[ExI] Ramanujan

[Bryan Bishop]

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/