[ExI] Sick of Cyberspace?

Sun Dec 20 16:54:24 UTC 2009

Hi Brent,

Stuart responded under a different subject line, but I think he speaks to
something of import:  
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-able-to-read-peoples-mi
nds-1643968.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/feb/09/neuroscience.e
thicsofscience
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/25/brain.scans.wired/index.html

On another point, I have not read much of Merleau-Ponty, but I am familiar
with his works.  Perception is the key to aesthetics, without it there would
be no aesthetics - and what would a world be like with out the induction of
physiological senses for conceptualizing aesthetics.

Last night, under the glow of our ambient library, Max and I discussed human
senses in comparison to our dog's ability to distinguish between molecules
(and becomes what seems like forever lost in his own sniffing world), and
his immeasurable auditory capabilities in comparison to our cat's somewhat
mysterious sense capabilities. Considering the limit of human senses, and
therefore perceptions, we then talked about our escapades into the mountains
to watch the sky, and missing that, and the unknown factors of the
universe's gravitational push and pull of the building blocks of life.
Nevertheless, after cyberneticistic manifestations of uploading and the
subsequent diversity of personal existences, perceptual expansions hedge on
new methods for perceiving the universe, what these might be in light of
space being comprised of complex carbon and amino acids.

Natasha

Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop
Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2009 2:17 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] Sick of Cyberspace?

Hi Natasha,

Yes!  Thanks for asking this.  I am sooo sick of 'cyberspace'.  Virtual
simulated 'realities' are not consciously real, and not really worth much,
until they are represented by our brain in our conscious awareness.
Everyone seems to be talking about mechanical vs chemichal vs bioligical...
but still all everyone is talking about with all this is just cause and
effect behavioral properties of such.

When light reflects off of the surface of a strawberry (or anything, whether
it is mechanical, chemical, biological...), that light is behaving in a way
that can be mapped back to the causal behavior of the surface of the
strawberry.  In other words, the light is an abstracted representation of
this causal property of the strawberry.

Though the light is an abstract representation, it is not fundamentally, and
especially not phenomenally anything like the surface of that strawberry or
whatever was the original cause of the perception process.  Cause and effect
detection and observation (cyberspace is still limited to this kind of
communication) is blind to any properties except causal properties of matter
and abstract representations of such.

This ever further abstracting cause and effect chain of perception includes
the light entering our eyes, the detection of such by the retina, and the
processing of such by our optic nerve and pre cortical neural structures.
The final result of this perception and brain processing is our conscious
knowledge of the strawberry in the cortex of our brain.  The 'causal red' on
the surface of the strawberry is very different from the 'phenomenal red'
which is what our conscious knowledge of such is made of.  'Causal red' is a
causal property of the surface of the strawberry and is the initial cause of
the perception process, and phenomenal red is a categorically different
ineffable property of something in our brain.  Phenomenal red is the final
result of the perception process.  Though 'phenomenal red' is surely a
property of something in our brain that we already know causally and
chemically everything about, its phenomenal nature is blind to our cause and
effect observation.  Though the reflected light is detecting the causal
properties of the surface of the strawberry, it is completely blind to any
phenomenal properties such may or may not have.  This fact is comonly
refereed to as the 'veil of perception', and why we refer to such properties
as ineffable.

If you have some virtual reality or cyberspace abstract simulation of a
strawberry abstractly representing only the cause and effect behavioral
properties, it will forever be lacking this phenomenal red, until a brain
like ours perceives it as such in a unified conscious, phenomenal world of
knowledge.

Surely, whatever it is in our brain that has these invisible phenomenal
properties that we are consciousnley aware of, that our brain uses to
represent our conscious knowledge with, has a lot to do with chemistry.  
All we know about chemistry today, is what is causally detectable.  But
surely there is much more to just these causes and effects.

You also brilliantly asked about 'communication', and that is another
critical part that ignorant people always ignore when they think about
virtual realities, cyberspace, and so on.  If the theory described in the
consciousness is representational and real camp (see: 
_http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6_) turns out to be THE ONE, we will soon
be able to communicate or 'eff' these ineffable properties.  This theory
predicts and describes how the conscious worlds of awareness in our brains
will be able to be merged and shared and how effing will work.

When I hug someone, today, I only experience half of what is phenomenally
happening, and I am blind to the rest of the phenomenal knowledge.  In the
future, I'll be able to merge my world of conscious awarenss, with the
person I am hugging, and both of us will be able to comunicate, share, eff
and experience 100% of the phenomenal representations, not just half.

Cyberspace, virtual reality, and everything is, and will forever be, 
nothing of much interest, without that.   I don't want to be uploaded 
into some phenomenally blind 'cyberspace', I look forward to when my
phenomenal 'spirit' (unlike the most of the rest of my phenomenal knowledge,
does not have a referent in reality) is able to peirce this phenomenal veil
of perception, and is finally able to escape from this mortal prison wall
that is my skull.

I look forward to breaking out into an immortal shared phenomenal world
where we will finally know not only much more about nature than causal
properties, not only will we finally have disproved solipsism, solved the
problem of other minds, and so on and so fourth, but we will finally also be
able to share what everyone else is phenomenally like and experiencing.

Fuck cyberspace, and all the primitive idiots still completely blind to
anything more, I want effing phenomenal worlds.

Giulio Prisco (2nd email) wrote:
> The mainstream is certainly more open to the concept of
> post-biological life than it was, say, 20 years ago, and this is a
> good outcome in which our combined efforts played a part.
>
> I see the _possibility_of post-biological life as compatible with the
> current scientific paradigm, so I am confident (not certain, but
> confident) it will be achieved someday. Perhaps not as soon as some
> predict, but someday. And I think it is not only doable but also good.
>
> However, we are going to remain stuck with biology for many decades at
> least, probably some centuries, and of course we should try making the
> best of it.
>
> G.
>
> On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Natasha Vita-More <natasha at natasha.cc>
wrote:
>   
>> This is what I have thought as well, for 20 years, but I am thinking that
it
>> is has become just a bit dogmatic.  This could be because it has now gone
so
>> mainstream, even folks at TED are discussing it and now there is a
>> university to pomote a watered-down version of it.  BUT, that does not
>> change my view that it is wise to avoid sticking so firmly to an absolute
>> and to always question our premises and consider alternatives as
>> transdiciplinary ideas and new insights.
>>
>> **The chemistry of communication has been crucial for human evolution.  I
>> simply wonder what its future will be.
>>
>> Best,
>> Natasha
>>
>>
>> Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
>> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Giulio
Prisco
>> (2nd email)
>> Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2009 2:04 AM
>> To: ExI chat list
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] Sick of Cyberspace?
>>
>> In the long term I see humans merging with AI subsystems and becoming
purely
>> computational beings with movable identities based on some or some other
>> kind of physical hardware. I don't think there is any other viable long
term
>> choice, not if we want to leave all limits behind and increase our
options
>> without bonds.
>>
>> But this will take long. In the meantime there are many other stepping
>> stones to go through, based on improving our biology and gradually
merging
>> it with our technology.
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 12:19 PM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>
wrote:
>>     
>>> 2009/12/17  <natasha at natasha.cc>:
>>>       
>>>> Are we totally locked into cybernetics for evolution? I thought this
>>>> next era was to be about chemistry rather than machines.
>>>>         
>>> I come myself from "wet transhumanism" (bio/cogno), and while I got in
>>> touch with the movement exactly out of curiosity to learn more about
>>> the "hard", "cyber/cyborg" side of things, I am persuased the next era
>>> is still about chemistry, and, that when it will stops being there
>>> will be little difference between the two.
>>>
>>> In other words, if we are becoming machines, machines are becoming
>>> "chemical" and "organic" at an even faster pace (carbon rather than
>>> steel and silicon, biochips, nano...).
>>>
>>> --
>>> Stefano Vaj
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
>>>       
>>
>> --
>> Giulio Prisco
>> http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco
>> aka Eschatoon Magic
>> http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon
>> _______________________________________________
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>>     
>
>
>
>   

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