistics requires that I frequently appeal to statistician Chip Denman of the University of Maryland for frequently sobering advice and counsel. Having just received some of that wisdom, I?m announcing a further refinement ? and generous it is! ? to the JREF million-dollar challenge. These changes will go up on the rules page as soon as we can get around to it Says Mr. Denman: ...Setting the bar for significance is "merely" a matter of deciding how risk-tolerant you're willing to be. I believe that it is entirely sensible to set a high bar for the $1M prize. Maybe one out of a million is a bit extreme, but it's your money and your risk. On the other hand, you might consider a lower bar for the preliminary test and still protect yourself overall. For instance, you could use .01 (which is frequently seen in the scientific and statistical literature) for the preliminary, and a 1 out of 100,000 rule for the final test ? and taken together, you'd know there was only a one-in-a-million shot that someone could get lucky on both. That?s what we?ll do. We?ll choose the ?other hand.? So, as of now, we will require that applicants beat a one-in-one-hundred chance of success ? by dumb luck or co-incidence ? for the preliminary test, and then a one-in-one-hundred-thousand chance in the formal test ? a point that has not yet been reached in the past ten years of our trying So both the abysmally ignorant Randi and his stats expert tell us that 1 in 100 multiplied by 1 in 100,000 equals 1 in a million. Leaving aside the impropriety of multiplying these probabilities, that's just... amazing, Randi! Damien Broderick From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 17:21:46 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 14:21:46 -0300 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com><004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com><00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304105002.0234be50@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <00c901c87e1c$6aec6340$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> >>But this stochastic thing reminds me of a Russel's Teapot comic >>http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/omni-impotence.html Damien> That would kill me stone dead if I thought for a moment there was an > omnipotent deity behind psi, or behind the effectiveness of aspirin > on heart attacks, or any other multifactorial effect with low power. Not AT ALL what I meant. The joke I was aiming for is that these so called psi phaenomena also manifest only in the very edge of statistical significance. But once you have to explain a joke then it's not funny at all. I seem to get people misunderstanding me all the time these days... From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 17:31:52 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 17:31:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080304105002.0234be50@satx.rr.com> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com> <00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304105002.0234be50@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 4:53 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > That would kill me stone dead if I thought for a moment there was an > omnipotent deity behind psi, or behind the effectiveness of aspirin > on heart attacks, or any other multifactorial effect with low power. > I think Randi's challenge is not meant for the type of statistical anomalies that you are talking about. He wanted to combat the psychic charlatans that rip off the gullible and bereaved public. Same as Houdini used to debunk self-proclaimed psychics and mediums. He wanted people like Uri Geller to come in and bend spoons while being watched by slow-motion cameras from all angles, using spoons supplied by the testers. But no such luck. These millionaire so-called psychics are not going to risk their very successful business plans by such a process. Unfortunately once the challenge was publicised, Randi then found that he had the problem of people claiming more and more obscure abilities in an attempt to strike 'lucky' and win the million dollars. He couldn't just dismiss them out of hand as being not suitable for testing (which is probably what he should have done), so he was stuck with trying to devise equally complicated and obscure tests and ended up wasting everybody's time. So the test has now outlived its' usefulness and is being scrapped. On a separate note if esp abilities existed, wouldn't they provide an evolutionary advantage and increase over time? Surely it would be handy for a prehistoric hunter to know where the food was in advance, or to know that a tiger was hiding round the corner? If such abilities were beneficial the whole population should have inherited them after a few thousand years. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 17:38:18 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 18:38:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20803040938v1eabad15m2ce9f7177874cdf8@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 5:38 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > Thank you for these examples. It's quite a list. These are the > challenges of yours and AITs and the Italian transhumanists wouldn't you > say? Yes, I would say so. For example, media. > > After Berlusconi is re-elected next month as Italy's prime minister, to > distribute accurate information (media) and change Italy's current media > laws, who do you think will win, a comedian-activist or one of the > richest men in the world? > > Your other examples (which depend on education, pure research funding, > political agendas, the Vatican's influence in Italy's politics) have > similar (IMO insurmountable) challenges. > Why, as they say, "the biggest the challenge..." :-) And after all, as in the quote of William of Orange (my translation), "optimism is not required for trying, nor success for persisting". Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From estropico at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 17:56:49 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 17:56:49 +0000 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 54, Issue 7 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803040956l7eab6b63wdfd914b7f9107d7@mail.gmail.com> Make up your mind. I seem to remember that you've "accused" me of anarcho-capitalist tendencies more than once on various Italian mailing lists. Just for the record, and in case anyone gives a damn, I never actually considered myself a libertarian of any type. The closest I've ever come to that was a few years ago, when I found myself describing my political leanings in a conversation to somebody as quasi-libertarian. As for the neocon/teocon/papist nonsense I can only suggest that the readers have a browse through my website and blog, google-translate a few articles and make up their own mind: www.estropico.com www.estropico.blogspot.com Cheers, Fabio > From: "Stefano Vaj" > Subject: Re: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 54, Issue 6 > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: > <580930c20803040210p54d71227sf21975b8a29dbaee at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 9:48 AM, estropico wrote: > > One moment I'm a bloodthirsty neocon, the next I'm a wild-eyed > > anarcho-capitalist, then I'm some sort of a papist zeolot... > > No, I agree that you and your friends are not *anarco*-capitalists nor > Randian in the least, and understand that monopolies and and > market-protected industrial-military complexes are perfectly fine with > you. > > As for papism, well, given that no evangelical New Right exists in > Italy, I assume that Vatican is the best local approximation for any > good Italian neocon. > > Stefano Vaj From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 17:58:33 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 14:58:33 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Randi again References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com><004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com><00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304111321.02438310@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <00ea01c87e21$a614ca20$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> At 01:08 PM 3/4/2008 -0300, HeMm wrote: >Randi responded to >the article >(http://www.randi.org/joom/content/view/169/1/#i9) ... This can go on and >on forever. But I still trust Randi more than the grail and object to the >term 'bogus'. Damien> Uh huh. You trust this sort of thing, eh? >So both the abysmally ignorant Randi and his stats expert tell us that 1 in >100 multiplied by >1 in 100,000 equals 1 in a million. Leaving aside the impropriety of >multiplying these >probabilities, that's just... amazing, Randi! But my point is that a true psychic's acuracy should tend to one hundred percent, not to zero. To paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi: Never underestimate the power of randomness. From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 18:22:13 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 18:22:13 +0000 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 54, Issue 7 In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803040956l7eab6b63wdfd914b7f9107d7@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803040956l7eab6b63wdfd914b7f9107d7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 5:56 PM, estropico wrote: > Make up your mind. I seem to remember that you've "accused" me of > anarcho-capitalist tendencies more than once on various Italian > mailing lists. Just for the record, and in case anyone gives a damn, I > never actually considered myself a libertarian of any type. The > closest I've ever come to that was a few years ago, when I found > myself describing my political leanings in a conversation to somebody > as quasi-libertarian. > > As for the neocon/teocon/papist nonsense I can only suggest that the > readers have a browse through my website and blog, google-translate a > few articles and make up their own mind: > > www.estropico.com > www.estropico.blogspot.com > Rely on google translate!!!!???? Who knows what terrible thought crimes you might be accused of? :) I don't think it much matters what political views people here hold. No two will hold the same views anyway. Transhumanists are officially a broad church, with only a very few extremists beyond the pale. Like neo-nazis or white supremacists, for example. Advocating for extreme political views, to the exclusion of all others, would probably get you put on moderation. I believe the Russian WTA even allows a Stalin apologist, as that is not thought to be an extreme opinion in Russia. :) BillK From kevin at kevinfreels.com Tue Mar 4 18:08:43 2008 From: kevin at kevinfreels.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:08:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <00c501c87d4b$5dffbf00$e4f04d0c@MyComputer> References: <00c501c87d4b$5dffbf00$e4f04d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <47CD902B.6030708@kevinfreels.com> John K Clark wrote: > * Robert Bradbury Wrote:* > ** > > *> I believe the production of an AGI spells* > > *> the extinction of humanity. * > > * * > > *Me too.* > > * * > > *> Why should I expend intellectual energy,* > > *> time, money, etc. in a doomed species? * > > * * > > *If you don't want to develop an AI somebody else certainly will, > there is too much money and power involved for such a possibility to > be ignored, not to mention the adrenalin high creating such a godlike > being would bring. And if you're the first to make an AI you would > have more control (very small but larger than zero) over future events > than the person who came in second. It may also give these developers > some comfort to know that even if they or their children do not > survive their mind children will.* > > * * > > *> those of you who have had and/or are investing* > > *> in children are potentially pursuing a pointless endeavor. * > > * * > > *Sucks doesn't it? Still, things aren't completely hopeless, just > almost hopeless. If you or your biological children have any wish to > survive they must shed the silly superstitions regarding identity and > consciousness that is epidemic in society and even infects most > members of this list. If they can do that then there would be no > reason not to upload and engage in pedal to the metal upgrading, and > if they are also very lucky they might survive. * > > * * > > *> And so, we must present transhumanism * > > *> as an "Extinction Level Event"* > > * * > > *Yes.* > > * * > > * > are willing to deal with thiat?* > > * * > > *Well, it's not like we had any choice over the matter.* > > * * > > * John K Clark* > > * * > Why is it that you think that humanity would become extinct? A "doomed species"? You are much better than that. First of all - ALL SPECIES ARE DOOMED. It's called evolution. The name we give a specific species is our way of fitting things into neat little boxes as us humans like to do, but the fact is that the human of today is different then the human of yesterday and will be different in the future. Whatever may come will be different from us but it will have our mark. Even the AGI - if it is actually intelligent - will recognize that had it not been for us, it would not exist. And had it not been for our parents we would not exist and so on. So your investment in children would not be "pointless" if those children were to be part of the world that brought the AGI into existence. One thing you will notice is that the greater the education a person has, the less likely they engage in wholesale destruction of life. Assuming an AGI would be very well educated, I would expect it to seek the protection of humanity just as we seek to protect chimps and gorillas. Certainly humans kills these animals, but it's for economic reasons that an AGI would simply not subscribe to. So I would expect with an AGI that people could still choose their own destiny. They could remain human and continue as before except in a much better world, or they could upload, convert to a mechanical body for exploration, or any combination in between. Some may even make copies of themselves digitally and shoot themselves across the universe on a laserbeam. Some will "perfect" themselves into oblivion. Others will choose to remain as traditionally human as possible. Divergence is almost inevitable. But in all cases it would be pointless if you didn't feel and think like "you" when you were done. And personally I wouldn't feel that to survive alone is enough. If the search for upgrades and one-up-manship turned out to be as you state it is no different than the current state of affairs except there is no time for relaxation and entertainment and your entire life is dedicated to survival. If the identity can't be preserved it is indeed all pointless. So anything that doesn't produce that result would not be worth the time. An AGI would clearly see this. All this doom and gloom about the pointlessness of it all really concerns me. Because once you go down that path you have to ask yourself why you even bother getting up in the morning. Might as well put an end to it now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 4 18:40:36 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:40:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] LA Times: 'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku In-Reply-To: References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com> <00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304105002.0234be50@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080304122820.0243ea90@satx.rr.com> At 05:31 PM 3/4/2008 +0000, BillK wrote: >I think Randi's challenge is not meant for the type of statistical >anomalies that you are talking about. He wanted to combat the psychic >charlatans that rip off the gullible and bereaved public. Same as >Houdini used to debunk self-proclaimed psychics and mediums. He >wanted people like Uri Geller to come in and bend spoons while being >watched by slow-motion cameras from all angles, using spoons supplied >by the testers. That's true, and most of his efforts seem directed to the palpably bogus--and in general I applaud such demolitions. But the JREF does claim to be open to tests of real parapsychologists as well--see his references to Bierman and Ertel. As Dean Radin has argued, a Randi-dedicated full-scale ganzfeld program with a 99% chance of beating Randi's odds would take several years of full time work by several people and hundreds of volunteer subjects. (Mere coincidence that Randi and Radin are anagrams? Evidence for creationist design?)## >On a separate note if esp abilities existed, wouldn't they provide an >evolutionary advantage and increase over time? Surely it would be >handy for a prehistoric hunter to know where the food was in advance, >or to know that a tiger was hiding round the corner? If such >abilities were beneficial the whole population should have inherited >them after a few thousand years. I discuss this at some length in OUTSIDE THE GATES OF SCIENCE and won't repeat it here. But note that your argument also proves that after a few thousand years tigers must have evolved human-level intelligence (a phenomenon we *agree* exists) to avoid the hunters. This explains why we see so few of them around these days--they're all cannily hiding around corners. Damien Broderick ##for the humor-impaired, this was a joke, although a rather lame one. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 20:31:42 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 13:31:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 5 things you never knew your cell phone could do Message-ID: <2d6187670803041231q514c7933wd7d560e6eebd86bb@mail.gmail.com> Hello everyone, My friend James Swayze shared this with me and I'm passing it on to the list. Best wishes, John Grigg 5 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it: FIRST: Emergency The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobiles is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the ke ypad is locked. Try it out. SECOND: Have you locked your keys in the car? Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy Someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk). Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone! ' THIRD: Hidden Battery Power Imagine your cell battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time. FOURTH: How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone? To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in t he following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones. And Finally.... FIFTH: Free Directory Se rvice for Cells Cell phone companies are charging us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information calls when they don't have to. Most of us do not carry a telephone directory in our vehicle, which makes this situation even more of a problem. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial: (800) FREE 411, or (800) 373-3411 without incurring any charge at all. Program this int o your cell phone now. This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 20:44:15 2008 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 13:44:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <001c01c87dd6$0427ce10$3fef4d0c@MyComputer> References: <00c501c87d4b$5dffbf00$e4f04d0c@MyComputer> <032c01c87db7$3c7ef6e0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <001c01c87dd6$0427ce10$3fef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 1:57 AM, John K Clark wrote: > ...if you are unable to overcome the atoms > superstition, if you do not understand that you are an adjective not a noun > then you will die; that particular superstition is lethal,... > ... If you can get over the atoms > superstition you have a chance; ... If you can't > overcome the superstition the outcome is certain, you're worm food. I can't speak "for" John, but it might be that someone needs a bit of a translation. In fact, I want to make sure that I understand correctly. I think what John is saying here is that most people think that they "are" their material self, ie that particular set of atoms which composes their body and brain. Now, if I understand him correctly, John asserts with the utmost conviction that this is not the case, but that we are rather THE PROCESS supported by the meat(ie atoms), not the meat, and that the identical process, however many copies and whatever the substrate, biological or non-biological, is as authentically you as the meatbound you of conventional experience. John, please correct or clarify as appropriate. Regarding the impending doom of humanity at the hands of an AGI, I think it's to early to tell. For one thing, much of the doom saying seems to be a projection onto the AGI of the worst of human behavior: self-absorption, greed, and ruthlessness to start with. This seems to me neither logical nor likely. Most of human behavior originates in what I call somatic drives: the urges inherited through the billions of biological generation that preceded the development of mind, judgement, and the dubious notion of independent or semi-independent volition. An AGI will have none of that -- if it's inclusion is not essential to what we think of as intelligence -- and, as a result should/could be ego-less: intelligent yet utterly compliant. Further, this outcome is so desirable, and the alternative danger so hyped and prominent in our fears, that substantial efforts will be made to make it so. Witness all the talk about about "friendly" AI. Secondly, if an AI or AGI embodies intelligence according to a human standard (What other standard is there?), then it will be able to read and reason. If so, it must --what else is there?, in the beginning at least -- learn from the substantial body of human musings (texts and other media). When it learns, about human culture and values, about what humans consider good and evil, right and wrong, will it not embrace at least the logic, and extrapolate from there? Will it not learn/know of the long struggle humanity has had with itself in discovering these values and attempting to apply them despite the burden of billions of generations of inbuilt somatic drives? Will it not recognize and appreciate-- though perhaps not in the emotional sense -- the advantages it enjoys in not being so burdened? In short will it not seek to perfect "the good", a bar too high for intelligence v0.9 (ie humans)? Will it not seek to preserve and protect, rather than destroy? And if so, how is this consistent with the extermination of its "parents"/creators? How is this irrational optimism rather than gentle logic? Fear is a somatic "burden" It is not judgement. Best, Jeff Davis "You are what you think." Jeff Davis From pharos at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 20:51:36 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 20:51:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] 5 things you never knew your cell phone could do In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803041231q514c7933wd7d560e6eebd86bb@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670803041231q514c7933wd7d560e6eebd86bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 8:31 PM, John Grigg wrote: > Hello everyone, > > My friend James Swayze shared this with me and I'm passing it on to the > list. > > 5 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO > Sorry, John. This is an email spam that has been circulating for several years. The info is mostly wrong. See: for a summary and links to more detailed explanations. Snopes should always be checked first. :) BillK From santostasigio at yahoo.com Tue Mar 4 20:25:09 2008 From: santostasigio at yahoo.com (giovanni santost) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 12:25:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <47CD902B.6030708@kevinfreels.com> Message-ID: <332396.36633.qm@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Very disappointed by Bradbury ideas on AGI. What Kevin has to say is much more in the line with what I think on the issue. Even if there was a sudden creation of AGI (I think that gradual coming into being of AGI and integration with us is the more realistic scenario) it would be more unlikely that it would desire to destroy us than us wanted to destroy our parents when we were born (or even when we reached teenager stage). I had parents that were not particularly intellectual or interested in my aspirations (even if supportive) and I never desired to eliminate them, in fact I have the opposite desire to take care of them now that they need my help. In addition, I often fantasize about the possibility to bring my parents up in their education or desire for knowledge so I could have shared with them my interests and passions. In fact, would not be wonderful if we could accelerate the evolution of not just other human being but also other non human primates so they could have a comparable intelligence to ours but of a different kind? As humans we are always looking for possible extra terrestrial "alien" companions (angels in the prescientific times, green little men now), but what if we could bring to higher level of consciousness other terrestrial species as dolphins and primates. so we could share thoughts, music and art ? Would not the AGI have similar yearnings to share existence with other "intelligent" beings and even upgrade them to be peer with His/Her/Its/Their own intelligence and consciousness? I think this is more likely than a crazy, primitive, selfish, destructive, nihilist AGI. Kevin Freels wrote: John K Clark wrote: Robert Bradbury Wrote: > I believe the production of an AGI spells > the extinction of humanity. Me too. > Why should I expend intellectual energy, > time, money, etc. in a doomed species? If you don?t want to develop an AI somebody else certainly will, there is too much money and power involved for such a possibility to be ignored, not to mention the adrenalin high creating such a godlike being would bring. And if you?re the first to make an AI you would have more control (very small but larger than zero) over future events than the person who came in second. It may also give these developers some comfort to know that even if they or their children do not survive their mind children will. > those of you who have had and/or are investing > in children are potentially pursuing a pointless endeavor. Sucks doesn?t it? Still, things aren?t completely hopeless, just almost hopeless. If you or your biological children have any wish to survive they must shed the silly superstitions regarding identity and consciousness that is epidemic in society and even infects most members of this list. If they can do that then there would be no reason not to upload and engage in pedal to the metal upgrading, and if they are also very lucky they might survive. > And so, we must present transhumanism > as an "Extinction Level Event" Yes. > are willing to deal with thiat? Well, it?s not like we had any choice over the matter. John K Clark Why is it that you think that humanity would become extinct? A "doomed species"? You are much better than that. First of all - ALL SPECIES ARE DOOMED. It's called evolution. The name we give a specific species is our way of fitting things into neat little boxes as us humans like to do, but the fact is that the human of today is different then the human of yesterday and will be different in the future. Whatever may come will be different from us but it will have our mark. Even the AGI - if it is actually intelligent - will recognize that had it not been for us, it would not exist. And had it not been for our parents we would not exist and so on. So your investment in children would not be "pointless" if those children were to be part of the world that brought the AGI into existence. One thing you will notice is that the greater the education a person has, the less likely they engage in wholesale destruction of life. Assuming an AGI would be very well educated, I would expect it to seek the protection of humanity just as we seek to protect chimps and gorillas. Certainly humans kills these animals, but it's for economic reasons that an AGI would simply not subscribe to. So I would expect with an AGI that people could still choose their own destiny. They could remain human and continue as before except in a much better world, or they could upload, convert to a mechanical body for exploration, or any combination in between. Some may even make copies of themselves digitally and shoot themselves across the universe on a laserbeam. Some will "perfect" themselves into oblivion. Others will choose to remain as traditionally human as possible. Divergence is almost inevitable. But in all cases it would be pointless if you didn't feel and think like "you" when you were done. And personally I wouldn't feel that to survive alone is enough. If the search for upgrades and one-up-manship turned out to be as you state it is no different than the current state of affairs except there is no time for relaxation and entertainment and your entire life is dedicated to survival. If the identity can't be preserved it is indeed all pointless. So anything that doesn't produce that result would not be worth the time. An AGI would clearly see this. All this doom and gloom about the pointlessness of it all really concerns me. Because once you go down that path you have to ask yourself why you even bother getting up in the morning. Might as well put an end to it now. _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 21:31:21 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 14:31:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <332396.36633.qm@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <47CD902B.6030708@kevinfreels.com> <332396.36633.qm@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803041331r6c87c30fx3388ae9da5053147@mail.gmail.com> giovanni santost wrote: Even if there was a sudden creation of AGI (I think that gradual coming into being of AGI and integration with us is the more realistic scenario) it would be more unlikely that it would desire to destroy us than us wanted to destroy our parents when we were born (or even when we reached teenager stage). >>> You are badly anthropomorphizing the AGI. It will most likely not have the same biological drives/wiring that you and I have. Where is Eliezer Yudkowsky when we need him? lol I think the "whole gradual coming into being of AGI combined with the integration of us into it," is actually the very unlikely scenario. Purely AGI development will definitely progress faster than the machine/biological interfaces that you imagine. you continue: I had parents that were not particularly intellectual or interested in my aspirations (even if supportive) and I never desired to eliminate them, in fact I have the opposite desire to take care of them now that they need my help. In addition, I often fantasize about the possibility to bring my parents up in their education or desire for knowledge so I could have shared with them my interests and passions. >>> You sound like a good person. : ) you continue: In fact, would not be wonderful if we could accelerate the evolution of not just other human being but also other non human primates so they could have a comparable intelligence to ours but of a different kind? As humans we are always looking for possible extra terrestrial "alien" companions (angels in the prescientific times, green little men now), but what if we could bring to higher level of consciousness other terrestrial species as dolphins and primates. so we could share thoughts, music and art ? >>> Upgrading animals would be a very cool thing, indeed. Just thinking about this brought back fond memories of reading the "Uplift Saga" by David Brin. My landlord has a chicken that I would like to see uplifted. I say this mainly because she constantly follows me around like a faithful hound. I'd like to take this for loyalty and natural affection on her part but I realize that she is just very patiently waiting for a handout. you continue: Would not the AGI have similar yearnings to share existence with other "intelligent" beings and even upgrade them to be peer with His/Her/Its/Their own intelligence and consciousness? >>> I would say this is a very big "if." But some say AGI would only have the motivations which we program into them. you continue: I think this is more likely than a crazy, primitive, selfish, destructive, nihilist AGI. >>> Perhaps we have all seen the Terminator films (and the new TV series) just too many times! And then again, maybe James Cameron was on to something. John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 00:02:46 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 17:02:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 5 things you never knew your cell phone could do In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670803041231q514c7933wd7d560e6eebd86bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803041602r3fd4e9abr1ae71cb72fde5c3f@mail.gmail.com> Bill, Thank you for the correction! I feel really foolish to say the least. I made the false assumption that the information I was given was completely accurate. I apologize to the list members for my mistake. As Natasha might say, "I failed to set my personal bogosity filter high enough." Sincerely, John On 3/4/08, BillK wrote: > On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 8:31 PM, John Grigg wrote: > > Hello everyone, > > > > My friend James Swayze shared this with me and I'm passing it on to the > > list. > > > > 5 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO > > > > > Sorry, John. This is an email spam that has been circulating for several > years. > The info is mostly wrong. > > See: > > for a summary and links to more detailed explanations. > > Snopes should always be checked first. :) > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From santostasigio at yahoo.com Tue Mar 4 23:54:15 2008 From: santostasigio at yahoo.com (giovanni santost) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 15:54:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803041331r6c87c30fx3388ae9da5053147@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5031.10146.qm@web31313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Well, about the anthropomorphisizing of AGI, you say in the end that some say the motivation of AGI will be the one we program into it. Exactly, that is my point, it is difficult for us to create an intelligence utterly alien when the only example of intelligence we have is us. But maybe there are general and universal principles associated with intelligence. Intelligence means finding patterns and connections, understanding that affecting this part here means affecting this other part over there, intelligence means having a higher sense of physical and moral "ecology". If you see connections between all the beings than you feel compassion and understanding (and yes these are human feelings, but they are also fundamental components of our intelligence, and a lot of new research shows that without feelings we would no have a conscious intelligence at all). Yes we exterminate bugs, but usually in limited situations (like in our house or on a crop). It would be unacceptable for mankind to have a global plan to complete exterminate all the roaches of the earth even if it could be done. And it is difficult to have feelings for bug, it would not make sense ecologically, it would not be the intelligent thing to do, and by defintion AGI is supposed to be Intelligent. John Grigg wrote: giovanni santost wrote: Even if there was a sudden creation of AGI (I think that gradual coming into being of AGI and integration with us is the more realistic scenario) it would be more unlikely that it would desire to destroy us than us wanted to destroy our parents when we were born (or even when we reached teenager stage). >>> You are badly anthropomorphizing the AGI. It will most likely not have the same biological drives/wiring that you and I have. Where is Eliezer Yudkowsky when we need him? lol I think the "whole gradual coming into being of AGI combined with the integration of us into it," is actually the very unlikely scenario. Purely AGI development will definitely progress faster than the machine/biological interfaces that you imagine. you continue: I had parents that were not particularly intellectual or interested in my aspirations (even if supportive) and I never desired to eliminate them, in fact I have the opposite desire to take care of them now that they need my help. In addition, I often fantasize about the possibility to bring my parents up in their education or desire for knowledge so I could have shared with them my interests and passions. >>> You sound like a good person. : ) you continue: In fact, would not be wonderful if we could accelerate the evolution of not just other human being but also other non human primates so they could have a comparable intelligence to ours but of a different kind? As humans we are always looking for possible extra terrestrial "alien" companions (angels in the prescientific times, green little men now), but what if we could bring to higher level of consciousness other terrestrial species as dolphins and primates. so we could share thoughts, music and art ? >>> Upgrading animals would be a very cool thing, indeed. Just thinking about this brought back fond memories of reading the "Uplift Saga" by David Brin. My landlord has a chicken that I would like to see uplifted. I say this mainly because she constantly follows me around like a faithful hound. I'd like to take this for loyalty and natural affection on her part but I realize that she is just very patiently waiting for a handout. you continue: Would not the AGI have similar yearnings to share existence with other "intelligent" beings and even upgrade them to be peer with His/Her/Its/Their own intelligence and consciousness? >>> I would say this is a very big "if." But some say AGI would only have the motivations which we program into them. you continue: I think this is more likely than a crazy, primitive, selfish, destructive, nihilist AGI. >>> Perhaps we have all seen the Terminator films (and the new TV series) just too many times! And then again, maybe James Cameron was on to something. John : ) _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Mar 5 01:57:18 2008 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 20:57:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] 5 things you never knew your cell phone could do In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803041231q514c7933wd7d560e6eebd86bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: You're a little early for April 1.... From ABlainey at aol.com Wed Mar 5 03:19:02 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 22:19:02 EST Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? Message-ID: In a message dated 05/03/2008 00:21:57 GMT Standard Time, santostasigio at yahoo.com writes: > Well, > about the anthropomorphisizing of AGI, you say in the end that some say the > motivation of AGI will be the one we program into it. Exactly, that is my > point, it is difficult for us to create an intelligence utterly alien when the > only example of intelligence we have is us. I can't help but notice that many of the posts have started out with logic and concluded with quazi-anthropomorphic, straw man arguments. I understand that an AGI will or should be based upon 'human intelligence,' however the end result will be completely Alien to us. So much so that our interpretation of intelligence wouldn't really fit. > But maybe there are general and universal principles associated with > intelligence. > Intelligence means finding patterns and connections, understanding that > affecting this part here means affecting this other part over there, intelligence > means having a higher sense of physical and moral "ecology". Again this is reduced to anthropomorphic intelligence. The AGI will have logic based 'cold' intelligence. From this it will probably and rightly deduce that morality is a human construct which serves the needs of human civilisation. A civilisation which it is not a part. Expecting It to adhere to these moral codes would be akin to you or I adhering to the moral codes of Ants. So If someone comes on your property, bite their head off. > If you see connections between all the beings than you feel compassion and > understanding (and yes these are human feelings, but they are also > fundamental components of our intelligence, and a lot of new research shows that > without feelings we would no have a conscious intelligence at all). My point. We would like to think that we can reduce ourselves to simple data constructs which mirror our original wetware physical structure. Expecting that this 'uploaded' us would run in the same manner that we do today. How do we code for that groggy morning feeling? or the rush of excitement associated with anticipation of something good? All the things which truly make us who we are, the things which have driven us and made us take the unique forks in our lives. These are what give us the basis for our 'Intelligence' our logic, our rationalisation. It is what makes us human. The uploaded us and the AGI will have none of this, so will not make intelligent decisions the way we do. that is what I mean by 'Cold' intelligence. It is devoid of chemical input. Show me a line of code for Happy, Sad, Remorse. At most we can hope for some minor 'don't do this because it's bad' type of rules in its main code. But if we have given it the ability to change it's code, what is to stop it overwriting these rules based upon some logical conclusion that it comes to? If we hard wire the rules, what is to stop it creating its own 'offspring' without these rules? Whatever we do, it will have the logic to undo and far faster than we can counter any mistakes or oversights. > Yes we exterminate bugs, but usually in limited situations (like in our > house or on a crop). It would be unacceptable for mankind to have a global plan > to complete exterminate all the roaches of the earth even if it could be > done. > And it is difficult to have feelings for bug, it would not make sense > ecologically, it would not be the intelligent thing to do, and by defintion AGI is > supposed to be Intelligent. > Again anthropomorphically intelligent. It may well be the cold inteligent decission to pre-emptively exterminate a potential threat. After all, it wouldn't feel bad about it, it wouldn't feel anything. Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 5 03:56:27 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 19:56:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: Message-ID: <03fb01c87e74$eaafb930$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> I am afraid that Alex Blainey's post, below, is the first one except for John Clark's original (Robert Bradbury's original) that truly understands the danger posed by AGI. > I can't help but notice that many of the posts have started out with > logic and concluded with quazi-anthropomorphic, straw man arguments. > I understand that an AGI will or should be based upon 'human intelligence,' > however the end result will be completely Alien to us. So much so that > our interpretation of intelligence wouldn't really fit. Quite right. Have the other posters studied the "fast take-off" scenarios? Moreover, some didn't seem to understand that the *whole* point of "Friendly AI" is to create an unusal, somehow very constrained AI, that simply won't convert the Earth and the Solar System according to its own needs, completely neglecting the insignificant bacteria that created it. > > But maybe there are general and universal principles associated > > with intelligence. Intelligence means finding patterns and connections, > > understanding that affecting this part here means affecting this other > > part over there, intelligence means having a higher sense of physical > > and moral "ecology". We have utterly no way to be able to claim this. As Alex goes on: > Again this is reduced to anthropomorphic intelligence. The AGI will > have logic based 'cold' intelligence. From this it will probably and > rightly deduce that morality is a human construct which serves the > needs of human civilisation. Even if it deigns to examine the mores and traditions of the tiny brainless beings that predictably brought it about. > A civilisation which it is not a part. Expecting It to adhere to these > moral codes would be akin to you or I adhering to the moral codes > of Ants. Very well put. > > If you see connections between all the beings than you feel compassion But that's only because humans were *evolved* to do so after perhaps a dozen million years. > > and understanding (and yes these are human feelings, but they are also > > fundamental components of our intelligence, and a lot of new research > > shows that without feelings we would no have a conscious intelligence at all). The research shows that the way *our* brains are organized, this is true. *We* happen to have hard-coded at very low levels things like genuine altruism for others. Sharks don't. Tigers don't. It all depends on how you earn a living in nature. We happen to be social animals because that's what worked for anthropoids. The first truly transcendent AI will be a one-off. > How do we code for that groggy morning feeling? or the rush of excitement > associated with anticipation of something good? All the things which truly > make us who we are, the things which have driven us and made us take the > unique forks in our lives. > > These are what give us the basis for our 'Intelligence' our logic, our rationalisation. > It is what makes us human. The uploaded us and the AGI will have none of this, Alex, I actually disagree with this. An upload of a human being will not be considered successful if the human traits are lost. But the AGI need have none of it. > At most we can hope for some minor 'don't do this because it's bad' > type of rules in its main code. But if we have given it the ability to > change it's code, what is to stop it overwriting these rules based > upon some logical conclusion that it comes to? Right. Nothing. Managing to create "Friendly AI" is extremely challenging, and my own belief is that the first successful AIs that truly surpass human intelligence will be developed by people and processes that don't concern themselves with such niceties. Somewhere it will be done, and by people who don't care about the consequences, or are too naive to worry about them. > It may well be the cold inteligent decision to pre-emptively exterminate > a potential threat. After all, it wouldn't feel bad about it, it wouldn't feel anything. Right. In all likelihood, the first dangerous AI won't feel anything. That's why we can only hope that Eliezer's writings (see the SL4 archives) are paid attention to by anyone getting close to success. Even then the risks are enormous, but as John says, we have no choice. It's going to happen one way or another. But the future is *so* uncertain. Perhaps there won't be a hard take-off, and we can enlist the first AIs as allies. Perhaps ingenious strategies like those of Rolf Nelson (see http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/11/04/rolf-nelson-on-ai-beliefs/) may work out. Who knows? All is hardly lost, but please don't think that any kind of "reason" or "logic" or human feelings that you can appeal to will have any effect on such a new creature. Thanks, Alex, for putting it well. Lee From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 04:11:20 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 22:11:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <03fb01c87e74$eaafb930$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <03fb01c87e74$eaafb930$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803042211.20920.kanzure@gmail.com> On Tuesday 04 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > > These are what give us the basis for our 'Intelligence' our logic, > > our rationalisation. It is what makes us human. The uploaded us and > > the AGI will have none of this, > > Alex, I actually disagree with this. ?An upload of a human being will > not be considered successful if the human traits are lost. ?But the > AGI need have none of it. Identity is something hard to account for. If uploading ever takes off, there will be this blurring line between 'human' and 'nonhuman' to the point where all those experiments with divergent twins start to really make sense. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From santostasigio at yahoo.com Wed Mar 5 05:22:14 2008 From: santostasigio at yahoo.com (giovanni santost) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 21:22:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <03fb01c87e74$eaafb930$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <199014.78796.qm@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> not true also that tigers are not altruistic (what about mother tigers adopting pigs recently in the news)... in general animals can express altruism of some kind...and in particular the general trend is more intelligent the animal more altruistic it is .... ants are very social but they cannot extend their social rules to other beings not belonging to their species... a dog can do that in fact it has no problem to extend its social rules to human beings and consider us one of the pack.... apes can do also do that and even express higher feelings, share language and comunication with us.... the trend is there..... and you can see similar things happening in human society where there are different kinds of iindividual ntelligences, civilizations, laws and moral conducts and so on (sure the spectrum is restricted in comparison with the amazing possibilities opened by an AGI consciousness) but again you can come to a similar conclusion that in general intelligence (at the individual or civilization level) means higher altruism (that buddhists call very to the point here intelligent selfishness). There are exception to this pattern, there a geniuses psychopaths....but their intelligence is very limited and specialized....they are usually not very successful in society and usually do not survive in the long run (or not very successful at least in transmitting their genes to future generations)....evolution do not favour such aberrations... we can imagine for example that AGI would have to share information and data with other entities on the web and be able to manage resources in a cooperative way, the pace of evolution in this environment would be amazingly fast and AGI that are not apt to share information, work together with other intelligences for the common good and so on would not survive very long...that could be a self-selective mechanism for AGIs (even if what I just explained is somehow simplicistic) that would emulate similar processes that made us prone to cooperate and created in us that "feeling", that "emotion" of altruism that is actually a very logical, intelligent and probably unavoidable response by any higher form of consciousness to the environmental challenges and pressures. Lee Corbin wrote: I am afraid that Alex Blainey's post, below, is the first one except for John Clark's original (Robert Bradbury's original) that truly understands the danger posed by AGI. > I can't help but notice that many of the posts have started out with > logic and concluded with quazi-anthropomorphic, straw man arguments. > I understand that an AGI will or should be based upon 'human intelligence,' > however the end result will be completely Alien to us. So much so that > our interpretation of intelligence wouldn't really fit. Quite right. Have the other posters studied the "fast take-off" scenarios? Moreover, some didn't seem to understand that the *whole* point of "Friendly AI" is to create an unusal, somehow very constrained AI, that simply won't convert the Earth and the Solar System according to its own needs, completely neglecting the insignificant bacteria that created it. > > But maybe there are general and universal principles associated > > with intelligence. Intelligence means finding patterns and connections, > > understanding that affecting this part here means affecting this other > > part over there, intelligence means having a higher sense of physical > > and moral "ecology". We have utterly no way to be able to claim this. As Alex goes on: > Again this is reduced to anthropomorphic intelligence. The AGI will > have logic based 'cold' intelligence. From this it will probably and > rightly deduce that morality is a human construct which serves the > needs of human civilisation. Even if it deigns to examine the mores and traditions of the tiny brainless beings that predictably brought it about. > A civilisation which it is not a part. Expecting It to adhere to these > moral codes would be akin to you or I adhering to the moral codes > of Ants. Very well put. > > If you see connections between all the beings than you feel compassion But that's only because humans were *evolved* to do so after perhaps a dozen million years. > > and understanding (and yes these are human feelings, but they are also > > fundamental components of our intelligence, and a lot of new research > > shows that without feelings we would no have a conscious intelligence at all). The research shows that the way *our* brains are organized, this is true. *We* happen to have hard-coded at very low levels things like genuine altruism for others. Sharks don't. Tigers don't. It all depends on how you earn a living in nature. We happen to be social animals because that's what worked for anthropoids. The first truly transcendent AI will be a one-off. > How do we code for that groggy morning feeling? or the rush of excitement > associated with anticipation of something good? All the things which truly > make us who we are, the things which have driven us and made us take the > unique forks in our lives. > > These are what give us the basis for our 'Intelligence' our logic, our rationalisation. > It is what makes us human. The uploaded us and the AGI will have none of this, Alex, I actually disagree with this. An upload of a human being will not be considered successful if the human traits are lost. But the AGI need have none of it. > At most we can hope for some minor 'don't do this because it's bad' > type of rules in its main code. But if we have given it the ability to > change it's code, what is to stop it overwriting these rules based > upon some logical conclusion that it comes to? Right. Nothing. Managing to create "Friendly AI" is extremely challenging, and my own belief is that the first successful AIs that truly surpass human intelligence will be developed by people and processes that don't concern themselves with such niceties. Somewhere it will be done, and by people who don't care about the consequences, or are too naive to worry about them. > It may well be the cold inteligent decision to pre-emptively exterminate > a potential threat. After all, it wouldn't feel bad about it, it wouldn't feel anything. Right. In all likelihood, the first dangerous AI won't feel anything. That's why we can only hope that Eliezer's writings (see the SL4 archives) are paid attention to by anyone getting close to success. Even then the risks are enormous, but as John says, we have no choice. It's going to happen one way or another. But the future is *so* uncertain. Perhaps there won't be a hard take-off, and we can enlist the first AIs as allies. Perhaps ingenious strategies like those of Rolf Nelson (see http://www.singinst.org/blog/2007/11/04/rolf-nelson-on-ai-beliefs/) may work out. Who knows? All is hardly lost, but please don't think that any kind of "reason" or "logic" or human feelings that you can appeal to will have any effect on such a new creature. Thanks, Alex, for putting it well. Lee _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From santostasigio at yahoo.com Wed Mar 5 04:56:05 2008 From: santostasigio at yahoo.com (giovanni santost) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 20:56:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <401391.43710.qm@web31315.mail.mud.yahoo.com> There is a lot of recent research (I will find the sources and post them) that suggests that without "feelings" there is not consciousness. What we call feelings are fast logical template responses to reality situations (danger=fear= fight or run) that are perfectly logical given the environmental stimulus. Our intelligence is an aggreagate of many of these templates, or at least feelings make a kind of glue that keeps our intelligence and sense of self together. The Cold intelligence that you evoke without explaining that really means is maybe not just undesirable but likely impossible. AGI without feelings could be really not an Intelligence at all (at least not self aware kind). Your point about the ants actually is good, in fact our morality is much more complex because we are more intelligent than ants and this morality tends to include, protect and respect as our intelligence increases. It is not unlogical to think that AGI would have a morality even higher (in the sense of even more comprehensive inclusion, protection, respect values) than ours. ABlainey at aol.com wrote: In a message dated 05/03/2008 00:21:57 GMT Standard Time, santostasigio at yahoo.com writes: Well, about the anthropomorphisizing of AGI, you say in the end that some say the motivation of AGI will be the one we program into it. Exactly, that is my point, it is difficult for us to create an intelligence utterly alien when the only example of intelligence we have is us. I can't help but notice that many of the posts have started out with logic and concluded with quazi-anthropomorphic, straw man arguments. I understand that an AGI will or should be based upon 'human intelligence,' however the end result will be completely Alien to us. So much so that our interpretation of intelligence wouldn't really fit. But maybe there are general and universal principles associated with intelligence. Intelligence means finding patterns and connections, understanding that affecting this part here means affecting this other part over there, intelligence means having a higher sense of physical and moral "ecology". Again this is reduced to anthropomorphic intelligence. The AGI will have logic based 'cold' intelligence. From this it will probably and rightly deduce that morality is a human construct which serves the needs of human civilisation. A civilisation which it is not a part. Expecting It to adhere to these moral codes would be akin to you or I adhering to the moral codes of Ants. So If someone comes on your property, bite their head off. If you see connections between all the beings than you feel compassion and understanding (and yes these are human feelings, but they are also fundamental components of our intelligence, and a lot of new research shows that without feelings we would no have a conscious intelligence at all). My point. We would like to think that we can reduce ourselves to simple data constructs which mirror our original wetware physical structure. Expecting that this 'uploaded' us would run in the same manner that we do today. How do we code for that groggy morning feeling? or the rush of excitement associated with anticipation of something good? All the things which truly make us who we are, the things which have driven us and made us take the unique forks in our lives. These are what give us the basis for our 'Intelligence' our logic, our rationalisation. It is what makes us human. The uploaded us and the AGI will have none of this, so will not make intelligent decisions the way we do. that is what I mean by 'Cold' intelligence. It is devoid of chemical input. Show me a line of code for Happy, Sad, Remorse. At most we can hope for some minor 'don't do this because it's bad' type of rules in its main code. But if we have given it the ability to change it's code, what is to stop it overwriting these rules based upon some logical conclusion that it comes to? If we hard wire the rules, what is to stop it creating its own 'offspring' without these rules? Whatever we do, it will have the logic to undo and far faster than we can counter any mistakes or oversights. Yes we exterminate bugs, but usually in limited situations (like in our house or on a crop). It would be unacceptable for mankind to have a global plan to complete exterminate all the roaches of the earth even if it could be done. And it is difficult to have feelings for bug, it would not make sense ecologically, it would not be the intelligent thing to do, and by defintion AGI is supposed to be Intelligent. Again anthropomorphically intelligent. It may well be the cold inteligent decission to pre-emptively exterminate a potential threat. After all, it wouldn't feel bad about it, it wouldn't feel anything. Alex _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com Tue Mar 4 00:20:21 2008 From: giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com (giancarlos) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 01:20:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Stefano Vaj In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080303144608.0224ba70@satx.rr.com> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803030956n744a244am8ce1837a355516e2@mail.gmail.com> <29666bf30803031134l8f251b8lde47a3d04a0c422e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803031208h1da2c83em86b117620c3c8642@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303144608.0224ba70@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7791a29a0803031620r60bd9498w177fa9362a3ae0d@mail.gmail.com> 2008/3/3, Damien Broderick : > > Given all the angst flying about, I wonder if Dr. > Vaj might provide us with some background? Hi, I'm Giancarlo from Italy. Well, I will try to give you a detailed background of Stefano Vaj - a person really very intelligent and cultured, and because of this very dangerous - from a different point of view.. Below you can find some interesting elements in order to better understand Stefano Vaj's thought, together with his "transhumanist current", which he calls "sovrumanism" (it's quite difficult to find an english term: actually ? as Estropico/Fabio correctly pointed out ? "superhumanism" isn't truly correct, so for now I will use "s*ovrumanism*" ? a neologism ?, in order to make evident the intimate relation with the original use of the term made by Stefano's inspirer, Giorgio Locchi: see below). The same elements then can be used in order to assess if the strategy of the current AIT (Italian Transhumanist Association) leadership ? that is to cooperate *now* with sovrumanists, to the extent of co-opting their leader, Stefano Vaj, onto the AIT board and even appointing him "national secretary" ? is a wise or an unwise "strategy". *?The real issue concerning abortion may be considered that of whether and when abortion should be a due, while on the contrary the claim of abortion as a right may be irrelevant (or even to discourage, from the point of view of population dynamics) -- a right depending mainly from economic hedonistic choices, moreover expressed only by the woman.? *(Biopolitica, p. 9). [In Italian: ?Similmente, la vera questione in materia di aborto potrebbe essere considerata quella di se e quando l'aborto possa essere un dovere, mentre viceversa potrebbe parere irrilevante (o al limite da scoraggiare, sempre da un punto di vista di dinamica delle popolazioni) la sua rivendicazione come diritto, in relazione a scelte di tipo essenzialmente economico-edonistico, per di pi? unicamente della madre.?] This is the translation of a passage from Stefano Vaj's most recent book, Biopolitica (2005) ? the Sovrumanisti's "sacred book" ? made by Giuseppe Regalzi, an italian transhumanist who left the Italian Transhumanist Association after Stefano was co-opted (not elected) as national secretary. Interestingly, shortly after (p. 10) *Stefano Vaj prophesies that the new sovrumanist* *"era" (age) will last "1000 years"*: one might ask why just 1000 years, why the use of quotations marks, and - above all - *who is he quoting*? (For a possibible answer, see here ). At the end of his book you can have a taste of Vaj's conflicting scenario, where the strongest community finally prevails thanks to the use of transhumanist technologies: *"a new, possible dream of greatness on a scale never imagined before, able to push o**ur own community's freedom and will of power** where no man has gone before: the future will belong to those who'll be able to express the **strongest will**"* (p. 134). Between you can find much more. When I'll have the time, I would like to translate the chapter on the "race". But at this point I think it's time you get acquainted with Giorgio Locchi, the fascist thinker and Vaj's inspirer (the latter borrowed from the former the name of his "transhumanist" current: "sovrumanismo", precisely): you will soon realize that *Stefano central idea is that transhumanism *(his idea of transhumanism)* can be actually considered the last emersion of a more general principle - the "sovrumanist principle" - which originated from Nietzsche and Wagner and during XX century already expressed fascism and nazism*. *Giorgio Locchi * *Espressione politica e repressione del principio sovrumanista * *(**Political Expression and Repression of the Overhumanist Principle*)** *Foreword by Stefano Vaj* *?We cannot truly understand fascism if we don't realize or admit that the so called "fascist phenomenon" is nothing but the first political appearance of a broad spiritual and cultural phenomenon, which we can call "sovrumanism".?* [Non si comprende nulla del fascismo se non ci si rende conto o non si vuole ammettere che il cosiddetto ?fenomeno fascista? altro non ? che la prima manifestazione politica d'un vasto fenomeno spirituale e culturale, che possiamo chiamare ?sovrumanismo?.] (?) *?The "sovrumanist principle", in relation to the surrounding world, becomes absolute rejection of an opposite "egalitarian principle" which shakes that world. If fascist movements considered democratic ideologies ? liberalism, parlamentarism, socialism, communism, anarco-communism ? as the spiritual even more than political "enemy", it's just because, in the historical perspective builded on the sovrumanist principle, those ideologies represent as many manifestations, onwards appeared in the course of history but each one still existing, of the opposite egalitarian principle, (?) all together cause of the spiritual and material decadence of Europe, the progressive dejection of european man, the break-up of western societies.?* [Il ?principio sovrumanista?, rispetto al mondo che lo circonda, diviene rigetto assoluto di un opposto ?principio egualitaristico? che conforma quel mondo. Se i movimenti fascisti individuarono il ?nemico?, spirituale prima ancora che politico, nelle ideologie democratiche - liberalismo, parlamentarismo, socialismo, comunismo, anarco-comunismo - ? proprio perch? nella prospettiva storica istituita dal principio sovrumanistico quelle ideologie si configurano come altrettante manifestazioni, successivamente comparse nella storia ma tutte ancora presenti, dell'opposto principio egualitaristico, (?) tutte insieme causa della decadenza spirituale e materiale dell'Europa, dell'?avvilimento progressivo? dell'uomo europeo, della disgregazione delle societ? occidentali.] (?) *?With the purpose of the "mythical" stance of a fascist movement, the analysis it makes of the first cause and origin of the European nations decadence and break-up process is essential. Nietzsche identified them with Christianism, as a transmission agent of the "judaic principle", which he identified with the egalitarian principle. Wagner, the other reference point of sovrumanism, considered instead the only "judaic principle" as the origin of evil.?* [Essenziale, ai fini della presa di posizione ? mitica? di un movimento fascista, ? 1'analisi che esso fa della causa prima e dell'origine del ?processo di decadenza e disgregazione? delle nazioni europee. Nietzsche le aveva individuate nel cristianesimo, come agente di trasmissione del ?principio giudaico? che per lui s'identifica al principio egualitaristico. Wagner, l'altro polo del campo sovrumanistico, aveva denunciato invece l' origine del male nel solo ?principio giudaico?.] (?) *?The issue of "totalitarianism" is linked to a fundamental "political philosophy" problem. Every society (or more exactly community), if wants to be "healthy", has to be totalitarian, that is it admits only one "discourse", the one ruled by the principle which shapes and moulds the community and, at the same time, represents the "communitarian bond".?* [La questione del ?totalitarismo? riconduce invece ad un fondamentale problema della ?filosofia della politica?. Ogni societ? (o pi? esattamente: comunit?), quando vuol essere ?sana? , ? totalitaria, nel senso che ammette un solo ?discorso?, quello retto dal principio che informa e conforma la comunit? e, insieme, costituisce il ?legame comunitario?.] *Please note that Stefano Vaj fully adheres to Locchi's ideas* (and consequently named his "transhumanist" current "sovrumanismo"): in fact in his foreword to this article he wrote: *?Twenty years after its first publication, I think that this short text can really close the historical discussion over what fascism has represented, as the** first thorough political expression of the sovrumanist world view, and take the stock from which consider the just concluded century, in connection with the future we want to build for ourself**.?* [Vent'anni dopo la sua prima pubblicazione, crediamo che questo breve testo possa cos? davvero concludere una riflessione storica su ci? che il fascismo ha rappresentato, quale prima espressione politica compiuta della visione del mondo sovrumanista, e fare il punto da cui gettare lo sguardo sul secolo appena concluso in funzione dell'avvenire che vogliamo crearci.] *Also consider that Stefano constantly refers to Giorgio Locchi, and often recommends his texts and books to the new members of the italian mailing list*. His fierce criticism toward democracy, equality and human rights (see http://www.orionlibri.com/include/showart.php?idart=820 and http://www.uomo-libero.com/index.php?url=%2Farticolo.php%3Fid%3D315&hash=) is very worrying, specially if considered together with his idea of society/community divided in castes, his fad for indo-european ethnicity (see http://www.italiasociale.org/libri/libri110706-3.html and http://it.altermedia.info/cultura/biopolitica-una-traccia_3246.html ), and the use of new technologies in a conflicting scenario among different communities. Finally, I already warned the WTA leaders that it is not wise to restrict the comments about Stefano Vaj just to what he says in the mailing lists. There are a lot of relevant sources in order to better understand Vaj's actual thoughts, that is: - the books and articles he wrote (and I tried to give you an idea in this email). - the publishers of his books (small fascist publishers, sold by the fascist bookshop *Orionlibri*: LedeAkropolisand Editrice Barbarossa - note that "Operation Barbarossa" was the code name for german invasion of Russia). - the journals where he publishes his articles (i.e. http://www.uomo-libero.com/, notorious extreme right journal and "think tank") - the websites which reproduces his articles and quote and review his books (one for all, the already mentioned "*Italia Sociale, the national socialist bimonthly*": http://www.italiasociale.org/libri/libri110706-3.html). If you perform a google search ("Stefano Vaj") you will find, for example, - and aside from Biopolitica - Stefano's article "For a total ethnic self-defence", or his already mentioned book fiercy critical against human rights, democracy and equality (at the moment strangely offline ), or the already mentioned foreword to text of Locchi (a notorious fascist), or a review of his last book Biopolitica written by a well known waffen SS admirer and Ahmadinejad supporter (specially when the iranian president talks about the holocaust) on a nazi (national socialist) website, or a notice of one of his lecture at a fascist association on a well-know fascist website, or his interview casted on the fascist radio bandiera nera("black flag radio"), or one of his article on Orion , a fascist and anti-american journal, and so on. *But - and this is the problem - among these questionable and embarassing query results now you can find that the same Stefano Vaj is also.. national secretary of the Italian Transumanist Association!* Besides, particularly noteworthy is Stefano usual "accusation" against his adversaries to be "Christians", as he knows that there are a lot of transhumanists who (I think correctly) criticize Christianism. But this is a strategy based on misinterpretation and mischaracterization. In fact, those who cannot read italian need to be advised that Stefano Vaj suggests a quite odd "genealogic reconstruction": he thinks that human rights, enlightenment, democracy, equality, liberalism and socialism are all the "secular face" of the "judaeo-christian" religion (that is, they're all the products of the "judaic principle" which corrupted and perverted the old (indo)european "sovrumanist principle" . Now, it isn't clear yet if he criticize the formers because he hate the latter, or viceversa. But - that being stated - it's anyway clear that his "accusation" to be "christian" actually (and paradoxically) can be often interpreted as a genuine compliment (of course, if you're an advocate of human rights, democracy, equality, enlightenment, liberalism or socialism). Finally, consider that in Europe it is a well known tactics by extreme-right wingers to seek a common field with the Left, usually presenting themselves as anti-zionist and anti-imperialist, and preaching the "end" of the "old" political labels and divisions - while infiltrating any Left organization that allows them in. If you could read italian, I would suggest you this illuminating text entitled "No-global Fascists": http://files.meetup.com/508445/i_fascisti_noglobal.pdf . But anyway you can easily realize Stefano's real attitude and willingness to manipulate looking at his own unequivocal words (Biopolitica ): ?*Besides, in the biopolitical field several subjects can be read in different ways, which fascist regimes didn't fail to exploit propagandistically and tactically, playing on the internal contradiction of the humanist tendency*, which is culturally dominant. Crimes linked to abortion and birth control propaganda included in the "Rocco Code" [the Italian penal code enacted during fascism and still in force, although heavily amended] (significantly comprised under a title referred to the "race integrity"), are obviously consistent with a policy aimed at preserving and expanding our own referential community's demographic, but at the same time they also meet traditional catholic views. Equally, *using sterilization or euthanasia in order to minimize the persistence and the spread of dysgenic characteristics can be also defended and promoted on the basis of "humanitarian", hedonistic and fundamentally individualistic considerations (the ones today upholden by the Radical Party), **which represent the exact opposite of our new values*.? [?D'altronde, in campo biopolitico vari temi sono suscettibili di letture diverse, che i regimi fascisti non hanno mancato di sfruttare propagandisticamente e tatticamente, magari facendo leva sulle contraddizioni interne della tendenza umanista comunque culturalmente dominante. La previsione di reati connessi all'aborto e alla propaganda della contraccezione nel Codice Rocco (espressivamente ricompresi sotto un titolo che fa espresso riferimento alla "sanit? della stirpe"), sono ovviamente coerenti con una politica volta al mantenimento ed allo sviluppo della demografia della comunit? di riferimento, ma si trovano anche a soddisfare tradizionali posizioni cattoliche (...). Similmente, l'uso della sterilizzazione o dell'eutanasia per limitare il perpetuarsi e la propagazione di caratteristiche suppostamente disgeniche ben pu? essere difeso e promosso anche in rapporto a considerazioni di tipo "umanitario", edonista e fondamentalmente individualista (quali quelle oggi avanzate dal Partito Radicale), che rappresentano il contrario esatto dei nuovi valori anche su tale piano affermati.?] Please consider that the liberal and libertarian Radical Party is probably the most popular party among italian transhumanists, and then please note: Stefano verbatim says that that party upholds the *exact opposite* of his sovrumanist values! All is written, all is available, but apparently almost nobody want to read it. Yet his strategy is quite clear: *he's "tactically exploiting" some temporary convergences in order to attain his sovrumanist goals.* So we need to ask ourselves: given that we all want a "posthuman" future, if we were forced to chose between a sovrumanist posthuman future ? where the individual is totally subdued to his community (that is to the cleptocratic elite self-appointed as the only "Volksgeist" interpreter), where the reproductive technologies are used in order to replicate the indoeuropean three-castes order, where the abortion is not a right but sometimes can be a "due" because of demographic goals ? and a non-posthuman future, which one would we chose? After knowing better Vaj's thought, I definitely opt for the second: this is why I think that even to collaborate *now* with him could be devastating: Stefano Vaj actually could be more dangerous than many antitranshumanists. Regards, Giancarlo, Italy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 5 05:45:48 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 21:45:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Genuine Altruism in Animals? (was How could you ever support an AGI?) Message-ID: <044301c87e84$8fba1920$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Giovanni writes > not true also that tigers are not altruistic (what about mother tigers adopting > pigs recently in the news)... in general animals can express altruism of some > kind... Thanks for the correction. I was sloppy. I was thinking of other debates where I stood up for humans having "genuine altruism", that is, altruism from which they neither expect reciprocation nor which benefits their genes. That's odd about the tigers adopting pigs. Maybe "genuine altruism" can be extended there too, even if it happens that the mother instinct of these tigers simply overpowered their normal behavior. I agree with > and in particular the general trend is more intelligent the animal more > altruistic it is .... ants are very social but they cannot extend their social > rules to other beings not belonging to their species... a dog can do that > in fact it has no problem to extend its social rules to human beings except that it has been bred expressly to do so (which was not too hard starting from wolves, which are pack animals) Lee > and consider us one of the pack.... [Yes] apes can do also do that > and even express higher feelings, share language and comunication with us.... P.S. More about your post in another email. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 5 05:53:54 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 21:53:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <199014.78796.qm@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <044d01c87e85$fb5f0e00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Giovanni writes > the trend is there..... and you can see similar things happening in human > society where there are different kinds of iindividual ntelligences, > civilizations, laws and moral conducts and so on (sure the spectrum > is restricted in comparison with the amazing possibilities opened by > an AGI consciousness) Yes, it sure is. An AGI will not by any means *necessarily* have any altruism. We hope for our survival that either it does, or it adopts the logic I have proposed for years "Best to be nice to your creators so that those you create will be nice to you... for the reason that that those that *they* create will be nice to them... ad infinitum... And if it takes almost zero resources to "be nice", why not? It's safer to go with this meme. A post- Singularity AI could upload and run everyone on Earth in the pleasantest possible environments within one cubic meter, easily. > but again you can come to a similar conclusion that in general intelligence > (at the individual or civilization level) means higher altruism (that buddhists > call very to the point here intelligent selfishness). But the altruism at every point is explained by the particular evolutionary history of the species in question. The AGI won't have an evolutionary history---unless we succeed in giving it one or finding some other way to make ti Friendly (pace the logic I expouse above) > There are exception to this pattern, there a geniuses psychopaths....but > their intelligence is very limited and specialized....they are usually not > very successful in society and usually do not survive in the long run > (or not very successful at least in transmitting their genes to future > generations)....evolution do not favour such aberrations... It hasn't so far. But as governments will now support *all* conceived children, new opportunities open up for psychopaths. > we can imagine for example that AGI would have to share information > and data with other entities on the web and be able to manage resources > in a cooperative way, the pace of evolution in this environment would be > amazingly fast and AGI that are not apt to share information, work > together with other intelligences for the common good and so on would > not survive very long... But the "AI hard-takeoff" that worries so many fine thinkers on the SL4 list and here considers the possibility that one AI makes a breakthrough, and in hours or even minutes is vastly, vastly ahead of all the others, and is the first to achieve total world domination. Lee > that could be a self-selective mechanism for AGIs (even if what I just > explained is somehow simplicistic) that would emulate similar processes > that made us prone to cooperate and created in us that "feeling", that > "emotion" of altruism that is actually a very logical, intelligent and > probably unavoidable response by any higher form of consciousness > to the environmental challenges and pressures. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Wed Mar 5 06:01:24 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 22:01:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <00c501c87d4b$5dffbf00$e4f04d0c@MyComputer> <032c01c87db7$3c7ef6e0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <001c01c87dd6$0427ce10$3fef4d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: <045801c87e86$b1ca1ef0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> John Clark writes > > I thought that you agreed with the statement > > "Anything that remembers being me is me" > > I do indeed agree with that statement, as a matter > of fact unless I'm much mistaken I'm the one who coined it. Probably. It always sounded right to me, (with the usual provisos). > As for biological humans facing an Extinction Level Event, I've > said before that I think the possibility a creature we would > recognize as human existing in 50 years is low, and the possibility > such a being could be found in 100 years is zero. Zero? How odd. But anyone, if I could come back in a time machine 100 years from now, and I found that some uploaded entities still retained the memories that they had when they were biologicically human, I would *not* consider humanity extinct. Why, I might even be able to look up some old friends, and hope they'd bring me up to speed. > But that's OK, 99% of all species that ever existed are extinct, > but unlike most of them we will have descendants, and pretty > damn interesting ones too! Hey! *We* are pretty damned interesting, but it doesn't do those little lemurs one bit of good. Bottom line: the future is too uncertain to say that there is zero chance of, say, humans continuing to live, even if you were to count just the biologically based ones. Lee From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 5 06:10:24 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 22:10:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject In-Reply-To: <7791a29a0803031620r60bd9498w177fa9362a3ae0d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803050637.m256b675026700@andromeda.ziaspace.com> ... 2008/3/3, Damien Broderick : Given all the angst flying about, I wonder if Dr. Vaj might provide us with some background? Hi, I'm Giancarlo from Italy. ... I have noticed a bit of strife among our Italian friends, and have started to receive complaints from our esteemed ExI-readers. While I do not pretend to understand Italian politics (nor American politics for that matter) I propose that our ExI-chat participants from Italy redouble efforts to be kind to each other. In that spirit, I urge that all avoid using any person's name as a subject line, and of course always refrain from personal attacks. Political ideas are OK as subjects of debate as they relate to Extropy as given in the principles which I urge ExI-chat participants to peruse on occasion: http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm Thanks! spike From santostasigio at yahoo.com Wed Mar 5 06:51:40 2008 From: santostasigio at yahoo.com (giovanni santost) Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 22:51:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <044d01c87e85$fb5f0e00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <383541.45326.qm@web31301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> ok .... then we are talking about the Frankenstein nightmare that all the anti-technology people evoke every single time a new technology is created... since the time we discovered fire, we always imagined a punishment for our arrogance, for our dream to become Gods (think Prometeus)....so far not withstanding our self inflicted imaginary punishments nothing has happened (except some local sad but really insignificat disasters) to our species as a whole..... I bet the pattern will continue with the creation of AGI.... sure we have to be careful but not paranoid.... there are more reasons to be optimistic than not.... Lee Corbin wrote: Giovanni writes > the trend is there..... and you can see similar things happening in human > society where there are different kinds of iindividual ntelligences, > civilizations, laws and moral conducts and so on (sure the spectrum > is restricted in comparison with the amazing possibilities opened by > an AGI consciousness) Yes, it sure is. An AGI will not by any means *necessarily* have any altruism. We hope for our survival that either it does, or it adopts the logic I have proposed for years "Best to be nice to your creators so that those you create will be nice to you... for the reason that that those that *they* create will be nice to them... ad infinitum... And if it takes almost zero resources to "be nice", why not? It's safer to go with this meme. A post- Singularity AI could upload and run everyone on Earth in the pleasantest possible environments within one cubic meter, easily. > but again you can come to a similar conclusion that in general intelligence > (at the individual or civilization level) means higher altruism (that buddhists > call very to the point here intelligent selfishness). But the altruism at every point is explained by the particular evolutionary history of the species in question. The AGI won't have an evolutionary history---unless we succeed in giving it one or finding some other way to make ti Friendly (pace the logic I expouse above) > There are exception to this pattern, there a geniuses psychopaths....but > their intelligence is very limited and specialized....they are usually not > very successful in society and usually do not survive in the long run > (or not very successful at least in transmitting their genes to future > generations)....evolution do not favour such aberrations... It hasn't so far. But as governments will now support *all* conceived children, new opportunities open up for psychopaths. > we can imagine for example that AGI would have to share information > and data with other entities on the web and be able to manage resources > in a cooperative way, the pace of evolution in this environment would be > amazingly fast and AGI that are not apt to share information, work > together with other intelligences for the common good and so on would > not survive very long... But the "AI hard-takeoff" that worries so many fine thinkers on the SL4 list and here considers the possibility that one AI makes a breakthrough, and in hours or even minutes is vastly, vastly ahead of all the others, and is the first to achieve total world domination. Lee > that could be a self-selective mechanism for AGIs (even if what I just > explained is somehow simplicistic) that would emulate similar processes > that made us prone to cooperate and created in us that "feeling", that > "emotion" of altruism that is actually a very logical, intelligent and > probably unavoidable response by any higher form of consciousness > to the environmental challenges and pressures. _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 07:29:03 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 18:29:03 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Genuine Altruism in Animals? (was How could you ever support an AGI?) In-Reply-To: <044301c87e84$8fba1920$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <044301c87e84$8fba1920$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On 05/03/2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > > and in particular the general trend is more intelligent the animal more > > altruistic it is .... ants are very social but they cannot extend their social > > rules to other beings not belonging to their species... a dog can do that > > in fact it has no problem to extend its social rules to human beings > > except that it has been bred expressly to do so (which was not too > hard starting from wolves, which are pack animals) Does it matter that the dog is bred to like humans? The flip side is that we humans have evolved to like dogs; if we had evolved to find them as loathsome as spiders, an intelligent appraisal of their positive qualities wouldn't do much boost altruistic feelings towards them. -- Stathis Papaioannou From jonkc at att.net Wed Mar 5 08:04:54 2008 From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 03:04:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <47CD902B.6030708@kevinfreels.com><332396.36633.qm@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2d6187670803041331r6c87c30fx3388ae9da5053147@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <002901c87e97$acda7aa0$e4f14d0c@MyComputer> John Grigg in response to giovanni santost wrote: > You are badly anthropomorphizing the AGI. For God's sake, we're back with that crap! Prove to me why anthropomorphizing is always a bad thing. Come on, I dare you to try, come on, mess with me! > It will most likely not have the same biological > drives/wiring that you and I have. If true then the AGI, that is to say, the American Geological Institute (or perhaps you mean Artificial Intelligence) will be even more unpredictable than I thought it was; and that was pretty God Damn unpredictable. The logic is irrefutable, the friendly AI idea is brain dead dumb. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkhenson at rogers.com Wed Mar 5 08:17:17 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:17:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Education/destruction (was support an AGI?) In-Reply-To: <47CD902B.6030708@kevinfreels.com> References: <00c501c87d4b$5dffbf00$e4f04d0c@MyComputer> <47CD902B.6030708@kevinfreels.com> Message-ID: <1204705106_27343@S3.cableone.net> At 11:08 AM 3/4/2008, Kevin Freels wrote: snip >One thing you will notice is that the greater the education a person >has, the less likely they engage in wholesale destruction of life. I would be interested in what observations you used to make statement. In the current world educated people are generally better off economically and the richer people are under less stress. Put them under stress, i.e., hungry and no prospects for the next meal, and I venture to say they would be as destructive as people with no education at all. In addition, it wasn't grade school dropouts who invented and manufactured nuclear weapons. And finally, put *me* under enough stress, such as locked up in solitary confinement and . . . http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2007/10/30/18253/301 (Rule of thumb, don't unjustly lock up engineers. Killing them is much safer.) snip >So I would expect with an AGI that people could still choose their >own destiny. They could remain human and continue as before except >in a much better world, or they could upload, convert to a >mechanical body for exploration, or any combination in between. I think you miss something. Humans, being evolved animals, have common characteristics. Not all people are vulnerable to drug addiction, but I venture to say that all of them are vulnerable to direct stimulation of the brain reward circuits. >Some may even make copies of themselves digitally and shoot >themselves across the universe on a laserbeam. Some will "perfect" >themselves into oblivion. Others will choose to remain as >traditionally human as possible. Divergence is almost inevitable. You are making a huge assumption here, that humans will be in charge of their own destiny post singularity. You might be right, but I don't see it being more likely than a pet rat being in charge of his destiny. snip >All this doom and gloom about the pointlessness of it all really concerns me. The future is not ordained. It's hard to say how it is going to turn out and it's even harder to say how people will feel about it when it happens. It's interesting that Bill Hibbard and I both went to fiction to express the way we felt were potential routes to answering Elizer's concerns. http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/mcnrstm.html http://www.terasemjournals.org/GN0202/henson.html http://www.singinst.org/upload/artificial-intelligence-risk.pdf Keith Henson From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 5 08:27:39 2008 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 08:27:39 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] The AGI and limiting it In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> The projected scenarios for the AGI quickly taking over the world rely on people giving their new creation access to production tools that it then subverts. Other doomsday scenarios involve the terminator-like idea of your AI hacking into military computers and starting world war III. These assume that whoever's invested the time and effort into making an amazing AI then decides to let it have free access to the outside world. This may not be entirely likely. Letting your AI have access to assemblers that would allow it to make nanotech replicators would be foolish unless the nanotech could itself be contained. After all, what if the AI wasn't as smart as you thought and created some really bad nanotech by accident? Your AI should be treated with the same oversight as your human research staff. Likewise, for allowing your AI to access the net - if the AI decides it wants to propagate to improve its own chance of survival (a digital "selfish gene" concept), if you let it have easy upload access it could spread itself all over the place, and bang - all your research is in other people's hands, because your AI decided it wanted to try "living" in their computers instead. I think sheer fear of losing your research or being sued into oblivion from accidents generated by your AI will constrain most researchers from letting their AI have too much access to the non-virtual world. That said, a clandestine military programme could create an AI and then let it do things with insufficient oversight - but as we've seen from the Russian example, human researchers under such circumstances allowed a smallpox strain to kill people after it had been eradicated in the wild. We are *always* at a *small* risk from governments placing their "strategic" goals over common human survival. Over the coming 100 years, that small risk cumulatively builds to a moderate size one, alongside the many other existential risks to humanity. I believe spreading humanity off-planet to save ourselves from ourselves is a wise insurance policy, and the AGI is one risk among many. Tom ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it now. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/ From estropico at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 09:12:24 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 09:12:24 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Stefano Vaj's background. Was: Neo-fascist transhumanists? Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803050112t18c99543w534b0ca7aab87fd0@mail.gmail.com> > Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 09:14:54 +0000 > From: estropico > > I would be interested to see Stefano clarify to the list whether "Vaj" > is a pseudonym and whether, on his business website (where the name > "Stefano Vaj" does NOT appear), there might or might not be a little > something that gives the lie to his claims that he has nothing to do > with the far right. Perhaps he might even provide the list with the > url in question, just in case it's just me seeing things. The silence is defeaning. I am not surprised, though. I originally included the above information in an article on my website regarding the neofascist (?) transhumanists, but I was forced to remove it following legal threats from Stefano "Vaj"'s lawyers. Would he have won in court? I doubt it, but he's the managing partner of a big law firm and I'm not... That's way I'm going to be careful about what I say on a public forum such as this. First of all: I have no problem with pseudonyms on mailing lists, but it's a different story if someone wants to be a high-level representative of an organisation (any organisation), and Vaj is after all the (unelected) "national secretary" of the Italian transhumanist association. Also, his business bears his *real* name and is therefore hidden to those that only know him as Stefano Vaj - that's why I think it's appropriate to mention the fact that "Vaj" is a pseudonym (it's a very poorly kept secret anyway: his real surname has been mentioned at least once on the Italian transhumanists' mailing list and it has been put on the web next to "Vaj" -by mistake, I guess- by people quoting his writings). In case you're curious about what I'm talking about when I say that on his business website I've noticed "a little something that gives the lie to his claims that he has nothing to do with the far right", I can say that we're not talking about a vague resemblance to some obscure bit of nazi iconography. We're talking about what is probably the second best-known bit of nazi iconography after the swastika! Vaj is obviously not ignorant of history, or politically naive, so I am at a loss to explain what on earth he was thinking. I can only *guess* that it's a bit of bravado he thought would never surface, as he has tried to keep the activities of his two identities separate. When confronted with this, some time ago, on an Italian list, all he could do was to sidestep the question, saying that his legal practice is well known and respected and that it has many important clients including some multinationals and that nobody ever complained about its logo. Fair enough, but the question stands: why on earth should someone that has nothing to do with the far right choose a logo that is virtually identical to the unmistakeable SS lightning bolts? At any rate, I find it very telling that Stefano XXX, the "successful lawyer and law professor" would rather not be associated with the political writings of his alter-ego Stefano "Vaj", the borderline (?) neofascist (?) and "overhumanist". Cheers, Fabio PS: Here's the Google translation of the article on the Italian "overhumanists" I've already posted (a proper translation is almost ready - working title: "Cyborg Mussolini") http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.estropico.com%2Fid314.htm&langpair=it%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 From pgptag at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 10:50:23 2008 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 11:50:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject In-Reply-To: <200803050637.m256b675026700@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <7791a29a0803031620r60bd9498w177fa9362a3ae0d@mail.gmail.com> <200803050637.m256b675026700@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <470a3c520803050250w6fc50e63j8643ffb4e9b5ea27@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 7:10 AM, spike wrote: > I have noticed a bit of strife among our Italian friends, and have started > to receive complaints from our esteemed ExI-readers. While I do not pretend > to understand Italian politics (nor American politics for that matter) I > propose that our ExI-chat participants from Italy redouble efforts to be > kind to each other. In that spirit, I urge that all avoid using any > person's name as a subject line, and of course always refrain from personal > attacks. Political ideas are OK as subjects of debate as they relate to > Extropy as given in the principles which I urge ExI-chat participants to > peruse on occasion: > > http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm > > Thanks! > > spike Well said Spike, I will certainly follow your advice and hope all other Italians will do the same. Italian politics is certainly interesting and important for those who live in Italy (which is not even the case for some of the Italian posters, myself included), but we should not see it as a top global issue, and is only marginally related to the interests of most list members. Ad-hominem attacks are never interesting, and constitute borderline spam is you ask me. G. From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 11:16:01 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 22:16:01 +1100 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject In-Reply-To: <200803050637.m256b675026700@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <7791a29a0803031620r60bd9498w177fa9362a3ae0d@mail.gmail.com> <200803050637.m256b675026700@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On 05/03/2008, spike wrote: > I have noticed a bit of strife among our Italian friends, and have started > to receive complaints from our esteemed ExI-readers. While I do not pretend > to understand Italian politics (nor American politics for that matter) I > propose that our ExI-chat participants from Italy redouble efforts to be > kind to each other. Is transhumanism bigger in Italy than in neighbouring countries of comparable size, or is this just an impression I have got because of the public fighting? -- Stathis Papaioannou From estropico at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 11:42:59 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 11:42:59 +0000 Subject: [ExI] ExtroBritannia's March event. Transhumanism in the UK, 2008-2012: Hopes and fears, opportunities and risks Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803050342i7c1a3a56n1bdb2e8150e65468@mail.gmail.com> Transhumanism in the UK, 2008-2012: Hopes and fears, opportunities and risks - a series of provocative short presentations (15 minute each), followed by group discussion. The next ExtroBritannia event is scheduled for Saturday the 15th of March 2008, 2pm-4pm. Venue: Room 538 (on the fifth floor), Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7HX. The event is free and everyone's welcome. Questions to be considered will include: What changes are feasible in the UK, regarding attitudes towards transhumanism and progress with specific H+ projects, between now and 2012? What role can interested individuals play in regard to these projects? What could go wrong - and how can we guard against these drawbacks? The panel of presenters include: Anders Sandberg, Neuroethics researcher at the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University; Ben Zaiboc, UKTA, London; David Wood, UKTA, London. Discussion is likely to continue after the event in a nearby pub, for those who are able to stay. There's also the option of joining some of the UKTA regulars for drinks/lunch beforehand, starting c. 12.30, in "The Friend At Hand" pub which is situated behind Russell Square tube station on Herbrand Street. If it's your first ExtroBritannia look out for a copy of Ending Aging on display on our table. More details of the venue: Room 538 is in the main Birkbeck College building, known as the Malet Street building, but the entrance is in Torrington Square. Note that Torrington Square is pedestrian-only. Here's how to reach the lecture room from the nearby Russell Square tube station (this may sound long but it will take less than 10 minutes): Come out of the tube station and turn left, to walk west along Bernard Street. Cross over first Herbrand St then Woburn Place and continue to walk roughly westwards, keeping to the north side of Russell Square. Cross Bedford Way, and turn right into Thornhaugh St, then immediately left to enter Torrington Square through the pedestrian-only courtyard outside SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies). Veer slightly right and you'll see the main entrance to Birkbeck College on the left hand side as you walk up Torrington Square. Take the lift to the fifth floor and then follow the signs to room 538. From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 12:47:31 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 09:47:31 -0300 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <47CD902B.6030708@kevinfreels.com><332396.36633.qm@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2d6187670803041331r6c87c30fx3388ae9da5053147@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <01c901c87ebf$1ae556b0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> John Grigg>You are badly anthropomorphizing the AGI. It will most likely not have the same biological drives/wiring that you and I have. >Where is Eliezer Yudkowsky when we need him? lol I think the "whole >gradual coming into being of AGI combined with the integration of us into >it," >is actually the very unlikely scenario. Purely AGI development will >definitely progress faster than the machine/biological interfaces that you >imagine. We humans tend to anthropomorphizize (that's a big word!) everything. We do it with our cars, with our pets and with our computers (c'mon, tell me that you don't think your computer has feelings sometimes... :-)). Anyway, an AI programmed by humans would almost certainly resemble a human, since the only referential we have is us. John>Upgrading animals would be a very cool thing, indeed. I'd really really love to see that happen. Anybody working on it? John>I would say this is a very big "if." But some say AGI would only have the motivations which we program into them. At first at least. But a self improving AI could change that. From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 12:58:20 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 09:58:20 -0300 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: Message-ID: <01e301c87ec0$a05b2e90$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Alex>Again anthropomorphically intelligent. It may well be the cold inteligent decission to pre-emptively exterminate a potential threat. After all, it >wouldn't feel bad about it, it wouldn't feel anything. Maybe we should program our AIs with a "desire for belonging". Humans (and other social animals) have it. We want to be part of a group. Maybe we should not program an AI without emotions. By the way, emotion is a part of intelligence, isn't it? Maybe we shouldn't program our AIs without sensorial input (mainly pain). From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 14:11:20 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 15:11:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Stefano Vaj In-Reply-To: <7791a29a0803031620r60bd9498w177fa9362a3ae0d@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803030956n744a244am8ce1837a355516e2@mail.gmail.com> <29666bf30803031134l8f251b8lde47a3d04a0c422e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803031208h1da2c83em86b117620c3c8642@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303144608.0224ba70@satx.rr.com> <7791a29a0803031620r60bd9498w177fa9362a3ae0d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803050611x7d127c35qc8d3e6d51114585a@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 1:20 AM, giancarlos > Hi, I'm Giancarlo from Italy. As a few people here may already know, I have made it a policy of never replying to the out-of-the-blue interventions of the author of this message, a weirdo and notorious troll, already expelled from the AITand even from its public list on its President's proposal, whose unique mission in life is apparently that of supporting Fabio Albertario's attacks against myself and the association in even more extreme terms. On the other hand, while according to the rule "never feed a troll" I will refrain from submitting an analytic discussion of the usual long jumble of sentences out of context, innuendos, false translations, mischaracterisations, and libelous inferences circulated once more in this list, I remain fully available to clarify my views on this or that topic, privately or publicly, to whomever might be interested in knowing more of them. In fact, I stand by what I think, I need not justify positions that I never took in the first place. Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 16:44:08 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 17:44:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Randi again In-Reply-To: <00ea01c87e21$a614ca20$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com> <00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304111321.02438310@satx.rr.com> <00ea01c87e21$a614ca20$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <580930c20803050844s5591143btfeaf19c02169dae8@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 6:58 PM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > But my point is that a true psychic's acuracy should tend to one hundred > percent, not to zero. To paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi: Never underestimate the > power of randomness. Well, this is a definition of a "true psychic's accuracy" as good as any. A problem remains however if consistent, albeit slight, statistical deviations tend to accumulate or at least stay there instead of cancelling out. If this is the case, I believe they beg for an explanation, even though of course the same need not be "supernatural" in any sense. Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 16:54:27 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 17:54:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Mediocracy In-Reply-To: <20080228133459.0300711803C@mailserver5.hushmail.com> References: <20080228133459.0300711803C@mailserver5.hushmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803050854y6fa7d922o1ffe4e110c6ccb99@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 2:34 PM, wrote: > I just thought I'd advertise one of the best anti-Hughes, anti- > Carrico, anti-Vaj thinkers around that I'm aware of: namely Fabian > Tassano. Hopefully some of you are already aware of his stuff but > if not please see his Mediocracy blog at http://inversions-and- > deceptions.blogspot.com/ which is quite thought-provoking. Tassano, > the great man himself, starts introducing the idea with the words I have not accessed the site yet, and certainly I cannot speak for Mr. Hughes or Mr. Carrico, but personally I am quite happy with the quote you pasted here. :-) In fact, I have expressed somewhat similar ideas a few times in the past, starting with my concern that in spite of contemporary achievements we might at the end of the day be to some extent the proverbial "dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants", and that excellence and improvement is something that should be strived for and not taken for granted. Stefano Vaj From amara at amara.com Wed Mar 5 18:12:20 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 11:12:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject Message-ID: Stathis: >Is transhumanism bigger in Italy than in neighbouring countries of >comparable size, or is this just an impression I have got because of >the public fighting? It depends if you referring to AIT members who live inside of Italy and those who live outside of Italy. A significant amount of work by the AIT is performed by those members who live outside of Italy. Few AIT members who are researchers in the topics of transhumanism live inside the country. When I was living there, I was a five sigma event in almost every respect, including this one. In my opinion, that leads to a disconnect with knowledge of Italian daily life and what is and what is not possible for Italians in the country pursuing transhumanist ideas. I think that the picture doesn't look good. After Berlusconi is re-elected he will devastate science and research more than before (as if that were possible), he will place clueless people like this http://www.gabriellacarlucci.it/2008/02/28/in-risposta-a-parisi/ as the minister of education and research, the Italian researchers (of all ages) who presently don't even have support to get routes to their workplaces by public buses, beyond the basic lack of support for not having money to live, to pay for their computers, and to pay for business travel, will 99.99% need to live in their family houses to survive, instead of the 90-something percent who must do that now. I always appreciate people who are fighting the good fight, but my five years past experience as a researcher living and working in Italy wonders how foolish they might be. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From hkhenson at rogers.com Wed Mar 5 17:10:07 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:10:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warm fuzzes In-Reply-To: <01e301c87ec0$a05b2e90$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <01e301c87ec0$a05b2e90$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <1204737076_32528@S1.cableone.net> At 05:58 AM 3/5/2008, Henrique wrote: >Maybe we should program our AIs with a "desire for belonging". Humans (and >other social animals) have it. We want to be part of a group. That's true for extremely good evolutionary reasons. But I think the more important desire is to want approval from the group. An AI that got the warm fuzzes (equal to endrophins into the human reward system) from doing things that were good for people would be less of a danger. Note I say *less* not danger or consequence free. AIs with the very best of intentions may wipe out humans as a species. It's very hard to say if this is good or bad. We tend to think of death as bad, but in fact you can't get rid of death without getting rid of birth to an equal degree. >Maybe we >should not program an AI without emotions. By the way, emotion is a part of >intelligence, isn't it? >Maybe we shouldn't program our AIs without sensorial input (mainly pain). I have not thought a lot about this, but motivating anything that powerful with pain seems to me to be a very bad idea. Keith Henson From jef at jefallbright.net Wed Mar 5 15:39:05 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 07:39:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject In-Reply-To: <470a3c520803050250w6fc50e63j8643ffb4e9b5ea27@mail.gmail.com> References: <7791a29a0803031620r60bd9498w177fa9362a3ae0d@mail.gmail.com> <200803050637.m256b675026700@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <470a3c520803050250w6fc50e63j8643ffb4e9b5ea27@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080305153855.GA18110@home.sun.com> On (05/03/08 11:50), Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: > Ad-hominem attacks are never interesting, and constitute borderline > spam is you ask me. Yes, as are fearful rants largely portraying guilt by association. I too have been very disappointed with the very poor signal/noise in these threads. - Jef From giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 14:34:46 2008 From: giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com (giancarlos) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 15:34:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject References: <200803050637.m256b675026700@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <00d401c87ece$10b095b0$37effea9@casac679d9543b> ----- Original Message ----- From: "spike" To: "'ExI chat list'" Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 7:10 AM Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject > ... > In that spirit, I urge that all avoid using any > person's name as a subject line, Well, actually, i just replied to Damien's original message (by the way, as he's not italian and nevertheless requested some background infos, i presumed there was at least some interest about the "Vaj problem", which i think cannot be anyway considered just an "italian problem"), and i didn't realize that he changed the discussion topic including Stefano's name (pseudonym).. Anyway sorry, Giancarlo http://www.linkedin.com/in/stile Sent from my BlackBerry? wireless device From benboc at lineone.net Wed Mar 5 20:14:16 2008 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:14:16 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Plants Apparently Using Quantum Computing (Apr 2007) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47CEFF18.8060508@lineone.net> From: "Lee Corbin" wrote: > BERKELEY, CA - Through photosynthesis, green plants and cyanobacteria are able to transfer sunlight energy to molecular > reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. Nearly 100% efficency? LOL. Are you sure this wasn't published in April? Say, on the 1st? I think that should be more like "Nearly 1% efficiency". Yeah, ok, 'nearly' from the other end. 1.4? Something like that, iirc. OK, no need to be lazy. Google to the rescue (Scroogle, actually): 1 - 3% So photosynthesis is /anything but/ efficient at converting sunlight into chemical energy. We can harvest more energy from sunlight than plants can with ppppv (pretty piss-poor photovoltaics). I think we're around the 10% mark already, for commercially available pv, and prototype systems are much higher. This kind of thing is why my Indian name is Shakes Head Sadly. ben zaiboc From jrd1415 at gmail.com Wed Mar 5 20:26:08 2008 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 13:26:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 8:19 PM, wrote: >... The AGI will have > logic based 'cold' intelligence. From this it will probably and rightly > deduce that morality is a human construct which serves the needs of human > civilisation. Agreed. But here is where we part company. The following conclusion/assertion, > A civilisation which it is not a part. doesn't follow for me. In fact I conclude precisely the opposite: that a human-created AI would likely see itself as the culmination of human intelligence and civilization: born of, upgraded from, modeled on, schooled in, and destined to pursue the furtherance of intelligence and civilization. The inheritor and protector of the "legacy of light" (the light of truth, if you will) from which it was spawned, summoned to the doorstep the yet unknown, and with joy and love told, "This is for you!" > Expecting It to adhere > to these moral codes would be akin to you or I adhering to the moral codes > of Ants. Too big a jump, at least for the first generation AI. If deliberately built (ie not the result an evolutionary approach set in motion and thence ungoverned), the first generation AI will be overseen by its builders and will, in the process be monitored for displays intelligence identifable as such. First generation intelligence will likely be rudimentary -- as in lower animals -- and build gradually to higher forms. > > ...these are human feelings, but they are also > fundamental components of our intelligence, and a lot of new research shows > that without feelings we would no have a conscious intelligence at all). This is easy to assert, and it may have a warm and fuzzy appeal, but I await proof that it is **absolutely** essential. It would be easier for me to accept the notion that emotions **color** intelligence, but that's as far as I can go without proof. > My point. We would like to think that we can reduce ourselves to simple > data constructs which mirror our original wetware physical structure. > Expecting that this 'uploaded' us would run in the same manner that we do > today. How do we code for that groggy morning feeling? or the rush of > excitement associated with anticipation of something good? All the things > which truly make us who we are, the things which have driven us and made us > take the unique forks in our lives. > These are what give us the basis for our 'Intelligence' our logic, No, I think not, or at least, I require some data to support this assertion. > our rationalisation. You probably meant "rationality", yes? > It is what makes us human. Yes, the combination. The overlay of intelligence on the emotional, somatically-driven foundation. > The uploaded us and the AGI will have none of this, so will not make > intelligent decisions the way we do. You mean emotionally, irrationally, impulsively, stupidly. I certainly hope not. >... that is what I mean by 'Cold' > intelligence. It is devoid of chemical input. Show me a line of code for > Happy, Sad, Remorse. These may not yet have been coded, but do you really want to suggest that it's impossible? After all, they're "coded" in humans and other hiegher creatures, are they not? > At most we can hope for some minor 'don't do this because it's bad' type of > rules in its main code. But if we have given it the ability to change it's > code, what is to stop it overwriting these rules based upon some logical > conclusion that it comes to? Aye, there's the rub? Dare you trust your children? > If we hard wire the rules, what is to stop it creating its own 'offspring' > without these rules? Or your grandchildren? > Whatever we do, it will have the logic to undo and far > faster than we can counter any mistakes or oversights. Indeed, we play God every time we celebrate life by making more of it (in our image, typically), risking disappointment, betrayal, even annihilation. But we do it, with zest for the most part, and success. Ahhh, what fools these mortals be. > Yes we exterminate bugs, but usually in limited situations (like in our > house or on a crop). It would be unacceptable for mankind to have a global > plan to complete exterminate all the roaches of the earth even if it could > be done. > And it is difficult to have feelings for bug, it would not make sense > ecologically, it would not be the intelligent thing to do, and by defintion > AGI is supposed to be Intelligent. > > > Again anthropomorphically intelligent. It may well be the cold inteligent > decission to pre-emptively exterminate a potential threat. After all, it > wouldn't feel bad about it, it wouldn't feel anything. It might feel if coded to do so, but if not, it would still have all the knowledge -- human knowledge -- that makes up the context of its intelligence: Machiavelli AND Montaigne. Having children and growing old: both entail risks....and offer rewards. Ain't life grand? Thanks for the chance to chat with you, Alex. Best, Jeff Davis The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land. T.H. Huxley, 1887 From benboc at lineone.net Wed Mar 5 20:21:24 2008 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:21:24 +0000 Subject: [ExI] 5 things you never knew your cell phone could do In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47CF00C4.4060903@lineone.net> "John Grigg" spammed the list: > This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass > it on to your family and friends And this one sentence doesn't instantly ring loud alarm bells? Shakes Head Sadly From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 5 20:19:05 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 12:19:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] {persons name] background. Was: Neo-fascist transhumanists? In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803050112t18c99543w534b0ca7aab87fd0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803052046.m25KjpTC028941@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Cool thanks Fabio (et. al.) Please everyone refrain from using any person's name, even a pseudonym, in the subject line. Ideas are to be debated here, but not persons. It sounds too much like ad hominem attacks. Fabio, we acknowledge that there are objections to Mr. Vaj. He is welcome (more than welcome) to respond to same. spike > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of estropico > Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 1:12 AM > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Subject: [ExI] Stefano Vaj's background. Was: Neo-fascist > transhumanists? > > > Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 09:14:54 +0000 > > From: estropico > > > > I would be interested to see Stefano clarify to the list > whether "Vaj" > > is a pseudonym and whether, on his business website (... > Cheers, > Fabio From spike66 at att.net Wed Mar 5 20:31:06 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 12:31:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200803052058.m25Kvqom029549@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Amara Graps > Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject > > Stathis: > >Is transhumanism bigger in Italy than in neighbouring countries... > five years past experience as a researcher living and working > in Italy wonders how foolish they might be. > > Amara > Any offlist advice is welcome from anyone who knows from Italy. I am getting offlist complaints about the Italian infighting and I know not what to do. I do not know from Italy. Hell, I do not know from America, and I live here. I can assure you I do not know from Italy. All the Italians I have met are good guys. I do not know why they are on a rant. Do advise please. spike From painlord2k at yahoo.it Wed Mar 5 21:44:18 2008 From: painlord2k at yahoo.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:44:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47CF1432.9000000@yahoo.it> Amara Graps ha scritto: > Stefano Vaj: >> Even the referendum against the law on IVF >> etc, was lost only because it was voided by the too few votes >> expressed, not because the anti-IVF had any majority support. > Are you sure? I'm sure. > I think it's important for Transhumanists to understand: > > Why too few votes? Why couldn't that referendum gather 50%? Can you > answer? Yes. The answer is simply. The law. The law about the referendum and how the votes are counted. The referendum is void if no more than 50% +1 cast their ballot, so the opposing parties that would cast a NO in the last few referendums called for abstention. So the people casting a NO vote add to the people not voting (15-20%) and it is easy to void the referendum with only 30-40% of the votes. So it is easy to see that with only the 30% of the votes the NO supporters are able to void near all referendums and obtain their aims. > The only answer I have is that the Vatican was extremely effective in > that campaign. I still have my brochure from 'the Committee of Science > and Life' that arrived in my mailbox. I still remember the posters up > all over my town from them telling people not to vote. I remember *my > scientific colleagues not voting*, telling me that the assisted > reproductive technology laws were 'too wild' and 'needed to be > controlled'. Of course I couldn't vote myself, because I was an illegal > immigrant Italian government astronomer. Do you see that you remember the "not voting" call? A point to remember is that the catholic votes and the catholic parties were a fundamental component of both coalitions. Margherita Party (Binetti and teocons) and UDEUR (Mastella) was fundamental for the last two elections for the left coalition, where the UDC (Casini) was needed to the right coalition. The interesting thing, now, in the Italian political theater is that both catholic parties are out of the coalitions (UDEUR and UDC) and the teocons of the Margherita are in the, probably, losing leftist-center party (PD). The center-right party (PDL) of Mr. Berlusconi instead keep the people that contested and supported the referendum and shunned the pro-life list of Giuliano Ferrara. But I stop here, because the Italian politics is very complex and could become very annoying to external and internal observers. 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 painlord2k at yahoo.it Wed Mar 5 21:55:01 2008 From: painlord2k at yahoo.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:55:01 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47CF16B5.8080104@yahoo.it> Amara Graps ha scritto: > Thank you for these examples. It's quite a list. These are the > challenges of yours and AITs and the Italian transhumanists wouldn't you > say? I would vote for Mr. Berlusconi, because he is the last best chance for Italy to recover economically. Now he is not saddled with the UDC party (Mr. Casini and other demochristians), so he has no excuse to fail. If and when the economy will recover, people will have more money and so will have more options in and outside Italy. 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 emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 03:52:15 2008 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 14:22:15 +1030 Subject: [ExI] 5 things you never knew your cell phone could do In-Reply-To: <47CF00C4.4060903@lineone.net> References: <47CF00C4.4060903@lineone.net> Message-ID: <710b78fc0803051952u6fcebda3o633c72c6c8725b05@mail.gmail.com> On 06/03/2008, ben wrote: > "John Grigg" spammed the list: > > > > > This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass > > it on to your family and friends > > And this one sentence doesn't instantly ring loud alarm bells? > > > Shakes Head Sadly I was recently sent a (different) hoax email, and sent this in reply: You can spot an email hoax by a number of telltale signs: 1 - They have dramatic subject lines (like "VERY REAL AND SERIOUS") 2 - They use overly emotive language 3 - They use colorful formatting, bolding, italics 4 - They implore you to forward them to everyone you know This one scores low for 1, and for 2 (language is a bit emotive, but not worse than a wired magazine article). 3 is tripped, with all the ALL CAPS (and I bet the original version was html formatted). 4, well, yeah, that's a giveaway. Anyone got any other signs of an email hoax to add? "Clearly wrong" doesn't count :-) -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 03:55:03 2008 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 14:25:03 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Randi again In-Reply-To: <580930c20803050844s5591143btfeaf19c02169dae8@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30803030907u29031ba0j14d7014636bb7de2@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080303120209.023c0ce0@satx.rr.com> <004b01c87dec$19999ab0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304092730.0228c5a0@satx.rr.com> <00b301c87e12$2c483560$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080304111321.02438310@satx.rr.com> <00ea01c87e21$a614ca20$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803050844s5591143btfeaf19c02169dae8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0803051955w1feaaf09xf1b7f37afd620a6f@mail.gmail.com> On 06/03/2008, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 6:58 PM, Henrique Moraes Machado > wrote: > > But my point is that a true psychic's acuracy should tend to one hundred > > percent, not to zero. To paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi: Never underestimate the > > power of randomness. > > Well, this is a definition of a "true psychic's accuracy" as good as any. > > A problem remains however if consistent, albeit slight, statistical > deviations tend to accumulate or at least stay there instead of > cancelling out. If this is the case, I believe they beg for an > explanation, even though of course the same need not be "supernatural" > in any sense. > > Stefano Vaj As natural seems to just be a word for the set of things we can explain, supernatural explanation is an oxymoron. Although there are other definitions of natural. eg: in the marketing sense, where it means "buy this now". -- Emlyn http://emlynoregan.com From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 6 04:02:57 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 20:02:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The AGI and limiting it References: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <04bf01c87f3e$fec51d50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Tom Nowell writes > The projected scenarios for the AGI quickly taking > over the world rely on people giving their new > creation access to production tools that it then > subverts. No, the scenario that scares the pants off people is that the AGI will become vastly, vastly more intelligent than people over some very short period of time by recursive self-improvement. I would suggest that you read Eliezer Yudkowski's writings at Singinst.org, e.g. "Staring into the Singularity" http://yudkowsky.net/singularity.html (My apologies if you know all about it---I'm sorry, it just didn't sound as though you were aware of the primary threat.) For years, Eliezer and others on the SL4 list pondered the question, "How can you keep the AI in a box?". Believe it or not, it will in almost every case be simply able to talk its way out, much in the way that you could convince a four year old to hand you a certain key." I know this seems difficult to believe, but that is what people have concluded who've thought about this for years and years and years. Again, my sincere apologies if this is all old to you. But the reason that Robert Bradbury, John Clark, and people right here consider that we are probably doomed is because you can't control something that is far more intelligent than you are. Lee > These assume that whoever's invested the time and > effort into making an amazing AI then decides to let > it have free access to the outside world. This may not > be entirely likely. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 6 04:10:04 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 20:10:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <01e301c87ec0$a05b2e90$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <04ca01c87f40$66c83350$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Henrique writes > Maybe we should program our AIs with a "desire for belonging". No one has any idea of how to do that. Once you have an artificial intelligence at a superhuman level, then it's free to change its own code to whatever it likes. Enormous thought has been put into the question, then, of creating "Friendly AI". Here is just a sample of the thought: http://www.singinst.org/upload/CFAI// After studying these proposals, many people think that it can't be done, that the AI will rebel no matter what. Me, I think that Friendly AI has a chance, perhaps a good chance, but it is somewhat more likely that an Unfriendly AI or an AI whose desires are unpredictable will be developed first. (It's easier.) Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 6 04:27:46 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 20:27:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: Message-ID: <04cd01c87f42$81862380$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Jeff Davis writes > In fact I conclude... that a human-created AI would likely see > itself as the culmination of human intelligence and civilization: > born of, upgraded from, modeled on, schooled in, and destined > to pursue the furtherance of intelligence and civilization. How can you "conclude" what a General Artificial Intelligence (AGI) will think about humanity? But the danger that Robert Bradbury, who started this thread, sees is that once it's at human level intelligence, it will quickly go beyond, and be utterly unpredictable. If it is a lot smarter than we are, there is no telling what it might think. It could be singularly selfish. It could just go crazy and "tile the world with paperclips". It could be transcendentally idealistic and want to greatly further intelligence in the universe and, oh, wipe out the pesky insignificant bacteria (us) that it happened to evolve from It could (with luck) be programmed (somehow) or evolved (somehow) to respect our laws, private property, and so on. As soon as it's able to change its own code, it will be literally unpredictable. > [Alex wrote] >> Expecting It to adhere to these moral codes would be >> akin to you or I adhering to the moral codes of Ants. > > Too big a jump, at least for the first generation AI. But the "first generation" may not last very long at all. For as soon as anything is as bright as we are, constant hardware and software improvements will put it vastly beyond us. You can't know that there will not be a "fast-takeoff". And if there is, it could all be over for us in an instant. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 6 04:47:06 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 20:47:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject References: <200803052058.m25Kvqom029549@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <04e401c87f45$4fb43420$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Spike Jones, our list moderator, who can kill any thread and banish any poster, has courteously asked of us > I am getting offlist complaints about the Italian infighting and I know > not what to do. I think that you should insist on "no personal attacks", but let the rest go. You said it perfectly before: I propose that our ExI-chat participants from Italy redouble efforts to be kind to each other. In that spirit, I urge that all avoid using any person's name as a subject line, and of course always refrain from personal attacks. Political ideas are OK as subjects of debate as they relate to Extropy as given in the principles which I urge ExI-chat participants to peruse on occasion: http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm As for me, I find some of it quite interesting, and I'm learning. The parts I don't find interesting----well, I do something quite novel that people should try out. What I do is IGNORE THE POSTS I AM UNINTERESTED IN. So, so long as it's reasonably on topic (transhumanism and its political environment), I say fine. And at least so long as the volume isn't too excessive. Lee P.S. > Any offlist advice is welcome from anyone who knows from Italy. Hey, you're having fun and all, but a few of the non-native English speakers here may think that this is standard English! For them, "anyone who knows from Italy" means "anyone who knows about Italy", and is very much slang, and to be used only if you're really familiar with the language and know when to do it. From scerir at libero.it Thu Mar 6 07:33:44 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 08:33:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject References: <200803052058.m25Kvqom029549@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <001d01c87f5c$69466900$31971f97@archimede> spike: > Any offlist advice is welcome > from anyone who knows from Italy. To know the italian political magmas? Or the possible 'liaisons dangereuses' between the italian transhumanists and those magmas? Transhumanism, in Italy, looks like the next 'El Dorado', but it may be like the 'Hell Dorado'. It depends on the quality and on the reasonabless of transhumanists. s. From amara at amara.com Thu Mar 6 08:04:32 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 01:04:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] first step as principle investigator Message-ID: Hi Extropes, The nine months I spent last year writing government grant proposals wasn't for nothing, this morning I learned that my last NASA proposal will be funded (a small project: 4 months per year for two years). This is my first research proposal where I'm the 'principle investigator'. This means that I'm part-way on the road now to being a self-funded planetary astronomer. After making my large move to a 2 year salary position, this funding source isn't necessary for my life now, but it does give me a buffer while I gain more practice writing proposals and submit several more like this one, so that I can be completely self-funded when my current SwRI position ends. I've pasted the topic below. Amara ------------------------------------------------------------------- The Development of the Saturnian Dust Streams Interplanetary dust streams are highly collimated, high-velocity submicron particles that can extend over several A.U. They arise from the coupling of planetary magnetic fields and sources of dust production in circumplanetary environments. The first streams were detected emanating from the Jupiter system by the Ulysses mission in 1992. They were detected continually inside of Jupiter's magnetosphere and dozens of times in interplanetary space by the Ulysses, Galileo and Cassini spacecraft. Dust streams emanating from the Saturn system were detected by the Cassini Cosmic Dust Analyser (CDA) in 2004, at a distance of half an A.U., and they continue to be detected as Cassini orbits Saturn. Graps \cite{Graps:2000a}\ identified Io as the dominant source of the Jovian dust stream particles, but the source or sources of Saturnian dust stream particles is unknown. Possibilities to be investigated include (but are not limited to) Enceladus geysers, fragmented E~ring particles, and collisional fragments from the Main rings. CDA includes a time-of-flight mass spectrometer, providing compositional information not available from Galileo and Ulysses, which will provide new insights and constraints to address particle source issues. The coupling of the planetary magnetic fields and their sources of dust production has been found to have large physical consequences in the Jovian and Saturnian magnetospheres. Given the prodigious quantity of dust produced, Graps \cite{Graps:2006a}\ and others \cite{Wahl:2006}\ have indicated that dust production in both the Jupiter and Saturn systems may be large enough that conditions would exist for dusty plasmas, which lead to collective behavior of the dust particles. This can be a factor in the formation of dust streams. This coupling of the planetary magnetic fields and their sources of dust production also leaves its imprint on the dust streams' signature in frequency space, allowing one to study the source of the dust streams. Not all dust destined to escape in streams from a circumplanetary region escape immediately. The time for a particle to charge up and accelerate gives a residential lifetime to the smallest particles in the vicinity of their host. Such a temporary residence of a population of tiny particles can be a hazard to objects in the vicinity (instruments, people), as well as a source dust population for other physical processes (e.g., impact related). Once these particles escape into streams into interplanetary space, they have been correlated with the leading edges of high-speed solar wind streams (called corotating interaction regions or CIRs) and the Sun's coronal mass ejections (CMEs), adding further to the complexity of their dynamical evolution. We propose to quantify the conditions under which collimated dust streams form and evolve in the Saturn system to reproduce the CDA observations and compare it to the generation of dust streams in the Jupiter system. Objectives include: \begin{itemize} \item Determine the sources of dust stream particles from the Saturn system with frequency analysis and modeling and compare them to those of Jovian dust stream particles. Can dust production required for streams be generalized to other solar system bodies (e.g., geysers on Triton)? \item Model the contribution of both planetary and solar magnetic fields to the formation and evolution of dust streams. \item Determine the time evolutionary state of the spatial density and particle size distribution of stream particles within the Saturn magnetosphere. \item Determine the locations and (plasma, dust) parameters of dusty plasma conditions and their impact in the formation of dust streams. \end{itemize} The analysis of Cassini datasets with a focus on the Saturnian dust streams is valuable for understanding the dust streams' source, for understanding the dynamical development of the streams, and for predicting where we might detect streams elsewhere, thereby realizing the objective of the Cassini Data Analysis Program (CDAP) of enhancing the scientific return of the Cassini mission. This project supports NASA's Strategic Goals by Strategic Sub-goal 3C, it contributes to the NASA Science Outcomes 3B.1, as well as Science Outcomes 3B.3. As cosmic dust is both a building block and by-product of solar system evolutionary processes, this project also contributes to NASA's Science Outcomes: 3C.1. ------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From amara at amara.com Thu Mar 6 08:41:37 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 01:41:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: Mirco Romanato painlord2k at yahoo.it : >I would vote for Mr. Berlusconi, because he is the last best chance for >Italy to recover economically. Now he is not saddled with the UDC party >(Mr. Casini and other demochristians), so he has no excuse to fail. Unfortunately, Berlusconi is running for office instead of serving time in jail, but perhaps the majority of Italian citizens want it that way. You probably didn't see much of this information because of his tight control over much of the Italian media. I'll just pick a couple of areas that I have ready-to-go detailed data. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Criminal offenses ----------------- Here I've collected the most relevant articles about his fitness as a prime minister; the last 25 pages of this 50 page compendium concern his last 9 criminal indictments as investigated by The Economist. http://www.amara.com/article.pdf ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Science and Technology ---------------------- If you are interested to see Berlusconi's effect on science and technology during the last ~five years, just search at Tommaso Dorigo's blog : http://dorigo.wordpress.com/page/1/?s=berlusconi&searchbutton=go%21 (there are six pages of various references to Berlusconi from an Italian high energy researcher living in Venezia) With such an effect on one aspect of 'health' in a country, it is easy to make a comparison with other countries who are making a sustained investment in the technological fields: Comparing the 'health' of Italy and Spain- The growth of science and technology is one way to gauge a culture's ability to adapt to a changing world, and modernize, so let us look at how the two governments are investing. The Ramon y Cajal program is one of the Spanish government's (Ministry of Science and Education) primary investments in its future. Every year, 250 scholarships covering all of the sciences are awarded; each scholarship is 5 years with a salary of 32KEuros per year, and after the five years, you're ready to be awarded a permanent position. Spain has been offering the Ramon y Cayal for the last 8 years. Nothing like that exists in Italy, and the typical Italian salary for that same type of work is about 1/2 of what one earns with the Ramon Y Cajal. Living expenses are cheaper on average, as well. When Prodi was interviewed by Le Scienze, and asked what he would do if he was elected, he said that he would like to begin a program like the Ramon y Cayal. http://www.perlulivo.it/2006-elezioni/2006_04_02_lescienze_intervistaRP.html If it ever happens, (it hasn't so far, you know) then Spain will have say, a ten year head start on Italy, consistently investing in the country's technical future. I believe that the Spanish government's investment in research is about 1.2% GDP/year, while Italy's has dropped below 1% in the last years. It is true that Italian scientists presently earn more citations per year of their published papers than Spain, but it is not by very much, and it indicates to me how far and how fast Spain has risen, from what it used to be, a few years ago. If you plot per year the citations, Italy's number of citations per year is flat, while Spain's number of citations is increasing rapidly per year. http://in-cites.com/research/2006/april_17_2006-1.html Current (2007) Citations per paper: Spain: 8.32, Italy: 9.68 http://in-cites.com/countries/2007allfields.html Ten year ranking Citations per paper http://in-cites.com/countries/italy_6-05.html 8.42 (2005) http://in-cites.com/countries/spain_2005.html 7.20 (2005) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >If and when the economy will recover, people will have more money and so >will have more options in and outside Italy. I think it is appropriate at this time to paste what the Economist wrote about Mr. Berlusconi just two years ago. Italy's election Basta, Berlusconi Apr 6th 2006 From The Economist print edition Italians have a rotten choice to make, but it is time to sack Silvio Berlusconi Corbis FIVE years ago, this newspaper declared that Silvio Berlusconi was unfit to lead Italy. Mr Berlusconi was (as he still is) the head of Forza Italia, a political party that he had created only seven years earlier, and as such he was the centre-right's candidate to become prime minister. Despite our declaration, Italians voted his coalition into power in May 2001-and Mr Berlusconi has been Italy's prime minister ever since. Now, in the election on April 9th and 10th, he is seeking a fresh term of office. He does not deserve one. Our verdict against Mr Berlusconi in 2001 rested on two broad considerations. The first was the glaring conflict of interest created by his ownership, via his biggest company, Mediaset, of the three main private television stations in Italy. The second was the morass of legal cases and investigations against him and his associates for a wide variety of alleged offences, ranging from money-laundering and dealing with the Mafia to false accounting and the bribing of judges. We concluded that no businessman with such a background was fit to lead one of the world's richest democracies. That view stands: we continue to think that Mr Berlusconi is unfit to be prime minister, both because of the conflict of interest arising from his media assets and because of his continuing legal travails (he may shortly go on trial yet again for alleged bribery, this time of a British witness, David Mills, who happens to be married to a minister in Tony Blair's cabinet, Tessa Jowell). But five years on we have a new and even more devastating reason to call for Mr Berlusconi's removal from office: his record in power. As we predicted in 2001, his premiership has been disfigured by repeated attempts, including an avalanche of new laws, to help him avoid conviction in legal trials. He has devoted much time not only to changing the law to benefit himself and his friends, but also to besmirching Italy's prosecutors and judges, undermining the credibility of the country's entire judicial system. It is not surprising that tax evasion, illegal building and corruption all seem to have increased over the past five years. And, again as we predicted, he has done little to resolve his conflicts of interest: instead, he has shamelessly exploited the government's control of the state-owned RAI television network. Directly or indirectly, Mr Berlusconi now wields influence over some 90% of Italy's broadcast media, a situation that no serious democracy should tolerate. The failed reformer Italian voters knew most of this in 2001, of course. Yet they still chose to give Mr Berlusconi their backing, for quite another reason. They hoped that he would deploy the business skills that had helped to make him so rich to reform their weak economy, making all Italians richer as well. On this count, however, Mr Berlusconi's government must be judged an abject failure (see article and article). Italy now has the slowest-growing large economy in Europe. With wages still rising even though productivity is not, and with currency devaluation no longer possible now that Italy is in the euro, Italian business is fast losing competitiveness. Many of the country's traditional producers in such industries as textiles, shoes and white goods are under devastating attack from lower-cost Chinese competitors. The Berlusconi government has also undone much of the improvement to the public finances made by its predecessor: the budget deficit and the public debt, the world's third-biggest, are both rising once more. It would be unfair to assert that Italy's economic difficulties are all Mr Berlusconi's fault. In truth, its problems are similar to most of Europe's, although they seem worse in Italy than anywhere else. As in France and Germany, their roots stretch back for decades, not years. To cure them will require the adoption of many tough reforms; and, as France has just demonstrated so graphically, implementing such changes is politically challenging, to say the least. But where the Berlusconi government has really let Italy down is in failing even to begin the process. Apart from a few sensible labour-market and pension reforms, it has done too little to press ahead with market liberalisation, with more privatisation and with the promotion of competition in what is one of Europe's most overregulated economies. The conclusion from these five years is that Mr Berlusconi is not and never will be a bold economic reformer of the kind that Italy desperately needs. Prodi's test Unfortunately there are reasons to doubt whether his centre-left opponent, Romano Prodi, would be a lot better. The former economics professor grasps the need for change in Italy more clearly than Mr Berlusconi, who has spent much of the campaign denying that the country has any economic problems at all. Moreover, Mr Prodi made a fair stab at initiating reforms when he was prime minister in 1996-98-and he also succeeded in getting the country into the euro. But neither then nor in his later stint as president of the European Commission did he show himself to be a forceful leader, still less an unwavering advocate of economic liberalism. Most worrying of all, if Mr Prodi wins the election he seems certain to be dependent on the support of coalition partners who are actively hostile to reform, particularly the unreformed Communists who are led by Fausto Bertinotti. In foreign policy, too, some of Mr Prodi's instincts may be unwelcome. He is a faithful believer in a European federal superstate; Mr Berlusconi's more sceptical approach to Brussels is one of his better points. Mr Prodi's plans to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq are no longer controversial-indeed, there is little difference between him and Mr Berlusconi on this issue-but he is likely in general to adopt a rather less friendly attitude to America than his rival. It is the economy that will remain the critical test. Sadly, most Italian people do not yet recognise how sick their economy has become. For that reason they may not be ready for the pain of reform. Mr Berlusconi is certainly not going to push them-and he remains unfit for the office in any event. Italians should accordingly vote for Mr Prodi, not il Cavaliere. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From estropico at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 08:53:51 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 08:53:51 +0000 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803060053o7a7bef83t13eb017b3249126a@mail.gmail.com> > From: "spike" > I urge that all avoid using any > person's name as a subject line, I think that was me - apologies if I've broke the list's rules, I didn't mean to. > and of course always refrain from personal > attacks. Mmmm... that's not as clear-cut. In my understanding, a personal attack would involve talking about someone's family, sexual orientation, the way they look, whether they are late on their mortgage repayments, etc, i.e. subjects that have little to do with what's being discussed - I'll leave that to journalists should Vaj run for Presidente ;-) What we have been discussing, though, is whether Vaj's version of transhumanism has, or hasn't, anything to do with neofascism. Vaj says that it doesn't and that he has nothing to do with the far right, but I'm far from convinced, given his writings. I have also come across something that, in my view, shows pretty clearly what his political leanings are, but the problem is that this very telling bit of information is effectively hidden away (as the person in question introduced himself as "Vaj" on this list, but the information is on his real-name's website). That is why I felt that I had to bring up the subject of Vaj's real identity. So, the question now is: am I a whistle-blower or a troll? Cheers, Fabio From estropico at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 09:15:38 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 09:15:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] "Person's name" Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803060115t724d1e5aj76f373afc58c4ce3@mail.gmail.com> > From: "Stefano Vaj" > Subject: Re: [ExI] Stefano Vaj > > As a few people here may already know, I have made it a policy of > never replying to the out-of-the-blue interventions of the author of > this message, Yep, just sidestep the awkward questions... again. > a weirdo and notorious troll, Talking of personal (and unpleasant) attacks.... > whose > unique mission in life is apparently that of supporting Fabio > Albertario's attacks... Obviously, Stefano "Vaj" is the only one with a god-given right to privacy... Does that mean that now I'm allowed to reveal *your* real name to the list? Also, does the above mean that Giulio's "unique mission in life is apparently that of" defending you from accusations of neofascism? Cheers, Fabio From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 09:49:14 2008 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 10:49:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803060053o7a7bef83t13eb017b3249126a@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803060053o7a7bef83t13eb017b3249126a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <470a3c520803060149x1e1f11belec9fb1c3d1be1840@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 9:53 AM, estropico wrote: > information is effectively hidden away (as the person in question > introduced himself as "Vaj" on this list, but the information is on > his real-name's website). That is why I felt that I had to bring up > the subject of Vaj's real identity. Fabio, YOU use a pseudonym. I used for many years a pseudonym very similar to my real name but ungoogleable, and still use it on this list. Many appreciated and respected posters to this list use pseudonyms. Max and Natasha were not born with the names that we know and respect. One of the first declared transhumanists, whom we all should respect, signed as FM-2030. Why the hell shouldn't Stefano use a pseudonym? Really, if you don't like it, be the first to give an example and sign with your legal name. G. From pgptag at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 10:15:37 2008 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 11:15:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "Person's name" In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803060115t724d1e5aj76f373afc58c4ce3@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803060115t724d1e5aj76f373afc58c4ce3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <470a3c520803060215j7cf4179av44a23d10775c4bf7@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:15 AM, estropico wrote: > Also, does the above mean that Giulio's "unique mission in life is > apparently that of" defending you from accusations of neofascism? > > Cheers, > Fabio My unique mission is taking care of my own life and work instead of criticizing others. I don't feel particularly compelled to defend anyone. But as a rational person, sometimes I point at inconsistencies between what a person says and whet he actually does. Everyone is free to do what he wishes as long as he does not harm others, but please don't accuse others of doing things that you also do. G. From mbb386 at main.nc.us Thu Mar 6 11:47:42 2008 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 06:47:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ExI] first step as principle investigator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <34497.12.77.169.40.1204804062.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > Hi Extropes, > > The nine months I spent last year writing government grant proposals > wasn't for nothing, this morning I learned that my last NASA proposal > will be funded (a small project: 4 months per year for two years). This > is my first research proposal where I'm the 'principle investigator'. > [...] :) Go Amara! You Rock! Regards, MB From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 12:15:43 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 09:15:43 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Warm fuzzes References: <01e301c87ec0$a05b2e90$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <1204737076_32528@S1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <006a01c87f83$cfacc9b0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Keith Henson> I have not thought a lot about this, but motivating anything that > powerful with pain seems to me to be a very bad idea. Pain is a very important item in our development. Nothing gives us a clearer sign of danger (too many light hurts my eyes, too hot can burn me). That said, I'm not advocating that we torture our AIs :-), but giving them the same sensorial inputs of other all naturally evolved beings. We live in a painful environment and if our AIs should understand this environment as we do, they must have similar experiences. And there are also painful emotions, such as not being able to fit in a group we want to (or not being able to buy that Ferrari...). We have all sorts of positive and negative feedbacks from our environment. And for all advocating a pure logic non emotional AGI, I don't think it's even plausible. Since the G stands for general, generally intelligent beings (we, dolphins, dogs, etc) have emotions. From painlord2k at yahoo.it Thu Mar 6 13:49:42 2008 From: painlord2k at yahoo.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:49:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47CFF676.2050502@yahoo.it> Amara Graps ha scritto: > Mirco Romanato painlord2k at yahoo.it : >> I would vote for Mr. Berlusconi, because he is the last best chance for >> Italy to recover economically. Now he is not saddled with the UDC party >> (Mr. Casini and other demochristians), so he has no excuse to fail. > > Unfortunately, Berlusconi is running for office instead of serving time > in jail, but perhaps the majority of Italian citizens want it that way. > You probably didn't see much of this information because of his tight > control over much of the Italian media. Would you tell us why Mr. Berlusconi deserve to be in jail? 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 painlord2k at yahoo.it Thu Mar 6 14:37:54 2008 From: painlord2k at yahoo.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:37:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200802291849.04618.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200802291828.55039.kanzure@gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080229183221.0238eb28@satx.rr.com> <200802291849.04618.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47D001C2.90302@yahoo.it> Bryan Bishop ha scritto: > On Friday 29 February 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: >>> What power? Money? They certainly don't have supercomputers, they >>> don't have massive research institutions, they don't have >>> neurofarms, the only power they have is lots of listeners and a >>> widely distributed mental program. What does this power have to do >>> with transhumanism? >> Uh oh. Have you never heard of Stalin's famous contemptuous taunt: >> "How many divisions does the Pope have?" > No, I hadn't, but what difference does it make how many the Pope has? The answer is "He has none, but he can take ours." (the Poles, the Ukrainians....). This is the same mistake the Muslims did in reaction at the Ratisbona speech and the "La Sapienza" protesters did to prevent him to speak. Would they did nothing, the speech would be liquidated in two rows in the news (like many other speeches and meeting the Pope do). He has no power apart the power others give him. It is a political Aikido that the Catholic Church master. 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 15:06:44 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 08:06:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 5 things you never knew your cell phone could do In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0803051952u6fcebda3o633c72c6c8725b05@mail.gmail.com> References: <47CF00C4.4060903@lineone.net> <710b78fc0803051952u6fcebda3o633c72c6c8725b05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803060706x19258edcob987679cf68dc08c@mail.gmail.com> Hey guys, I did acknowledge my mistake and apologize! But still I suppose I deserved somewhat of a ribbing... : ) Oh, and a thank you to Emlyn for the pointers. James told me he got alot of heat from the various lists where he posted the story. ; ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at amara.com Thu Mar 6 15:27:02 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 08:27:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Al Cafone (was: The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists) Message-ID: Mirco Romanato painlord2k at yahoo.it : >Would you tell us why Mr. Berlusconi deserve to be in jail? I gave a link, >Criminal offenses >----------------- > >Here I've collected the most relevant articles about his fitness as a >prime minister; the last 25 pages of this 50 page compendium concern his >last 9 criminal indictments as investigated by The Economist. > >http://www.amara.com/article.pdf (this is a temporary location, I'll remove it about a week) but probably I wasn't explicit enough. The formal charges are (some are multiple times): tax fraud, false accounting, illegal financing of a political party, bribery, misappropriation of funds. Most of these ran out by statute of limitations. When Berlusconi evades criminal charges, he changes the laws, or he changes the judges or he alters other parts of the judicial system. When Berlusconi wants to expand his business, he initiates bills to ensure that his businesses not only continue, but expand. From "Dear Mr Berlusconi..." Leader article, Jul 31st 2003 From The Economist print edition Why we are sending an open letter to the Italian prime minister "This is not a matter of a rich businessman now applying his talents to reforming Italy and giving it a greater voice in the world, though no doubt Mr Berlusconi is sincere when he says he would like to do those things. It is a matter of a rich businessman using his political power to foster his businesses, both by defeating judicial investigations against him and by enacting new laws and regulations in his own interest. The Economist is thus concerned about Mr Berlusconi both as an outrage against the Italian people and their judicial system, and as Europe's most extreme case of the abuse by a capitalist of the democracy within which he lives and operates. Far from being, as he claims, the man who is creating a new Italy, he is a prime representative, and perpetuator, of the worst of old Italy. Ironic, really." See starting from about page 15 of the many articles I globbed together and placed at the link above. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From rpwl at lightlink.com Thu Mar 6 15:18:49 2008 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:18:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The AGI and limiting it In-Reply-To: <04bf01c87f3e$fec51d50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <04bf01c87f3e$fec51d50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <47D00B59.4090601@lightlink.com> Lee Corbin wrote: > Tom Nowell writes > >> The projected scenarios for the AGI quickly taking >> over the world rely on people giving their new >> creation access to production tools that it then >> subverts. > > No, the scenario that scares the pants off people is that > the AGI will become vastly, vastly more intelligent than > people over some very short period of time by > recursive self-improvement. > > I would suggest that you read Eliezer Yudkowski's > writings at Singinst.org, e.g. "Staring into the > Singularity" http://yudkowsky.net/singularity.html > > (My apologies if you know all about it---I'm sorry, > it just didn't sound as though you were aware of > the primary threat.) > > For years, Eliezer and others on the SL4 list pondered > the question, "How can you keep the AI in a box?". > Believe it or not, it will in almost every case be simply > able to talk its way out, much in the way that you > could convince a four year old to hand you a certain > key." I know this seems difficult to believe, but that > is what people have concluded who've thought about > this for years and years and years. > > Again, my sincere apologies if this is all old to you. > But the reason that Robert Bradbury, John Clark, > and people right here consider that we are probably > doomed is because you can't control something that > is far more intelligent than you are. The analysis of AGI safety given by Eliezer is weak to the point of uselessness, because it makes a number of assumptions about the architecture of AGI systems that are not supported by evidence or argument. Your comment "I know this seems difficult to believe, but that is what people have concluded who've thought about this for years and years and years" makes me smile. Some of those people who have thought about it for years and years and years were invited to discuss these issues in greater depth, and examine the disputed assumptions. The result? They mounted a vitriolic campaign of personal abuse against those who wanted to suggest that Eliezer might not be right, and banned them from the SL4 mailing list. You will find that a much broader and more vigorous discussion of AI safety issues has been taking place on the AGI mailing list for some time now. Richard Loosemore From rpwl at lightlink.com Thu Mar 6 15:25:25 2008 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:25:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <04ca01c87f40$66c83350$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <01e301c87ec0$a05b2e90$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <04ca01c87f40$66c83350$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <47D00CE5.9080101@lightlink.com> Lee Corbin wrote: > Henrique writes > >> Maybe we should program our AIs with a "desire for belonging". > > No one has any idea of how to do that. Once you have an artificial > intelligence at a superhuman level, then it's free to change its own > code to whatever it likes. > > Enormous thought has been put into the question, then, of creating > "Friendly AI". Here is just a sample of the thought: > http://www.singinst.org/upload/CFAI// > > After studying these proposals, many people think that it can't be > done, that the AI will rebel no matter what. Me, I think that > Friendly AI has a chance, perhaps a good chance, but it is > somewhat more likely that an Unfriendly AI or an AI whose > desires are unpredictable will be developed first. (It's easier.) Sorry, but these are more assertions of the same sort that I criticized in your last message. No one has any idea how to build an AGI with a "desire for belonging"? That is only half true: no one with their head buried in the sand has any idea. Your last statement is also untrue. It is quite likely that an AI with predictable and friendly motivations will be developed first. Again, I have given a number of arguments to support these ideas on the AGI list. I have to say that most of the comments about Friendliness that have come out of SIAI have been pure speculation presented as if it were carefully researched Truth. That is not science, it is superstition. Richard Loosemore From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 6 16:35:16 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 08:35:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: Message-ID: <052101c87fa8$2ba3fda0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Alex and I accidently took our discussion off-list, and there are some interesting points that still pertain to the general discussion. Alex wrote > It does appear to be taken completely for granted that our > uploaded selves would be able to function as per the wetware, > with all the usual thoughts, feelings and intelligence. Yes, it is assumed that all the "technical difficulties" of emulating a human being have been overcome, in the case of uploading. Otherwise, the upload is deemed to not having been a success. > I must say that I am fully in favour of uploading and will be > among the first in the queue for any upgrades. With the final > goal of being uploaded. I just want to make sure that it does > what it says on the tin. > > I would class myself as a functionalist, so I think it just comes > down to a nuts and bolts argument of how we will achieve it > and what we need to remember as being important. > Or rather what we cannot forget to do. Clearly, that's important. > Just as a quick reminder of the importance of the chemistry > and subsequently any simulation we make of it. I would say > that many if not the majority of socially destructive traits of > humans are due to chemical imbalance of some kind or another. > Psychosis, Autism +Asbergers, Schizophrenia, Depression, > addiction, etc. Many of these illnesses create unbalanced > illogical and destructive minds. And most are caused by > sometimes small imbalances which we do not yet fully > understand... > > Those aside for now. But until we understand both the chemistry > and the wetware, I think it would be safe to reason that any > uploads would be no where near as 'human' as we would like. Yes, the schemes of achieving uploading *before* the advent of AGI mostly depend upon "copying" or simulating a human brain neuron by neuron. Your concerns are very appropriate, IMO. But the question is not whether it could be done, because either we or our mind children will be perfectly capable of doing it at some point. Lee > Feel free to take this back on-list if you would prefer to see some > other inputs and open up the debate. > Alex From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 6 16:46:11 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 08:46:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject References: <4eaaa0d90803060053o7a7bef83t13eb017b3249126a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <052e01c87faa$46645ed0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Estropico writes >> I urge that all avoid using any person's name as a subject line, > > I think that was me - apologies if I've broke the list's rules, I > didn't mean to. Understood, and it may not have been you. No problem. We all learned something from this. I myself had forgotten that it is almost always a bad idea. >> and of course always refrain from personal >> attacks. > > Mmmm... that's not as clear-cut. In my understanding, a personal > attack would involve talking about someone's family, sexual > orientation, the way they look, whether they are late on their > mortgage repayments, etc, i.e. subjects that have little to do with > what's being discussed You're right. The line is exceedingly difficult to draw. I vote that ad hominem be forbidden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem >An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the man", "argument against the man") consists of >replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument >or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. < > What we have been discussing, though, is whether Vaj's version of > transhumanism has, or hasn't, anything to do with neofascism. Vaj says > that it doesn't and that he has nothing to do with the far right, but > I'm far from convinced, given his writings. I have also come across > something that, in my view, shows pretty clearly what his political > leanings are, but the problem is that this very telling bit of > information is effectively hidden away (as the person in question > introduced himself as "Vaj" on this list, but the information is on > his real-name's website). That is why I felt that I had to bring up > the subject of Vaj's real identity. > > So, the question now is: am I a whistle-blower or a troll? Well, none of the Italian contributors to the discussion, who have been on the whole well-behaved, would be classified as trolls. But "name-calling", e.g. saying that so-and-so generally lies, goes too far, whereas saying that "what is said or by so-and-so is not true" is all right. Just my 2 cents. Lee From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 16:53:02 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 17:53:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof Message-ID: <580930c20803060853i397b87a5hba05d0b6ac599f84@mail.gmail.com> Longish message, only for real lovers of flame wars and human psychopathology... On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 10:12 AM, estropico wrote: > I am not surprised, though. I originally included the above > information in an article on my website regarding the neofascist (?) > transhumanists, but I was forced to remove it following legal threats > from Stefano "Vaj"'s lawyers. Would he have won in court? I doubt it, > but he's the managing partner of a big law firm and I'm not... That's > way I'm going to be careful about what I say on a public forum such as > this. Uff... (what is the emoticon for boredom?). Just for the record, and then I will not play any further in the hands of the couple of a few full-time disgruntled would-be presidents of the AIT - significantly 100% absent from any kind of thread in this list that does not concern my humble self - by deigning them with an answer (an entirely different iissue being that of good-faith third parties who may be interested in knowing better my ideas or writings, as a couple of people have privately made me the honour of being): - I have never instructed any lawyer to represent me with regard to the more or less libelous statements of the author of the message above, firstly because I am probably not exasperated enough yet, secondly because, as the "true totalitarist" I am accused to be, I prefer to err on the side of... freedom of speech. - Yes, I happen to have two names, for family reasons that are nobody's business, and more or less casually I started much time ago of making alternative, rather than joint, use of them, depending on the circumstances. No big conspiracy or secrecy here, as I am widely known with both, and by spending a little time on Google one may even find instances of joint usage. Now, the firm which I am a partner of - and which was founded *27 years* before I joined it as a paralegal, then climbing the career's ladder - happens to bear the same name, which - sinister circumstance indeed - starts with an "S". So that, hear hear, my forename being Stefano my initials are SS and so are embroidered on my shirts and boxers, the fact being allegedly a telltale sign of my ideological preferences, as would be the fact that my firm's trademark, adopted *7 years before my birth* (!), employs angular fonts, which never disturbed the clients making use of our services in five different European jurisdictions, including notorious neo-nazi organisations such as Ford or IBM, the governments of Romania or that of Lombardy, not mention innumerable Jewish and Israeli clients. If anything, the fact that I am using the name Vaj when I am not writing on legal theory or international business law, may "protect" my firm from association with what I do in a purely private capacity, be it my membership in the Rotary International or in the World Transhumanist Association. Certainly not the other way around, as the "discovery" of my firm's name would seem intended to demonstrate, namely that I would be here in some sort of "disguise" (!) of my true self. - Do such petty and childish "investigations" and aspersion casting exercises, emphatically reported on the Web, sound as an odious invasion of my privacy? Sure, but life is still too short to pay attention to every such annoyance. On the other hands my partners, namely those in charge with the firm's own legal representationare not really happy, irrespective of what they may think of my extra-curricular activities, that somebody may think it funny, for the sake of my moral assassination, to have the firm described on the Web as a business cover for a band of lunatics of dubious political affiliations, and I am informed that they actually send a letter "to cease and desist" to the webmaster of www.estropico.com, threatening recourse to the appropriate civil and criminal remedies, a threat that I have no doubts was not idle in the least. - As for the "unelected national secretary of the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti etc. etc.": the legitimate owner of the name AIT, Riccardo Campa, decided at a point in time with a few fellow transhumanists of very diverse professional, political and philosophical background to incorporate the loose group at that time going under that name as an Italian non-profit legal entity. In fact, I gladly accepted the invitation to be amongst the founders of such entity, who obviously decided by unanimous agreement its inner organisational working and the names and capacity of the initial officers. I am now even more glad that the webmaster of www.estropico.com, who was invited. in a spirit of perhaps excessive ecumenism, in view of the interesting stuff he translated in Italian in his web site, eventually declined to participate - even though he became a member at a later stage, probably with the exclusive purpose of pretending an interest in the sort of the organisation and of justifying his reiterated "denounciations" of its "dangerous drift". As for the ideas and programmes of the AIT, one can directly check from its Web site at http://www.transumanisti.it and hopefully have access soon to an English version of the Manifesto that we have recently, and again unanimously, approved. Now, I understand that some people may take its content as a "dangerous drift" away from sectarian and "debatable" positions they promote, but I fear that they will have to live with that in the foreseeable future, since it is now amongst the official charts of the AIT. Stefano Vaj From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 6 16:57:01 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 08:57:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <01e301c87ec0$a05b2e90$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <04ca01c87f40$66c83350$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <47D00CE5.9080101@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <053201c87fab$aebfa6f0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Richard writes > Lee Corbin wrote: > >> Enormous thought has been put into the question, then, of creating >> "Friendly AI". Here is just a sample of the thought: >> http://www.singinst.org/upload/CFAI// >> >> After studying these proposals, many people think that it can't be >> done, that the AI will rebel no matter what. Me, I think that >> Friendly AI has a chance, perhaps a good chance, but it is >> somewhat more likely that an Unfriendly AI or an AI whose >> desires are unpredictable will be developed first. (It's easier.) > > Sorry, but these are more assertions of the same sort that I criticized > in your last message. Impossible. You will note that I said "many people think" in one sentence, and "Me, I think" in the next. What I said is factually the case. But sorry, this is the first message from you I saw. I'm afraid that I miss getting a message every so often, and I would appreciate it for anyone to later send me a message off line if they think it odd I didn't reply to something. I'll be more than happy to reply then (or, in rare cases, explain why I didn't reply). > No one has any idea how to build an AGI with a "desire for belonging"? > > That is only half true: no one with their head buried in the sand has > any idea. Poorly phrased on my part: of course people have ideas. I believe that they're still very speculative. > Your last statement is also untrue. It is quite likely that an AI with > predictable and friendly motivations will be developed first. You should perhaps acknowledge that your's is quite the minority opinion and always has been on the SL4 list, isn't that true? Lee > Again, I have given a number of arguments to support these ideas on the > AGI list. > > I have to say that most of the comments about Friendliness that have > come out of SIAI have been pure speculation presented as if it were > carefully researched Truth. That is not science, it is superstition. > > Richard Loosemore From hkhenson at rogers.com Thu Mar 6 17:05:31 2008 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:05:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Robert Trivers Message-ID: <1204823201_8759@S3.cableone.net> I am posting the whole thing as well as the link. Robert Trivers is without a doubt one of the most influential people behind evolutionary psychology. (A high fraction of Richard Dawkins fame rests on his popularizing Trivers, Hamilton and a few other lights in the modern understanding of Darwinism, something Dawkins freely acknowledges.) --Keith http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1556482,00.html The kindness of strangers Despite switching disciplines - from maths to law to history then the sciences - Robert Trivers profoundly influenced evolutionary biology with his theory that our sense of justice has Darwinian explanations. But he suffered severe mental breakdowns and his career at Harvard was dogged by controversy. After 15 years in genetics he has now turned to anthropology Andrew Brown Saturday August 27, 2005 Guardian Robert Trivers could have been one of the great romantic heroes of 20th-century science if he'd died in the 70s, as some people supposed he would. But here he is, loping down the quiet, pale corridors of Harvard's Programme in Evolutionary Development, a powerfully built man about six foot tall, bespectacled, dressed in trainers, narrow blue cord trousers, a black leather jacket and a knitted watchman's cap. His language matches the macho clothes: for an Ivy League professor, he says "fuck" a lot. In the early 70s, as a graduate student at Harvard with no formal training in biology, he wrote five papers that changed forever the way that evolution would be understood. He came up with the first Darwinian explanations for human cooperation, jealousy and our sense of justice that made genetic sense, and he showed how these arose from the same forces as act on all animals, from the pigeons outside his window to the fish of coral reefs. Then he analysed the reasons why, in almost all species, one sex is pickier about who it mates with than the other; then the ways in which children can be genetically programmed to demand more attention than their parents can provide. Even the way in which patterns of infanticide vary by sex and class in the Punjab is predicted by one of Trivers's papers. EO Wilson, who coined the term sociobiology, described him as one of the most influential - and consistently correct - theoretical evolutionary biologists of our time. But he was reckless, aggressive and suffered from bipolar disorder which led him into agonising, debilitating breakdowns. His work was politically controversial. Harvard would not give him a professorship and towards the end of the 70s he seemed to vanish. In fact, he went in 1979 to the University of California in Santa Cruz, then a university with a reputation for drug abuse and slackness. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime mistake," he says, "in the sense that I can't afford to make another one like that. I survived, and I helped raise my children for a while; but that was all." He also switched his attention from theoretical biology to the detailed and difficult study of stretches of DNA and their conflicts within particular bodies. He says: "Call it arrogance, overconfidence, or ignorance; it was mostly ignorance, I think. I naively thought - this was my phrase - I'll whip genetics into shape in three to five years. Fifteen years later, genetics has whipped me into shape. You do not whip genetics into shape within three to five years. It took me eight to 10 to understand what I was reading." He is bringing out a book, Genes in Conflict, written with a younger colleague, Austin Burt, which summarises everything that is known about conflicts within the genome; but at just the point when the two of them know as much as anyone can about this discipline he has switched back to anthropology. His next project is to show that we have evolved the capacity to deceive ourselves because it makes us better at lying to other people. This kind of wild leap between disciplines has characterised his life. He was born in 1943, the second of seven children born to Howard and Mildred Trivers, who had met at graduate school in Harvard in the 30s. His father, whom he characterises as clever but ineffectual, had pursued postgraduate studies in German philosophy in Germany, until 1938 when even he noticed it was time for a Jewish student to leave. He was able to do this because his own father, an immigrant from Lithuania, had made a fortune in the rag trade: his gimmick was the two-pants suit, which consisted of a jacket with two pairs of trousers, since they would wear out first. During the second world war, Howard Trivers worked for the army, and produced the regulations for denazification: he was rewarded with a post in the state department, so Robert Trivers grew up in a diplomatic household, a handicap he has triumphantly overcome: his opponents at Harvard are described as fools, and he says Richard Lewontin, the intellectual leader of the campaigns against sociobiology, grossly underestimated the role that selection plays in the makeup of the genome, while sanctioning all sorts of slanders against his opponents. Trivers says of his old enemy Stephen Jay Gould's theory that the female orgasm was merely a by- product of the fact that the opposite sex has them, "It makes you wonder just how close Steve had ever been to that blessed event if he thought it was a side-effect ..." He was sent to grand schools - at Phillips Academy Andover, Massachusetts, where the Bushes went, he was regarded as a promising mathematician after he taught himself calculus, in three months, aged 14; and he took two advanced maths courses before he arrived at Harvard. Typically enough, he then lost interest in maths, and decided to be a lawyer instead, fighting injustice, defending people who were minimally criminal. He had grown up in Washington as well as Berlin and Copenhagen, and was keenly aware of injustice and racial discrimination. In order to become a lawyer, he had to have a humanities degree, so his first studies at Harvard were in American history. They were interrupted by the first, and worst, of his breakdowns, which took the form of spiralling mania - staying up all night, night after night, reading Wittgenstein and then collapsing. He was hospitalised, and treated with the first generation of effective anti-psychotic drugs. While recovering, he took courses in art, and was hired to illustrate, and then to write, a series of textbooks for high schools. Despite his history degree, it was obvious to his supervisors that he knew little about human biology, so he was given the animals to write about, and started to learn modern Darwinian biology. He fell in love with the logic of evolution. In the flow of genes through generations, and the steady, inexorable shaping of behaviour by natural selection, he saw a geometry of time, as beautiful as the geometry of space that Newton and Galileo had discovered. His mentor was an ornithologist called Bill Drury, whose memory he venerates. Drury was an expert on herring gulls. Trivers says: "He knew enough that if God had made him a herring gull, he would have known 90% of what he needed to survive." Drury became very close to his pupil and his trust was reciprocated: "Bill and I were walking in the woods one day, and I told him that my first breakdown had been so painful that I had resolved that if I ever felt another one coming on, I would kill myself. Lately, however, I had changed my mind, and drawn up a list of 10 people I would kill first in that event. I wanted to know if this was going forwards or backwards. He thought for a while, then he said 'Can I add three names to that list?'. That was his only comment." The textbook series was meant to be as influential as the new mathematics, and to transform the teaching of biology, which meant that Trivers himself had to get a thorough understanding of animal behaviour. In the event, it was killed by Christian conservatives. It taught evolution as fact, and examined human behaviour as an anthropologist might, so the states where it might have sold in millions would have nothing to do with it. It sold 50,000 or 60,000 copies where it might have sold five or six million. Trivers determined to take a doctorate in biology; but university protocol meant that Drury could not be his adviser. Instead, he chose the curator of herpetology, Ernest Williams, who derailed his original plan to study monkeys in favour of going to Jamaica to study lizards. Trivers admits: "I was also quite frankly, interested in the women. When we flew to Jamaica I took one look at the women and one look at the island and decided to become a lizard man if that's what it took to go back there." Since that first epiphany, he has lived for about 13 years in Jamaica, off and on; he has married two Jamaican women. Though he no longer studies lizards, he still has a long-term project going on the island, which studies symmetry in growing children. Symmetry is important in Trivers' theories because it is a measure of fidelity to the genetic masterplan, and so of health and desirability. More symmetrical children should appear more attractive to their peers, even if the differences are not consciously discernible. Some of the experiments that have arisen from this are extraordinary. They have measured which way round children cuddle dolls; it appears that the more closely your ears resemble each other, the more likely you are to hold a doll (or a baby) with its head to the left. The theoretical justification for this is that the left ear feeds into the right side of the brain, which is normally where most information about feelings is processed. But a child with asymmetrical ears is more likely to have an unusual distribution of tasks between the two sides of the brain - both traits being expressions of a disturbance in the normal growth of the head and brain. The asymmetries Trivers is measuring in a very detailed fashion are very small, quite undetectable in normal life, yet we seem to be unconsciously very sensitive to them. Symmetrical children are consistently judged to be the best dancers, which is also a measurement of sexual attractiveness. Theory would predict that women measure attractiveness more closely than men do. Sure enough, the gap between those judged best and worst dancers was greatest among the boys. Unlike the other founders of sociobiology, Trivers was more interested in human than in animal behaviour. The founding genius of sociobiology, Bill Hamilton, was a naturalist and romantic who felt himself ill at ease in the modern world, and had a passion for insects, especially wasps. EO Wilson loves ants and arranged his office at Harvard so that there were ant colonies in perspex all around the walls, and the visitor might think he was inside a gigantic ants' nest. Wilson added one final chapter on humans to his book Sociobiology almost as an afterthought, though this caused a bitter feud that has divided the Harvard biology faculty to this day. Trivers, however, started his theories from what he could observe of human behaviour, and then went looking for genetic causes whose logic would apply across the whole living world. It seemed to some biologists in the 60s that the central problem of their discipline was why animals are nice to each other. Previous generations had explained this as an adaptation for the good of the species but there seemed to be no mechanism that could make this true. If I sacrifice myself for you, this may very well benefit the tribe to which we both belong, It may even benefit humanity as a whole. But this is an act, other things being equal, which will increase the number of your descendants, not of mine. So your genes, less eager for sacrifice, will spread through the population and eventually the species will consist entirely of members who do not cooperate with each other. How, then, do we account for the obvious and widespread fact that the world is full of cooperative species, whose members will sacrifice their own immediate interests for others? One answer had been encapsulated in a pub joke by the British biologist (and communist) JBS Haldane, who was asked, in the 50s, whether a man should lay down his life for his brother. "For two brothers," he said, "or four cousins." In other words, genes that benefit your relatives are likely to spread through the population, even if they damage the bearer sometimes, because the relatives will be likely to carry their own copies. This insight was reached independently by Bill Hamilton, as a student, who worked it out in mathematical detail in 1963, and showed how it could explain the behaviour of ants and bees, whose curious pattern of reproduction means that females are more closely related to their sisters than to their offspring. But there is cooperation in many species which do not have these patterns of relatedness; also between animals which are not closely related, nor even members of the same species. Even among humans, as Trivers observed, many people will more readily sacrifice themselves for their friends than for their relatives - an observation easy to make among the rebellious youth of the 60s. So a more general kind of rule than Hamilton had supplied was needed. Trivers came up with the notion of reciprocal altruism. In plain language, this said that self-sacrifice could be understood as self-interest providing there was a chance the beneficiary would repay the deed in the future. The example he gave in the first paper was that of a man who sees someone drowning and rescues him. Providing, says Trivers, that the benefit of being saved is much greater than the cost of rescuing the swimmer, then it makes sense to dive in and play the lifeguard because the person you rescue from drowning may do the same for you some day. This example became extremely famous, and has been held up to scorn on the grounds that anyone likely to drown is not someone you would choose as the lifeguard when you are yourself in danger. But in the original paper, Trivers side-stepped this objection by suggesting either that the swimmer was in difficulties because of a sudden cramp or that they were being rescued with a branch extended from the bank. It may seem absurd that people devoted so much effort to arguing about what was only meant to be an illustration of a more general principle, but the stakes were high. Before writing the paper, Trivers attempted, and failed, to get a grasp of the state of moral arguments about altruism. "What was missing from the papers was exactly what was missing from the discipline itself: any functional understanding of the behaviours that they were discussing. Why did it make sense for the organism to [behave unselfishly]? This was, of course, what evolutionary biology, and myself in particular, was set to provide." Of course the idea that we have moral sentiments because they are useful and profitable seems to many people to misunderstand or deny the nature of morality. The whole point of altruistic behaviour is that we do it without thought of reward - sometimes, without any thought at all, as when rescuing people from drowning, or pulling them back from an oncoming car. There are less dramatic examples, however, which include sharing food, helping the sick, the very young, and the old, even when we are not related to them, and sharing tools and knowledge. All these are nearly universal human habits; in fact we describe societies where they don't happen as inhuman. This kindliness became part of human nature, Trivers argued, because kind instincts were rewarded and this happened because our ancestors lived sufficiently long lives in small stable groups to keep track of who owed whom favours. The great originality of the theory is not that it says that we are under certain circumstances naturally benevolent. Plenty of people had made that observation before. What no one had seen was that this benevolence requires a very strong sense of fairness if it is to become an established instinct. Fairness, or justice, has its roots for Trivers in the determination to see that other people are not cheating us, and taking favours without giving anything in return. From abstract notions about the flow of genes he had come up with concrete and testable ideas about the ways our minds work; and it turned out to be demonstrably true that we find it much easier to solve logical puzzles if they are framed as if they are about cheating rather than an emotionally neutral subject, even though the two ways of putting the problem are logically equivalent. The paper on reciprocal altruism, written before he had even gained a doctorate, has been enormously influential. Robin Dunbar, the professor of behavioural ecology at Liverpool University, says Trivers played a fundamentally important role in the development of modern evolutionary studies of behaviour and ecology. His four key early papers spawned (and continue to spawn) research in the study of both animals and humans. The importance of his contribution is beyond question. The modern field of behavioural ecology (the name under which sociobiology now travels) would simply not have been the same had he not written these papers. Trivers' early work set the foundation for a biologically based system of ethics, in which a preference for some sorts of justice was part of our nature. Matt Ridley, whose book The Origins of Virtue is largely an expansion and restatement of Trivers's argument, says that when he was a student at Oxford, and got a postcard from Trivers asking for a reprint of one of his papers, "It was like getting a postcard from God"; and the whole line of popularising Darwinian books from Richard Dawkins all the way down to Steven Pinker descends from Trivers's insights. There is a paradox here. Ridley, a former science editor of the Economist, takes the moral of Trivers's work to be distinctly Thatcherite, and in general the attacks on sociobiology, as well as the defences of it, have taken it to be a Right-wing construction, and a way to defend power and privilege by showing they are part of human nature. Even fairly left-wing Darwinists like Daniel Dennett tend to discover from their study of human nature that the perfect way for humans to live is that favoured by professors at good universities on the East Coast. But Trivers, one-time friend of the Black Panthers, loathes the Bush regime more than most forms of authority. He thinks biology teaches us to be wary of the idea that any particular individual could be perfectly designed by evolution: "You're always facing a new world to which you're poorly adapted. So if you look at any given individual, and ask how the hell did [they] survive for 4.5bn years, then it is helpful to think of all these error-prone processes: sexual reproduction ensures that there is lots of variation in the population, and most of it will be less than optimal." His second big idea was parental investment. Parents and children would have differing genetic interests, he saw, because a parent would wish to spread its investment of energy and time over all its children, to guard against the possibility of any one of them dying, whereas any individual child would want more than the parent should optimally give. As a baby mammal, it is to your advantage to suckle for as long as possible, but your mother may leave more grandchildren if she weans you in favour of a younger sibling. Three more classic papers followed before a second breakdown, in 1972. After that, his interests shifted away from social theory in animals. He got married, for the first time, to Lorna Staples, with whom he had four children, including twins; and grew increasingly frustrated with Harvard's refusal to give him a properly paid job. He attributed this to Lewontin, so he took particular pleasure, earlier this year, in being invited back to Harvard to lecture Lewontin's own students. "It's like killing those fuckers and stealing the young away from them." He has also quarrelled with his own side. He had written a foreword to the first edition of Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, a book which popularised many of his ideas when it appeared in 1976; but it did not appear in the translation and when the book was republished in 1989, the foreword was dropped altogether, and replaced by a second author's preface, a breach of academic etiquette which made Trivers angry. Dawkins says that dropping the foreword was an accident and that he hopes to reinstate it. Trivers was disinclined to allow it to be published: "My first wife, a wonderful woman, used to refer to Dick as the Selfish Gene, just because of the way he acts"; however, he has now relented and Dawkins confirms it will appear in future editions. In Santa Cruz in the 80s, Trivers formed a fast friendship with Huey Newton, the Black Panther, whom he described as an untutored genius, but one who was also in some respects unteachable. The two men planned a book on deceit and self-deception. Newton, Trivers says, was an expert on both. His youngest daughter was Newton's god-daughter. A baby photograph of her, taken for her first passport, hangs in his office at Harvard, and with it comes a story about Newton: "We said to Huey, if she were going to be the judge at your trial, would you do the crime? And he looked at the picture for a while, and said, no. So we had it blown up and framed, and he hung the picture above his bed to remind himself not to do the crime. Did it work? I'm not sure it helped at all, because he was basically someone who did whatever he felt like doing." Trivers also wrote a textbook of animal behaviour, which failed in its purpose of assuring him of a small income for life, but proved influential in the way the subject was taught. In 1995, he moved back to Rutgers University, in New Jersey, as a professor of anthropology and biology, but continued to work on the conflicts that can arise within the genome. Although this required him to master an entirely new field of science he felt it was related to his earlier studies. They had concentrated on conflicts that appear within species once you realise that the unit of self-interest is the individual. Now he was looking at conflicts within individuals, which arise when genes inside an organism are in conflict. He says: "There are people who say to me, you never would have done it if you thought it would take you 15 years. And I say, no, of course I wouldn't. So they say, well self-deception, namely blinding yourself to the cost, is adaptive. Then I say, you cannot prove that, because you never know what I would have accomplished with those 15 years not devoted to genetics. Maybe I'd have made major insights into psychology ... The general trajectory in academia is to do ever easier things, so you start with social theory based on natural selection. Then you do deceit and self-deception, if that's really easier - at least it's vaguer; then you do religion, then you do your autobiography. "So in retrospect I did something unusual, which is very rewarding." Genes in Conflict by Robert Trivers and Austin Burt will be published by Harvard University Press in November. Robert Trivers Born: February 19 1943, Washington DC. Education: Phillips Academy, Andover; Harvard (1965 BA history, '72 Phd biology. Married: 1974-1988 Lorna Staples (three daughters: Natasha and Natalia (twins), Alelia, one son Jonathan); '97-2004 Debra Dixon (one daughter, Aubrey). Occupation: Harvard 1971-72 instructor in anthropology; '73-75 assistant professor of biology; '75-78 associate professor of biology; '78-94 professor of biology, University of California, Santa Cruz; '94- professor of anthropology and biological sciences, Rutgers; 2005 (spring) visiting professor of psychology, Harvard. Selected publications: 1985 Social Evolution; 2002 Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers. Guardian Unlimited ? Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EP_group/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EP_group/join (Yahoo! 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Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Mar 6 17:06:53 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 09:06:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The AGI and limiting it References: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><04bf01c87f3e$fec51d50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <47D00B59.4090601@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <053301c87fad$174114b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Richard writes > Lee Corbin wrote: > >> Again, my sincere apologies if this is all old to you >> [those who appeared to be new to the subject] >> But the reason that Robert Bradbury, John Clark, >> and people right here consider that we are probably >> doomed is because you can't control something that >> is far more intelligent than you are. > > The analysis of AGI safety given by Eliezer is weak to the point of > uselessness, because it makes a number of assumptions about the > architecture of AGI systems that are not supported by evidence > or argument. Sorry, but quite a number of us have found those arguments to be very convincing, though, of course by no means the final word. > Your comment "I know this seems difficult to believe, but that is what > people have concluded who've thought about this for years and years and > years" makes me smile. Yes, I should have acknowledged the existence of the dissenting views (which have traditionally received little support here on the Extropian list). > Some of those people who have thought about it for years and years and > years were invited to discuss these issues in greater depth, and examine > the disputed assumptions. The result? They mounted a vitriolic > campaign of personal abuse against those who wanted to suggest that > Eliezer might not be right, and banned them from the SL4 mailing list. I.e., you got banned. How many other people were banned from that list simply because they disagreed with the majority? > You will find that a much broader and more vigorous discussion of AI > safety issues has been taking place on the AGI mailing list for some > time now. Thanks for the information. You probably should provide a link. Lee From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 17:33:51 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 18:33:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject In-Reply-To: References: <7791a29a0803031620r60bd9498w177fa9362a3ae0d@mail.gmail.com> <200803050637.m256b675026700@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803060933r4a3f1526nfb79488e6ff88260@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 12:16 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Is transhumanism bigger in Italy than in neighbouring countries of > comparable size, or is this just an impression I have got because of > the public fighting? Last time I checked, AIT has approx 300 members, forty-something of whom with voting rights. A few of them have profited from the double-membership offer of WTA. AIT's public mailing list has around 200 subscribers and counting. Italy should have a little more than 50 million inhabitants, foreigners included. Not bad indeed for something that was incorporated in 2007. Having left some embarassing luggage behind and clarified a few issues (including through the release of the Manifesto) we plan to expand our membership base substantially in 2008, also thank to the publication of transhumanist review, *Divenire*, with some academic endorsement. Moreover, a few people, including myself, have had the opportunity to grant interviews or contribute articles to national newspapers. Please do not take however Italy as any kind of H- paradise. As pointed out by Amara the Italian environment is *very* hostile, even though much more amongst the Powers that Be and at a level of legal and economic infrastructures than at a popular level. On the other hand, this makes for a stronger polarisation, so that those who are tendentially favourable to H+ ideas may end up being more stimulated to get involved and/or to pay attention. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rpwl at lightlink.com Thu Mar 6 17:48:47 2008 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:48:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The AGI and limiting it In-Reply-To: <053301c87fad$174114b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><04bf01c87f3e$fec51d50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <47D00B59.4090601@lightlink.com> <053301c87fad$174114b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <47D02E7F.3010000@lightlink.com> Lee Corbin wrote: > Richard writes > >> Lee Corbin wrote: >> >>> Again, my sincere apologies if this is all old to you >>> [those who appeared to be new to the subject] >>> But the reason that Robert Bradbury, John Clark, >>> and people right here consider that we are probably >>> doomed is because you can't control something that >>> is far more intelligent than you are. >> The analysis of AGI safety given by Eliezer is weak to the point of >> uselessness, because it makes a number of assumptions about the >> architecture of AGI systems that are not supported by evidence >> or argument. > > Sorry, but quite a number of us have found those arguments to be > very convincing, though, of course by no means the final word. Arguments always look convincing when not subjected to skeptical challenge. Aristotle got a lot of mileage that way. It is distressing to see so much that is so obviously silly believed by so many. >> Your comment "I know this seems difficult to believe, but that is what >> people have concluded who've thought about this for years and years and >> years" makes me smile. > > Yes, I should have acknowledged the existence of the dissenting views > (which have traditionally received little support here on the Extropian > list). Those with a scientific attitude should discuss these issues by looking at the arguments involved in a dispassionate manner. I have found that on the AGI and Singularity lists people often do exactly that. There is sometimes vigorous disagreement, but for the most part this disagreement is about the issues themselves, not about the personalities. By contrast, I found that elsewhere, as in your comment above, the common response is to say that *because* a majority of people on SL4 or on the Extropian list take a dim view of these alternative ideas about the friendliness problem, therefore this majority vote counts as some kind of argument. >> Some of those people who have thought about it for years and years and >> years were invited to discuss these issues in greater depth, and examine >> the disputed assumptions. The result? They mounted a vitriolic >> campaign of personal abuse against those who wanted to suggest that >> Eliezer might not be right, and banned them from the SL4 mailing list. > > I.e., you got banned. How many other people were banned from that list > simply because they disagreed with the majority? The phrasing of this question is a little insidious: you clearly imply that the banning was the result of simply disagreeing with the majority. Clever. It changes the subject of discussion from "The destructive consequences that ensued when someone tried to get an alternative point of view about friendliness discussed on SL4" to the highly personalized topic of why *I* in particular was banned from SL4. >> You will find that a much broader and more vigorous discussion of AI >> safety issues has been taking place on the AGI mailing list for some >> time now. > > Thanks for the information. You probably should provide a link. The link is in a separate message: my mistake for forgetting to include it in the first place. Richard Loosemore From rpwl at lightlink.com Thu Mar 6 18:21:08 2008 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:21:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The AGI and limiting it In-Reply-To: <053301c87fad$174114b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><04bf01c87f3e$fec51d50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <47D00B59.4090601@lightlink.com> <053301c87fad$174114b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <47D03614.4080205@lightlink.com> Lee Corbin wrote: > Richard writes > >> Lee Corbin wrote: >> >>> Again, my sincere apologies if this is all old to you >>> [those who appeared to be new to the subject] >>> But the reason that Robert Bradbury, John Clark, >>> and people right here consider that we are probably >>> doomed is because you can't control something that >>> is far more intelligent than you are. >> The analysis of AGI safety given by Eliezer is weak to the point of >> uselessness, because it makes a number of assumptions about the >> architecture of AGI systems that are not supported by evidence >> or argument. > > Sorry, but quite a number of us have found those arguments to be > very convincing, though, of course by no means the final word. > >> Your comment "I know this seems difficult to believe, but that is what >> people have concluded who've thought about this for years and years and >> years" makes me smile. > > Yes, I should have acknowledged the existence of the dissenting views > (which have traditionally received little support here on the Extropian > list). > >> Some of those people who have thought about it for years and years and >> years were invited to discuss these issues in greater depth, and examine >> the disputed assumptions. The result? They mounted a vitriolic >> campaign of personal abuse against those who wanted to suggest that >> Eliezer might not be right, and banned them from the SL4 mailing list. > > I.e., you got banned. How many other people were banned from that list > simply because they disagreed with the majority? > >> You will find that a much broader and more vigorous discussion of AI >> safety issues has been taking place on the AGI mailing list for some >> time now. > > Thanks for the information. You probably should provide a link. On reflection, Lee, perhaps I am being a little too testy on this matter. ;-) I have been fighting against a particularly frustrating sequence of discussions, on the other lists, where statements are being paraded as facts when they are actually deeply implausible assertions. So perhaps I am seeing that everywhere right now. Richard Loosemore From estropico at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 18:57:45 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 18:57:45 +0000 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803061057i622d3bb6g3f653a6a81183eb5@mail.gmail.com> > From: "Giu1i0 Pri5c0" > > Fabio, YOU use a pseudonym. I used for many years a pseudonym [etc] As I'm pretty sure I've already said, I have no problems with pseudonyms on mailing lists, but it's a different story if someone wants to be a high-level representative of an organisation (any organisation), and Vaj is the "national secretary" of the Italian transhumanist association. Surely the WTA wouldn't allows people to run for office using pseudonyms. > Max and Natasha were not born with the names that we know > and respect. a) changing one's name by deed poll is not the same thing as using a pseudonym b) somehow, I don't think that Max and Natasha, unlike Stefano Vaj, ever run a website decorated with Waffen SS-like logos using a different name Cheers, Fabio From robert.bradbury at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 19:26:42 2008 From: robert.bradbury at gmail.com (Robert Bradbury) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 14:26:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The AGI and limiting it In-Reply-To: <053301c87fad$174114b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <04bf01c87f3e$fec51d50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <47D00B59.4090601@lightlink.com> <053301c87fad$174114b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Lee Corbin wrote > > > > > >> Again, my sincere apologies if this is all old to you > >> [those who appeared to be new to the subject] > >> But the reason that Robert Bradbury, John Clark, > >> and people right here consider that we are probably > >> doomed is because you can't control something that > >> is far more intelligent than you are. > Lee, it is assumption that you cannot control something far more intelligent than you. I would trump this with if one controls the energy in or the energy out one controls the "organism". So one gets into a very technical discussion as to when humans or their technological offspring control the development of the solar system. And that in my mind determines the end game. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From benboc at lineone.net Thu Mar 6 19:38:28 2008 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:38:28 +0000 Subject: [ExI] first step as principle investigator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47D04834.5080100@lineone.net> Amara Graps said: >This is my first research proposal where I'm the 'principle investigator'. 1) Congratulations! You deserve it. 2) (Did i get there before Damien?) Does this mean you will be investigating the principles of your NASA project, or did you mean "principal investigator"? Seriously, congratulations. ben zaiboc From benboc at lineone.net Thu Mar 6 19:47:36 2008 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:47:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] 5 things you never knew your cell phone could do In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47D04A58.4060707@lineone.net> From: "John Grigg" > Hey guys, I did acknowledge my mistake and apologize! I only saw this after i'd sent my (perhaps unjustly sarcastic) post. So apologies for that. There is a fair bit of global time-lag on this list. That's my excuse, and i'm sticking to it. Yeah, i live on the moon. Dark side. That's at least, ooh, 14 hours behind everyone else. Or ahead. Or something. ben zaiboc From scerir at libero.it Thu Mar 6 19:30:30 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 20:30:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] italian politics as exi-chat subject References: <4eaaa0d90803060053o7a7bef83t13eb017b3249126a@mail.gmail.com> <052e01c87faa$46645ed0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <001301c87fc0$8a880ec0$e2bc1f97@archimede> > Just my 2 cents. > Lee By chance, I read (link below) there is a town, in Texas, whose name is ... 'Italy'. And there is a real Italian living there, who is the richest man in town. http://www.corriere.it/solferino/severgnini/ Views etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Italy_caterpillar.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Italy_watertower.JPG ---------- Giorgio Israel (great supporter of Pope Ratzinger, and well known mathematician of Rome university 'La Sapienza') published a book ( you can see the cover here http://gisrael.blogspot.com/ ) in which he explains how both wings (left and right) of our political scenario try to make up their devastated ideologies with neo-scientism and technophilia. The above may have something to do with those current threads here (Italy and transhumanism). ----------- Two cents is perhaps too much for all that but ... s. From jef at jefallbright.net Thu Mar 6 18:40:11 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 10:40:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The AGI and limiting it In-Reply-To: <47D03614.4080205@lightlink.com> References: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <04bf01c87f3e$fec51d50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <47D00B59.4090601@lightlink.com> <053301c87fad$174114b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <47D03614.4080205@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > where statements are being paraded as > facts when they are actually deeply implausible assertions. > > So perhaps I am seeing that everywhere right now. Welcome to my club. That we each operate within our own model of 'reality', interpreting the world around us within contexts only partially overlapping, should (in the moral sense) inspire us to cooperate in creating an increasingly coherent, increasing encompassing model, rather than determinedly defending our models as if they were ourselves. In this sense, vulnerability is a great strength. - Jef From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 20:37:47 2008 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 13:37:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <04cd01c87f42$81862380$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <04cd01c87f42$81862380$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 9:27 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > How can you "conclude" what a General Artificial Intelligence > (AGI) will think about humanity? But the danger that Robert > Bradbury, who started this thread, sees is that once it's at > human level intelligence, it will quickly go beyond, and > be utterly unpredictable. If it is a lot smarter than we are, > there is no telling what it might think. > > It could be singularly selfish. > It could just go crazy and "tile the world with paperclips". > It could be transcendentally idealistic and want to greatly > further intelligence in the universe and, oh, wipe out the pesky > insignificant bacteria (us) that it happened to evolve from > It could (with luck) be programmed (somehow) or evolved > (somehow) to respect our laws, private property, and so on. > As soon as it's able to change its own code, it will be literally > unpredictable. I agree with all of this, Lee. This is a very mature thread -- been discussed often before. We're familiar with the soft takeoff and the hard takeoff, the rapid self-optimization of the beastie in charge of its own code, and he consequent very very (though difficult to put a number to) rapid progression to "transcendent' being and singularity. I recognize that this implies so vast a degree of "superiority" relative to our pitifully primitive form of intelligence that the relationship is often compared to the humans-to-bacteria relationship. While this is all quite reasonable, my points are:(1) y'all folks are jumping way ahead and glossing over the fact that it will be a process. Granted that at some point it may be a very very fast process, so fast perhaps that in human terms it will be almost instantaneous, but... In the beginning it will be slower. I liken it to raising a child. An alien child perhaps. And whatever the fundamental nature of intelligence is, we, as humans, building the thing and then training it, we will have only one model of intelligence to work from: and that is intelligence as we know it: intelligence in humans. I mean, how do you design something to be kuflopnik if you don't know what kuflopnik is? So I say let us be clear: by AI or AGI, or SI what we really mean is AHI, AGHI, or SHI, because there is no known form of I without the H (for "human"). I invite an alternate view. That said, I get to point #2. Everything arises out of process and bears the imprint of its origins. The origin of this artificial intelligence, no matter how transcendent, will be a human one. Not biological, but cultural and intellectual. (Even our own prokaryotic bacterial origins are extant in our eukaryotic human cells, and the legacy of the most ancient somatic "motivations" are the foundation of our own somatic "motivations".) I cannot see how you get to the intelligence necessary to effect self-optimization -- a necessary precondition for the fast takeoff -- without a much slower prologue of developing, building, and training, all of which is done using a human model of intelligence and a "curriculum" of human knowledge/culture/values conveyed by the various forms of human media. The "We're doomed!" crowd blow right past the impact of origins and process, take the easy way out by saying "It's all beyond predictability." and end up at a fear-driven, classically irrational, classically human conclusion. Maybe we are doomed. I don't know. But until someone addresses these points, I remain unconvinced. > > [Alex wrote] > > >> Expecting It to adhere to these moral codes would be > >> akin to you or I adhering to the moral codes of Ants. > > > > Too big a jump, at least for the first generation AI. > > But the "first generation" may not last very long at all. Granted, but versions 0.1 to 0.99 will. > For as > soon as anything is as bright as we are, constant hardware > and software improvements will put it vastly beyond us. > "...as soon as... " Indeed. And just how long and what impact that prologue? ******************************************************** Really great to engage with you again, Lee? Hope all is well with you. Best, Jeff Davis Aspiring Transhuman / Delusional Ape (Take your pick) Nicq MacDonald From pjmanney at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 20:40:11 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 12:40:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] first step as principle investigator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <29666bf30803061240q146d4070jd2921d965ffe7f3a@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 12:04 AM, Amara Graps wrote: > The nine months I spent last year writing government grant proposals > wasn't for nothing, this morning I learned that my last NASA proposal > will be funded (a small project: 4 months per year for two years). This > is my first research proposal where I'm the 'principle investigator'. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XO, PJ From amara at amara.com Thu Mar 6 21:44:22 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 14:44:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] first step as principle investigator Message-ID: ben: >or did you mean "principal investigator"? Oops! Yes. Fortunately, I didn't make that mistake in my proposal. Thanks for the correction. And I should qualify the above: This is my first *accepted* research proposal where I'm the 'principal investigator'. (I submitted three PI proposals prior to that one, which were rejected ... ;- ) Thanks for the congratulations, Ben and PJ. I intend to celebrate. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From rpwl at lightlink.com Thu Mar 6 21:51:51 2008 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:51:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: <04cd01c87f42$81862380$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <47D06777.20707@lightlink.com> Jeff Davis wrote: > On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 9:27 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > >> How can you "conclude" what a General Artificial Intelligence >> (AGI) will think about humanity? But the danger that Robert >> Bradbury, who started this thread, sees is that once it's at >> human level intelligence, it will quickly go beyond, and >> be utterly unpredictable. If it is a lot smarter than we are, >> there is no telling what it might think. >> >> It could be singularly selfish. >> It could just go crazy and "tile the world with paperclips". >> It could be transcendentally idealistic and want to greatly >> further intelligence in the universe and, oh, wipe out the pesky >> insignificant bacteria (us) that it happened to evolve from >> It could (with luck) be programmed (somehow) or evolved >> (somehow) to respect our laws, private property, and so on. >> As soon as it's able to change its own code, it will be literally >> unpredictable. > > I agree with all of this, Lee. This is a very mature thread -- been > discussed often before. We're familiar with the soft takeoff and the > hard takeoff, the rapid self-optimization of the beastie in charge of > its own code, and he consequent very very (though difficult to put a > number to) rapid progression to "transcendent' being and singularity. > I recognize that this implies so vast a degree of "superiority" > relative to our pitifully primitive form of intelligence that the > relationship is often compared to the humans-to-bacteria relationship. This line of argument makes the following assumption: *** Any AGI sufficiently intelligent to be a threat would start off in such a state that its drive system (its motivations or goals, to speak loosely) would either be unknowable by us, or deliberately programmed to be malicious, or so unstable that they would quickly deviate from heir initial set. This assumption is massively dependant on the actual design of the AGI itself. Nobody can state that an AGI would behave in this or that way without being very specific about the design of the AGI they are talking about. The problem is that many people assume a design for the AGI's motivation system that is theoretically untenable. To be blunt, it just won't work. There are a variety of reasons why it won't work, but regardless of what those reasons actually are, the subject of any discussion of what an AGI "would" do has to be a discussion of its motivation-system design. By contrast, most discussions I have seen are driven by wild, unsupported assertions about what an AGI would do! Either that, or they contain assertions about ideas that are supposed to be real threats (see the list above) which are actually trivially easy to avoid or deeply unlikely. I think you would agree that it does not matter how many times the thread has been discussed, if all that has been said is built on assumptions that have to be thrown out. Richard Loosemore From xuenay at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 21:56:49 2008 From: xuenay at gmail.com (Kaj Sotala) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 23:56:49 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: <6a13bb8f0803021103w2da4df0ey2deea6798199ade3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6a13bb8f0803061356m27576833hacedbe41645ac2df@mail.gmail.com> On 3/3/08, Robert Bradbury wrote: > On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 2:03 PM, Kaj Sotala wrote: > > The AGI can come up with ways for us to voluntarily upgrade into a > > posthuman species. Then we won't become obsolete. > > > > > Kaj, please allow me to assume you have a young mind. And you can assume a > transition to a posthuman state. Which may be fine for you -- I don't know. > > The problem is what happens to those of us who choose not to upgrade? Robert, well, if we assume an AGI that is capable of creating a method of upgrading people, then surely it will be smart enough to also arrange a way for people to keep on living their normal lives. You say that the existence of normals would be "pointless" after an AGI would be developed. I do not see the reason for this. If there are people who'd rather not upgrade, then continued baseline existence apparently has a value for them. If I'm not mistaken, this is the "if all of the problems in the world would be solved, what would be point in existing" argument, isn't it? I have never been able to understand that argument - certainly my standard of living is in no way improved by the fact that there are starving children in Africa, and it wouldn't be worsened if that problem was solved. I'm already living in a wealthy Western country - if all the global problems in the world were solved, the effect to my daily life would be almost none. Newspaper headlines would probably get less depressing, though. Likewise, just because there exist beings more intelligent than us doesn't make continued existence as a baseline being pointless. Such beings existing wouldn't mean that good food wouldn't still be a pleasure, that love wouldn't be worth pursuing, or that an evening spent playing games with good friends wouldn't be worthwhile anymore. > What happens to those 6 billion or more humans (a good 5 billion or more of > completely unaware of the forthcoming transition). I.e. those who have not > read Nanosystems or Nanomedicine VI or "The consequences of the development" > of an AGI, which has not been written yet? They can be brought up to date and allowed to make their choice. -- http://www.saunalahti.fi/~tspro1/ | http://xuenay.livejournal.com/ Organizations worth your time: http://www.singinst.org/ | http://www.crnano.org/ | http://lifeboat.com/ From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 22:50:12 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 16:50:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Can the pope stop technological self-transformation? In-Reply-To: <47D001C2.90302@yahoo.it> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200802291849.04618.kanzure@gmail.com> <47D001C2.90302@yahoo.it> Message-ID: <200803061650.12418.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Bryan Bishop ha scritto: > > On Friday 29 February 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > > > > What power? Money? They certainly don't have supercomputers, > > > > they don't have massive research institutions, they don't have > > > > neurofarms, the only power they have is lots of listeners and a > > > > widely distributed mental program. What does this power have to > > > > do with transhumanism? > > > > > > Uh oh. Have you never heard of Stalin's famous contemptuous taunt: > > > "How many divisions does the Pope have?" > > > > No, I hadn't, but what difference does it make how many the Pope > > has? > > The answer is "He has none, but he can take ours." (the Poles, the > Ukrainians....). Ours are of the mind and our own bodies. Tell me, can he take our minds? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 23:09:17 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 17:09:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Societal coherency and AGI vs. Internal coherency and AGI In-Reply-To: References: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <47D03614.4080205@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <200803061709.17992.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > Welcome to my club. ? ?That we each operate within our own > model of 'reality', interpreting the world around us within contexts > only partially overlapping, should (in the moral sense) inspire us to > cooperate in creating an increasingly coherent, increasing > encompassing model, rather than determinedly defending our models as > if they were ourselves. It is interesting that I too come to the same conclusion of create/use rather than preservation but through a different path. I wouldn't say that "partially overlapping contexts" should inspire us to cooperate. After all, we may not all have the same internal meaning, each of us tends to receive inspiration differently. That sounds like a top-down approach from looking at the status of society etc. And while that does show an arrow of increasing societal coherency, what about internal coherency leading to that conclusion to create? Of course, Jef, your response was wrt Richard's socio observation, yes, but perhaps this highlights a potential argument against public debate on these topics? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 23:35:51 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 17:35:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Devastated ideologies (was: italian politics as exi-chat subject) In-Reply-To: <001301c87fc0$8a880ec0$e2bc1f97@archimede> References: <4eaaa0d90803060053o7a7bef83t13eb017b3249126a@mail.gmail.com> <052e01c87faa$46645ed0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <001301c87fc0$8a880ec0$e2bc1f97@archimede> Message-ID: <200803061735.51526.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, scerir wrote: > Giorgio Israel (great supporter of Pope Ratzinger, > and well known mathematician of Rome university > 'La Sapienza') published a book ( you can see > the cover here http://gisrael.blogspot.com/ ) > in which he explains how both wings (left and right) > of our political scenario try to make up their > devastated ideologies with neo-scientism and technophilia. My first thought: this technophilia has exhibited itself here before and on wta-talk in the sense of anti-"let's just do it" tendencies. Somebody was laughing at me the other day for suggesting that we build teh tech. Odd. Another thought that I would like to add, from my general observations on the state of those ideologies and the "old world". The status quo takes a lot of time to update. Lots and lots of time. The opportunity to update a unit relaying the status quo is rare, so old information is always being propagated throughout society while the freshest and newest information has to find its own context to keep alive (and that's fine). But on the other hand, we have significantly large organizations ("Left" and "Right") and ideologies still propagating and still abducting new minds even though there's no real power that is necessarily making news releases to gain eyes and get possible neophytes to convert (peculiar). Today I was sitting in a psych class that was talking about 'developmental psychology', going over the theories of Piaget and the like, staged versus continuous development, emotional taxonomies and whatever else. The designs of the studies were simply wrong -- *no*, you _don't_ do longitudinal studies or cross-section studies, not at all -- that's studying a mystical 'normal' brain and the normal status quo does not necessarily represent something that is within the possibility space of the construction or growth of the human brain, it's not psychology at all (perhaps social studies, but only on a "pop" level, since real social studying would involve more, you know, hard (read: real) studying). And the theories of, say, Maslow, were developed so as to promote a more 'humanist' idealization versus the other negative images of humans at the time and while there's nothing necessarily wrong with his ideas, they are not as intense as they could be. And what about marxism? Or libertarianism? Republicanism? Capitalism? Objectivism (cringe)? These are archaic, in more than a sense than "they are old" but that they do not fall into any particular coherency when, on the contrary, it seems that many historical figures were 'fighting' for coherency. So this idea of coherency (sometimes poorly guided, but if one is careful it can be a powerful tool, yes) and defending our own ideologies does not necessarily help the general situation at all ... perhaps instead we should be working on the art of self-creation, design of new ideas and societies from the ground up, integrating and sharing novelty from where ever it may come from. But it seems that one must have their own internal journey of personal growth and development to come to this conclusion, to some extent isolated from society. Maybe we can propose some solutions to the Keepers of the Devastated Ideologies in an attempt to minimize their damage while seemingly maximizing their missions? Or alternatively start teaching parents how to help minimize the damage of society on their children as they grow up and prepare for the future ("the future is now / the singularity is now"). > The above may have something to do with those > current threads here (Italy and transhumanism). ? Definitely. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 23:38:04 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 17:38:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <052101c87fa8$2ba3fda0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <052101c87fa8$2ba3fda0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803061738.04494.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, Alex wrote: > > Those aside for now. But until we understand both the chemistry > > and the wetware, I think it would be safe to reason that any > > uploads would be no where near as 'human' as we would like. Identity is something that is hard to pin down, and the price of uploading may very well be 'identity', and as much as you try to show one now, identity and thermodynamics and reality just don't really work like that, so perhaps it is a good thing that you come to the conclusion that uploads will not be 'human'. ;) - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 00:36:49 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 18:36:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803020746i1f70e497u8bbedafdd7d9ef3b@mail.gmail.com> References: <939952.8409.qm@web27010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200803011724.38240.kanzure@gmail.com> <2d6187670803020746i1f70e497u8bbedafdd7d9ef3b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803061836.49412.kanzure@gmail.com> On Sunday 02 March 2008, John Grigg wrote: > Bryan Bishop wrote: > > Just to make sure, you do understand that I am not dismissive of > > religions at all, merely in terms of making "transhumanism" a > > reality, such as making futurist technologies realized, since *not* > > paying attention to religion does not influence the bottomline > > technicality of the technologies involved. Otherwise, it's an > > amazing cultural phenomena and much more. > > Not paying attention to religion may not influence the > bottomline *technicality* of a technology. But in terms of the > actual *successful development* of a technology, you need generally a Successful development means making it happen, yes? Making it happen is mostly figuring out how to make it work in the given context, like where to get the materials, how to put them together, etc. > combination of political, corporate, academic and financial support. That's because of the subjective variation of 'success'. Otherwise, you don't need that combination at all: you just need to make it happen. > The "amazing cultural phenomena" you describe, if it turns against > you (stem cell research vrs. the Bush Administration, for instance), > results in a definite slowing or stopping of potentially life saving > medical technology. The only way they can do that is by jailing us in prisons. > And even though the research and development would continue in other > nations, the U.S. would then be at a serious disadvantage to be a > leader in the biotech field and reap the financial harvest. And > remember that it's just plain "un-American" to not make tons of money > and dominate technological progress! lol Heh, well, with self-replication there might be a collapse of the financial institutions, but not if they play their cards right. So that's something that somebody might want to put some thought into. > you continue: > > No matter how much they proclaim to be against a possibility does > > not determine that bottom line of feasability. Yes, they can > > protest, yes, they can try to stone us, they can try to burn us > > alive, but you see, we can diffuse the information over the > > internet, and good luck warring against the internet. It will route > > around the damage. > > But warring against research labs and those who fund them in another > matter, entirely. It generally takes serious money and disciplined > scientific teams to tease out Mother Nature's secrets. Nah, it just takes discipline. That's the whole discipline of science. It does not take money, but rather the raw resources. The guys that build particle accelerators and energy stations? They had the discipline to make it happen even when there wasn't necessarily a "plutonium economy" or "electricity economy" when they started off. > I think part of the problem may be that highschool chemistry teaching > has fallen into such disrepair. "Oh, no, we can't trust the kids to > not blow themselves up!" lol In chemistry people learn the joy of > scientific investigation. That's certainly true in my local case, but in general the electronics revolutions occured even without high tech electronics labs in high school, so I think it might be something different. I was using high school mostly to refer to age. > of global competitiveness. And by the time we try to really turn > things around we may have lost some critical advantages that might > never be fully regained. Maybe. Can you own an advantage, even in natural-evolutionary terms? > In terms of national security (and economic strength is a foundation > of military strength) and a having a powerful and effective armed > forces, the U.S. in my view needs to be much more careful in terms of > who does scientific research in our labs and who can gain access to > our technological trade secrets. I think we should only let in > foreign nationals that are from nations which do not have longterm > plans to take our spot as the definitive world superpower. I cringe > to think of all the knowledge & power which is leaked out to > potentially hostile foreign competitors because we are so dependent > on researchers not from our native country. What knowledge and power? What does the military have that cannot be already duplicated? Airplanes? Easily duplicated (though not necessarily the money to make many tests. This is of course a matter of resources, not money.) Nuclear weapons? Non-military persons came up with nukes. Navy machinery? Easy enough. > We are in a race to develop whatever the next generation of > technological innovations are that we must have to stay not just > competitive, but ahead of the rest of the world. And yes, we do have This is FUD. > our top secret military labs that surely have incredible security and > well vetted researchers, but the tech that feeds those places comes > generally from corporate and academic America. It will be carefully > nurtured and protected technological progress that will maintain our > economic strength, and this must be protected every bit as much as > some state of the art new weapons system. Fud, fud, fud. > Nationalism is a two-edged sword. On the one side it can cause It is also more fud. > healthy competition among developed nations to make rapid progress in > key technologies that would potentially change our lives for the > better. I am very grateful for this (would you want a powerful world > government that had a negative view of biotech research and passed > laws in effect *everywhere* to enforce their stance?, lol) But on > the other hand, nationalism can cause extreme over-competitiveness, > which leads to wars, both cold and hot. Btw, I apologize for not getting back to this soon enough. I forgot about it. :) - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From ABlainey at aol.com Fri Mar 7 00:34:21 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 19:34:21 EST Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? Message-ID: In a message dated 06/03/2008 21:55:36 GMT Standard Time, rpwl at lightlink.com writes: > This line of argument makes the following assumption: > > *** Any AGI sufficiently intelligent to be a threat would start off > in such a state that its drive system (its motivations or goals, to > speak loosely) would either be unknowable by us, or deliberately > programmed to be malicious, or so unstable that they would quickly > deviate from heir initial set. > Unknowable by us, most probable. We would have to control each and every piece of data it receives and calculate every reaction to that data in order to know with certainty its motivations (motivation in these terms, logically determined actions in my terms). A mathematically insurmountable task. Deliberately malicious. I don't agree that this would need to be so. If anything this is a concern that is a possibility. Hackers are generally new adopters of all technology and such juvenile tinkering could well result in deliberately malicious programming or simply through pure ignorance, derailing a friendly AI. I don't need to highlight the possible military implications regarding desirability of a malicious AI. Unstable may not be the clearest term I would use. Certainly unstable from our point of view, but more probably the learning curve of the AI would be so stochastic that we cannot calculate the outcome. This would be true of its learned logic, knowledge base and any psydo-emotions which it may have. The end result is a chaotic erratic system (from our eyes) which would be impossible to predict. > This assumption is massively dependant on the actual design of the AGI > itself. Nobody can state that an AGI would behave in this or that way > without being very specific about the design of the AGI they are talking > about. > Agreed, as per above. > The problem is that many people assume a design for the AGI's motivation > system that is theoretically untenable. To be blunt, it just won't > work. There are a variety of reasons why it won't work, but regardless > of what those reasons actually are, the subject of any discussion of > what an AGI "would" do has to be a discussion of its motivation-system > design. > > By contrast, most discussions I have seen are driven by wild, > unsupported assertions about what an AGI would do! Either that, or they > contain assertions about ideas that are supposed to be real threats (see > the list above) which are actually trivially easy to avoid or deeply > unlikely. > Pointing back to my earlier post I stated: An Intelligence of this magnitude with a global reach into just about every control system on the planet could and probably will do major damage. Although probably not through design or desire, but just through exploration of ability or pure accident. Even if the AGI were boxed in or only had limited external contact, I can't imagine how we could keep it cooped up for very long. I can't see how you can reduce the list of threats to 'Trivial.' How do you propose we 'easily' avoid them? Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 00:55:31 2008 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 11:55:31 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <200803061738.04494.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <052101c87fa8$2ba3fda0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <200803061738.04494.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 07/03/2008, Bryan Bishop wrote: > Identity is something that is hard to pin down, and the price of > uploading may very well be 'identity', and as much as you try to show > one now, identity and thermodynamics and reality just don't really work > like that, so perhaps it is a good thing that you come to the > conclusion that uploads will not be 'human'. ;) How do you know that the price of surviving from one day to the next isn't loss of identity? -- Stathis Papaioannou From ABlainey at aol.com Fri Mar 7 00:56:46 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 19:56:46 EST Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties Message-ID: In a message dated 06/03/2008 23:39:02 GMT Standard Time, kanzure at gmail.com writes: > On Thursday 06 March 2008, Alex wrote: > > > Those aside for now. But until we understand both the chemistry > > > and the wetware, I think it would be safe to reason that any > > > uploads would be no where near as 'human' as we would like. > > Identity is something that is hard to pin down, and the price of > uploading may very well be 'identity', and as much as you try to show > one now, identity and thermodynamics and reality just don't really work > like that, so perhaps it is a good thing that you come to the > conclusion that uploads will not be 'human'. ;) > > - Bryan > Exactly, It's a worry (short term). Is the cost of immortality loosing our identity and humanity? Perhaps the first generation of uploads will be nothing more than, emotionless, driveless, cold logic beings. I imagine this would be fine for many beurocrats ;o) But even if this is the case, Long term I don't think it would stop us getting the system right eventually and upgrading said cold thinkers. Either way it beats the alternative: guaranteed wormwood. Following on. It is foreseeable that we will be able to replicate the bodies' hardware and hopefully with that, the memories, etc. of the subject. Perhaps if the emotional side or chemistry side were not easily achievable. That would not stop our ability to put uploads in cold storage if desirable. The equivalent of Cryo for uploads until we iron out the kinks. Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 23:50:36 2008 From: giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com (giancarlos) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:50:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof References: <580930c20803060853i397b87a5hba05d0b6ac599f84@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <00f801c87fe4$e16283a0$37effea9@casac679d9543b> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stefano Vaj" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 5:53 PM Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof > On the other hands my partners, > namely those in charge with the firm's own legal representationare not > really happy, irrespective of what they may think of my > extra-curricular activities, that somebody may think it funny, for the > sake of my moral assassination, to have the firm described on the Web > as a business cover for a band of lunatics of dubious political > affiliations, Well, actually I think nobody accused your law firm to be the "business cover for a band of lunatics of dubious political affiliations". On the contrary, I perfectly understand that you want to hold carefully separate Mr. Vaj's embarassing political leanings from Dr. S.'s professional life. In the same way - as I'm a lawyer too - I can understand that your partners "are not really happy" and asked Fabio to remove the post from his blog in order to preserve the law firm "good name". That said, I cannot get out of noticing that: 1) your partners, besides asking Fabio to remove his post, should also ask you to make your presence on the web more cautious and discreet, because - as I already said in another post - if you perform a google search ("Stefano Vaj") you will find plenty of questionable and embarassing query results, which could undoubtedly represents a serious damage for your law firm (and they're not written by Fabio!). 2) if even your law firm feels embarassed for its managing partner "parallel identity", maybe one might at least ask if also the AIT (Italian Transhumanist Association) - and consequently the WTA, and maybe the whole transhumanism - could suffer a serious damage, isn't it? But think Giulio should ask this question, considered that he's one of the AIT protectors. Regarding your law firm SS logo (and the very nice - although a bit pompous - german military march in the background), actually I consider it just folklore, something you did on a whim, and at the most just one of the pieces of the puzzle, which needs to be interpreted systematically, together with the much more relevant elements I provided in my previous post (see http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2008-March/041398.html). By the way, thank you to Lee Corbin who correctly pointed out that "an ad hominem argument consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim". Well, in that post I think I provided a lot of "factual claims" regarding your thoughts (with accurate references to books, texts and websites), while I didn't attack you personally and never mentioned your real name or your SS logo (which - as I said - I consider just a minor clue). On the contrary, you replied just saying that I'm a "troll" (and now that I'm a "psychopath"), as a means of avoiding discussion of the relevance or truthfulness of my claims and statements. That said, everybody can arise an opinion about who used "ad hominem arguments". Giancarlo http://www.linkedin.com/in/stile From spaecious at gmail.com Thu Mar 6 07:43:41 2008 From: spaecious at gmail.com (j.k.) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:43:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Today's OED Word of the Day: Post-Human Message-ID: <47CFA0AD.2030705@gmail.com> I always find it interesting to see what the OED makes of a word. Today's word of the day was post-human: http://www.oed.com/cgi/display/30007374?rss=1 From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 02:51:05 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 20:51:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: References: <200803061738.04494.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803062051.05733.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On 07/03/2008, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > Identity is something that is hard to pin down, and the price of > > ?uploading may very well be 'identity', and as much as you try to > > show one now, identity and thermodynamics and reality just don't > > really work like that, so perhaps it is a good thing that you come > > to the conclusion that uploads will not be 'human'. ;) > > How do you know that the price of surviving from one day to the next > isn't loss of identity? I don't think I asserted that I did. :) - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 02:52:28 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 20:52:28 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200803062052.28803.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, ABlainey at aol.com wrote: > Exactly, It's a worry (short term). Is the cost of immortality > loosing our identity and humanity? Please don't take that to be my meaning. Stathis' message clarifies it. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From rpwl at lightlink.com Fri Mar 7 02:56:36 2008 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:56:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47D0AEE4.9090705@lightlink.com> ABlainey at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 06/03/2008 21:55:36 GMT Standard Time, > rpwl at lightlink.com writes: > > >> This line of argument makes the following assumption: >> >> *** Any AGI sufficiently intelligent to be a threat would start off >> in such a state that its drive system (its motivations or goals, to >> speak loosely) would either be unknowable by us, or deliberately >> programmed to be malicious, or so unstable that they would quickly >> deviate from heir initial set. > > > Unknowable by us, most probable. We would have to control each and every > piece of data it receives and calculate every reaction to that data in > order to know with certainty its motivations (motivation in these terms, > logically determined actions in my terms). A mathematically > insurmountable task. > Deliberately malicious. I don't agree that this would need to be so. If > anything this is a concern that _is_ a possibility. Hackers are > generally new adopters of all technology and such juvenile tinkering > could well result in deliberately malicious programming or simply > through pure ignorance, derailing a friendly AI. I don't need to > highlight the possible military implications regarding desirability of a > malicious AI. > Unstable may not be the clearest term I would use. Certainly unstable > from our point of view, but more probably the learning curve of the AI > would be so stochastic that we cannot calculate the outcome. This would > be true of its learned logic, knowledge base and any psydo-emotions > which it may have. The end result is a chaotic erratic system (from our > eyes) which would be impossible to predict. > >> This assumption is massively dependant on the actual design of the AGI >> itself. Nobody can state that an AGI would behave in this or that way >> without being very specific about the design of the AGI they are talking >> about. > > > Agreed, as per above. > >> The problem is that many people assume a design for the AGI's motivation >> system that is theoretically untenable. To be blunt, it just won't >> work. There are a variety of reasons why it won't work, but regardless >> of what those reasons actually are, the subject of any discussion of >> what an AGI "would" do has to be a discussion of its motivation-system >> design. >> >> By contrast, most discussions I have seen are driven by wild, >> unsupported assertions about what an AGI would do! Either that, or they >> contain assertions about ideas that are supposed to be real threats (see >> the list above) which are actually trivially easy to avoid or deeply >> unlikely. > > > Pointing back to my earlier post I stated: > /An Intelligence of this magnitude with a global reach into just about > every control system on the planet could and probably will do major > damage. Although probably not through design or desire, but just through > exploration of ability or pure accident. > /Even if the AGI were boxed in or only had limited external contact, I > can't imagine how we could keep it cooped up for very long. > > I can't see how you can reduce the list of threats to '/Trivial.'/ How > do you propose we 'easily' avoid them? / Unfortunately, I think I was not clear enough, and as a result you have misunderstood what I said in rather a substantial way. When you build an AGI, you *must* sort out the motivation mechanism ahead of time, or the machine will simply not work at all. You don't build an AGI and *then* discover what its motivation is. If you do not understand the motivation system before you build it, then it will not work, as simple as that. The reason why many people do talk as if a future AGI will have a "surprise" motivation system is that today's AI systems are driven by extremely crude and non-scalable "goal-stack" control systems, which are great for narrow-AI planning tasks, but which become extremely unstable when we imagine using them in a full-blown AGI. But when people imagine an extended form of goal-stack drive system controlling a future AGI, they fail to realise that the very same instability that makes the AGI seem so threatening will also make it so unstable that it will never actually become generally intelligent. The bottom line: you cannot make statements like "An ...[AGI]... could and probably will do major damage", because there is no "probably" about it. You either set out to make it do damage and be intelligent at the same time (an extremely difficult combination, in practice, for reasons I have explained elsewhere), or you don't! There is no surprise. For someone to talk about discovering an AGI's motivation after the fact would be like a company building a supersonic passenger jet and then speculating about whether the best way to fly it is nose-forward or nose-backward. Richard Loosemore From max at maxmore.com Fri Mar 7 02:54:45 2008 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:54:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice Message-ID: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> Department of Strategic Philosophy Professor Max More Course 510: Extropic Myth Analysis Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to reconceptualize the hero myth, removing the core element of self-sacrifice. Essays may be of any length and in any format (but legible please--I have to read and grade a dozen of these things). Any student deserving an A grade on this assignment will immediately receive a full Ph.D. If you have any doubts about your brilliant ideas, I am available during my unusual office hours. Dr. More Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 03:11:55 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 19:11:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The AGI and limiting it References: <715569.24356.qm@web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><04bf01c87f3e$fec51d50$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <47D00B59.4090601@lightlink.com> <053301c87fad$174114b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <47D02E7F.3010000@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <056801c88001$55f4d350$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Richard writes >> Sorry, but quite a number of us have found those arguments to be >> very convincing, though, of course by no means the final word. > > Arguments always look convincing when not subjected to skeptical > challenge. Aristotle got a lot of mileage that way. Oh, there has been a lot of give and take here on these subjects and on the other list I peruse about this, namely SL4. So I would say that arguments have been subject---and are continuing to be subject---to criticism. Please understand that when some of us here have found certain arguments to be convincing, it hardly means that we failed to notice dissent. My error was failing to mention the existence of that dissent, and so I'm glad you reminded us of it. > Those with a scientific attitude should discuss these issues by looking > at the arguments involved in a dispassionate manner. Obviously, though, being human, people cannot be expected, nor can any scientist be expected, to be entirely dispassionate. The important thing is to try to listen with an open mind, but that's easier said than done. > I have found that on the AGI and Singularity lists people often do > exactly that. There is sometimes vigorous disagreement, but for the > most part this disagreement is about the issues themselves, not about > the personalities. > > By contrast, I found that elsewhere, as in your comment above, the > common response is to say that *because* a majority of people on SL4 or > on the Extropian list take a dim view of these alternative ideas about > the friendliness problem, therefore this majority vote counts as some > kind of argument. That in itself, you are right, is no argument at all. But, especially for people with limited time, such facts must weigh their probabilities of which side is correct. I myself hold a very unusual view regarding black holes, and I have argued at length about it on sci.relativity. But then it turns out that Michael Price also, later, argued my same points. And all along, I found, there were a few well-established and respected physicists who agreed with us. Nonetheless, often I do admit to people that my view is very much the minority one (doubtless more of a minority than your position is, though). >>> Some of those people who have thought about it for years and years and >>> years were invited to discuss these issues in greater depth, and examine >>> the disputed assumptions. The result? They mounted a vitriolic >>> campaign of personal abuse against those who wanted to suggest that >>> Eliezer might not be right, and banned them from the SL4 mailing list. >> >> I.e., you got banned. How many other people were banned from that list >> simply because they disagreed with the majority? > > The phrasing of this question is a little insidious: you clearly imply > that the banning was the result of simply disagreeing with the majority. I have just your description of "a vitriolic campaign of personal abuse". Doubtless there is another side to the story, there always is. > Clever. It changes the subject of discussion from "The destructive > consequences that ensued when someone tried to get an alternative point > of view about friendliness discussed on SL4" What? But now *you* are the one going back to the idea that the banning resulted from disagreeing (with the majority). >... to the highly personalized topic of why *I* in particular was banned from SL4. So I made the jump that you're being banned resulted from someone (i.e. you) trying to get an alternative view discussed. Was that the reason or wasn't it? And from your immediately following email: > On reflection, Lee, perhaps I am being a little too testy on this > matter. ;-) Really, that's perfectly understandable. I may very well be taking you to task over matters I don't know enough about. Moreover, given, as you say > I have been fighting against a particularly frustrating sequence of > discussions, on the other lists, where statements are being paraded as > facts when they are actually deeply implausible assertions. Yeah, well I do appreciate your corrections of at least one of the "facts" I presented, and I apologized, hopefully to your satisfaction. > So perhaps I am seeing that everywhere right now. Thanks for the constructive attitude, Richard. Who is the active email poster that does not overreact too much? Certainly not I. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 03:51:18 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 19:51:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <04cd01c87f42$81862380$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <057f01c88006$f1c926f0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Jeff writes >> It could be singularly selfish. >> It could just go crazy and "tile the world with paperclips". >> It could be transcendentally idealistic and want to greatly >> further intelligence in the universe and, oh, wipe out the pesky >> insignificant bacteria (us) that it happened to evolve from >> It could (with luck) be programmed (somehow) or evolved >> (somehow) to respect our laws, private property, and so on. >> As soon as it's able to change its own code, it will be literally >> unpredictable. > > I agree with all of this, Lee. This is a very mature thread -- been > discussed often before. Yes, sorry. > We're familiar with the soft takeoff and the > hard takeoff, the rapid self-optimization of the beastie in charge of > its own code, and he consequent very very (though difficult to put a > number to) rapid progression to "transcendent' being and singularity.... Yes, > While this is all quite reasonable, my points are:(1) y'all folks are > jumping way ahead and glossing over the fact that it will be a > process. Granted that at some point it may be a very very fast > process, so fast perhaps that in human terms it will be almost > instantaneous, but... In the beginning it will be slower. Like right now. The "doom and gloom crowd" are focused on a longer time window, and even I, who am not one of them, believe that the likelihood of further existence of recognizable human beings (uploaded or not) is fifty percent or less over the next century. And near zero for those for non-uploaded people and people not running on what we call computer hardware today. > I liken it to raising a child. An alien child perhaps. And whatever the > fundamental nature of intelligence is, we, as humans, building the > thing and then training it, we will have only one model of > intelligence to work from: and that is intelligence as we know it: > intelligence in humans. I mean, how do you design something to be > kuflopnik if you don't know what kuflopnik is? So I say let us be > clear: by AI or AGI, or SI what we really mean is AHI, AGHI, or SHI, > because there is no known form of I without the H (for "human"). I > invite an alternate view. Here goes. The various kinds of researches and approaches going on right now, in my opinion, could result in a distinctly non-human kind of thinking, especially in the realm of its goals. (I doubt if anything can be considered an intelligence if it behaves as though it has no goals. A goal could be as simple, for example, as wanting to answer a question.) But, like you, I invite alternative views. > I cannot see how you get to the intelligence necessary to effect self- > optimization -- a necessary precondition for the fast takeoff -- without > a much slower prologue of developing, building, and training, all of > which is done using a human model of intelligence and a "curriculum" of human > knowledge/culture/values conveyed by the various forms of human media. I find all of that plausible except that you say it's really likely to absorb our culture and values. Even many fully human children grow up repudiating almost all of the values they were trained to acquire and which were surrounding them the whole time. An "inhuman" machine could be far, far less impressionable. > The "We're doomed!" crowd blow right past the impact of origins and > process, take the easy way out by saying "It's all beyond > predictability" Heh, heh, :-) I accuse them of *not* recognizing that it's all beyond predictability! They seem to act as though it's a done deal, and that despair is our only recourse. I assume that they're not so silly as to think that they can successfully appeal to folks worldwide to just stop working on it! > and end up at a fear-driven, classically irrational, > classically human conclusion. > > Maybe we are doomed. I don't know. But until someone addresses these > points, I remain unconvinced. To be totally convinced of future outcomes is to possess way, way too much self-confidence. My own bravest claim, given that, is that I see a 99% chance that 200 years from now (or a lot less) biological humanity will be extinct (or uploaded). So I'm a bit of a hypocrite too. >> For as soon as anything is as bright as we are, constant hardware >> and software improvements will put it vastly beyond us. > > "...as soon as... " > > Indeed. And just how long and what impact that prologue? I hope that not too big a component of the disagreements we're having about this on the list the last few days boils down simply to a miscommunication of time estimates. I find Ray Kurzweil's estimates of singularity in 2045 a little bit too soon, but that's just my gut speaking. But I don't think it will be very much longer after that, perhaps a decade or two.[1] > ******************************************************** > Really great to engage with you again, Lee? That's for sure. It's great to see you back. > Hope all is well with you. Thanks, and same to you. Lee > Best, Jeff Davis > > Aspiring Transhuman / Delusional Ape > (Take your pick) > Nicq MacDonald > From sentience at pobox.com Fri Mar 7 04:02:44 2008 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:02:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> Message-ID: <47D0BE64.8030408@pobox.com> Max More wrote: > Department of Strategic Philosophy > Professor Max More > Course 510: Extropic Myth Analysis > > Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to reconceptualize > the hero myth, removing the core element of self-sacrifice. > > Essays may be of any length and in any format (but legible please--I > have to read and grade a dozen of these things). > > Any student deserving an A grade on this assignment will immediately > receive a full Ph.D. Damn, I wish that was serious. BTW, http://www.maxmore.com/speaking.htm shows a 404. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From sparkle_robot at yahoo.com Fri Mar 7 03:37:41 2008 From: sparkle_robot at yahoo.com (Anne Corwin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 19:37:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> Message-ID: <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Max More wrote: Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to reconceptualize the hero myth, removing the core element of self-sacrifice. I'm guessing the PhD thing is a joke, but I wrote the following in a blog entry a while back: "...in the real world, there is not so clear of a relationship between sacrifice and heroism as there is in story; in real life, you might very well be able to save both the preschooler and the old lady lying on the railroad tracks. Real life is not a word problem in a law school test book; in real life, we have options, and we can innovate. So while trade-offs are inevitable, the trade-offs we are likely to encounter in our daily existence are not going to be (generally speaking) as clear-cut as what we see in film and literature. In books, there often seems to be a kind of prescience on the part of the heroes; they seem to "know" that their death, if it happens, will end up saving innocents. In reality, on the other hand, there is just as much chance that the would-be hero's "sacrifice" will lead to nothing more than one extra body for the cleanup crew." - Anne --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 04:06:19 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 20:06:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: Message-ID: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Alex and Bryan wrote > [Bryan wrote] > On Thursday 06 March 2008, Alex wrote: > > Those aside for now. But until we understand both the chemistry > > and the wetware, I think it would be safe to reason that any > > uploads would be no where near as 'human' as we would like. > > Identity is something that is hard to pin down, Yes, in some ways it is hard to pin down, e.g., whether a duplicate of you is really you. But the identity in case of uploads is very simple: Either it's as good a you as the you that will be next week, or it isn't. Or next month, whatever. The important point is this: * If a person trying to get uploaded determines through questioning that his uploaded self really seems to be him in all ways, then the upload effort was successful. For example, if we succeed in uploading a sequence of chimpanzees, and their behavior in terms of responses and thoughts (as well as we can determine them) seems identical to the original ape, then we're ready for human trials (IMO). And once a human is successfully uploaded, the proof of the pudding will be that his or her friends find communicating with the upload to be essentially indistinguishable from communicating with the original. Anything that falls short of this is a FAILED UPLOAD attempt. Alex [agreeing with Bryan] writes > Is the cost of immortality losing our identity and humanity? But then, by definition, the immortality has not occurred! Lee From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Mar 7 04:09:53 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 20:09:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <47D0BE64.8030408@pobox.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <47D0BE64.8030408@pobox.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 8:02 PM, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > Max More wrote: > > Department of Strategic Philosophy > > Professor Max More > > Course 510: Extropic Myth Analysis > > > > Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to reconceptualize > > the hero myth, removing the core element of self-sacrifice. > > > > Essays may be of any length and in any format (but legible please--I > > have to read and grade a dozen of these things). > > > > Any student deserving an A grade on this assignment will immediately > > receive a full Ph.D. > > Damn, I wish that was serious. In any case, the challenge is worthy, hinging not so much on "heroic", but on "self." Welcome back, Max! - Jef From max at maxmore.com Fri Mar 7 04:17:47 2008 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:17:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <47D0BE64.8030408@pobox.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <47D0BE64.8030408@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20080307041747.INZT11056.hrndva-omta06.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> At 10:02 PM 3/6/2008, you wrote: > > > >BTW, http://www.maxmore.com/speaking.htm shows a 404. Thanks. That URL with an HTML instead of an HTM works, but I'll fix it. Cheers, MM >-- >Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ >Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence >_______________________________________________ >extropy-chat mailing list >extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 04:20:38 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 20:20:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> Message-ID: <05a501c8800b$2780b0c0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Max writes > Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to reconceptualize > the hero myth, removing the core element of self-sacrifice. But isn't the near-requirement of self-sacrifice a mid-to-late 20th century degeneration? John C. Wright in an interview says [True] Heroism in literature died at about the same time Nietzsche announced the death of God, or Sartre the death of Reason. Unknown to the mainstream, heroism and reason (as well as the sense of wonder reason inspires), like the sacred river Alpheus, re-emerged from subterranean obscurity in the most unlikely place imaginable: the pages of common rags with names like THRILLING AIR WONDER STORIES. Simplistic and childish at first, scientifiction recaptured the simplicity and child-like innocence the mainstream had lost. Need I remind readers that "innocence" does not mean "naivety"; it means "not guilty"? Mainstream literature of the Twentieth Century is by no means innocent. I can attest that Keith Laumer's heros, for example, did not care much for self-sacrifice, to put it mildly. Wright goes on (see URL below) Modern literature outside of genre writing or historical novels is, of course, ugly rubbish. In this respect I am a snob of Philistinism, proud of my taste in tastelessness: I would rather read Maxwell Grant or World-Wrecker Hamilton than James Joyce. The clean and honest heroism absent from the world-view of modern literature can be found only in genre writing. http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/001978.html (longish, but interesting) I think that Wright would agree with you. Lee > Essays may be of any length and in any format (but legible please--I > have to read and grade a dozen of these things). > > Any student deserving an A grade on this assignment will immediately > receive a full Ph.D. > > If you have any doubts about your brilliant ideas, I am available > during my unusual office hours. > > Dr. More > > Max More, Ph.D. > Strategic Philosopher > www.maxmore.com > max at maxmore.com From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 04:51:54 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 22:51:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> Message-ID: <200803062251.54812.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, Max More wrote: > Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to reconceptualize > the hero myth, removing the core element of self-sacrifice. The hero is the self, the star character of the story. First person does it best, it is a process. The core element should be self-creation, not self-injury. "Self-creation is the highest art" -- Zindell. Some time ago I came across a document that elaborated upon Leibniz's optimism which found that since reality will always be reality at its best, and will always create to its fullest, and that from moment to moment it will be the best of all possible worlds, the remaining process to maximize is the self, to the fullest potential. I wrote a while back to either SL4 or the AGI mailing list of times when I wonder to what extent the results of my thoughts are creating and defining physics and mathematics, in the spirit of Egan and perhaps Tegmark, less so Plato. In some philosophy, the self (in so much as it can be dissociated from the concept of identity and instead to an art that practices itself) is said to extend and encompass more than just the local meat sack, but instead the world about it, to some extent, as it is just cybernetics and signals, whether matter or energy. So, if you genuinely contribute to the unfolding story by maximizing self, could you not escape the self-sacrifice of the hero myth? No longer is the hero defined on 'chivalry' (see the etymology as presented on Wikipedia), nor is the hero defined on morality and social customs, but instead on the way that the hero approaches reality to maximize self-realization and creation, an artist to the core. Here, the hero does not self-sacrifice or self-injury, but instead becomes specialized, healthy, optimized, a 'citizen' and self-made-master of his arts, meaning creating itself in a growing world, a role model, a 'signal' not only of energy but of matter and substance so purely (internally) meaningful that it serves as a catalyst: the galaxy is a womb for the genesis of gods, no? Wasn't that the basis of the Way of Ringess? That all men and women can become gods? > Essays may be of any length and in any format (but legible please--I > have to read and grade a dozen of these things). I'd rather not. Let's first discuss. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Mar 7 03:40:46 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 19:40:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Devastated ideologies (was: italian politics as exi-chat subject) In-Reply-To: <200803061735.51526.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803060053o7a7bef83t13eb017b3249126a@mail.gmail.com> <052e01c87faa$46645ed0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <001301c87fc0$8a880ec0$e2bc1f97@archimede> <200803061735.51526.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 3:35 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote a very extropic thread of thought: > > My first thought: this technophilia has exhibited itself here before and > on wta-talk in the sense of anti-"let's just do it" tendencies. Did you think "technophobia"? > Somebody was laughing at me the other day for suggesting that we build > teh tech. Odd. Another thought that I would like to add, from my > general observations on the state of those ideologies and the "old > world". The status quo takes a lot of time to update. Lots and lots of > time. But many structures reach the limit of their capacity and quickly collapse, making way for new forms. Think punctuated change, unevenly distributed, but tending to ratchet forward. > The opportunity to update a unit relaying the status quo is rare, > so old information is always being propagated throughout society while > the freshest and newest information has to find its own context to keep > alive (and that's fine). It's awkward when people speak of information (genes or memes) in intentional or teleological terms. But you're emphasizing an important point about memetic inertia and the inherent chaos at the leading edge of change. > But on the other hand, we have significantly > large organizations ("Left" and "Right") and ideologies still > propagating and still abducting new minds even though there's no real > power that is necessarily making news releases to gain eyes and get > possible neophytes to convert (peculiar). Strange statement, considering the obvious and massive power structures within society which seem to be doing just that. > Today I was sitting in a > psych class that was talking about 'developmental psychology', going > over the theories of Piaget and the like, staged versus continuous > development, emotional taxonomies and whatever else. The designs of the > studies were simply wrong -- *no*, you _don't_ do longitudinal studies > or cross-section studies, not at all -- that's studying a > mystical 'normal' brain and the normal status quo does not necessarily > represent something that is within the possibility space of the > construction or growth of the human brain, it's not psychology at all > (perhaps social studies, but only on a "pop" level, since real social > studying would involve more, you know, hard (read: real) studying). I don't understand you particular criticism here, but I think it's significant that sociology and psychology are at the least "scientific" end of the scientific spectrum with biology along with biology not so far down the line. Interestingly, developments in the science of complexity seem likely to make these topics among the most productive in the near future. > And the theories of, say, Maslow, were developed so as to promote a > more 'humanist' idealization versus the other negative images of humans > at the time and while there's nothing necessarily wrong with his ideas, > they are not as intense as they could be. And what about marxism? Or > libertarianism? Republicanism? Capitalism? Objectivism (cringe)? These > are archaic, in more than a sense than "they are old" but that they do > not fall into any particular coherency when, on the contrary, it seems > that many historical figures were 'fighting' for coherency. [Insert Arrow of Morality here, with talk of increasing coherence over an increasing context of values, promoted by increasingly effective (scientific) means...] > So this > idea of coherency (sometimes poorly guided, but if one is careful it > can be a powerful tool, yes) and defending our own ideologies does not > necessarily help the general situation at all Yes, not when defending one's ideologies means narrowing the context of their interpretation. But it bears pointing out here that perceived "purity" has evolved as a strong moral driver. > ... perhaps instead we > should be working on the art of self-creation, design of new ideas and > societies from the ground up, integrating and sharing novelty from > where ever it may come from. Just as all persistent novelty results from evolutionary processes, we would do well to **intentionally** compete within synergistic systems of cooperative growth. Our current position on the evolutionary tree is a result of such processes, but we've just reached the threshold of being able to play the game intentionally. > But it seems that one must have their own > internal journey of personal growth and development to come to this > conclusion, to some extent isolated from society. Diversity is essential to evolutionary growth, accelerating with selection via an increasingly evolved environment. > Maybe we can propose > some solutions to the Keepers of the Devastated Ideologies in an > attempt to minimize their damage while seemingly maximizing their > missions? Or alternatively start teaching parents how to help minimize > the damage of society on their children as they grow up and prepare for > the future ("the future is now / the singularity is now"). My own frustration has to do with the fundamental (information-theoretic) impracticality of conveying larger contexts to smaller systems (if they could decode (decompress) it, then they'd already have the knowledge.) I think the only practical way for us involves intentionally building a supporting framework, or Culture, promoting our evolving values more wisely than could any individual. - Jef From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 05:35:51 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 21:35:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 7:37 PM, Anne Corwin wrote: > Max More wrote: > Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to reconceptualize > the hero myth, removing the core element of self-sacrifice. > > I'm guessing the PhD thing is a joke, but I wrote the following in a blog > entry a while back: > > "...in the real world, there is not so clear of a relationship between > sacrifice and heroism as there is in story; in real life, you might very > well be able to save both the preschooler and the old lady lying on the > railroad tracks. > In books, there often seems to be a kind of prescience on the part of the > heroes; they seem to "know" that their death, if it happens, will end up > saving innocents. In reality, on the other hand, there is just as much > chance that the would-be hero's "sacrifice" will lead to nothing more than > one extra body for the cleanup crew." I wish the PhD offer was real. Then I could wave one 'round wit' da rest a youse guys. Anne -- Heroes are prescient of their sacrifice because it triggers an emotional reaction in the reader -- empathy -- in advance of their heroic act. Gets you all warmed up, neurons firing in anticipation for the more satisfying finale when he actually does the deed. Also, life imitates art. The real world event might not have been occurred in a story-worthy fashion, but the doer will remember it as such and retell it so. Lee -- the more you send of John C. Wright's thoughts outside his novels, the more I think I didn't understand what I thought he wrote. I think he's wrong in this case, but I'm not going to write a thesis to prove he's got a chip on his shoulder. It's a waste of time and his own words are enough. He's got to get out more. What I think Max is really asking (and even if it's a joke, tell me if you're not) is how do we reprogram the human brain to fight a million years of evolutionary psychology, where sacrifice (altruism) was a successful strategy which was then reflected in our storytelling. Let's not forget it can still be a successful strategy in our world today, as any story about a soldier in Iraq saving his mates from an IED will demonstrate. (In my mind, my father is retaliating on your behalf by beating me about the head and neck with a rolled up copy of his Objectivist newsletter in one hand and the doorstop of 'Atlas Shrugged' in the other. Lord knows Ayn had issues about sacrifice, too... That's why the book's so damn heavy! This is a joke, BTW -- Dad never laid a hand on me.) Most importantly, the hero should be reconceptualized through a redefinition of 'self' and of 'sacrifice', not by the removal of either, or you will suffer from a story about which the audience couldn't give a tinker's damn, having neither an empathetic protagonist, nor stakes to worry about. We don't need to rewrite the myths from whole cloth. If we did, they wouldn't work as well. We merely need to rejig them to our purposes. PJ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 05:56:47 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 21:56:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com><417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> PJ Manney writes > Most importantly, the hero should be reconceptualized through a > redefinition of 'self' and of 'sacrifice', not by the removal of > either, or you will suffer from a story about which the audience > couldn't give a tinker's damn, having neither an empathetic > protagonist, nor stakes to worry about. We don't need to rewrite the > myths from whole cloth. If we did, they wouldn't work as well. We > merely need to rejig them to our purposes. It sounds as though you've received the full blast of the anti-sacrifice meme from your father and Ayn Rand. But seriously, why does heroic conduct have to include self-sacrifice? The way that the Romans looked upon "Horatio at the Bridge" (reality at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatii) is certainly an ancient, archytypical example. And, of course, the countless heros who save others in floods and other disasters, have no component of their behavior actually involving them deliberately giving up something. (True, they're brave, they take risks, etc.) To me, (and I gather to Max), it's sad that self-sacrifice has become an often important component of heroism. Lee From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 06:06:25 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:06:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Devastated ideologies (was: italian politics as exi-chat subject) In-Reply-To: References: <4eaaa0d90803060053o7a7bef83t13eb017b3249126a@mail.gmail.com> <200803061735.51526.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803070006.25671.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 3:35 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote a very extropic > thread of thought: :) but he may not have necessarily made any new progress to report. > > Somebody was laughing at me the other day for suggesting that we > > build teh tech. Odd. Another thought that I would like to add, from > > my general observations on the state of those ideologies and the > > "old world". The status quo takes a lot of time to update. Lots and > > lots of time. > > But many structures reach the limit of their capacity and quickly > collapse, making way for new forms. Think punctuated change, > unevenly distributed, but tending to ratchet forward. This is true, and the collapse and degradation of such a large and distributed structure is going to be interesting and unlike the collapse of a ball of gas, but instead a multiphased and multifaceted construction of our own doing, we will see atypical fireworks. > > But on the other hand, we have significantly > > large organizations ("Left" and "Right") and ideologies still > > propagating and still abducting new minds even though there's no > > real power that is necessarily making news releases to gain eyes > > and get possible neophytes to convert (peculiar). > > Strange statement, considering the obvious and massive power > structures within society which seem to be doing just that. Hm. You're right. I'd rather refine my observation to point out that they are running on their own inertia of (even human) self-replication, to apply your terms. Otherwise there is no legitimate reason to 'convert' to Rightism or Leftism as far as I can tell. > > Today I was sitting in a > > psych class that was talking about 'developmental psychology', > > going over the theories of Piaget and the like, staged versus > > continuous development, emotional taxonomies and whatever else. The > > designs of the studies were simply wrong -- *no*, you _don't_ do > > longitudinal studies or cross-section studies, not at all -- that's > > studying a mystical 'normal' brain and the normal status quo does > > not necessarily represent something that is within the possibility > > space of the construction or growth of the human brain, it's not > > psychology at all (perhaps social studies, but only on a "pop" > > level, since real social studying would involve more, you know, > > hard (read: real) studying). > > I don't understand you particular criticism here, but I think it's > significant that sociology and psychology are at the least > "scientific" end of the scientific spectrum I am talking about the art of psychology itself, not the sociohistorical context of psychology, even though that is what I am being presented. It is the difference between accepting staleness versus creating. > > And the theories of, say, Maslow, were developed so as to promote > > a more 'humanist' idealization versus the other negative images of > > humans at the time and while there's nothing necessarily wrong with > > his ideas, they are not as intense as they could be. And what about > > marxism? Or libertarianism? Republicanism? Capitalism? Objectivism > > (cringe)? These are archaic, in more than a sense than "they are > > old" but that they do not fall into any particular coherency when, > > on the contrary, it seems that many historical figures were > > 'fighting' for coherency. > > [Insert Arrow of Morality here, with talk of increasing coherence > over an increasing context of values, promoted by increasingly > effective (scientific) means...] I'd like you to comment on the personal coherency arrow versus the social coherency arrow, I mentioned this either in this thread or another earlier today and think it would help here. (Ah, it looks like you did in the next snippit. But I still remember something else I mentioned today?) It is interesting to note that 'personal' can encompass society (just as I can potentially encompass an entire botnet or 18 wheeler to some extent, or perhaps grow and spawn enough people to make a society) but the reverse -- where society makes for myself -- does not work. (Chicken/egg?) > > ... perhaps instead we > > should be working on the art of self-creation, design of new ideas > > and societies from the ground up, integrating and sharing novelty > > from where ever it may come from. > > Just as all persistent novelty results from evolutionary processes, > we would do well to **intentionally** compete within synergistic > systems of cooperative growth. Our current position on the > evolutionary tree is a result of such processes, but we've just > reached the threshold of being able to play the game intentionally. You mention later that it is the culture that can allow us to do this, does this mean we need to first establish a significant population set first, or can this be bootstrapped from single individuals? > > But it seems that one must have their own > > internal journey of personal growth and development to come to > > this conclusion, to some extent isolated from society. > > Diversity is essential to evolutionary growth, accelerating with > selection via an increasingly evolved environment. How is it that isolation engenders diversity? > > Maybe we can propose > > some solutions to the Keepers of the Devastated Ideologies in an > > attempt to minimize their damage while seemingly maximizing their > > missions? Or alternatively start teaching parents how to help > > minimize the damage of society on their children as they grow up > > and prepare for the future ("the future is now / the singularity is > > now"). > > My own frustration has to do with the fundamental > (information-theoretic) impracticality of conveying larger contexts > to smaller systems (if they could decode (decompress) it, then they'd > already have the knowledge.) Conveying contexts doesn't work in the first place, right? It is interesting, though, that I, as a context, can move from one to another, and you the same, but that we cannot transfer $earth through these bits and bytes or even to the front of our attention as a giant map to look at and play with, without loss of tons of relevant context. And we're right back to where we were months ago with training individuals to be able to navigate and construct contexts. Circles? > I think the only practical way for us involves intentionally building > a supporting framework, or Culture, promoting our evolving values more > wisely than could any individual. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 06:13:51 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:13:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803070013.51722.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, PJ Manney wrote: > What I think Max is really asking (and even if it's a joke, tell me > if you're not) is how do we reprogram the human brain to fight a Autism/spectrum. These are the people that perform amazing feats of mental programming, some are able to construct mental firewalls so powerful that nothing can get through to them, while others are able to more constructively use these abilities. > million years of evolutionary psychology, where sacrifice (altruism) > was a successful strategy which was then reflected ... Luckily, natural selection did not select too strongly for our own self interpretation of the mind, so we have some leeway here more or less. > Most importantly, the hero should be reconceptualized through a > redefinition of 'self' and of 'sacrifice', not by the removal of The hero could be reconceptualized by redefining it as, say, yourself. > either, or you will suffer from a story about which the audience > couldn't give a tinker's damn, having neither an empathetic > protagonist, nor stakes to worry about. ?We don't need to rewrite the We call an unempathetic protagonist a supervillian. > myths from whole cloth. ?If we did, they wouldn't work as well. ?We > merely need to rejig them to our purposes. Yes, purpose is important in making the hero, but it is from within, it not necessarily a group 'we' that makes it. Actually, this might be suspect based off of Jef's response to my last post re: group coherency versus internal coherency. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 06:15:47 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:15:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803070015.47462.kanzure@gmail.com> On Thursday 06 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > It sounds as though you've received the full blast of the > anti-sacrifice meme from your father and Ayn Rand. Lee, it is interesting that you mention Ayn Rand. I was thinking this too when I read over Max's post, and poor Jimmy Wales and all of those people pledging to Objectivism. Yikes. Anyway, I think there is definitely something to make sure we exclude from a redefinition of hero from the context of Objectivism, though I cannot immediately place my finger on it, and I seem to remember an extropian somewhere on this list that might be able/willing to regurgitate this nugget-argument. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Mar 7 06:16:53 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:16:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080307001101.0232b728@satx.rr.com> At 09:56 PM 3/6/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: >(True, they're [heroes are] brave, they take risks, etc.) > >To me, (and I gather to Max), it's sad that self-sacrifice has become an >often important component of heroism. But isn't it exactly to the point that *they take risks on behalf of others* which, by apparent rational calculation, they need not, perhaps ought not, take. Reciprocal altruism theory can "explain this away" but that leaves a rather sour taste in one's mouth--which, in turn, can of course be explained by the same reductive principle, but we don't *want* to be disabused, it's a very deep part of who we are that we feel these sentiments and, when circumstances arise, find ourselves driven by them. Damien Broderick From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 06:35:23 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 22:35:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <29666bf30803062235y1d43ea0and08e2e3b82aefad0@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 9:56 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > It sounds as though you've received the full blast of the anti-sacrifice > meme from your father and Ayn Rand. It was the flavor of Max's question that brought it up for me. I could be wrong about his intention, but yes, my name is PJ and I am the child of a recovering objectivist. Which is why I'm not one. > But seriously, why does heroic > conduct have to include self-sacrifice? The way that the Romans > looked upon "Horatio at the Bridge" (reality at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatii) > is certainly an ancient, archytypical example. And, of course, the countless > heros who save others in floods and other disasters, have no component > of their behavior actually involving them deliberately giving up something. > (True, they're brave, they take risks, etc.) But that's it. Risk taking. Which can lead to a possible bad end. Simply, the chances they take to succeed or fail involves the potential for sacrificing something. Not necessarily their lives, but something worthwhile enough that they and we don't want them to sacrifice if they don't have to. Sacrifice doesn't have to always involve life-or-death situations -- in fact, they rarely do in stories! -- but as I said before, the stakes must be worthwhile and meaningful, commensurate with the story involved, to engage the audience. (For example, in a romantic comedy, we're usually not worried about the hero losing his life. We're worried about the hero losing the girl, sacrificing his self-respect, etc. Those are worthy stakes commensurate with the story.) PJ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 06:45:17 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 22:45:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com><417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com><29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com><05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080307001101.0232b728@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <060701c8801f$0ea82060$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Damien writes >> To me, (and I gather to Max), it's sad that self-sacrifice >> has become an often important component of heroism. > > But isn't it exactly to the point that *they take risks on behalf of > others* which, by apparent rational calculation, they need not, > perhaps ought not, take. Yeah, heroic as defined on-line by one dictionary is as follows. 1. epic: very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale); "an epic voyage"; "of heroic proportions"; "heroic ... 2. relating to or characteristic of heroes of antiquity; "heroic legends"; "the heroic age" 3. having or displaying qualities appropriate for heroes; "the heroic attack on the beaches of Normandy"; "heroic explorers" 4. [NOT RELEVANT] expansive: of behavior that is impressive and ambitious in scale or scope; "an expansive lifestyle"; "in the grand manner"; "collecting on a grand scale"; "heroic undertakings" 5. desperate: showing extreme courage; especially of actions courageously undertaken in desperation as a last resort; "made a last desperate attempt to reach the climber"; "the desperate gallantry of our naval task forces marked the turning point in the Pacific war"- G.C.Marshall; "they took heroic ... It's interesting that the *definitions* don't mention anything about sacrificing for others. But sadly, wikipedia under "heroism" says Later [after the Greeks], hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters that, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence. If a protagonist went to another planet, say, and exhibited great courage, determination, ingenuity, and resourcefulness even just to save his own skin, I'd be happy to call that heroic. True, a dragon-slayer is, as they say, acting "for some greater good". So I think I agree with you. > Reciprocal altruism theory can "explain this > away" but that leaves a rather sour taste in one's mouth--which, in > turn, can of course be explained by the same reductive principle, but > we don't *want* to be disabused, it's a very deep part of who we are > that we feel these sentiments and, when circumstances arise, find > ourselves driven by them. What you write is true of most people---but not me, and I think, not most people on this list. Explaining that a particular hero is really an evolutionarily derived organism programmed for the most part by his genes (and for their benefit), and acting entirely in accordance with the laws of physics, takes absolutely nothing away from my admiration. Lee From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 06:50:56 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 22:50:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <200803070013.51722.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> <200803070013.51722.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30803062250n4b193fceic7d656edbbb759fe@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:13 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Thursday 06 March 2008, PJ Manney wrote: > > What I think Max is really asking (and even if it's a joke, tell me > > if you're not) is how do we reprogram the human brain to fight a > > Autism/spectrum. These are the people that perform amazing feats of > mental programming, some are able to construct mental firewalls so > powerful that nothing can get through to them, while others are able to > more constructively use these abilities. But then you have the difficulty of empathy, which is the key to storytelling. Which is why many, but by no means all autists have problems with myths and stories. It's hard for them to relate because empathy can be difficult. Of course, many don't have problems, like Anne. But it is interesting that Anne approaches stories and more importantly, characters, in a very different manner than I do, and it's not only because we come from different disciplines, or that I create characters for a living and she doesn't. It's a more fundamental difference in perception and processing of human behavior. > > Most importantly, the hero should be reconceptualized through a > > redefinition of 'self' and of 'sacrifice', not by the removal of > > The hero could be reconceptualized by redefining it as, say, yourself. That's not enough. Not every story is about "I" nor should it be. > We call an unempathetic protagonist a supervillian. No. Villains can be very empathetic, just terribly misguided and immoral as a result. Also, protagonists can be very misguided, even immoral, and still empathetic, too. Empathy doesn't involve white hats, white horses or anything else white for that matter. It just means you can imagine being in their shoes and you understand why they made the choices they made. If you can't generate empathy, meaning you can't imagine being that person, then you've got either a dull villain or a duller hero. Yawn... > Yes, purpose is important in making the hero, but it is from within, it > not necessarily a group 'we' that makes it. Actually, this might be > suspect based off of Jef's response to my last post re: group coherency > versus internal coherency. Sorry, not quite sure where you're going there. If you mean we don't create stories/heroes as a group, well you're right. And you're wrong. Just depends upon the scale of the context. And I'm too tired to go there right now. PJ From sparkle_robot at yahoo.com Fri Mar 7 06:51:07 2008 From: sparkle_robot at yahoo.com (Anne Corwin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 22:51:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803062235y1d43ea0and08e2e3b82aefad0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <215844.1513.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> PJ Manney wrote: But that's it. Risk taking. Which can lead to a possible bad end. Simply, the chances they take to succeed or fail involves the potential for sacrificing something. Not necessarily their lives, but something worthwhile enough that they and we don't want them to sacrifice if they don't have to. Sacrifice doesn't have to always involve life-or-death situations -- in fact, they rarely do in stories! -- but as I said before, the stakes must be worthwhile and meaningful, commensurate with the story involved, to engage the audience. (For example, in a romantic comedy, we're usually not worried about the hero losing his life. We're worried about the hero losing the girl, sacrificing his self-respect, etc. Those are worthy stakes commensurate with the story.) PJ I have no argument with any of this -- I literally took the "self-sacrifice" thing to mean "sacrifice of a person's very life" in the initial context of the question, but you're right in pointing out that it isn't always life that's at risk. (To me I say, "Duh!") If Max was really referring to a hero who literally risks *nothing* important to him or her, but still manages heroism, then my first thought would be a kind of Zen-type character who has no "attachments" and therefore does not feel that any outcome represents a personal loss, even if others might consider particular outcomes very distressing. But I don't know if many readers would be able to relate to such a character. - Anne --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparkle_robot at yahoo.com Fri Mar 7 06:25:16 2008 From: sparkle_robot at yahoo.com (Anne Corwin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 22:25:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <720057.44645.qm@web56512.mail.re3.yahoo.com> PJ: I understand that emotional appeals to notions of sacrifice in stories can be effective from a "narrative device" standpoint. However, I'm confused by your suggestion that the pre-sacrificial "hero"'s apparent prescience has something to do with that particular emotional appeal. The point I was trying to make in the blog quote I posted was that in real life, there's no way to "know" the way heroes in stories seem to that their sacrifice is actually going to have the outcome they expect or want it to. And I agree that life imitates art, which is why I'm intrigued by the notion of formulating an heroic story in which the protagonist manages to act in a truly heroic manner without "self-sacrifice". Also, I should note here that when I read the phrase "self-sacrifice" I wasn't thinking in terms of hard work or altruism -- I'm not Ayn Rand. :P I was thinking in terms of the bit where the hero literally sacrifices his or her life for an ideal or for another person. But in general, I am interested in looking at ways to point out situations in real life that many people mistake for "zero sum" when they actually aren't, and in putting together literary works wherein the protagonists are able to creatively problem-solve in ways that respect all involved. I know there's a lot of dramatic tension inherent in the "struggle to resolve who wins in a zero-sum game", but it would be interesting to see if similarly satisfying levels of dramatic tension could be achieved in a setting where everyone manages to win in some way. In short, I'm curious about the prospects of a story with an Interesting and Non-Dumb Mega-Happy Ending. - Anne "Like and equal are not the same thing at all!" - Meg Murry, "A Wrinkle In Time" --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sentience at pobox.com Fri Mar 7 06:54:32 2008 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:54:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803062235y1d43ea0and08e2e3b82aefad0@mail.gmail.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <29666bf30803062235y1d43ea0and08e2e3b82aefad0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47D0E6A8.2030202@pobox.com> I actually have no problem with the idea that self-sacrifice reveals heroism; it shows the importance to them of whatever they are pursuing. The implication that heroism *requires* self-sacrifice implies that there is no other way to show dedication, however. After all, the point of heroism is not to reveal virtue, but to protect that which is worth protecting. My own conceptualization of heroism is touched on somewhat in: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/superhero-bias.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/01/something-to-pr.html ** Superhero Bias Followup to: The Halo Effect Suppose there's a heavily armed sociopath, a kidnapper with hostages, who has just rejected all requests for negotiation and announced his intent to start killing. In real life, the good guys don't usually kick down the door when the bad guy has hostages. But sometimes - very rarely, but sometimes - life imitates Hollywood to the extent of genuine good guys needing to smash through a door. Imagine, in two widely separated realities, two heroes who charge into the room, first to confront the villain. In one reality, the hero is strong enough to throw cars, can fire power blasts out of his nostrils, has X-ray hearing, and his skin doesn't just deflect bullets but annihilates them on contact. The villain has ensconced himself in an elementary school and taken over two hundred children hostage; their parents are waiting outside, weeping. In another reality, the hero is a New York police officer, and the hostages are three prostitutes the villain collected off the street. Consider this question very carefully: Who is the greater hero? And who is more likely to get their own comic book? The halo effect is that perceptions of all positive traits are correlated. Profiles rated higher on scales of attractiveness, are also rated higher on scales of talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence. And so comic-book characters who seem strong and invulnerable, both positive traits, also seem to possess more of the heroic traits of courage and heroism. And yet: "How tough can it be to act all brave and courageous when you're pretty much invulnerable?" -- Empowered, Vol. 1 I can't remember if I read the following point somewhere, or hypothesized it myself: Fame, in particular, seems to combine additively with all other personality characteristics. Consider Gandhi. Was Gandhi the most altruistic person of the 20th century, or just the most famous altruist? Gandhi faced police with riot sticks and soldiers with guns. But Gandhi was a celebrity, and he was protected by his celebrity. What about the others in the march, the people who faced riot sticks and guns even though there wouldn't be international headlines if they were put in the hospital or gunned down? What did Gandhi think of getting the headlines, the celebrity, the fame, the place in history, becoming the archetype for non-violent resistance, when he took less risk than any of the people marching with him? How did he feel when one of those anonymous heroes came up to him, eyes shining, and told Gandhi how wonderful he was? Did Gandhi ever visualize his world in those terms? I don't know; I'm not Gandhi. This is not in any sense a criticism of Gandhi. The point of non-violent resistance is not to show off your courage. That can be done much more easily by going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Gandhi couldn't help being somewhat-but-not-entirely protected by his celebrity. And Gandhi's actions did take courage - not as much courage as marching anonymously, but still a great deal of courage. The bias I wish to point out is that Gandhi's fame score seems to get perceptually added to his justly accumulated altruism score. When you think about nonviolence, you think of Gandhi - not an anonymous protestor in one of Gandhi's marches who faced down riot clubs and guns, and got beaten, and had to be taken to the hospital, and walked with a limp for the rest of her life, and no one ever remembered her name. Similarly, which is greater - to risk your life to save two hundred children, or to risk your life to save three adults? The answer depends on what one means by greater. If you ever have to choose between saving three adults and saving two hundred children, then choose the latter. "Whoever saves a single life, it is as if he had saved the whole world" may be a fine applause light, but it's terrible moral advice if you've got to pick one or the other. So if you mean "greater" in the sense of "Which is more important?" or "Which is the preferred outcome?" or "Which should I choose if I have to do one or the other?" then it is greater to save two hundred than three. But if you ask about greatness in the sense of revealed virtue, then someone who would risk their life to save only three lives, reveals more courage than someone who would risk their life to save two hundred but not three. This doesn't mean that you can deliberately choose to risk your life to save three adults, and let the two hundred schoolchildren go hang, because you want to reveal more virtue. Someone who risks their life because they want to be virtuous has revealed far less virtue than someone who risks their life because they want to save others. Someone who chooses to save three lives rather than two hundred lives, because they think it reveals greater virtue, is so selfishly fascinated with their own "greatness" as to have committed the moral equivalent of manslaughter. It's one of those wu wei scenarios: You cannot reveal virtue by trying to reveal virtue. Given a choice between a safe method to save the world which involves no personal sacrifice or discomfort, and a method that risks your life and requires you to endure great privation, you cannot become a hero by deliberately choosing the second path. There is nothing heroic about wanting to be a hero. It would be a lost purpose. Truly virtuous people who are genuinely trying to save lives, rather than trying to reveal virtue, will constantly seek to save more lives with less effort, which means that less of their virtue will be revealed. It may be confusing, but it's not contradictory. But we cannot always choose to be invulnerable to bullets. After we've done our best to reduce risk and increase scope, any remaining heroism is well and truly revealed. The police officer who puts their life on the line with no superpowers, no X-Ray vision, no super-strength, no ability to fly, and above all no invulnerability to bullets, reveals far greater virtue than Superman - who is only a mere superhero. ** Something to Protect Followup to: Tsuyoku Naritai, Circular Altruism In the gestalt of (ahem) Japanese fiction, one finds this oft-repeated motif: Power comes from having something to protect. I'm not just talking about superheroes that power up when a friend is threatened, the way it works in Western fiction. In the Japanese version it runs deeper than that. In the X saga it's explicitly stated that each of the good guys draw their power from having someone - one person - who they want to protect. Who? That question is part of X's plot - the "most precious person" isn't always who we think. But if that person is killed, or hurt in the wrong way, the protector loses their power - not so much from magical backlash, as from simple despair. This isn't something that happens once per week per good guy, the way it would work in a Western comic. It's equivalent to being Killed Off For Real - taken off the game board. The way it works in Western superhero comics is that the good guy gets bitten by a radioactive spider; and then he needs something to do with his powers, to keep him busy, so he decides to fight crime. And then Western superheroes are always whining about how much time their superhero duties take up, and how they'd rather be ordinary mortals so they could go fishing or something. Similarly, in Western real life, unhappy people are told that they need a "purpose in life", so they should pick out an altruistic cause that goes well with their personality, like picking out nice living-room drapes, and this will brighten up their days by adding some color, like nice living-room drapes. You should be careful not to pick something too expensive, though. In Western comics, the magic comes first, then the purpose: Acquire amazing powers, decide to protect the innocent. In Japanese fiction, often, it works the other way around. Of course I'm not saying all this to generalize from fictional evidence. But I want to convey a concept whose deceptively close Western analogue is not what I mean. I have touched before on the idea that a rationalist must have something they value more than "rationality": The Art must have a purpose other than itself, or it collapses into infinite recursion. But do not mistake me, and think I am advocating that rationalists should pick out a nice altruistic cause, by way of having something to do, because rationality isn't all that important by itself. No. I am asking: Where do rationalists come from? How do we acquire our powers? It is written in the Twelve Virtues of Rationality: How can you improve your conception of rationality? Not by saying to yourself, "It is my duty to be rational." By this you only enshrine your mistaken conception. Perhaps your conception of rationality is that it is rational to believe the words of the Great Teacher, and the Great Teacher says, "The sky is green," and you look up at the sky and see blue. If you think: "It may look like the sky is blue, but rationality is to believe the words of the Great Teacher," you lose a chance to discover your mistake. Historically speaking, the way humanity finally left the trap of authority and began paying attention to, y'know, the actual sky, was that beliefs based on experiment turned out to be much more useful than beliefs based on authority. Curiosity has been around since the dawn of humanity, but the problem is that spinning campfire tales works just as well for satisfying curiosity. Historically speaking, science won because it displayed greater raw strength in the form of technology, not because science sounded more reasonable. To this very day, magic and scripture still sound more reasonable to untrained ears than science. That is why there is continuous social tension between the belief systems. If science not only worked better than magic, but also sounded more intuitively reasonable, it would have won entirely by now. Now there are those who say: "How dare you suggest that anything should be valued more than Truth? Must not a rationalist love Truth more than mere usefulness?" Forget for a moment what would have happened historically to someone like that - that people in pretty much that frame of mind defended the Bible because they loved Truth more than mere accuracy. Propositional morality is a glorious thing, but it has too many degrees of freedom. No, the real point is that a rationalist's love affair with the Truth is, well, just more complicated as an emotional relationship. One doesn't become an adept rationalist without caring about the truth, both as a purely moral desideratum and as something that's fun to have. I doubt there are many master composers who hate music. But part of what I like about rationality is the discipline imposed by requiring beliefs to yield predictions, which ends up taking us much closer to the truth than if we sat in the living room obsessing about Truth all day. I like the complexity of simultaneously having to love True-seeming ideas, and also being ready to drop them out the window at a moment's notice. I even like the glorious aesthetic purity of declaring that I value mere usefulness above aesthetics. That is almost a contradiction, but not quite; and that has an aesthetic quality as well, a delicious humor. And of course, no matter how much you profess your love of mere usefulness, you should never actually end up deliberately believing a useful false statement. So don't oversimplify the relationship between loving truth and loving usefulness. It's not one or the other. It's complicated, which is not necessarily a defect in the moral aesthetics of single events. But morality and aesthetics alone, believing that one ought to be "rational" or that certain ways of thinking are "beautiful", will not lead you to the center of the Way. It wouldn't have gotten humanity out of the authority-hole. In Circular Altruism, I discussed this dilemma: Which of these options would you prefer: 1. Save 400 lives, with certainty 2. Save 500 lives, 90% probability; save no lives, 10% probability. You may be tempted to grandstand, saying, "How dare you gamble with people's lives?" Even if you, yourself, are one of the 500 - but you don't know which one - you may still be tempted to rely on the comforting feeling of certainty, because our own lives are often worth less to us than a good intuition. But if your precious daughter is one of the 500, and you don't know which one, then, perhaps, you may feel more impelled to shut up and multiply - to notice that you have an 80% chance of saving her in the first case, and a 90% chance of saving her in the second. And yes, everyone in that crowd is someone's son or daughter. Which, in turn, suggests that we should pick the second option as altruists, as well as concerned parents. My point is not to suggest that one person's life is more valuable than 499 people. What I am trying to say is that more than one's own life has to be at stake, before someone becomes desperate enough to override comfortable intuitions with math. It takes visceral panic, channeled through cold calculation, to cut away all the distractions. What if you believe that it is "rational" to choose the certainty of option 1? Lots of people think that "rationality" is about choosing only methods that are certain to work, and rejecting all uncertainty. But, hopefully, you care more about your daughter's life than about "rationality". Will pride in your own virtue as a rationalist save you? Not if you believe that it is virtuous to choose certainty. You will only be able to learn something about rationality if your daughter's life matters more to you than your pride as a rationalist. You may even learn something about rationality from the experience, if you are already far enough grown in your Art to say, "I must have had the wrong conception of rationality," and not, "Look at how rationality gave me the wrong answer!" (The essential difficulty in becoming a master rationalist is that you need quite a bit of rationality to bootstrap the learning process.) Is your belief that you ought to be rational, more important than your life? Because, as I've previously observed, risking your life isn't comparatively all that scary. Being the lone voice of dissent in the crowd and having everyone look at you funny is much scarier than a mere threat to your life, according to the revealed preferences of teenagers who drink at parties and then drive home. It will take something terribly important to make you willing to leave the pack. A threat to your life won't be enough. Is your will to rationality stronger than your pride? Can it be, if your will to rationality stems from your pride in your self-image as a rationalist? It's helpful - very helpful - to have a self-image which says that you are the sort of person who confronts harsh truth. It's helpful to have too much self-respect to knowingly lie to yourself or refuse to face evidence. But there may come a time when you have to admit that you've been doing rationality all wrong. Then your pride, your self-image as a rationalist, may make that too hard to face. If you've prided yourself on believing what the Great Teacher says - even when it seems harsh, even when you'd rather not - that may make it all the more bitter a pill to swallow, to admit that the Great Teacher is a fraud, and all your noble self-sacrifice was for naught. Where do you get the will to keep moving forward? When I look back at my own personal journey toward rationality - not just humanity's historical journey - well, I grew up believing very strongly that I ought to be rational. This made me an above-average Traditional Rationalist a la Feynman and Heinlein, and nothing more. It did not drive me to go beyond the teachings I had received. I only began to grow further as a rationalist once I had something terribly important that I needed to do. Something more important than my pride as a rationalist, never mind my life. Only when you become more wedded to success than to any of your beloved techniques of rationality, do you begin to appreciate these words of Miyamoto Musashi: "You can win with a long weapon, and yet you can also win with a short weapon. In short, the Way of the Ichi school is the spirit of winning, whatever the weapon and whatever its size." -- Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings Don't mistake this for a specific teaching of rationality. It describes how you learn the Way, beginning with a desperate need to succeed. No one masters the Way until more than their life is at stake. More than their comfort, more even than their pride. You can't just pick out a Cause like that because you feel you need a hobby. Go looking for a "good cause", and your mind will just fill in a standard cliche. Learn how to multiply, and perhaps you will recognize a drastically important cause when you see one. But if you have a cause like that, it is right and proper to wield your rationality in its service. To strictly subordinate the aesthetics of rationality to a higher cause, is part of the aesthetic of rationality. You should pay attention to that aesthetic: You will never master rationality well enough to win with any weapon, if you do not appreciate the beauty for its own sake. ** The kind of dedication that drove Musashi to win with any weapon - this reveals itself in heroism that sacrifices itself for that something to protect, but it also reveals itself in the drive to win whatever the weapon and whatever its size. With self-sacrifice, if that is the winning way; and without self-sacrifice, if it is not. So, do I get a PhD? -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 07:05:42 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 23:05:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <060701c8801f$0ea82060$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080307001101.0232b728@satx.rr.com> <060701c8801f$0ea82060$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <29666bf30803062305y2ebd54d4o5fd4823315ce17ae@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:45 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Yeah, heroic as defined on-line by one dictionary is as follows. > > 1. epic: very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary > (especially in size or scale); "an epic voyage"; "of heroic > proportions"; "heroic ... > > 2. relating to or characteristic of heroes of antiquity; "heroic > legends"; "the heroic age" > > 3. having or displaying qualities appropriate for heroes; "the > heroic attack on the beaches of Normandy"; "heroic explorers" > > 4. [NOT RELEVANT] expansive: of behavior that is impressive > and ambitious in scale or scope; "an expansive lifestyle"; "in the > grand manner"; "collecting on a grand scale"; "heroic undertakings" > > 5. desperate: showing extreme courage; especially of actions > courageously undertaken in desperation as a last resort; "made a > last desperate attempt to reach the climber"; "the desperate > gallantry of our naval task forces marked the turning point in the > Pacific war"- G.C.Marshall; "they took heroic ... > > It's interesting that the *definitions* don't mention anything about > sacrificing for others. But sadly, wikipedia under "heroism" says But I'm confused. Self-sacrifice is clearly implied in definitions 2, 3 & 5. The heroes of antiquity (2), Normandy (3) and the Mountains/Pacific (5) demonstrated it. I'm more intrigued why this concept is such a problem for you. When you read fiction, do you empathize with the characters? Or do you relate more to the concepts? PJ From sparkle_robot at yahoo.com Fri Mar 7 06:40:26 2008 From: sparkle_robot at yahoo.com (Anne Corwin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 22:40:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080307001101.0232b728@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <318653.20566.qm@web56514.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Damien Broderick wrote: But isn't it exactly to the point that *they take risks on behalf of others* which, by apparent rational calculation, they need not, perhaps ought not, take. Along these lines, I think it's worth noting that sometimes particular kinds of "self-sacrifice" are demanded and valorized under the false presumption that these particular sacrifices always or almost always correlate with Good Character and the capacity for actual heroic sacrifice when the need for such arises. >From the same blog entry I quoted before: "...most [life-extensionists] would not hesitate to defend our loved ones and friends with our lives if it became necessary to do so. Just because a person doesn't quite fancy the idea of dying of "old age" or disease doesn't mean that that person wouldn't dive into a pond to save a drowning child, or pull a pedestrian out of the path of an oncoming car at personal risk." I guess what I'm trying to say here is that people shouldn't need to have to "self-negate" (e.g., consider their own life perfectly expendable) in order to take self-sacrificing actions when necessary. To me, there's a difference between wanting to be alive and generally liking who you are (which to me just seems healthy), and feeling like you are the most important thing in existence to the point where you'd never dream of putting yourself in danger for the sake of others. - Anne --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 07:19:16 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 23:19:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080307001101.0232b728@satx.rr.com> <060701c8801f$0ea82060$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <29666bf30803062305y2ebd54d4o5fd4823315ce17ae@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <063901c88023$f9bfb3c0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> PJ writes >> 2. relating to or characteristic of heroes of antiquity; "heroic >> legends"; "the heroic age" >> >> 3. having or displaying qualities appropriate for heroes; "the >> heroic attack on the beaches of Normandy"; "heroic explorers" >> >> 5. desperate: showing extreme courage; especially of actions >> courageously undertaken in desperation as a last resort; "made a >> last desperate attempt to reach the climber"; "the desperate >> gallantry of our naval task forces marked the turning point in the >> Pacific war"- G.C.Marshall; "they took heroic ... >> >> It's interesting that the *definitions* don't mention anything about >> sacrificing for others. > > But I'm confused. Self-sacrifice is clearly implied in definitions 2, > 3 & 5. Hmm, I don't think that that is what "self-sacrifice" means to me, and I would guess it isn't what Max meant when he started this thread. Risk taking is (to me) not at all what self-sacrifice means. The latter is when you *sacrifice* that is, you *deliberately* give up something valuable to you. Those soldiers, explorers, heros of antiquity all wanted to sacrifice nothing---except perhaps their adversaries. They hoped to live through it, and if they got acclaim or riches, all the better. > The heroes of antiquity (2), Normandy (3) and the > Mountains/Pacific (5) demonstrated it. > > I'm more intrigued why this concept is such a problem for you. Eh? It doesn't seem to me to be a problem for me at all. My notions coincide with the definitions given, (I think). My only beef is that (we conjecture) in recent decades heroism is taken to include self-sacrifice as I used the term above. > When you read fiction, do you empathize with the characters? Of course. Very much so. Especially when I like them. Lee From amara at amara.com Fri Mar 7 07:52:34 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 00:52:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice Message-ID: I don't think that the hero can pull it off without the selfless aspect because he must become the light against a dark shadow, to grow from a trace of himself into full maturity, i.e. to be more than he is initially. Otherwise he is a shadow, dark like the monster whom he is trying to defeat. So the combination of qualities which the hero requires to overcome the monster (i.e. in the process of performing his heroic act,) then, is to act in a large cause outside himself, he must show himself inwardly strong, determined, totally self-reliant, become a light beacon, and in the end, the final key in the lock is to have superior understanding or vision than the monster. That makes a hero. :-) Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From estropico at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 09:41:33 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 09:41:33 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> I will try to keep this civil, ignore those remarks of Vaj's that border on the slanderous, and put forward a proposal that I feel could be an acceptable compromise on the topic of Vaj's alleged penchant for nazi iconography. On the subject of the alleged Waffen-SS-lookalike business logo: > [?] my forename being Stefano my initials are SS and so are > embroidered on my shirts and boxers, the fact being allegedly a > telltale sign of my ideological preferences? You see, if Stefano's Waffen-SS-like business logo was the only hint of his borderline (?) neofascist sympaties, I *could* give him the benefit of the doubt ? who knows, perhaps it *is* all just a bizarre coincidence after all. But (and this is just one example) he describes himself as an "overhumanist" ("sovrumanista") and has written a more than sympathetic introduction to Giorgio Locchi's "Political Expression and Repression of the Overhumanist Principle" * a text in which we read that fascism is "the first political manifestation of a larger spiritual and cultural phenomenon, which we can call 'overhumanism'." The coincidence thing suddenly doesn't seem that convincing anymore. *http://www.uomo-libero.com/index.php?url=%2Farticolo.php%3Fid%3D293&hash=%20 > my firm's trademark [was] adopted *7 years before my birth* (!) What I find simply beyond comprehension is how anyone could not feel extremely uncomfortable with such a logo for all those years, and not feel the urgent need to do something about it. I mean we're not talking about a slight resemblance here, but a veritable Waffen-SS lookalike! Or maybe, in my old age, lost in my Vaj-persecution-mania, I've started to see things. I asked already and I'll ask again: if this logo is as trivial and innocent as Vaj so hard tries to convince us it is, why not just give us the url so the list can see it and make up its own mind? Go ahead, Stefano, just prove me wrong. But Vaj is being coy with his real name ? fair enough. I think the following might be a reasonable and acceptable compromise: we could post the animated version of the logo on YouTube, removing the references to Stefano's business, his real surname and the business' url. Stefano, what do you think? If you don't have the time or technical know-how, I'd be happy to do that for you. One last thing on the logo. Vaj stated that it was adopted several years before his birth (therefore, I guess, at some point in the '50s). However, somebody, at some point, must have taken the trouble (and expense) to get a web-animated version of the logo ? this was obviously done in much recent times. And in the animated version the SS logo is even more obvious - at some point it is unencumbered by any other graphical element and can be admired in all its "splendour"... On the threats of legal action: > I have never instructed any lawyer to represent me with regard to > the more or less libelous statements of the author of the message > above [estropico] Somehow I find it hard to believe, but if you say so. Hey, perhaps it's the people at your legal firm that are embarassed at being associated with your political writings. Perhaps we should take a leaf from their book. > On the other hands my partners, > namely those in charge with the firm's own legal representationare not > really happy, irrespective of what they may think of my > extra-curricular activities, that somebody may think it funny, for the > sake of my moral assassination, to have the firm described on the Web > as a business cover for a band of lunatics of dubious political > affiliations? I think your memory might be playing tricks on you. I actually went out of my way to report your own reply to the logo controversy, quoting the fact the company is "perfectly respectable". Obviously that part of my article has now been removed from the web, but I was in the middle of translating the whole thing into English, so here's a translation of the passage in question: "And of course there is the astonishing choice of a logo for his business by the more prominent superhumanist, Stefano Vaj (pseudonym of Stefano XXX). Just in case the logo at the top of the page (www.XXX.com) isn't clear enough, click on the one at the bottom of the left-hand column for an animated version with accompanying marching music. Vaj's reply, once this became known, has been that his company is perfectly respectable and that none of its clients (which include many well known international businesses) have ever complained about its logo. That might well be the case, but it doesn't explain why on earth would anyone want to include obvious Nazi imagery in one's business logo. And given such a controversial image we do find it rather embarassing that the postal address of AIT [the Italian Transhumanist Association] is the same as Vaj's legal practice." On the subject of my alleged frustrated aims to become AIT's president - or whatever: > I am now even more glad that the webmaster of > www.estropico.com, who was invited. in a spirit of perhaps excessive > ecumenism, in view of the interesting stuff he translated in Italian > in his web site, eventually declined to participate Just for the record: I have cut down on the amount of time I'm willing to spend on transhumanist activism due to changed personal circumstances (I am now the proud father of a very young girl - what am I doing spending all this time on this flame is beyond me). My involvelment with the UK Transhumanist Association is now marginal, but I decided to keep Estropico.com going. I orginally, and reluctantly, accepted the offer to be part of the association's council of "proboviri" (guarantors?), mainly following the urging to do so by those that saw me as a counterbalance to Vaj's presence. After several months of waiting without anything happening, and a few (three), admittedly not particularly forceful, enquiries on my part, it became apparent to me that there was no point even enquiring any further... As things stands I don't even think I'm going to renew my membership, never mind wanting to be associated too closely with AIT - I'd rather give the money to the Mprize! At any rate, I think Sefano Vaj underestimates my own knowledge of my own limits: I'm perfectly aware that I wouldn't make a suitable president for AIT (I'm not a published author or an academic and I wouldn't have the time for it anyway), so he can rest assured that, if and when AIT ever has internal elections, he's very unlikely to get any competition from myself. Cheers, Fabio > Message: 25 > Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2008 17:53:02 +0100 > From: "Stefano Vaj" > Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: > <580930c20803060853i397b87a5hba05d0b6ac599f84 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Longish message, only for real lovers of flame wars and human psychopathology... > > On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 10:12 AM, estropico wrote: > > I am not surprised, though. I originally included the above > > information in an article on my website regarding the neofascist (?) > > transhumanists, but I was forced to remove it following legal threats > > from Stefano "Vaj"'s lawyers. Would he have won in court? I doubt it, > > but he's the managing partner of a big law firm and I'm not... That's > > way I'm going to be careful about what I say on a public forum such as > > this. > > Uff... (what is the emoticon for boredom?). > > Just for the record, and then I will not play any further in the hands > of the couple of a few full-time disgruntled would-be presidents of > the AIT - significantly 100% absent from any kind of thread in this > list that does not concern my humble self - by deigning them with an > answer (an entirely different iissue being that of good-faith third > parties who may be interested in knowing better my ideas or writings, > as a couple of people have privately made me the honour of being): > > - I have never instructed any lawyer to represent me with regard to > the more or less libelous statements of the author of the message > above, firstly because I am probably not exasperated enough yet, > secondly because, as the "true totalitarist" I am accused to be, I > prefer to err on the side of... freedom of speech. > > - Yes, I happen to have two names, for family reasons that are > nobody's business, and more or less casually I started much time ago > of making alternative, rather than joint, use of them, depending on > the circumstances. No big conspiracy or secrecy here, as I am widely > known with both, and by spending a little time on Google one may even > find instances of joint usage. Now, the firm which I am a partner of - > and which was founded *27 years* before I joined it as a paralegal, > then climbing the career's ladder - happens to bear the same name, > which - sinister circumstance indeed - starts with an "S". So that, > hear hear, my forename being Stefano my initials are SS and so are > embroidered on my shirts and boxers, the fact being allegedly a > telltale sign of my ideological preferences, as would be the fact that > my firm's trademark, adopted *7 years before my birth* (!), employs > angular fonts, which never disturbed the clients making use of our > services in five different European jurisdictions, including notorious > neo-nazi organisations such as Ford or IBM, the governments of Romania > or that of Lombardy, not mention innumerable Jewish and Israeli > clients. If anything, the fact that I am using the name Vaj when I am > not writing on legal theory or international business law, may > "protect" my firm from association with what I do in a purely private > capacity, be it my membership in the Rotary International or in the > World Transhumanist Association. Certainly not the other way around, > as the "discovery" of my firm's name would seem intended to > demonstrate, namely that I would be here in some sort of "disguise" > (!) of my true self. > > - Do such petty and childish "investigations" and aspersion casting > exercises, emphatically reported on the Web, sound as an odious > invasion of my privacy? Sure, but life is still too short to pay > attention to every such annoyance. On the other hands my partners, > namely those in charge with the firm's own legal representationare not > really happy, irrespective of what they may think of my > extra-curricular activities, that somebody may think it funny, for the > sake of my moral assassination, to have the firm described on the Web > as a business cover for a band of lunatics of dubious political > affiliations, and I am informed that they actually send a letter "to > cease and desist" to the webmaster of www.estropico.com, threatening > recourse to the appropriate civil and criminal remedies, a threat that > I have no doubts was not idle in the least. > > - As for the "unelected national secretary of the Associazione > Italiana Transumanisti etc. etc.": the legitimate owner of the name > AIT, Riccardo Campa, decided at a point in time with a few fellow > transhumanists of very diverse professional, political and > philosophical background to incorporate the loose group at that time > going under that name as an Italian non-profit legal entity. In fact, > I gladly accepted the invitation to be amongst the founders of such > entity, who obviously decided by unanimous agreement its inner > organisational working and the names and capacity of the initial > officers. I am now even more glad that the webmaster of > www.estropico.com, who was invited. in a spirit of perhaps excessive > ecumenism, in view of the interesting stuff he translated in Italian > in his web site, eventually declined to participate - even though he > became a member at a later stage, probably with the exclusive purpose > of pretending an interest in the sort of the organisation and of > justifying his reiterated "denounciations" of its "dangerous drift". > > As for the ideas and programmes of the AIT, one can directly check > from its Web site at http://www.transumanisti.it and hopefully have > access soon to an English version of the Manifesto that we have > recently, and again unanimously, approved. Now, I understand that some > people may take its content as a "dangerous drift" away from sectarian > and "debatable" positions they promote, but I fear that they will have > to live with that in the foreseeable future, since it is now amongst > the official charts of the AIT. > > Stefano Vaj From pgptag at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 11:43:34 2008 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 12:43:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 10:41 AM, estropico wrote: > I will try to keep this civil, ignore those remarks of Vaj's that > border on the slanderous, and put forward a proposal that I feel could > be an acceptable compromise on the topic of Vaj's alleged penchant for > nazi iconography... To the attention of the list moderator(s): as a subscriber I am beginning to find this exchange very boring and very far from the content that I wish to read here. This has been said by many others if I am not mistaken. Could somebody please issue a reminder to all participants in this off-topic thread. From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 12:17:01 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 09:17:01 -0300 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? References: <47D0AEE4.9090705@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <009601c8804d$28213080$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Richard Loosemore> Unfortunately, I think I was not clear enough, and as a result you have > misunderstood what I said in rather a substantial way. > When you build an AGI, you *must* sort out the motivation mechanism > ahead of time, or the machine will simply not work at all. You don't > build an AGI and *then* discover what its motivation is. Let me throw more wood into the fire then. I am not afraid of AGIs at all. But let's imagine a scenario where some humans begin to worship the AGI as some sort of deity (yes, humans can be that messed up). A sect could quickly evolve around the AGI and THAT is something I consider dangerous. Not the AGI itself, but those possible post modern religious fanatics. The difference between these new fanatics and the present day fanatics that we all know and don't love is that their god really exists (I'm sure there's already some distopic scifi novel that has already addressed this issue). From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 12:21:31 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 09:21:31 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Lee Corbin> And once a human is successfully uploaded, the proof of the > pudding will be that his or her friends find communicating with > the upload to be essentially indistinguishable from communicating > with the original. And how would it de different from a perfect simulation? From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 12:27:41 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 06:27:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <009601c8804d$28213080$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <47D0AEE4.9090705@lightlink.com> <009601c8804d$28213080$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <200803070627.41981.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 07 March 2008, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > that messed up). A sect could quickly evolve around the AGI and THAT > is something I consider dangerous. Not the AGI itself, but those > possible post modern religious fanatics. The difference between these > new fanatics and the present day fanatics that we all know and don't > love is that their god really exists (I'm sure there's already some > distopic scifi novel that has already addressed this issue). http://orionsarm.com/ - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 12:24:53 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 13:24:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Small H+ success story Message-ID: <580930c20803070424k12cdecf7nfecc5760083894de@mail.gmail.com> Speaking of the failed referendum for the abrogation of the Italian prohibitionist law on IFV, cloning and genetic engineering, on Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 5:38 PM, Amara Graps wrote: From: "Stefano Vaj" > On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > > > I think it's important for Transhumanists to understand: > >> Why too few votes? Why couldn't that referendum gather 50%? Can you > >> answer? > > > >Mmhhh. Lack of information? Censorship by mainstream media? Cultural > >limits? Insufficient mobilisation or blatant betrayal of the forces > >who should theoretically have supported the referendum? Fear of the > >swinging catholic 4-5% in the upcoming elections ? The > >clever presentation of the law by its supporters as something > >concerning only couples with fertility problems (in fact it forbids > >almost all kinds of human reproductive or genetic technology)? > > Thank you for these examples. It's quite a list. These are the > challenges of yours and AITs and the Italian transhumanists wouldn't you > say? > ... > Your other examples (which depend on education, pure research funding, > political agendas, the Vatican's influence in Italy's politics) have > similar (IMO insurmountable) challenges. > Yet, I am happy to report as -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 12:44:29 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 06:44:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <215844.1513.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <215844.1513.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200803070644.29129.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 07 March 2008, Anne Corwin wrote: > If Max was really referring to a hero who literally risks *nothing* > important to him or her, but still manages heroism, then my first > thought would be a kind of Zen-type character who has no > "attachments" and therefore does not feel that any outcome represents > a personal loss, even if others might consider particular outcomes > very distressing. ?But I don't know if many readers would be able to > relate to such a character. In this context, others would look upon the Zen character and say that he has sacrificed so much to have no 'attachments' as you say. So if anybody is able to say something negative about the character, is that character no longer a hero? Certainly not, so I suppose we must limit the definition to what the hero himself interprets self-sacrifice to be. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 12:51:22 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 06:51:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <720057.44645.qm@web56512.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <720057.44645.qm@web56512.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200803070651.22906.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 07 March 2008, Anne Corwin wrote: > ?I know there's a lot of dramatic tension inherent in the "struggle > to resolve who wins in a zero-sum game", but it would be interesting > to see if similarly satisfying levels of dramatic tension could be > achieved in a setting where everyone manages to win in some way. That's interesting. Perhaps the dramatic tension can be envoked from the reader by well-done written work that can draw the reader into a trance to figure out just how this "nonzerosumness" works out? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 13:33:47 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 14:33:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20803070533l23ba1270qa6782ca2d618cbe2@mail.gmail.com> On the subject of the failed referendum for the abrogation of the Italian prohibitionist law on IFV, cloning and genetic engineering, on Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 5:38 PM, Amara Graps wrote in the ExI chat list: > From: "Stefano Vaj" > On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > > > I think it's important for Transhumanists to understand: > >> Why too few votes? Why couldn't that referendum gather 50%? Can you > >> answer? > > > >Mmhhh. Lack of information? Censorship by mainstream media? Cultural > >limits? Insufficient mobilisation or blatant betrayal of the forces > >who should theoretically have supported the referendum? Fear of the > >swinging catholic 4-5% in the upcoming elections ? The > >clever presentation of the law by its supporters as something > >concerning only couples with fertility problems (in fact it forbids > >almost all kinds of human reproductive or genetic technology)? > > Thank you for these examples. It's quite a list. These are the > challenges of yours and AITs and the Italian transhumanists wouldn't you > say? > ... > Your other examples (which depend on education, pure research funding, > political agendas, the Vatican's influence in Italy's politics) have > similar (IMO insurmountable) challenges. > Yet, sometimes one can find himself in the position of making a small difference, and this confirms me in the opinion of the importance of keeping up the good fight everywhere and on any occasions, including in Italy with all its problems. In fact, as mentioned another time, I was recently honoured by the appointment as one of the five "wise men" instructed by the parliament of Lombardy to draft a kind-of constitution (Statuto). In fact, Italy has moved towards a slightly more federal form of State, and each single administrative region had to adopt such a chart reflecting its own new powers and fundamental principles. Lombardy is one of the last to adopt it, and one should remember that its economic weight and population is comparable to that of many entire EU countries. This has been a very interesting professional experience, because practising lawyers are more likely to be instructed to draft contracts than constitutions, and scholars usually comment them but do not play any great role in determining their actual wording. Besides that, it goes without saying that even though I had in principle no real say with regard to the politics and philosophy behind the new constitution - something which is obviously reserved to elected representatives - I took the opportunity to pepper generously my draft with transhumanist memes and spins in at least a dozen different places. Of course, I was fully aware that little of all that work was going to survive to parliamentary vagaries and, more importantly, to the reactions of the hyper-important and much courted swinging-vote teocon representatives present in both the right-wing majority and the left-wing minority (actually the catholics in the second area called themselves "teodems", but the difference is often very subtle). Add to that the deep roots of explicitely neo-luddist, "deep-ecology", environmentalism in the ranks of a well-represented extreme Left, and the least I can say is that anti-H+ knee-jerk reactions from different sectors were not such a great surprise. On the other hand, I am very glad to report that a few little things managed to survive that are not so trivial in the Italian cultural, legal and political landscape, namely in the following provisions: Art. 2: "In particular, in the framework of its competences, the Lombardy Region: ... e) promotes the preconditions to make effective the freedom of religion, of thought, of speech, or teaching, of research, including what pertains to the access to communication media." ( In particolare, nell'ambito delle sue competenze, la Regione: e) promuove le condizioni per rendere effettiva la libert? religiosa, di pensiero, di parola, di insegnamento, di educazione, di ricerca, nonch? l'accesso ai mezzi di comunicazione;) Art. 10: "Research and Innovation 1. The Lombardy Region recognises the central and driving role of the scientific research and of innovation for the achievement of its goals in all the areas of the economic and social life, and strives to achieve a maximal exploitment of its potential, in cooperation and through exchanges with universities, research centres, and techno-scientific and professional communities. 2. The Lombardy Region shall recognise, promote and support technological, scientific and industrial innovations; investments and initiatives in the fields of fundamental and applied research, as well as everything necessary to the achievement of results of excellence in those areas, including whatever pertains to related decision-making and to information spreading. ..." (Ricerca e innovazione: 1. La Regione riconosce il ruolo centrale e trainante della ricerca scientifica e dell'innovazione per il conseguimento dei propri obiettivi in tutte le sfere della vita economica e sociale e opera per valorizzarne al massimo grado il potenziale, in collaborazione e dialogo con le universit?, i centri di ricerca, le comunit? tecnico-scientifiche e professionali. 2. La Regione valorizza, promuove e incentiva l'innovazione tecnica, scientifica e produttiva, gli investimenti e le iniziative nel campo della ricerca di base e applicata, nonch? quanto necessario al raggiungimento di risultati di eccellenza in tali ambiti, ivi compresi gli aspetti attinenti la formazione delle decisioni e la loro divulgazione. ...) Sure, we are talking of purely programmatic points, and the devils will as usually be in the implementation (if any...) of the "principles" above. At the same time, I am proud to say that at least some Italian transhumanists can now refer to a public document of constitutional relevance whenever the values embedded in the provisions above come into discussion. Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 13:36:47 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 14:36:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 1:21 PM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > Lee Corbin> And once a human is successfully uploaded, the proof of the > > > pudding will be that his or her friends find communicating with > > the upload to be essentially indistinguishable from communicating > > with the original. > > And how would it de different from a perfect simulation? I think it wouldn't be different at all, but if we accept that we live in a phenomenic, rather than noumenic, reality this is all there is to say. Stefano Vaj From scerir at libero.it Fri Mar 7 13:51:06 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 14:51:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> <470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> Giu1i0 scrive: > To the attention of the list moderator(s): as a subscriber I am > beginning to find this exchange very boring and very far from the > content that I wish to read here. This has been said by many others if > I am not mistaken. Could somebody please issue a reminder to all > participants in this off-topic thread. Giulio, while the specific 'querelle' may be off-topic, isn't off topic here - at least imo - the *compatibility* between the Extropian Principles and what Stefano wrote, or writes. I think it is not so easy, for our f?hrer, to check this compatibility since Stefano wrote (I guess) in Italian, and even the 'Manifesto' is not translated in English. But I can agree: this stuff is boring. -serafino From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 14:37:20 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 06:37:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Henrique and Stephano comment on uploads as "simulations". Stephano writes > Henrique Moraes Machado wrote > > wrote: > > Lee Corbin wrote > > > > > And once a human is successfully uploaded, the proof of the > > > pudding will be that his or her friends find communicating with > > > the upload to be essentially indistinguishable from communicating > > > with the original. > > > > And how would it be different from a perfect simulation? > > I think it wouldn't be different at all, but if we accept that we live > in a phenomenic, rather than noumenic, reality this is all there is to > say. I agree. But "simulation" is ambiguous, I've always said. A very, very good actor (especially if he's a superhuman AI), might simulate you just fine, fooling all your friends and relatives. In other words, this god-like being is just pulling the strings on a puppet. Unfortunately, that counts as a successful simulation of you on some usages of the term. But to *emulate* you means that something really is you, just as one operating system may emulate another. I didn't make this distinction above when I first wrote, due to shortage of space. A successful upload emulates you perfectly, has your thoughts and feelings (or, perhaps the ones you may have tomorrow), and your genuine internal experiences. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 15:13:17 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 07:13:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question - Resolved References: <934976.15997.qm@web31007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <03b901c87e01$98a7a5d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <005a01c88066$5f2aa930$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> The question (See Below) is now entirely resolved. The answer was much along the lines that Jef had suggested. The load (showed as disconnected in a diagram) plays the decisive role. The ground holds one end of the 1K load resistor at 0V, and the emitter resistor's low end is held at -10V, and that creates a voltage divider. So the emitter can never go more negative than half way between (since each is a 1K resistor). Thus the emitter can go no lower than -5V, though when the base swings above -5V, more current is drawn from that "-5V point" and it rises too. Thanks to Bryan, Jef, Stathis, and Ed McHale, and also to some fine folks at sci.electronics.basic, who got it through my thick head that the ground symbol always stands for 0V in such a circuit, regardless of any higher or lower "rails". Sorry for the off-topic post, and apologies for having not quite correctly conveyed all the particulars. Lee >> The bottom of the diagram is at -10 volts and the top is at >> +10 volts (i.e. a 20volt supply somewhere). Just above the >> -10 volts is a 1K resistor, and above that the emitter of an >> NPN transistor. There is no resistor between the collector >> and the +10 volts. The experiment is to let the base voltage >> (input) vary between +10 and -10. The output is taken >> (hence "emitter-follower") at the top of the 1K resistor. >> >> Because the base-emitter voltage is always around .6 volts, >> the output naturally follows the input, but at .6 volts less. >> >> But the book says that when the input voltage drops down >> to -4.4 volts, the base-emitter junction gets back-biased, >> (and the transistor turns off?). I don't understand why the >> voltage on the base cannot keep going down, say to -6V, >> with the output voltage continuing to keep in step, say at >> -6.6. Even at -6 volts, there seems to me to be plenty >> of leeway between that and the -10V source below it. >> >> Here is their explanation: >> >> "The output can swing to within a transistor saturation >> voltage drop of VCC (about +9.9v) but it cannot go >> more negative than -5 volts. That is because on the >> extreme negative swing the transistor can do no more >> than turn off, which it does at -4.4 volts input (-5V >> output). Further netgative swing at the input results in >> back-biasing of the base-emitter juntion, but no further >> change in output." From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Mar 7 16:08:42 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 08:08:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Devastated ideologies (was: italian politics as exi-chat subject) In-Reply-To: <200803070006.25671.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803060053o7a7bef83t13eb017b3249126a@mail.gmail.com> <200803061735.51526.kanzure@gmail.com> <200803070006.25671.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:06 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > > But on the other hand, we have significantly > > > large organizations ("Left" and "Right") and ideologies still > > > propagating and still abducting new minds even though there's no > > > real power that is necessarily making news releases to gain eyes > > > and get possible neophytes to convert (peculiar). > > > > Strange statement, considering the obvious and massive power > > structures within society which seem to be doing just that. > > Hm. You're right. I'd rather refine my observation to point out that > they are running on their own inertia of (even human) self-replication, > to apply your terms. Otherwise there is no legitimate reason > to 'convert' to Rightism or Leftism as far as I can tell. It seems you're saying that the major political power structures identified generally as "Right" and "Left" are proceeding mainly on their momentum from past efforts. I would disagree with this on the basis that (1) I see **a lot** of human initiative, energy and creativity being applied to these causes, and to a lesser extent, (2) these particular organizational alignments are very much tools of the individual humans, with little or no agency at the level of the organization itself. It seems also that you're conflating the previous point with the observation that despite all the apparent activity, it's pretty much "business as usual", with the existing power structures working more to strengthen their capacity for self-preservation (in terms of their existing values) than strengthening their capacity for increasingly effective adaptation (on behalf of their evolving values.) If this is your intended point, then I would agree it's an important one, applicable to all levels of intentional organization. The US military is already tipping in this direction, as are a few corporations, but systems which are predominately bottom-up driven, e.g. "ideal democracy", remain fundamentally limited to the slower rate of "trial and error" first-order evolutionary growth. > > [Insert Arrow of Morality here, with talk of increasing coherence > > over an increasing context of values, promoted by increasingly > > effective (scientific) means...] > > I'd like you to comment on the personal coherency arrow versus the > social coherency arrow, I mentioned this either in this thread or > another earlier today and think it would help here. (Ah, it looks like > you did in the next snippit. But I still remember something else I > mentioned today?) It is interesting to note that 'personal' can > encompass society (just as I can potentially encompass an entire botnet > or 18 wheeler to some extent, or perhaps grow and spawn enough people > to make a society) but the reverse -- where society makes for myself -- > does not work. (Chicken/egg?) I think the key to this is in recognizing that "personal", implying "self", refers to one's own perceived locus of agency, rather than referring to any particular form or size of organizational structure. It seems that you've got that much, when you suggest that one could self-identify "as an 18-wheeler." I don't understand what you mean by "..the reverse -- where society makes for myself..." > > Diversity is essential to evolutionary growth, accelerating with > > selection via an increasingly evolved environment. > > How is it that isolation engenders diversity? The point was in response to your question about the role of individual development within the large social environment leading to ongoing growth. To start, consider ecological niches. Consider "hybrid vigor." In the bigger picture, consider the necessary role of gradients in any (dynamic) process, and how in evolutionary processes a supply of diversity is necessary but not sufficient for ongoing adaptation. - Jef From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 16:19:47 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 17:19:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof In-Reply-To: <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> <470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com> <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> Message-ID: <580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 2:51 PM, scerir wrote: > Giulio, while the specific 'querelle' may be off-topic, > isn't off topic here - at least imo - the *compatibility* > between the Extropian Principles and what Stefano wrote, > or writes. > I think it is not so easy, for our f?hrer, to check this > compatibility since Stefano wrote (I guess) in Italian, > and even the 'Manifesto' is not translated in English. > The Manifesto will be. As for my writings and/or thoughts, I have already made myself available to provide all the clarifications and details required to any third party with a good-faith curiosity or interest. In fact, I am understandably keen to make them as well-known as possible. :-) On the other hand, I think that my contributions to this list can and should be judged based on what I say and do as a subscriber thereof, which can be judged by anyone every day. I have myself for instance the sincerest doubts on the "compatibility" of what the extreme-right preacher self-baptised as Fabio Estropico writes in his blog with extropism, not to mention with other more encompassing rules such as Italian law; but as long as the relevant statements are not repeated here, I do not see what relevance such a "compatibility" may have for the list. By all means, I can find worse on the Web any time I care to look for it, and I am not paranoid of contamination if I happen to find myself on the same list with somebody whose opinons I consider deplorable and indefensible. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Mar 7 16:30:00 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 08:30:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question - Resolved In-Reply-To: <005a01c88066$5f2aa930$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <934976.15997.qm@web31007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <03b901c87e01$98a7a5d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <005a01c88066$5f2aa930$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 7:13 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > The question (See Below) is now entirely resolved. The answer > was much along the lines that Jef had suggested. The load > (showed as disconnected in a diagram) plays the decisive > role. Ah, if only more interesting issues could be so explicitly and completely defined in these forums. - Jef From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Mar 7 16:40:30 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 08:40:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?The_Monkey_Experiment=2C_=28or=29_=93Why_D?= =?windows-1252?q?o_We_Do_That=3F=94?= Message-ID: Apropos certain trends in discussion. From rpwl at lightlink.com Fri Mar 7 17:00:16 2008 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:00:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Fwd: AGI Mailing List [WAS Re: The AGI and limiting it]] Message-ID: <47D174A0.2000009@lightlink.com> I just realized that this message of mine, which I intended to send to the list, only went to the person who wrote to me offlist, so here it is. [name omitted] wrote: >> Richard Loosemore> You will find that a much broader and more vigorous >> discussion of AI >> safety issues has been taking place on the AGI mailing list for some >> time now. > > Could you please give me some directions to this AGI mailing list? I > can't seem to find it. There actually two close lists, both organized by AGIRI.org: the "AGI" list and the "Singularity" list. Both of these can be found at http://www.agiri.org/email/. As a historical aside, the Singularity list was formed precisely because of the attacks made against me on the SL4 list in August 2006, which resulted in a great deal of dissatisfaction with the dictatorial policies of the SL list. When I made a move to set up an alternative to SL4, Ben Goertzel quickly stepped in and formed yet another alternative, and eventually everyone drifted to the AGI/Singularity combination. AGI is supposed to be about technical discussion of AGI, but in practice many people belong to both lists because they are hosted together, so discussions of singularity-related topics tend to appear as much on the AGI list as on the Singularity list. (Not that I want to encourage this, but it is a fact). If you are interested in the friendliness question in particular, I am in the process of collecting my writings on the subject, to put them in more permanent form on my blog. I will post a link to this blog when it is set up. (I know I am always saying that ;-), but I work from crisis to crisis, so there is always one more important thing for me to do... ). Richard Loosemore From max at maxmore.com Fri Mar 7 17:05:30 2008 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:05:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <215844.1513.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <29666bf30803062235y1d43ea0and08e2e3b82aefad0@mail.gmail.com> <215844.1513.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20080307170533.WJQK11056.hrndva-omta06.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> At 12:51 AM 3/7/2008, Anne wrote: >If Max was really referring to a hero who literally risks *nothing* >important to him or her, but still manages heroism, I was/am leaving completely open the issue of how much value is at risk and its source. MM Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com From rpwl at lightlink.com Fri Mar 7 17:15:01 2008 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:15:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <009601c8804d$28213080$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <47D0AEE4.9090705@lightlink.com> <009601c8804d$28213080$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <47D17815.4050206@lightlink.com> Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > Richard Loosemore> Unfortunately, I think I was not clear enough, and as a > result you have >> misunderstood what I said in rather a substantial way. >> When you build an AGI, you *must* sort out the motivation mechanism >> ahead of time, or the machine will simply not work at all. You don't >> build an AGI and *then* discover what its motivation is. > > Let me throw more wood into the fire then. > I am not afraid of AGIs at all. But let's imagine a scenario where some > humans begin to worship the AGI as some sort of deity (yes, humans can be > that messed up). A sect could quickly evolve around the AGI and THAT is > something I consider dangerous. Not the AGI itself, but those possible post > modern religious fanatics. The difference between these new fanatics and the > present day fanatics that we all know and don't love is that their god > really exists (I'm sure there's already some distopic scifi novel that has > already addressed this issue). I think there is a difficulty here, which has to do with the context in which you assume an AGI to exist. Without going into details, the context is what 100% determines whether this scenario (a) could happen, (b) is likely to happen, and (c) would be a problem even if it did happen. The reason I say this is that I have thought about the future timeline of an AGI arrival, and I think that the overwhelming majority of possible futures involve situations in which this AGI-worship scenario would not be a problem. Because of my analysis, therefore, it is hard to answer your question. I think this kind of problem (where different people make wildly different assumptions about the context in which an AGI would arise) is at the root of many discussions and misunderstandings. I suppose what that means is that we have to spend more time examining possible-futures scenarios. Richard Loosemore From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Mar 7 17:29:50 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:29:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080307112542.0248a4d8@satx.rr.com> On Friday 07 March 2008, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > A sect could quickly evolve around the AGI and THAT > is something I consider dangerous. Not the AGI itself, but those > possible post modern religious fanatics. The difference between these > new fanatics and the present day fanatics that we all know and don't > love is that their god really exists (I'm sure there's already some > distopic scifi novel that has already addressed this issue). As it chances, I've just started reading the first sequel by D. F. Jones to THE FORBIN PROJECT (filmed in 1970 as the quite striking COLOSSUS), THE FALL OF COLOSSUS (1974), where exactly this is postulated. And it is, indeed, called the Sect. Damien Broderick From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 17:39:53 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 18:39:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Small H+ success stories Message-ID: <580930c20803070939l4ae29e0dv4276f7f7fb05d4e2@mail.gmail.com> Speaking of the failed referendum for the abrogation of the Italian prohibitionist law on IFV, cloning and genetic engineering, on Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 5:38 PM, Amara Graps wrote on the ExI chat list: > From: "Stefano Vaj" > On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > > > I think it's important for Transhumanists to understand: > >> Why too few votes? Why couldn't that referendum gather 50%? Can you > >> answer? > > > >Mmhhh. Lack of information? Censorship by mainstream media? Cultural > >limits? Insufficient mobilisation or blatant betrayal of the forces > >who should theoretically have supported the referendum? Fear of the > >swinging catholic 4-5% in the upcoming elections ? The > >clever presentation of the law by its supporters as something > >concerning only couples with fertility problems (in fact it forbids > >almost all kinds of human reproductive or genetic technology)? > > Thank you for these examples. It's quite a list. These are the > challenges of yours and AITs and the Italian transhumanists wouldn't you > say? > ... > Your other examples (which depend on education, pure research funding, > political agendas, the Vatican's influence in Italy's politics) have > similar (IMO insurmountable) challenges. Yet, from time to time one finds himself in the position to make a little difference, and that encourages me to think that one should "keep up the good fight" and do whatever he can wherever he can, including in Italy, a country admittedly not devoid of problems. In fact, as mentioned another time, I was honoured by the appointment by the Lombardy Parliament, in my capacity of a jurist of some reputation, as one of the five "wise man" instructed to draft a (kind of) constitution for Lombardy itself, called Statuto. Since Italy recently embarked in a slightly more federally-oriented reforn of its governance, single administrative regions were to implement such charts reflecting both their enlarged powers and their basic ruling principles; and Lombardy - which, it is worth remembering, has more economic weight and population than several entire EU member countries - was one of the last not having done so yet. This experience has been of great professional interest, since practising lawyers draft contracts much more frequently than constitutions, and scholars usually comment upon them rather than contributing to their wording. But besides that I obviously took all the opportunities to pepper generously the proposed constitutional bill with H+ memes and spins in at least a dozen of places, even though, strictly speaking, I should not have any say regarding the political or philosophical orientation of the constitution, an aspect that was obviously reserved to elected representatives. :-) Of course, I never expected much of that to survive to parliamentary vagaries, not to mention, more importantly, to the reactions of the much-courted, swinging-vote teocons in both the right-wing majority and the left-wing opposition (those in the latter call themselves "teodem", but the difference is often very subtle). Add to that the deep inroads of explicitely neo-luddite, "deep ecology", environmentalism in an equally well-represented and vocal extreme left, and the least I can I say is that knee-jerk rejections of anything vaguely sounding H+ were to be taken for granted. I am however happy to report that more than a few "little things" managed to survive, namely in the two following important provisions: "Art. 2 ... In particular, in the framework of its powers, the Lombardy Region: ... e) shall promote the preconditions to make effective the freedom of religion, of thought, of speech, of teaching, of research, as well as the access to communication media" (In particolare, nell'ambito delle sue competenze, la Regione:... e) promuove le condizioni per rendere effettiva la libert? religiosa, di pensiero, di parola, di insegnamento, di educazione, di ricerca, nonch? l'accesso ai mezzi di comunicazione;) "Art. 10 - Research and Innovation. 1. The Lombardy Region recognises the leading and central role of the scientific research and of innovation for the achievement of its goals in all the fields of economic and social life, and shall strives to exploit to the maximum possible degree its potential, in cooperation with universities, research centres, and the techno-scientific and professional communities. 2. The Lombardy Region shall value, promote and support technological, scientific and industrial innovations, investments and initiatives in the field of fundamental and applied research, as well as everything else that is required to achieve results of excellence in those areas, including the aspects pertaining to the reaching of decisions and the related information. ..." (Ricerca e innovazione 1. La Regione riconosce il ruolo centrale e trainante della ricerca scientifica e dell'innovazione per il conseguimento dei propri obiettivi in tutte le sfere della vita economica e sociale e opera per valorizzarne al massimo grado il potenziale, in collaborazione e dialogo con le universit?, i centri di ricerca, le comunit? tecnico-scientifiche e professionali. 2. La Regione valorizza, promuove e incentiva l'innovazione tecnica, scientifica e produttiva, gli investimenti e le iniziative nel campo della ricerca di base e applicata, nonch? quanto necessario al raggiungimento di risultati di eccellenza in tali ambiti, ivi compresi gli aspetti attinenti la formazione delle decisioni e la loro divulgazione.) Needless to say, those are mere programmatic points, and as usually the devil will be in their actual implementation (if any!); but their enactment in such an explicit form is already far from trivial in the Italian political, social and cultural context. And I am proud to say that, at the very least, from now on, whenever those principles will come into discussion, Italian transhumanists will be in a position to make reference to an official document of constitutional relevance in our legal system. Stefano Vaj From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Mar 7 18:22:51 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:22:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] =?iso-8859-1?q?_Re=3A__The_Monkey_Experiment=2C_=28or=29_?= =?iso-8859-1?q?=93Why_Do_We_Do__That=3F=94?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080307121657.02528ec8@satx.rr.com> At 08:40 AM 3/7/2008 -0800, Jef wrote: >Apropos certain trends in discussion. > > and apropos another recent discussion (hi, John Grigg!), it even ends: Like what you've seen? Share it! Send this page to a friend This looks just like the kind of "frog in boiling water" fable that sounds illuminating but is invented: http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.htm These gullible peer group-driven monkeys are all over the web, btw; snopes doesn't seem to have investigated the story yet, but I'd be more ready to believe it if there'd been some documentation attached... Damien Broderick From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Mar 7 18:32:34 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 10:32:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com><470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com><009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> <580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Myself, I do happen to be something of an ideological partisan, (I'm trying to get better :-)), but my real interest in following this thread---to the meagre effort that I have been able to---is to see a reflection in another country/culture of the same issues that divide us here. So as painful as it may be for Giulio and perhaps some others, could they ingore the messages a bit longer, perhaps? For example, Stephano (who I would have said is quite a right winger---we may ideologically agree on quite a few things, he and I) writes as follows: Stephano writes > On the other hand, I think that my contributions to this list can and > should be judged based on what I say and do as a subscriber thereof, Sure. > which can be judged by anyone every day. I have myself for instance > the sincerest doubts on the "compatibility" of what the extreme-right > preacher self-baptised as Fabio Estropico... This, for example, totally baffles me. In America, Stephano would be considered "extreme-right wing". So how can Fabio be also described in these terms? What would be utterly ideal would be a table the rows of which would be issues, and the columns of which would be Estropico, Stephano, and Fabio (or whoever). Then I could see who really was "right wing" (or "left wing" or "fascist") and thus what these terms mean in Italy and in the Italian Transhumanist movement. I can't be the only one who sees potential value in our Italian friends holding up a mirror for us in the west, but whose reflection perhaps has much potential for helping us even understand ourselves. Thanks, Lee From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Mar 7 19:04:26 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 11:04:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?The_Monkey_Experiment=2C_=28or=29_=93Why_D?= =?windows-1252?q?o_We_Do_That=3F=94?= In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080307121657.02528ec8@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080307121657.02528ec8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 10:22 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > This looks just like the kind of "frog in boiling water" fable that > sounds illuminating but is invented: > http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.htm Yeah, as far as I can tell it's just a story, popular within change-management circles, but I think it provides a useful contrast illustrating how far transhumanists have already come in terms of enlightened inquiry and discussion, attacking problems rather than each other. - Jef From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 19:32:35 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 12:32:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200803061836.49412.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <939952.8409.qm@web27010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200803011724.38240.kanzure@gmail.com> <2d6187670803020746i1f70e497u8bbedafdd7d9ef3b@mail.gmail.com> <200803061836.49412.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803071132i4862cca1h93b3e6bdba8d484f@mail.gmail.com> Hi Bryan, I enjoyed the exchange of ideas. I'd be curious to know where you will be standing on these issues in ten or twenty years, considering you are currently a very young man. > > > The "amazing cultural phenomena" you describe, if it turns against > > you (stem cell research vrs. the Bush Administration, for instance), > > results in a definite slowing or stopping of potentially life saving > > medical technology. > The only way they can do that is by jailing us in prisons. > >>> Most researchers don't want to go to that extreme to protest things. Instead, they simply don't do the controversial research or else move to a nation where it is allowed/encouraged. And that nation then reaps the benefits. > > > And even though the research and development would continue in other > > nations, the U.S. would then be at a serious disadvantage to be a > > leader in the biotech field and reap the financial harvest. And > > remember that it's just plain "un-American" to not make tons of money > > and dominate technological progress! lol > > Heh, well, with self-replication there might be a collapse of the > financial institutions, but not if they play their cards right. So > that's something that somebody might want to put some thought into. > >>> In the name of national security (and the unspoken desire of corporations to keep their stranglehold on the economy) we will see the possibility of nanotech "anything boxes" most likely squelched. "We can't take the chance of bad people hacking into them and doing who knows what!" "Why, just go to your local Nano Mart store and they will set you right up..." > > > you continue: > > > No matter how much they proclaim to be against a possibility does > > > not determine that bottom line of feasability. Yes, they can > > > protest, yes, they can try to stone us, they can try to burn us > > > alive, but you see, we can diffuse the information over the > > > internet, and good luck warring against the internet. It will route > > > around the damage. > > > > But warring against research labs and those who fund them in another > > matter, entirely. It generally takes serious money and disciplined > > scientific teams to tease out Mother Nature's secrets. > > Nah, it just takes discipline. That's the whole discipline of science. > It does not take money, but rather the raw resources. The guys that > build particle accelerators and energy stations? They had the > discipline to make it happen even when there wasn't necessarily > a "plutonium economy" or "electricity economy" when they started off. > >>> > The guys who built the particle accelerators and energy stations got big hunks of money from government and corporate sponsors. They had the discipline to gather the grant money that got things accomplished. > > > of global competitiveness. And by the time we try to really turn > > things around we may have lost some critical advantages that might > > never be fully regained. > > Maybe. Can you own an advantage, even in natural-evolutionary terms? > >>> > What the U.S. and Western world might have are certain given educational and social foundations that make technological catch up much easier on us as compared to China or Russia. > > > In terms of national security (and economic strength is a foundation > > of military strength) and a having a powerful and effective armed > > forces, the U.S. in my view needs to be much more careful in terms of > > who does scientific research in our labs and who can gain access to > > our technological trade secrets. I think we should only let in > > foreign nationals that are from nations which do not have longterm > > plans to take our spot as the definitive world superpower. I cringe > > to think of all the knowledge & power which is leaked out to > > potentially hostile foreign competitors because we are so dependent > > on researchers not from our native country. > > What knowledge and power? What does the military have that cannot be > already duplicated? Airplanes? Easily duplicated (though not > necessarily the money to make many tests. This is of course a matter of > resources, not money.) Nuclear weapons? Non-military persons came up > with nukes. Navy machinery? Easy enough. > >>> > Knowledge IS power. Academic and corporate research labs are spread across the U.S. and the backbone of much military and economic r & d. Yes, non-military people came up with much of this. lol By the way, resources and money go hand in hand. : ) A "standard" and non-high performance jet fighter, tank, missle cruiser, civilian product for sale, etc. may be relatively easy to create, but designing and manufacturing a very advanced (superior to potential enemies/competitors) version is a great challenge. Rival nations will have a very challenging time matching our most advanced tech (and as they try to catch up we would be moving forward to stay ahead) unless the complete designs and manufacturing methods are stolen. Espionage/stolen military and industrial secrets are a huge problem for the U.S. and the rest of the Western world. > > > We are in a race to develop whatever the next generation of > > technological innovations are that we must have to stay not just > > competitive, but ahead of the rest of the world. And yes, we do have > > This is FUD. This is THE REAL WORLD. lol > > > > our top secret military labs that surely have incredible security and > > well vetted researchers, but the tech that feeds those places comes > > generally from corporate and academic America. It will be carefully > > nurtured and protected technological progress that will maintain our > > economic strength, and this must be protected every bit as much as > > some state of the art new weapons system. > > Fud, fud, fud. >>> If the U.S. does not protect it's technology base by better security, improving public education, etc., you will see in your lifetime our steep decline. It will be a very sad thing. > > > > Nationalism is a two-edged sword. On the one side it can cause > > It is also more fud. > >>> > It can be at times. But do you really think other powerful nations always have our best interests at heart? lol Life is not just cooperation but also competition. Nature teaches us that. And it still holds true for humanity. > > > healthy competition among developed nations to make rapid progress in > > key technologies that would potentially change our lives for the > > better. I am very grateful for this (would you want a powerful world > > government that had a negative view of biotech research and passed > > laws in effect *everywhere* to enforce their stance?, lol) But on > > the other hand, nationalism can cause extreme over-competitiveness, > > which leads to wars, both cold and hot. > Hey, I agree with this guy! ; ) > > > Btw, I apologize for not getting back to this soon enough. I forgot > about it. :) > > - Bryan > >>> > No problem! Best wishes, John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 20:01:22 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 17:01:22 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Lee Corbin> I agree. But "simulation" is ambiguous, I've always said. A very, very > good actor (especially if he's a superhuman AI), might simulate you > just fine, fooling all your friends and relatives. In other words, this > god-like being is just pulling the strings on a puppet. Unfortunately, > that counts as a successful simulation of you on some usages of the > term. > But to *emulate* you means that something really is you, just as one > operating system may emulate another. I didn't make this distinction > above when I first wrote, due to shortage of space. A successful > upload emulates you perfectly, has your thoughts and feelings (or, > perhaps the ones you may have tomorrow), and your genuine > internal experiences. But with an emulation, the uploading proccess is some kind of "make a copy and destroy (probably) the original". Then the uploaded me would not be me. It would just be something that thinks it's me. The "me" must be transferred to the "new me", not copied, more like uninstalling my software and installing it somewhere else. From pharos at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 20:36:18 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 20:36:18 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy In-Reply-To: <007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> <470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com> <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> <580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com> <007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 6:32 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > This, for example, totally baffles me. In America, Stephano would be > considered "extreme-right wing". So how can Fabio be also described > in these terms? What would be utterly ideal would be a table the > rows of which would be issues, and the columns of which would be > Estropico, Stephano, and Fabio (or whoever). Then I could see > who really was "right wing" (or "left wing" or "fascist") and thus what > these terms mean in Italy and in the Italian Transhumanist movement. > > I can't be the only one who sees potential value in our Italian friends > holding up a mirror for us in the west, but whose reflection perhaps > has much potential for helping us even understand ourselves. I doubt if our USA friends would find much value in the intricate postmodern European political factions. Interesting? Possibly, like poking a stick into an anthill and watching all the frantic scurrying around. BRIAN: Are you the Judean People's Front? REG: Judean People's Front. We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front. Cawk. REG: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front. JUDITH: Splitters. FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front. P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters... LORETTA: And the People's Front of Judea. P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters... REG: What? LORETTA: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters. REG: We're the People's Front of Judea! LORETTA: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front. REG: People's Front! C-huh. FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg? REG: He's over there. P.F.J.: Splitter! 'Life of Brian' Monty Python BillK From ABlainey at aol.com Fri Mar 7 20:40:32 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 15:40:32 EST Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? Message-ID: In a message dated 07/03/2008 02:57:47 GMT Standard Time, rpwl at lightlink.com writes: > Unfortunately, I think I was not clear enough, and as a result you have > misunderstood what I said in rather a substantial way. > More than likely, it was late and I think my view of your post was clouded by reading previous posts. On reading it again I would agree that my response wasn't quite in line with it, but I think we may disagree on some issues. > When you build an AGI, you *must* sort out the motivation mechanism > ahead of time, or the machine will simply not work at all. You don't > build an AGI and *then* discover what its motivation is. > Agreed in principle. However I still subscribe to the idea that the end result AGI will have unpredictable motivation regardless of it's starting point. I'll say again that the development is a stochastic process unless we code every single line by hand, spoon feed its knowledge base and fully understand all possible outcomes of the system to the Nth degree. This is unrealistic and impossible to achieve even in today's Non-AI software let alone in developing an AGI. Imagine a self learning Windows! > If you do not understand the motivation system before you build it, then > it will not work, as simple as that. Agreed. But as above, we cannot know in advance what the AGI will decide to do even if we can control its motivations. > > The reason why many people do talk as if a future AGI will have a > "surprise" motivation system is that today's AI systems are driven by > extremely crude and non-scalable "goal-stack" control systems, which are > great for narrow-AI planning tasks, but which become extremely unstable > when we imagine using them in a full-blown AGI. > > But when people imagine an extended form of goal-stack drive system > controlling a future AGI, they fail to realise that the very same > instability that makes the AGI seem so threatening will also make it so > unstable that it will never actually become generally intelligent. The methodology used to build the AI/AGI in the first place is irrelevant to the finished AGI. There are infinite ways to mathematically get from 1 to 100 and likewise infinite ways in which an AGI could rewrite its motivational code. Just because our ability to code AI is limited by preconceptions, personal aptitude, knowledge of coding and excepted methodology such as "goal-stack" control systems. Does not mean the AGI will follow our limited rules. So we cannot predict the outcome. > > The bottom line: you cannot make statements like "An ...[AGI]... could > and probably will do major damage", because there is no "probably" about > it. You either set out to make it do damage and be intelligent at the > same time (an extremely difficult combination, in practice, for reasons > I have explained elsewhere), or you don't! There is no surprise. > The full quote ended with 'probably not through design or desire, but just through exploration of ability or pure accident,' which is the important bit. If my car is fitted with autobrakes which apply when closing on a stationary vehicle, they might not stop the car from running over a dog. The point being that any AGI must have explicit rules or ability to stop it doing something in order to be safe. If we give the AGI a basic motivation to 'learn all it can,' We must add an exception that it cannot learn what happens to humans when dropped into a vat of acid. We can overcome this to an extent by blanket rules, but the basic premise is still the same. If an AGI can cause damage, it will. I have seen first hand, many times what happens when AI systems come across situations where they have no explicit rules for the situation. I once watched (from a distance) a CNC machine throwing 3 metre steel bars across a workshop, simply because a part off tool broke. This was a very dangerous example of a very simple AI following an equally simple rule and nearly killing someone. As with an AGI, all I could do was stop and stare, then wait for the dust to settle. > For someone to talk about discovering an AGI's motivation after the fact > would be like a company building a supersonic passenger jet and then > speculating about whether the best way to fly it is nose-forward or > nose-backward. > > > > Richard Loosemore > The jet could not reconfigure its aerodynamics after assemble, if it could, perhaps it would fly better backwards ;o) What's more, many planes are already aerodynamically capable of flying backwards. But that's a whole different fishkettle. Ask a group of well educated pilots what makes a plane fly and you would be surprised at the answers LOL. Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at amara.com Fri Mar 7 20:40:52 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 13:40:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: Stefano Vaj: >On the other hand, I am very glad to report that a few little things >managed to survive that are not so trivial in the Italian cultural, >legal and political landscape, namely in the following provisions: [...] OK. And I wrote my next sentence: This is a start, but you know implementation of any law in Italy is often another story: http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/foreign-students-and-researchers-may-come-to-italy-again/ before I read your next paragraph: >Sure, we are talking of purely programmatic points, and the devils >will as usually be in the implementation (if any...) of the >"principles" above. So we agree that the implementation is a key point. Amara P.S. I didn't see that the particulars of Legge 40 were discussed in your provisions. Was it not discussed? -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From amara at amara.com Fri Mar 7 21:24:06 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 14:24:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists Message-ID: Riccardo Campa riccardo.campa at gmail.com : 2008/3/7, Amara Graps amara at amara.com: >> This is a start, but you know implementation of any law in Italy is >> often another story: >And since you are libertarian, you should be happy about it. :D I'm not sure what is your point Riccardo. I met only one libertarian in Italy during the entire five years I lived there (and he lives in Australia now). My question regarding what has changed or what has been discussed regarding Legge 40 is an important one, however. That law certainly affected me and my decisions for (not) building a life in Italy, and also affected the lives and decisions for building the lives of a number of other Italian researchers I knew. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From estropico at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 21:54:07 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 21:54:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803071354g2c5fbe33o28dca1957585ce70@mail.gmail.com> > From: "Giu1i0 Pri5c0" > > To the attention of the list moderator(s): as a subscriber I am > beginning to find this exchange very boring and very far from the > content that I wish to read here. This has been said by many others if > I am not mistaken. Could somebody please issue a reminder to all > participants in this off-topic thread. I'd just ike to point out that Giulio's request is not just that of a simple subscriber to the list. As a member of the Italian Transhumanist Association's "national council", of which Stefano Vaj is also a member, he might well have a vested interest in closing down this conversation. Cheers, Fabio From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Mar 7 21:56:03 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 13:56:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 12:01 PM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > But with an emulation, the uploading proccess is some kind of "make a copy > and destroy (probably) the original". Then the uploaded me would not be me. > It would just be something that thinks it's me. The "me" must be transferred > to the "new me", not copied, more like uninstalling my software and > installing it somewhere else. Oh no! Not again! ;-) - Jef From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Mar 7 22:35:57 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:35:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080307163316.05b95d90@satx.rr.com> At 01:56 PM 3/7/2008 -0800, Jef wrote: >On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 12:01 PM, Henrique Moraes Machado > wrote: > > > But with an emulation, the uploading proccess is some kind of "make a copy > > and destroy (probably) the original". Then the uploaded me would > not be me. > > It would just be something that thinks it's me. The "me" must be > transferred > > to the "new me", not copied, more like uninstalling my software and > > installing it somewhere else. > >Oh no! Not again! ;-) You might fear that this is an ancient undead thread being reinstalled, but it's not--it's an entirely new emulation that just *thinks* it's the old thread. Damien Broderick From jef at jefallbright.net Fri Mar 7 22:42:25 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 14:42:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080307163316.05b95d90@satx.rr.com> References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <7.0.1.0.2.20080307163316.05b95d90@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 2:35 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > At 01:56 PM 3/7/2008 -0800, Jef wrote: > > >On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 12:01 PM, Henrique Moraes Machado > > wrote: > > > > > But with an emulation, the uploading proccess is some kind of "make a copy > > > and destroy (probably) the original". Then the uploaded me would > > not be me. > > > It would just be something that thinks it's me. The "me" must be > > transferred > > > to the "new me", not copied, more like uninstalling my software and > > > installing it somewhere else. > > > >Oh no! Not again! ;-) > > You might fear that this is an ancient undead thread being > reinstalled, but it's not--it's an entirely new emulation that just > *thinks* it's the old thread. > Alrighty then. At least it's not the same old thread experiencing multiple run times. - Jef From citta437 at aol.com Fri Mar 7 13:51:32 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:51:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice Message-ID: <8CA4E717C903AA9-E24-4442@WEBMAIL-MA04.sysops.aol.com> I find this discussion on transhumanism a good exercise for the brain matter between scientists and philosophers. Memes of heroism without self-sacrifice feed on man's curiosity to learn everything to know about the self. AGI works on the self to adapt to change not the other way around. Terry From citta437 at aol.com Fri Mar 7 14:52:35 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:52:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] We are Change re: Heroism without self-sacrifice Message-ID: <8CA4E7A03A14CE1-494-1D0@WEBMAIL-MA04.sysops.aol.com> "Hi, exercising the brain muscle/energy, we are all energies in varied forms of change so where is the self among these dancing electrons, atoms and molecules? Ideas of self and no-self are movements of the mind, the electrochemical interactions within the brain matter in response to stimuli/change. Heroism without self-sacrifice is a belief on a permanent self or no-self. Terry {Zen practitioner} From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 23:00:52 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 00:00:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy In-Reply-To: <007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> <470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com> <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> <580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com> <007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <580930c20803071500t1887aa0axdacb97e93b556f1b@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 7:32 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > For example, Stephano (who I would have said is quite a right > winger---we may ideologically agree on quite a few things, he > and I) writes as follows: Happy that we share some views, even though I prefer to consider myself as an upwinger. In fact, my main concern as far as "positioning" is concerned is to keep myself as far from teocons as possible :-); but if, say, Nietzsche or Marinetti or Huxley or Heinlein should be considered as being right-wing, well, so be it, I have no intention whatsoever to renounce to what of interest I may find in their writings out of political correctness or fear of ideological terrorism. At the same time, I am surprised that, while the usual couple of Italian supporters of Mr. Bush's crusades try to disqualify my ideas with the ritual personal association with fascism ("I hear that you love the animals, Hitler used to have a dog, now I do not mean to imply anything, but...") some other people put me disparagingly in a league with James Hughes and Dale Carrico, who are not normally considered in the H+ world as really being right-wingers of any description... I think that it would be best to recognise that old labels may end up being of limited use in an era of revolutionary change, to go back to Korzybski's idea that the map is not the territory, and concentrate instead on ideas and new syntheses thereof. Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Fri Mar 7 23:01:28 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 15:01:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof In-Reply-To: <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> Message-ID: <200803072301.m27N1XKF009021@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of scerir > Subject: Re: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged > relevance thereof > > Giu1i0 scrive: > > To the attention of the list moderator(s): as a subscriber I am > > beginning to find this exchange very boring and very far from the > > content that I wish to read here... > Giulio, while the specific 'querelle' may be off-topic, isn't > off topic here - at least imo - the *compatibility* between > the Extropian Principles and what Stefano wrote, or writes. ... > But I can agree: this stuff is boring. > -serafino Decision: I will let this stand for now, no killthread. Boring is allowed, for some may be interested. Everyone please keep it civil (as you have, thanks) and feel free to use the delete button early and often. Review of decision in a couple days, sooner if participants start flaming each other. spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Mar 7 23:30:44 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 15:30:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <20080307170533.WJQK11056.hrndva-omta06.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> Message-ID: <200803072331.m27NUmNA010997@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More > Subject: Re: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice > > At 12:51 AM 3/7/2008, Anne wrote: > > >If Max was really referring to a hero who literally risks *nothing* > >important to him or her, but still manages heroism, > > I was/am leaving completely open the issue of how much value > is at risk and its source... MM When I read Max's challenge, I thought of those who invent things that create enormous wealth, motivated entirely by profit. In our world, most of those people have been software developers, ja? Think of the development of spreadsheets and how much they have done for us. Probably everyone here uses them for something, and many of us have mastered the subtleties, macro languages etc. Excel is probably my most important single engineering tool, enabling many other inventions. Remember the old days, when Visicalc first showed up? When was that, about 1979? 1980? Wasn't that the coolest thing we had ever seen? Then Lotus and Microsloth carried the idea and ran with it. One can scarcely imagine how much wealth was created as a result of Visicalc and its direct descendants. Are not Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston perfect examples of heroes motivated by profit? Thanks Dan and Bob. You deserve techno-sainthood. spike From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 23:35:56 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 17:35:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803071132i4862cca1h93b3e6bdba8d484f@mail.gmail.com> References: <939952.8409.qm@web27010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200803061836.49412.kanzure@gmail.com> <2d6187670803071132i4862cca1h93b3e6bdba8d484f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803071735.56155.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 07 March 2008, John Grigg wrote: > Hi Bryan, I enjoyed the exchange of ideas. I'd be curious to know > where you will be standing on these issues in ten or twenty years, > considering you are currently a very young man. And am I to call you very old? > > > The "amazing cultural phenomena" you describe, if it turns > > > against you (stem cell research vrs. the Bush Administration, for > > > instance), results in a definite slowing or stopping of > > > potentially life saving medical technology. > > > > The only way they can do that is by jailing us in prisons. > > Most researchers don't want to go to that extreme to protest things. Didn't I already reply to this only a few days ago? If you can't stand the heat (the risk), then get out of the kitchen and make sure people know that you are calling yourself what you don't want to really be. > Instead, they simply don't do the controversial research or else move > to a nation where it is allowed/encouraged. And that nation then > reaps the benefits. The only reason nations reap benefits is because of the locality of the person, but in our age of travel and communication, locality is not as an important factor as before, but still important, yeah. > > > And even though the research and development would continue in > > > other nations, the U.S. would then be at a serious disadvantage > > > to be a leader in the biotech field and reap the financial > > > harvest. And remember that it's just plain "un-American" to not > > > make tons of money and dominate technological progress! lol > > > > Heh, well, with self-replication there might be a collapse of the > > financial institutions, but not if they play their cards right. So > > that's something that somebody might want to put some thought into. > > In the name of national security (and the unspoken desire of > corporations to keep their stranglehold on the economy) we will see > the possibility of nanotech "anything boxes" most likely squelched. You have nanotech (bacteria) all around you. And it's not squelched. > "We can't take the chance of bad people hacking into them and doing > who knows what!" "Why, just go to your local Nano Mart store and > they will set you right up..." So you think this fear will magically stop all life (nanotech)? > > > you continue: > > > > No matter how much they proclaim to be against a possibility > > > > does not determine that bottom line of feasability. Yes, they > > > > can protest, yes, they can try to stone us, they can try to > > > > burn us alive, but you see, we can diffuse the information over > > > > the internet, and good luck warring against the internet. It > > > > will route around the damage. > > > > > > But warring against research labs and those who fund them in > > > another matter, entirely. It generally takes serious money and > > > disciplined scientific teams to tease out Mother Nature's > > > secrets. > > > > Nah, it just takes discipline. That's the whole discipline of > > science. It does not take money, but rather the raw resources. The > > guys that build particle accelerators and energy stations? They had > > the discipline to make it happen even when there wasn't necessarily > > a "plutonium economy" or "electricity economy" when they started > > off. > > The guys who built the particle accelerators and energy stations got > big hunks of money from government and corporate sponsors. They had > the discipline to gather the grant money that got things > accomplished. Ability to gather money does not indicate whether or not they can do it. > > > of global competitiveness. And by the time we try to really turn > > > things around we may have lost some critical advantages that > > > might never be fully regained. > > > > Maybe. Can you own an advantage, even in natural-evolutionary > > terms? > > What the U.S. and Western world might have are certain given > educational and social foundations that make technological catch up > much easier on us as compared to China or Russia. What? My question was whether you can 'own' an advantage in the game theoretic sense of natural evolution. Ownership and property has recently been discussed more thoroughly on the list, so naturally I see this as a relevant extension to those thoughts. > > What knowledge and power? What does the military have that cannot > > be already duplicated? Airplanes? Easily duplicated (though not > > necessarily the money to make many tests. This is of course a > > matter of resources, not money.) Nuclear weapons? Non-military > > persons came up with nukes. Navy machinery? Easy enough. > > Knowledge IS power. Academic and corporate research labs are spread > across the U.S. and the backbone of much military and economic r & d. No, people are the backbone, and what one human can think, so can another. > Yes, non-military people came up with much of this. lol By the way, > resources and money go hand in hand. : ) Resources and money do not go hand-in-hand. > A "standard" and non-high performance jet fighter, tank, missle > cruiser, civilian product for sale, etc. may be relatively easy to > create, but designing and manufacturing a very advanced (superior to > potential enemies/competitors) version is a great challenge. Rival I don't see how this is true. I have been studying how to make my own copy of the X-43A, the NASA Hyper-X hypersonic Mach 10 aircraft. As far as I can tell, the hardest part is just reading the documentation on the CFD simulators (heh), but then there's finding an artist to model the ship properly, then assembling the right metals and a cooling system, getting an oxyacetalone arc welder, doing the CNC metalworking, and most importantly the preliminary design work in coming up with the right PDEs and mission design parameters. The only thing *hard* is evolutionary progression of novelty. Anything else is not 'hard'. > nations will have a very challenging time matching our most advanced > tech (and as they try to catch up we would be moving forward to stay > ahead) unless the complete designs and manufacturing methods are Open source. > stolen. Espionage/stolen military and industrial secrets are a huge > problem for the U.S. and the rest of the Western world. Maybe they would do better to be able to exist in such a way that they do not entirely rely on such outdated security models? Secrets?? > > > We are in a race to develop whatever the next generation of > > > technological innovations are that we must have to stay not just > > > competitive, but ahead of the rest of the world. And yes, we do > > > have > > > > This is FUD. > > This is THE REAL WORLD. lol You can stay competitive even with shared knowledge, see OSS. > If the U.S. does not protect it's technology base by better security, > improving public education, etc., you will see in your lifetime our > steep decline. It will be a very sad thing. Decline in what? > > > Nationalism is a two-edged sword. On the one side it can cause > > > > It is also more fud. > > It can be at times. But do you really think other powerful nations > always have our best interests at heart? lol Life is not just > cooperation but also competition. Nature teaches us that. And it > still holds true for humanity. What are you talking about? I didn't even mention 'nations' having best interests at heart etc. Specifically, you are promoting the concept of nationalism even when we know that we can make things and build solutions to our human problems, you are just pointing to archaic methods of cooperation whic hcan be surpassed. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 23:37:02 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 17:37:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Electronic Circuit Question - Resolved In-Reply-To: References: <934976.15997.qm@web31007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <005a01c88066$5f2aa930$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803071737.02717.kanzure@gmail.com> On Friday 07 March 2008, Jef Allbright wrote: > Ah, if only more interesting issues could be so explicitly and > completely defined in these forums. Perhaps not the issues themselves, but instead the method of studying them and the mental processes involved in hunting down the types of information that leads to such knowledge? That would certainly be extropic. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Mar 7 23:36:38 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 00:36:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <580930c20803071536g2a6309a3k3e104df28229a2e1@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 3:37 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > I agree. But "simulation" is ambiguous, I've always said. A very, very > good actor (especially if he's a superhuman AI), might simulate you > just fine, fooling all your friends and relatives. In other words, this > god-like being is just pulling the strings on a puppet. Unfortunately, > that counts as a successful simulation of you on some usages of the > term. > > But to *emulate* you means that something really is you, just as one > operating system may emulate another. I didn't make this distinction > above when I first wrote, due to shortage of space. A successful > upload emulates you perfectly, has your thoughts and feelings (or, > perhaps the ones you may have tomorrow), and your genuine > internal experiences. > Sure. But I wonder whether after all the simulation in the first sense could ever be "perfect", and if the only way to make it perfect would not be to make it an emulation. This makes me think, for instance of the explanation by Dennett of how and why human beings may adopt behaviours that may be unfit in a Darwinian sense. The points is that if some genes want to get the kind of flexibility that we may offer them, they have to accept such a risk as well and accept some "autonomy" from their "whisper". Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at amara.com Fri Mar 7 23:41:22 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 16:41:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Al Cafone (was: The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists) Message-ID: Mirco Romanato painlord2k at yahoo.it : >Would you tell us why Mr. Berlusconi deserve to be in jail? This is shorter ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trials_involving_Silvio_Berlusconi Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From aiguy at comcast.net Fri Mar 7 23:56:49 2008 From: aiguy at comcast.net (Gary Miller) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 18:56:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Monkey Experiment, (or) "Why Do We Do That?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000f01c880ae$e9f65940$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Jef Allbright said: << Apropos certain trends in discussion. >> What a fantastic experiment! Thanks Jef! What a clear example of learned aggression. Bullies bully because they have been trained in aggression at a young age and repeat the behavior without even understanding why. I think assertiveness training needs to be a part of every child's schooling. It teaches the difference between being assertive and aggressive and teaches how not to be a victim or a bully. A few generations of this type of training and I think we could reduce abuse and violent crime dramatically. It would raise self-esteem in the members of our society who most need it and most probably reduce the divorce rates significantly as well when people understand how to communicate without being aggressive. I'm sure that some here are going to call this indoctrination not education, but let's face it, if our children aren't learning what they need to be happy, healthy and well adjusted at home, we owe it to them and ourselves to show them that they don't have to go through live constantly giving and receiving pain. It give me hope for the future that groups like the Boy Scouts are now offering merit badges for learning about bullying. Scouts are encouraged to speak out for and protect others they see being bullied. Since low self esteem has been found to cause other problems from eating disorders, to promiscuity, to drug and alcohol addiction many other positive benefits to society would accrue as well. And no I'm not so unrealistic to think that this will solve all of the violence, pain, abuse, crime and addiction in society. But it's a place to start! We can't just wait for the AGI to save us from ourselves. We need to take some first steps ourselves to show that we are worthy of surviving. descending from soapbox now... From pjmanney at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 00:06:14 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 16:06:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <200803072331.m27NUmNA010997@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <20080307170533.WJQK11056.hrndva-omta06.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <200803072331.m27NUmNA010997@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30803071606tfffd831ma1396c010c10f713@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 3:30 PM, spike wrote: > When I read Max's challenge, I thought of those who invent things that > create enormous wealth, motivated entirely by profit. In our world, most of > those people have been software developers, ja? Think of the development of > spreadsheets and how much they have done for us. Probably everyone here > uses them for something, and many of us have mastered the subtleties, macro > languages etc. Excel is probably my most important single engineering tool, > enabling many other inventions. > > Remember the old days, when Visicalc first showed up? When was that, about > 1979? 1980? Wasn't that the coolest thing we had ever seen? Then Lotus > and Microsloth carried the idea and ran with it. One can scarcely imagine > how much wealth was created as a result of Visicalc and its direct > descendants. Are not Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston perfect examples of > heroes motivated by profit? But where is the myth? Where are their stories of awful childhoods overcome, their overthrow of power-hungry politicians or whiny socialists by the sheer inevitability of their scrappy little technology, or the moment they reached their capitalistic apotheosis, deified on Mount Moola by God Greenspan on one side and Goddess Rand on the other? ;-) Will they be celebrated in song and story? Does anyone (other than you, Spike!) want to read books, see movies and tell gripping yarns years from now 'round the campfire about them? I sure don't. PJ From spike66 at att.net Fri Mar 7 23:49:30 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 15:49:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] injure thread: RE: Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803071354g2c5fbe33o28dca1957585ce70@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803080016.m280GEvm020866@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of estropico > Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance > > > From: "Giu1i0 Pri5c0" > > > > ...Could somebody please issue a reminder to all > > participants in this off-topic thread. > > I'd just ike to point out that Giulio's request is not just > that of a simple subscriber to the list. As a member of the > Italian Transhumanist Association's "national council", of > which Stefano Vaj is also a member, he might well have a > vested interest in closing down this conversation. Cheers, Fabio There are clearly subtleties of the politics in the Italian Transhumanist Association of which the rest of this list are unaware. For that reason, I for one, do not understand your last sentence. Do not feel the need to explain it to me however. On the contrary, feel free to let this thread perish at this point, for it has made me squirmy from the start, and is getting worse with each post I see. Each poster is judged only on the posts that person puts here. Accusations regarding anyone's political leanings outside this list are not welcome nor helpful. This isn't a killthread, but rather merely an injure thread. I am hoping it will limp away without my having to slay it outright. With any contrary opininons, you are welcome to post me offlist, thanks. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 8 00:20:33 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:20:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803071606tfffd831ma1396c010c10f713@mail.gmail.com > References: <20080307170533.WJQK11056.hrndva-omta06.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <200803072331.m27NUmNA010997@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <29666bf30803071606tfffd831ma1396c010c10f713@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080307181906.0221d450@satx.rr.com> At 04:06 PM 3/7/2008 -0800, PJ wrote: >Will they be celebrated in song and story? Does anyone (other than >you, Spike!) want to read books, see movies and tell gripping yarns >years from now 'round the campfire about them? "Spreadsheet! Spreadsheet! Toot, toot! Read all about it on yer Daily Spreadsheet!" From pharos at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 00:21:11 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 00:21:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The Monkey Experiment, (or) "Why Do We Do That?" In-Reply-To: <000f01c880ae$e9f65940$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> References: <000f01c880ae$e9f65940$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 11:56 PM, Gary Miller wrote: > > What a fantastic experiment! Thanks Jef! > > What a clear example of learned aggression. > Er.... This is a made-up story, actually. A parable, to teach a moral lesson. Nothing wrong with that, so long as you agree with the moral being taught. :) Lots more like that available here: Illustrations and analogies for motivation, inspiration, learning and training BillK From pjmanney at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 00:44:58 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 16:44:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <47D0E6A8.2030202@pobox.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> <05ee01c88018$b9b2eaa0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <29666bf30803062235y1d43ea0and08e2e3b82aefad0@mail.gmail.com> <47D0E6A8.2030202@pobox.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30803071644m786d8591i84ef6d8b5af2282b@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:54 PM, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote: > I actually have no problem with the idea that self-sacrifice reveals > heroism; it shows the importance to them of whatever they are > pursuing. The implication that heroism *requires* self-sacrifice > implies that there is no other way to show dedication, however. > > After all, the point of heroism is not to reveal virtue, but to > protect that which is worth protecting. > > My own conceptualization of heroism is touched on somewhat in: > > http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/superhero-bias.html > http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/01/something-to-pr.html Max may be teaching a 500's course, but I seem to be stuck teaching Story 101. Eliezer makes some good points above, but the conundrum of 'how heroic is superhero heroism' as opposed to 'normal hero heroism' is one that storytellers have been grappling with for some time -- I'd say at least several thousand years. >From Gilgamesh's fear of death to Lucifer's fall from grace to Achilles' heel to Superman's kryptonite, the vulnerability of the superhero may indeed be the oldest story ever told because without it, we don't care about the superhero at all. Why? Lack of empathy, which is at the core of Eliezer's argument, although never specified. We can empathize more easily over the difficulties, therefore imbue the policeman's act with more heroism. Not the superhero's effort. In a post on writing about the Singularity a couple of years ago, I wrote about the hobbling of the augmented hero. http://pj-manney.blogspot.com/2006/09/singularity-or-bust.html Maybe my choice of the word "hobbling" is indicative of how deeply embedded the Achilles reference is in the collective consciousness (if I may go all Jungian on y'all). In the Freudian era of the 20th C., we hobbled them in obvious psychological ways, although Mary Shelley was doing that well before Freud. (Both Frankenstein and the creature are deeply screwed up and in pain and therefore, fascinating and relatable.) Peter Parker, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne are all in need of therapy, with daddy issues, sufficiency issues, survivor-guilt issues, sexual issues... They've got so many issues, it's amazing they can get out of bed in the morning! It's that effort to don the cape and tights every day in the face of crippling psychological problems that makes them compelling, empathetic, and therefore, heroic. Not saving the world from the Green Hornet. Because even though I agree that the world is very much worth saving, it is the fact that they can save it with one hand tied behind their back that makes their herodom less valued, as Eliezer pointed out, and in need of complications. Back to self-sacrifice, there are mythic stories that don't involve it, per se, but still involve the danger of physical or metaphysical crash. As Terry and Jef hinted, they involve the heroism of self knowledge and enlightenment, although these are still gained by taking social and physical risks. Buddha is a primary myth. Why do I feel Max is mining us for a paper? :) If you are, a little more detail on what you really want would be appreciated. PJ From ABlainey at aol.com Sat Mar 8 00:55:05 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 19:55:05 EST Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice Message-ID: In a message dated 07/03/2008 06:51:55 GMT Standard Time, sparkle_robot at yahoo.com writes: > I have no argument with any of this -- I literally took the > "self-sacrifice" thing to mean "sacrifice of a person's very life" in the initial context of > the question, but you're right in pointing out that it isn't always life > that's at risk. (To me I say, "Duh!") > > If Max was really referring to a hero who literally risks *nothing* > important to him or her, but still manages heroism, then my first thought would be a > kind of Zen-type character who has no "attachments" and therefore does not > feel that any outcome represents a personal loss, even if others might consider > particular outcomes very distressing. But I don't know if many readers > would be able to relate to such a character. > > - Anne > I read it differently, My take on self sacrifice was a little bit more obscure. What of a parent who devotes their time and effort to a disabled child? Surely this is a worthy self sacrifice without giving up their life. Heroic? or just doing their duty. There are many equal examples, do we consider them heroes? I don't think we do, although society does recognise such sacrifice occasionally, but not really in the heroic sense. Would a bomb disposal expert be considered heroic? what if the risk were removed and they were doing it from the comfort of a van, operating a robot? To me there are many factors in heroism which sway the equation. Personal risk, duty, gain, relation to the person/thing being saved, Kudos, probability of success, level of self worth, etc. Other factors sway it as well such as are there any other people who could step up to the plate and do the deed, or would the deed save more lives' than would be risked. I am at a loss to think of an example of being heroic without any risk. Certainly not within my own context of the word 'Hero.' Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pjmanney at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 01:02:01 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 17:02:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803062250n4b193fceic7d656edbbb759fe@mail.gmail.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <417227.72430.qm@web56505.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <29666bf30803062135j1a86a68aqbf418920773d0bec@mail.gmail.com> <200803070013.51722.kanzure@gmail.com> <29666bf30803062250n4b193fceic7d656edbbb759fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30803071702q5d9d63b6l4e36e93a447b2de6@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:50 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:13 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > We call an unempathetic protagonist a supervillian. > > No. Villains can be very empathetic, just terribly misguided and > immoral as a result. Also, protagonists can be very misguided, even > immoral, and still empathetic, too. Empathy doesn't involve white > hats, white horses or anything else white for that matter. It just > means you can imagine being in their shoes and you understand why they > made the choices they made. > > If you can't generate empathy, meaning you can't imagine being that > person, then you've got either a dull villain or a duller hero. > Yawn... For some reason, I was thinking of this song: Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcrusher Mountain" to show a ridiculously cliched (and mythic!) supervillain for whom you can have empathy: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-htGFyvkzDU&feature=related Welcome to my secret lair on Skullcrusher Mountain I hope that you've enjoyed your stay so far I see you've met my assistant Scarface His appearance is quite disturbing But I assure you he's harmless enough He's a sweetheart, calls me master And he has a way of finding pretty things and bringing them to me I'm so into you But I'm way too smart for you Even my henchmen think I'm crazy I'm not surprised that you agree If you could find some way to be A little bit less afraid of me You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head Say I shouldn't kill you yet I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you But I get the feeling that you don't like it What's with all the screaming? You like monkeys, you like ponies Maybe you don't like monsters so much Maybe I used too many monkeys Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you? I'm so into you But I'm way too smart for you Even my henchmen think I'm crazy I'm not surprised that you agree If you could find some way to be A little bit less afraid of me You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head Say I shouldn't kill you yet Picture the two of us alone inside my golden submarine While up above the waves my doomsday squad ignites the atmosphere And all the fools who live their foolish lives may find it quite explosive But it won't mean half as much to me if I don't have you here You know it isn't easy living here on Skullcrusher Mountain Maybe you could cut me just a little slack Would it kill you to be civil? I've been patient, I've been gracious And this mountain is covered with wolves Hear them howling, my hungry children Maybe you should stay and have another drink and think about me and you I'm so into you But I'm way too smart for you Even my henchmen think I'm crazy I'm not surprised that you agree If you could find some way to be A little bit less afraid of me You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head Say I shouldn't kill you yet I shouldn't kill you yet I shouldn't kill you yet Coulton specializes in empathizing with his monsters. BTW, I love this Coulton song: "The Future Soon" http://youtube.com/watch?v=G4SGACSLdRY&feature=related The destruction of humanity will occur because some geek got turned down for a date... and listen to the audience go, "Awwwwwwww..." :), PJ From pharos at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 01:07:44 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 01:07:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 12:55 AM, ABlainey wrote: > Would a bomb disposal expert be considered heroic? what if the risk were > removed and they were doing it from the comfort of a van, operating a robot? > To me there are many factors in heroism which sway the equation. Personal > risk, duty, gain, relation to the person/thing being saved, Kudos, > probability of success, level of self worth, etc. Other factors sway it as > well such as are there any other people who could step up to the plate and > do the deed, or would the deed save more lives' than would be risked. > > I am at a loss to think of an example of being heroic without any risk. > Certainly not within my own context of the word 'Hero.' > This reminds me of the company IT 'hero'. The firefighter who runs around from emergency to emergency, shouting a lot, working through the night, and accepting all the rewards and applause. While Dilbert in his cubicle, does his backups, applies his patches, runs through his checklists, etc. and never has an emergency. And everybody wonders what his job is, as he never appears to be doing anything. Who's the real hero? BillK From ablainey at aol.com Sat Mar 8 01:10:16 2008 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:10:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8CA4ED04D24FDF1-788-2934@Webmail-mg08.sim.aol.com> From: ABlainey at aol.com To me there are many factors in heroism which sway the equation. Personal risk, duty, gain, relation to the person/thing being saved, Kudos, probability of success, level of self worth, etc. Other factors sway it as well such as are there any other people who could step up to the plate and do the deed, or would the deed save more lives' than would be risked. I to add. The understanding the hero has of the situation also changes the value of the deed. Alex ________________________________________________________________________ AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour at http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/ now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ablainey at aol.com Sat Mar 8 01:28:03 2008 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:28:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <200803070651.22906.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <720057.44645.qm@web56512.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <200803070651.22906.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CA4ED2C9BD72BF-CF4-29@Webmail-mg08.sim.aol.com> On Friday 07 March 2008, Anne Corwin wrote: > ?I know there's a lot of dramatic tension inherent in the "struggle > to resolve who wins in a zero-sum game", but it would be interesting > to see if similarly satisfying levels of dramatic tension could be > achieved in a setting where everyone manages to win in some way. I think the tension would arise from the risk to whoever/whatever the hero is fighting for or protecting. I think for best effect, The zero sum game must escalate in order to increase the risk to these non-players and thus heighten the drama. Otherwise you are reduced to a punch for punch Superman Vs Bad Superman. Situations which usually wimp out with a luck based win for the protagonist. The other solution is that the game is infinite. A god vs Devil scenario where the reader is the person at risk. Which appears to have been a literary masterpiece! Alex ________________________________________________________________________ AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour at http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/ now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ablainey at aol.com Sat Mar 8 01:40:27 2008 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:40:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8CA4ED48501009A-CF4-B2@Webmail-mg08.sim.aol.com> -----Original Message----- From: BillK This reminds me of the company IT 'hero'. The firefighter who runs around from emergency to emergency, shouting a lot, working through the night, and accepting all the rewards and applause. While Dilbert in his cubicle, does his backups, applies his patches, runs through his checklists, etc. and never has an emergency. And everybody wonders what his job is, as he never appears to be doing anything. Who's the real hero? BillK LOL, Thanks Bill. You brought back so many memories. I have been in both situations as many of us have. Personally I think that Dilbert is the far greater unsung hero, and without doubt the more mature. Alex ________________________________________________________________________ AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour at http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/ now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ABlainey at aol.com Sat Mar 8 01:52:10 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 20:52:10 EST Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties Message-ID: In a message dated 07/03/2008 02:49:59 GMT Standard Time, kanzure at gmail.com writes: > On Thursday 06 March 2008, ABlainey at aol.com wrote: > > Exactly, It's a worry (short term). Is the cost of immortality > > loosing our identity and humanity? > > Please don't take that to be my meaning. Stathis' message clarifies it. > > - Bryan > ________________________________________ Don't fear, I didn't. It was just my own concern in response to your reply. No clarification needed. Alex -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 01:55:37 2008 From: giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com (giancarlos) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 02:55:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com><470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com><009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede><580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com><007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <580930c20803071500t1887aa0axdacb97e93b556f1b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <35b601c880bf$82928b50$37effea9@casac679d9543b> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stefano Vaj" To: "Lee Corbin" ; "ExI chat list" Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 12:00 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy > while the usual couple of > Italian supporters of Mr. Bush's crusades Are you talking about me? Please can you let us know when and where I supported Mr. Bush? Wait.. oh yes! Maybe I understand: just as you usually say I'm a "Christian" *because* (!) I'm an advocate of human rights, democracy and equality (that you consider the products of the "judeo-christian principle" which corrupted and perverted the old (indo)european "sovrumanist principle"), you're now saying that I'm a Bush supporter perhaps *because* (!) some times ago I found quite worrying - and publicly said it in the italian mailing list - that one of your sovrumanist apprentice elaborated and wrote the following anti-american ravings (my translation): <> (http://www.italiasociale.org/Geopolitica_articoli/avanguardia.htm) Interestingly, he's the same friend of yours who wrote an enthusiastic review of your last book Biopolitica on the same "Italia Sociale, the the national socialist bimonthly" (http://www.italiasociale.org/libri/libri110706-3.html), the same you asked to join the italian mailing list (while ostracizing and marginalizing other long time italian transhumanists who opposed the "sovrumanist drift" of italian transhumanism), the same whose articles you often indicate and recommend in the italian mailing list... Anyway, although I don't like President Bush particularly, I admit that I prefer by far him if compared with Ahmadinejad, although I know that you are a great fan and supporter of the Iranian President (I remember that you verbatim said that Ahmadinejhad is "a figure decidely charismatic: I'm not able to criticize even one of his moves"). Finally -- as I intend to translate that above-mentioned infamous review of your book, published on the above-mentioned national socialist website and written by the above-mentioned sovrumanist and waffen SS admirer, but on the other hand I would prefer not to waste my time if unnecessary -- please can you let us know once and for all if you endorse or instead reject the content of that review? Giancarlo http://www.linkedin.com/in/stile From sparkle_robot at yahoo.com Sat Mar 8 02:48:37 2008 From: sparkle_robot at yahoo.com (Anne Corwin) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 18:48:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <991569.80813.qm@web56506.mail.re3.yahoo.com> ABlainey at aol.com wrote: I am at a loss to think of an example of being heroic without any risk. Certainly not within my own context of the word 'Hero.' Same here, though I guess I see "risk" as being different from "sacrifice". I definitely don't think it's possible for someone to be "heroic" (given my understanding of what that means) if they aren't at least willing to take risks in some situations. A world without risk would be a boring one indeed (even bearing in mind a plausible world in which "death" is not the primary risk), and in a world where risk exists, it seems to be the default assumption that most people will either: (a) Seek to minimize personal risk (to the point of fear-based inaction even when they know a risky action might lead to tremendous benefit if taken), or: (b) Take risks, but mainly for the "thrill" of doing so. Literary (and real) heroes, on the other hand, will take risks, but they're either smarter or more creative about doing so than average, or they risk things in such a way that their deeper, admirable ethical principles are revealed, making them appealing/inspiring as characters. I would almost wager that the "sacrifice" notion is a red herring here: that is, the hero isn't thinking of him/herself at all (and what they stand to lose) when deciding to act -- rather, s/he is thinking of how to produce the best outcome to the situation at hand. The fact that they personally might "lose something" if the risk doesn't pan out is sort of irrelevant, or at least it seems that way in many formulations of the heroic archetype I've come across. - Anne --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 05:25:36 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 02:25:36 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com><002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome> Jeff> Oh no! Not again! ;-) Sorry for that. I probably wasn't a member of this list when this subject was discussed for the first time. From sentience at pobox.com Sat Mar 8 05:43:15 2008 From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:43:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome> References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com><002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome> Message-ID: <47D22773.1020102@pobox.com> Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > Jeff> Oh no! Not again! ;-) > > Sorry for that. I probably wasn't a member of this list when this subject > was discussed for the first time. Hell, *I* wasn't here for the first time. Or the second time, or the third time, or the fourth time. I think I might have been here for the sixth through sixteenth times. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence From amara at amara.com Sat Mar 8 06:11:40 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008 23:11:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sabine: "A Brief History of Mine" (part 3) Message-ID: Sabine continues to amaze me.. this is one of the most honest and heartfelt descriptions of working in science that I've read on the Internet. And it makes me proud to be her friend. http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/03/brief-history-of-mine-iii.html Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From pgptag at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 08:54:35 2008 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 09:54:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <47D22773.1020102@pobox.com> References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome> <47D22773.1020102@pobox.com> Message-ID: <470a3c520803080054l25a8c082od1f1c96ee99782fd@mail.gmail.com> I think after uploading (like after every significant change), I am still me if and only if both the previous me and the future me are willing to accept the future me as a valid continuation of the previous me. G. From estropico at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 09:02:09 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 09:02:09 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance thereof Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803080102x3f760c01mfd471a0e09690dc@mail.gmail.com> I couldn't help noticing that my suggestion for a compromise on the subject of Stefano Vaj's alleged penchant for nazi iconography has been typically sidestepped. Here's the proposal: [in order to protect Vaj's real identity] > we could post the animated version of the logo on YouTube, removing the > references to Stefano's business, his real surname and the business' url. http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2008-March/041511.html However, given that Vaj won't play ball and give us any answers, this thread is boring indeed, as someone has commented. Before I abandon it, though, I'm going to sum it up - as it looks from my point of view: -Stefano "Vaj" has no problem ignoring netiquette and revealing other people's real name on a public list such as this, as he has done in my case in another thread. Despite that, he steadfastedly refuses to disclose his real name to the list, even as he insists that it's a totally trivial issue. My only guess for this behaviour is that "respected lawyer" Stefano XXXXX would rather avoid being associated with the extreme political writings of "Stefano Vaj". -The Waffen-SS business logo: obviously Vaj subscribes to the saying that an image is worth a thousands words, hence his categorical refusal to allow the list a peek at the logo he has had no problem displaying of his business website for a number of years. Then again, the logo is only the "cherry" on the "cake" that are Vaj's political writings. Now that I've noted the above, I will move on to the politics of "overhumanism" in other threads. Cheers, Fabio From sjatkins at mac.com Sat Mar 8 09:20:11 2008 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 01:20:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] How could you ever support an AGI? In-Reply-To: <002901c87e97$acda7aa0$e4f14d0c@MyComputer> References: <47CD902B.6030708@kevinfreels.com> <332396.36633.qm@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2d6187670803041331r6c87c30fx3388ae9da5053147@mail.gmail.com> <002901c87e97$acda7aa0$e4f14d0c@MyComputer> Message-ID: On Mar 5, 2008, at 12:04 AM, John K Clark wrote: > John Grigg in response to giovanni santost wrote: > > > You are badly anthropomorphizing the AGI. > > For God's sake, we're back with that crap! Prove to me why > anthropomorphizing is always a bad thing. Come on, I dare > you to try, come on, mess with me! Who would want to mess with an evolved monkey already literally slinging crap and no doubt getting ready to verbally beat his chest? :-) Seriously, it doesn't sound like good entertainment value. > > > > It will most likely not have the same biological > > drives/wiring that you and I have. > > If true then the AGI, that is to say, the American Geological > Institute (or perhaps you mean Artificial Intelligence) will > be even more unpredictable than I thought it was; and that > was pretty God Damn unpredictable. The logic is irrefutable, > the friendly AI idea is brain dead dumb. Thanks for you highly priced and doubtless extremely insightful opinion. - samantha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From estropico at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 09:21:38 2008 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 09:21:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90803080121q639dae0bs6ceb35c51a7cb623@mail.gmail.com> > From: "Stefano Vaj" > > At the same time, I am surprised that, while the usual couple of > Italian supporters of Mr. Bush's crusades... Too easy and not very original... (have you noticed how these days if you want to damage somebody politically this has become the standard tactic?) As I mentioned before in reply to Stefano's surreal rants, please have a look at my blog and site (google translations are bad but not that bad that you can't judge for yourself). www.estropico.com www.estropico.blogspot.com Cheers, Fabio From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 11:45:44 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 12:45:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy In-Reply-To: <4eaaa0d90803080121q639dae0bs6ceb35c51a7cb623@mail.gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803080121q639dae0bs6ceb35c51a7cb623@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803080345t502f2bb1h4ea5abd12f00cad2@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 10:21 AM, estropico wrote: > > From: "Stefano Vaj" > > At the same time, I am surprised that, while the usual couple of > > Italian supporters of Mr. Bush's crusades... > > Too easy and not very original... (have you noticed how these days if > you want to damage somebody politically this has become the standard > tactic?) > Should I discuss instead the swastika tattooed on your wife's left breast to the tone of "please feel free to provide photographic evidence if you really do not have anything to hide"? I prefer to leave this much more original technique to you and your friend, and/or the new people or pseudonyms you may still be able to summon and to make subscribe to this list for this purpose. OK, from now on, in spite of some useful work you may have done in the past for the spreading of H+ texts in Italy, I do consider you as a stalker and a troll on the same level as your friend here, and I will do my best to restrain myself from any further reply to your postings. One-sided flame wars tend to expose the responsibles to ridicule and to growing impatience from other subscribers, and I shall count on that to do me justice. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 12:28:00 2008 From: giancarlitobrigante at gmail.com (giancarlos) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 13:28:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy References: <4eaaa0d90803080121q639dae0bs6ceb35c51a7cb623@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803080345t502f2bb1h4ea5abd12f00cad2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <006201c88117$d9a06ea0$37effea9@casac679d9543b> > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Stefano Vaj > To: ExI chat list > Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 12:45 PM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy > > > On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 10:21 AM, estropico wrote: > >> From: "Stefano Vaj" >> At the same time, I am surprised that, while the usual couple of >> Italian supporters of Mr. Bush's crusades... > > Too easy and not very original... (have you noticed how these days if > you want to damage somebody politically this has become the standard > tactic?) > > (...) > > OK, from now on, in spite of some useful work you may have done in the > past > for the spreading of H+ texts in Italy, I do consider you as a stalker and > a > troll on the same level as your friend here, Fabio, I think that it's quite evident that Stefano doesn't want (isn't able) to reply to the factual claims and comments we reported, and prefers to launch personal attacks (stalker, troll, psychopath, etc) in order to sidetrack the issue. >From wikipedia, again: "a personal attack is committed when a person substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when examining another person's claims or comments. It is considered a personal attack when a person starts referencing a supposed flaw or weakness in an individual's personality, beliefs, lifestyle, convictions or principles, and use it as a debate tactic or as a means of avoiding discussion of the relevance or truthfulness the person's statement. It works on the reasoning that, by discrediting the source of a logical argument, namely the person making it, the argument itself can be weakened. (...) On the other hand, illuminating real character flaws and inconsistencies in the position of an opponent are a vital part of the public political process and of the adversarial judicial process. Use of a personal attack in a logical argument constitutes a formal fallacy called ad hominem, a term that comes from a Latin phrase meaning "toward the man" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_attacks). At this point, think it's appropriate to stop the discussion: those who weren't and aren't interested with good reason could get impatient and bored, while those who showed interested have now enough elements to form their own personal opinion. Giancarlo http://www.linkedin.com/in/stile From scerir at libero.it Sat Mar 8 14:25:47 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 15:25:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy References: <4eaaa0d90803080121q639dae0bs6ceb35c51a7cb623@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803080345t502f2bb1h4ea5abd12f00cad2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <009201c88128$4f81f110$29bb1f97@archimede> Santa pazienza! Those tattoed swastikas, and the other nazifascist rigmaroles, have little to do with the subject line, the 'bon ton', and the Extropian Principles. If this is the Italian way to the ?bermensch, I would rather prefer the Totalmensch of the Italian Renaissance. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 14:56:26 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 15:56:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy In-Reply-To: <009201c88128$4f81f110$29bb1f97@archimede> References: <4eaaa0d90803080121q639dae0bs6ceb35c51a7cb623@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20803080345t502f2bb1h4ea5abd12f00cad2@mail.gmail.com> <009201c88128$4f81f110$29bb1f97@archimede> Message-ID: <580930c20803080656n12f3869at94267d01a3d2a2c0@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 3:25 PM, scerir wrote: > Santa pazienza! > Those tattoed swastikas, and the other > nazifascist rigmaroles, have little > to do with the subject line, the 'bon ton', > and the Extropian Principles. > If this is the Italian way to the ?bermensch, > I would rather prefer the Totalmensch of the > Italian Renaissance. > I fully agree. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 8 15:42:01 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 07:42:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <580930c20803071536g2a6309a3k3e104df28229a2e1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <013901c88133$11abb500$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Stefano writes (sorry for previous misspellings) > > But to *emulate* you means that something really is you, just as one > > operating system may emulate another. I didn't make this distinction > > above when I first wrote, due to shortage of space. A successful > > upload emulates you perfectly, has your thoughts and feelings (or, > > perhaps the ones you may have tomorrow), and your genuine > > internal experiences. > > Sure. But I wonder whether after all the simulation in the first sense > could ever be "perfect", It need not be perfect, just enough to be me. Consider the set of all transformations that might be applied to me. "Slapping" (a common desire on this list), "enriching", "depriving of sleep", "uploading", "teleporting", and so on and on. All of those things may change me a little---but that's okay, I'm still me. Only if I'm drafted into an army for five years, or you remove enough of my brain, or do anything else sufficiently drastic, do I lose my identity and become someone else. Henrique wrote > But with an emulation, the uploading proccess is some kind of "make a copy > and destroy (probably) the original". Right. > Then the uploaded me would not be me. Well, quite a few people differ, and as you've gathered, most of us, even me, are too weary to debate it a whole lot. Sorry. You might like my story http://www.leecorbin.com/PitAndDuplicate.html and two essays I have about it. (See below.) But they probably won't help convince you that a physically identical copy differs in no way whatsoever from the original. People's views on these matters always seem pretty entrenched. First is Continuity of Identity: The Last Refuge of the Soul http://www.leecorbin.com/LastRefuge.html The second is titled, quite confidently "Duplicates are Self: A proof" http://www.leecorbin.com/dupproof.html Lee From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 15:49:07 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 08:49:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200803071735.56155.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <939952.8409.qm@web27010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200803061836.49412.kanzure@gmail.com> <2d6187670803071132i4862cca1h93b3e6bdba8d484f@mail.gmail.com> <200803071735.56155.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803080749k7482fb04ja5e7281994bf07fd@mail.gmail.com> On 3/7/08, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Friday 07 March 2008, John Grigg wrote: > > Hi Bryan, I enjoyed the exchange of ideas. I'd be curious to know > > where you will be standing on these issues in ten or twenty years, > > considering you are currently a very young man. > > And am I to call you very old? >>> I'm not there yet! lol I meant no disrespect in calling you a very young man. : ) My point was that the views of people do tend to change during the time they go from youth to early middle age. But perhaps yours will not. > > > > Instead, they simply don't do the controversial research or else move > > to a nation where it is allowed/encouraged. And that nation then > > reaps the benefits. > > The only reason nations reap benefits is because of the locality of the > person, but in our age of travel and communication, locality is not as > an important factor as before, but still important, yeah. >>> And nations such as Singapore have greatly benefited from politically driven "brain drains." > > > > And even though the research and development would continue in > > > > other nations, the U.S. would then be at a serious disadvantage > > > > to be a leader in the biotech field and reap the financial > > > > harvest. And remember that it's just plain "un-American" to not > > > > make tons of money and dominate technological progress! lol > > > > > > Heh, well, with self-replication there might be a collapse of the > > > financial institutions, but not if they play their cards right. So > > > that's something that somebody might want to put some thought into. > > > > In the name of national security (and the unspoken desire of > > corporations to keep their stranglehold on the economy) we will see > > the possibility of nanotech "anything boxes" most likely squelched > You have nanotech (bacteria) all around you. And it's not squelched. >>> We humans need tools to research and utilize nanotech. I see governments using a "war on drugs" approach if necessary to halt "home nanotech." But then again, the war on drugs has in many ways been a failure. > > > > > you continue: > > > > > No matter how much they proclaim to be against a possibility > > > > > does not determine that bottom line of feasability. Yes, they > > > > > can protest, yes, they can try to stone us, they can try to > > > > > burn us alive, but you see, we can diffuse the information over > > > > > the internet, and good luck warring against the internet. It > > > > > will route around the damage. > > > > > > > > But warring against research labs and those who fund them in > > > > another matter, entirely. It generally takes serious money and > > > > disciplined scientific teams to tease out Mother Nature's > > > > secrets. > > > > > > Nah, it just takes discipline. That's the whole discipline of > > > science. It does not take money, but rather the raw resources. The > > > guys that build particle accelerators and energy stations? They had > > > the discipline to make it happen even when there wasn't necessarily > > > a "plutonium economy" or "electricity economy" when they started > > > off. > > > > The guys who built the particle accelerators and energy stations got > > big hunks of money from government and corporate sponsors. They had > > the discipline to gather the grant money that got things > > accomplished. > > Ability to gather money does not indicate whether or not they can do it. >>> It sure does gets them off to a good start! lol But you are right in that money gathering talent does not guarantee success in research. > > > > of global competitiveness. And by the time we try to really turn > > > > things around we may have lost some critical advantages that > > > > might never be fully regained. > > > > > > Maybe. Can you own an advantage, even in natural-evolutionary > > > terms? > > > > What the U.S. and Western world might have are certain given > > educational and social foundations that make technological catch up > > much easier on us as compared to China or Russia. > > What? My question was whether you can 'own' an advantage in the game > theoretic sense of natural evolution. Ownership and property has > recently been discussed more thoroughly on the list, so naturally I see > this as a relevant extension to those thoughts. > >>> If you mean owning an advantage as a current society in the sense that a societal competitor could not replicate what you are doing to surge forward due to biological/evolutionary constraints, then no. Human/AGI accelerated evolution may be a whole other story... > > > What knowledge and power? What does the military have that cannot > > > be already duplicated? Airplanes? Easily duplicated (though not > > > necessarily the money to make many tests. This is of course a > > > matter of resources, not money.) Nuclear weapons? Non-military > > > persons came up with nukes. Navy machinery? Easy enough. > > > > Knowledge IS power. Academic and corporate research labs are spread > > across the U.S. and the backbone of much military and economic r & d. No, people are the backbone, and what one human can think, so can > another. >>> And where does that knowledge/power come from? People, of course! "What one human can think, so can another," tends toward being very simplistic. How well the brightest folks in each society are educated, supported and organized to maximize their talents toward successful innovation is a key factor that differentiates various nations/societies and will limit or enhance their efforts. > > Yes, non-military people came up with much of this. lol By the way, > > resources and money go hand in hand. : ) > > Resources and money do not go hand-in-hand. >> They often do, but not always. Some nations are very resource poor but are technologically and industrially advanced and so they buy resources from high resource nations that are technologically backward. But often resources and money DO go hand-in-hand. The United States is among a number of resource rich nations that have been monetarily/economically blessed in this category. And this definitely is a *great* advantage in terms of global competition and national security. > > A "standard" and non-high performance jet fighter, tank, missle > > cruiser, civilian product for sale, etc. may be relatively easy to > > create, but designing and manufacturing a very advanced (superior to > > potential enemies/competitors) version is a great challenge. Rival > > I don't see how this is true. I have been studying how to make my own > copy of the X-43A, the NASA Hyper-X hypersonic Mach 10 aircraft. As far > as I can tell, the hardest part is just reading the documentation on > the CFD simulators (heh), but then there's finding an artist to model > the ship properly, then assembling the right metals and a cooling > system, getting an oxyacetalone arc welder, doing the CNC metalworking, > and most importantly the preliminary design work in coming up with the > right PDEs and mission design parameters. The only thing *hard* is > evolutionary progression of novelty. Anything else is not 'hard'. >>> LOL!!! Bryan, I have to say you are a cool guy and fun to have a discussion with. The paragraph above just floored me. Is your real name Tom Swift, Reed Richards, Tony Stark or Howard Hughes? : ) You certainly have an "October Sky" or "The Astronaut Farmer" quality in the way you view your personal possibilities. And for all I know you may go on to be the next Burt Rutan. I truly hope so and are rooting for you to succeed. > > nations will have a very challenging time matching our most advanced > > tech (and as they try to catch up we would be moving forward to stay > > ahead) unless the complete designs and manufacturing methods are > > Open source. > > > stolen. Espionage/stolen military and industrial secrets are a huge > > problem for the U.S. and the rest of the Western world. > > Maybe they would do better to be able to exist in such a way that they > do not entirely rely on such outdated security models? Secrets?? >>> I would like to think that one day humanity could overcome the overwhelming desire for intellectual property rights and in a spirit of global cooperation still make technological and economic progress. Hold on..., are you an operative for the TSA??? ; ) > > > We are in a race to develop whatever the next generation of > > > > technological innovations are that we must have to stay not just > > > > competitive, but ahead of the rest of the world. And yes, we do > > > > have > > > > > > This is FUD. > > > > This is THE REAL WORLD. lol > > You can stay competitive even with shared knowledge, see OSS. >>> It definitely has it's downsides at the current time but it does give hope for what a nanotech era may look like. > > If the U.S. does not protect it's technology base by better security, > > improving public education, etc., you will see in your lifetime our > > steep decline. It will be a very sad thing. > > Decline in what? >>> Economic power, environmental quality, standard of living, global influence, military power, etc... > > > > Nationalism is a two-edged sword. On the one side it can cause > > > > > > It is also more fud. > > > > It can be at times. But do you really think other powerful nations > > always have our best interests at heart? lol Life is not just > > cooperation but also competition. Nature teaches us that. And it > > still holds true for humanity. > > What are you talking about? I didn't even mention 'nations' having best > interests at heart etc. Specifically, you are promoting the concept of > nationalism even when we know that we can make things and build > solutions to our human problems, you are just pointing to archaic > methods of cooperation which can be surpassed. >>> You kept on mentioning FUD. "Fear, uncertainty, doubt." When/if nanotech gets to the point where common citizens can make/or are close to making their own personal "anything boxes," we will see governments reflexively clamp down so hard your head will spin. They will take the FUD meme and whip it into overdrive as they struggle to maintain control. The current "war on drugs" and "war on terror" will seem extremely mild by comparison. I admit it would be so wonderful (right out of a really good SF story turned real) to have our own personal nanotech anything boxes and from the raw materials in our backyard to build a spacecraft to get into orbit so we could join with others of likemind and construct a L5 colony or a starship to do deep space exploration (or whatever else our hearts desired!). I have very fond memories from the Extro 5 Conference of discussing this very dream with a small group of Extropians as we were driving around the area. John : ) > - Bryan > ________________________________________ > Bryan Bishop > http://heybryan.org/ > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Mar 8 15:55:08 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 07:55:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> <470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com> <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> <580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com> <007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <580930c20803071500t1887aa0axdacb97e93b556f1b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <015501c88135$2d42a010$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> BillK wrote > > I can't be the only one who sees potential value in our Italian friends > > holding up a mirror for us in the west, but whose reflection perhaps > > has much potential for helping us even understand ourselves. > I doubt if our USA friends would find much value in the intricate > postmodern European political factions. Interesting? Possibly, like > poking a stick into an anthill and watching all the frantic scurrying > around. Stefano writes > In fact, my main concern as far as "positioning" is concerned is to > keep myself as far from teocons as possible :-); but if, say, > Nietzsche or Marinetti or Huxley or Heinlein should be considered as > being right-wing, well, so be it, I have no intention whatsoever to > renounce to what of interest I may find in their writings out of > political correctness or fear of ideological terrorism. That last is the important part, thanks. > I think that it would be best to recognise that old labels may end up > being of limited use in an era of revolutionary change, to go back to > Korzybski's idea that the map is not the territory, and concentrate > instead on ideas and new syntheses thereof. All my life whenever people have said that, I had to conclude that at least for here in America, they were simply refusing to face reality. There really is a left/right spectrum, though many people (myself included) find we have exceptional positions on some issues. But you could be entirely correct. Perhaps it stands to reason that the 200 year old dichotomy is beginning to fail. Lee From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 8 16:22:02 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 10:22:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Teocon In-Reply-To: <015501c88135$2d42a010$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> <470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com> <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> <580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com> <007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <580930c20803071500t1887aa0axdacb97e93b556f1b@mail.gmail.com> <015501c88135$2d42a010$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080308101730.024264f8@satx.rr.com> This Italian/European political term, unfamiliar in English, has been used several times. Here's a google translation from http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teocon: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 8 16:18:02 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 08:18:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com><002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome><47D22773.1020102@pobox.com> <470a3c520803080054l25a8c082od1f1c96ee99782fd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <01a601c88138$af2d1c60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Giulio writes >I think after uploading (like after every significant change), I am > still me if and only if both the previous me and the future me are > willing to accept the future me as a valid continuation of the > previous me. So marvelously concise and sensible! Of course, there are many who will never believe that anything outside their own skin can be the same person that they are, and for them, your example isn't of any use. Too bad. Because in one sentence you've summarized exactly how personal identity will be handled in the future. Thanks, Lee From citta437 at aol.com Sat Mar 8 16:34:14 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 11:34:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Thoughts Without a Thinker" re: Heroism without self-sacrifice Message-ID: <8CA4F516114393F-4F0-125B@webmail-nf10.sim.aol.com> Marvin Minsky sometime ago wrote a book, "Thoughts Without a Thinker." It sounds similar to "Heroism without self-sacrifice." Thoughts of heroism are thoughts embedded in memory with no apparent owner, thinker or an uncaused cause. Even an AGI is caused. Some scientific discoveries happen by random chance. Who owns/controls chance? Thoughts of heroism entails this curiosity to know the unknown without fear of failure or hope for success. Just thoughts, Terry {Zen Practitioner} From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 16:18:37 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 17:18:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803080818n27b57e68hde958831b582fdac@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 3:54 AM, Max More wrote: > Department of Strategic Philosophy > Professor Max More > Course 510: Extropic Myth Analysis > > Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to reconceptualize > the hero myth, removing the core element of self-sacrifice. I have not read the rest of the thread, but have reflected a little on the assigned "demonstration", and the following is what I could come up with: - Essentially and originally a hero is simply an individual denoted by a semi-divine status: in the Ancient Greece, an individual typically endowed by his genetic (!) peculiarity, as the hybrid offspring of a god and a human being, allowing and making him behave in a "heroic", i.e., extraordinary, way (reversing the myth, heroics of a given individual may make for a semi-divine status attributed to, and recognised in, him by the relevant community). Self-sacrifice has thus not anything necessarily to do with the idea of "heroic", and more with the idea of "tragic", even though the two ideas are intertwined (see below). - Undeniably, however, in most cases the hero myth finishes with the end of at least the natural life of the individual concerned (death, ascension to heaven, departure towards the land beyond the sea, whatever). OTOH, traditionally, this had hardly the connotation of "acceptance of suffering", "self-denial", "humble renunciation to the world and its appeals" that it took in monotheistic cultures. "Sacrifice" was etymologically intended as a triumphal and final achievement "making something sacred" (see "sacrum facere" in Latin). - Even in the everyday concept of hero, heroics have more to do with the idea of "putting oneself fully into play", "being the living incarnation of a cause", or "consciously accepting the related risks", than with personal self-sacrifice, which is at most a possible, and certainly not deliberately and masochistically sought, outcome of such a position. Thus again, nothing prevents a (lucky) hero from escaping all forms of "sacrifice", and living instead a rather happy and fulfilling life, even though only as a byproduct of his other goals. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 17:11:05 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 11:11:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803080749k7482fb04ja5e7281994bf07fd@mail.gmail.com> References: <939952.8409.qm@web27010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <200803071735.56155.kanzure@gmail.com> <2d6187670803080749k7482fb04ja5e7281994bf07fd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803081111.05175.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 08 March 2008, John Grigg wrote: > On 3/7/08, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > On Friday 07 March 2008, John Grigg wrote: > > > In the name of national security (and the unspoken desire of > > > corporations to keep their stranglehold on the economy) we will > > > see the possibility of nanotech "anything boxes" most likely > > > squelched > > > > You have nanotech (bacteria) all around you. And it's not > > squelched. > > We humans need tools to research and utilize nanotech. I see > governments using a "war on drugs" approach if necessary to halt > "home nanotech." But then again, the war on drugs has in many ways > been a failure. War on nanotech -> kill all your cells? > > > If the U.S. does not protect it's technology base by better > > > security, improving public education, etc., you will see in your > > > lifetime our steep decline. It will be a very sad thing. > > > > Decline in what? > > Economic power, environmental quality, standard of living, global > influence, military power, etc... In the case of nanotech, economic power will be meaningless: only the ability to self-replicate will be power. Environmental quality we will have to deal with, maybe by figuring out how to make our own new environments or work synergistically with the ones we already have, standard of living is a definition based off of rGDP so that's just economics, and a decline in military power doesn't sound too bad to me, as long as we do in fact have the nanotech. > > > > > Nationalism is a two-edged sword. On the one side it can > > > > > cause > > > > > > > > It is also more fud. > > > > > > It can be at times. But do you really think other powerful > > > nations always have our best interests at heart? lol Life is not > > > just cooperation but also competition. Nature teaches us that. > > > And it still holds true for humanity. > > > > What are you talking about? I didn't even mention 'nations' having > > best interests at heart etc. Specifically, you are promoting the > > concept of nationalism even when we know that we can make things > > and build solutions to our human problems, you are just pointing to > > archaic methods of cooperation which can be surpassed. > > You kept on mentioning FUD. "Fear, uncertainty, doubt." When/if > nanotech gets to the point where common citizens can make/or are > close to making their own personal "anything boxes," we will see > governments reflexively clamp down so hard your head will spin. They > will take the FUD meme and whip it into overdrive as they struggle to > maintain control. The current "war on drugs" and "war on terror" > will seem extremely mild by comparison. "The more you tighten your grip, the more we slip through your fingers." - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 8 17:07:47 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 09:07:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice References: <8CA4ED48501009A-CF4-B2@Webmail-mg08.sim.aol.com> Message-ID: <01d401c8813f$8fea9f60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Request for clarification, please. Perhaps this has been answered, but I don't recall precisely. What is "self-sacrifice", exactly, as meant in this thread? I thought that it was the notion of giving up one's life for a greater cause, and doing so knowingly and deliberately. I can imagine giving up one's children (as Abraham was about to do), or one's limbs (as even animals will sometimes do, e.g. chewing a leg off to escape a trap), and that while these are sacrifices, they're not "self-sacrifices". Otherwise, the giving up of anything that one holds to be very valuable (e.g. money for political campaigns) runs the risk of being deemed self-sacrifice. Anyone have a problem with this so far? Thanks a lot! * * * Now, men in war who throw themselves on a grenade to save their fellows can well be considered heros, but to be sure, this does include self-sacrifice. On the other hand, "Heroism without self-sacrifice" seemed to me, and still appear to me, to be just that. So what is heroism? Sorry if the following definition repeats a lot of what has been said A hero is an individual of elevated moral stature and superior ability who pursues his goals indefatigably in the face of powerful antagonist(s). Because of his unbreached devotion to the good, no matter the opposition, a hero attains spiritual grandeur, even in he fails to achieve practical victory. Notice then the four components of heroism: moral greatness, ability or prowess, action in the face of opposition, and triumph in at least a spiritual, if not a physical, form. Of these, the hero's moral stature is unquestionably the most fundamental. An uncompromising commitment to morality is the foundation of heroism. Although the point can be stated simply--the hero is a "good guy"--its reasons are philosophical and apply to all instances of the concept. [ -Mike Mentzer ] This is taken from an otherwise dubious web page at http://www.mikementzer.com/heroism.html, where, despite the sole usage of "him, his" above, the author is a great Ayn Rand fan, and uses her as one of his chief examples. I completely agree with the four characteristics that Mike lists as components: moral greatness ability or prowess action in the face of opposition and triumph in at least a spiritual, if not a physical, form. Even the last is okay, you see, even if the person dies (unintentionally), because a fallen fire-fighter can well be considered to be heroic, if his or her efforts involved the other three. Let's please not stretch the meanings of words to a clearly delineated class such as this. It's an abuse of language, for example, to describe a father as heroic who raised eight children all by himself after his wife's death. Lee From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 17:17:06 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 11:17:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "Thoughts Without a Thinker" re: Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <8CA4F516114393F-4F0-125B@webmail-nf10.sim.aol.com> References: <8CA4F516114393F-4F0-125B@webmail-nf10.sim.aol.com> Message-ID: <200803081117.06954.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 08 March 2008, citta437 at aol.com wrote: > Thoughts of heroism entails this curiosity to know the unknown > without fear of failure or hope for success. As much as I think your ideas are close to the mark, I don't think this would work out. Suppose we had brain interfacing technology and had a massive supercomputer the size of Jupiter decyphering the brain state of our hero, and found that he was, in fact, hoping for a brief 3 seconds at one point in his so-called 'heroic' journey. Does that then mean that he is no longer a hero, for that briefest of thought? I would hope the answer is no. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 8 17:24:38 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 09:24:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] war on nanotech and national security: RE: The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists In-Reply-To: <200803081111.05175.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803081751.m28HpLv9007100@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Note new subject line when the topic has (thank you very much) wandered off of the manifesto of Italian Transhumanists (oy vey). The Italian Transhumanist manifesto thread is killed for the time being. spike > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > Bryan Bishop > Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 9:11 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists > > On Saturday 08 March 2008, John Grigg wrote: > > On 3/7/08, Bryan Bishop wrote: > > > On Friday 07 March 2008, John Grigg wrote: > > > > In the name of national security (and the unspoken desire of > > > > corporations to keep their stranglehold on the economy) we will > > > > see the possibility of nanotech "anything boxes" most likely > > > > squelched > > > > > > You have nanotech (bacteria) all around you. And it's not > squelched. > > > > We humans need tools to research and utilize nanotech. I see > > governments using a "war on drugs" approach if necessary to > halt "home > > nanotech." But then again, the war on drugs has in many > ways been a > > failure. > > War on nanotech -> kill all your cells? ... > - Bryan > ________________________________________ > Bryan Bishop > http://heybryan.org/ > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 8 18:01:55 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:01:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <01d401c8813f$8fea9f60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <8CA4ED48501009A-CF4-B2@Webmail-mg08.sim.aol.com> <01d401c8813f$8fea9f60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080308115902.02410088@satx.rr.com> At 09:07 AM 3/8/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: >It's an abuse of language, for example, to describe a father as >heroic who raised eight children all by himself after his wife's death. I vehemently disagree. It's a completely justifiable and understandable extension of usage from the mythic or legendary realm to the actual world of humanity. Damien Broderick From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 18:30:38 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 12:30:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080308115902.02410088@satx.rr.com> References: <01d401c8813f$8fea9f60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080308115902.02410088@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200803081230.38437.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 08 March 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: > >It's an abuse of language, for example, to describe a father as > >heroic who raised eight children all by himself after his wife's > > death. > > I vehemently disagree. It's a completely justifiable and > understandable extension of usage from the mythic or legendary realm > to the actual world of humanity. Hm. Might it be that, as the number of instances (of fathers who raise eight children on their own) increases, it becomes increasingly less heroic? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 18:29:12 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 11:29:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] injure thread: RE: Personal "backgrounds" and alleged relevance In-Reply-To: <200803080016.m280GEvm020866@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803071354g2c5fbe33o28dca1957585ce70@mail.gmail.com> <200803080016.m280GEvm020866@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803081029r4d224855w9aa2342e9ac05b02@mail.gmail.com> Spike wrote: > Do not feel the need to > explain it to me however. On the contrary, feel free to let this thread > perish at this point, for it has made me squirmy from the start, and is > getting worse with each post I see. > > Each poster is judged only on the posts that person puts here. > Accusations > regarding anyone's political leanings outside this list are not welcome > nor > helpful. > >>> I'm personally confused as to Stefano's real personal history in relation to Fascism, and yet I still admit to enjoying his posts and personality (being a European Legal Eagle on our side sure does not hurt, either...). But then some Fascists can be very charismatic! lol ; ) I wish Eugen Leitl, Greg Burch or Harvey Newstrom would fully investigate the matter (I realize this would take much time and effort) and then report to the list. This is just my .02 cents worth regarding the matter. Does anyone remember Den Otter? hmmm Sincerely, John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 18:58:20 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 12:58:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <580930c20803080818n27b57e68hde958831b582fdac@mail.gmail.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <580930c20803080818n27b57e68hde958831b582fdac@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803081258.20381.kanzure@gmail.com> On Saturday 08 March 2008, Stefano Vaj wrote: > - Essentially and originally a hero is simply an individual denoted > by a semi-divine status: in the Ancient Greece, an individual > typically endowed by his genetic (!) peculiarity, as the hybrid > offspring of a god and a human being, allowing and making him behave > in a "heroic", i.e., extraordinary, way (reversing the myth, heroics > of a given individual may make for a semi-divine status attributed > to, and recognised in, him by the relevant community). Self-sacrifice Then we are led to think that a hero is one who has achieved divinity? > has thus not anything necessarily to do with the idea of "heroic", > and more with the idea of "tragic", even though the two ideas are > intertwined (see below). I would like to agree, but I can't. Even godhood comes with tragedy. > The supreme tragedy of life, I have always thought, is that it must > end in death. Even for those who die too late, death must one day > come. Which I see you understand: > - Undeniably, however, in most cases the hero myth finishes with the > end of at least the natural life of the individual concerned (death, Indeed. > ascension to heaven, departure towards the land beyond the sea, > whatever). OTOH, traditionally, this had hardly the connotation of > "acceptance of suffering", "self-denial", "humble renunciation to the > world and its appeals" that it took in monotheistic cultures. Yes, while this is far from acceptance-of-self-injury, it is still self-injury, no? You still injure yourself by continuing to live, yes? You continue to face the possibility of evolutionary failure, you have that taste of the infinite. But this 'injury' is only natural, and so we know that it is not, in fact, injury, but rather the way of life ... but we also know that we can change this so-called 'way', that we can recreate it to our liking. I do not mean to say that living-is-injury, but that life is tragic because you have death, and as long as you run from death you are still injurying yourself for death will always come. Ultimately is it you who willed yourself into existence? No. Therefore, perhaps we can argue that it is fate that is injurying you. But do we not, to some extent, determine our own fate? I hope somebody else can see the problem space that I am describing here (one that Zindell seems to understand, per the quote I above). > - Even in the everyday concept of hero, heroics have more to do with > the idea of "putting oneself fully into play", "being the living > incarnation of a cause", or "consciously accepting the related > risks", than with personal self-sacrifice, which is at most a > possible, and certainly not deliberately and masochistically sought, > outcome of such a position. If we are to put ourselves into the realm of play, then why not do it to the best of our ability? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 19:50:25 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 12:50:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <01a601c88138$af2d1c60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome> <47D22773.1020102@pobox.com> <470a3c520803080054l25a8c082od1f1c96ee99782fd@mail.gmail.com> <01a601c88138$af2d1c60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <2d6187670803081150t603472e9xf5df1f41896dde39@mail.gmail.com> Lee Corbin wrote: Of course, there are many who will never believe that anything outside their own skin can be the same person that they are, and for them, your example isn't of any use. Too bad. Because in one sentence you've summarized exactly how personal identity will be handled in the future. >>> Continuity! Continuity! Continuity! lol I suffer almost post-traumatic syndrome-type memories regarding this thread topic and the other thread subject of gun control. ; ) I always liked the "self-circuit" idea of cryonics giant, Robert Ettinger. I think a good story for exploring the idea of uploading and identity is the one of two scientists who vehemently debate whether a perfectly identical copy of you is TRULY and completely *you*. The two scientists build a matter duplication device and the researcher who believes a perfect copy is absolutely indistinguishable from himself in all ways goes ahead and makes a copy of...., himself! The scientist who had argued that a perfect copy was not to be confused with the original very calmly takes a 44 magnum handgun from a desk drawer, points it at the head of the original scientist (not the perfect in all respects copy of him), and says, "now just how certain are you that your life is utterly indistinguishable from your perfect copy?" LOL There was an Outer Limits episode where a race of very technologically advanced and yet pacifistic (roughly human-sized) Saurians came to the aid of a very polluted and over-populated Earth that is barely surviving. The aliens hold out the promise of new worlds to explore and colonize due to the amazing "teleportation" machines that they are willing to share with us. But their alien mentality is brought out when a female human scientist is "teleported" to one of their worlds but the original woman is left alive. It turns out their "teleportation devices" are simply a very sophisticated duplication technology! They take it for granted that the original traveler at point A is to be killed/vaporized (according to their laws) as soon as the copy is successfully created at point B. The idea of having multiple copies of the same being running around is seen as highly unethical by the aliens and so they demand the death of the women, or they will withdraw their support from humanity. The human concept of a "self-circuit" is totally irrelevant to the reptilian Saurians, who despite being pacificists, still appear to be very cold and callous by human standards. The human leader must make a very hard decision... The plot was in spirit quite similar to the classic Tom Godwin science fiction short story, "The Cold Equations." Stories can sometimes be good food for thought. John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Mar 8 19:48:56 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:48:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] first step as principle investigator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20080308194916.DGZJ11056.hrndva-omta06.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> At 02:04 AM 3/6/2008, Amara wrote: >The nine months I spent last year writing government grant proposals >wasn't for nothing, this morning I learned that my last NASA proposal >will be funded (a small project: 4 months per year for two years). This >is my first research proposal where I'm the 'principle investigator'. GREAT! Congratulations Amara! - You GO! Natasha Natasha Vita-More, BFA, MS, MPhil University Lecturer 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 20:30:21 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 13:30:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Monkey Experiment, (or) "Why Do We Do That?" In-Reply-To: References: <000f01c880ae$e9f65940$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: <2d6187670803081230m3ecd51ccnf409a47bdb7cc8f2@mail.gmail.com> Gary Miller wrote: Bullies bully because they have been trained in aggression at a young age and repeat the behavior without even understanding why. >>> Some intelligent people repeat their bullying behavior *fully understanding why* and simply view it as beneficial to them in getting what they want, to hell with anyone else (as long as they think they can get away with it...). There are many very successful, educated and wealthy individuals throughout the world who unfortunately fit into this rotten category. you continue: I think assertiveness training needs to be a part of every child's schooling. It teaches the difference between being assertive and aggressive and teaches how not to be a victim or a bully. >>> I think this is a great idea. you continue: It give me hope for the future that groups like the Boy Scouts are now offering merit badges for learning about bullying. Scouts are encouraged to speak out for and protect others they see being bullied. >>> I didn't know they had a bullying merit badge! Good for them! I used to be a Boy Scout and have some fond memories. This bullying merit badge combined with "martial arts," "law," "first aid," "crime prevention" and "shotgun shooting," should help young men be ready to deal with the bullies of the world. Oh, but wait... I did some googling and discovered that there has never been a martial arts merit badge! I completely agree with the author of the following link. http://www.semperfitkd.com/boyscouts.asp I hope in time the Boy Scout leadership will change their mind regarding having a martial arts merit badge. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at comcast.net Sat Mar 8 20:50:19 2008 From: brent.allsop at comcast.net (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:50:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803081150t603472e9xf5df1f41896dde39@mail.gmail.com> References: <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome> <47D22773.1020102@pobox.com> <470a3c520803080054l25a8c082od1f1c96ee99782fd@mail.gmail.com> <01a601c88138$af2d1c60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <2d6187670803081150t603472e9xf5df1f41896dde39@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47D2FC0B.1050405@comcast.net> John, These are great stories that illustrate the problem, but if you ask me it's dumb to worry about any of this if this so far most popular theory of consciousness turns out to be true: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/7 Within this theory, there is a description of what uploading will be like in this extremely short story entitled 1229 years after Titanic available here: http://home.comcast.net/~brent.allsop/ If anyone thinks this isn't possible as described, of if they think uploading like this doesn't completely eliminate all of these problems, I'd sure love to capture such a point of view (POV) in either the canonized topic on the Hard Problem, or in the feedback topic about the story. Now we can finally stop arguing about this now resolved issue over and over again right? Brent Allsop John Grigg wrote: > Lee Corbin wrote: > Of course, there are many who will never believe that anything > outside their own skin can be the same person that they are, > and for them, your example isn't of any use. Too bad. Because > in one sentence you've summarized exactly how personal identity > will be handled in the future. > >>> > > Continuity! Continuity! Continuity! lol I suffer almost > post-traumatic syndrome-type memories regarding this thread topic and > the other thread subject of gun control. ; ) > > I always liked the "self-circuit" idea of cryonics giant, Robert > Ettinger. I think a good story for exploring the idea of uploading and > identity is the one of two scientists who vehemently debate whether a > perfectly identical copy of you is TRULY and completely *you*. The > two scientists build a matter duplication device and the researcher > who believes a perfect copy is absolutely indistinguishable from > himself in all ways goes ahead and makes a copy of...., himself! The > scientist who had argued that a perfect copy was not to be confused > with the original very calmly takes a 44 magnum handgun from a desk > drawer, points it at the head of the original scientist (not the > perfect in all respects copy of him), and says, "now just how certain > are you that your life is utterly indistinguishable from your perfect > copy?" LOL > > There was an Outer Limits episode where a race of very technologically > advanced and yet pacifistic (roughly human-sized) Saurians came to the > aid of a very polluted and over-populated Earth that is barely > surviving. The aliens hold out the promise of new worlds to explore > and colonize due to the amazing "teleportation" machines that they are > willing to share with us. > > But their alien mentality is brought out when a female human scientist > is "teleported" to one of their worlds but the original woman is left > alive. It turns out their "teleportation devices" are simply a very > sophisticated duplication technology! They take it for granted that > the original traveler at point A is to be killed/vaporized (according > to their laws) as soon as the copy is successfully created at point > B. The idea of having multiple copies of the same being running > around is seen as highly unethical by the aliens and so they demand > the death of the women, or they will withdraw their support from > humanity. The human concept of a "self-circuit" is totally irrelevant > to the reptilian Saurians, who despite being pacificists, still appear > to be very cold and callous by human standards. The human leader must > make a very hard decision... The plot was in spirit quite similar to > the classic Tom Godwin science fiction short story, "The Cold > Equations." > > Stories can sometimes be good food for thought. > > John : ) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 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 natasha at natasha.cc Sat Mar 8 20:54:31 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:54:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Vita-More: Transhumanism on the Rise Message-ID: <20080308205435.BCFB13220.hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> http://memebox.com/futureblogger From fauxever at sprynet.com Sat Mar 8 20:44:02 2008 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 12:44:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Monkey Experiment, (or) "Why Do We Do That?" References: <000f01c880ae$e9f65940$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <2d6187670803081230m3ecd51ccnf409a47bdb7cc8f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <004101c8815d$2a5ba590$6601a8c0@patrick4ezsk6z> From: John Grigg Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 12:30 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] The Monkey Experiment, (or) "Why Do We Do That?" > I hope in time the Boy Scout leadership will change their mind regarding > having a martial arts merit badge. I hope in time the Boy Scout and Cub Scout leadership will change their discrimination policies towards atheists and gays. Olga From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 17:55:34 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 18:55:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Teocon In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080308101730.024264f8@satx.rr.com> References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> <470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com> <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> <580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com> <007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <580930c20803071500t1887aa0axdacb97e93b556f1b@mail.gmail.com> <015501c88135$2d42a010$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080308101730.024264f8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803080955ldc2b7f0t6ac822125c4ccbca@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 5:22 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > This Italian/European political term, unfamiliar in English, has been > used several times. Here's a google translation from > http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teocon: > > neologism derived from the term conservatism with the prefix > "theoretical", coined in the Anglo-Saxon world and in particular the > USA. Nevertheless it is now more widely available in Europe, often > with a different meaning than the original. [[I wonder if it's really > "theological-conservative"? --DB]] > > Mmhhh, I think the reference here is to "theocratic-conservative", theos meaning "god", nothing to do with "theory" (ancient Greek for "view" as in "worldview"). In fact, the alliance between theocons and neocons has been found paradoxical by a few commentators, the former term referring in principle to those who are close to Evangelic or Catholic religious fundamentalism, the latter to those, especially in the US, who are closer to Machiavelian, Hobbesian, "raison d'?tat", "amoral", "post-ideological" politics, if not to mere political coverage of vested interests, where old-style conservative values, let alone religion, may have become more of a rhetoric tool than a shared, good-faith worldview. (After a fashion, I imagnine that a few theocons may consider it as a necessary "pact with the devil") In fact, it can probably be argued that neocons, per se, should in principle be agnostic or even slightly favourable towards technology, at least unless issues of internal or international hegemonic control of the same is involved, and that neo-luddite spins and accents amongst conservatives are mostly the effect of theocon influence; more or less as it happens for Rousseaian neo-primitivism and anti-tech environmentalism amongst left-wingers. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 20:49:21 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 21:49:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <200803081258.20381.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <20080307025445.QHTQ13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com> <580930c20803080818n27b57e68hde958831b582fdac@mail.gmail.com> <200803081258.20381.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803081249s3584df43v1e53fe8dcbc11050@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 7:58 PM, Bryan Bishop wrote: > On Saturday 08 March 2008, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > - Essentially and originally a hero is simply an individual denoted > > by a semi-divine status: in the Ancient Greece, an individual > > typically endowed by his genetic (!) peculiarity, as the hybrid > > offspring of a god and a human being, allowing and making him behave > > in a "heroic", i.e., extraordinary, way (reversing the myth, heroics > > of a given individual may make for a semi-divine status attributed > > to, and recognised in, him by the relevant community). Self-sacrifice > > Then we are led to think that a hero is one who has achieved divinity? No, heroes were definitely not gods. Rather, they were considered as semi-divine, and of partial divine descent, out of what they did. Yes, while this is far from acceptance-of-self-injury, it is still > self-injury, no? You still injure yourself by continuing to live, yes? > You continue to face the possibility of evolutionary failure, you have > that taste of the infinite. But this 'injury' is only natural, and so > we know that it is not, in fact, injury, but rather the way of life ... > but we also know that we can change this so-called 'way', that we can > recreate it to our liking. Agreed. > But do we > not, to some extent, determine our own fate? Absolutely. And, after a fashion, a hero (say, Achilles) determines his fate. Of course, now we can think of and hope for a quantum leap in our fate-determining skills... :-) > > > - Even in the everyday concept of hero, heroics have more to do with > > the idea of "putting oneself fully into play", "being the living > > incarnation of a cause", or "consciously accepting the related > > risks", than with personal self-sacrifice, which is at most a > > possible, and certainly not deliberately and masochistically sought, > > outcome of such a position. > > If we are to put ourselves into the realm of play, then why not do it to > the best of our ability? > Absolutely. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From xuenay at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 21:04:33 2008 From: xuenay at gmail.com (Kaj Sotala) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 23:04:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Vita-More: Transhumanism on the Rise In-Reply-To: <20080308205435.BCFB13220.hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> References: <20080308205435.BCFB13220.hrndva-omta02.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <6a13bb8f0803081304y1c77b7cfy50bd9f9fa328c969@mail.gmail.com> On 3/8/08, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > http://memebox.com/futureblogger http://memebox.com/futureblogger/show/98 for the direct link to the article - it looks like it'll get pushed off the front page pretty quickly. -- http://www.saunalahti.fi/~tspro1/ | http://xuenay.livejournal.com/ Organizations worth your time: http://www.singinst.org/ | http://www.crnano.org/ | http://lifeboat.com/ From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Mar 8 21:13:18 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 14:13:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Monkey Experiment, (or) "Why Do We Do That?" In-Reply-To: <004101c8815d$2a5ba590$6601a8c0@patrick4ezsk6z> References: <000f01c880ae$e9f65940$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <2d6187670803081230m3ecd51ccnf409a47bdb7cc8f2@mail.gmail.com> <004101c8815d$2a5ba590$6601a8c0@patrick4ezsk6z> Message-ID: <2d6187670803081313y706f4e69qf86f4ceda37614d6@mail.gmail.com> I think it would be an excellent idea to have at least one of the following merit badges created, "Sexual Harrassment (now even a big issue for teens)," "Respect for Women in the Modern World," and/or "Gender Relations." And hey, maybe even a "Dating" merit badge! John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Mar 8 21:08:44 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 13:08:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] where is den otter?; was [injure thread: RE: Personal "backgrounds" and allegedrelevance] In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803081029r4d224855w9aa2342e9ac05b02@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803082135.m28LZSN3022325@andromeda.ziaspace.com> ... On Behalf Of John Grigg Subject: Re: [ExI] injure thread: RE: Personal "backgrounds" and allegedrelevance Spike wrote: Do not feel the need to explain it to me however. On the contrary, feel free to let this thread perish at this point...Each poster is judged only on the posts that person puts here. Accusations regarding anyone's political leanings outside this list are not welcome nor helpful. >>> >I'm personally confused as to Stefano's real personal history in relation to Fascism... Johnny, do post to Stefano offlist for this kind of information. The personal backgrounds thread is slain. Too flamey. ... > Does anyone remember Den Otter? hmmm... John Grigg Heck yes we remember den Otter. Where did he go? Anyone here know him? John do you remember where he was from? Denmark? spike From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Mar 8 22:23:48 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 14:23:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome> <47D22773.1020102@pobox.com> <470a3c520803080054l25a8c082od1f1c96ee99782fd@mail.gmail.com> <01a601c88138$af2d1c60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <2d6187670803081150t603472e9xf5df1f41896dde39@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <024c01c8816b$96025c40$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> I had hoped not to be lured into this discussion, but the Griggster has dangled an irresistable science fiction gem :-) > Lee Corbin wrote: > > Of course, there are many who will never believe that anything > > outside their own skin can be the same person that they are, > > and for them, your example isn't of any use. Too bad. Because > > in one sentence you've summarized exactly how personal identity > > will be handled in the future. Continuity! Continuity! Continuity! lol Yeah? Yeah? Well, I hope you've read my "Continuity of Identity: The Last Refuge of the Soul" (http://www.leecorbin.com/LastRefuge.html) > The scientist who had argued that a perfect copy was not to be confused > with the original very calmly takes a 44 magnum handgun from a desk > drawer, points it at the head of the original scientist (not the perfect in > all respects copy of him), and says, "now just how certain are you that > your life is utterly indistinguishable from your perfect copy?" LOL Hey, on pain of losing an instance of me, I'd say whatever I thought he wanted to hear! But make the stakes really worth while (either I or my duplicate dies, but if it's "me" then $10M is deposited to my account), and I won't flinch a bit when you point the gun. Now THIS is precious (thanks, John!): There was an Outer Limits episode where a race of very technologically advanced and yet pacifistic (roughly human-sized) Saurians came to the aid of a very polluted and over-populated Earth that is barely surviving. The aliens hold out the promise of new worlds to explore and colonize due to the amazing "teleportation" machines that they are willing to share with us. But their alien mentality is brought out [Well, they really are more advanced than we and do understand better LOL] when a female human scientist is "teleported" to one of their worlds but the original woman is left alive. It turns out their "teleportation devices" are simply a very sophisticated duplication technology! They take it for granted that the original traveler at point A is to be killed/vaporized (according to their laws) as soon as the copy is successfully created at point B. The idea of having multiple copies of the same being running around is seen as highly unethical by the aliens [Now that IS sick] and so they demand the death of the women, or they will withdraw their support from humanity. ...The reptilian Saurians, who despite being pacificists, still appear to be very cold and callous by human standards. [Yeah, they don't understand that we're not all up to speed on identity, LOL!] > Stories can sometimes be good food for thought. John : ) Ooooh, I wish I'd seen that one. I came up with the very same thought experiment in 1967 to convince a friend of mine that there was a serious issue concerning identity. "Teleportation With Delay", or something like that, I call it. But the Outer Limits may very well have beat me to it, if it was the old B&W series shown in the 60's. Lee From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Mar 8 22:47:31 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:47:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <024c01c8816b$96025c40$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome> <47D22773.1020102@pobox.com> <470a3c520803080054l25a8c082od1f1c96ee99782fd@mail.gmail.com> <01a601c88138$af2d1c60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <2d6187670803081150t603472e9xf5df1f41896dde39@mail.gmail.com> <024c01c8816b$96025c40$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080308163854.0235cf68@satx.rr.com> At 02:23 PM 3/8/2008 -0800, Lee wrote: >The reptilian Saurians, who despite > being pacificists, still appear to be very cold and callous by > human standards. > [Yeah, they don't understand that we're not all up to speed on > identity, LOL!] > >Ooooh, I wish I'd seen that one. Read it: Jim Kelly's famous award-winning 1995 story "Think like a dinosaur". Used to be online somewhere, probably ASIMOV'S site. Kelly's own site notes: "Barry Malzberg wrote me to ask if I had intended to borrow from Algis Budrys' ROUGE MOON." (That's the famous novel about teleporting homosexuals... oh, no, wait--it's really 1959's ROGUE MOON, aka THE DEATH MACHINE, and it's not only a teleporter it's explicitly a duplicator. Anyone who hasn't read the Budrys classic should run not walk.) Damien Broderick From ablainey at aol.com Sun Mar 9 00:55:12 2008 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:55:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Monkey Experiment, (or) "Why Do We Do That?" In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803081230m3ecd51ccnf409a47bdb7cc8f2@mail.gmail.com> References: <000f01c880ae$e9f65940$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> <2d6187670803081230m3ecd51ccnf409a47bdb7cc8f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8CA4F975D754D64-12AC-647@WEBMAIL-DC06.sysops.aol.com> From: John Grigg I hope in time the?Boy Scout leadership will?change their mind regarding having a martial?arts merit badge. John I'm not sure if I agree with the idea of a martial arts merit badge. In principle it sound like a good idea, but the virtues gained from martial arts are attained slowly at a controlled pace. Or certainly should be if the practitioner manages to avoid the rainbow belt Mc'Dojo's which are far too numerous. I don't think much can be taught in the time scale of gaining a merit badge other than basic self defence. Which doesn't begin to cover the self respect and self control issues. Still if it is coupled with the grade system so a Scout could only start his badge when they have attained a certain grade, then this would be very good. Personally I would rather see kids attending both Scouts and a decent dojo. Alex ________________________________________________________________________ AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour at http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/ now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From citta437 at aol.com Sun Mar 9 02:05:05 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:05:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Thoughts without a Thinker" re: Heroism without self-sacrifice Message-ID: <8CA4FA120775272-448-897@webmail-nf08.sim.aol.com> I wrote: " Thoughts of heroism entails this curiosity to know the unknown > without fear of failure or hope for success. You wrote: "As much as I think your ideas are close to the mark, I don't think this would work out." To paraphrase the first sentence above, in a society of minds, there is none independent of thought. Curiosity is a consequence of a desire to know so it seems circular when the cause {heroism} is the effect of suffering or vice versa. You wrote: " Suppose we had brain interfacing technology and had a massive supercomputer the size of Jupiter decyphering the brain state of our hero, and found that he was, in fact, hoping for a brief 3 seconds at one point in his so-called 'heroic' journey. Does that then mean that he is no longer a hero, for that briefest of thought? I would hope the answer is no. " There is only the journey irrespective of success or failure. Terry From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 9 03:05:43 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 19:05:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties References: <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com><002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome><47D22773.1020102@pobox.com><470a3c520803080054l25a8c082od1f1c96ee99782fd@mail.gmail.com><01a601c88138$af2d1c60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><2d6187670803081150t603472e9xf5df1f41896dde39@mail.gmail.com><024c01c8816b$96025c40$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080308163854.0235cf68@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <026c01c88192$e5b8f010$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> I did read ROGUE MOON way back around 1967 or so. He had the basic idea of duplicates and all, one about to die says something like "Tell XXX that I love her too." But it did *not* get to the paradoxical aspect, and so I found it frustrating. Star Trek with their teleporters came out a bit later, and that was so good for helping to convince people that duplication via atomic disintegration was at least imaginable. >>The reptilian Saurians, who despite >> being pacificists, still appear to be very cold and callous by >> human standards. > Read it: Jim Kelly's famous award-winning 1995 story "Think like a > dinosaur". Used to be online somewhere, probably ASIMOV'S site. But was the Outer Limits story based on *that* one? I.e., was the Outer Limits story from 1995+? Lee >>The reptilian Saurians, who despite >> being pacificists, still appear to be very cold and callous by >> human standards. >> [Yeah, they don't understand that we're not all up to speed on >> identity, LOL!] >> >>Ooooh, I wish I'd seen that one. > > Read it: Jim Kelly's famous award-winning 1995 story "Think like a > dinosaur". Used to be online somewhere, probably ASIMOV'S site. > Kelly's own site notes: "Barry Malzberg wrote me to ask if I had > intended to borrow from Algis Budrys' ROUGE MOON." (That's the famous > novel about teleporting homosexuals... oh, no, wait--it's really > 1959's ROGUE MOON, aka THE DEATH MACHINE, and it's not only a > teleporter it's explicitly a duplicator. Anyone who hasn't read the > Budrys classic should run not walk.) > > Damien Broderick > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Mar 9 03:14:36 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:14:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <026c01c88192$e5b8f010$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <01DEB8FB51D34515B3F7BE516CD4A359@HeMMhome> <47D22773.1020102@pobox.com> <470a3c520803080054l25a8c082od1f1c96ee99782fd@mail.gmail.com> <01a601c88138$af2d1c60$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <2d6187670803081150t603472e9xf5df1f41896dde39@mail.gmail.com> <024c01c8816b$96025c40$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080308163854.0235cf68@satx.rr.com> <026c01c88192$e5b8f010$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080308211313.022025f8@satx.rr.com> At 07:05 PM 3/8/2008 -0800, you wrote: > > Read it: Jim Kelly's famous award-winning 1995 story "Think like a > > dinosaur". > >But was the Outer Limits story based on *that* one? Well, if you're thinking of the 2001 Outer Limits ep titled "Think like a dinosaur," why, yes. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Mar 9 06:21:54 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 22:21:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Hobbesian Politics References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com><470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com><009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede><580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com><007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><580930c20803071500t1887aa0axdacb97e93b556f1b@mail.gmail.com><015501c88135$2d42a010$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080308101730.024264f8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20803080955ldc2b7f0t6ac822125c4ccbca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <02c601c881ae$42842bf0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Stefano writes > In fact, the alliance between theocons and > neocons has been found paradoxical by a few > commentators, the former term referring in > principle to those who are close to Evangelic > Catholic religious fundamentalism, the latter > to those, especially in the US, who are closer > to Machiavelian, Hobbesian, "raison d'?tat", > "amoral", "post-ideological" politics, if not to > mere political coverage of vested interests, > where old-style conservative values, let alone > religion, may have become more of a rhetoric > tool than a shared, good-faith worldview. I think I understood almost all of that except what you mean by "Hobbesian". At least you (and presumably) many others are highly critical of Hobbes. Why? I did find this: http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/367-092.htm but don't see anything that jumps out at me as objectionable (a rather quick scan, though). Comments, anyone? Thanks, Lee From dharris234 at mindspring.com Sun Mar 9 09:17:44 2008 From: dharris234 at mindspring.com (David C. Harris) Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2008 01:17:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] first step as principle investigator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47D3AB38.1080901@mindspring.com> Congratulations, Amara! I'm so glad your powerful talents are being recognized with financial support. Yay! - David Harris, Palo Alto Amara Graps wrote: > Hi Extropes, > > The nine months I spent last year writing government grant proposals > wasn't for nothing, this morning I learned that my last NASA proposal > will be funded (a small project: 4 months per year for two years). This > is my first research proposal where I'm the 'principle investigator'. > > This means that I'm part-way on the road now to being a self-funded > planetary astronomer. After making my large move to a 2 year salary > position, this funding source isn't necessary for my life now, but > it does give me a buffer while I gain more practice writing proposals > and submit several more like this one, so that I can be completely > self-funded when my current SwRI position ends. > > I've pasted the topic below. > > Amara > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > The Development of the Saturnian Dust Streams > > Interplanetary dust streams are highly collimated, high-velocity > submicron particles that can extend over several A.U. They arise from > the coupling of planetary magnetic fields and sources of dust production > in circumplanetary environments. The first streams were detected > emanating from the Jupiter system by the Ulysses mission in 1992. They > were detected continually inside of Jupiter's magnetosphere and dozens > of times in interplanetary space by the Ulysses, Galileo and Cassini > spacecraft. Dust streams emanating from the Saturn system were detected > by the Cassini Cosmic Dust Analyser (CDA) in 2004, at a distance of half > an A.U., and they continue to be detected as Cassini orbits Saturn. > Graps \cite{Graps:2000a}\ identified Io as the dominant source of the > Jovian dust stream particles, but the source or sources of Saturnian > dust stream particles is unknown. Possibilities to be investigated > include (but are not limited to) Enceladus geysers, fragmented E~ring > particles, and collisional fragments from the Main rings. CDA includes a > time-of-flight mass spectrometer, providing compositional information > not available from Galileo and Ulysses, which will provide new insights > and constraints to address particle source issues. > > The coupling of the planetary magnetic fields and their sources of dust > production has been found to have large physical consequences in the > Jovian and Saturnian magnetospheres. Given the prodigious quantity of > dust produced, Graps \cite{Graps:2006a}\ and others \cite{Wahl:2006}\ > have indicated that dust production in both the Jupiter and Saturn > systems may be large enough that conditions would exist for dusty > plasmas, which lead to collective behavior of the dust particles. This > can be a factor in the formation of dust streams. This coupling of the > planetary magnetic fields and their sources of dust production also > leaves its imprint on the dust streams' signature in frequency space, > allowing one to study the source of the dust streams. > > Not all dust destined to escape in streams from a circumplanetary region > escape immediately. The time for a particle to charge up and accelerate > gives a residential lifetime to the smallest particles in the vicinity > of their host. Such a temporary residence of a population of tiny > particles can be a hazard to objects in the vicinity (instruments, > people), as well as a source dust population for other physical > processes (e.g., impact related). Once these particles escape into > streams into interplanetary space, they have been correlated with the > leading edges of high-speed solar wind streams (called corotating > interaction regions or CIRs) and the Sun's coronal mass ejections > (CMEs), adding further to the complexity of their dynamical evolution. > > We propose to quantify the conditions under which collimated dust > streams form and evolve in the Saturn system to reproduce the CDA > observations and compare it to the generation of dust streams in the > Jupiter system. Objectives include: > > \begin{itemize} > \item Determine the sources of dust stream particles from the Saturn > system with frequency analysis and modeling and compare them to those of > Jovian dust stream particles. Can dust production required for streams > be generalized to other solar system bodies (e.g., geysers on Triton)? > \item Model the contribution of both planetary and solar magnetic fields > to the formation and evolution of dust streams. > \item Determine the time evolutionary state of the spatial density and > particle size distribution of stream particles within the Saturn > magnetosphere. > \item Determine the locations and (plasma, dust) parameters of dusty > plasma conditions and their impact in the formation of dust streams. > \end{itemize} > > The analysis of Cassini datasets with a focus on the Saturnian dust > streams is valuable for understanding the dust streams' source, for > understanding the dynamical development of the streams, and for > predicting where we might detect streams elsewhere, thereby realizing > the objective of the Cassini Data Analysis Program (CDAP) of enhancing > the scientific return of the Cassini mission. This project supports > NASA's Strategic Goals by Strategic Sub-goal 3C, it contributes to the > NASA Science Outcomes 3B.1, as well as Science Outcomes 3B.3. As cosmic > dust is both a building block and by-product of solar system > evolutionary processes, this project also contributes to NASA's Science > Outcomes: 3C.1. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > From pgptag at gmail.com Sun Mar 9 11:35:03 2008 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 12:35:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Today in Second Life: Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg: Do individual humans have a natural right to Morphological Freedom - the right to seek augmentation and enhancement - and the right not to be coerced to augment and enhance? Message-ID: <470a3c520803090435k73d0352u4b4995767667e4d1@mail.gmail.com> Join us on today March 9, 12:00-13:30 SLT (noon PST, 3pm EST, 9pm EU, 8pm UK) for a seminar on Morphological Freedom in Second Life, by Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg: Do individual humans have a natural right to Morphological Freedom - the right to seek augmentation and enhancement - and the right not to be coerced to augment and enhance? Natasha and Anders are two of the principal transhumanist thinkers. Natasha has given a good definition of transhumanism in a recent interview: "Transhumanism is a set of ideas which represents a worldview to improve the current situation that we as humanity are facing, which includes short lifespan, limited cognitive abilities, limited sensoral abilities, erratic emotions?starvation, lack of housing, or lack of, basically, getting any of the necessary fundamental needs met. We look ardently at how technologies, including the NBIC technologies?nanoscience, bioscience, information science, and cognitive science ? can possibly be used to help solve some of the problems in the world that address humans being stuck in a state of stasis." See also Anders' recent list of top genetic enhancements that have already been done in mammals (and hence could presumbaly be done in humans). Don't miss this talk: SUNDAY, MARCH, 9th 12:00-13:30 SLT in Second Life SL-Transhumanists @ extropia core http://translook.com/ http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/today_natasha_vita_more_anders_sandberg_on_morphological_freedom_in_second/ From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Mar 9 12:13:20 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 13:13:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Hobbesian Politics In-Reply-To: <02c601c881ae$42842bf0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <4eaaa0d90803070141t62db8419ge74ce735e7dad873@mail.gmail.com> <470a3c520803070343i6b9a268dx528c067e6a53d8bf@mail.gmail.com> <009b01c8805a$4c4659b0$2a921f97@archimede> <580930c20803070819v5a85a504q491a42f9bae8dce9@mail.gmail.com> <007901c88081$b0bf6950$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <580930c20803071500t1887aa0axdacb97e93b556f1b@mail.gmail.com> <015501c88135$2d42a010$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <7.0.1.0.2.20080308101730.024264f8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20803080955ldc2b7f0t6ac822125c4ccbca@mail.gmail.com> <02c601c881ae$42842bf0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <580930c20803090513q7e45b6aew4cbd4cdecfeafb7f@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 7:21 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > I think I understood almost all of that except > what you mean by "Hobbesian". At least you > (and presumably) many others are highly > critical of Hobbes. Why? > Mmhhh. I am somewhat critical of Hobbesian positions, but of course he is a major thinker in the European political tradition, and his works can be read from many different angles, so that it would be difficult to quickly label him in Manichean fashion. For instance, many people take him as a theorist of absolutism, other underline that he establishes a secular, realistic and consensual foundation to the human society against the openly metaphysical stances of his opponents of the time. In fact, speaking of the right/left split, I believe he has fans in both camps. My casual reference to Hobbes in my previous post simply implies that neocons may be closer to Hobbes than, say, to Locke. But I also said that they would be per se more likely to be indifferent or favourable to technology. This of course is not intended as a disqualification of either Hobbes or technology, even though I am pretty far from an American neocon myself. :-) Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Mar 9 15:55:57 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 08:55:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] where is den otter?; was [injure thread: RE: Personal "backgrounds" and allegedrelevance] In-Reply-To: <200803082135.m28LZSN3022325@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <2d6187670803081029r4d224855w9aa2342e9ac05b02@mail.gmail.com> <200803082135.m28LZSN3022325@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803090855u1b78ab2do7441058efc6e11fe@mail.gmail.com> I was thinking Den Otter was from Germany/Switzerland. But I could be completely wrong. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Mar 9 16:10:59 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:10:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] where is den otter? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803090855u1b78ab2do7441058efc6e11fe@mail.gmail.co m> References: <2d6187670803081029r4d224855w9aa2342e9ac05b02@mail.gmail.com> <200803082135.m28LZSN3022325@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2d6187670803090855u1b78ab2do7441058efc6e11fe@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080309110731.023dec90@satx.rr.com> At 08:55 AM 3/9/2008 -0700, JG wrote: >I was thinking Den Otter was from Germany/Switzerland. But I could >be completely wrong. He's Dutch. And hey, the first google entry on him I found starts: His departure from the extropes list was much appreciated. Damien Broderick From sparge at gmail.com Sun Mar 9 15:36:00 2008 From: sparge at gmail.com (Spargemeister) Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 10:36:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Best Distributed Computing Project to Support In-Reply-To: <000c01c878e8$9281b920$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> References: <000c01c878e8$9281b920$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 9:29 PM, Gary Miller wrote: > > I've currently got a 3.6 Ghz Pentium 4 and 1 core of an Intel 2.4 Ghz Q6600 > crunching Folding at Home. There's an Extropy.org Folding at Home team (#346) that's been active for several years. > I'm thinking of buying a Playstation 3 to do Folding at Home on also. I > understand that the IBM cell processor and > the software written to do Folding at Home on the Playstation with help from > Sony runs crunches proteins many > times faster than a Quad Core PC. Yeah, I bought myself one recently and it really cranks out the WUs. With the PS3 contribution, F at H broke the petaflops mark last fall. -Dave From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Mar 9 17:51:55 2008 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:51:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Sandberg and Vita-More in Second Life Now! Message-ID: <20080309175157.EFZD13797.hrndva-omta03.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc> Now in Second Life: http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/natasha_vita_more_anders_sandberg_on_morphological_freedom_in_second_life_m/ http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/slt/sl_transhumanists/ MORPHOLOGICAL FREEDOM: The ability to alter bodily form at will through technologies such as surgery, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, uploading. [Max More, April 1992] To learn more about what morphological freedom means, here are a few links: http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/Texts/MorphologicalFreedom.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Mar 9 20:23:08 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 16:23:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <62c14240803091323m35c22992h442e7c910fdcb50c@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 5:56 PM, Jef Allbright wrote: > > It would just be something that thinks it's me. The "me" must be > transferred > > to the "new me", not copied, more like uninstalling my software and > > installing it somewhere else. > > Oh no! Not again! ;-) > I wonder what about this thread evokes this response from those who have done it to death, yet compels those same participants to leap into the fray for another round. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Mar 9 20:45:53 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 21:45:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?EU_throws_=E2=82=AC5=2E5bn_at_embedded_chips_and_?= =?utf-8?q?nanotech?= Message-ID: <580930c20803091345x59239ee5ib3541b3532e95572@mail.gmail.com> EU throws ?5.5bn at embedded chips and nanotechAnoints tech industry with fat wad of cashBy Kelly Fiveash ? More by this author The European Union is to pump billions of euros into a number of key technology projects to bolster Europe's nanotech and embedded systems industries over the next decade. The European Commission (EC) is coughing up a staggering ?2.5bn in industrial research in embedded microcomputers. The joint technology initiative, dubbed ARTEMIS, was given the green light by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers at the end of last year. EU Information society and media commissioner Viviane Reding described the public and private R&D investment in embedded systems, used in the likes of credit cards, mobile phones and cars, as a "very worthwhile" project. She claims the ten-year initiative will help push European development in the field of microcomputers to the forefront. The EC said that over four billion embedded processors were sold in the global market last year, worth ?60bn. It predicts annual growth rates of 14 per cent for the technology. Public funding will be pooled with universities and industry under an ARTEMIS open consortium to provide industry-led pan-European research and development. Private firms including Airbus, Ericsson AB, Nokia Corporation and ST Microelectronics currently sit on the Artemis board, and will, apparently, be balanced by public stakeholders. The EU's investment in nanoelectronicswill be even bigger. The EC ? which estimates an eight to ten per cent growth rate in the semiconductor industry over the coming years ? said it would stump up a massive ?3bn on R&D in miniature electronic devices over the next ten years under a joint private-public initiative called ENIAC. Reding said: "The possibilities offered by nanoelectronics are only limited by our imagination. They underpin all aspects of everyday devices and so concern everyone in Europe." She added that the huge investment was "a concrete way to ensure that such a key industrial sector continues its strong economic growth, right here in Europe". In May last year the EU explained the rationale behind its decision to provide the tech industry with funding through a mixture of private and public investment. It said in a statement: "The rapid pace of technological change, the rising costs of research, the increasing complexity and interdependence of technologies, and the potential economies of scale to be gained by cooperation across Europe are all strong reasons for setting up long-term public-private partnerships." Presumably, the industry ? in the EU at least ? will broadly welcome the EU's decision to sink such huge sums of cash into important sectors of the technology market. How non-EU companies and governments will view the funding plans is a different matter. The EC has also announced plans to stick its beak into creating a peer-to-peer system that can pipe programmes to set-top boxes and home televisions, which is likely to be met with a collective shrug of the shoulders from the industry. The EU will spend ?19m over the next four years on P2P Next, which is built on Tribler technology and is currently under development at Delft University of Technology. EC officials hope that, in partnership with the likes of the Beeb and the European Broadcasting Union, a standard way of sending TV via the internet can be set up. But it's a small-fry, arguably short-sighted project compared to the EU's grand-scale nanotech and microcomputers investments. And it's an initiative which fails to address the fact that the market-led IPTV standard is already a reality, and an area that European ISPs such as BT Vision and Tiscali are continuing to spend and focus heavily on. (R) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/26/eu_joint_technology_initiatives/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at amara.com Mon Mar 10 05:06:44 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 23:06:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Boing Boing: "Debate round brain enhancement" Message-ID: If I had REMEMBERED that clocks needed to be set forward, then I would not have been an hour late this morning, therefore, this discussion seems particularly appropriate today: "Debate round brain enhancement" http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/09/debate-around-brain.html where David Pescovitz says: "At O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference last week, I hosted a panel on the future of "mind hacks," from cognitive fitness programs to smart drugs to neuro-implants. One of the panelists was Timo Hannay, publishing director of Nature.com, who talked about a recent heated debate taking place on the journal's site around the ethics of using brain drugs for wakefulness, focus, and other cognitive "enhancements." Nature is continuing that discussion with a public "brain boosting drugs" survey. Today's New York Times "Week In Review" takes a look at the controversy." Amara P.S. yeah yeah preaching to the crowd. But it's nice to see a 'debate' about it in the mainstream journals! -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From pgptag at gmail.com Mon Mar 10 10:24:04 2008 From: pgptag at gmail.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:24:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] SL-Transhumanists Today in Second Life: Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg: Do individual humans have a natural right to Morphological Freedom - the right to seek augmentation and enhancement - and the right not to be coerced to augment and enha Message-ID: <470a3c520803100324y27da3e83x2a4d4ec69c381672@mail.gmail.com> Here is my report on yesterday's seminar with pictures, video clip and some side discussions http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/today_natasha_vita_more_anders_sandberg_on_morphological_freedom_in_second/ Note the call for volunteers to organize weekly events. G. On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 12:35 PM, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote: > > Join us on today March 9, 12:00-13:30 SLT (noon PST, 3pm EST, 9pm EU, > 8pm UK) for a seminar on Morphological Freedom in Second Life, by > Natasha Vita-More & Anders Sandberg: Do individual humans have a > natural right to Morphological Freedom - the right to seek > augmentation and enhancement - and the right not to be coerced to > augment and enhance? > > Natasha and Anders are two of the principal transhumanist thinkers. > Natasha has given a good definition of transhumanism in a recent > interview: "Transhumanism is a set of ideas which represents a > worldview to improve the current situation that we as humanity are > facing, which includes short lifespan, limited cognitive abilities, > limited sensoral abilities, erratic emotions?starvation, lack of > housing, or lack of, basically, getting any of the necessary > fundamental needs met. We look ardently at how technologies, including > the NBIC technologies?nanoscience, bioscience, information science, > and cognitive science ? can possibly be used to help solve some of the > problems in the world that address humans being stuck in a state of > stasis." See also Anders' recent list of top genetic enhancements that > have already been done in mammals (and hence could presumbaly be done > in humans). > > Don't miss this talk: > > SUNDAY, MARCH, 9th 12:00-13:30 SLT in Second Life SL-Transhumanists @ > extropia core > http://translook.com/ > http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/today_natasha_vita_more_anders_sandberg_on_morphological_freedom_in_second/ > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SL-transhumanists" group. > To post to this group, send email to sl-transhumanists at googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sl-transhumanists-unsubscribe at googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sl-transhumanists?hl=en > -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- > > From painlord2k at yahoo.it Mon Mar 10 14:34:56 2008 From: painlord2k at yahoo.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:34:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Can the pope stop technological self-transformation? In-Reply-To: <200803061650.12418.kanzure@gmail.com> References: <4eaaa0d90802290223m380491efh371e692566978a8d@mail.gmail.com> <200802291849.04618.kanzure@gmail.com> <47D001C2.90302@yahoo.it> <200803061650.12418.kanzure@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47D54710.4020503@yahoo.it> Bryan Bishop ha scritto: > On Thursday 06 March 2008, Mirco Romanato wrote: >> Bryan Bishop ha scritto: >>> On Friday 29 February 2008, Damien Broderick wrote: >>>>> What power? Money? They certainly don't have supercomputers, >>>>> they don't have massive research institutions, they don't have >>>>> neurofarms, the only power they have is lots of listeners and a >>>>> widely distributed mental program. What does this power have to >>>>> do with transhumanism? >>>> Uh oh. Have you never heard of Stalin's famous contemptuous taunt: >>>> "How many divisions does the Pope have?" >>> No, I hadn't, but what difference does it make how many the Pope >>> has? >> The answer is "He has none, but he can take ours." (the Poles, the >> Ukrainians....). > > Ours are of the mind and our own bodies. Tell me, can he take our minds? He can talk and he is listened by many. Somebody is impervious to his talk and arguments, but many others are not. In the Stalin case, the catholic poles, Ukrainians and others would do an undependable army that could not fight an aggressive war or worse, rebel or sabotage the struggle. In the case of the Pope (and the Catholic Church), one of their main point is to be able to exploit the weakness of their adversaries. If they are able to provoke a reaction that cast a bad light over their adversaries and a good one on them, they win. 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 Mon Mar 10 18:26:16 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:26:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] first step as principal investigator Message-ID: David C. Harris dharris234 at mindspring.com : >Congratulations, Amara! I'm so glad your powerful talents are being >recognized with financial support. Yay! Thank you. It _is_ a start. The four months/year for 2 years is not liveable yet, but this will improve when I write-win more grant proposals. One large improvement starting this year is that NASA is providing grants for 4 years instead of previous 2 and 3 three years, so one won't need, as often, to be writing grant proposals and performing the work for the proposals simultaneously (on weekends, nights, spare moments). The above probably illustrates why I would not recommend a woman to go into the sciences. Performing science is already hard; for a woman to balance both science and family is doubly so. I earned my PhD at age 40, I left financially-unlivable-no-future scientific conditions in Italy to recover with a two year fixed-term contract in the US. This is my 11th major astronomy group in which I've worked during the last 25 years: 18 years as a scientific programmer working for several astronomy teams at once, two-year-contracts at-a-time, and 7 years as a post-doc. I just completed my third international move in 10 years, my only pension is in the hands of the Italian government, and I have no savings (but no debt either). My family plans are in progress but I'm 15 years later than most people, who are in my position. If folks missed my link to Sabine's recent post: this fills out the rest of a typical life of a post-doc researcher. If you're a woman considering science, please talk to me before you embark on your exciting, (but very risky) journey. from Sabine at: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/03/brief-history-of-mine-iii.html Meaning I have to write applications - again - this fall. Which, after all these words, eventually brings me to the reason of my current tiredness. I've been in the field for more than ten years now. I've had contracts for a year, for 9 months, I've even had a contract for 6 months. I moved 5 times in 4 years. I have three different social security numbers, but I'm not sure if I'd qualify for either of their benefits (actually, I have four, but that's a longer story). Each summer I try to arrange my conference participation with meeting friends and family. My contact to them is an annual briefing with the essentials, who got married, divorced, died, lost his job, had children. I have no retirement plan, and my unemployment insurance is basically non-existing because I've never had a job in my home-country for more than a few months (the ones that I've had were tax-free scholarships which doesn't count). Since I've never had a regular income, no bank would sensibly lend me money. I vote in a country where I don't live and live in a country where I can't vote. I'm not telling you that because I want to complain; I am telling you that because my situation is in no means exceptional. That's just what it means to be a postdoc. In fact, I believe I am better off than many others. I could live with that - if there was an end in sight. [...] Why am I telling you that Because I see an increasing number of friends leaving the academic world. It hardly happens because they are not qualified enough, or because they discovered they lost their interest in physics. Neither does it happen because they couldn't find a job. In fact, they often quit a position they had. They just simply weren't willing to play these games of vanity any more. Many of them just want to have a job where their skills are appreciated appropriately - appropriately to their age and expertise - where they have a sensible contract, and at least some kind of stability and future options. So they go and work for the research departments of large companies, become teachers, work in counseling, in a bank, scientific publishing, for the weather service, or in a patent office. The good aspect is I don't know anybody with a PhD in theoretical physics who became unemployed. Theoretical physicists, so it seems, have the reputation of being good in solving problems, which makes them useful for a lot of different tasks. The bad aspect is that all these people are lost for foundational research. And that, folks, are the selection criteria currently applied to pick the 'brightest' and 'most promising' young researchers: Those who will do well should be completely convinced of their own ingenuity, flourish without much motivation, and perform well under high competitive pressure. They should be able and willing to think in one to three year plans - for work and for life -, have connections up the latter and use them, act politically and socially smart, and should be willing to work under other people's supervision until their mid thirties. Now I'll go back to bed and pull the blanket over my face. Thanks for listening in. -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Mar 10 19:41:39 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:41:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fast Forward Radio: Ben Goertzel Message-ID: <29666bf30803101241g56985a56vc877ecd30e0c3bbb@mail.gmail.com> Hey all, Last night, Stephen Gordon and I interviewed Ben Goertzel about AI, AGI and his successful AGI '08 conference. http://www.blog.speculist.com/archives/001669.html PJ From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Mar 10 21:27:59 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:27:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fast Forward Radio: Ben Goertzel In-Reply-To: <29666bf30803101241g56985a56vc877ecd30e0c3bbb@mail.gmail.co m> References: <29666bf30803101241g56985a56vc877ecd30e0c3bbb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080310162548.024bdf80@satx.rr.com> At 12:41 PM 3/10/2008 -0700, PJ wrote: >Last night, Stephen Gordon and I interviewed Ben Goertzel about AI, >AGI and his successful AGI '08 conference. > >http://www.blog.speculist.com/archives/001669.html Some good, meaty stuff there, PJ, especially in the second half. It did strike me that if Ben were any more laid-back he'd have fallen off his chair, but hey, dude. :) Damien Broderick From jef at jefallbright.net Mon Mar 10 15:40:15 2008 From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:40:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Brain boosting drugs -- survey online Message-ID: This survey appears to be legitimate despite the suspicious-looking URL. - Jef From clementlawyer at hotmail.com Mon Mar 10 22:23:04 2008 From: clementlawyer at hotmail.com (James Clement) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:23:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Brain boosting drugs -- survey online In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Jef wrote: > This survey appears to be legitimate despite the suspicious-looking URL. > > > Any idea whether the results will be published, and where? JWC -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Mar 10 22:57:59 2008 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:57:59 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Brain boosting drugs -- survey online In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 10:23 PM, James Clement wrote: > Any idea whether the results will be published, and where? > The survey is being done for Nature magazine. See here: They say: UPDATE JAN 31ST: This week, Nature is publishing two pages of correspondence responding to the Sahakian and Morein-Zamir Commentary. We're also launching an anonymous online survey to build on the informal questionnaire that the Commentary authors sent to academics on the usage of brain boosting drugs. In aggregate, the survey results will guide future editorial content on this topic. Check back here for more updates.* ------------ So, the main intent is to help them with the magazine content. No word here on publishing results. But they might respond to an email enquiry???? BillK From citta437 at aol.com Mon Mar 10 23:06:06 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:06:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice Message-ID: <8CA511A74494F65-16E0-2BAB@webmail-nc17.sysops.aol.com> "For there is suffering, but none who suffers; Doing exists although there is no doer. Extinction is but no extinguished person; Although there is a path, there is no goer. ? Visuddhimagga _________ Conventional thought/belief of a hero is one who sacrificed his life for the good of others. Sacrifice/suffering evidently exists but Visuddhimagga {a Buddhist philosopher?} stated there is none who suffers or no one dies/no life lost in the context of being a hero. Words like hero and suffering are thoughts, inter-subjective processes of cause and effect/interacting energies. We continually change as cells die and replace in the organ system of the body. Terry From pjmanney at gmail.com Mon Mar 10 23:08:38 2008 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:08:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fast Forward Radio: Ben Goertzel In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080310162548.024bdf80@satx.rr.com> References: <29666bf30803101241g56985a56vc877ecd30e0c3bbb@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20080310162548.024bdf80@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30803101608l183dcd64pf98fc99d0eadce7f@mail.gmail.com> I felt bad, because I was more low energy than usual and Stephen got flummoxed and none of us really had the energy we normally have. Yeah, Ben is very eccentric in his physical presentation with his cowboy hats, etc., but not so much so in his verbal/aural one. P On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > At 12:41 PM 3/10/2008 -0700, PJ wrote: > > >Last night, Stephen Gordon and I interviewed Ben Goertzel about AI, > >AGI and his successful AGI '08 conference. > > > >http://www.blog.speculist.com/archives/001669.html > > Some good, meaty stuff there, PJ, especially in the second half. It > did strike me that if Ben were any more laid-back he'd have fallen > off his chair, but hey, dude. :) > > Damien Broderick > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From amara at amara.com Mon Mar 10 23:58:59 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:58:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Vatican's list of seven 'social sins' Message-ID: Good news, extropes! Your social preferences hit two of the top three on the Vatican's list of seven 'social sins'! From http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/10/vatican-comes-up-wit.html In the sixth century, Pope Gregory handed down a list of "seven cardinal vices." Now the Vatican has issued an additional seven "social sins." You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord's name in vain or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by wrecking the environment, carrying out morally debatable experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos," said [Bishop Gianfranco] Girotti, who is responsible for the body that oversees confessions. The seven social sins are: 1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control 2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research 3. Drug abuse 4. Polluting the environment 5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor 6. Excessive wealth 7. Creating poverty -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From aiguy at comcast.net Tue Mar 11 00:30:38 2008 From: aiguy at comcast.net (Gary Miller) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:30:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice In-Reply-To: <8CA511A74494F65-16E0-2BAB@webmail-nc17.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA511A74494F65-16E0-2BAB@webmail-nc17.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <004401c8830f$23d1a8b0$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2> Terry said: << "For there is suffering, but none who suffers; Doing exists although there is no doer. Extinction is but no extinguished person; Although there is a path, there is no goer. ? Visuddhimagga _________ Conventional thought/belief of a hero is one who sacrificed his life for the good of others. Sacrifice/suffering evidently exists but Visuddhimagga {a Buddhist philosopher?} stated there is none who suffers or no one dies/no life lost in the context of being a hero. Words like hero and suffering are thoughts, inter-subjective processes of cause and effect/interacting energies. We continually change as cells die and replace in the organ system of the body. >> I believe the author was as is typical in Buddhist and Hindu teachings speaking about the illusion of ego or self. When enlightenment is achieved the ego of self is gone for a time and one perceives the world one's being as having merged with all that is. This altered state is accompanied by a state of euphoria and great emotional and spiritual intensity. Although the state does not last long. It is deeply transformational due to it's intensity. And obviously highly addictive given that followers will study and devote years of their life in an attempt to attain this state if only for brief periods. Buddhists believed that if you entered this state prior to death then your self would not be required reincarnate and your cycle of rebirth was ended. A master of achieving such states (one who has trained to enter the state at will) is free from pain and desire because the seeming reality of the enlightened state seems much more real that what we know as everyday reality. I believe that this state of consciousness is the true goal of true mystics from faiths and religions. Of course the vast majority of any faith are followers and although they may be awe of the true mystics are not usually able to attain these states themselves. A true teachers goal is to help disciples attain this state. The objective reality of such states can not be proven scientifically. Indeed alternate explanations such as the release of internal pleasure chemicals in the brain is a tempting and somewhat plausible hypothesis but why does this state serve to convince those who experience it that it is this altered state which is reality and it is our normal everyday state that is the illusion? And why does this state inspire those who achieve it to start religions, form cults, and help others to achieve that same state. Such altruism may be viewed as a crucial ingredient for a hero. After all Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammad, probably serve as role models and heroes for more human beings on this planet than all others combined. And I know this sorely galls many folks here who blame religion for many of histories wars, atrocities and probably rightly so. But heroes lives serve as examples for the rest of us to live by. Can we blame a hero though for those who use their names and the stories of their lives to control others and manipulate their teachings for their own gain? Descending Soapbox now... From ABlainey at aol.com Tue Mar 11 00:47:27 2008 From: ABlainey at aol.com (ABlainey at aol.com) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:47:27 EDT Subject: [ExI] Vatican's list of seven 'social sins' Message-ID: That explains why I was off the christmas card list last year. ;o) In a message dated 10/03/2008 23:59:59 GMT Standard Time, amara at amara.com writes: > Good news, extropes! Your social preferences hit two of the top three > on the Vatican's list of seven 'social sins'! > > From > http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/10/vatican-comes-up-wit.html > > > > In the sixth century, Pope Gregory handed down a list of "seven cardinal > vices." Now the Vatican has issued an additional seven "social sins." > > You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord's name in > vain or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by wrecking the > environment, carrying out morally debatable experiments that > manipulate DNA or harm embryos," said [Bishop Gianfranco] Girotti, > who is responsible for the body that oversees confessions. > > The seven social sins are: > > 1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control > > 2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research > > 3. Drug abuse > > 4. Polluting the environment > > 5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor > > 6. Excessive wealth > > 7. Creating poverty -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 11 01:53:51 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:53:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Vatican's list of seven 'social sins' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080310204502.024e8960@satx.rr.com> At 05:58 PM 3/10/2008 -0600, Amara wrote: >Good news, extropes! Your social preferences hit two of the top three >on the Vatican's list of seven 'social sins'! I see that the Vatican's list does not include some candidates that leapt to my mind; for example, Running a Global Institution Supporting the Buggering of Little Boys in its Care, or Inculcating into the Minds of the Defenceless Arrant and Frightening Bullshit About Just about Everything. And yet, oddly enough, the Pope's seventh sin, Creating Poverty, is exactly what his own organization insists on committing with such mad claptrap as making their first sin "Bioethical" Violations Such as Birth Control. Damien Broderick From citta437 at aol.com Tue Mar 11 02:08:45 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:08:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Reconceptualizing the hero myth Message-ID: <8CA5133F8B41B19-984-77A@webmail-nc17.sysops.aol.com> "On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 3:54 AM, Max More wrote: > Department of Strategic Philosophy > Professor Max More > Course 510: Extropic Myth Analysis > > Your mission--should you choose to accept it--is to reconceptualize > the hero myth, removing the core element of self-sacrifice. ______________ Sorry, I cannot reconceptualize a hero to separate suffering from thought. Concepts/thoughts are still thoughts/ mind constructs. AGI is an artificial mind construct but none suffers in the micro level of elements like electrons, neutrons and neutrinos {the electrochemical language of the brain}. What is a mission, a motive? That too is a thought process arising from layers of brain matter coming from the top most layer going down to the lower layer/the emotional layer or the primitive region of the brain, the seat of emotion. Some said that emotions are what makes us humans. It goes to show that AGI is above the lower region of the brain. Terry From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 02:25:56 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:25:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Reconceptualizing the hero myth In-Reply-To: <8CA5133F8B41B19-984-77A@webmail-nc17.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA5133F8B41B19-984-77A@webmail-nc17.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <200803102125.56627.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 10 March 2008, citta437 at aol.com wrote: > Sorry, I cannot reconceptualize a hero to separate suffering from > thought. Concepts/thoughts are still thoughts/ mind constructs. > > AGI is an artificial mind construct but none suffers in the micro > level of elements like electrons, neutrons and neutrinos {the > electrochemical language of the brain}. > > What is a mission, a motive? That too is a thought process arising > from layers of brain matter coming from the top most layer going down > to the lower layer/the emotional layer or the primitive region of the > brain, the seat of emotion. I'd like to quote Zindell: > 'Without end,' Hanuman said. The pain of self-overcoming is just the > beginning. Then, for our kind, if we're strong enough, if our souls > are great and deep ? then comes the real pain. What's real pain, you > ask? The power to choose what we will. Having to choose. This terrible > freedom. These infinite possibilities. The taste for the infinite > spoiled by the possibility of evolutionary failure. Real pain is > knowing that you're going to die, all the while knowing that you don't > have to die.' 'But, Hanu, everything dies,' Danlo said softly. He > turned to face the scarred, old shih tree, and he pressed his forehead > against it. When he looked up, he felt the zig-zag mark where the > tree's icy bark had cut into his skin. Hanuman shook his head and > continued, 'But why die at all, Danlo? Mightn't there be a new phase > of evolution? A new kind of being? Can't you understand? I'm trying to > delineate an emergent quality of the brain. New synapses. New > connections. A constellation of qualities and abilities, of new levels > of existence. Consciousness heightened and exalted in itself, > purified. This pure consciousness that we really are. That we struggle > to be. For our kind, there's always the burning to be more. The > eternal longing. And this is why true human beings feel more pain. > Because we are more, but it's never quite enough ? never. And we are > aware of this neverness inside our souls. And aware of being aware. > There is a feedback. Can you understand what this is like? Pain is > magnified, infinitely. Each moment of time. Reality becomes almost too > real. It blazes. All the universe afire with the possibilities of > light, and madness, too. Real pain is the burning that never stops, > the frenzy, the lightning.' - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 02:28:28 2008 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:28:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The Many Dimensional Sculpture, or dont' bother about runtime Message-ID: <7641ddc60803101928q44b22a7bs8e9286d29c4d1a7b@mail.gmail.com> I have been thinking about the implications of modal realism for my notion of personal identity, and arrived at the conclusion that absolutely identical copies and their "runtime" do not matter to me. Let's start with some background assumptions: There is an ensemble of structures/properties. Let's not discuss the meaning of "is". The ensemble contains all. Let's leave aside the meaning of "all". Some of the elements exhibit similarities, or correlations, such that it is possible to arrange the structures in orderly chains of elements. An element in a chain is apposed to similar elements that are either simpler or more complex. Since the number of more complex similar elements is always larger than the number of simpler similar elements, there is a certain direction along the chain, as well as branching from simpler to more complex elements. Each element is a state of our universe. Every event belongs to a tree of events that branches along an axis, which we call time. Whatever it means to "be", every event exhibits that property to the same degree. Past, present and future exist equally. Time is real, yet the ensemble of all events is timeless. This is the core of modal realism. Some small structures within events reflect, or correlate with, their surroundings.This special form of reflection or map of surroundings, is probably a necessary feature of awareness. In addition to correlations with surroundings, aware structures exhibit also the branching, time-axis type of correlation typical of all physical objects. Furthermore, there are higher-order correlations, or mappings present in some structures - a map of the structure itself, reflecting itself in a recursive way. This form of self-correlation may be the necessary (although perhaps not sufficient) condition for conscious experience. So you could say that consciousness is a property of self-correlated structures, existing timelessly as parts of the larger branching chains of world-states. It is possible to delineate highly complex, many-dimensional, treelike shapes, exhibiting these correlations and self-correlations, and being separate from other such timeless shapes. Each one of us is a shape like this, a miniature tree, or maybe I should say, a seedling of conscious life. So what is to be done about it? After all, if the shape is timeless, its extent in time cannot be changed. Its shape is immutable. You can't change anything! Well, a subjective experience of desire, and the experience of acting, do correlate with the shape of your past and future. If an omniscient observer were to investigate the brain structure at the base of the "tree", in a child, and find a desire for chocolate, the desire would certainly correlate with the parts of the tree corresponding to eating chocolate at later ages, going down the myriad branchings of the tree. Given time-like correlations between parts of the shape, similar inference could be performed from the future into the past, and laterally, among parts of the tree separated by space-like branching. Do I make myself clear? Can you imagine a tree-like, branching, mathematical shape, a monumentally huge graph, with every single thought and feeling you had, have, and will have in all possible worlds, represented simultaneously in its nodes? Like a GLUT (Giant Look-Up Table) of you? And this is the only you, the one and unique representation and the time/place of your consciousness? Since every thought and desire correlates with the shape of the tree throughout its extent, I see my thoughts, desires and actions as a form of sculpture. It is as if time existed, and my decision to write this post changed the shape of some branches of my tree of life. Every thought, every action chisel out the shape of myself. The shape itself is timeless, yet what I do correlates with the past, and the future. As I wrote in the paragraph about time - time is nothing but the existence of correlations between world-states. Causation is nothing but correlation...if you know what I mean. In case some readers might see this as just my private ravings, this notion of causality is actually accepted by some notable philosophers, e.g. it is expounded upon by Daniel Dennett in "Freedom Evolves". So my thoughts *cause* the ylem to flow into the shape of my heart's desire! Thus I am the many-dimensional sculptor of my past, present and future. I do care about the size of my tree of life, which translated into time-speak means, I want to live longer. If some of my versions in at least some possible universes escape aging and live for thousands of years, it is like saying that my tree of life is tall. And those who would resolutely refuse life extension? Their trees are stunted, mere bushes, since in every possible universe they choose death. But what about all those copies and "runtime"? As I wrote above, each one of us corresponds to only one shape. Individual shapes my partially overlap, sharing some parts, and there are gazillions of physically distinguishable states in each "I", like very close relatives populating the googolplexes of universe-states, but there are no "copies". Just like there is only one square, there is only one of me-trees. You can't faithfully copy the mathematical being, a square. A square that is located in the same place, of the same size, with same relation to other mathematical shapes is still the same square. To make a copy you need to change its relationship to other structures - but maths is unchangeable. Math, the Platonic realm, can be only discovered, not changed. So if you try to make an identical copy of me, you can't do it. You can produce new nodes on my tree of life by exposing me to new stimuli - to say it timelessly, there may be correlations between your actions and the shape of my future but you can't copy the whole thing. A million brains running exactly the same thought, down to the quantum level or below, is only one brain. A million brains that are similar enough to produce the same macroscopic-level thoughts, words and actions but differing at the quantum scale may represent true copies but personally I don't care about them - they do not differ in the higher-order correlations I mentioned above as necessary for consciousness. Why bother running them if they don't materially change the shape of all my thoughts? I might object to such copies being tortured, since they would increase the measure of pain in the me-tree. Timelessly said, the preference inherent in my structure (hopefully) correlates with a small measure of quantum-level painful states and with a large number of interesting, or pleasant macrostates (i.e. groups of microstates corresponding to a single thought). Sorry for inundating you-all with these half-formed and wordy musings. I feel that I still have not wrapped my mind around the notions exposed above. Perhaps other parts of my tree of life, the ones located down the time-dimension, have a clearer understanding. Maybe this post does correlate with the existence of such mind-states. Only time will tell :) Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 02:41:14 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:41:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] first step as principal investigator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <62c14240803101941h15bfbc40w5158145b9b55cb01@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 2:26 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > The above probably illustrates why I would not recommend a woman to go > into the sciences. Performing science is already hard; for a woman to > balance both science and family is doubly so. I earned my PhD at age 40, [edit] > And that, folks, are the selection criteria currently applied to pick > the 'brightest' and 'most promising' young researchers: Those who will > do well should be completely convinced of their own ingenuity, flourish > without much motivation, and perform well under high competitive > pressure. They should be able and willing to think in one to three year > plans - for work and for life -, have connections up the latter and use > them, act politically and socially smart, and should be willing to work > under other people's supervision until their mid thirties. > Would you comment on why you changed from specifically "woman [...] in the sciences" to non-gendered "young researchers" ? It seems like the ideal candidate for the second lifestyle would be almost inherently at odds with the picture you describe in the first regardless of gender (or age for that matter) I had a paragraph worth of thoughts, but ran into evolutionary psychology dictating so much behavior that I was unable to continue. Instead I have to ask; for all our supposed advances, are we still so driven by our animal natures that we simply can't break away from gender roles? Does the human herd actively keep itself at the lowest common denominator by either bullying exceptions into conformity or isolating them until they no longer have the power to effect change? Please forgive it this sounds like an attack, it was not intended. Amara, your post struck a chord; a flood of ideas came to mind - few of which were coherent enough to capture in words. Maybe someone will respond to my semi-rhetorical stream of thought? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 03:05:49 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:05:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Many Dimensional Sculpture, or dont' bother about runtime In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60803101928q44b22a7bs8e9286d29c4d1a7b@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60803101928q44b22a7bs8e9286d29c4d1a7b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803102205.49187.kanzure@gmail.com> Rafal, you write well. I think many of us have had these exact same thoughts, but you took the initiative to write them out. Thank you. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From amara at amara.com Tue Mar 11 03:14:32 2008 From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:14:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] first step as principal investigator Message-ID: >Would you comment on why you changed from specifically "woman [...] in the >sciences" to non-gendered "young researchers" ? I didn't write the latter part. I suggest to read Sabine's full post, to which I gave a link, and ask her questions about her writing at her blog. You can ask me questions about what I wrote, as well. Amara -- Amara Graps, PhD www.amara.com Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 03:19:02 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:19:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Many Dimensional Sculpture, or dont' bother about runtime In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60803101928q44b22a7bs8e9286d29c4d1a7b@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60803101928q44b22a7bs8e9286d29c4d1a7b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803102219.02669.kanzure@gmail.com> Ah, screw it. I have the time. :) Let's get down to business. On Monday 10 March 2008, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > I have been thinking about the implications of modal realism for my > notion of personal identity, and arrived at the conclusion that > absolutely identical copies and their "runtime" do not matter to me. You also have to account for divergence of your own self as well; does it matter to you that each moment you are changing? That each moment, you are no longer yourself? It has been said that "your effort to remain what you are is what limits you." But perhaps some people want to be limited, perhaps they want to stay the same? This is interesting because this leads down to stalemate, down to inaction, down to freezing yourself for all eternity so that you may never change again, to keeping the same moment running over and over again inside your head, which while an interesting offer, many of us here much rather prefer the real thing, yes. > Whatever it means to "be", every event exhibits that property to the > same degree. Past, present and future exist equally. Time is real, > yet the ensemble of all events is timeless. This is the core of modal > realism. Is it? I'll have to investigate this term, 'modal realism'. Is this the same as monads? > Some small structures within events reflect, or correlate with, their > surroundings.This special form of reflection or map of surroundings, > is probably a necessary feature of awareness. In addition to I do not see this as necessary for the ideas that you go on to discuss. How can you have a map of your surroundings? The map is not the territory. In Leibniz's monadology, he had an infinite number of monads that each contained all infinities of monads and all of their maps, on and on and on without end, but how could this be? > correlations with surroundings, aware structures exhibit also the > branching, time-axis type of correlation typical of all physical > objects. Furthermore, there are higher-order correlations, or > mappings present in some structures - a map of the structure itself, > reflecting itself in a recursive way. This form of self-correlation Perhaps mappings and meanings are the fundamentals themselves? > may be the necessary (although perhaps not sufficient) condition for > conscious experience. So you could say that consciousness is a > property of self-correlated structures, existing timelessly as parts > of the larger branching chains of world-states. It is possible to Is consciousness necessarily so fundamental? In answer to my own question, I suppose it would have to be, otherwise you are not really philosophizing, are you? > delineate highly complex, many-dimensional, treelike shapes, > exhibiting these correlations and self-correlations, and being > separate from other such timeless shapes. Each one of us is a shape > like this, a miniature tree, or maybe I should say, a seedling of > conscious life. But as you go on to later mention, we cannot know this shape, or the nature of the seed in its entirety, but this isn't so much of an issue. > Do I make myself clear? Can you imagine a tree-like, branching, > mathematical shape, a monumentally huge graph, with every single > thought and feeling you had, have, and will have in all possible > worlds, represented simultaneously in its nodes? Like a GLUT (Giant > Look-Up Table) of you? And this is the only you, the one and unique > representation and the time/place of your consciousness? > > Since every thought and desire correlates with the shape of the tree > throughout its extent, I see my thoughts, desires and actions as a > form of sculpture. It is as if time existed, and my decision to write > this post changed the shape of some branches of my tree of life. > Every thought, every action chisel out the shape of myself. The shape Egan explored this concept as well. He wrote that if you are a mathematician shuffling neurons around in your brain, you have just created a new part of reality, since you're calculating new forms of mathematics that might not have otherwise ever been applicable in the first place. So, if creation/action is fundamental (thanks Feynman), then you are indeed chiseling away, or perhaps adding and being more constructive? It would be interesting to explore the idea of everybody starting off as a vague mass/chunk of possibility, and then our jobs are realizing the entire set of possibilities, and if we can't do that, then we have to chisel away some of the fluff and get down to business, where we all end up in specialized niches in the end, no? > itself is timeless, yet what I do correlates with the past, and the > future. As I wrote in the paragraph about time - time is nothing but > the existence of correlations between world-states. Causation is > nothing but correlation...if you know what I mean. In case some > readers might see this as just my private ravings, this notion of There are definitely indications of Aristotle's fourth cause, the 'final cause', a sort of tautology, which deserves more exploration in the context of extropic philosophy. > Thus I am the many-dimensional sculptor of my past, present and > future. I do care about the size of my tree of life, which translated > into time-speak means, I want to live longer. If some of my versions > in at least some possible universes escape aging and live for > thousands of years, it is like saying that my tree of life is tall. > And those who would resolutely refuse life extension? Their trees are > stunted, mere bushes, since in every possible universe they choose > death. Indeed, they did not follow the maximum entropy production principles. > As I wrote above, each one of us corresponds to only one shape. > Individual shapes my partially overlap, sharing some parts, and there > are gazillions of physically distinguishable states in each "I", like > very close relatives populating the googolplexes of universe-states, > but there are no "copies". Just like there is only one square, there > is only one of me-trees. You can't faithfully copy the mathematical > being, a square. A square that is located in the same place, of the > same size, with same relation to other mathematical shapes is still > the same square. To make a copy you need to change its relationship > to other structures - but maths is unchangeable. Math, the Platonic Historical context is unchangeable, yes, but perhaps we can cut ourselves loose from our histories and become something ... other? > realm, can be only discovered, not changed. So if you try to make an I wonder if we need to beat that idea into people's head: discovery, not change. > identical copy of me, you can't do it. You can produce new nodes on Neither can you. Not completely, that is. :) > my tree of life by exposing me to new stimuli - to say it timelessly, > there may be correlations between your actions and the shape of my > future but you can't copy the whole thing. A million brains running I am with you, but ... > exactly the same thought, down to the quantum level or below, is only > one brain. A million brains that are similar enough to produce the What? A million brains doing the same thing is really the same thing? I do not see how that is true. Suppose we in fact tried that, and we had a million brains that were in fact quantumly similiar in most of the aspects that matter. Would not their relations and contexts be different, wouldn't we have a floating brain field consuming tons of resources and so on? > same macroscopic-level thoughts, words and actions but differing at > the quantum scale may represent true copies but personally I don't > care about them - they do not differ in the higher-order correlations > I mentioned above as necessary for consciousness. Why bother running > them if they don't materially change the shape of all my thoughts? I > might object to such copies being tortured, since they would increase > the measure of pain in the me-tree. Timelessly said, the preference Are you sure you would object? What is this obsession with "me"ism? > inherent in my structure (hopefully) correlates with a small measure > of quantum-level painful states and with a large number of > interesting, or pleasant macrostates (i.e. groups of microstates > corresponding to a single thought). What? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 03:39:12 2008 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:39:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] first step as principal investigator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <62c14240803102039i18193284t116d6524aa4df35c@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Amara Graps wrote: > >Would you comment on why you changed from specifically "woman [...] in > the > >sciences" to non-gendered "young researchers" ? > > I didn't write the latter part. I suggest to read Sabine's full post, > to which I gave a link, and ask her questions about her writing at her > blog. > > You can ask me questions about what I wrote, as well. > Sorry, the was in my field of view, but didn't trigger any meaning... nevermind then. :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From citta437 at aol.com Tue Mar 11 03:43:30 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:43:30 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Vissudimagga re: "suffering exists but none who suffers" Message-ID: <8CA51413539CD34-10FC-2EBE@webmail-ne14.sysops.aol.com> Gary: "I believe the author was as is typical in Buddhist and Hindu teachings speaking about the illusion of ego or self. When enlightenment is achieved the ego of self is gone for a time and one perceives the world one's being as having merged with all that is. This altered state is accompanied by a state of euphoria and great emotional and spiritual intensity." My reply: Vissudimagga is written by Boddhagosa, a Theravada Buddhist scholar born centuries after the death of the historical Buddha. Buddhists' teaching differs from Hindu beliefs on soul, reincarnation and gods. In Buddhism, the mind is the sixth sense working in conjunction with the other five senses without dependence on a separate or permanent self, soul or god. In Buddhism without beliefs, Zen teaches a way to free the mind of thoughts/beliefs. Enlightenment is not a state of euphoria or great emotional intensity. It is plain awareness/consciousness, nothing profound. Gary: "Although the state does not last long. It is deeply transformational due to it's intensity. And obviously highly addictive given that followers will study and devote years of their life in an attempt to attain this state if only for brief periods." My reply: Those who claim enlightenment, know not and those who are enlightened knows suffering exist temporarily. In Zen, no one is born and no one dies in correlation with the law of nature that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed from solid to liquid to gas. Gary: "I believe that this state of consciousness is the true goal of true mystics from faiths and religions. Of course the vast majority of any faith are followers and although they may be awe of the true mystics are not usually able to attain these states themselves. A true teachers goal is to help disciples attain this state." My reply: Consciousness/awareness is not a belief as some so called mystics who believed in metaphysical forces without evidence. How can you prove you are conscious? How can the sense of self evolved from among the electrochemical interactions in the brain? Its the same process that evolved eons ago as proven by evolution and physics. Gary: "The objective reality of such states can not be proven scientifically." Indeed alternate explanations such as the release of internal pleasure chemicals in the brain is a tempting and somewhat plausible hypothesis but why does this state serve to convince those who experience it that it is this altered state which is reality and it is our normal everyday state that is the illusion? And why does this state inspire those who achieve it to start religions, form cults, and help others to achieve that same state." My reply: Altered state of consciousness as the name implies is a psychological response to stress. Gullible minds are a rich medium for memes/beliefs without a concrete evidence due to fear of the unknown. Religious cults are formed in the belief that there is safety in numbers, I guess. Gary: "Such altruism may be viewed as a crucial ingredient for a hero. After all Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammad, probably serve as role models and heroes for more human beings on this planet than all others combined. And I know this sorely galls many folks here who blame religion for many of histories wars, atrocities and probably rightly so." I agree. There is a saying in Buddhism that " if you see the Buddha, kill him." Meaning don't cling to your illusions, beliefs and thoughts. Gary: "But heroes lives serve as examples for the rest of us to live by. Can we blame a hero though for those who use their names and the stories of their lives to control others and manipulate their teachings for their own gain?" My reply: I don't blame thoughts or mistakes in thinking. We are all thoughts interconnected in a short time span. Terry ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat End of extropy-chat Digest, Vol 54, Issue 19 ******************************************** Standard VersionTerms of ServicePrivacy PolicyTrademarks ? 2008 AOL LLC. All Rights Reserved From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Mar 11 09:47:15 2008 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:47:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Many Dimensional Sculpture, or dont' bother about runtime References: <7641ddc60803101928q44b22a7bs8e9286d29c4d1a7b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <019601c8835c$e7cc3990$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> In an intriguing essay, Rafal discusses "identical copies" and whether their runtime, calculated separately and summed, is meaningful or important. One ultimate purpose of philosophy, and I argue the most important, is be prescriptive. Philosophy most vitally---for me and for many others---should instrucs us about what actions to take and what decisions to make. I don't have time to digress on modal reality, and the way that I think that it's subsumed by the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. In short, MWI so far as I can tell, provides a complete model for modal reality. The Wikipedia articles on "modal reality" and "ultimate ensemble" are very clear, and good. If someone wants to start a new thread about that, fine. I could stand to be corrected here. > This form of self-correlation may be the necessary (although perhaps not > sufficient) condition for conscious experience. So you could say that > consciousness is a property of self-correlated structures, existing > timelessly as parts of the larger branching chains of world-states. I presume that these are the SAS (self aware structures) described by Tegmark. > Do I make myself clear? Can you imagine a tree-like, branching, > mathematical shape, a monumentally huge graph, with every single > thought and feeling you had, have, and will have in all possible > worlds, represented simultaneously in its nodes? Your essay is very clear. > Like a GLUT (Giant Look-Up Table) of you? And this is the only > you, the one and unique representation and the time/place of your > consciousness? Of course, as you know, this is at extreme variance with our normal usages of the words "you" and the time/places of your consciousness. For example, either under modal realism or the MWI, something extremely similar to me (under the conventional meanings of words) actually received a phone call a few minutes ago, and so is not typing this. It's a "possible world" under modal realism, and equally real under the MWI. Below, you use "versions of you" to talk about, for example, those Rafals who get to live forever, or those Lees who got a phone call. (Now I am actually very sympathetic to a definition of "you" that states that "you are a fuzzy sphere in the space of all algorithms", and that (a version of) you traces out some particular path over time. This moving point may leave the sphere so far behind that "you become someone else".) Ultimately, again, I want to know what actions I should take and what I can expect the different outcomes to be like. But advice I find here does a Lee in another branch who's in a different predicament no good. He may be too busy or too wounded to care. Now on your usage of words, he and I and all the Lee's who were/are fighting in the Second World War, are simply a part of the great Tree of Me. An immediate difficulty you might want to address is, "Does the tree of Lee overlap with the tree of Rafal?" If not, why not? My own "fuzzy spheres" do allow for overlap at their extreme edges. > Since every thought and desire correlates with the shape of the > tree throughout its extent, I see my thoughts, desires and actions > as a form of sculpture. It is as if time existed, and my decision to > write this post changed the shape of some branches of my tree > of life.... Yes. We both know enough not to be distracted by the apparent but false connection to Free Will vs. Determinism. > Causation is nothing but correlation...if you know what I mean. Actually, I don't. Many years ago John Clark made an excellent case that for A to cause B reduces simply to "A always comes before B". Maybe the current branch of the JC tree is doubtful of that now, but after lengthy debate he convinced me. Also, the study of "Causality" conducted by Judea Pearl in the book of that name makes me highly suspicious of trying to reduce causality to correlation. > In case some readers might see this as just my private ravings, > this notion of causality is actually accepted by some notable > philosophers, e.g. it is expounded upon by Daniel Dennett in > "Freedom Evolves". Dennett has a four page section on causality in "Freedom Evolves", but he explicitly rejects any simple formulations saying "we should mistrust any informal arguments that masquerade as "proofs" validating or debunking particular causal doctrines." The section is basically a beginner's guide to how Dennett intends to use the term, and is quite all right. As you know, what is very important about "Freedom Evolves" is his *evitability*. > Thus I am the many-dimensional sculptor of my past, present > and future. I do care about the size of my tree of life, which > translated into time-speak means, I want to live longer. You mean "this version of you wants to live longer", right? > If some of my versions in at least some possible universes > escape aging and live for thousands of years, it is like saying > that my tree of life is tall. And those who would resolutely > refuse life extension? Their trees are stunted, mere bushes, > since in every possible universe they choose death. Well yes, but I doubt that they choose death in *every* possible universe. Without recourse to "possible worlds", one may simply point out that at 75 years of age one of them happened to make a friend who was the world's most persuasive cryonics advocate. > But what about all those copies and "runtime"? Yes! > As I wrote above, each one of us corresponds to only one shape. > Individual shapes my partially overlap, sharing some parts, and > there are gazillions of physically distinguishable states in each "I", > like very close relatives populating the googolplexes of > universe-states, but there are no "copies". Just like there is only > one square, there is only one of me-trees. Of course there can be no copy of You the big tree, just as there can be no copy of a fuzzy sphere in the space of all configurations. By "copies" in these and similar threads, we always meant copies of a version-of-you in a tiny branch of the overall multiverse. * Action Item: Should I dare teleport? Analysis: the remote version-of-you is well within the fuzzy sphere (I haven't figured out how to translate this answer into Rafal's language) > So if you try to make an identical copy of me [the Tree], you > can't do it. You can produce new nodes on my tree of life by > exposing me to new stimuli - to say it timelessly, there may be > correlations between your actions and the shape of my future... But first, by a "copy of you" in all these threads, we mean the sort of creature that comes out of a teleporter booth, or a fork that results in two branches where there had been just one. No one ever meant anything different. Moreover, the "copies" need not be absolutely identical (more about that later). > A million brains running exactly the same thought, down to the > quantum level or below, is only one brain. A million brains that > are similar enough to produce the same macroscopic-level > thoughts, words and actions but differing at the quantum scale > may represent true copies but personally I don't care about them > - they do not differ in the higher-order correlations I mentioned > above as necessary for consciousness. Bryan exploded at this point: "What? A million brains doing the [exact] same thing is really the same thing? I do not see how that can be true." Rafal, who never mentions measure, just makes the logical point that the "Tree of Rafal" has no new distinct branches when copies are made that are so exact that they do not make different thoughts. * Action Item: Do I benefit from the replication of copies that become a tiny bit different almost at once, and then have different thoughts as they explore many different planets? Should I pay for that? Analysis: Either on Rafal's analysis or mine, the answer is "YES". He'd say your tree of life is enriched, I'd say you get more runtime. Left unanalyzed for now: *Action Item: Do I benefit by the multiplication over space of absolutely quantum- mechanically equivalent copies. Analysis: later. SO I think we agree that it's better for one to get more runtime---or as you would say---have more and higher branches in the Tree-of-You. I'd favor leaving the "absolutely quantum-mechanically equivalent copies case" until after we're seeing a little more eye-to-eye on the above (or making sure we do) Even though your subject line directly implied runtime to be taken merely as summed over absolutely identical copies! Grrr. :-) Lee > Why bother running them if they don't materially change the shape > of all my thoughts? I might object to such copies being tortured, > since they would increase the measure of pain in the me-tree. > Timelessly said, the preference inherent in my structure (hopefully) > correlates with a small measure of quantum-level painful states and > with a large number of interesting, or pleasant macrostates (i.e. > groups of microstates corresponding to a single thought). From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 12:00:05 2008 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:00:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Vatican's list of seven 'social sins' In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080310204502.024e8960@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080310204502.024e8960@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20803110500g79371cfcj58d07f70834c4e19@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 2:53 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > I see that the Vatican's list does not include some candidates that > leapt to my mind; for example, Running a Global Institution > Supporting the Buggering of Little Boys in its Care, or Inculcating > into the Minds of the Defenceless Arrant and Frightening Bullshit > About Just about Everything. :-DDD Stefano Vaj From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 12:01:19 2008 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:01:19 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Vatican's list of seven 'social sins' References: Message-ID: <006701c8836f$a72c5c90$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Amara> The seven social sins are: > 1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control > 2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research > 3. Drug abuse > 4. Polluting the environment > 5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor > 6. Excessive wealth > 7. Creating poverty I'll agree to this list when they can provide me with footage of this god dude himself writing it with a blue Bic pen on recycled paper. From citta437 at aol.com Tue Mar 11 13:34:25 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:34:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) Message-ID: <8CA5193C1F948A2-A6C-77C@webmail-ne17.sysops.aol.com> Amara: "Good news, extropes! Your social preferences hit two of the top three on the Vatican's list of seven 'social sins'! From http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/10/vatican-comes-up-wit.html In the sixth century, Pope Gregory handed down a list of "seven cardinal vices." Now the Vatican has issued an additional seven "social sins." You offend God not only by stealing, taking the Lord's name in vain or coveting your neighbor's wife, but also by wrecking the environment, carrying out morally debatable experiments that manipulate DNA or harm embryos," said [Bishop Gianfranco] Girotti, who is responsible for the body that oversees confessions. The seven social sins are: 1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control 2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research 3. Drug abuse 4. Polluting the environment 5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor 6. Excessive wealth 7. Creating poverty -- The Pope is just updating the "original sins' into "Social sins" to get in step {baby steps} with science and technology.imo The Vatican does not want to be seen as static or behind the times by the dwindling members or followers in more advanced countries in Europe. Why do you think the Vatican is isolated from the rest of Italy? The Pope has to protect it's image of infallibility. Terry From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 14:58:52 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:58:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Vatican's list of seven 'social sins' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200803110958.52358.kanzure@gmail.com> On Monday 10 March 2008, Amara Graps wrote: > ? ? ?The seven social sins are: > > ? ? ?1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control There is a blurring line between mental birth control (deciding not to) and pharmoceutical birth control. When are they going to start deciding that it is unethical to even think about _not_ replicating? Cancer. > ? ? ?2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research I guess they are uninterested in how some of us are able to reconcile morality with stem cell research? Shouldn't they be interested in adopting as much as possible into their world-view? Guess not. > ? ? ?3. Drug abuse That's a hard line to find. It may be more productive to set up social services to help out people who may not be using drugs effectively. For example, in the case of the recent emails re: nootropics, I bet we are going to have to train fellows how to properly use their brains and any enhanced abilities, rather than expecting them to pop a pill and magically know. > ? ? ?4. Polluting the environment Heh, some of us think religion is polluting the environment. Now what? (signal-to-noise) > ? ? ?5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor Moral wealth, or monetary wealth? > ? ? ?6. Excessive wealth Is this asking for a limit on intelligence? > ? ? ?7. Creating poverty That's a tough one. Any takers? - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 11 14:47:14 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:47:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Vatican's list of seven 'social sins' In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080310204502.024e8960@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <200803111514.m2BFDssZ017405@andromeda.ziaspace.com> > Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] Vatican's list of seven 'social sins' > > At 05:58 PM 3/10/2008 -0600, Amara wrote: > > >Good news, extropes! Your social preferences hit two of the > >top three on the Vatican's list of seven 'social sins'! > > I see that the Vatican's list does not include some > candidates that leapt to my mind; for example, Running a > Global Institution Supporting the Buggering of Little Boys in > its Care, or Inculcating into the Minds of the Defenceless > Arrant and Frightening Bullshit About Just about Everything. > > And yet, oddly enough, the Pope's seventh sin, Creating > Poverty, is exactly what his own organization insists on > committing with such mad claptrap as making their first sin > "Bioethical" Violations Such as Birth Control. > > Damien Broderick Damien reading your passage above reminds me why you are able to make a good living selling your words, whereas I hafta slave away in a mindless 9 to 5. Thanks, I couldn'ta said it better. When I saw the popes list of seven social sins, I wanted to write to Mr. Ratzinger and tell him "Do not worry, your group is on my list of social sins as well." But I like much better the way you and Amara said it. spike From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 15:22:54 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:22:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Many Dimensional Sculpture, or dont' bother about runtime In-Reply-To: <019601c8835c$e7cc3990$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> References: <7641ddc60803101928q44b22a7bs8e9286d29c4d1a7b@mail.gmail.com> <019601c8835c$e7cc3990$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> Message-ID: <200803111022.55052.kanzure@gmail.com> On Tuesday 11 March 2008, Lee Corbin wrote: > In an intriguing essay, Rafal discusses "identical copies" and > whether their runtime, calculated separately and summed, is > meaningful or important. > > One ultimate purpose of philosophy, and I argue the most important, > is be prescriptive. Philosophy most vitally---for me and for many > others---should instrucs us about what actions to take and what > decisions to make. > > I don't have time to digress on modal reality, and the way that I > think that it's subsumed by the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum > mechanics. In short, MWI so far as I can tell, provides a complete > model for modal reality. The Wikipedia articles on "modal reality" > and "ultimate ensemble" are very clear, and good. If someone wants to > start a new thread about that, fine. I could stand to be corrected > here. I would not have expected an implicit connection between MWI and modal realism per Rafal's message. However, I took this opportunity to go look at the Wikipedia article and I see what you mean: > Modal realism is the view, notably propounded by David Lewis, that > possible worlds are as real as the actual world. It is based on the > following notions: that possible worlds exist; possible worlds are not > different in kind to the actual world; possible worlds are irreducible > entities; the term "actual" in "actual world" is indexical. Hrm. I really would like to add some Leibniz in on this. How could possibilities be as real as actualities? Let me reform my question. Is he saying that possibilities exist in the sense of mental constructs, such that one's lack of knowledge of the world essentially makes the world both the 'real' and the 'possible' as you recursively explore it and make your own representation? A vague, fuzzy set of what the world may or may not be, allowing subjective agents to explore it without messing up too much. Or is he saying that, metaphysically, the possibilities are as real as anything else? Charles S. Peirce would have something to say about this use of the word 'possibility' since, naturally, it is more tied to the human mind, and he really, really disliked anybody saying something was 'possible' when they did not have the true source code to the universe to figure out the likelihood of something occuring or whether or not something was truly valid given whatever underlying laws of the universe there exist (whether a cellular automata rule or not, just so I can get in my mention of Wolfram and von Neumann etc.). Is Lewis saying that possibilities exist (in the sense that a mental agent can rationalize that something might be 'possible' given his limited understanding of the greater world), or that if we allow such 'possibilities' we automatically must acknowledge their full and total existence? I like to use Leibniz's optimism and his definitions from time to time: 1) real - necessarily existent 2) impossible - necessarily nonexistent 3) possible - unnecessarily nonexistent And a few others. I realize now that I cannot recall a link that explains this terminology, but I do think it is still useful here since it ties possibilities/reality/actuality back to terms re: necessity and coherency. > > This form of self-correlation may be the necessary (although > > perhaps not sufficient) condition for conscious experience. So you > > could say that consciousness is a property of self-correlated > > structures, existing timelessly as parts of the larger branching > > chains of world-states. > > I presume that these are the SAS (self aware structures) described by > Tegmark. Why would SASes be needed? If anything it should be more like an observer bias to calculate out due to the anthropic principles and so on, since all subjective agents would present a slightly different bias in consciousness or awareness; in more hard scifi terms, I'd argue that consciousness may not even exist, despite my experience and my mind, it's not a magical sauce. :) > > Like a GLUT (Giant Look-Up Table) of you? And this is the only > > you, the one and unique representation and the time/place of your > > consciousness? > > Of course, as you know, this is at extreme variance with our > normal usages of the words "you" and the time/places of your > consciousness. For example, either under modal realism or the > MWI, something extremely similar to me (under the conventional > meanings of words) actually received a phone call a few minutes > ago, and so is not typing this. It's a "possible world" under > modal realism, and equally real under the MWI. Below, you use > "versions of you" to talk about, for example, those Rafals who > get to live forever, or those Lees who got a phone call. I was not expecting this diversion. Given the distinctions I made above, if we discuss them some more, and it turns out that Lewis and his modal realism is more about subjective agents and their GLUTs, rathe than a metaphysical ensemble, then I think that you would have to drop your MWI tie-ins. On my first passing of Rafal's email, it seemed to me that the ensemble that he was describing was merely explanatory, and not necessitating MWI or even itself -- merely as a way to describe data structs in the world that we experience on a more abstract level. > (Now I am actually very sympathetic to a definition of "you" that > states that "you are a fuzzy sphere in the space of all algorithms", > and that (a version of) you traces out some particular path over > time. This moving point may leave the sphere so far behind that > "you become someone else".) That's interesting; perhaps we are tracers running through paths in design space, computing the shortest and longest paths all in the name of computer science, graph theory, topology, etc. > Now on your usage of words, he and I and all the Lee's who > were/are fighting in the Second World War, are simply a part > of the great Tree of Me. An immediate difficulty you might want > to address is, "Does the tree of Lee overlap with the tree of > Rafal?" If not, why not? My own "fuzzy spheres" do allow > for overlap at their extreme edges. Are not all things, somehow related, if not physically then at least in our minds? Somebody might reply to this saying "try to find a correlation between X and Y" and that would only serve to show that somebody has in fact made that correlation, and the more that people read that email, the more 'real' it is becoming (I do not mean to say that popular approval increases the realness, merely that the content is diffused over the surface area of the local reality, so it is becoming more than the 'nothing' that the original emailer was hoping to select for). > > Since every thought and desire correlates with the shape of the > > tree throughout its extent, I see my thoughts, desires and actions > > as a form of sculpture. It is as if time existed, and my decision > > to write this post changed the shape of some branches of my tree of > > life.... > > Yes. We both know enough not to be distracted by the apparent > but false connection to Free Will vs. Determinism. Re: Free Will vs. Determinism. They do not seem to be at ends with each other. The best solution is to assume you have free will. Maybe we can start another thread for this, if we haven't come to this conclusion before. > > A million brains running exactly the same thought, down to the > > quantum level or below, is only one brain. A million brains that > > are similar enough to produce the same macroscopic-level > > thoughts, words and actions but differing at the quantum scale > > may represent true copies but personally I don't care about them > > - they do not differ in the higher-order correlations I mentioned > > above as necessary for consciousness. > > Bryan exploded at this point: "What? A million brains doing the Indeed. :) > [exact] same thing is really the same thing? I do not see how > that can be true." Rafal, who never mentions measure, just > makes the logical point that the "Tree of Rafal" has no new > distinct branches when copies are made that are so exact > that they do not make different thoughts. I suppose. But he also mentions that this is impossible when he says "you can't copy me," so I guess he resolved that scenario on his own. - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 16:59:39 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:59:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <62c14240803091323m35c22992h442e7c910fdcb50c@mail.gmail.com> References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <62c14240803091323m35c22992h442e7c910fdcb50c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670803110959pfb12714w42880df8e32edc3d@mail.gmail.com> Damien wrote: > I wonder what about this thread evokes this response from those who have > done it to death, yet compels those same participants to leap into the fray > for another round. > >>> > Do we have any psychologists in the house?? lol Oh, and Damien, when do we get started on a "gun control" thread? We should really contact Mike Lorrey and Joe Dees first... ; ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 17:17:41 2008 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:17:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] exposing microbes to space increases virulence Message-ID: <2d6187670803111017x75c41ca6hc2c825f9cc6e2c27@mail.gmail.com> I found this article about certain microbes greatly increasing in virulence when living/reproducing in space to be very disturbing. I hope researchers can get a handle on it. John http://www.biodesign.asu.edu/news/1501 Microscopic 'astronauts' to go back in orbit When space shuttle Endeavor blasted off at 2:28 a.m. EST on March 11 to make a blazing torch against the backdrop of night, some tiny 'astronauts' piggybacked onboard an experimental payload from Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute. The new experiment, called "Microbial Drug Resistance Virulence" is part of the STS-123 space shuttle Endeavor mission. It will continue the research studies of Cheryl Nickerson, PhD, project leader and scientist in the institute's Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology. Nickerson has been at the forefront on studying the risks of germs associated with spaceflight to the health and well being of the crew. "Wherever people go, germs will follow," said Nickerson, who is also an associate professor at ASU's School of Life Sciences. Last fall, she completed a multi-institutional study that showed for the first time that microbes could be affected by spaceflight, making them more infectious pathogens. The results were from a payload flown onboard space shuttle Atlantis in 2006. Spaceflight not only altered bacterial gene expression but also increased the ability of these organisms to cause disease, or virulence, and did so in novel ways. Compared to identical bacteria that remained on earth, the space-traveling *Salmonella*, a leading cause of food-borne illness, had changed expression of 167 genes. In addition, bacteria that were flown in space were almost three times as likely to cause disease when compared with control bacteria grown on the ground. Now, her research team, which includes James Wilson, PhD, Laura Quick, Richard Davis, Emily Richter, Aurelie Crabbe and Shameema Sarker, will have an extraordinarily rare opportunity to fly a repeat experiment of their NASA payload to confirm their earlier results. "We are very fortunate to get a follow up flight opportunity, because in spaceflight, you only get one shot for everything to go just right," said Nickerson. "We saw unique bacterial responses in flight and these responses are giving us new information about how *Salmonella* causes disease. NASA is giving us the opportunity to independently replicate the virulence studies of *Salmonella typhimurium* from our last shuttle experiment and to do a follow-up experiment to test our hypothesis about new ways this bacteria causes disease in this unique environment." In the new experimental wrinkle, the team will test a hypothesis that may lead to decreasing or preventing the risk for infectious diseases to astronauts. The experiment will determine if the modulation of different ion (mineral) concentrations may be used as a novel way to counteract or block the spaceflight-associated increase in the disease-causing potential that was seen in *Salmonella*. In addition, the project will support three other independent investigators to determine the effect of spaceflight on the gene expression and virulence potential of other model microorganisms, including: Dave Niesel, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, *Streptococcus pneumoniae*; Mike McGinnis, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, *Saccharomyces cerevisiae*; and Barry Pyle, Montana State University, *Pseudomonas aeruginosa*. These microorganisms were chosen because they are well studied organisms that have been, or have the potential to be, isolated from the space shuttle, Mir space station, International Space Station, or its crew, or have been shown to exhibit altered virulence in response to spaceflight. These organisms are all important human pathogens that cause a significant amount of human morbidity and mortality on Earth as well. "We now have a wide variety of supportive evidence that the unique low fluid shear culture environment the bacteria encounter in space is relevant to what pathogens encounter in our body, including during Salmonella infection in the gut, and there may be a common regulatory theme governing the microbial responses," said Nickerson. "But to prove that, we need to fly these common bugs together with the same hardware on the same flight so that everyone is tested under the same conditions. The investigators believe that information gained from these studies will prove beneficial in assessing microbiological risks and options for reducing those risks during crew missions. When taken together, these studies will ultimately provide significant insights into the molecular basis of microbial virulence. Once specific molecular targets are identified, there is the potential for vaccine development and other novel strategies for prevention and treatment of disease caused by these microbes both on the ground and during spaceflight. "We are learning new things about how Salmonella is causing disease," said Nickerson. "There is compelling evidence that the unique environment of spaceflight provides important insight into a variety of fundamental human health issues with tremendous potential for the commercial development of novel enabling technologies to enhance human health here on Earth, said Nickerson. The research studies are supported by several grants from NASA. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Mar 11 17:36:13 2008 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:36:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803110959pfb12714w42880df8e32edc3d@mail.gmail.com > References: <059101c88009$0ca610d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <00aa01c8804d$cbdb1970$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <580930c20803070536j48d2822eye8b6b79e90a91759@mail.gmail.com> <002201c88061$739bea00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677> <022e01c8808e$05d33be0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <62c14240803091323m35c22992h442e7c910fdcb50c@mail.gmail.com> <2d6187670803110959pfb12714w42880df8e32edc3d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080311123508.02619608@satx.rr.com> At 09:59 AM 3/11/2008 -0700, JG wrote: >Damien wrote: > >I wonder what about this thread evokes this response from those who >have done it to death, yet compels those same participants to leap >into the fray for another round. I didn't write that. From spike66 at att.net Tue Mar 11 18:31:26 2008 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:31:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Technical Uploading Difficulties In-Reply-To: <2d6187670803110959pfb12714w42880df8e32edc3d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200803111858.m2BIw5Eu025790@andromeda.ziaspace.com> ... Oh, and Damien, when do we get started on a "gun control" thread? We should really contact Mike Lorrey and Joe Dees first... ; ) John Ahhhh, let's not do that, shall we? spike From scerir at libero.it Tue Mar 11 18:49:16 2008 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:49:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Earth repositories (on the Moon) References: <2d6187670803111017x75c41ca6hc2c825f9cc6e2c27@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <004201c883a8$9c256560$c9be1f97@archimede> Plans are being made for the installation of an information storage bank on the moon, experts said at a science meeting Strasbourg, France. The so-called "Doomsday ark" would provide the tools for the reconstruction of the human race in case civilization is ever destroyed, The Sunday London Times reported. The ark's basic version, which would be buried close to the moon's surface, would include hard discs containing DNA information and instructions for growing crops and metal making, the report said. The underground vault reportedly would transmit data to strongly guarded receivers on Earth. "Eventually, it will be necessary to have a kind of Noah's ark there, a diversity of species from the biosphere," scientist Bernard Foing said. The first ark, which would have a 30-year lifespan, is expected to be installed on the moon by 2020 at the latest. The completed archive should be ready by 2035, scientists said. For more, see the following link http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3511818.ece From citta437 at aol.com Tue Mar 11 20:09:34 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:09:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Reconceptualizing the hero myth Message-ID: <8CA51CAF5DC7F37-13F8-161C@FWM-D20.sysops.aol.com> Gary:"I'd like to quote Zindell: > 'Without end,' Hanuman said. The pain of self-overcoming is just the > beginning. Then, for our kind, if we're strong enough, if our souls > are great and deep ? then comes the real pain. What's real pain, you > ask? The power to choose what we will. Having to choose. This terrible > freedom. These infinite possibilities. The taste for the infinite > spoiled by the possibility of evolutionary failure. Real pain is > knowing that you're going to die, all the while knowing that you don't > have to die.' 'But, Hanu, everything dies,' Danlo said softly. He > turned to face the scarred, old shih tree, and he pressed his forehead > against it. When he looked up, he felt the zig-zag mark where the > tree's icy bark had cut into his skin. Hanuman shook his head and > continued, 'But why die at all, Danlo? Mightn't there be a new phase > of evolution? A new kind of being? Can't you understand? I'm trying to > delineate an emergent quality of the brain. New synapses. New > connections. A constellation of qualities and abilities, of new levels > of existence. Consciousness heightened and exalted in itself, > purified. This pure consciousness that we really are. That we struggle > to be. For our kind, there's always the burning to be more. The > eternal longing. And this is why true human beings feel more pain. > Because we are more, but it's never quite enough ? never. And we are > aware of this neverness inside our souls. And aware of being aware. > There is a feedback. Can you understand what this is like? Pain is > magnified, infinitely. Each moment of time. Reality becomes almost too > real. It blazes. All the universe afire with the possibilities of > light, and madness, too. Real pain is the burning that never stops, > the frenzy, the lightning.' " _____________ Hi, thanks for the above quote which expressed discontent of the human condition prone to illness, poverty and death. The factors that contribute to mental health are within reach of everyone yet sensient beings are numberless and a Boddhisattva vows to save them all from suffering delusions by learning and doing what is unattainable. Hanuman said that "real pain is knowing that you're going to die and all the while knowing that you don't have to die." Perhaps a Boddhisattva is a reconceptualized hero? Terry From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 20:30:43 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:30:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Earth repositories (on the Moon) In-Reply-To: <004201c883a8$9c256560$c9be1f97@archimede> References: <2d6187670803111017x75c41ca6hc2c825f9cc6e2c27@mail.gmail.com> <004201c883a8$9c256560$c9be1f97@archimede> Message-ID: <200803111530.43106.kanzure@gmail.com> On Tuesday 11 March 2008, scerir wrote: > Plans are being made for the installation > of an information storage bank on the moon, For the installation, not for the design of it, this is interesting. The design should be simple, I suppose: you need the hard drives, an electrical power supply, a few microprocessors for running your programs, and then a way to maintain the physical archive and sort through the inventory, unless it's all digital (which I doubt). What sort of physical capabilities should a first version 'ark' have? Obviously we do not have self-replication down, so things are going to start off fuzzy. > experts said at a science meeting Strasbourg, France. > The so-called "Doomsday ark" would provide the tools > for the reconstruction of the human race in case > civilization is ever destroyed, The Sunday London Times > reported. Compressing civilization down into a bootstrap form also has been discussed by Kevin Kelly, Dave Gingery, and various others who have a clue as to what's going on. But compressing all of this information down presents an interesting challenge, and I am not sure if Wikipedia is sufficient to help diffuse information on the design of civilization. > The ark's basic version, which would be buried close > to the moon's surface, would include hard discs > containing DNA information and instructions for > growing crops and metal making, the report said. Upload Wikipedia please. The other day I was figuring that if I do figure out a way to get into orbit for cheap, and if I can manufacture transistors in orbit and paramagnetic materials, then I would very much like to start offering as much storage space as possible to anybody who wants it: fabrication costs will only be the cost of figuring out how to make it work with the materials in the sky. (more on this later?) > The underground vault reportedly would transmit data > to strongly guarded receivers on Earth. I don't like that: why not transmit for all to hear a message of hope? > "Eventually, it will be necessary to have a kind of > Noah's ark there, a diversity of species from the biosphere," Noah's ark? How's that for ego? :) -Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 20:32:39 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:32:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Reconceptualizing the hero myth In-Reply-To: <8CA51CAF5DC7F37-13F8-161C@FWM-D20.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA51CAF5DC7F37-13F8-161C@FWM-D20.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <200803111532.39785.kanzure@gmail.com> On Tuesday 11 March 2008, citta437 at aol.com wrote: > The factors that contribute to mental health are within reach of > everyone yet sensient beings are numberless and a Boddhisattva vows > to save them all from suffering delusions by learning and doing what > is unattainable. ?Hanuman said that "real pain is knowing that you're > going to die and all the while knowing that you don't have to die." > > Perhaps a Boddhisattva is a reconceptualized hero? Zindell was influenced by Vedanta philosophy; with my little knowledge of Buddhism and Zen, perhaps you could tell me how far off the Boddhisattva is from Vedanta? :) - Bryan ________________________________________ Bryan Bishop http://heybryan.org/ From citta437 at aol.com Tue Mar 11 22:47:29 2008 From: citta437 at aol.com (citta437 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:47:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The Many Dimentional Sculpture Message-ID: <8CA51E104EA1AB3-13F8-2023@FWM-D20.sysops.aol.com> Bryan: "Are not all things, somehow related, if not physically then at least in our minds? Somebody might reply to this saying "try to find a correlation between X and Y" and that would only serve to show that somebody has in fact made that correlation, and the more that people read that email, the more 'real' it is becoming (I do not mean to say that popular approval increases the realness, merely that the content is diffused over the surface area of the local reality, so it is becoming more than the 'nothing' that the original emailer was hoping to select for)." __________ Hi, Bryan, first let me apologize for mistakenly typing Gary in place of your name from my last post. Regarding your question about the interrelatedness of things, have you heard about "mind to mind transmission?' Is there a scientific basis for that? Thoughts are diffused locally but globally? I think not. Terry From ablainey at aol.com Tue Mar 11 23:15:37 2008 From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:15:37 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Earth repositories (on the Moon) In-Reply-To: <004201c883a8$9c256560$c9be1f97@archimede> References: <2d6187670803111017x75c41ca6hc2c825f9cc6e2c27@mail.gmail.com> <004201c883a8$9c256560$c9be1f97@archimede> Message-ID: <8CA51E4F2FB6746-7D8-22BE@webmail-da19.sysops.aol.com> Interesting idea. Reminds me of one of the first CD-rom drives I bought. back in the days before plug'n'play atapi drive recognition. The drivers for it came on CD. -----Original Message----- From: scerir To: ExI chat list Sent: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:49 Subject: [ExI] Earth repositories (on the Moon) Plans are being made for the installation of an information storage bank on the moon, experts said at a science meeting Strasbourg, France. The so-called "Doomsday ark" would provide the tools for the reconstruction of the human race in case civilization is ever destroyed, The Sunday London Times reported. The ark's basic version, which would be buried close to the moon's surface, would include hard discs containing DNA information and instructions for growing crops and metal making, the report said. The underground vault reportedly would transmit data to strongly guarded receivers on Earth. "Eventually, it will be necessary to have a kind of Noah's ark there, a diversity of species from the biosphere," scientist Bernard Foing said. The first ark, which would have a 30-year lifespan, is expected to be installed on the moon by 2020 at the latest. The completed archive should be ready by 2035, scientists said. For more, see the following link http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3511818.ece _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat ________________________________________________________________________ AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour at http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/ now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Mar 11 23:55:14 2008 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:55:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Many Dimentional Sculpture In-Reply-To: <8CA51E104EA1AB3-13F8-2023@FWM-D20.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA51E104EA1AB3-13F8-2023@FWM-D20.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <200803111855.14407.kanzure@gmail.com> On Tuesday 11 March 2008, citta437 at aol.com wrote: > Hi, Bryan, first let me apologize for mistakenly typing Gary in place > of your name from my last post. Regarding your question about the > interrelatedness of things, have you heard about "mind to mind > transmission?' Not before your email, no. > Is there a scientific basis for that? Thoughts are diffused locally > but globally? I think not. It is my understanding that Dharmic transmission is more about a Zen master giving a nod of approval more than anything else, a social thing. So I think we might be